Текст книги "Privileged Lives"

Автор книги: Edward Stewart

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

7

CARDOZO WAS AT THE PRECINCT A little before 8:00 A.M., in good spirits from his talk with the heiress.

Three detectives were standing around the Mr. Coffees, yakking about Saturday’s game, stretching the moment before they faced the day.

Cardozo walked over to the lieutenant’s desk and glanced down at the sixty sheet—the complaints from the preceding tour.

He went into his cubicle. The two black plastic fragments he had found in apartment six had been placed on his desk in separate evidence bags, each bearing its own tag from the property clerk’s office.

He opened the case folder, moved the property vouchers aside, and skimmed through the pages of the report. They all bore the heading CASE UF61 #8139 OF THE 22D PRECINCT, DETECTIVE VINCENT R. CARDOZO, SHIELD #1864, ASSIGNED. The 8139 represented the total number of cases reported as of this date to the precinct: homicides, stray dogs, stolen cars, anything and everything, solved and unsolved.

Then the facts: John Doe, male, white, homicide by strangulation, May 24. A photograph of the dead man’s face was stapled to the page. There followed the time and place of the homicide; description of the scene of the crime; blanks for the victim’s name and relevant details of life, association, and employment; blanks awaiting names and addresses of persons interviewed; names and shield numbers of members of the force at the scene of the homicide; notifications made, still blank.

Sam Richards, wearing a dapper green blazer, knocked on the open door. “All set, Vince.”

Cardozo gathered his task force in the dingy but large room that served the detective squad as a spare office.

Greg Monteleone used a box top as a tray to carry five coffees, and Ellie Siegel, almost elegant in a pale blue dress, came in with a large box of assorted doughnuts.

Cardozo stood at the blackboard. He took a piece of chalk and wrote the words JOHN DOE HOMICIDE. Then came John Doe’s identifying numbers: UF61 #8139; UF60 #6480. UF stood for uniformed force, which meant police, plainclothes or otherwise; the 60 and 61 were the departmental forms on which all reports relating to the crime would be filed.

Beneath he wrote the Forensic number, 3746-10, and the five property voucher numbers. Next he wrote the day of the murder, the coroner’s estimated time of death, and the place of occurrence. He sketched a diagram of apartment six, putting a stick-figure man in the bedroom where the body had been found.

On the left of the board he listed the two small pieces of plastic, the electric saw, the cigarette butt, and the black leather mask that so far constituted the sole physical evidence in the case. He followed these by their tag numbers. On the right he wrote the word witnesses and put a question mark below it.

He stood back and turned to face his squad.

“What have we got? No ID on the victim. Our crime scene crew came up with eight partial prints. We’re in the process of matching these against the prints of every MOF and every civilian at the crime scene. If we fail to match them, they may or may not prove to be the prints of our killer. Negative for any fingerprints on the mask. The saw we don’t yet know about. The blood on it is human, too small an amount to be typed yet. Beyond that we have two shreds of black plastic, so far not a particle of fiber or hair. In short we have nothing. Okay—clockwise around the room.”

Sam Richards set down his coffee. “Princess Lobkowitz, you should excuse the expression, drinks a little, so it’s not surprising she didn’t hear anything. However, she has a peeve with Hector the doorman. On the day of the killing, around two P.M., she had to let herself into the building with her own key. Hector should have been on duty, but he wasn’t.”

“Benson mentioned the same thing,” Monteleone said.

Cardozo went to the blackboard and made a notation: HECTOR, NOT AT DOOR 2 PM?

“I also spoke with Ms. Debbi Hightower,” Richards continued, “no e on the Debbi. She heard nothing, saw nothing, says she was at work at the Toyota show at the World Trade Center for the last three nights, and this kept her out till noon Saturday and nine A.M. Sunday.”

“Only one kind of Friday night show goes till noon Saturday,” Monteleone smirked.

Cardozo ignored him. “What about the accountant?”

“Fred Lawrence is a very angry man,” Richards said. “IRS decided to surprise-audit a client, he had to cut short his holiday weekend and come back to New York to prepare. He arrived in the building noon Saturday, says he saw nothing, heard nothing. However, I think he did hear something or see something.”

