by Shirley Lord
“You’re the chairman of the building’s board,” Samson said quietly, as if she needed reminding how often the board had been putty in her hands. In any case he knew exactly what she would choose to do. For all her protestations about going anywhere, he knew Muriel loved being the center of attention, providing she was in situations she could control.
Sure enough, she now acted as if the decision were already made. She would meet Arthur at his office for a brief, strictly controlled press conference. “Of course, David will have to go with me… have you called him?”
David Sorenson was, at the moment, her favorite cardiologist.
“Yes, I took the liberty of informing him this morning.” Irritated by the charade that was dragging on for too long, Samson couldn’t resist adding, “He thought I might call. He heard about it all on television last night-there was a news flash after Nightline.”
She ignored him, looking at her watch, then pressing the bell on the arm of the chair. A maid appeared instantly. (Samson often wondered if one was detailed to hover outside any closed door, for once summoned, servants always immediately responded.)
“Tell Absley to arrange to pick up Dr. Sorenson and bring him here no later than eleven o’clock.” Muriel looked over to the piece of paper on the table. “Let me look at that statement.”
She took several minutes to peruse it, but he had no fears she’d hold up its release. From a lifetime of preparing documents for Stern, Inc., first under the direction of Muriel’s elder brother (now deceased) and then Muriel, Samson knew exactly the language to use.
Muriel nodded her approval as she handed the statement back. “Now help me back to my room. I must get some rest.” She pressed the bell again and when the maid opened the door, announced, “I’ll wear the gray pinstripe.”
Slowly she got to her feet. “If I went to the arraignment, would I be able to see Arthur before he goes before the judge?”
Samson inwardly shuddered, thinking of the squalor and turmoil of the criminal court at 100 Centre Street, swarming with hookers and pushers and pimps, the dregs of society, a place likely to give anyone a heart attack, let alone someone like Muriel. “That would not be wise, and in any case the answer is probably no.”
“Make sure the oxygen is in the trunk,” was Muriel’s last command as she made a slow exit out of the drawing room. “This is just the kind of day when I’m going to need it.”
Quentin Peet entered the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway as if he owned it. He was a man in a hurry today, with an agenda that would have defeated most mortals, but there was nothing harried about his movements. He still had time to cast an approving eye at the intricate mosaics of the soaring vaulted ceiling as well as to give a brief nod of recognition to the men on duty at the information desk. They were both ex-cops, pleased to be acknowledged by the celebrated journalist, who was revered in their world for his contribution to fighting crime.
It wasn’t surprising they were ex-cops. One only had to look at the directory on the wall to see that the building was full of police-associated organizations, from the CEA, the Captains’ Endowment Association, to the SBA, Sergeants’ Benevolent Association, to the SOC, Superior Officers Council.
What most people didn’t know was what went on in the giant building’s underground. Reached by a subterranean tunnel with many tunnel tributaries of its own was “Harry’s at the Woolworth,” a restaurant that was the literal watering hole for anybody who was anybody in law enforcement.
It was in Harry’s restaurant, in dark corners and alcoves, that favors were exchanged, IOUs granted and honored between high-ranking members of the police department, the D.A.’s office, the FBI, and the CIA.
Some said more police business was conducted there than at One Police Plaza; and not for nothing had it been renamed long ago by its habitués “Corregidor,” reminding many World War II veterans of the fortress of tunnels carved out of the island rock in the Philippines.
Peet was one of the few journalists, if not the only one, who didn’t quickly empty the huge U-shaped bar on his arrival, and he was proud of the distinction. The press wasn’t wanted here and there was no attempt to conceal it. If Peet wasn’t welcomed with open arms, at least he was treated like everyone else, with studied indifference, everyone minding their own business, usually business of a very special kind.
While gratified that among this tough crowd he was known as a man who would always keep his mouth shut, he was sure he’d earned the privilege to witness who was trading with whom, adding two and two together to sum up a situation accurately after a lifetime spent on the front line.
