While My Pretty One Sleeps (11 page)

In a sudden, violent movement, the mare threw back her head, then reared. Startled, Kitty pulled at the reins as the animal swerved down a side path. Frantically she tried to remember not to lean forward. Sit back when you're in trouble! She felt the loose stones slide under the hoofs. The uneven canter changed to a full gallop, downhill, over the uneven ground. Dear God, if the horse fell, it would crush her! She tried to slide her boots so that only the tips were still in the stirrups, so as not to get hung up if she fell.

From behind, she heard the instructor yelling, “Don't pull on the reins!” She felt the horse stumble as a rock gave way under its hind leg. It started to pitch forward, then regained its balance. A piece of black plastic flew up and grazed Kitty's cheek. She looked down, and an impression of a hand framed by a bright-blue cuff darted through her mind and was gone.

The horse reached the bottom of the rocky incline and, taking the bit between its teeth, galloped flat out toward the stable.
Kitty managed to hang on till the last moment, when she went flying from the saddle as the mare came to an abrupt stop at the watering trough. She felt every bone in her body bounce as she hit the ground, but she was able to pull herself to her feet, shake her arms and legs and move her head from side to side. Nothing seemed to be badly strained or broken, thank God.

The instructor galloped up. “I told you, you gotta
control
her. You're the boss. You okay?”

“Never better,” Kitty said. She started for her car. “I'll see you in the next millennium.”

•   •   •

A half hour later, gratefully reclining in her steaming, churning bathtub Jacuzzi, she began to laugh. So an equestrian I'm not, she decided. That's it for the sport of kings. I'll just jog like a sensible human being from now on. Mentally she relived the harrowing experience. It probably hadn't lasted more than two minutes, she thought. The worst part was when that miserable nag slipped. . . . The image of the plastic flying past her face returned. And then, that impression of a hand in a sleeve. How ridiculous. But still, she had seen it, had she not?

She closed her eyes, enjoying the soothing, whirling water, the scent and feel of the bath oil.

Forget it, she told herself.

•   •   •

The sharply cool evening caused the heat to go on in the apartment. Even so, Seamus felt chilled to the soul. After pushing a hamburger and French fries around on his plate, he gave up the
pretense of eating. He was aware of Ruth's eyes boring into him across the table. “Did you do it?” she asked finally.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it might just be better to let it go.”

“I told you to put it in writing. Thank her for agreeing that you need the money and she doesn't.” Ruth's voice began to rise. “Tell her that in these twenty-two years you've paid her nearly a quarter of a million dollars on top of a big settlement and it's obscene to want more for a marriage that lasted less than six years. Congratulate her on the big contract she has for her new book and say that you're glad she doesn't need the money but your kids sure do. Then sign the letter, and drop it in her mailbox. We'll keep a copy of it. And if she squawks, there won't be a person alive who doesn't know what a greedy phony she is. I'd like to see how many colleges drape her with honorary degrees if she reneges.”

“Ethel thrives on threats,” Seamus whispered. “She'd turn a letter like that around. She'd make the alimony payments sound like a triumph for womankind. It's a mistake.”

Ruth shoved the plate aside. “Write it!”

They had an old Xerox machine in the den. It took three attempts before they had a clear copy of the letter. Ruth handed Seamus his coat. “Now march yourself over and stick that in her mailbox.”

He elected to walk the nine blocks. His head sunk in misery, his hands jammed into his pockets, he fingered the two envelopes he was carrying. One held a check. He had taken it from
the back of the checkbook and written it without Ruth's knowledge. The letter was in the other envelope. Which one should he put into Ethel's box? As though she were standing before him, he could see her reaction to the note. With equal clarity, he could visualize what Ruth would do if he left the check.

He turned the corner of West End Avenue onto Eighty-second Street. There were still plenty of people out. Young couples, shopping on the way home from work, their arms filled with groceries. Well-dressed middle-agers, flagging cabs, off to expensive dinners and the theater. Derelicts huddled against brownstones.

