Night Watch

TWENTY-FOUR

I waited in the lobby of the club until Mike came out of the kitchen. I said the name Gina Varona aloud six or seven times, but it didn’t sound the least bit familiar to me. I couldn’t wait to get home to begin Googling her, hoping she was twice Luc’s age and had a dowager’s hump.

Mike approached me as though he was about to break into a trot, sweeping past me and going out to the street. “C’mon, kid. I got a little nugget of gold.”

“About Gina? Tell me she’s old enough to be Luc’s mother.”

“You worried about your love life or the body count?” Mike asked. “Luigi’s pals just gave me a piece of the puzzle.”

“What’s that?”

Mike took my elbow and steered me in the direction of Bleecker Street. “I’m putting you in a cab to go home.”

“And you?”

“One of the other waiters says Luigi’s girlfriend lives on a boat all right. It’s a houseboat.”

“So?”

“So it’s not an oceangoing vessel, Coop. The broad makes collages of crustacean legs, okay? Friggin’ tiny dead crab parts glued up on painted pieces of driftwood.”

“Sounds disgusting.”

“I bet I know where she gets the little bastards. There are five or six houseboats moored all along a section of the Gowanus Canal, this guy says. Luigi’s was behind a truck lot on Bond Street. Probably illegal, which is why there’s no official address for it.”

“You’re going-?”

“To give the Harbor cops and my drone a little direction. Get the Brooklyn DA’s office working on a search warrant for the houseboat. And don’t even ask, ’cause you’ve got a big day with Blanca tomorrow.”

At the corner of the busy street, Mike hailed a cab and I got in. He told the driver to take me to my home on the Upper East Side. Then, with the door still open, he leaned inside and picked up my hand.

“I know it’s been rough for you, Coop. Just hold it together another couple of days. No whining, okay?”

I took a deep breath. “Why can’t I call Luc now?”

“Just between us, I spoke to him today.”

“You what?”

“Real short. But he’s good and I explained that it’s best he keep off the phone with you until a few things are resolved.”

“Can I start the meter running?” the cabdriver was more impatient than I was.

“Sure,” I said, turning back to Mike. “What else did he say?”

“Trust me for another twenty-four, will you? I didn’t give him a chance to say anything-that wasn’t the reason for my call. You get some sleep. I’ll phone you in the morning if we come up with good stuff.”

He let go of me and slammed the door. The driver took off and I belted myself in.

Then I speed-dialed Joan Stafford at her home in DC. “Joanie? Is it too late to talk?”

“It’s not even ten o’clock. Where have you been?”

“Just on my way home from work. I’m in a cab.”

“What have you heard from Luc?”

“Nothing at all, Joan. How about you?”

“Same here. But then, I’m not the one who skipped town on him.”

“Hasn’t he even called Jim?” Joan’s husband was one of Luc’s closest friends.

“Jim’s in Moscow on business. How about I come up on Saturday and at least we can spend the evening together?”

“Forget my birthday. We’ll celebrate another time,” I said. “But would you do me favor?”

“Sure. If you do one for me.”

“Deal.”

“What’s yours?”

“Call Luc. I mean, it’s too late now. But call him in the morning and feel him out on what’s going on. He wasn’t even at the restaurant tonight. And he didn’t answer the phone at the house.”

“Maybe he’s with his boys.”

“They’re in Normandy, with Brigitte’s mother,” I said.

“So maybe he’s in Normandy, too. I get it. You don’t want to call there because you don’t want to deal with Brigitte?”

If that’s what Joan wanted to think, it was okay with me. “Exactly.”

“Fine. I’ll call in the morning. Ready for my favor?”

The driver was weaving erratically up Park Avenue. I told him that I wasn’t in a hurry to get home.

“Sure. What is it?”

“So I think I figured out what might be behind the whole Baby Mo case, and I really think you should tell Battaglia and your colleagues about this. Your boss is getting slammed in the international press, you know.”

“So I hear. And now my beloved friend, best known for writing fiction, is going to enlighten us before we head into the grand jury tomorrow. Shoot me.”

