Текст книги "Frenzy"

Автор книги: John Lutz

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

81

Quinn ran as fast as possible through the hedge maze. He couldn’t build up much speed because of the frequent right-angle turns that required almost complete stops. If he wanted to keep up with the killer he had to dig in toe or heel and pivot sharply with each turn.

He could hear D.O.A. crashing along on the other side of the hedgerow to his right. It sounded as if the killer was directly opposite him, only five or six feet away. But Quinn couldn’t be sure enough to take a blind shot through the thick hedges. Even if his sense of hearing provided enough accuracy for his bullet to find its mark, the hedge’s thick branches and foliage might be enough to divert it to God knew where.

Quinn ran hard, feeling the pain in his thighs and chest, using his ears to direct his feet. He tried to calculate if he was gaining ground on the killer. Now and then he’d make a wrong turn, and he’d have to try to crash through the hedges to the next pathway. That never worked, but he was lucky enough to gain gradually on the killer, to stay close enough to gauge their respective positions.

But not so close as to chance taking a shot.

Luck. Good for me, bad for the killer. He’ll run out of hedgerows eventually.

Then Quinn suddenly wondered if it was luck. The killer was younger and should be able to outrun him.

But the killer didn’t seem to have gained ground.

Wrong. Something was wrong.

Quinn was being led.

Short of breath, his legs and lungs aching, Quinn realized the killer had deliberately lured him through the maze in a circuitous route, back to where the chase had begun.

He wanted to be sure that Quinn understood. That he’d been led. The killer was in control and had chosen the time and place. He wanted death, and knew he was going to die. And he wanted Quinn to die with him, knowing that he, Quinn, had lost the game.

The game that meant everything. Quinn understood now the keen amusement in the killer’s eyes.

Timing was so important.

Both men broke from the hedge maze at almost the same moment, simultaneous to an armada of police and emergency vehicles arriving at the scene. And there were plenty of news media representatives. Vans with tower aerials mounted on their roofs, media wolves already dismounted and on foot, units of camera and lighting professionals, and well-coifed media stars, all running toward police barricades that were already in place. The scene was epic. The night electric.

The killer felt his heart swell. This was what he wanted, even better than he’d anticipated. Here was a drama that would dominate every news outlet, every Internet scan, and hold the population in thrall. The finale of the hunt, with the hunted and hunter locked in deadly combat.

Quinn would understand what had happened, even as his life faded. He’d know he’d been outmaneuvered.

Let the fools of the world think what they may. Quinn would breathe his last knowing he’d lost the game.

And the world will be watching.

Quinn and the killer were both clear of the hedge maze now, and through the garden. Uniformed cops advanced across the street toward them, along with darkly clothed members of the Tactical Unit. They were approaching at slight angles, allowing for a cross fire.

The killer thought his bulletproof vest would keep him alive at least as long as Quinn lived.

Quinn wasn’t so sure. He raised his police special revolver, dropping to one knee so he’d be a smaller target, and opened fire on D.O.A.

The killer seemed invulnerable in his bulky vest. He was smiling as he leveled the Kalashnikov at Quinn.

That was when one of Quinn’s bullets found its way beneath the side of the vest and lodged in the killer’s chest. He dropped hard and didn’t move, supporting himself on one elbow.

Still without a clear shot, the Tactical Unit held its fire.

Wounded in the same leg that had been shot years before, Quinn limped toward the killer, who had struggled up and was now seated cross-legged on the pavement, his arms and hands hanging limply at his sides.

As Quinn came near, he saw again the madness and amusement in the killer’s eyes. The eyes were hypnotic, and Quinn was distracted enough that he didn’t see until it was too late the killer raise a handgun that had been concealed beneath his right thigh.

Quinn knew that from this range, he was dead.

The killer hesitated, savoring the moment.

Steadied his aim.

Pearl shot him.

The heavy Glock round slammed into the killer’s head, just behind his right ear.