As he moved into the room he waved to the police C.O./O.M.A, Commanding Officer of the Office of Management and Analysis, in a huddle with a deputy from the mayor’s office; smiled, but shook his head “no” at a Special Agent from the Federal Bureau who, leaning at the bar, indicated he’d like to buy him a drink. He moved purposefully past the main dining room, where other tunnels burrowed their way to other smaller dining areas.
On the way he made eye contact with the man he’d arranged to meet, Patrick O’Neill, who with his crow-black sleek hair, olive skin and dapper, tight-fitting, but well-tailored suits looked more like the quintessential Latin lover than “just a poor Irish lad who got lucky,” as he often referred to himself.
Nobody could remember if or when O’Neill had been poor, but to his detractors—and there were many—he’d certainly been lucky. As the recently named Commanding Officer of the Major Case Squad, part of the Special Investigation Division at Police Headquarters, O’Neill was resented for treading on other people’s turf and, worse, getting better results. In that division there was plenty of turf to tread on, from the Special Fraud Squad to the Joint Robbery Task Force, the Safe, Loft and Truck Squad, not to mention the Missing Persons Squad.
For Peet there couldn’t be a more valuable contact in the NYPD. Over the years each had seen the other score and bypass those so busy worrying about their egos, they’d missed some obvious professional chances to move ahead.
One reason they’d got on so well for so long was the way they conducted business. Neither man expected the other to volunteer much, if any, major information. The main object of every meeting was to receive either confirmation or rejection of information one or the other already possessed. Rarely was it greeted with a shrug of the shoulders “don’t-know.” Their meetings invariably saved them an inordinate amount of what they valued most-time-precluding false trails, setups and booby traps.
Once O’Neill joined Peet in an alcove far away from the main crowd, a waiter came by to place the usual tub of cheese and crackers on the table. Both men ordered a beer.
Cutting a chunk of cheese, with no conversational preamble, Peet began, “Pat, m’boy, I gather the Villeneva jewels haven’t surfaced yet, and the theft remains on the unsolved list.”
“Yep,” said O’Neill, plunging a knife into the cheese tub to get his own piece.
“And it still looks like the work of the new guy on the team?”
“Yep.”
“But so far no sign of the jewels being used for collateral?”
O’Neill shook his head. “Not sure that particular heist fitted the big picture.”
“Could Stern in any shape or form fit the big picture?”
O’Neill rolled his eyes as he took a huge bite of cheese.
“A man can have more than one kind of enemy,” Peet said softly.
“Damn right, particularly an ice skater like Svank. Pity.”
O’Neill didn’t need to explain himself. Peet knew Svank had been skating on thin ice, yet he’d been so cunning, so incredibly skillful, even as pieces of the labyrinthine puzzle of his criminal activities had slowly been fitting into place, he’d managed to distance himself from the underworld it was now believed he’d totally controlled. With his death he’d escaped forever from paying the penalty and public disgrace O’Neill and others had sought for him for so long.
“Pity indeed,�
�� Peet repeated, then, “Stern was arraigned this morning, out on a couple of million bail, right?”
“Right-after an almost successful plea to dismiss and file a new document.”
“Unbelievable. With his fingers, not only his fingerprints on the trigger, he’s lucky to get bail. Caulter’s the best and Stern’s not talking, on his advice. I hear Caulter might try for manslaughter. It wasn’t the gun that killed Svank, right? It was the fall?”
“Where d’you hear that?” O’Neill smiled, knowing he’d never get a straight answer.
“Oh, around and about. It was a fight, Svank pulled a gun, it went off accidentally, a freak shot or something. The bullet ricocheted off the floor into his foot; in the struggle he lost his balance and Stern’s push at the wrong moment pushed him over the edge… or rather, somebody’s push.”
When O’Neill didn’t answer, Peet sipped his beer reflectively. “I hear the assistant D.A.’s are wetting their pants to get this one…”
“That’s the fault of people like you, Big Q,” O’Neill said with his lopsided grin. “If you didn’t show’em how it’s done with your multimillion dollar book and movie deals and your name in the gossip columns with beautiful dames, they wouldn’t have such big ideas about life after Centre Court.”
