We finally got seated, and even before we ordered, the owner brought us glasses of red wine.
“Homemade,” Al told me. “In the basement. It’s got a kick.”
It did, but was so smooth and mellow, I felt I could drink it all night. “How did you ever find this place?” I asked.
“I was born two blocks away. It was here then. Same wine, same menu. Even some of the same waiters. It hasn’t changed a bit, and I hope it never does.”
We had a memorable meal: a huge platter of seafood linguine, with clams, baby shrimp, slivers of crabmeat, and chunks of lobster. I could have filled a bathtub with that sauce and rolled around in it. The fresh, crunchy salad was special, too, and afterward we had cappuccino with tortoni, and Al taught me how to float a spoonful of the ice cream atop the coffee. Heaven!
The owner brought us two little glasses of Strega, and after a taste I was ready to move into that restaurant and never leave. I told Al how much I enjoyed the dinner, and he nodded absently.
“Listen, Dunk,” he said, “you met that Natalie Havistock, didn’t you?”
“Nettie? Sure, I met her.”
“What was your take?”
“A wild one. The hippie of the family. She just doesn’t fit in with the others. But I like her.”
“You get along with her okay?”
“Of course. She came up to the office one day to learn how the auction would be organized. Then we went out for pizza together.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, looking over my head. “I should tell you she runs with a rough crowd. Some of them are into drugs and some into guns. We’ve got a special unit that keeps an eye on gangs like that, hoping to grab them before they do something stupid—like blowing up the Statue of Liberty.”
“Nettie?” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe it.”
“Oh, yes. She and her pals are a bunch of fruitcakes.”
“You think they could have stolen the Demaretion?”
“Possible, but I doubt it. It’s not their style. They’d go for a bank or armored van—something where they could wear ski masks and wave submachine guns around. How about you giving Nettie a call. Maybe having lunch with her.”
“What for?”
“Pump her. I got nowhere with her. She’s a throwback to the nineteen sixties; I’m a cop so therefore I’m a pig. But you say the two of you hit it off. So maybe she’ll talk to you. About her family. The conflicts and so forth. In a family that big there’s got to be jealousies. Grudges. Undercurrents. I’d like to know about them.”
I stared at him, trying to smile. “And all the time I thought you invited me out to dinner to enjoy the pleasures of my company.”
He leaned toward me. “That’s the truth, Dunk. That’s exactly why I asked you out. If you don’t want to brace Nettie, just tell me, and we’ll forget about the whole thing.”
“You’re something, you are,” I said. “Well, you warned me—with you the job comes first. All right, I’ll try to see Nettie. Only because I’m as anxious and curious about this thing as you are.”
“Fine,” he said. “Try to meet her tomorrow if you can.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I’ve got an appointment to talk to Luther and Vanessa Havistock.”
“If I tell you how I make out with Natalie, will you tell me what you learned from Luther and Vanessa?”
He held out a big, meaty hand. “It’s a deal,” he said, and we shook on it. “I’ve got some reports to do tonight,” he continued. “I better get you home. Look, Dunk, I was being honest when I said I invited you out just to enjoy your company. I like being with you. You believe that, don’t you?”
“I guess.”
“Can we have dinner again, or lunch, or whatever?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m a forgiving soul. Just keep feeding me like tonight and I’m all yours.”
That charming smile again. “And I’ll bet you didn’t gain an ounce. I envy people like you. Look at my gut. Isn’t that disgusting?”
He double-parked in front of my brownstone and we sat a few minutes, talking about the Havistocks.
“Right now it’s a can of worms,” Georgio said. “But within a few days I hope we’ll be able to eliminate a few possibles, and things will look simpler.”
I stared at him in the gloom. “Why are you doing this, Al?”
He was astonished. “It’s my job.”
“I know that, but I think there’s more to it. It’s almost like a crusade with you.”
He shrugged. “I just don’t like wise-asses who think they can get away with murder—or even get away with copping an antique Greek coin. I hate people like that—the ones who go elbowing their way through life, thinking the laws are for other people but not for them.”
“You get pleasure from putting them behind bars?”
“Not pleasure so much as satisfaction. It just seems right to me.”
