Deadly Rich (61 page)

A chain reaction of thoughts went off in Cardozo’s head:
So Nita Kohler has been promoted to daughter—or has Dick Braidy promoted himself to father
?
I wonder what Leigh Baker would have to say about that
?

The thought of Leigh Baker reminded him of the movie they had watched on the VCR. She’d played a character named Cassandra.

Which, he realized, was the name on the phone message.

He retrieved the restaurant flyer from the wastebasket. He was carefully flattening it out when the phone rang. “Cardozo.”

“Hi, Vince, Rad Rheinhardt. Surprise, surprise.”

“Read it to me.”

“‘
Sam’s one itch is your big breeches.
’”

Cardozo wrote quickly. “Go on.”

“‘
Rags to riches take three stitches fit for bitches.
’ And he signs himself ‘
Kisses, Society Sam.
’ He misspells
breeches
—b-r-i-t-c-h-e-s. It’s hard to tell if Sam’s being ignorant or clever. He spells
to
with a
w
and
for
with a
u
—like numbers. I guess that could be clever. It gives you
one, two, three, four.
I’m sending it up.”

“Thanks, Rad.” Cardozo hung up and stared a moment at his scribbling, then
x’ed
out
to
and
for
and wrote in
two
and
four.
He pondered ‘
rags two riches
’ and ‘
fit four bitches’
and then he decided he’d rather ponder Leigh Baker’s little message on the back of the Chinese-restaurant flyer.

Cassandra called, says Hi.

He smiled for ten seconds or so, feeling an odd delight, feeling odd that there was anything left on earth he could still feel odd delight about.

Then he neatly ripped away the parts of the menu that were not message. He folded the rest and slipped it into his wallet.

“
TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT,
” Zack Morrow said.

“Tell Dick Braidy to retract today’s column,” Kristi Blackwell said. “Kill any follow-up column that accuses me of journalistic wrongdoing. He can go after my wardrobe or my love life with a machete, for all I care—but I won’t have my work slandered.”

Zack shook his head. “That’s prior restraint, and we don’t do it in this country. This isn’t Great Britain.”

They were sitting at table four at Le Cercle, Kristi’s regular table. Noise filled the room like a hissing vapor—dozens of voices all trying to be heard at once, silverware clacking against china.

“Hold it, hold it.” The third person at the table raised two hands, gesturing for calm. His name was Langford Jennings, Lang for short, and he had blond Establishment good looks and an educated drawl that—to many people’s way of thinking—more than qualified him to be a lawyer. Kristi Blackwell suspected that Lang Jennings was the kind of man who put on a three-piece business suit to take the garbage out.

“Are we determined to go the legal route?” At that moment Lang had the smiling, secret look of a man listening to the waves of his own private lake lap against his own private shore. “Why not settle this here, at this table?”

“I want a retraction,” Kristi said.

“Unless a court finds against Braidy,” Zack said, “I can’t compel him to retract. My contract with him is the same as Dizey’s, and it’s specific on that point.”

“Then
you
retract,” Kristi said.

“Me? I didn’t write it.”

“You published it. And what about the next column? He says I forged evidence.”

“He doesn’t say that,” Zack said. “Read what he wrote. He says
maybe
he’s going to say it.”

Lang took another forkful of Linzer torte. “Kristi, you’re a public figure. So the issue becomes not malice, which for all I know Dick Braidy is full of, but falsehood.”

The mouthful of espresso that Kristi had been about to swallow went down in a gulp instead.

“Tell me, Kristi,” Zack said. “Would Dick Braidy be lying if he came right out and said you forged evidence? Do you think a jury would find for him or for you?”

Kristi sat twisting her wedding ring. She felt something end there, with her silence.

“I suggest a compromise,” Lang said, “a gentleman’s agreement. Kristi will forgo the retraction, and Zack will print no further statements, impugning her journalistic ethics.”

“It’s going to get me in trouble with Dick.” Zack shrugged. “But I’ll do my best.” He extended a hand across the table.

Kristi didn’t move.

“Come on, Kristi. Zack just got married. He left his bride to meet with you. The least you can do is shake his hand. As a wedding present.”

After a moment Kristi reached across the table and took Zack’s hand.

“Caught in the act, I see.” Dick Braidy stood in the aisle, holding his head abnormally high under a doughnut-shaped helmet of gray-blond hair. “Do I spy a nonaggression pact between my two publishers?”

