A Cast of Killers (33 page)

He looked down at the table, as if ashamed of
himself. He shook his head sadly. "Everyone is out for themselves,
Miss Hubbert. So be careful. I'm just asking you to be very, very
careful. I liked that old lady, Emily. She was a sweetheart. But
she obviously put her nose where it didn't belong and now she's
lying on a slab in the morgue." He looked up and stared at Auntie
Lil.

He had succeeded in thoroughly frightening
her, yet she could not quite understand why. She thanked him
profusely, assured him she understood and, flustered, hurried out
the door. She needed a friend just then and Herbert Wong was the
closest one she could definitely trust. This time, he was easy to
find along Forty-Sixth Street. He was now disguised as a parking
attendant and sat on a folding chair in front of a lot that was
located a few doors away on the opposite side of the street from
Emily's. She mustn't risk blowing his cover.

"Has The Eagle flown the nest?" she asked
instead, out of the side of her mouth as she walked briskly
past.

"Not yet," came the brief reply.

T.S. was startled to see that Lance
Worthington had also brought along company. And cheap company at
that, not exactly the type of window dressing that T.S. would
recommend if he were trying to impress wealthy folk. The producer
was ensconced at a table, firmly wedged between a pair of blonde
bookends. They perched on each side of him, both staring into their
drinks and dragging on cigarettes. The women were thin to the point
of emaciation, at least in T.S.'s opinion, and the lack of flesh
gave their faces a hard, unpleasant look. The tallest blonde had
hair that tumbled wildly down her back in a style far too young for
her face and wore a red sequined dress that fit her like a sausage
skin. The other blonde, whose hair was cropped short in Louise
Brooks-style fashion, wore an equally tight green sheath that
shimmered in the restaurant's discreet lighting. Both the red and
the green dress were held up by thin straps that threatened to
break at any moment.

If Worthington had been dressed in a Santa
Claus suit, the scene would have looked a lot like the opening of a
poorly plotted porno movie.

"That's him with the oversexed elves," T.S.
murmured as he helped Lilah through the entrance.

"I seem to be a bit overdressed," Lilah
worried as she and T.S. feigned confused looks and pretended not to
know who Lance Worthington was. It was a good effort, but probably
not necessary. There were only two other tables with patrons in the
entire joint.

"Perhaps you should take off your dress along
with your coat and act like you intended to wear your slip all
along," T.S. suggested. He was rewarded with a stifled giggle. They
stood beside the bar, giving Worthington time to spot them and
evaluate his prey. Meanwhile, T.S. was quietly returning the
scrutiny.

Up close, he decided, the producer was even
more repellent than he had suspected. It wasn't so much the way he
looked, it was more the way he moved. His tongue unconsciously
licked at his thin lips in greedy, lizardlike darts. His eyes were
narrow and glittered unnaturally as they automatically zeroed in on
Lilah's large diamond ring, then shifted to her expensive coat and
on to her heavy gold necklace. T.S. could practically hear the
producer calculating Lilah's net worth. Finished with Lilah,
Worthington moved on to evaluate T.S. and it was all he could do to
ignore the blatant scrutiny. The whole time he thought he was being
subtle, Worthington was tugging unconsciously on his tiny right
ear, sometimes stroking it as if for good luck.

T.S. had no desire to get close to the man,
but duty called. He might know something about Emily's death. Or
why every trace of her had disappeared from one of his apartments.
He led Lilah to the edge of the producer's table and the blondes
looked up in bored obedience.

"Worthington?" T.S. asked. "I'm T.S. Hubbert.
You know Lilah Cheswick, I believe?"

The producer's mouth cracked in a smile that
oozed sincerity and he leapt to his feet in fevered gallantry.
"I've never actually had the pleasure of meeting Miss Cheswick," he
admitted smoothly. "I've heard so much about you, however. What a
great pleasure."

He extended a hand to Lilah and she bravely
took it, pasting on a smile that was as phony as it was fitting for
the bored society matron she had decided to be for the night. It
was the first inkling that Lilah was actually going to enjoy their
charade and it inspired T.S. himself to new heights. He extended a
hand to Worthington and was rewarded with an appropriately manly
handshake.

