Deadly Rich (52 page)

“No, I hadn’t heard.”

“Apparently she’s an Egyptian.”

“Do you know her?”

Dick came back to his armchair. “Never met her. Some people were talking about her at Betty Bacall’s the other night.”

They sat gazing at each other. Something like death seemed to look at Leigh through Dick Braidy’s eyes.

He leaned toward the sofa and touched her arm. “Mustn’t worry about it though. I’m going to take care of everything.”

WALDO WAS ALREADY HOME
when Leigh returned. “And how was the City of Light?” he asked.

“I didn’t go to Paris.”

Waldo’s highball stopped halfway to his mouth. “Did something go wrong?”

“Yes, something went wrong. You hired that guard again. Arnold Bone.”

“Darling—I’m sorry.” Waldo set down his drink and came across the room and put his hands on her shoulders. “The security people misunderstood me. I told them
not
to give you Arnie.”

“It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. I stayed home by myself and got a rest.”

Monday, June 10

Z
ACK SAT DOWN AT
his office desk, opened the
Trib
and read as far as the third item in “Dick Sez.”

A certain real-estate-and-media mogul is taking very long lunch hours looking at posh pied-à-terres or, pardonnez my French, do I mean pieds-à-terre? Accompanying him on these urban field trips is a certain designing lady who, according to those who’ve been there, has a lot more to offer the eye and the bankbook than his current live-in.

The blood raced along Zack’s face and scalp. The fingers of his right hand clumped into a fist, and his left hand grabbed the phone. He told his secretary to ring Dick Braidy.

“What the hell are you trying to do to me? I gave you Dizey’s column as a favor! I thought you were a
friend
, for Christ’s sake!”

“I’m a journalist, Zack, and if you don’t like the way I run the column, just say the word and the
Post
will be glad to buy out my contract.”

“Who gave you that item?”

“You’re not hearing me, Zack. I’m a journalist—not a stool pigeon.”

There was a click and then the desolate hum of a dial tone. Zack told his secretary to ring Annie MacAdam’s unlisted number.

“You vicious bitch. You gave that item to Dick Braidy.”

“I did not,” Annie MacAdam said.

“You’re the only one who knows.”

“You own the goddamn paper, can’t you control your own columnists? Can’t you read what you print before you print it? Or at least remember to tip the doorman?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How long have you lived in this town, Zack? You met with a woman three times in an apartment that wasn’t yours. The doorman saw it, you never once gave him a tip.”

“Oh, Christ.” A button on Zack’s phone was flashing. “Excuse me, Annie, there’s another call I have to take.”

The other call was Gloria Spahn. “This has gone too far.” There was no anger in her voice, just a cool matter-of-factness. “I can’t afford this kind of publicity.”

“It won’t happen again. Just meet me and I’ll explain.”

“Zack, you’re fun to play with and we’re great together, but I can’t afford to be perceived as
anybody’s
main squeeze. I’m a married woman and my company stock is publicly traded.”

“That blind item was a one-in-a-million fluke and I
promise
, never again. Just let me see you.”

“This is a rotten week for me. I don’t have any free time.”

“You must have free time sometime.”

“All I have is maybe from five to six
P.M.
Thursday.”

“Save that hour. Please, Gloria.”

“Maybe. We’ll talk. Good-bye, Zack.”

GLORIA BROKE THE CONNECTION.
Lines one and three on her phone were blinking. She was about to push
three
when she realized her husband was staring at her.

“Are you crazy?” Three buttons on Stanley’s phone were blinking at once and he was ignoring them all.

“No,” Gloria said. “I’m not crazy.”

Something was clearly bothering Stanley. And he clearly wanted to bother her with it. His eyebrows had crawled so high up his forehead that they were almost touching the hem of his toupee. “You
can’t
see him at five
P.M
. on Thursday. We’re taking the helicopter up to Groton.”

“Relax. I’m just getting him off my back.” Both one and three had stopped blinking. The service must have picked up. Gloria lifted the silver coffeepot and poured herself a fresh half cup. “He’s in love with me.”

“Whether he’s in love with you or not, you shouldn’t have to be evasive with him.” Stanley had finished skimming his financial updates. He slapped the reports down on his place mat. “You should tell him straight out, my sons are graduating and the rector’s giving us dinner.”

