A Cast of Killers (42 page)

He did not have long to worry. The buzzer
rang just as he had managed to pull together a respectable outfit.
He was missing his shoes and socks, but bare feet seemed
superfluous in light of last night. He padded happily to the buzzer
and pushed the okay button without bothering to speak to Mahmoud
first. He was not in the mood for any of his doorman's sly
comments. At least not until he knew what he was being kidded
about. If he hurried, he'd have just enough time to put on a pot of
coffee before Lilah found her way to his door.

A brisk, confident knock signaled her
arrival. It was one of the things he liked about her. She was a
no-nonsense woman. There would be no tentative tap-tapping for
Lilah Cheswick.

T.S. flung open the door grandly and gave a
courtly bow, a gesture that he immediately regretted. Blood rushed
to his head and he grew dizzy. It was a chore to straighten up
smoothly, but he did manage a small joke. "Enter my kingdom," he
said grandly and beamed a bright smile on his visitor—a smile that
froze into a grimace of paralyzed embarrassment.

Lance Worthington and Sally St. Claire stood
before him, staring at his bare feet.

"Now this is what I call a real Eastside
welcome," Worthington admitted, draping his cashmere coat over
T.S.'s outstretched arm. "You must have really enjoyed yourself at
the party." He walked to the center of the living room and
immediately began to expertly calculate the worth of its
furnishings.

"Sorry about your getting sick, sweetie,"
Sally told him, wiggling in after Worthington with the ease of one
experienced at slipping past vigilant doormen. She was wearing a
heavy fur wrap, which seemed a bit excessive for the middle of the
day in late September in New York City.

"Sick?" T.S. inquired faintly. What had she
said about him being sick? He had a vague suspicion that things
were turning against him, that his optimistic hopes about the night
before were about to evaporate. The trick would be to play it cool,
to act as if he knew what he had done.

Sally giggled and covered her mouth with a
hand that featured hot pink fingernails as deadly looking as
switchblades. T.S. could not take his eyes off them. Surely they
were fake. But if they were fake, why in the world would she choose
to glue them to her fingers?

"Let's just say that you looked a little
green to me when you left," she teased T.S., sitting primly on the
edge of his sofa. She lit up a cigarette and coyly blew smoke at
him. T.S.'s determined smile wavered as the smoke met his stomach,
especially when he heard the distinct sounds of casual rummaging
behind him.

"This real ivory?" Worthington asked. He was
holding up the king from T.S.'s beloved hand-carved chess set and
was scratching the bottom with the sharp corner of his heavy gold
ring.

"Yes. Do you mind?" T.S. reclaimed his
carving and set it gingerly back in place.

"Must be worth a fortune," the producer
remarked in admiration. "Nice place you got here. Big for just one
guy."

"We tried to call first," Sally St. Claire
explained. "No one answered." She crossed a leg and expertly
dangled a shoe from one toe as she puffed away on her ultra-long
cigarette. The shoe had at least a four-inch heel that tapered down
to a wicked point. Everywhere you looked, the woman ended in
dangerous, jabbing spikes.

Their arrival would teach him to turn off the
phone.

"How did you know where I lived?" T.S. asked
suspiciously.

Worthington stared at him as if he were daft.
"You're in the phone book," he explained.

T.S. tried to look casual. Damn. He should
have paid that extra fourteen dollars a month for an unlisted
number. He recovered his composure as much as he could under the
circumstances. "To what do I owe this honor?" he inquired politely.
He sat on the edge of a chair and tried hard to pretend that he was
not barefoot or that he had any reason to regret his actions of the
night before. If only he knew what he had done…

"Did you have a good time at my party last
night?" Worthington asked suddenly. He had lightly seized one of
his tiny, chimpanzeelike ears and was squeezing it methodically as
he spoke. He stared at the top tier of T.S.'s curio shelf and a
miniature sailor carved out of whalebone caught his attention. He
reached for it and hefted it casually in his free hand, still
squeezing his tiny ear. T.S. kept a careful eye on the carved
treasure; it would fit neatly into the producer's coat pocket. Then
he remembered: he'd just been asked a question. Damn those chimp
ears. They were positively mesmerizing.

