Slaughter - Lutz John (читать книги без txt) 📗

Jordan knew that at a certain point, he would destroy this potentially incriminating information.

As for Jasmine, as much as she trusted Jordan, which was more than she could trust anyone else, it was getting to be not enough.

59

New York, the present

The Mary Contrary line of clothing was taking off. If sales figures continued to climb at their present rate, it would make Lola Bend independently wealthy.

That word, independently, was important to her. It was one of the reasons she used her maiden name in the world of fashion. It also meant that at times there were people who referred to her style of clothing as the Lola Bend line. She tried to stamp this usage out with the determination and grim enthusiasm of a gardener stamping out weeds.

It was this new line that was selling like crazy. Anything with Mary Contrary on it seemed to be flying off the shelves and transforming itself to profit.

Lola was getting rich.

She herself was rather plump to be wearing Mary Contrary, especially the new luxury line, Effin’ Right! It hadn’t sold well at first. A long, raked hemline and a pinch at the waist had done the trick. Now it was selling so well that Lola took a giant step she would have only dreamed of six months ago.

Lola and her husband, Roland, had discussed buying a Manhattan condo so she could be close to her work—what he called “her venture.” Lola had bought the expensive unit with a down payment of fifty percent. Had agreed to, anyway. Not only that, it was fully furnished. Lola wasn’t crazy about the antique French provincial in the largest bedroom, but the hell with that. She could change things over time, eventually make the condo hers. That, in fact, would be the most enjoyable part of this transaction.

She had an appointment now to meet with the real estate broker and make arrangements so the only thing left to do was for Roland to sign on the dotted line. She knew Roland well enough to be sure he would do that.

She hoped.

After a long lunch, Lola took a short cab ride across town, back to the Whitworth Arms. A uniformed doorman opened the cab’s door for her. Lola gave the driver a backhanded wave rather than accept change for the twenty-dollar bill she gave him, thanked the doorman, and entered the lobby.

It was as sumptuous as she remembered it. Acres of red-grained marble, rich brown leather furniture, and two elevators. A chandelier straight out of Phantom of the Opera graced a vaulted ceiling.

The doorman had followed her in and gone behind a marble counter. Lola stopped gawking and walked over to him.

“I’m here to meet Charles Langley in 303,” she said.

The name, which had been on the business card Lola had taken from the coffee shop bulletin board, seemed familiar to the doorman. “Third floor.” He motioned toward the elevators.

Lola thanked him and could feel him watching her as she walked toward the elevators. She gave a little hip switch but didn’t glance back, thinking, Soon you’ll be working for me, pal. As long as the condo board okays Roland and me as unit owners. Lola didn’t have the slightest doubt about their approval. She thought about the latest sales figures on the Effin’ Right! Line. This was one of those times when it was okay to be rich. Plenty of designers would love trading places with her.

The elevator made not a sound and seemed to take about three seconds to rise three floors. The door slid open silently.

Her footfalls in her high-heeled shoes were as hushed as the rest of the building. Was she dreaming? Floating?

The doorman must have called up to Langley, because the real estate agent was standing waiting for her with the door to 303 open. He was a small man in a well-tailored gray suit. His hair was long and combed down in back, puffed up in spikes on top. Despite his diminutive stature, the hairdo didn’t make him look feminine.

He beamed. “Lola!” Like an old friend greeting her after a long absence.

She smiled back at him. “Were you afraid I wasn’t coming?”

“I never for a second doubted it. Such a bargain this is!”

She felt somewhat ashamed because she didn’t actually know if the condo was a bargain. It must be cheap, if its address was scribbled on a business card pinned to a coffee shop bulletin board, with no price, no photograph. And it was being sold by an independent broker.

But it was precisely, give or take a few blocks, where Lola wanted to live, so she took down the card and called the number.

The sales agent, a man named Charles Langley, picked up after five rings. Lola had heard that they did that, letting the dream dangle enticingly. Still, she felt great relief when he identified himself. She still had her choices. It created the illusion of being in charge.

Langley had the knack of speaking in a way that made interruption almost impossible. He knew she would love the condo, and she would understand the factors that made it such a bargain. The couple who owned it were locked in a nasty divorce and wanted to return to England, where they’d lived previously. The husband could retain his employment in London only if he could report there by a certain date. Time was growing short, and any buyer had to accept that and use it as an advantage. Right now, the owners wanted to get rid of the place, furniture and all, and had priced it so they could stop thinking about it and walk away without looking back on it or anything else American.

“But they will take American dollars,” Lola said.

“Or anything that converts.” Langley smiled again, a kind of devilish, inclusive grin. “If you want to look around again, that’s okay. I have some paperwork for you to sign—nothing final, but it will lock up this place for you.”

Lola pretended to think hard. “We could still back out of the deal?”

“Sure. But you won’t want to.” He glanced around. “Heck, you could probably sell this place for a big profit even if you didn’t want to live in it. Or lease it.” He shrugged. “You can’t lose.”

“I could probably figure a way,” Lola said. “But I’ll sign. I just want to see the expression on my husband’s face.”

“Me, too,” Langley said, and laughed.

He reached down and got a large brown leather briefcase from where she hadn’t seen it alongside a chair. He opened the briefcase and paused. “Oh, before you do sign, there’s something you should see in the main bedroom.”

He strode toward the hall and she fell in behind him. As they passed the open door to the kitchen, she noticed something silver and black on the countertop. It looked familiar but she couldn’t quite place it. Some kind of gadget.

Then they were past it.

When they reached the bedroom door, Langley stepped aside so she could enter first.

“If you’ll concentrate and look up near that light fixture . . .” he said, pointing.

60

Eddie Amos, the doorman at the Whitworth Arms, was conflicted. He’d accepted five hundred dollars to let this friend of the real estate agent, Langley, into the unoccupied condo so he could make a deal. If the friend did land a temporary tenant and make a deal, Eddie had another payment, of a thousand dollars, coming. He knew that if he revealed that arrangement he would lose his job, not to mention the thousand-dollar cut. After all, he wasn’t in real estate, he was a doorman.

What got to Eddie the most was that Lola Bend turned out to be a hotshot designer, on the verge of becoming very, very rich.

Now she was very dead.

And now there was the package. It was small, wrapped in brown paper, with Eddie’s name printed on it in black felt-tip ink. He’d come in from hailing a cab for one of the tenants and found the small, square package on the marble desk where the building’s log was kept, with a record of every visitor coming and going at the Whitworth.