Stanley’s twin sons by his first marriage were graduating from prep school Friday. Stanley had given Groton a new gym, and the rector had invited him and Gloria to dinner Thursday. To Stanley, the dinner signified a new level of social acceptance. He had gone so far as to tell Gloria she had to wear a high-neck dress.

“Zack Morrow isn’t interested in your sons,” Gloria said. And neither was she. She hated the idea of breaking off work to go to Groton. She hated the idea that Stanley had been previously married, that he had two kids.

Stanley poured skim milk on his high-fibre oat-’n’-almond breakfast flakes. He had dressed for breakfast in a burgundy silk bathrobe with a matching velvet collar and a pink silk show hankie in the pocket. “Have you decided yet what you’re going to wear?”

Gloria sat a moment, feeling guilty that he was counting on her. She had no intention of going to Groton with him, but two days ahead of time was a little early to start the argument. “I’m going to wear a high, white lace collar. The rector won’t even know I have tits.”

“And?” Stanley leaned forward as if to pull words out of her. “
And
?”

“And what?”

“What are you wearing for the ceremony? The graduation’s outdoors, it’s okay to show a little skin.”

Gloria shrugged. “I’m going to wear a WASPy little country-club number. Pale blue linen.”

“How are you going to accessorize?”

Stanley always needed to hear the details. Every time she went to bed with another man, he wanted to know how big the dick was. The only rule Stanley had about Gloria’s other men was, they had to be at least six feet tall.

“I’ll wear last year’s Bulgari pearls.”

“Only one strand.”

“Of course only one strand.”

“And not the earrings.”

Gloria had a sudden sense of the pettiness of the male power drive. “Of course not the earrings. Believe me, they won’t know me from a
Social Register
volunteer ticket taker at a Junior League buffet.”

Stanley pushed back his chair and stood. He strolled to the window and stood staring out at the view across Central Park. He clasped his hands behind him. He turned and gazed at the view he was proudest of, the Titian “Vespers of Cosima de’ Medici” that occupied the entire west wall of the breakfast room.

“Know something?” he said. “It’s going to be the greatest day of my life.”

“
BINGO
.” It was Lou Stein on the line, calling from the lab. “We found a candle in the trash basket. It was sticking to a page of the
National Enquirer,
which also had some five-day-old doggie-doo sticking to it.”

“Five-day-old?” Cardozo said.

“As nearly as we can approximate these things.”

Cardozo had checked with the Department of Sanitation. The trash basket on the corner of Seventy-fourth and Third was scheduled to be emptied three times a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between five and six
A.M.
But the truck had missed Friday because of street repairs, so anything found in the trash could theoretically date back to Wednesday.

“Okay, so the dog shit was from Thursday,” Cardozo said, “but that doesn’t mean the candle can’t be from early Saturday morning. He might have just shoved it down a layer or two. How does it match up to the others?”

“Same type—Saffire
Shabbes.
And it’s from the same six-pack.”

“Any idea how long it burned?”

“Allowing the usual margin for error—at least twenty-five seconds.”

Cardozo shook his head. “Where the hell does this guy get the
time
?”

“Excuse me?”

“Just thinking out loud. Any newspaper clippings?”

“You’re right on the money today, Vince. Benedict Braidy’s May thirty-first column was sticking to the candle that was sticking to the
Enquirer
.”

“Torn or clipped?”

“Clipped. Probably with the same scissors that clipped Dizey’s columns.”

“Do the serrations match any on the letters in the notes?”

“If they do, my microscope can’t see it. I’m not ruling it out, but I just can’t rule it in.”

“Okay, Lou. Thanks.”

When Cardozo looked up, Ellie Siegel was standing in the doorway.

“I did some reading last night.” She thunked an oversized, falling-apart, dog-eared paperback on the desk, angled so he could read the title:
Your Congress—Newly Updated Edition.
“Nancy Guardella serves on eight committees and subcommittees, but her power base is the chair of the DEA-oversight committee. They watch the black budget.”

“What the hell is a black budget?”

“Off-the-books expenditures.” Ellie was wearing a cotton print dress, and though it was barely ten in the morning, her hair was already curling around her face from the humidity. “The stuff that’s so secret you can’t keep a cost-accounting, because then the Russians would know.”

