While My Pretty One Sleeps (15 page)

Inside she walked through the downstairs rooms turning on lights, then lit the gas-fueled fireplace in the den. When Michael was alive, he'd made satisfying, glowing fires, expertly piling logs over the kindling and feeding the flames regularly so that the hickory scent of the wood filled the room. No matter how she tried, Kitty couldn't get a fire started properly, and with apologies to Michael's memory she had had the gas jet installed.

She went upstairs to the master bedroom that she'd redone in apricot and pale green, a pattern copied from a museum tapestry. Peeling off her two-piece gray wool dress, she debated about showering now and getting comfortable in pajamas and a robe. Bad habit, she told herself. It's only six o'clock.

Instead she pulled a teal-blue sweatsuit from the closet and reached for sneakers. “I'm back to jogging as of right now,” she told herself.

She followed her usual path. Grand View to Lincoln Avenue, a mile into town, circle the bus station and back home. Feeling pleasantly virtuous, she dropped her sweatsuit and underwear into the bathroom hamper, showered, slipped on lounging pajamas and studied herself in the mirror. She'd always been slim and was holding her shape reasonably well. The lines around her eyes weren't deep. Her hair looked pretty natural. The colorist in the beauty parlor had managed to match her own shade of red. Not bad, Kitty told her reflection, but ye gods, in two years I'll be
sixty
.

It was time for the seven-o'clock news and obviously time for a sherry. Kitty walked across the bedroom toward the hallway
and realized she'd left the bathroom lights blazing. Waste not, want not, and anyhow you should conserve electricity. She hurried back and reached for the bathroom light switch. Her fingers turned numb. The sleeve of her blue sweatsuit was dangling from the hamper. Fear, like a cold blade of steel, made Kitty's throat constrict. Her lips went dry. She could feel the hairs on her neck bristle and tighten. That sleeve. There should be a hand on it. Yesterday. When the horse bolted. That scrap of plastic that had hit her face. That blurred image of blue cloth and a hand. She hadn't been crazy.
She had seen a hand
.

Kitty did not remember to turn on the seven-o'clock news. Instead, she sat in front of the fire, hunched forward on the couch, sipping the sherry. Neither the fire nor the sherry could ease the chill that was engulfing her body. Should she call the police? Suppose she was wrong. She'd look like a fool.

I'm not wrong, she told herself, but I'll wait until tomorrow. I'll drive back to the park and walk down that embankment. That was a hand I saw, but whoever it belongs to is beyond help now.

•   •   •

“You say Ethel's nephew is in the apartment?” Myles asked as he filled the ice bucket. “So he borrowed some money and then put it back. It's been known to happen.”

Once again, Myles's reasonable explanation of the circumstances surrounding Ethel's absence, her winter coats and now the hundred-dollar bills made Neeve feel slightly foolish. She was glad she hadn't yet told Myles about her meeting with Jack
Campbell. When she arrived home, she'd changed into blue silk slacks and a matching long-sleeved blouse. She'd expected Myles to say, “Pretty fancy for slinging hash.” Instead his eyes had softened when she came into the kitchen, and he'd remarked, “Your mother always looked lovely in blue. You grow more like her as you get older.”

Neeve reached for Renata's cookbook. She was serving thinly sliced ham with melon, pasta with pesto, sole stuffed with shrimp, a mélange of baby vegetables, an arugula-and-endive salad, cheese and a tulip pastry. She flipped through the book until she reached the page with the sketches. Again she avoided looking at them. Instead she concentrated on the handwritten instructions Renata had scrawled over the baking time for the sole.

Deciding she was fully organized, she went over to the refrigerator and took out a jar of caviar. Myles watched as she put toast points on a platter. “I never developed a taste for that stuff,” he said. “Very plebeian of me, I know.”

“You're hardly plebeian.” Neeve scooped caviar onto a sliver of toast point. “But you're missing a lot.” She studied him. He was wearing a navy jacket, gray slacks, a light-blue shirt and a handsome red-and-blue tie she had given him for Christmas. A good-looking guy, she thought, and best of all, you'd never dream he'd been so sick. She told him that.