As he lay dying, the killer stared up at the night sky and knew he’d be huge in tomorrow’s papers. Where he’d always wanted to be. Above the fold.

Quinn had a round left in his revolver. He stood and started to walk over so he could shoot the killer again in the head. He needed to be sure that D.O.A. was finally and forever dead. There was no pain, but his right leg gave out and he was on his knees again. He looked down and saw that his thigh was bleeding.

He raised his gaze to look at Pearl. She seemed calm, standing there with her Glock still in her hand. The hand and gun were as steady as if they were sculptured stone.

“You never were one to wait in the car,” Quinn said.

Pearl looked down at him. “Lucky you.”

A uniformed cop walked over and bent low, found the stray gun beneath the killer’s body, and slid the weapon ten feet away. He didn’t straighten up, but stayed still with his head bowed, listening to something the dying killer had to say. Then the killer turned his head toward Quinn, but his eyes were closed, his mouth half open, as if he’d been interrupted mid-word.

Then, incredibly, the mouth smiled.

The uniformed cop sauntered over to Quinn and squatted down near him. He motioned with his head toward D.O.A. “He’s good as dead. On his way out even if the paramedics pump blood in him by the gallon.”

“Good,” Quinn said.

The cop smiled thinly. “I wouldn’t contradict you.”

Pearl laid her hand on Quinn’s forehead. “Have we got medical transport on the way?”

“We do,” the cop assured her.

“He whispered something to you,” Quinn said, gripping the cop’s sleeve as the man started to straighten up.

The cop nodded. “Told me to give you a message. Said I should tell you checkmate. Just that one word.”

Quinn looked over and still couldn’t be sure the killer was dead.

“I think he’s gone,” the cop said.

Quinn clenched his teeth against the pain and fought to stand up on his good leg. The cop helped him, even though Quinn pushed him away at first.

“Checkmate,” the cop said again.

Quinn ran out of strength and sat down again hard on the pavement.

“Go tell him royal flush,” he said.

But the D.O.A. killer was dead, in a pool of his own blood, seduced by a woman.

82

Two days after the shoot-out at the Far Castle, Renz dropped by the Q&A office and informed Quinn that tests had established that the Bellezza bust found buried beneath the thornbush outside the restaurant was less than ten years old. The letters, which had been artificially aged, were also phony.

Another imitation.

Quinn wasn’t surprised.

“Any word on where Winston Castle or Maria are?” he asked.

“Blown in the wind,” Renz said, “like the answers to a lot of questions. The Ohio family members—or whatever they are—know from nothing.”

“I have a feeling Castle and his wife—if Maria’s really his wife—will turn up again. There aren’t any warrants out for them.”

“There would be if I could think of some charges,” Renz said. Not meaning it. Why stir up this mess and make it politically radioactive again?

“What about the restaurant?” Quinn asked. He adjusted his bandaged leg where it was propped on a low hassock.

“The Far Castle is closed. Sign in the window says it’s temporary, for remodeling. Doesn’t say for how long.” Renz glanced around the office. He and Quinn were the only ones there. “Pearl okay?”

“Physically, yeah. But she’s got a lot of mental baggage to rummage through.”

“Feds?”

“Minor wounds,” Quinn said. He smiled faintly. “They seem to have saved his marriage.”

“Weaver’s out of the hospital already,” Renz said. “She’s a tough lady.”

“Pearl visited her there,” Quinn said. “That’s probably as well as those two will ever get along. And it won’t last.”

“Tough ladies,” Quinn said. “That’s what brought D.O.A. down.”

“Poetic something,” Renz said. “Justice would have been if we could have let Pearl, Weaver, and Feds’s wife, Penny, team up with all the victims and beat the bastard to death.” Renz raised both hands. “I know, I know. ‘Then we’d all be just like him.’ ”

“No,” Quinn said, “I wasn’t going to say that.”