"And who are these charming young ladies?"
T.S. asked, injecting an appropriately lascivious tone into his
voice. More of that man-to-man stuff.

"This is my good friend, Miss Sally St.
Claire," Worthington said enthusiastically. "You may recognize her
from the movies." The tall blonde with too much hair nodded primly,
then noisily slurped from her drink. T.S. didn't recognize her, but
then she did have her clothes on—and he suspected that her movies
were hardly late show fare.

"This other beautiful young thing is her good
friend, Molly." Molly nodded dully and glanced at the clock above
the bar. Her eyes were slightly glazed and T.S. was not at all sure
that Molly even knew where she was. Or, possibly, who she was.

"Sit down. Do please sit down. Where are my
manners?" Worthington actually hurried around the table and
escorted Lilah to a seat by his side, booting his "good friend"
Sally over one chair. He must really be desperate for money, T.S.
thought. Even for a toadying moneygrubber, his obsequiousness was
excessive.

"Please excuse me," the blonde named Molly
announced suddenly. She stood abruptly and walked toward the back,
disappearing inside the ladies' room.

"I'll just be a teensy minute myself," Sally
St. Claire added, snatching a small gold pocketbook from the
tabletop before hurrying after her friend.

Worthington chuckled as if they had just told
a particularly amusing joke. "Girls. What do they do in there?
Always got to go in pairs. Makes you kind of wonder, huh?" The
guffaw that followed was so incredibly crass and forced that both
Lilah and T.S. were thrown for a loop. How were they supposed to
behave? Should they laugh along or be above it all? Better get a
grip on your character, T.S. told himself. Remember, you've got
money. Lots and lots of it.

T.S. compromised and smiled politely. He
would be slightly above it all. After all, he was rolling in the
dough.

It was the right choice. Within seconds,
Worthington was expertly pumping both of them—under the guise of
friendly questions—for information on where they lived, how many
houses they owned, had they ever been to a particular restaurant in
the Hamptons and wasn't the Virginia squire country marvelous in
the spring? Didn't they think that the best available property
bargains today could be found in the Caribbean? None of his
questions were innocuous. They were economic land mines carefully
laid in an attempt to strip their net worth bare. T.S. quickly
found himself in over his head. He detested name-dropping, whether
it was a person or place being dropped, and could not follow the
rapid-fire probing. Lilah was good, though, very good. All of the
hours spent listening to her boring friends chat on endlessly now
paid handsome dividends. By the time the girls returned from the
bathroom, Lance Worthington was convinced that both Lilah and T.S.
were eager to share their wealth.

What followed was dinner and a painfully
detailed description of a musical based on Davy Crockett's life.
And damned if Lilah didn't actually convey enthusiasm about such
monstrosities as a chorus line of dancing Indians paying homage to
the great white pioneer.

During the producer's tedious recounting of
the plot, the blondes excused themselves frequently, shunned food
of any kind, and spent most of their time in the ladies' room, only
to return and sit together giggling inanely over whispered comments
that T.S. could not hear. Once they erupted in loud laughter and
Worthington leaned over to mutter sharply in Sally St. Claire's
ear. She immediately straightened up and her mouth clamped down in
a thin line. She shrugged a small apology toward Lilah and T.S.,
then cast a quick, darting glance at her girlfriend.

Fortunately, the dinner was not quite as bad
as the show's concept and T.S. was able to find some solace in the
sole almondine. He had just worked his way over to the turnip puree
when, to his total astonishment, he felt a small foot begin to
probe his own. It could not have been Lilah, she was seated across
the table next to Worthington, so it had to be the blonde named
Molly. It was all T.S. could do to keep from choking and sending
flecks of turnip spraying across the tabletop. The small foot had
on a remarkably sharp-toed shoe and the hard tip pressed gently on
his instep then insinuated its way up his leg. Without even
glancing at her, T.S. flushed a deep scarlet and removed his leg
from her vicinity. This necessitated sitting practically sideways
in his chair, but he had no other ideas on how to repel the
attack.

