Annabel Reed sat in a closet-sized, sparsely furnished office on West Seventy-eighth Street in Manhattan. A small sign on the door read HERBERT GREIST ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. He had no receptionist or secretary. If there had been one, she wouldn’t have had a place to sit.
Greist was a big but stooped man with flowing gray hair. He wore a rumpled black sharkskin suit; a tailor’s nightmare, Annabel thought. His right shoulder was considerably lower than his left, and his right arm noticeably longer than his left. It gave the overall effect of a man about to fall to one side. His face was sallow and loose. Sunken eyes were surrounded by circles the color of forest mushrooms.
“Sit down, Ms. Reed, please sit down.” He held out his hand and she took it, glad she was wearing gloves. “You’ll have to forgive this office. I’m in the process of moving to quarters in midtown and am using this temporarily.”
Sure you are, Annabel thought.
She sat in a rickety cane chair while Greist went back behind a cheap wooden desk, the veneer chipped off in places, the edges scarred from too many unattended cigars. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked as he drew one from his inside jacket pocket.
“No, not at all,” she said, knowing that to protest would have been futile. She watched him light up and drop the dead match in a large once-amber ashtray overflowing with ashes.
“Frankly, Ms. Reed, I would have preferred to speak directly with Mr. Smith,” Greist said, exhaling smoke.
“That may be,” Annabel said, “but Mr. Smith is terribly busy in Washington. I’m completely familiar with the content of your telephone conversation with him, and have full authority to act on behalf of Mr. Smith, and our clients.”
“Clients. The Ewald family. It’s a fortunate law firm that has as a client the man who could be the next president of the United States.”
“We were involved with the Ewald family long before Senator Ewald chose to run for the presidency. Now, Mr. Greist, could we get to the point? You indicate that Mrs. Feldman intends to file a federal suit for the loss of her daughter’s civil rights.”
Another cloud of blue smoke left his mouth as he leaned back and thought for a moment. “Yes. She is thinking of doing so. And certainly with justification.”
“We would debate that. Still, you indicated that your client, Mrs. Feldman, was open to the idea of a settlement. Settlement is probably out of the question. But if it were a question, what kind of numbers are you talking about?”
Greist placed the cigar on the heap already in the ashtray, leaned forward on his elbows so that his chin rested in the palms of his hands, and managed a weak smile. “Directly to the point, I see,” he said, with little energy behind his words.
“Yes, I don’t see anything to be gained by sitting here stringing out this discussion. How much money does your client feel will adequately compensate her for the loss of her daughter?”
“That is hard to say, Ms. Reed.”
Annabel smiled. “I would suggest it become easier soon, or we have nothing to talk about, Mr. Greist.”
He retrieved his cigar and leaned back again. “Let me see,” he said. “Would a half-million dollars shock you?”
“I don’t shock easily,” she said. “The fact that it is a ludicrous number probably has more effect on you. You are, of course, joking.”
“Not at all.” Smoke clouded his face. He coughed and rubbed his eyes.
She stood and waited until he could again speak. Looking down at him, she said, “Mr. Greist, you have wasted my time and my law firm’s money in arranging this meeting. I would like to speak with your client. Perhaps we could arrange it while I’m in New York.”
“My client is not in New York.”
“Then why are you representing her?”
“I, too, go back a long way with my client’s family. Of course, I don’t have the luxury of representing rich and powerful political figures as you and Mr. Smith do, but I assure you our resolve is no less adamant.” He stood, taller than she’d remembered when he first greeted her. He said, “I suggest that there are other, mitigating circumstances that might cause you and Mr. Smith to reconsider the amount of compensation with which we can be comfortable. There are aspects of Senator Ewald’s life that came to be known to my client, and to her daughter. Those ‘things’ have a certain intrinsic value—once you are aware of the nature of them, I’m sure you will agree.”
Reed wasn’t sure how to react. “You are suggesting blackmail of Senator Ewald and his family.”
It was the first wide smile Greist had exhibited, and it revealed teeth that had been tortured or neglected. “Blackmail? That is a terrible word. I prefer to view the sale of information as being simply that, a commercial transaction. My client has information that your client would benefit from, and I am suggesting it has a certain worth.”
“More than the loss of your client’s civil rights, I assume.”
“As you wish.”
“What is this information that Senator Ewald would want to pay a great deal of money to retrieve?”
“That, Ms. Reed, is for another day, another meeting. You’ll be here a few days?”
