Dirt Page 5

“Doesn’t everybody?”

  “What do you think of her?”

  Elaine shrugged. “I don’t, much. She comes in here a couple times a month and eyeballs the crowd, but she doesn’t write much about the place. If she ever printed anything nasty about a regular, I’d kick her ass into the street.”

  “Do you know her at all, as a person?”

  “Not at all; strikes me as one cold dish, though. What’s your interest in her?”

  “Oh, I met her recently, and she surprised me. Just wondered what your take was on her.”

  “She behaves herself in here; she’s fine with me,” Elaine said, then she grinned. “You heard about this DIRT thing that’s making the rounds?”

  “I heard about it.”

  “Now, that’s funny, to see one of these broads getting a dose of her own venom.” She looked toward the door. “Here comes Dino.” She stood up, allowed Dino to give her a peck on the cheek, and wandered off toward somebody else’s table.

  “Lord Barrington, I believe,” Dino said in an execrable English accent. He hung his coat on a hook along the wall and sat down, taking care not to wrinkle the jacket of his fine Italian suit against the chair.

  “You made chief yet?” Stone asked.

  “I woulda, if the mayor had any brains.”

  “I just wondered; don’t you have to be a chief to rate a driver these days?” Dino traveled in an unmarked car, driven by a rookie detective.

  “I like to give these kids the experience, you know?”

  “Why don’t you invite him in for a cup of coffee, at least?”

  “Let him freeze his ass off; when I was a rookie nobody ever invited me in for a cup of coffee.”

  “That’s because you never paid.”

  Dino looked outraged. “I should pay?”

  “I hear little Angelo had a birthday today.”

  “Yeah, he’s four, if you can believe it. His grandfather wanted to give him a piece of ass for a present.”

  Stone laughed. “I guess that’s the sort of thing you have to expect when you knock up a capo’s daughter.”

  “The kid’ll make his bones by the time he’s six, if the old man has his way.”

  “How’s Mary Ann?”

  Dino made a face. “She wants to move into Manhattan.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “Are you nuts? She’ll want eight rooms on the East Side; who can afford that on a lieutenant’s salary? Let me tell you something, Stone; don’t ever marry into a royal family. The princess will want to live a queen.”

  “Wouldn’t her daddy kick in for a place on the East Side? I mean, doesn’t he love his little girl?”

  “You bet your ass he would, but I can’t take that from him. Next time we get some commission looking into corruption on the force, they’d have me by the balls.”

  “Not if the place is in her name, paid for with her money.”

  “Shit, you think he’s just going to write her a check and say, ‘Here, honey, buy yourself a co-op’? Nah, he’d have to screw somebody out of the place, or he wouldn’t feel right about it, you know? I mean, he’d find some schmuck with a nice apartment who owes him a hundred grand on the book, and he’d take it away from him. That’s how the goombahs operate.”

  “I guess you’re right. Still, if you’re living in Manhattan, Mary Ann wouldn’t have to see so much of her family, would she?”

  Dino brightened at the thought. “You got a point there, pal. Anything I could do to get out of those family dinners would be fine by me. I walk into the house and everybody stops talking, you know? It’s like they been talking about burning down a building or clipping somebody, and now I’m there, and they have to talk about the weather. It’s uncomfortable, you know?”

  Stone shoved a menu at him. “Want to start with some calamari?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Stone waved a waiter over.

  They were on coffee when Elaine came their way, clutching a sheet of paper and laughing heartily. “Stone, you made the papers,” she said, handing him the paper. Dino leaned over to read along with him.

  DIRT

  Flash, earthlings! Our favorite bitch queen, Amanda Dart, has hired herself a shamus to track us down! Don’t you love it? No kidding, she’s retained ex-cop, now an East Side shyster, Stone Barrington, to find out how we know so much. You remember dear Stone: He was the cop who broke the Sasha Nijinsky disappearance case a few years back. For his trouble, the department shipped him out. Now he’s supposed to catch us at our work! Lotsa luck, Stone!

  “What’s going on, Stone?” Dino asked.

  “I don’t believe it,” Stone said. “This happened only this afternoon, what, five hours ago?”

  Elaine was loving it. “I love it!” she crowed.

  “Tell me,” Dino said.

  Stone told him.

  “You got nothing better to do with your time than to track down somebody for an old dame who got caught with her knickers down?”

  “She’s an important client of Woodman and Weld, or maybe just an important person; I’m doing it as a favor to them. And she’s not so old.”

  Dino shook his head. “Give me a good homicide anytime.” He drained his coffee cup and set it on the table, glancing at his watch. “I gotta be somewhere,” he said.

  “Oh?” Stone asked, looking at his own watch. “You’re going home to Brooklyn so early?”

  “Not directly home, no.”

  “Dino.” Stone shook his head. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

  “What’re you talking about, trouble?”

  “I know you; this unscheduled stop has something to do with a lady.”

  “So?”

  “So, if your father-in-law should hear about it, you won’t have anything to offer the ladies anymore.”

  “Stone, don’t say stuff like that,” Dino said, shivering.

  “You know I’m right.”

