High Heels and Homicide (3 page)

“Maggie, what are you—?”

Maggie held up a finger, motioning for him to be quiet. “Yes, yes, that's right. Missy Schwarzenegger. Two
g
's? Oh, right. Two
g
's. Boy, you're good. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, yes. That's four round-trip tickets, first class, from Kennedy to Heathrow. And I'd like to add a leg from Heathrow to Oslo, back to Heathrow, and then to Kennedy. Oh, and I'll need two kosher meals and one diabetic meal. Uh-huh. And will there be room for the Way-Bac Machine? Uh-huh, Way-Bac Machine. That's
W
–
a
–
y
–capital
B
-
a
-
c
. No
k
. God knows we don't want anything with a
k
in it, right? Uh-huh. It's…it's kind of a…well, it's a necessity for one of the passengers. Uh-huh, my boy Sherman. You'll check? Yes, yes, of course I can hold.”

Feeling better than she had in, oh, at least an hour and twenty minutes, Maggie took off the headset and laid it on the desk. “That ought to keep her busy for a good ten minutes.”

“You are an evil woman, Maggie Kelly,” Alex told her when she grinned at him.

“Uh-huh. Yes. I know,” she said in the same too-sweet voice she'd just used on the phone, then slapped her hands on her thighs and stood up. “Then again, I suddenly feel
so
much better.”

“How gratifying for you. Who is Sherman? And what's a Way-Bac Machine?”

“Hang on a sec, I need a Popsicle.”

Alex was still standing, waiting for her when she came back from the kitchen, the thin, single-stick diet chocolate Popsicle in her mouth. She spoke around it. “I don't know how I'm going to exist without these while we're in England.”

“Really?” he said as she slowly pulled the thing out of her mouth.

“Hey, addictions are addictions, and I'm addicted to these things. Hardly any calories, and they satisfy my chocolate cravings, as well as give me something to do with my hands, my mouth, now that I don't smoke anymore. I don't know, I guess I'm into oral gratification.”

“Many of us are,” Alex said quietly, and Maggie tried very hard not to look at him.

She aimed herself toward one of the couches, collapsing into the soft cushions before taking a big bite of the Popsicle, the better to disguise its form, she imagined. “Back to the Way-Bac. Didn't you ever watch any of those tapes I bought for Sterling?
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
? It's an American classic. One of the recurring skits is ‘Improbable History,' with Professor Hector Peabody and his boy, Sherman. The professor is a dog, see, and he has a boy, and Peabody teaches Sherman about history using the Way-Bac Machine to time travel and—” She stopped, looking at Alex's impassive face. “I'm not getting through, am I?”

Alex shook his head. “Perhaps another time? If I applied myself?”

“No, never mind. You either get this kind of stuff or you don't. And you'd get it, I know you would, if you watched the tapes.”

“I'll put that on my to-do list. In the meantime, are you happy with the travel arrangements? I could have made the departure date Saturday, but that would mean only two days with your parents, and I wouldn't want it to appear that you were in a rush to be away.”

“Yeah, we don't want to appear in a rush,” Maggie said, then sucked on the Popsicle once more, wondering how she was going to get through three entire days playing Happy Families. Since the thought was depressing, she changed the subject. “So, Mr. Transportation Arranger, how long will we be in jolly old England?”

“I'm not quite sure,” Alex said, seating himself on the facing couch. “It's something called an open-ended ticket, I believe. We'll be arriving just after the featured players in the cast and the director, and departing just as the shooting begins, if I understood correctly.”

“Because they don't want the writer getting in the way. This trip is just flipping me a fish, hoping I'll be dazzled and keep my mouth shut,” Maggie said, nodding. “Long ago I was told that if you sell your book to the movies, take the money and run—never look back. They change everything, and not for the better, either.”

She took one last, large bite, knowing she'd never eaten a Popsicle so quickly, and hoped she wouldn't get an ice cream headache. She just knew she didn't want to watch Alex watching her as she licked and sucked on the thing. Not for another second. “I still can't believe we're going.”

“And if the filming hadn't been so abruptly moved from California to England, we wouldn't be, not with your fear of an earthquake the moment the plane landed. I do agree that everything seems so suddenly rushed, but I look forward to returning to England.”

