“Ruth Fryer didn’t have a key to the apartment.”
“But Joan Winslow does.”
“The woman next door? She has a key? We forgot to ask that. Terrible thing, being an inspector of police inexperienced at the job. I should have asked. But why would she let Ruth Fryer in?”
“She probably wouldn’t—if Joan were sober. She let me in.”
“Did she, indeed? How very interesting. And where is the Countess now?”
“She moved in last night.”
“Moved in here?”
“Yes. The Ritz-Carlton was too expensive.”
“Ah! The Countess is the dish you had drinks with at the Ritz the other night. Ah, yes. The boyos were rather taken with her. And they said you didn’t even pay the check!”
“I didn’t.”
“The Countess is rather cramping your style?”
“She’d like to.”
“Well, well, now.” Flynn gazed at the bottom of his empty teacup. “Haven’t we learned a lot about each other?”
Fletch said nothing. His second drink was gone.
Flynn said, “I guess I should be shovin‘ home, to my family.”
The rain was still audible.
In the hall, Fletch asked, “How’s the chubby City Councilperson’s murder coming?”
“It’s not coming at all. Not at all. You’d think with such a murder, someone would step forward and take the credit, wouldn’t you?”
“Thanks for the Scotch, Inspector.”
Fletch pushed the elevator button.
Then he said, “Get me off the hook soon, will you, Frank?”
“I know. You want to go to Texas, trailing your entourage of women.”
He went through the clunky elevator doors.
Descending the shaft, he said, his voice as quiet as always, “You’re the best suspect I’ve got yet, Fletcher, no matter how you dance on the head of a pin. You might save me the bother by confessin‘.”
Twenty-five
It was just past five o’clock in the afternoon and Fletch was sleepy. The drinks with Flynn had unwound him.
He said good night to Mrs. Sawyer, had a bowl of her stew, and, despite the hour, crawled into bed.
It was midnight, Rome time.
“Flesh, darling.”
Someone was nibbling his ear.
A long, cool body pressed against his. A nipple grazed his forearm.
It was a fuller body than Angela’s. Much.
A leg stroked the back of his own legs. Up and down.
“Sylvia!”
Even in the dark room, there was no mistaking the tousled hair of his step-mother-in-law-to-be against the pillow.
“Jesus Christ, Sylvia!”
“It’s too late, darling.”
She slipped her right hip under his.
“You read in the Bible, ‘They knew each other in his sleep?’”
“This is incest!”
“So was that, darling.”
She was fully under him, her hips moving.
Her breasts were back-breaking.
“God!”
It was too late.
There was only one thing be could do to prevent either one part of his body, or another, from breaking.
“It was not incest, darling.”
Flat on his back, finally, Fletch read the luminous dial of his wristwatch. It was only eight o’clock at night.
“Did you have something to eat?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. “You expect me to put up with your tricks forever?”
“You’ve got some pretty good tricks of your own, Countess del Gassey.”
“Where did you go last night? One, two hours I wait for my dinner.”
“I went out.”
“I know that. Son of a bitch.” She sat up. “That’s what you do! You tell me some crazy story and then you leave me with nothing! You’re no grand chef! You’re son of a bitch! You’ll do the same thing with the paintings—tell me lies, lies! Leave me with nothing!”
He put his hand on her back.
“I left the front door unlocked for you. Did you get a nice man to let you in downstairs?”
“I had to wait, and wait. You didn’t answer the buzzer.”
“I was asleep.”
Sitting up in the bed, in the dark, the Countess de Grassi began to cry.
“Oh, Flesh! You will help me.”
“I will?‘’
“You have to help me!”
“I do?”
“Menti’s dead. I’m an early widow. With nothing. Nothing!”
“Yeah.”
“I have nothing, Flesh.”
“Actually, you have a few things going for you.”
“Angela’s young, and she’s pretty. Clever. She has her whole life ahead of her. Me? I have nothing.”
“She’s a de Grassi, Sylvia.”
“Me? I’m the Countess de Grassi!”
“I’ve heard.”
“I married Menti.”
“And his paintings.”
“They are my paintings. Menti would want me to have them. I know this. Many times he spoke of ‘our paintings.’”
“Sylvia, will you listen? Whose paintings they are is not for me to say. Either Menti mentioned them in his will, or he didn’t. If he did mention them, they go to you, Andy, both of you, neither of you—whatever he directed in his will. If he didn’t mention them, then it is for the Italian courts to decide—if we ever recover the paintings, that is.”
She crawled inside his arm, snuggled next to him.
Fletch remembered seeing, on the beach at Cagna her toes, with the nails polished.
She said, “If the paintings are in this country, then, how do you say, possession is the first law of nature.”
“Self-preservation is the first law of nature, Sylvia—an instinct you have fully developed.”
“I mean, possession.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Flesh, tell me the truth. You know where the paintings are.”
“Sylvia, I am in Boston working on a biography of Edgar Arthur Tharp Junior.”
She slapped him lightly on the chest.
“You lie. All the time you lie to me.”
“I am.”
“You writing on such a big book, then where the typewriter? Where the papers? I looked all over the apartment last night. Nobody’s writing a book here.”
“I haven’t started yet. I’ve had distractions.”
“‘Distractions!’ You find the paintings.” He could feel breath from each nostril going against his side. “Where are the paintings?”
He was awake. And he was beginning to want it.
He said nothing.
She placed the side of her knee over his crotch and moved it.
She said, “Where are the paintings? Eh, Flesh?”
“You’re a hell of a negotiator, Sylvia.”
“You will help me, Flesh. Won’t you?”
“You help me first.”
“America!” Fletch shouted.
It was at the worst possible moment that the telephone rang.
It was a cable. From Andy. Angela de Grassi.
“ARRIVING BOSTON SUNDAY SIX-THIRTY P.M. TWA FLIGHT 540. IS SYLVIA WITH YOU. MUCH LOVE.—ANDY.”
Fletch said, “Oh, shit.”
She never could keep herself to ten words or less.
He said, “Oh, Christ.”
He said, “What, in hell, am I doing?”
Sylvia said, “Come on, Flesh.
He said, “All right.”
It was a somewhat better moment the next time the telephone rang.
Fletch said, “Hello?”
“Are you drunk?”
It was Jack Saunders. Fletch could hear the city room clatter behind him.
“No.”
“Were you asleep?”
“No.”
“What are you doing?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“I’ve got it. Are you about through?”
“Buzz off, will you, Jack?”
“Wait a minute, Fletch. I’m stuck.”