Seamus shivered as he reached Ethel's building. The mailboxes were in the vestibule inside the locked main door at the top of the steps. Whenever he was down to the wire with the check, he'd ring the bell for the superintendent, who'd let him in to drop the check into Ethel's mailbox. But today that wasn't necessary. A kid he recognized as living on the fourth floor brushed past him and started up the steps. On impulse he grabbed her arm. She turned, looking scared. She was a bony-looking kid, thin face, sharp features. Maybe about fourteen years old. Not like his girls, Seamus thought. From somewhere in their genes, they'd received pretty faces, warm, loving smiles. A moment of profound regret washed over him as he pulled out one of the envelopes. “Would you mind if I went into the vestibule with you? I have to put something in Miss Lambston's mailbox.”

The cautious expression faded. “Oh sure. I know who you are. You're her ex. It must be the fifth of the month. That's when
she always says you deliver the ransom.” The girl laughed, showing gaping spaces between her teeth.

Wordlessly, Seamus fumbled in his pocket for the envelope and waited as she unlocked the door. The murderous rage washed over him again. So he was the laughingstock of the building!

The mailboxes were directly inside the outer door. Ethel's was fairly full. He still didn't know what to do. Should he leave the check or the letter? The girl waited by the inner door, watching him. “You're just on time,” she said. “Ethel told my mother she yanks you right into court when you're late with her check.”

Panic swept over Seamus. It would have to be the check. He grabbed the envelope from his pocket and tried to force it down the narrow slit in the mailbox.

When he arrived home, he nodded yes to Ruth's fiercely angry question. He could not at this moment stand the explosion that would occur when he admitted he'd dropped off the alimony. After she stalked out of the room, he hung up his coat and took the second envelope from his pocket. He glanced into it. It was empty.

Seamus sank into a chair, his body trembling, bile rising in his throat, his head in his hands. He had managed to fumble again. He had put the check and the letter into the same envelope, and now they were in Ethel's mailbox.

•   •   •

Nicky Sepetti spent Wednesday morning in bed. The burning in his chest was even worse than last night. Marie was in and out of the bedroom. She brought in a tray with orange juice, coffee, fresh Italian bread spread thick with marmalade. She pestered
him to let her call a doctor.

Louie arrived at noon, shortly after Marie went to work. “With respect, Don Nicky, you look real sick,” he said.

Nicky told him to watch television downstairs. When he was ready to go to New York, he'd let him know.

Louie whispered, “You were right about Machado. They got him.” He smiled and winked.

In early evening, Nicky got up and began to dress. He'd be better off on Mulberry Street, and it wouldn't be good for anyone to guess how sick he really was. As he reached for his jacket, his skin became damp with perspiration. Holding on to the poster of the bed, he eased himself down, loosened his tie and shirt collar and lay back on the bed. For the next hours, the chest pain kept swelling and receding like a giant wave. Under his tongue, his mouth began to burn from the nitroglycerin tablets he kept swallowing. They did nothing to ease the pain, only gave him the familiar sharp, brief headache as they melted.

Faces began drifting past his vision. His mother's face: “Nicky, don't hang around with those guys. Nicky, you're a good boy. Don't get into trouble.” Proving himself to the mob. No job too big or too small. But never women. That dumb remark he'd made in the courtroom. Tessa. He'd really like to see Tessa once more. Nicky Junior. No,
Nicholas. Theresa and Nicholas
. They'd be glad he'd died in bed like a gentleman.

From far away he heard the front door open and close. Marie must have come in. Then the doorbell ringing, a hard and demanding sound. Marie's angry voice. “I don't know if he's home. What do you want?”

I'm home, Nicky thought. Yeah. I'm home. The bedroom door swung fully open. Through glazed eyes, he saw the shock on Marie's face, heard her shriek, “Get a doctor.” Other faces. Cops. They didn't have to be in uniform. He could smell them even when he was dying. Then he knew why they were there. That undercover guy, the one they'd wasted. Right away the cops had come to him, of course!

“Marie,” he said. It came out a whisper.

She bent over, put her ear to his lips, smoothed his forehead. “Nicky!” She was crying.