This was the second time Pearl visited Nancy Weaver. They were alone in the room, which was on the fifth floor and let in too much traffic noise.

“It’s nice of you to come by,” Weaver said. She was resting on her back in bed, an IV tube snaking to the back of her right hand. What was visible of her body showed bruises that were every color of the spectrum

“We’re on the same floor,” Pearl said. “So it’s no big deal.”

Weaver didn’t nod. Didn’t move.

“It’s not like us to get along this well,” Pearl said, for a moment wondering what the hell she was doing there.

“I’m not hurt as bad as I look,” Weaver said. “I’ll be out of here soon.”

“Same for me,” Pearl said.

Weaver shook her head. “God, you almost died. You can’t just walk out of here after a few days.”

“We both almost died,” Pearl said.

“Occupational hazard.”

Pearl wondered if Weaver was as far along on the recuperative scale as she thought. Like she might disentangle herself from all those tubes, struggle out of bed, and stroll out of here.

“Are you two plotting something?” a woman’s voice asked.

Both women looked at a hefty nurse in a blue uniform. She was holding a clipboard and staring over it at Pearl and Weaver. A plastic tag pinned to her uniform declared that her name was Florence.

“Should you be out of your room?” the nurse asked Pearl, fixing her with a Quinn-like look.

“Doctor said it was okay,” Pearl lied.

“I’d like for you to step out for a while,” Florence said.

Pearl nodded, moved to the bed, and squeezed Weaver’s hand. “You’re a good cop,” she said.

Weaver smiled up at her. “We both are.”

Pearl was in her room, fully dressed, when Florence knocked and then entered.

Florence’s eyes widened and became hard. “What do you think you’re doing out of your hospital gown?”

“Checking myself out,” Pearl said. “Going home.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can,” Pearl said. “I’m a cop. I can do whatever I want as long as it’s legal.” She pushed past Florence and felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“If you impede me in any way,” Pearl said, “I’m going to handcuff you to the bed and leave you there.”

Pearl felt the hand on her shoulder become lighter. She walked out from beneath it and went out the door.

Florence followed her into the hall. “I know there’s something going on between you and Nancy Weaver. Some kind of competition. I could see it in the two of you. This isn’t the time or place for that kind of nonsense.”

“What kind of nonsense would you suggest?”

“Anything that won’t turn relatively minor injuries into something more serious.”

Pearl stopped and stood so she was facing the nurse, holding her ground. “You really can’t stop me, you know.”

“I know. But I should be able to. For your own good. Some of those wounds might become infected.”

“Doubt it,” Pearl said. “But if they do, I’ll come back. I promise.”

Florence watched her as she walked down the hall, toward the elevators.

Then the concerned nurse headed for Weaver’s room, praying that she wasn’t dressed in street clothes.

“Lord save them from themselves,” she murmured.

83

The week after D.O.A. died, Quinn was at his desk at Q&A, leaning back in his swivel chair and barely keeping it upright by using his new cane. There was a space of about half an inch where perfect balance was achieved with the cane’s tip only slightly touching the floor. He was getting tired of that game and wondered if he could remove the cane altogether and remain upright, when his desk phone rang.

The sudden noise surprised the hell out of Quinn, and he and the chair almost went over.

He managed to remain upright, dug the tip of the cane into the floor, and swiveled the chair around to where he could reach the phone, answer it, and identify himself.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” said Winston Castle.

Quinn sat forward, the cane and all chair legs on the floor. “How have you been, Winston?”

“Fine, of course.”

“And Maria?”

“Also fine.”

“Now that we’re all fine,” Quinn said, “let’s get to why you called.”

“You sound angry with me, Detective Quinn.”

“I’m not,” Quinn said, surprising himself by realizing that was true. “I’m just befuddled.”

“I’m calling from Mexico,” Castle said, though the caller ID on Quinn’s phone said the call originated in some place called High Wind, Texas.