Peet grimaced as he knew he was expected to. “I wish! That’s a lot of bullshit. But I don’t think Stern did it, although it’s just possible. In any case Caulter’s guys will work like crazy to delay the indictment on lack of evidence. They’ll probably help lead you straight to the slippery light-fingered guy, the one from London we know that Svank loved to hate.”
“We’ll be watching.”
“So will I.” Peet took another sip of his beer. “It’s catching, this collateral business. As I think you may know, Angel Face Maniero confessed in court last week he’d not only stolen the loot from Padua Cathedral, but Vivarini’s Madonna and Child from the Ducal Palace in Venice. Can you believe it? To use both as plea-bargaining chips, he admitted, should he ever be arrested; claimed he made a deal with the head of the Italian Art Squad. Bad timing for them… they’d just announced the successful recovery of some other invaluable stuff from Rome. Now everyone wonders what they had to promise the thieves to get it back.”
“Yep, works of art and big jewels have become the currency du jour, particularly in the drug trade. Once they’ve found their way to professional art handlers, we know they’re being traded all over the place-at a discount-in every kind of criminal deal, for counterfeit notes, loans, for anything they can raise, but more and more for shipments of drugs or the setting up of new drug distributors.”
“Glad the DEA’s got Constantine. Operation Dinero seems to be working-”
“No thanks to Svank.”
“Didn’t the DEA guys stumble into a haul in Atlanta recently? A Picasso, a Rubens and some other masterpiece being traded for cash for cocaine?”
O’Neill nodded somberly.
“It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Stern would be involved in, but you never know. Always the least one you’d suspect. Remember that asshole Delchetto? Who would have thought after all he’d written that he was actually being paid off by Cali, but he got too greedy.” Peet looked at O’Neill intently for his reaction.
“That hasn’t been proved. I think Delchetto was a good guy who made a fatal slip.”
“That’s not what I hear from the DEA.” Peet paused, then added casually, “from Ben Abbott…”
O’Neill didn’t react and there was silence as both men drank their beer, then, “That reminds me,” O’Neill said hesitantly, never sure exactly of the relationship between father and son, “I hear Johnny is following in his old man’s footsteps at last.”
“What d’you mean?”
To O’Neill’s surprise and embarrassment, he saw something he’d never seen before on the old warrior’s face, an angry red flush.
“I thought you’d know. Didn’t you see his cover piece on Delchetto?”
“No, I only got back a day or so ago… in time for the library fiasco, and we obviously didn’t have time to catch up that night. What’s he been up to?”
Although Peet was doing his best to conceal it, O’Neill could see he was disturbed.
He sighed. “Johnny was in Puerto Rico for the magazine when Delchetto got taken out. Seems he’s been working with the Art Loss Register, collecting quite a dossier on stolen goods. He was following a lead linking the Villeneva job to the drug trade operating down there, but the trail went cold with Delchetto’s disappearance.”
“For the magazine! But he’s a muck peddler, a gossip columnist. What the hell was-”
“One of the DEA boys told me he was on special assignment. I didn’t see the story myself, but I hear it was right on target,” O’Neill added defensively.
As Peet drummed his fingers on the table, looking stony-faced, O’Neill cursed himself for opening his mouth. It was ironic, for although his old friend had complained in the past about Johnny not getting anywhere, and wasting his time on superficial rubbish, he obviously didn’t want him anywhere near his turf. He could hardly believe he’d actually live to see the day when Quentin Peet, the high-and-mighty, much-decorated journalist, showed he had an Achilles’ heel. It was unfortunate it seemed to be his one and only son.
“He never told me. I guess the boy was out to impress me. I had no idea… but then I don’t keep in touch with him as much as I obviously should. He never told me,” Peet repeated, looking at O’Neill ruefully. “Frankly, Pat, the thought of Johnny even putting a toe in that filthy sewer worries me more than I ever realized it would. Glad you told me. You say the trail went cold?”
