For a moment, I was unable to move from where I sat. Surely I couldn’t have been the only person in the church to have witnessed the woman’s act, but no one else showed any sign of having seen what she had done. Had I imagined the whole thing? Not bloody likely. As I watched, the woman hurried across the chancel and down the side aisle of the church. I rose and walked out of my pew after her, stepping over the legs and feet of a couple sitting next to me.
“I’m terribly sorry…”
“Well! Really.” This from an overdressed woman in a mink stole. Mink on a summer day, of all things. There was no time for explanations; they’d have to put me down as rude and let it go at that.
When I reached the entrance at the back of the church, the woman in green had already left the building and was hurrying toward Madison Avenue. I hung a hard right and followed, although I wasn’t altogether sure what I would say when I caught up with her. “Madam, I just saw you spit in Parker Foxcroft’s face, would you mind telling me why?”
Before I could overtake her, she hailed a nearby cab, which quickly engulfed her. I hailed another one right behind her and jumped in quickly when the driver braked to a stop.
Then I said the words I have longed to utter ever since I first heard them long ago, seated in a dark movie theater, watching one long-forgotten thriller or another.
“Follow that cab!”
The driver, a large black man in a short-sleeved mesh sport shirt, turned around and looked at me in bewilderment. Don’t tell me he doesn’t speak English! I glanced at the identification card on the dashboard. Achille Belcon. A Haitian?
“Suivez ce taxi-là,” I commanded, jabbing my finger in the direction of the first cab.
“Oui, m’sieu,” he said, and gunned his engine.
It was a long ride we took up Madison Avenue, through traffic thick and thin. There was no further conversation; Achille was concentrating on tailgating his quarry and I was hunched forward on my seat, impelling our cab on by sheer force of will. At 59th Street we almost lost the chase in a bedlam of trucks and vans heading for the Queensboro Bridge, but my driver recovered quickly and we picked up speed.
Somewhere in the Sixties, the driver leaned back toward me, and without taking his eyes off the street and his rearview mirror, said: “M’ sieu. On nous suivit.”
“What?”
“We are… followed? Nest-ce pas?”
I looked out the back window. Another cab was right behind us, and as we drove on, I felt sure the driver was right; we were being followed. Somebody was sure as hell playing games with us—the same game we were playing.
At 89th Street we were still a block behind when the first cab pulled to a stop on the northeast corner, and the Woman of Mystery, as I had begun to think of her, got out and crossed to the opposite side of Madison Avenue and headed west. I shoved a ten-dollar bill into Achille’s hand, murmured “Merci bien,” and started after her.
As I stepped out of the cab, I looked back at the one behind us, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever the passenger was, but as I watched, the cab swept on by, still heading north.
Meanwhile, half a block up 88th Street, my mystery lady turned right under a canopy and disappeared.
Number 19. So now I knew—or thought I knew—where she lived. All I had to do next was find out who she was.
When I reached the entrance of the apartment building, the doorman’s attention was on a teenage girl holding two leashes, on the end of which was a pair of white bichons frisés, pulling at their tethers and barking out orders.
“Hi, Victor,” said the girl.
The doorman raised his hand to the bill of his cap. “Hello, Miss Stacey.” Looking down at the dogs, he said: “Hello, Sunshine. Hi, Snowflake.” One of the dogs immediately jumped up and put its forepaws on Victor’s pant legs. It was apparent from the expression on his face that he did not share the creature’s enthusiasm.
Well, at least I now knew the doorman’s name. That was a start, anyway.
When the two bichons had whisked Stacey off down the street, I approached Victor. He was a large, broad-chested specimen of the breed, wearing a bulky gray uniform with silver piping that made his shoulders appear even broader. He stared at me unsmiling, with hard gray eyes. His cheeks and hands were quite sunburned.
“Pardon me, but the lady who just entered the building—”
He stiffened. “Yes?” No sir this time.
“I recognized her—at least I think I recognized her, and I wonder if you could tell me—is her name Althea Frank?”
