Her career at Lieber Allen was over. Another Corelli was going to prison... if they could catch her. Should she run this morning? The question had echoed through the darkness and into the dawn, through the shower, hair dryer, radio and the groaning bus downtown. A voice whispered, “Hang on” as the gray buildings rushed past. But for how long? How could she know when the warrant might be served and the handcuffs clicked around her wrists? Closing her eyes, she prayed for the answer.
Reaching Wall Street, she hurried across the bustling square. The Old Dame had never loomed larger than on this gray morning and likely never would again. Oddly, the question struck her for the first time on the elevator. Who’d done this to Morris, to her, and why? Would she languish in the eternal darkness of an Attica prison cell without ever learning the answer? Emerging on fiftyeight, clad in her gray tweed suit, hair coifed, nervous eyes darting, she hurried for her office. Shutting herself inside, she gazed at the serried Manhattan skyline, the dull East River and finally sank into her chair. Inevitably, her eyes drifted to the phone. When would it ring? Would Duke return this morning? Why ask these stupid questions, a voice whispered. Run while there’s still time! Grabbing her purse, she dashed out.
Her heart pounded as she rushed down the hall. What if she encountered Nicole or another Inner Sanctum secretary? Lamp or... She stopped suddenly outside Tyler’s office. His door, always open, was now closed. Without knocking, she quickly slipped inside. Startled, he looked up from his phone call at the slender, bristling maniac looming over him. Cupping the phone, he whispered, “Go back to your office and wait.”
“I will not!” she snapped. “Who are you talking to?”
Anger hardened his face as he resumed his conversation. “Nothing, just the usual office pest. So based on what you’ve said, you’ll know more, later this morning. Then I’ll expect your call... Listen, I have to go.” Hanging up, he rose angrily. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away?”
“You don’t give orders around here!” she snapped. “Now who was that on the phone?”
His anger quickly faded. The situation was much too grave, time too critical to waste on recriminations. “That was Lauren Belli, the only person I know with access to confidential murder investigations. And she wasn’t exactly thrilled to exploit it on my behalf. Nevertheless, she’s proven quite helpful in getting developments. So now you know my source. And since you’re here, I might as well give you the latest.”
The image of a striking blond, with baby-doll blue eyes and long, strutting legs taunted her now. Lauren Belli, from the Women’s Bar Luncheons. “Lauren Belli’s an assistant DA who prosecutes murder cases; no doubt she’ll be prosecuting mine. While you... you’ll be sleeping with her!”
“Goddamnit, Mayson, you don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You don’t work for Duke. You work for his boss, Lauren Belli. That’s why you wanted me to stay away, not to help but to put me in jail!”
Spinning, she stormed out before he could respond and raced for the elevator.
In a fog, she left the Old Dame and hurried across the square. Catching the first bus, she rode for endless blocks until finally snapping awake in Brooklyn. Memories, like cobwebs, fluttered in her mind as the bus rumbled over the streets of her old neighborhood. Wistfully, her eyes settled finally on a shabby corner tenement - the Corelli’s first home looking just as it had then, except for the ground-floor pizza shop now replaced by a pool hall with plate glass windows.
Mayson, why do you sit by that door? The Songbird isn’t coming back. I tell you that every day. Now go play.
No Mama, he’s coming back... you’ll see.
Days passed. She cried her last tears and then went, not to play but to work at Cellini’s Market.
Mr. Cellini asks why I don’t have a good Italian name like Maria or Rosa like yours, Mama.
You tell Sal Cellini to mind his own business. Angelina — that’s not Italian?
He means the one everyone calls me.
I named you after Mayson Summers, my favorite movie star.
But she has blond hair, Mama. Mine’s brown, like his wife’s mink stole, Mr. Cellini says.
So what if your hair’s like an expensive fur instead of platinum like Mayson Summers? You’re just as beautiful, the paesani say.
Stephen says I look like My Fair Lady.
Audrey Hepburn. And he’s right. You look more like her every day — and just as beautiful.
But she didn’t feel beautiful. All she saw were large, sad eyes that no longer shed tears. It was terrible being unable to cry. She hated the Songbird and missed him even more. As the years passed, the paesani raved even more about her beauty. Again she looked in the mirror and only saw herself slipping further away. Mayson, you have no friends, Rosa complained. You don’t play.
I have Stephen. And I work. And go to school.
Stephen’s a grown man. You’re a young girl.
He’s nice, Mama. And he makes me feel better.
He may be nice but he’s no prince. You deserve a rich, handsome prince.
