by Nora Roberts
His hands shook with excitement as he set it down. “And now, the painting.”
“I, ah . . .” It seemed a good time to stand. “There was a little trouble with the painting, Mr. Finley.”
“Trouble?” Finley’s smile remained fixed. He scanned the room, saw no sign of his final possession. “I don’t believe you mentioned any trouble, Mr. DiCarlo.”
“I wanted to get you this merchandise without any more delay. These pieces represent a great deal of time and money on your part, and I knew you’d want them in your hands at the earliest possible moment.”
“We are speaking now of the painting.” And now the painting was all that mattered to Finley. Cleopatra, Catherine and Mary of Scotland were all forgotten. “I don’t see it here. Perhaps it’s eyestrain. An optical illusion.”
The sarcasm brought a dull flush to DiCarlo’s cheeks. “I wasn’t able to bring it on this trip, Mr. Finley. As I started to tell you, there was a problem.”
“A problem?” He continued to smile pleasantly, though the acids in his stomach had begun to churn. “Of what nature?”
Encouraged, DiCarlo resumed his seat. He explained briefly about the three break-ins, reminding Finley that the first had resulted in the recovery of the china hound. He made sure he highlighted his search for the painting, at great personal risk.
“So I’m sure you’ll agree, sir,” he concluded, as though wrapping up a sales meeting, “that it would be dangerous for all of us for me to return to Philadelphia at this time. I do have a contact who I can put on the matter, at my own expense, of course. Since you’ve recovered six of the seven pieces, I’m sure you’ll be patient. I see no reason why the painting can’t be in your hands within, say, six weeks.”
“Six weeks.” Finley nodded, tapped his forefinger to his lip. “You say you shot a police officer.”
“It was necessary. He was watching the building.”
“Mmm. And why do you suppose he was doing that?”
“I can’t be sure.” Sincerity in every pore, DiCarlo leaned forward. “I left absolutely no sign of forced entry. I did overhear an argument between the Conroy woman and her tenant. He was violent. It might be that she asked for police protection.”
“Interesting that she simply didn’t have him evicted,” Finley commented—very, very pleasantly. “You did say the tenant was the one who battered your face.”
DiCarlo stiffened with wounded pride. “It was probably a lovers’ quarrel. I figure the guy was getting more than a roof over his head out of her.”
“Do you?” Finley let the crudeness of the remark pass. “We will have to discuss this further, Mr. DiCarlo. After lunch, perhaps.”
“Sure.” Relieved, DiCarlo settled back. “I’ll run through all the details with you.”
“That will be fine. Well, shall we dine, gentlemen?”
They enjoyed the pheasant salad along with a chilled Pouilly-Fumé in the formal dining room with its Victorian furniture and sun-swept garden view. Throughout, Finley kept the conversation away from business. It interfered with the palate, as he explained to DiCarlo. He spent an hour playing jovial host, generously refilling DiCarlo’s glass himself.
When the last drop of wine and the final morsel of trifle had been consumed, Finley pushed back from the table.
“I hope you’ll forgive us, Abel, but as much as I regret it, Mr. DiCarlo and I should conclude our business. Perhaps a walk around the grounds, through the garden?” he said to DiCarlo.
Pleasantly buzzed on wine, rich food and success, DiCarlo patted his stomach. “I could use a walk after that meal.”
“Good, good. I’m a bit of a fanatic about exercise. I’d enjoy the company. We won’t be long, Abel.”
Finley led DiCarlo out into a solarium complete with potted palms and a musical fountain, through the atrium doors and into the garden.
“I want to tell you how much I admire you, Mr. Finley,” DiCarlo began. “Running your business, having a home like this. You sure cut a wide path for yourself.”
“I like to think so.” Finley’s shoes crunched lightly over the smooth white stones on the garden path. “Do you know flowers, Mr. DiCarlo?”
“Just that women are usually suckers for them.”
Laughing appreciatively, Finley led him through the garden, finally stopping to admire the view. Finley stood looking out over the Los Angeles basin, drawing deeply of the fragrances around him. Flowers—early roses, jasmine. The tang of freshly watered mulch and clipped grass.
