While My Pretty One Sleeps

  Ethel had bracketed that sentence and marked it “Save.” Ginny had told Jack about Steuber’s arrest after the drug bust. Had Ethel discovered several weeks ago that Steuber was smuggling heroin in the linings and seams of his imports?

  It ties in, Jack thought. It ties in with Neeve’s theory about the clothes Ethel was wearing. It ties in with Ethel’s “big scandal.”

  Jack debated about calling Myles, then decided to show the file to Neeve first.

  Neeve. Was it really possible that he’d known her for only six days? No. Six years. He’d been looking for her since that day on the plane. He glanced at the phone. His need to be with her was overpowering. He hadn’t even once held her in his arms, and now they ached for her. She’d said she’d phone him from her Uncle Sal’s place when she was ready to leave.

  Sal. Anthony della Salva, the famous designer. The next pile of clippings and fashion sketches and articles were about him. Glancing at the phone, willing Neeve to call now, Jack began to go through the file on Anthony della Salva. It was thick with illustrations of the Pacific Reef collection. I can see why people went for it, Jack thought, and I don’t know beans about fashion. The dresses and gowns seemed to float from the pages. He skimmed the write-ups of the fashion reporters. “Slender tunics with drifting panels that fall like wings from the shoulders . . .”; “. . . soft, pleated sleeves on gossamer-like chiffon . . .”; “. . . simple wool daytime dresses that drape the body in understated elegance . . .” The reporters were lyrical in their praise of the colors.

  Anthony della Salva visited the Chicago Aquarium early in 1972 and found his inspiration there in the aquatic beauty of the magnificent Pacific Reef exhibit.

  For hours he walked through the rooms and sketched the underwater kingdom where the brilliantly beautiful creatures of the sea vie with the wondrous plant life, the clusters of coral trees and the hundreds of exquisitely colored shells. He sketched those colors in the patterns and combinations that nature had decreed. He studied the movement of the ocean dwellers so that he might capture with his scissors and fabric the floating grace that is their birthright.

  Ladies, put those man-tailored suits and those evening gowns with their ruffled sleeves and voluminous skirts in the back of your closet. This is your year to be beautiful. Thank you, Anthony della Salva.

  I guess he is good, Jack thought, and started to stack the della Salva file together, then wondered what was bothering him. There was something he had missed. What was it? He had read Ethel’s final draft of her article. Now he looked at the next-to-the-last version.

  It was deeply annotated. “Chicago Aquarium—check date he visited it!” Ethel had clipped one of the fashion sketches of the Pacific Reef collection to the top of her working draft. Next to it she had drawn a sketch.

  Jack’s mouth went dry. He had seen that sketch in the last few days. He had seen it in the stained pages of Renata Kearny’s cookbook.

  And the Aquarium. “Check date.” Of course! With dawning horror, he began to understand. He had to be sure. It was nearly six o’clock. That meant that in Chicago it was nearly five. Rapidly he dialed Chicago area code information.

  At one minute to five, Chicago time, the number he dialed was answered. “Please call the director in the morning,” an impatient voice told him.

  “Give him my name. He knows me. I must speak to him immediately, and let me tell you, lady, if I find out he’s there and you don’t put me through, I’ll get your job.”

  “I’ll connect you, sir.”

  A moment later, a surprised voice asked, “Jack, what’s going on?”

  The question tumbled from Jack’s lips. He realized his hands were clammy. Neeve, he thought, Neeve, be careful. He stared down at Ethel’s article and noticed where she had written, “We salute Anthony della Salva for creating the Pacific Reef look.” Ethel had crossed out della Salva’s name and over it written: “the designer of the Pacific Reef look.”

  The answer from the curator of the Aquarium was even more frightening than he had anticipated. “You’re absolutely right. And you know what’s crazy? You’re the second person to call about that in the last two weeks.”

  “Do you know who the other one was?” Jack asked, knowing what he would hear.

  “Sure I do. Some writer. Edith . . . Or no, Ethel. Ethel Lambston.”