“What makes you think that?”

“A remark about the garage. He said he was very annoyed about conditions down there, he was going to complain to the co-op board at the next meeting.”

“What conditions?”

“All he would say was, ‘Nothing criminal, but goddamned annoying considering the money we pay—we could at least get a little respect.’ We’ve all heard the attitude.”

Cardozo smiled. It was the standard civilian complaint against cops.

“After which,” Richards continued, “I spoke with one of the doormen, Jerzy Bronski, at his SRO in Chelsea. He says both Saturday and yesterday he worked the midnight shift, then drove his cab from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M.—he moonlights—then he slept.”

“Yezhi,” Monteleone said.

Richards looked up. “Beg your pardon?”

“Yezhi, not Jerzy. The Poles pronounce J-E-R-Z-Y Yezhi.”

“Sounds like Yiddish for Jesus,” Richards said.

“Yezl,” Siegel said. “The Yiddish word for Jesus is Yezl.”

“Don’t look at me,” Monteleone said. “I’m not discussing Yiddish, that’s not my department.”

“My grandmother used to say Yezl,” Malloy said. “Every December she’d open her Christmas cards, and if there was a Jesus bambino she’d say, ‘Another Yezl.’”

“You’re Jewish?” Monteleone asked. “I didn’t know that.”

“Only my grandmother,” Malloy said.

“Enough Jews for Jesus,” Cardozo said. “Can we please get on with this?”

“I haven’t been able to get to Claude Loring, the handyman,” Richards said. “I went to the address the super gave me, 32 Broome Street. I spoke to Loring’s roommate, who now claims to be his ex-roommate, a gentleman by the name of Perfecto Rodriguez.”

“That’s a name?” Greg Monteleone asked. “They call their kids Perfecto?”

“Who are you calling ‘they’?” Ellie Siegel inquired.

“You know who I mean.”

Siegel was glaring. “Say it, Greg.”

“Latinos.”

“Greg,” Siegel remarked, “anyone ever told you you’re a racist?”

“I can’t believe a parent would call a kid Perfecto, I think it’s a horrible name for anyone. That makes me a racist?”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cardozo cut in, “stow it.”

Richards went on. “Perfecto says Loring hasn’t been living at that address since the first of the month. Loring left no forwarding address, Loring owes for Con Ed and telephone, Loring also left a lot of classical records and dirty laundry, will we please tell Perfecto if we locate Loring.”

“Perfecto doesn’t know where Loring works?” Monteleone asked. “That seems funny—we know where Loring works.”

“Why are you on Perfecto’s case?” Siegel asked.

“Believe me, I don’t give a damn about the guy, but he seems a little dense.”

Cardozo consulted his notes. “The Beaux Arts worksheets show Loring was on the job every day last week, eight A.M. to four P.M.”

“I checked back with the super,” Richards said. “The only address he has for Loring is Perfecto’s pad on Broome Street.”

“Where do they mail the paychecks?” Cardozo asked.

“They don’t. The super hands them out at the building twice a month. Loring’s not due at work today, but he’s due tomorrow, so I figure I can catch him then.”

“Unless he’s left town,” Monteleone put in.

“There’s one other thing,” Richards said.

“Go on,” Cardozo said.

“I had the feeling the building personnel were holding back. I don’t mean their stories didn’t check out, but there was something they weren’t saying. Revuelta’s wife was right there beside him; every now and then she’d shoot him a warning in Spanish.”

“What was the warning?”

“I didn’t catch the exact words, but she was giving him that ‘Keep your mouth shut’ look. It’s universal body language. Joshua Stinson’s wife gave me the same feeling.”

Cardozo looked over at Monteleone. “Greg?”

Monteleone nodded. “I got the same feeling exactly when I questioned Andy Gomez and Fred Johnson. Mrs. Gomez and Mrs. Johnson don’t want their men losing their jobs at Beaux Arts Tower. You could read it on their faces. Same thing when I spoke with Herb Dunlop and Luis Morro. Dunlop has a really nice little place in Kew Gardens, a back yard, roses. All four of them can account for their movements. If you believe the witnesses, there’s no way we can place them at the scene.”