"Well, yes. Of course," T.S. stalled before
shifting into full-blown fabrication. "I had a simply marvelous
time at your party, in fact." He doubted this was strictly true,
but given that his clothes were in a heap in one corner of his
bedroom, it was probably a safe bet to assume that he had whooped
it up in some manner or other.

"You left so suddenly," Worthington remarked.
He was staring out at T.S. from under furry black eyebrows. His
eyebrows, T.S. noticed, met in the middle of his forehead like a
caterpillar whenever the producer concentrated heavily. "I thought
perhaps we had offended you somehow," Worthington added
carefully.

"Oh, no. Not at all." T.S. attempted a smile.
"When you've got to go, you've got to go," he joked feebly. Where
the hell was Lilah? She'd be able to tell him the truth.

The producer's brow smoothed and he relaxed.
"Quite so. I always say 'live and let live' myself."

The phrase snagged at his memory with a
curious foreboding, but T.S. could not remember where or when he
had heard it recently.

"Given any thought to the show?" Worthington
asked. "Remember, there are only a couple of investing spots
left."

"Well, I haven't had much time to discuss it
with Lilah. I mean, Mrs. Cheswick."

"Oh, yes. Ms. Cheswick. Or Lilah, as I
believe she asked me to call her." Worthington wandered over to the
large sliding glass doors that led to the balcony and stood staring
intently out over York Avenue. The day had turned cloudy and
distinctly gray. It made T.S. sad to think that he had slept the
sun away. He was seized with a sudden longing to crawl back into
bed, pull the covers over his head and wait for Lilah to
arrive.

"She's a very wealthy woman, as I understand
it," Worthington added casually. He seemed quite fascinated with
the flow of traffic thirty stories below them.

"I'll say," Sally piped up. She stubbed out
her cigarette viciously in T.S.'s immaculate teak ashtray and he
suppressed a wince. It was not an ashtray intended for actual use.
Those were kept locked away in a drawer lined with cedar chips.
"Did you see that rock she had on her right hand?" she asked,
impressed. "And I bet those earrings were real diamonds, too."

"Sally." Worthington said her name so gently
that T.S. nearly missed it, but the effect was not lost on the
girl. Her mouth tightened and her shoulders rose defiantly. She
shot a quick glance at her boyfriend, then leaned back petulantly
against the couch. As she was recrossing her legs and attempting to
avoid impaling the footstool with a spike heel, a small furred paw
whipped out from beneath the couch and snagged one of her metallic
stockings. Her screech brought T.S. to his feet, but Worthington
did not even flinch. "There's an animal under the couch!" she
squeaked.

"Brenda! Eddie!" T.S. had no choice but to
get down on his hands and knees and drag the offender out by the
scruff. It was Brenda and she didn't look happy. Her yellow eyes
were narrowed to tiny slits and her tail switched ominously back
and forth as she regarded Sally St. Claire. "So sorry," T.S.
apologized. "I'll just be a minute."

He marched his pet to the back bedroom. Eddie
was fast asleep on the bed and T.S. plopped Brenda beside him.
"Good work," he whispered to her as he searched beneath the bed for
his bedroom slippers. He was stalling for time, hoping to fend off
the faint pounding that had returned to his temples.

"Nice bedroom. Big." T.S. whirled around to
find that Worthington had followed him down the hall.

"Please. Feel free to look around," T.S. told
him sarcastically. But the note of indignation obviously went right
by the producer, for he proceeded to do just that, picking up
objects on T.S.'s dresser and idly examining the undersides to see
who had made them.

"Live alone?" he inquired, his eyes sliding
to the open closet door.

"Yes." T.S. sat on the edge of the bed and
patted Brenda absently. At the moment, Brenda was his only ally and
he'd take any friend he could get. Her tail still switched
ominously and her eyes were narrowed. She did not like Worthington
any more than his girlfriend.

"Ever married?" Worthington asked. He seemed
bored.

"No. How about you?" It was a sore point with
T.S.. He had never learned to tolerate the undertones that crept
into people's voices when they inevitably asked the infernal
question.

"Me? Once was enough. Got taken to the
cleaners. I learned my lesson."

