West 47th (31 page)

He tried to see what it was, pushed aside some green scum to make a patch that was only water. He shined his Mag Lite down. Even when he extended it below the surface its beam was defeated by the murk.

There was no doubt about him going in. Reluctance, but no doubt. The only question at the moment was whether he should go in clothed or naked.

He chose naked, undressed quickly and placed his clothing and the Beretta out of sight behind the shed. In case they returned to the pool for some reason. He could hear them inside, rummaging around roughly, breaking vases and such. They were searching in vain, he told himself, the house might be full of swag but the swag wasn't in there. Maybe.

He tried to bring himself to dive. It would be a swift slice down through the layer of scum. He stood on the edge, poised to spring, even went up on his toes a couple of times. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He turned and slipped in feet first, lowered himself slowly, told himself the scum was imaginary, that his bare skin wasn't feeling the slime of it, he was going for a dip in a pristine pool, sparkling, clean water. Mind over scummy, green matter.

He couldn't, however, shut out the stench. The malodor of organic decay invaded his nostrils and lungs and got to his brain. It made him retch. He was in up to his chin. To escape the air he took a deep breath of it and went under.

He was about midway between the deep end and the shallow. At the point where the bottom began to slope. He felt with his feet along the coving. His feet came in contact with something. He maneuvered down to beam his Mag Lite on it.

The woman.

The body of her. Her arms caught in the sleeves of the fox coat. The ampleness of the coat spread out wing-like on each side of her. She had the appearance of some lazy, hairy water creature, unwilling to exert itself unless stirred.

The mere touch of Mitch's foot had impelled her. She coasted along the bottom, bound gradually for the deepest part.

Ralph's body was also in there somewhere, Mitch thought. He was bathing with the dead.

He shined his light around in various directions. No sign of whatever had been tied to the twine. It should have been right here. He reasoned that it, like the dead woman, must have slid down the slope of the bottom.

He needed a breath, had to go up for some of that awful air. He'd need a big deep breath of it. He expected to go up where he'd gone in; however, the top of his head met the resistance of scum. It was gelatinous, tight layers upon layers of decomposition and algae, several inches thick. It gave way, and as Mitch's head emerged, it seemed to slip down over his face like he was putting on a heavy turtleneck sweater, but putrid.

He gasped. Took the breath as quickly as possible and went back under.

He swam for the deepest part. Felt the pressure increase. He came to the body of the woman. His bare thigh brushed the fur as he passed by, and a moment later he saw he was headed for the body of Ralph.

It was at the drain on the bottom, appeared to be hovering over the drain, trying to escape by way of it. Ralph's legs were crouched, his back bent forward, his arms encircling.

Mitch swam closer.

He could have easily missed the twine. Merely the frayed end of it protruded from beneath Ralph's body. He shoved the body away and saw attached to the other end of the twine, tied securely, closed by it, a white plastic kitchen trash bag.

He grabbed it by its neck and sprang for the surface.

Chapter 23

It was a little after three when Mitch arrived home.

There were no lights on. Lights were of no use to Maddie, of course, and often, when she was home alone at night, she simply neglected to turn them on.

Mitch went directly to the bedroom. The bed was only ready to be occupied, the top sheet folded down as precise as an envelope, the goose-down-filled pillows plumped and piled in place, but no Maddie. Mitch's eyes needed her …

… found her in the living room.

She was on the sofa in an awkward position, as though sleep had suddenly won out over her and toppled her. Her eyes were closed. Sometimes, contrary to normal reflex, she fell asleep with her eyes open and Mitch would gently lower her lids like shades. But her eyes were closed now, and, according to the rate and sounds of her breaths, she was surely sleeping.

Mitch stood there, taking her in, replenishing, replacing the make-do image of her with the actual her. Why hadn't she minded him, gone to bed as he'd told her? She'd tried to wait up.

She had on headphones. A Walkman was somewhere on the sofa with her. Cassettes were scattered about on the floor. Mitch gathered them up to not step on them. He carefully removed the headphones and believed he'd done so without waking her. He'd leave her as she was for the time being, would carry her in to bed.