If I thought I could catch Victor the doorman off his guard, I was sadly mistaken. He gave me the kind of look I myself reserve for IRS auditors.
“We don’t give out no such information,” he said.
For a moment I thought I might try this gambit: Look, I just met the woman this afternoon, and it was love at first sight, but I don’t have her name, so I followed her here. You wouldn’t want to interrupt the course of true love, would you? but I decided against it.
“Look,” I said, lowering my voice to a growl, “I’m a private investigator.” I reached in my wallet and flashed a card that looked vaguely like an official ID; actually it was my Connecticut driver’s license. “My client has asked me to find the lady in question, and I can’t very well find her”—I leaned heavily on the gutturals—“unless I know her name. It’s worth—” I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and waved it at him. He just stared at me, looking like a Hollywood Storm Trooper.
I pulled out a second twenty. Still no response.
On the third twenty, he perked up; at least he permitted himself a thin smile, and on the fourth he grinned broadly, pocketed my eighty dollars, and said: “The name you want, buddy, is Judith Michaelson. Mrs. Judith Michaelson.”
“Thanks.”
“Apartment 3-D.”
“Thanks again.”
“My pleasure,” said Victor. I could certainly understand why. “Just don’t tell the lady I told you,” he added, with an unspoken threat as the subtext.
At the corner of Madison and 88th, I looked around to see if I could spot the taxi that had followed me up the avenue. Only one yellow cab was in sight, parked at the curb across the street. I decided to check it out. When I reached it, I looked in the back window. The passenger seat was empty. The engine was idling, however, but the overhead signal light was out. I stuck my head in the driver’s right window.
“Looking for a fare?” I said.
The driver, a short, beefy man in a short-sleeved shirt, wearing a yarmulke on the back of his head, gestured toward his meter, which was still running.
“I got a fare already.”
I drew away, wondering if it would be worthwhile to wait and see if the cab’s passenger came back. I decided I’d better move along. Anyway, how could I be sure this was the cab that had trailed me? They all look alike, after all.
Well, now I knew a name. Enough sleuthing for the day. What next?
What was next was Jerry Hart, the sales rep with a problem. When I got back to the office, I asked Hannah if Jerry was around, and she allowed that he was somewhere on the premises and that she would be happy to track him down.
She found him in record time, and when she brought him to my office, she was glowing, and he was chuckling, so I figured he’d told one of his famous jokes. Probably the one about the traveling salesman and the private secretary.
“Jerry,” I said, pumping his hand, ‘ I’m so sorry to hear about Ellen. What a rotten goddamn break.”
He waved his hand like a magician, and like magic his smile disappeared. Jerry was short, paunchy, balding, nobody’s idea of a sharp operator, but no Willy Loman, either. He was a damn good sales rep, the kind of man who, if one of the stores he serviced was burned out, would show up the next morning to help clean up the mess and restore the stock, not only our books but other publishers’ books as well. At Christmastime he always volunteered to work as an unpaid salesclerk in one of his customers’ shops.
At the same time, he was not one of our more literary reps. When asked what a book was about, Jerry might reply: “It’s about twenty dollars.” If nothing else, Jerry was honest; he wouldn’t attempt to fake it with a bookseller, by pretending he’d read a book when he hadn’t.
“Jerry,” I once asked him, “do you ever read anything?”
He took a long few minutes to answer me. “I read everything you provide me, Nick. The title information sheets. The catalog. The advance reviews. The author’s track record. I tell them everything they need to know except the least important thing of all—what I personally think of the book. If I read it and thought it stunk, I’d have to say so. If I loved it, it wouldn’t be me being businesslike, it would be only one man’s opinion.”
Then he looked straight at me, and with his leprechaun’s grin, said: “But I don’t make too many mistakes, do I, Nick?”
He was right. Somehow he had an uncanny knack of putting the right quantities of a book—or nearly the right quantities—into the right stores. His returns were lower than anyone else’s on our sales force; his sell-through was always at the top of the charts. That he loved books, I was sure; he just didn’t read them. I could live with that.
