“No!”
“Sid Meyer?” I slipped Meyer in with the same tone of voice.
“No!”
“Irving Kezar?”
His denials had been quick, sure. Now he hesitated. It made his denials seem more honest. He frowned.
“Kezar? I don’t know, maybe. Just a name I’ve maybe heard.”
“Lawrence Dunlap?”
“Sure, he’s Diana’s boss. She’s at a meeting in Philly with him now. Business.”
It was possible. The big, black car had had New Jersey plates the same as Dunlap’s Cadillac. But pick-up at Le Cerf Agile?
“You’re sure of where she is, Wood?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
“Then why were you watching her office building?”
“I wasn’t watching, just waiting in case she got back today.”
“At two P.M.? And why not wait upstairs?”
“I don’t like to hang around,” he said, but he wasn’t used to evading. I saw it on his face. He put out his cigarette. “Look, Diana’s pretty, Dunlap uses her for decoration at his meetings. It happens. Diana’s not tough, men make passes. So I meet her.”
“You trust her, but-?”
He lit another cigarette, picked up a paintbrush, stepped to an unfinished painting on one easel. It was an abstract with a lot of black like Kline or De Kooning. Strong, yet without a center as if he were still working for individuality.
“You’ve been a painter long?” I asked.
“Since Korea.” He went on studying his canvas. “It takes time. I’ve had a lot of jobs.”
“Korea?” Older than he looked, forty. “There long?”
“A year at the end. The hard part.”
“All your jobs in commercial art?”
“Only the last. It’s not good for a painter.”
“Where did you work? Importing? Airlines?”
For the first time he became really wary. He put down his brush. “Odd jobs, mostly. Small-time.”
“Is your wife involved in anything illegal, Wood? If she is, you better tell me. She could be mixed up in a murder.”
He stared at me. “You get out of here!”
He picked up a palette knife. Not much of a weapon, but he had two arms and a wild look, and he wasn’t going to tell me any more tonight. I got out of there.
Did Wood know something, or suspect something? Or just afraid of something? I’d only met each of the Woods once, but as I walked out into the dark street where the slush had begun to freeze, I recognized the seeds of conflict. A not-so-young man trying to be a pure artist, and a woman-turned-thirty who wanted what the world had to offer. The marriage could be a heavy load on both of them, each might grab at any short cut to what they needed-separately or together. With her looks…
There were people on the early night street, but that didn’t bother the two men who stepped from the narrow alley between two tenements. One took my arm, the other had a long gun. They walked me back to a fence in the dark alley. People passed out on the street, but the two men acted as if we were alone, remote. We were. The two men looked behind them.
A third man stood near the mouth of the alley. Short, he was dapper in a tight black overcoat, pale gray hat, and yellow gloves. I didn’t recognize him, it was too far to see his face, but I saw the gloves. He moved his right hand, a flick, like a man bidding at an auction. The one without the gun hit me in the stomach. I sat down. A silent yellow glove pointed at me from the distance. The one with the gun aimed it at my head. Yellow-gloves flicked another finger.
The gunman swung his gun, shot out a light fifty feet away above a rear door. A good shot, the sound of the silenced gun no more than a sharp spit. The gun pointed back at my head. All in silence, the crowded city passing on the street unaware. The dapper man snapped his fingers. The two gunmen turned, and all three walked out of the alley. Yellow-gloves looked back at me, nodded once, and was gone.
A clear message-stop. Whatever I was doing-stop.
CHAPTER 6
My belly sore, I came out of that alley as cold as I’d ever been. Stop. Sure, but stop what? Asking about Sid Meyer, or something else? Until I knew, I could stop and still make some fatal mistake-walk on the wrong street, talk to the wrong person. Now I had to know what Mia Morgan really wanted.
I took a taxi up to Morgan Crafts. The shop was open, but the apartment above it was dark. In the shop, the same middle-aged lady clerk greeted me. She didn’t know where Mrs. Morgan could be. Captain Levi Stern had called from Kennedy International asking for her, too. I got another taxi.
Across Queens the snow still lay deep and white off the parkway, the lighted windows of the houses sparkling in endless rows. The farther we drove from Manhattan, the cleaner the snow became, and the vast, busy complex of Kennedy glowed bright in the night like some enormous Christmas tree.
At the El Al desk they directed me to the crew lounge. Stern wasn’t there. An older pilot thought Stern was in the hangar. He gave me a pass, told me the way. There are still some innocent people in the world.
The hangar was dark, only, workbench lamps casting small pools of light. I stepped carefully among the giant jets, and saw Stern under a bench lamp. He had a suitcase, and looked at his watch. A very tall, thin specter like some silent hawk. When he heard me, his gaunt-ugly face looked up as if he expected someone. The deep-set blue eyes had not expected me.
“Waiting for someone?” I asked. “Mrs. Morgan?”
“She comes sometimes to meet me,” he said.
“You let her go around alone? All the men after her?”
“For that I am sorry.” His thin mouth was apologetic. “Mia was difficult, evasive, would tell me nothing about you. I have a temper, sometimes I lose control. I apologize, yes?”
As calm now as he had been violent earlier. A hair trigger inside. Too much pain in Germany, struggle in Israel.
I leaned on the bench. “She didn’t say why she hired me?”
“Only that it was a private matter.”
“If it was business, she’d have told you? Partners?”
“Partners?” He shook his head. “Sometimes I bring her some small craft object, but I have little interest in such merchandise. A pastime for bored nations.”
“Maybe you’re interested in other merchandise?”
When I said it, I sensed the dark hangar all around me. He only frowned, implying that he didn’t follow my reasoning.
“You’re a pilot, Mrs. Morgan travels,” I said. “Turkey, the Far East. She’s young to own a shop. There’s a lot of money in-”
“Drugs! You suggest that I-!”
That trigger tripped inside him. I saw the tattooed numbers on his arm as he reached toward me. This time I was ready. I grabbed a long steel rod from the workbench. His eyes flickered at the rod. He stopped, took a breath.
“You think I would deal in such filth? We, in Israel? After such pain to survive? All we have endured?”
“Mia Morgan’s not an Israeli.”
“She would never touch such dirt! That I know!”
“You’re sure? How?”
