While My Pretty One Sleeps (27 page)

“Who did you see? Did you go out for the paper?”

Seamus smiled, a hollow, mirthless smile. “I wasn't in any condition to read.” He waited for her reaction, then Ruth saw tentative hope coming into his face. “You believe me,” he said, his tone humble and surprised.

“I didn't believe you yesterday or Friday,” Ruth said. “But I believe you now. You're a lot of things and you're
not
a lot of things, but I do know you could never take a knife or a letter opener in your hands and cut a throat.”

“You got yourself some prize in me,” Seamus said quietly.

Ruth's tone became brisk. “I could have done worse. Now let's get practical. I don't like that lawyer, and he admitted you need someone else. I want to try something. For the last time, swear on your life that you did not kill Ethel.”

“I swear on my life.” Seamus hesitated. “On the lives of my three girls.”

“We need help. Real help. I watched the news last night. They talked about you. That you were being questioned. They're anxious to prove you did this. We need to tell the full truth to someone who can advise us what to do or send us to the right lawyer.”

•   •   •

It took all afternoon of arguing, debating, cajoling, reasoning to get Seamus to agree. It was four-thirty when they put on their all-weather coats, Ruth sturdy and compact in hers, Seamus with the middle button straining on his, and walked the three blocks to Schwab House. Along the way, they spoke little. Even though the day was unseasonably brisk, people were reveling in the strong sunshine. Young children holding balloons, followed by exhausted-looking parents, made Seamus smile. “Remember when we took the girls to the zoo on Sunday afternoons? It's nice it's open again.”

At Schwab House the doorman told them that Commissioner Kearny and Miss Kearny were out. Hesitantly, Ruth asked permission to wait. For half an hour they sat side by side on a lobby sofa, and Ruth began to doubt the wisdom of her decision to come here. She
was just about to suggest that they leave when the doorman held open the main door and a party of four people came in. The Kearnys and two strangers.

Before she lost her courage Ruth rushed to confront them.

•   •   •

“Myles, I wish you had let them talk to you.” They were in the kitchen of the apartment. Jack was making a salad. Neeve was defrosting the remainder of the pasta sauce from Thursday night's dinner.

Myles was preparing a very dry martini for himself and Jack. “Neeve, there's no way I can let them spill their guts to me. You're a witness in this case as it is. I let him tell me he killed Ethel in a struggle, and I've got a moral obligation to report it.”

“I'm sure that's not what he wanted to tell you.”

“Be that as it may, I can promise you that both Seamus Lambston and his wife Ruth are facing hard questioning at headquarters. Don't forget, if that slimy nephew is telling the truth Ruth Lambston stole that letter opener, and you can bet she didn't want it as a souvenir. I did the best I could. I called Pete Kennedy. He's a hell of a good criminal lawyer, and he'll see them in the morning.”

“And can they afford a hell of a good criminal lawyer?”

“If Seamus Lambston has clean hands, Pete will show our guys that they're barking up the wrong tree. If he's guilty, anything Pete charges will be worth it to get the count reduced from murder two to aggravated manslaughter.”

At dinner, it seemed to Neeve that Jack deliberately steered the conversation away from Ethel. He asked Myles about some of his famous cases, a subject Myles never tired of discussing. It was only
when they were clearing the table that Neeve realized Jack knew a lot about cases that certainly never would have been publicized in the Midwest. “You looked up Myles in back newspapers,” she accused.

He did not seem abashed. “Yes, I did. Hey, leave those pots in the sink. I'll do them. You'll ruin your nails.”

It is impossible, Neeve thought, that so much has happened in a week. It felt as though Jack had always been around. What was going on?

She knew what was going on. Then an aching cold came over her. Moses glimpsing the Promised Land and knowing he will never enter it. Why did she feel like that? Why did she feel as though somehow she was winding down? Why, when she looked at the mournful snapshot of Ethel, did she see something else in it today, something secretive, as though Ethel were saying, “Wait till you see what it's like.”

What is ‘it'? Neeve wondered.

Death.

The ten-o'clock news was filled with more stories about Ethel. Someone had pieced together footage on her vivid background. The media had been short on exciting, headline-making news, and Ethel was helping to fill the void.