“Yes. I’m staying at the—I’m at a hotel.”
“Are you free tomorrow evening?”
“No, I am not, and I must say that I resent the entire tone of this meeting.”
“Might I suggest, then, that you call Mr. Smith and tell him what has transpired at this distasteful meeting. As counsel to the next president of the United States, he might put a more liberal interpretation on it than you exhibit. I can be reached here tomorrow between one and three in the afternoon. Thank you for coming.”
She walked back to the Plaza, her mind racing, her anger barely under control. There was a nip in the air; she pulled her gloves from the pocket of her raincoat, and in her annoyance, one of them fell to the pavement. She stopped quickly and turned to pick it up. The man behind her seemed startled at her abrupt halt and change of direction. He looked away, then pretended to peer at items in a store window. Lingerie. Reed picked up her glove, glanced back at him one more time, and walked quickly to the hotel, where she took a shower—which seemed symbolic—ordered a bottle of white wine to be sent to the room, and called Smith at the Watergate. She got the new answering machine. She had the same luck with his home number. Finally, with some hesitation, she dialed the Ewald house. The phone was answered by the head housekeeper. “Yes, ma’am,” Marcia Mims said, “he was here, but he’s left.”
Annabel gave the housekeeper the same message she’d left on both of Smith’s answering machines, that he was to call her in New York as soon as possible. She gave Marcia Mims her number at the hotel, and hung up as room service arrived.
Glass in hand, she stood at the window and looked down over the street where people were heading home from their jobs. How routine our lives are so much of the time, she told herself. Then she was forced to smile. She could understand a bit better why Mac Smith had accepted the offer to defend Paul Ewald. It broke the sought-after routine of the college professor, just as coming to New York to meet with Greist had broken her routine at the gallery. Maybe she should ease up on Mac a little. Maybe not.
She sat on the housing that covered the suite’s heating system and shook her head. Herbert Greist trying to blackmail the next president. Tony Buffolino going to San Francisco to find the mother of a slain girl. Politics. Adultery. Blackmail. Murder.
“Hey, kids,” she said softly to the passersby below, “you don’t know what you’re missing.”
By the time Mac Smith returned to the suite at the Watergate, all deliveries had been made and the living room had begun to look like a working office. There was a note on the table: “Be back around six—I got something to talk to you about. Tony.”
Smith called Annabel in New York, and she recounted for him her conversation with Herbert Greist. Smith took notes while she talked. When she was finished, he said, “He told you that there was damaging information about Ken that both Andrea Feldman and her mother had?”
“Yes, that’s what he said, Mac. I made notes after I got back to the hotel.”
“No idea what information that might be, or how the Feldman ladies got it?”
“No. I should have asked more questions, but frankly, I was anxious to get out of there. He’s a communicable disease.”
Smith considered telling her what he’d learned about Ewald’s liaison with Roseanna Gateaux at the Watergate the night of the murder, but decided not to do it over the telephone.
“Greist wants to get together with me again tomorrow night,” Annabel said.
“Are you?”
“I told him I couldn’t, but I’m thinking now it might be a good idea. He gives me the creeps, but maybe I can find out more.”
“Do whatever you think is right, Annabel, but be careful. Somebody murdered Andrea Feldman, and I don’t think it was Paul Ewald.”
“I’ll watch myself,” she said. The man who’d been behind her when she dropped her glove suddenly flashed across her mind. She didn’t mention him. Overactive imagination.
“Good luck with whatever it is you’re going after for the gallery,” he said.
“I almost forgot about that,” she said, laughing with relief. “I’ll fill you in when I get back. Or sell it to you.”
Smith had just poured himself a well-watered drink when Buffolino returned.
“Where’ve you been?” Smith asked.
“Having a pop with an old friend of mine from the IRS.”
Smith smiled. “Not a bad friend to have.”
“Yeah, he’s come in handy over the years. I got him out of a jam when I was still on the force, one of those personal sex things that would have blown him out of the water. Anyway, he owes me, and every once in a while I remind him.”
“Having tax problems, Tony?”
“Me? Nah. I don’t make enough to have tax problems.”
Smith raised his eyebrows.
“Well, until now. I mean, I wasn’t doin’ as good as I told you I was.”
Smith said nothing.
Buffolino sat in a leather chair and put his feet on the coffee table. “I had my friend check out tax returns for Feldman and her mother.”
