newspapers were stacked in front of the door where Louie, the doorman, had left them. She snatched the neat pile inside, bumped the door shut with her naked behind, and ruffled through them until she got to The Post. Dropping the remaining papers on the floor, she ran back to the bedroom, jumped on the bed like a child, and grabbed the phone.
“Still there?”
“No, I’m on the planet Mars. Where do you think I am?”
“You sound a little surly,” she said, flipping through the newspaper to page six.
“You’d be surly, too, if you had to spend an evening with that bunch of dull assholes. Thank God for my ability for self-amusement.”
“Naughty, naughty. Be nice to your peers.”
“I do not consider them my peers.”
“I know darling,” she said condescendingly while reading the item. “You are a peer unto yourself.”
“I’m glad you realize that,” he said, superciliously.
She giggled gleefully to herself as she read the item then said to Hamilton, “I’ll be right back.”
“Where the hell’re you going? Victoria? Al…Damn it!” He clicked off the phone.
She went into the kitchen and retrieved a china cup from the cupboard. The automatic coffee maker had done its job and she poured herself a cup, threw a spoonful of sugar in it, stirred it briefly, tossed the spoon in the sink, and went back to the bedroom where she settled in comfortably before picking up the phone.
“Had to get a cup of coffee, the odor was driving me… Hello? Hello? Well, damn you.”
She punched in his number.
He let it ring a couple of times before answering. “What are you doing?” he snapped.
“Getting my coffee, do you mind?”
“Well, you keep running off in the middle of a sentence and…”
“Do you know what I’m wearing?”
“Of course I know what you’re wearing. Your skin, as usual.”
“And don’t you wish you were here to share it?” she purred. She leaned back against the padded headboard of the bed and started to run the fingernails of one hand across her flat stomach. “Guess what I’m doing?”
“Vic, are you going to read the article to me?”
“Say please.”
“God damn it…”
“Uh uh, be nice. You don’t want to make the pussycat sulk, do you?” She looked up at the mirrored ceiling and gently scratched the mouthpiece of the phone.
“You’re shameless.”
“Don’t you just love it?”
The thought of her, stretched out on the bed, toying with herself stirred him.
“Jesus, read the damn article before you run out of breath.”
She laughed heartily, sipped her coffee, and said, “Tell Dave to speed it up.”
“Screw the article.”
“No, screw me, darling. Oh, I know, I know, Dave can hear you and we can’t have any fun, right?”
“Very perceptive.”
“Okay, and did I hear please?”
“Please, for Christ sake.”
“Ahh, that’s my boy. Want me to finish what I’m doing before I read it?”
“Victoria!”
“Ohhh-kay.” She sat and smoothed out the tabloid. “My God, they even have a picture.”
“They shot it before dinner. They can send photos from a laptop in two minutes these days.”
“The headline reads: ‘Has Literati Bad Boy Gone Soft?’ Are you soft, sweetheart?”
“Stop it, just read on. And it’s literatus. ”
“Look at you, all dressed up in your little tux. Aren’t you cute.”
“Just read what it says, okay?”
“’kay. ‘Ward Lee Hamilton, best-selling author of enough books to fill a small library, who has never met a human being he didn’t insult, proved to be a tame tiger at the Philip Marlowe Award banquet in Philly last night as he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from a full house of his peers.
“’Hamilton, known for his condescending attitude, his whiplash tongue, and his flamboyant couture, was an absolute dear as he praised several fellow nominees whom he said, ‘deserved the honor’ adding ‘they should all be standing beside me here tonight.’
“’Hamilton was dressed in an elegant and conservative, black tuxedo, a rad departure from his usual attire. The only thing missing was gal pal, socialite Victoria Mansfield, who was at a charity affair here in the city. What a shame. She would have been proud of her usually boorish play toy.’”
“Play toy! That bitch!”
“Oh, calm down, sweetie, you know Sophie has to get her digs in. Maybe that cop will be a little friendlier if he thinks you’ve turned into Mister Nice Guy.”
“I’m on to something about him. I’ll jump on the computer when I get home and…”
“You even go near that office and pussycat is gonna close shop.”
“Blackmail?” he said, feigning shock.
“Listen you, when you walk in the door I’ll be wearing that eight hundred dollar peignoir I bought yesterday and I expect your full attention and appreciation. Understood?”
He chuckled. “A bit waspish, aren’t we?”
“ We? I am going to turn this boudoir into a bordello, darling boy,” she said. “Single-handedly if need be. Have you forgotten?”
“I don’t forget anything.”
“Good,” she whispered, fondling the phone. “It’s Story Lady time.”
30
The corpse was floating sideways in a deep tub, still in a sitting position, hands still frozen in its lap, its eyes staring half open through melting ice crystals that floated by and then shrank and vanished into small veils of rising steam from the water, which was being maintained at exactly 98.6 degrees. Max Wolfsheim, who finally had checked his phone messages, had arranged for the large gray plastic container to be delivered before he even got to the lab. Annie had set up the thermostatic faucet which delivered the water to the tub so the temperature would stay consistent as the icy contents melted. It was beside the stainless steel slab on which the systematic dissembling of the body would take place.
“He was a classy, old fella,” Wolf said sadly and to nobody in particular.
Annie was at a long lab table nearby preparing a chemical analysis of the red wine in the bottle found beside the dead man. The rest of the crew was in the adjoining big room, preparing the briefing.
“How long will this take?” Cody asked.
“Can’t say for sure,” the wizard answered. “Right now he’s floating because ice is lighter than water. When he goes down and is fully immersed, he’ll thaw faster. Normally the lungs, which are ninety-percent water, would thaw first but we have to wait until the body and skin temperature rises to about 82.4 degrees to preserve the tissue before we start cutting. So blood will thaw first; it’s eighty-three percent water. He was probably dead by the time his temp dropped to 82.4. How long you figure he was in the icebox?”
“I’d say, roughly, 2 a.m. to 8:30 when we started moving him.”
“Six-plus hours at zero Fahrenheit,” Wolf muttered. “I’m guessing he was dead, hell, little guy that size, in probably two hours max. Depends on some other things. What he ate, if there was anything else contributing to death, stuff like that.” He paused and added, ”That was cruel, undressing him like that.”
“And no signs of a struggle,” Annie said.
“That’s because he was heavily drugged,” said Wolf. “Hypothermia begins at about ninety-five degrees. There
