Cold Hit

27

Mercer Wallace lifted his head off the pile of pillows as we entered the room and gave us a weak but warm greeting. The nurse who helped feed him his dinner-still a liquid diet-was moving the tray off the bedside table as we settled in around the patient.

Chapman grabbed the television remote control panel dangling from a cord on Mercer’s bed railing and pointed it at the small set that was hanging from a support in the corner.

“Too early,” Mercer said, laughing. It was only six thirty-five, and he thought that Mike was looking for the Jeopardy! channel. “Let me hear what’s going on.”

Mike kept clicking until the screen was set on NBC and the national news report. “Don’t you want to see Cooper’s guy? Has he got a live shoot tonight, kid? Whoops, looks like Brian Williams has the anchor spot.” He muted the sound and asked Mercer how he felt.

“I don’t remember much about yesterday. Pain’s under control, and they even had me out of bed for an hour this afternoon. One lap around the hallway.”

“There he is!” Mike said, rising from his armchair and walking to stand directly under the television set. “Gimme volume, Mercer.”

Jake was standing on First Avenue, in front of the United Nations building, and he was midsentence when I heard his voice: “… after the secretary of state and the delegate from…”

Mike’s pen was in his right hand, held up against the screen and tapping at Jake’s chest. “Here’s the thing, Mercer. The reason you and I will never get to first base with Ms. Cooper is that we don’t have these ties that all her beaux wear, know what I mean? Every one of ’em has these itsy-bitsy, teenyweeny little friggin’ animals all over ’em. Grown men, and they got little squirrels runnin’ around with nuts in their cheeks, sheep jumping over fences, monkeys swingin’ on vines, giraffes standing on tippy-toe. I would be mortified to be here on national television, talkin’ about sending troops to the Middle East, decked out in some French necktie-what do you call them, Coop? Hermies or Hermans or Ermies-something like that. Anyway, the thing is, Mercer, that it works. ’Cause whatever it is about those ties, every one of the goofballs who shows up wearing one of ’em gets laid.

“Am I right, blondie? Ever do a simple guy with a striped tie? I doubt it. I’m telling you, if Alex Trebek walked in with one of these on, she’d go down on him like a pelican, wouldn’t you, kid? You wanna predict who Cooper’s gonna get up close and personal with, you check out the tie. That, my good friend, is my Dick Tracy crimestopper clue of the day.”

Mercer was holding his hand over his chest. “Don’t make me laugh, Mike. Somebody want to tell me what’s going on with the case?”

“First of all, forget that you ever saw Alex tonight. Pat McKinney’s riding her pretty hard. Doesn’t want her to visit with you, so you don’t talk about the facts of the case together.”

Mercer looked across at me to see if Mike was still kidding. “It’s true. He’s afraid we’re going to conspire and rearrange the events if we talk to each other. I spent three hours last night giving my statement. I’m sure they got one from you today, as soon as you opened your eyes. I don’t know what he’s so worried about.”

“They were here. Two guys from Major Case, first thing this morning. They said they’re taking you back over to the scene later in the week.”

“Yes,” I said, hoping that my involuntary shudder at the thought of revisiting the gallery hadn’t been visible to Mike or Mercer.

“That is one spooky exhibit,” Mike said. “I stopped there this morning on my way to the hospital the first time. Kind of reminds me of that great Orson Welles scene in Lady From Shanghai -the shoot-out in the fun house? Only thing missing was the mirrors. Listen to this.”

Mike pulled a wrinkled piece of paper from his pants pocket. “They’re already moving a new show into Caxton Due. Somebody probably needed all that friggin’ yarn to make a sweater. I’m reading right from the description Bryan Daughtry wrote. It’s in New York magazine . ‘The artist affixes hardened blobs of paint and scraps of paper, hair, and other scavenged materials to her monochromatic canvases.’ I’m looking forward to wrapping this case up so I can go back to working something real, like a pickpocket detail.”

Mercer winced as he tried to push himself up in bed. I moved to his side to adjust the pillows behind his back and beneath his head. I grabbed one of his enormous arms and pulled on it as gently as I could, but was unable to move him. Mike got on the other side, and together we raised Mercer so that his head rested in a more comfortable position.

“Watch out for the tubes,” I said to Mike, lifting the IV drip from where it was caught under a roll of bedsheet.

“Else you’ll get strangulated on all those concoctions, Mr. Wallace. That’s a word for the S section of my dictionary. I got to jot that one down. ‘Fixiated’-that goes with the F ’s, not the A ’s-and ‘strangulated’ are two very popular causes of death among perps.”

“Have mercy, will you please, Mr. Chapman? I’m supposed to be lying here very still. Don’t make me get up and have to hurt you.”