She’d settled for Stephen, who made the Songbird’s absence easier and later Santa’s, who’d let them down terribly. Santino Corelli, ‘Santa’ to his kid sister who idolized him, had been big, strong and handsome. He was the leader of his gang, which meant no one batted an eye when she tagged along to the empty lot where the football games were held. As the boys played, she guarded their coats and valuables, then ran to Cellini’s for the halftime refreshments. Santa had been the star and she, the mascot. For hours she’d watch their games and never get bored. Santa explained the intricate details later on the way home. She’d learned quickly, developing a passion for the game that exceeded most men’s. On Sundays, she and Santa would watch the Giants games on TV and the lessons continued. This became their special time, the Giants, their team. She still loved the Giants and football, and would do so until her dying breath.
Santa had been everything — and then nothing. Worse than nothing. They’d given him a name - The Lips. Rosa’s heart broke. Just look at what your oldest brother has become!
He makes so much money, Mama. And yet we don’t see a nickel.
Blood money! You want blood on your hands?
Rosa cried. Mayson saw Santa’s cherished image shattered and slipped further away.
Stephen had been there to ease her pain. Santino’s so handsome, he’d said. He must have many girlfriends. That’s why they call him The Lips.
No it’s not! And he’s no longer my brother. I only have one now.
And then she’d had none.
If Santa was handsome, Vinny had been beautiful. If Santa had become mean and rotten, Vinny died as he’d always been - sweet and childlike. There’d been no way for him to survive in prison. And just months into a fifteen-year sentence, he died for a crime he hadn’t committed. Again Rosa cried. Mayson had wanted to but couldn’t. Stephen, her salvation, had been there to hold and comfort her. She’d learned long ago that handsome princes existed only in fairy tales. In this cold, brutal world, if you had a lifeline you were fortunate. You grabbed it and held on tightly.
Stephen had been her lifeline from the moment they’d met at Cellini’s Market. She’d barely reached her teens and he was already a grown man. But age had been no obstacle to their friendship, one that had deepened with each passing year. Stephen had proven he could be counted on, trusted. And when she finally believed it, he proved he could not. Rosa cried. And Mayson slipped still farther away.
If only the Songbird hadn’t flown away, how different things would’ve been! Its ghost remained unspoken between them until Rosa died. Now its lyrical presence haunted her dreams, reinforcing the harsh lessons of its flight: Little girls’ hopes are foolish. Grown women sink or swim by their own wits and hard work. When help is needed they rely on themselves. And so she had. She’d followed the rules religiously, worked hard, gone so far and yet nowhere at all. She remained in Brooklyn even now as the last bus dropped her off near the Lyons. If she was going anywhere, wasn’t it to prison? Brooklyn or Attica - there seemed no place in between for a Corelli.
Breathless, she reached her apartment. How much time had she wasted playing musical buses from Wall Street to Brooklyn to the Lyons? Dashing for the window, she scanned Seventy-Fourth. Were they already watching? Hadn’t Tyler suggested the possibility last night? And wasn’t he sleeping with the woman who’d prosecute her? Quickly she packed. Duke must’ve received the forensic reports by now. And he already had the statements of the Essex residents and those at the firm portraying her as a cold, crazy bitch who hated Morris enough to kill him. What else did Duke need to go rushing off to a magistrate?
So you think this little Italian girl put a bullet in the schmuck’s head, the magistrate would say.
Who cares? Duke would snort. All the pieces fit — enough anyway that no one can say they don’t. And besides she’s a Corelli. Now issue the goddamned warrant!
Her suitcase on the bed, she ripped out drawers and grabbing clothes, crammed them into it. Precious minutes were slipping away. Would they arrive before she escaped? Shutting the suitcase, she lugged it down the hall, her eyes brushing over the cold, sterile apartment; two years and not one memory to pack. She’d brought no joy and would take none away. She couldn’t even take her car. An APB would be issued the instant she became a fugitive. She’d be captured before she crossed the East River.
Leaving the suitcase, she grabbed her purse and rushed out. First Manhattan’s closest branch was four blocks away. She’d withdraw her savings, call a cab and with any luck be at La Guardia within the hour. Quickly she vanished into the crowd on Seventy-Fourth. What if her accounts had already been frozen? Wouldn’t Duke anticipate her need for money?
