Deadly Rich (17 page)

“Would you care to reschedule for a week from next Thursday? The senator is heavily booked today.”

“No. But could you tell her I’m waiting?”

“She knows.”

Forty minutes later one of the senator’s aides led Xenia Delancey along a carpeted hallway. Warm yellow lights glowed. The aide knocked on a half-open door. “Senator—Xenia Delancey to see you.”

The senator, tall and crisp and smiling in a gray cotton suit that matched her hair, came across the office with a hand extended. “Hello, hello, Xenia Delancey.”

“I’m very sorry to be an annoyance,” Xenia said.

“Not at
all.
Let’s sit over here.” The senator steered Xenia toward the sofa. She shifted Bergdorf’s and Saks shopping bags to the floor.

“That’s my store.” Xenia pointed at the Marsh and Bonner’s parcel in the senator’s hand. “I work there—in the Ingrid Hansen Boutique.”

“Really.”

“Ask for me next time—I can get you a discount.”

“How very kind. Sit, Xenia. Tell me what brings you here?”

Xenia sat. She began crying.

The senator came and sat beside her. “Could you use a hot cup of tea, Xenia?”

“No, thank you. I’m sorry.” Xenia took a hankie from her pocketbook and dried her eyes. “We had a murder in the store last week.”

“I heard about it. What a shame.”

“My boy didn’t do it. But he’s on parole and the police are treating him like a murderer. They’ve questioned him at work, in front of customers. They’ve questioned his co-workers, they’ve questioned his employer. People see the police coming back again and again and they start thinking, There must be something to it, maybe Jim Delancey
did
kill Mrs. Aldrich.”

The senator looked at Xenia Delancey for a long, considering moment. “Now, Xenia, let me play devil’s advocate. The police have to follow every possible lead—even the remote ones.”

Xenia Delancey opened her pocketbook again. She took out a plastic envelope of neatly trimmed newspaper clippings. “Have you seen the headlines and the gossip columns? They’re lynching my boy.”

Senator Guardella accepted the clippings. “We’re dealing with human nature, which, as you know, is not always a beautiful thing. A case like the Aldrich killing is going to be played out in the media. And rightly or wrongly Jim Delancey is identified in the public mind with the death of that young girl—”

“Nita Kohler. But that was an accident. My boy didn’t kill her. He didn’t kill anyone.”

A quick, almost startled movement brought Senator Guardella’s eyes around again to Xenia Delancey. The senator seemed about to say something. And then she seemed to reconsider.

“I’m frightened,” Xenia said. “Don’t let them take my boy away again.”

Nancy Guardella saw that Xenia Delancey was hurting. She ached for this little gray-haired lady with her dignified posture and her spotless white gloves. She wished she could help, but she didn’t have the power to twist reality around.

Or do I
? she asked herself. It was as though a bell in her head was suddenly humming a high, pure note. She rose and crossed to a handsome teakwood desk covered in paperwork. She found a scratch pad, scribbled, and ripped the top sheet off.

“Here’s my home phone. And here’s what I’d like you to do. Keep a log. Make a note every time the police talk to your son. Note who questions him, where they question him, how long the questioning goes on. Names, dates, times, places. If it emerges that there’s a pattern of harassment, maybe there’s something I can do under the federal discrimination statutes.”

Xenia Delancey slipped the number into her purse. Steadying herself on the arm of the sofa, she brought herself to standing. “God bless you, Senator.”

Nancy Guardella watched the old woman leave, and then she poured herself a cup of herbal tea and stirred in three packets of Sweet’n Low. She emptied the cup in three gulps. She opened the door to her secretary’s office. “Who do we know in the New York Police Department who owes us?”

“Would you settle for the commissioner?”

“Absolutely not. All this is, is a middle-management mix-up.” Nancy Guardella was thoughtful a moment. “Who’s that guy in Internal Affairs who’s a real ass-kicker? The macho with the mustache that doesn’t hide his harelip?”

“Lawrence Zawac.”

“Captain, right? Get him on the phone for me.”

The secretary spent a moment spinning through her Rolodex. She dialed a number and after a moment signaled Nancy Guardella to pick up. The senator hurried back to the blinking phone on her desk.

“Larry—it’s Nancy, Nancy Guardella. How’ve you been?” She stared out the window at light Ping-Ponging between forty-story glass facades. She let him go on a little bit about golf and his left wrist.