And somehow I knew we had to keep him working for the good of the firm.
“Jerry,” I said, “Mary Sunday tells me you want to come in out of the cold.”
“That’s right, Nick.”
I opened the humidor on my desk, took out a cigar and offered it to him. He fondled it for a moment and then stuck it in his inside coat pocket.
“Thanks, Nick. I’ll save it for a special occasion.”
Just then the phone rang softly. Just once, before Hannah intercepted the call in the outer office, but the single ring was enough to give me an idea.
“Jerry,” I said, “you’re too young to retire, and too good to leave the book business—”
“Nice of you to say so, Nick.”
“—so I’m going to make you a proposition.”
“I’m listening.”
“For some time I’ve thought that Barlow and Company ought to have a telemarketing department.”
“Like the big boys? Simon and Schuster… Random House… Doubleday?”
“Exactly. These days personal sales calls are costing us up to two hundred fifty dollars each, and there are stores it just isn’t worthwhile to send a rep to. Stcres who do enough business with us, however, to rate a regular phone call.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Well, here’s my proposition, Jerry Give up the road, come back into the office, and set up a telemarketing department for me. I can’t pay you as much as you’re earning with your commissions and bonuses, but—”
Jerry waved his hand in dismissal. “I’m sure you’ll be fair, Nick.”
“So how about it?”
“Well…” He was silent for several long minutes, and then a “Have a nice day” smile creesed his face. “You wouldn’t do this just as a favor to me and Ellen, would you?”
“Absolutely not. I’m in this business to make money, Jerry.”
And sometimes, I added to myself, sometimes we do make money.
“Then I accept.’
“Good.”
Hart stood up, and we shook hands. At the door he turned and said: “I thank you, Nick. And my wife will thank you, too.”
“The hell with the thanks, just do a good job.”
When my office door had closed behind Jerry Hart, I buzzed Hannah.
“Yes, Nick?”
“Call Little, Brown for me, please, Hannah, and see if you can locate a Susan Markham. That’s the New York not the Boston office.”
“Will do.”
A few minutes later, my call was put through, and I was listening to a voice that rose at least an octave when I said hello.
“Nick Barlow! How pleasant to hear from you.”
“I’ve been meaning to call. I got your letter, Susan, and I would like to see you.”
“Of course, Nick. What do you suggest?”
I glanced down at my desk calendar. For the balance of the week, it was a tabula rasa.
“If it’s not too short notice, how about cocktails this evening?”
“I’d like that,” she said, and once again her voice took a thrilling little leap. “Where?”
“Let’s say… the St. Regis. King Cole Room. Six o’clock.”
“I’ll be there. And thanks for calling, Nick.”
“My pleasure.”
When I had replaced the phone in its cradle, these lines of Ezra Pound’s occurred to me: “It rests me to be among beautiful women. Why should we lie about these things? I repeat: It rests me to converse with beautiful women, even though we talk nothing but nonsense. The purring of the invisible antennae is both stimulating and delightful.”
“Nick,” said Hannah a short while later, “Lieutenant Hatcher is here and would like to see you.”
I groaned. Oh shit, what now? “Sure. Send him in.”
Despite the weather—it was hot enough outside to suggest that June was somehow already pushing into July—Hatcher was wearing a wool suit; his collar and tie looked uncomfortably tight. He took out a bright red handkerchief, the kind cowboys tie around their necks and passed it across his forehead.
“Sit down, Lieutenant. Take a load off your feet.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“Pretty hot out there, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Makes me glad I’m not still walking a beat.”
“What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat, paused, then cleared it a second time. Another one of his pregnant pauses—there’s that cliché again—finally brought forth this: “Mr. Barlow, were you aware that you’re mentioned in Parser Foxcroft’s will?”
“What?” This was the last thing I’d expected Hatcher to say. I stared at him in simon-pure disbelief. If he’d counted on giving me a jolt, he’d succeeded admirably.
