Espresso Shot

“No?” Friar said. “Let’s see how the management of this chic eatery feels about paparazzi hanging around and bothering their celebrity customers. Then let’s see how Ms. Summour feels about having her party photographed on private property. Maybe she has a restraining order out on you. Or maybe she’ll want to take one out. Either way, I’ll have to check downtown. That may take a long time.”

“Okay, okay!” Tower held up his hand.

I stifled a smile. Friar was a long way from winning me over, but I couldn’t help being impressed with his turn-the-perp dance step. He was almost as good as Mike Quinn.

“I do work for the Journal,” Tower admitted. “The lady cop was right, okay. But I was just having a few drinks and a bite at the bar. Then you guys showed, and I figured there was a story—”

“A story? It’s a lousy mugging. Big deal. Why should you and Randall Knox care about something so small- time?” Friar leaned close to the man, his face inches from Tower’s. “Unless you had another reason to be here besides the gourmet tacos.”

Tower dropped his voice. “Knox sent me here to watch Ms. Summour, okay? Maybe shoot some interesting pictures.”

Friar folded his arms. “And did you get anything interesting?”

“Some dame waving a wedding announcement. The groom storming out. A lover’s spat, I guess. Not exactly JFK, Jr.”

“I hope not. The man’s been dead quite a few years now.”

“But those photographs of him fighting in public with his fiancee were worth a fortune.”

Friar shook his head. “Breanne Summour’s not nearly that famous. Why bother?”

I stepped up to the men. “Excuse me, Detective, but I have a few questions for Mr. Tower.”

Friar rolled his eyes, but he didn’t stop me.

“Mr. Tower, were you at your boss’s birthday party a few months ago?” I asked pointedly. “The one that featured a stripper dressed up like Breanne Summour? Did you shoot any interesting photos there?”

Tower frowned down at me. “I must have missed that bash.”

“What about Monica Purcell?” I asked. “What can you tell me about her?”

“Who?” Friar asked.

“Monica Purcell overdosed on prescription medication,” I said, “presumably from the painkillers and uppers I found in her desk. There was a business card hidden with those drugs, Mr. Tower, your card.”

“I had nothing to do with Monica overdosing,” Tower said, his bald head vehemently shaking now. “I had nothing to do with any of that!”

“Why did she have your card then?” I asked. “And why did you write that you enjoyed your lunch with her and were looking forward to working with her?”

Tower held up his hand again. “I didn’t set up that lunch. Randy Knox did. If you want to know about Monica’s deal with Randy, you ask him.”

“All right, that’s enough questions from you, Ms. Cosi,” Friar said. “I have my own questions for this guy.” The muscle-bound detective grabbed the collar of the photographer’s vest and pulled him away.

I approached Lori Soles. “You’re going to interview Randall Knox, right? He’s obviously fixated on Breanne Summour.”

“We already interviewed Knox,” Lori said. “We came up empty.”

“What if it wasn’t a coincidence that Tower was here?” I said. “What if Knox knew Breanne would be attacked, maybe killed, and he wanted his photographer on hand to capture images of the crime scene?”

“Look, I know Tower is a shark. I caught him sneaking into the apartment of that TV actress who OD’d last year, so he could shoot pictures of her body. But I can’t see Tower as a party to murder.”

“But you can question Knox again, right?”

Lori frowned. “I don’t see the point. There’s nothing suspicious about paparazzi hanging around celebrities.”

“But there’s a connection to Monica Purcell. You know about that case, right?”

“Drug distro and conspiracy to commit robbery of Ms. Summour’s rings. Yeah, Quinn talked to Sue Ellen and me about it already. But I don’t see how Tower is involved.”

“I found Tower’s card hidden in Monica’s desk.”

“That’s pretty thin, Cosi. Even for you.”

Suddenly Sue Ellen Bass took off, chasing after Detective Friar—presumably for another round of verbal sparring.

Lori blanched. “Sorry, got to go!” she said, hurrying after her partner.

“But somebody’s got to talk to Randall Knox,” I called. Then I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I turned to find Madame standing there. “How long have you been listening?”

“Long enough,” Madame said. “I learned a thing or two watching you, my dear.” She threw me a wink. “And I already have a solution to your problem.”

“Which is?”

“You and I will talk to Randall Knox together.”

I nodded. “You’re on.”

“You know,” Madame said, as we headed for the street, “after surviving the Indonesian tsunami, drug violence and terrorism in Colombia, and the post election chaos in Kenya’s Rift Valley, our guests probably didn’t blink an eye at this disaster of a luncheon, but I’m certainly relieved to be walking away from it.”

Twenty-Eight

The receptionist was hardly out of her teens. Hispanic, with dark hair and hot-pink lips, she was filing her moon-and-stars fingernail design when we approached her desk.

“Madame Dreyfus Allegro Dubois to see Mr. Randall Knox,” Matt’s mother declared with the aplomb of Queen Elizabeth.

From her doe-eyed expression, I could tell the elaborate name had bewildered the poor girl.

Madame cleared her throat. “Simply inform your boss that Matt Allegro’s mother is here to dish dirt on mutual foe, Breanne Summour.”

While the receptionist dialed her boss, I looked around. The Journal’s run-down digs were a far cry from Trend’s ultramodern headquarters. There was no Columbus Circle view here, no ready access to Central Park, either. The Journal’s offices were on a dingy stretch of Eighth Avenue, a few blocks south of Penn Station, and the building’s other occupants weren’t Time Warner Inc., CNN, and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery, but Manny Kinn Enterprises, a “manufacturer of vinyl outerwear,” and the Circle Jay Group, publishers of Wag and Live Nude Girls.

“Mr. Knox will see you now,” the girl said, waving a tiny night sky on her long fingernails. “Down that hall, make a right. You’ll find Mr. Knox in the corner office.”

The hallway’s avocado walls were dingy, the beige carpet threadbare, and a fluorescent light fixture buzzed somewhere above our heads. The short hall ended in a large room divided into cramped cubicles and offices along the wall. As we approached the corner office, a man stepped forward and extended his hand.

“I’m Randall Knox. Come in, please.”

Most of the view in Knox’s office was of another building’s brick wall. The wooden desk was small and the steel shelves cluttered with magazines, file folders, and back issues of the Journal. Knox himself stood in sharp contrast to his shabby office. Pressed and polished, the slight, bald gossip columnist wore a London-tailored suit of blue pinstripes with a silk tie of bright scarlet.

He gestured to two battered wooden chairs opposite his desk then moved to occupy his own worn leather chair. While he silently regarded us through little, round Joseph Goebbels-style glasses, I read the large plaque hanging off one shelf: