Deadly Rich (32 page)

Down the hallway, past the owner’s office, the door to the laundry room was open.

She tiptoed.

The smell of dirty towels grew stronger. It was a heavy, decaying body-waste odor—worse than ordinary sweat, because it combined sweat with Body-PLUS anabolic protein supplement.

She sneaked one eye around the open door, just enough to see without being seen.

“You’ve started showing some high negatives.” Bruce was hunched forward like a bull in search of a brawl, the veins in his face taut with hostility.

Rick held himself straight, crapped-on but tough and unbowed, pushing out a dark stone silence.

Francoise liked that.

“I’m talking to you!” Bruce slammed a fist on the washing machine. “You could at least shave before you come to work!”

“You’re paying me four-fucking-fifty an hour to wash towels and clean the shit out of toilets,” Rick shouted, “not to model for your customers!”

“You have the same obligations as anyone else on the staff. Look your best! You represent Bodies-PLUS!”

“Fuck representing Bodies-PLUS!”

A glaze of pure hating came over Brace’s face. “Would you rather get paid zero dollars an hour?”

Francoise had a feeling she was seeing the downside of Bruce McGee, the side Bodies-PLUS clients never got to see. She suspected too, this was the downside of steroids, the downside of recreational coke, a lot of downsides intersecting and exploding at once.

She felt ashamed for prying where she had no business prying. She turned around and walked back through the gym.

Bodies-PLUS took up half the top story of a midtown building. Soft indirect lighting supplemented the illumination from the skylights. The floors were covered in comfortable moss-green shallow-pile carpeting, and the free weights and Polaris workout machines were placed like art works in a gallery.

The gym floor was deserted. The weights gleamed in their racks like the eyes of crocodile in a swamp.

She glanced at her watch. Six fifty-five. Bodies-PLUS closed at seven on Saturdays. She realized she was the last client to leave.

Someone had forgotten to switch off the music tapes. A stream of chin-up, cheer-up, pump-that-iron happy rock poured from the wall speakers. It struck her as eerie, like merry-go-round music when there was no merry-go-round.

She pushed the door open and had one foot in the corridor when she heard a weight crash onto the gym floor.

Rick came stumbling into the vestibule. He was holding a jockstrap to his forehead. “Don’t you fucking try, man!”

I shouldn’t be seeing this
, Francoise thought.

Before she could get out the door Bruce stepped into the vestibule. His right hand clenched a fifteen-pound dumbbell.

Right away he saw Francoise. He gave her a look, and the look said,
Stay out of this, or I’ll cut your titties off.

“Hi,” Francoise said, brightly.

Rick turned around, startled. He jerked the jockstrap away from his face. The side of his head showed a mean blue bruise.

She could feel him trying to put his dignity back together with Crazy Glue. That look on his face invaded her.

“How about dinner?” she said. “My treat.”

“Who?” Rick looked shocked. “Me?”

She nodded. “You.” She turned and sang out, “Good night, Bruce.”

Bruce didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on her, affectless, like a dead rat’s.

She held the door for Rick.

Riding down in the elevator, he looked over at her. “Did you mean that about dinner, or were you just trying to bust Brace’s chops?”

“I meant it.”

A smile opened on his face. His teeth were incredibly, beautifully white.

“Do you like health food?” she said.

He nodded.

“I know a terrific restaurant,” she said.

FRANCOISE’S TERRIFIC RESTAURANT
was crowded and dark. The waitress gave them a table wedged in between the laser juke box and the kitchen. They both ordered tofu steak.

Rick sat there pulling apart a piece of pita bread.

“Bruce shouldn’t treat you like that,” Francoise said. “Why do you work for him?”

“I need the job.”

“It’s a lousy job—no one ever holds it more than a month. Can’t you get another job?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have papers.”

She was jolted. She’d never before met an illegal alien. Except her stepmother. But that didn’t really count.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to unload my life story on you.”

“I want to hear it.”

He seemed to make the decision right then that he trusted her. For the next ten minutes, in a gentle, sad voice, he unloaded. Francoise gradually began to get a sense of what it must be like to be driven from your own country, forced to beg for your living in a land of strangers who would prefer to see you dead.

