“Mmm,” Sandy said.
“What does that mean, mmm?”
“Look, this is just winging it...”
“Sure.”
“But... I mean a timetable is a schedule, isn’t it? A list of... well... the times at which certain things are supposed to happen, isn’t that so? I mean, a train schedule is a timetable, right?”
“Yeah?” Reardon said. He was listening intently. He also wanted another cigarette.
“And this man Dodge saw the schedule and then... now this may be entirely unrelated, but nonetheless it’s what happened... he ran out to buy silver heavily and long.”
“That’s right.”
“Well... suppose this timetable was a schedule for something that would affect the price of silver?”
“Affect it?”
“Drive the price up.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
She was silent for several moments, thinking.
Then she said, “Well, if the price of oil goes up, for example, then gold and silver usually follow. You said Arabs are involved, didn’t you? Well, suppose OPEC is planning a series of oil-price hikes, and suppose your man Dodge stumbled across a schedule that lists the dates and amounts of the hikes. If he’s wise in the ways of the market, he’d recognize the consequences of these oil hikes and run out to invest heavily in either silver or gold futures. Gold’s more expensive, so he might opt for silver — less cash down, you see. Maybe that’s what happened.”
“A schedule of oil price-hikes, huh?”
“Maybe,” she said, and shrugged.
“Which caused him to believe the price of silver would go up, huh?”
“Well, that’s the way it usually works, yes.”
“So he rushed out to get in on the action, buy his own little hoard of silver...”
“If that’s what you say he did.”
“Well, that’s what his partner says he did. Ran out to Rothstein-Phelps to buy silver heavily and long. Advised her to do the same thing, in fact.”
“Let me check on what kind of activity there’s been in silver this past week or so, okay?” Sandy said, and looked at her watch. “Can you meet me at the apartment in a few hours? Little after five? I should have something for you by then. We can discuss it over a drink. Okay?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Wait, you’ll need the key,” she said, and reached into her handbag. “Oh, shit,” she said, “I thought I’d thrown them all out.” She handed him an open package of cigarettes. “Here,” she said, “smoke your brains out.” He took the cigarettes. She was still rummaging for the key. When at last she found it, she handed it across the desk and said, “See you around five.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You look troubled,” she said.
He shook his head.
“What is it?”
“I’m just wondering. Could an OPEC schedule really have caused two murders? Three if we count the one at the airport?”
“You’re the cop,” she said. “You tell me.”
The man sitting in the straight-backed wooden chair was not telling anyone anything.
His name was Joseph Phelps.
Mazzi and Samuels had spotted him coming out of the Sutton Place apartment at a little after one o’clock, but before they could even get out of the car, he’d hailed a taxi and was on his way. They arrested him at Kennedy Airport, where he was in the process of buying a one-way ticket to Brazil.
Phelps was carrying in his suitcase close to three and a half million dollars in bearer bonds. Thirty bonds in hundred-thousand-dollar denominations. Five bonds in fifty-thousand-dollar denominations. Eleven bonds in twenty-thousand-dollar denominations. And one ten-thousand-dollar bond. The equivalent of three million four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in cash.
“I thought only Nazis went to Brazil,” Gianelli said.
Phelps said nothing.
“That was a good picture,” Mazzi said. “The Boys from Brazil.”
“Who owns these bonds?” Farmer said.
Phelps said nothing.
“What do you know about a timetable Peter Dodge stumbled across?”
Nothing.
“You want a cup of coffee?” Ruiz asked him.
No answer.
Ruiz shrugged.
Reardon was going through Phelps’s briefcase. In one of the side zipper pockets he found a folded sheet of paper.
“Well, hello,” he said.
He unfolded the paper.
Across the top of the page, he read the words:
“Here’s a schedule,” he said, and handed it to Farmer.
Farmer glanced down the rest of the page.
“But is it the schedule?” he asked.
“Who — or what — is Kidd?” Reardon asked Phelps.
Phelps said nothing.
“Let me have that phone book,” Reardon said.
Hoffman handed the Manhattan directory across the desk, and Reardon began leafing through it.
“Kidd,” he said aloud, his finger running down the page, “Kidd, Kidd, Kidd, Kidd... there’s at least ten of them.” He turned the book so that Phelps could see the page. “Know any of these people?” he asked.
Phelps said nothing.
“What do you think, Loot?” Reardon asked.
Farmer thought it over for a moment. Then he said, “Chick, you stay here with me, see if Mr. Phelps wants to tell us anything. You three split
those names between you, work ’em solo. Get movin’.”
The woman who answered the door was wearing nothing but a peignoir and high-heeled sandals. She was a good five-feet eight-inches tall, Reardon estimated, even without the sandals, which added at least two inches to her height. This was the third Kidd he’d visited in the past hour. He showed her his shield and ID card, told her he was from the Fifth P.D.U. and asked if she was Jessica Kidd.
“I am, yes,” she said.
“Would it be all right if I came in for a minute?” he asked.
“Please do,” she said, and smiled.
He followed her into the living room. Long black hair trailing down her back, pale blue peignoir over pale pink flesh tones, firm ass jiggling as she walked to the fireplace and stood with the flickering flames behind her, long legs silhouetted.
“Miss Kidd, would you happen to know a man named Joseph Phelps?”
The same question he’d asked all the others.
“Phelps?” she said. “No, who is he?”
“Does this look familiar to you?” he asked, and took from his pocket the sheet of paper he’d taken from Phelps’s briefcase.
She looked at it.
“Kidd Futures Schedule,” she said.
“Yes, Miss. Do you have any idea what that means?”
“I surely don’t,” she said.
“Or these column headings under it?” he said, and pointed to the line:
“This would stand for purchase date, wouldn’t it?” he said.
“I have no idea.”
“And this, of course, is Account...”
“Really, Mr. Reardon, I don’t...”
“And this would be silver lots, wouldn’t it? And ounces of silver. And the delivery month.”
“I never studied shorthand,” she said.
“Do any of these account names mean anything to you?” he said, and showed her the page again:
“Do I have to read all of this?” Jessica said. “Really, Mr. Reardon, I’m far too stupid to understand anything about business. My interests lie elsewhere, believe me. Lie?” she said, and wrinkled her nose. “Lay? I always get the two mixed up.” She smiled. “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Reardon?”