“What witnesses?” Cardozo said.

“Family.”

Cardozo made a mental note. “What about building residents?”

“Benson didn’t hear anything,” Monteleone said, “but he’s an architect and he says he turns his hearing aid off when he wants to concentrate. Father Madsen didn’t hear anything either.”

Very dimly, Cardozo was beginning to see connections. Conditions in the garage, whatever the hell that meant. A doorman not at his post when he should have been. Building employees’ wives nervous about cops. “Sam, go back, talk to Lawrence. Find out about these conditions in the garage. Which brings us to the leg.” Cardozo turned to face Ellie Siegel. “Ellie?”

“Negative on all trash cans accessible from the street, public and private, within a five-block radius. I couldn’t check Beaux Arts’s garbage: it went out Sunday morning.”

Cardozo frowned. “Sunday on a long holiday weekend?”

“It struck me as unusual, too, Vince, but when you look at the overtime that garbage companies get for hauling on Memorial Day weekend—twice their regular fee—it makes sense. Especially since the agent of the building owns the garbage company.”

“I thought garbage was mob-controlled,” Sam Richards said.

Siegel glanced at him. “You think real estate in this town isn’t?”

Cardozo nudged her back to the subject. “What about commercial garbage?”

“The neighborhood has a high concentration of luxury restaurants—mostly French, some Italian. Within the five-block radius, only eight put their garbage directly out on the street. The others use locked bins. Of the eight, six hadn’t yet had their garbage picked up. All the bags contained bone, and all the bone has gone to the lab for analysis. Incidentally, this was a really disgusting job.”

“Sorry. What about the other two restaurants?”

“Unfortunately, neither uses the same pickup company as Beaux Arts. We’re dealing with three companies and three landfills. There were no municipal pickups over the weekend, but do you want to consider the possibility that the killer took the leg himself to a municipal landfill? That would bring us up to six landfills.”

“Let’s start with the three.”

“We’ve started.”

“Carl, how are we coming on the licenses?” Cardozo asked. “What’ve you turned up?”

“What we’ve turned up so far,” Carl Malloy said, “is no hot cars, no cars registered to criminals.”

“What you’ve turned up so far in other words,” Monteleone said, “is you’ve turned up nothing.”

Malloy looked at him. “Thanks, Greg. Thanks for telling me.”

“Some reason for thinking the person who did this drove?” Siegel said.

“Come on, he drives,” Monteleone said. “Everybody drives.”

Monteleone was being deliberately provocative. He had a way with “everybody” statements that drove Siegel wild.

“My brother doesn’t drive,” Siegel said.

“And not every driver has a record,” Richards said. “Look at me—I’m clean.”

“He drives,” Monteleone said, eyes on Siegel.

“The killer may be a woman,” Siegel said.

“How about that,” Monteleone said. “Where were you the night of the killing, Ellie? Double-parking?”

Ellie Siegel took a long sip of coffee. “It would be a real long shot if the killer’s out on parole for sawing somebody else up.”

“Long shots happen,” Cardozo said.

“If that long shot happened,” Monteleone said, “there’s going to be one very ticked-off parole officer.”

Cardozo’s eyes played across the faces of his detectives. Malloy and Monteleone were reminders of the days when the force had been male only, overwhelmingly white, and for the most part Irish and Italian. Siegel and Richards were reminders of the demographic changes that had shaken the force in recent years. Though City Hall had brought unbelievable pressure to recruit women and minorities into the upper ranks, there was nothing political about their winning the gold shield of the detective and the right to work in civilian clothes. Each of the four detectives had had a distinguished record in uniform, and each—for all their differences of character and outlook—had the strong legs, hard knuckles, and patience that it took to make a good detective.

Cardozo assigned tasks.

Richards would keep knocking on doors and asking questions. He would show flyers of the victim’s face to all the staff and residents of Beaux Arts Tower; he would post a flyer in the lobby. Malloy would check out the vehicles of the Beaux Arts staff and residents.

