The news of Gordon Steuber’s arrest crashed like a tidal wave through the fashion center. Phone lines buzzed: “No, it isn’t the illegal factories. Everybody does that. It’s drugs.” Then the big question: “Why? He makes millions. So he got a slap on the wrist for the sweatshops. So they’re investigating him for income-tax evasion. A good team of lawyers could stall that for years. But drugs!” After an hour the black humor started. “Don’t get Neeve Kearny mad at you. You’ll trade your wristwatch for steel bracelets.”
Anthony della Salva, surrounded by fluttering assistants, was working on the final details of the fashion show for his fall line, which was to be held the following week. It was an eminently satisfying collection. The new kid he’d hired fresh out of the Fashion Institute of Technology was a genius. “You’re another Anthony della Salva,” he told Roget, beaming. It was Sal’s highest praise.
Roget, thin-faced, lank-haired, small-bodied, muttered under his breath, “Or a future Mainbocher.” But he returned Sal’s beatific smile.
Within two years he was sure he’d have the backing to open his own place. He’d fought tooth and nail with Sal about his use of miniatures of the Pacific Reef design as accessories in the new collection, scarves and pocket handkerchiefs and belts in the brilliant tropical shades and intricate patterns that caught the magic and mystery of the aquatic world.
“I don’t want it,” Sal had said flatly.
“It’s still the best thing you’ve ever done. It’s your trademark.” When the collection was complete, Sal admitted that Roget was right.
It was three-thirty when Sal heard the news about Gordon Steuber. And the jokes. He immediately phoned Myles. “Did you know this was coming?”
“No,” Myles said, his voice testy. “I’m not on the ear for everything that’s happening at One Police Plaza.” Sal’s worried tone flamed the abiding sense of oncoming disaster that had haunted him all day.
“Then maybe you should be,” Sal retorted. “Listen, Myles, we’ve all known that Steuber has mob connections. It’s one thing for Neeve to blow the whistle on him because of workers without green cards. It’s a hell of another proposition when she’s the indirect cause of a hundred-million-dollar drug bust.”
“Hundred million. I hadn’t heard that figure.”
“Then turn on the radio. My secretary just heard it. The point is, maybe you should think about hiring a bodyguard for Neeve. Take care of her! I know she’s your kid, but I claim a vested interest.”
“You have a vested interest. I’ll talk to the guys downtown and think about it. I just tried to call Neeve. She’d already left for Seventh Avenue. This is a buying day. Is she stopping in to see you?”
“She usually winds up here. And she knows I want her to preview the new line. She’ll love it.”
“Tell her to call me as soon as you see her. Tell her I’ll wait for the call.”
“Will do.”
Myles started to say goodbye, then had a sudden thought. “How’s the hand, Sal?”
“Not bad. Teaches me not to be so clumsy. Much more important, I feel crummy about ruining the book.”
“Quit worrying. It’s drying out. Neeve has a new beau, a publisher. He’s going to take it to a restorer.”
“No way. That’s my problem. I’ll send someone up for it.”
Myles laughed. “Sal, you may be a good designer, but I think Jack Campbell is the right one for this job.”
“Myles, I insist.”
“See you, Sal.”
• • •
At two o’clock, Seamus and Ruth Lambston returned to Peter Kennedy’s law office for polygraph tests. Pete had explained to them, “If we’re willing to stipulate that the police polygraph can be used in the event you come to trial, I think I can talk them into not pressing assault or tampering-with-evidence charges.”
Ruth and Seamus had spent the intervening two hours having lunch in a small midtown coffee shop. Neither ate more than a few bites of the sandwiches the waitress placed before them. They both ordered more tea. Seamus broke the silence. “What do you think of that lawyer?”
Ruth did not look at him. “I don’t think he believes us.” She turned her head and stared straight into his eyes. “But if you’re telling the truth, we did the right thing.”
• • •
The test reminded Ruth of her last electrocardiogram. The difference was, these wires measured different impulses. The polygraph expert was impersonaily cordial. He asked Ruth about her age, where she worked, her family. When she talked about the girls, she began to relax and a note of pride crept into her voice. “Marcy . . . Linda . . . Jeannie . . .”
