Another Part of the City

8

He thought about her all the way to Washington.

Wondered if he shouldn’t have tried hitting on her last night. Twice-divorced woman living alone — really alone — in a candlelit apartment, sipping wine, dipping bread in a cheese fondue, maybe she’d expected him to hit on her. The trouble was... well, she wasn’t Kathy, that was the trouble. Nice-enough-looking woman, expressive brown eyes and hair the color of her name, generous mouth, good figure — but not Kathy. None of them were Kathy.

A month after the separation, he’d struck up a conversation with a hooker Mazzi had brought in. Young Chinese girl. Mazzi was a hairbag who should have become a minister instead of a cop. Reardon hated whenever the schedule broke so that Mazzi was in the squadroom with him. Always spouting Moral Majority crap. Some majority, the Moral Majority. Majority of the lip was all. But there was Pope Mazzi the Third, as they called him, on his one-man crusade against immorality. Reardon suspected he liked arresting hookers, loved the short dresses tight across the ass and cut to show plenty of leg and breast, loved the heavy makeup and the dirty talk. He once suggested to Mazzi that he ask for a transfer to Vice, all these hooker busts he was making. Mazzi was shocked. Vice? Vice? He actually crossed himself. Twice for good measure.

The Chinese hooker was twenty-three, twenty-four, something in there. Mazzi had caught her soliciting two blocks from Headquarters, she had to be new at it. Or else dumb. This was still the summer, August, the latter part of August, she was wearing what she might have been wearing in Hong Kong or on Taiwan, red silk dress slit all the way to the thigh on her right leg, high-heeled red satin shoes, a stunner. While the Pope was typing up his report, Reardon started talking to her. He suspected she was an illegal alien, and he guessed she’d be in more trouble with Immigration than with the criminal court here, where hookers usually got off with a fine and a warning to keep it off the streets.

Not illegal at all, the way it turned out. Showed him her birth certificate, born right here on Bayard Street. Carried it with her because that was the first thing everybody thought, illegal Chink, ship her back to Shanghai or wherever. Not dumb, either. And not new in the life. She’d been hooking for three years, she told him. The money was good, certainly better than slinging moo goo gai pan in one of the restaurants down here. Said she’d been cruising near Police Plaza because she’d had good luck with cops lately. Cops understood hookers, she said. In a sense, cops understood all offenders better than they did straight civilians, wasn’t that so? A symbiosis, she said. Reardon didn’t know what the word meant. Also, cops were good tippers. Cops knew how hard you had to work to make a buck in this fuckin’ city. Did Reardon know how many cops ended up marrying hookers? He told her he didn’t know. He also told her she’d picked the wrong cop — “Hey, don’t I know it already?” — when she asked Mazzi if he wanted to have a good time. Mazzi thought a good time was playing bingo in church on his night off. Mazzi thought a good time was watching the Disney channel on his cable TV. Mazzi was the Pope of Chinatown — “Do you know the Pope story?” Reardon asked her. He felt comfortable with this girl, he didn’t know why. Figured he could risk telling her a dirty joke, even though Mazzi was sitting almost within earshot, his fingers flying over the typewriter keys. Separated for a month that August, hardly able to say two words in a row to any woman, and here he was talking to a hooker and actually enjoying himself.

“The Pope decides to take a walk outside the Vatican,” he said, lowering his voice because he didn’t want Mazzi to get up on the pulpit, “and as luck would have it, he runs into a hooker.”

“Uh-oh,” the girl said. Her brown eyes were wide in her face.

“The hooker says. ‘You want a blowjob, a hundred thousand lira,’ and the Pope throws up his hands and says, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know, no, I don’t know.’ and runs back to the Vatican. He sits in his office for a long time, thinking over what just happened, and then he buzzes the mother superior and asks her to come in. ‘Mother Superior,’ he says, ‘what’s a blowjob?’ And the mother superior says, ‘A hundred thousand lira, same as outside.’ ”

The girl burst out laughing.

Mazzi looked up from his typewriter.

“Come see me tomorrow,” she whispered to Reardon, “when all this bullshit is over with. It won’t cost you a hundred thousand lira.”

He went to see her the next day.

All business.

Cool as a cucumber.

First time he’d ever been to bed with anyone but Kathy in the past ten years.