Smith cocked his head. “And?”
“And they file every year, only there isn’t a lot of money to account for. Andrea Feldman never got paid much working for causes. Her mother lists some income from work, but she basically is on Social Security and some interest from small investments. Nothing major league.”
“What kind of work does the mother do?”
“My friend says she lists herself as a consultant.”
“What kind of consultant?”
“Like all consultants, unemployed.”
“Any leads on where the mother might be?”
“Disappeared, like Janet Ewald. I checked a friend at the PD. He tells me no one was ever able to make contact with the old lady to tell her her daughter was dead.”
“She knows, Tony.”
“How could she miss it, with all the stories on the tube and in the papers?”
Smith had been debating with himself about how much to tell Buffolino. As a good lawyer, he knew he could only be as effective as information given him by a client, and the same tended to be true for an investigator. Yet he was reluctant to reveal too much of the Ewald family’s private affairs. He decided to tell Buffolino about the blackmail attempt by Herbert Greist, but keep Ken Ewald’s liaison with Roseanna Gateaux to himself.
When he was finished recounting what had transpired with Greist and Annabel in New York, Buffolino said, “Weird family.”
“Certainly not conventional.”
“Maybe the old lady doesn’t want to be found because her daughter was murdered.”
“I don’t follow,” Smith said.
“Why else would she lie low? People who get murdered make their families feel guilty somehow. Like they were all victims—or all at fault, know what I mean? You got any better answers?”
“No, I don’t. Except that I think you’d better get out to San Francisco as quickly as possible and see if you can track her down. You might also try to find out where she did her banking, whether there were any accounts for her or for her daughter. Since you seem to have friends everywhere, I assume that extends to California.”
Buffolino smiled. “Mac, I got friends in every state, including a good one with Wells Fargo in Frisco. When do you want me to go?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“On my way.”
“Nothin’ new on our other missing person? I came up dry so far,” Buffolino admitted as he went to the kitchen to make himself a drink.
“No, nothing. That’s really the most pressing matter to be resolved. If it weren’t for this Greist character in New York, I wouldn’t be so concerned with finding Mae Feldman. Any ideas on how we can push the police to find Janet?”
“They don’t take any push from me,” Buffolino said. The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” he offered. “It’s for you, Mac.”
“Mr. Smith, this is Marcia Mims.”
“Yes, Marcia, how are you?”
There was a long pause. “… Mr. Smith, I really think we should talk.”
Smith heard music and voices in the background. He also heard both the urgency and the hesitation in her voice. “I’ll be happy to talk to you any time, Marcia,” he said.
“There are things you have to know, Mr. Smith, and I really have to talk to somebody I can trust.”
“Fine. When would you like to get together?”
“I was hoping …”
“You were hoping we could do it right away. I don’t see any reason why not. I have a suite here at the Watergate. Maybe you could—”
“Mr. Smith, I know you’re very busy and I don’t want to inconvenience you, but I’m not in the city. Tomorrow is my day off, and I came to Annapolis to stay with my cousin Tommy tonight. He owns a crab-cake restaurant in the Market House.”
“What’s the name of his place?”
“Tommy’s.”
“Of course. I can head over there in a little while.”
“I’ll be here waiting for you, and thank you, thank you very much.”
“Just sit tight, Marcia. See you in about an hour.”
“What was that all about?” Buffolino asked after Smith hung up.
“The Ewalds’ housekeeper, Marcia Mims. Wants to meet with me about something. I’m driving over to Annapolis.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, that might put her off. She’s very delicate right now. You get ready for your trip, make a reservation, get set to go tomorrow. Here, copy this down and use it.” He handed Buffolino his gold American Express card. Tony noted the account number.
“Where are you going to be in Annapolis, in case I need you?” Buffolino asked.
“A crab-cake restaurant called Tommy’s, in the Market House.”
“Sure you don’t want me to come with you? I love crab cakes.”
“I’ll bring you a doggie bag.”
Buffolino smiled, looked at his watch, then slapped the side of his head. “Jesus, I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“I forgot I’m havin’ a party up here tonight.”
“A party?”
“Well, not really a party. I invited my wife and daughters up here for a little dinner, a quiet thing, you know?”
“Tony, I—”
“Hey, Mac, I owe ’em. This is on me. I’ll pick up the tab.”
“That’s generous of you, Tony. And I won’t bother with that doggie bag. I’m sure you’ll make do.”