Spocatti admitted he was.
“We move around a lot,” she said. “Have they told you that?”
“Not yet,” he said. “The other group I belong to has one specific place they meet.” He let a beat of silence pass. “How often have you seen him in places like this?”
“You make our club sound like a disease.”
“That’s not what I meant-”
“Are you a cop?”
“No,” Spocatti said. “I’m definitely not a cop.”
“You’d have to tell me if you were.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Then why all the questions? What is this? A fucking inquisition?”
He was about to speak when she held up a hand. “Never mind,” she said. “I don’t want to know.” She removed the dildo from her vagina and pointed it at Harold Baines. “I’ve been a member of this club for years-and so has he.”
She turned to leave. “If you don’t mind, I’m going find somebody who came here to fuck, not talk.”
As she walked away, Spocatti glanced with bemusement around the room, seeing things he’d only heard about, only read about, but had never actually seen. The thought that these people, these members of New York society, had paid actual money to come here was laughable to him.
To gain entrance, all Vincent had to do was show the doorman his gun.
He returned his attention to Harold Baines. The man was moaning now, his head lolling from side to side. Spocatti checked his watch and wondered how much longer Baines would be. He hoped not too much longer. Vincent wanted to tell Louis Ryan everything by nightfall.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The young man who worked for Redman Place glanced down at the three cardboard boxes stacked in the entryway of Celina’s apartment. He picked up two, calculated their weight to be around sixty pounds apiece, looked at the rest of the boxes and then looked back at her. “He came back from Redman International an hour ago. I just finished helping him carry a bunch of boxes up to his apartment?”
Curiosity flickered in Celina’s eyes. What would Eric be doing at Redman International on a Sunday? “How many boxes?”
“Eight?”
“Do you know what was in them?”
The young man shrugged. “Office supplies?”
“Office supplies?”
“Maybe not. I don’t know. I only caught a glimpse.” He looked at his watch. “Look, Miss Redman, if I’m going to deliver these boxes to him, I should probably get going. My break’s over in another ten minutes.”
Celina turned to the table beside her and reached for her purse. She removed a $50 bill, glanced at him, and then removed another. “Don’t worry about being late,” she said. “You work in receiving here, don’t you? I’ll phone Jake and tell him to give you the rest of the day off-with pay.” She handed him the money. “And this is for you. Thanks for the information, Dan. I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure.” And he was gone with the first of Eric’s belongings.
She moved through her apartment. Every room, every corridor, was quiet and mysterious and changed. Her home seemed foreign to her now. The rooms were weirdly bare. Although she had never paid much attention to them before, Celina now was acutely aware that the photographs of Eric and her no longer rested on side tables or hung on walls. Now they were packed away in boxes.
She stepped into her bedroom. The bed, the antique chairs and tables Eric bought for her while abroad on business all remained, as did the shelves of hardcover books they once read in bed. The books and the chairs and the tables would stay, she decided. Celina needed some tangible proof that what she and Eric had was real.
As she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror. She was an unfamiliar woman who no longer looked happy, but years wiser than she had only days ago.
She closed the door behind her when she left the room. It was getting late. She wondered if her father had finished shooting with Frostman. When she left him that morning, she returned to Manhattan to pack the rest of Eric’s clothes. Although the job didn't take long, it had seemed to her like a lifetime.
She wondered if George was angry with her for not returning. After the way he treated her, she decided, for the first time in her life, that she didn’t really care. The phone rang just as Dan was leaving with the final box. Celina answered it in the living room.
“Where have you been?” George asked. “We missed you this afternoon.”
It was not anger she heard in his voice, but something else. Regret…? “I’ve been here,” Celina said. “Cleaning.”
“Since when?”
“Since I decided to get rid of Eric’s things.”
A silence passed. Celina dropped into a chair covered in glazed cream chintz and said, “What’s up, Dad? Why are you calling?”
“Two reasons. First, I wanted to apologize for what happened earlier. I never should have reacted the way I did and I’m sorry. Forgive me?”
Sometimes her father sounded so formal it amused her. “There’s nothing to forgive,” she said, wanting to put it behind her. “Let’s just forget about it, okay?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“How’d your meeting go with Ted?”
“It went fine," George said. "But we’ll discuss that later. I’m calling for another reason.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t think we should discuss it over the phone.”
“Why not?”
“It’s about your sister.”
A part of her recoiled. “Whatever Leana has done now-”
“She was beaten, Celina.”
“Beaten?”
“Eric did it the night of the party-probably not long after you left the room. If I had known that earlier this morning, he would be in the hospital now, instead of just looking for a job.”
Things were moving too quickly. Her mind tried to grasp what her father was saying. “You fired him?”
“Of course, I fired him,” George said. “And that’s just the beginning. Now, look. I don’t want to discuss this over the phone. Can you come out to the house, or not?”
They were in George’s study. After thirty minutes of long silences and raised voices, the room had gone quiet. Celina looked from her father to her mother and then back at George. He was seated at his desk, his face flushed. Few times in her life had she seen him so upset.
George broke the silence. “If we press charges against the son of a bitch, if we bring him to court, our name and Leana’s will be dragged through every rag on the newspaper stand. And for what? So Eric can walk free because no one witnessed the beating?”
Elizabeth frowned down at him. She had just returned from a charity luncheon when George led her into his study, saying they needed to talk.
“What about our daughter?” she said. “Isn’t she witness enough?”
“It’ll be his word against Leana’s.”
“So? Leana will win. Diana Crane will see to that. She’ll put that man behind bars.”
George thought back to earlier that morning, when Diana answered Eric’s phone. He was almost certain they had been in bed together when he called. And if that was the case, if Diana was sleeping with Eric, she would hardly try her best to defend Leana against him in court.
He looked at Elizabeth and said guardedly, “I don’t think that would be possible.”
“Why not?”
“I have my reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Reasons you don’t have to concern yourself with.”
He saw the confusion on Celina’s face and glared at his wife. He would tell her later-away from Celina. “What matters is this,” he said. “Leana would lose no matter who represented her in court. Eric Parker has lived a model life. Our daughter’s bout with cocaine was once the center of a media circus. The defense would make it a point to remind the court of that, and her word would become worthless.”
“I saw them in that room together,” Celina said. “In front of Eric, I accused Leana of setting us up. That’s got to be worth something, Dad. It’s a motive, for God’s sake.”