When the Thrill Is Gone

3

“It’s a big jump from an affair to murder,” I said after hanging up the dead line, “even for a billionaire recluse. Has he threatened you?”

“That’s not how Cyril do things.”

“Then why do you think he might kill you?”

“Allondra North and Pinky Todd,” she said, as if this should mean something to me.

“And they are?” I asked, jotting down the names on my thick gray paper blotter.

“They were both his wives and now they’re dead.”

The young woman fixed me with a stare that laid claim to a truth that even an old cynic like me would have a hard time denying.

“Murdered?”

She looked to her left as if maybe there was someone there next to her, urging her on with the story.

“Can I smoke in here?” she asked, turning back to me.

“Sure.”

She had a ritual approach to opening the bag, producing the red package, and teasing out the cigarette, then the unhooking of a bullet-shaped lighter from a chain, hitherto hidden by the thin silk of her dress. When she lit up I hoped she didn’t notice the widening of my nostrils. Tobacco smoke brought out desire in me. Desire is an emotion that any good detective needs to hide.

“Murder?” I said to keep our minds on the subject.

“One night about two years ago I made some sangria spiked with a little red wine but mostly vodka. It was strong and tasted sweet so Cyril drank more than he usually does. That’s what got him talkin’.

“He told me that him and Allondra would drink and then fight like cats and dogs, that one time they was on his yacht and had a fight. When he woke up in the mornin’ the boat was far away from shore. He had a cut on his head and she was gone. They never fount her body.”

“He admitted to killing her?”

“No. He said that he didn’t remember nuthin’. A year later he married Pinky Todd. They didn’t drink or fight, so he thought everything would be fine, but then one day she told him that she wanted a divorce and she needed fifty million dollars or she was gonna tell about how him and his friends was doin’ insider tradin’ on Wall Street.”

“And he killed her?”

“He agreed to give her fifteen million, had it set up and everything, and then one day, just a few weeks later, she was walkin’ down Fifth Avenue after shoppin’ and a crazy homeless man hit her in the head with a chunk’a concrete from a construction site. She died right there on the sidewalk.”

“What happened to the killer?” I asked. The word “killer” brought to mind Harris Vartan. I realized that I was more with him than with Chrystal Tyler.

“He got away.”

“Was it nighttime?”

“Uh-uh. It was the middle’a the day, and the streets were crowded.”

“That sounds bad, but a murder like that would be very hard to orchestrate.”

“Cyril believes that he did it.”

“He believes he did,” I said. “How does that work?”

“He says that he thinks that his mind makes these people die, that if he starts to hate somebody they just perish.”

Again I thought about Harris Vartan. His was the kind of mind that could feel an anger that brought about death. It would be, one day, a man like him thinking ill of me that would put me in an early, and possibly unmarked, grave.

The anticipation of Vartan was making me lose interest in Chrystal. I decided to ease her out of the office to face whatever fantasy her husband was entertaining.

That’s when she reached into the yellow bag and pulled out an impressive stack of hundred-dollar bills. She leaned over, placing the pile upon the desktop, within my reach.

“Twelve thousand, six hundred dollars,” she said, exhaling smoke. “It’s all I can afford. I got more but I need that in case I have to go somewhere fast.”

My nostrils flared freely and my eyebrows, I’m sure, raised.

“I had a necklace of rubies and emeralds that Cyril’s mother gave me,” she said. “I sold it to Sophia Nunn of the Indiana Nunns.”

I had two kids in college and one who had just dropped out of high school. My rent was low but still needed paying. And Harris Vartan was coming to make me an offer. With Chrystal’s money in my pocket I might be able to turn him down.

The skin between my fingers actually began to perspire.

But still I did not reach for the money.

“You say it’s been two years since you and Cyril had that sangria?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Why didn’t you come to me back then?”

The blankness of her expression was a wonder to behold. It portended a shift in our communication.

“I’ve had some hard things happen in my life, Mr. McGill,” she said. “Very hard. People fight. Sometimes they kill. Where I come from you look after yourself first. Cyril and me had it okay. There was a prenuptial agreement, and I didn’t know nuthin’ about his business. We never fight. Why would he wanna start havin’ bad thoughts about me?”

“And so what changed?”

“Cyril’s always been kinda portly,” she said. “But lately he been losin’ weight and sleepin’ in another bedroom. Late one night, a few weeks ago, I went down the hall to visit and heard him talkin’ on the phone in there. I couldn’t make out what he was sayin’ through the door but it was definitely him bein’ intimate.”

“And you think it’s a woman.”

“Yeah.”

“And because of that you’re worried that he might kill you.”

“He says that he’s the reason his two past wives is dead,” she said. “Wouldn’t you be scared?”

“Has he acted differently?”

“He’s sleepin’ in another room,” she repeated, allowing exasperation to spice the words. “He’s losin’ weight and on the phone almost all night long, almost every night.”

I couldn’t argue with her logic, or the money on the desk.

“This is a lot of money,” I said. She knew what I meant.

“I pay for what I need,” she said. “That’s all.”

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

“No’man said that you were the kinda guy could make things happen,” she said.

“I used to be. Nowadays I’ve changed my spots. Somewhat. What kind of things do you want to happen?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want him to kill me. So maybe you could figure out what I could do to make him back off.”

“But he hasn’t threatened you.”

“I already told you — that’s not how he do. Maybe, maybe if you go and talk to him, tell him that you’re lookin’ out for me.”

“I do that and maybe he’ll start having bad thoughts about me,” I suggested.

“Are you scared?”

Her question caused me to smile. My smile brought forth a grin from her lips. We might not have been two peas in a pod, but we were definitely cut from the same bush.

“I charge a hundred dollars an hour,” I said, reaching for the siren stack of bills. “I’ll hold on to this money as a retainer.”

“A hundred dollars?”

“Yes.”

“That’s too much.”

“Your life isn’t worth that?”

“Ain’t nobody do this kinda work worth a hundred dollars a hour. No’man only charged three hundred a day.”

“No’man is dead,” I said.

“I just cain’t agree to no hundred dollars a hour,” Chrystal Tyler said.

“How about ninety-nine?” I offered. “For every hour I work I’ll take away a hundred-dollar bill and put a single back in the stack.”

“That’s still a lot, but at least it’s not no hundred dollars a hour. I could hire ten men down from where I used to live for that kinda money.”

“And not one of them would make it past Cyril Tyler’s door.”

“Okay,” she said, reluctantly. “Ninety-nine. But I expect you to be able to prove what you worked for.”

“Do you have a picture of your husband?”

That yellow purse was like Felix the Cat’s bag of tricks; all kinds of things came out of it. Chrystal produced a creased five-by-eight photograph that looked like it had been taped into a frame until recently. It was her, in bright red, arm in arm with a chubby man who wore tan trousers and a cream-colored sweater. She was leaning forward and laughing with abandon while he hung back shyly.

“That was before he started his diet. Some people look better skinny, but you know, sometimes it ain’t no improvement when they lose weight,” she said with that telltale sneer. “Some people born to be fat.”

It was the only unqualifiedly honest thing she ever said to me.