Oddly enough it reminded her of her own life since her father’s death.

“I’m fresh out of phoniness,” she said. “What can I tell you that wouldn’t be bullshit? I identify? I’m sorry?”

And then he reached over the table and touched her hand. The touch was sad but also sweet. “Your turn,” he said.

“Complete anticlimax. I’m a rich kid. I’ve never had to do a day’s work in my life.”

“You work hard,” he said. “I’ve seen you training.”

“That’s not the same. You work to stay alive. I’m trying to control a weight problem.”

“Where I come from, a girl with a body like yours would be a ten.”

“Maybe you should give me the address of your hometown.”

“You can see my hometown over on Avenue D.” In anyone else’s mouth the remark would have seemed angry or self-pitying, but Rick said it in a completely matter-of-fact way. “Where would I go if I wanted to see your hometown?”

She shrugged. “Upper East Side.”

“So what are you doing taking a towel boy to dinner? People like you are supposed to spend their time shopping at Bloomingdale’s and partying with famous people.”

She wondered if the remark was meant to sting. Because, oddly enough, it didn’t. “Maybe I’ve tried that. Maybe I don’t like it.”

“I’ll bet your parents want you to go to those parties and marry a rich husband.”

“My parents are dead”

“Hey, we’re both orphans.”

There was humor floating in his gaze, humor that was utterly without malice or put-down. For a minute Francoise didn’t get it. And then it dawned on her that this had to be one of the most fundamentally good-natured people she had ever met.

“How did your parents die?” Rick said.

“My mom died of cancer when I was four. My dad died last year. He had a heart attack on an airplane. What about your parents?”

“They died when the government bombed our village.”

Francoise’s jaw dropped. “Where was that?”

“El Salvador.”

“I didn’t know things like that happened in El Salvador.”

“Things like that go on everywhere. So now that you’re an orphan, who do you live with?”

“I live with my stepmother.”

“You say
stepmother
like she’s a witch.”

Francoise laughed. Suddenly, telling it to Rick, it seemed funny. “She’s spending my father’s money, trying to make herself a big New York socialite. People think she’s a joke.”

“How’d your father meet her?”

“She was our cleaning lady.”

“Oh, boy—so now she’s going to make
you
the cleaning woman.”

“Kind of. She’s giving a big party on May thirtieth—she didn’t invite me.”

“Your own house, and she didn’t invite you?”

“She inherited the apartment.”

“Still, you should crash the party. Show that witch. Tell you what—
I’ll
show her. What night is the thirtieth?”

“It’s a Thursday.”

“Okay. Thursday the thirtieth I’m going to come to your house with a huge bouquet for you.”

“I like the way you think.”

“Who would it kill her if you got flowers from?”

Francoise didn’t even have to think to answer that one. “Robert de Niro. Olga’s invested in his restaurant, and she’d do anything to get into one of his parties.”

“Her name’s
Olga
? Shit. What’s your name?” She realized she’d spent the last hour with Rick without even introducing herself. “Francoise Ford.”

“I’m going to put a card with the flowers that says
TO FRANCOISE FORD WITH LOVE, BOB DE NIRO
.

It was odd—sitting across a table from this complete stranger with dark brown stubble on his cheeks, Francoise felt relaxed and accepted for the first time in two years.

“You think I’m kidding,” he said. “But on Thursday the thirteenth, watch out, Olga!”

Sunday, May 26

W
ALDO STEPPED THROUGH THE
front door and set his suitcase down on the floor. He picked up the mail from the silver bowl on the hall table.

“Welcome home,” Leigh said.

He smiled. “You’re looking well. Where’s Arnie?”

“Mr. Bone is watching television in the library. Waldo, could you pay him and get rid of him—right now?”

For the briefest tick of an instant Waldo’s eyes were concerned. “Any trouble with him?”

“I’ve had company I enjoyed better in a dentist’s chair.”

Five minutes later Waldo knocked on Leigh’s door. “Mission accomplished.”

She went to him. They embraced.

“I’m glad you’re back.” She sighed.

His hand patted her on the butt. “Me too.”

“If you ever leave me alone again, if you ever hire me another guard, promise it won’t be Arnold Bone.”

