“I tell you and you’ll come sit beside me?”
I smiled and tried to bat my eyes. I think I just blinked them.
“You won’t have to go all the way,” he said. “We could, you know, just do a little touching.”
He drank half his bourbon.
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” I said.
He grinned.
“I don’t have to get on top of you or anything. I know I’d crush you.”
“Touching sounds nice,” I said.
He grinned and patted the couch beside him.
“Sit here, baby.”
“So, who was that lawyer?” I said.
“Oh, hell,” he said. “Pete Franklin.”
“Short for Peter?”
“Peter Winslow Franklin. Come on and sit down now.”
“And what if we, you know, do whatever, and I find out afterwards you were lying?”
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
He took a long, slim wallet out of his inside coat pocket, and opened it and took out a business card, and held it out to me. I leaned forward and took it and read it. It read Peter W. Franklin, and the firm’s name: Harrop and Moriarty. And a midtown Manhattan address.
“Here’s his damn card. Now come over here and put that cute ass down beside mine and let’s get things going.”
I put the card in my side pocket and stood.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said.
“I strung you along,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“You fucking bitch,” he said.
He stood and moved in front of the apartment door.
“You lying fucking bitch,” he said.
I almost felt bad for him.
“I’m going now,” I said.
“The fuck you are,” he said. “We had a deal.”
“Step out of the way,” I said.
I still had the drink in my left hand.
“You ain’t leaving, without you doing a few things like you promised.”
I sighed. There was no reason to mess with it. I threw my drink, glass and all, into his face. The rim of the glass caught him on the bridge of the nose and drew blood. He turned his head away and tried to wipe the bourbon out of his eyes, and I took a leather sap out of my right-hand coat pocket and hit him hard behind the left knee. It made the knee buckle, and he fell sideways. He started to cry.
“Bitches, you’re all bitches, all of you, bitch...”
I stepped past him and opened the door and went on down the stairs to the street. I felt kind of bad.
31
Harrop and Moriarty had offices on 57th across from Carnegie Hall, in the penthouse. There was a security guard in the lobby of the building, and the Harrop and Moriarty receptionist had to buzz the door open when I rang the bell. She was sleek and blonde and probably twenty-two. She was wearing a headset and microphone, and she spoke into the microphone and pushed some buttons several times while I stood.
“Harrop and Moriarty,” she said. “One moment, please.”
Pushed a button.
“Harrop and Moriarty. One moment, please.”
Pushed a button.
Finally, she looked up at me and smiled automatically.
“Peter Franklin,” I said.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“My name is Randall,” I said. “About Ike Rosen and Sarah Markham.”
She continued to smile.
“And did you have an appointment?”
“Ask Mr. Franklin,” I said. “He’ll want to see me.”
The receptionist sighed an understated I’ve-been-there-and-heard-that sigh, and punched a button.
“Ms. Randall, sir, about Ike Rosen and Sarah Markham.”
She listened for a minute and punched a button.
“Mr. Franklin will be right out to get you, Ms. Randall,” the receptionist said.
If she was disappointed, she didn’t show it. Very professional.
I stood for a moment, and a very handsome young man came down the corridor toward me. His dark hair was short and looked as if it never needed to be combed or cut. He wore a dark brown Harris tweed jacket and a tattersall shirt with a black knit tie. His charcoal flannel slacks were creased; his dark burgundy brogues gleamed with polish. When he put out a hand to me, I could see that his nails were manicured.
“Ms. Randall? Peter Franklin.”
His handshake was strong and square. He looked me straight in the eye when he spoke. His teeth gleamed evenly. His cologne was subtle. He was only a little taller than I was, but it was a minor flaw. Overall, he was spectacular.
“Let’s go on down to my office,” he said.
He was obviously a firm favorite. His office had two windows. I sat in a comfortable client chair with stainless-steel arms. He went behind his glass-topped stainless-steel semicircular desk and sat in his stainless-steel designer swivel chair. There was a big-screen television set and an assortment of VCR and DVD players wired into it, all in a big stainless-steel cabinet. I sensed a decorative theme. There were pictures galleried on the wall opposite his desk. Each had a stainless-steel frame. I nodded at the pictures.
“Clients?” I said.
“Yes,” Franklin said. “I work almost exclusively in the talent-representation end of the business.”
He put his palms together as if he was going to pray and pressed his fingertips against his lips and gazed at me.
“What is your first name, Ms. Randall?”
“Legally,” I said, “It’s Sonya, but I prefer Sunny.”
“Sunny Randall,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t there a football player?”
“My father’s little joke,” I said. “I spell mine S-u-n-n-y.”
He smiled, and his hazel eyes bored sincerely into mine.
“I spell mine P-e-t-e,” he said. “What brings you to me, Sunny?”
“Ike Rosen and Sarah Markham,” I said.
He frowned a little.
“Rosen, I know,” he said. “Worked here once for a little while. Heard he was disbarred.”
“So the phrase ‘attorney at law’ on his card is misleading?” I said.
“He cannot practice law in the state of New York,” Peter said. “Sarah I don’t know.”
“Sarah Markham,” I said.
Peter thought and thought and finally shook his head sadly.
“No, I simply don’t know Sarah Markham,” he said.
“How about Lewis Karp?” I said.
Peter looked bemused.
“Am I on Candid Camera?” he said. “What are you up to, Sunny?”
I took one of my cards out of my purse and handed it to him. He read it and sat back.
“Aha,” he said. “Well, you are about the best-looking detective I know.”
“Yes, thank you, I probably am,” I said. “Tell me about Lewis Karp and Ike Rosen.”
“I can tell you about Rosen,” Peter said. “He is a drunk and a compulsive liar. We fired him here.”
“What was he disbarred for?” I said.
“I don’t know the details. Some sort of financial irregularities. It was after he’d left us.”
“He says he put you in touch with a lawyer in Boston named Lewis Karp,” I said.
Peter smiled broadly.
“Ike Rosen? If I need a contact in Boston I can get one without Ike Rosen. Usually, we do business with Cone Oakes.”
“Good firm,” I said. “But according to Lew Karp, you needed someone who could arrange to have Sarah Markham beaten up. Cone Oakes might not have been your best bet.”
Peter took his praying hands down from his lips and clasped them on the desk before him and leaned toward me. Sincerity radiated from him like strong aftershave.
“I don’t know Sarah Markham. I don’t know Lew Karp. I don’t want anyone beaten up.” He smiled at me. “Except maybe all of the Knicks. I represent some of the most important media people in the country. I don’t arrange beatings.”