Seventh Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. Unless Lew found out something and had to be silenced.”

  “And then Solomon Guthrie found out that same something and also had to be silenced?”

  He stared at her. “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Dora said. “Very possible.”

  Sighing, Rushkin opened the deep bottom drawer of his desk and dragged out the thick bundle of computer printout. He weighed it in his hands a moment. “You know,” he said, “I don’t know whether I hope you find something or hope you don’t. If you find nothing, then my guilt at treating Sol so shabbily will be less. If you find something, then I fear that people I know and love may be badly hurt.”

  “It comes with the territory,” Dora said grimly, took the bundle from his hands, and jammed it into her shoulder bag. “Thank you much for your help, Mr. Rushkin. I’ll keep in touch. If you want to reach me, I’m at the Hotel Bedlington on Madison Avenue.”

  He made a note of it on his desk pad and she started toward the door. Then she stopped and turned back.

  “You knew Lewis Starrett a long time?” she asked.

  Rushkin’s smile returned. “Since before you were born. He was one of my first clients.”

  “My boss told me to ask you this: Did he have a mistress?”

  The smile faded; the attorney stared at her stonily. “Not to my knowledge,” he said.

  Dora nodded and had the door open when Rushkin called, “Mrs. Conti.” She turned back again. “Many years ago,” the lawyer said.

  She waited a long time for the down elevator and then descended alone to the street, aware of how a lonely elevator inspired introspection. In this case, her thoughts dwelt on how fortunate she was to give the impression of a dumpy hausfrau. If she had the physique and manner of a femme fatale-private eye, she doubted if Arthur Rushkin, attorney-at-law, would have revealed that his beamy smiles masked an inner grief.

  She hustled back to the Bedlington, clutching her shoulder bag as if it contained the Holy Grail. Double-locked into her corporate suite, she kicked off her shoes, put on reading glasses, and started poring over the computer printout, convinced she would crack its code where two others before her (men!) had failed.

  She scanned it quickly at first, trying to get an overview of what it included. It appeared to be a straightforward record of gold purchases abroad; shipments of gold by the sellers’ subsidiaries in the U.S. to Starrett’s Brooklyn vault; sales of bullion by Starrett to its branch stores; sales by the branches to small, independent jewelers in their areas.

  Then she went over it slowly, studying it carefully. The documentation was all there in meticulous detail: numbers and dates of sales contracts, shipping invoices, warehouse receipts, checks, and records of electronic transmission of Starrett’s funds overseas. Dora reviewed every trade, even double-checking addition, subtraction, and percentages with her pocket calculator. Everything was correct to the penny.

  Suddenly, at about 9:30 P.M., she realized she was famished; nothing to eat all day but that measly tuna sandwich at lunch. She called downstairs hastily and caught the kitchen just as it was about to close for the night. She persuaded an annoyed chef to make her two chicken sandwiches on wheat toast—hold the mayo. While she awaited the arrival of room service, she brewed a pot of tea, using three bags.

  And that was her dinner: sandwiches that tasted like wet cardboard and tea strong enough to strip varnish from a tabletop. As she ate, she started again on the computer printout, going slowly and methodically over every trade, looking for any evidence, however slight, of something awry. She found nothing.

  By midnight her eyesight was bleary and she gave up. She took a hot shower, thinking that perhaps Solomon Guthrie had been imagining wrongdoing. And if there was something amiss, as Mike Trevalyan had suggested, she couldn’t find it in Starrett’s gold trades.

  But she could not sleep; her brain was churning. She tried to approach the problem from a new angle. If Arthur Rushkin, his computer expert, and she had been unable to find anything wrong in the details of the printout, perhaps the corruption was implicit in the whole concept of bullion trading. Maybe there was a gross flaw, so obvious that they were all missing it, just as Mario sometimes said, “Where’s the dried oregano?” when the jar was in plain view on the countertop. Then Dora would say, “If it had teeth, it’d bite you.”