“Foxcroft named you his literary executor.”
Hatcher shrugged. “You tell me, you’re the literary man.”
“What I meant to say was,”—and here I cleared my throat—“what does that entail?”
Again, he chose not to field my question, but just looked at me with those beady eyes.
I pressed on. “How did you learn that?”
“From his attorney. Man named”—he took out his notebook and flipped it open—“Sherman Archer.”
“And you think that being mentioned in Foxcroft’s will gives me a motive?”
“Did I say that? I didn’t say that.”
I’ll bet you thought it, though, you cunning bastard.
“Anything else, Lieutenant?” I said in my best Uriah Heep tone of voice.
He came back at me, Heep for Heep. “Not at the moment, thanks.”
Once Hatcher had taken his leave, I asked Hannah to get me Sherman Archer on the phone. When I got through, I skipped the small talk and stated my business at once.
“Ordinarily,” he said, “we wait to notify the legatees until the will is through probate. However—” Here he sounded uncertain, as though choosing whether to hem or to haw. “—however, you know what the police are like…” Then: silence.
“Tell me, Mr. Archer,” I said. “What do you think I’ll be facing as… literary executor for the late Parker Foxcroft?”
“There are letters, of course. Private papers. And a good many computer disks.”
“When do you think I might have access to them?”
“Anytime you wish, Mr. Barlow.”
“What?”
“Why Parker named me to deal with his literary remains.”
“Well, sir,” Archer said, “Parker Foxcroft was certain that a horde of scholars would descend from academia to do his literary biography once he was dead. As a result, he probably saved every note he ever committed to paper.”
Lucky me, to inherit all of Parker’s laundry lists! On the other hand—
“On the other hand,” said Joe Scanlon, detective cum author, when I told him the news, “we may turn up something in all those files.”
“Are you suggesting I turn detective myself?”
“Our chief purpose, as I understand it,” he said, “is to clear you of any suspicion. If in the course of doing so, we find out who killed the man and why, so much the better.”
“I don’t know but—well, I suppose you’re right, Joe.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready to start. Ready for us to start, that is.”
By the time the cocktail hour rolled around, I was feeling more than one galvanic charge of anticipation. I thought I’d better opt for prudence as against daring, and go to the St. Regis without any amorous expectations, so that I would not be disappointed no matter what happened. After all, why should Susan Markham be interested in me romantically? There had been that hint of a flirtation in Washington, but any ardor she felt then may well have cooled down by now.
When I got to the King Cole Room, she was already there, sitting at a corner table. A good sign, I thought. I appreciate punctuality, even though I recognize, as one publisher friend of mine put it, that it’s “the thief of time.” Get somewhere early enough, and you’re bound to be kept waiting.
She looked and smiled as I approached the table.
“Susan.”
“Hello, Nick.” She held out her hand, and I gathered it into both of mine.
She was striking in a slouchy silk pajama suit, black and white stripes and cut deep, almost to the waist. She was wearing a long rope of pearls and a black beret. When she leaned forward and inched sidewise on the banquette to make room for me, the Vandyke collar of her suit opened slightly to reveal the curve of her breasts, and prudence, in my case, suffered a pronounced setback. She was one damned good-looking woman.
“I’m glad you could join me on such short notice,” I said.
“Thank you for asking me.” She smiled again. Her teeth, as I had earlier observed, were fine and a brilliant white, rather small but even. In short, perfect.
That did not quite complete my inventory of the Susan Markham person. Her legs were largely concealed by the table and pants of her pajama suit, but her hands, resting flat now on her lap, were quite slim and elegant, the fingers long, with bright crimson nails. She wore only one ring, a star sapphire on her right ring finger.
She laughed suddenly, a short, nervous laugh, not at anything I said, because I didn’t say anything. Satisfied? her eyes seemed to say to me.
“I like your outfit,” was the best line I could come up with.
“Thank you.”
“I have a feeling it’s definitely not something you wore to the office this afternoon.”
“You’re right, Nick. I went home and changed first. You see, I only live a few blocks from here.”
