The Eighth Commandment (34 page)

I hunched forward, keeping my voice low. This was to be a confidential exchange of gossip—just between us girls.

“Ruby,” I said, almost whispering, “the last time we spoke you hinted that the Havistocks had sinned, that the family was cursed. What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Please do,” I urged. “I’m trying to find out who stole the Demaretion. Everyone is under suspicion. That includes you. The police think you may be involved, that you took the coin to finance your brother’s appeal. I know that’s completely ridiculous, you wouldn’t do anything like that, but you’ve got to help me to find out who actually did it. You can see that, can’t you?”

She was silent.

“Whatever you tell me,” I went on, “is strictly between you and me. I have a tight mouth. I’ll repeat it to no one. But I’ve got to find out what’s going on in this house.”

“The daughter,” she said. “Natalie. She runs around with bad people. She steals. Stays out all hours. Sometimes she is gone a day. Two. I think she takes drugs. She is wild. A black boyfriend. She doesn’t go to church.”

Nothing new for me there.

“And…?” I prompted her.

“The other one, the older daughter, Roberta, she is married to an evil man. Evil! They do things—I will not tell you. But I hear them talking. Because I am a servant, they think I have no ears. But God will punish them.”

I looked at her, wondering if Roberta and Ross had ever tried to recruit her for their TV spectaculars. It was hard to believe, but with people as flaky as the Minchens, anything was possible. If I learned they had cast a giraffe and a cocker spaniel, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

“That’s awful, Ruby,” I said, trying to sound shocked and disgusted. “To think things like that are going on.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “But it is true.”

“Do you think Mr. and Mrs. Havistock are aware of all this?”

She thought a moment. “About Natalie,” she said finally, “they know. About their other daughter and her husband, I think they don’t know, but they suspect. They have heard things. But how can you reject your children?”

“You can’t,” I said.

“No, you can’t. So you must suffer. And hope eventually they will see the Light of God that makes a glory of our days.”

“What about the son, Ruby? Luther and his wife. Do they behave?”

“That woman!” she burst out. “She is a devil! She shows herself—you know? She tempts men, leading them into transgression. No good will come from her. She has sold her soul.”

“I heard,” I said carefully, “that at one time she made a play for Roberta’s husband, and Mr. Havistock had to break it up. Is that true?”

She nodded darkly. “And friends of the family. The men. And delivery boys. She likes to show her devil’s power. She will burn in hell!”

I began to get just a little frightened. That kind of religious mania scared me. Keep thinking that way and you might decide to rid the world of evildoers by killing them. It was God’s will, wasn’t it?

“Ruby,” I said, “can’t Luther control his wife? Make her stop acting like that.”

“He is not a man,” she said scornfully. “He is a slave.”

“A slave? To what?”

She cupped her two flat breasts under the black bombazine, making them jut. Then she reached under the table, and I could only guess that she was grasping her crotch. The gestures were undeniably gross, but there was no mistaking their meaning.

“He is a man possessed,” she said. “And there is more,” she added, staring into my eyes. “But so wicked, I cannot tell you.”

And despite my pleading, she would say no more. So I left, needing a breath of even that sulfur-laden outside air to rid myself of the heavier fumes within the Havistock apartment. What a Gothic family that tribe had turned out to be!

I told myself that other than learning Orson Vanwinkle had been making eight hundred a week, I had heard nothing new. What Ruby Querita had related, I already knew, or had guessed. But her fanaticism had given the revelations an ominous weight. I walked quickly away from the Havistock manse before a thunderbolt came down from heaven and destroyed them all. That Ruby was getting to me.

I wondered what was so wicked that she wouldn’t speak of it. Then I pondered my next move. I found a sidewalk telephone kiosk in working order (the third I tried), and called Hobart Juliana at Grandby & Sons. Thank God he was in.

“Hobie darling,” I said cheerfully, “how
are
you?”

“Miserable,” he said. “All alone and longing for company.
Your
company. When are you coming back to join me?”

“Soon,” I said. “I hope. Hobie, I’m in your neighborhood, and I’d love to see you. I’d come up, but I’m afraid Madam Dodat might grab me and demand a progress report on my investigation. That I don’t need. Could you sneak out for a little while? I’ll buy you a drink at the Bedlington bar. How about it?”