“Hello, Dick,” Zack said. “Have a good lunch?”

“Excellent, thank you. And congratulations.” Dick Braidy leaned forward and planted a kiss embarrassingly near Zack’s mouth. “I’ve known Gaby forever and I just love, love, love her, and I wish you both all the happiness in the world.”

The speech struck Kristi as perfunctory and more than a little insincere. It struck her too that Dick Braidy’s appearance had radically changed. He’d had his hair rinsed a sort of yellowy blond, like a see-through varnish. But the change went deeper. There was sadness in him now, and—especially when he looked at her—a sort of disgust.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” Lang rose from his chair. “I’m Langford Jennings, Ms. Blackwell’s attorney.”

“Dick Braidy. It’s a pleasure.” Dick Braidy took the hand that Lang offered him. “I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a good deal of each other.” He slid a glance toward Kristi.

“Won’t you join us?” Lang said.

Dick Braidy thrust a wrist out of his sleeve and frowned at his watch. “Sorry—I’ve got a date with my trainer.”

“
LET’S TRY A LIGHT SET
to warm up.” Bruce McGee, the owner and top trainer of Bodies-PLUS, placed a barbell in Dick Braidy’s hands.

Dick Braidy couldn’t concentrate. The barbell crashed immediately to the floor. He felt like a fool. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

But he knew, all right. What was wrong was Zack Morrow not inviting him to the wedding. What was wrong was Zack Morrow lunching and schmoozing with that back-stabbing bitch Kristi Blackwell in full view of three dozen of the fastest and most important mouths in Manhattan. “I just can’t seem to grip it.”

His trainer was watching him curiously. “That’s okay. Your hands are slippery. We’ll find you some weight-lifting gloves.”

Dick Braidy followed Bruce to the wall rack where the gloves were supposed to be kept.

No gloves.

“Tell you what,” Bruce said. “I’ll set up the next set. Why don’t you look in the changing rooms and see if someone left a pair of gloves.”

DICK BRAIDY OBSERVED HIMSELF
in the changing-room mirror. He drew himself up to full standing height, squared his shoulders, sucked in his gut.

He defied his reflection: “This is me, the only me I have. I am going to make something of this mess! I have proved I am capable of achievement, and I will achieve this too.”

A space opened somewhere behind him. A warm, damp breeze drifted across from the shower next door. He turned.

He had company.

The towel boy had entered his cubicle without knocking. The boy was leaning sideways against the wall, the wide chest of his Bodies-PLUS T-shirt split by a vertical stripe of sweat.

A finger of embarrassment tapped Dick Braidy’s heart. He had forgotten to lock the door, and the boy must have seen him talking to his reflection.

The boy’s eyes were staring, bold as a fox’s, and his mouth seemed to be holding back a smile.

“Excuse me,” Dick Braidy said, “but I’m not through with this room. I’ll only be a minute.”

The boy eased the door shut with his foot. The latch gave a click as it caught. He slid the bolt shut.

Dick Braidy drew in a shallow breath, quickly. He searched the boy’s eyes for some statement of purpose, but all he could see was a flat, affectless gaze.

Dick Braidy moved to the left. The boy blocked him. He tried a move to the right and was blocked again.

“What is it you want?”

The boy gave him a quiet smile—a dangerous smile.

“You’re not angry because of the other night, are you? Look, I honestly didn’t recognize you. I’m used to seeing you here, and when I saw you out of context—”

The boy made a quick movement.

Dick Braidy’s gaze flicked to the boy’s hand. It was holding a straight ten-inch blade.

Dick Braidy’s hands, now in a panic, patted his pockets, but he’d left his wallet outside in his locker. He held out his empty palms. “My money is outside.” He pointed to the door. “
Dinero
out there. I have charge cards. American Express. Diners Club.
Bueno. Muy bueno.
I’ll give you anyth—”

The boy lunged. The blade hissed through the air.

Dick Braidy couldn’t believe this was really happening. His body and mind slipped into dream mode. The moment enveloped him in a paralyzing gelatin.

The force of the first slash spun Dick Braidy around. An arm caught his throat from behind. His breath choked off.

The blade opened the side of his throat, flicked out a flap of flesh. Metal drove stinging through his windpipe, digging through flesh and cartilage and artery and tendon. A bright gop of red flipped out of him onto the mirror.

