Ringer (9 page)

It seemed at that moment like the seven hundred dollars was worth it.

She lived in a large apartment building near the river.

“I’ll go up and get Ralphie.” She kissed my cheek and vanished into the building. I hoped this little dog would not hump my leg as I was humping Vim later. That once happened, and it was very disconcerting, let me tell you.

With Vim’s dog it would have been very disconcerting indeed.

Vim emerged.

In tow, behind Ralphie.

A Great Dane.

I will let the filmmakers imagine exactly how to portray my dismay, not only with the size of this animal, but with the size of this animal’s excrement. Watching Vim wrestle Ralphie’s loafs into a bag and then heave them in the trash can was less than appealing. As was the loss of Vim’s sweet shampoo fragrance, replaced by the stench of dog poo. Slobber cascaded from this beast’s maw, and the monster’s yellow eyes looked at me like I was its next meal.

“I’d invite you up, only Ralphie needs to know you better. He’s pretty protective of me.”

“Yes, I can imagine that he would be.” My smile was growing weary. “Could he be otherwise of someone so charming?”

“Call me?” She handed me her card.

“Of course,
querida.
Perhaps tomorrow? I am not sure how much longer I am in town.”

She kissed me on the lips. “Tomorrow.”

Ralphie’s stomach gurgled, a four-foot strand of drool connecting him to the sidewalk.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

I FELT PERHAPS CALLING DIXIE
slightly before nine the next morning was too early, but she picked up on the first ring and immediately asked to meet for breakfast. She even insisted on coming downtown to meet me in a booth at the Lyric Diner on Third Avenue. Our coffee was set next to us, and the rotund waiter trundled back to the kitchen.

Dixie was in a V-strap halter-top dress, one in a white and black tropical print. Quite ravishing.

“Morty, I’m afraid we need a little more information.”

“I am as always humbled to be of assistance in any way that I can.” Her breasts were glorious. They were packed into the halter top.

“Why the ring?” she asked.

I smiled the beneficent smile of anyone who is doing God’s work. “As I explained, the Caravaca ring must be reunited with the finger of Hernando Martinez de Salvaterra.”

Dixie tucked a curl of dark hair behind her ear and leaned in. “I still don’t understand, though, Morty. Why do you want the ring instead of money?”

I blinked, not understanding her meaning at first, then realizing that as a secular person, she may not have understood how the Lord does business. I tried to put it in terms she would understand.

“Dixie, I agree, this is certainly no ordinary business transaction, and yet, if you think of it that way, it may help. Who am I but my boss’s emissary dispatched to perform a task? From where we sit it may look simple, but there are wheels turning up there. I have to assume that my boss knows what He’s doing when He instructs me on the terms of the deal. Isn’t the important thing at the end of the day that things are set right? We are not concerned with how Grant came across this ring, but it does not belong to him. My boss only wants the ring returned. After all, for Grant this is only a modest gold ring. Am I mistaken, or could Robert Tyson Grant afford to purchase just about any ring he wanted?”

Our breakfasts arrived. Mine: grilled American cheese. Dixie’s: grapefruit.

“Morty, I completely agree. Whatever the reason, I think Grant should give you guys the ring. Frankly, the less we know about how you and your boss work, the better. But I have a problem.” She reached out and put her tender, warm hand on mine. “Robert doesn’t want to give up the ring.”

I thumbed her forefinger, nodding with concern. “Has he told you why he would not surrender the ring?”

“Robert is
my
boss. Like you, I don’t pretend to understand why he does everything that he does. So you’re saying there is no way we can offer you money instead?” Her small fingers rolled in my palm.

“Were it up to me, an entreaty from someone as lovely as yourself would be impossible to refuse. However, when it comes to such matters, my boss is uncompromising. I think perhaps you should make sure that Grant understands that my boss is God. You do not want to cross Him, do you? When it comes to rewards or punishments, He does not care if someone is rich or poor.”

Dixie looked a little pale, I thought, and pulled her hand away. “I’ll try again, but I don’t think this is going to work, Morty.”

“Yes, but I am already here. My boss knows where the ring is.”

