Max snorted. “Little taste? You are the most narcissistic, hedonistic person on the planet. You flew thirty people to Paris in September, put them up in a five-star hotel for four days, paid for their food, their wine, their—”
“Shut up!” Leo screamed. “It was my sixtieth birthday, and yes, I spent a lot of money, and no, I have no regrets. Non, je ne regrette rien, mon frère. I’m spending my money now, while I’m alive, and if I don’t have enough, I will go out and get more.”
“You want more money, Leo? All you have to do is sign the goddamn contract with Precio Mundo, and you’ll have all the money you ever need to feed your face until the day you die.”
“Never! Leo Bassett is a jeweler to the stars, not a flunky for a bunch of cut-rate, low-rent, bargain-basement Mexican whores.”
“Flunky? You’d be in a partnership with one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. And they’re not cut-rate. They’re mass-market. Which means half a million women could be wearing our jewelry instead of one dead actress.”
Leo took a step back. “What are you implying, Max?”
“I’m not implying anything. I am flat-out saying that it’s your fault she’s dead. You were supposed to be in the backseat with her. You were supposed to keep her calm and get her to hand over the necklace without an argument. It may have been the single most important thing you’ve ever had to do in your life, Leo, and you blew it off because you didn’t want to walk down the red carpet smelling like a fish stick.”
“I’m sorry about Elena, but stealing the necklace was the right call.”
“Why don’t you put that in a little handwritten note to Elena’s parents? ‘Dear Mom and Dad. Sorry about your daughter, but I needed the money. Signed, Leo Bassett, jeweler to the stars.’”
Maxwell Bassett knew where his brother’s buttons were, and he knew this was the last one he had to push.
Leo threw him the finger, turned, and stormed out of the room.
Poor Leo, Max thought. Did you really think I would let you and Jeremy be in charge of stealing an eight-million-dollar necklace?
He smiled. This was going better than he’d planned.
“The same goes for me, Leo,” he whispered softly. “Non, je ne regrette rien, mon frère.”
Chapter 31
“One dead perp is a good start,” Captain Cates said after we brought her up to speed on the Travers murder, “but it’s been almost forty-eight hours. Elena was an international star. Half the world is waiting for answers.”
“Then you might want to tell half the world that we’d have more answers if we didn’t get sidetracked every time another body-probe machine went missing.”
“I feel your pain, Jordan,” Cates said, “but this is NYPD Red, and nothing is redder than whatever is troubling Mayor Sykes and/or her husband. I gave you a backup team, but you two are still on the front line till these hospital robberies are solved.”
“Even if it takes time away from our primary case?” I said.
“You have two primary cases, Detective. What you don’t have is a personal life. Do I have to say ‘That’s an order’? Because if I do, consider it said. Now, is there anything else I need to know?”
“We did a quiet background check on the Bassett brothers,” Kylie said. “This is the fourth time they’ve been robbed in twenty-two years.”
“The bodega in my neighborhood has been robbed four times since July,” Cates said. “Give me a perspective.”
“The JSA stats say there were about fifteen hundred jewelry robberies last year — about four a day,” Kylie said. “So for the Bassetts to get hit four times in twenty-two years isn’t enough to put up a red flag. But this robbery smacks of being an inside job, and since Leo and Max are as inside as you can get, we wanted to know more about them.”
“I’ve met them,” Cates said. “Leo is a charming old queen. Dumb with a capital Duh. He was caught in a compromising position in a men’s room at a movie theater a few years ago, but that’s the extent of his criminal history. If you ask me, Max is the real felon.”
“His name didn’t pop up in the database,” I said.
“That’s because our penal code turns a blind eye to what he does. Max Bassett spends millions of dollars to hunt in private compounds where exotic animals are bred so they can be legally slaughtered. African elephants, lions, rhinos, polar bears — the man has a trophy room filled with the heads and carcasses of some of the world’s most endangered species.”
“That’s disgusting,” Kylie said.
“And expensive,” Cates said. “Max may be wealthy, but he doesn’t have unlimited resources. If he’s addicted to killing rare animals, stealing an eight-million-dollar necklace would pay for more than a few safaris.”
“It sounds like a motive, boss, but Zach and I interviewed someone today who told us the Bassett brothers are about to get very, very rich very, very soon.”
“Who told you that?”
“Lavinia Begbie.”
“The gossip columnist?”
Kylie’s phone rang. She checked the caller ID. “I think this is the call we’ve been waiting for. Let me take it at my desk. Zach, tell the captain what Lavinia told us.”
She stepped out of the room.
“We talked to Lavinia Begbie because she was at the Bassett brothers’ cocktail party the night of the murder,” I said. “Leo was supposed to be in the limo with Elena, but he bailed out at the last minute, which seemed a little convenient to us. But Begbie said that Leo tripped over her dog, took a header into the buffet table, wound up covered with goop, and was in no shape to make a public appearance.”
“So his alibi for not being in the limo holds up,” Cates said, “but I’m much more interested in the part about the Bassetts coming into big money.”
“Begbie said they’re about to make a zillion-dollar deal with Precio Mundo to mass-market their brand.”
“I didn’t go to business school,” Cates said, “but that sounds to me like winning the ultimate big-box-store lottery.”
“Exactly. So why would they risk it all to steal a necklace?”
Kylie came bursting through the door. “Good news, Captain. NCIC has a lead on Annie Ryder. Zach and I have to run.”
“Go,” Cates said. “Keep me posted.”
For the second time that day, I chased Kylie down the stairs and out the door, but this time we weren’t heading off to another hospital. I was convinced that Annie Ryder was the linchpin to cracking the Travers case, and I was psyched.
“Where is Annie holed up?” I asked Kylie as I got into the car.
She put it in gear and pulled out. “I have no idea.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“That wasn’t NCIC who called me. It was Shelley Trager. His cleaning lady showed up at the corporate apartment and found Spence smoking crack with two other men.”
“That phone call was about Spence? But you told Cates we just got a major break in our biggest case. Are you out of your mind?”
“Oh, I’m definitely out of my mind, Zach,” she said, nearly running down a pedestrian in case I had any doubts.
“How in God’s name could you lie to our boss like that?”
“Zach, she just put a freeze on personal time. How in God’s name could I tell her the truth?”
“And did you think about telling me the truth before you dragged me into this train wreck?”
“I didn’t exactly have time to come up with an elaborate game plan, Zach,” she said, zipping through another red light. “Besides, you would have tried to talk me out of it, and I don’t have time for that either. I need to do this, and I need you with me.”