Sideswipe (25 page)

"How much do you get here?"

"The same twenty-two a year. It's the going scale for a condo this size, but these wealthy people, who think I'm scraping along, don't ask me to do much of anything. Down in N.M.B., some of those old ladies even expected me to drive 'em to the fucking grocery store. I do real well here at Christmas, too. Absentee owners send me fruit from that place in Oregon. Last year I got four lugs of Comice pears."

"Next time you have a meeting," Hoke suggested, "why not have Detective Figueras give the owners a little pep talk on security. Anybody who's away for six months or more and leaves jewelry in his apartment is also leaving a cold trail if it's stolen."

"Would you do that, Officer Figueras?" Carstairs asked.

"Sure. It might take the pressure off both of us. Just call me at the station a day or two before you have a meeting."

"Thanks, Mr. Carstairs," Hoke said. "We're going to look around a little."

The manager nodded and lighted another cigarette with his Zippo. Hoke and Figueras got into the elevator, and Hoke punched the PH button.

"Thanks for the volunteer lecture," Figueras said. "But it's a little late now, isn't it, for a talk on security?"

"If they aren't doing the things you tell 'em, it might get Carstairs off the hook. He seems like a decent guy."

"Yeah, he does. But he ought to switch back to Camels soon. Those menthol cigarettes are killing him."

The elevator stopped at the roof exit, and the door opened automatically. They stepped onto a railed redwood deck that covered a fifty-foot square of the flat roof. Part of the deck had aluminum roofing, in blue and white panels. There was a metal blue-and-white patio set of table and four chairs beneath the roof section. The table and all four chairs were bolted to the deck to prevent strong winds from blowing them away. One twin-glass floor-to-ceiling window faced the deck, but the red vertical Levolors were closed. Hoke pressed the white button beside the doubledoor entrance to the penthouse. Figueras took out a crumpled package of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches from his jacket pocket, looked at them for a moment, and put them back. While they waited, Hoke looked out over the ocean. From this height it resembled an ironed sheet of Mylar. Out in the Gulf Stream, four or five miles away, three tankers steamed south. Thanks to them, Hoke reflected, the soles and toes of hundreds of feet would collect little pieces of tar when they walked on the beach. All of the motels and apartment houses kept metal containers of benzine and paper towels by the outside showers so that bathers could clean it off their feet. The tar was worse this year than Hoke could ever remember it.

Mr. E. M. Skinner, wearing royal blue slippers and a yellow silk happi coat over his purple silk pajamas, opened the door. He blinked in the strong sunlight.

"I was taking a nap," Skinner said. "I thought I heard the bell, but I wasn't sure. Today's Hirohito's day off."

"Hirohito?" Hoke took off his sunglasses.

Skinner smiled. "My Japanese houseboy. Actually, he's a Nisei, and his real name's Paul Glenwood. I sometimes call him Hirohito just to kid around. Come in, gentlemen."

"This is Detective Figueras," Hoke said. "He's the Riviera officer investigating the burglaries you were telling me about down on the beach."

Skinner nodded and shook hands with Figueras. "I think Carstairs mentioned your name to me." Hoke walked inside before Skinner could shake his hand and looked around the living room.

The room was large but seemed bigger because it was so sparsely furnished. There was a polished parquet floor, with no rugs to hide it. At the northern end of the room there was a grouping of leather overstuffed chairs and small black lacquered tables. A bar, covered in black leather and with two red-cushioned rattan stools, was directly behind the grouping. The other end of the room, apparently a dining area, was furnished with a glass-topped mahogany table and eight cushioned, wrought-iron chairs. A Nautilus machine, with four brown leather roller pads, incongruously occupied the space between the conversation area and the dining setup. There was a long pass-way counter into the kitchen, but the counter had a pull-down door, and it was closed. Hoke could see only part of the kitchen through the opened doorway. There were a half-dozen closed doors along the hallway, so Hoke concluded that Skinner had separate rooms for work and for play, and at least three bedrooms.