Hardly said a word to him.

Well, yeah.

“Twenty-five,” she said, “ ’cause I like you. I usually charge fifty.”

Great head.

Went out of there feeling worse than when he’d gone in.

So last night, there he was with a good-looking woman who’d been around the park once or twice, and all they’d done was eat the fondue and drink the wine, and then he’d told her he had to catch a plane to Washington the next morning, and she’d said she had to get up early, too, and they’d shaken hands, and she’d said, “Goodnight, Bry, it was fun,” and he’d said. “I enjoyed it, Sandy,” and that was that.

And he’d gone home to his fleabag hotel, and lain awake half the night thinking of Kathy.

Plane rides are no fucking good, he thought. They make you wonder about too many things.

The Café de la Daine was in Georgetown, on Wisconsin Avenue near Dumbarton Street. Reardon wasn’t too familiar with Washington — he’d been here only once before, to give testimony in a Senate hearing — but he guessed this was one of the better parts of town. The restaurant at five to eleven that Saturday morning was alive with busboys setting the tables for lunch. One of them came over the moment Reardon walked through the front door.

Reardon showed him his potsie and his ID card. “Detective Reardon,” he said, “New York City Police. I’d like to see John D’Annunzio, please.”

“I don’t think he’s in yet,” the busboy said. “Let me check in back.”

He disappeared into what Reardon supposed was the kitchen. Reardon looked around. Plush banquettes, white linen table cloths, polished silver, sparkling crystal. The kind of place he could never afford. The kind of place he maybe wouldn’t ever set foot in even if he could afford it. The kitchen door opened again. A man in his late fifties, hair graying at the temples, brown eyes and shaggy brows, came walking swiftly toward him. He was wearing dark trousers and a white ruffled shirt, an untied bow tie hanging loose on its front. The resemblance between him and Ralph D’Annunzio was unmistakable. They could have been twins.

“What can I do for you?” he said, extending his hand.

“Mr. D’Annunzio?”

“John D’Annunzio, yes.”

They shook hands briefly.

“I want to ask you a few more questions,” Reardon said. “About your brother’s visit.”

“You came all the way from New York for that?”

“I’ve been having difficulty getting you on the phone, Mr. D’Annunzio. Both here and at home.”

“Yeah, well, I took a few days off, went to Vegas,” D’Annunzio said, shrugging. “Anyway, I told you everything I know.”

“You said your brother came here to borrow money from you, is that right?”

D’Annunzio nodded. “Told me somebody was into him for seventy-five hundred bucks. Said he wanted to clear the debt because the interest rates were killing him.”

“How’d you react to that, Mr. D’Annunzio?”

“I told him to get lost.”

“You told your brother...”

“Some brother. I don’t see him for fifteen years, he shows up here and wants seventy-five hundred bucks. I work hard here, ten, twelve hours a day. You think that kind of money grows on trees?”

“Did he tell you who was holding the note?”

“I figured it was the shys, but who cares? Why? Was it them who killed him?”

“I don’t know who killed him.”

“Neither do I. This is what you came all the way here for?”

“I thought he might have mentioned something that...”

“Why? ’Cause I’m his long-lost brother? Bullshit. I mean, what kind of nerve is that, will you tell me? Fifteen years! He didn’t even invite me to his son’s confirmation, Mark, my nephew By rights, I shoulda been godfather, am I right? My only brother? His only son? Ralph shoulda asked me to be godfather Instead, he doesn’t even invite me. Then he comes here and wants seventy-five hundred bucks. I told him to take a walk.”

“How long was he here?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes? Who knows? As long as it took to say Hello, I need seventy-five hundred bucks, goodbye.”

“Just like that, huh? After fifteen years?”

“What’d you want me to do, hold a parade?” He shook his head. “It was raining, I called a taxi for him. This was around eight-thirty last Sunday night. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“When you say you called a taxi...”

“I phoned one of the cab companies, right.”

“Which one?” Reardon asked.

“Who remembers? I’ve got a dozen cards by the phone.”