  • • •

  Myles had an unexpectedly busy day. At ten o’clock, the phone rang. Would he be available at noon to discuss the position he was being offered in Washington? He agreed to luncheon in the Oak Room of the Plaza. In the late morning, he went to the Athletic Club for a swim and massage and secretly was delighted at the confirmation the masseur gave him: “Commissioner Kearny, your body’s in great shape again.”

  Myles knew that his skin had lost that ghastly pallor. But it wasn’t just appearance. He felt happy. I may be sixty-eight, he thought as he knotted his tie in the locker room, but I look all right.

  I took all right to myself, he decided ruefully as he waited for the elevator. A woman may see it differently. Or, more specifically, he acknowledged as he stepped from the lobby onto Central Park South and turned right toward Fifth Avenue and the Plaza, Kitty Conway may see me in a less flattering light.

  The luncheon with a Presidential aide had one purpose. Myles must give his answer. Would he accept the chairmanship of the Drug Enforcement Agency? Myles promised to make his decision in the next forty-eight hours. “We’re hoping it’s affirmative,” the aide told him. “Senator Moynihan seems to think it will be.”

  Myles smiled. “I never cross Pat Moynihan.”

  It was when he returned to the apartment that the sense of well-being vanished. He had left a window in the den open. As he entered the room, a pigeon flew in, circled, hovered, perched on the windowsill and then flew out over the Hudson. “A pigeon in the house is a sign of death.” His mother’s words pounded in his ears.

  Crazy, superstitious rot, Myles thought angrily, but the persistent sense of foreboding could not be shaken. He realized he wanted to talk to Neeve. Quickly he dialed the shop.

  Eugenia got on. “Commissioner, she just left for Seventh Avenue. I can try to track her down.”

  “No. Not important,” Myles said. “But if she happens to phone, tell her to give me a call.”

  He had just put the receiver down when the phone rang. It was Sal confirming that he too was worried about Neeve.

  For the next half hour, Myles debated about calling Herb Schwartz. But for what? It wasn’t that Neeve would be a witness against Steuber. It was just that she’d pointed the finger at him and set the investigation in motion. Myles acknowledged that a hundred-million-dollar drug bust was enough reason for Steuber and his cohorts to exact revenge.

  Maybe I can persuade Neeve to move down to Washington with me, Myles thought, and rejected the idea as ridiculous. Neeve had her life in New York, her business. Now, if he was any judge of human events, she had Jack Campbell. Then forget Washington, Myles decided as he paced the den. I’ve got to stay here and keep an eye on her. Whether she liked it or not, he would hire a bodyguard for her.

  He expected Kitty Conway at about six o’clock. At five-fifteen he went into his bedroom, stripped, showered in the adjoining bathroom and carefully selected the suit, shirt and tie he would wear to dinner. At twenty of six, he was fully dressed.

  Long ago, he’d discovered that working with his hands had a calming effect on him when he was facing an intolerable problem. He decided that for the next twenty minutes or so he’d see whether he could fix the handle that had broken off the coffeepot the other night.

  Once again, he realized he was looking with anxious appraisal into the mirror. Hair pure white now but still plenty thick. No monk’s tonsures in his family. What difference did that make? Why would a very pretty woman ten years his junior have any interest in an ex–police commissioner with a bum heart?

  Avoiding that train of thought, Myles glanced around the bedroom. The four-poster bed, the armoire, the
dresser, the mirror, were antiques, wedding gifts from Renata’s family. Myles stared at the bed, remembering Renata, propped up on pillows, an infant Neeve at her breast. “Cara, cara, mia cara,” she would murmur, her lips brushing Neeve’s forehead.

  Myles grasped the footboard as he again heard Sal’s worried warning, “Take care of Neeve.” God in heaven! Nicky Sepetti had said, “Take care of your wife and kid.”

  Enough, Myles told himself as he left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. You’re turning into a nervous old biddy who’d jump at the sight of a mouse.

