Myles had said flatly, “She’s not sleeping. She’s dead. And, Sal, don’t call her that again ever. That was my name for her.”
Till now he never had. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Sal gulped the rest of his martini and stood up. “Be right back,” he said, beaming, and headed down the hallway to the guest bathroom.
Devin sighed. “He may be a genius designer, but he still has more spit than polish.”
“He also gave me my start,” Neeve reminded them. “If it weren’t for Sal, I’d probably be an assistant buyer in Bloomingdale’s right now.”
She saw the look on Myles’s face and warned, “Don’t tell me I’d be better off.”
“That never crossed my mind.”
When she served dinner, Neeve lit the candles and muted the overhead chandelier. The room was softly shadowed. Each course was pronounced excellent. Myles and the Bishop had seconds of everything. Sal had thirds. “So forget the diet,” he said. “This is the best kitchen in Manhattan.”
Over dessert inevitably the talk turned to Renata. “This is one of her recipes,” Neeve told them. “Prepared especially for you two. I’ve really just started getting into her cookbooks, and it’s fun.”
Myles told them about the possibility of heading up the Drug Enforcement Agency.
“I may be keeping you company in the Washington area,” Devin said with a smile, then added, “strictly off the record.”
Sal insisted on helping Neeve clear the table and volunteered to prepare the espresso. As he busied himself with the espresso machine, Neeve took from the breakfront the exquisite gold-and-green demitasse cups that had been in the Rossetti family for generations.
The sound of a thud and a cry of pain made them rush to the kitchen. The espresso pot had toppled over, flooding the counter and soaking Renata’s cookbook. Sal was running his fiery-red hand under cold water. His face was ghastly white. “The handle on that damn pot came off.” He tried to sound nonchalant. “Myles, I think you’re trying to get back at me for breaking your arm when we were kids.”
It was obvious the burn was nasty and painful.
Neeve scrambled for the eucalyptus leaves Myles always kept for burn emergencies. She patted Sal’s hand dry and covered it with the leaves, then wrapped it in a soft linen napkin. The Bishop righted the demitasse pot and began mopping up. Myles was drying the cookbook. Neeve saw the expression in his eyes as he studied Renata’s sketches, which were now thoroughly soaked and stained.
Sal noticed as well. He pulled his hand from Neeve’s ministrations. “Myles, for God’s sake, I’m sorry.”
Myles held the book over the sink, drained the puddles of coffee from it and, covering it with a towel, laid it carefully on top of the refrigerator. “What the hell have you got to be sorry about? Neeve, I never saw that damn coffeemaker before. When did you get it?”
Neeve began to make fresh espresso in the old pot. “It was a gift,” she said reluctantly. “Ethel Lambston sent it to you for Christmas after she was here for the party.”
Devin Stanton looked bewildered as Myles, Neeve and Sal burst into wry laughter.
“I’ll explain it when we get settled, Your Grace,” Neeve said. “My God, no matter what I do, I can’t lose Ethel even for the space of a dinner.”
• • •
Over espresso and Sambuca, she told about Ethel’s apparent disappearance. Myles’s comment was, “As long as she stays out of sight.”
Trying not to wince at the pain in his rapidly blistering hand, Sal poured a second Sambuca and said, “There isn’t a designer on Seventh Avenue she hasn’t bugged about that article. To answer your question, Neeve, she phoned me last week and insisted on being put through. We were in the middle of a meeting. She had a couple of questions like ‘Was it true you had the school record for playing hookey at Christopher Columbus High School?’”
Neeve stared at him. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“No joke at all. My guess is Ethel’s article is to debunk all the stories we designers pay publicists to grind out about us. That may be hot stuff for an article, but tell me it’s worth half a million bucks for a book! It boggles my mind.”
Neeve was about to volunteer that Ethel wasn’t actually offered the advance, then bit her tongue. Jack Campbell had obviously not meant that to get around.
“By the way,” Sal added, “the word is that your tip about Steuber’s sweatshops is really turning up a lot of dirt. Neeve, stay away from that guy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Myles asked sharply.