A call to the local police put Reardon on to the capital’s equivalent of New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. It was called the Hack Office here in Washington, and it was located in room 2077 at 300 Indiana Avenue. But a phone call there netted only a tape recording saying that the office was closed on weekends and holidays. Reardon bought himself ten dollars’ worth of change in a tobacco shop, closeted himself in a phone booth with the telephone directory’s Yellow Pages open to Taxicabs, and began dialing every cab company in the city. Allied and Capitol and D.C. Express — the same question to each dispatcher — Dial and Globe and Mayflower — “Did you make an eight-thirty pickup last Sunday night at the Café de la Dame in Georgetown?” — Metropolitan and Omega and Potomac and finally, at a place called Regency Cab, he spoke to a dispatcher who seemed to remember a call from Georgetown around that time last Sunday night.

“Hold on a second, willya?” he said.

Reardon waited.

“This woulda been the fourteenth, am I right?” the dispatcher said.

“Last Sunday night, right,” Reardon said. He could hear papers rustling on the other end of the line.

“Today’s... what’s today?”

“The twentieth.”

“So that would’ve been last Sunday, right?” the clerk said.

“Right,” Reardon said patiently. “Last Sunday. The fourteenth.”

“Right,” the dispatcher said. “Pickup at the Café de la Daine, right?”

“Right.”

“To National Airport, right?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Reardon said.

“Right,” the dispatcher said. “So let me see here. It musta been raining last Sunday, we got a lot of calls here. Was it raining last Sunday?”

“Yes,” Reardon said.

“Which is why we got so many calls.” the clerk said. “Sunday, Sunday,” he said, riffling through the records, “Sunday, the fourteenth, right? Here we are.” He ran his finger down the page. “De la Daine, Sunday, the fourteenth. Here it is, right. De la Daine to National. Eight-thirty P.M. pickup. Two passengers.”

“Do you have the passengers’ names?” Reardon asked.

“Do they list passengers’ names in New York?” the dispatcher said.

“No, but...”

“Not here, neither,” the clerk said. “All I got is a pickup at the restaurant, a deposit at National. That’s what the man on the phone gave us.”

“Who was driving the cab?” Reardon asked.

He found the driver at a little past noon in the company garage on H and Third. He was eating a sandwich and sipping a Diet Pepsi. He told Reardon he always brought a sandwich from home, ate it here in the garage before he started his tour. He told Reardon he worked from one in the afternoon till ten at night. He didn’t like to work past ten because that was when the monkeys came out. The monkeys liked to hold up cab drivers here in D.C. The cabbie had a wife and three kids, and he didn’t want no monkey hitting him on the head with a lead pipe.

“Do you remember this particular call?” Reardon asked. “The Café de la Daine?”

“I get a lot of calls there,” the cabbie said. “Nice restaurant, though I never been in it.”

“Last Sunday night, around eight-thirty.”

“It was raining last Sunday,” the cabbie said.

“That’s right.”

“I’d have to look at my manifest,” the cabbie said. “Under Title 15, we gotta keep a manifest shows all our pickups and deposits.”

“Do you still have the one for last Sunday?”

“Oh, sure. What I do, I usually throw them away at the end of each month. I figure anybody’s gonna make a complaint, by then they’da made it. So let me take a look, huh?”

He looked at the manifest. Reardon watched his finger running down the list of calls.

“Yeah, here it is. Café de la Daine, eight-thirty pickup. Yeah, I remember it now,” he said, nodding. “But only because of the Arab.”

“What Arab?” Reardon asked at once.

“Guy with a beard and this long white sheet, you know, and this thing on his head — what do you call those things they wear on their heads, the Arabs?”

“A turban?”

“Yeah, a turban.”

“What about him?”

“He was one of the two guys I picked up at the restaurant.”

“And you drove both of them to National Airport?”

“Straight to National. It’s a ten-minute drive.”

“What airline?”

“Eastern.”

“Thanks.” Reardon said, and went immediately to the pay phone on the garage wall. He knew the number of the Café de la Daine by heart; he’d dialed it often enough from New York. He recognized D’Annunzio’s voice at once.

“Café de la Daine, good afternoon.”

“Mr. D’Annunzio?” he said.

“Who’s this, please?”

“Detective Reardon.”

“Yes, Mr. Reardon?”

“I’m sorry to bother you again, but I wonder if you can tell me...”

“Mr. Reardon, we have a very busy lunch hour here. Can you...?”

