Beyond Eden (14 page)

“Yeah, okay.” Enoch tossed the pile over his shoulder onto the floor, then looked back at Taylor and grinned. “Shit, man, so now what?”

Enoch slouched forward in the chair, his long arms dangling between his knees.

“Don't worry,” Taylor said. “We're not going to starve and Sheila won't rub your nose in it. I've got a computer job coming up on Monday. It's the Salex Corporation and they've got some real bugs in their new export accounting program. They're paying me big bucks to fix it. We'll survive. You go to work on the Lamarck case, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. It's just a matter of finding out who's selling cosmetic secrets, right? No problem. It's a small industry with just a few players.” He sighed. “Sheila's not going to like this at all. She has a fit whenever there's a dead body lying around and I'm anywhere near it. I was lucky. She was out playing bridge last night so I didn't have to face her. Jesus, that's probably why I was a cop, just to
bug the old girl. As for the money, well, a thou isn't too much to worry about, you're right.”

Enoch had lived with his mother all his forty-two years. They fought like a married couple. He never called her mother. He only called her Sheila, at least to her face. Enoch's father had died when he was eighteen, and his mom, Sheila, had inherited a cool ten million dollars and a dozen shoe stores. She was wealthy and acid-tongued and a kick. She was also a very talented musician. Taylor was very fond of her. She was always after him to get married again. As for Enoch, Sheila never mentioned marriage for him. As for Enoch, he never mentioned marriage either, even though he'd had a dozen relationships with women over the years.

Enoch said, “I wonder who that Demos guy is.”

“Mahonney told me if they ever found out it would be by informant,” Taylor said. “There are a slew of Demoses in the tri-state area. Good luck. As to that, who wrote the bloody note?”

“I think you're right, and so do the cops. We were not only set up, but our purpose was to send a message to someone, probably this poor slob Demos. To show him he shouldn't screw around with the big boys. I talked to Boggs, the coroner, just before I left home. He said the guy was stabbed with a thin circular blade right in the heart. The hole was very small and the bleeding nearly nil, which is why you and Mahonney didn't see anything. You think the woman did it, this Gloria? Or was it this Demos? Was the woman we saw with him even Gloria?”

“God knows. Mahonney hasn't even identified the dead man yet. You want a beer?”

“Yeah, it'll drive Sheila bananas. I'll even spill a little bit on my coat. She'll shriek and call me a
degenerate.” Enoch grinned and rubbed his hands. “Then I'll tell her about the body. Give her lots of details.”

“You're evil, Enoch.”

“It's part of my charm, Taylor, just part of my charm.”

Lindsay

 

Lindsay stood tall and straight and stiff directly in front of Demos' desk. She said again, more calmly this time, “I won't do it, Vinnie. And you won't talk me out of it, so just forget it.”

“Did I tell you that you look real cute in that outfit, Lindsay? Like a real bow-wow. Is your underwear just as ratty? Glen told me how you've got this running-joke battle with the Lancôme ad folk. You'll win this one, kiddo, hands down.”

“Listen to me, Vinnie. I won't pose with my half-sister. I won't be associated with her in any way. I won't tell anyone she's any relation to me. I'll break my contract first and then you'll have to haul me into court and it'll be a real mess. But I mean it, I simply won't do it.”

Vincent Rafael Demos sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together in front of his face. He frowned. Glen always told him his brain was like a chain saw, always hacking and hacking away until the solution to any problem was there, shining clear amid the wreckage. But this time, nothing came to mind.

“You also know why I won't do it.”

Vinnie shrugged. “Your sister told me it was
because you're jealous of her, that you grew up that way. She also laughed and said she didn't understand it because, after all, you were already a successful model and she was a nobody. Is that it, kiddo? You're afraid everyone will want her and not you anymore?”

Lindsay smiled for the first time since she'd entered Demos' office, a plush but too-stark room with white leather everywhere—sofa, love seat, chairs, even the photos on the walls were framed with white leather. “You know, Vinnie, I thought that too, but just at first. I thought, here she is again, and lo and behold, I've got something she doesn't have, so her first reaction is to outdo me. But no, I've thought about it and that isn't it. I just gave her the idea, that's all. Look, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm an adult. If it were just a matter of jealousy on my part, I could handle it.”

Lindsay drew a deep breath.

“Come on, spit it out.”

“I won't pose with her for the same reason you and I came up with the name Eden for me. Just Eden and nothing else.”

“Oh.”

“I know, you forgot.”

“It's been five years since Paris, Lindsay. Who the hell would care now? No one, not even the scandal sheets. Geraldo won't be knocking on your door.”

“That isn't true, and now that you remember, you know it isn't. I can see it now: ‘La Principessa and Her Little Sister, Lindsay/Eden, Together Again. Sharing Photos, Sharing the Same Man, Again. Will Little Sister Scream Rape This Time? Where's the Prince?' No way, Vinnie. Forget it.”

“I hadn't realized, Lindsay, really, I hadn't realized you still felt so strongly about it.”

“If you want Sydney for the Arden thing, then she'll do it alone.” Lindsay tucked her hands into her jeans pockets. They were shaking. She felt cold but she was also determined.

“All right.”

“What's all right?”

“She'll do it alone. The Arden people are really high on her. She's so damned beautiful and sophisticated and smart. All those things, and they show on her face, fortunately. I just wish I could have gotten hold of her years ago. If she decides to model, Lindsay, will you be able to handle it?”

“Just as long as no one knows who I am.”

“I can't muzzle her. If she wants to tell who Eden is, why, then, she will.”

And she would. Lindsay knew nothing could hold her back if she decided to talk.

