be out the door.” Faith concentrated on chewing. It was all she could do to keep from screaming that the woman was dead and shut up. But she had to hear—she had to hear more.
“Kid got in some kind of trouble when he was a teenager. Lorraine called me from a pay phone somewhere and told me she had to have money for a lawyer.
Told me to give it to her parents in cash. They lived over in Brooklyn. This explains why the kid never turned Fox in for the reward. Fox must have had something on him. Lorraine, of course, would have died for Fox.”
Did die for Fox, Faith thought dully.
Quinn signaled for his coleslaw and more coffee.
“Nate used to joke about Lorraine, compare her to all the women he was screwing—and believe me, there was a long list. In her head, they were Lenin and Krup-skaya. In his, they were Lenin and, say, that lamppost over there.” He pointed out the window.
“Weren’t you worried that the authorities would find out about giving her the money?”
“Not by that time. At first, everybody who’d ever had any contact with Fox was under surveillance—
phones tapped. All that stuff the feds like to do. It didn’t make much sense. Nobody had gotten hurt. It wasn’t like he’d killed a cop or something. He didn’t even get any money, but they thought he was involved in some of the other nuttiness of the time—the bomb factories, the whole bit. He wasn’t, and after a while they must have figured that out.”
“So, it was pretty safe for Fox to start living here?”
“Not as it turned out.”
Faith blushed. It had been a stupid question.
Arthur patted her hand in an avuncular way. “I know what you mean. Yeah, if he hadn’t gotten himself murdered, it would have been safe. He used to say he’d been underground all his life, but that was before he really was, and I think he regretted losing his free-dom.”
Faith thought about Emma’s wistful remark: “Besides, he did so miss leaving the country.”
“At the service, you spoke about a book—one that he said wasn’t to be published until after his death.”
“Yeah, he’d been writing to me about this one for years now. I haven’t gotten it yet. I really have to get ahold of Lorraine. If Fox was in the city, then she was, too. Probably moved back home. If not, her mother will know where she is. She doesn’t have to ship over-seas anymore. She can just drop it off.” Either Quinn was a consummate actor or he had no idea Lorraine wouldn’t be mailing parcels of any kind in the future. Or that her mother had died.
“Why do you think Lorraine has the book?”
“It wasn’t in his apartment, and crackheads usually don’t take reading material. I’m his executor, and the police have given me a list of everything they took out of the apartment. It wasn’t on it. They let me look
around, and it wasn’t there. Ergo, Lorraine has it—not that any number of people wouldn’t love to get their hands on it, from what I understand. Let’s simply say he names names.” The agent rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation of publishers vying for this last, great book.
Faith pressed further. This remark confirmed her suspicion that Quinn knew exactly what kind of blast-ing powder Fox had used. “Names? What kinds of names? People in the radical movement?” She was fishing.
Quinn tipped his chair back and grinned. An audience—an attractive one.
“Karen, honey. People don’t shell out fifteen dollars to read about hippies and pinkos. In his heyday, Nate traveled high, wide, and handsome in this city—and he was always a boy who kept his eyes and ears open.
Plus, pardon my crudeness, his pants. I know for sure that one major figure will be heading for a fall when the book comes out.”
“Who is it?” If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Quinn shook his finger playfully and laughed. “How do I know you don’t work for the
on my mother’s head.”
Faith abandoned this line of questioning. Mother or no mother, he wasn’t going to tell her. But at least she had a better idea of what was in the manuscript.
“You said you were his executor, so he left a will?”
“Oh, yes.”
Faith was getting more information than she had dared to hope.
Quinn continued. “Nate was very worried that his
name would be erased by the sands of time, and he left a will setting up the Nathan Fox Foundation to edit his unpublished writings, set up an archive at some institute of higher learning. He was savvy enough to know that he’d have to pay to be remembered.”
“Dessert?” Quinn asked as a wedge of cheesecake dripping with gory cherries was placed in front of him.
“Just some more coffee, please,” Faith answered.
Delicious as it was, her meal was beginning to sit heavily—or maybe it was some of what Quinn had revealed that was turning her stomach.
The check arrived, and after a token protest, Faith allowed the agent to pay. Belatedly, she asked him if he’d be interested in her book. That had ostensibly been the whole point of the meeting, hadn’t it?
“It’s pretty sketchy at the moment—an outline,” she said.
“Sure, sure. I’d like first crack at it. Make it a nos-talgia piece. That always goes over big. Don’t waste time, though. His current fifteen minutes are going fast. Still, could be a Movie of the Week docudrama in it or one of those biographies on cable.” Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame. Fox had had con-siderably more, but the agent was right. A year from now, few would remember and even fewer care.
On the way back to work, Faith’s mind was filled with all the questions she should have asked. Quinn had been voluble, but was it to keep her from asking other questions? Questions about Arthur Quinn? She’d never even gotten him to speculate on who had killed Fox, although his remark about “crackheads” suggested he had bought into the robbery theory—or wanted people to think he had. To preserve her credibility as a possi-211
ble client, she should have asked him who else he represented, where his office was, what his percentage was. She’d call and suggest another meeting, insistent this time that it be at his office—if he had one.
There was no question that this posthumous book, incendiary or not, would sell better than recent books by Fox. Natasha’s bookstore was crammed with remainders, and Faith was sure his titles weren’t on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. Quinn seemed so familiar with the manuscript, maybe he already had it and was biding his time, waiting until the investigation into Fox’s murder was on a back burner. Maybe Fox
One thing was clear after this lunch—and it wasn’t the half-sour pickles faintly starting to repeat on her.
What Lorraine Fuchs had learned from Fox’s book was that her idol didn’t merely have feet of clay, but an entire body—with a heart of stone.
Chat had hired a jazz combo. “I know it’s not in keeping with the theme, darling,” she told Faith, “but if I hear one more ‘Hey, nonny, nonny’ madrigal, I’m going to toss my crumpets.”
The combo was setting up and Faith took one last look at the room. She’d done pyramids of red pomegranates and dried hydrangea sprayed a glittering gold, trailing heavy satin ribbons from top to bottom—all set in verdigris urns. She’d used yards more of the ribbon
on the pine swags and cones dusted with artificial snow that decorated the mantel and doorways. A table in