Quinn decided to let it go. Nothing else was genuine about Winston Castle, so why should this be? “I heard the restaurant’s closed.”

“Temporarily,” Castle said. “I sold the business, though I continue to own the building. I’ll simply be renting out restaurant space.”

“How does Maria feel about that?”

“She’s the reason we’re doing it. It’s for her well-being.”

“Part of the reason, anyway,” Maria said. On an extension phone in High Wind. “Winston and I have chosen the life we want to live, and right now the restaurant doesn’t fit into it.”

“Apparently,” Quinn said, “neither do English accents.”

“You noticed that, old thing?” Castle said.

“Difficult not to.”

“It seems to me,” Castle said, “that there was a reason for the substitution of Bellezza busts in the restaurant garden. This whole thing was planned.”

“What whole thing?”

“Everything from the fake Bellezza to D.O.A.’s escape.”

Quinn was surprised, then wondered why he should be. “D.O.A. is dead,” he said. “I saw him die.”

“Somebody in a bulletproof vest was shot and killed.”

“Yes. A man named Dwayne Oren Aiken. I chased him for years.”

“Can’t you admit, Detective Quinn, that there is the slightest possibility that this Dwayne Oren Aiken survived. I mean, wouldn’t he want to be officially dead?”

“Why?”

“So you’d stop hunting him. And he could sell Bellezza to a dedicated but dishonest collector.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I think it’s possible. That’s why I’m in Mexico.”

“You’re in Texas.”

“Very near the border.”

Quinn agreed with Castle that there really were such art connoisseurs, who would be content simply to own but never show such a wonder. Quinn also knew there were people whose joy was in searching for the unattainable. Classics had been written about them. Movies had been made. At least Castle, whom Quinn had come to like, was a seeker and not a hoarder. Apparently Maria was the same. That kind of dogged optimism and persistence seemed to Quinn to be a healthier, happier existence than most people led. So let Castle, and his entire crazy family, the quasi or real descendants of the Kingdoms and Douglasses and Tuckers, roam the world and seek. It wasn’t a bad thing to nurture and chase a dream. For some, it was the only thing.

“I understand now how the case became so complicated,” Quinn said. “The precious object it revolved around never existed.”

“That’s a possibility,” Castle said. “But you must understand our quest for the art treasure gives our family its raison d’être. Its reason for being. And the family needs me to keep it out of trouble. This is the only family I have, Quinn. And for some of us, our search is the only meaningful thing in our lives.”

“I do understand,” Quinn said, thinking Michelangelo would be pleased by such a constructive fancy.

“I knew that you would.”

“Good luck to you and to your family,” Quinn said.

But there was no answer. Winston and Maria Castle were gone.

In the wind again.

Quinn told no one other than Pearl about the conversation. They agreed that Q&A would never be for sale.

The new owner of the Far Castle continued to operate the restaurant under the terms of the lease. Nothing appeared to have changed.

On stormy days, one gargoyle on the building’s concrete cornice, shielded from immediate view by the restaurant’s canopy, emitted no water but seemed to glory in the rain. It was a bust of a woman with her eyes closed and a slight smile on her face, basking in the downpour. Knowing there would be another sunrise. She was a thing of beauty.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With special thanks to Marilyn Davis.

Don’t miss John Lutz’s next exciting thriller featuring

Frank Quinn

JIGSAW

Coming from Pinnacle in 2015!

Exclusive Bonus Content – First Time in Print

Keep reading to join Frank Quinn and Pearl Kasner

as they are hired to solve a jewelry heist that

leads murder . . .

SWITCH

by John Lutz

Prologue

May 9, 10:40 a.m.

“There’s a finger in her,” Nift said, watching Pearl Kasner’s face for a reaction.

She didn’t show much of one.

Quinn and Pearl watched Medical Examiner Dr. Julius Nift, crouched low near the woman’s body, move his shoulders and arms, probe with what looked like long, thin tweezers, then stare and shake his head. Before him, lying between the corpse’s widely spread legs, was a small, bloody object.