“I’m on my way,” he said happily.

It was so
good
to see him again; he really was a sweetheart. We sat in that dim, cloistered cocktail lounge (only one other customer), held hands, and Hobie got me caught up on all the latest office gossip. It was rumored that Felicia Dodat was going to have a tummy-tuck, and it was said that Stanton Grandby was taking pills for flatulence. Fascinating.

“What about you, Dunk?” Hobie said, almost nose to nose with me in the gloom. “Anything happening on the Demaretion?”

“I think so. I think I’m getting somewhere. But it’s taking a lot of digging. Hobie, you’ve helped me so much, I hate to ask for another favor.”

“Ask away!” he cried. “What are friends for?”

“Do you like intrigue?”

“Like it? I love it, love it, love it!”

“Well, there’s this woman—Vanessa Havistock. She’s married to Luther, Archibald’s son. She’s got this absolutely divine body and doesn’t mind showing it.”

“Couldn’t care less,” he said, grinning.

“I know,” I said. “I’m just trying to describe her. Anyway, I suspect she’s cheating on her husband. Everyone says she comes on to anything in pants—but that might be just malicious rumors. I mean she’s beautiful, and people may resent her for that.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps not. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually one hell of a fire.”

“What I’d like to do,” I went on, “is try to prove it out one way or another. She buys her clothes at an Italian boutique on Madison—Vecchio’s. You know it?”

“Oh, yes. Bloody expensive.”

“It is that. I think maybe the manager, a guy named Carlo, might be steering tricks her way. You understand?”

“I’m keeping up, sweet.”

“Are you a good actor, Hobie?”

“Good? The stage lost a great star when I decided to devote my life to postage stamps. What do you want me to do?”

“Call her,” I said. “She’s in the book. Phone her and say you’re from Wilkes-Barre or Walla Walla or some such place. Tell her you’re in town for a business meeting, you’re lonely, and would like to take a lovely lady out to dinner. Say that Carlo of Vecchio’s suggested you call her.”

“Oh, my God,” Hobie said, “that’s beautiful! Dunk, you’re a naughty, naughty woman.”

“I know,” I said. “I want to get her reaction. If she hangs up on you, that’s one answer. If she’s interested, that’s another.”

“Do it right now,” he said. “There’s a phone in the lobby.”

“She may not be in,” I warned.

“Then I’ll try later,” he said, slid off the barstool and headed for the lobby. He had a kind of John Wayne sidle, and I never did figure out if it was natural or if he was kidding the world.

While he was gone, I wondered if I should have told him about Vanessa’s arrest for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. Then I thought this test would be more legitimate if Hobie knew nothing of her police record.

He was back in less than five minutes, drained his kir, and motioned to the bartender for another.

“Was she in?” I asked.

“She was in, and she’s guilty as hell. I told her I was Ralph Forbes—that’s the name of my consenting adult—and I was from Tulsa, in town for a bankers’ convention. Carlo of Vecchio’s had suggested I might call her. Could she join me for dinner at Lutèce, and maybe a night on the town later? Cabarets, discos, piano bars—whatever turned her on. If she was an innocent, she’d have told me to get lost and hung up immediately. But oh, no. Dunk, I could almost hear her ears perk up.”

“She agreed?” I asked eagerly.

“Of course not,” Hobie said. “She’s too smart for that. She gave me some jazz about canceling previous plans and she’d call me back. What she’s doing, of course, is checking with Carlo at Vecchio’s. Did he give her name to a Ralph Forbes from Tulsa?”

“When she said she’d call you back, what number did you give her?”

“The one on the pay phone I called from,” Hobie said smugly. “What else?”

I leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “You’re a genius,” I told him. “But you think if Carlo had confirmed, she would have called back?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “That lady is hot to trot. She’s not the kind you pay in advance. She’s the kind you get it off with, and then say, ‘Oh, darling, you’ve made me so happy, I want to buy you a gift. But I don’t know your sizes or tastes. If I give you money, will you buy yourself something nice and pretend it’s from me?’ She’ll protest and then finally agree. A lot of women are like that—and more men than you can imagine. I’ve done it myself. It leaves you a small measure of self-esteem. Better than finding cash on the mantel after the guy has gone.”

