“He had power of attorney. Peter has Alzheimer’s.”
“So you’re telling me that after being satisfied with your work disposing of his father’s entire collection, he didn’t use you for this new item?”
“Yes, I already said that. He took it from my brother in the first place.”
Gentile shut his eyes as if he were meditating on my words. Finally he put his big, beefy hands on the table and rose. His chair almost toppled over when he pushed it back. He walked around to my side of the table and stood over me, making sure I felt the full impact of his bulk. I could smell this morning’s bacon and eggs on his breath.
“Let’s go back to last night. You told us you left Hal Vanderlin around midnight and went from there to a bar?”
Where was he going with this, switching tracks by talking about the overdose again? I glanced at Peres. He’d finally woken up and trained his eyes on me.
“That’s strange. Because Diane Chen says you didn’t show up until after 2 A.M. So fill in the gap for me, please.”
They’d staged this whole thing beautifully, playing out the rope, letting me meander on about looted artifacts, and I’d leapt right into the lion’s mouth.
Gentile managed the first genuine smile since we’d met.
I fought them off for a while longer, arguing that Diane must have had the time screwed up, but they knew better. In the end I told them I’d gone back when Hal called me and found his body. After Eris and her companion threatened me, I ran, afraid they’d kill me too.
Predictably, Gentile had followed the line of least resistance, believing I’d been Hal’s supplier and that I’d cooked up the story about Eris and the missing engraving as a cover. But he had no evidence of this, just a towering suspicion. In the end, he couldn’t keep me.
As I got up to leave, he said brusquely, “Mr. Madison, the investigation of your car accident is still active. And if we determine you provided heroin to Hal Vanderlin, that will get you a charge of involuntary manslaughter at a minimum. Don’t be taking any long trips. I don’t want to hear you’re peddling your wares on some beach in Brazil.”
I’d started out my sojourn with the police thinking about one woman—Eris. Now I couldn’t forget another— Diane Chen. What had she predicted?
Six
The glare walloped me when I stepped outside the station doors. Patches of sidewalk blacktop had turned soft. It could be 150 degrees for all I cared. I looked at the sun blazing in the sapphire sky and felt like a blind man whose sight has suddenly been restored. I couldn’t get away fast enough.
I could think of only one person to turn to—Hal’s ex-wife, Laurel. If the news of Hal’s death had already reached her, she’d be heartbroken and need my support. As for me, I wanted to be with someone I trusted. It took a couple of calls to mutual friends before I learned she’d moved temporarily to Hal’s mother’s residence at Sheridan Square.
Laurel’s marriage to Hal lasted a grand total of six months. Since their split over a year ago, they’d built an eccentric but deep friendship, recognizing that neither of them possessed any talent for marriage. They’d never bothered to get a divorce. A doctoral candidate in philosophy, Laurel met Hal at NYU. She was very bright but never swamped you with her intellect, unlike Hal, who loved leading people into verbal traps and tripping them up. I’d always found her attractive but kept my distance because of Hal. Had the police called her yet? I hoped to avoid breaking the bad news.
Her building wasn’t too far from the station, so I decided to walk and use the time to calm down after my near miss with the police. I couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. At first I put this down to the interrogation, but soon I began to sense someone tailing me. Eris? I looked back and scanned people’s faces but couldn’t catch sight of her. I dipped into a juice bar and watched each face as the crowd moved past. No sign of her. I went deliberately off course, turning down a residential street of four-story townhouses. One of them, outfitted with elaborate wrought-iron grates and pillars and a Spanish-style balcony, looked as if it had been uprooted from a New Orleans street and plunked down here. Despite the fancy addresses, the street felt ominous and was shadowy from the overarching trees. The high humidity and frothy greenery in the gardens gave it a tropical feel. Few people here. Eris couldn’t avoid being seen. I waited for ten minutes but spotted nothing out of the ordinary. The evidence told me I was safe but my sixth sense disagreed.
It seemed totally insane that in the space of a day I’d gone from being a normal citizen to living in a constant state of fear.
I checked the street once more when I reached Laurel’s building, and seeing nothing out of place, I decided to go in. Hal had taken over his mother’s home when she died last autumn. Her penthouse was an eagle’s nest topping a brown-brick mesa, crowned by a gothic melange of pillars, arches, terraces, and gargoyles. The ground floor of the building housed a bar famous for its Monday-night Latin drags.
My one worry was whether Gip would remember me, but when I entered the main foyer, he rose from behind his desk and grinned. He was spic and span in an army-green uniform dressed up with lots of gold braid, a cap, a long coat, and matching slacks. A good thing the vestibule was air conditioned. A sturdy Irishman with a round, ruddy face, Gip was the third generation in his family to hold the post. An aristocrat of doormen, he referred to himself as Gerald Powell the Third.
“Nice to see you, John. It’s been a while.”
“Thanks, Gip. I’m here to see Laurel Vanderlin, if she’s home.”
“One second, I’ll check.” He punched in some numbers, spoke into the phone, and handed me the receiver.
“Hi, Laurie. It’s John.”
“Oh, John. You’ve heard then.”
“Yes. Can I come up?”
“Please do. I’m desperate for some company.”
The elevator had been refurbished, but the original brass art deco grillwork had wisely been kept. A white- gloved, uniformed attendant slid open the door. It had to be one of the few places left in Manhattan that still offered this service. Here, you didn’t ask for a floor, but simply gave the name of the resident. We sailed up to the penthouse.
Laurel waited with the door half propped open. I took her in my arms, pressed my face against hers, and felt tears slide down her cheek. I caught the bloom of alcohol on her breath. The stronger light inside showed me a face red and swollen from crying; her eyes had that glazed look people have when the shock is still new.
We entered a rotunda gleaming with Giallo Siena marble, its mirrors custom-made to fit the rounded walls, and in the center an inlaid, hand-painted credenza that had once belonged to a French king. On it sat a Tiffany lamp. In the receiving room, the floor switched to a rich herringbone oak covered with seventeenth-century silk Kashan carpets so valuable it felt like a sin to tread on them. Three sets of French doors framed by heavy brocade drapes led out to the first terrace. The place presented a face of stale elegance.
Hal’s mother had made only one change, combining a hall, butler’s pantry, and breakfast room to create a large family room and modern kitchen. This space was done up completely in surgical white. White broadloom, white walls, white furniture. The overall effect resembled an operating theater dropped into the middle of a museum.
I flopped down on the family room couch. Laurel asked if I wanted something to drink.
“Nothing, thanks.”
“You sure?” She picked up a tumbler half full of what looked like water but I knew wasn’t, waving it in my direction.
“You’re drinking vodka straight?”
“The ice cube melted. If you’re not going to join me, enjoy the show.” She threw down the rest of the drink. I was not about to suggest she’d be better off skipping the booze. Who was I to point out moral imperatives to
