“Get out,” Annie said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” she said, standing. “Get out, you foul-mouthed, disrespectful little snot. Get out before I call the cops.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the language. All I want is the necklace.”
“I don’t have any necklace, and even if I did, I wouldn’t sell it to a bad-mannered, ill-bred punk.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small cylinder. “This is pepper spray. I’ve used it before, and I’ll use it again. Out.”
She opened the door and watched as Jeremy backed out. Then she locked it behind him.
Teddy came out of the bedroom. “Ma, you were awesome, but now we’re never going to sell the necklace.”
“Of course we will.”
“To who?”
“Your good buddy Jeremy. He’ll be back, and next time he shows up, he’ll show me a little more respect.”
“You think he’ll be back?”
“Not back here, but he’ll call me in less than an hour. Guaranteed.”
“You are the coolest mom in the world.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. How are you feeling? Still sore?”
“It hurts, but no big deal.”
“Can I get you anything? You want some tea?”
“Sure.”
Annie filled the teakettle and then set it on the stove. Then she went to a cabinet and took down a tin of cookies.
“Hey, Ma, can I ask you one question?” Teddy said.
“Anything.”
“Isn’t pepper spray like a weapon?”
“It’s for self-defense, but technically pepper spray can be a dangerous weapon.”
“But you have a thing about no weapons, so how come you have pepper spray in your pocket?”
Annie took out the cylinder. “You mean this?” she said, holding it up.
Teddy grinned. “I got you now, Ma. How you gonna talk your way out of this one?”
Annie pointed the cylinder directly at her face, pressed the button, and sprayed it into her mouth.
“Breath freshener,” she said. “Wintergreen. Any more questions?”
Chapter 37
“Go next door and take a nap,” Annie instructed her son after they’d finished their tea and cookies.
“Aw, Ma,” Teddy whined. “That place stinks like cat. Why can’t I just stay here?”
“Because this place stinks like cop. There were two detectives here this morning. What do I do if they come banging on my door with a warrant? Tell them to come back in five minutes so I can tidy up?”
“Fine,” Teddy said, sulking. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got a date,” she said, her eyes smiling. “Now get out of here while I make myself as beautiful as I possibly can, considering what I’ve got to work with.”
She opened the door, scouted the hallway, gave Teddy the high sign, and he scurried to the adjacent apartment in seconds.
Then she went to the bedroom, opened the closet, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She frowned. “Needs work,” she said.
So she got to work. Makeup first, hair next, and then she slipped into a seldom-worn but totally chic Carolina Herrera black cocktail dress. A pair of sensible heels, two dabs of perfume, and finally, her hands a little shaky, she put the emerald and diamond necklace around her neck.
She went back to the closet door for a second look. “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she said. “Who looks like eight million bucks now?”
She walked to the living room and stood in front of her late husband. “What do you think, Buddy?” she said, doing a full twirl. “It normally costs three thousand, but you know what a smart shopper I am. I got it for a steal at Bergdorf’s.”
She laughed out loud, and she could practically hear him laughing with her. She took the urn from the sideboard, set it on the kitchen table, and sat down across from it.
“I’m in over my head, Buddy,” she said. “I could use some advice.”
She placed a hand on either side of the urn and closed her eyes.
“The newspaper says this little bauble is worth eight mil, but I don’t know beans about fencing jewelry. What do you think this Jeremy guy can get for it? Forty cents on the dollar?”
Buddy didn’t respond.
“Thirty cents? Twenty-five?”
Her palms warmed when she got to fifteen. They tingled when she got to twelve.
“So if he’s getting a million out of the deal, what should my cut be?”
She ran through some numbers again until the two of them zeroed in on 17½ percent.
Then they talked. Mostly about Teddy, because he was always their biggest issue, and finally she apologized for not keeping her promise. Buddy had asked her to spread his ashes up and down the Strip in Vegas, and Annie had agreed. She just hadn’t said when.
“There’ll be plenty of time for Teddy to spread us both. In the meantime, I need you around.”
She sat there for ten more minutes, the urn cradled in her hands, until the phone rang. She put it on speaker so Buddy could hear.
“Mrs. Ryder. It’s Jeremy. Look, I’m sorry. We got off on the wrong foot. Can we talk?”
“You can talk,” Annie said. “I can listen.”
“I originally hired Teddy and Raymond for fifty thousand. Then I upped it to ninety. I’ll give you one and a quarter.”
“One seventy-five,” Annie said. “Take it or—”
“I’ll take it,” Jeremy said. “But I need time to pull the money together. How about if I come over tomorrow around noon?”
“Good idea. Bring some chloroform and an empty trunk. What am I, stupid? This either goes down in a public place or it doesn’t go down at all.”
“Okay, okay. What about Central Park?”
“Jeremy, old ladies without any jewelry get mugged in Central Park. Meet me at 205 East Houston Street at noon.”
He repeated the address. “What’s there?” he asked.
“Your necklace,” she said, hanging up.
She removed it from around her neck, wrapped it in an empty plastic bag from CVS, took the top off the urn, and dropped the bag inside.
“Keep an eye on this for me, Buddy,” she said. “You’re the only one I trust.”
Chapter 38
“It looked like you connected with Cheryl after our meeting with Cates,” Kylie said, navigating the car through the usual Third Avenue rush hour logjam. We were on our way to talk to Howard Sykes at Gracie Mansion. “Did you two lovebirds finally cement the relationship?”
“Connected would be an overstatement,” I said. “We had a brief encounter, like two ships in the night, only we were two cops on a stairwell. Cement is an even bigger stretch. Right now, our relationship is being held together by static cling. As for lovebirds...”
“I get it, I get it,” Kylie said, hanging a right on 88th Street. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m happy to have someone to dump it on. You were right this morning about me licking my wounds. By the time I got home last night, I was relegated to the sofa, and I didn’t get to see Cheryl till this afternoon. And you can’t do what I have to do in a house full of nosy cops, so I’m going to try to make reparations tonight over dinner at Paola’s.”
“And are you telling me all this because you think I’m hooked on the soap opera you call your love life? Or is it your not-so-subtle way of telling me not to call you tonight because you’re busy doing damage control?”
“What do you think, Detective?” I said.
“My finely tuned detective instincts tell me that if you’re wining and dining Cheryl at Paola’s, she definitely won’t break up with you before dinner.”