Mallory looked back to Harry Kipling. ‘It’s hard to see her and the husband as a couple.’
‘Because Harry is so ridiculously good-looking? Because Angel looks like she escaped from a hole in a Grimm brothers fairy tale? You might have something there.’
‘Makes you wonder what she has on him.’
‘I like the way your mind works, Mallory. Since you’re digging around anyway, dear, you might want to share with a new friend.’
‘Harry Kipling – is he one of the heirs to Kipling Electronics?’
‘No. Should I be wondering what these men have in common?’
‘What’s his story?’
‘The usual thing. He lives off his wife’s money and fobs himself off as an investment counselor. I doubt that he handles any of Angel’s money. I believe she gives him an allowance. All the charge accounts around town are in her name. Now you have to watch out for Angel. She was misnamed. She’s the heiress to Kipling Electronics. Her father started the company.’
‘And then he named it after his son-in-law?’
‘Harry took Angel’s family name. It was a condition of the prenuptial agreement. If you took more of an interest in gossip, you’d know that.’
‘What’s his real name?’
‘No one ever cared enough to wonder. If you’re thinking he might have an interesting past, I doubt it. Angel’s father would have had him checked out, and even checked behind his ears. Oh, hit the floor, Mallory, here comes the troll. She probably saw you looking at her husband. Did you bring a weapon, dear?’
In fact she had left her gun in the apartment.
Angel Kipling was crossing the floor in a straight line of terrible, sure purpose. As she neared them, Betty Hyde backed up slightly, unconsciously. Mallory didn’t.
The Kipling woman had a poor understanding of personal space. Now her face was entirely too close, and matching Mallory’s eye-level from a height of five-ten, plus high heels.
‘I understand you’re a friend of the Rosens,’ said Angel Kipling. ‘Is it true they keep a baby shark in their apartment?’ She looked down at the older woman. ‘Oh, hello Betty.’
Betty Hyde nodded to Angel and went through the introduction of, not Miss Mallory, but only Mallory.
Mallory could not take her eyes off the hairs extending from Angel Kipling’s upper lip. They were long like a cat’s whiskers, but not symmetrical. The body was a potato attached to toothpick legs and sausages for arms. The crown of her head was an interesting mix of three failed experiments in hair coloring, striping brown at the root into blonde and then black.
A wealthy woman with do-it-yourself hair. Interesting.
‘So tell me, Miss Mallory, what do you think of our building?’
‘Just Mallory.’
‘It’s an historical landmark, you know. Lillian Russel, the old-time actress, kept an apartment here so Diamond Jim Brady could visit her on the sly.’
‘And Dylan Thomas threw up on this rug,’ added Betty Hyde.
Angel Kipling looked down as though there might be a recent stain. She turned back to Mallory. ‘Let me introduce you to my husband.’
The troll put up a hand with one pudgy finger extended as though she were flagging down a taxi or a waiter. From across the room, Harry Kipling’s body assumed the stance of attention and hurried toward her.
‘Do you have children?’ asked Angel Kipling.
‘No, I don’t. Do you?’
‘Oh, there’s Peter, but he’s away most of the year.’ The tall man entered the small circle of women. ‘Harry, this is Miss Mallory. She’s staying in the Rosens’ apartment while they’re out of town. I heard Hattie Rosen was going to the Mayo clinic for cancer. Is that true? Miss Mallory -Kathy, right?’
‘Just Mallory.’ And how did Angel Kipling know her first name? Perhaps Angel’s spies were as well paid as Betty Hyde’s.
Angel Kipling turned to the tall man with the dark hair and the cobalt eyes. ‘I was just telling Kathy about our building.’
Harry Kipling was more than good-looking. His shoulders were broad, giving him the aspect of an athlete – good baby-making material. What was he doing with the troll? If he had married for money, he could have done better.
‘I use your wife’s computer chips,’ said Mallory.
‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t know a computer chip from a potato chip. Investment is my line.’ His voice had a smoky quality, and it was seductive in the mellow notes.
Betty Hyde took Mallory’s arm and, smiling at the Kiplings, she led her away, saying, ‘You were staring too long at Harry. Don’t turn around. I think you’re his type. Of course, he’s a little old for my tastes. I never touch a man over thirty, and he’s almost forty. No, don’t turn around. I’m watching his wife. She’s drawing a bead on you. If looks were bullets, you’d be on the floor and bleeding from a hole between your pretty eyes.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Harry Kipling, catching up to them, sans Angel, who had gone back to terrorizing the blind man. ‘Didn’t you die on television the other night?’
‘Acting,’ said Mallory.
‘Oh, you’re an actress,’ said Kipling.
‘I thought you were a police officer,’ said Moss White, the talk show host, who had suddenly appeared at Kipling’s side. White was the stuff television executives swooned over. The mouth was full and sensual, and the softness carried into the liquid brown eyes. He was born for television.
‘So you’re an actress,’ said White. ‘God, they didn’t get anything right, did they? I wonder if we could discuss a guest appearance on my television show? It might be good for your career. Just a spot where you tell the viewing audience what it’s like to be declared dead by the media. They thought you were dead when they found you in the park, right?’
She turned slowly to Harry Kipling, who was arranging his features into a piano’s worth of white teeth. His face had a rugged quality that made Moss White seem almost feminine by comparison.
Betty was pulling her away again, and they were drifting across the wide floor toward Judge Emery Heart, the candidate for the Supreme Court nomination.
‘Moss White has an accent,’ said Mallory. ‘England or Australia?’
‘Indiana. He spent six weeks in London, four years ago. He’s been talking that way ever since. Moss is a quick study. I paid a hundred an hour for my accent, and it took me years.’
And now Mallory and Hyde were standing before an austere man who might have stepped out of an ad for middle-aged upscale clothing.
‘Judge Heart, may I present Mallory, the well-known television personality?’
The judge gave off the unmistakable odor of a good politician. The smile was instant, and the brown eyes were intent. ‘Forgive me, I don’t watch very much television, Miss Mallory. What sort of program do you have?’
‘I was only on for five minutes. I played a corpse.’
The smile faltered for a moment while the judge’s appraising eye was reassessing her importance in the scheme of things. Now the smile was back with full force. ‘Well, they say there are no small parts. This is my wife, Pansy.’
Mallory turned to the small, anxious woman at his side. And yes, there definitely were strings that tied her to her husband.
‘Isn’t that right, Pansy?’ the judge prompted. ‘No small parts?’
The woman nodded automatically, stiffly. She smiled too quickly, and the sudden display of teeth was startling in the context of her eyes. And yes, there was a bruise below a heavy layer of make-up.
‘Do you have family with you, Miss Mallory?’ asked Pansy.