"You're not an old man, Sid," she said impatiently, "and cut out the physical stuff. You've been around the block twice; what's your personal opinion of who I am and how I operate?"
He started slowly and carefully. "I think you're a very shrewd lady with more than your share of street smarts. I think you have a heavy need for the lush life. Ambitious. Money-hungry. With the morals of an alley cat."
She burst into laughter, tossed her head back; her long hair flung out in a swirl. "You've got me pegged," she said. "I plead guilty."
"There's nothing to feel guilty about," he told her. "You're the female equivalent of Turner, or me, or any other shark in the game. It's just a little unusual to find those characteristics in a woman. But I'm not condemning you. Au contraire, sweetie pie." "As long as you know," she said. "Know what?" he asked, puzzled. "What my motives are. I told you I resent the fact that some of your finder's fee is going to come out of my poke. I don't like that. I've worked too long on Clayton Starrett to turn over my take without trying to protect it. I also know you have eyes for me. You proved that in Kansas City."
"So I did," he admitted, "and you gave me the broom." "You still feel the same way?"
He looked at her approvingly. "Could be. What's on your mind, luv?"
"As long as you know it's not mad, carefree lust."
"That's a laugh," he said.
"It would be strictly a business deal," she said, looking steadily into his eyes. "My chance of getting back some of my contribution to your finder's fee. Shocked?"
"Hardly," he said, returning her stare. "It's in character. You're a tough lady, Helene."
"Tough?" she said. "You know any other way to survive?"
"No," he said, "I don't. So what you're getting at in your oblique way is that you'd like a kickback from what Turner pays me. For favors granted. Have I got it right?"
"You've got it right."
"And what size kickback were you planning to ask for?"
She leaned forward again. The sweater neckline widened. "I haven't even thought of it. I just wanted to try the concept with you. If you turned me down, that's it. If you're willing to play along, then we can work out the details. I'm a reasonable woman."
He laughed. "And I'm a reasonable man. We're two of a kind, we two. It's an interesting idea, Helene. Dangerous but interesting. If Turner ever finds out, we're both dead."
"You think I don't know that? But I'm willing to take the risk. Are you?"
He looked down at his drink, moved it in slow circles over the tabletop. He looked up again at the slim column of her bare throat and caught his breath.
"I might be willing to take a flier," he said. "But then we're faced with the problem of logistics. Specifically, where and when?"
"I can hardly see us checking into the Waldorf, can you?" she said. "Or any other Manhattan hotel or motel. Either of us might be seen and recognized. And it can't be my apartment. I think Clayton is paying off the concierge to keep track of my visitors. I just can't chance it. That only leaves your place."
"My place?" he protested. "It's an armpit."
"I'm sure I've seen worse," she said, then finished her drink. "Let's go there now and clinch the deal. This one will be a freebie to convince you that you're making a smart move."
"It's practically a monk's cell," he warned her.
"That might be fun," she said.
He surrendered completely. "It will be," he assured her.
Chapter 28
Arthur Rushkin had mentioned casually that after going over the computer printout, he had been "somewhat surprised" by the quantity of gold being traded by Starrett Fine Jewelry. Instead of being surprised, Dora thought grimly, he should have been shocked. But then the attorney hadn't spent a damp day doing research on gold in the public library, and he hadn't schmoozed with the shrewd jewelry merchants on West 47th Street.
The reaction of one of them, a tub of lard in a tight plaid suit, was typical. Dora inquired if the average jewelry store could use the weight of gold Starrett was allegedly selling, and he looked at her as if she had just landed in a flying saucer.
"Absolut imposs," he said in an accent she could not identify. "Total out of the ques, my lovely young miss. Never in a mill years or more."
He then went on to explain in his fractured English that the average jewelry shop made none of the items they stocked, but depended on distributors and wholesalers to keep them supplied. If they did repair work, they might keep a small inventory of gold wire, chains, clasps, settings, etc. But these would be 14- or 18-karat alloys, not the fine gold Dora was talking about.
"Then no jewelry store would need pounds or kilos of the stuff?" she asked.
"Ridic," he said. "Utter ridic. You want to build a Stat of Liber, God bless her soul, of pure gold? With that much you tell me, you could do it. But for a small store, not even grains or ounces of the fine. I speak the trut."
"I believe you," she said hastily, and other proprietors and salespersons she talked to told her the same thing.
So on a bright morning she sat in her hotel suite staring moodily at the mess stacked on the cocktail table: the computer printout, her library research, and her spiral notebooks.
She wondered where further investigation of Starrett's gold trading might lead. She questioned what, if anything, it had to do with the murder of Lewis Starrett and the beneficiaries' claim on his life insurance. That, after all, was her prime concern, and even if the gold trading turned out to be illegal but had nothing to do with Lewis Starrett's death, then she was just spinning her wheels.
She was still pondering her wisest course of action when the phone rang.
"H'lo," she said, almost absently.
"Hi, Red," John Wenden said. "I've got good news for you. I think we can drop the Starrett case."
"What?" she cried.
"Because if we just wait long enough," he went on, "everyone connected with it will get knocked off."
"John," she said, "what the hell are you talking about?"
"It just came over the Department wire," he said. "Early this morning, Sidney Loftus, also known as Father Brian Callaway, was found murdered in the back room of the Church of the Holy Oneness on East Twentieth Street."
"Oh my God," Dora breathed.
"There goes your favorite suspect in the Starrett kill," Wenden said. "Sorry about that, Red."
"Was he stabbed?" she asked.
"Now how did you guess that? This case has more knives than Hoffritz. Listen, I don't know any of the details, but I'm on my way there now. Will you be in this afternoon?"
"I'll make it a point to be."
"After I find out what went down, I'll give you a call or maybe stop by for a few minutes."
"Stop by," she urged. "I'll pick up some sandwich makings."
"Sounds good to me," he said. "I'm in a salami mood today."
"You'll get it," she promised.
After replacing the phone, she went back to staring at the stack of papers, not seeing them. Her first reaction to the news of Callaway's death was dread at how the killing might affect Mrs. Olivia Starrett. That poor woman had already suffered through the murders of her husband and a close family friend. Now she would have to endure the "passing" of a man who might have been a swindler but who undoubtedly served as her spiritual advisor and, Dora supposed, provided solace and counseling. Callaway's motives might have been venal, but Dora was convinced he was a comfort to Olivia, something she could not obtain from husband or family.