“What do you mean,” Pearl asked, “a finger?”

Nift held up his rubber-gloved left hand, fingers spread. “One of these.” He made a fist except for his extended forefinger. “This one, to be exact. Or one like it.” He grinned. “It was lodged in her vaginal tract. Wanna take a look?”

Pearl did. So did Quinn.

Quinn said, “Man’s finger?”

“Almost certainly. Right size for a man’s. Nail’s trimmed close. No polish. Lots of stuff under it. Maybe rich with DNA.”

“Fingerprint?”

“Should be discernible. Once we get it cleaned up.”

Quinn nodded, standing with his fists propped on his hips, and glanced around Alexis Hoffermuth’s luxurious penthouse apartment, amazed anew by the vastness of the room they were in and the obvious wealth that showed in every facet of the place.

He had met Alexis Hoffermuth here just two days earlier, when she was alive.

Her body had been discovered scarcely an hour ago after she didn’t show up for an eight o’clock appointment (so unlike her), and failed to answer either her cell or land line phone.

The doorman had admitted the woman she was scheduled to meet in regard to a political fund-raiser, and there Alexis Hoffermuth was, in her altered state.

Pearl and Quinn looked at each other, each knowing what the other was thinking: money and murder were such close friends.

“Strange calling card,” said Nift, who liked to play detective, “a forefinger in her twat.” He glanced at Pearl to see if he’d gotten a rise out of her. “Whaddya make of it, Pearl?”

“If he’s a serial killer, he’s limited to nine more victims.”

“Unless—” Nift began.

“Shut up,” Pearl said, and he did.

“She was over fifty,” Quinn said, nodding toward the victim. “You’d never know it, even like this.”

The dead woman stared wide-eyed back at him, flecks of blood visible in the white around her pupils, the way eyes were after someone’s been strangled. In this instance, strangulation appeared to have been caused by the Burberry scarf around her neck. Yet the expression of pain and bewilderment frozen on her face wasn’t quite like that of a strangulation victim.

“There are a lot of imitation scarves like that floating around New York,” Nift said. “You think that one’s real?”

“It’s real,” Pearl said.

“The boobs aren’t,” Nift said.

“You would notice that.”

“Expensive job, though. But then, it would be.”

“No need to wonder about cause of death,” Quinn said, changing the subject before Nift and Pearl clashed. They often played this game. Nift seemed to regard making Pearl lose her temper a challenge. Not that she was his only target.

“Don’t be too sure,” Nift said. “Cause of death can be tricky.” Squatted down as he was, he craned his neck and glanced around, as if seeing the upper half of his surroundings clearly for the first time. “Place is big enough to be a museum. Looks kinda like one, the way it’s furnished.”

“What about time of death?” Pearl asked. She didn’t want to talk about décor.

“The victim sometime between midnight and three o’clock this morning. The finger sometime before then.”

“How do you know that?” Quinn asked.

“That the finger died before she did?” Nift grinned. “Putrefaction, discoloration, suggest several days, depending on ambient temperature. Also, I gave it the sniff test.” He grinned wickedly at Pearl. “Wanna smell?”

“That finger’s not the worst smelling thing in this room,” Pearl said angrily.

Nift ignored her. He’d gotten a rise out of Pearl again. He was temporarily ahead on points in the game he insisted they play.

Like Quinn, Pearl was a former NYPD homicide detective. Now they were part of Quinn and Associates Investigations—Q&A, as it was commonly called. The agency was formed when Quinn decided to extend his avocation beyond hunting down serial killers, which was his area of expertise. Q&A was more of a traditional detective agency now, and its employees were part owners and had a stake in its success.

Because of Quinn’s legendary and well-earned reputation for tracking and apprehending serial killers, the agency sometimes still did work for hire for the city. That work wasn’t exclusively serial killer cases; now it included almost any kind of criminal case that was high profile, sensitive, or for any other reason important to the city, or to the political well-being of its police commissioner. These contracts were mainly because the police commissioner, Harley Renz, and Quinn went back a long way.

