Dance Of Death

EIGHTEEN

Bill Smithback rounded a corner, stopped, then breathed a sigh of relief. There, at the far end of the corridor, lay the door to Fenton Davies's office, open and unvexed by the lingering shade of Bryce Harriman. In fact, come to think of it, Smithback hadn't seen much of Harriman at all today. As he walked toward Davies's office, a fresh spring in his step, he rubbed his hands together, feeling a delicious shudder of schadenfreude at Harriman's bad luck. To think Harriman had been so eager to get his mitts on the Dangler story. Well, he was welcome to it. In retrospect, it wasn't really much of a Times story, anyway: far too undignified, tending toward the burlesque. Still, Harriman-what with his recent stint at the Post-would probably find it right up his alley.

Smithback chuckled as he walked.

He, on the other hand, had scored a major coup by landing the Duchamp murder. It was everything a big story should be: unusual, compelling, galvanic. It was the number one topic of conversation around watercoolers all over the city: the gentle, kindly artist who- for no apparent reason-had been bound, a hangman's noose fitted around his neck, then forced out of a twenty-fourth-story window and sent crashing through the roof of one of Manhattan's fancy French restaurants. All this in broad daylight in front of hundreds of witnesses.

Smithback slowed a little as he approached Davies's office. True, those many witnesses were proving hard as hell to track down. And so far, he'd had to content himself with the police department's official line and what discreet conjectures he'd drummed out of those usually in the know, who were proving disconcertingly out of the know in this case. But the story would break open. Nora was right when she said he always came through in the end. How well she understood him. It was just a matter of working every angle, maintaining traction.

No doubt that was why Davies had summoned him: the editor was eager for more. No sweat, he'd tell Davies he was chasing down some choice leads from his confidential sources. He'd get his ass back up to Broadway and 65th. Today there wouldn't be any cops around to cramp his style. Then he'd go haunt the precinct house, talk to an old pal there, see what crumbs he could pick up. No, he corrected himself: crumbs wasn't the right word. Other reporters picked up crumbs, while Smithback found the cake-and ate it, too.

Chuckling at his own metaphorical wit, he paused at the secretarial station outside Davies's office. Vacant. Late lunch, Smithback thought. Striding forward, feeling and looking every inch the ace reporter, he breezed up, raising his hand to knock on the open door.

Davies was sitting, Buddha-like, behind his cluttered desk. He was short and perfectly bald, with fastidious little hands that always seemed to be doing something: smoothing his tie or playing with a pencil or tracing the lines of his eyebrows. He favored blue shirts with white collars and tightly knotted paisley ties. With his high, soft voice and effeminate mannerisms, Davies might look to the uninitiated like a pushover. But Smithback had learned that this was not the case. You didn't get to be an editor at the Times without at least a few pints of barracuda blood coursing through your veins. But his delivery was so mild it sometimes took a moment to realize you'd just been disemboweled. He played his cards close to his vest, listened more than he spoke, and one rarely knew what he was really thinking. He didn't fraternize with his reporters, didn't hang out with theother editors, and seemed to prefer his own company. There was only one extra chair in his office, and it was never occupied.

Except that today it was occupied by Bryce Harriman.

Smithback froze in the doorway, hand still raised in midknock.

"Ah, Bill." Davies nodded. "Good timing. Please come in."

Smithback took a step forward, then another. He struggled to keep his eyes from meeting Harriman's.

"Planning to file a follow-up on the Duchamp murder?" Davies asked.

Smithback nodded. He felt dazed, as if somebody had just sucker-punched him in the gut. He hoped to hell it didn't show.

Davies ran his fingertips along the edge of his desk. "What's the angle going to be?"

Smithback was ready with his answer. This was Davies's favorite question, and it was a rhetorical one: his way of letting reporters know he didn't want any grass growing under their feet.

"I was planning a local-interest angle," he said. "You know, the effect of the killing on the building, the neighborhood, friends and family of the victim. And, of course, I was planning a follow-up story on the progress of the investigation. The detective in charge, Hayward, is the youngest homicide captain in the force and a woman to boot."

