“How’d he pay?”
“Cash. I always remember when they pay cash, especially when they don’t stiff me.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t pay that close. I think he had dark hair. Not too dark. I mean not… ” She shifted her gaze to Roarke and her eyes skimmed over his hair and would have sighed if they could. “Not black.”
“Uh-huh. Carmen.” Eve tapped her on the hand to regain her attention. “What about skin color?”
“Oh, well, he was white. But he had a tan. I remember that now. Like he’d had a really good flash or a nice vacation. No, he had light hair! That’s right. He had blondish hair because it was a real contrast with the tan. I think. Anyway. He was really attentive to her, too. Now that I’m thinking, I remember most times I went by he was listening to her, or asking her questions. A lot of guys-hell, most guys-don’t listen.”
“You said he was older than she was. How much older?”
“Jeez, it’s hard to say. To remember. I don’t think it was one of those daddy-type things.”
“How about build?”
“I don’t really know. He was sitting, you know. He wasn’t a porker. He just looked normal.”
“Piercings, tattoos?”
“Oh wow. Not that I remember. He had a really good wrist unit. I noticed it. She was in the ladies’ when I brought out their coffee, and he checked the time. It was really sharp-looking, thin and silvery with a pearly face. What do they call that?”
“Mother-of-pearl?” Roarke suggested.
“Yeah. Yeah, mother-of-pearl. It was one sharp-looking piece. Expensive-looking.”
“Would you be willing to work with a police artist?”
“This is a cop thing? Wow. What did they do?”
“It’s him I’m interested in. I’d like to arrange for you to come down to Central tomorrow. I can have you transported.”
“I guess. Sure. It’d be kind of a kick.”
“If you’d give me your information, someone will contact you.”
Eve plucked an olive from the plate as Carmen carried her chair away. “I love when long shots pay off.” She saw the plates of pasta heading in their direction and struggled not to salivate. “Just give me one minute to set this up.”
She pulled out her ’link to call Central and arrange for an artist session. While she listened to the desk sergeant, asked a couple of pithy questions, she twirled pasta on her fork.
She ended the call, stuffed the pasta in her mouth. “Nadine broadcast the connection.”
“What?”
“Sorry.” She swallowed and repeated the statement more coherently. “Figured she’d make it after talking to Gannon, and that she’d go on air.”
“Problem?”
“If it was dicey I’d’ve stopped her. And to give her credit, she’d have let me. No, it’s no problem. He’ll catch a broadcast and he’ll know we’ve got lines to tug. Make him think, make him wonder.”
She stabbed a meatball, broke off a forkful, wrapped pasta around it. “Bobby Smith, whoever the hell he is, should be doing a lot of thinking tonight.”
And he was. He’d come home early from a cocktail party that had bored him to death. The same people, the same conversations, the same ennui. There was never anything new.
Of course, he had a great deal new to talk about. But he hardly thought his recent activities were cocktail conversation.
He’d switched on the screen. Before he’d gone out he’d programmed his entertainment unit to record any mention of various key words: Gannon, Jacobs-as that had turned out to be her name-Cobb. Sweet little Tina. And sure enough, there’d been an extended report by the delicious Nadine Furst on 75 that had combined all of those key words.
So, they’d made the connection. He hadn’t expected the police to make it quite that quickly. Not that it mattered.
He changed into lounging pants, a silk robe. He poured himself a brandy and fixed a small plate of fruit and cheese, so that he could be comfortable while he viewed the report again.
Settled on the sofa in the media room of his two-level apartment on Park Avenue, he nibbled on Brie and tart green grapes while Nadine relayed the story again.
Nothing to link him to the naive little maid, he concluded. He’d been careful. There’d been a few transmissions, true, but all to the account he’d created for that purpose, and sent or received from a public unit. He’d always taken her places where they were absorbed by a crowd. And when he’d decided he needed to kill her, he’d taken her to the building on Avenue B.
His father’s company was renovating that property. It was untenanted, and though there had been some blood-actually, considerable blood-he’d tidied up. Even if he’d missed a spot or two, crews of carpenters and plumbers would hardly notice a new stain or two among the old.
No, there was nothing to connect a silly maid from the projects to the well-educated, socially advanced and cultured son of one of the city’s top businessmen.
Nothing to connect him to the earnest and struggling young artist Bobby Smith.
The artist angle had been brilliant-naturally. He could draw competently enough, and he’d charmed the naive and foolish Tina with a little sketch of her face.
Of course, he’d had to ride a bus to create the “chance” meeting. Hideous ordeal. He had no idea how people tolerated such experiences, but imagined those who did neither knew nor deserved any better.
After that, it was all so simple. She’d fallen in love with him. He’d hardly had to expend any effort there. A few cheap dates, a few kisses and soulful looks, and he’d had his entrée into Gannon’s house.
He’d had only to moon around her, to go with her one morning-claiming as he met her at the bus stop near the town house that he hadn’t been able to sleep thinking of her.
Oh, how she’d blushed and fluttered and strolled with him right to Gannon’s front door.
He’d watched her code in-memorized the sequence, then, ignoring her halfhearted and whispered protests, had nipped in behind her, stealing another kiss.
Oh Bobby, you can’t. If Miz Gannon comes down, I could get in trouble. I could get fi red. You have to go.
But she’d giggled, as if they were children pulling a prank, as she shooed at him.
So simple then to watch her quickly code into the alarm. So simple.
Not as simple, he admitted now, not nearly as simple for him to walk out again and leave her waving after him. For a moment, just one hot moment, he’d considered killing her then. Just bashing in that smiling, ordinary face and being done with it. Imagined going upstairs, rooting Gannon out and beating the location of the diamonds out of her.
Beating her until she told him everything, everything she hadn’t put in her ridiculous book.
But that hadn’t been the plan. The very careful plan.
Then again, he thought with a shrug, plans changed. And so he’d gotten away with murder. Twice.
After toasting himself, he sipped brandy.
The police could speculate all they liked, they’d never connect him, a man like him, with someone as common as Tina Cobb. And Bobby Smith? A figment, a ghost, a puff of smoke.
He wasn’t any closer to the diamonds, but he would be. Oh, he would be. And at least he wasn’t, by God, bored.
Samantha Gannon was the key. He’d read her book countless times after the first shocked reading, when he’d found so many of his own family secrets spread out on the page. It amazed him, astounded him, infuriated him.
Why hadn’t he been told there were millions of dollars-millions-tucked away somewhere? Diamonds that belonged, by right, to him.
Dear old Dad had left that little detail out of the telling.
He wanted them. He would have them. It really was that simple.
With them he could, he would, break away from his father and his tedious work ethic. Away from the boredom, the sameness of his circle of friends.
He would be, as his grandfather had been, unique.
Stretching out, he called up another program and watched the series of interviews he’d recorded. In each, Samantha was articulate, bright, attractive. For that precise reason he hadn’t attempted to contact her directly.