Maggie closed one eye and lowered her head as she looked at him. “You've never
been
to England, Alex. I've never been there, so you can't have been there. Until you and Sterling somehow made a break for it out of my imagination, you've never
been
anywhere.”

“Have you tried to pop us back in, Maggie?” Alex asked, his expression suddenly serious. “Lord knows, these past weeks have been difficult between us.”

Mentally, Maggie was in her bedroom, her head under her pillow. “I…I'm really not ready to discuss that, Alex.”

“And when would you be ready? I had no choice, Maggie. It was a matter of honor. I am obligated, as a gentleman, to protect my own.”

She hopped to her feet. “There you go again. Your own? Since when am I yours? Who asked you to protect me? You…what you did…you—oh, forget it.”

“The man had a choice.”

“The
man
didn't know he was up against a freaking Scarlet Pimpernel! And do you know what's the worst? You're not sorry. You don't see that you did anything wrong. A man is
dead
, Alex.”

“A man who would have ordered you and Sterling and me dead, then gone out to supper with his cohorts. I know. The past is the past, and the incident over and done. Shall we just agree to disagree on this one?”

“We're not debating politics here, Alex. I want…I want you to understand that I made you, and that means I'm at least partially responsible for what you do, even if you are doing this
evolving
stuff you keep talking about.”

Alex stood up as well, fished his quizzing glass out of his slacks pocket, and slipped the black grosgrain ribbon over his head. “So, I am not responsible for you, but you are responsible for me?”

“Yes…no! Oh, hell, I don't know.” She touched his arm. “I just know I don't want to go on like this. Being so damn polite to each other, dancing around each other, but not really being friends anymore.”

“We were never friends, Maggie,” Alex said, his voice low, intimate. “We were very nearly lovers. What is it the Comte De Bussy-Rabutin said? Oh yes. ‘Love comes from blindness, friendship from knowledge.' Perhaps it would be better if we were to become friends first.”

Maggie wet her lips, tried to ignore that her heart had skipped a beat. “Start over, you mean? I don't know…I guess we could try. I mean, you're here. You're definitely here. I don't know if you'll disappear one day, you and Sterling, but for now? You are here…”

“And I've missed you horribly,” Alex said, moving fractionally closer. He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek. “I've missed your smiles, I've missed your laughter, I've missed our occasional forays into that something more we'd begun to explore in each other.”

He was doing it again. Oh, he was good. And, boy, she was easy. “Alex…please, you said we'd start over. This isn't exactly starting over. This is more starting in the middle, and much as I—oh, hell!”

Behind her, she could hear the loud
buzz-buzz-buzz
from the earpiece of her headset.

She recognized a lucky escape when she saw one, and took it, hurrying over to hit the Talk button on the phone, cutting off the off-the-hook warning.

“I guess I'm not connected anymore,” she said, trying to smile.

Alex smiled, too, and his smile hurt her. “No, we're not, are we? Well, if you'll excuse me, Maggie, I believe I should find my way to the bank, along with some other errands. I want to discuss something called traveling checks, for our trip. You understand.”

“Traveler's checks, Alex, not traveling checks, although, literally, that is what they are,” Maggie said automatically, reaching for the headset again, for the phone had begun to ring. “Takeout pizza for dinner?”

“I'm sure Sterling would enjoy that. I'll have him arrange an order for six o'clock. We could dine in our apartment, in front of the television machine, while I'm being educated in the matter of the Way-Bac Machine.”

“Perfect,” Maggie said, grabbing the headset, then turned her back on him as she hit the Talk button. “Hello? Oh, hi, Steve. Meet you for a late lunch? Ummm…I'm not sure. Where?”

She turned back, to see that Alex was still standing there. She grabbed the mouthpiece, squeezed her hand around it. “It's Steve,” she said, smiling as brightly as she could.

“My regards to the good
left
-tenant,” Alex said, and bowed himself out of the apartment before Bernice Toland-James could ask a third time: “Maggie? Is that you?”

“I'm sorry, Bernie.” Maggie collapsed into her desk chair. “I don't know why I did that.”