Myles reached over and gingerly popped a caviar toast point into his mouth. “I still don't like it,” he commented, then added, “I do feel well, and inactivity is getting on my nerves. I had some feelers about heading up the Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington. It would mean spending most of my time there.
What do you think?”

Neeve gasped and threw her arms around him. “That's wonderful. Go for it. You could really get your teeth into that job.”

She hummed as she brought the caviar and a platter of Brie into the living room. Now if only Ethel Lambston could be tracked down. She was just in the process of wondering how long it would be before Jack Campbell phoned her when the doorbell rang. Their two guests had arrived together.

Bishop Devin Stanton was one of the few prelates who at private functions still seemed more comfortable in a Roman collar than a sports jacket. Traces of now subdued copper-color hair mingled with gray. Behind silver-rimmed glaases, his mild blue eyes radiated warmth and intelligence. His tall, thin body gave an impression of quicksilver when he moved. Neeve always had the uncomfortable impression that Dev could read her mind and the comfortable reaction that he liked what he read. She kissed him warmly.

Once again, Anthony della Salva was resplendent in one of his own creations. He was wearing a charcoal-gray suit of Italian silk. The elegant lines masked the additional weight that had begun creeping onto his always rotund body. Neeve remembered Myles's observation that Sal reminded him of a well-fed cat. It was a description that suited him. His black hair untouched by gray glistened, matching the gloss of his Gucci loafers. It was second nature for Neeve to calculate the cost of clothes. She decided that Sal's suit would retail for about fifteen hundred dollars.

As usual, Sal was bursting with good humor. “Dev, Myles,
Neeve, my three favorite people, not counting my present girlfriend but certainly counting my ex-wives. Dev, do you think Mother Church will take me back in when I get old?”

“The prodigal son is supposed to return repentant and in rags,” the Bishop observed dryly.

Myles laughed and put his arms around the shoulders of both his friends. “God, it's good to get together with you two. I feel as though we're back in the Bronx. Are you still drinking Absolut vodka or have you found something more trendy?”

The evening began in the usual pleasantly comfortable fashion that had become a ritual. A debate about a second martini, a shrug, and “Why not, we're not together that much” from the Bishop, “I'd better stop” from Myles, a nonchalant “Of course” from Sal. The conversation veered from present-day politics, “Could the Mayor win again?” to problems of the Church, “You can't educate a kid in a parochial school for less than sixteen hundred dollars a year. God, remember when we were at St. Francis Xavier and our parents paid a buck a month? The parish carried the school on Bingo games,” to Sal's laments about the foreign imports, “Sure, we should use the union label, but we can get the clothes made in Korea and Hong Kong for a third of the price. If we don't farm some of it out, we outprice ourselves. If we do, we're union busters,” to Myles's dry comment, “I still think we don't know the half of how much mob money is on Seventh Avenue.”

Inevitably it turned to Nicky Sepetti's death.

“It was too easy for him, dying in bed,” Sal commented, the jovial expression gone from his face. “After what he did to your
pretty one.”

Neeve watched as Myles's lips tightened. Long ago Sal had heard Myles teasingly call Renata “my pretty one” and, to Myles's annoyance, had picked it up. “How's the pretty one?” he would greet Renata. Neeve could still remember the moment at Renata's wake when Sal had knelt at the casket, his eyes flowing with tears, then gotten up, embraced Myles and said, “Try to think your pretty one is sleeping.”

Myles had said flatly, “She's not sleeping. She's dead. And, Sal, don't call her that again ever. That was my name for her.”

Till now he never had. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Sal gulped the rest of his martini and stood up. “Be right back,” he said, beaming, and headed down the hallway to the guest bathroom.

Devin sighed. “He may be a genius designer, but he still has more spit than polish.”

“He also gave me my start,” Neeve reminded them. “If it weren't for Sal, I'd probably be an assistant buyer in Bloomingdale's right now.”

She saw the look on Myles's face and warned, “Don't tell me I'd be better off.”

“That never crossed my mind.”

When she served dinner, Neeve lit the candles and muted the overhead chandelier. The room was softly shadowed. Each course was pronounced excellent. Myles and the Bishop had seconds of everything. Sal had thirds. “So forget the diet,” he said. “This is the best kitchen in Manhattan.”