“Would you remember if there was an Arab in the restaurant last Sunday night?”

“A what?”

“An Arab. Man dressed in Arab garb, white robe, white turban. He would have taken the same cab your brother did.”

“Oh, yes,” D’Annunzio said. “He was here for dinner.”

“What was his name?” Reardon said.

“I don’t know. He was here with Senator Bailey.”

“Senator who?”

“Bailey. Thomas Bailey.”

“Thank you very much,” Reardon said.

But, of course, both the Senate and the House had adjourned for the holidays sometime last week and even if this had not been a Saturday, the offices on Capitol Hill would have been empty.

As, in fact, they were.

Dead end.

In a strange city.

Reardon got the hell out of it on the next shuttle.

He was back in the squadroom by three-thirty that afternoon, and by four o’clock he had learned that Senator Thomas Bailey was one of the senators from Connecticut, and he had further learned where he lived and what his home phone number was. This last piece of information had come from a man in Albany who used to be a D.A. in New York, and who now worked under Commissioner Condon in the Division of Criminal Justice Services. Albany was a very political town, and Reardon figured it would not hurt to call his old D.A. drinking buddy at home, see if he could give him a lead on the senator. It took him twenty minutes to get back to Reardon.

At a little past four. Reardon dialed the senator’s number in Norwalk, Connecticut. A woman answered the phone. Reardon identified himself as a working New York City detective and asked to speak to the senator, please. Bailey came onto the phone a moment later.

“How can I help you, Detective Reardon?” he asked. His voice sounded cigarette-seared, deep and husky.

“I’m sorry to break in on you this way, Senator...”

“No problem,” Bailey said.

“But I’m investigating a homicide here in New York...”

“Uh-huh.”

“... and I wonder if I might ask you a few questions.”

“Well, certainly go right ahead.” Bailey said.

“Senator, did you have dinner at a restaurant called Café de la Daine last Sunday night?”

“In Washington, do you mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m not even sure I was still in Washington last Sunday.”

“The maitre d’ seems to...”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I believe I did have dinner there, yes.”

“Who was with you, Senator?”

“I was alone,” Bailey said.

Reardon hesitated, and then said, “The maitre d’ seems to think there was an Arab with you.”

“An Arab? I have a large Jewish constituency, Mr. Reardon. I do not make a habit of dining in public with Arabs.”

“A man with a beard,” Reardon said. “Wearing a white robe and a white turban. An Arab, Senator.”

“Well...” Bailey said, and hesitated. “Perhaps someone of that description did stop at the table to say hello.”

“Who was he?”

“I don’t remember. There are always visiting dignitaries in Wash...”

“Oh, was he a dignitary?” Reardon asked at once.

“Mr. Reardon,” Bailey said, “unless you have something specific in mind...”

“I have a homicide in mind, Senator. That’s about as specific as anything can get. What was the Arab’s name?”

“I didn’t realize I was under oath before a Senate subcommittee.”

“No, sir, you’re not. But I’d hate like hell to have to tell the New York Times that you refused to cooperate in a homicide investigation.”

There was a long silence on the line. At last, Bailey said, “How on earth did you ever make the connection?”

“What connection?” Reardon said.

“Between what happened at La Guardia and me.”

“What?” Reardon said. “What do you mean?”

There was another silence on the line.

“What homicide are you investigating, Mr. Reardon?” Bailey asked. “A man named Ralph D’Annunzio was killed last Monday night at his restaurant in...”

“I don’t know anything about that, I’m sorry.”

“How about a man named Peter Dodge, who was...”

“Never heard of him. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, Mr. Reardon, but...”

“Senator, what homicide did you think I...?”

“My wife and I are expecting guests very shortly,” Bailey said. “You’ll have to forgive me.”

“What homicide were you...?”

But the senator had already hung up.

In Arizona, it was two o’clock in the afternoon.

The temperature outside was sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. A bit more reasonable, Olivia thought. Sunlight streamed through the study windows. Her father sat in a wheelchair behind his desk. He looked healthy and alert today, good color in his cheeks, a sparkle in his eyes. A lion closing in for the kill, she thought.

“Has Sotheby’s paid Sarge?” he asked.

