Girl Watcher's Funeral (19 page)

“He wasn't all the things you'd thought he was?”

A thin frown creased her forehead. “I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not sure he didn't change at that point. After Nikos's heart attack. He knew, you see, that Nikos was going to die in the foreseeable future. He knew that he was the prime beneficiary—the Prince of Wales. He knew that just around the next corner he'd come into the money and the power. I became aware that he made little jokes about Nikos behind his back. I could see him setting up things for himself, so they'd be ready when his big moment came. I became aware, on the outside, for the first time that he was a woman chaser to end all women chasers. He had the nerve to make passes at me. I was no longer in a protected position. He indulged in that pastime to an extent that would have outraged Nikos. I even think he imagines that he'll inherit Jan. I doubt if he will, though.”

“You know she's turned up missing?” Max said.

“Jan?”

I told her how it was, and she listened, staring down into her pale drink with its twist of lemon.

“You seem to have learned a good deal about Nikos's world, Haskell,” she said when I'd finished, not looking at me. “I'm not fond of Jan. Why pretend? The old shoe replaced by the new; middle age outrun by youth. Don't misunderstand. Jan didn't connive to take my place. I—I ceased to be of that kind if importance to Nikos.”

“That's hard to believe,” I said.

“Marriage was never in the scheme of things for Nikos,” she said, her eyes still averted. “But I was his wife, in every true meaning of such a relationship. I loved him as a person; I loved his power; I loved having people know that I belonged to him. And then it happened.” She took a tiny sip of her drink. “He had his heart attack, and fear came into his fearless life. Oh, my God, how he didn't want to die! Our—our relationship changed. ‘You'll just become a housekeeper and a body servant,' he told me. ‘You still can have a life. And I couldn't bear to have you around me, Monica. It would be a constant reminder of what I've lost.' And so—that was that. And then he got himself a toy—Jan—that he could look at and dream about. Of course I resent her. I would have stayed with Nikos to the very end, if only he'd let me.” Then she looked straight at me for the first time. “She was good to Nikos; genuinely fond of him, I think. But there was Mike Faraday, and God knows who else. I've resented that. But I don't believe for an instant that she'd have done Nikos a harm. Kill him? Never. And if she had any idea who could have done it, I believe she'd fight for justice for Nikos. So—she may well be in very bad trouble.”

“Haskell thought you might have ideas,” Max said. “Where she might go to hide, or for help.”

Monica's beautiful forehead was creased with a frown. “If—if something had happened in the old days, and I'd found myself in danger,” she said slowly, “the first place I'd head for would be the
Merina.
Old Captain Pappas—and young George, who's taken over—would protect anyone who belonged to Nikos with their lives.”

“Dodo Faraday called them Greek pirates,” I said.

“The
Merina
was home base to me,” Monica said. “It probably would be to Jan.”

“Only she isn't there,” I said. “Captain Pappas was here a while ago to see Gallivan. He called the yacht in my presence to see if Jan had shown up there. She hadn't.”

She looked past me into some distant place. “It's hard to realize, but I suppose Tim is now the owner of the
Merina.”
She shook herself free of that thought. “There were times in Nikos's life when he played really dangerous games,” she said. “There was, for example, a head-on collision with the Mafia over a drug-smuggling thing that involved one of the crew members of the
Merina.
In those days, before the heart attack, Nikos was afraid of nothing for himself. But he was afraid for me. He was afraid someone might try to get at him through me. I had standing instructions. If he wasn't around and I had any reason to be afraid about anything, I was to go straight to Captain Pappas and stay put. That was the old Captain Pappas, who died about eighteen months ago. The
Merina's
men have arms—machine guns, rifles, depth charges. The crew could hold off a good-sized naval vessel if they had to.”

“You'd have trusted the crew, then?” I said.

“With my life,” she said. “I imagine Jan had the same kind of instructions.”

“You think she might still go there?”

“If she can make it,” Monica said.

“Why shouldn't she be able to make it?”

“Because there are plenty of other people who know that's where she'd probably go to be safe.”

“Where is the yacht anchored?” I asked.