“Did what? Oh, never mind. Look, I want to come over, okay? I've read the manuscript.”

“And?”

“And I'll bring lunch.”

Uh-oh. Instant panic, insecurity about talent being the curse of every writer. Had her talent disappeared? Had she ever really had any talent? Maybe she'd been faking it for years, and now it had finally caught up with her. “Bernie? What did you think of the book? You have a problem with the book? What's wrong with the book? Nothing's wrong with my book, Bernie. Is it?”

“Give me an hour. I'll be there in an hour.”

As she listened to the dial tone, Maggie considered, then discarded, the idea of collapsing headfirst onto her desk once more. “This day just keeps getting better and better…”

S
aint Just returned to his own apartment, caught between amusement at Maggie's rather adorable fierceness when dealing with the vagaries of the uncaring world and a small sadness that the breech between them still sat like a huge elephant in the middle of her living room, with neither of them daring to do more than periodically mention its existence.

She could, it seemed, create a hero…she just couldn't understand one.

“Sterling?” he called out, snatching up his sword cane from its resting place in—how coincidental?—a plaster stand in the shape of an elephant. “Have you changed your mind about accompanying me to the bank?”

Sterling Balder, wiping his hands on the “Kiss the Cook” apron tied around his pudgy waist, emerged from the kitchen, his cheeks floury white. “I've nearly got it, Saint Just,” he said, shoving his spectacles higher on his nose. “I think this next batch will be the charm.”

“More scones, Sterling? I thought we'd discussed this. We have enough paperweights as it is.”

Sterling's lower lip came out in a pout. “That's not nice, Saint Just. Mrs. McBedie insists on serving those English muffins, as she calls them, but I just know scones would be much more the thing, if I could only master them. You should have more faith in me, and all of that. Besides, Henry likes my scones. He's living in one of them, as a matter of fact, having eaten his way in.”

Saint Just winced. He'd told himself to forget about the tension between Maggie and himself, but obviously he'd allowed it to color his mood. “My deepest apologies, Sterling, I've become a beast. I'll be happy to sample one of this new batch with my tea the very moment I return.”

“Could you possibly stop at Mario's on your way back? It being Mrs. McBedie's day off, I thought we could have cold sliced meat for dinner.”

“Maggie has already requested pizza, if that's all right?” Saint Just asked, heading for the door once more. “And you have enough on your plate with the scones.” Saint Just knew that he'd have more than enough on his own plate—more stone-hard scones. “I'm also convinced this batch will be the charm.”

“Thank you, Saint Just. You're a good man.”

Saint Just considered Sterling's praise as he employed the tip of his sword cane to depress the call button for the elevator. Sterling was a good man, a good soul. He wasn't quite that certain about himself.

Once out on the street, Saint Just donned his new black, wide-brimmed hat—the one Maggie called his Riverboat Gambler hat—and tucked his cane under his arm, not in the least believing either accessory an affectation, or at all out of place with his midnight-blue silk knit pullover and tan slacks. And, because he was Saint Just, it all worked.

His confident, long-legged stride took him the few blocks to his bank, the one he had chosen after much online research; a choice Sterling had seconded because new account holders were rewarded with a chrome-and-black toaster oven.

He stepped into the building, his hat in his hand, and easily made his way to his favorite teller, Mrs. Halliday, as there was only one other customer in the bank at the moment. Two, if he counted a second gentleman at one of the tables, scribbling on a deposit slip.

“Good afternoon, my dear,” he said. “Aren't you looking well today. And how is your son? Still with the footballers?”

“Yes…er, thank you,” Mrs. Halliday said, not looking at him. “How may I help you today, sir?”

Saint Just frowned, lowered his voice. “Is something amiss, Mrs. Halliday?”

She smiled then, a rather plain woman whose smile could make her quite attractive. Except this smile was more of a rictus and eminently unflattering. “A very fine day, yes, it is.”

The hairs on the back of Saint Just's neck began to prickle as he felt someone looking hard at his back. He reached into his pocket, slowly extracted his money clip. “I was hoping you could exchange this for smaller bills,” he said, pulling out a one-hundred-dollar bill and slipping it across the countertop.