The program was just going off when the phone rang. It was Kitty Conway. Her clear, almost musical voice sounded a bit hurried. “Neeve, I'm sorry to bother you, but I just got home. When I hung up my coat I realized that your father left his hat in the closet. I'm coming into the city tomorrow in the late afternoon, so maybe I could drop it somewhere for him.”

Neeve was astonished. “Wait a minute, I'll get him.” As she turned the phone over to Myles, she murmured, “You never forget anything. What's up?”

“Oh, it's pretty Kitty Conway.” Myles sounded delighted. “I was wondering if she'd ever find the damned hat.” When he hung up the phone, he looked sheepishly at Neeve. “She's going to stop by around six o'clock tomorrow. Then I'll take her out for dinner. Want to come?”

“Certainly not. Unless you think you need a chaperone. Anyhow, I have to get to Seventh Avenue.”

At the door, Jack asked, “Tell me if I'm making a pest of myself. If I'm not, how about dinner tomorrow night?”

“You know darn well you're not making a pest of yourself. Dinner's fine if you don't mind waiting until I phone you. I don't know what time that would be. I usually make my last stop at Uncle Sal's, so I'll call you from there.”

“I don't mind. Neeve, just one thing. Be careful. You're an important witness in Ethel Lambston's death, and seeing those people, Seamus Lambston and his wife, made me pretty uneasy. Neeve, they're desperate. Guilty or innocent, they want this investigation stopped. Their desire to spill to your father may be spontaneous or it may be pretty calculated. The point is, murderers don't hesitate to kill again if someone gets in the way.”

11|

Since Monday was Denny's day off from the delicatessen, his absence there would not be suspect, but he also wanted to establish the alibi that he'd spent the day in bed. “I guess I got flu,” he mumbled to the disinterested clerk in the lobby of his rooming house. Big Charley had called him on the phone in this lobby yesterday. “Get rid of her
now or we'll find someone who can.”

Denny knew what that meant. He wouldn't be left around in case he ever tried to use his knowledge of the hit as a plea bargain. Besides, he wanted the rest of the money.

Carefully he laid his plans. He went to the corner drug-store and, coughing his way through the questions; asked the pharmacist to suggest over-the-counter medication. Back in the rooming house, he made it a point to talk to the stupid old broad who lived two doors down from him and was always trying to get friendly. Five minutes later, he left her room with a cup of evil-smelling tea in a battered mug.

“It'll cure anything,” she told him. “I'll look in on you later.”

“Maybe you'd make more tea for me around noon,” Denny whined.

He went to the bathroom that serviced the tenants on the second and third floors and complained of cramps to the old wino who was waiting patiently for the door to open. The wino refused to give up his place on line.

In his own room, Denny carefully packed all the shabby clothes he had used when following Neeve. You never knew who among doormen might have sharp eyes and be able to describe someone who'd been hanging around Schwab House. Even that old busybody with the dog. She'd gotten a good look at him. Denny did not doubt that when the ex–Police Commissioner's daughter was wasted, the cops would be swarming for leads.

He would drop the clothes into a nearby dumpster. That was easy. The tough part was following Neeve Kearny from her shop to Seventh
Avenue. But he had figured out a way. He had a new gray sweatsuit. No one around here had ever seen him wear it. He had a punk-rock wig and wide space-cadet glasses. In that outfit, he'd look like the messengers running all over town on their bikes knocking people down. He'd get a big manila envelope, watch for Neeve Kearny to come out. She'd probably cab to the fashion district. He'd follow her in another cab. He'd give the cabbie a cock-and-bull story about his bike being stolen and that lady needing the papers he was delivering.

With his own ears, he'd heard Neeve Kearny discuss a one-thirty appointment with one of those rich broads who could afford to spend big bucks for clothes.

Always leave margin for error. He'd be across the street from her place before one-thirty.

It wouldn't matter if the cabbie put two and two together after Kearny was wasted. They'd be looking for a guy with a punk-rock cut.

