Deadly Rich (13 page)

“What do you expect me to do about it?”

“What can you do, except your best? Don’t drink, don’t skip meetings, don’t walk down dark alleys alone, and don’t talk anymore to your ex.”

LEIGH’S HEAD ACHED
. She felt tired and she didn’t want sunlight. She closed the curtain and switched on the bedside lamp.

The soft yellow light cast a circle of warmth that touched the edge of the quilted spread and the Tiffany traveling clock and the telephone, her own private telephone perched on its own private answering machine.

I do have real friends
, she thought.
I do.

Something clicked like the snap of a tiny mousetrap. The green light on her answering machine registered an incoming call. Before she could lift the receiver, her own recorded voice cut in. “Hello, thank you for calling.”

“Oh, do shut up,” she told the voice.

The beep finally came. She snatched up the receiver. “Hello, it’s me, not the machine.”

No one answered. From somewhere beneath her, traffic along Fifth Avenue sent a muffled vibration through the quiet cool.

“Hello, I’m on the line, who is this?”

A
hang up
, she thought. But the machine would have beeped if they’d hung up. A
wrong number. Someone who doesn’t recognize my voice. Someone who doesn’t speak English.

She held the receiver closer. Just beyond the blanket of faint sound she sensed a disturbance, an unevenness in the flow of silence.

“Hello,” she said. “Who is this? Look, if you’ve got the wrong number, hang up. If you don’t speak English, just say so.”

There was no hang up, no words in a foreign tongue. Just that same false silence.

“What are you waiting for? What do you want?
Who is this
?”

She jiggled the cradle. The connection broke. She sat for a moment listening to the hum of a dial tone, then laid the receiver again in its cradle.

Curious now, she pushed the Replay button on the answering machine.

A beep came out of the tiny speaker, and then a silence like the flow of water from a small tap, and then her own voice, like a radio signal imperfectly recovered from the past.

And then that silence.

She boosted the volume as high as it would go. The silence seemed to exhale and then inhale, exhale and inhale.

I’m imagining it
, she told herself.
It’s just an old tape that needed replacing long ago, and there are ghosts of old phone calls buried on it.

She leaned forward and pressed the Erase button.

Saturday, May 11

C
ARDOZO’S EYE RAN ALONG THE WALL
where a dozen different-sized and different-shaped knives dangled from a row of iron hooks. They all had a similar pale hardwood handle.

“I see your knives are a set,” he said.

The Korean nodded. “Good knives. French.”

Cardozo had chosen Saturday to visit Archibald’s kitchen, because it was one of Jim Delancey’s two days off.

It was also, obviously, brunch day. Every order the waiters shouted through the Dutch door was eggs this or eggs that. The black cook was frying up an acre of Canadian bacon on the griddle. A teenage girl stood stirring a wooden spoon through a two-gallon double-boiler of hollandaise. She had skin so clean that Cardozo couldn’t believe she’d been in the city longer than an hour.

“May I?” He unhooked the strangest-looking of the knives. It had a narrow blade twisted into a spiral, with serrations on both edges. “What does this one do?”

The Korean smiled. “Apples.”

Cardozo tried to visualize the blade in action.
Whatever this knife does
, he wondered,
why would you want to do it to an apple
? He replaced the knife and touched another. “This one?”

“Trout.”

“Just trout?”

The Korean nodded. He reached up and ran his hand along the row. “Salmon. Chicken. Potato. Carrot. Cabbage.”

“Thanks.” Cardozo didn’t need the entire tour. “I get the idea.” He unhooked the cabbage knife and angled it to the overhead light. The manufacturer’s trademark had been etched into the side of the thin tempered-steel blade. “Jobert—you said that’s a French name?”

“Fine knives.”

Cardozo counted the blades on the wall. “Fourteen in a set?”

The Korean nodded toward the sink. “Twenty.”

All Cardozo saw was a tub of water with dish edges and pot tops poking through a Sargasso of algae’d-looking scum. “Where did you buy them?”

The Korean shook his head. “Expensive. Not for home.”

“Thanks for warning me, but where did you buy them?”

The Korean smiled. “Marsh and Bonner Epicure Shop. I write it down?”

“That’s okay. I know the store.”