“How about a kiss?” she murmured.

“In a minute,” he said and went into the bathroom. He undressed, threw everything into the laundry hamper, then turned to the familiar mirror.

Look at me looking at me, he thought. What a mess. There were remnants of the green scum caked here and there on him. A lot of it in his hair. His nostrils were green. So were his eyelashes and ear holes.

He grinned. For what may have been the fiftieth time since he'd pulled over beneath a New Rochelle streetlight. Before then, actually as soon as he'd gotten out of the pool, he'd squeezed and shaken the white plastic trash bag and believed what it contained felt right, had the right weight. It wasn't until he was well away from Ralph's house, and all, however, that he cut the twine from the neck of the bag and took a look.

No trash in that trash bag.

The Kalali swag.

He deserved to grin. He deserved to tell himself
nice going
along with telling himself that it had been twenty, maybe thirty percent his resourcefulness and seventy percent luck, but it was also okay if he transposed those figures. Wait until Hurley heard how it had come off. He'd love it. There'd be no need to exaggerate. It had been bizarre enough. For instance, Ralph's typical fence paranoia, his using the scummy swimming pool as a hiding place. And the way Ralph, even after death, had seemed to be trying to hold on to the bag of swag.

Mitch relaxed the corners of his mouth so he could watch them form another grin.

“What's with this ‘in a minute' stuff?” Maddie demanded to know as she padded somnolently into the bathroom leading with her lips. “I've been deprived all night and now …” She stopped short of reaching within range and cringed. “You smell awful,” she said, “worse than a grave robber.”

“You've known grave robbers?” Mitch jested.

“Don't you dare come near me.”

Maddie backed off four steps. Mitch got into the shower stall. It took three all-over lathers and rinses for him to feel free of scum and death. Maddie had two big towels waiting. He dried his upper half while she kneeled and tended to the rest, not slighting any part or crease. She even had him lift his feet so she could dry between his toes. There was a degree of ritual to it but nothing of dominance-submission. It was simply something she sometimes did and always enjoyed doing. At first, years ago, he'd resisted, felt awkward and rather embarrassed by having her toweling him dry as though he was a child, but then he tried turnabout and understood and accepted the adoring, caring quality of it.

Now she was done. She remained down, pressed her cheek to the socket of his groin and said: “You must be hungry.”

He was, but wouldn't her suggestion be a helping of that gaspacho from hell? “I'll just get a glass of milk,” he said.

She insisted on getting it for him, brought it and several ginger snaps to him in the bedroom, and, while he stood and drank and munched, she got into bed so she'd be there when he got in, would be sort of receiving him.

She'd made the bed fresh and allowed it to remain fresh so that he would experience that pleasure now: the chaste sensuality of fine, imported sheets. He sighed luxuriously when he'd inserted himself between them. She let him acclimate before claiming her kiss, a brief, sweet one.

They lay face up, side in touch with side, silent for a while. Finally she said what he expected: “Tell me.”

He didn't want to. He was being shared by exhilaration and fatigue and he favored giving in to the latter. “Tomorrow,” he told her.

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“You'll remember everything? You won't leave anything out?”

“Promise,” he fibbed, knowing he'd omit telling her what Fratino had wanted to do to Ralph and that he probably wouldn't reveal the extent he'd been repulsed by that putrid pool and having to swim with those bodies. She'd most likely detect his omissions, however, and pump them out of him, he thought. “What time is it?” he asked.

“I don't know. You've got the sight. What time do you have to get up?”

“Eight or so,” he replied. His bedside clock told him it was now quarter to four. He set its alarm for eight. When he clicked off the light it was as though he also clicked himself off.

Maddie let an estimated ten minutes go by before she got up and went around to his side to mercifully un-set his alarm.

Chapter 24

Pickings on a mandolin.

The accompaniment to Mitch's ascent to consciousness that brought him face to face with his bedside clock, its arms indicating frantically, mutely, five to eleven. What happened to eight o'clock? Mitch complained, feeling betrayed.

