They rode on in silence.
After a while he looked at the photo again, thinking of what Ash had said: Never saw her blond before.
And suddenly the mystery woman wasn’t a mystery anymore.
The butler led Cardozo into the big, pricey pad and threw open the huge cypress doors of the livingroom.
“Your Ladyship, Mr. Vince Cardozo.”
Countess Vicki sat curled on the enormous velvet sofa, one leg beneath her and the other swinging shoeless. The shoes lying on the Persian carpet matched her brown silk dress.
She was talking on the telephone and trying to clasp an emerald bracelet. Sapphires and diamonds blazed at her throat and wrists and ears. Her slender, oval face turned in Cardozo’s direction, full-lipped and hinting, and she shot him a smiling, brown-eyed glance of welcome.
Like the countess’s dress, the enormous livingroom with its three marbled pillars and two crystal chandeliers seemed to have been designed to set off the owner’s dark coloring. Bookcases were filled with gold-tooled leather bindings and glittering figurines and intricately ornamented porcelain plates. Tables wore bright shawls and were dotted with china bowls and silver-framed pictures of current celebrities, most of them autographed.
Cardozo took a leisurely stroll to the fireplace. Engraved invitations were stuck in the mirror over the mantel. They were also, more surprisingly, stuck in the frame of a Renoir.
“Too divine,” Vicki said. “Call you later—love you much.” She set the phone receiver back in the cradle and rose from the sofa.
“How angelic of you to remember my phone number.” She came across the room and took Cardozo’s hand. “I honestly thought you’d forgotten me.”
Cardozo smiled. “Never.”
The countess bent down and pulled the phone cord out of the wall jack. “We don’t need that anymore. Would you like something to drink? I have some leftover cappuccino—or would you rather get drunk?”
“I could live without cappuccino.”
The countess, a dark silhouette against the glow of the pantry doorway, spent three minutes trying to press extra ice cubes into the blender. “I hope you like slush margaritas,” she called. “And if you don’t, please pretend.”
The blender screeched and she came out of the pantry carrying two champagne glasses filled with what looked like chopped icicles. “Maid’s day off—forgive.”
He sipped. “Tastes great.”
She sipped. “It’s usually hard for me to meet new people. But with you it’s different, I felt that right away. I can be myself with you—and you can be yourself with me—and neither of us is going to judge the other. I think that’s the way a man and a woman should be, don’t you?”
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“Why don’t we find a more private locale?”
Dark hair billowing, skirt swaying, she led him down a seemingly endless corridor, the walls tiled with Utrillos and Jasper Johnses.
Drink in hand, she stood by the door, her bright mouth smiling now, her large eyes inviting him into the still, cool, dim interior of the bedroom.
He accepted, moving past her.
The walls had been done in a dizzying variety of faux marble and faux wood and trompe-l’oeil. There were cut begonias in a Chinese porcelain vase on the dresser and a telephone console with eight buttons on the bedside table. On a chest of drawers were three wigs on stands—a red, a gray, and a blond.
Clothes had been laid out on the bed: a mauve evening gown, silk stockings, a sequined purse, a short fur jacket.
“Are you going out?” he asked.
“I was planning to.” She swung out one of the mirror wall panels and took a cushioned hanger from the closet. “But why go to a dull party when I can stay home and have an exciting one?”
“I guess you’re pretty good at state-of-the-art partying.”
“I guess that’s a compliment.” She finished her drink and slipped a CD into the player. Tinkly music filled the room. “I love the naive magic of Mozart—don’t you?”
She switched off the lamp, leaving the room half lit by streetlights slanting through the Roman shades. She drew the thick damask curtains, and a moment later she lit a scented candle and placed it beside the phone.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said.
He sat down on the bed.
She sat beside him, solemnly reading his face. She put her arm around him and drew him against her breasts.
He felt the involuntary response of his body, the deep-down beat of his heart speeding up.
“It’s a beautiful thing, don’t you think, our being so intimate—complete strangers?” She unbuttoned his shirt. Her tongue touched him softly. “Why do you have the gun? What kind of crime are you in?”
“I’m a cop.”
She smiled, accepting the answer without believing it. “And I’m the Ayatollah.”
“Don’t joke—he’s a holy man.”
“Are you a Moslem cop?”
“The force recruits minorities.”
She bent down and laid her head lightly on his lap. She had a troubled moment with his zipper.
He was only halfway hard.
She pulled up and kissed him on the mouth, giving him a tiny grin, and then she went to the mirrored closet and got a little Tiffany salt cellar of cocaine. She took a tiny spoonful of coke up her nostril and then offered him one.
“Pass,” he said.
She stared with hungry dark eyes at him and then she dove.
He could feel an acute attack of integrity coming on. “Look, this is a little sleazoid for me.” He freed himself and stood.
She pushed her hair out of her face. Her eyes were bright with sudden noncomprehension. “Then why did you come here?”
“I told you. I’m a cop.”
He showed her his shield. The silence hung there, blazing.
“I resent this invasion. I’ve never broken the law.”
“Cocaine’s not breaking the law?”
She was sitting with sudden, furious erectness. “Half a gram. Personal use.”
“Aiding and abetting isn’t breaking the law?”
“Aiding whom? Abetting what?”
He reached into his jacket and brought out the photograph of Countess Victoria de Savoie-Sancerre in her blond wig striding into Beaux Arts Tower with the little package. “You bought a leather mask from the Pleasure Trove in Greenwich Village the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Who did you take it to?”
A twisted look came into her mouth and a network of fine lines suddenly crisscrossed her face. “You’ve got fucking nerve spying on me!”
“You and your friends have been running between raindrops a long, long while. But this time you’re all going to get soaking wet.”
“Fucker!” she screamed. “Motherfucking copfucking sucker!”
She dove for the door and wrenched it open.
Count Leopold de Savoie-Sancerre, his flushed face looking very much surprised, was crouching at keyhole level on the other side.
Cardozo and Sam Richards were discussing a fifty-nine-year-old Hispanic by the name of Avery Rodriguez who had taken two .38 slugs in the head that morning in the men’s room at Bloomingdale’s. They were reviewing Avery’s rapsheet, a thesaurus of petty felonies, when Sergeant Goldberg shouted from the squad room that Cardozo had a call on three.
Cardozo pushed the blinking button and lifted the receiver. “Cardozo.”
A woman’s voice said, “Would you hold for District Attorney Spalding, please.”
A moment later Al Spalding’s voice came on the line. “Vince, the Downs case is closed. Why are you hassling people?”
Cardozo signaled Richards to hold on a moment. “Who says I’m hassling them?”
“Countess Victoria de Savoie-Sancerre.”
“I didn’t realize you were a friend of hers.”
“Let’s say I’m an acquaintance of an acquaintance. This isn’t an official call, Vince, but if you don’t lay off, the next call’s going to be official and it won’t come from me.”
“I don’t have any idea what Countess Vicki de S. and S. is talking about.”
“Vince, don’t play dumb with me, please. I’d appreciate it if we could clear up this matter with this phone call.”