Davies nodded slowly, allowing a meditative hmmmm to escape his lips. As usual, the response communicated nothing about what he was really thinking.

Smithback, his nervousness heightened, elaborated. "You know the drill: unnatural death comes to the Upper West Side, matrons afraid to walk their poodles at night. I'll weave in a sketch of the victim, his work, that sort of thing. Might even do a sidebar on Captain Hayward."

Davies nodded again, picked up a pen, rolled it slowly between his palms.

"You know, something that could run on the first page of the Metro Section," Smithback said gamely, still pitching.

Davies put down the pen. "Bill, this is bigger than a Metro story, the biggest homicide in Manhattan since the Cutforth murder, which Bryce here covered when he was at the Post."

Bryce here. Smithback kept his face pleasant.

"It's a story with a lot of angles. Not only do we have the sensational manner of death, but we also have-as you point out-the posh location. Then we have the man himself. An artist. And the female homicide detective." He paused. "Aren't you biting off a little more than you can chew-for a single story, that is?"

"I could make it two, even three. No problem."

"No doubt you could, but then the stretched-out time frame becomes problematic."

Smithback licked his lips. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was standing and Harriman was sitting.

Davies went on. "I personally had no idea that Duchamp was, in his own quiet way, a painter of some renown. He wasn't trendy or popular with the SoHo crowd. More of a Sutton Place style of artist, a Fairfield Porter. Bryce and I were just talking about it last night."

"Bryce," Smithback repeated. The name tasted like bile in his mouth. "Last night?"

Davies waved his hand with studied nonchalance. "Over drinks at the Metropolitan Club."

Smithback felt himself stiffen. So that was how the smarmy prick had managed it. He'd taken Davies for drinks at his father's fancy club. And Davies, it seemed, like any number of editors Smithback had known, was a sucker for that kind of thing. Editors were the worst social climbers, always hanging around the fringes of the rich and famous, hoping to catch a few scraps that dropped from the table. Smithback could just imagine Davies being ushered into the cloistered fastness of the Metropolitan Club; shown to a luxurious chair in some gilded salon; served drinks by deferential men in uniform; all the while exchanging hushed greetings with various Rockefellers, De Menils, Vanderbilts-that was just the thing to turn Davies's Maplewood, New Jersey, head all the way around.

Now, at last, he glanced again in Harriman's direction. The scumbag was sitting there, one leg tucked primly over the other, looking as nonchalant as if he did this every day. He didn't bother returning Smithback's look. He didn't need to.

"We haven't just lost a citizen here," Davies went on. "We've lost an artist. And New York is a poorer place for his loss. See, Bill, you just never know who lives in that apartment next door. It could be a hot dog vendor or a sanitation worker. Or it could be a fine artist whose paintings hang in half the apartments in River House."

Smithback nodded again, frozen smile on his lips.

Davies smoothed his tie. "It's a great angle. My friend Bryce here will handle it."

Oh, God. For a bleak and terrible moment, Smithback thought he was about to be reassigned to the Dangler.

"He'll cover the society aspect of the story. He knows several of Duchamp's important former clients, he's got the family connections. They'll talk to him, whereas…"

His voice trailed off, but Smithback got the message: whereas they won't talk to you.

"In short, Bryce can give us the silk-stocking view that Times readers appreciate. I'm glad to see you have a handle on the cop and street angle. You keep that up."

The cop and street angle. Smithback felt his jaw muscles flex involuntarily.

"It goes without saying that you'll both share information and leads. I'd suggest regular meetings, keeping in touch. This story is certainly big enough for the both of you, and it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon."

Silence descended briefly over the office.

"Was there anything else, Bill?" Davies asked mildly.

"What? Oh, no. Nothing."

"Then don't let me keep you."

"No, of course not," Smithback said. He was practically stammering now with shock, mortification, and fury. "Thanks." And as he turned to leave the office, Harriman finally glanced in his direction. There was a smug half-smile on his shit-eating face. It was a smile that seemed to say: See you around, partner.

And watch your back.