“Okay.”
But it was awhile before sleep carried me off that night.
Only to awake the following morning to a day that would start with a ride with Stu Spagnoletti, be punctuated by the Cough Drop Incident and a museum-quality Hell Bitch melt-down, and end with the Hell Bitch herself disappearing from the face of the earth.
The morning after all that happened we met for our 10 a.m. working group session on the Park Avenue deal, and that’s when we noticed we were short one Hell Bitch. When she hadn’t shown by 10:30, I left the conference room and chased her assistant down by phone. “Patsie, have you heard from Diane?”
“No. I haven’t seen or heard from her since last night when I called a Town Car for her just before I left.”
“Can you try her at home and on her cell, please?”
After that I had no choice but to go back in the conference room and get the meeting started. They were all there but the Hell Bitch, and by that I mean the Gerstens, their lawyers, and my client’s representative, Manhattan celebrity broker Donnie Dominick.
The Gerstens’ lawyer started right in about the Hell Bitch not being there.
“Where is she, anyway?”
“I honestly couldn’t say. Her assistant is trying to track her down now.”
The lawyer laid his pencil down on his stack of deal documents and crossed his arms over his chest. “Without her, we really can’t get much done, can we? I mean, unless you’re prepared to assure us that you speak for both her and your client.”
We all knew what he meant by this. Any deal we make with you, she’s just gonna un-make at the next meeting, hotshot. Why should we waste our time?
I looked at Donnie. He shrugged. I could tell he agreed with the Gerstens’ lawyer.
“You want to reschedule?”
“Maybe we should.”
Nods all around, and we broke up with plans to meet the next day.
Only, the next day? Still no Hell Bitch.
And at that point, I really had no choice.
I crossed my fingers and took control of the deal and gave the Gerstens’ lawyer the assurances he was looking for. Then I worked around the clock on the damn thing to resolve all the open issues, including the rescission clause.
Four sleepless days later, three things happened: I closed the Park Avenue deal; the Hell Bitch turned up graveyard dead, stuffed into a refrigerator in a vacant lot in the Bronx; and Katy was rushed to the hospital with full-blown pneumonia, damn near dead herself.
A week after they found the Hell Bitch’s body, I was taking a break from my vigil in ICU at Presbyterian, headed down to the cafeteria in search of caffeine, when two NYPD Homicide detectives badged me by the elevators.
“Your office said we would find you here,” said the older one, a short guy with a face like a basset hound, whose name was French.
“We’re working the Diane Martin case. We wanna ask you a few questions,” said his partner, a tall guy in spectacles with a prominent nose whose name was Reston.
“Can we do it over coffee?”
“Sure.”
Five minutes later we were down in the cafeteria sipping coffee and French was talking to me while he consulted his notebook. “Ms. Martin’s assistant says she called her usual Town Car service to pick her up the night she went missing. We checked with them, and they say they got that call all right, but then they got a second call canceling the car. Ms. Martin’s assistant said she made just the one call, the first one, so we’re wondering if something hinky went down.
“Anyhow, Ms. Martin was seen by one of your colleagues getting into a Town Car at the west entrance to 200 Park at approximately 7:30 that night. George and me, we been all over this city talking to limo drivers who picked up at that spot that night. Yesterday we found a guy, says he remembers seeing Ms. Martin get into a car. He remembers her because he drove for her once and she lost her temper at him.”
I sipped my coffee. “She had a short fuse.”
“Our guy said he got a look at her driver when he got out from behind the wheel to open the door for her. The guy who was driving for her that night, he looked different.”
“Different how?”
“Different as in not clean cut like your typical chauffeur who drives rich lawyers around. Our witness sat with a sketch artist and this is what the two of them came up with.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on the table.
Looking back at me was a perfect likeness of my brother-in-law, Hiram Redding.
French said, “You ever seen this guy, Mr. Carson?”
I swallowed hard and looked the cop in the eye. “Nope.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
He nodded and peered at his partner. “We understand from talking to some of your colleagues that you had a nick-name for the victim.”
“A nickname?”
“A way of referring to her. Could you tell us what that was, please?”
“The Hell Bitch.” My voice came out a little squeaky. I cleared my throat and said, “I called her the Hell Bitch.”
“Not a very nice way to refer to somebody, is it?”
“It was a joke. Like I said, she had a temper. And she wasn’t afraid to use it. It was just a joke.”
“We talked to a Mr. Biallo in your office this afternoon. He says you once said you thought maybe it would not be such a bad idea if someone was to kill Ms. Martin.”
“I was kidding. For chrissakes — Frank knew I was just kidding.”
“Doesn’t seem all that funny now, does it?”
“No.”
“Do you know how she died?”
“I heard she was shot.”
“Once. In the back of the head.” The cop made quotation marks with his fingers. “‘Execution style,’ like they say in the papers. You know a Mr. Stu Spagnoletti?”
“He’s a neighbor of mine.”
“You were seen getting in a car with him the morning the victim disappeared.”
“It was snowing. I needed a ride to the office. He offered. I accepted.”
The cop tapped the sketch with a forefinger. “You sure you don’t know this person?”
“Positive.”
“Okay.” The two cops stood to go. “Before we go—”
“I know. You don’t want me to leave town.”
The two cops looked at one another. Then French said, “I was gonna say, we just want you to know, we hope your wife gets better soon.”
With that they turned and walked away.
When I knocked on his apartment door, Stu answered it himself.
“How’s the little woman doin’?” he said.
“Better. She’s regained consciousness and the doctors say they think she’s gonna make it. Thanks for asking. Now I have a question for you.”
He shifted his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay.”
“Did you have Diane Martin whacked?”
“Who is Diane Martin?”
“My boss. She was murdered last week.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“She wasn’t showing the flex you and the Gerstens wanted to see in the air rights deal. Maybe you decided she was the problem and that she needed to be gotten rid of. Knowing that I would take the lead in negotiating the deal once she disappeared and that I would come up with a reasonable compromise — with something we Texans call ‘rough justice.’ A deal that works for both buyer and seller, even if it’s not perfect for either one. Which is just exactly what happened.”
“Good for you.”
“You’re telling me you had nothing to do with her death.”
“I’m tellin’ you I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”