“You’re a deep, deep man,” I told him.
“Me? Nah. I’m just a cop running to suet. You’ll see Nettie tomorrow?”
I sighed. “Yes, I’ll see Nettie tomorrow. Thanks for the marvy dinner.”
I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. I think it shocked him. But he recovered fast enough.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re a sweet lady, Dunk.”
I stood on the sidewalk until he pulled away. We both waved. I turned to the doorway of my brownstone. A man came out of the shadows. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, prepared to scream.
“Hi!” Jack Smack said. “Have a pleasant evening?”
“You bastard,” I said wrathfully. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Did I?” he said, grinning. He held up a brown paper bag. “Look what I’ve got—a glorious bottle of Finlandia vodka. For you. How’s about inviting me in for a nightcap?”
J
ACK SMACK LOUNGED ON
my couch, one arm extended along the back, his legs crossed. That night he was wearing a Norfolk suit of yummy gray flannel, soft broadcloth shirt with a silk ascot at the open neck. Tasseled loafers buffed to a high gloss. What a nonchalantly elegant man!
“Where do you buy your clothes?” I asked him.
“Thrift shops,” he said, with a snort of laughter.
He was working on a double vodka on the rocks. After all I’d had to drink at dinner, I settled for a cup of black coffee. He didn’t scare me, but I recognized a kind of wariness in my feelings toward him. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, and decided not to listen to his pitch with a muzzy mind.
“I don’t suppose,” he said with a lazy smile, “you’ll tell me what Al Georgio said about the Havistock case tonight.”
“You’re right. I won’t tell you.”
He uncrossed his legs, leaned forward, suddenly serious and intent.
“I’m glad to hear that, Dunk,” he said solemnly. “Glad to hear that you’re discreet. Can I depend on you not to repeat to Al what I tell you?”
“Of course,” I said. “But I think it’s silly. The two of you should be working together. Exchanging information and all that.”
“Mmmm,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes it’s best that we do our own thing. My company got an anonymous letter this morning. Typewritten on cheap bond. Postmarked Manhattan. The writer wants to know if we’d be interested in buying back the Demaretion.”
I sat up straight, excited. “My God, Jack, do you think it’s legitimate?”
He shrugged. “Seems to be. The forensic lab we use went over it. The typewriter was an Olympia standard. No usable prints on the letter. They think it was written by a man.”
“How do they know that?”
“Wording. Phrasing.”
“How much does he want for the Demaretion?”
“Didn’t say. Just asked if we’d be interested in buying.”
“Well, if you are, how do you get in touch with him?”
“Cloak-and-dagger stuff. We occupy the ninth floor of a building on Third Avenue and Eighty-third Street. If we’re interested in buying, we’re to close the Venetian blinds on the entire floor. If the writer of the letter sees them closed any working day within the next week, he’ll send us another letter stating his price.”
“Are you going to do it?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe, maybe not. Right now it’s being debated by the top brass. It could be a fake, you know. A colossal con. So meanwhile I’m to continue my investigation.”
“And how are you coming along with that?”
He flipped a palm back and forth. “Bits and pieces. A little here, a little there. The brother of the housekeeper, Ruby Querita, is in the pokey on a drug charge. That could be something. And the youngest daughter, Natalie, runs with a bunch of wild-assed loonies. That could be something.” He turned on the charming smile. “And I know you found out about those two extra display cases Archibald Havistock had made.”
I nodded, figuring he heard about my visit to Nate Colescui.
Suddenly he was serious and sincere again. “That was good thinking on your part, Dunk. You were ahead of me and Al Georgio.”
His quick switches of mood, levity to solemnity, were confusing. I wondered if he was doing it deliberately, to keep me rattled and unsure. I wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t succeeding.
“Is there a typewriter in the Havistock apartment?” I asked him.
He smiled coldly. “That’s a sharp brain you’ve got there, kiddo. Your mama didn’t raise you to be an idiot. Yes, there’s a typewriter in the Havistock apartment. But it’s an IBM Selectric, not an Olympia. Vanwinkle uses it for correspondence. So the letter we got must have been typed somewhere else. That would be easy; there are hotels in the city where you can rent a desk and typewriter by the hour.”