Heart pounding, she hurried along, alert for patrol cars, suspicious sedans, trench coats, angled hats. Seventy-Third, Seventy-Second and Seventy-First were covered. If only she hadn’t... A horn shrieked suddenly. As she spun around, others shrieked, sparking a chain reaction. Then she spotted the problem - an idling black Porsche blocking the curb lane. What an inconsiderate idiot! Suddenly recognizing the driver, she stormed off, the Porsche following, oblivious to the shrieking horns. She refused to acknowledge him or even break her stride. “Goddamnit, come back here!” he shouted.
“No!” she spun furiously. “Leave me alone!”
Curious pedestrians stopped, their eyes darting between the black Porsche and the wild young woman. “Get in the car!” he snapped again.
“No! Now leave me alone!” Would he follow her all the way to the bank? In desperation, she watched the crowd grow around them. Peering through the window, she spotted his phone. Had Duke been summoned to the scene? As she started off again, he yelled, “Goddamnit Sally, I said I was sorry!”
Slowly she turned and now detected the urgency in his hardening face, his nod at the patrol cars in the next block, across from her bank. They were waiting for her! To clattering applause, she now climbed into his car. Squealing off, he ducked into the traffic flowing north on Amsterdam. “That was quite a performance,” he said. “What do you do for an encore?”
Incredulous, she stared at Tyler in his tailored suit, Oxford shirt, silk tie and the most handsome face on the planet. Sunglasses rested in his gold, windswept hair. He put them on and his face hardened. “You’re one huge pain in the ass, you know that.”
“Then let me out!”
“Don’t tempt me.” Alertly, he caught the police procession headed for the Lyons. “Get on the floor.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so!”
“No!”
He screeched to the curb as heads turned along Amsterdam. “Listen Mayson, this isn’t a game. Ten seconds from now, Duke will arrive at the Lyons to arrest you. If you want to be there just say so and I’ll drop you off. Otherwise get on the damned floor!”
Glaring defiantly, she nevertheless dropped to the floor. “So you intend to hand me over to your puttana personally, is that it?”
“My what?” He squealed off again.
“Your whore, Lauren Belli!”
“Lauren’s no whore. And she just saved your ungrateful ass. I wouldn’t have gotten here in time without her tip.”
“Tyler, how stupid can you be?” She squirmed in her tight quarters. “To think I believe an assistant DA just rescued me from her own prosecution?”
Stopping for the light at Seventy-Seventh, he pushed the glasses back up his nose. “She doesn’t know that part yet... The cops were staking out First Manhattan. Is that your bank?”
“I wasn’t going to the bank.”
“Oh,” he nodded. “An idle stroll, or maybe a little shopping for prison? Never know what you might need, right?” A patrol car crept into the mirror at the next light. “Don’t jump up suddenly. We have company.” The unit remained on his bumper as he crept again. “If you’d hung around this morning, I would’ve told you what to expect. Where’d you go? I tried your apartment a dozen times.”
“I was out.”
“Look Mayson, you better start trusting me. I’m all you have at this point.”
“Trust a snake?” she snapped.
“Why not, I’m helping one!”
Muttering incomprehensible Italian, she yanked her skirt down. Finally the unit turned, his eyes slipping from the mirror to her face. “Duke must be cursing into his radio about now. In a few minutes, every cop in Manhattan will be looking for you.”
And they’d know she hadn’t gone far. She envisioned her packed suitcase at the door, her BMW in the Columbus Avenue lot. Why had she made such a stupid scene?
At the next light he studied her, cramped and sullen-faced on the floor. “Even with motive and opportunity, I still thought there was a chance you might duck a warrant. No matter how strong Duke’s suspicions, without weapon or confession he really didn’t have a case. So what if Ballistics confirmed the bullet in Morris’s head came from a .38? How could it be traced to you? Easy, I learned this morning.”
“I don’t own a gun.”
“It’s registered to you, Mayson.”
“I... don’t have it anymore. I sold it... to a gun dealer. He must’ve forgotten to change the registration.”
“Then how could he resell it?”
“How should I know?” Cautiously she raised her head as they stopped at the light on Ninety-Fourth. “Where are you taking me?”
“Get down!” he hissed. “Now why did you take the gun to Morris’s Sunday night?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hopefully you put it some place Duke can’t find.”
She certainly had, unless Pig Face planned on dredging the East River.
He turned east toward Central Park. “I found out why Lamp spent so much time in the vault yesterday. Morris’s papers; specifically, that damned memo.”
“What memo?”
The sunglasses shielded Tyler’s eyes as he studied her intently. “That’s what I was about to ask you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She tugged again at her skirt. “And quit leering at me.”