It is interesting to observe certain women, especially those who have made a man their meal ticket. While I did not understand this at the time, Dixie was becoming convinced that they had made a pact with the devil, that I was with a Mexican cartel. Her understanding was that if they did not volunteer the ring, Grant might himself be killed and the ring taken from him. She had climbed one rich philanthropist after another in order to reach this one. Once head of his foundations and apple of his eye, she needed to rid him of Purity, to unburden him for even more riches that would undoubtedly be hers. There could only be one woman in his life. One possible heir.

Looking back, I don’t think Dixie was necessarily as calculating as I suggest. Like many women, though, she sought security, she sought the best match she could make for herself. If this is not so, why do women swoon over doctors and lawyers? It is not because one probes smelly human crevices and the other composes tedious tracts.

A complication had arisen, one that could undo Dixie’s entire business plan and all her ambitions. As with women of this type, she determined to marshal her resources.

Dixie’s hand was on mine again, her dark eyes crafty, her breasts somehow more inviting than ever. “Morty, I’ll get you that ring, but we have to do it my way, and it may take some time. Can you do me a favor, and give me a little time, darlin’?”

“I will do what I can. If you will.” There was the spark of mischief in her eyes, and I grinned. “Dinner? So we can discuss details of my wait.”

She stood and handed me a card with her address on it.

“Be there at eight.”

As she walked out, the sway of her behind promised as much as the front.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

MY HEART DANCED A RUMBA
in my chest as I left the Lyric Diner. After my two unfulfilling dates it looked like the third might be a charm. I had all day to prepare. Perhaps a manicure was in order, or a massage, or both.

At a newsstand, I bought a newspaper and began walking. I glanced at the cover. Then I looked again.

In a box in the corner of the front page was a file photo of Purity Grant surprised by the flash of a photographer’s camera on the streets of Manhattan as she emerged from a police station. Below it read:
GODIVA GOES TO COURT, PAGE 6.

I turned to page 6 and read:

Purrrity Grant’s day in court for stealing a horse in Central Park is slated for this morning, and sources say it is likely the judge will say “neigh” to a simple fine. Court watchers anticipate the catty heiress will get more than her claws clipped.

I stopped in my tracks and hailed a cab, and in the time it took to read the funnies, horoscopes, and advice columns, the driver had delivered me to Centre Street. I didn’t know for sure where Purity’s hearing would be, but I knew where the courts were, and thought perhaps the paparazzi would mark the spot somehow. If not, I would simply ask.

What was my object? To be brutally honest, I wanted to gawk at Purity the way everybody else did. I had spent a considerable amount of time reading up on Robert Tyson Grant and Purity, so it had become a hobby to study them. I could hardly be expected to spend all day preparing for my date with Dixie, so why not?

The paparazzi were in force in front of One Centre Street, so I climbed the stairs and went in. Police were inside checking bags, but I had none, so walked through the scanners and then up to a cop standing by the elevators.

“Can you tell me where the Purity Grant hearing would be?”

“You’ll never get in now,” he snorted. “Upstairs, third floor, look for the crowds.”

I went upstairs anyway and found a crowd that contained a very mixed bag of people. Of course, there were reporters and court artists, who were easily identified among the rest because of their sketch pads. They all spoke to each other in low tones and checked their watches.

Then there were people who looked like a collection of people you’d find in a bus station, not very well dressed ones, who didn’t look like they knew each other. Their eyes were turned expectantly in my direction and beyond, like they were expecting a Greyhound bus. I had not known this at the time, but there are crime gawkers who spend all their time haunting the courthouses. They entertain themselves at the expense of other people’s problems and feed off the fleeting fame of the infamous. Obviously, attending a court hearing featuring Purity Grant was not to be missed.

I approached one of the gawkers, an older woman in a worn sweater whose only makeup was bright red lipstick.

“Excuse me, miss, but could you tell me if this is the courtroom where the Purity Grant hearing is taking place?”

“You shoulda got here earlier. All full up.”

“Ah, so this is the right place, then?”

“All full up.”

One of the reporter types was at my elbow. He wore a suede jacket, cowboy boots, close-cropped ginger hair, and a smile on one side of his face. His eyes inspected my white suit carefully.

“You don’t look like one of these
scumtators
.” He waved a hand at the woman, who snarled at him. “And you’re not press. Who are you?”