Monteleone would put in a call to the local mental institutions to see if any sex offenders had been released or had escaped within the last month.

In addition to overseeing garbage, Siegel would put her art background to work. “Take a photo of the dead man to the Photographic Unit, have them airbrush it, put him in high-fashion casual clothes.”

Cardozo explained that the squad would stay on overtime, moving forward as quickly as possible.

“And I want a five on everyone you talk to.”

A collective groan went up.

Cardozo was back in his office when Lou Stein phoned from Forensic. “We’ve been through the garbage you sent us, Vince. None of the bone is human.”

“Crap. Have you matched the eight partials?”

“Three of them. One is the victim’s thumb and two belong to—the name seems to be Hatfield. None of the prints from the building staff match, but we still need prints from Loring, Gomez, Revueltas, and Stinson.”

“What about the saw?”

“Wiped clean. Not a print on it. But we did find a male body hair embedded in the oil on the rotor. Caucasian. Not pubic. Probably forearm. Wild. Not from the victim. Who handled the saw?”

Cardozo thought back. “I did. Monteleone did. We were wearing gloves.”

“I’ll still need a hair from each of you. Soon as you can, Vince.”

8

STARTLED, BABE LIFTED HER head from the pillow. Light rippled across the walls as curtains shifted in the breeze from the air conditioner.

“Did we wake our little girl?” Lucia Vanderwalk was standing there in a pinstripe white cotton suit and polka-dot navy blouse.

“That’s all right, Mama.”

The gold bracelet on Lucia Vanderwalk’s wrist jangled softly as Hadley Vanderwalk helped her into a chair.

“Babe, you’re looking dandy,” Hadley said; “Just dandy.”

Hadley was wearing a dark three-piece suit, and as he took the chair beside Lucia’s she reached over to level the tilt of his bow tie.

Babe pressed the button that buzzed her bed up into a sitting position.

“Are you feeling strong enough to go over your appointments?” Lucia asked.

“I didn’t realize I had appointments,” Babe said.

“Hadley.” Lucia held out a hand.

Hadley Vanderwalk handed his wife her oversized handbag. She reached into it and set a desk-sized ledger on her knees. The cover was gleaming morocco, with the name Beatrice in gold-leaf letters on the front. “A wonderful bookbinder on West Twenty-seventh did this on two hours’ notice, over the holiday—can you imagine? Such craftsmanship.”

She flipped almost halfway through the book, to the pages marked May. Babe saw that it was an appointment calendar, and many of the blanks were already filled in, in Lucia’s looping Miss Porter’s penmanship.

“You’ll be seeing Dr. Eric Corey, your neurologist, twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays at eleven. You’ll see your bone specialist daily at nine in the morning, except weekends of course.”

Babe was silent, knowing better than to voice outright opposition to her mother’s organizing.

“You’ll see your physiotherapists daily at three, weekends included. Dr. Corey says it’s important to keep moving, not to lose a single day. And you’ll see your psychotherapist two times a week.”

“Psychotherapist?” Babe said.

Hadley lifted his gaze and stared silently at Lucia.

“Ruth Freeman,” Lucia said. “She’s terribly popular. Your father and I met her at a dinner at Cybilla deClairville’s—can you believe the luck?—and of course we spent the entire evening talking about you.”

The word psychotherapist brought back an image to Babe’s mind, a flickering glimpse of a white room and strange masked figures moving in evening clothes. “I was dreaming when you came in,” she said suddenly.

“How nice.”

“Richard Nixon and Winnie the Pooh and Porky Pig were giving some sort of horrible party. I’ve had that dream before.”

Lucia drew a long breath, studying her daughter carefully. “It’s not unusual to have the same dream over again. I often dream of Southampton as it was during the summer of 1948: Your father gave me the most splendid birthday present—a fancy dress ball. We had Eddy Duchin and his orchestra.”

“Wonderful man, Duchin,” Hadley said. “Played golf every bit as well as he did the piano.”

“Remember how he played ‘Just One of Those Things,’ Hadley? Your favorite song.”