Then the questions came about her visit to Ethel’s apartment, about her tearing up the check, about taking the letter opener, bringing it home, washing it, dropping it into the basket in the Indian shop on Sixth Avenue.
When it was over, Peter Kennedy asked her to wait in the reception room and send Seamus in. For the next forty-five minutes she sat, dulled with apprehension. We’ve lost control of our lives, she thought. Other people will decide if we go to trial, go to jail.
The waiting room was impressive. The handsome leather couch, studded with gold nailheads. Must have cost at least six or seven thousand dollars. The matching loveseat; round mahogany drum table holding the latest magazines; excellent modernistic prints on the paneled walls. Ruth was aware that the receptionist was stealing curious glances at her. What did the smartly dressed young woman see? Ruth wondered. A plain woman in a plain green wool dress, sensible shoes, hair that was beginning to slip from the bun. She’s probably thinking we can’t afford the prices here, and she’s right.
The door from the corridor that led to Peter Kennedy’s private office opened. Kennedy was standing there, his face warm and smiling. “Won’t you come in, Mrs. Lambston? Everything’s fine.”
When the polygraph expert left, Kennedy laid the cards on the table. “Normally I wouldn’t want to move this swiftly. But you’re concerned that the longer the media refers to Seamus as a suspect, the worse it will be for your daughters. I propose that I contact the homicide squad investigating the death. I demand an immediate polygraph test to clear the atmosphere of innuendo which you find intolerable. I warn you: In order to have them agree to an immediate test, we’ll have to stipulate that if you ever came to trial the results of the test would be admissible. I think they’ll go along with that. I think I can also persuade them to drop any other possible charges.”
Seamus swallowed. His face was shiny, as though a perpetual glow of perspiration had been glossed onto it. “Go for it,” he said.
Kennedy stood up. “It’s three o’clock. We might still be able to get with them today. Would you mind waiting outside until I see what I can do?”
A half hour later, he came out. “We’ve got a deal. Let’s go.”
. . .
Monday was usually a slow day in retailing, but, as Neeve remarked to Eugenia, “You can’t prove it by us.” From the moment she unlocked the door at nine-thirty, the place was busy. Myles had passed on Sal’s concern about bad publicity stemming from Ethel’s death, but after working without a break until nearly twelve, Neeve said dryly, “Apparently a lot of people wouldn’t mind being caught dead in a Neeve’s Place outfit.” Then she added, “Phone for coffee and a sandwich, okay?”
When the order was delivered to Neeve’s office, she glanced up and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I expected Denny. He didn’t quit, did he?”
The delivery boy, a gangly nineteen-year-old, plunked the bag on her desk. “Monday’s his day off.”
When the door closed behind him, Neeve said wryly, “No room service with that one.” Gingerly she removed the lid from the steaming container.
Jack phoned a few minutes later. “Are you okay?”
Neeve smiled into the speaker. “Sure I’m okay. In fact, I’m not only okay, I’m prosperous. It’s been a great morning.”
“Maybe you should plan on supporting me. I’m on my way to
have lunch with an agent who isn’t going to be happy with my offer.” Jack dropped the bantering tone. “Neeve, take down this number. It’s the Four Seasons. If you need me, I’ll be there for the next couple of hours.”
“I’m just about to attack a tuna-fish sandwich. Bring me a doggie bag.”
“Neeve, I’m serious.”
Neeve’s voice became quiet. “Jack, I’m fine. Just save some appetite for dinner. It’ll probably be about six-thirty or seven when I call you.”
Eugenia watched critically as Neeve hung up the phone. “The publisher, I gather.”
Neeve opened the wrapping on the sandwich. “Uh-huh.” She had just taken the first bite when the phone rang again.
It was Detective Gomez. “Miss Kearny, I’ve been studying the postmortem pictures of the deceased, Ethel Lambston. You have a pretty strong hunch that she may have been dressed after she died.”