I saw his glass was almost empty and took it from his hand. I brought it into the kitchen, refilled it with ice cubes and a really stiff jolt of Finlandia. If he was trying to unsettle me with his mercurial changes of mood, I could play my own game—get him befuddled enough to tell me more than he intended.
“Jack,” I said, handing him the bomb, “when you’re assigned to an investigation like this, where do you start? What’s the first thing you look for?”
“Motive,” he said promptly. “Someone needs money—right? So they steal something of value.”
I shook my head. “Not necessarily. Not when you’re talking about antique coins or paintings or rare documents. Sometimes they’re stolen not from greed, but because the thief wants to
own
them. It’s the collector’s instinct: to possess an object of great rarity and beauty. He doesn’t want to make a profit from it; he just wants to look at it, devour it with his eyes, and think, ‘Mine, mine,
mine
!’ ”
“You think that’s what happened to the Demaretion?”
“It’s possible. A private collector may have hired a thief, for a fee. Then the coin disappears into his safe. I mean, what else are you going to do with it? Jack, it’s so
rare.
No reputable dealer is going to handle a Demaretion without wanting to know where it came from and how the would-be seller came into possession.”
He stared at me thoughtfully. “That’s an angle I hadn’t considered: a contract theft engineered by a private collector with a mad desire to own the coin. But that anonymous letter we got knocks that theory into a cocked hat, doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. Suppose a rich collector pays a professional thief ten thousand to lift the Demaretion. The crook succeeds, but then he finds out what the coin is really worth. So he says to himself, Why should I take all the risk for this piddling fee when I can get five or ten times as much from the insurance company. So he double-crosses the guy who hired him and contacts you.”
“Dunk,” he said admiringly, “you have a devious mind. I like that. I hope we can work closely together on this. I need the benefit of your expertise.”
“What’s in it for me?” I said boldly.
“The sooner we get it cleared up, the sooner you go back to work at Grandby’s, with maybe a fat raise in gratitude for the help you provided. Isn’t that enough for you?”
I thought a moment. Then: “Yes, it’s enough.”
“Then we can work together?”
I nodded.
“The first thing I’d like to get from you,” he said, “is a list of coin dealers all over the world. We want to get letters out to them to be on the lookout for someone trying to peddle a hot Demaretion. Can you provide a list like that?”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem. I’ll just lend you the most recent directory of the Association.”
“Fine,” he said, then hesitated a moment. “Something else I’d like you to do—if you’re willing.”
“What’s that?”
“Have a private meeting—a talk, lunch, dinner, whatever—with Orson Vanwinkle, the secretary.”
“Why him?”
Jack Smack sat back, frowning. “I don’t really know, except that there’s something cheesy about the man.”
“I agree. I don’t like him.”
“I can’t see how it’s possible that he could have lifted the coin, but I get bad vibes from that guy. There’s something phony there; he doesn’t ring true.”
“I can’t just call him and ask him to take me out to lunch.”
“I know that,” Smack said, “but there must be some way you can work it; you’re a brainy lady. Think about it and see if there’s any way you can talk to him in private. Did he come on to you?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But maybe that’s the way he treats all women.”
He nodded. “Think about it,” he repeated. “If you decide to do it, give me a call, and we’ll talk about what we want to get out of him.” Then, out of the blue: “Would you like me to stay the night?”
I glared at him. “No, I would not like you to stay the night.”
“Okay,” he said equably. “If you don’t ask, you’ll never know—right? You got a guy, Dunk?”
“Several,” I said, lying in my teeth.
“I wish you’d add me to the list,” he said. “I’m single, own a Jaguar, and know how to make Beef Wellington.” Again that warm smile that melted my knees. Oh, God, he was so handsome! “This has nothing to do with our business, Dunk. This is between you and me.”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
He drained his drink and stood up—steadily. So much for my plot. Did I want him to leave? Did I want him to stay? If he planned to confuse me, he was doing one hell of a job.
“I’ll get your bottle,” I told him.
“Oh, no,” he said, “that’s for you. Maybe you’ll invite me in again for a drink.”
“Anytime,” I said. Was that me talking?
At the door, he turned and kissed me. On the lips. It was nice.