  In the kitchen, he fished among the pots and pans until he’d pulled out the espresso pot that had scalded Sal on Thursday night. He brought it into the den, laid it on his desk, got his tool kit out of the storage closet and settled down to the role Neeve dubbed “Mr. Fixit.”

  A moment later, he realized that the reason the handle was off was not a matter of loose or broken screws. Then he said aloud, “This is absolutely crazy!”

  He tried to remember just exactly what had happened the night Sal had burned himself. . . .

  • • •

  On Monday morning, Kitty Conway awoke with a sense of anticipation she had not felt for a long time. Gamely refusing the temptation to grab another forty winks, she dressed in a jogging outfit and ran through Ridgewood from seven until eight o’clock.

  The trees along the lovely wide avenues had that special reddish haze that signaled spring was coming. Only last week when she had run here, she’d noticed the budding, thought of Mike and remembered a fragment of a poem: “What can spring do; except renew; my need for you?”

  Last week she had looked with nostalgia at the sight of the young husband down the block waving goodbye to his wife and toddlers as he backed his car out of the driveway. It seemed only yesterday that she was holding Michael and waving goodbye to Mike.

  Yesterday and thirty years ago.

  Today she smiled absently at her neighbors as she approached her house. She was due at the museum at noon. She’d get home at four, just in time to dress and start for New York. She debated about getting her hair done and decided she did a better job on it herself.

  Myles Kearny.

  Kitty fished in her pocket for the house key, let herself in, then exhaled a long sigh. It felt good to jog, but, oh Lord, it sure made her feel her fifty-eight years.

  Impulsively she opened the hall closet and looked up at the hat Myles Kearny had “forgotten.” The moment she’d discovered it last night, she’d known that it was his excuse to see her again. She thought of the chapter in Pavilion of Women where the husband leaves his pipe as a sign he plans to return to his wife’s quarters that night. Kitty grinned, saluted the hat and went upstairs to shower.

  The day went quickly. At four-thirty, she debated between two outfits, a simply cut square-necked black wool that accentuated her slenderness and a two-piece blue-green print that played up her red hair. Go for it, she decided, and reached for the print.

  At five past six, the concierge announced her arrival and gave her Myles’s apartment number. At seven past six she was getting off the elevator and he was waiting in the hallway.

  She knew immediately there was something wrong. His greeting was almost perfunctory. And yet she instinctively knew that the coolness was not directed at her.

  Myles put his hand under her arm as they walked down the hall to his apartment. Inside, he took her coat and absentmindedly laid it on a chair in the foyer. “Kitty,” he said, “bear with me. There’s something I’m trying to dope out and it’s important.”

  They went into the den. Kitty glanced around the lovely room, admiring its comfort and warmth and intrinsic good taste. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Get on with what you’re doing.”

  Myles went back to his desk. “The point,” he said, thinking aloud, “is that this handle didn’t just come loose. It was forced off the pot. It was the first time Neeve used that coffeepot, so maybe it came that way, the way things are made these days. . . . But, for God’s sake, wouldn’t she have noticed the damn handle was hanging by a thread?”

  Kitty knew Myles was not expecting an answer. She walked around the room quietly, admiring the fine paintings, the framed family pictures. She smiled unconsciously at the sight of the three scuba divers. Through the masks it was almost impossible to detect the faces, but it was undoubtedly Myles, his wife and a seven- or eight-year-old Neeve. She and Mike and Michael used to scuba-dive in Hawaii, too.

  Kitty looked at Myles. He was holding the handle against the pot, his expression intent. She walked over to stand beside him. Her glance fell on the open cookbook. The pages were stained with coffee, but the sketches were accentuated rather than diminished by the discoloration. Kitty bent over and examined them closely, then reached for the magnifying glass next to them. Again she studied the sketches, concentrating on one of them. “How charming,” she said. “That’s Neeve, of course. She must have been the first child to wear the Pacific Reef look. How chic can you get?”

  She felt a hand snap around her wrist. “What did you say?” Myles asked. “What did you say?”

