Frenzy (37 page)

“Trash pickup happen yet?” he asked.

Ida gave him a stern look. They weren't supposed to talk about this in front of Eloise. Craig's brother Jack was going to make the switch of the Hoffermuth bracelet for cash to one of the sanitation workers. Over $240,000. A bargain for the fence, Willard Ord, considering he would remove the bracelet's jewels and sell them separately for more than twice that much. A steal for Willard. Except for the fact that Jack was going to give Ord's emissary the remaining duplicate paste bracelet patterned on the Sotheby's catalog illustration.

Jack was supposed to call brother Craig on his cell phone when the switch was completed.

Only he hadn't called.

Craig stood up from the sofa. “Goin' out for a smoke.”

“Don't let anyone see you,” Ida said. “The mayor's given the cops orders to shoot smokers to kill.”

“Funny, hah, hah,” Craig said. He picked up Alexis Hoffermuth's purse and folded a sheet of newspaper over it. “Might as well drop this in a mail box.”

“Not one too close. And bring that damned cat in if you see him.”

“He's not a
damned
cat,” Eloise said.

Ida pulled a face. “No, honey, he's not. I'm sorry I said that.”

“Anyway, he won't go far. And nobody'll think he's a stray, 'cause I put his collar on him.”

Craig looked at Eloise. “Collar?”

“That pretty collar with the jewels in it you brought for him,” Eloise said. “The one you left on the table. I put it on him and fastened the clasp. It fits perfect.” She grinned. “Makes him an even handsomer cat.”

Craig and Ida stared at her, comprehending but not wanting to believe, stunned.

“Good Christ!” Craig said. He walked in a tight circle, one foot staying in the same place.

“You put the bracelet on Boomerang?” Ida asked.

“Collar,” Eloise corrected.

Craig doubled his fist.

“Eloise, go to your room!” Ida said.

Aware that something horrible was going on, and somehow she was the root of it, Eloise obeyed without argument.

“I wasn't going to hit her,” Craig said.

“We knew that, but she didn't.”

Craig sighed. “Yeah . . .” He stared helplessly at Ida. “What are we gonna do?”

“Cats don't like playing dress up. Especially tomcats. But if Boomerang didn't work the col—bracelet off right away, it probably doesn't bother him and he'll leave it alone. When he comes home, he should still be wearing it.”

“So we do nothing?”

“Seems the thing to do.”

“You mean not to do.”

Ida looked slightly confused. Still in character from earlier that day.

Craig strode toward the door. “I need a cigarette.”

Ida would have gone with him; she could use a cigarette herself. Only there was Eloise. Ida didn't see herself as the kind of mother who'd leave her guilt-stricken kid alone for a cigarette. “Don't light up till you get outside,” she said to Craig. They'd gotten the landlord's notice that smoking was no longer allowed in the building.

“I'm not going out only for a smoke,” Craig said. “Jack was supposed to switch the other fake bracelet for cash with the sanitation guy, then call me. I wanna find out why he never called.”

Ida told Craig good-bye and counted to ten. She knew she wasn't as ditzy as the role she played. And she understood what had to be done in this situation even if Craig didn't. He'd argue with her, and forbid her to do it. That was why it had to be done before he had a chance to disapprove.

The cat, the bracelet, simply had to be recovered. Craig wouldn't understand that there were times when your enemies could become your best friends.

Ida picked up the phone and called the police.

 

 

Craig Clairmont walked over to Amsterdam through a warm May mist before dropping the purse in a mailbox. Then he retraced his steps until he was half a block away from the passageway where the switch was supposed to have taken place.

Jack was almost invisible in the dark. Craig had to squint and stare hard to see his brother. Jack was down at the far end of the passageway, sitting on the ground as if he might be exhausted, his back propped awkwardly against the brick wall.

Jack saw Craig, but dimly. He raised his right hand, tried to crook a finger to summon Craig.

But Craig saw the movement and jogged toward him, fearing the worst.

When he got near his brother, Craig saw all the blood.

Jack had so much to tell Craig.
Things Craig had to know.

He struggled to speak but couldn't translate thoughts into words.

Craig said something to him he didn't understand.

The light was fading.

 

 

Jack was barely alive. He rolled his eyes toward his brother Craig. His face was damp from the mist, his breathing ragged.

“What the hell happened?” Craig asked, bending down next to Jack. He saw a lot of blood, but no injuries, though Craig was holding his stomach with both hands.

“Double-cross,” Jack said. “Bastard took the bracelet, then instead of giving me the money he started beating on me. I fought back and he hopped in the truck and it started to pull away. I grabbed onto it and that big trash crusher thing came down. My hand got caught in the machinery and it cut off my finger.” Jack hadn't been gripping his stomach; he'd been clutching one hand with the other and keeping them both in close to his body. He held up the mutilated hand. “Cut the damned thing right off, Look at this, Craig! For God's sake look!”

Craig looked and felt his stomach lurch.

Jack whimpered. “You gotta get me to a hospital.”

Craig didn't like this at all. Things would get even more dangerous when the thugs who stole the bracelet realized it was another fake, a paste duplicate, like the one he'd slipped into the Hoffermuth bitch's purse before dropping it in a mailbox.

“What're we gonna do?” Jack asked his older brother, who usually had all the answers.

Craig grinned to lend Jack hope and courage. “We're gonna call the police. Get you an ambulance.”

When Jack didn't answer, Craig was surprised.

He looked down and saw that his brother was dead. He hadn't noticed the mass of blood around Jack's chest and stomach.

“Christ, Jack! Somebody stabbed you in the heart!”

Of course, Jack still didn't answer.

Craig stood over his brother, emotions rushing through him, over him, anger, grief, fear, panic.

But the panic, and then everything else, passed. Reality had to be faced. Manipulated.