“It’s your favorite, Mama—not Papa’s.”

“Your father adores ‘Just One of Those Things’—don’t you, Hadley?”

Hadley smiled pleasantly. “Passionately.”

“You know you only adore it to please her, Papa.”

“You’re in a mood, dear heart,” Lucia said. “Was your dream so terribly upsetting?”

“I can’t remember it now.”

“Why don’t you discuss it with Dr. Freeman?” Lucia said. “She knows everything about the mind. She wrote the book on recovering from schizophrenia. She’ll see you here at the hospital, of course. No one expects you to be up and running about town just yet.”

“I’m not schizophrenic. There’s nothing wrong with my mind. It’s my brain that was in coma.”

“Of course. You’re absolutely right.” Lucia looked into Babe’s eyes and smiled her most conciliatory smile, inviting Babe’s.

Babe did not smile back. “I want Scottie to visit.”

Lucia’s face became expressionless. Babe could feel her mother mustering the case for refusal.

“That’s rather awkward,” Lucia said.

“I believe I have a say in my own life.”

“Beatrice, could you at least please trust your father and me? We’ve stood by you seven years when half the specialists in the country told us it was hopeless. Strange as it may seem to you, we’re standing by you now.”

“Mama, do you think I don’t know what Scottie was accused of?

Lucia floated Babe a worried look. “Who told you?”

“A detective was here.”

Lucia was silent a moment. “There was more to it than mere accusation. Scottie was guilty.”

“Of trying to murder me? That’s absolutely asinine.”

“He admitted it.”

Silence wrapped itself around the room.

“He hasn’t admitted it to me,” Babe said.

Lucia sighed tolerantly. “The first order of the day is for you to get well.”

“How do you expect me to get well if you treat me like a baby? Mama, I want my life back. And I want to start by having visits from the people who matter to me.”

Lucia gloved her voice in gentleness. “But you have started. What do you call your father and me, and Cordelia and Billi? Don’t we matter? Aren’t we enough for a beginning?”

“I want to see my husband. I want to see friends.”

Lucia leaned forward to pat Babe’s arm. Her hand was cool and soft, with the touch Babe remembered from childhood, the touch that said Trust Mama, it will all be all right. “I know, dear heart.”

“I want to see Ash Canfield.”

Lucia took a moment to arrange herself in her chair, a moment of breathing deep, of recomposing the careful neutrality of her expression. “Ash is dying to visit. Of course you’ll see her.”

“I’ve known Ash since childhood and she’s my best friend and I’ve a right to see her now.”

“Yes, yes, dear heart.” Lucia kissed her fingers and pressed them over Babe’s lips. “Papa and I will take care of all that.”

“Why can’t Babe be permitted at least to see Ash?” Hadley asked.

“Beatrice’s condition is far too delicate to allow that,” Lucia said sharply.

They had returned to the Bentley. The chauffeur was driving them home.

“I couldn’t disagree more,” Hadley said. “Babe is damned sturdy. She could use a little laughter, though. Bet your life Ash would pep her up.”

“Ash Canfield is the world’s sloppiest gossip. She’ll wear Beatrice out. Frankly, I’m opposed to her even knowing our daughter has recovered.”

“You expect to keep the news secret?”

“For a week or two. Till we decide.”

Hadley looked at his wife, interested now in what she was thinking. “Till we decide what?”

Lucia turned and stared at Hadley as if it took all her strength and all her will not to upbraid him for imbecility. “Till we decide our child’s future. And I hope we shall be able to do that calmly.”

“That’s ridiculous. Babe’s future isn’t ours to decide.”

Something hard was creeping into Lucia’s eyes. “It is till the court decrees otherwise.”

Hadley frowned. “A five-minute visit from Ash Canfield, a woman she’s known since kindergarten—how on earth is that going to blight Babe’s future?”

“Ash has always had an enormous talent for stirring up mischief and she has always encouraged the, same talent in Beatrice.”

The driver began to turn. Lucia leaned forward and rapped irritably on the half-lowered glass partition.

