Cinderella

by Ed McBain

  "No one's conducting a personal-"

  "No? I hear from David Larkin that you went to see him, too. And that you had access to a file on a case Samalson was working for him. Now you weren't by chance representing Mr. Larkin, too, were you?"

  "No, Detective Rawles, I was not representing David Larkin."

  "Yeah, get huffy, go ahead," Rawles said. "You just go get-tin' huffy on me."

  Matthew said nothing.

  "Who else you been talking to?" Rawles asked.

  Matthew did not answer him.

  "Don't talk to anyone else, you hear?" Rawles said.

  Matthew still said nothing.

  "Thanks for the Toronado shit," Rawles said, and hung up.

  ***

  What it was, they called him The Armadillo.

  When she first heard this, she said Please, you're making my flesh crawl. That's like a snake, isn't it? An armadillo? Doesn't it have scales and everything? Like a snake?

  He told her No, an armadillo was an animal ate ants.

  She said Terrific. What kind of creep is this, he eats ants?

  He explained that the guy's name was Luis Amaros, his real name, and he lived in this great house on Key Biscayne, looking out over the water, a gorgeous house must've cost him a million, a million-two. He had a sailboat parked behind the house plus a motor cruiser, and there was a Jag and a Rolls in the garage, the guy was what a person might consider well off, believe me. There was no question that he was a pro, she was right about that, he was very definitely moving cocaine, which accounted for the solid gold fixtures in the toilet and the safe with six, seven kilos he kept for entertaining his lady friends. But that was no reason to be afraid of him. Because what they were going to do was leave Miami the minute they had the coke. Amaros wouldn't bother coming after them, why would he? For a lousy two, three keys, whatever? Besides, how could he ever find them? This was a big state and an even bigger country.

  He thought of himself as a ladies' man, Amaros, keen eye for the ladies, wouldn't have anything to do with hookers, which is why Jenny was perfect for the job. You don't look anything like a hooker, he told her, which she supposed he intended as a compliment though she couldn't see anything wrong with the way hookers looked. In L.A., the hookers she knew dressed like college girls whenever they went out to turn a trick. Out there, it was the straight girls who looked like hookers. Your movie stars looked like the biggest hookers of all. They went to the Academy Awards, you'd think they were giving out prizes for who was showing the most tits and ass.

  It still bothered her that she'd never made it as an actress. Whenever she watched the Academy Awards on television, it made her sad that it wasn't her up there making an acceptance speech. Made her want to cry, watching the Academy Awards. Thank you, thank you, I'm so moved I could cry. Oh, thank you. I would also like to thank my marvelous director, and I would like to thank my wonderful co-stars and my kind and understanding producer, but most of all I would like to thank my mother, Annie Santoro. For giving me so much love and understanding. Mama?

  And at this point she'd hold up the Oscar.

  Mama, this is really yours.

  Tears in her eyes.

  Still bothered her.

  And yet she was sort of pleased that he didn't think she looked like a hooker. She guessed that meant she looked pure, you know, the girl next door, the virgin, which was what she'd played to good effect in California when she was still Mary Jane Hopkins. Little pigeon-toed stance, hands twisting the hem of her skirt, Gee, Mister, I never had one of those in my mouth before. Long time ago, that was. Mary Jane Hopkins was dead and gone now. But she was flattered that he thought she still looked pure as the driven snow.

  This customer of his who'd shared the coke with Amaros was a working girl just like Jenny, only Amaros hadn't known that. He'd known it, he wouldn't have had anything to do with her. What happened was he'd picked her up in the Kasbah Lounge out there in Bal Harbour at the Morocco Hotel, which was his favorite hangout on the beach. Very fancy hotel up there, combo playing like supposed to be mysterious African-style music in the lounge there, all beaded curtains and waiters in red fezzes, very dimly lit, hookers cruising, but Amaros wouldn't know a genuine hooker if she came complete with a scarlet letter on her chest. Didn't tip to the fact that Kim-which was the name this girl went by, her real name was Annabelle-was a hooker, began moving on her the way he would a straight girl, what kind of work you do, you been in Miami long, where you from originally, like that.