  At 2:00 A.M. she got out of bed, turned on the lights, donned her reading glasses again. This time she flipped through the printout swiftly, trying to absorb the “big picture.” She saw something. Not earthshaking. And perhaps it was innocent and could easily be explained. But it was an anomaly, and frail though it might be, it was her only hope.

  She searched frantically through her shoulder bag for that folder she had picked up at Starrett Fine Jewelry the previous morning: the charge account application that also listed the addresses of Starrett’s branch stores. She checked the location of the stores against the computer printout.

  Then, smiling, she went back to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

  19

  “THIS KIR IS TOO sweet,” Helene Pierce complained.

  “You were born a woman,” Turner said, “and so you’re doomed to eternal dissatisfaction. Also, it’s a kir royale. Now eat a grape.”

  He had frozen a bunch of white seedless grapes. They were hard as marbles, but softened on the tongue and crunched delightfully when bitten.

  The Pierces were slumped languidly in overstuffed armchairs in Turner’s frowzy apartment, having returned from lunch at Vito’s where they had pasta primavera, a watercress salad, and shared a bottle of Pinot Grigio. Now they were sodden with food and wine, toying with the kirs and frozen grapes, both smiling at the memory of their rice-and-beans days.

  “I have something to tell you,” Helene said.

  “And I have something to tell you,” he said. “But go ahead; ladies first.”

  “Since when?” she said. “Anyway, Clayton asked me to marry him.”

  Turner’s aplomb shattered. He drained his glass.

  “When did this happen?” he asked hoarsely.

  “A few days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

  “No rush,” she said. “He has to ask mommy’s permission first.”

  “Sure,” Turner said, “she owns the company now. He’s really going to divorce Eleanor?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Shit!”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Helene said. “How are we going to handle it?”

  “Before we compute that, I better tell you my news; it’ll give you a hoot. Felicia wants to marry me.”

  They stared at each other. They wanted to laugh but couldn’t.

  “This family’s doing splendidly,” Turner said with a twisted smile. “What did Clayton offer?”

  “Financial security. A prenuptial agreement on my terms.”

  “Pretty much what Felicia offered me. There’s a lot of loot there, kiddo.”

  “I know.”

  “Damn it!” he exploded. “Things were going so great, and now this. How long can you stall Clayton?”

  She shrugged. “As long as it takes him to get a divorce. If Eleanor hires a good lawyer, it could be a year. Stop biting your nails.”

  He took a deep breath. “It means we’ll have to revise our timetable. Another year on the gravy train and that’s it.”

  “What about Felicia?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “You want to cut and run right now?” she asked curiously.

  He shook his head. “It took a lot of time and hard work to set up this deal. It’s just beginning to pay off; I’m not walking away from it. And besides, if I split, Ramon would be a mite peeved.”

  “The understatement of the year,” she said.

  He nodded gloomily. “I’ll figure out how to handle Felicia; it’s Clayton I’m worried about.”

  “You worry too much,” she told him. “Leav
e it to me.”

  “If you say so,” he said doubtfully, and went into the kitchen to mix more kir royales.

  Helene straightened up in her armchair, lighted a cigarette slowly. She heard him moving about, the gurgle of wine, clink of glasses. She looked toward the kitchen door, frowning.

  She had caught something in his voice that disturbed her. Not panic—not yet—but there was an uncertainty she had never heard before. He was the one who had taught her self-assurance.

  “Just don’t give a dam’,” he had instructed her. “About anything. That gives you an edge on everyone who believes in something.”

  And that’s the way they had played their lives; amorality was their religion, and they had flourished. And as they thrived, their confidence grew. They thumbed their noses at the world and danced away laughing. But now, it seemed to her, his surety was crumbling. She imagined all the scenarios that could result from his weakness and how they would impact on her life.

  He brought fresh drinks from the kitchen, and she smiled at him, thinking that if push came to shove, she might have to make a hard choice.

