Naked Cruelty

would say. Let me stay with her, please!”

Too much money, too much beauty, too much too soon… “I see. Well, you and Desdemona have already kicked my ass over the rape victims, so who am I to ignore God-sent warnings? If you think she might inadvertently cause trouble, Delia, then by all means stay with her. If Corey gripes, refer him to me.”

The bright red mouth broke open in a beam, revealing that Delia’s teeth also wore lipstick; with a squeeze of his arm, she was gone, her clunky shoes booming up the stairwell.

She found Helen already surrounded by files, with what she privately called a “Joan of Arc” expression on her face, which lifted to see who came in, visionary, beatified.

“Oh, Delia! I thought you were going to Corey,” Helen said, Joan of Arc replaced by Snow White choking on an apple.

“The boss changed his mind,” Delia said artlessly, pulling up a chair and sitting.

“I thought he was finally trusting me!”

“He always trusts you, Helen. Try to climb out of that oversensitive skin of yours to see what I believe is called the big picture. No, let me put it another way. You interpret Captain Delmonico’s actions and orders as pertaining exclusively to you, but that’s wrong. He acts and orders to achieve maximum results from every member of his teams, highest to lowliest. Between his telling you to work the old rape victims on your own and his ordering me to join you, he must have seen that something would come up needing more than one pair of hands.”

“But what could?”

“We have to find it. Surely you know me well enough by now to understand that if the credit belongs to you, I will gladly give it to you. I’m not greedy.”

Yes, but you are, Helen. Second-string bothers you, your eyes have turned stony. Ambition! So much ambition!

Keeping her voice neutral, Delia embarked upon the story of the Ghost, who had abducted teenaged girls, tortured and raped them, then murdered them. It was a famous case which Delia went into more deeply than any of the filed reports did.

“You’re saying that lightning won’t strike in the same place twice,” Helen said at the end. “I get the message” She shrugged, smiled. “So okay, any suggestions as to where we look?”

“Yes. We’re going out. My Buick, or your Lamborghini?”

“Will it offend you if it’s my Lamborghini and I drive?”

“Lord bless you, no, child! All those horses are fun.”

“Where to?”

“Mark Sugarman’ s, with every drawing of the Dodo we have.”

He was not annoyed to see them. Just resigned. “I hope you realize that this is my ninth interview?”

“Lord bless you, no!” Helen cried, enamored of Delia’s phrase. “Actually this isn’t an interview, it’s a collaboration.”

It had been agreed in the car that she would take the lead; Helen used his big white table to spread the drawings. “The police artist did these, but he’s not a patch on you, and we need more drawings. Would you do them?”

He was in love with Leonie Coustain, but who could resist those wonderful eyes when they held pleading? Mark Sugarman swelled a little. “I’m clay in your hands,” he said, laughing. “Yes, I’ll do them.”

“Now?” she wheedled.

“Yes, now.” He walked across to shelves and supplies for a sketching block of thick, raggy paper, then filled an empty jar with pencils. “I’m ready. From here on, you have to direct me.”

Helen looked over the drawings and found one, full face, that showed a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a beaky nose.

“This one first,” she said, disappointed when he took it to his drawing board and pinned it in the left-hand corner, then tore off a sheet of paper and fixed it to the center of the board with what looked like plasticine.

“Oh, I can’t watch unless I move one of your tables.”

“I forbid it. Sit there, at the bar. You’re as close now as I can bear. Do you want a better drawn copy?”

“No, I want you to work with the bones of this face and do as I say.”

“For you, Helen, that’s not difficult. Tell me.”

“Make the nose straight and narrower, the mouth smaller but its lips fuller, and the brows more arched,” she said. “He needs to be twenty pounds lighter, whatever that would do to his face, and his coloring should be on the fair side.”

Silence fell. The two women watched, fascinated, as the new face grew below the one in the top left-hand corner. Mark kept working, it seemed oblivious, until he sighed, stretched, and turned on his stool to face them.

“Well? Is that what you want?”

It was difficult to credit that the one drawing had its basis in the other; Mark’s version was handsomer in a Hollywood way, yet didn’t look like anyone they knew.

“Shit,” said Helen, “I was sure I’d recognize him!”

Mark had swung back toward the drawing board and was studying his work in a frowning concentration. “You know, girls, I am positive I’ve seen this guy somewhere,” he said. He continued to look for some minutes, but in the end sighed in defeat. “It beats me! I can’t place him.”

Helen seized another drawing, of a fairer but fatter man. “Do you mind doing the same thing to him?”

“Of course not. If it can help, I’ll feel that at least I did something for Leonie.”

This progressed faster, as if the pencils, all sharpened, knew their route around the blank paper more unerringly. At the end, all three gasped.

“It’s the same man!” Helen cried.

“Definitely,” said Delia.

“And I’m no farther ahead with my memory, girls. I know him, I know I know him! Where?”

“A party?” Helen suggested.

“Could be, though I can’t label him with a name, and every man at a Sugarman party is a friend, not an acquaintance.”

“The mystery man who converses in a corner with victims?”

“Is that-?” Mark shook his head. “No. It’s not unlike, but it’s not like either.”

“Okay, let’s go through the Gentleman Walkers-the handsome ones,” Helen said. “Sorry you can’t help, Delia, but if you don’t mind sitting there, I think Mark and I ought to do that.”

“I can help,” Delia said, going down on all fours to get at her huge briefcase. “I brought the relevant Gentlemen with me in photographic form.” She shook the case like a dog a hard pillow; pictures cascaded out. “It’s best if all three of us do this, because people’s ideas of beauty differ so much.”

For a moment Delia thought Helen was going to have a temper tantrum, but good sense won; she laughed. “You are so right, Delia! I’m dying to see your idea of handsome!”

A merry half hour ensued, at the end of which Mark admired Delia’s choices more than he did Helen’s; since he qualified in both women’s listings, he couldn’t be dismissed as biased.

“Your choices are all male models,” he tried to explain to an incensed Helen. “You have no place for subtleties like charm or kindness. To me, they illuminate a face to beauty, whether they’re men or women. I agree that Kurt von Fahlendorf is very handsome, but his face is Narcissus-no character.”

“How can you say that, Mark?” Helen demanded aggressively. “Delia picked him too-and you did yourself! But to say he has no character-oh, that’s ridiculous! One day he’s likely to win a Nobel Prize, yet his colleagues love him! Ordinarily they hate the prize winners. If you saw him with his sister or mother-!”

“That’s not what I mean, and I agree, he has to go down in every list of handsome men. It’s just that he’s not near the top of my list, any more than he is of Delia’s. I agree with you, Delia. Mason Novak every time, followed by Arnie Hedberg and Mike Donahue. Bill Mitski’s ahead of Kurt. I put Greg Pendleton up there as well.”

“Oh, go take a running jump!” said Helen, pouting.

“No need, Helen. None of the Gentlemen is my mystery man.”