Sydney rose, straightening her silk skirt. “I think I’ve given you enough to think about. You were never very fast in your mental workings, were you? I will see you this afternoon in Demos’ suite. I trust by then you will have done something with yourself. Oh, do allow me to pay.”
Taylor
Taylor bent over the old man, felt for the pulse in his throat. He was dead, a heart attack it appeared, no overt signs of anything else. But he didn’t believe it was a natural death for a second. He rose slowly, looking around. The woman was gone. Naturally.
He called to Enoch, who’d just come around the corner of the alley. “Get an ambulance and keep your eyes peeled for that woman and the cops.”
Taylor quickly searched the man’s wallet. No I.D., no credit cards, no photos, nothing but a folded piece of paper stuffed down in an inner fold of the wallet. Left by accident? Maybe, but Taylor didn’t think so. He unfolded it and read: “If you see Gloria, tell her Demos is trying to hide, but not for long. He’ll come through. He always does.” It wasn’t signed.
Taylor looked up when he heard the wail of a police siren. He quickly folded the paper. He was on the point of putting it back in the man’s wallet when he stopped. No reason to.
Who the hell was Demos? He sounded like a New Jersey Mafia runner or some lowlife bookie.
Taylor rose when two officers came into the alley, both holding guns.
“Ah, it’s you, Taylor,” said the older cop, putting his gun back into its holster. He waved at the dead man. “What’s going on? Who’s this?”
It was Mahonney from the East Orange police, a paunchy guy, balding, cool-headed, and smart as a whip. The guy with him was a fresh-faced rookie with a bad skin problem.
Taylor wished just then he was back in France and not in a dirty alley in East Orange, New Jersey, standing over a dead body. He’d just come home two weeks before after three weeks covering every rocky inch of Brittany on a Harley.
“I found this in his wallet, nothing else, no I.D., no nothing. Maybe when he was cleaned out this was just missed.”
Taylor handed Mahonney the paper and watched him read it, then shrug. “I don’t know who this Demos character is. You got any ideas, Taylor?”
“Not a one. I was tailing this guy because his wife paid me and Enoch to get the goods on him.”
Mahonney dropped to his knees and looked the dead man over closely. “He looks too old to me to have the energy to go playing around with other women. What would you say, about sixty? Heart attack?”
“Looks like. I don’t see any blood or bruises. But I don’t think his heart just stopped. No, someone did this to him. And yeah, he is too old and I think Enoch and I were set up. This is the first time I’ve seen him up close. The wife showed us a photo of a much younger man, and this guy always wore a hat. You want the wife’s name?”
“The whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” Mahonney said, scratching his left ear. “Why hire you and Enoch to follow him? If someone killed him, why would they want you as witnesses?”
Taylor shrugged. He studied the dead man again. “You know,” he said slowly, “just maybe this killing with us as witnesses is a message to this guy Demos. You know, having two ex-cops around and they didn’t make any difference, the guy’s still dead. Or maybe it’s a message to someone else, who knows? But to use me and Enoch, it does make sense.”
Mahonney nodded. “The arrogance of it smacks of the pros. They’ve got balls to burn. It makes them look invincible, what with you guys dogging the victim. I’m going to talk to the wife. You and Enoch want to tag along?”
“Sure.”
It turned out that the wife who’d hired them wasn’t the dead man’s wife. She accused Taylor and Enoch of following the wrong guy. This old turnip she’d never seen before. He was ugly as sin. She’d have never married him. She was indignant; she refused to pay them a dime. She said they were losers. The cops were suspicious but there was nothing more to go on. Taylor and Enoch thought and thought of ways to nail her but couldn’t come up with anything.
Late the next morning, Enoch walked to their small office on the second floor of the Cox Building on Fifty-fourth and Lexington in Manhattan. The front door was opaque glass with “Taylor and Sackett” printed in bold script. He walked in, picked up the mail from Maude’s desk, went into his and Taylor’s office, and sat down. “All that’s junk mail,” Taylor said, waving a finger at the slew of papers in Enoch’s hands. “Don’t waste your time. Let Maude deal with it.”
“Yeah, okay.” Enoch tossed the pile over his shoulder onto the floor, then looked back at Taylor and grinned. “Shit, man, so now what?”
Enoch slouched forward in the chair, his long arms dangling between his knees.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor said. “We’re not going to starve and Sheila won’t rub your nose in it. I’ve got a computer job coming up on Monday. It’s the Salex Corporation and they’ve got some real bugs in their new export accounting program. They’re paying me big bucks to fix it. We’ll survive. You go to work on the Lamarck case, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. It’s just a matter of finding out who’s selling cosmetic secrets, right? No problem. It’s a small industry with just a few players.” He sighed. “Sheila’s not going to like this at all. She has a fit whenever there’s a dead body lying around and I’m anywhere near it. I was lucky. She was out playing bridge last night so I didn’t have to face her. Jesus, that’s probably why I was a cop, just to bug the old girl. As for the money, well, a thou isn’t too much to worry about, you’re right.”
Enoch had lived with his mother all his forty-two years. They fought like a married couple. He never called her mother. He only called her Sheila, at least to her face. Enoch’s father had died when he was eighteen, and his mom, Sheila, had inherited a cool ten million dollars and a dozen shoe stores. She was wealthy and acid-tongued and a kick. She was also a very talented musician. Taylor was very fond of her. She was always after him to get married again. As for Enoch, Sheila never mentioned marriage for him. As for Enoch, he never mentioned marriage either, even though he’d had a dozen relationships with women over the years.
Enoch said, “I wonder who that Demos guy is.”
“Mahonney told me if they ever found out it would be by informant,” Taylor said. “There are a slew of Demoses in the tri-state area. Good luck. As to that, who wrote the bloody note?”
“I think you’re right, and so do the cops. We were not only set up, but our purpose was to send a message to someone, probably this poor slob Demos. To show him he shouldn’t screw around with the big boys. I talked to Boggs, the coroner, just before I left home. He said the guy was stabbed with a thin circular blade right in the heart. The hole was very small and the bleeding nearly nil, which is why you and Mahonney didn’t see anything. You think the woman did it, this Gloria? Or was it this Demos? Was the woman we saw with him even Gloria?”
“God knows. Mahonney hasn’t even identified the dead man yet. You want a beer?”
“Yeah, it’ll drive Sheila bananas. I’ll even spill a little bit on my coat. She’ll shriek and call me a degenerate.” Enoch grinned and rubbed his hands. “Then I’ll tell her about the body. Give her lots of details.”
“You’re evil, Enoch.”
“It’s part of my charm, Taylor, just part of my charm.”
9
Lindsay
Lindsay stood tall and straight and stiff directly in front of Demos’ desk. She said again, more calmly this time, “I won’t do it, Vinnie. And you won’t talk me out of it, so just forget it.”