His lessons had done nothing for his taste in
women, T.S. thought grimly. The producer was giving him the
willies. He was too smooth, too calm, too bored. Like a rattlesnake
pretending to be asleep. Get to the point, man, T.S. wanted to
shout, so I can go back to bed. He wondered vaguely if this had
been the plan, to separate him from Sally. Was she robbing his
silverware drawer even as he sat there?

"About Lilah," Worthington began carefully,
immediately grabbing T.S.'s attention. "She's a very nice woman.
Cultured. Refined. But she seems to have a bit of a problem
loosening up." He replaced a silver clothes brush on the dresser
top and switched to fiddling with the blinds. "I see that a lot in
older women. I like watching people. I'm a connoisseur, you might
say, of human behavior." He turned suddenly and stared at T.S. "I
saw that nothing caught your fancy at last night's party." He
watched T.S. intently, searching for a reaction.

"Not my style," T.S. hedged, confident that
whether he remembered the party or not, it was an entirely
appropriate remark.

"That's what I thought. But I want you to be
happy. I really do." Worthington's smile was reptilian: the lips
slid back silently and T.S. half expected a small, forked tongue to
dart out. "I like my investors to be happy," the producer
added.

"If I invest," T.S. pointed out. It was clear
that playing hard to get was the way to hook Lance Worthington.

"I feel confident that you'll come on board,"
the producer replied. "It's just too good an opportunity to pass
up." T.S. shrugged and Worthington continued. "Tell you what, I've
got a treat in mind for you. Something that I think you'll find
very interesting. It was a bit hard to set up, but for you, I made
the extra effort." He smiled again and handed T.S. a small envelope
that was in his pocket. "Be at this address tonight at nine. If
you've got other plans, cancel them. Because I think you'll be
very, very pleasantly surprised. Then call me tomorrow morning and
we'll talk."

T.S. took the envelope automatically and
shook the outstretched hand offered to him by Worthington. He would
play along for now, then call Auntie Lil and see what she thought
he should do next. He was not in the mood to waste any more time
with this sleazy pair. He had a feeling that if he didn't cut off
contact with Lance Worthington soon, he'd end up on a suckers list
for the rest of his life and spend his retirement years fending off
endless schemers searching for a gullible investor.

"Don't worry about seeing us out,"
Worthington told him smoothly. "I've got another appointment and
I'm a few minutes late."

But T.S. was not about to let them get out
the door without a good look at what they held in their hands. He
stuffed the envelope in his pocket and followed Worthington back
into the living room, retrieving his cashmere coat for him. The
silence was a curious one, as if words were being understood
without being said. Worthington was smiling as if he had discovered
a great secret, and Sally was a little too casually examining the
small run that Brenda had left in her stocking.

"Sorry about that," T.S. managed, his innate
good manners taking over. But he'd be damned if he'd offer to
replace the tawdry things. Sally shrugged her shoulders prettily,
he was to pay the matter no mind. T.S. understood then that some
sort of a signal had been given and received; Worthington had
trained her well.

"Like I say, I'm a connoisseur of human
behavior. 'Live and let live,' I always say," Worthington repeated
as he hurried out the door.

What was that supposed to mean? T.S. stood in
the doorway as the pair made their way to the elevator. What in the
world were they up to and what did it have to do with him?

He had plenty of time to think it through
before nine that night, but first things first. T.S. returned to
the kitchen and checked his silverware; it was all there as far as
he could tell. He took a quick inventory of his most precious
possessions, not doubting for an instant that it was a normal
reaction to having those two in one's home.

Nothing was missing, yet he had a curious
sensation that something had been taken. They had seemed so
satisfied.

He turned the phone back on and dialed Auntie
Lil's number. No answer. She was probably out minding the business
of New York's other seven million inhabitants. All at one time.
There was nothing to do but wait until Lilah returned from her
errand. She, at least, could fill him in on the details of last
night.

Restless, he fetched more aspirin and a cup
of coffee, then dragged a chair in front of the sliding glass doors
where he did his best thinking. The rest of the world was so tiny
from this vantage point, and it made him seem more powerful. He
sipped at the scalding liquid, then—remembering what Worthington
had slipped him in the bedroom—he carefully opened the envelope
stored in his pocket.