CARDOZO HAILED A CAB
on Lexington. He timed the ride from Archibald’s to Marsh and Bonner’s. Eight minutes and forty seconds.

In the Epicure Shop a dark-eyed woman asked if she could help him.

“I’m interested in Jobert knives.”

“The restaurant knives? They’re very popular. And very useful in the home kitchen.”

She went into a back room and returned carrying a three-foot case of pale hardwood that must have weighed forty pounds. She laid it carefully on the counter.

“There are twenty in a set, right?” Cardozo said.

“No, sir, there are twenty-one.” She opened the case. Twenty-one knives nested in twenty-one individually shaped hollows.

Cardozo brought out his wallet. “Do you take MasterCard?”

Sunday, May 12

“N
EW YORK CITY—ACCEPT
no imitations.” Greg Monteleone dropped a copy of the Sunday
Tribune
on Cardozo’s desk. A two-inch-thickness of tabloid, stuffed with ad supplements and color comics and coupons, thudded onto a stack of unread departmental memos.

Cardozo put down his coffee cup. Staring up at him from the center of page one was a photo of Oona Aldrich. It must have been her deb photo—she looked seventeen and her ears and neck were holding up at least three hundred thousand in diamonds.

Running across the top of the tabloid, two-inch bold caps screamed:

SAM’S BACK!

Beneath the photo was the headline:

WHY HE KILLED HER:

TRIB RECEIVES SOCIETY KILLER’S SHOCKING LETTER

Inside, a smaller photograph showed what looked like a sheet of foolscap with cut-out letters pasted to it forming the words:

HI HI SOCIETY

JUST TO INTRODUCE MY ACT

I’M SOCIETY SAM KILLER OF SOCIETY SCUM

I STORM YOUR CHARGE CARD HEAVEN

SAM SAM THANK YOU MA’AM

KILL THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM CRUMBS KISSES, SOCIETY SAM

The story began:

Taplinger prize-winning New York Tribune columnist Rad Rheinhardt today received an anonymous letter claiming to have been mailed by the murderer of Manhattan socialite and philanthropist Oona Mellon Aldrich.

As he read, Cardozo’s mind was querying and footnoting. He didn’t know what the hell a Taplinger prize was, but he recognized the name Rad Rheinhardt—the
Trib’s
premier right-wing gadfly columnist.

In an eerie coincidence, the killer calls himself Society Sam, a name reminiscent of 1979’s Son of Sam, whose serial killings reached a total of 12.

In the gloating letter Society Sam states that New York Society is scum, and the time has come to clean it up.

“He definitely has an agenda,” says Rheinhardt.

“The
New York Trib
seems to be staking out new frontiers in fantasy shock.” Cardozo opened the tabloid, dug through a thicket of Waldbaum and Pathmark ads, and found the editorial page. He squinted at the phone number printed at the bottom of the masthead, then punched the digits into his phone.

A harried-sounding woman answered and Cardozo asked if she had any idea where he might reach Mr. Rheinhardt on a lovely Sunday like today. There was another buzz and a male voice growled, “Yeah?”

Cardozo was amazed how much arrogance could come across a phone wire in one little syllable. This was the voice of a temple flunky fed up with beating back all the faithful who wanted thirty seconds with God. And he was talking through what sounded like a mouthful of cream cheese.

“This is Lieutenant Vincent Cardozo of the Twenty-second Precinct. I’m trying to locate Rad Rheinhardt.”

“Hey, don’t you godless bloodhounds respect anyone’s Sabbath?”

Cardozo flashed that he was talking to the great man himself. “Do Rad a favor: Tell him to get a lawyer, fast. I’m coming down right now with a warrant for his public strangulation.”

There was a pause. “Lieutenant, why don’t you bring your warrant to Clancy’s Bar and Grill. It’s on Front Street, two blocks north of the
Trib
building.”

“
RAD RHEINHARDT
?” Cardozo took a seat at the table where the disheveled gentleman in the mustard-stained necktie was nursing a mug of beer. “Great headline.”

“Thanks.” Eyes the color of slate peered out from behind Rad Rheinhardt’s mildly myopic prescription lenses. “But I don’t write the headlines.”

“So tell me, why is a Taplinger prize-winning columnist working on a beautiful Sunday like today?”

