“Cynic.”
“Probably.”
“No girl?”
“Not at the moment. I was seeing somebody for a couple of years. When I was in the hospital, she accepted a transfer to LA.”
“Sweet.”
Stone shrugged. “I didn’t come through with the commitment she wanted; she took a hike.” He imitated her sidelong glance. “What about you?”
She sighed. “The usual assortment of yuppies during my twenties. I’m just out of a relationship with a married man.”
“Those don’t work, I’m told.”
“This one sure didn’t. He kept me on the hook for four
years, and then he just couldn’t bring himself to leave his wife.”
“That’s the drill. Still hurting?”
“Now and then, if I don’t watch myself. I think I’m relieved, more than anything else.”
“Was it Harkness?”
“No; he wasn’t in the TV business. Advertising.”
“For what it’s worth, I think the guy’s nuts.”
She smiled, a wide mouth full of straight, white teeth. She started to speak, but didn’t. Instead, she concentrated on her pasta.
Stone watched her, and he felt the possibilities in his gut.
When they left Elaine’s, the rain had stopped, and the air was cool. The car still waited for them.
“Can I drop you?” she asked. “It’s one of the perks of the job; I think I probably spend more of the network’s money on cars than they pay me.”
“Sure, thanks. It’s early; I’ll give you a nightcap at my house.”
“Sold.”
They got into the car, and Stone gave the driver his address.
She looked at him, eyebrows arched. “That’s a pretty expensive neighborhood. You on the take?”
Stone laughed. “Nope. I’ll explain later.”
They drove straight down Second Avenue, and at Sixty-ninth Street they ran into a wall of flashing lights. A uniformed cop was waving traffic through a single open lane.
“Pull over here,” Stone said to the driver. He opened the car door and turned to Cary. “Give me a couple of minutes, will you?” He flashed his badge at a uniform and crossed the yellow tape. A Checker cab was stopped at the intersection, and a small group had gathered around the driver’s open door. Stone saw Headly, from the detective squad.
Headly nodded. “Cabdriver caught one in the head,” he said to Stone. “Looks like he was stopped for the light, somebody pulled up next to him, and just popped him one.”
Stone glanced into the cab at the dead driver, sprawled across the front seat. There was a lot of blood. “You got it covered?” he said to Headly.
“Yeah,” the detective replied.
Suddenly the cab was bathed in bright light. Stone turned, shielding his eyes.
“Howdy, Stone,” Scoop Berman said, still operating his camera. “You on this one?”
“It’s Headly’s,” Stone said. “You can give him the hard time.” He stepped out of Scoop’s lights and bumped into Cary Hilliard, who was staring at the dead driver. He took her elbow. “You don’t want to see that,” he said, turning her toward their car. “How’d you get past the tape?”
“Press card,” she said, showing a blue, plastic shield on a string around her neck. She took it off and stuffed it into her handbag.
In the car they were both quiet for a block or two.
“You see a lot of that stuff?” she asked finally.
“Enough. More than I’d like to see. Did it upset you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t get a good enough look, thank God. I faint at the sight of blood.”
They turned into Turtle Bay, and the car stopped.
“Wait for me,” Cary said to the driver.
They climbed the steps, and Stone opened the front door of the house.
“You’ve got the duplex?” Cary asked, surprised.
“I’ve got the house,” Stone replied. He flipped on the hall light.
“You
are
on the take,” she said, laughing. “No honest cop could ever afford a house in Turtle Bay.”
“Would you believe I inherited it?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“I did. My Great-Aunt Elizabeth, my grandfather’s sister, married well. She always had a soft spot for my father, and she willed it to him. She outlived him, though, only died early this year at the age of ninety-eight, and so her estate came to me.”
Stone led her into the library.
“It’s a mess,” she said, looking around at the empty shelves, stripped of their varnish, the books stacked on the floor, the rug rolled up, the furniture stacked in a corner, everything under sheets of plastic.
“It is now,” Stone said, “but I’m working on it. My father designed and built this room; it was his first important commission, right after World War II. Everything is solid walnut. You could still buy it in those days; now all you can get is veneer, and that’s out of sight.”
“It’s going to be magnificent,” she said.