“Your plans, Mr. DiCarlo?” Finley said abruptly.
“What? Oh. It’s all simple. I put my man on it. He’ll take care of the Conroy woman. Believe me, after he gets through with her, she’ll tell him anything.” His lips thinned a moment as he grudgingly accepted he wouldn’t have the pleasure of beating the painting’s location out of her. “Like I said, he might have to wait a week or two, until things cool off. But he’ll snatch her, put on the pressure until she leads him to the painting.”
“And then.”
“He’ll whack her, don’t worry.” DiCarlo smiled a little, professional man to professional man. “He won’t leave any loose ends.”
“Ah, yes, loose ends. Most inconvenient. And yourself?”
“Me, I figured I’d take a few months in Mexico. Odds are they got a look at me. It was dark, sure, but I don’t like to take those kind of chances. If they manage to make me, I’d rather be across the border.”
“Wise, I’m sure.” Finley bent over a rosebush, sniffed delicately at a pale pink bud just beginning to part its tender petals. “It occurs to me, Mr. DiCarlo, that if they make you, they may involve me—however indirectly.”
“No way. No possible way. Rest easy, Mr. Finley, they’d never tie a man like you with a couple of break-ins in a Philadelphia junk shop.”
“Loose ends,” Finley said with a sigh. When he straightened, he held a pearl-handled revolver in his hand. And he was smiling again, charmingly. “It’s best to snip them off.”
He fired, aiming just above DiCarlo’s belt buckle. The sound echoed over the hills and sent terrified birds screaming skyward.
DiCarlo’s eyes widened with surprise, then glazed with pain. The unbelievable fire of the pain. Dully, he looked down at his belly, pressing a hand against the spreading stain before his knees crumpled beneath him.
“You disappoint me, Mr. DiCarlo.” Finley didn’t raise his voice but bent low to let the words carry. “Did you take me for a fool? Did you think so much of yourself that you believed I would take your pathetic excuses and wish you bon voyage?”
He straightened and, while DiCarlo writhed in pain from the gunshot, kicked him viciously in the ribs.
“You failed!” he shouted, and kicked again, again, screaming over DiCarlo’s groaning pleas for mercy. “I want my painting. I want what’s mine. It’s your fault, your fault I don’t have it.”
Spittle ran from Finley’s mouth as he shot DiCarlo’s left kneecap, then his right. DiCarlo’s thin scream of pain faded away into animal whimpers.
“I would have killed you quickly if you hadn’t insulted my intelligence. Now it may take you hours, hours of agony. And it’s not enough.”
He had to force himself to replace the revolver in his pocket. He took out a handkerchief and gently dabbed the perspiration from his brow.
“Not enough,” he repeated. He bent down close again, pressing his face into DiCarlo’s. “You had your orders. Did you forget who was in charge?”
“Please,” DiCarlo moaned, too deep in shock to realize his pleas were useless, and that he was already dead. “Help me. Please.”
In a fussy gesture, Finley replaced the handkerchief in his breast pocket. “I gave you plenty of time, more than enough to redeem yourself. I’d even considered giving you absolution. I can be a generous man, but you, you failed me. Failure, Mr. DiCarlo, is unforgivable.”
Still shaking with rage, he straightened again. He knew he would need an hour of meditation at the very least be
fore he would manage to compose himself for the formal affair he was attending that night.
Ineptitude, he fumed. Inefficiency in employees. He brushed dust from his sleeve as he walked back toward the solarium. Intolerable.
“Winesap!” he snapped.
“Sir.” Winesap tiptoed in, folded his nervous hands. He’d heard the shots, and was very much afraid of what was coming next.
“Dispose of Mr. DiCarlo.”
Winesap’s shoulders slumped. “Of course, Mr. Finley. Right away.”
“Not now.” Finley took out a genuine tortoiseshell comb to straighten his windblown hair. “Let him bleed to death first.”