“Kingsley, must I keep telling you not to take Roosevelt Drive till they’ve finished that construction?”

Hadley Vanderwalk waited till the television went on upstairs in Lucia’s morning room. Lucia denied following the afternoon soaps, and she never watched them on the TV in the drawing room. But he knew she was secretly hooked on them. She kept a VCR programmed to record them when she was out, and he knew for a fact she exchanged tapes with fellow addicts in her bridge-and-charity-ball set.

As soon as Hadley heard the familiar voices on the TV, their emotion muted through the ceiling, he lifted the telephone in the library and quickly punched out a number.

“Ash?” He spoke in a lowered voice. “Good to hear your voice, my dear. It’s Hadley Vanderwalk… Yes, of course we’re coming to the party, wouldn’t miss it. Now prepare yourself. I’ve a message for you from a friend in the hospital.”

“Sweetie,” a voice cried. “It’s really true—you’re back!”

Babe looked toward the door. A figure had stopped motionless on the threshold, a big-eyed, pale-haired woman in pink.

“I haven’t changed that much. Come on, it’s me—Ash!”

Recognition came flooding in. “Ash—my God!”

Arms spread, Ash Canfield took four running steps into the room. And stopped again.

The two women gazed at one another, silent and hardly breathing and not quite believing what they saw.

“Don’t I at least deserve a hug?” Babe said.

“You deserve ten million hugs.”

Ash leaned over the bed and hugged Babe and Babe hugged back, gratitude welling up and filling every inch of her.

“Sweetie, I’ve missed you. You don’t know how much.” Ash blinked hard. Tears were giving her contact lenses trouble and a smile made tiny brackets around her mouth. “You’re looking terrific. Not a pound overweight. And not a week older, damn you. Coma must have agreed with you.”

“Coma is rotten. I can hardly sit up or feed myself. My stomach has shrunk. I’m on a diet of liquid and something they call semisolids. Two male nurses have to walk me an hour a day. My memory has gaps, I’m tired half the time, I’ve been out of touch so long I can’t carry on a conversation, don’t know half the names people are dropping. And to top it off, I have to get around in that monstrosity.” Babe threw a nod toward the wheelchair.

“Eventually you graduate to crutches, I suppose?”

“So the doctor promises. And then a cane.”

“That will be very distinguished.”

“To hell with distinguished. I want to play squash again, and dance, and ride horseback.”

“You will, sweetie, you will.” Ash took unsteady possession of a chair, crossing her legs.

Babe studied her childhood friend. Ash Canfield looked very different from the image in her memory: older, more made up, more flamboyant in her choice of colors and jewels.

And there was something else, harder to pin down—a nervous energy that had taken over the room instantly.

“Care to fill me in on the mystery?” Ash asked.

“Mystery?”

“Your father made me promise not to tell a soul you’ve recovered. I gather it’s a big, big secret. I love secrets and I especially love being in on them. So spill. Who are we hiding you from?”

There was a silence.

“I don’t know,” Babe said quietly.

Gradually Ash’s smile froze and something in her eyes shifted. She was looking at Babe as if they were both far from home and lonely and if they cared to admit it both a little afraid.

“You’ll never guess who I’ve become.” Ash’s voice and everything about her had undergone a slight adjustment

“You’ve married again?” Babe said.

“No, I’m still married to Dunk, but he made the Queen’s Honors List three years ago. He’s Sir Duncan and I’m Lady Canfield, if you please. We’re mentioned in all the columns and we get asked everywhere.”

“But you always got asked everywhere.”

“And now we’re able to turn down twice as many invitations.” Ash turned in her chair. “Haven’t you got palatial digs here!”

“I’d rather be home.”

“Of course you would, but still …” Ash rose from her chair and inspected the hospital room, prowling like a cat stalking out territory. She peeked into the bathroom and came back carrying two water tumblers.

“In the meantime, in between time, look what I smuggled past the warden.” She reached into a Bergdorf’s bag and pulled out a bottle of Moët, cool and glistening. “How’s about it?”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Babe said.

“But sweetie, it’s liquid.”

“It will only put me to sleep.”

