“Call Jane. Tell her we need to get into her place. She owes you on this. We’ll go up the fire escape from there, and I’ll take out a window with a baseball bat if I have to.”
“And what about Sandra Green?”
He gave her a look. “We’ll do what we have to, Lucy.”
Lucy called Jane, and they made the arrangements. By the time Jane came down to let them in, Lascovich’s workers had cleaned up the shattered glass and stuck a plywood panel onto the door. He and his wife were back upstairs in their office.
They trooped up to Jane’s place—the elevator remained unfixed—and went in. Her place was cluttered with paintings of dogs, for that’s what she did. Painted dogs. She did lovely dog portraits for uptown ladies, and street drawings of mutts for downtown dudes. But her floor layout was much the same as Lucy’s: at the far northwest corner, three steps rose to a door that led out onto a fire escape that hung off the north side of the building, overlooking Broome Street. A row of tall windows ran the length of that side of the building on each floor. Theoretically, they could go out on this level and go up one flight and from the fire escape somehow break into Lucy’s place. Lucy had never installed alarms, the glass was ancient, the window-locks even more ancient. Harold had not a bat but a small crowbar, just in case the mysterious Sandra Green was there and had some muscle around. You never knew.
After checking to make sure Lascovich wasn’t down on the corner where he could spot them, they went out and quietly ascended the fire escape from the fourth to the fifth floors. They found the shades up on all the windows, on both north and west sides. They looked in. No one moving. They tried the access door. Unlocked, weirdly enough. They opened it and went in to Lucy’s home.
“Oh no,” she cried out, for they had walked into a place that had been utterly destroyed. Furniture broken, papers strewn, food thrown and smeared, shit everywhere, stench overwhelming, the scene was complete, hideous chaos—and there was no one to be seen. “Oh my God, Harry, she’s ruined my house.”
“What a fucking mess,” he said. “Let’s check the kitchen and bath. And keep it down, Lucy. She might—”
“You know she’s gone, Harry. She did this and left,” Lucy said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Lucy Ripken,” the woman said, emerging from the bathroom. She wore purple velvet bellbottoms, a skintight, ab-revealing stretchy t-shirt, and big tinted glasses; she wore her hair long and blonde, and had Claud the poodle on a very short leash, about eighteen inches long. His head was muzzled. Harry made a move towards her but she tightened the leash and suddenly a knife appeared in her other hand. She held it to Claud’s throat. He whimpered, scared. Harry stopped.
“Claud!” Lucy cried out. “What the—how did you—what are you doing with my dog?” she said.
“Well I don’t know just yet,” Sandra Green said. “It all depends, I guess, on what you two do next. Oh, by the way, I’ve certainly enjoyed staying here in your loft this past few days. It’s quite a nice place.” Eyes on them, she sat down, in the only unbroken chair in the kitchen. They were in the doorway between kitchen and main loft area, watching her. She held Claud tightly, with the knife close to his throat. Behind her, the refrigerator door hung open. All the dishes were smashed to scattered pieces, and the oven door was ripped off the oven.
“What the hell do you want, lady?” Harry asked. “For God’s sake, he’s just a dog. He’s got nothing to do with…”
“Shut the fuck up, Ipswich,” she snarled, and suddenly flicked the knife at Claud’s ear, slicing it open.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. What the—“
“You’re not Sandra Green,” Lucy said, stunned. The snarl had done it. “Oh my God. You’re…”
She took off the tinted glasses, and smiled at them. “That’s right, Lucy, you stupid bitch. It’s me.” With a browlift and augmentation mammoplasty and liposuction and facial implants and collagen injections and otoplasty. Everything was different except for her dark, nasty eyes, and the slightly cock-eyed, kewpie doll grin.
“Maria Verde,” Lucy said. “I should have known.”
“Goddamn,” said Harold, as stunned as Lucy. Claud whimpered, his ear bleeding.
“What do I want?” Maria said maliciously. “I want you to know this, bitch. I wish I’d taken care of you in Jamaica, and I thought I’d taken care of you in Sayulita, but…”
“Sayulita? What are you talking about?”