“Nikos leases a mooring space just off Seventy-third Street in the Hudson,” Monica said. “I don't know why I should be helping you, Haskell. Do you have something you can write on? I'll show you how to make the shore-to-ship phone call. It's an unlisted number.”

I excused myself and went over to the bar, where I got Eddie to give me a phone. I vaguely remembered a small boat basin just off the beginnings of Riverside Drive. As I recalled it, there were mostly small outboards and family cabin cruisers, nothing large. But there had been a spell when the great sea-going Onassis yacht had been anchored there. As I remembered it, the approaches to the dock side, were wide-open. You couldn't get to the water's edge to a small boat to take you out to the yacht without being easily spotted. If, as Monica suggested, somebody might be waiting there to keep Jan from getting to the
Merina,
there was no way she could manage it without being seen. It occurred to me that Captain Pappas could put some of his men ashore to watch for Jan. If it wasn't already too late, they could see to it that she made the yacht.

I dialed the number Monica had given me and promptly came up with an operator who gave me the “temporarily out of order” routine. Vaguely disturbed, I started back to the table.

We had company. It was the gorgeous Julie Christie model. She looked unhappy as I joined them. Monica introduced her as “Red Parsons, one of Zach's very best.”

“I don't mean to be rude,” the girl said to Monica, “but I did want to talk to you and Mr. Lazar in private, Miss Strong.”

“If it's about the showing, Red, Mr. Haskell will be handling the promotion aspects now that Rosey's gone.”

The girl's make-up was artistically applied, but I could see that she was unnaturally pale underneath it.

“It's about Miss Lewis I wanted to tell you,” the girl said.

I pulled an extra chair up to the table and she sat down. Her hands were clasped so tightly together the knuckles showed white.

“What about her, Red?” Monica asked.

“It may be nothing at all,” the Julie Christie girl said, “but I—I've been worried sick about it.” She looked nervously at Max. “I was just coming to the party. I was very late because I'd been having a drink in the Trapeze with a photographer from
Vogue
who wants me for a sitting next week. I had on a new dress. I got on an elevator down in the lobby here and started up. It stopped at the second floor and Miss Lewis came in. She waved to someone I think was you, Mr. Haskell.”

That had to be when she'd announced she was “a big girl” and started back to the party after her visit with Chambrun.

“We said hello,” the model said, “and then I saw she was looking at me—her eyes kind of popping, if you know what I mean.”

“‘Where did you get that dress, Red?' she asked me.”

“I told her a friend gave it to me.

“‘What friend?' she wanted to know.

“Well, I was a little embarrassed to tell her, because she might think—well, she might think I was dishing out for favors. But she insisted on my telling her. When we got out of the elevator on the nineteenth floor, she wouldn't let me go to the party. Just insisted on knowing where I got the dress. So I told her. She was suddenly so mad it scared me.”

“So where did you get the dress?” Monica asked.

“Bernie Dreyfus gave it to me,” Red said. “I'm going to model a new line for them later this week. The dress was one of the items. I'd said how great I thought it was and he said go ahead and take it, as a gift from him. Bernie is something of a letch, but he's good-hearted. ‘Only don't wear it till after Friday in public,' he said. Well, I couldn't see what harm it would do, and it was the smartest thing I had, so I decided to wear it to the party for Nikos, which really wasn't public, if you see what I mean. But Miss Lewis was burning. ‘Do you know what you've got on, Red?' she said. ‘That's one of the new Lazar designs that nobody has seen or bought. How did Bernie Dreyfus get it?' Well, of course I couldn't tell her because I didn't know.”

Monica turned to me, and her face had turned strangely hard. “The Dreyfus Brothers are the biggest manufacturers of high-style fashion in cheap copies in the world,” she said. “Once the Dreyfus Brothers copy a designer's line, every stenographer and suburban housewife in the country will be wearing them. No real fashion personality would be seen dead in them.”

“It's not possible,” Max said, his voice harsh.

“Of course I wouldn't know, Mr. Lazar,” Red said, “because I haven't seen all your things. But Miss Lewis was certain. She kept saying, ‘Every seam, the cut of the material, right down to the tiny buttonhole in the lapel. It's a perfect copy!' And she grabbed me and told me I was to go to my room and take it off. She didn't want you to see it, Mr. Lazar, until she did—‘a little investigating,' she said. And then she said, ‘That slimy bastard!' and she left me there with my mouth hanging open and went back to the party.”