Neeve had not told Myles about the rumor that, because of her, Gordon Steuber might be indicted. She shook her head at Sal as she said, “He’s a designer I stopped buying from because of the way he does business.” She appealed to Sal, “I still say there’s something wrong about the way Ethel dropped out of sight. You know she bought all her clothes from me, and every single one of her winter coats is in the closet.”
Sal shrugged. “Neeve, I’ll be honest, Ethel’s such a flake she probably ran out without a coat and never noticed it. Watch and see. She’ll show up in something she bought off the rack at J. C. Penney’s.”
Myles laughed. Neeve shook her head. “You’re a big help.”
Before they left the table, Devin Stanton offered grace. “We thank Thee, Lord, for good friendship, for the delicious meal, for the beautiful young woman who prepared it, and we ask you to bless the memory of Renata whom we all loved.”
“Thank you, Dev.” Myles touched the Bishop’s hand. Then he laughed. “And if she were here, she’d be telling you to clean up her kitchen, Sal, because you made the mess.”
When the Bishop and Sal had left, Neeve and Myles stacked the dishwasher and washed the pots and pans in companionable silence. Neeve picked up the offending espresso pot. “Might as well ditch this before somebody else is scalded,” she observed.
“No, leave it alone,” Myles told her. “It looks expensive enough, and I can fix it someday when I’m watching Jeopardy.”
Jeopardy. To Neeve the word seemed to hang in the air. Shaking her head impatiently at the thought, she turned off the kitchen light and kissed Myles good night. She glanced around to be sure everything was in order. The light from the foyer shone faintly into the den, and Neeve winced as she watched it fall on the blistered, smeared pages of Renata’s cookbook, which Myles had placed on the top of his desk.
8|
On Friday morning, Ruth Lambston left the apartment while Seamus was shaving. She did not say goodbye to him. The memory of the way his face had convulsed in anger when she held out the hundred-dollar bill to him was imprinted on her mind. In these last years, the monthly alimony check had choked off every emotion she felt for him except resentment. Now a new emotion had been added. She was afraid. Of him? For him? She didn’t know.
Ruth made twenty-six thousand dollars a year as a secretary. With taxes and Social Security taken out and her expenses for carfare and clothes and lunches, she estimated that her net earnings three days a week just about made up Ethel’s alimony. “I’m slaving for that harridan” was a sentence that she regularly threw at Seamus.
Usually Seamus tried to soothe her. But last night his face had convulsed in rage. He’d raised his fist and for a moment she’d flinched, sure he was going to hit her. But he’d snatched the hundred-dollar bill and torn it in half. “You want to know where I got it?” he’d shouted. “That bitch gave it to me. When I asked her to let me off the hook, she told me that she’d be glad to help me. She’d been too busy to eat out much, so this was left over from last month.”
“Then she didn’t tell you to stop sending the checks?” Ruth cried.
The anger on his face had turned to hatred. “Maybe I convinced her that any human being can take just so much. Maybe it’s something you ought to learn, too.”
The answer had left Ruth in a temper that still made her breath come in sharp, harsh gasps. “Don’t you dare threaten me,” she’d shouted and then watched
horrified as Seamus burst into tears. Sobbing, he told her how he’d put the check with the letter, how the kid who lived upstairs from Ethel had talked about his delivering the ransom. “Her whole building thinks I’m a joke.”
All night Ruth had lain awake in one of the girls’ bedrooms, so filled with contempt for Seamus that she could not endure the thought of being near him. Toward morning she realized that the contempt was for herself as well. That woman has turned me into a shrew, she thought. It’s got to end.
Now her mouth was set in a harsh, straight line as, instead of turning right toward Broadway and the subway station, she walked straight up West End Avenue. There was a sharp early-morning breeze, but her low-heeled shoes made it possible to move quickly.
She was going to confront Ethel. She should have done it years ago. She’d read enough of Ethel’s articles to know that Ethel postured herself as a feminist. But now that she’d signed a big book contract, she really was vulnerable. Page Six of the Post would love to print that she was gouging one thousand dollars a month from a man with three daughters in college. Ruth permitted herself a grim smile. If Ethel didn’t surrender her alimony rights, Ruth would go for her throat. First the Post. Then court.