“You think you’re such a clever girl, don’t you Lucy,” she said, and glanced down. “Oh dear, your little doggie is bleeding. Well,” She stood. Claud’s ear was streaming bright red blood; she’d hit some kind of vein. It didn’t look serious, but it did look ugly. Lucy could feel Harold’s tension. He was ready to go for her. Lucy restrained him with a hand on his arm. She did not want to lose her dog to this mad bitch.
“Can I please have my dog?” Lucy pleaded. “He’s hurt.”
“He’s gonna be hurt a lot more if you try to come after me,” she said. “Now get out of my way.” They back into the living room. She came towards them, Claud held tightly at her side, muzzled, bloody. “Here’s the deal. I’m going out the door and out of here and if you come after me your dog is dead fucking meat. Understood?”
“Why should we…what guarantee do I have that you’ll…”
“None, bitch. Would you like it I stab him in the heart right now?” she said, pulling him tight and holding the knife to his chest as she dragged him towards the door.
“God, leave him alone. Please don’t…” Lucy couldn’t help herself. Tears streamed down her face. Harold was breathing hard, enraged.
“God damn you, Maria Verde,” he said. “You are…”
“Save it, Ipswich, you stupid cop,” she said. “I’m going so far away you’ll never ever find me, not in Venezuela, not in Jamaica, and certainly not on the site of a certain snowboarding contest in Chile.” She reached back and opened the door. Harold tensed, ready to attack again. As the door swung open she flicked the knife down, and slashed Claud’s other ear. Lucy screamed as her dog yelped in pain. Maria dragged him out the door. “I’m telling you to stay in here for at least an hour. I’ve got a guy watching and he sees either of you come out this dog is dead.” She smiled, and suddenly in spite of all the cosmetic surgery that she’d had, she looked exactly the same as she had on a Jamaican beach a couple of years earlier, pointing a gun at Lucy’s heart. Ugly and insane.
She slipped out and slammed the door. After a beat Harold went for it. “No Harry, you can’t!” Lucy cried. “She’ll…
He stopped. “You’re right. She’ll slit his throat without thinking about it. Christ, what a…”
“Monster. My God. What do we do?”
“Wait an hour. Call the…call who? Who can we call, Lucy?” he said.
“Nobody, while she’s got my dog,” Lucy said.
“I just hope she doesn’t…” he stopped.
“Kill him anyway,” Lucy said. He hugged her as she cried. “God, how did she get into your place too? How did she get Claud?”
“That woman is nothing short of diabolical.”
“How the hell did she know about all that X Dames stuff, Harry? Who is she, for God’s sake!”
They couldn’t think of a single soul to call that could help and Lucy did not want to tell the story to anyone until she found out the ending and so they occupied themselves with beginning the clean-up. Exactly one hour after she’d left, they were about to open the door to head out when Lucy’s cell phone rang. “Lucy here.”
“Is this…do you own a white dog. A big poodle?”
“Yes, I do,” she said frantically. “Is he...”
“Hi. My name’s Luciano. I found your dog chained to a fence in an alley off Great Jones Street a few minutes ago. He’s all bloody but someone wrote this phone number on him so I called and…”
“He’s all right?”
“Yes, he seems fine but he’s all covered with blood from these weird slashes on his ears. I don’t kn
ow what happened but…Oh, one other thing, there was a piece of paper taped to his collar that said on it, “You’ve got mail.”
“You’ve got mail?”
“Yeah. That’s it. Three words.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Starbucks on Astor Place. The dog’s still chained to the fence. I couldn’t…sorry, but…”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Stick around, I’ll have something for you.”
“Cool, lady.” She hung up and handed the phone to Harold. “Call my vet, SoHo Animal Clinic on Prince, say we’ll be there in half an hour. Call a guy who can cut chains and another who can make keys for this door. Once Lasko’s gone for the day we’ll get some made. I’ve gotta check my email.”
Harold made the calls while Lucy set up her laptop and opened an email that had arrived a few moments past.