  Kim was getting a big kick out of it, to tell the truth, this pudgy little guy with the Spanish accent and the big diamond ring on his pinky and the Bugs Bunny grin never suspecting for a minute that she got a hundred bucks an hour for her time. When he asked if she did cocaine, she began to get really interested. Because sometimes, you found a guy had great coke it was worth more than the C-note to spend some time with him. So she went along with it, all big-eyed and innocent, Oh gee, Mr. Amaros, I'm just a little girl from the state of Minnesota, I wouldn't know about cocaine and all those bad things, him holding her hand while the waiter in the fez brought lavender-colored drinks.

  So finally Amaros convinced her to come take a look at his big house out on Key Biscayne, which really knocked Kim's eyes out, I mean this was some house. And he opens the safe, and takes out a big plastic bag looks like sugar and he puts it on the dresser and opens it, and she dips her finger in it and oh, yes, daddy, it is cocaine of the nicest sort. He does a trick with some chemical, it makes a sample turn blue, and he tells her the brighter the blue, the better the girl, but she's already snorting through a rolled-up twenty dollar bill, and she doesn't need him to tell her how good this stuff is.

  In the safe, she spots six more bags.

  He tells her he just keeps it around to entertain his friends.

  She is very happy he is such a fine entertainer. She tells him he ought to go into the catering business.

  He is having a jolly old time, Amaros, introducing this nice little girl from Minnesota to all the wicked, wicked ways of the big bad world. He shows her a movie starring Johnny Holmes, the porn star with the enormous cock, and asks Kim who's bigger, him or Johnny Holmes. She says Oh, you, my dear, without question, which isn't really a lie because he is in fact rather well hung for such a short guy.

  So the idea is for Jenny to go to this same Kasbah Lounge and sit at the bar there drinking something purple or pink, waiting for her dream boy to walk in one night, after which she will catch his eye and play the innocent little girl from Dubuque, Iowa. He will whisk her away to his castle on Key Biscayne, and he will open the safe and take out a bag of coke and do his Brighter-the-Blue trick and show her his Johnny Holmes movie and his own humongous weapon and she will put a little bit of chloral hydrate in his drink and knock him out and run off with the rest of the stuff in the safe, how does that sound to Jenny?

  Jenny thinks it sounds terrific.

  Because to her this is still the way out.

  This was now like the last week in March when they were planning this.

  8

  Matthew was still steaming.

  Back some time ago, before they'd got to know each other better, he'd had the same kind of confrontation with Bloom. Twice, in fact. The first time was while Bloom was investigating the murder of Vicky Miller and the kidnapping of her daughter, Allison. Bloom had told him-on the phone, in much the same way Rawles had told him on the phone-to bug off. What he'd said, actually, was:

  "Counselor" (and the word counselor rankled because it was more often than not used sarcastically even among contesting attorneys in a courtroom) "it would be nice to have your word that from this minute on you won't be running all over the city of Calusa questioning anybody you think might have some connection with this case, as I would hate to have the blood of a six-year-old girl on my hands if I were you, Counselor."

  Matthew had said, "Stop talking to me as if I'm a fucking Los Angeles private eye."

  That was the first time Bloom ha
d felt it necessary to chastise Matthew. The second time was more recently. It had, in fact, been shortly before Matthew took the bullet in his shoulder. And yesterday morning was the third time, only it hadn't been Bloom, a friend, delivering the warning, it had been a detective Matthew knew only casually. And he was still annoyed. He had not, to his knowledge, done anything to jeopardize or compromise the police investigation into the death of Otto Samalson. He had not spirited away evidence, he had not forewarned witnesses or suspects, he had done nothing whatever to warrant Rawles's blunt reprimand. "You've been busy." It occurred to him that Bloom had once used those exact words. With much the same sarcastic lilt. "You've been busy." Maybe all cops said "You've been busy" when they meant "Fuck off." And the reprimand was even more annoying because Matthew had been calling to give the man information, the make and color of the automobile that had followed Otto out of the Seven-Eleven parking lot last Sunday night. Matthew hadn't sought this information, it had come to him. And he had immediately turned it over to the police. And had been told not to talk to anyone else. He was tempted to call Grown-ups Inc. and ask them to please get Rawles off his back.

