“Let’s hold off on that. No reason to invade her privacy. At least not yet.”
He went into the kitchen to stir his chili. I followed.
“How do you think our boy wonder is doing?” I asked.
“The man has a definite substance-abuse problem, Hoag. I’ve got him on two-a-day workouts and a good diet. I’m letting him have two beers at dinner. We’ve had some episodes, but nothing I can’t handle. I may be able to turn around the abuse problem. He’s young. His bad habits aren’t that deeply ingrained. Discipline and structure will do him a world of good. But … ” Vic ran a big hand over the lower half of his face. “I get the feeling he may have a deeper problem. He’s angry. Self-destructive.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“If that’s the case, he’ll need professional help to get him in touch with it.”
“Any idea what it might be?”
“None.” Vic tasted his chili, hesitated a moment, added more chili powder. “You?”
“No, but I sure would like to find out.”
I walked uptown to Skitsy’s apartment. The air was soft and warm. The tulips were blooming in the window boxes, and the spindly little sidewalk trees were beginning to leaf out. Lulu waddled along beside me wheezing slightly. Her sniffles seemed to be moving down into her chest now. A rottweiler. That’s what I needed. Name of Butch.
A celebrity’s story can keep changing right before a ghost’s eyes. That’s what was happening to me with Cam Noyes. His had turned faintly sleazy on me, and so had he. I can’t say I was disappointed — you have to be expecting something of people to be disappointed by them. I was more puzzled. I couldn’t figure him out. He could be an open, sensitive, and very appealing kid capable of fierce loyalty and tremendous generosity. He could also be a total louse, a cynical scam artist who thought nothing of hurting the people who cared about him, or dropping his pants for the ones who could help him. So which Cam was the real Cam? Who was he? What did he believe in? Why was he trying to destroy himself? Why was he still seeing Skitsy? What was he hiding? Questions. I had lots of them. That’s the most frustrating part of writing a memoir. Whenever you dig close to a person’s core, you begin to face a lot of questions like these and damned few answers. There aren’t many when you’re trying to figure out what makes another human being tick.
I was anxious to talk to Skitsy. Tanner, too, only he wasn’t in for my calls and wouldn’t return them.
Skitsy Held lived in the seven-figures district — the penthouse apartment of a fine prewar doorman building on Riverside and Seventy-second. The lady did okay on her fattened editor’s salary. She did more than okay.
A bright green awning stretched from the building’s front door to the curb, where polished brass posts anchored it to the sidewalk. I was just a few steps from the door when suddenly the awning tore sharply over my head and something exploded on the pavement next to me.
Something that had been a woman.
Skitsy Held had been anxious to talk to me, too. So anxious she didn’t wait for the elevator.
They’d thrown a tarp over her, but it didn’t hide the stream of blood down to the curb, or the high-heeled shoe lying twenty feet away. Two uniformed cops stood grim watch over the body. Several more had gone upstairs. Their blue-and-whites were nosed up to the curb, along with an ambulance. Passersby were clumped around the front of the building, gawking, talking. In another ten minutes someone would be selling hot dogs and sodas.
A walkie-talkie crackled next to me. One of the uniformed cops, a beefy young Irishman with red hair and a baby face, spoke into it. Then listened. Then looked at me. “You’re the friend?”
“We had a business appointment.”
“Go on up. Penthouse D.”
The front door to her apartment was open. An Italian racing bike was parked in the doorway. I slid past it into the living room, which was done up like a Pennsylvania farmhouse. Antique grandfather clock. Spinning wheel. Quilts on the walls. Oil portraits of dead Pilgrims. A pair of glass doors led out onto the terrace, where there was white wicker furniture and potted plants, and where two uniforms were talking to a short, stocky street kid who was chewing gum with his mouth open. He had on the uniform of a bike messenger — yellow tank top, electric-blue spandex shorts, wristbands, bicycle shoes and gloves.
All three of them looked up at the sight of Lulu and me in the terrace doorway.
It was the kid who said, “Yo, help ya, dude?”
I glanced uncertainly over at one of the uniforms, who nodded encouragingly at me. I turned back to the kid. His hands were on his hips now, his chin thrust somewhat defiantly up in the air.
“They sent me up from downstairs,” I said to him. “I had an appointment with Miss Held.”
