At first he thought the letter was from Leslie, or rather the woman who claimed to be Leslie. Then Thomas Daniels recognized the blue personal stationery of Andrea Parker.
Tom, dear, I tried desperately to get in touch with you. I wanted you to know I'll be out of town. A fabulous, fabulous man and I are going to Martinique for a week of sun. Please don't be jealous. I am sure you'll live a lot longer than he will, anyway.
I'm thinking of you always.
Love, love, Andrea Such expertise. He crumpled the blue paper in one fist and sent it airborne toward the kitchen garbage can.
He kicked the door shut behind him and stalked into the bedroom, still in thought: He tossed his suitcase onto the ragged bedspread, stood there a moment, returned to the kitchen, and retrieved the crumpled blue paper. It had been beside a dust bah at the base of the stove.
He pulled the note open and looked at the date on top. The note was already a week old. He tossed it to the garbage can, accurately this time, where it could now remain.
Augie Reid. He'd suspected it all along. Well, he reconciled himself, at least today was Sunday and the week in the sun was over. He wouldn't have to think of it while it was still in progress.
Eight months earlier his wife had left him. Now Andrea, traveling her own road with a new companion. To lose one woman is a tragedy. To lose two in a year is plain carelessness. Was that Oscar Wilde?
Carelessness? Or a form of failure?
He tried to push the thought aside. He hated the word failure, hated it because it slipped into his thoughts so often. Besides, law hadn't been his chosen profession. He'd been pushed, seduced. By his father. His only real failure, he told himself, was not having gotten out sooner. Better late than not at all. And soon it would be over, years wasted on a career he hated. Better mere years than a lifetime.
By ten that night he was gloriously tired, his body still on European time. He fell asleep on the living-room sofa, reaching up and turning the light out, too tired to move. His last thought as he drifted off concerned the last woman to have come to his office.
If she wasn't Leslie McAdam, who was she?
What she was was punctual, among other qualities. Thomas had spent most of that next day looking at the clock, often noticing that only a few minutes had passed since he'd looked last. He was anxious to see her, or at least to see if she'd be where she'd said she'd be.
Eighty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, appropriately across the street from the aging Sandler mansion, that sealed mausoleum of a house in front of which someone had been murdered in 1954. Why, Thomas wondered as he stood across the street at two minutes to four, looking up at the shuttered windows, the corroded green roof, and the impregnable brick walls, did appearances have to be so deceiving?
He glanced at his watch. Then he looked down the street. He saw her rounding the corner from Park Avenue, walking boldly toward him, dark glasses shielding her eyes and a scarf surrounding her scarred throat.
She was smiling. So he smiled, too. Sure, his better instincts told him that Leslie McAdam was in a churchyard in London. But he was glad to see her anyway.
He let her walk all the way to him before he spoke, and even then it was simply "Hello." He reached out and took her hand.
She looked at him oddly as if to correctly sense his hesitancy.
"For God's sake" she chided, 'we've been in bed together. You're allowed to kiss me He leaned forward and did kiss her. And against his better judgment-or against any kind of judgment at all-he felt himself drawn protectively toward her. Never get involved personally with a client, his father used to tell him. Never. Oh well, he thought, a lot of good the old man's advice had done for him so far.
She looked away from him for a moment, taking his hand and removing her dark glasses. Her gaze was on the bulwark of the building across the street. Her blue eyes were appraising, almost scheming and plotting.
He, too, glanced to the house. He thought of those fortress walls and the secrets they surrounded. Within, doddering old Victoria too frightened of water to even bathe -had entertained her succession of dogs named Andy, had interred them, and had doted with equal fanaticism upon dollar bills. Similarly, this had been the very house from which Adolph Zenger had emerged in 1955 changed and shattered, a shell of the man he'd once been.
"A different man'" as William Ward Daniels had described it to his son.
"How can we get in there she asked.
"In the Sandler house?"
"Is there any other house under discussion?" she asked impatiently. Her mercurial smile was already gone and the affectionate greeting had given way to a businesslike sense of priorities.
"With burglar tools" he said.
"Fine." "What?" he asked.
"I said fine she persisted.
"I'm afraid I wasn't serious Thomas said.
"I'm afraid I am She withdrew her hand.
"That house is sealed by law." He saw her grimace distastefully as he spoke. He could practically feel her disapproval.
"The state closes an estate upon the death of its owner. It would take a court order for us to get in. The fact is, I could file a motion for-" "You disappoint me," she said softly.
"I disappoint a lot of people He shrugged.
"But I won't break the law to win a case. I warned u already. I'm a lousy lawyer. Maybe that's the reason." She glanced back to the mansion, then to him, dark eyes probing.