Lifting the shades, he studied what he hadn’t before - her tightly - folded legs. They were slender and well formed. He turned again sharply, her skirt sliding back up her thighs. “You did that on purpose!” she shouted.
“The memo, Mayson. Did Morris really write it?”
“How should I know? I don’t even know what memo you’re talking about.” No factual reconstruction; she really had no clue. “What does it say?”
“That Morris recently discovered certain financial improprieties which he confronted you with and you denied, leading naturally to the heated exchanges we all heard. Those Italian shock waves, remember?” She was speechless suddenly, a rare thing, and in this case a good sign. “Supposedly Morris drafted the memo, intending to file charges with the Management Committee when he returned from vacation. Naturally we’re to assume you were sweating bullets and formulating a plan for his murder.”
“What kind of improprieties?” she asked.
“Little things like embezzling from the firm, selling confidential client information, submitting phony expense vouchers — nothing that could earn you more than disbarment and twenty-to-forty in Attica.”
“Tyler, it’s a lie. All of it!”
“I know,” he nodded. “But it creates one helluva murder motive and also a reason to submit to Morris’s sexual blackmail. Then you never saw it?”
She shook her head. “Memos weren’t Morris’s style. If one was required, I did it.”
“You wouldn’t have done this one.”
“Neither did he.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because if he had dirt like you’ve described, I would’ve known long before he drafted a memo or brought charges. Morris was confrontational. He couldn’t keep quiet about anything. Believe me, our arguments weren’t over financial improprieties.”
“I know what they were over.” His jaw quivered angrily. “And if I’d known then, I would’ve killed him myself.”
“Tyler, the point is that neither the financial improprieties nor the memo documenting them existed before Sunday. They’ve obviously been manufactured.”
“Lamp supposedly discovered the memo while cleaning out the vault yesterday,” he explained. “Meg said he was in there three times - twice alone, the third with Samuels to retrieve Morris’s papers for his sister, who’s settling the estate.”
Anticipating his next turn, she caught her sliding skirt. The trees rimming Central Park loomed above. Already they were shedding their colorful autumn feathers. By Thanksgiving their limbs would be bare, dark, crooked veins in the gray sky.
“If we’re right about Lamp,” Tyler asked, “why would he want Morris dead?”
She thought again of Lamp’s mysterious interest in the Crenshaw case.
He continued, “When Duke and Santinez returned to the Essex yesterday, they were armed with your PR photo courtesy of Lamp. On this basis, Mrs. Carter and the other residents were able to identify you as the woman they saw in the building Sunday night.”
The photo had been taken shortly after her arrival at the firm. She recalled her pride upon finding it among the Times professional announcements, wanting Rosa to be alive so badly that Sunday morning to see what her daughter had accomplished. Mayson Corelli, Lieber Allen associate... Mayson Corelli, Inmate #99999, kid sister of The Lips. Catching her skirt with another sharp turn, she gazed up at the Upper East Side’s swanky apartment buildings. “Is this Madison?”
“Park,” he replied.
Park Avenue. As a child she’d envisioned it with royal palaces, the street paved in gold. As they stopped for the light at 105th, she caught him staring, his shades again nestled in his golden locks, his blue eyes awe-struck. “What?” she asked.
“Your brother, a Mob assassin, that’s amazing. Lauren says Lucky was the most feared mobster on the West Side before he went to prison. Did he give you the .38?”
It wasn’t enough that she sat humbly knotted on the floor of his expensive sports car. She must be doused in family shame, too. “It isn’t Lucky, you idiot, it’s The Lips, a name he acquired by kissing his smoking gun after killing paesani on the orders of Don Bertolucci. Fortunately he’s now in Attica where he belongs. And I can’t help it if he’s my brother, so don’t mention him again unless you want your tongue ripped out.”
“What about your other brother?”
“Vinny. He died in Attica. Don’t mention him either.”
“What did Vinny do to land in Attica?” he asked.
“I just said not to talk about him.” Her heart thumped suddenly as they zipped into the garage of a large apartment building. Snaking up the ramps, they glided finally into the darkened corner of an upper level. “Where are we?” She crawled up now.
“Home.” He snapped off the engine.
Her eyes narrowed. “Not my home. I’m not staying here.” As he crisply restarted the engine, she asked, “Now where?”
“Wherever you say,” he replied.
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“But you just said...”
“I know what I said. And don’t pretend you’re clever by spitting it back at me.”
He waited; she glared. The engine idled. She stewed, folding ing her arms fretfully. Smiling, he slumped back. He was quickly learning her moods, this particular one being an obvious pout. “So where to? Quickly now, I need to get back to the firm.”