“We’re already using the proceeds. Thirteen million was deposited to a discretionary account at Rothstein-Phelps, to cover the Comex purchases. The rest has gone to London and Hong Kong.”

“You say he got something better than thirty-six million?”

“Thirty-six three,” Olivia said.

“Which will pay for the margin on how many contracts?”

“I’m figuring roughly twelve thousand contracts at a margin of three thousand dollars each.”

“Four thousand lots on each exchange?” Andrew asked.

“On average. On the Comex, for example, we’re buying forty-two hundred lots. On the LME...”

“Yes, I get the picture. Any big jumps in the price yet?”

“At Friday’s close, it was a little over six dollars an ounce.”

“Any ripples from the CFTC?”

“Not yet. It doesn’t matter. Daddy. This is all legal and aboveboard.”

“More or less.”

“Well... discounting the dummy corporations abroad, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But we’re completely hidden there, Daddy. And in New York, we’ll tell them whatever they want to know about our Comex purchases. If it comes to that.”

“It may not, Livvie. It may not attract attention.”

“Unless someone is terribly eager.”

“What about that incident in the airport last Sunday night?”

“A group named Order of the Holy Crusade — or some such thing — is claiming responsibility for it.”

“And the other two — the ones I call the ‘accident’ victims — what about them?”

“Accident victims indeed,” Olivia said, smiling. “So far, no connection has been made.”

“Good. It would seem we’re well on our way then, wouldn’t it?”

“I’d say so, yes.”

Andrew nodded, pleased, and reached across the desk for his cup of tea. “By the...”

Reaching for the tea.

“... close Wednesday...”

Hand lifting the cup.

“... we’ll have...”

And suddenly he dropped the teacup.

And sat upright.

And gasped.

His face, almost ruddy an instant earlier, turned suddenly chalk white.

“Oh,” he said, and shuddered.

“Daddy?” she said, alarmed, rushing around the desk to him.

“Oh.” he said again, and toppled from his chair.

She knelt beside him at once, her eyes wide in panic. Over her shoulder, she shouted, “Charles! Come quick! Charles!”

Reardon left the squadroom at a little past six, took a taxi to his hotel, showered and changed his clothes, and then drove uptown to Sandy’s apartment. This time, he took a flashlight from the car. He went up the stairs to the third floor, knocked on the door to apartment 3B, waited, and then knocked again.

“Yes?” Sandy called.

“Sandy,” he said. “It’s me. Bry.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Bry Reardon.”

“Yes... uh... just a second, Bry.”

He waited. He could hear footstep approaching the door. Lock tumblers turning. The door opened a crack, the night chain stopping it. She did not take off the night chain. In the crack of the door, he saw her face, hair tousled, caught glimpses of naked flesh below.

“I... uh... was taking a nap,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“That’s okay, it’s just... uh...”

Their eyes met. It’s just there’s somebody with me, her eyes said. It’s just I was in bed with somebody, and this is a very inconvenient time for you to come knocking on my door. It’s just go away, Charlie.

“Well, I...” He kept looking into her eyes, thinking maybe he was reading them wrong. But the night chain didn’t move from its slot on the door, the night chain was as formidable as a moat. “I’ll see you some other time, okay?” he said.

“Call me at the office, okay?” she said.

“Forbes, right,” he said.

“Bry, I’m really sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you’d be coming here, I...”

“No, no, hey,” he said, “come on.”

He looked at her a moment longer.

“Goodnight. Sandy,” he said.

“Goodnight,” she said.

He turned away from the door. He heard the door closing behind him. He heard the small oiled click of the lock tumblers falling.

The precinct was in Chinatown.

Chinatown was where he lived.

Chinatown was home.

A hundred thousand Chinese here, more or less, no one had an accurate count, and more of them arriving every day of the week. Cost an immigrant five thousand bucks for “key money” to a one-room apartment in a sleazy tenement. Twenty years ago, all your Chinese here were from only two counties in Guangdong province. Today, you had maybe twenty provinces represented here. Not to mention all the Chinese immigrants from Southeast Asia. Chinatown had itself become a distant province of China. A third-world city right here in New York. A city unto itself, spilling over into southeast Manhattan, bursting its long-ago boundaries, displacing the Puerto Ricans, spreading like a vaporous cloud over Little Italy and what used to be the Jewish tenements on Henry Street, drifting all the way to Houston Street, moving restlessly, growing all the time. Another part of the city, rarely understood by anyone who didn’t work here. Home.