Dear Lucy
I hope this note finds you well. I must say, I did enjoy my stay in your lovely loft, and I hope that you appreciate just how lucky you are to have such a large and pretty home here in New York. Had you not shown up—the best-laid waves—oops, I mean plans—don’t always work out exactly right—I might have enjoyed living here for a while.
As for me, I’ve been living “south of the border” since, well, since we last saw each other, but I do manage to get back home to the good old USA every now and then. By the way, did you not in all your years here learn about how you can get out of the building by going up on the roof and onto the building behind, on Crosby street, and then into their stair well and down to the street? They never lock their roof door, it seems…oh, but why would you need to know that?
I thought I was going to slit your dog’s throat and leave him on the street out front of your building, but he’s got such sweet brown eyes, and I know from your stupid book about the Yucatan that he’s just a poor little doggie who lost his real masters, so I decided to spare him. If you have gotten around to reading this email, then someone has no doubt called to let you know where I parked him. If it’s been more than a day, well, I guess he’ll be one hungry dog by the time you get to him.
Oh, by the way, I, too, know a good hacker, and so, well…about that money that Bobby Schamberg paid you, that you put in your LA bank account? You can kiss it goodbye. I’ve been having a lot of work done in Brazil, and I found myself in need of a fresh infusion of funds.
I’ll see you one of these years, Lucy Ripken, for I am not done with you yet.
One last thing: In case you hadn’t figured this out, I have been working in “The Industry” for the last year or so, and in The Industry I am known as Sophia Greenberg. Does this come as a complete surprise? After Sayulita, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pay homage to our late, great, surfer girl, Sandra Darwin, and so this is farewell,
Love and Kisses,
Your friend Maria “Sandra Green” Verde
She printed it out and Harry read it while they hustled up to get the dog and give this kid Luciano fifty bucks for his trouble—he was there waiting when they got there, hanging out behind a full and stinky alleyway dumpster. Claud was scared, dirty, and covered with crusted blood, but otherwise OK. A guy with bolt cutters showed up a few minutes later to cut the chain that had bound Claud to an iron railing. They paid the bolt cutter guy and after a few minutes of petting and soothing, they took Claud to the vet. Once he was in the vet’s hands, they grabbed a couple of triple lattes to go and headed back to the loft. By then the day was nearly done and Lascovich was gone. They met the keyman, a “specialist” pal of Harry’s, on the corner and he came up with them. After an hour he had the locks taken apart. An hour later he had a new set of keys and locks in place. They paid him too much money and he left. As they cleaned up, they talked.
“Man, I had no idea she was that diabolical. Harry, we have got to—”
“To what? You know she’s long gone, Luce. But at least you got your place back.”
“Until Lascovich gets wind of us.”
“Her lease ain’t worth shit if she’s not here, Lucy. Especially since the name she used is completely bogus.” He frowned. “God, what is that woman’s name, anyways?”
“Way back when, down Jamaica way, I heard she was once called Sophie Potts.”
“Sophie Potts?”
“That’s what Mickey told me.”
“Well, that name isn’t on any lease, that’s for sure. There’s no way that lease has any legal standing.”
“Hope you’re right, Harry. But I don’t have one either, do I?”
“No but you’ve got a documented history of living here, right?”
“Shit,” she said, and hurried back into the other room to look in her smashed-up desk. “It’s gone.”
“What?” He followed her.
“My documented history, Harry. I had a box of papers locked in this drawer.”
“Jesus, Lucy, why didn’t you take that stuff with you?”
“Harry,” she said, and burst into tears, “Don’t blame me for—” she waved at the horrid mess that had been her home—“for this. Please, Harry.”
He came to her, and held her. “I’m sorry, Lucy. That was lame of me.” They hugged quietly for a moment, until she calmed down. She let go of him.
“Well, I’m going to keep cleaning up. But first, I need to make a few phone calls. I have got to put this thing together.”
“What thing?”
