“Why not tell you the truth? It doesn’t matter. The money, dear, the money. After I shot Alessandro, he was slow to recover. He’s never gotten back his full scope of killer instincts. He’s changed—all because of you, naturally—and now he’s no longer ruthless and callous. He nearly bankrupted us until I pushed him out. So this modeling will add money to the coffers and give me some fame that I will enjoy. No other reason, Lindsay. Oh, yes, the thrill of seeing you again, the thrill of posing beside you. Just think—the two of us actually working together. I wonder who people will think is the elder?”
“I won’t do it.”
“Of course you will. Or are you still so jealous of me that you couldn’t manage to hide it from a camera?”
“I’m not jealous of you.”
“As you say. As you say.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Sydney.”
“Fine. We meet together with Demos at two o’clock this afternoon. Now, about Father’s wife, Holly. She’s a bitch, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t want to talk about her either.”
“Did you know that she and Father have moved back into the mansion with Grandmother? Holly’s got her eyes on all of Granny’s bucks. Grandmother is eighty-three this year. She still gives Father hell. But then again, she shouldn’t be hanging around all that much longer. He spoke of putting her in a nursing home.”
“No, he wouldn’t! She’s sharp as a tack and has too many connections for him to pull something like that. As for Holly, whatever she does to him, he probably deserves it.”
“I think that’s why Daddy isn’t too fond of you, Lindsay. You’ve always criticized him, made him feel less than a man, made your dislike of him very clear. You always sided with your mother, who is now, incidentally, an alcoholic and sleeping with men your age.”
Lindsay could only stare at her sister. She sliced and cut like a surgeon. Such a fine touch she had. But still, for the first time since Paris, Lindsay didn’t think she’d done too badly. She really needed only the one Band-Aid on her finger.
Sydney rose, straightening her silk skirt. “I think I’ve given you enough to think about. You were never very fast in your mental workings, were you? I will see you this afternoon in Demos’ suite. I trust by then you will have done something with yourself. Oh, do allow me to pay.”
Taylor
Taylor bent over the old man, felt for the pulse in his throat. He was dead, a heart attack it appeared, no overt signs of anything else. But he didn’t believe it was a natural death for a second. He rose slowly, looking around. The woman was gone. Naturally.
He called to Enoch, who’d just come around the corner of the alley. “Get an ambulance and keep your eyes peeled for that woman and the cops.”
Taylor quickly searched the man’s wallet. No I.D., no credit cards, no photos, nothing but a folded piece of paper stuffed down in an inner fold of the wallet. Left by accident? Maybe, but Taylor didn’t think so. He unfolded it and read: “If you see Gloria, tell her Demos is trying to hide, but not for long. He’ll come through. He always does.” It wasn’t signed.
Taylor looked up when he heard the wail of a police siren. He quickly folded the paper. He was on the point of putting it back in the man’s wallet when he stopped. No reason to.
Who the hell was Demos? He sounded like a New Jersey Mafia runner or some lowlife bookie.
Taylor rose when two officers came into the alley, both holding guns.
“Ah, it’s you, Taylor,” said the older cop, putting his gun back into its holster. He waved at the dead man. “What’s going on? Who’s this?”
It was Mahonney from the East Orange police, a paunchy guy, balding, cool-headed, and smart as a whip. The guy with him was a fresh-faced rookie with a bad skin problem.
Taylor wished just then he was back in France and not in a dirty alley in East Orange, New Jersey, standing over a dead body. He’d just come home two weeks before after three weeks covering every rocky inch of Brittany on a Harley.
“I found this in his wallet, nothing else, no I.D., no nothing. Maybe when he was cleaned out this was just missed.”
Taylor handed Mahonney the paper and watched him read it, then shrug. “I don’t know who this Demos character is. You got any ideas, Taylor?”
“Not a one. I was tailing this guy because his wife paid me and Enoch to get the goods on him.”
Mahonney dropped to his knees and looked the dead man over closely. “He looks too old to me to have the energy to go playing around with other women. What would you say, about sixty? Heart attack?”
