“You can have all the bodies you need,” Cardozo said. “Start running the licenses through National Crime Bureau and see if anyone’s got a record.”
“You got it,” Malloy said.
Cardozo nodded and turned and crossed the lobby. Melissa Hatfield was waiting on one of the leather sofas. She saw him and quickly jabbed out her cigarette.
“Would you mind showing me the other unsold apartments?” he asked.
“Why not? That’s what I’m here for.”
They took the elevator up to 12. There was a small carved drop-leaf table in the foyer, and a bowl of dried flowers had been put on it. A soothing aromatic spiciness filled the space.
She fitted the passkey into the lock and opened the door.
“Same floor plan,” Cardozo observed.
“The buyer makes his own modifications,” she said.
Cardozo crossed through the entrance hall into the livingroom. The air was warm and still. From the window he could see a bright gray sliver of the East River a mile away, glinting between Sutton Place high rises.
He explored the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bath. Something bothered him. “This is exactly the same as six?”
A hint of mischief crept into the line of her mouth. “Not quite. This one costs thirty thousand more.”
They looked at 16 and 17 and 19. Cardozo had that same feeling—a difference. In 23 he asked, “The ceilings aren’t a little lower here?”
“No, they’re all ten foot eight. That’s one of our selling points.”
The, livingroom of 29 had a pale blue oriental carpet and deep beige sofas. She explained that this one was the show suite.
“What’s the price?”
“We’re asking a million.”
He whistled.
“It’s not so high considering the view.”
“You didn’t build the view.”
She smiled. “The buyer doesn’t know that.”
French windows led onto a terrace and Cardozo stepped out. Well-watered boxwoods masked a hip-high wrought-iron railing. Chains of creeping cars and trucks shimmered and rippled in the heat rising from the streets far below. From here you could see the Queens and Brooklyn shores and a surprising amount of green in a city that he had always thought of as asphalt, concrete, and glass.
“Something to drink?” Melissa Hatfield offered. “The company stocks everything.”
“Scotch and water and a little ice will be fine.”
When he returned to the livingroom, she was arranging bottles and glasses and napkins on the top of a carved rosewood chest that had been gutted and turned into a bar.
“Care for a nibbly?” she offered. “We have fish balls, chicken livers with bacon, cheese puffs. It only takes a minute to warm them in the microwave.”
“No, thanks. I’m trying not to eat between meals.” He sipped. She’d left the water out of his Scotch.
She caught his hesitation. “Sorry. I forgot you’re not a potential buyer.”
He let his gaze walk across the walls. There were three paintings and they reminded his untutored eye of French impressionists.
“Are the oils genuine?” he asked.
“The Vlamincks are real. The lawyer at the Metropolitan says the Renoir’s a forgery. He wants to buy it himself.”
“Are they safe here?”
“They’re insured. If anyone steals them, Beaux Arts Properties will be richer than ever.”
Cardozo pulled Bill Connell’s list from his pocket. “Tell me about your tenants.”
“We don’t have too many tenants. Technically we’re a co-op, and the law limits our income rental. There’s Armani, the clothing shop on the first floor. They have five employees. They were closed for the holiday. Rizzoli, the book shop on the second floor. Four employees. Closed for the holiday. On the third floor there’s Saveurs de Paris, a French pastry shop. The New York Times food critic likes them and they get three dollars an éclair. The concierge has an apartment on the same floor.”
“What’s a concierge?”
“Bill Connell, the super. He and his wife have a dinky two-roomer.”
“I didn’t know there was anything dinky in this building.”
Her eyes lifted a moment toward his. “A little more than you might think.”
Cardozo’s eye went down the list. “Fourth floor. Doctors Morton Fine, D.D.S., P.C., Hildegarde Berencz, D.D.S., P.C., Seymour Black, D.D.S., P.C. Who are they?”
“Dentists.”
“Closed for the holiday?”
“They close for every holiday you’ve ever heard of, including Ramadan.”
“Fifth floor. Dr. Arnold Gross, M.D., P.C., Dr. Robin Lazaro, M.D., P.C, Paola Brandt, P.S.W., P.C, Renata Mills, P.S.W., P.C.”
“Therapists. P.S.W. means psychiatric social worker. They don’t have an M.D., they can’t dispense drugs.”
“Floor seven. Princess Lily Lobkowitz.”
“Her ex-husband’s Polish. It’s one of those unverifiable titles. She can get a little crazy when she drinks, but I don’t see her killing naked young men in black hoods.”
“Duke and Duchess de Chesney. You’ve got a lot of titles in this building.”
“I think the title’s real. They’re English and they’re hardly ever here. Which makes them ideal in a cooperative situation. They let management vote their proxies.”
“Debbi Hightower, nine?”
“She’s a girl who thinks she’s going to make it in show business.”
“You don’t?”
“Fortune telling’s not my field. I only sell real estate.”
“Father Will Madsen—tenth floor.”
“He’s the rector of that Episcopal church on the corner. Very quiet man, never disturbs a soul.”
“Eleventh floor. Fred Lawrence.”
“Accountant. He falsifies returns for some of the biggest guns in show biz and government.”
“Why do you say falsifies?”
Her face colored. “Sorry. I’m really on today, aren’t I. I don’t know anything about Fred Lawrence. He strikes me as sneaky and he’s an accountant, that’s all. His wife wears loud, cheap clothes. Thinks she’s sexy and she’s not. Their child’s a spoiled brat.”
The twelfth floor was marked unsold. “I see there’s no thirteen.”
“We don’t want bad luck in this building, Lieutenant.”
“Fourteen—Billi von Kleist.”
“He’s president of Babethings—the clothing company Babe Vanderwalk founded. He’s jet-setty. Maybe some of his friends are a little druggy.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“Oh, most people are doing coke nowadays, aren’t they?”
Cardozo looked at her. “I’m not.”
“Neither am I. But you know what I mean.”
A silence passed.
“Fifteen—Notre Dame. I take it that’s not the football team,” Cardozo said.
“The rock singer. You haven’t heard of him?”
Cardozo scowled. “My daughter’s heard of him.”
“He’s on tour. He’s never here.”
Sixteen and seventeen were marked unsold. “What about eighteen, Estelle Manfrey?”
“Very rich, very old, very frail—never here either. She lives in Palm Beach.”
Nineteen was another unsold. “Twenty—Tillie Turnbull?”
“You and I know her as Jessica Lambert.”
Cardozo’s pencil stopped tapping. “The movie star?”
Melissa nodded. “She’s a very nervous woman—always skittering around in dark glasses and babushkas. She puts her kerchief on before she puts on her makeup, so usually there’s a ring of Max Factor around the kerchief. I don’t really think men in black masks are her type.”
“Twenty-one—Gordon Dobbs?”
“He writes books about society with a capital S. Who’s sleeping with who, who got blackballed from what. He’s very fastidious, very organized, has a reputation for malice that he doesn’t quite live up to.” She glanced up. “Are you asking if I think these people could be killers?”
“Just asking what you know about them. Twenty-two. Phil Bailey.”
“President of NBS-TV and a lot else too. I drew up all the papers but I called him Philip. Phil equals Philip, right? Wrong. I had to redraw everything. His legal name’s Phil. He had it changed. I checked the court records. It’s that understated power trip that the really big people are on. They don’t care if you know their name or their face or their income. In fact they’d rather you didn’t. They don’t want to be on the cover of Time and they don’t go around blocking traffic with limousines. They’re not out to impress anyone.”