  Grown-ups Inc.

  Another game he and Susan had invented. Long long ago. When they were still in love. On the way to her house that Friday afternoon, he thought about that game. And wondered if Susan remembered it.

  His annoyance began to dissipate as he drove out toward Stone Crab Key. It was impossible to stay angry on a day like today. A day like today reminded him of a Chicago summer. The sky clear and piercingly blue, the sun shining, the temperature back to what it should have been in June, a pleasant eighty degrees at 5:35 p.m. (or so his car radio had just informed him), the humidity a comfortable forty-two percent. Driving westward across the Cortez Causeway, Calusa Bay billowing with sails on either side of the bridge, he thought for perhaps the thousandth time how wonderful it was to be living down here. And thought of the plans he'd made for himself and Joanna this weekend. And grinned from ear to ear.

  He felt peculiar going up to the front door of the house he used to live in. Usually, he parked at the curb and tooted the horn and Joanna popped out a moment later. Today, he went up the walk, and rang the front doorbell, and looked over at the orange trees he himself had planted six years ago, and wondered if old Reggie Soames still lived next door, and rang the bell again, and Susan's voice came from the back of the house, where the master bedroom was, "Matthew? Is that you?" She sounded surprised. Had she forgotten she'd invited him for a drink?

  "Yes!" he called back. "Am I early?"

  A long silence. Then:

  "The door's open, come in."

  He twisted the doorknob, and the door sure enough wasn't locked, and he walked into a living room he remembered, different furniture in it now, she'd completely redecorated after she kicked him out, but familiar nonetheless. He'd been in this house only once since that night two years ago. He stood in the living room now, and looked out through the sliding glass doors to where he used to dock his sailboat. The Windbag. He had named it over Susan's protests. She hated sailing and had wanted to call it The Wet Blanket. The boat had cost seven thousand dollars used, which hadn't been bad for a twenty-five-footer that slept four comfortably. The boat and the Karmann Ghia he still drove were virtually the only two things he'd got out of the divorce. Susan had got everything else: the house, the Mercedes-Benz, his daughter, his clock collection, everything. Matthew had the Karmann Ghia repainted and sold the boat a month after the final decree. Oddly, he hadn't been sailing since.

  "Matthew," Susan called, "fix yourself something, will you? I'll be right out."

  "Where's Joanna?" he shouted, but got no answer. He went to the bar, found it still well-stocked, poured himself a Canadian Club on the rocks, shouted "Can I fix you something?" and was surprised when he heard her voice behind him, almost at his shoulder, saying, "I'm here, don't yell."

  He turned.

  She was wearing a white terry robe.

  Her hair was wet.

  She was smiling.

  No lipstick on her mouth.

  No makeup at all.

  Susan fresh from the shower and smelling of soap.

  "Hi," she said, "didn't Joanna call you?"

  "No," he said, puzzled. "Why? Is something wrong?"

  "Well, that depends. Damn it, she promised."

  "What is it?"

  "Well… she's on her way to Palm Beach."

  "She's on her way to where?" Matthew said. He was almost amused. This was beginning to sound like the old Susan. Keep the kid away from him any which way possible, make Life with Father as difficult as…

  "This wasn't my idea," she said at once, "I promise you, Matthew. She called me from Diana Silver's house all excited because Diana's parents were going to Palm Beach for the weekend, and they'd invited her along, and she wanted to know could she go with them. This was eleven o'clock or so, I would have called you myself, but I was already late for an appointment, and I had an open house to set up and a hundred other things to do. I told her to call you and get your permission. When I got back here tonight, there was a note on the kitchen table saying she'd be home late Sunday night. I assumed she'd called you and you'd said it was okay."

  "Well, I had three closings today," Matthew said. "I was out of the office till four-thirty. Maybe she-"

  "I'm sure she would have left a message."