He led her through the other rooms, pointing out a couple of pieces that his father had built. “Most of the upholstered furniture is out being re-covered. My plan is to do the place up right, then sell it and retire on the proceeds, one of these days.”
“Why not just sell it now?” she asked.
“I had a real estate lady look at it. She says I can triple the price if I put it in good shape—new heating, plumbing, kitchen—the works.”
“How can you afford to do that?”
“There was a little money in Aunt Elizabeth’s estate. I’m putting it all into the house and doing most of the work myself, with a couple of helpers and the occasional plumber and electrician.”
“Where are your mother’s pictures?”
“In my bedroom.”
“May I see them?”
Stone took her up in the old elevator. “I keep meaning to get this thing looked at,” he said over the creaking of the
machinery, “but I’m afraid they’ll tell me it needs replacing.”
She stood in the bedroom and looked around. “This is going to be wonderful,” she said. “I hope to God you’ve got decent taste.”
“I’m not all that sure that I do,” he lied. “I could use some advice.”
“You may get more of that than you want; doing interiors is almost my favorite thing.” She walked across the room and stood before the three Matilda Stones. There were two views of West Ninth and West Tenth streets, and an elevated view of Washington Square. “These are superb,” she said. “You could get half a million for the three, I’ll bet, but don’t you dare.”
“Don’t worry. They’re a permanent fixture.”
“They belong in a house like, this,” she said, “and so do you. Can’t you think of some way to hang on to it? Go on the take, or something?”
“I have this fantasy,” he said. “I’m living in this house; it’s in perfect condition; there are servants in the servants’ quarters, a cook in the kitchen, and money in the bank. I don’t dare let myself dwell on it; it’s never going to happen, I know that.” He turned from the pictures and looked at her. “You said interior decorating was almost your favorite thing. What’s your favorite?”
She stepped out of her heels and turned to face him. “I’m five-eleven in my stocking feet; does that turn you off?”
Stone looked her up and down—the luxuriant, dark hair; the chiseled face; the full breasts under the black cashmere; the long legs finishing in slender feet. He hooked an arm around her narrow waist and pulled her to him.
She smiled and rubbed her belly against his. “Apparently not,” she said, then kissed him.
Stone slid down a long, velvet tunnel of desire, made no attempt to slow his fall. Their clothes vanished, and they found the bed. Stone made to move on top of her, then cried
out when his swollen knee took his weight.
She pushed him onto his back, kissed the knee, kissed his lips and his nipples, kissed his navel and his penis, took him in her mouth, nearly swallowed him, brought him fully erect, then slid him inside her.
Stone looked up at the long body, the firm breasts, freed from the cashmere, the lips parted in ecstasy, the glazed eyes. She sucked him inside her again and again. When he thought he would come, she stopped and sat still, kissing his ears and his eyes, then she began again. Half an hour seemed to stretch into weeks, until, bathed in sweat, his face buried between her breasts, he came with her, and their cries echoed around the underfurnished room.
They lay in each other’s arms, spent, breathing hard, caressing.
“You never told me what your favorite thing was,” Stone said.
“That was it,” Cary replied, kissing him.
Stone woke to broad daylight, and she was gone. A card was propped on the mantelpiece. There were phone numbers for home and work and an address: 1011 Fifth Avenue.
Chapter
S
tone arrived in the detectives’ squad room of the 19th Precinct feeling rested, refreshed, fulfilled, and in an extremely good mood. The good mood was tempered somewhat by the rows of empty desks in the room. Twenty-four hours earlier, they had been filled with detectives doing his bidding, chasing down every lead on the Sasha Nijinsky disappearance, leaving only to interview her co-workers and acquaintances, again at his bidding. He had the sickening feeling that his time at the head of the investigation had come to an end.
Dino was in Lieutenant Leary’s glassed-in office at the end of the large room. Stone rapped on the glass and joined them. “Where is everybody?” he asked Dino as he pulled up a chair.
“On the cabdriver thing,” Dino said.
Stone turned to Leary. “Lieutenant, you’re not going to
pull my guys off this investigation and put them on a cabdriver murder, are you?”
“Yeah,” Leary said, “but it’s
three
murders.”