His plans made, Denny shoved the bundle of old clothes under the sagging bed. What a dump, he thought as he stared around the tiny room. Alive with cockroaches. Smelly. A bureau that wasn't much more than an orange crate. But when he finished the job and got the other ten thousand, he'd only have to hang around till his parole was up and then he'd take off. Boy, would he take off.

For the rest of the morning, Denny made frequent trips to the toilet, complaining about his pains to anyone who would listen. At noon, the hag down the hall knocked on his door and handed him another cup of tea and a stale roll. He made more trips to the toilet,
standing inside the locked door, trying not to inhale the noxious odors and keeping others waiting until there were grumbled protests.

At quarter of one, he shuffled out and said to the old wino, “I think I feel better. I'm gonna get some sleep.” His room was on the second floor and faced an alley. There was an overhang from the steep roof that jutted over the lower floors. Minutes after he had changed into the gray sweats, pulled on the punk wig and adjusted the glasses, he'd tossed the bag of beggar clothes into the alley and vaulted down.

He dropped the bundle deep into a rat-infested dumpster behind an apartment building on One Hundred and Eighth Street, caught the subway to Lexington and Eighty-sixth, picked up a large manila envelope and crayons in the five-and-ten, marked the envelope “Rush” and took up a vigil opposite Neeve's Place.

•   •   •

At ten o'clock on Monday morning, a Korean cargo plane, Flight 771, was cleared for landing at Kennedy Airport. Trucks from Gordon Steuber Textiles were waiting to pick up the crates of dresses and sportswear to be transported to Long Island City warehouses; warehouses that did not appear anywhere in the company records.

Others were waiting for that shipment: law-enforcement officers aware that they were about to make one of the biggest drug busts of the past ten years.

“A hell of an idea,” one observed to the other as he waited in a mechanic's uniform on the tarmac. “I've seen the stuff stashed in furniture, in Kewpie dolls, in dog collars, in babies' diapers, but
never in designer clothes.”

The plane circled, landed, braked to a stop in front of the hangar. In an instant the field was swarming with Federal officers.

Ten minutes later, the first crate had been pried open. The seams of an exquisitely tailored linen jacket were slashed. Pure, uncut heroin poured into a plastic bag held open by the chief of the task force. “Christ,” he said in awe, “there must be two million bucks' worth in this box alone. Tell them to pick up Steuber.”

At 9:40 A.M., Federal officers burst into Gordon Steuber's office. His secretary tried to bar the way, but was firmly put aside. Steuber listened impassively as the Miranda warning was read to him. Without a trace of visible emotion, he watched as handcuffs were clasped around his wrists. Inwardly he was raging, a deadly, furious rage, and the target was Neeve.

As he was being led out he paused to speak to his weeping secretary. “May,” he told her, “you'd better cancel all my appointments. Don't forget.”

The expression in her eyes told him that she understood. She would not mention that twelve days ago, on Wednesday evening, Ethel Lambston had barged into his office and told him she was wise to his activities.

•   •   •

Douglas Brown did not sleep easily on Sunday night. As he tossed restlessly on Ethel's fine percale sheets, he dreamt of her, fitful dreams in which Ethel was brandishing a glass of Dom Pérignon at San Domenico: “Here's to Seamus the wimp.” Dreams that portrayed
Ethel saying coldly to him, “How much did you help yourself to this time?” Dreams in which the police came to take him away.

At ten o'clock on Monday morning, the Medical Examiner's Office of Rockland County phoned. As next of kin, Doug was queried about his plans for the disposal of the mortal remains of Ethel Lambston. Doug tried to sound solicitous. “It was my aunt's wish that she be cremated. Can you suggest what I should do?”

Actually Ethel had said something about being buried with her parents in Ohio, but it would be a lot cheaper to mail an urn than a casket.

He was given the name of a mortuary. The woman who answered was cordial and solicitous and inquired about financial responsibility. Doug promised to get back to her and phoned Ethel's accountant. The accountant had been away for a long weekend and had just heard the dreadful news.

“I witnessed Miss Lambston's will,” the accountant said. “I have a copy of the original. She was very fond of you.”

“And I loved her dearly.” Doug hung up. It still took getting used to, knowing that he was a rich man. Rich by his standards, anyhow.