The Eighth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Correct again.”

  He uncrossed his knees, crossed them in the other direction. He fussed with the hanging trouser leg to make certain the crease was unwrinkled. Then he sipped his vodka reflectively, tinking the rim of the glass gently against his white teeth.

  Really a beau ideal: slender, graceful, with all the right moves. A wry smile—but that may have been part of his act. There was a certain theatricality about him; I had the sense of his being always on. But that didn’t diminish his attractiveness. He was possibly, I thought, the handsomest man I had ever seen—except for my oldest brother, Tom, who could have been minted on the obverse of a Greek drachm with a laurel wreath around his head.

  “I understand Al Georgio is handling the case for the cops,” he said suddenly.

  I nodded. “You know Detective Georgio?”

  “We’ve worked on a few things together,” he acknowledged.

  “Do I detect a slight note of hostility in your voice?” I asked him.

  “Slight,” he admitted, coming down hard on the irony. “But it’s got nothing to do with Al personally. I really like the guy. It’s just that he’s police, and I’m insurance, and sometimes the two don’t see eye-to-eye.”

  “I can’t understand that,” I said. “Both of you want the same thing, don’t you? To catch the crook.”

  “Sometimes,” he said, “but not always.” He leaned forward, forearms on his knees, holding his drink with both hands. Very serious, very intent. “Look,” he said, “here’s how it works: Say a goniff steals something. Call it a painting we’ve insured for a hundred grand. The cops go to work trying to find out who did it. Now the guy who stole the painting will be lucky to get ten percent from a fence. That’s ten thousand dollars. So he contacts us and makes a deal. We pay him say, twenty thousand, and he returns the painting to us. He gets double what a fence would pay him, and we’re out twenty grand—which is a hell of a lot better than paying out a hundred grand in insurance.”

  I stared at him. “How long has this been going on?” I demanded.

  He laughed. “Since property insurance was invented. Actually, the thief isn’t stealing something of value; he’s kidnapping it and holding it for ransom. The cops hate it, because when we pay ransom, the crook strolls away whistling a merry tune.”

  “I can see why the police would dislike deals like that,” I said. “But doesn’t it cost insurance companies a bundle?”

  “So we raise premiums,” he said, shrugging.

  “You think that’s what might happen with the Demaretion?”

  “It could.”

  “Has anyone called you, offering to sell back the coin?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Hey, I came here to ask you questions, and it seems to me you’re doing all the asking.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Ask away.”

  He grinned ruefully. “Can’t think of anything else. We seem to have covered all the bases. At Grandby’s, they told me you’re called Dunk.”

  “That’s right.”

  “May I call you Dunk?”

  “Sure.”

  “Only if you call me Jack. I admit Jack Smack sounds like caramel popcorn, but I’ve learned to live with it. I hope we can work together on this thing, Dunk. I know you’ve been put on unpaid leave of absence—which was entirely unfair and unwarranted in my opinion—and you’ll want to clear your name. So maybe if the two of us can put our great brains together on this, you’ll be back to work before you know it.”

  He smiled winsomely. A hard guy to resist. Al Georgio was charming, too, but Jack Smack was charming consciously. Every woman over the age of four is able to spot the difference. Which doesn’t mean we’re able to resist the deliberate charmer.

  He got up to go, then paused for a moment. Dramatic effect.

  “By the way,” he said casually, “no one lifted a single coin from a sealed display case within a taped container. I think the container itself was switched.”

  After he was gone, I reflected that I had met two tall, handsome men in the last few hours—so the day wasn’t a total loss. But I recognized angrily my own stupidity at not seeing that stealing container thirteen and substituting a similar box (sans Demaretion) in its stead was the only way the robbery could have gone down.

  Two male investigators, Georgio and Smack, had seen it at once. And I, witness and participant, had been racking my poor, feeble brain trying to imagine how it had been done. It was humiliating.