“Really?”
“My apartment is on 55th and Third.”
“So the St. Regis—”
“Couldn’t be more convenient.”
“Perhaps the place has no novelty for you?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I have a considerable fondness for the Maxfield Parrish painting of Old King Cole.”
By this time, a waiter had appeared and we’d ordered drinks: a daiquiri for her and a vodka martini straight up for me. One of these days, I ought to change drinks, just for the sake of change, to add zest to my life, perhaps, but what the hell, why give up a winning number?
We touched glasses and sipped for a few minutes. I was eager to learn more about her, but I realized that Parker Foxcroft was the proper subject of my inquiries.
“You said in your note that you’d like to help if you can.”
“That’s right.”
“Twenty questions?”
“Fire away.”
“First, do you have any idea why he was killed, or who might have done it?”
“That’s two questions. No and no.”
“How long had you known him?”
“A few months over a year,” she said.
“I understand he was quite the Lothario.”
She colored, only the slightest kind of a blush, but I found it becoming.
“Parker seldom spoke about other women, and never with any intimate details, but”—she paused, clearly searching for the mot juste—“I suspected there were other women in his life. He was a very private sort of person. Not at all someone who would kiss and tell.”
“Did he ever mention Claire Bunter?”
“Who?”
“The writer, one of his writers. Also the wife of my sub rights director, Harry Bunter.”
“The name means nothing to me, so I assume he never spoke of her.”
I could not think of any way to phrase the question I wanted to ask her next, like What did you see in that mean bastard, anyway? so I refrained.
“Now may I ask you something, Nick?”
“Sure.”
“Did you invite me here only to pick my brain?”
“Well…”
“I’m afraid you’re only interested in my mind,” Susan said.
“Unlike Parker Foxcroft?”
“Parker was never really much interested in my mind,” she replied. “You’re quite right about that.”
“And what was your interest in dear dead Parker?”
“You don’t sound like you cared much for him.”
“I didn’t.”
“To answer your last question, he was a brilliant man. And I thought—”
“Yes?”
“That it might help my career to be seen with him. Does that sound crass to you? Opportunistic, perhaps? Unfeminist, as distinguished from unfeminine?”
“I can’t blame you for that, Susan. But you’re wrong about me.”
“Oh?”
I took a deep breath. “Your mind is not the only thing that interests me.”
“I’m so glad, Nick. That’s what I hoped you’d say.”
We were on our second drink by now, and I felt that pleasant sensation which comes when the first drink starts to take hold, and the inner being turns languorous and submissive. Susan Markham looked at me with the direct and wide-eyed gaze of a precocious child. A child-woman, I thought. “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” perhaps? Her eyes were mint green in the soft light cast by the table lamp. Her lips parted in a smile—one part mocking, one part risible.
“Thinking deep thoughts, Nick?”
“Thinking,” I said, taking my time with each word, “of prolonging the evening, if that’s all right with you.”
She leaned closer to me, and almost as though they had a will of their own, the fingers of my right hand reached out and touched the fabric of her jacket, drew slowly down over the swell of her left breast, lingering briefly at the nipple, which hardened under my fingertips.
She took a deep breath. “Certainly.” And as though I hadn’t heard her response: “Certainly, Nick.”
“Well, then…”
“Why don’t you walk me home?”
We both rose to go. If he had not suddenly appeared at my elbow, I might have forgotten the waiter altogether, and the bill as well. We sat down again, and I produced a credit card. One transaction later, we were on our way.
It was now dusk, that “enchanted metropolitan twilight,” as Fitzgerald described it, “the racy, adventurous feel of New York at night.” It is never quite dark, of course; there are no stars to be seen in the stone canyons, no moon; only that supernal glow of a million lights reflected in the heavens—and the constant roar of sound, an ocean of white noise.
By the time we reached Park Avenue, Susan’s arm was linked in mine. At Third Avenue, she released my arm and claimed my hand.