“Yes.” Neeve felt her throat close and pushed away the sandwich. She was aware that Eugenia was staring at her; she could feel the color drain from her cheeks.
“Keeping that in mind, I had the pictures blown up pretty big. The tests aren’t complete and we know the body had been moved, so it’s pretty hard to be sure whether or not you’re right, but tell me this: Would Ethel Lambston have left her home with a wide run in her stocking?”
Neeve remembered noticing that run when she identified Ethel’s clothing. “Never.”
“That’s what I thought,” Gomez agreed. “The autopsy report shows nylon fibers caught in a toenail. The run started when the stocking was being put on. That means if Ethel Lambston dressed herself, she went out in a designer outfit with a very unsightly-looking stocking. I’d like to talk about this in the next couple of days. You’ll be around?”
As Neeve replaced the phone, she thought of what she had told Myles this morning. As far as she was concerned, Seamus Lambston, with his utter lack of fashion sense, had not dressed the bleeding corpse of his former wife. She remembered the rest of what she had told Myles. Gordon Steuber would instinctively have chosen the original blouse for the ensemble.
There was a perfunctory rap on the door, and the receptionist rushed in. “Neeve,” she whispered, “Mrs. Poth is here. And, Neeve, did you know Gordon Steuber has been arrested?”
Somehow Neeve managed to keep a calm, attentive smile on her face as she helped her wealthy client select three Adolfo evening gowns that ranged in price from four to six thousand dollars apiece; two Donna Karan suits, one at fifteen hundred dollars, the other twenty-two hundred; slippers, shoes and handbags. Mrs. Poth, a strikingly chic woman in her midsixties, professed to be uninterested in the costume jewelry. “It’s lovely, but I prefer my own real pieces.” In the end she said, “These are more interesting,” and accepted all Neeve’s suggestions.
Neeve saw Mrs. Poth to her limousine, which was parked squarely in front of the shop. Madison Avenue was busy with shoppers and strollers. It seemed as though everyone was relishing the continuing sunshine and taking in stride the unusually chilly temperature. As Neeve turned back to the store, she noticed a man in a gray sweatsuit leaning against the building across the street. She had a fleeting sense of familiarity, which she disregarded as she hurried back into the shop and to her office. There she added fresh lip gloss and reached for her pocketbook. “Mind the store,” she told Eugenia. “I won’t be back, so lock up, please.”
Smiling easily, pausing for a quick word with some of the old customers, she made her way to the front door. The receptionist had a cab waiting. Neeve got into it quickly and did not notice that the man with the crazy punk hairstyle and the gray sweats had hailed a cab across the street.
• • •
Over and over again, from different angles, Doug answered the same questions. The time he had arrived at Ethel’s. His decision to move into her apartment. The phone call threatening Ethel if she did not let Seamus off the hook. The fact that he had begun staying in the apartment from Friday the thirty-first but didn’t begin to answer the phone for a week and then the first call he got was a threat. How come?
Repeatedly, Doug was told he was free to go. He could call for a lawyer, he could discontinue answering questions. His answer was, “I don’t need a lawyer. I have nothing to hide.”
He told them he hadn’t answered the phone because he was afraid Ethel would call and order him to get out. “For all I knew, she was going to be gone for a month. I needed a place to stay.”
Why had he made a bank withdrawal in hundred-dollar bills and then hidden them around his aunt’s apartment?
“Okay. So I borrowed some of the bucks Ethel stashed around the apartment, and I put them back.”
He had said he didn’t know anything about Ethel’s will, but his fingerprints were all over it.
Doug began to panic. “I just started to think that maybe something was wrong. I looked in Ethel’s date book and saw that she’d canceled all her appointments after that Friday she was supposed to meet me at the apartment. That made me feel better. But the neighbor told me that dopey ex-husband of hers had had a fight with her and that he’d shown up while I was at work. Then his wife practically breaks in and tears up Ethel’s alimony check. I started to think maybe something was wrong.”
“And then,” Detective O’Brien said, his voice laden with sarcasm, “you decided to answer the phone, and the first call you got was a threat to your aunt’s life? And the second was the Rockland County District Attorney’s office, notifying you that the body had been found?”