“The Russians aren’t a problem anymore.”

Ellie shrugged. “Okay, the drug lords would know. The Americans would know. Someone would know.”

She waited while he adjusted the temperature control on the air conditioner. Adjusting the control in no way adjusted the temperature, but it sometimes lowered the noise and it made him feel that at least he tried to be a considerate host.

“Now and then Guardella makes a stink in Congress, and something slips into the record that shouldn’t.”

“Like what?” Cardozo said.

“She raised a huge ruckus last year to get dentistry and psychiatry fully reimbursed.”

“Reimbursed for who?”

“For agents who can’t be put on the roster, because it would blow their cover and endanger their lives.”

“Thoughtful of Nancy. Did she get her way?”

“The resolution passed. Vince, we should have someone like that fighting for
our
dentistry reimbursements. On my last crown I had to pay a three-hundred-dollar deductible.”

Cardozo riffled the pages of
Your Congress.

“I also did some digging into Nan Shane’s will,” Ellie said. “Nan Shane left two surviving relatives, her daughter Dodie and her mother Olivia. The mother lives in Mattoon, Illinois. She has no idea where Nan’s husband is, but she thinks they were divorced two years ago by Salvadorean decree.”

“Who inherits?” The phone rang. Cardozo lifted the receiver. “Cardozo.”

“Vince, it’s Tommy at Nynex. That 617 number you wanted is a pay phone.”

Another button on Cardozo’s phone began blinking. “Shit.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Ellie, could you pick up on two and see who’s calling?” He uncovered the receiver. “Sorry, Tommy. Where’s that pay phone?”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

“This is the guy that’s making nuisance calls to Leigh Baker, right? He’s phoning from the pay phone right in front of the precinct. Go out your front door, look left. Maybe he’s there right now.”

“You’re probably right, and it’s probably one of my own men. Thanks, Tommy.”

Ellie knocked on the open door. “To answer your last question, Nan died intestate.”

“And who was that on the phone?”

“Rad Rheinhardt. He just got a fourth letter from Society Sam. I don’t know whether it’s my shorthand or Sam’s train of thought, but this one doesn’t make much sense.” She consulted a sheet of scratch paper covered with squiggles and phone numbers. “Sam says, quote, ‘
ta ra ta ra ta ra ta roo.
’”

“‘
Ta roo
?’ What the hell is ‘
ta ra ta roo
’?”

Ellie shrugged. “I may not have the right number of ta
ra’
s, but Rheinhardt’s sending the letter up. ‘
Me ow and the poody tat, ow can you see, Humpty’s dumpty got the bumpty. Kisses, Society Sam
.’

“
I SUGGEST,
Let’s go party at my place.”

Cardozo and Narcotics Detective Bob O’Rourke were sitting at a table in a half-deserted Chelsea diner that called itself Mama’s Greasy Spoon. The table was gleaming, not greasy. O’Rourke was dipping his chocolate eclair into his espresso, and in between mouthfuls he was telling Cardozo how he’d busted Nan Shane.

“She says, Fine. So we jump into a cab outside Achilles Foot. I get her to sell me some coke in the backseat, and I bust her. The rest is mystery.”

“Tell me about the mystery,” Cardozo said.

“I have Shane booked and arraigned. The court date’s set. And then a federal narc stops me on the courthouse steps, and
he
busts me for using and dealing.”

“
Were
you using and dealing?”

“Hell, no. I was sent into Achilles Foot under cover, to buy.”

Cardozo could see why the city narcs had sent O’Rourke under cover into a teen drug scene. The guy was a not-yet-aging thirty-two who’d kept his baby face.

“Why Achilles Foot?” Cardozo said. “It’s a federal sting operation.”

O’Rourke gave him a Where-have-you-been-hiding-for-the-last-quarter-century? look. “Somehow the feds forgot to tell New York that the place was theirs. As far as New York could tell, Achilles Foot was your normal, everyday, obnoxious dope scene, no different from your average Times Square movie theater. Same product. Same activity. The only difference I could see was, the clientele’s whiter, the prices are higher. You have exactly the same dealing in the front room, exactly the same using in the men’s room. Which is also the women’s room. Which is also the sex room.”