“Here we are,” she said. “Here” was an apartment building between Third and Second. 355 East 55th Street. I must remember the address.
“Come in, Nick.” Her inflection made the command sound more like a question, as though she thought I might refuse her bidding. For one wild moment, I was ready to decline. Am I really ready for something like this? Something like what, you ninny? She could just plan to serve you a drink and send you on your way.
Instead, I followed her into the lobby, which, like myriad other specimens of Manhattan lobbies, was small, but did its best to be grand: a towering ficus tree; black and white checkerboard tile; generic oriental art; and an obsequious doorman, who obviously doted on Susan.
He undressed her with his eyes, I thought. Well, who can blame him?
We were alone in the elevator, but Susan stood close to me, as though we had to make room for other passengers. Feeling more and more like a callow youth on his first date, I leaned over and kissed her.
I cannot say the earth moved, only the elevator. Still, the taste of her lips awakened memories so old I thought they were buried for good, hungers I had almost forgotten. I shivered in anticipation.
I had no preconceived idea of what Susan Markham’s apartment would be like, but I must say I was somewhat surprised at what I saw when she unlocked the door of 20-C.
If I’d made a stab at predicting the decor, I would have guessed “feminine, antiques, lots of plants, a frilly bedroom.” What I found as we made the preliminary tour was a highly functional, rather austere living room with a dining ell, and a small eat-in kitchen. The furniture was Swedish modern, bright blond wood. Throw rugs on parquet floors. A bar on wheels and a wine rack. A grand piano, no less. The bookshelves were few, and from my first cursory glance, seemed to be filled entirely with popular fiction, some of the volumes, I suspected, book club selections. I found the whole effect not feminine at all, but oddly masculine.
“Drink, Nick?”
“No, not yet. You have quite a place, Susan.” I could not help but wonder how she managed it on an assistant editor’s salary. Family subsidy, perhaps? None of your business, Barlow.
“Come this way,” she said, and opened the French doors at the end of the living room. I followed her out onto a wraparound terrace that overlooked both the Upper East Side and the East River. The view was a feast of lights and the silhouettes of massive towers.
“Spectacular,” I murmured.
“It is impressive, isn’t it?”
She was standing in front of me, looking out over the river. I put my hands on her shoulders, and she leaned quickly back into my arms, her head tilted back slightly to be kissed. I obliged her. It was no ordinary kiss; it shook me all the way down to the soles of my shoes.
When we finally broke apart, I knew there was no turning back. I felt that we were already lovers—that we had been lovers for some time and had only been waiting for the opportunity to consummate it.
“Well,” I said. “Hello, Susan.”
“Hello, darling,” she whispered. “There’s another room, you know.”
“I somehow thought there would be.”
No, the bedroom wasn’t at all frilly. The bed was king-size, and I saw at least two full-length mirrors and a mirrored closet door. That was all the inspection I had the time to make: I took in the rest—the furniture, the television set, the computer workstation—in one sweeping glance.
It’s amazing how quickly two people can shed all their clothes when there’s a bed nearby.
“You are beautiful,” I said, hardly trusting myself to speak at all.
“When you say that, I believe it.”
Her body was before me, and then so near to me that my nostrils were full of her perfume, and then we were locked together and part of each other.
When we finally separated, she said: “Were you pleased with me?”
“Enormously. And you?”
“It did happen rather fast, Nick.”
I smiled, and touched her breasts with my fingertips. “I suppose I was more than ready. However, Susan, to use a cliché I would strike from any manuscript—”
“Yes?”
“The night is young.”
And so it proved to be.
Much, much later, she said: “First times are wonderful, aren’t they?”
“’The apple tree, the singing, and the gold,’ “ I quoted.
“What?”
“Euripides on love.”
“Oh. I like that.”
“There was something Rollo May wrote in his book Love and Will about this moment, Susan—I wish I could remember it. It had to do with the moment of entrance…”
“Forget books for now, darling. Forget Rollo May. We have the night ahead of us.”
“I’m glad of that. And I will have that drink now.”