She grunted a laugh, then reached for her half a Danish and nibbled on it like a mouse at cheese still in the trap. “And you’re identified as, ‘Michael Hammer, venerable private investigator whose numerous self-defense pleas in justifiable homicide cases have vexed the New York State court system for decades.’”
“That should drum up some business anyway,” I said through a mouthful of pastry. “Venerable means older than shit, doesn’t it?”
“Yes it does,” she confirmed. “It also says the hit-and-run victim was seen earlier talking to you and a certain captain of Homicide at the restaurant. What about?”
She was pissed — mildly pissed, but still pissed — because I hadn’t called her last night or first thing this morning to fill her in. She is understanding in ways I could expect no woman ever to be with me, but reading about me in the paper, finding out about something in that fashion and not directly from me, frosted her tail but good.
So I filled her in.
No heat was coming off her at all now, other than what was generated by those good looks that I never got used to or took for granted.
“You really were just a witness,” she said, mildly surprised. “An innocent bystander.”
“Innocent as a new-born babe, that’s me.” I leaned back in the chair, coffee cup in hand. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not on the spot.”
“It doesn’t?” She had this ability to suggest a frown without wrinkling her forehead much, if at all; one of her beauty maintenance secrets. “Why not?”
“Hit-and-run is a crime.”
“Let me write that down.”
“It’s a crime, and I was at the scene. Furthermore, I was observed talking to the victim, in the company of that ‘certain’ captain of the Homicide Division. You may have met him — Patrick Chambers?”
“I believe we have met, yes,” she said archly. “So how does any of that put you on the spot?”
“Somebody important almost got killed, under my nose. I will be expected to do something about it, else look like a chump.”
Her smile would have been as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s if Da Vinci had put some smugness in the picture. “You have a rather rarefied opinion of yourself, Mr. Hammer. This isn’t the old days when you were filling the tabloids so colorfully — mostly red.”
I gestured with my cup toward the paper. “The Penta thing got play.”
“Yes, and after you killed that bastard, both the News and the Post did those nice retrospectives about your ‘wild exploits’ back in the days of Howdy Doody and Milton Berle. You know what that makes you?”
“A celebrity?”
“Nostalgia.” She tapped the page three. “Nobody expects you to solve this. Anyway, it’s an accident. Not attempted murder.”
“We don’t know that.”
She studied me. Velda had me down so well, she didn’t have to study long. She put a dozen words of question into just one: “What?”
I sipped the coffee. “Something’s off about it.”
“About the hit-and-run?”
“Yeah.”
“The News says young Colby narrowly escaped death. Do you have any reason to think somebody targeted him for a kill? Are you thinking you may have a well-heeled client on the hook? You’re not usually one for ambulance chasing.”
“Maybe I’m Ferrari chasing.”
The big brown eyes narrowed. “You know, Mike — Mr. Wall Street Hotshot’s reputation is pretty darn stellar. Colby is generally thought, around town, to be a good guy. Attends, and even occasionally throws, charity events. That AIDS benefit on Broadway last month? That was him.”
I sighed. Shook my head. “Truth, kitten? Something about that accident stinks. It had a staged look, a phony feel.”
She turned her head and looked at me sideways. “You mean faked?”
“I don’t know what I mean, frankly. He got hit all right, and his two Wall Street cronies hauled him off to the hospital. Maybe staged in the sense that it was no hit-and-run accident, but a murder attempt. I told you Casey Shannon mentioned two suspicious deaths Colby was at least on the fringes of.”
“And you think Shannon may’ve been investigating him, related to one or more of those deaths? Fine. So talk to Shannon.”
I shook my head. “If he’s working under deep cover for somebody over Pat’s head, Casey won’t give me a glimmer. Or if it’s personal, he’ll keep that close to his vest. No, I think the one to talk to is Vincent Colby.”
That widened her eyes. “If he’s up to having visitors.”
“If he isn’t,” I said, getting to my feet, “I’ll talk to his doctors. If he’s suffered some injuries, then maybe I’m all wet about that thing being staged. And he may need help at that.”
I was in my hat and coat at the door when she called out to me, still at her desk.
“Thanks for dropping by,” she said.
I had been to Bellevue Hospital many times, but never — as some might imagine — so I could be admitted to the mental ward. Still, you could go mad in certain quarters of the place. You could get spit on by prisoners in cuffs and orange jammies as you passed by, and you could pause to watch a dope addict slug a doc and make a break for it while nurses and guards hustled after him to save their jobs. You could glance through doors into featureless rooms where the homeless had finally found a place to die, or others where addicts were shrieking and writhing. Down the hall, an undocumented Haitian might be dying of AIDS, looking like something out of a zombie flick. Yes, you could drive yourself stark staring nuts without trying at all in the lower reaches of the city’s flagship hospital.
But I was not in a circle of hospital hell on this visit. I was headed to an upper floor in a wing funded by the likes of Vincent Colby’s family. I’d stopped in the First Avenue lobby at the information desk to pick up a visitor’s pass. I described myself as a friend and that’s all it took. Visiting hours were eight to eight, and it was just after nine a.m. now.
With my hat on and my coat over my sleeve, I stepped onto an elevator, and when I stepped off, I just about ran headlong into Sheila, the curvy redheaded hostess from Pete’s Chophouse.
You might figure she wouldn’t look as good this time of morning, making a hospital visit, and it’s true the fluorescent lighting wasn’t as flattering as the low-key illumination at the supper club. But the green-eyed beauty — in a denim jacket, pink sweater and jeans today — had the same lovely face with the Bardot mouth, now with blush on her cheeks and watermelon eye shadow to make her seem younger and more in tune with her generation’s style than last night’s green evening dress when she was playing hostess to dinosaurs like me.
One touch remained the same: she still had flesh-colored makeup applied to hide that shiner some son of a bitch gave her.
“Mike!” she said.
“Sheila. Am I that frightening?”
She smiled, laughed a little. “No, it’s just... always funny to run into somebody in another context, y’know? I never saw you anywhere but Pete’s. Or in the paper or on the TV news.”
I gave her half a smile. “I know what you mean. For example, I’ve known you for several years, but I never caught your last name.”
“It’s Ryan.” She gestured down the hall. “Are you here to...?”
Nodding, I said, “Stop by to see how Mr. Colby’s doing. I saw that hit-and-run go down, y’know. I take it that’s why you’re here?”
“It is.”
I gestured to a nearby nook where a patient’s relatives and friends could sit and wait and read ancient magazines. “Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
We shared a two-seater couch.
I asked, “How’s the patient doing?”
She shrugged. “A little groggy from the meds, but I think he’s doing all right. A doctor’s in with him now. You’re a friend of Vincent’s?”