Not that they liked each other. Quinn lived by his code, and Renz was without a code and enthusiastically corrupt. Still, the two men got along. Frequently they could help each other obtain what they wanted, however different those wants might be.

The techs from the crime scene unit were still going over the vast apartment with their lights and chemicals, cameras and print powder.

“Maybe they’ll find something,” Nift said, motioning with his arm to take in the activity around him.

“I know what they won’t find,” Quinn said.

Nift straightened up beside his black bag and looked at him. “You know something about what went on here?”

“Maybe,” Quinn said.

Part One

May 6, 2:47 p.m.

It all started not-so-innocently enough.

Ida Beene from Forest, Ohio, who called herself Ida French, knew exactly what she was doing when she slid into the backseat of the parked limo in her preoccupied manner, pretending it was a mistake and she’d thought it was a different limo, one that was waiting for her.

Craig Clairmont, Ida’s current love interest, watched her from a nearby doorway. He could make out her pale features inside the limo’s tinted rear window. Watched her mouth work as over and over she said how sorry she was, how she’d made a terrible mistake by entering the wrong car. Her active, shapely form was never still as she jabbered and waved her arms, pretending to be a bit zany but at the same time apologetic. All the while, he knew she was substituting the gray leather Gucci purse on the seat with her almost identical knock-off Gucci bag she’d bought on Canal Street for thirty dollars.

An embarrassing mistake, that was all. She kept repeating that as she reversed her trim, shapely derriere out of the limo, yakking, yakking all the time, overplaying it, keeping Alexis Hoffermuth distracted and confused. Her words drifted to Craig: “Oh, my God! So sorry, sorry. I’m such a goofball. Never did this before. . . should have been paying attention . . . please, please forgive me. Never, never . . . Such an embarrassing mistake.” All the time gripping the gray leather Gucci purse by its strap.

Only it wasn’t her Gucci purse. It was Alexis Hoffermuth’s. And inside Alexis Hoffermuth’s purse was the little item Hoffermuth had bragged in the society columns that she wanted dearly and was going to purchase at auction. The item for which she’d kept her public word and outbid everyone, including a pesky telephone bidder who kept running up the bid.

Ida slammed the limo door behind her with a solid thunk! and strode quickly away, showing lots of ass wiggle, clutching the purse tight to her side. The limo driver, a burly man in a dark uniform with gold buttons, got out and stood on the other side of the car, looking after her. Obviously wondering.

Craig tensed his body, knowing he might have to act. This could go either way. Nonviolent would be best, but Craig and Ida could play it rough if they had to.

Fortune was precariously balanced here.

It teetered, leaned, and fell Craig and Ida’s way.

The chauffeur made no move to follow Ida, and lowered himself back into the gleaming black limo, behind the steering wheel.

The limo dropped a few inches over its rear wheels and glided out into Manhattan traffic, like a shark released into the sea.

But the sharks were behind it, on land.

Craig walked down to where Ida was waiting outside an electronics store. She was near a show window, pretending to gaze at the various gizmos: thumb-sized cameras, video game players from China, and cell phones that incorporated every imaginable capability. She looked like an actress who could play a ditsy blonde on TV, maybe missing a card from the deck, barely smart enough to lose at tennis. Craig knew that look was deceptive. Ida was wicked smart. And right now she was thinking hard, waiting for Craig.

He stood next to her, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. “You make the switch okay?”

“This is a genuine Gucci,” she said, clutching the purse tighter.

“I’m only interested in what’s inside.”

“So let’s go home. I know you don’t want to look at it here on the sidewalk.”

“It deserves more careful treatment than that,” Craig agreed.

Ida smiled. “Fifty cents on the dollar treatment.”