Then the tension on her face melted. She took his arm and said, "I'm sorry. Let's walk down Madison Avenue ' They turned the corner, putting the Sandler mansion at their backs. The icy wind swept uptown toward them and blasted them head-on. With one arm she held her coat close to her and with the other held his. He could feel her warmth contrasting with the cold in the air. He wondered again who that warmth was and what she wanted.
"Tell me where you've been" she said, as casually as an old friend might.
"You've been away. Was it for me?"
"Partly," he lied. He told a fabricated story of interviewing old contacts and associates.
"But did you discover anything important?" she asked.
"About my father? Or yours?"
"No," he said.
She shrugged.
"An honest answer, at least" she said. He glanced sideways at her and saw not the slightest hint of sarcasm on her lips.
Only a sudden smile as she looked ahead.
"Look at this" she said, "an art gallery."
"Madison is loaded with them " "I never knew that'" she said. She stood before a large plate-glass window in which the Anspacher Gallery announced a showing by an American impressionist named Gerald Detweiler.
A smile crossed her face now. She was like a small girl beholding a toy store two weeks before Christmas. Her grin was impish, girlish, and excited, and she turned to him warmly now and asked as a child might ask a parent,
"Can we go in?"
"It's a free " country," he said.
"Come on, she said, sprightly, her clipped British accent slightly more not noticable.
"I never tire of other people's artwork." She pulled him along and they entered the crowded gallery. It was opening day of the exhibit.
The gallery, which occupied the lower three floors of a converted brownstone, was packed. She seemed to feed emotionally on the enthusiastic bustle of the gallery, as if it excited her and allowed her for a few minutes to put Arthur Sandler out of her mind.
She led him from one canvas to the next, canvases which rendered impressionistic interpretations to northeastern-American landscapes.
Factories by the sides of rivers, crowded beaches bordering empty oceans, dry-docked pleasure boats tied up beside foreboding dark lakes.
"Always man bordering nature' Leslie observed, moving from painting to painting.
"Bordering by confrontation. A standoff, really," she said.
"Do you go to galleries often?"
"I've never had much time for it" he admitted, wondering why she perceived so much on canvases where he saw so little.
"A shame," she said.
"You should make a point to go more often."
He vaguely resented her tone of voice, as if she were gently talking down to him.
"Maybe we should talk more about your father," he suggested.
"I have some questions."
She either didn't hear the question or chose not to hear it. She stepped close to a canvas, examining closely the texture of a Maine landscape dominated by pastel blues, greens, and yellows.
"Look at those brush strokes," she said.
"Detweiler studied Monet. You can tell. Sorry?"
"Your father," he said. He was slightly jostled by a stout dark man with a cigar pushing to get past, accompanied by a hard-faced woman with silver-blond hair.
Leslie's face twisted into a slight frown. She had forgotten about Sandler. Thomas had reminded her.
"What about him?" she asked, sounding as if the subject were an intrusion here. He began to sense an evasion, an unwillingness to discuss the very topic that had initially brought her to him. Why had she brought him into an art gallery, he wondered. To divert his attention?
"I'm trying to discover as much about him as possible," he said.
Her eyes glimmered and she gave him a smile.
"That's good. But you probably know more than I do already."
"Why do you say that?"
"Why- as if it were self-evident' you knew one man who knew him very well. Your own father."
Strange, he thought, how she constantly turned each question, putting him back on the defensive. He would have expected it from another attorney or an investigator of some sort. But not from a scholar and aspiring artist.
"My father never talked to me about Arthur Sandler," Thomas answered, jostled again from behind by a large balding man jockeying for position near the painting. Thomas took Leslie's arm and led her to a less crowded section.
"Never at all?" Her eyes were sharply probing.
He considered it briefly and seriously.
"No" he said, searching his memory.
"Other clients from time to time. But never Arthur Sandler."
"I see" she said thoughtfully, as if his words had been meaningful.
They'began to examine other paintings, more absorbed in their discussion now than in what they viewed. He tried a different line of questioning. Every once in a while he would look at her, want to believe her, and see the tombstone in the London churchyard.
"What about the British government?" he asked casually.
"Labour," she said.
"Unfortunately, I support the Liberals."
"That's not what I mean, as I'm sure you know."
"Sorry," she apologized.
"I don't mean to be flippant. But what's the question?"
"Your foster father," he said.
"Or that man you said you knew in British Intelligence. What's his name?"
"Peter Whiteside?"
"Yes' he said. They were walking in the general direction of an elevator which led upstairs. They politely edged their way through the assemblage. Thomas was conscious of no one in particular other than the man with the cigar who'd bumped him once before.
The man was now waving a checkbook at the gallery's manager and loudly trying to bargain on a price.