“Oh, right.” He came over to me. He was deeply tanned and had a lot of thick black hair and an earring and those soft brown eyes that some women get jelly knees over. I doubt he was more than five feet six, but his biceps and pecs rippled hugely and his thighs bulged in his racing shorts. He stuck out a gloved hand and said, “It’s Very.”
“It’s very what?” I said, frowning.
“Very,
Very
. Romaine Very. Detective Lieutenant. It’s my name, dude.”
We shook. He had a small, powerful hand and an air of great intensity about him. His head kept nodding rhythmically, as if he heard his own rock ’n’ roll beat.
“And you’re, like, who?” he asked.
“Stewart Hoag. Make it Hoagy.”
“As in Carmichael?”
“As in the cheese steak.”
“Whatever.” He popped his gum, glanced down at Lulu, back up at me. “Know any reason why Miss Held did herself in?”
“She jumped?”
“What it looks like,” he replied, nodding.
“Not offhand I don’t.”
“Any idea who her next of kin might be?”
“You might try Tanner Marsh. He’s in the English department up at Columbia. They used to be married.”
Very’s eyes shot over to one of the uniforms, who went immediately inside to use the phone.
“Did she leave a note?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We’re still looking.”
“And no one was up here with her?”
“Doorman says she came home maybe three-quarters of an hour before it happened. Nobody else came or went. Neighbors didn’t hear or see a thing. Not that they would — pretty private.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why, you know something I don’t know?”
“Possibly. It depends on what subject we’re discussing.”
He sighed, exasperated. “You got some reason to believe somebody was up here in the apartment with her?”
“No.”
“Stay with me.” He headed across the terrace over to the railing.
I stayed with him. The view of Riverside Park and the Hudson wasn’t terrible. The sun was getting low now over the Jersey Palisades.
“Was riding my bike down there in the park on my supper break when I heard the commotion,” Very explained. “Came on over.”
“Hence the outfit?”
“Yeah. Hence the outfit.”
“Sound like quite a zealous guy.”
He laughed. “That’s me. Zealous. Okay, check it out … we make it she went over right about … here.” He positioned himself at the railing. “No sign of a struggle. No fresh scratches in the paint on the railing, which would also tend to rule out any kind of accidental fall. Reads jump to me all the way.”
I stood next to him and looked down over the railing. Twenty-three floors below, Skitsy Held was being loaded into the ambulance. One of the cops was dispersing the crowd on the sidewalk, another was directing traffic.
“Understand she was in publishing,” Very said.
I said she was and gave him the name of her company.
“You a publisher, too?”
I tugged at my ear. “I’m a writer.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, nodding. “What kind?”
“Lately I’ve been ghosting memoirs.”
“No shit,” he said, impressed. “You do
Vanna Speaks
?”
“She shouldn’t have.”
“We oughta talk sometime, you and me. I got a million stories I could put in a book. Real-life stories about cases I been on. We oughta talk sometime.”
“Now wouldn’t be a good time.”
“Whatever.” He grinned at me, started back inside, stopped. “Stay with me.”
I stayed with him. The living room opened into a den, where there were shelves of books and a glass case holding a collection of antique dolls, all of them staring at us.
“Spook the shit outta me,” Very said, staring back at them. “If any of ’em says ‘Where’s mommy?’ I’m outta here.”
There was one dirty cup in the kitchen sink. Half a pot of coffee in the glass Melitta on the stove. Cold. Otherwise the kitchen was clean, the counter bare. Down the hallway was her bathroom. Very turned on the light. Pink was the dominant color statement. She had used the shower when she got home. It was still damp and fragrant in there. The towel draped over the rod was wet.
He poked open her laundry hamper with a finger. It was empty inside. He closed it and made a face. “Whew, I’d
swear
it smells like fish in here. Is it me?”
“No, it’s Lulu.” She stood between us in the small bathroom, panting and wheezing. “Isn’t it a little odd for somebody to take a shower just before they commit suicide, Lieutenant?”
“Yo, if the lady
had
her act together, dude,” he replied, one knee quaking impatiently, “she
wouldn’t
a jumped, would she?”
I let him have that one.
Then I let him have my address and phone number and got the hell out of there.
I ordered a boilermaker at the Dublin-House bar. Lulu showed me her teeth. I showed her mine. I look meaner. I ordered another.
The liquor didn’t help. It didn’t make the sight — or the sound — of Skitsy Held hitting the pavement any less vivid. Or troubling.