We spent the next half hour telling Mercer what we had learned from Don Cannon and Preston Mattox. “Who do you like in all this?” he asked.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing and nobody is like what you’d think they’d be. Me, I always thought the international art world was for the elegant and elite. Classy, calm, sedate, cultured. I’m tellin’ you, there are more lowlifes in this business than all the Hannibal Lecter wanna-bes in the world.”

“Between the fakes and the frauds, and centuries of thefts and misrepresentations, I can’t imagine now how anyone sets a value that can be trusted on any painting,” I added. It was odd that for so many of the people we had encountered, their passions had become obsessions, and their lives as illusory as their art.

Mike reached for the clicker and raised the volume again. “Okay, the Final Jeopardy topic is Sports. Way to go. I’m in for fifty dollars. Partners, Mercer?” Mike gave him a thumbs-up and got a wink in response. “Get your money up, Coop.”

I opened my pocketbook and reached in to dig around. Even though I had just taken another handbag from the apartment late last night to replace the one that I had lost in the shooting, I had already filled it with more than any reasonable person would cart around. The heavy wallet, laden with a checkbook, credit cards, business cards, and assorted notes, had sunk to the bottom of the deep tote. On Mercer’s tray table I unloaded house keys, car keys, office keys, and Jake’s apartment keys. A lipstick case and blusher came out next. Handkerchief, pens, hairbrush, Post-it pads, and my official badge piled on top.

“How the hell do you ever find anything in there? It’s really one of life’s great mysteries.

“Okay, the answer is: First major league athlete to play all nine positions in the same baseball season. You got sixty seconds, blondie. Mercer and I got this one locked up… What the hell is that?”

As I pulled out my wallet, with it came a small plastic bag that had snagged on its clasp, holding an old-fashioned razor and set of double-edge platinum blades, along with a toothbrush and tube of paste.

“I brought a little supply kit for Mercer. Jake has dozens of those travel cases so he can just pack them and go when he gets sent on assignment. Thought maybe you’d be able to use some of this stuff while you’re here,” I said, holding it up so Mercer could see.

He pointed to his drawer and told me that his dad had brought him everything he needed, so I replaced all my belongings in the bag.

“Enough with the Clara Barton imitation. You either give us a name or just drop the money in my pocket.”

I had no idea that anyone had ever accomplished that feat. I took out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to Mike, at the same time as I said, “Who was Whitey Ford?” As far as I was concerned, if it hadn’t been done by a Yankee, then it hadn’t ever happened.

Trebek was just consoling the three contestants, none of whom had delivered the correct answer. Before he revealed it on the game board, Mike announced, “Oakland. Who is Bert Campaneris?”

The television echoed the same question: “Who is Bert Campaneris?”

“I can’t believe you knew that.”

He’d pocketed the cash before I finished the sentence. “You don’t mind if I don’t spend it on flowers or candy, do you, m’man? I got some informants who need a little monkey grease to make ’em sing to me.”

The phone rang and I picked it up. “Could I speak with Detective Chapman?”

I stepped back and Mike squeezed around the side of the bed and took the receiver. “K.D.? Whaddaya got?” Mike raised his left shoulder to hold the phone in place against his ear while he reached into his pocket for a pen and paper. He listened to Jimmy Halloran for several minutes, occasionally punctuating the conversation with a ‘When?’ or a ‘Who?’ while I held a straw to Mercer’s lips and helped him drink some of the water that the nurse had directed him to finish. “No, it’s not everything,” Mike said before hanging up, “but it’s not a bad start. Thanks.”

Mike began his narrative for us. “Anthony Bailor. Gainesville, Florida. He’s forty-two years old now, but back when he was eighteen, he burglarized an apartment. Raped a college student who was living there. Knifepoint. Also I.D.’d in three other cases in town within six months.”

“And did less than twenty years?” I asked.

“Three of the victims were too scared to press charges. Hey, it was almost twenty-five years ago. Nothing unusual about that back then.”

It was only within the last ten to fifteen years that victims of sexual assault were treated with any dignity in the courtroom. The bad laws that had prevented women from having access to the system had begun to be revised throughout the seventies, but public attitudes about this category of crime had been even slower to change. For centuries, rape was the only crime for which the victim was blamed, and the stigma that attached itself to women who had been forced to experience such an intimate violation kept many of them from seeking justice.

“What didn’t show on his sheet was his youth record. Again, Florida. Did time in a juvenile facility, also for rape. Carjacked a woman in a supermarket parking lot.”

“So we got a sexual predator on our hands.”

“Served his felony sentence in Raiford. They got a prison there, Coop, makes Attica look like a beauty school. Bailor did hard time. Real hard time. I’m talking chain gangs and leg irons. Must’ve been one of the first guys to get himself into the DNA data bank. Even though they didn’t exist when he was convicted, by the time he was eligible for parole, no one was let out until his genetic fingerprint was on file.”

Mike looked back at his pad and flipped the page. “When he got out of jail, he moved right out of Florida. Can’t say as I blame him. If you’re gonna foul up again, might as well come north to one of our country club prisons. Be my guest, Mr. Bailor. I love New York.