“The cabdriver and who else?” Stone asked.
“The cabdriver and two other cabdrivers,” Leary said. “Don’t you watch TV or nothing?”
“I got a late start this morning,” Stone said. “You mean three cabdrivers on the same day?”
“On the same night, all within an hour of each other,” Leary said. “We got a fucking wildcat cabdrivers’ strike going, you know that? Park Avenue is a parking lot. There’s two thousand cabs just sitting there. You didn’t notice?”
“Park Avenue isn’t on my way to work,” Stone said.
“You’re lucky you and Bacchetti are still on Nijinsky,” Leary said. “The mayor wasn’t interested personally, you wouldn’t be. What’ve you got on the lady?”
“Zip,” Dino said.
“Some ideas,” Stone said, shooting Dino a glance.
“What ideas?” Leary asked.
“We want a search warrant on Van Fleet,” Stone said.
“Dino’s been telling me about him,” Leary replied. “I like him for this. You got enough for the warrant?”
“The letters ought to do it. We can demonstrate his undue interest in Nijinsky.”
“See Judge O’Neal,” Leary said. “She’s got a hair up her ass about anything to do with any crime against women. She’ll buy the letters.”
“Right.”
“What else you got?”
“Zip,” Dino replied.
Stone shrugged. “It’s not as though the effort hasn’t been made. Every single co-worker has been interviewed; every hospital, clinic, and funeral parlor in the city, Long Island, and New Jersey has been contacted. I want to go through all her stuff
today, just as soon as we’ve searched Van Fleet’s place.”
“I buy the effort,” Leary said. “It’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
“It is,” Dino agreed. “I never knew of nobody going up the pipe like this broad. It’s spooky.”
“I’ll call the chief this morning; he’ll talk to the mayor. I’ll tell’em we need more time.”
“We do,” Stone said.
“Go to it.” Leary put his feet on his desk and picked up the telephone.
Stone followed Dino out of Leary’s office. “You call Judge O’Neal’s secretary for an appointment. I’ve got a call to make.” He sat down at his desk, dug out Cary’s card, and called her direct line. He got her on the first ring.
“Cary Hilliard.”
“Morning.”
“Well, good morning to you!” She was laughing.
“How are you?”
Her voice moved nearer the phone, and she whispered. “I’m sore as hell, and I feel great!”
“Same here”—Stone laughed—“but I’m not sure great describes it; it’s somewhere above that.”
“I’m free this evening,” she said.
“No you’re not; you’ve got a dinner date.”
“I’ll be done here by seven forty-five. Have you been to the Tribeca Grill?”
“Is that De Niro’s new place?”
“That’s it. Shall I book us a table?”
“Come to my house first, for a drink.”
“You’re on. I’ll book for nine o’clock. See you at eight.”
“You betcha.”
When Stone hung up, Dino was looking at him.
“You got laid, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Stone dissembled.
“I can tell.” Dino batted his eyes rapidly. “You’re just
glowing
all over.”
“Jesus Christ! Do I have to take this shit from my own partner?”
“You betcha,” Dino said, imitating Stone.
“What about Judge O’Neal?”
“Half an hour.”
“What are we going to do for some help with the search?” Stone asked. “Nobody here.”
“Well, shit,” Dino replied, “if you and me between us can’t find a corpse in a funeral parlor, we ought to turn in our papers.”
Stone led the way out. “She’s still alive, Dino. I can feel it.”
“When I can feel
her
, I’ll believe it,” Dino called after him, hustling to keep up.
Judge O’Neal was youngish, blonde, and extremely good-looking. She sat in her high-backed, leather chair, her robes thrown open and her legs crossed, and contemplated Stone.
Stone contemplated right back. The woman had been wearing an engagement ring during the year since he had first come across her, or he would have asked her out.
“The letters are enough for me,” O’Neal said, “even if he doesn’t talk dirty. A thousand letters is weird enough for a warrant. Nobody’s going to overrule.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Stone said. “By the way, we’ve included his place of work in the warrant.”
“Off the record, Detective, for my own curiosity, what do you think happened to this woman?”
“Off the record, Judge, I am completely baffled, but I think she may still be alive.”