  20

  DORA AWOKE THE NEXT morning convinced that her brainstorm of the previous night had been exactly that: a storm of the brain. Now, in the sunny calm of a new day, it seemed highly unlikely that the peculiarity she had spotted in the computer printout had any significance whatsoever. There were a dozen innocent explanations for it. It was a minor curiosity. It would lead her nowhere.

  But still, she reflected glumly, it was all she had, and it deserved, at least, a couple of phone calls. So she dialed Arthur Rushkin. He wasn’t in his office yet, and Dora continued calling at fifteen-minute intervals until, at about 10:30, she was put through to him.

  “Did you find anything?” he asked eagerly.

  “Not really,” she said, wondering if dissembling was part of her job or part of her nature. “I just have a technical question, and I was hoping you’d be willing to give me the name of that computer expert you consulted.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Rushkin said slowly. “His name is Gregor Pinchik, and he’s in the Manhattan directory. He has his own business: computer consultant for banks, brokerages, credit card companies, and corporations.”

  “Sounds like just the man I need.”

  “There are two things you should know about him,” the attorney went on. “One, he charges a hundred dollars an hour. And two, he’s an ex-felon.”

  “Oh-oh,” Dora said. “For what?”

  “Computer fraud,” Rushkin said, laughing. “But since he’s been out, he’s discovered there’s more money to be made by telling clients how to avoid getting taken by computer sharpies like him. Shall I give Pinchik a call and tell him he’ll be hearing from you? That way you won’t have to go through the identification rigmarole.”

  “It would be a big help. Thank you Mr. Rushkin.”

  Then she phoned Mike Trevalyan in Hartford.

  “Are you on to anything?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Dora said again, “but something came up that needs a little digging. Mike, remember when you were telling me about Starrett Fine Jewelry? You said that about a year ago Clayton Starrett fired most of his branch managers and put in new people. And about the same time he started trading in gold bullion.”

  “So?”

  “Starrett has fifteen branches in addition to their flagship store in New York. What I need to know is this: Which of the branch stores got new managers a year ago.”

  “I’m not sure I can get that,” Trevalyan said, “but if it’s important, I’ll try.”

  “It’s important,” Dora assured him.

  “How come I always end up doing your job for you?”

  “Not all of it. The other thing I wanted to tell you is that I’m going to hire a computer consultant.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Because I need him,” she said patiently. “Technical questions that only an expert can answer.”

  “How much does he charge?”

  “A hundred dollars an hour.”

  “What!” Trevalyan bellowed. “Are you crazy? A hundred an hour? That means the Company will be paying twenty-five bucks every time this guy takes a crap!”

  “Mike,” Dora said, sighing, “must you be so vulgar and disgusting? Look, if you needed brain surgery—which sometimes I think you do—would you shop around for the cheapest surgeon you could find? You have to pay for expertise; you know that.”

  “Are you sure this guy’s an expert?”

  “The best in the business,” she said, not mentioning that he had done time for computer fraud.

  “Well … all right,” Trevalyan said grudgingly. “But try to use him only for an hour.”

  “I’ll try,” she promised, keeping her fingers carefully crossed.

  Her third call of the morning was to Gregor Pinchik, whose address in the directory was on West 23rd Street.

  Dora gave her name and asked if Mr. Arthur Rushkin had informed Pinchik that she’d be phoning.

  “Yeah, he called,” the computer consultant acknowledged in a gravelly voice. “He tell you what my fees are?”

  “A hundred an hour?”

  “That’s right. And believe me, lady, I’m worth it. What’s this about?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it on the phone. Could we meet somewhere?”

  “Why not. How’s about you coming down here to my loft.”

  “Sure,” Dora said, “I could do that. What time?”

  “Noon. How does that sound?”

  “I’ll be there,” she said.

  “It’s just west of Ninth Avenue. Don’t let the building scare you. It’s being demolished, and right now I’m the only tenant left. But the intercom still works. You ring from downstairs—three short rings and one long one—and I’ll buzz you in. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Dora said. “I’m on my way.”