He got up quickly. This was supposed to have been one of those rare days of days, he thought, a full course of glorious victorious hours, a six-hundred-thousand day. He'd wanted to enjoy every minute of it and now, here it was, nearly half over. No matter about the alarm, Maddie should have awakened him. He'd told her eight.

He rushed through his ablutions. Put on a suitable suit and a tie of celebratory color and pattern. As somewhat of a payback he merely peeked in on Maddie in the study giving the mandolin lesson. She'd have to discover him gone.

With the throat of the white plastic trash bag inescapably in his grasp, Mitch taxied down to 47th to his brother Andy's place of business. Andy was delighted when Mitch emptied the Kalali swag onto the work bench in the inner office. The bracelets, necklaces, rings, brooches, strands, pins and all. A six-million-dollar array. Andy congratulated and gave Mitch a prideful, well-done slap on the back.

“Fine goods,” Mitch admired, holding up an intricately worked diamond and calibré-cut sapphire art deco bracelet.

“It looks Boucheron. Is it signed?”

Mitch louped the bracelet, saw that it did indeed bear the Boucheron hallmark.

“You still have the good, fast eye,” he said.

“You don't?” Andy smiled. He nudged certain of the Kalali pieces, urging them to show more life. “A shame to see these beauties not looking their best,” he said. Precious stones, particularly diamonds, have an affinity for grease. The swifts and Ralph had handled this jewelry so much that it was considerably dulled by their body oils.

“I thought I'd clean it up,” Mitch said, “if that's okay with you.” Andy had the needed professional equipment there on the work bench.

It wasn't merely okay with Andy; he was glad to help.

Piece by piece the jewelry was placed in a wire basket and immersed in a Bransonic 521 ultrasound cleaning tank filled with a degreasing solution. It was rather like deep frying but with sonic vibrations instead of heat and degreaser instead of oil.

Next, each piece was held by tweezers while it was exposed to pressurized steam from the nozzle of a box-like appliance called a Steamaster HPJ-25. That to get rid of any stubborn residue that might be lodged in the mountings. Time and again, the mundane steam seemed to hiss spitefully at the special beauty it was being forced to enhance.

Andy and Mitch worked in tandem, as they once had when there'd been a Laughton store. They were done in less than an hour. Now the Kalali swag lay there in its utmost brilliance, its numerous facets barraging the air sharply with scintillations.

The pieces were put into individual clear plastic, self-sealing envelopes. There was just barely enough room for the lot in Mitch's attaché case.

It was still lunchtime when Mitch arrived at his office. Shirley was eating in at her desk.

“There you are!” she said with a chiding tone countered immediately by a smile. “I've been beeping you.”

“I haven't been beepable.”

“You lost your beeper?”

“Either that or Maddie hid it.”

“You've never been a loser,” was Shirley's opinion. “Have you had lunch? You don't look as though you've had lunch.”

“No, what are you having?”

“My more or less usual. I'd be glad to share.”

Shirley more frequently than not brought her lunch from home. Her more or less usual was a cream cheese and watercress on raisin wheat, London tea room style, the bread sliced extremely thin and its crust amputated. Mitch didn't think it qualified as a sandwich. Shirley often said she'd rather starve than subject herself to one of those feeding troughs New Yorkers line up at.

“Order me a roast beef on rye, fries and a Mountain Dew,” Mitch told her. “Has Ruder called?”

“No, but George Bickford has, twice.”

Bickford was a client, Ruder's counterpart at Northland Providential, a Philadelphia insurance company from which Mitch had been receiving a retainer every month for six years.

“And Hurley stopped by about an hour ago,” Shirley went on, “said he'd be back. And,” she added pointedly, “I need to talk to you.”

“About a layaway?”

“No. Anyway, my need can keep until you have a free moment.”

Mitch did a fast read of Shirley and believed what he saw was either she was getting married, needed money for an abortion or wanted a raise.

“You want a raise,” he said.

“A rise,” she corrected.