Although he’d recovered his composure, there was still something in Peet’s demeanor and tone of voice that worried O’Neill. He hoped he hadn’t opened up a can of worms for Johnny, but it was too late to tell Peet to forget it.
“The trail went cold, so he obviously concentrated on Delchetto’s disappearance, which is what his cover story was about.”
Peet shook his head. “I’m certainly not going to help him get back on the trail. I’ll have to think of a way to get him to forget about cover stories.”
“And back to trash? That doesn’t sound like you. What about all that stuff I seem to remember you wanted to instill in Johnny? About having the greatest respect for anyone willing to risk their own life for principle, honor, justice, et cetera?”
“Principle be damned. I guess my paternal instinct has kicked in at last.”
“Too late, QP, much too late.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Again O’Neill felt uneasy seeing the look on Peet’s face. It was time to bring their meeting to an end. He beckoned the waiter for the check, saying, “Well, keep in touch if you hear before I do what Caulter’s guys turn up.”
As the check arrived Peet grabbed it. “I will. I’m sure they’ll lead us-you,” he corrected himself, “to the collateral thief. The way Muriel Stern’s money works, it may not take so long.”
“MYSTERY WOMAN’S CLOAK.”
“WHO WORE THIS CLOAK AT THE MURDER SCENE?”
Esme had just arrived at the loft in the late afternoon with the Daily News and the New York Post. Tense, she watched Ginny read both front-page stories. The Post had a glimpse of her back view, just before she’d taken the cloak off in the line for the cloakroom, but that was all it was, a glimpse. Lucky for her, they’d been more interested in the perpetual partygoer Blaine Trump, who, it was noted in the caption, had been standing behind her.
The News went one better. They had a similar view of her back, but in an inset ran a close-up of the Napoleonic gold laurel leaf collar. On page three they had another shot of what they called the “artful” embroidered imperial bees on the hem. Thinking for a second of the source of the embroidery-the decrepit sofa from the flea market-Ginny suppressed a hysterical laugh. If they only knew how artful.
“What’s going on, Ginny? How did you leave your cloak b
ehind? Why on earth haven’t you told anyone it belongs to you?” Esme’s face was creased in wrinkles of worry.
Ginny wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t returned one of Esme’s three phone calls, although she’d been sitting by the phone waiting, praying to hear from Alex-or Johnny.
She should have known Esme wouldn’t give up. She’d arrived downstairs, saying through the intercom, “I know you’re there, Ginny. I just know you’re in some kind of trouble and I’m not leaving until you let me in.”
Now Ginny was glad she had. She’d been talking to herself for hours and it hadn’t gotten her anywhere near a solution. She was bursting to tell someone that, of course, Arthur Stern had nothing to do with Svank’s death, but how could she talk without implicating herself, announcing to the world-and the real murderer-who the mystery woman was. That is, if the murderer needed to be told.
Did he? If the real killer was who she thought he was, he didn’t need to be told about the mystery woman-he even had the key to her loft.
After Johnny’s call she hadn’t slept at all, returning again and again to the tormenting thought that the shadowy man in the hallway and at the bottom of the stairwell had been Alex. Her mother’s words kept coming back to haunt her. “He’s not who you think he is. He’s a monster.”
Suddenly Esme’s look of concern and the sweet tone of her voice were too much to bear. Ginny put her face in her hands and wept.
“Oh, Gin, please don’t, there, there. I can help. Don’t keep it to yourself. What can I do? Can Ted do anything? Is it something to do with Johnny?” Esme fluttered around, trying to hug her as Ginny got up, sat down, then got up again. Once more Ginny had a hysterical impulse to laugh, thinking how ludicrous they must look, with Esme so short and she so tall.
“Don’t you realize, by not claiming the cloak, you’re likely to get implicated in this terrible murder business?” Esme was saying earnestly. “Who would have dreamed something like this could happen to Poppy’s sugar daddy?”