weekend.'
'Not too successfully, obviously,' Mike said.
'You know, when Hoyt lured her out of her apartment by telling her she could see Dulles, and then waylaid her in the laundry room,' I thought aloud, 'I'll bet she pleaded for her life by telling him she had given me-sent me is what he thought-the paper.'
'Once she admitted that,' Mike went on, 'she was as good as dead. He didn't need her anymore.'
'I think she figured if someone hassled her over the weekend, she had a chance to unload the whole story to me on Monday. She just didn't know how very dangerous Hoyt was.'
Mercer's phone rang and he took the call. It was a short conversation but it confirmed what we had already guessed. Paige Vallis had sewn the mistakenly issued 1944 document that made the second Double Eagle legitimate legal tender into the lining of the pocket of Dulles Tripping's favorite Yankees jacket.
'That Polaroid photo of Queenie and Dulles that Mrs. Gatts gave me today, Alex,' Mercer asked. 'Did Hoyt talk about that?'
I smiled at him. 'Me and my big mouth. Hoyt overheard me talking to you about Fabian and the picture. That's what almost bought me a piece of muddy real estate at the bottom of the Kills.'
Mike hadn't heard Mercer's news yet.
'Get somebody good to sit down with Dulles, as soon as possible. I think whenever Hoyt had a visitation period with him, they were keeping a little secret between themselves. Hoyt was taking the boy to visit McQueen Ransome.'
'But why?'
'She was a sucker for kids. We know that from the neighborhood. Here comes Hoyt, pretending to be a great admirer of her career, full of stories he knew about Farouk, ready to dignify her glory days by funding an exhibit at the Schomburg. And he brings along a fair-haired boy-the exact age of her son when he died-with a sad story to go with the kid. Who does Queenie have to leave her few belongings to? Why not this deserving child, who had no mother?'
'Something misfired, though.'
'Yeah, I think Queenie was every bit as smart as Graham Hoyt, and even tougher. I don't think she liked the smell of his offer. She probably realized that what he wanted from her had more value than he was telling her.'
I could barely hear Mike when he spoke. 'So he killed the old lady.'
'And was ready to let Kevin Bessemer take the weight. After all, who's going to believe a convicted felon-and a crackhead to boot-that Queenie was already dead when he got there?'
'He even controlled all the legal proceedings, all the players.'
'That's it.'
'Why does anybody with his kind of dough need another seven million?' Mercer asked.
'Because he really didn't have the money you think he did,' I said.
'The art collection, the yacht, the country house-'
'Graham Hoyt had been stealing from his law firm for years. He has an addiction every bit as pathological as Bessemer's addiction to cocaine. He needed to own, to possess, to collect, like all the men he idolized. It was a sickness with him.'
'None of it fit on a lawyer's salary. You said that when he first showed up in the case.'
'He's been stealing money from his law partners for years, claiming he was writing checks to his favorite charities and getting the firm to reimburse him. Only, those checks went right into his own pocket, right into the gas for his yacht and the art on his walls.'
'So get the Double Eagle, get the sheet of paper that makes it legal, and with one auction, he'd make a seven-million-dollar score that would get him out of hock and keep him afloat for a lot longer. Phony little prick.'
'Think about what else he was telling me. Hoyt was really anxious for Tripping to take the guilty plea. That way, Andrew would be in jail and out of the chase for the golden bird.'
Mercer also remembered what I was talking about. 'It was Hoyt who stopped by your office late one evening and made a point of telling you that Robelon was dirty, that Robelon was a target of an investigation in the DA's office?'
'True, he delighted in diverting me by painting a tinge of guilt on each of the other players. And I fell for it.'
'We all fell for it,' Mike said.
Another knock on the door and the ranger came in. 'We're losing the daylight, Mr. Wallace. You've gotta get that helicopter out before the sun sets. We aren't equipped for flying after dark.'
Mike got to his feet. 'What do you say, Coop? We got our own wings right outside. Take you anywhere you want to go.'
I leaned my head back and tried to clear my mind of its deadly whirling images of the past week. Dark shadows in the hurricane, Hoyt's sneer as he reached for the wrench in the cockpit of his boat, the sailor's knot that was probably looped around Paige Vallis's neck.
'Fly you to the moon?'
I ignored Mike's chatter. 'Where's the boy? What's going to happen to Dulles?'
Mercer took me by the hand and helped me up. 'Ms. Taggart and the folks at child welfare have been looking into that for weeks. They never much cared for Hoyt or his wife. Seems Mrs. Hoyt was always too worried about Tripping's involvement and probably afraid of her husband, too.'
'I can't bear to think of what becomes of the child in all this.'
'Could be good news. Tripping's second wife-the one who left him because he beat her? She always had a good relationship with Dulles. She's married now, living in Connecticut with her husband and two kids. Says if Andrew is ready to do the right thing and let go for good, she'd be willing to adopt Dulles.'
Mike wouldn't stop. 'See, there's nobody to worry about anymore except you. Forget these sandwiches. They're already stale. We'll pack a picnic basket and fly-um, can we make it to Paris in this buggy? Anybody know?'
'The coin, Mercer, is anybody looking for the coin?' I asked. 'Hoyt must have taken it from the apartment the day he killed Queenie.'
Mercer hooked his elbow in mine, as we walked out of the building toward the blue-and-white helicopter with the NYPD logos on it. 'Teams have blocked off Hoyt's apartment, his office, and the yacht till they can get warrants for all that and his bank vaults. We'll find it.'
Mike took my other arm and guided me down the path as the pilot started the engine and the rotors began to spin. 'It's going to be a perfect night. The moon is waxing to full; we can set this baby down in the middle of Times Square and dance till dawn.'
Mercer made a signal of some kind over my head, probably telling Mike to cut it out.
'It's okay,' I said. Mike Chapman knew me every bit as well as I knew myself. I didn't want to go home just yet. I didn't want to spend the night alone.
I ducked under the blades and climbed up on the pontoons, into the seat behind the pilot. I had been in a similar chopper scores of times, riding with the DA's office photographer to take aerial photos of crime scenes. Someone would return tomorrow to do that over the river and bay, down to the Kills.
After Mike and Mercer got in, the pilot lifted the helicopter in the air, hovering behind the great green lady. He swooped down and to his left, circling from behind her enormous arm holding the torch aloft, past her strong face, illumined at dusk by the lights in her crown.
'Lady Liberty, Coop. She watched over you today. Quite a beauty.'
My head rested against the window and I stared back at her, saluting her silently in gratitude.
'Personally,' Mike went on, 'the Liberty on the gold piece is a bit sexier, in my book. This one's got her hair all tied up neat in a bun. The one on the Double Eagle? Hers is all loose and wild, kinda like yours looks right now.'
The sun was setting behind us, west of the Hudson, and straight ahead the elegant Manhattan skyline was showing off its stunning array of lights.
We were over the river, then above the Chelsea Piers, passing close to the Empire State Building and the Art
