Triple Threat

level of invasiveness. Still, John Westerfield’s probing was constant and familiar, like a low-grade fever, which Carmel had her own mettle to withstand.

No, something else had happened.

“And?”

“No, really. Just that.”

Sarah herself could be persistent too. “Come, now…”

“He… I think it was maybe a coincidence. Didn’t mean anything.”

Nothing the She-Beast and the He-Beast did was a coincidence. Sarah said, “Tell me anyway.”

“Then he said,” the woman offered, choking back a sob, “if I didn’t tell him, he wouldn’t be able to protect you. And if those papers got stolen, you’d lose all your money. I’d lose my job and… and then he said my daughter might have to leave her high school, Immaculata.”

“He said that?” Sarah whispered.

Carmel was crying harder now. “How would he know she went there? Why would he find that out?”

Because he and his mother did their homework. They asked their questions like chickens pecking up seed and stones.

But now, threatening Carmel and her family?

“I got mad and I said I couldn’t wait until the lease is up and his and his mother went away forever! And he said oh, they weren’t going anywhere. They checked the law in New York and as long as they pay the rent and don’t break the lease they can stay forever. Is that true, Mrs. Sarah?”

Sarah Lieberman said, “Yes, Carmel, it is true.” She rose and sat down at the Steinway piano she’d owned for nearly twenty years. It had been a present from her second husband for their wedding. She played a few bars of Chopin, her favorite composer and, in her opinion, the most keyboard-friendly of the great classicists.

Carmel continued, “When he left he said, ‘Say hi to your family for me, Carmel. Say hi to Daniel. You know, your husband, he’s a good carpenter. And say hi to Rosa. She’s a pretty girl. Pretty like her mother.’ ” Carmel was shivering now, tears were flowing.

Sarah turned from the piano and touched the maid on the shoulder. “It’s all right, dear. You did the right thing to tell me.”

The tears slowed and finally stopped. A Kleenex made its way around her face.

After a long moment Sarah said, “When Mark and I were in Malaysia—you know he was head of a trade delegation there?”

“Yes, Mrs. Sarah.”

“When we were there for that, we went to this preserve.”

“Like a nature preserve?”

“That’s right. A nature preserve. And there was this moth he showed us. It’s called an Atlas moth. Now, they’re very big—their wings are six or eight inches across.”

“That’s big, si.”

“But they’re still moths. The guide pointed at it. ‘How can it defend itself? What does it have? Teeth? No. Venom? No. Claws? No.’ But then the guide pointed out the markings on this moth’s wings. And it looked just like a snake’s head! It was exactly like a cobra. Same color, everything.”

“Really, Mrs. Sarah?”

“Really. So that the predators aren’t sure whether it would be safe to eat the moth or not. So they usually move on to something else and leave the moth alone.”

Carmel was nodding, not at all sure where this was going.

“I’m going to do that with the Westerfields.”

“How, Mrs. Sarah?”

“I’ll show them the snake head. I’m going to make them think it’s too dangerous to stay here and they should move out.”

“Good! How are you going to do that?”

“Did I show you my birthday present?”

“The flowers?”

“No, this.” Sarah took an iPhone from her purse. She fiddled with the functions, many of which she had yet to figure out. “My nephew in Virginia gave it to me. Freddy. He’s a good man. Now, this phone has a recorder in it.”

“You’re going to record them, doing that? Threatening you?”

“Exactly. I’ll email a copy to my lawyer and several other people. The Westerfields’ll have to leave me alone.”

“But it might not be safe, Mrs. Sarah.”

“I’m sure it won’t be. But it doesn’t look like I have much choice, do I?”

Then Sarah noticed that Carmel was frowning, looking away.

The older woman said, “I know what you’re thinking. They’ll just go find somebody else to torture and do the same thing to them.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”

Sarah said softly, “But in the jungle, you know, it’s not the moth’s job to protect the whole world, dear. It’s the moth’s job to stay alive.”

Present Day

“You want me to find somebody?” the man asked the solemn woman sitting across from him. “Missing person?”

The Latina woman corrected solemnly, “Body. Not somebody. A body.”

“Excuse me?”

“A body. I want to know where a body is. Where it’s buried.”

“Oh.” Eddie Caruso remained thoughtfully attentive but now that he realized the woman might be a crackpot he wanted mostly to get back to his iPad, on which he’d been watching a football—well, soccer—match currently underway in Nigeria. Eddie loved sports. He’d played softball in his middle school days, Little League and football, well, gridiron, in high school and then, being a skinny guy, he’d opted for billiards pool in college (to raise tuition while, for the most part, avoiding bodily harm). But the present sport of his heart was soccer.

Okay, football.

But he was also a businessman and crackpots could be paying clients, too. He kept his attention on the substantial woman across his desk, which was bisected by a slash of summer light, reflected off a nearby Times Square high-rise.

“Okay. Keep going, Mrs. Rodriguez.”

“Carmel.”

“Carmel?”

“Carmel.”

“A body, you were saying.”

“A murdered woman, a friend.”

He leaned forward, now intrigued. Crackpot clients could not only pay well. They also often meant Game—a term coined by sportsman Eddie Caruso; it was hard to define. It meant basically the interesting, the weird, the captivating. Game was that indefinable aspect of love and business and everything else, not just sports, that kept you engaged, that got the juices flowing, that kept you off balance.

People had Game or they didn’t. And if not, break up.

Jobs had Game or they didn’t. And if not, quit.

Another thing about Game. You couldn’t fake it.

Eddie Caruso had a feeling this woman, and this case, had Game.

She said, “A year ago, I lost someone I was close to.”

“I’m sorry.”

The iPad went into sleep mode. When last viewed, a winger for Senegal had been moving up through the markers, to try to score. But Caruso let the sleeping device lie. The woman was clearly distraught about her loss.