Gina took a bite of knish and smiled as she watched the giant usher Dudman through the orange scaffolding in front of the building, then into a waiting limo. As he moved, he let his gaze slide up and down the block, over her like cool water. Satisfied but obviously still wary, he lowered himself into the car after Dudman.

It wasn’t surprising that a rich businessman like Dudman would have a security system, including bodyguards. That meant extra planning for Gina, and extra work and time.

Gina didn’t mind putting in the hours, and she did have some advantages. A bodyguard with the Justice Killer on his mind wouldn’t be suspicious of a pretty young woman with a smile just for him. Or a college student applying for an internship. Or a naive young girl new to the city and lost and needing directions.

The possibilities were almost endless, and one or more of them would work. The trick was in the choosing. Then in the execution.

Someone clever, patient, and determined, could breach any security system.

Gina truly believed that a genuinely determined person could do just about anything.

43

“You home, Beam?” Nell asked him on his cell phone.

Beam glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Ten fifteen.

“Yeah, I’m home.”

He tried to hide the thickness in his voice. He’d been sitting in the darkness of his den, sipping Glenlivet eighteen-year-old scotch to relax, letting his mind roam over the landscape of the investigation. He liked to do that, give his unconscious free reign from time to time. It had worked before, and he was willing to try anything to nail the Justice Killer.

Trouble was, he kept finding himself thinking about Nola. Nola cocking her head to the side the way she did when she listened to him. Nola standing behind the antique shop counter as if in judgment of him, her lingering look and the graceful line of her back and shoulder as she turned away from him in calm dismissal.

“Beam? You near a TV?”

“Not one that’s on.”

“Better turn it on to the Matt Black Show.”

Beam knew who Black was, a young guy with a late-night local talk show on cable. He had tightly curly hair, wore snappy double-breasted suits, and had a space between his front teeth like Letterman. But there the resemblance ended. Black was lots of things, but funny wasn’t one of them.

“Beam, you there?”

“Here and moving toward the television.” Feeling my way in the dark. Ouch! Stubbed toe. Teach me to sit around in my stocking feet.

“You okay?”

“Okay, Nell.”

“You won’t be in a minute. Black’s guest is Adelaide Starr.”

Beam groaned as he found the remote and switched on the small-screen TV in the bookcase.

“I’m hanging up,” Nell said. “I don’t want to miss a cute word.”

In the soft light from the TV, Beam carried the remote back to his desk, sat down, and sipped more scotch as he turned up the volume.

Adelaide Starr had on a lacy black and white low-cut dress and was wearing her blond hair in pigtails. She looked like Little Bo Peep, minus the sheep but with great bazooms.

“But we’re celebrities,” Black was saying through his gaping grin. “We deserve special treatment.”

Studio laughter.

Adelaide was smiling innocently while leaning forward to display cleavage, pretending to be listening hard to her host. “If I really thought that,” she said, “I’d move to France.”

“You wouldn’t have to do jury duty there,” Black said. “They just whoosh!—off with your head.”

“I’m being serious,” Adelaide said. “I don’t want to do jury duty.”

“You’ve made that clear.”

“But I don’t want special treatment just because I’m an actress. And nobody I know in show business wants to be safe from this killer at someone else’s expense.”

Studio applause.

“Let me get this straight, Adelaide. You raised four kinds of hell because they were going to make you do jury duty. Now you’re complaining because they’re excusing you?”

“No! Well, no, yes! It’s like a trick on their part. A gamwit.”

Confusion on Black’s face. “Gambit, you mean?”

“Gam something.”

Black ogled her legs. “Gams! Yeah, sweetheart!”

“You know what I mean. Don’t make fun of me, please!”

“I’m not, I’m not. So you think the authorities are simply trying to sidestep trouble by showing preference?”

“Of course I do! Don’t you?”

“Well…yes. You’re too much for them, sweetheart.” Black grinned conspiratorially into the camera, then turned again toward Adelaide. Serious time. “So what, seriously, do you suggest?”

“A mora…whatchamacallit. Where somebody stops something?”

Black looked puzzled. Then he brightened. “A moratorium?”

“Exactly. Don’t give celebrities special treatment. Give everyone equal treatment under the law. Let everyone be safe!”

“I like what you do with your lips when you say that, dear. Saaafe! And of course, you’re absolutely right. On a serious note, you are right.”

“We’re supposed to be a country with equal opportunity and equal responsibilities, no matter what color we are or where we came from or any of that stuff. The city’s giving show business people a free pass when it comes to jury duty. Until the Justice Killer is caught, they should give everyone a free pass. Everyone in New York who’s legible for jury duty is an American!”

“If they leave out people whose handwriting you can’t read, that’d include a lot of us.”

Adelaide appeared puzzled and upset. “You know what I mean. We’re all in the same boat, with the same rights as oars, and we can’t sink together, and it’s an American boat!” She rose to her full meager height and thrust out her breasts. “Maybe you’re not supposed to stand up in a row boat, but I am! For myself and everyone else out there! In or out of show business!”

The applause was loud enough to make Beam ease back on the volume. The camera played over a standing ovation before returning to the set.

Black was on his feet, hands clapping. “Take it to ’em, dear!”

“We demand a moratorium!” Adelaide said. She bent over to smooth her skirt, flashing more cleavage, then began pumping her tiny right fist in the air as she had outside City Hall. “Moratorium! Moratorium!” The studio audience, still on its feet, joined in. Volume built. Larger fists pumped the air in unison, faster and faster.

Matt Black slumped down in his chair with an exaggerated look of wonder and helplessness. Never had he seen anything like this.

After letting the place cool down only slightly, Black pumped his own fist in the air. “Commercial! Commercial!” He grinned. “We’ll be right back. Don’t go away. Why would you go away?” Then, as the camera zoomed in for a close up, an aside to the TV audience: “Somehow I don’t think she’ll be moving to France.”

Suddenly a sincere man in a leather jacket was trying to sell Beam a wristwatch that was an exact replica of the one worn by B-17 bomber crews in World War Two, only this one kept time with a battery and a chunk of quartz.

Beam’s phone rang, the land line this time. He sat forward in his desk chair and lifted the receiver.

“Nell again, Beam,” came the voice from across town. “Did you see it?”

“Saw it.”

“Whaddya think?”

“Two things. I think she’s way ahead of da Vinci. And I think I’m going to pour myself another two fingers of scotch.”

“I just poured some bourbon in a glass.”

“Raise your glass.”

“’Kay.”

“Up?”

“Yeah.”

“Mine, too. A toast. To Adelaide.”

“Adelaide,” Nell said on the phone. “And France.”

This morning Jack Selig was wearing gray flannel slacks, a navy blazer with big shiny brass buttons, and a white shirt open at the neck to reveal a red ascot. Nell thought he looked exactly like what he was—a rich guy who owned a yacht.