  I have always been a competitive type; I suppose those driveway basketball games with my brothers contributed to that. Anyway, I was determined to show Georgio and Smack that I wasn’t just another pretty face; I had brains. Feminism had nothing to do with it; it was personal.

  I reasoned this way:

  I accepted their theory that container thirteen had been switched. It was the only way the Demaretion could have been stolen. But when I exhibited the empty display case to Hobie in Grandby’s vault, it was absolutely identical to all the other teakwood cases with glass lids that housed the Havistock Collection. I was willing to swear to that.

  Which meant there had to be at least fourteen display cases—right? And an empty extra, sealed, was substituted for the one containing the Demaretion.

  Now then…what was the name of the guy Archibald Havistock said had made the cases? “The best man for that kind of work in the city,” he had told me. First name Nate—that I remembered. But the last name? Calesque? Colliski? Callico?—something like that. And he worked in Greenwich Village. I grabbed up the Manhattan telephone directory and Yellow Pages, and started searching.

  It took me about fifteen minutes, but I found him: Nathaniel Colescui, custom carpentry, with a shop on Carmine Street. I pulled on beret, suede jacket, shoulder bag, and rushed out. Practically sprinted over to 86th Street and Broadway. Took the downtown IRT. All the short people in the subway car stared at me, but I was used to that.

  I got off at Houston Street and walked back to Carmine. Colescui’s shop wasn’t hard to find. It was right next to a pub-type restaurant that had a legend gold-leafed on its window: FOUNDED IN 1984. That tickled me—but I guess when a restaurant lasts two years in Manhattan, it’s something to brag about.

  Colescui’s window didn’t brag, it just said: CUSTOM CARPENTRY, EVERYTHING TO ORDER. Inside, it smelled pleasantly of freshly sawed wood, and there was a fine mist of sawdust in the air. The middle-aged black woman pounding away at an ancient typewriter at the front desk was wearing a hat, and I could understand why.

  She stopped her typing when I came in. “Hep you?” she asked.

  “I’d like to inquire about having a display case made,” I said. “For coins.”

  She swung around on her swivel chair and yelled into the back room. “Nate!” she screamed. “Customer!”

  I heard the diminishing whine of a power saw switched off. Then a twinkly gnome of a man came out of the back, pushing goggles up onto his bald skull. He was wearing a leather apron over what looked like a conservative, three-piece business suit, plus white shirt and jacquard tie. And all of him—scalp, eyebrows, suit, apron, shoes, everything—was coated with sawdust, as if someone had gone over him with a shaker, sprinkling vigorously.

  He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. He looked up at me, smiled, and said, “Now if you and I had a son, he would be just right.”

  “Great idea,” I told the old man. “When do you want to start?”

  “Oh-ho,” he said. “A fresh lady. I like fresh ladies. Clara, did you hear that? When do you want to start, she asks me.”

  “I heard,” the typist said, then addressed me. “Don’t listen to him; he’s all talk and no do.”

  That made the little guy laugh. His method of laughing was to clamp his dentures, press his lips tightly together, close his eyes and shake. His whole body bounced up and down.

  When the seismic disturbance was over, I said, “Mr. Colescui?”

  “The same,” he said, “but a fresh lady like you ca
n call me Nate.”

  “Nate,” I said, “I came to ask about having a display case made for my coin collection. Do you do things like that?”

  “Everything I do,” he said. “Display cases, tables, chairs, bookcases, picture frames—whatever. What size display case you thinking of?”

  “I was at a friend’s house the other night,” I said, faintly ashamed of myself for scamming such a nice man in this fashion, “and he kept his coin collection in beautiful cases he said you had made for him. I was wondering if I could get one case like those he had.”

  “Oh-ho,” Nate Colescui said, head tilted to one side. “And what was this customer’s name?”

  “Havistock. Archibald Havistock.”

  He went to a battered file, pulled open the top drawer, began rummaging through folders. “Habley, Hammond, Harrison…Yes, here it is: Havistock.” He withdrew the file, opened it, began reading, holding it close to his nose. “Oh my yes, I remember this now. Several years ago. A big order. The finest teak, tempered glass lids, velvet lining, recessed brass hardware. Everything the best.” He peered up at me in a kindly way. “And expensive.”