“You know the French think this is all a conspiracy, don’t you? A setup.”

“Oui, Joanie. Un coup monté.”

“So you get it?”

“We just can’t figure who framed the sucker,” I said, hoping the sarcasm in my voice wasn’t too off-putting. “There’s no sign of his Ivorian presidential rival anywhere in the Eurotel. No Ivorians anywhere, actually. And President Sarkozy didn’t leave any fingerprints. Totally disinterested. The guy in line to take over the WEB position worldwide seems as bored with Mo’s sexual escapades as any good economist would be. Who’s your perp in all this treachery?”

“Hold on, Alex. I’m serious,” Joan said. “Kali. His wife, Kali.”

“Of course,” I said, stifling a laugh as the cab screeched to a stop at a red light. “Kalissatou Gil-Darsin. Who was, by the way, in Paris at the time this happened. Motive? Coconspirators? I bet Battaglia will just fall in my lap when I tell him you solved this for us.”

“Who has a better motive than his wife? Are you kidding? Think of it, Alex. Suppose she knew about all this womanizing that’s obviously been going on forever. There she is, one of the most magnificent, most desirable women in the world, and her husband’s chasing every piece of tail there is. First young journalists in France, then coworkers, then the mother of the journalist. I mean, c’mon, Alex.”

“So Kali set up the maid?”

“Well, not personally. But she’s the mastermind behind all this. She hired thugs to do it. Who was in that room next to Baby Mo’s? The one the maid went in and out of, before and after? Do your guys know the answer to that?”

“How do you know about the before and after?”

“That maid’s lawyer was all over the news tonight. Even she made a statement. I’m so serious, Alex. Kali knows his weakness, his Achilles’ heel, better than anyone. He’s been embarrassing her for years with all his affairs and his harassment of women, whether it’s at conferences or in his own offices.”

“You’ve got a great imagination, Joanie.”

“Don’t dismiss me. You promised you’d tell Battaglia.”

“As soon as I figure out why Kali would want to humiliate herself so publicly by creating an even bigger scandal than whatever has been going on with MGD for years. She could have just divorced him, Joan. Or killed him. I’d do that before I’d spend the twenty or thirty million his legal fees are going to cost.”

“Well, this is the angle that intrigues me-a conspiracy, a frame, a setup. Jim has all his sources from the African bureau at the newspaper working on it.”

“Very helpful,” I said. “Excuse me a minute, Joanie. Sir, there’s a driveway on the left halfway down the block that you can pull into.”

“You still there?”

“I’m almost home.”

“Someday I’m going to solve one of your cases and you’re not going to know how to thank me.”

“Driver-stop!” I called out as he raced past the entrance to my building. He braked to a stop fifty feet beyond and I handed him the money and waited for change.

“I’m home, Joanie. Call you tomorrow,” I said, and shut off my phone as I got out of the cab and stepped onto the sidewalk.

I walked toward the mouth of the driveway that cut through in front of my building. Three teenagers came running from the opposite direction. I pulled my bag up on my shoulder and hugged it close to my body. But they weren’t interested in me and continued running ahead, toward the better-lighted avenue.

As I turned onto the pavement beside the drive, a man came forward out of the shadows and tried to block my path. I stepped to my right but he grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and tugged me back toward him.

I clutched my bag even tighter as I yelled out the names of a couple of the doormen, hoping that one of them would be on duty. “Oscar! Vinny!”

“Don’t scream, Ms. Cooper,” the man said as I wrenched my arm away and stumbled backward, almost falling to the ground. “Don’t scream.”

He was older than I and taller, unshaven, with dark, wavy hair and dressed in sweats. He didn’t look like a mugger and he didn’t have a weapon.

“You want money?” I asked. He started to extend his arm to me and I called out for the doormen again.

“Don’t be a fool, Ms. Cooper. I just want to talk to you.”

I took a step toward him and kicked him in the kneecap. I was aiming higher but was too tired and off-balance to lift my leg. He doubled over and I ran past him, grabbing the revolving door and spinning myself inside to the safety of the attended lobby.