“On . . . my . . . mother's . . . grave . . . I . . . didn't . . . order . . . Kearny's wife killed.” He wanted to say that he'd intended to try to get the contract on Kearny's kid stopped. But all he managed to cry was “Mama” before a last blinding, tearing pain ripped through his chest, and his eyes went out of focus. His head slumped over on the pillow as his agonized breathing filled the house, and abruptly stopped.

•   •   •

How many people had Bigmouth Ethel told that she thought he was helping himself to the money she hid around the apartment? It was a question that haunted Doug Wednesday morning after he arrived at his desk in the lobby of the Cosmic Oil Building. Automatically he verified appointments, wrote names, doled out plastic visitors' cards and collected them back again as people departed. Several times, Linda, the seventh-floor receptionist, stopped by to chat with him. Today he was a little cool to her, which she seemed to find intriguing. What would she think if she knew that he was going to inherit a bundle of money? Where
had Ethel
made
all that loot?

There was only one answer. Ethel had told him that she'd taken Seamus for his eyeteeth when he wanted out of the marriage. Besides the alimony, she'd come off with a hefty settlement and had probably been smart enough to invest it. Then that book she wrote five or six years ago had sold well. Ethel, for all her scatterbrained act, had always been pretty shrewd. It was that thought that caused Doug to feel queasy with apprehension. She had known that he was helping himself to money.
How many people had she told
?

After wrestling with the problem until noon, he made his decision. There were just about enough supercheck funds available in his checking account to take out four hundred dollars. Impatiently he waited on the interminable line at the bank and got the money in hundred-dollar bills. He'd stash them in some of Ethel's hiding places, the ones she didn't use most of the time. That way, if anybody searched, the money would be there. Somewhat reassured, he stopped for a hot dog at a food cart and went back to work.

At six-thirty, as Doug was rounding the corner from Broadway to Eighty-second Street, he saw Seamus hurrying down the steps from Ethel's building. He almost laughed out loud. Of course! It was the fifth of the month, and Seamus the wimp was there, right on the button with his alimony check. What a sad sack he was in that shabby coat! Regretfully, Doug realized that it would be a while before he himself could buy any more new clothes. He'd have to be very, very careful from now on.

He'd been collecting the mail every day with the key Ethel
kept in a box on top of her desk. The envelope from Seamus was jammed into the box, still sticking out a little. Other than that there was mostly junk mail. Ethel's bills went directly to her accountant. He flipped through the envelopes, then dropped them on the desk. All except the unstamped one, the contribution from Seamus. It hadn't been sealed properly. There was a note inside, and the outline of the check was clearly visible.

It would be easy to open and reseal it. Doug's hand lingered on the flap, then, taking care not to cause a tear, he opened the envelope. The check fell out. Boy, he'd like to have the handwriting on it analyzed. If ever stress showed like a road map, it was in the slanted squiggle that was Seamus' penmanship.

Doug laid the check down, opened the note, read it, reread it and felt his mouth drop in amazement. What the hell . . . Carefully he reinserted the note and the check in the envelope, licked the glued area and pressed the flap firmly down. An image of Seamus with his hands hunched in his pockets, almost running as he crossed the street, loomed like a freeze-time in Doug's mind. Seamus was up to something. What kind of game was he playing, writing to say that Ethel had agreed not to take any more alimony and then including the check?

In a pig's eye she let you off the hook, Doug thought. A chill came over him. Had that note been intended for his eyes, not Ethel's?

•   •   •

When Neeve arrived home, she found to her delight that Myles had done a massive grocery shopping. “You even went to Zabar's,” she said happily. “I was trying to figure how early I
could leave the shop tomorrow. Now I can get everything started tonight.” She had warned him that she'd be doing paperwork in the shop after closing hours. She uttered a silent prayer of gratitude that he did not think to ask her how she had gotten across town.

Myles had cooked a small leg of lamb, steamed fresh green beans and made a tomato-and-onion vinaigrette salad. He'd set the small table in the den and had a bottle of burgundy open nearby. Neeve rushed to change into slacks and a sweater, then with a sigh of relief settled into a chair and reached for the wine. “This is very kind of you, Commish,” she said.