Mask Market (12 page)

The two of us were probably the only ones in the car not jabbering into cell phones. The fool next to me, clearly annoyed that the racket might actually render his own conversation private, compensated by damn near shouting the “Just checking in!” opening he’d already used half a dozen times in a row. Some of the howler monkeys tried to sound businesslike, asking if there had been any calls—apparently
not
—but most of them dropped the pretense and just blabbered what they thought was important-sounding crap. They weren’t talking, they were fucking broadcasting—using volume as signal strength. We were all captives.

I caught the paranoid’s eye, made a “What can you do?” face. He studied me for a split second, then nodded down at the thick briefcase he had across his knees and twisted his lips a millimeter.

The fool next to me said, “Hello. Hell
-o
!” before pushing a button on his phone to disconnect. He hit another button—my money was on “redial”—then stared blankly at the little screen, as if it would explain some deep mystery. All over the train car, people were shouting into their phones but not getting a response.

“Dead zone,” I heard someone say, smugly. “We’ll pass through it in a minute.”

I locked eyes with the paranoid across from me long enough to realize that the smug guy had it all wrong. Portable cell-phone jammers are expensive—good ones go for a couple of grand—but they’re a reasonable investment for a lunatic who wants to make sure nobody watching him can report back to HQ. I would have offered the jammer a high-five, but I suspected that would start him suspecting me. So I leaned close, whispered, “You should carry a phone, too. Just in case one of these morons ever looks around and does the math.”

He nodded sagely. After all, I wasn’t one of Them.

Who says therapy doesn’t work?

H
auser’s car was waiting just where he promised—a dark blue ten-year-old Lexus ES300 with a spare key in a magnetic box under the front fender. It had Westchester tags, with registration and insurance papers in the glove box, plus a today’s-date note on the letterhead of the magazine Hauser works for, saying that Mr. Ralph Compton was using the vehicle with his permission.

I never felt more like a citizen.

I didn’t remember exactly what Beryl’s father did for a living—if he’d ever actually told me—but I figured the odds on my finding someone home at the residence were good, even if it was only the maid.

The Lexus was front-wheel drive, but I didn’t need that extra safety cushion—the roads had been precision-plowed, and it was too sunny for black ice to be a problem. I drove around until I found a reference point, then went the rest of the way on autopilot, guided by the signals from my memory.

I get those a lot, and I always trust their truth. For most, I wish I didn’t.

The house was a three-story mass of wood and stone that had been built to look like a carefully preserved antique. No cars in the circular drive, but the door to the detached garage was closed. The place felt like someone was home.

I couldn’t spot a security camera, but that doesn’t mean much today, not with tiny little fiber-optic eyes everywhere. I parked at the extreme end of the drive, at an angle. Anyone who wanted the license number would have a long walk to get it. I strolled up the driveway, casual.

A pewter sculpture of a bear’s head was centered in the copper-painted door. I saw a discreet silver button on the right jamb, pushed it, and was rewarded with a sound like wind chimes in a hurricane.

The click of heels on hardwood told me whoever was coming to the door wasn’t the cleaning lady. I felt myself being studied. The door opened—no security chain—and a tall, too-skinny woman regarded me for a second before saying “Yes?” in a taking-no-chances voice. She was way too young to be the wife I’d never met, but maybe Preston had gotten a divorce, and picked up a trophy on his next hunt.

“Ms. Preston? My name is—”

“Oh,” she said, smiling. “We haven’t had anyone asking for them in quite a while.”

“You mean they—?”

“Moved? Yes. At least…well,
we’ve
owned the place for…it’ll be eight years this summer.”

“Damn!” I said, shaking my head ruefully. “I haven’t seen Jeremy since I moved to the Coast. I just got back, so I thought I’d drive out and surprise him. That’s what I get for not staying in touch.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, putting more sincerity into it than I expected. “I know the house was on the market for some time before we bought it. If we had known how prices were going to go through the roof, we never would have bargained back and forth for so long, but my husband…”

“I’m the same way,” I assured her. “You wouldn’t know where they moved to, by any chance?”

“I’m afraid not. We never met them, actually. Everything was done through brokers and lawyers. You know how that is.”

“I do. Well, sorry to have bothered you, then.”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

I turned to go.

“Mr….?”

“Compton,” I said, turning back toward her.

“Would you like to leave a card? I don’t think there’s much hope, but I
could
give the broker a call, and see if she has any information….”

“I’d be very grateful,” I said. I took out a business card for Ralph P. Compton. It had a midtown address—I’ve got a deal with a security guard who works there; I slip him a hundred a month, and he slides any name I tell him into the building’s directory—and a 212 number that would dump into one of the cell phones at my place.

She took the card, held my hand a little too long. I knew where that came from; one of the worst things about being locked up is how boring it gets, even in a mink-lined cell.

I
returned the Lexus, took the near-empty train back to Grand Central, grabbed the subway downtown.

The car I picked was densely packed, but there was an empty seat on the bench at the end of a row. I started for it, but the woman sitting in the next spot pointed at a suspicious puddle on the gray plastic seat, warning me off.

Three stops later, when she thought no one was looking, the woman reached into her handbag, took out a small bottle of water, and freshened the puddle.