"I was telling Sergeant Moseley, Mr. Figueras," Skinner said with a thin smile, "I don't have my daily martinis until five, but that restriction doesn't hold for you. What will you gentlemen have?"

"I guess I could stand a beer," Figueras said.

"Nothing for me, thanks," Hoke said.

Skinner went behind the bar and rubbed his hands together. "Michelob okay?"

"Anything that's cold," Figueras said.

Skinner opened the bottle and poured part of it into a glass, then set the glass and bottle on the bar. Figueras had his Luckies and matches out. He looked at the bar, and at the tables, but there were no ashtrays. For the second time, Figueras put his cigarettes away. One of the small lacquered tables held two elaborately carved wooden fishes. There were floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls, but the closed vertical Levolors darkened the room. The track lighting above the bar was on dimly. There was a chandelier above the dining table, but it wasn't lighted.

"When you first heard about the burglaries, Mr. Skinner," Hoke asked, "did you check your own apartment for missing items?"

"I didn't have to check. I'm here all year round. And when I'm not here, Hirohito's here."

"You two are never out at the same time?"

"I didn't mean that. I mean, Paul lives in. He has his own bedroom. Sometimes when I go out at night he drives me. When I go to a party in Palm Beach I like to have two or three drinks, and I won't risk a D.U.I. Two double martinis, even watered down with ice, will register a big point one-four on the Breathalyzer, I've heard."

"It depends on the size of the person," Figueras said, taking a sip from his glass. "But they've been cracking down on drunk drivers. People who used to get a warning are now either doing a little jail time or community service."

"What kind of community service would I do," Skinner said, smiling, "if I happened to get caught? Not that I ever will, of course."

"It's up to the judge. But a Palm Beach corporation lawyer, two weeks ago, was assigned to work for sixty days putting on a new tar-and-pebble roof on school buildings in the county. Working with boiling tar, out in the sun all day, is pretty rough community service for a lawyer. But a barmaid I know got off easy. She licked stamps in the judge's office when he ran for reelection. They haven't established any firm guidelines yet, so it's still up to the whim of the judge."

Hoke cleared his throat. "So you haven't missed anything?"

"Not a thing. And if something was missing, Paul would tell me."

"I notice you don't have any paintings."

"I have paintings. A man has to have some collectibles for diversification. But I keep my paintings in my strong room, together with my certificates and Krugerrands and so on. No one goes in there but me. Not even my houseboy has the combination. I had the strong room put in while the Supermare was still under construction."

"What kind of paintings?"

"Well, I've got five Picassos--drawings, not paintings-- and two Milton Averys."

"Could we take a look at them?"

"They're investments, not for showing. I'd be glad to show them to you, but they're wrapped up in brown paper and sealed. When Milton Avery died, my Averys almost doubled in value, but I don't like either one of them. Collectibles are just a hedge against inflation, as we say."

"Figueras," Hoke said, "would you mind going outside on the deck to finish your beer and smoke a cigarette for a few minutes?"

"Why?"

"Because I asked you in a nice way, and I know you want a smoke." Hoke put his sunglasses on the bar.

Figueras gave Hoke a look and poured the rest of the beer into his glass. Then he lighted a Lucky, took the glass of beer with him, and went out through the front door. As the door clicked behind Figueras, Hoke took a step forward and hit Skinner in the stomach with his right fist. The blow was hard and unexpected, and air whooshed from Skinner's lips in a strangled scream of fear, pain, and surprise. He clutched his stomach with both hands as he dropped to the floor, and kept making little ah, ah, ah sounds as he struggled for breath. This man, Hoke thought, has never been hurt before. Except for a toothache, maybe, he has never known any real pain. Certainly Skinner was handling his pain in a craven way. He drummed on the floor with his heels until his slippers fell off. When he regained his breath he began to cry, and he crawled backward away from Hoke. His fingers, scrabbling behind him, could get very little purchase on the polished floor. It took almost half a minute before his back hit the black leather chair behind him. His eyes popped wildly as he stared up at Hoke, and tears ran down his cheeks. He pressed his fingers into his stomach gently. "You--you broke something inside..."