That had been the deal—fifty percent of the bracelet’s bid price. It didn’t seem like such a good deal, but it was safe and came to almost a quarter of a million dollars.

Craig took Ida French’s arm. They made a striking couple, the slim blond woman and the tall, classically handsome man with steady blue eyes and wavy black hair. They both dressed well and expensively. They could afford it. Especially now.

Home, in the small den off the apartment’s living room, they rooted through Alexis Hoffermuth’s purse. There was, somehow surprisingly, the usual women’s items: makeup essentials; a comb; wadded tissue with lipstick stain on it; a wallet that, disappointingly, held nothing but credit cards; a cell phone (which Craig would get rid of soon, along with the purse, in case it was one of those phones that could be electronically traced if it got lost); a Sotheby’s auction catalog; and, of course, the Cardell diamond-and-ruby bracelet, that for a brief time had been the Hoffermuth bracelet.

Craig smiled. Now it was the Craig and Ida bracelet.

They dumped the rest of the purse’s contents out onto a tabletop. Not even a dollar in cash. The rich lived large and traveled light.

Craig opened a drawer and drew out a paste bracelet that was a duplicate of the real Cardell bracelet they had stolen. He dropped it in the Hoffermuth bitch’s purse then scooped all the other contents in on top of it. Before closing the drawer, Craig got out another paste duplicate of the bracelet and laid it on the table away from the genuine one. The fake bracelet in the purse was for fooling Alexis Hoffermuth for at least a little while. That was the second duplicate Cardell bracelet. A third one, the one Craig placed on the table, was for fooling someone else.

They held hands as they went into the living room. Craig poured them each a flute of champagne.

They toasted each other.

“You’d better get rid of the purse with that cell phone soon,” Ida said, placing her glass on a paper napkin.

Craig agreed, but he wasn’t worried. It would be a little while before Alexis Hoffermuth noticed the leather of her purse wasn’t its usual softness, and the brassware was a bit bright and tacky looking. And the clasp didn’t quite hold.

Then, with a plunging heart, she would realize that it wasn’t her purse.

But it was exactly like her purse.

She would open the purse and see that it contained only wadded white tissue.

And it would dawn on her like a nuclear sunrise—the Cardell bracelet, for which she’d just paid $490,000 at Sotheby’s Auction—was gone.

Spirited away by a thief!

Or had it been?

She would try to recall the features of the woman who looked and acted like a flustered young Lucille Ball. Alexis would realize the woman had switched purses and left her with nothing but wadded tissue.

But there’d be something else in the purse . . . Alexis Hoffermuth’s fingers would jab and dance through the tissue, then close on a familiar object and draw it out.

The bracelet!

Relief would course through her. But not without some reservations.

Craig Clairmont smiled. Alexis Hoffermuth wouldn’t understand. The bracelet somehow had been removed from her purse and then found its way into the substitute bag. Had the thief made some sort of mistake? She certainly was the type to do so.

Alexis might wonder that again, when her real purse was recovered with the bracelet still in it. A bracelet like it, anyway. It might be a long time, and a lot of wishful and confused thinking, before it occurred to her that the recovered bracelet was yet another not-so-cheap imitation. That the thieves were simply playing for time.

The very clever thieves.

Ida and Craig each took another sip of champagne.

That was when Ida’s eight-year-old daughter, Eloise, flounced into the room.

May 6, 4:35 p.m.

They thought at first he’d been struck by the sanitation department truck, one of those behemoths with the huge crusher in back.

But the man in the alley seemed unhurt except for the fact that he was bending over, holding one hand folded in the other.

When the trash truck had left the narrow passageway and turned a corner, Otto Berger and Arthur Shoulders exchanged glances. They were both bulky men in cheap brown suits. Otto was slightly the taller of the two. Arthur was slightly wider. Otto made a motion with his head, and the two professional thugs swaggered toward the lone figure in the shadows. The man looked up at them, and Otto smiled, not parting his lips. This was who they were expecting.