"McAdam and Whiteside. What help would they be?"
"None at all" she said.
"They're both dead. Shah we go upstairs?"
"Dead?"
"Dead," she repeated.
"It's a condition that sets in as soon as the heart stops."
"You never told me Whiteside was dead She looked at him curiously.
"You never asked)' she countered, frowning.
"Why? Why is it important?"
He shook his head.
"Dead since when?" he demanded.
They stood by the elevator and waited. All three of them were dead, Leslie. and the two others, depending on whom one asked.
Funny thing was, they all looked healthy. He studied her carefully, just as he'd study a witness on the stand, trying to discern not just whether she was lying.
"Dead how? And why?"
"My God, you're persistent)' she said, irritated.
"I thought we could relax and look at a few paintings."
"You hired me. Remember?"
"Sorry," she said. He saw that she twisted her hands nervously for just a moment. Then she seemed to catch herself. She held her handbag, covering her anxiety.
"It's an unpleasant subject," she said.
"They were the only two men I could trust. I'll explain."
"Please" he said.
The elevator arrived, returning from upstairs with six aboard. It was a small elevator, the sort one finds added into narrow older buildings.
Two steel doors opened, sliding each way from the center, to disgorge the passengers. Thomas and Leslie waited for the six to step out, then boarded the elevator themselves. They were followed by two meaty businessmen who pushed past them within the small elevator and stood behind them. Leslie eyed them nervously. One man carried a brown woolen scarf in his thick hands. The other leaned across and pushed the button for the top floor.
Thomas pushed the button for three. The door closed. Thomas looked at Leslie and she exchanged a glance with him, one that said they'd continue their discussion outside the elevator. Thomas gave a slight nod and the elevator passed the second floor.
The elevator rattled as part of its standard operating procedure.
Then it jerked to a hesitant halt at three. The steel doors jolted open quickly. Thomas allowed Leslie to step out first.
Thomas stepped out of the elevator. Then at the same instant that he heard the doors start to close, the brown scarf suddenly looped downward over his head.
It caught him around the throat and yanked him backward toward the elevator.
He gagged and fell against the closed door of the elevator, his hands and fingers digging at his throat."
The scarf, tight as a hangman's noose around his neck, was still being held from within the elevator, but was also being clutched within the steel doors. The elevator began to rise.
He kicked and banged. Leslie whirled, gasping. The scarf was pulling him upward. In five more seconds his neck would be crushed. He flailed with his feet, but it was no use. He was being lifted off the ground. He could sense his death.
From the corners of his bulging eyes he could see Leslie, frozen where she stood.
She didn't scream. She didn't panic.
What the hell's she doing? he thought. Standing! Watching! She drew me here for this!
Suddenly she bolted toward him, tearing open her purse.
He saw something flash in her hand, and he saw it was a blade.
Her hand went to his throat and the knife dug -not into his flesh, but behind him. The blade practically knicked his ear, and he could hear it bite at the steel door.
She slashed. Once. Twice. A third time and he was falling, awkwardly pinning an ankle beneath him.
He gasped and coughed violently. She'd cut the scarf, slashing him free. His throat felt as if it had been run over by a truck. Her hand was on his back, making sure he could breathe. Tears were on his cheeks. His eyes, which had felt as if they were going to explode out of his head, were flooding.
He could later remember his first thought. Not of fear, not of perverse exhilaration at having been nearly killed. It was fury.
Those two men. He wanted to grab her knife and charge after them, using the stairs to corner them on the floor above.
He tried to rise.
"Easy, easy," she said, holding him. He still tried to stand. But his legs were rubbery and he couldn't get up. He continued to cough, almost retching with each convulsion of his windpipe. She clicked the knife closed with one hand and shoved it into a coat pocket with remarkable dexterity. No one else had seen it.
No one, in fact, had seen anything.
"Yes" she said, almost in a whisper.
"You're all right Her voice was as soft as the hand on his shoulder.
"Let them go. They failed.
Don't go after them' He was still coughing. A horrified crowd was gathering, asking what had happened. A man in a dark suit, in charge of the floor, pushed his way through and asked if he could help.
Leslie explained.
"His scarf caught in the elevator," she said.
"It's all right now."
There were gasps, mostly from women.
"Careless" Thomas heard a man's voice mutter.
"Ought to be more careful." Thomas tried to rise. His legs were still unsteady and disobedient. He continued to cough violently and uncontrollably. And the one voice which he continued to hear was Leslie's, close by his ear, in a protective English whisper, repeating soothingly,
"It's all right now; take your time. Wait till you can breathe comfortably and for God's sake don't say anything."
He was happy he could still breathe. Talking could wait.