Deadly Rich (16 page)

“Someone just listens. You haven’t had anything like that?”

“No, I haven’t—and I think you should tell the police.”

“
I NEED SOMETHING
to wear to Annie MacAdam’s dinner,” Tori Sandberg said.

“Dinner next Monday or dinner next Thursday?” Gloria Spahn said.

Tori had not heard about next Thursday’s dinner. “Next Monday.”

“A tad late in the day, don’t you think?”

They were sitting on the white brocade sofa in Gloria’s showroom, sipping iced coffee. Gloria was wearing one of her own designs, a luncheon suit of gray silk, high-skirted with a fracture in the jacket that showed a hairline of bare cleavage right down to the first rib. The suit made her look spectacularly but almost unhealthily thin. Tori had run over from the office, and she was wearing one of her work dresses, a red-and-blue Sixties-revival Pucci-style print. She realized she’d somehow gotten orange Magic Marker on the skirt.

“I honestly thought I had something to wear and”—Tori shrugged and smiled—“I don’t.”

“But you have that adorable salmon Saint Laurent. It’s a great standby—always perfect for dinner at Annie’s.”

“I thought it might be nice to surprise Zack with something he hasn’t seen me in.”

Gloria eyed Tori for one long, appraising moment. “Since when does a literary woman believe a man even notices?”

“I may edit a magazine, but I hope I’m not a fool.”

“You’re not, darling. I don’t let fools through that door. Okay, for Zack we’ll make an effort. What did you have in mind?”

Tori had come to Gloria Spahn because Gloria was very much the right designer these days. Her reputation had been riding a thermal updraft of media exposure, and her clothes had a way of making women—even grandmothers—look rich, sexy, and confident. Tori was one of the few women in her set who had not yet married a rich husband or inherited a trust fund. Her investments had taken a clobbering on the stock market, and she felt a need for some of Gloria’s image enhancement.

Tori hesitated. “What do you think Zack would like to see me in?”

Gloria stepped back a few inches. Her glance flicked over Tori thoughtfully. “You have a tall, slender body, you’re toned, your tits are small but you’ve got the greatest ass on the Upper East Side. There’s no reason to stick with the lady image. You could carry off a sexy number, and I’d love to be the designer who brought you out.”

“And
I’d
love to wear something that hasn’t been seen in New York.”

Gloria seemed surprised. “We’re talking one of a kind? For dinner at
Annie’s
?”

“Why not?”

“Annie serves
Salisbury steak
!” Gloria took three steps back. “Will your hair be that color?”

“I—I hadn’t planned to change it.”

“I’m only asking because the dress I have in mind—actually, I’ve two dresses in mind and they’d both look great on you—but you might consider talking to Ron Zaporta before the party. He does coloring at the Pierre. He’s booked solid, but I could get him to slip you in.”

“Slip me in for what? What are we talking about?”

“Lemon microlites in your hair. The dresses would look
made
for you.” Gloria clapped her hands. “Vinnie! Bring the Rothschild crepe de chine. And the Madariaga silk.”

Gloria had named two of the top European countesses of the season. It was an open secret in the fashion and magazine worlds that Gloria Spahn ran a sideline: she leased premieres of her dresses to various clients to wear at various parties far distant from one another. That way, the same dress could be seen in Paris one evening, New York the next, San Francisco the third, and be considered a fashion first in each city.

An employee wheeled a dress rack into the room. He was a slim young man in tight-fitting raw-linen trousers and floppy madras shirt. Two dresses hung from the rack, cocooned in pink tissue paper.

Gloria pulled a dark raspberry crepe-de-chine dress free of its wrapping.

Her employee frowned at a small stain above the hem. “Look at this,” he said. “Rothschild is a
pig
.”

“Not now, Vinnie,” Gloria said. “It doesn’t matter.”

She faced Tori toward the mirror and held the dress up in front of her.

At the sight of her reflection Tori felt herself lifted by a spurt of edgy, childlike rapture. “It’s perfect.”

“No, it’s not,” Gloria said. “Cybilla deClairville’s going to that dinner, and she’s wearing the same damned color.”

Vinnie helped Gloria tear the tissue off the other dress, a soft apricot moiré. Vinnie inspected for stains. Gloria held the dress up to Tori. “Perfect,” she announced.