She’d gone to the personnel office of her company for an emergency loan to cover the tuition check. The personnel director had been shocked to learn about the alimony. “I’ve got a friend who’s a good matrimonial lawyer,” she’d said. “She can afford to do pro-bono work and she’d love to have a case like this. The way I understand it, you can’t break an irrevocable alimony agreement, but it might be about time to test the law. If you get public outrage going, things might happen.”
Ruth had hesitated. “I don’t want to embarrass the girls. It would mean admitting the bar is barely making enough money to keep the doors open. Let me think about it.”
As she crossed Seventy-third Street, Ruth thought, Either she gives up the alimony or I see that lawyer.
A young woman with a child in a stroller was bearing down on her. Ruth stepped to one side to avoid her and collided with a thin-faced man in a cap that almost covered his face and a filthy overcoat that smelled of stale wine. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she clutched her pocketbook and scurried to the opposite curb. The side-walks were so crowded, she thought. Kids rushing with schoolbooks, old-timers making an outing of the daily walk to the newsstand, people on the way to work trying to flag down cabs.
Ruth had never forgotten the house they’d almost bought in Westchester twenty years ago. Thirty-five thousand dollars then and must be worth ten times that now. When the bank saw the alimony payments, the mortgage hadn’t been approved.
She turned east on Eighty-second Street, Ethel’s block. Squaring her shoulders, Ruth adjusted her rimless glasses, unconsciously preparing herself like a fighter about to enter the ring. Seamus had told her that Ethel had the ground-floor apartment with its own entrance. The name over the bell, “E. Lambston,” confirmed that fact.
From inside she could hear the faint sounds of a radio playing. She pressed her index finger firmly on the bell. But there was no response to her first or second ring. Ruth was not to be dissuaded. The third time she rang the bell, she pressed relentlessly.
The loud ringing went on for fully a minute before she was rewarded by the click of the lock turning. The door was yanked open. A young man, his hair tousled, his shirt still unbuttoned, glared at her. “What the hell do you want?” he asked. Then he made a visible attempt to calm down. “I’m sorry. Are you a friend of Aunt Ethel’s?”
“Yes, and I must see her.” Ruth moved forward, forcing the young man to block her way or let her pass. He stepped back, and she was in the living room. Quickly she glanced around. Seamus always talked about Ethel’s messy housekeeping, but this place was spotless. Too many papers around, but they were stacked in neat piles. Fine antique furniture. Seamus had told her about the pieces he had bought for Ethel. And I live with those overstuffed horrors, Ruth thought.
“I’m Douglas Brown.” Doug felt clammy apprehension. There was something about this woman, about the way she was sizing up the apartment, that made him nervous. “I’m Ethel’s nephew,” he said. “Do you have an appointment with her?”
“No. But I insist on seeing her immediately.” Ruth introduced herself. “I’m Seamus Lambston’s wife and I’m here to collect the last check he gave your aunt. As of now there’s no more alimony being paid.”
There was a stack of mail on the desk. Near the top of the pile, she saw a white envelope with maroon edging, the stationery the girls had given Seamus for his birthday. “I’ll take that,” she said.
Before Doug could stop her, the envelope was in her hand. She ripped it open and pulled out the contents. Scanning them, she shredded the check and returned the note to the envelope.
As Doug Brown stared, too startled to protest, she reached into her purse and extracted the pieces of the hundred-dollar bill Seamus had torn. “She isn’t here, I gather,” she said.
“You have a hell of a nerve,” Doug snapped. “I could have you arrested for this.”
“I wouldn’t try,” Ruth told him. “Here.” She shoved the torn pieces of the bill into his hand. “You tell that parasite to tape this together and have her final fancy dinner on my husband. Tell her she’s not getting another nickel from us and if she tries she’ll regret it with every breath she draws for the rest of her life.”