Romaine Very wasn’t wrong. It all pointed the way he said it did. Skitsy came home from a hard day of wresting with authors and agents — enough to drive anyone to suicide. She showered. She strolled out onto her terrace. She did her finest Greg Louganis impersonation. It could have happened that way, only I didn’t believe it. The timing was much too convenient. I had been on my way up to talk to her. About her crooked business dealings. About what she had on Cam Noyes. Somebody had shut her up. Somebody had pushed her. The woman hadn’t weighed more than a hundred pounds. Tanner Marsh could have done it easily. A good-sized man like Boyd Samuels easier still. There’d be no sign of a struggle, not if he acted quickly and decisively enough. She’d have no time to dig her nails into his arms, or to scream or to …
Maybe I was letting my imagination get the best of me. The doorman had said no one went in or out after Skitsy got home. Maybe Very was right.
I got change for a dollar from the bartender and called Cam’s house from the pay phone. Vic answered. I told him he’d better put our boy on.
Vic hesitated, cleared his throat. “You didn’t get my message?”
My stomach muscles tightened involuntarily. “What message?”
“I left it on your machine.”
“What happened, Vic?”
“Cam gave me the slip, Hoag. Took his car and split.”
“When?”
“Couldn’t tell you exactly. I went up to his study maybe half an hour ago to let him know me and Charlie were going to sit down for chili. I made it vegetarian style, so she could eat it, too, you know? And he was gone. Don’t know how he got past me.”
“There’s the iron veranda outside the studio windows,” I suggested. “He might have gone out that way when Charlie was downstairs with you. Jumped down to the sidewalk.”
“Could be. I sure feel lousy, Hoag. Like I let you down.”
“Don’t worry about it, Vic.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Stay by the phone. I’ll call you back.” I sat there staring at the phone for a moment, wondering if it was as bad as it looked. Wondering if I was working for a murderer. I dialed Boyd’s office. It was past seven but most agents work late hours. Todd Lesser answered.
“It’s Stewart Hoag, Todd. Is he around?”
“Sorry, Hoagy. He’s at the Algonquin wooing a prospective client. Big one. Anything I can help you with?”
“If you know Delilah’s address and phone number, you can.”
“How interesting,” he said, amused. “I had a feeling you two would be —”
“Business, friend. Strictly business.”
“Sure, sure.”
He gave me the information. She lived in the Village, on West Twelfth. I thanked him. Then I asked him if he’d heard the news yet about Skitsy.
“Don’t tell me she’s finally forming her own company.”
“Not exactly. She jumped off of her terrace a little while ago. She’s dead.”
Todd gasped. “Christ, Boyd will be … Hey, I’d better get a hold of him right away. Bye.”
I got Delilah’s phone machine. I hung up on it without leaving a message at the sound of the beep. Now you know I’m that kind of person. I called Vic back and asked him to run down there to see if she and Cam were around. I told him I’d check back with him in thirty minutes.
I thought about heading down to the Racquet Club. My shoulder still ached. A rub wouldn’t be the worst thing. But there wasn’t anyone there I felt like talking to just now. Or listening to. Instead, I had a cab drop me at Cafe Un Deux Trois, a big, noisy Parisian bistro on the edge of the theater district. I had a Pernod and water at the bar. Then I tried Vic.
“She lives in a real nice brownstone,” he droned. “Looks just like the building Kate and Allie lived in. She has the top floor. She didn’t answer. Mail’s still in the box. No sign of Cam’s car. I checked the garages in a four-block —”
“If he were there, it would be parked right out front.”
“He’s not there. Nobody is. I persuaded her front door to open — just to make sure. You know she has a trapeze in her bedroom?”
“Good work, Vic. How’s Charlie holding up?”
“She’s in her studio, working with a vengeance.”
“Give her some chili. Keep her cool, I’ll check in later.”
“You’re seeing Merilee home?”
“As it were.”
I took a table and split some mussels vinaigrette with Lulu. There was a jar of brightly colored crayons at my elbow. The tablecloth was of white paper. I wrote
SSH + MGN
on it in blue, then drew a big red heart around it, and an arrow through that. The middle
S
stands for Stafford. My mother’s maiden name. Don’t ask me to tell you what the
G
stands for. Merilee’s middle name is a deep, dark secret. She hates it. She’d kill me if I told you. It’s Gilbert.