Tori didn’t like it nearly as well as the raspberry, but Gloria was already helping her step out of her skirt. “Let’s get you pinned up.”

Twelve minutes later Tori was facing the mirror again.

“Ron can see her tomorrow at five!” Vinnie called from the inner office.

Gloria circled Tori, inspecting. “We’ll take in the tucks and hem it up for you this afternoon. Come back in for the final fitting Friday morning, okay?”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“No trouble. Now, how do you want to pay?”

Tori inhaled sharply and felt a pin pop. “Pay? I’d honestly prefer to borrow the dress.”

“We’d all prefer to borrow, darling, but I’m a couturiere, not an S and L.”

Tori hesitated. “I thought possibly we could work out an arrangement, like two years ago.”

“But you wore that dress to the Emmys, not Annie MacAdam’s.”

Tori sighed. “We could do an article on you in the magazine.”

Gloria shook her head. “Publicity in
Matrix Magazine
isn’t that valuable—my accountant says liberated women don’t buy my clothes.”

Tori realized she was in too deep now to back out gracefully. “All right. How much?”

“I adore Zack, so I’m going to give you a break. Twelve thousand, because this dress is going to make his evening.”

Tori couldn’t believe that the cost of decadence had gone that far through the roof. She did her best to fake a cool nonreaction. “Of course, it
is
used.”

“And if it weren’t, it would cost you twenty-four.”

“Will you take a check?”

“A personal check.”

Tori wondered if there’d been trouble with the magazine’s checks. Gloria handed her a pen, and Tori wrote out the check at Gloria’s Biedermeier desk. She ripped the check out of the book and handed it to Gloria facedown. “If I bring the dress back right away, do you think you could let me have six thousand back?”

“Come in after the party and we’ll talk.”

“
LAST WEDNESDAY
,” Cardozo said, “you had lunch at Archibald’s?”

“Did I?” Gloria Spahn’s heavily plucked, heavily penciled eyebrows assumed a thoughtful downward pucker. “Oh, yes, I tried to. It’s not easy when you have Oona Aldrich getting delusional at the next table.”

“And I understand you had a problem of your own?”

“I did?”

They were alone in the showroom. The light was soft and glowing, and it gave the mirrors a friendly shimmer. The clothes on display looked to Cardozo as if they’d been designed for a cocktail party in a distant and overpriced galaxy.

“A problem with your salad,” he said.

Gloria Spahn adjusted the hang of a skirt on a headless, armless mannikin. “Oh, you heard about that.” She looked at him, interested now. “Archibald’s serves rotten salads, don’t you think?”

“I couldn’t say. I’ve never gone there to eat.”

“Then you’re wiser than me.”

Cardozo referred to his notebook. “You ordered a Caesar salad. The waiter brought you a salad made with shredded Boston instead of romaine. You sent the salad back.”

“Did I break a law?” She had an extremely thin body, but she moved as if she had absolute confidence in it. She obviously had confidence too in the clothes she was wearing. They had an edgy quality, as if they were thinking about falling off her, but Cardozo suspected she’d designed them and knew they wouldn’t.

“You didn’t break any law I know of.”

“Good. I try not to.” She seated herself on the sofa and leaned back against the cushion. “Now, why are you interested in what I ate for lunch seven days ago?”

“Not what you ate but when you ate it.”

“Sorry.” She smiled. She had an enormous mouth, enormously pink. “I don’t punch a time clock at lunch.”

“But could you estimate—from the time you sent your salad back, to the time you got the salad you wanted—how long did that take?”

“How long did it
take
? Could I
estimate
?” Gloria Spahn’s gray eyes narrowed. They seemed to flash with remembered anger. “I don’t need to estimate—I know. I was there an hour before I finally got fed up and left. Those idiots never brought me the damned salad.”

CARDOZO STOOD ON THE STOOP
. He rapped on the kitchen screen door. “Hey, Jim.”

Jim Delancey stood at the butcher-block counter, decapitating radishes four at a chop. He turned.

“Need to talk to you,” Cardozo said. “Only take a minute.”

Delancey sighed. He laid down his knife. “I’ll be right back,” he told the Korean. He came out onto the stoop. “Look, are you coming around here to bug me? Is it to get the manager pissed off at me?”

“I’m sorry, Jim. If it’s inconvenient here, you can come down to the precinct.”