He wandered the streets.

Well, he shouldn’t have gone there. What the hell. Young, attractive woman, had he expected her to be alone on a Saturday night? Would’ve called first if she had a phone. Shit, why didn’t she have a phone? Dumb.

Wandered the streets.

Crowded with tourists, the streets. Well, close to Christmas, lots of out-of-towners in the city, doing their Christmas shopping before they went back home to Iowa, wherever the hell that was.

Home.

He’d be alone this Christmas.

Well, fuck it.

He walked into Little Italy.

Only two blocks left of it now, the Chinese encroachment evident everywhere. Vegetable stands selling all kinds of exotic roots and herbs. Tea rooms with old bearded Chinese men sipping from cups they held in both hands. Dry-goods stores displaying lavish silks in their windows — the Chinese hooker in red silk, skirt slit to her ass. He stopped in front of the D’Annunzio building on Broome Street. He looked at his watch. He hesitated.

Well, shit, I don’t want to bother them, he thought.

He looked up the street.

Well, he thought, and went into the building.

Mark D’Annunzio opened the door for him.

“Mr. Reardon, hey!” he said. “Come in, come in.”

“I don’t want to disturb you,” Reardon said. “I was just...”

“What disturb?” Mark said. “Come on in.”

He followed Mark into the apartment. There were dinner dishes on the kitchen table. Coffee cups. Mrs. D’Annunzio rose at once.

“Mr. Reardon,” she said, “hello,” and came around the table, both hands extended. “How nice to see you.”

He took her hands.

“I was just passing by,” he said, “thought I’d... uh... see how you’re doing.”

“Take off your coat,” she said, “sit down.”

“Well, no, I don’t want to interrupt your meal.”

“We’re finished already, we were just having coffee. You can’t take off your coat? Sit down for a minute?”

“Well...”

“Did you have supper yet?”

“Well, no, I was...”

“Mark, get Mr. Reardon a plate,” she said, and went immediately to the stove. “The chicken’s still hot,” she said. “Do you like chicken?”

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“Cacciatore?”

“Any which way.”

“So take off your coat. What’s the matter with you. standing there with your coat on?”

“Thank you,” he said.

He took off his coat.

“Just throw it over one of the chairs.” Mrs. D’Annunzio said.

“Thank you,” he said again.

“Mark, get the wine,” she said. “Red wine okay?” she asked Reardon.

“Si, va bene, signora,” he said. “Grazie.”

“Ah, lei parla italiano,” she said.

“Solo un poco. signora.”

“Ma lei parla mol to bene!”

“I picked up a little when I was walking a beat here,” Reardon said. “Years ago.”

“Here you go.” Mark said, pouring from a bottle of Chianti.

“Thank you.”

Mrs. D’Annunzio took his plate to the stove, and heaped it high with chicken.

“That’s enough for an army,” Reardon said.

“Chicken is good for you,” she said, putting the plate down before him. “Low cholesterol.”

She sat down at the table beside him. When he did not pick up his fork at once, she said, “Ma che cosa? Mangia!”

He began eating. “Good.” he said.

“What do you eat there at the station house?” she asked.

“Well... usually a sandwich. A hamburger. Some fries.”

“You should eat better,” she said, fussing at him. “And in this weather, you should wear a hat. Why don’t you wear a hat, Mr. Reardon?”

“Never got in the habit, I guess.”

“Because the heat escapes from your ears, you know.”

“Come on, Mom,” Mark said, laughing.

“È vero. it’s true, don’t laugh. How’s the chicken?”

“Delicious,” Reardon said.

“Sure,” she said. “Come to the restaurant sometime, we make all kinds of chicken. Cacciatore, valdostana, parmigiana...”

“We’re opening again on Monday, you know,” Mark said.

“Is that wrong?” Mrs. D’Annunzio said, and sighed. “Is that too soon, Mr. Reardon?”

“No, signora. I don’t think so.”

“Life has to go on, Mom,” Mark said.

“Yes,” Reardon said.

Mrs. D’Annunzio sighed again. There was a long silence. Mark poured more wine for Reardon, and then said, “I don’t suppose... you’ve learned anything yet.”

