“Does she take it off in bed?” Viv asked.
“Goddammit, will you two take this seriously?”
“We’re listening, boss,” Viv said contritely.
“She will suspect that I’m going to try to take her, and she will act accordingly. She will suspect that I will have help, and she’ll act accordingly.” Dino handed them the photograph he had printed from the FBI website. “This is what she looks like, sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Last time I saw her, she was a flaming redhead. She will have done what she can to alter her appearance. What she can’t alter is that she’s tall-taller than I am, in heels.”
Rosie put her hand over her mouth, then took it away. “So we’re looking for a tall woman who isn’t a blonde or a redhead?”
“That’s a start. She dresses well, and I don’t think that will change. I want you two to go in first and sit at the bar. If you order booze, don’t drink it. Order some food, a salad or something. It will give you something to do. I don’t want you getting bored.”
“What do we do if we spot her?”
“You’re not going to spot her. I don’t even want you looking around the room after you get there. Got that?”
“Got it, boss,” Viv said.
“Start a conversation with each other-talk about something that absorbs your attention.”
“Who’s going to look for Shelley?”
“I am, dummy. I’m the only one who’s got a shot at recognizing her. If I see her, I’ll make a noise, or do something to attract your attention. Again, don’t look around the room. When I attract your attention, look at me. I’ll make a move, then you back me up. There may be a struggle, even a fight, but there will be no shots fired. You both got that?”
“Yes, boss,” Rosie said.
“I don’t want to be reading in tomorrow’s Post that there was a shoot-out at the Carlyle Hotel, you understand?”
“Yes, boss,” Viv said.
“I may want to go back to the Carlyle someday, and you may, too. We don’t want to get eighty-sixed from the joint.”
“Yes, boss,” Rosie said.
“You’re taking turns saying that,” Dino said.
“Yes, boss,” Viv said.
“It’s like watching Ping-Pong.”
“Yes, boss,” Rosie said.
“Stop that!”
“Yes, boss,” they said in unison.
“All right, go in there and get established. I’ll be in in a few minutes. Don’t notice me when I arrive.”
“Yes, boss,” they said in unison.
The two detectives got out of the car and started toward the hotel.
SHELLEY STOPPED at the door and checked out the room. Dino wasn’t there yet, as she had suspected, and nobody looked like the FBI or a cop. There were two women at the bar, but they were looking at each other, not the room. Probably lesbians, she thought. The headwaiter seated them at the corner table she had booked, and Steve dutifully pulled out the table and gave her the gunfighter’s seat.
DINO CHECKED his watch for the fifth time. He didn’t like letting them go in first, but it was for the best. They’d already be there when Shelley arrived, and maybe that would make her less nervous. On the other hand, maybe it would make her more nervous, who knew? All he could do was the best he could do.
Ten o’clock. “Take me around to the Madison Avenue entrance,” he said to his driver.
In front of the hotel, he got out of the car and took a look through the glass door of the bar, then he walked inside. The place was packed, and a girl singer was working with a trio, doing Gershwin. He waited for the headwaiter to ask, then said, “I’ll sit at the bar.”
The man retreated, and Dino walked slowly behind the musicians, turned a corner, and spotted Viv and Rosie to his left, at the far end of the bar. He didn’t check the crowd, not yet.
He found a stool at the other end of the bar. “Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks, fizzy water on the side,” he said to the bartender, who gave him a quick nod and produced the drink in a flash. Dino sat on the stool, turned, and rested his back against the bar. The whole room was before him, now, and he began checking things out, face by face, left to right.
By the time his head had swiveled all the way to the right, he had checked every table, looking for a single woman. There wasn’t an unescorted woman in the place. Shelley was not in the room, he was sure of it.
54
Herbie was working late. It was after nine, and Cookie was long gone. He was just closing folders and his briefcase, when there was a sudden movement at the door of his office. Herbie instinctively leapt to his feet. Dink Brennan was standing in the doorway.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Dink said.
Herbie sank back into his chair. “I wasn’t expecting you, Dink.”
“If you’re all done here, let me buy you a drink.”
“I’ll buy you one,” Herbie said, getting up again and going to the bar. “You’re legal now. What’ll you have?”
“Whatever you’re having,” Dink said.
Herbie put some ice cubes into two glasses and poured Knob Creek over them, then handed one to Dink and sat down.
Dink sipped it tentatively. “Bourbon. I like it.”
“You’re a precocious drinker,” Herbie said. He was still a little nervous about being there at night, alone with Dink.
Dink took a drag on his drink. “What do you think of me, Herb?”
“I think you should have been an actor.”
Dink looked at him. “Funny you should mention that, I considered it once.”
“You should consider it again,” Herbie said. “Instead of law school.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re good at it. You’ll get lots of attention from girls, and you won’t have to sweat the work that goes with law school, and especially with practicing law. And I think you’d enjoy being famous.”
“Somehow I get the impression that what you’ve just said is not exactly a compliment.”
“Not exactly, no.”
“You avoided my question about what you think of me by saying I should be something else.”
“That’s what I think.”
“You think I’m acting now?”
“I think you’ve been acting at least since you made your exit from the farm-with me, with your dad.”
Dink regarded him for a slow count of about five. “I don’t like that much.”
“I don’t much care whether you like it or not.”
“You want to be careful, Herb. I’m a lot bigger than you, and I can be mean.”
“Both those things are obviously true,” Herbie said, “but let me give you some very good advice. Never pick a fight with someone you don’t know well. You won’t know what you’re getting into.”
“What would I be getting into if I got into a fight with you, Herb?”
“It’s time you knew a few things about me, Dink. Knowing them will save you a lot of grief.”
“What should I know about you, Herb?”