Craig knew he was something Jack never really was—a survivor.

He also knew that now wasn't a good time to bring in the police. For any reason.

There wouldn't be another trash pickup for several days. Probably nobody would wander down this shadowed passageway. Nobody who'd contact the police, anyway, if they came across a dead body.

Still, Craig knew that to feel safe for even a short length of time, he'd have to at least partially conceal the body.

Down near the far end of the alley a Dumpster squatted like a tank without treads. They didn't empty those Dumpsters very often. And when they did empty this one, there was always the chance Jack wouldn't be noticed.

Craig bent over and gripped his brother beneath the arms. Digging in his heels, he began to pull the dead weight that had been Jack.

If Jack were still alive, he'd understand.

 

 

By the time he'd returned to the apartment, Craig thought he was as depressed as possible.

That was when Ida told him she'd called the police. About Boomerang the missing cat, not the bracelet, she assured him.

She thought he took it well.

 

 

They were in the office late. Pearl and her daughter, Jody Jason, had come by to wait for Quinn to finish up so they could leave together and have a light supper and wine.

But Quinn wasn't interested in only finishing paperwork. He had something to say.

Pearl looked at Quinn, not knowing if he was kidding. “You're serious? This is a case for Q&A Investigations? You want me, personally, to look for someone's missing cat?”

Her jet black hair hung to her shoulders, framing a pale face and dark, dark eyes. Her teeth were large and white and perfect. Quinn thought, as he often did, that everything about her was perfect. She was a small woman somehow writ large, as vivid as poster art.

He nodded. “Boomerang.”

“Pardon?”

“That's the cat's name—Boomerang.”

“Is this cat an Aussie?”

Quinn made a face and shrugged.

“I was just wondering if this case was going to require international travel,” Pearl said.

Quinn sat quietly. It was the thing to do when Pearl was in this kind of mood. Ignore her. Best not to be in any way assertive. It was pointless to goad her.

Pearl said, “This cat business is coming to Q&A by way of Renz, right?”

“Well, yes.” It didn't do to lie to Pearl.

“You regard this as women's work, looking for a missing cat?”

“In this case, yes. Yours and Jody's.”

Something in his voice made Pearl understand that she'd bitched enough about this one.

Pearl's long-lost daughter, with whom she'd been reunited only recently, looked like a slimmer Pearl only with springy red hair. She lived with them in the West Seventy-fifth Street brownstone that Quinn was rehabbing. Jody had a mid-level bedroom, bath, and sitting room, where she spent much of her time when she was home. She had inherited a streak of independence from her mother.

“It's your case because you have a cat,” Quinn said. “You and Jody.”

“Snitch is your cat, too.”

“Come off it,” Quinn said. “The cat hardly looks at me. Tries to scratch me if I pick it up.”

“Cats are like that.”

“I don't see Snitch trying to scratch you or Jody.”

“We pick him up right. He knows we like him.”

“You think I
don't
like him?”

“I'm not so sure.”

“Whatever, the job is yours and Jody's. Feds and I are working the Hoffermuth bracelet case, and Sal and Mishkin are doing field work in Stamford on that truck hijacking.”

A missing bracelet and a truck hijacking, Pearl thought. Times were hard.

And now a missing cat case.

“I thought
we
were working the Hoffermuth case.”

“We are. How much time can a missing cat case take?”

“Did Boomerang just run away, or was he catna—stolen?” Pearl asked.

“All we know is that he's missing.”

“A male cat. It figures, name like Boomerang.”

Quinn didn't know what she meant by that and didn't want to get into it. “We're not sure yet. He's simply missing.”

“Maybe run over by a truck,” Pearl said.

“Damn it, Pearl!”

“Okay. But if the cat doesn't return in seven years, do we declare it legally dead?”

“Seven times nine,” Quinn said.

“Who's our client? Other than Renz?”

“A couple. Craig Clairmont and Ida French. They're the cat's owners.”

“Usually it's the other way around,” Pearl said.

Quinn sighed, losing his patience with her, insomuch as he ever really lost his patience. “We'd be wise to keep Renz happy.”

“You can't
keep
him happy unless he already is,” Pearl said. “And he isn't, ever.”

“Except when he's involved in something unethical, immoral, and contagiously corrupt.”

“You would stand up for him,” Pearl said.

Quinn reached into his top desk drawer, drew out a yellow file folder, and tossed it on the desk near Pearl. “For you and Jody to read.”

“The Boomerang file, no doubt.”

“Treat this like any other missing person case,” Quinn said without smiling.

She rolled the folder into a tight cylinder. “Renz give you this?”

Quinn nodded.

“I'd like to return it to him in a special way.”

“Behave, Pearl. Same goes for Jody.”

“We will,” Pearl said. “How, I won't promise.”

 

 

“This is weird,” Jody said.

She was slouching on the sofa in the living room of Quinn's brownstone. She and Pearl could have waited until morning, or returned to the office after dinner, to study the Boomerang files, but they didn't. That was Pearl's idea, making the Boomerang investigation a home project. Pearl didn't want to defile the office by using it as headquarters for a cat hunt.

Pearl agreed with Jody—the case was weird. Reading the file made that apparent.

The clients, the married couple—if they actually were married—used different names. The woman kept her maiden name. Ida French. The husband was Craig Clairmont. They lived in the West Eighties with their eight-year-old daughter, Eloise. They had faxed a photo of the errant Boomerang. He was a black cat with long whiskers and a direct stare into the camera that could only be described as haughty.

The clients themselves hadn't yet visited the office (or faxed photos of themselves). It turned out that Fedderman had interviewed them initially. He'd talked to them in their apartment, then phoned Quinn. Q&A had accepted the case, and just like that they were cat hunters.