Delancey shook his head.

“We have a chronology problem,” Cardozo said. “Your chef tells me last Wednesday, during lunch hour, he sent you out for six head of romaine?”

“I forgot. Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“No problem. When did you leave and when did you get back?”

“Oh, I left around quarter of one. I was back maybe fifteen minutes later.”

“Gristede’s has a record of that romaine going out for delivery at one-thirty.”

“Gristede’s is screwed up. Ask anyone in the kitchen—they’re always screwing up.”

“The delivery boy knows you. And he says he made the delivery.”

Delancey shuffled. “Someone’s screwed up.”

“Maybe you?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you
are
mistaken—and it’s a natural mistake—where did you go?”

Delancey’s eyes flicked up. “I didn’t go. I just told you.”

“No, no, Jim. You told me you didn’t pick up the romaine. But we know you left here at quarter of one. Your chef says so. You just said so.”

“Look, you’re confusing me. Maybe I should …” Delancey took a moment to wipe his hands on his apron. “Maybe I, shouldn’t talk to you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t. That’s up to you.”

“Am I under suspicion? Should I get a lawyer?”

“Jim, I honestly am not the best person to advise you on that. Asking you where you went didn’t strike me as asking you to incriminate yourself. But maybe it is.”

“No. It’s not.” Delancey’s eyes were evasive. “I was just ashamed of myself.”

“Why? What did you do?”

Delancey took a pack of Camels from his apron pocket. He knocked one loose and put it between his lips and lit it one-handed from an Archibald’s matchbook. “I was spooked after Oona Aldrich had that fit. I went and had a few drinks. It’s a bad habit of mine. Just to keep calm.”

“I empathize, Jim. Do you happen to remember where you had these drinks?”

THE PLACE WAS CALLED TUNE’S
. It was a basement on Seventy-sixth that featured poor air-conditioning and a ten ninety-nine prix fixe, and it was crowded.

Cardozo showed the waitress his shield, and then he showed her the photo of Jim Delancey. He had to shout above the roar of voices and the din of silverware attacking china. “Did you see this man here around one o’clock last Wednesday?”

She stared at him, balancing a tray of the day’s special, sea scallops—four on a plate with plenty of rice. Sweat gleamed on her cheekbones. “This is a joke.”

“Sorry, it’s not.”

“See how crowded we are right now? This is two o’clock. Postpeak. One o’clock is peak. Twice as crowded. Unless he tipped me a twenty I wouldn’t remember him, and I doubt anyone else would either.” She looked again at the photo. “And he didn’t tip me a twenty.”

CARDOZO STARED AT LOU
Stein’s report on the note sent by the man who signed himself Society Sam.

The lab had discovered no prints but Rad Rheinhardt’s on the page. No prints on the clipped-out letters. No prints on the tape. The lab had discovered prints galore on the envelope, all useless.

Cardozo took another bite of his late-late-lunch sandwich, liverwurst and mayo on toasted rye. He chewed a moment and he could feel his appetite giving out. He’d had a craving for a carbohydrate rush, but now he was thinking it had been more of a compulsion than a craving.

He wiped the mayo off his fingertips and picked up the report again.

Most of the letters making up the message had been clipped from the April second issue of
New York
magazine, the April second issue of
Time
magazine, the April second issue of
Newsweek
magazine, the April second issue of
People
, and the April second issue of
The New Yorker.

Sam sure likes April second
, Cardozo reflected.

Sources for the letter groups TH and ET and CRU had yet to be established.

Thursday, May 16

X
ENIA DELANCEY, WEARING HER
Sunday white hat and gloves and walking with small, hesitant steps, pushed through a glass door on the fifth floor of United Nations Tower.

The man sitting behind the kidney-shaped desk smiled without friendliness at her. “May I help you?”

Xenia told him her name. “Senator Guardella said she might be able to see me.”

“Please have a seat.”

Xenia took a seat on a leather sofa beside a row of potted cactuses. Through a glass wall she could see pigeons wheeling aimlessly over the East River. For thirty minutes she leafed through old magazines and senatorial newsletters. During that half hour a dozen people passed through the reception area. None of them was challenged, none of them was asked to wait.

Xenia went again to the kidney-shaped desk. “I hate to trouble the senator, but my lunch hour will be up in twelve minutes.”