Worthington turned his attention back to a
chattering Lilah, who was glibly holding forth on how hard it was
to find an investment that gave her a good return on her money
these days and how she just hated having everything parked in
municipal bonds. She was really pulling out the stops and the level
of greed this inspired in Worthington was nearly palpable. T.S.
forgot his embarrassment in his admiration for Lilah. By God, now
that was a woman who had real nerve. She knew how to take on a
challenge.

"I've got a great idea," Worthington
announced at the next lull in conversation. "I'm having a little
get-together tomorrow. For some of the backers and potential
investors, the ones who have passed preliminary muster, of course."
Good grief, the man had nerve. He actually wanted them to believe
that he could afford to be picky about who invested in his show and
who was left out in the cold.

"It's at my place," Worthington continued.
"I've got a great view of the river. Cocktails, munchies, a little
entertainment. What do you say? It's better than those boring
charity dinners, I can tell you that." He raised his eyebrows
flirtatiously at Lilah and she managed a genteel smile back. T.S.
would have rushed to her rescue but the pedicured probe was back at
work and he was once again busy defending his personal space at
ankle level.

"We'd love to come," Lilah was saying. She
smiled sweetly at T.S. but her eyes were full of questions. She was
wondering why T.S. was giving her so little help.

"Yes, we'd love to," T.S. quickly agreed. He
casually moved his chair a few inches to the left and it scraped
across the floor with a piercing shriek. The small foot only inched
its way a little closer.

Lilah suddenly looked at the clock, feigning
surprise. She must have sensed that something was wrong. "Theodore,
darling, shouldn't we be going? You have that appointment with the
sultan of … " She let her voice trail off discreetly.

"Oh, yes. Of course. I had completely
forgotten about the sultan." T.S. leapt to his feet and hurried to
help Lilah from her chair, wondering if there even was such a thing
as a sultan these days. Apparently, there were plenty of them since
no one at the table thought it unusual that they should hurry away.
There were no questions about coffee or dessert, and Worthington
did not seem concerned. They had promised to attend his party the
next night and he was content with what he had accomplished.

After a few halfhearted murmurings about who
would pick up the check, Lilah and T.S. managed to escape out the
door with all of their jewelry and valuables intact.

Lilah gulped at the fresh air. "My God. The
way he was looking at my ring I felt compelled to check every three
minutes to make sure I still had it on."

"That, that cheap…" T.S. struggled for words.
"That awful creature next to me was harassing me under the table!"
He spotted the limousine parked a few doors down and frantically
waved for Grady to hurry. He wanted out of there and away from that
anorexic ankle assaulter as soon as he could.

Lilah suppressed a smile. "Whatever do you
mean, Theodore?"

"That woman was trying to play footsies with
me. Right there. Under the table. With you right there!"

"Really, Theodore. Don't take it so hard.
What do you think that man was doing to me? I could practically
tell you his brand of footwear by now. Why do you think I got us
out of there? We'll just have to pump him for information tomorrow.
The man was halfway up my shins and I just couldn't take it
anymore."

T.S. was incensed. "How utterly despicable.
How completely crass. What do they do? Get together and agree on a
game plan? Draw straws? Sharpen their toe points? Are they some
sort of particularly active foot fetish group? Who did that other
blonde get to play footsies with? Maybe the waiter. Did you happen
to notice if he was standing next to her a lot?"

"Theodore, Theodore." She stopped his tirade
with an upheld hand and ushered him into the limousine's back seat.
"Do you think Worthington is harmless?" she asked.

"I think he's a snake," he answered
promptly.

"Of course. But I meant, harmless in Emily's
death."

"Probably. Why would he bother? But he's
certainly up to no good somewhere. I wonder what Auntie Lil found
out today."

"In that case," Lilah announced grandly,
"let's give her a call." She winked at T.S. and pushed a button on
the handrest. A small panel whirred back in the passenger seat
door, revealing a compact cellular telephone.

"Good heavens," T.S. said, inexplicably
annoyed. "It's a good thing they didn't have those contraptions
when I was still working. I'd never have gotten any peace or
quiet."