Winesap glanced through the glass wall to where DiCarlo was lying on his back, babbling piteously at the sky. “Should I wait in here?”
“Of course. How else will you know when he’s dead?” Finley sighed, replaced his comb. “I realize that tomorrow’s a holiday, Abel, and I wouldn’t dream of interfering with whatever plans you might have. So I’ll ask that you focus your attention the following day on gathering all the information you can on this Isadora Conroy in Philadelphia.” He sniffed his hand, wrinkled his nose at the scent of gunpowder. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take care of this matter myself.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
“Happy New Year!”
Jed was greeted at the lobby doors of the Liberty Theater by a bald beanpole of a man dressed in a red leather jumpsuit studded with silver stars. Caught by surprise, Jed found himself bear-hugged and back-patted.
His new friend smelled strongly of wine and Giorgio for Men.
“I’m Indigo.”
Since the man’s skin approximated the color, Jed nodded. “I can see that.”
“Marvelous party.” Indigo took out a slim black cigarette, tucked the end into a gold cigarette holder and posed with one hand on his narrow hip. “The band’s hot, the champagne’s cold and the women . . .” He jiggled his brows up and down. “Are plentiful.”
“Thanks for the update.”
Cautious, Jed started to ease by, but Indigo was the friendly sort and draped an arm over Jed’s shoulders. “Do you need some introductions? I know everyone.”
“You don’t know me.”
“But I’m dying to.” He steered Jed through the lobby crowd toward the concession stand, where drinks were being poured by two quick-handed bartenders. “Let me guess.” He stepped back half an inch, cocked his head, drew once on the European cigarette. “You’re a dancer.”
“No.”
“No?” Indigo’s mobile face creased in thought. “Well, with that body, you should be. Gene Kelly had the most marvelous athletic build, you know. Champagne here.” He waved his cigarette toward a bartender. “And one for my friend.”
“Scotch,” Jed corrected. “Rocks.”
“Scotch, rocks?” Indigo’s almond-shaped eyes danced. “Of course, I should have seen it instantly. An actor—dramatic, naturally—down from New York.”
Jed took his drink and dug out a buck for the tip jar. Sometimes, he decided, it was best simply to cooperate. “Yeah. I’m between parts,” he said, and escaped with his drink.
The lobby of the Liberty Theater was fashioned in Gothic style, with yards of ornate plasterwork, pounds of curlicues and gremlins decorating the gilded molding. Over the doors that led into the theater itself were bronze masks of Comedy and Tragedy.
Tonight the area was packed with people who all seemed determined to be heard above the din. The space smelled of perfumes and smoke and the popcorn that erupted cheerfully in a machine beside the concession stand.
Dora would have told Jed that it quite simply smelled of theater.
Guests were milling around, and the attire ranged from white tie to torn Levi’s. A group of three in somber black sat wedged on the floor in a corner and read aloud from a collection of Emily Dickinson. Through the open doors he could hear the band tear into a blistering rendition of the Stones’ “Brown Sugar.”
The Winter Ball, Jed mused, it wasn’t.
The house lights were up. He could see people crowded in the aisles, dancing or standing, talking and eating, while onstage the band pumped out rock.
In the box seats and mezzanine and into the second balcony were still more partygoers, shooting the noise level toward sonic with the help of the Liberty Theater’s excellent acoustics.
An instinct in Jed gave a fleeting thought to maximum capacities and fire codes before he set about trying to find Dora in what seemed to be the population of Pennsylvania.
Mingling had never been his forte. There had been too many enforced social occasions during his childhood, and too many humiliating public displays by his parents. He would have preferred a quiet evening at home, but since he’d dragged himself out for this, the least she could do was be available.
If she hadn’t left for the party so early, with the excuse of being needed to help set up and keep her mother away from the caterers, he could have come with her, kept an eye on her.
He didn’t like the idea of her being alone when her attacker was still loose. Though he could hardly call a gathering of this size being alone, he was uneasy about her nonetheless. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be there.
Two parties in one week. Jed sipped scotch and worked his way toward the front of the theater. That was more than he’d chosen to attend in a year.