“Larry, I hate to bother you, but I can’t think of anyone else who has the balls, frankly, to cut through the red tape.

What’s happening is, the police are harassing one of my constituents.”

IT WAS A COMPLICATED SHOT
: The camera had to swoop down on a crane and catch Leigh as she came out of the lamp shop, then follow her to the corner. Three dozen technicians and crew and makeup and costume people had to stay out of camera range while two dozen pedestrians had to do all those things New York extras do in New York movies.

The traffic light had to change at the exact moment that Leigh stepped into Bleecker Street, which was actually no trouble since the electrician had rewired it. And the taxi had to be approaching at just the right speed to almost run Leigh down.

The director shot and reshot all afternoon, and by the time the taxi was getting it right, Leigh was getting it wrong.

“Leigh, honey”—her director sighed—“we want to see under the surface. We want to see where the struggling, doubting, self-accusatory child lives.”

“You want to see that in my
walk
?”

“You had it on the third take, where did it go?”

“I’m a little tired. I could use a cup of coffee.”

“Okay. Take five, everyone.”

Leigh went in search of the caterer’s truck.

Normal life on the block had been totally disrupted. Traffic had been rerouted. Company men turned pedestrians away, asking them to please take another street. Lighting men angled reflectors and aimed ten-thousand-watt kliegs. Uniformed police officers stood at the edges of the crowd, looking embarrassed.

Leigh found a coffee-and-snack smorgasbord set up outside the Winnebago with the logo of the catering company,
Splendiferous Eats.
She joined the line waiting at the twenty-gallon samovar.

The woman ahead of her, one of the extras, was wearing a dress that clung to her body like a damp see-through Victorian curtain. For some reason that lace coffee-colored chemise struck Leigh as familiar.

“That’s a fantastic dress,” Leigh said.

The woman turned. She was a tall, striking, young, pale-skinned black. Her gaze held Leigh’s an extra telltale second. “Why, thank you. Actually this dress was designed by my brother. I’m sneaking it into the movie for a free plug.”

Leigh’s heart gave a lurch. She realized it wasn’t just the dress that she recognized: it was the woman wearing it. “You were in the Ingrid Hansen Boutique at Marsh and Bonner’s. And you were wearing that same dress.”

“I’m surprised you remember.” The woman held out a hand. “Tamany Dillworth. It’s nice to meet you, Miss Baker. You’re the only star I know of, besides Vanessa, who mixes with the help. How do you like your coffee?”

“What? Oh, a little milk, thanks.”

Tamany Dillworth handed her a cup and then filled one for herself.

“Have the police spoken to you?” Leigh said.

The implications of the question seemed to amuse Miss Dillworth. “The police and I have had words from time to time.”

“Have they talked to you about that day in Marsh and Bonner’s?”

“No, they haven’t. What about it?”

“They had that killing.”

Tamany Dillworth brought a hand to her mouth. “Omigod.
That
was the day that poor woman got killed?”

“Do you remember that man with the boom box?”

“Who could forget him.”

“The lieutenant in charge has a theory—that maybe you knew him? And came to the boutique with him?”

Tamany Dillworth’s eyes widened. “No
way
.”

For some reason Leigh felt vindicated. “You’d save the lieutenant a lot of wasted effort if you’d just explain things to him.”

“I’d be glad to. What’s his name?”

Friday, May 17

C
ARDOZO LAID THE IDENTI-KIT
of the male Hispanic on the desk top, angled so that Tamany Dillworth could see the face right side up.

She leaned forward in her chair, frowned, tilted her head left, then right. “That’s the type, but I wouldn’t say it was
him.
I mean, if I hadn’t seen him, I wouldn’t know that he was who
this
is supposed to be. Not to criticize your artist.” Miss Dillworth had a perky way of not sitting still. Hands gestured to emphasize a point, bracelets clanked, legs crossed and uncrossed. “His eyes were sleepier. Like he wasn’t interested in going to the effort of holding them open. I had a feeling he might have been on dope. I mean, you have to be a little wacked out to take a boom box into a store like Marsh and Bonner’s. And you could tell he wasn’t there to
shop
.”

“When did he leave the boutique?”

“I don’t remember seeing him leave. But I left in a hurry.”

“Why was that?”

