“Are you a doctor?”
“I hold a doctorate of biological science from Budapest University.”
She pointed to an impressively framed document on the wall. It was a fine example of Hungarian language calligraphy and it had been hung just beneath a very old autographed photo of a plump, young Marlene Dietrich and a very new one of Ronald Reagan, Jr., whose eyelashes seemed to be grinning.
“Since you’re not an M.D.,” Cardozo said, “your records aren’t privileged.”
He could feel the mounting wave of her annoyance.
“My associate, Dr. Franzblau, is a dispensing chemist.”
“There’s no such thing as chemist-client confidentiality in New York City,” Cardozo said.
She mused on that and nodded. “Why do you need this information?”
“I’m investigating a homicide.”
Her face stiffened. “You realize you’ve given me two different formulas.”
“I realize one has honey in it. I suppose that’s for kissing.”
She was not amused. “What we call type-C labial tissue requires glucose—which you may choose to call honey. What we call type H-three does not require glucose.”
“I take it the formula without glucose is lipstick for Countess Victoria de Savoie-Sancerre.”
Countess Esterhasz smiled. “You have a very good accent, Lieutenant. And that is correct. It is her exclusive formula, devised by our chemists and dermatologists to meet her unique needs.”
“Then the other is hers too?”
“Absolutely not.”
Cardozo’s eyebrows went up and Countess Lura Esterhasz had his attention.
“The formula containing glucose would react most harmfully with Countess Victoria’s sensitive alkaline tissue. That lipstick was perfected for another client—Lady Ash Canfield.”
“Do you recognize this man?” Cardozo held out the photograph of Jodie Downs.
Ash Canfield’s blue eyes gazed out from under a fluff of graying hair. Her eyelids were heavy and low, the eyes sunken in, dark and lifeless, like ice cubes made of stagnant pond water. The whites of her eyes were startlingly luminous. She had developed night sweats after detox and had spent three weeks in intensive care, battling 106-degree fevers. Her doctor hadn’t allowed Cardozo to visit till today, when her fever was down to 101.
“Who is that?” She had a blank, baffled look.
Next, Cardozo showed her the photo of Claude Loring. “Do you know this man?”
Ash had been cranked up to a sitting position. The pillows she was propped on kept slipping awry. She was wearing a beaded ivory silk satin nightgown over white satin pajamas.
“He … should … dress … better.”
An IV had been inserted into a vein in her forearm and from it a tube looped up to a steel pole, where a plastic bag of glucose hung. The clear fluid seeped drop by drop into her bloodstream. Through another tube oxygen ran from a wall outlet into her nose.
Cardozo held out the photo of the black leather mask. “Have you ever seen this mask?”
She smiled. “Halloween.”
“You saw this mask on Halloween?”
“Mary,” she said. “Mary Queen. Queen of Scots.”
A medicine tray on the table beside the bed held a collection of pills that looked like the purse of a hophead on a spree. There were little paper cups of Valium and phenobarbital, enough to make even an elephant feel vague.
Cardozo leaned closer and spoke very clearly. “Did anyone ever borrow your lipstick? Or steal it? Did you ever lose it?”
Ash’s breathing became more rapid. She stared at him, and now she was smiling.
“She’s no good today,” Babe said from the chair in the corner of the room. Her face was worn and exhausted and pale.
Cardozo didn’t want to look at that. It hurt him too much to look at the pain she was feeling for her friend.
There was a knock on the open door, and without waiting for an answer, a well-dressed woman came into the room. Long-faced and tanned, with crisply waving auburn hair, she moved tall and slim and light, with a horseback rider’s grace.
She crossed to the bed and kissed the top of Ash’s head, laying her cheek for an instant on the damp, downy hair. “How are you feeling, Sis?”
Ash smiled.
“Dina,” Babe said, “this is a friend of Ash’s and mine—Vince Cardozo. Vince, Dina Alstetter—Ash’s sister.”
Mrs. Alstetter smiled politely at Cardozo. She had keen, take-in-everything blue-gray eyes. There was something urbane and intelligent in the set of the mouth.
“How do you do.” She had the sort of New York voice that insinuated all sorts of money and ease, and she gave Cardozo the feeling that she wanted something—maybe nothing more than to be alone with her sister, but still she wanted it very badly.
She began pulling goodies out of a Channel 13 totebag, holding them up for Ash to see.
Ash’s gaze moved slowly, following each object: a beautifully wrapped package of Opium perfume. Hugely oversized magazines and newspapers—the newest Interview, the newest W. A half dozen ripe pears, sitting in a basket of excelsior. Walkman cassettes, which Mrs. Alstetter named as she brought them out and set them on the table. “Bobby Short, Bobby Short, and a Furtwängler reissue—Schubert. Just the stuff you need to get well again.”
She lifted the cover from Ash’s untouched dinner.
“What kind of specials are they tempting us with today? Looks like roast pork with sweet red cabbage and …”
She dipped a pinkie into the other vegetable and tapped her tongue to the tip.
“Squash puree. Any of that appeal to you?”
“She wasn’t hungry,” Babe said.
“We’ll see.” Mrs. Alstetter took the knife and fork and began expertly dissecting the meat into baby-bite pieces. She held a piece of pork to Ash’s lips.
Ash shook her head.
“She won’t touch a thing,” Babe said.
“Okay, starve yourself to death.” Mrs. Alstetter stuck out her tongue at her sister. “Feel like talking?”
Ash shook her head again.
Mrs. Alstetter took the copy of W, deposited herself in a chair, and lit a cigarette.
“You shouldn’t,” Babe said. “Ash is on oxygen.”
“I won’t wave it in her face.”
The fourth cigarette was one third ash when the doctor came into the room, trailed by an assistant and a nurse. “Now, now, Mrs. Alstetter, no smoking while your sister’s on oxygen.”
“Sorry.” She stubbed out her cigarette.
The doctor greeted the others with the sort of friendliness that wasted no time, then leaned over his patient. He lifted Ash’s wrist and timed her pulse against the digital second readout of his gold chunk of a Rolex watch.
He patted Ash’s arm encouragingly and whispered something to the nurse, who made a notation on the patient’s chart.
“Could I trouble you people to leave the room for a moment?” he said.
In the hallway Cardozo watched Dina Alstetter light another cigarette.
“Ash isn’t looking well,” Babe said.
Dina Alstetter’s lips pulled together into a thin, frustrated line. “She’s getting the best treatment—Dr. Tiffany’s tops, he’s state of the art.”
“What’s the matter with your sister?” Cardozo said.
“Would you believe that after all the blood tests and X rays and biopsies and bronchoscopies, all the EKGs and CAT scans, they still don’t know for sure? There’s a possibility of Tourette’s syndrome.”
Cardozo had a cousin with Tourette’s who broke into facial tics and uncontrollable cursing at odd moments; but the man weighed a hefty two hundred twenty pounds. “Isn’t the weight loss a little out of line with Tourette’s?”
Dina Alstetter nodded. “Some kind of brain disorder is bringing on the seizures, but if anyone knows anything more than that, they’re sure as hell not telling me. I’m not next of kin, you see.” Bitterness curled her voice. “Dunk is next of kin. He gets the news, not me. It’s so damned unfair. Dunk and Ash are practically divorced and he’s still next of kin.”
“What are the doctors telling Dunk?” Babe said.