Hoke nodded. "Lots of little things. Capillaries, for the most part, and some muscle shredding, but I was an inch or so below the solar plexus. Haven't you ever been hit in the belly before?"

Skinner shook his head. "Jesus Christ, that hurt! It still hurts!"

Hoke took Skinner's right hand and pulled him to his feet. He twisted the unresisting arm behind Skinner's back, and then put some upward pressure on it.

Skinner squealed. "Jesus Christ, man!"

"Let's go take a look in your strong room, Skinner. I want to check your collectibles against my property list."

"It's all there: Sergeant, every bit of it! You're breaking my goddamned arm!"

It was all there: the brown-tone cartoon; the tiny Corot, only twelve by fourteen inches, but with a gilded frame; and the Giacometti sculpture, an anorectic figure a foot high, mounted on a thick ebony base. The Klezmer turned out to be a painting of a tiny piece of yarn, about one inch in length, but the picture was in a two-by-two-foot black frame. A small magnifying glass was attached to the frame by a chain so a viewer could see all of the yarn's delicately painted hairs. The jewelry, and there was a good deal of it, including the elephant-hair bracelets, was all wrapped neatly in white tissue paper and packed in a cardboard box.

Skinner now sat in a leather chair. His face was a mixture of pink and gray. He was calmer now, but he covered his face with his hands. After Hoke checked off all the items on his list, he patted Skinner on the shoulder.

"Don't worry," he said, "you aren't going to jail. I wouldn't want something like this to get into the papers. It would be bad for the island and bad for the Supermare. My father's wife still has an apartment here, and it might make the value go down."

"I wasn't going to keep any of these things," Skinner said, looking up and wiping fresh tears from his eyes. "I'm not a thief--I don't even know how you knew I--"

"I didn't know. But I suspected you. I've got a good memory for details sometimes, Skinner. When Helen told me that Mr. Olsen and Mrs. Higdon were instrumental in getting you out of office, and then their names popped up on the list, I figured it had to be you. As the ex-president of the board, you still had a key to the office, so you probably found a way to get into any apartment you wanted to. Isn't that right?"

"I gave my master key back to Carstairs, but I had a duplicate made first in your father's hardware store. I thought that was how you found out."

"I never considered that. I suppose he still has a sales slip on file. But I just figured you went into the office at night, took the extra bolt-lock keys, and then swiped the stuff at your leisure. If I wasn't on the verge of quitting the police force, I wouldn't have hit you. I've been a cop for more than fourteen years, and you're the first suspect I've ever hit. I'd better get Figueras." Hoke put on his dark glasses and adjusted them.

"What'll he do? I mean--"

"By now, he'll need another beer. Put your slippers back on and open him another cold one."

Hoke went to the front door, opened it, and beckoned to Figueras. When Figueras came in, Skinner was behind the bar, opening a bottle of Michelob. "Would you like another beer, Officer Figueras?"

Figueras looked at the paintings and the cardboard box beside the leather chair. He looked sharply at Hoke. "What the fuck's going on?"

"Last night Mr. Skinner found all this stuff on the fire stairs. He didn't turn it over to the manager immediately, because he thought they might think he took it. That's why he wanted to talk to me alone. He was about to phone the police, in fact, when you and I showed up. So what we'll do, Figueras, we'll just say we found it on the stairs ourselves. Okay? Then we can turn it all over to Carstairs, and no one'll ever know the difference. Mr. Skinner's a rich man, with his own strong room full of collectibles. He doesn't need stuff like this. But he's got a few enemies in the building, he says, and this way it won't even make the newspapers."

"If that's the way you want to handle it," Figueras said.

Skinner came gingerly from behind the bar and handed the open bottle of beer to Figueras. Figueras took it and poured the beer over the two carved wooden fish on the lacquered table. He tossed the empty bottle behind the bar and listened appraisingly as it crashed. Then he picked up the cardboard box containing the jewelry. "I'll ring for the elevator, Sergeant. Want to give me a hand?"