Colby’s smile went damn near pixie-ish. “By which you mean... you shot him. Killed him.”
I shrugged. “He had a gun. A little one. Mine was bigger.”
The smile broadened in genuine amusement. “And here I thought size wasn’t everything.”
“It isn’t. But it doesn’t hurt.”
“If it’s big enough it does.” He sighed, smiled again, no teeth now. “Well, gentlemen, I didn’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to say hello to Casey here. Congratulate him on his retirement.” He turned his eyes on Shannon. “See you later.”
He flipped a casual wave and ambled across the room, graceful in a masculine way. Handsome devil, like Tony Curtis and George Hamilton had a kid. Women were looking at him the way men look at women.
“Why’s he so friendly,” I asked, “to a cop he encountered on a couple of suspicious-death inquiries? First name basis and everything. ‘See you later?’”
Shannon said, “We go to the same gym.”
I frowned. “I thought you went to Bing’s, like me?”
A shrug. “I used to. I switched to the Solstice Fitness Center, few months ago.”
I frowned deeper. “Over on Broadway?”
Shannon nodded.
“Isn’t that a little pricey?”
Bigger shrug. “I got a deal on a membership. Have a personal trainer and everything. Just ’cause I’m retiring doesn’t mean I want to grow a gut.”
He kind of already had grown one, but I didn’t say anything.
Our food came. Crisp cold salad with iceberg lettuce and garlic dressing. The rib-eyes thick and tender, mine blood-rare the way I like it. We shared two orders of Pete’s legendary hash browns with onions, and the chow was such that conversation got mostly sidelined for a while.
I was keeping half an eye on Sheila and not just because she was worth at least that. On two occasions Colby got up and happy accidents let him come back into contact with her. Happily contrived accidents, I figured.
Once when he got up to go to the head, which took him past her station, that gave him an excuse to pause and jaw with her a while, on his way back to the booth.
Another time he joined her at the bar where she was chatting with the white-shirt, black-bowtie bartender, who was another good-looking guy in his late twenties or early thirties, but just maybe lacking the Colby kid’s bank book. The Wall Street heir took her by the arm — not rough at all, and I was watching for that — and walked her over to one side and then they were talking in a serious way.
Not an argument. But not chit-chat or flirtation, either. These two knew each other. The bartender was taking this in, glaring at them as he filled orders. What the hell was that about?
We were having a round of after-dinner highballs as I watched Colby and the hostess discussing something near the bar again, and the bartender maybe resenting it. I wondered if the bartender was just a friend of Sheila’s who maybe knew Colby had been treating her roughly, and was considering stepping in and doing something about it. In which case, hurrah for the bartender.
I said to Shannon, “I thought Colby dated the debutante crowd.”
“He does. Sometimes.”
“Not always?”
“He’s been known to date models.”
“The Vogue variety?”
Shannon sipped his highball. Shook his head. “More like Playboy and Penthouse. He parties at the Tube in Chelsea.”
The Tube was more blue jeans than Armani, a trendy spot known for multiple lounges with such funky themes as an S & M dungeon, Victorian library, and a dance floor with cages, plus hot-and-cold-running cocaine.
After a final round of drinks, the little retirement get-together petered out, and Shannon and his two partners all took their leave, after fighting over who would take the check. Pat won. I hadn’t made a bid, because I was always happy to see a cop pick up a check for a change.
Soon Pat and I were alone in the booth. Over in the bar area, the three stock brokers were having their own after-dinner drinks, and Colby had not invented any more excuses to bump into Sheila.
“Is it my imagination,” I said to Pat, “or was something going on with Shannon?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he starts out kind of bitching about this Colby character. Then as I get to asking questions, suddenly I have to work to pry even tidbits of information out of him about the boy. And Casey Shannon going to a rich-guy, personal-trainer-type gym? What the shit? And the friendly way he talks to that ‘Golden Boy,’ and then how wary he seemed, and unfriendly toward him, when Colby wasn’t standing in front of us?”
“Yeah,” Pat said, “I picked up on that.”
“So you’re still a detective, then. Good to know. So what the hell do you make of it?”
Pat sucked in air and let it out again. “Feels like maybe he’s doing some kind of undercover operation pertaining to Colby. Then when you got interested, he pulled back.”
“You know something I don’t?”
“I know plenty you don’t, buddy.” Then, with a shrug, Pat said, “Hey, I’m his boss and I sure as hell didn’t assign anything like that.”
I leaned in. “Could somebody above you have put something in motion?”
“Maybe,” he said, with another shrug and a shake of his head, “but with a guy a few weeks out from retirement? Doesn’t make sense.”
“How about something personal? A case he wants to wrap up before he heads for the exit and pension land?”
“Possible. Possible.” Pat gave me that wry, sly grin of his. “I have known certain assholes go off on private tears, now that you mention it.”
“Screw you, buddy,” I said with my own nasty grin.
As it happened, we almost followed Colby and his party out onto the sidewalk.
Colby was saying good night to his friends, and was just stepping into the street to jaywalk across the light eastbound traffic, apparently to his parked car, glancing back at them as he did with a smile and a wave. I’d already heard the squeal of tires from down the street, and the low-slung red vehicle came up so fast it might have materialized.
Seemed to have come from just down the block, though, so the sports car hadn’t picked up much speed when it clipped Colby, who tumbled across the hood of the car, as the driver saw him and slowed, then picked speed back up when the man who’d been struck lay in a pile on the street.
I didn’t get much of a look at the driver, but I saw a pony tail and it wasn’t a woman — not unless she had a beard.
Pat was yelling at the fleeing vehicle, then got his little notebook out to jot down the license number, but I could see the plate was smeared with mud, so that was a non-starter.
Me, I was joining the two Wall Street gents in bending over their fallen friend, as the few cars out on the street right now were reducing speed and winding around us — nobody else stopping to help or offer witness info. People suck sometimes.
Colby, in his Burberry, was sitting up, holding his head with both hands, wincing, moaning.
“Vincent,” said one of his friends, leaning in, “are you all right, man?”
The other friend said, “Can you get to your feet?”
Colby managed to nod and, with the help of both his companions, rose and hobbled over to the sidewalk, where a few pedestrians and some other diners from the restaurant were gathered for a gawk. The accident victim kept one hand on the side of his head.
“Bounced... bounced,” the young man said. “Off the windshield. Shit, it hurts.”
“We’ll get you to the hospital,” the first friend said, “right now.”
That’s when I noticed Sheila had emerged from the restaurant. She was standing there, agape, a hand over her mouth. She seemed about to go to Colby, but then — for some reason — stayed put. Still, she appeared on the verge of tears.