With fumblings fingers, Mrs. Halliday opened the drawer and pulled out five twenties, quickly counting them out. Not at all usual; Mrs. Halliday always gave him three twenties, three tens, and two fives, just as he preferred. “Have a nice day, sir,” she said, folding her hands on the counter without picking up the larger bill.

“I'll make a point of it, madam. Good day,” Saint Just said, then turned, seemingly oblivious of the man at the desk, the second man at the first teller's cage.

His cane in his hand, no longer tucked under his arm, he replaced his hat, setting it at a slight tilt, and strolled leisurely toward the door, then out into the street.

Where he stopped, stepped in front of the thick wall beside the glass doors, flipped open his cell phone, and pushed two buttons. Lieutenant Wendell's number was one Saint Just had in the phone's memory.

Three rings, and the Lieutenant answered.

“Wendell, my good man, Alex Blakely here. Would it be at all possible for you to stop by my bank?” He gave him the address. “You are nearby, correct? Or is Maggie meeting you somewhere?”

“Maggie? I haven't talked to Maggie in a week. She doesn't return my calls. I know she's got a deadline and everything, but I was beginning to—why should I meet you at your bank? What's up?”

“Possibly nothing, possibly quite a bit. You haven't answered me. Are you close by?” As for the other—how very interesting. But he'd have to consider Maggie's fib another time; Mrs. Halliday had very clearly put her dependence upon him.

“No, I'm way the hell up in—Blakely, what in hell did you do now? Are you playing hero again? No, don't tell me. Oh, cripes—tell me.”

“So indecisive, my friend. Is it any wonder Maggie can't find it in herself to perceive you as a serious beau?” Saint Just stepped forward, held up his hand to a woman approaching the door to the bank, shook his head. “As you're unavailable, perhaps you'd allow for a substitute? Any of your number will do. Lights and sirens are always so welcome. But I really must go now.”

He folded the phone, slipping it back into his pocket as he smiled at the woman. “I'm dreadfully sorry to inconvenience you, madam, but it would appear the bank is being robbed at the moment. Perhaps you could visit our branch on Broadway? It's also a full-service facility. Thank you, and please call again,” he said, bowing, giving a slight tip of his hat as the woman all but ran down the street.

Saint Just then smiled at passersby, tipping his hat another time or two, before taking a final, quick peek through the gold-toned window, and moving to just beside the door, to stand at the ready.

The door opened, his cane came out and up at knee level, and the first man through the door found himself sprawled facedown on the sidewalk, what breath was left in him effectively expelled when his partner tripped and landed on top of him.

It was all rather lovely…quite a bit like slow-motion dominoes.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” Saint Just said as a loud alarm began to ring inside the bank, and people on the sidewalk variously stopped, stared, shrieked, or moved along with an intensity of purpose that all but shouted, “Not my table, not my problem.”

With the tip of his cane pressed against one jugular, the heel of his classically stylish shoe firmly planted in one back, Saint Just then posed rather like a hunter with his first kill. An excited couple, speaking rapid Japanese, kept their mini videocam rolling, so that Saint Just, always polite, bowed to them.

He was, however, distracted by the sound that seemed to go
poof
inside the open black plastic bag one of the men had dropped—signaling the explosion of the dye pack an adventurous teller had placed inside it.

He was definitely distracted by the small, dusty cloud that served to turn one leg of his new slacks a garish purple.

“Oh dear, an unexpected punishment for performing a good deed. Ah, and look at you. That's going to leave a mark, isn't it, poor fellow?” Saint Just asked the robber closest to the open bag, but the man, his face and hair now purple, only coughed, blinking furiously.

More excited Japanese, with the woman hitting her companion's shoulder to get his attention, and Saint Just realized that the tourist was now eager to capture for posterity the arrival of a few of New York's Finest.

That was fine with Saint Just. He had been wondering what he was going to do when the robbers recovered their breath and realized they outnumbered him two to one. Brandishing his sword cane on a city street at midday certainly wasn't the action of a prudent man. He'd happily turn over the miscreants to the police, and be on his way.