“Ah, well.” Ash twisted the wire loose, jimmied the cork with her thumbs until it popped, and quickly aimed the overflowing foam into the nearest tumbler. She took a little pillbox from her purse. The lid was mirrored, and the pills inside were pink ovals.

“What are those?” Babe asked.

“Mood elevators. I’m depressed. I have to lose twelve pounds, and Duncan’s leaving me.”

Babe and Ash had known one another since kindergarten. They’d roomed together at Miss Porter’s in Farmington and had almost been expelled for putting a bedpan of Campbell’s cream of tomato soup in the bed of a detested house mistress. They’d come out together at the New York Infirmary Ball and then roomed together at Vassar. For years they’d worn their hair the same way, worn the same dress size, shared clothes and secrets and booze and drugs, dated and loved and hated the same boys. They had both wanted to marry the same man—but Duncan Canfield had finally proposed to Ash, and Babe had instantly married the internationally famed pianist Ernst Koenig, thirty-eight years her senior. She’d done it to make Ash jealous. The marriage had lasted seven disastrous years and Ash, embroiled in her own disaster of a marriage, had never expressed the slightest jealousy. Babe had long ago forgiven her.

“Duncan’s always leaving you,” Babe said, “and he’s always coming back.”

“It feels permanent this time. And it’s happening at the worst possible moment. We’re giving a party for Gordon Dobbs.”

“Who’s he?”

“Of course you don’t know—poor sweetie. Dobbsie is the top society writer in town. Charming and sweet and funny and I adore him. It’s the two hundred other people I’m not up to. Ah, well, those are the risks of planning a party.” Ash poured herself another glass of champagne. “But let’s talk about you. Did you have any out-of-body experiences? Did you see God, or angels, or pillars of light?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What a waste.” Ash gulped pills from her palm and downed her champagne and poured another splash into her tumbler. She became even more talkative on her third glass.

She had acres of scandal about the latest world leaders and living legends and newly famous: she told Babe who was rich this month, who was beautiful, who was robbing whom, who was screwing whom. The names had changed, but otherwise it was very much the same dirt Ash had always dished.

Suddenly she broke off. “Good jumping Jehoshaphat!” she cried. “Will you look at the time? I’m going to be late for the caterers. Do you mind?” She lifted the receiver from the bedside phone and jiggled the cradle. “Your phone’s on the fritz.”

“I have a suspicion Mama arranged it so it only takes incoming calls. Her incoming calls. I can’t call out.”

“You’re not turning paranoid, are you?”

“She doesn’t want me phoning Scottie. He hasn’t been to see me, you know.”

“Hasn’t he.” Ash looked at her oddly, and Babe could feel something close itself off in her friend.

“My parents won’t talk about him. Cordelia says he’s divorced me.”

“Cordelia told you that?”

There was a beat’s silence.

“A police detective told me Scottie tried to kill me.”

Ash squared her shoulders and looked at Babe. “Then you know.”

“Ash, I don’t know anything. When I went to bed I had a husband and a daughter and a career. I wake up and seven years are missing. I’m groping around a room blindfolded and someone’s moved all the furniture.”

“Poor sweetie. It must be god-awful.” Ash took Babe’s hand.

“Has he remarried?”

“Do the doctors really want you discussing this?” Ash said.

“What do doctors have to do with it? It’s my life.”

A sad smile appeared on Ash’s face. “He hasn’t remarried.”

Babe studied Ash, with her skittering glazed eyes and nervous hands.

“But he has someone,” Babe said.

“Doria Forbes-Steinman.”

“That redhead with all that pop art?”

“Her hair’s ash blond now and she sold off a lot of the pop art. She’s gone into magic realism.”

Babe fought to keep pain from edging into her voice. “Do they live together?”

“They have a huge co-op—a lot of English country antiques mixed in with deco and modern. You can see the Empire State Building from the bathtub.”

“You’ve taken a bath there?”

“Of course not. It was written up in Architectural Digest.”

“Does he love her?”

“Who knows if he loves anyone.”

Babe was silent a moment, remembering. “I know he loved me.”