“Ready for the larceny arrest?” Mike asked. “The original charge was grand larceny, but he pleaded out to possession of stolen property. That’s how come he did so little time. Prosecutor had to drop the top count and take the lesser plea ’cause the theft actually occurred in Massachusetts. Anton Bailey was stopped on the New York State Thruway for speeding. When they searched his car, the troopers found a couple of oil paintings. Valuable ones. Seems Anton hadn’t saved his sales receipts.”

“Massachusetts? From the Gardner?”

“Nope. Right state, wrong museum. Something called the Mead Art Museum, in Amherst. Couldn’t pin the actual burglary on Anton. His alibi back in Buffalo held up pretty well. So all they had him for was possession of the goods. They even offered him a deal of no jail time if he gave up his accomplice. But he hung tough. Shit, after the stretch he did in Florida, he must have done this sentence standing on his head.”

It was an interesting development. Somewhere along the way, Bailor had connected with art criminals and had perhaps lent his break-in talent to their undertakings. A simple calculation confirmed that he was still in a Florida prison when the Gardner theft had occurred, but he must have more recently marketed his skills to this murky underground world of thieves.

“Do you think he knew Omar Sheffield before they wound up in the same cell?”

“No sign of that yet. We’ll have to talk to some of the other prisoners. So far, what K.D. got is only from the paperwork in the warden’s files. Could be just dumb luck. Omar’s doing his usual scam. Tells Anton about Denise Caxton, maybe even shows him the clippings from the Law Journal about the Caxton divorce, which lists every one of their assets and describes all of their dealings in the art business. Anton has bigger plans. Passes off the information to…”

“Whom?” I asked. “That’s all we’ve got to figure. He must have been in this with someone else, someone who had his own scam in mind for Denise.”

“Or for Lowell,” Mike reminded me. “I’m not sure who was out to get which one first.”

“You don’t really think Lowell was intended to be a victim in all this, do you?”

Mercer had been listening to us without joining the conversation, as he struggled against dozing off. “You said you spoke to that Sette woman out in Santa Fe yesterday, Mike? That she really was back there?”

Mike paused before answering. “It was actually her housekeeper who answered the phone and told me she expected Sette back in an hour or so. She was Mexican, with a thick accent, and hard to understand. No, I didn’t speak to Sette directly. And I forgot to check the airline manifest afterward to see if she really flew out there. Sorry, Mercer. I’ll get on that tonight.”

It was Marina Sette’s message-or one that had been left for us using her name-that had resulted in my trip to the Focus gallery with Mercer yesterday and that had set us up to be shot. For good reason, Mike was concentrating more on that intrigue at the moment than on piecing together the puzzle of Deni Caxton’s death.

The phone rang again and I answered it. “Alexandra? It’s Rose Malone. I thought you might be there with Mercer. I wanted you to know that Mr. Battaglia is on his way home. He’s going to stop in at the hospital.”

Thank goodness for Rose. She was better than a radar detector. I’d say good night to Mercer before Battaglia arrived, and let the squad detectives take me back to Jake’s apartment for the night.

“And one other thing. The police have arrested that Wakefield man who was here at the office looking for you earlier.”

“Did he come back?” I asked, alarmed at his persistence.

“No. But that young girl who was in your office-was it Ruth?”

“Yes.”

“She showed up at his apartment this afternoon, to try to get together with him again. He beat her up pretty seriously. For admitting to you that she’d been sleeping with his roommate.”

“Oh, no.” I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth at the thought of the anger that Wakefield must have unleashed at that child. I thanked Rose for the call and hung up the phone.

“You’re running on fumes, Coop,” Mike said. “I’ll sit with Mercer tonight. Let me take you downstairs and send you off. Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll talk in the morning. Put a double rush on those prison phone records when you get to the office. We gotta figure out who Bailey’s connected with, okay? And I think we need to find Marina Sette as soon as possible.”

I sat in the back of the unmarked car, looking out at the dark streets as we drove uptown and making small talk with the detectives about the usual office gossip. They discharged me in front of Jake’s building, watching as the doorman let me in and then parking at the curb, where they would sit out their shift before they were replaced by the midnight team in a couple of hours.

I turned the key in the lock and entered the apartment. A small lamp was lighted on the vestibule table, where I saw a handwritten note addressed to me.

“Dearest A- My turn to disappear. Running for the last shuttle to Washington. Have a 7 a.m. interview with the secretary of defense. Sweet dreams, see you tomorrow. Love, J.”

I groped the walls in the semidarkness of the unfamiliar layout to turn on a light switch in the hallway leading to the bedroom. Once I found my way, I reached for the suitcase I had packed the evening before and laid out some of the clothes for the next day.

The silence and the emptiness made me uncomfortable. I wanted the comfort of my own home, and the warmth of Jake’s caress.