“Holy Mother of God!”

Dick Braidy stumbled, collapsed to his knees, blinked through geysering blood and gristle. The razor scored a bull’s-eye in the bulge of his gut.

And another.

And another.

Blood whooshed out of Dick Braidy with the hot stench of rust. An overpoweringly stale smell like the inside of an old car filled his nostrils.

A million red-hot perforations went through him at once:

“Why?” he moaned. “Why?”

Beyond the stinging, sinking horizon of his awareness, the blade arced up and down through warm, quiet air.

CARDOZO CAUGHT HIS PHONE
on the second ring. “Cardozo.”

“Lieutenant, it’s John Ferrara.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Benedict Braidy’s been killed.”

THE FLOOR OF THE CHANGING ROOM
looked as if someone had spilled a two-gallon tureen of Manhattan clam chowder.

Dick Braidy lay on his back in the middle of the spill, his legs spread. One sneakered foot rested almost casually on the built-in wooden bench. His arms were clutched to his chest, folding the shower curtain to wounds that had gashed through his once-green Lacoste shirt and his still-blue nylon jogging shorts.

His head rested on the step of the shower stall. His eyes were still open, still huge. Standing in the doorway of the changing room, Cardozo met their silent surprise with his own wondering gaze.

“The way we put it together,” Detective John Ferrara was saying, “Braidy left the gym floor in the middle of his workout and came back here.”

Cardozo sniffed. The air held a sweetly brackish smell of sweat, heavily overlaid with floral room deodorizer. “Why? What did he come back here for?”

“He was looking for weight-lifting gloves.”

“Why didn’t you come with him?”

“He didn’t tell me he was leaving the floor.” It had been Ferrara’s assignment to guard Dick Braidy from eight till four today. His pale brown eyes betrayed shock and guilt, as though his own negligence had thrust Dick Braidy into the path of the killer’s blade. “I was out front watching the main door. For just that little stretch of time I didn’t have him in my sight.”

It had been Braidy’s responsibility to tell his guard where he was going; it had been his guard’s responsibility not to need to be told.

A police photographer was taking pictures, and Cardozo stepped back to give him room. A shower was running in a far cubicle with the soft, melancholy sound of rain.

“Who found Braidy?”

“I did.”

Cardozo turned. At first glance he thought the young woman had had a bad hockey accident, but then he saw that it was just white rubber wraps hugging her kneecaps.

“Bobo Bidwell,” she said pleasantly. She had straight black hair cut long, like a schoolgirl’s, and her nose ended in a perky little upturn.

“How’d you happen to find him?”

“I’d finished my workout and I needed to shower and change. I was waiting here for a room, and Rick came whipping out of changing room five, so I assumed it was empty.”

“Who’s Rick?” Cardozo said.

“Rick Martinez,” Detective Ferrara said. “The kid that does janitorial work.”

“Where is he now?”

“Martinez was through the front door before I even heard Miss Bidwell holler. By the time I secured the crime scene and backup arrived, he was long gone.”

Cardozo stepped aside as two orderlies from the medical examiner’s office maneuvered their narrow stretcher past him. Inside the changing room, a brisk, redheaded young man was raking a flashlight beam beneath the bench.

Cardozo watched the slow dance of exploring light.

The young man pulled a small wastebasket from under the bench that appeared to have rolled or been kicked there. He shook the basket empty over a sheet of clear plastic. Soap wrappings and tissue paper floated down. A newspaper clipping hovered for an instant, like a paper glider. A three-inch cylinder of white wax plopped to the floor.

Cardozo felt a cold hand grip his intestine. “Who runs this place?”

Detective Ferrara led him down a corridor past the gym floor and rapped on the half-open door of a softly lit office.

A curly-haired young man was sitting behind the desk, looking worried. He was wearing a T-shirt with the message Sexy and Dangerous, and he had the mashed face of a former boxer.

Detective Ferrara made introductions. “Lieutenant Vince Cardozo, Bruce McGee.”

Bruce rose to shake Cardozo’s hand.

“Tell me about Martinez,” Cardozo said.

“I don’t know a hell of a lot.” Bruce seemed to be suffering an overload of nervous energy that had nowhere to go except into fingertips nattering on the edge of his desk. “He’s been working here six weeks. Quiet guy. Never talked much, never bothered anyone, never seem to get bothered.”