“Looks like. I don’t see any blood or bruises. But I don’t think his heart just stopped. No, someone did this to him. And yeah, he is too old and I think Enoch and I were set up. This is the first time I’ve seen him up close. The wife showed us a photo of a much younger man, and this guy always wore a hat. You want the wife’s name?”
“The whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” Mahonney said, scratching his left ear. “Why hire you and Enoch to follow him? If someone killed him, why would they want you as witnesses?”
Taylor shrugged. He studied the dead man again. “You know,” he said slowly, “just maybe this killing with us as witnesses is a message to this guy Demos. You know, having two ex-cops around and they didn’t make any difference, the guy’s still dead. Or maybe it’s a message to someone else, who knows? But to use me and Enoch, it does make sense.”
Mahonney nodded. “The arrogance of it smacks of the pros. They’ve got balls to burn. It makes them look invincible, what with you guys dogging the victim. I’m going to talk to the wife. You and Enoch want to tag along?”
“Sure.”
It turned out that the wife who’d hired them wasn’t the dead man’s wife. She accused Taylor and Enoch of following the wrong guy. This old turnip she’d never seen before. He was ugly as sin. She’d have never married him. She was indignant; she refused to pay them a dime. She said they were losers. The cops were suspicious but there was nothing more to go on. Taylor and Enoch thought and thought of ways to nail her but couldn’t come up with anything.
Late the next morning, Enoch walked to their small office on the second floor of the Cox Building on Fifty-fourth and Lexington in Manhattan. The front door was opaque glass with “Taylor and Sackett” printed in bold script. He walked in, picked up the mail from Maude’s desk, went into his and Taylor’s office, and sat down. “All that’s junk mail,” Taylor said, waving a finger at the slew of papers in Enoch’s hands. “Don’t waste your time. Let Maude deal with it.”
“Yeah, okay.” Enoch tossed the pile over his shoulder onto the floor, then looked back at Taylor and grinned. “Shit, man, so now what?”
Enoch slouched forward in the chair, his long arms dangling between his knees.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor said. “We’re not going to starve and Sheila won’t rub your nose in it. I’ve got a computer job coming up on Monday. It’s the Salex Corporation and they’ve got some real bugs in their new export accounting program. They’re paying me big bucks to fix it. We’ll survive. You go to work on the Lamarck case, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. It’s just a matter of finding out who’s selling cosmetic secrets, right? No problem. It’s a small industry with just a few players.” He sighed. “Sheila’s not going to like this at all. She has a fit whenever there’s a dead body lying around and I’m anywhere near it. I was lucky. She was out playing bridge last night so I didn’t have to face her. Jesus, that’s probably why I was a cop, just to bug the old girl. As for the money, well, a thou isn’t too much to worry about, you’re right.”
Enoch had lived with his mother all his forty-two years. They fought like a married couple. He never called her mother. He only called her Sheila, at least to her face. Enoch’s father had died when he was eighteen, and his mom, Sheila, had inherited a cool ten million dollars and a dozen shoe stores. She was wealthy and acid-tongued and a kick. She was also a very talented musician. Taylor was very fo
nd of her. She was always after him to get married again. As for Enoch, Sheila never mentioned marriage for him. As for Enoch, he never mentioned marriage either, even though he’d had a dozen relationships with women over the years.
Enoch said, “I wonder who that Demos guy is.”
“Mahonney told me if they ever found out it would be by informant,” Taylor said. “There are a slew of Demoses in the tri-state area. Good luck. As to that, who wrote the bloody note?”
“I think you’re right, and so do the cops. We were not only set up, but our purpose was to send a message to someone, probably this poor slob Demos. To show him he shouldn’t screw around with the big boys. I talked to Boggs, the coroner, just before I left home. He said the guy was stabbed with a thin circular blade right in the heart. The hole was very small and the bleeding nearly nil, which is why you and Mahonney didn’t see anything. You think the woman did it, this Gloria? Or was it this Demos? Was the woman we saw with him even Gloria?”