He squeezed between two women, was offered—and refused—a spangled party hat and gave serious consideration to squeezing his way back again and escaping.
Then he saw her. And wondered how he could have missed her. She was sitting on the edge of the stage, dead center, in what had to be an avalanche of sound, holding what appeared to be an intimate conversation with two other women.
She’d done something to her hair, Jed noted. Piled it up on her head in a tangle of dark, wild curls that looked just on the edge of control. And her eyes, he thought, watching as she gripped one of her companions’ hands and laughed. She’d painted them up so that they looked bigger, deeper, sultry as a gypsy’s. Her lips, which continued to curve as they moved to form words he couldn’t hear, were a bold, daring red.
She’d worn a black-and-silver jumpsuit with a high neck, long sleeves and sleek legs that fit like a second skin and should have been illegal. The silver beads splattered over it caught the stage lights every time she moved, and flashed like lightning.
As she’d known they would, he mused. She might have left the stage, but she still knew how to lure the spotlight.
He wanted his hands on her. For a moment that thought and the accompanying slap of desire blocked out everything else.
Setting his glass on the armrest of an aisle seat, he pushed his way forward against the current of people.
“But he’s a method actor, after all,” Dora said, grinning. “Naturally if he’s going to pitch the product, he’d want to catch the flu. What I want to know is what happened after he—” She broke off when hands hooked under her armpits and lifted her from the stage.
She got a quick glimpse of Jed’s face before he covered her mouth with his. Fierce, hungry, urgent need rammed into her, cartwheeling from her stomach to her chest so that her heart was stuttering when he released her.
“Well, hi.” Staggered, she put a hand on his arm for balance. In her spike-heeled boots she was nearly eye level with him, and the intensity of his look had every pulse point jumping in time with the band’s back beat. “Glad you could make it. I—ah—this is . . .”
She turned to her two friends and went blank.
“Excuse us.” Jed pulled her away until he found a corner. He couldn’t call it quiet, but at least they didn’t have to shout at each other. “What do you call that thing you’re wearing?”
“This?” She glanced down at the spangled cat suit, then back up at his face. “Sexy. Do you like it?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I manage to roll my tongue back into my mouth.”
“You have such a way with words, Skimme
rhorn. Do you want a drink, some food?”
“I had a drink. I was met at the door by a seven-foot black man in red leather. He hugged me.”
“Indigo.” Her eyes sparkled. “He’s a very sociable sort.”
“He’s got me pegged as an out-of-work actor from New York.” Experimentally, he touched a fingertip to one of her curls, wondering what it would take to have them all tumbling down toward her shoulders.
“Indigo’s a bit flamboyant, but he’s an excellent director, and he has a very good eye. It’s a good thing you didn’t tell him you’re a cop.” She took Jed’s hand and led him backstage, where another bar and a buffet were set up. “He doesn’t like them.”
“I’m not a cop.” He started to order another scotch, then opted for club soda while Dora chose champagne. “Why doesn’t he like them?”
“Oh, he used to work part-time at this club—as a bouncer. The cops raided this crap game in the back room and hauled him in.” She angled her head, shifted her shoulders and did a dead-on imitation of Indigo. “Darling, it was a frightful experience. Do you have any idea what kind of people they put in those cells?”
“Yeah. Criminals.”
“Don’t say that to him. I’m the one who bailed him out, and let me tell you, the man was wrecked.” In an automatic gesture, she straightened the collar of Jed’s shirt. “It would be difficult for you to sympathize, I imagine, as you’ve only been on the outside of the bars.”
“I’ve seen them from both sides.”
“Oh, well then.” With a brisk, practical movement, she brushed the windswept hair from his forehead. “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime.”
“Maybe I will. Have you finished grooming me?”
“Yes. You look very nice in black—a bit of the rebel, maybe. Sort of James Deanish.”
“He’s dead.”
“Yes, of course. I meant if he’d lived to see thirty.” Her smile was thoughtful and amused. “Are all cops so literal-minded, or is it just you?”