  The decrepit building on West 23rd Street had scaffolding in place, and workmen were prying at crumbling ornamental stonework and brick facing, allowing the debris to tumble down within plywood walls protecting the sidewalk.

  Dora nervously ducked into the littered vestibule and pressed the only button in sight: three shorts and a long. The electric lock buzzed; she pushed her way in and cautiously climbed five flights of rickety wood stairs, thinking that at a hundred dollars an hour Gregor Pinchik could afford a business address more impressive than this.

  The man who greeted her at the door of the top-floor loft was short, blocky, with a head of Einstein hair and a full Smith Brothers beard, hopelessly snarled. But the eyes were alive, the smile bright.

  “Nice place, huh?” he said grinning. “I’m moving to SoHo next week, as soon as they bring in power cables for my hardware. Watch where you step and what you touch; everything is muck and mire.”

  He led her into one enormous room, jammed with sealed wooden crates and cardboard cartons. His desk was a card table, the phone covered with a plastic cozy. He used his pocket handkerchief to wipe clean a steel folding chair so Dora could sit down. She rummaged through her shoulder bag, found a business card, handed it over.

  Pinchik inspected it and laughed. “I know the Company,” he said. “Their computer system has more holes than a cribbage board. I got into it once—just for the fun of it, you understand—and looked around, but there was nothing interesting. Tell your boss his computer security is a joke.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Dora said. “You’re a hacker?”

  “I’m a superhacker,” he said. “I protect my clients against electronic snoops like me. Which means I have to stay one step ahead of the Nosy Parkers, and it ain’t easy. By the way, your first hour of consultation started when you rang the doorbell.”

  Dora nodded. “Mr. Rushkin tells me you reviewed the computer printout from Starrett Jewelry and found nothing wrong.”

  Pinchik made a dismissive gesture. “That wasn’t real computer stuff,” he said. “It was just data processing. Y
ou could have done the same thing with an adding machine or pocket calculator, if you wanted to spend the time.”

  “But it was accurate?” she persisted.

  “Accurate?” Pinchik said, and coughed a laugh. “As accurate as what was put into it. You know the expression GIGO? It means Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you feed a computer false data, what you get out is false data. A lot of people find it hard to realize that a computer has no conscience. It doesn’t know right or wrong, good or evil. You program it to give you the best way to blow up the world, and it’ll chug along for a few seconds and tell you; it doesn’t care. Did Rush-kin say I’ve done time?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me tell you how that happened,” he said, “if you don’t mind wasting part of your hundred-dollar hour.”

  “I don’t mind,” Dora said.

  “I’ve got an eighth-grade education,” Pinchik said, “but I’m a computer whiz. Most hackers have the passion. With me, it’s an obsession. I was a salesman in a computer store on West Forty-sixth Street. I could buy new equipment at an employee’s discount, and I was living up here paying bupkes for rent. I worked eight hours a day at the store and spent eight hours hacking. I mean I was writing programs and corresponding electronically with people all over the world as nutty as I was. I can’t begin to tell you the systems I got into: government, universities, research labs, military, banks—the whole schmear.

  “Now you gotta know I’m a divorced man. My wife claimed she was a computer widow, and she was right. She’s living in Hawaii now, and I understand she’s bedding some young stud who wears earrings, beats a drum, and roasts pigs for tourists. But that’s her problem. Mine was that I had to send her an alimony check every month. Getting bored?”

  “No, no,” Dora said, thinking of Detective John Wenden and his alimony problems. “It’s interesting.”

  “Well, those monthly alimony checks were killing me,” Pinchik went on. “I could have afforded them if it hadn’t been for my obsession; all my loose bucks were going for new hardware, modems, programs, and so forth. So one night I’m up here noodling around, and I break into the computer system of an upstate New York bank. Just for the fun of it, you understand.”