Contraband

14

Max got in to Key West, hungry, tired, and, unaccountably, horny. Not in the best of moods. As she opened the door to her apartment, her phone was ringing. She picked it up. “Hello?”

“Max?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Jack Spottswood.” Jack was a prominent attorney in town. “I’ve been calling you since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been in New York for a few days. Anyway, I hardly ever answer this line. All it gets are robocalls and telemarketers. I use my cell.”

“Better give me that number.”

Max gave it to him. “What’s up, Jack?”

“I assume someone has told you that your aunt Maxine died the day before yesterday.”

“Oh,” Max replied, unsure what else to say. “I hadn’t heard.”

“My condolences, but it’s not all bad news. I’ve got her will, and you’re her sole beneficiary.”

“My mother always said that would happen someday,” Max said. “Ever since she named me for her.”

“You want to stop by the office, so I can explain the will to you?”

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow at ten?”

“Sure. See you then.”

Max hung up, got a frozen dinner, zapped it in the microwave, opened a half bottle of wine, poured herself a glass, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat. She had a terrible feeling that Aunt Maxine might have died in debt and that she would get stuck with it. Her cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“It’s Tommy. Where are you?”

“Dining on frozen food in my kitchen.”

“When did you get in?”

“I don’t know, half an hour ago.”

“While you were gone, your aunt Maxine died. It was in this morning’s paper.”

“I heard. Jack Spottswood called me.”

“My condolences.”

“Thanks.”

“When are you coming back to work?”

“After I see Jack tomorrow morning. Have we got anything to work on?”

“I got a call from that lineman at the airport, Jocko. Remember him?”

“How could I forget that slimy little creep?”

“He says somebody unloaded a wrecked airplane from a truck a couple days ago and put it in that hangar we were looking at.”

“Well, now, that’s interesting, since the Coast Guard found it gone from Fort Jeff. Have we got grounds for a search warrant?”

“We need probable cause that a crime has been committed. Do you have one in mind?”

“Stealing a wrecked airplane from the sea bottom?”

“I believe they call that salvage around these parts.”

“You have a point. I’ll ask Jack Spottswood tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, see you around — what time?”

“Jack shouldn’t take long. Between eleven and twelve, I think.”

“Sleep well.”

Max hung up. A crime, she needed a crime. Or maybe, just a crowbar.

Max unpacked her bag, then crawled into bed and dreamed that Stone was next to her.

In the middle of dinner Dino got an emergency call and excused himself.

“And we’re all alone,” Robbie Calder said.

“We are. Did I mention that Dino is the police commissioner, and this often happens?”

“I figured it out.”

“You’re right,” Stone said. “And somewhere along the line you changed your name.”

“How did you know that?”

“Vance’s name at birth was Herbert Willis, so if your father was his younger brother, you had to have changed it.”

“I did. When I came to New York I thought it might do me some good, and it did. Vance also got me my first job here, working as a designer of menswear for Jerry Lauren, Ralph’s brother, who runs the men’s division. That’s why your jacket interested me. Did Doug Hayward make it for Vance?”

“He did, God bless him. I miss Doug terribly,” Stone said.

“I, too,” she said. “When I got out of design school I was apprenticed to Doug. Now that I think of it, I remember your name on the client list.”

“One more piece of the puzzle,” Stone said. “If your father was Vance’s younger brother, why wasn’t he mentioned in the will?”

“Because he died two years before Vance did.”

“Why weren’t you mentioned?”

“Vance gave me a lump sum when I moved to New York and told me it was my inheritance. I bought my apartment with that money and had some left over.”

“Now we’ve learned everything about each other.”

“Oh, it will take longer than that,” she said. “Tell me, where do you live?”

“A few blocks from here, in Turtle Bay.”

“May I see it?”

“Now?”

“We seem to have finished dinner.”

“All right, I’ll give you a nightcap there.” He paid their bill and found them a taxi.

Robbie stood in the middle of Stone’s living room and turned slowly around. “This is perfect,” she said. “Do you know how I know?”

“How do you know?”

“Because I have a terrific design sense, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

He took her into the study, and she fixated on the art. “Who painted these?” she asked, waving an arm at a half dozen pictures.

“My mother.”

“Her name?”

“Matilda Stone.”

“I’ve never heard of her, but they’re very beautiful.”

“She has some paintings in the American Collection at the Metropolitan,” Stone said. “Now and then, something will come on the market, and I’ll buy it. I’ve got a dozen now, scattered around the house.”

He sat her down, lit a fire, and got her a cognac.

“Who designed the paneling?” she asked. “I’m always looking for a good cabinetmaker for clients.”

“My father, Mahlon Barrington. He had a shop in the Village, and he designed and made all the woodwork in this house. Unfortunately, he, like my mother, is gone. The house formerly belonged to my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, and she left it to me.”

“You chose your family well,” she said.

“I did.”

They talked for a few more minutes, then she yawned. “That’s it. I’m done for the day.”

“I’ll get you a cab,” Stone said, and they walked outside. It didn’t take long. He kissed her on the forehead and bade her good night.

“Will I see you again?” she asked.

“I have your card,” he replied, closing the door.