He flagged a taxi easy now and held the door. The address was Upper East. A tree-lined street tucked between fashionable Park Avenue and utilitarian Lexington. Park was where the opulent building had been erected for tycoons past and present, and Lex was where their help shopped for groceries, took their cleaning, and bought the goods that kept them living in the style to which they’d become accustomed.
Miss Stendall’s building sat exactly between the avenues. The redbrick façade matched the others on the block, with its tall set-back windows and canopied entrance.
“Good evening, miss.” The doorman looked to be in his early sixties. Gray hair, gray eyes, and the flushed cheeks of a man who liked to sneak a nip or two—short jacket and cap the same color as the building’s forest-green canopy; pants black with a side stripe the same shade of green.
“Good evening, Benny.” Emily stepped out as Jack paid the hack. He’d paid for dinner, too. They were Miss Stendall’s expenses, and she’d be charged for them eventually.
The cliff-dwellers never liked to be “nickel and dimed” as they saw it. One big bill was more their style—so they could write Jack one big check. Jack was willing to shell within reason, especially when it came to female clients. Having a dame pay his way wasn’t up his alley anyway. Made him feel like a snot-nosed kid being treated to an ice cream by his mommy.
They crossed the lobby—marble floor, oak wainscoting, forest-green walls with paintings of landscapes hanging from picture rails. A high oak counter for the doorman’s station, across from it armchairs upholstered in gentleman’s club burgundy leather and a matching sofa.
Miss Stendall breezed in with head high, striding. Her white-gloved hand reached out to call the elevator, but Jack’s fingers closed on hers before she could push the button.
For a moment, they stood there alone, holding hands. She looked up at him with surprise.
“Let me handle him,” Jack advised, his voice steel.
“But—”
“Keep your lips zipped, doll,” he warned. “That’s what you hired me for. To handle him.”
Her mouth made a little-girl moue, but she nodded. Jack released her hand and jammed the elevator button himself. He could hear the ringing bell all the way up the shaft.
Emily sighed. “It’ll be a minute. When things are slow, Joey likes to listen to a radio he keeps on the third floor. He comes when he hears the bell.”
“I see. And his boss allows it?” Jack asked gesturing to the doorman.
“Benny’s not his boss. The building superintendent is. He lives in the basement, and I’ve never seen him emerge from his rooms unless there’s a problem with the plumbing. One can only hope he’d emerge for a fire, should one occur.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “One can only hope.”
When the elevator finally arrived, Jack stepped to the side. Emily didn’t seem to notice, but Joey would be forced to think that she was all alone. And Jack was curious to see Joey’s initial reaction. This was a killer after all—a man who’d drugged and drowned his ex-lover and seemed intent on threatening Jack’s client.
Keeping his body loose, Jack got ready for almost anything—from throwing punches to pulling his rod clear. With a rumbling jolt, the elevator car halted. The door noisily retracted and a white-gloved hand pulled back the gate. The glove wasn’t lost on Jack—part of the uniform. No suspicion on the part of the victim. And no fingerprints.
“Emily . . .” said a deep voice, slightly urgent. “We have to talk.”
Emily blinked and looked beside her, suddenly realizing Jack had stepped out of Joey’s line of sight. Instantly, she searched him out, a look of panic on her face.
“Tenth floor, Joey,” said Jack, stepping forward. That’s when he got a good look at the young man’s face—and raised an eyebrow in surprise. Because this face was one he recognized and didn’t like. “Or should I call you ‘Lucky Joe’?”
Lubrano’s face went pale. It was a face just as handsome as it had been ten years before. Dimpled chin, Roman nose, deep brown eyes, and jet-black hair slickly combed. He’d been a strong kid at seventeen, boxed with precision in the ring—with brutality in back alleys for dirty coin, a casino bouncer with a mean streak—and now his physique looked even bigger, its muscles packed into a short green jacket and striped black pants identical to Benny the doorman’s.
“What’s the matter, kid?” asked Jack. “Looks like you saw a ghost.”
“Who are you?” Lubrano’s hands clenched into fists. “I don’t know you, do I?”
“Steady, kid,” said Jack. “I’m a friend of Emily’s, that’s all you need to know. A good friend. And I’ll be taking care that she’s in good health from now on and no harm comes to her. Get me?”
Jack watched Lubrano carefully. The kid’s brown eyes narrowed with fury on Emily. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. And she did.
“Tenth floor.”
“You heard the lady. Let’s go,” said Jack.
Jack could see the moment’s confusion in Lubrano’s face, the consideration of what to do. Jack pushed the point; stepping forward, he put his large, strong form between the young ex-boxer and Emily.
When they were fully inside the elevator car, the inside aviator’s routine took over. Lubrano’s white-goved hand slid the heavy cage shut, pressed the tenth-floor button, then pushed the lever on the machine. The motor coughed to life and the car slowly ascended.
The tense silence held for three floors and then Lubrano turned, studied Jack’s face—
“How do you know me?”
“I know you. That’s all,” said Jack.
Joey Lubrano’s dark eyes narrowed. The boxer’s muscles were clenching, the fists forming balls.
“Steady,” said Jack. “I’m a private eye. I got a license to carry.”
Joey glared at Emily again with pure fury, then he spun away, giving them his broad back until the tenth floor. When the cage opened, Jack put his body between Lubrano and Emily again, seeing that she got off without a hitch. But as they stepped down the hallway toward Emily’s apartment door, Joey lunged out of the car.
“Wait just a second!” he said, reaching for Emily’s arm.
She yelped as Joey grabbed her, and Jack reacted, swinging a hard right hook to the handsome kid’s face. He went down holding his bloodied nose, and Jack hustled Emily forward—because he knew the kid wouldn’t stay down long.
“Let’s go—into your apartment now.”
Her hands shaking, Emily fumbled for a key and opened the door.
“Pack,” said Jack quietly, when she’d closed and bolted it behind them. “Take only what you need. I’m taking you out of here tonight.”
CHAPTER 7
Morning News
The alarm went off with a racket that jerked me out of a wild dream and left me standing on the rug, shaking like a kitten in a dog kennel.
—Detective Mike Hammer, My Gun Is Quick by Mickey Spillane, 1950
“MOM! YOU DIDN’T tell me I got mail,” Spencer cried, dropping his spoon into his cereal bowl and leaping to his feet. He waved the letter under my nose.
It was clear that he’d been waiting to ambush me with that information the minute I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. For a moment or two after I’d opened my eyes, I wasn’t sure what decade I was in—Jack’s dream had seemed that real. I shoved on my black-framed glasses, saw my son looking up at me with imploring eyes, and I was fully back to focusing on reality.