“Why?” she snapped. “You don’t do any work there.”
Her pout faded and the vulnerability returned to her eyes. She was helpless and too stubborn to admit it. “You’re staying.” He offered the lifeline he knew she wanted.
Yet it was met by renewed suspicion. “What do you want from me, Tyler?”
“The truth about Sunday night.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“No Mayson, you haven’t even come close.”
“So? Why should I risk...”
“Risk?” he snapped. “Who’s taking the risk here? In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve stolen classified information in a murder case, using it to rescue the key suspect from certain arrest and am now offering her sanctuary in my home. I’ve risked my life for you, Mayson, and am asking for nothing in return but the truth.”
“Hah!” she snorted. “No one wants just the truth. The catch, that’s what they’re interested in. I won’t sleep with you, Tyler.”
“That’s right,” he nodded. “My body’s not part of the deal.”
Her fists clenched. “Stop confusing me this way!” How could he expect her to believe he’d actually put his life on the line for someone he called a pain in the ass? “You say you don’t want sex now but once we’re inside your apartment it’ll be a different story.”
“Mayson, if I slept with half the women you think why go to so much trouble for one more?”
“Because I’m the only one left and your ego can’t stand it.” “I’m not like that, Mayson.”
No he wasn’t, his eyes confirmed. Their sparkle was pure and honest, like pennies at the bottom of a pool... Well if not sex, then what? “You’ll have to reveal your conditions at some point.”
“The truth, Mayson, that’s my condition. Except I’ll add a second one now: That you start being a little nicer.” He gave her his apartment key and security card. “The card accesses the building. Take the first elevator you come to.”
She studied the key to Apartment 805. It had a spectacular view, no doubt, of the East River, Central Park or both. Certainly there was another way to elude a city’s police force without money, transportation or change of clothes. “I can’t do this.”
His eyes hardened. “This paranoia, Mayson, get over it. We have more important matters to deal with, like who killed Morris? And how can we prove it?”
“And how do we do that, Tyler? Do you have the first clue?”
He hadn’t meant to get into this now. He must return to the firm before attention shifted from her disappearance to his absence. If a connection was made, their mission would end quickly. “There’ve been other developments I haven’t told you about.”
Her eyes widened. “What developments?”
“Morris didn’t return to New York from the Outer Banks. He flew instead to St. Paul, Minnesota on Thursday, leased a car and headed north. He returned on Saturday and caught a flight home, then changed his mind somewhere between St. Paul and Chicago, got off at O’Hare and flew back to Minnesota - Duluth, this time. He returned to New York the next day to get himself killed. The cops have no clue why he went to Minnesota or what he did there. They’re checking, but I doubt they’ll strain themselves. And why should they, with their prime suspect right here? Catching her will be their biggest concern now.”
Why Minnesota, she wondered. What could it hold to pull Morris away from his cherished fishing trip? The two weeks he spent on the Outer Banks weren’t a vacation, but a religious experience.
“Another thing,” Tyler said. “When returning on Sunday, Morris booked another flight for that same evening - San Francisco this time. Now we know why he was in such a hurry.” His eyes fell to the apartment key in her hand. “A ride to the airport. Isn’t that what Morris wanted?”
“I didn’t talk to him.” Her eyes fled to the window.
“Why was he going to San Francisco?”
“Tyler, you’re wasting your time.”
“Why not take his own car to the airport? Was he being followed?” He frowned at her stubborn silence. “Then you’ll force me to solve this mystery alone?”
“No one’s forcing you to do anything!” she retorted.
“Mayson, you still don’t get it. This isn’t about your job, sex or anything but saving your goddamn ass. Now if you won’t help, just get the hell out!”
She’d never seen him this angry. Again she studied the key. If there was another choice, she couldn’t see it. “I’ll stay until this evening, decide on a plan and then leave.”
In the mirror, he watched a silver Cadillac cross the garage and park nearby. Both the car and the well-dressed couple alighting from it were familiar. “Hurry up, Mayson, get out.”
“Didn’t you hear me, Tyler? I’m leaving tonight.”
“Yes. Now get out.”
“Then you really don’t care if I leave or stay?”
“Goddamnit, get out!”
“Don’t curse me! You know, I might’ve stayed longer...” Tires squealed suddenly as he spun the Porsche around, throwing her against the door. “Madonna mia, what are you doing?”
“I thought I’d made that clear.” Clutching her purse, she exploded from the car.