Ruth did not give Doug a chance to answer. Instead she walked over to the wall where Ethel’s pictures were displayed and studied them. “She postures herself as doing good for all kinds of vague, undefined causes and goes around accepting her damn awards, and yet the one person who ever tried to treat her as a woman, as a human being, she’s hounding to his grave.” Ruth turned to face Doug. “I think she’s despicable. I know what she thinks of you. You eat the food at fancy restaurants that my husband and I and our children are paying for, and, not satisfied with that, you steal from that woman. Ethel told my husband about you. I can only say, you deserve each other.”
She was gone. His lips ashen, Doug collapsed onto the couch. Whom else had Ethel, with her big mouth, told about his habit of helping himself to her alimony loot?
• • •
When Ruth stepped onto the sidewalk she was hailed by a woman standing on the stoop of the brownstone. She looked to be in her early forties. Ruth observed that her blond hair was fashionably messy, that her pullover sweater and narrow slacks were trendy, and that her expression could only be described as one of unrestrained curiosity.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” the woman said, “but I’m Georgette Wells, Ethel’s neighbor, and I’m worried about her.”
A thin teenager pushed open the house door, clattered down the steps and stood beside Wells. Her sharp eyes looked over Ruth and took in the fact that she was standing in front of Ethel’s apartment. “You a friend of Ms. Lambston?” she asked.
Ruth was sure that this was the girl who had taunted Seamus. Intense dislike combined with cold, sinking dread to congeal her stomach muscles. Why was this woman worried about Ethel? She thought of the murderous fury on Seamus’ face when he talked about Ethel’s thrusting the hundred-dollar bill into his pocket. She thought of the tidy apartment she had just left. How many times over the years had Seamus told her that all Ethel had to do was walk into a room and it was as though the nuclear bomb hit it? Ethel had not been in that apartment recently.
“Yes,” Ruth said, trying to sound pleasant. “I’m surprised Ethel isn’t in, but is there any reason to worry?”
“Dana, get to school,” her mother ordered. “You’ll be late again.”
Dana pouted. “I want to hear.”
“All right, all right,” Wells said impatiently, and turned back to Ruth. “There’s something funny going on. Last week Ethel had a visit from her ex. Usually he only comes on the fifth of the month if he hasn’t mailed the alimony. So when I saw him sneaking around last Thursday afternoon, I thought something was funny
. I mean it was only the thirtieth, so why should he pay her early? Well, let me tell you, they had a battle royal! I could hear them shouting at each other like I was in the room.”
Ruth managed to keep her voice steady. “What were they saying?”
“Well, what I mean is I could hear shouting sounds. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I started to come downstairs just in case Ethel might be in trouble . . .”
No, you wanted to hear better, Ruth thought.
“. . . but then my phone rang and it was my mother calling from Cleveland about my sister’s divorce, and it was an hour before Ma stopped for breath. By then the fight was over. I phoned Ethel. She’s really funny about her ex. Her imitation of him is priceless, you know? But she didn’t answer, so I figured she’d gone out. You know the kind of person Ethel is—always rushing somewhere. But she usually tells me if she’s going to be away for more than a couple of days, and she didn’t say a word. Now her nephew is staying at the apartment and that’s funny, too.”
Georgette Wells folded her arms. “Kind of cold, isn’t it? Crazy weather. All that hair spray in the ozone, I guess. Anyhow,” she continued as Ruth stared at her and Dana hung on every word, “I have a very funny feeling that something happened to Ethel, and that wimp of an ex-husband of hers had something to do with it.”
“And don’t forget, Mama,” Dana interrupted, “he came back on Wednesday and he acted real scared about something.”
“I was going to get to that. You saw him Wednesday. That was the fifth, so that means he was probably delivering the check. Then I saw him yesterday. Will you tell me why he came back? But nobody’s seen Ethel. Now, the way I figure it, he might have done something to her and maybe left a clue that’s worrying him.” Georgette Wells smiled triumphantly, her story completed. “As a good friend of Ethel’s,” she asked Ruth, “help me decide. Should I call the police and tell them I think my neighbor may have been murdered?”
• • •
On Friday morning, Kitty Conway received a call from the hospital. One of the volunteer drivers was sick. Could she possibly fill in?