“Harry, Maria Verde or Sandra Sophie Greenberg Green or whatever she calls herself was working on the same TV show I was on. Don’t you want to know how this happened?” Lucy flipped open her cell and speed-dialed an 800 number for a bank in LA. She punched in assorted codes, and then listened to her available balance, read to her by a computer: Twenty-three dollars and forty-seven cents. She’d been robbed of nine thousand four hundred dollars. Next she called Teresa MacDonald.
“This is Terry.”
“Ter, it’s Luce in New York. I need to—”
“Hey Luce, long time no speak. Did you get—what happened with your loft thing? Did you find out—”
“I need to know one thing, Terry.”
Teresa detected the intensity of her tone. “What’s that, Luce?”
“Whose idea was it to hire me for the X Dames?”
“Mine. I mean Bobby’s and mine. I think I suggested it, and—no, it was him. I remember now. He actually asked me to call you.”
“Is he around?”
“Yeah, he came back last night. He called and said he didn’t feel like he needed to be there on the snowboard shoot. Not enough sunshine or babes in bikinis I suspect.”
“Do you have a number for him?”
“Bobby? Yeah, but why would you want to talk to Bobby? You’re not—you didn’t change your mind about working on the show, did you?”
“God no, of course not, Terry. It’s just that I’m trying to figure out a really bizarre connection that I think he’s part of.”
“What’s that?”
“The person who sneaked into my loft—and split before I could catch her, but meanwhile shredded the place and apparently stole all my money—was Sophie Greenberg.”
“The producer? What are you talking about? She’s down in Chile.”
“She was. And is probably on her way back. But she’s the one who—God, this is too weird. I met this woman a couple of years ago in Jamaica, and had a serious run-in with her. She almost shot me for breaking up a drug operation she had going. I think she changed her name to Sophie Greenberg somewhere along the line, and had some surgery done, and emerged, somehow, in Hollywood. Or Mexico, I don’t know. But I’m trying to figure out how and why she hooked me into this deal.”
Teresa was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Well, if you guys really had some serious issues—you and Sophie that is—that would be the why of it. And I would say you just found a motive for what happened to you down in Sayulita as well. Lucy, all I can say is be careful. These are scary people. Here’s Bobby’s personal cell.” She gave her the numb
er. “I’ll sign off since I’m sure you want to get on it. Keep me posted.” They clicked off. Lucy punched in Bobby and he answered.
“Schamberg here.”
“Hi Bobby, this is Lucy. Lucy Ripken, remember me?”
“Lucy! Remember you!? How could I forget you, baby? Hey, I’m sorry about the, ah, employment termination, but after what happened I didn’t think you’d want to be working with my partners any more, and—”
“Forget about that, Bobby, its just sludge under the bridge at this point. But listen, I was wondering, I mean I know you said you read my book and I know that I came highly recommended by our mutual pal Teresa, but I really need to know who it was that first suggested that you hire me to work on the show.”
“It was Terry, I’m sure—no, you know what, to tell the truth, I’m thinking back, and I remember Judy had a copy of your book before I even talked to Terry about it. And I think she said something about how you would be a good person to hire because you weren’t a TV writer but you seemed tuned in to womens’ sports and also knew your way around Mexico. So yeah, I guess it was Judy. Why? What’s up?”
“So how did you and Judy find Sophie Greenberg and Ruben Dario, your producer partners?”
“Judy knew Sophie from way back, she said. They met when Sophie was working as a writer and had interviewed her for a story on womens’ sports for one of those ladies’ magazines. Then she’d been in and out of Latin America for a few years, and she’d made some great connections. That’s how we found Ruben. Hey, he had money to throw at us, what was I going to say? I mean to this day I’m not sure if you and Teresa got it right with your murder conspiracy thing, but it makes for a great subplot and I think we’ve got a hell of a show to open with as a result. Doncha think so?”
“I guess, Bobby. I’m glad it worked for you. Oh, just one other thing. Who does your books? You know, payroll and such, for Schamberg Productions?”
“That was part of Judy’s gig.”
“Right. That makes sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She would have had Lucy’s personal and financial information right at her fingertips. That money was gone for good.
X Dames: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 3) Page 16