Doug felt perspiration soak his armpits. He moved restlessly, trying to find a comfortable spot in the straightbacked wooden chair. Across the table, the two detectives were observing him, O’Brien with his beefy thick-featured face, Gomez with his shiny dark hair and chipmunk chin. The mick and the spic. “I’m getting fed up with this,” Doug said.
O’Brien’s face hardened. “Then take a walk, Dougie. But if you’re so inclined, give one more answer. The rug in front of your aunt’s desk had been spattered with blood. Someone did a very thorough job of cleaning it up. Doug, before you got your present position, didn’t you work in the carpet-and-furniture-cleaning department of Sears?”
Panic caused a reflex action in Doug. He jumped up, pushed the chair back so violently that it toppled over. “Screw you!” He spat out the words as he rushed to the door of the interrogation room.
. . .
Denny had taken a calculated risk in waiting to hail a cab just as Neeve Kearny got into hers. But he knew that cabbies were nosy. It made more sense to grab one, sound breathless and say, “Some creep stole my bike. Follow that cab, will ya? It’s my head if this envelope don’t get delivered to that broad.”
The driver was a Vietnamese. He nodded indifferently and expertly cut off an approaching bus as he swung across, then up Madison Avenue and left on Eighty-fifth Street. Denny slouched in the corner, his head down. He didn’t want the cabbie to have too much chance to observe him in the rearview mirror. The cabbie’s only observation was, “Crackheads. If there was a market for farts, they’d steal them,” The Nam’s English was amazingly good, Denny thought sourly.
At Seventh Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, the other cab made the light and they missed it. “Sorry,” the driver apologized.
Denny knew that Neeve was probably getting off in the next block or so. Her cab would probably creep in this traffic. “So let them fire me. I tried.” He paid off the driver and sauntered uptown. From sidelong glances, he was able to see when the cab started again, continuing down Seventh Avenue. Quickly, Denny reversed direction and sped from Seventh Avenue to Thirty-sixth Street.
As usual, the streets in the high Thirties, off Seventh Ayenue, were milling with the hyperactivity of the Garment District. Outsize trucks in the process of being unloaded were double-parked along the road, snarling traffic into near-gridlock. Messengers on roller skates whizzed around the crowds of pedestrians; delivery men, indifferent to both pedestrians and vehicles, shoved cumbersome racks lade
n with clothing. Horns blared. Men and women in high-fashion outerwear strode rapidly, talking excitedly, totally indifferent to the people and traffic around them.
A perfect place for a hit, Denny thought with satisfaction. Halfway up the block, he saw a cab pull nearer to the curb and watched as Neeve Kearny emerged from it. Before Denny could get close to her, she rushed into a building. Denny took up an observation post across the street, shielded by one of the huge trucks. “While you’re picking those fancy clothes, you better order yourself a shroud, Kearny,” he mumbled to himself.
• • •
Jim Greene, at age thirty, had been recently promoted to detective. His ability to size up a situation and instinctively choose the correct course of action had recommended him to his superiors in the Police Department.
Now he had been assigned the boring but vital task of guarding the hospital bed of undercover detective Tony Vitale. It was not a desirable job. If Tony had been in a private room, Jim could have kept his vigil at the door. But in the intensive-care unit, it was necessary for him to sit in the nurses’ station. There, for his eight-hour shift, he was constantly reminded of the fragility of life as monitors suddenly sounded alarms and the hospital staff rushed to stave off death.
Jim was wiry and of barely average height, a fact which made it possible for him to be as unobtrusive as possible in the small, confined area. After four days the nurses had begun to treat him as a not unwelcome fixture. And they all seemed to have a particular concern for the tough young cop who was fighting for his life.
Jim knew the guts it took to be an undercover cop, to be at the table with cold-blooded killers, to know that at any moment your cover might be blown. He knew the concern that Nicky Sepetti might order a hit on Neeve Kearny; the relief when Tony managed to tell them, “Nicky . . . no contract, Neeve Kearny . . .”