“I set off an alarm.” Tamany Dillworth covered her face. “Oh, Lord, I was so
gauche
! I wanted to see how a jacket would look in the daylight, so I took it to the door—only I took it too far. When that bell went off, I thought for sure they were coming to arrest me.”

Cardozo laid the photo of Jim Delancey next to the Identi-Kit. “Did you see this man in Marsh and Bonner’s?”

Tamany Dillworth’s lips shaped a pout. “I can’t say for sure. Maybe I’ve just seen him in the papers or on the news. Is he famous?”

“He’s had some fame.”

“Nice-looking guy.”

“Miss Dillworth, you’re an actress?”

“That’s how I ran into Miss Baker. I’m doing extra work, but we wrap in two days. I also model, I sing, I act, I have a one-woman cabaret show, I’m a stand-up comic, I do dynamite Italian catering for dinner parties, and I baby-sit. And if you’re ever hiring extras for a lineup, I can look real street.”

“If you’d care to leave me your phone and address, I might just take you up on that.”

“My horoscope
said
this was going to be a lucky day. What can I write on?”

Cardozo slid a pad and a ballpoint across the desk.

She printed with bold, decisive strokes. “Two twenty-nine West Eighty-first. The phone’s not working right now, but the address is.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER
Cardozo stepped into the squad room, where Carl Malloy was typing up a report on yesterday’s tail.

“Hey, Carl, would you have time to confirm an address for me?”

Malloy glanced at the notepad. “No problem.”

Monday, May
20

“H
OW MANY PLACES DO
I have left at your May twenty-first dinner?” Dizey Duke asked.

Annie MacAdam had to clutch the phone between her ear and shoulder while she leafed through her notebook and found the list of seventy-eight guests and the ten-table seating plan.

“You’ve filled your places,” Annie said.

“Unless you’re saving a place for Oona Aldrich’s ghost, you’ve got room for one more.”

Annie lit a cigarette and slipped into the yes role with automatic resignation. “Whatever you want, Dizey dear.”

“I want you to invite Avalon Gardner.”

Annie MacAdam had a hollow feeling inside. It required the strategic sense of a Soviet chess champion to put a New York dinner party together, and when Dizey Duke chose to involve herself, it was like playing with live grenades instead of chessmen.

“That could be complicated,” Annie said. “Leigh and Waldo are coming, and Leigh’s feuding with Avalon.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. That little princess needs to be taught a lesson.”

Annie watched her cigarette smoke drift away, drawn into the currents hovering around the mocha velvet shade of the lamp on the Steinway grand. “I’m not going to put Leigh and Avalon at the same table.”

“Did I ask for Apocalypse? O.K. Corral will do just fine.”

Annie had learned to put up with Dizey’s little defects—her demands, her double-dealing, her vendettas, her drunkenness. For Dizey was more than an ally, she was an essential weapon in Annie MacAdam’s battle for New York social visibility.

Twelve years ago Annie had entered the game with no money, no name, no looks, no connections, no education beyond Kansas City high school. She had had two assets only: determination and a real estate broker’s license.

At that time Dizey Duke’s building was going co-op under an eviction plan. The conversion was sponsored by a syndicate of Kuwaiti real estate speculators and Panamanian drug barons. The plan gave Dizey and the other tenants two equally painful choices: move from their homes or cough up the quarter-million insider purchase price.

Enter Annie MacAdam.

As one of the brokers, for the deal Annie had in her safe the sales contracts. It was clear that the syndicate—with the then state governor’s then wife serving as director—had illegally voted tenants’ shares in getting its plan passed. There was no way the state attorney general was going to question, let alone halt, any deal fronted by the governor’s wife. But if the details of the conversion leaked to the papers, they could have impacted, well, negatively, on the governor’s reelection prospects.

With one phone call to the governor of New York and another to Ms. Duke, Annie arranged for Dizey to keep her home at the rent-stabilized rate; and through the offices of Dizey Duke’s column, Annie MacAdam became an overnight star and twelve-year survivor in the world of New York society dinners.

Every bargain has its downside. In this case there were three: Dizey had the right to fill ten percent of Annie’s dinner seats with guests of her own choosing; Dizey had the right to veto any guest of Annie’s choosing; and—the truly draconian clause—Annie could never, but never ever, invite any other columnist to any of her dinners.