That held off all applicants until a guy wrapped in about seven layers of coats and an even thicker odor stumbled in. The woman frantically pointed to the puddle on the seat next to her. The homeless guy took that as an invitation, and plopped himself down. The woman jumped up like he’d hit the other end of her seesaw.

The homeless guy had an empty seat next to him for the rest of the time I was on the train.

Many paths to the same door.

I
stopped by a deli on my way home, planning on grabbing a sandwich to go. But the tuna looked suspicious and the egg salad looked downright guilty, so I passed.

I looked a question at Gateman as I stepped through the doors.

“All good, boss.”

“You have lunch yet?”

“Yeah. I had the Korean kid from down the—”

“Okay, bro,” I told him.

“I got the paper, you want to check last night’s Yonkers.”

I hadn’t bet anything last night, but I took his copy of the
News
anyway.

N
o messages waiting.

I had roasted almonds and papaya juice for lunch, idly going through the paper by habit, a soldier scanning the jungle even when there’s been no activity reported in the area.

If I hadn’t gone cover-to-cover, more to kill time than anything else, I would have missed it. The gossip column had an unsourced item: “What financier’s wife had filed for divorce just weeks before he was gunned down on the streets of Manhattan?” Then some stuff about how the wife had charged him with adultery, naming a “Ms. X” as the co-respondent.

I went back through the paper. Nothing. Which meant the cops had already talked to the wife, and knew a lot more than they were releasing.

I wished I was one of those private eyes in books; they’ve all got a friend on the force. I didn’t, but I knew someone who did.

“S
he’s not going to meet with you,” Pepper said, letting a drop of vinegar into her sweet voice. “Nothing’s changed. And it’s not going to.”

“I just want to ask a question. Not of her, okay? A question I want her to ask one of her pals.”

“Ask me,” Pepper said, unrelenting.

B
y the time I remembered that I had a date with Loyal that night—worse, that I had promised to take her somewhere special, somewhere she could really dress for—it was edging into five o’clock.

“Davidson,” the lawyer’s bearish voice growled into the phone.

“It’s me,” I said. “You still repping the guy who owns Citarella?”

“The stores or the restaurant?”

“The restaurant.”

“Josephs by Citarella, yeah. Who wants to know?”

“An old pal, who desperately needs a reservation for two.”

“So call and make one. They’re open to the public.”

“Uh, it’s for tonight.”

“Christ. Business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

“Then you won’t need the window.”

“Come on.”

“This worth me using up a favor?”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“Call me back. Half an hour. And, Burke…”

“What?”

“Make sure you order the fish—that’s the specialty of the house. And there’s no apostrophe in ‘Josephs,’ so don’t make a fool of yourself telling them there’s something wrong with their sign.”

T
he hostess at Josephs treated me like royalty, proving she wasn’t just a pretty girl but a damn fine actress.

“Oh, this is
gorgeous,
” Loyal said, tapping her foot as she tried to decide between sitting with her back to the window and missing the glittering view along Sixth Avenue, or facing the window and making everyone in the restaurant miss their view of her.

The hostess immediately tuned to her wavelength. “The corner is perfect,” she advised.

Loyal seated herself, glanced to her right out the window, to her left at the other tables, and, finally, across at me. “You’re so right,” she said to the hostess, flashing a megawatt smile. “Thank you.”

I still had the image of Loyal’s little foot in the emerald-green spike heels, tapping a toe so pointed it looked as if it would deform her foot.

“How do you get your feet into those shoes?” I asked her.

“What?” she said, sharply. My sister’s voice rang in my mind like an annoyed gong.
You are a hopeless, hapless idiot.
Her refrain, when it came to me and women.

“No, no,” I said, hastily. “I meant the
toes.
They’re so…radical.”

“Oh, don’t be so silly,” she said, shaking her head at my stupidity, but mollified. “They’re just for show.”

I’m no gourmet—Davidson is, even though every meal I’d ever shared with him was sandwiches in his office—but I could tell the food was world-class. Loyal did her trick of appearing to really chow down, but only picking at her food as she moved it around her plate. I didn’t mind.

“Lew,” she said, looking up from her perfectly presented crusted arctic char, “you know a lot about money, don’t you?”

“Who really
knows
about money?” I said, positioning myself for a deflection move.

“Oh, stop! You know what I mean. I’ve got a problem, and I wanted to ask your advice.”

I heard the Prof’s voice in my head. We were back on the yard, and he was explaining women to me.
If all you want is gash, all you need is cash. But if you want a woman’s heart, you gotta do your part. One way or the other, there ain’t no such thing as free pussy, Schoolboy. There’s always a toll for the jellyroll.

So I was on all-sensors alert, but all I said was, “Sure, girl.”

“Well, you know what the real-estate market has been like, right? I mean, it’s just
insane.
Even
studios
are going for half a million in some parts of the city.”

“It’s a bubble,” I told her, with more confidence than I felt.

“That’s what people say,” she said, nodding as if to underline the words. “But if it’s a bubble, when is it going to burst?”

“If I knew that…”

“I know. But I feel like I have to do
something,
before I miss out.”

“But you already have a—”

“That’s exactly it!” she said, excitedly. “I bought that apartment
ages
ago—well, not
ages,
of course,” she interrupted herself, not being old enough to have done
anything
too long ago, right?—“but it
feels
like that, the way the market keeps rising and rising.”