At least, that was his intention. As it turned out, the uniformed policemen had other ideas for his immediate future, which, unfortunately, had a lot to do with slamming him up against the wall, telling him to “spread 'em,” and then slapping him in handcuffs.

There was often no justice in this world.

But, Saint Just realized as he heard his name being called by none other than Holly Spivak, she of the traveling Fox News van, in America there is always the media.

 
 

Maggie opened the door and stood back as Bernice Toland-James swept into the apartment: tall, slim, her mane of inspired bushy long red hair flying like a flag in her self-created breeze. Designer clad, chemically peeled, silicone enhanced, suctioned and tweaked, lifted and toned, Bernie was that most dangerous of females: powerful in business, perimenopausal, and newly sober.

She was also Maggie's editor and very best friend.

“Here you go. Liverwurst is yours, salami's mine,” Bernie said, flinging out her arm, so that the paper bag she held nearly clipped Maggie on the nose. “Got any cigarettes? I forgot mine at the office, damn it.”

Maggie took the bag and put it down on the coffee table, beside the two glasses of lemonade she'd poured the moment the doorman buzzed Bernie's arrival. Socks would have just let her come up, but this new guy was by-the-book. Which was good, because Bernie's arrival could be startling enough, without her showing up unannounced.

“You know I quit, Bernie, and I'm carrying the extra ten pounds to prove it. What do you think kills more—cigarettes or obesity? Never mind. But I've got a spare nicotine inhaler around somewhere, if you want it.”

“Yeah, right,” Bernie said, kicking off her shoes before sitting on one of the couches, pulling her long legs up under her. “That's like a scotch on the rocks minus the scotch. No thanks. Besides, you look stupid with that thing in your mouth, no offense.”

“None taken,” Maggie said, collapsing onto the facing couch. “I love being told I look stupid. What's wrong with the manuscript?”

Bernie dug in the bag, pulled out the sandwiches. “Here you go. Let's eat.”

“Let's eat and talk,” Maggie said, taking the foil-wrapped sandwich, then grabbing a snack-size bag of potato chips, leaving the tortilla chips for Bernie. She ripped open the bag, carefully positioned five potato chips directly on her liverwurst, then replaced the top piece of seeded rye bread and squished the sandwich between her hands. Gourmet all the way. “What's wrong with the manuscript?”

Bernie held up a sienna-tipped finger as she nodded her head and chewed, finally swallowed. “You're a great writer, Maggie. The best. The Saint Just Mysteries are top drawer. I always knew you could write. Never a problem there. Really. Sales? Sales are terrific. You're carrying us on your back, Mags, so I can say as both your editor and your publisher, Toland Books is damn grateful.”

“But? Come on, Bernie. We both know there's a big
but
coming.”

Bernie took a sip of lemonade, winced. “But…how do I say this nicely? Okay, I've got it. But this book stinks on ice. One hundred thousand words that demonstrate why editors drink. Sorry, honey.”

“It…it…oh, it does not!”

“Not the writing. The writing's great. Really. But who wants to read
The Case of the Lamenting Lordship
?”

“
The Case of the
Lonely
Lordship
,” Maggie corrected. She'd never really been nuts over the title, which probably should have told her something. She hated working without a title. “It's a little dark, I admit it.”

Bernie pushed her hair back, used its length to tie it in a knot. “Saint Just spends two thirds of the book contemplating his navel and the last third going around making amends for being a bad, bad man, like he's doing some kind of wacko Regency twelve-step program. I had to prop my eyelids up with toothpicks to read it for more than ten minutes at a time. Where's the joy? Where's the humor? Where's the murder in this murder mystery, for crying out loud? And we're not even going to talk about the sex, because there wasn't any.”

Maggie looked down at her sandwich, her appetite gone. “He killed a man, Bernie. He had to come to terms with what he'd done.”

“Oh, yeah, right. He killed a man. Big deal. The guy was no good anyway. Saint Just's a hero—
our
hero. If I wanted someone wringing his hands and beating his breast for four hundred pages, I'd buy—hell, I wouldn't buy that cheap, lazy, manipulative pap. I hate that drivel. Everybody cry? Spare me.”