  • • •

  When Neeve arrived at Estrazy’s, her first stop in her search for the white gown, she found the showroom crowded. Buyers from Saks and Bonwit’s and Bergdorf as well as others like her with small private shops were there. She quickly realized that everyone was discussing Gordon Steuber.

  “You know, Neeve,” the buyer from Saks confided, “I’m stuck with a load of his sportswear. People are funny. You’d be amazed at how many got turned off Gucci and Nippon when they were convicted of sales-tax evasion. One of my best customers told me she won’t patronize greedy felons.”

  A sales clerk whispered to Neeve that her best friend, who was Gordon Steuber’s secretary, was frantic. “Steuber’s been good to her,” she confided, “but now he’s in big trouble and my friend is afraid she could be, too. What should she do?”

  “Tell the truth,” Neeve said, “and please warn her not to have misplaced loyalty to Gordon Steuber. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  The sales clerk managed to find three white gowns. One of them, Neeve was sure, would be perfect for Mrs. Poth’s daughter. She ordered the one, took the other two on consignment.

  It was five minutes past six when she arrived at Sal’s building. The streets were becoming quiet. Between five and five-thirty the uproar of the Garment District ended abruptly. She went into the lobby and was surprised to see that the guard was not at his desk in the corner. Probably went to the john, she thought as she walked to the bank of elevators. As usual after six o’clock, only one elevator was in service. The door was closing when she heard footsteps scurrying down the marble floor. Just before the door snapped shut and the elevator began to rise, she caught a glimpse of a gray sweatsuit and a punk-rock haircut. Eyes met.

  The messenger. In a moment of total recall, Neeve remembered noticing him when she’d escorted Mrs. Poth to her car; noticing him when she’d left Islip Separates.

  Her mouth suddenly dry, she pushed the twelfth-floor button, then all the buttons of the remaining nine upper floors. At the twelfth floor she got out and rushed down the corridor the few steps to Sal’s place.

  The door to Sal’s showroom was open. She ran in and closed it behind her. The room was empty. “Sal!” she called, almost panicked. “Uncle Sal!”

  He hurried from his private office. “Neeve, what’s the matter?”

  “Sal, I think someone is following me.” Neeve grasped his arm. “Lock the door, please.”

  Sal stared at her. “Neeve, are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen him three or four times.”

  Those dark deep-set eyes, the sallow skin. Neeve felt the color drain from her face. “Sal,” she whispered, “I know who it is. He works in the coffee shop.”

  “Why would he be following you?”

  “I don’t know.” Neeve stared at Sal. “Unless Myles was right all along. Is it possible Nicky Sepetti wante
d me dead?”

  Sal opened the outside door. They could hear the whirring of the elevator as it made its way down. “Neeve,” he said, “are you game to try something?”

  Not knowing what to expect, Neeve nodded.

  “I’m going to leave this door open. You and I can be talking. If someone is after you, it’s better if he doesn’t get scared off.”

  “You want me to stand where someone can see me?”

  “The hell I do. Get behind that mannequin. I’ll be in back of the door. If someone comes in, I can get a drop on him. The point is to detain him, to find out who sent him.”

  They stared at the indicator. The elevator was on the lobby floor. It began to rise.

  Sal rushed into his office, opened his desk drawer, pulled out a gun and hurried back to her. “I’ve had a permit since I was robbed years ago,” he whispered. “Neeve, get behind that mannequin.”

  As though in a dream, Neeve obeyed. The lights had been dimmed in the showroom, but, even so, she realized that the mannequins were dressed in Sal’s new line. Dark fall colors, cranberry and deep blue, charcoal brown and midnight black. Pockets and scarves and belts blazoned with the brilliant colors of the Pacific Reef collection. Corals and reds and golds and aquas and emeralds and silvers and blues combined in microscopic versions of the delicate patterns as Sal had sketched them in the Aquarium so long ago. Accessories and accents, signatures of his great classic design.

  She stared at the scarf that was brushing her face. That pattern. Sketches. Mama, are you drawing my picture? Mama, that’s not what I’m wearing. . . . Oh, bambola mia, it’s just an idea of what could be so pretty . . .