Over dessert inevitably the talk turned to Renata. “This is
one of her recipes,” Neeve told them. “Prepared especially for you two. I've really just started getting into her cookbooks, and it's fun.”

Myles told them about the possibility of heading up the Drug Enforcement Agency.

“I may be keeping you company in the Washington area,” Devin said with a smile, then added, “strictly off the record.”

Sal insisted on helping Neeve clear the table and volunteered to prepare the espresso. As he busied himself with the espresso machine, Neeve took from the breakfront the exquisite gold-and-green demitasse cups that had been in the Rossetti family for generations.

The sound of a thud and a cry of pain made them rush to the kitchen. The espresso pot had toppled over, flooding the counter and soaking Renata's cookbook. Sal was running his fiery-red hand under cold water. His face was ghastly white. “The handle on that damn pot came off.” He tried to sound nonchalant. “Myles, I think you're trying to get back at me for breaking your arm when we were kids.”

It was obvious the burn was nasty and painful.

Neeve scrambled for the eucalyptus leaves Myles always kept for burn emergencies. She patted Sal's hand dry and covered it with the leaves, then wrapped it in a soft linen napkin. The Bishop righted the demitasse pot and began mopping up. Myles was drying the cookbook. Neeve saw the expression in his eyes as he studied Renata's sketches, which were now thoroughly soaked and stained.

Sal noticed as well. He pulled his hand from Neeve's ministrations.
“Myles, for God's sake, I'm sorry.”

Myles held the book over the sink, drained the puddles of coffee from it and, covering it with a towel, laid it carefully on top of the refrigerator. “What the hell have you got to be sorry about? Neeve, I never saw that damn coffeemaker before. When did you get it?”

Neeve began to make fresh espresso in the old pot. “It was a gift,” she said reluctantly. “Ethel Lambston sent it to you for Christmas after she was here for the party.”

Devin Stanton looked bewildered as Myles, Neeve and Sal burst into wry laughter.

“I'll explain it when we get settled, Your Grace,” Neeve said. “My God, no matter what I do, I can't lose Ethel even for the space of a dinner.”

•   •   •

Over espresso and Sambuca, she told about Ethel's apparent disappearance. Myles's comment was, “As long as she
stays
out of sight.”

Trying not to wince at the pain in his rapidly blistering hand, Sal poured a second Sambuca and said, “There isn't a designer on Seventh Avenue she hasn't bugged about that article. To answer your question, Neeve, she phoned me last week and insisted on being put through. We were in the middle of a meeting. She had a couple of questions like ‘Was it true you had the school record for playing hookey at Christopher Columbus High School?'”

Neeve stared at him. “You've got to be joking.”

“No joke at all. My guess is Ethel's article is to debunk all the stories we designers pay publicists to grind out about us. That may be hot stuff for an article, but tell me it's worth half a million bucks for a book! It boggles my mind.”

Neeve was about to volunteer that Ethel wasn't actually offered the advance, then bit her tongue. Jack Campbell had obviously not meant that to get around.

“By the way,” Sal added, “the word is that your tip about Steuber's sweatshops is really turning up a lot of dirt. Neeve, stay away from that guy.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Myles asked sharply.

Neeve had not told Myles about the rumor that, because of her, Gordon Steuber might be indicted. She shook her head at Sal as she said, “He's a designer I stopped buying from because of the way he does business.” She appealed to Sal, “I still say there's something wrong about the way Ethel dropped out of sight. You know she bought all her clothes from me, and every single one of her winter coats is in the closet.”

Sal shrugged. “Neeve, I'll be honest, Ethel's such a flake she probably ran out without a coat and never noticed it. Watch and see. She'll show up in something she bought off the rack at J. C. Penney's.”

Myles laughed. Neeve shook her head. “You're a big help.”

Before they left the table, Devin Stanton offered grace. “We thank Thee, Lord, for good friendship, for the delicious meal, for the beautiful young woman who prepared it, and we ask you to bless the memory of Renata whom we all loved.”

“Thank you, Dev.” Myles touched the Bishop's hand. Then
he laughed. “And if she were here, she'd be telling you to clean up her kitchen, Sal, because you made the mess.”