“God knows. Mahonney hasn’t even identified the dead man yet. You want a beer?”
“Yeah, it’ll drive Sheila bananas. I’ll even spill a little bit on my coat. She’ll shriek and call me a degenerate.” Enoch grinned and rubbed his hands. “Then I’ll tell her about the body. Give her lots of details.”
“You’re evil, Enoch.”
“It’s part of my charm, Taylor, just part of my charm.”
9
Lindsay
Lindsay stood tall and straight and stiff directly in front of Demos’ desk. She said again, more calmly this time, “I won’t do it, Vinnie. And you won’t talk me out of it, so just forget it.”
“Did I tell you that you look real cute in that outfit, Lindsay? Like a real bow-wow. Is your underwear just as ratty? Glen told me how you’ve got this running-joke battle with the Lancôme ad folk. You’ll win this one, kiddo, hands down.”
“Listen to me, Vinnie. I won’t pose with my half-sister. I won’t be associated with her in any way. I won’t tell anyone she’s any relation to me. I’ll break my contract first and then you’ll have to haul me into court and it’ll be a real mess. But I mean it, I simply won’t do it.”
Vincent Rafael Demos sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. He frowned. Glen always told him his brain was like a chain saw, always hacking and hacking away until the solution to any problem was there, shining clear amid the wreckage. But this time, nothing came to mind.
“You also know why I won’t do it.”
Vinnie shrugged. “Your sister told me it was because you’re jealous of her, that you grew up that way. She also laughed and said she didn’t understand it because, after all, you were already a successful model and she was a nobody. Is that it, kiddo? You’re afraid everyone will want her and not you anymore?”
Lindsay smiled for the first time since she’d entered Demos’ office, a plush but too-stark room with white leather everywhere—sofa, love seat, chairs, even the photos on the walls were framed with white leather. “You know, Vinnie, I thought that too, but just at first. I thought, here she is again, and lo and behold, I’ve got something she doesn’t have, so her first reaction is to outdo me. But no, I’ve thought about it and that isn’t it. I just gave her the idea, that’s all. Look, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m an adult. If it were just a matter of jealousy on my part, I could handle it.”
Lindsay drew a deep breath.
“Come on, spit it out.”
“I won’t pose with her for the same reason you and I came up with the name Eden for me. Just Eden and nothing else.”
“Oh.”
“I know, you forgot.”
“It’s been five years since Paris, Lindsay. Who the hell would care now? No one, not even the scandal sheets. Geraldo won’t be knocking on your door.”
“That isn’t true, and now that you remember, you know it isn’t. I can see it now: ‘La Principessa and Her Little Sister, Lindsay/Eden, Together Again. Sharing Photos, Sharing the Same Man, Again. Will Little Sister Scream Rape This Time? Where’s the Prince?’ No way, Vinnie. Forget it.”
“I hadn’t realized, Lindsay, really, I hadn’t realized you still felt so strongly about it.”
“If you want Sydney for the Arden thing, then she’ll do it alone.” Lindsay tucked her hands into her jeans pockets. They were shaking. She felt cold but she was also determined.
“All right.”
“What’s all right?”
“She’ll do it alone. The Arden people are really high on her. She’s so damned beautiful and sophisticated and smart. All those things, and they show on her face, fortunately. I just wish I could have gotten hold of her years ago. If she decides to model, Lindsay, will you be able to handle it?”
“Just as long as no one knows who I am.”
“I can’t muzzle her. If she wants to tell who Eden is, why, then, she will.”
And she would. Lindsay knew nothing could hold her back if she decided to talk.
When she went to the Lancôme shoot, her clothes set the two ad people to screaming and clutching their hearts when they saw her. But winning the latest practical joke only brought a small smile to her face. She went to her apartment immediately after the shoot, turned the air conditioning on high, and brooded with a Diet Coke. What to do?
She knew Sydney. She would turn it all into a droll joke. That or she’d twist things about in a sweetly solicitous way that would make Lindsay look like a teenage hooker. Lindsay could hear her now, telling about what a pity it all was that her sister, poor Lindsay Eden, had misunderstood, how she herself had misunderstood, how the poor prince had felt so sorry for the ugly duckling. And everyone would think: She misunderstood? Sure.