  “How expensive?” I asked him.

  “Mr. Havistock paid four hundred dollars a case. But as I say, that was several years ago. I’m afraid it would be considerably more today. Say six hundred a case.” He must have seen my shock, for he added, “Of course I could make the same size case in pine, maybe maple or cherrywood. Put the hardware on the outside. Skimp a little here and there. Make it affordable.”

  “But it wouldn’t look like Mr. Havistock’s cases.”

  “No,” he said, with an understanding smile, “it wouldn’t.”

  “Well, that’s that,” I said, sighing. “I had no idea they cost that much.”

  He shrugged. “A lot of work. Dovetail joints. Everything just so.”

  “How many cases did Mr. Havistock have made?” I asked casually.

  He consulted the file again. “Fifteen.”

  “Wow,” I said. “My poor little coin collection isn’t worth that much. Well, thank you for your time and cooperation, Nate. If I ever decide to have a case made, I’ll bother you again.”

  “No bother,” he protested. “It’s always a pleasure to talk to a fresh lady like you. Stop in anytime.”

  I left the shop and tramped north to Sheridan Square. The day had started out balmy, but now there was an edge to the wind, and the blue had disappeared behind a screen of muddy clouds. Pedestrians were beginning to hustle, and I noticed several were carrying furled umbrellas. That always amazed me about New York: It can be a perfectly clear day, then clouds come over, it begins to drizzle, and suddenly everyone has an umbrella—except me.

  But the possibility of getting caught in a shower, and having my suede jacket spotted, didn’t concern me half so much as those fifteen display cases Archibald Havistock had purchased. Thirteen of them housed his original collection. That left two empty extras, presumably stored in the Havistock apartment.

  If one of the extras was missing, it would be proof positive that it had been substituted for the case containing the Demaretion. I was gloating over my newly discovered talents as a detective when I stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, stunned by the realization that the thief might have removed the Demaretion and left its case with the other extra. Result: two empty cases, just as there should be.

  But then, resuming my brisk walk to the subway station, I reflected that if the crook had done that, the case he replaced would show signs of having been sealed: the residue of sealing wax and masking tape. Unless the thief had been clever enough to have the case refinished.

  Groaning, I began to appreciate the complexity of the detective’s art. All those imponderables, what-ifs, and possibilities. I felt a grudging admiration for Al Georgio and Jack Smack. But then, if they could pick their way through a thicket of facts, fantasies, and suppositions, so could I, and I resolved to continue my new career as Girl Detective.

  It turned out to be the most important dunk shot I ever tried to sink.

  7

  AL GEORGIO PICKED ME up in his grungy blue Plymouth. He waited until we were in traffic, heading for the Havistock apartment on East 79th Street, then he let me have it.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “What?” I said, startled.

  “Why did you go down to see Nate Colescui yesterday?”

  “Oh…” I said confusedly. “Oh, that. Well, I wanted to find out how many display cases Havistock had. Because that empty case was the real thing. So if it was substituted…” My voice trailed away.

  “Leave the detecting to the professionals, will you?” he said angrily. “I go down to Carmine Street this morning and find you and Jack Smack have been there before me. Colescui doesn’t know what the hell is going on. He gets three people asking about Havistock’s cases.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said humbly. “I just wanted to find out where the extra came from.”

  “Ahh…” he said disgustedly, “I’m not sore at you. It’s my ego that’s suffering. Because you and Smack thought of it first and got there before me. No harm done. I called Havistock. Yes, he bought fifteen cases. He had two extras, kept in a closet in his bedroom. I asked him to check. He came back on the phone and said there’s only one extra case now. One is missing. That was the empty switched for the Demaretion case.”

  I thought about it for a while.

  “That clears me, doesn’t it?” I asked him. “I couldn’t have known about the extra cases. And even if I had, how would I know he kept them in his bedroom closet? He never mentioned them.”