I put out my hand. “Morty.”

He clasped my hand. “Skip Baker. I’m with the
Daily Post
. Who are you with? Not just a spectator?”

“I am an interested party.”

Skip cocked a blond eyebrow at me. “Legal expert of some kind? No, you’d have been here earlier. You know Purity? Her father?”

I grinned. “Who does not know the Grants?”

He laughed softly. “Cagey, aren’t we? You want me to get you in?”

“How much would I have to pay?”

“You don’t pay, you get here early.”

“Then how would you get me in?”

“I have a press card. Only they know me, I don’t have to flash it. You take mine, stick close to me, flash it, and they won’t think anything about it. Done it before.”

I folded my arms. I am from East Brooklyn and do not so easily trust helpful strangers. “Skip, why would you do this for me?”

He chuckled, his eyes sweeping the other reporters. “Hey, I’m guessing you’re a friend of the family, connected somehow. I get you in, I’m a nice guy, maybe you do me a favor in return sometime, give me a little inside info. Anything you want to tell me. Or not. No skin off me. Doesn’t hurt to be a nice guy and not get anything in return.”

Now it was my turn to laugh. “You are quite a character, Skip. I will accept your offer, and if I have any information that I feel would be useful, I will pass it along. I will tell you this much right now: I am sympathetic to the Grants, so have no wish to say anything that would do them harm.” Certainly nothing that would have interfered with obtaining the Caravaca ring. Besides, all I knew about Robert Tyson Grant, really, was what he ate for lunch.

“Morty, if you want to go off record and tell me that Purity is secretly a nun, that’s OK with me. Every little bit helps.”

The bus people all went to their tiptoes. There was some commotion by the elevators down the hall. A gang of men in wire-rim glasses and pinstripe suits marched toward us, briefcases in full swing, a flash of blond hair just visible behind them. Court officers pushed our crowd apart, and the lawyers marched into the courtroom, Purity a half step behind them, and then three harried legal assistants a half step behind her.

Purity was smaller than I thought she would be, or maybe she just looked smaller because she had her head down and shoulders folded in, as though she hoped to vanish into her trench coat entirely like a snail into its shell. Remarkably, she was proportioned very much like Dixie, which is not to take anything away from either woman.

Our crowd of reporters folded in behind Purity’s gang. Skip put his arm around my shoulder and greeted the court officer by name as I flashed his ID. He guided me to the spectators’ gallery, fifth row.

It was pretty much like on TV—that is to say that the doors were closed, the session was called to order. A slim blond judge seated herself behind a placard that bore her name:
CAROLYN GEHMAN
. She tapped her gavel and said something to the prosecutor—it was hard to hear in that room as there were many hard surfaces and a high ceiling. The prosecutor stood and said that a deal had been worked out so that Purity would accept a guilty plea to a list of violations such as public nudity and disorderly conduct rather than a felony conviction for theft of the horse. Judge Gehman looked over her glasses at the defense table and asked them if the arrangement was correct. They said yes, but with about two dozen words, most of which meant nothing to me. I guess when you’re being paid what that legal team was being paid, the client didn’t get his money’s worth if the lawyers simply said “yes.”

Judge Gehman’s eyes shifted to Purity, rested there a moment, and then drooped to a document on the bench. “Will the defendant please rise.”

Purity stood, letting the trench coat fall to her chair. The pros had been at work on her, and the pigtails had been combined into a contrite French braid. The makeup was slight, and she wore a gray skirt suit with a white blouse. Her eyes were on the floor.

“Will the defendant please look the judge in the eye.”

Purity looked up, and there was no defiance, simply the eyes of a girl who was in trouble. I couldn’t tell by looking if it was an act.

“Purity Grant, I don’t have to review your record aloud, do I?” The judge held the thick document up for everybody to see.

“No, ma’am.”

“And this doesn’t even contain your juvie record. You’re getting a little old to be rebelling like this. There’s a clear and continuing pattern of misdemeanors and petty crimes, none with any apparent malice except the disregard you show for the efforts the police have to expend parenting you. I’m seriously tempted to say no to this arrangement, send this to the grand jury for indictment on felony charges, and throw the book at you.”