Lindsay couldn’t bear it. She had to do something. Sydney was staying at the Plaza. She’d see her again, plead with her to keep quiet, she’d agree to do anything, anything. Lindsay remembered so clearly way back at the beginning, when she’d told Vinnie about what had happened in Paris. He’d said nothing much, just nodded now and again. He’d offered no sympathy, not patted her hand once. Better than that, he hadn’t doubted her once.
“No problem,” he said when she’d finished. “You know what, Lindsay? You don’t really look like a Lindsay. You look like an Eden. How about that for your modeling name? Just plain Eden. It evokes wonderful images and promises mysteries and puzzles of a womanly sort. No one will ever know. How about it?”
But now Sydney was here. Lindsay picked up the phone and called information. Within minutes she heard Sydney’s voice.
“Ah, Lindsay, is that you? Whatever do you want now?”
“I want to know if you plan to model.”
“Why, yes, I believe I will. The Arden people want me badly and the money they’re offering turns even my head. After all, I am a real princess, not just a phony name like Eden, for example. It turns out they would have accepted you because Demos was pushing the sister idea. Yes, I think I will be their spokeswoman for the new perfume. Do you know they’re considering calling it La Principessa? And then I’ll be there on all the propaganda material, on TV, in magazines, everywhere. People magazine will probably want to do a story on me.”
Lindsay’s knuckles showed white, she was clutching the phone so tightly. “Will you say anything about me? Do you plan to tell people I’m your half-sister and it’s such a pity and your husband, the prince, and—” Lindsay ran out of words. She was breathing fast and her hands were so clammy the phone was slipping from her grasp.
Sydney mused aloud. “Do you think it would even come up, Lindsay? That is your real name, isn’t it? How depressing for Father to learn that you’re ashamed of your name. Of course, on the other side of the coin, he’s relieved that you’re not connected with him in any way.”
Lindsay knew Sydney would remind everyone the moment the opportunity arose, simply because she would be recognized very soon as the wife who shot her husband in bed with her sister in Paris five years before. She’d never take that. She’d shift
things and bring Lindsay into it and Lindsay would end up with the blame all over again. She very gently replaced the phone into its cradle. She drank another Diet Coke and went to bed.
At midnight she was still awake, lying in the dark, thinking, remembering, her breath hitching even as she thought of the man’s name.
His name was Edward Bensonhurst. He was a businessman in automotive parts, with two kids and an ex-wife in New Jersey, and now he lived in Manhattan. Lindsay had met him at a party and liked him. He, however, had wanted to have sex. When she told him no, he’d turned ugly. She told him off and got away from him. Then he’d called her two days later and laughed. He knew who she was. He told her he could play a prince if that’s what turned her on. He was the same age as the prince had been in Paris. Hell, maybe he could even get his ex-wife to come over in time and shoot blanks at him. He’d even wear leather if she wanted him to.
She never knew how he’d found out and he hadn’t said. She’d hung up on him and kept her answering machine on for the next three weeks. He’d called ten more times, cajoling, making threats, but finally he’d just stopped calling. She prayed he’d finally decided she wasn’t worth his effort. God, would it never end?
The phone rang and Lindsay grabbed for it. For an instant she thought it was Edward Bensonhurst again. Foolish, so foolish. She answered it and heard her father’s voice.
Vincent Rafael Demos sat in his office in the dark and in absolute silence for a long time. The air conditioning cut out all the noise from the street, eleven stories below. It was ten o’clock at night. Even Glen had left an hour earlier, in a huff, refusing to cook him any dinner. “Not even a microwave omelet,” Glen had shrieked at him.
Demos was sitting there in a very cold office and he was sweating. He’d memorized the brief newspaper account and it played and replayed endlessly in his head.
“. . . Unidentified man, approximate age sixty, found stabbed to death in East Orange, New Jersey. No identification was found on the body, just a note reading . . .”
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