“Shit, man, so now what?”
Enoch slouched forward in the chair, his long arms dangling between his knees.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor said. “We’re not going to starve and Sheila won’t rub your nose in it. I’ve got a computer job coming up on Monday. It’s the Salex Corporation and they’ve got some real bugs in their new export accounting program. They’re paying me big bucks to fix it. We’ll survive. You go to work on the Lamarck case, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. It’s just a matter of finding out who’s selling cosmetic secrets, right? No problem. It’s a small industry with just a few players.” He sighed. “Sheila’s not going to like this at all. She has a fit whenever there’s a dead body lying around and I’m anywhere near it. I was lucky. She was out playing bridge last night so I didn’t have to face her. Jesus, that’s probably why I was a cop, just to bug the old girl. As for the money, well, a thou isn’t too much to worry about, you’re right.”
Enoch had lived with his mother all his forty-two years. They fought like a married couple. He never called her mother. He only called her Sheila, at least to her face. Enoch’s father had died when he was eighteen, and his mom, Sheila, had inherited a cool ten million dollars and a dozen shoe stores. She was wealthy and acid-tongued and a kick. She was also a very talented musician. Taylor was very fond of her. She was always after him to get married again. As for Enoch, Sheila never mentioned marriage for him. As for Enoch, he never mentioned marriage either, even though he’d had a dozen relationships with women over the years.
Enoch said, “I wonder who that Demos guy is.”
“Mahonney told me if they ever found out it would be by informant,” Taylor said. “There are a slew of Demoses in the tri-state area. Good luck. As to that, who wrote the bloody note?”
“I think you’re right, and so do the cops. We were not only set up, but our purpose was to send a message to someone, probably this poor slob Demos. To show him he shouldn’t screw around with the big boys. I talked to Boggs, the coroner, just before I left home. He said the guy was stabbed with a thin circular blade right in the heart. The hole was very small and the bleeding nearly nil, which is why you and Mahonney didn’t see anything. You think the woman did it, this Gloria? Or was it this Demos? Was the woman we saw with him even Gloria?”
“God knows. Mahonney hasn’t even identified the dead man yet. You want a beer?”
“Yeah, it’ll drive Sheila bananas. I’ll even spill a little bit on my coat. She’ll shriek and call me a degenerate.” Enoch grinned and rubbed his hands. “Then I’ll tell her about the body. Give her lots of details.”
“You’re evil, Enoch.”
“It’s part of my charm, Taylor, just part of my charm.”
9
Lindsay stood tall and straight and stiff directly in front of Demos’ desk. She said again, more calmly this time, “I won’t do it, Vinnie. And you won’t talk me out of it, so just forget it.”
“Did I tell you that you look real cute in that outfit, Lindsay? Like a real bow-wow. Is your underwear just as ratty? Glen told me how you’ve got this running-joke battle with the Lancome ad folk. You’ll win this one, kiddo, hands down.”
“Listen to me, Vinnie. I won’t pose with my half-sister. I won’t be associated with her in any way. I won’t tell anyone she’s any relation to me. I’ll break my contract first and then you’ll have to haul me into court and it’ll be a real mess. But I mean it, I simply won’t do it.”
Vincent Rafael Demos sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. He frowned. Glen always told him his brain was like a chain saw, always hacking and hacking away until the solution to any problem was there, shining clear amid the wreckage. But this time, nothing came to mind.
“You also know why I won’t do it.”
Vinnie shrugged. “Your sister told me it was because you’re jealous of her, that you grew up that way. She also laughed and said she didn’t understand it because, after all, you were already a successful model and she was a nobody. Is that it, kiddo? You’re afraid everyone will want her and not you anymore?”
Lindsay smiled for the first time since she’d entered Demos’ office, a plush but too-stark room with white leather everywhere—sofa, love seat, chairs, even the photos on the walls were framed with white leather. “You know, Vinnie, I thought that too, but just at first. I thought, here she is again, and lo and behold, I’ve got something she doesn’t have, so her first reaction is to outdo me. But no, I’ve thought about it and that isn’t it. I just gave her the idea, that’s all. Look, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m an adult. If it were just a matter of jealousy on my part, I could handle it.”
Lindsay drew a deep breath.
“Come on, spit it out.”
“I won’t pose with her for the same reason you and I came up with the name Eden for me. Just Eden and nothing else.”
“Oh.”
“I know, you forgot.”
“It’s been five years since Paris, Lindsay. Who the hell would care now? No one, not even the scandal sheets. Geraldo won’t be knocking on your door.”
“That isn’t true, and now that you remember, you know it isn’t. I can see it now: ‘La Principessa and Her Little Sister, Lindsay/Eden, Together Again. Sharing Photos, Sharing the Same Man, Again. Will Little Sister Scream Rape This Time? Where’s the Prince?’ No way, Vinnie. Forget it.”
“I hadn’t realized, Lindsay, really, I hadn’t realized you still felt so strongly about it.”
“If you want Sydney for the Arden thing, then she’ll do it alone.” Lindsay tucked her hands into her jeans pockets. They were shaking. She felt cold but she was also determined.
“All right.”
“What’s all right?”
“She’ll do it alone. The Arden people are really high on her. She’s so damned beautiful and sophisticated and smart. All those things, and they show on her face, fortunately. I just wish I could have gotten hold of her years ago. If she decides to model, Lindsay, will you be able to handle it?”
“Just as long as no one knows who I am.”
“I can’t muzzle her. If she wants to tell who Eden is, why, then, she will.”
And she would. Lindsay knew nothing could hold her back if she decided to talk.
When she went to the Lancome shoot, her clothes set the two ad people to screaming and clutching their hearts when they saw her. But winning the latest practical joke only brought a small smile to her face. She went to her apartment immediately after the shoot, turned the air conditioning on high, and brooded with a Diet Coke. What to do?
She knew Sydney. She would turn it all into a droll joke. That or she’d twist things about in a sweetly solicitous way that would make Lindsay look like a teenage hooker. Lindsay could hear her now, telling about what a pity it all was that her sister, poor Lindsay Eden, had misunderstood, how she herself had misunderstood, how the poor prince had felt so sorry for the ugly duckling. And everyone would think: She misunderstood? Sure.
Lindsay couldn’t bear it. She had to do something. Sydney was staying at the Plaza. She’d see her again, plead with her to keep quiet, she’d agree to do anything, anything. Lindsay remembered so clearly way back at the beginning, when she’d told Vinnie about what had happened in Paris. He’d said nothing much, just nodded now and again. He’d offered no sympathy, not patted her hand once. Better than that, he hadn’t doubted her once.
“No problem,” he said when she’d finished. “You know what, Lindsay? You don’t really look like a Lindsay. You look like an Eden. How about that for your modeling name? Just plain Eden. It evokes wonderful images and promises mysteries and puzzles of a womanly sort. No one will ever know. How about it?”
But now Sydney was here. Lindsay picked up the phone and called information. Within minutes she heard Sydney’s voice.
“Ah, Lindsay, is that you? Whatever do you want now?”
“I want to know if you plan to model.”
“Why, yes, I believe I will. The Arden people want me badly and the money they’re offering turns even my head. After all, I am a real princess, not just a phony name like Eden, for example. It turns out they would have