“Oh, Hobie,” I said, gripping his arm, “you’ve been such a big help. When this is all over, I’m going to buy you the greatest dinner at the Four Seasons you’ve ever had in your life.”

He took up my hand to kiss my fingertips. “I’ll nudge you,” he said. “But the dinner isn’t that important. Just come back to share our office again. That’ll make me happier than anything.”

We stared at each other. Tender and sad.

“It’s a crazy world,” he said, “isn’t it?”

“It is that,” I said.

When we came out of the Bedlington, the air had freshened, and I decided I could walk home without fear of dropping from asphyxiation at the feet of Daniel Webster’s statue. The long walk gave me a chance to think. Mostly about Vanessa Havistock.

The way she lived was so inexplicable to me. Married to a guy with a good job. Apartment on Park Avenue. Apparently all the money in the world. So why play the strumpet? Maybe that question contained the answer: she was
playing
. Her strident sexuality was a role. Blessed with sensual flesh, she was using it as a costume.

That began to make sense to me. It had little to do with the disappearance of the Demaretion, but I wanted to understand the people involved. Al Georgio had said Vanessa was actually Pearl Measley from South Carolina. I could extrapolate a lot from that: small-town girl adrift in the big city with nothing to sell but herself.

Then, maybe with memories of a deprived childhood, she gets hooked on
things
: jewelry, ball gowns, paintings, cars, a smart apartment and groovy vacation home—all the panoplies of wealth. But she never forgets where it all comes from—the luscious source.

That was how I saw her: not so much a greedy woman but one terrified by poverty and lack of status. She would, I thought, do anything to maintain her hard-fought and hard-won battle against life. She had vanquished Pearl Measley. Now she was Vanessa Havistock—and don’t you forget it, buster!

And when I arrived home, sweated and aching pleasantly from my hike, I emptied my mailbox, and there was a letter from the lady herself: a cutesy invitation to a cocktail party and buffet dinner on Tuesday evening. “Wear whatever you like—or nothing at all!”

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I showered, shampooed, pulled on an oversized khaki shirt I had bought many moons ago at an army surplus store on Forty-second Street. It had been laundered so many times it felt like silk, and was so big it fitted like a burnoose. I padded around the house, wearing that and nothing else, feeling deliciously depraved.

I had just started adding notes on the day’s events in my journal when I got a call from Jack Smack. He sounded slightly aggrieved.

“Where the hell you been, Dunk?” he demanded. “I’ve been phoning all day.”

“I had lunch with Hizzoner,” I told him, “and then I had to go down to the Federal Reserve to settle a squabble about interest rates.”

He laughed. “Okay,” he said, “I deserved that. How you coming on the Demaretion?”

“As the cops say, zero, zip, and zilch.”

“Yeah,” he said casually, “me, too. I think maybe my company better pay off. I don’t see any happy ending to this thing—do you?”

“You never know,” I said, determined he wasn’t going to get anything from me without giving me something in return.

“I did come across one interesting item,” he said. “Luther Havistock is seeing a shrink. Three times a week.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, “that
is
interesting. I think the poor man needs it. But it must be expensive.”

“Maybe Daddy is paying the bills,” he suggested, and then paused, waiting for the trade-off.

“That’s possible,” I said. “Perhaps that’s why Archibald needed ready cash. Over the past five years he’s been selling coins from his collection. Did you know that?”

Silence. Then…

“No,” Jack said, “I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you know what his total sales were?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, surprised that I could lie so easily.

“Maybe I’ll look into it,” he said thoughtfully. “But enough about business; how about dinner tomorrow night?”

“Love to,” I said, “but I can’t. I’m going to a party.”

“Can you take me?”

“I don’t think I better.”

“Oh-ho,” he said without rancor, “it’s like that, is it? Well, listen, if the party turns out to be a dud and you decide to split early, give me a call, will you? I’ll be in all night.”

“Sure,” I said, “I’ll do that.”

“I’ll keep a lamp burning in the window,” he said cheerfully. “I’d really like to see you, Dunk.”

“I’ll try to make it,” I promised. “I’ll give you a call either way.”