  “Oh, you’re clean,” he said. “As of now. And, for the same reasons, so are the guys on the armored truck.”

  “Well, then…” I said, trying to puzzle it out, “who does that leave?”

  “The family,” Al Georgio said. “As they say in dick shows on TV, it was an inside job.”

  We drove through Central Park in silence for a while. Then:

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Dunk,” he said.

  “That’s all right, Al,” I said. “I really didn’t mean to interfere with your job. I was just so anxious to clear myself.”

  “Sure, I can understand that. But don’t do any more prying on your own. Someone committed a crime. I don’t want to scare you, but when you’re dealing with big bucks like this, anything can happen.”

  “You mean I could be in danger?”

  “People do wacky things when a lot of money is involved. And a lot of years in stir.”

  I didn’t believe him. Was I ever wrong!

  “When we talk to these people,” he went on, “let me carry the ball. You tell your story as honestly and completely as you can. Then I’ll see how they react and take it from there.”

  “Whatever you say, Al,” I told him.

  We all met in the living room of the Havistock apartment, a cavern I had never seen before. I mean the place was a mausoleum, swaddled in brown velvet, and I had to resist an impulse to take off my beret and look around for the open casket. If an organ had started to boom “Abide with Me,” I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

  Awaiting us were Archibald Havistock, wife Mabel, married daughter Roberta Minchen with husband Ross, Orson Vanwinkle, and a lady introduced as Lenore Wolfgang, Mr. Havistock’s attorney. She was almost as tall as I, but blockier: a real linebacker wearing a black gabardine suit that looked like it had been hacked out of a hickory stump.

  We all shook hands, showed our teeth, and got seated on those horrendous velvet couches and obese club chairs. Not at all daunted by the crowd, Detective Georgio took charge immediately, and orchestrated the entire interview. I had to admire his stern, no-nonsense manner.

  “I am going to ask Miss Bateson,” he said, “to relate in detail, to the best of her recollection, exactly what happened on the morning the coin collection was packed and shipped to Grandby’s. Please do not interrupt her. When she has finis
hed, I will ask you, Mr. Havistock, and you, Mr. Vanwinkle, if your memories of that morning differ in any appreciable degree from her account. Miss Bateson?”

  So I began my recital again, as familiar to me now as “Barbara Frietchie,” which I memorized in the 5th Grade: “Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn…” As I spoke, almost mechanically, I looked from face to face, zeroing in on daughter Roberta Minchen and hubby Ross.

  She was a dumpling, swathed in a high-collared, flowery chiffon, loose enough to hide the bulges. A florid face with popping eyes and pouty lips. Her hair was cut short, which was a mistake. I thought she had a kind of blinking, rabbity look. Maybe that was due to her incisors: big and glistening.

  Husband Ross was one of those solemn young men, prematurely bald, who comb their thinning locks from one side to the other. Awfully pale, with the grave look of a professional mourner. I remember that he cracked his knuckles until his wife reached out to stop him. While I was delivering my spiel, I had a sudden, awful vision of those two in bed together, and almost lost the thread of my discourse.

  I finished and looked brightly at Al Georgio.

  “Thank you, Miss Bateson,” he said. “Very complete.” He turned to Archibald Havistock. “Now, sir, does your recollection of the events differ from what you’ve just heard?”

  Havistock stared at me, expressionless, heavy jaw lifted. “No,” he said decisively. “Miss Bateson has given an accurate account.”

  “Mr. Vanwinkle?” the detective asked. “Any corrections or additions?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the secretary said, with a languid wave. “It happened just as she says.”

  Al Georgio took out his pocket notebook, a ballpoint pen, and made a few jottings. It seemed to impress everyone—except me. Then he sat back, crossed his knees, took a deep breath.

  “All right,” he said. “Now we’re at the point when Miss Bateson and Mr. Vanwinkle leave the library and the taped cases and go out into the corridor to send in the armored truck guards. Correct?”

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s how it happened.”