  “The old man has too much to worry about that he should take an interest in my social life.”

  “Don’t be so sure, pal.”

  “I’m always careful,” Dino said, slipping into his coat.

  “I hope you’re right,” Stone said.

  Chapter 11

  On the West Coast, as Dino left Elaine’s, Allan Peebles arrived at his Beverly Hills home after a long editorial board meeting at the “newspaper” he edited, The American Infiltrator. His editorial board consisted of a dozen writers and editors who had failed at real newspapers and magazines and had ended up, as Peebles had, at the last stop for a journalist, a seamy tabloid. They were consoled by the fact that they were considerably better paid than their counterparts at real newspapers.

  Peebles was an androgynous Scot who had fled his native Glasgow, pursued by rumors about his sexual orientation, for London, where he had acquired an English accent, an English wife, and, apparently while holding his nose, two English daughters. When the marriage failed, his father-in-law, who owned a London tabloid, had sent him to America to found a similar organ there, on the condition that he not return to England until his daughters were of age.

  To his father-in-law’s surprise, Peebles had succeeded in putting together a highly profitable, if highly disreputable, publication, which specialized in exposing those parts of the lifestyles of the rich and famous that they had hoped would remain secret. Peebles did this with some glee, while, in the permissive atmosphere of La-La Land, indulging his own rather specialized appetites. Tonight, Peebles was hungry for pizza.

  Upon entering his empty house, he shucked off his jacket, picked up a phone, and pressed an unlabeled speed-dial button.

  “Jiffy Pizza,” a whiskied female voice said.

  “It’s number two zero two; how are you, sweets?”

  “Fine, baby; what’s your pleasure tonight?”

  “I’m in the mood for the special.”

  “’Round-the-world?”

  “You bet.”

  “With sausage?”

  “L
ots of sausage.”

  “That’s going to run you twenty,” she said. Twenty meant two hundred.

  “And cheap at the price, I’m sure it will be.”

  “Half an hour, sweets. Your order is in the oven.”

  “The sooner the better. Bye.” He hung up and walked into the kitchen. Opening the freezer door, he extracted a bottle of lemon vodka and poured himself a double. He always had to be a little drunk for pizza.

  Three miles away, Sheila consulted her book and dialed a number.

  “Hey, talk to me,” a husky male voice said.

  “It’s the pizzeria,” Sheila said. “I’ve got an order for a ’round-the-world, with lots of sausage; I thought of you.”

  “Of course you did, baby.”

  “You available immediately?”

  “How much?”

  “Ten; you won’t be there long, believe me.”

  “I can do it.”

  She gave him the address. “Oh, and pick up a pizza on the way; we want this to look good, don’t we?”

  “Sure we do.”

  “And be sure to get paid before he starts eating.”

  “You know it.”

  Allan Peebles finished his drink, poured another, then went to his bedroom and stripped off his clothes, donning a terrycloth robe. He was looking at himself in the mirror, playing with his hair and sipping his drink, when the doorbell rang.

  When he opened the door, a muscular young man in shorts and t-shirt was leaning against the jamb, holding a pizza box. He smiled broadly, revealing good dental work. “Delivery,” he said.

  “Why don’t we dine out by the pool?” Peebles said, waving the young man to follow.

  The young man entered the house, kicking the door behind him. It did not quite close.

  Peebles led the way through the house and out to the pool, switching on the underwater lights as he went. The garden was suffused with the soft glow of the pool lighting. Peebles let his robe drop to the ground. “I never dine clothed,” he said. “Do you?”

  “I never complete a delivery until the check’s been paid,” the young man responded. “Nothing personal.”

  Peebles picked up the robe, extracted two one-hundred-dollar bills from the pocket, and handed them to the young man.

  “There’s a nice tip in it for you, if the service is good.”

  The young man dropped the pizza and got out of his clothes in a trice. “The tip’s about to be in it for you, darling,” he said.

  Out on the street, another young man got out of a car and opened the trunk. Inside was a large aluminum case, which he opened to reveal a selection of photographic equipment. He selected a machine-operated 35mm single lens reflex camera and a small video camera, fixing them both to a bar containing two floodlights. Getting into a battery belt, the young man plugged in the lights, closed the car trunk, and started toward the front door of the house, where he could see a crack of light.

  He opened the door an inch and peered inside. Nothing. Emboldened, he stepped into the house and listened. A strange sound reached his ears; it seemed to be coming from the rear of the house. On tiptoe, he crossed the living room and approached the sliding doors to the garden. Outside, in the soft light from the pool, he could make out what he had come for. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “This is absolutely fab.”

  As he stepped through the doors he was able to see clearly, without the reflected glare from the sliding panes. Perched on the diving board were two figures, one on his hands and knees, the other in more of a riding position. The one on top was slapping the naked ass of the one on the bottom with his open hand.

  “Giddyap!!!” the rider cried.

  The one on the bottom made loud, horsey noises.

  The intruder made sure the microphone on the video camera was operating, then pointed his equipment and switched on the floodlights.

  “Ride ’em cowboy!!!” he crowed as he began to photograph and tape. “Give him the crop!!!”