“He couldn’t have been all bad. He kept you alive, didn’t he?”

“Promise?”

“Don’t worry—I’m not planning to leave you alone for a long, long time.”

Monday, May 27

“S
AME AS THE FIRST NOTE,
”
LOU
Stein said, “but more so.”

“Clarify that
more so
for me,” Cardozo said.

They were sitting at the worktable in Lou Stein’s office, drinking coffee. Lab coffee was better than precinct coffee, and Cardozo was halfway through his second cup.

The two Society Sam notes lay side by side on the table. They were crazy quilts of typefaces, wriggling up and down the pages, but the strips of tape that held the cut-out letters had been placed exactly parallel to the top of the paper and to one another.

With an instrument that looked like a dental probe, Lou tapped the taped-on letters. “In note two, he uses the same five sources as note one, plus two still unidentified. The word that gave him the most trouble is
wick
—four separate letters. W is not that popular a letter in English.”

“Could he be getting any of the letters from a book?”

“Since Hitler, people tend to respect books. They don’t burn them, they don’t cut them up.”

“Paperback?”

“Possibly.”

Cardozo drank his coffee quietly. “And the tape?”

“Same in both notes—Scotch Magic tape, three-quarter inch. No prints.”

“DNA?”

“We’ll see what we can isolate from saliva on the stamps and envelopes. If it matches the DNA in the semen, we’ll know for sure we’re dealing with one guy.”

“Prints?”

“Only on the envelopes.” Lou sighed. “Useless.”

Tuesday, May 28

T
ORI FINALLY FOUND A PAY PHONE
that worked on the corner of Fifty-third Street. She dropped a quarter into the coin slot and dialed her office and told her assistant she was running late. “Any messages while I was out?”

“Just one from HBO. They gave you the wrong time for the screening tonight. It’s eight, not eight-thirty.”

HBO had invited her to another of those previews of one of their TV movies. Zack owned stock in the company, and she knew he wanted to go. She dialed his office.

“Hi, Minnie, it’s me. Could I talk with Zack?”

“I’m sorry,” his secretary said, “he isn’t in just now. He’s out looking at an apartment.”

“Really?” Tori and Zack had discussed getting a larger apartment, but she hadn’t realized he was already looking. “Could you tell him the screening tonight has been moved up to eight?”

“Certainly, Miss Sandberg.”

Tori was about to hang up the phone. “Oh, Minnie. Whose apartment is Zack looking at?”

“He’s been looking at Annie MacAdam’s listings lately, but I’m not sure which one he’s seeing today.”

“Thanks.” Tori broke the connection. In the bottom of her change purse she found two dimes and a nickel. She dialed and Annie MacAdam answered on the first ring.

“Annie, what are you doing home? I thought you were showing Zack an apartment.”

There was a hesitation. “Then what are you doing phoning me?”

“I’d like to see the apartment myself.”

“
WITH A NEW YORK APARTMENT
,” Annie MacAdam said, “you usually have to choose whether you’re going to have children or guests.” Annie winked. “But this apartment is ideal—there’s plenty of room for both.”

“Yes,” Tori agreed. “Ideal.”

“This room, for instance, would be perfect for a child.”

Tori did not go into the room. She stood at the threshold, glancing quickly at the high-molded ceiling, the three windows that looked onto East Seventy-second Street, the stripped bed.

“Zack
does
want children, doesn’t he?” Annie said.

“Eventually he does.”

“An apartment like this might just hurry the eventual along.” Annie led Tori down a windowed gallery. Heat shimmered beyond the glass, but inside it was a cool spring day—what May should have been and never was anymore in New York.

“Zack is
mad
for the apartment,” Annie said.

“Is that so? I wonder why he didn’t mention it to me.”

“He’s looked at it twice now.” Annie threw open the bedroom door and stood aside.

Tori went in.

The tan silk spread on the wide canopied bed glowed as if it were a source of light.

“This is a wonderful space,” Annie said. “Of course, you’d want to do it differently. The bedroom reflects the woman. This decor is cosmopolitan, and you’re down to earth.”

Tori touched the bed. Her hand slid along the spread. She could feel that beneath it, the bed was ready to sleep in, made up with sheets and a light blanket.