“We’re working on it,” Reardon said. “We’ll find them, don’t worry.” He took a sip of wine, and then said, “I didn’t come here to ask you any more questions, believe me, but I just got back from Washington...”

“You went to Washington?” Mrs. D’Annunzio said, surprised.

“Yes, to talk to your brother-in-law. Actually to some other people, too, as it turned out. Tell me,” he said, “when your husband came back from Washington, did he mention anything about an Arab?”

“Cosa?”

“L’arabo,” Mark said. “The one who left his briefcase on the plane.”

“What briefcase?” Reardon asked immediately.

“La sua cartella da viaggio,” Mrs. D’Annunzio said, nodding. “He rushed off the airplane, he forgot it on the rack. Ralph chased after him, but then... when the man got shot... all the confusion...”

“Hold it, please,” Reardon said. “What do you mean, he got shot?”

“In the terminal,” Mrs. D’Annunzio said. “He got shot, you didn’t read about it? The man who was sitting next to Ralph on the plane. Ralph tried to give the briefcase back to him, but...”

“Tell the truth, Mom,” Mark said, and turned to Reardon. “My father panicked. There were cops all over the place, the man’s chest was covered with blood, my father didn’t want to get involved.” He paused and then said, “This is New York, you know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” Reardon said.

“I guess... I don’t know... I didn’t see any connection between something that happened...”

“Let me figure out the goddamn connections, okay?” Reardon said angrily, and then turned immediately to Mrs. D’Annunzio and said, “Scusi, signora.”

“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “I should have realized.”

“Did your father bring the briefcase home with him?”

“Yes.”

“You saw it?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t know,” Mark said.

Canned music blared through the crowded room. Colored lights bounced off revolving mirrored balls, splintering reds and blues and ambers, sprinkling the faces and the gyrating bodies of the dancers. Mirrored walls multiplied the dancers by a hundred, speakers everywhere created an unimaginable din. You can’t even hear yourself think in here, Sarge thought, and tried to steady Jessica, who’d had too much to drink and who was having trouble keeping her footing. He hated when she drank too much. Hated this place. Didn’t know what to do to this damn music.

She went into a turn, solo-dancing, swinging out from him, her silver-sequined dress reflecting color, reflecting itself again in the mirrors, those damn mirrors were making him dizzy.

“Ooops,” she said, and grinned a silly grin.

“Come on, let’s sit down,” Sarge said.

“Wanna dance,” Jessica said.

“Later, Jess.”

“Now.” she said.

“Come on. Jess.”

He took her elbow, leading her through the crowd, Jessica trying to pull away from him, jiggling her behind in time to the frantic beat, shaking her breasts. When they got back to the table, she picked up her drink immediately. and took a long swallow.

“Better go easy on the sauce,” Sarge said.

“What for?” Jessica said. “In St. Moritz on a Saturday night, I’d be dancing and drinking and dancing and...”

“Excuse me,” someone said.

Sarge turned to his right. A tall young man was standing there.

“Arthur Trevor,” he said, “New York Post. I wonder if...”

“Buzz off, New York Post,” Sarge said.

“Come out, Mr. Kidd,” Trevor said, “you guys are news.”

“It’s the Captain who’s the news,” Jessica said.

“Jessie!” Sarge said sharply.

“That sterling leader of American industry...” Jessica said.

“What about him. Miss Kidd?” Trevor asked.

“Nothing,” Sarge said. “Leave us alone, will you please?”

“I just want to know...”

“Do you want me to call the manager?”

“Hey, give me a break, okay? I’m a working stiff...”

“Give him a break. Sarge,” Jessica said, and giggled.

“What kind of news has your father made now, Miss Kidd?” Trevor asked, leaning in on her.

“Listen, mister,” Sarge said, “you want me to...?”

“Went and had himself...”

“Shut...”

“... a big old stroke out there in Arizona.”

“Damn you, Jessie!”

“A stroke?” Trevor said. “Your father had a stroke?”

“Get the hell away from us!” Sarge said. He was on his feet now, hulking over Trevor. “You hear me? Move ill”

Trevor backed away from the table.

Jessica looked up at her brother.

“Did I say something wrong?” she asked.