“I want to talk business with you, Mr. Mallory. Something we can both make money on.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” Mallory said with the blandest of bland expressions on his face.
Leonid produced a card from his breast pocket. It read:
Van Der Zee Domestics and In-Home Service Aides
Arnold DuBois, Agent
“I don’t understand, Mr. DuBois,” Mallory said, using the French pronunciation of McGill’s alias.
“Du boys” Leonid said. “I represent the Van Der Zee firm. We’re just establishing ourselves here in New York. We’re from Cleveland originally. What we want is to get our people in as domestics, care for the aged, dog walkers, and nannies in the upper-crust buildings. All of our people are highly presentable and professional. They’re bonded too.”
“And you want me to help you get in?” Mallory asked, still a little leery.
“We’ll pay fifteen hundred dollars for every exclusive presentation you get us in for,” Leonid said. By now he had forgotten his dislike of the receptionist and Mallory. He wasn’t even mad at Norman anymore.
The mention of fifteen hundred per presentation (whatever that meant) moved Dick Mallory to action.
“Come with me, Mr. DuBois,” he said, pronouncing the name the way Leonid preferred.
The real estate agent led the fake employment agent down a hall of cubicles inhabited by various other agents.
Mallory took Leonid to a small conference room and closed the door behind them. There was a round pine table that had three matching chairs. Mallory gestured and they both sat down.
“Now what is it exactly that you’re saying, Mr. DuBois?”
“We have a young girl,” Leonid said. “A pretty thing. She sets up a small table in the entry hall of any building you say.
She talks to the tenants about all the various types of in-home labor they might need. Somebody might want an assistant twice a week to help with filing and shopping. They might already have an assistant but still need somebody to walk their pets when they’re away. Once somebody hires one of our people we’re confident that they will hire others as needs arise. All we want is your okay to install the young lady and we pay you fifteen hundred dollars.”
“For every building I get you into?”
“Cash.”
“Cash?”
Leonid nodded.
The young man actually licked his lips.
“If you can guarantee us a lobby in an upscale building, I can pay you as early as tonight,” Leonid said.
“Does it have to be that soon?”
“I’m an agent on commission for Van Der Zee Enterprises, Mr. Mallory. In order to make a profit I have to produce. I’m not the only one out here trying to make contacts. I mean, you can call me whenever you want, but if you can’t promise me a lobby by the end of today then I will have to go farther down my list of contacts.”
“But-“
“Listen,” Leonid said, cutting off any logic that Richard Mallory might have brought to bear. He reached into his pocket and brought out three one-hundred-dollar bills. These he placed on the table between them. “That’s one-fifth up front. Three hundred dollars against you finding me one lobby that I can send Arlene to tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow-”
“That’s right, Richard. Van Der Zee Enterprises will give me control over the whole Manhattan operation if I’m the first one to bring in a lobby.”
“So I get to keep the money?”
“With twelve hundred more coming to you at eight this evening if you have the lobby set for me.”
“Eight? Why eight?”
“You think you’re the only guy I’m talking to, Richard? I have four other meetings set up this afternoon. Whoever gets to me when it’s all done, at eight o’clock, will get at least part of the prize. Maybe he’ll get the whole thing.”
“But I have a date tonight-”
“Just call me on the phone, Richard. Tell me where you are and I’ll bring you the money and the letter confirming to the super that Arlene can set up her table.”
“What letter?”
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to be handing you fifteen hundred dollars a week in cash without getting a letter for the super to show my boss,” Leonid said blandly. “Don’t worry, we won’t mention the money, just that Van Der Zee Enterprises can set up in the lobby offering our services.”
“But what if somebody complains?”
“You can always tell your bosses that you were thinking on your own, trying to offer a service. They won’t know about the money changing hands. At the very least we’ll be thrown out, but that’ll take a couple’a days, and Arlene is very good at handing out those brochures.”
“That’s fifteen hundred in cash a week?”
“Twice that if we can find another Arlene and you can hook us up like I been told.”
“But I’m going to be out tonight,” Mallory complained.
“So? Just call me. Give me the address. And I’ll drop by with the form. We’re talkin’ ten minutes for twelve hundred dollars.”
Richard fingered the money. Then he tentatively picked it up.
“I can just take this?”
“Take it. And take the rest tonight and then that much again once a week for the next four or five months.” Leonid grinned.
Richard folded the money and put it in his pocket.
“What’s your phone number, Mr. DuBois?”
Leonid called his wife and told her to have his brown suit ready and pressed by the time he got home.
“Am I your maid now?” she asked.
“I got the rent and the expenses here in my pocket,” Leonid growled. “All I’m asking from you is a little cooperation.”
The private eye then called his cell phone service. When the voice on the line said to record a new message, Leonid said, “Hello. This is Arnold DuBois, employment agent for Van Der Zee Enterprises. At the tone leave me what you got.”
When he got home he found the suit folded on the bed and Katrina gone. Alone in the house, he drew a bath and poured himself a glass of ice water. He wanted a cigarette but the doctors had told him his lungs could barely take New York air.
He sat back in the old-fashioned tub, turning the hot water on and off with his toes. His jaw ached and he was almost broke again. But still he had a line on Richard Mallory and that made the detective happy.
“At least I’m good at what I do,” he said to no one. “At least that.”
After the bath Leonid called Gert again. This time the phone rang and rang with no interruption. That was very odd. Gert had it set up so that her service picked up when she was on the line.
Sometimes he didn’t talk to Gert for months at a time. She had made it clear that they could never be intimate again. But he still felt something for her. And he wanted to make sure that she was okay.
When Leonid got to Gert’s near four he found the downstairs door had been wedged open.
Her front door was crisscrossed with yellow police ribbon.
“You know her?” a voice asked.
It was a small woman standing at a doorway down the hall. She was old and gray and wore gray clothes. She had watery eyes and mismatched slippers. There was a low-grade emerald ring on the index finger of her right hand and the left side of her mouth lagged just a bit.
Leonid noticed all of this in a vain attempt to work away from the fear growing in his stomach.
“What happened?”
“They say he must’a come in last night,” the woman said. “It was past midnight, the super says. He just killed her. Didn’t steal anything. Just shot her with a gun no louder than a cap pistol, that’s what they said. You know you’re not safe in your own bed anymore. People out here just get some crazy idea in their head and you find yourself dead with no rhyme or reason.”