Yeah, like I told you earlier, the Banks girl knew her killer, all right. I don’t agree with your author on much—but I agree on that.
“Maybe you should read her book.”
You’re just determined to doom me to some sort of punishment while I’m here, aren’t you, dollface?
“I could tell you weren’t impressed with her reading.”
Theatrics do not impress me. Real detective work does. You want some true crime stories, try reading through some of my case files.
“I have, after a fashion. I’ve read all the Jack Shield novels, and Tim Brennan based all of them on your cases.”
That bloated barstool raconteur stole my files after I was shot to death in this damn store, but he barely touched the cases with the most juice. I noticed his son-in-law finally sent over my files for you to look at, but you haven’t gone through them yet.
“I will . . . I just haven’t had time . . .”
Sure, honey, sure . . .
“What’s that tone? You don’t believe me?”
No.
“Why?”
You don’t want to make the time—because you’re afraid.
“Of what?”
Of what you’ll find in those files. Things you’ll find out about me . . .
“Ridiculous.”
You’re a smart dame, sweetheart, but when it comes to people you care about, seems to me you’re more comfortable with your glasses off . . . and keeping those edges as blurry as possible for as long as possible . . .
“Don’t be insulting.”
Don’t be naïve. You did it with that worthless late husband of yours—
“Don’t, Jack.”
A long silence followed.
“What is it you think I should know?”
Your little Angel’s act with Johnny Napp tonight reminds me of a case I took back in ’46, after the war. I couldn’t go back to being a cop—leg wound left me with a slight limp on bad days—so I set out a shingle as a licensed P.I.
“What was the case?”
Vassar grad in her mid-twenties comes in on a Friday at six, looking to hire me to save her life from a blackmailer she claimed already gave her sis the big chill. Class clash. He was an indoor aviator—
“A what?”
Elevator operator. And she was the well-heeled uptown type. There’s a special kind of velvet-lined skirt gets bored with the expensive fabrics, likes to look for something a little rougher against the skin. Not for long, but for a while. That’s my guess on your Angel going after the Johnny kid.
The trouble comes when the little lady’s ready to toss away the rough goods. Not always easy. Cheap goods too often leave a stain when you rub them the wrong way.
“Johnny’s usually a nice kid. I don’t think he’d actually hurt anyone.”
“You hardly know him, doll. And from what you’ve told me, he’s already hurt that tall, freckled thing, Mina—”
“He hurt her emotionally, I’ll grant you, but not physically. That’s what I meant.”
Baby, trust me when I say, you like to keep the edges soft and blurry on people. . . . Can’t say as I blame you. Seeing nothing but the hard angles is no picnic, either, but don’t worry, for this little flashback, you won’t need your glasses to see clearly.
I felt the cool breeze in the hot room, the icy chill of Jack’s presence whispering across my cheek. The sleepiness overcame me, and I immediately began to dream.
“Jack, what are these images I’m seeing?” I asked through a restless haze. “Are they your memories?”
Well, they’re not Winston Churchill’s.
CHAPTER 6
In Jack’s Case
It is hard, if not impossible, to snub a beautiful woman.
—Sir Winston Churchill
New York City
July 19, 1946
HER NAME WAS Emily Stendall—the pedigreed blonde in pink polkadots who’d waltzed into his office worried about flies and swatters.
She’d gotten Jack’s name from Gertrude Herbert, a fellow cliff-dweller, one of those uptown, high-rise, society dames who hired him as a bodyguard on a fairly regular basis.
“Start at the beginning, Miss Stendall,” Jack suggested from across the dry, brown desktop.
“I’d rather start at the end,” she said primly. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’d like you to stop Joey Lubrano from murdering me. If you take my case this minute, I’ll double your per diem plus expenses, and I’ll give you a bonus of one thousand dollars if you’re able to gather enough evidence for his conviction of a capital crime.”
“The crime of?”
“I told you, killing my sister. And planning to kill me.”
Jack picked up his deck of Luckies and gave them a shake. Emily Stendall nodded and he rose from his chair. He shook the pack again, watched her slip one white cylinder out of its nest, place it between her lips. He fired up a match. Soft fingers touched his, pulling the flame close. She inhaled and closed her eyes, savoring the hit.
Jack lit his own and took a long drag. “Okay—” he began, sitting on the edge of his desk.
She exhaled a long, white plume. “You’ll take the job?”
“Not yet,” Jack said. “You started on your end. Now do me a favor and start on mine.”
Emily Stendall’s brown eyes widened. “Your what?”
“From the beginning, honey,” he clarified. “Tell me the story from the beginning.”
“My sister’s name was Sarah. Mrs. Sarah Nolan. Her husband, Melvin, secured a promotion a year ago that had him traveling on business quite a bit.”
“How much is quite a bit?”
Emily shrugged her creamy shoulders. “Two weeks out of every month I’d guess.”
“I’d guess that’s quite a bit.”
“Well, you can see how it started then. Sarah became lonely, and one night she invited him in for a drink. Joey Lubrano, I should say, our building’s elevator operator—”
“Our building?”
“We lived in the same building on East Sixty-fifth. She lived on the ninth floor. I live directly above her on the tenth.”
“Go on.”
“After a while, Joey threatened her with blackmail, and—”
“How?”
“He’d taken photos . . .” Emily Stendall paused a moment, bit her lower lip. “Risqué photos. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“At the time he’d said they were just for him to remember her. But obviously he’d had other things in mind.”
“Mmm . . . obviously.” Jack’s tone had a bite. Emily Stendall noticed.
“What?” she asked. “You think she was naïve?”
“Not naïve.” Jack took a long drag. “Stupid.”
“Mr. Shepard, no one calls my sister stupid.”
“She cheated on her husband with a man who blackmailed and then killed her. You call that smart?”
“I call that victimized. Or is that too expensive a word for your vocabulary?”