Rheinhardt lifted his mug. “Who’s working? I’m a married man and where I live it happens to be a shitty Sunday.”

Cardozo turned around and signaled the bartender to bring him a draft.

The only other people in the place were two shadowy old guys bent over the bar with eight empty stools between them. Even a lobbyist for the American Distillers Association would have had trouble calling Clancy’s Bar and Grill anything but what it was—a cheap dive, strictly for round-the-clock drinkers and staff from the
Tribune
next door who wished they could be round-the-clock drinkers.

“You and your paper should see some healthy circulation,” Cardozo said, “with a little help from your new pen pal.”

“Hard to say. He could be a one-shot.”

“He? You know this guy is a guy?”

Rad Rheinhardt’s eyes came up quickly. “Of course I don’t know it, but Sam is a man’s name.”

“You never heard of anyone called Samantha?”

“Okay. You’re the detective, I’m a fallible journalist.”

“Why the hell did you have to run it on page one?”

The bartender brought Cardozo’s draft, and without being asked, he set down a refill for Rad Rheinhardt and took back his empty mug.

“It happens to be a great story.” Rad Rheinhardt took a long swig. “Great stories go on page one.”

“The trouble is, page one is break-out big time. And it’s a press release for every sick joker and wannabee and gonnabee killer in this city. And there are people who aren’t above killing to get on page one. Because, did I mention, we
are
discussing a killing. A real woman really did die.”

“The last time anyone could clear away enough blood to count the bodies, seven people a day were getting murdered in this town. Don’t blame it on page one.”

“I’m not blaming this killing on page one. I’m blaming the
next
killing on page one.”

“You’re a clairvoyant too?”

“If I were, I wouldn’t need to ask how much of that letter he wrote and how much you made up.”

Rad Rheinhardt’s face became a little squarer, a bit ruddier, and a stubborn tilt came into the chin. “Oh, come
on
, Lieutenant.”

“Call me Vince. We could wind up being friends.”

“Vince. You gotta know better than to accuse me of inventing. I’m a respected columnist. I have a track record. Why do you think that letter was sent to me and not you?
Because
I’m a respected columnist.
Because
I have a track record.”

Cardozo felt a tightening around the chest. The more famous these people were the less they wanted to deal with any kind of accountability for anything, anywhere, anytime. They thought their high profile and their connections to all the other high profiles in town put them above mere mortal schmucks. “Did I say you’re not a respected columnist? Did I even hint you don’t have a track record?”

“Frankly, yes. You as much as said it.”

“All I meant is, maybe you’re just highlighting part of your story—punching home the point, filling in the blanks … Look, I’m not criticizing. I empathize. It’s not breaking a law. We’ve got a free country. We’ve got a free press. At least the guy who owns your paper has a free press.”

Rad Rheinhardt held himself in an attitude somewhere between disgusted and defiant. “Lieutenant.”

“Vince.”

“Vince. No paper ever built circulation by lying.”

“You’re telling me you actually got a letter? The letter you got is the letter you printed?”

“I’m not aware that I’m telling you anything at all.”

“Then why don’t you change your tactic and try telling me something?”

“Why don’t you change your tactic first?”

“Because I don’t need to. I can put you in jail. And your publisher will let me because it’ll make a great page one.”

Rad Rheinhardt pulled back in his seat. His eyes were rimmed with red and his hand tightened on his beer mug. “That bluff is so old it needs a hair transplant. You expect me to believe you’re dumb enough to arrest a journalist doing his job?”

“Sure. Because you’re screwing up
my
job. If that letter is real, and if it’s really from the guy who killed Oona Aldrich, you’ve withheld evidence. You’ve interfered in a murder investigation, which makes you an accessory after the—”

Rad Rheinhardt cut in. “The Supreme Court doesn’t see it that way.”

“The Supreme Court is two years from now. Appeals court could be two months from now. You want to spend two months on your tush behind bars?”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t be proud to go to jail for my convictions?”

“Because you’re a junkie and junk is no longer freely available in New York prisons.”

Rad Rheinhardt threw his beer in Cardozo’s face.

It took Cardozo a minute to be able to see again. There was only one old man left at the bar now, slumped over his can of Coors. The bartender stood behind the bar, slowly polishing a glass as if he wanted to get the shine just right.