  "I didn't get any."

  "Then she didn't call."

  "Maybe she was afraid I'd say no." Matthew shrugged. "The Father's Day weekend, you know."

  "Maybe." Susan really did look troubled. "Anyway, I wasn't expecting you. I figured…"

  "Don't worry about it," he said, and put his drink down on the bar. "If you've made other plans…"

  "No, that's not it," Susan said, "it's just… I was in the shower… I must look like a drowned cat."

  "You look beautiful," he said.

  "Sure, sure, sweet talker."

  There was an awkward silence. She made an abrupt motion, as if she were about to raise her hand to fluff her hair, the way women will do when they feel they are being observed or admired or both, and then aborted the motion and shrugged girlishly and said, "Did I hear you offer me a drink?"

  "Name it," he said.

  "A Beefeater martini, on the rocks," she said.

  He looked at her.

  "Yeah," she said, and grinned.

  When they were married, their most frequent argument was what Matthew had labeled the Beefeater Martini Argument. It had been Susan's contention that Matthew never got drunk when he drank for example, two Scotches with soda or two anythings with soda, but that he always got drunk or fuzzy or furry or slurry (these were all Susan's words) when he had two martinis, especially two Beefeater martinis. The magic word Beefeater somehow added more potency to the drink.

  But now, two years and much gin under the bridge later, here was Susan asking for the evil potion that changed men to furry, fuzzy beasts and worked God knew what transformation on nice Presbyterian girls from the state of Illinois.

  "Very dry, with two olives," Susan said.

  He began mixing the drink.

  "I hate it when she breaks her word," Susan said. "She's growing up so fast, isn't she? She'll be a woman before we know it. Then will we have troubles," she said, and rolled her eyes.

  He did not miss the word we.

  Silently, he mixed the drink.

  "You're right, it must have been because of Father's Day," Susan said. "She was probably embarrassed to ask."

  "I'm sure," Matthew said, and handed her the glass.

  "Thank you," Susan said. "What it is, Matthew, Diana's brother is home from Duke for the summer, and he was going to Palm Beach with the family, and I think Joanna has a bit of a crush on him, and so…" She rolled her eyes again, let the sentence trail, shrugged, raised her glass, and said, "Shall we drink to Electra's demise?"

  Matthew smiled.

  "But you didn't pour one for yourself," she
said.

  "I'm drinking Canadian," he said and lifted his glass from the bar.

  "I thought you drank-"

  "They make me furry and fuzzy," he said.

  "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "Did you mix enough for two?"

  "I did."

  "Then join me," she said. "If we're going to get furry and fuzzy, we ought to do it together."

  He poured himself a martini, and dropped two olives into the glass.

  "That's much better," she said, and nodded.

  They raised their glasses. They clinked them together. They drank.

  "Shall we go outside?" Susan said. "Sit by the pool?"

  There did not used to be a pool here when Matthew shared the house with her. The settlement money had bought one. Or the alimony payments. Or both. He tried not to feel bitter about the alimony payments. Bitterness could spoil a good martini. He followed her out to the pool. She was wearing only the terry cloth robe, hardly the sexiest garment in the world, and she was barefoot, no heels to give her ass and her breasts a perky, sexy lift-but somehow she looked sexy enough.

  They sat in lounge chairs beside the pool. Matthew figured the pool and patio had cost at least eighteen grand.

  "You really think she was afraid to call me, huh?" he said. "Oh, no question."

  "She should've put Grown-ups Inc. on the case."

  "Oh my God!" Susan said. "Do you remember that, too?"

  "I was thinking of it on the way out here," he said, smiling, nodding.

  "Grown-ups Inc., that was a century ago," she said, and fell silent.

  On the canal beyond the pool, a fish jumped.

  He couldn't remember now who had first come up with the notion. As with most of the games they had played when they were married (had they really played games, had there really been fun?), it had probably been a collaborative effort, one of them saying something that led to an elaboration that led to an embellishment that led to a fillip, and there you were! Grownups Inc.