“Morrie Stein!” Lazar said. “He took advance photographs of some of the girls modeling a half dozen things so there'd be photographs for the press the minute the show was over. If he—” He stood up so abruptly his chair went over backward.

Monica reached out a hand to stop him. “Wait till you see the dress, Max,” she said. “There were just three or four of us who have seen the line—beside the models who wore them. Morrie, who took the photographs; Rosey, who was going to write about them; I, who was going to stage the showing; and Tim Gallivan. And, of course, Nikos. That was absolutely all. If the copy is exact, it had to be done from a photograph.” Her smile was bitter. “One of us has sold you out, Max. Rosey guessed who, and died for it. Nikos is gone. That leaves Tim, and Morrie, and me. Take your choice.”

The Julie Christie girl lifted a hand to her tightly drawn mouth. “Oh, Lord, do you suppose my wearing that dress is what made someone kill Miss Lewis?”

Monica's voice seemed to come from far away. “If Nikos had lived to know that someone had sold you out, Max, we'd have had a sample of the real wrath of God.”

Max Lazar had the model by the arm and literally pulled her up out of her chair. “I want to see that dress,” he said.

“Well, sure, Mr. Lazar. It's in my room upstairs.”

“We go—now,” Max said.

Monica watched them go and then she finished her drink and put the glass down hard on the table. “So now we know why Nikos and Rosey are gone,” she said.

“I don't get it,” I said. “Selling pictures of Lazar's designs was that important?”

“With Nikos alive?” She laughed. “I've pointed out to you there are just three of us who had access to those pictures—Tim, me, and Morrie. Morrie has a dark room assistant who could have developed the film and printed any number of sets of the photographs.”

“What was supposed to happen?”

Monica shrugged. “Friday, Max's showing takes place. There would be a big publicity hoop-la. Saturday morning the cheap copies would appear in all the Dreyfus outlets—New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles. By Saturday night thousands of women all over the country would be wearing those cheap copies. Max's line would be dead as far as the real fashion trade is concerned.”

“Why would anyone sell out?” I asked. “Would these Dreyfus people pay so much for an advance look at the designs?”

“Oh, they'd pay plenty,” Monica said. “Without a leak it would take time, probably some weeks, for them to buy originals, plan how to make the cheap copies, and get them on the market. To come out with them, simultaneously with Max's showing, would make them a small fortune. They'd pay!”

“But whoever sold out is bound to be caught,” I said, “even with Nikos dead. They'd know that in advance.”

“Legally no crime has been committed,” Monica said. “Nikos was the risk; his anger, his certain punishment.”

“Too big a risk for you or Tim Gallivan to run,” I said. “Dreyfus couldn't have paid enough to make it worth while for either of you. You didn't need that kind of money. Certainly Gallivan didn't need it. Either one of you could go to Nikos for twice the amount if you'd needed it—however much it was.”

She stared down at her empty glass. “I can't think of any reason—I can't even invent one—why I might want to risk a sellout. Tim, either.”

“I think you better come up with me to Chambrun's office,” I said. “You can explain this all to him better than I can.”

She offered no objection. She seemed almost lost in some kind of intense concentration. We took an elevator to the second floor and went directly to the Great Man's office. He was alone. Hardy and Gallivan were gone.

“I think we've come up with some kind of a motive,” I said.

Monica, in a flat, unemotional voice, told him Red Parson's story about the dress, Rosey Lewis's outrage when she saw it. Chambrun listened, his eyes narrowed slits.

“I can invent a reason why you or Gallivan might have sold out, Miss Strong,” he said. “If Dreyfus had something on you, something he could take to Nikos that would strike you out of Nikos's life, his will, he wouldn't have had to pay a cent for your services. You'd have to come through with photographs of the Lazar line or you were dead with Nikos. You'd do it, knowing that if you couldn't solve the problem before Friday, Nikos would have to go. A dead Nikos couldn't change his will.”