  Confusion ensued. The equestrian took one look at the floodlights, disengaged, swept up his shorts, and fled across the garden, plowing straight through a privet hedge.

  The figure playing the equine role looked wide-eyed over his shoulder and rolled off the divine, board into the water. A moment later he surfaced, peering shyly over the rim of the pool and shouting, “Get out! Get out! Get out!!!”

  “Glad to oblige, Old Paint! Got all I need!” He turned and vanished into the house, then onto the street.

  Chapter 12

  Stone arrived at Amanda’s building at 10:00 A.M. for his appointment. He had phoned her earlier that morning and asked to see her in her office.

  The doorman looked at him appraisingly before allowing him into the lobby, and the man inside at the desk called upstairs and announced him before allowing him into the elevator. They both looked like retired cops. He was impressed with the building’s security.

  He was met at the elevator by a plump woman with pale red hair who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties.

  “Mr. Barrington? I’m Martha, Amanda’s secretary. Will you follow me, please?” She led the way down a hall and through a heavy door.

  Stone had noticed another, double door; that must be her apartment, he thought. He followed the woman into an open office area containing three desks; one was empty – obviously Martha’s, the other two were occupied, respectively, by a young woman and a young man, both of whom were on the phone. He followed Martha into a comfortably decorated office where Amanda, seated behind her desk, was on the phone. She waved him to a seat and dismissed Martha with a shooing motion.

  “Yes, darling, I understand,” Amanda was saying. “Not a word to anyone until you’re ready, and I do appreciate your confiding in me alone. It is me alone, isn’t it? Yes, I’ll see you soon.” She hung up the phone and gave him a wide smile. “So, you found your way to my aerie.”

  “I did, and it’s a very cozy working arrangement, even nicer than I’d imagined.”

  “You know the joys of working at home, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, then, what would you like to see here?”

  “Your diary page for yesterday,” Stone replied.

  She laughed, then handed it over.

  Opposite four o’clock was written, “Stone Barrington, investigator,” and his address. He handed back the diary. “To whom did you speak between the time you left my house and, say, eight-thirty last night?”

  “Everybody?”

  “Let’s start with those you saw face to face.”

  “Well, there’s Paul, my driver, of course, then I returned here and saw the doorman and the lobby man, then came upstairs in time to see Martha and my two other people before they left for the day.”

  “Did you say to any of them that you’d seen me?”

  “No, but Martha knew I had, of course. Martha knows all.”

  “Anybody else before eight-thirty?”

  “No, I was home alone until nine, when I left for a dinner party.”

  “Do your employees commonly come into your office when you’re out?”

  “Yes, I suppose; they leave me notes or copy to read.”

  “Do you ordinarily leave your diary open on your desk?”

  “Ahhhh,” she said. “Yes, I do.” She produced the scandal sheet with the mention of his assignment. “Have you seen this?”

  “I saw it at eight-thirty last night. When did you write my name in your diary?”

  “When I made the appointment with you, earlier yesterday.”

  “Do any outside people come into your offices?”

  “Messengers, visitors.”

  “Did you have any visitors yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “Messengers?”

  “There’s a constant stream of them, but there’s no way Martha would have let one of them into my office.”

  “Does Martha keep a duplicate diary of your day?”

  “Yes, in her middle desk drawer.”

/>   “Does she ever leave it on her desk?”

  “Possibly. I could ask her. You think, then, that someone saw your name in my diary?”

  “So far, it seems the only possible way that anyone could have known you brought me into this.”

  “You think it’s one of my people, then?”

  “Not necessarily, but it’s a possibility to keep in mind. Who cleans your offices?”

  “My live-in maid, Gloria; she does my apartment, too.”

  “Could she have leaked the information?”

  “She wouldn’t have come into the office until this morning.”

  “What about yesterday afternoon?”

  “No, I don’t think so, but I’ll ask Martha.”

  “I think you should ask Martha to keep a log of every person who comes into your offices, no matter how briefly – messengers, repairmen, anybody.”

  “All right.”

  Stone reached into his briefcase and took out a black plastic box. “Do your phones have the Caller ID feature that the phone company sells?”

  “Yes; I don’t know how we ever did without it.”

  “On the fax line, too?”

  “I’ll have to ask Martha.”

  “If you don’t already have it for that line, ask Martha to arrange it, then plug this unit into the line between the wall socket and the fax machine. Let’s see if we can see where this… newsletter is being faxed from.”

  “An excellent idea,” Amanda said.

  “Among your three employees, who is married?”

  “None of them; Barry is gay, Helen is divorced, and Martha is single.”

  “Does any of them have a regular companion?”

  “Helen sees somebody, I believe; Barry, who knows? Martha doesn’t seem to have a social life, except vicariously, through me.”

  “I’d like to know who Helen sees and, to the extent possible, who Barry’s closer friends are.”

  Amanda frowned. “I don’t see how I can learn that without tipping them off, if one of them is involved.”

  “Give me their addresses and phone numbers, then; I’ll have it checked out.”

  “Discreetly, I hope.”