When she went to the Lancôme shoot, her clothes set the two ad people to screaming and clutching their hearts when they saw her. But winning the latest practical joke only brought a small smile to her face. She went to her apartment immediately after the shoot, turned the air conditioning on high, and brooded with a Diet Coke. What to do?

She knew Sydney. She would turn it all into a droll joke. That or she'd twist things about in a sweetly solicitous way that would make Lindsay look like a teenage hooker. Lindsay could hear her now, telling about what a pity it all was that her sister, poor Lindsay Eden, had misunderstood, how she herself had misunderstood, how the poor prince had felt so sorry for the ugly duckling. And everyone would think: She misunderstood? Sure.

Lindsay couldn't bear it. She had to do something. Sydney was staying at the Plaza. She'd see
her again, plead with her to keep quiet, she'd agree to do anything, anything. Lindsay remembered so clearly way back at the beginning, when she'd told Vinnie about what had happened in Paris. He'd said nothing much, just nodded now and again. He'd offered no sympathy, not patted her hand once. Better than that, he hadn't doubted her once.

“No problem,” he said when she'd finished. “You know what, Lindsay? You don't really look like a Lindsay. You look like an Eden. How about that for your modeling name? Just plain Eden. It evokes wonderful images and promises mysteries and puzzles of a womanly sort. No one will ever know. How about it?”

But now Sydney was here. Lindsay picked up the phone and called information. Within minutes she heard Sydney's voice.

“Ah, Lindsay, is that you? Whatever do you want now?”

“I want to know if you plan to model.”

“Why, yes, I believe I will. The Arden people want me badly and the money they're offering turns even my head. After all, I am a real princess, not just a phony name like Eden, for example. It turns out they would have accepted you because Demos was pushing the sister idea. Yes, I think I will be their spokeswoman for the new perfume. Do you know they're considering calling it
La Principessa
? And then I'll be there on all the propaganda material, on TV, in magazines, everywhere.
People
magazine will probably want to do a story on me.”

Lindsay's knuckles showed white, she was clutching the phone so tightly. “Will you say anything about me? Do you plan to tell people I'm your half-sister and it's such a pity and your husband, the prince, and—” Lindsay ran out of words. She
was breathing fast and her hands were so clammy the phone was slipping from her grasp.

Sydney mused aloud. “Do you think it would even come up, Lindsay? That is your real name, isn't it? How depressing for Father to learn that you're ashamed of your name. Of course, on the other side of the coin, he's relieved that you're not connected with him in any way.”

Lindsay knew Sydney would remind everyone the moment the opportunity arose, simply because she would be recognized very soon as the wife who shot her husband in bed with her sister in Paris five years before. She'd never take that. She'd shift things and bring Lindsay into it and Lindsay would end up with the blame all over again. She very gently replaced the phone into its cradle. She drank another Diet Coke and went to bed.

At midnight she was still awake, lying in the dark, thinking, remembering, her breath hitching even as she thought of the man's name.

His name was Edward Bensonhurst. He was a businessman in automotive parts, with two kids and an ex-wife in New Jersey, and now he lived in Manhattan. Lindsay had met him at a party and liked him. He, however, had wanted to have sex. When she told him no, he'd turned ugly. She told him off and got away from him. Then he'd called her two days later and laughed. He knew who she was. He told her he could play a prince if that's what turned her on. He was the same age as the prince had been in Paris. Hell, maybe he could even get his ex-wife to come over in time and shoot blanks at him. He'd even wear leather if she wanted him to.

She never knew how he'd found out and he hadn't said. She'd hung up on him and kept her answering machine on for the next three weeks.
He'd called ten more times, cajoling, making threats, but finally he'd just stopped calling. She prayed he'd finally decided she wasn't worth his effort. God, would it never end?

The phone rang and Lindsay grabbed for it. For an instant she thought it was Edward Bensonhurst again. Foolish, so foolish. She answered it and heard her father's voice.

 

Vincent Rafael Demos sat in his office in the dark and in absolute silence for a long time. The air conditioning cut out all the noise from the street, eleven stories below. It was ten o'clock at night. Even Glen had left an hour earlier, in a huff, refusing to cook him any dinner. “Not even a microwave omelet,” Glen had shrieked at him.

Demos was sitting there in a very cold office and he was sweating. He'd memorized the brief newspaper account and it played and replayed endlessly in his head.

“. . . Unidentified man, approximate age sixty, found stabbed to death in East Orange, New Jersey. No identification was found on the body, just a note reading . . .”

That damned bloody note! God, and someone hoped a reader would recognize Gloria or a Demos and call the police? That was all he needed, to have the cops coming to call. He knew he had no choice, not anymore. If he didn't respond now, there would be new clues released to the cops, and slowly, surely, the net would tighten around him. Just look how they'd set up this private investigator, this damned ex-cop, so Demos would see just how serious they were. Yeah, the guy, Taylor, was even following the victim and they'd killed him, thumbing their noses at the cops and him and this Taylor.
He had to do something because if he didn't there would just be another incident. The cops would come. Someone else would probably die and maybe the someone else would be someone Demos knew.

Finally he picked up his phone and dialed the number. There was an answering machine. When he heard the beep, Vinnie said only, “I'll leave the money tomorrow at the usual place.”

He thought of the beautiful Stanislas original oil he would have to sell to get enough money together. He'd bought it in 1981 in the Village when it had been dirt cheap and he had been dirt poor. He'd hocked his hunting knife to buy it. He thought about the dead man, probably Ellery Custer. It sounded like poor Custer, killed to send Demos a message, probably stabbed by that bitch Susan with that gold-plated stiletto of hers, the one that was a gift from her ex-husband, the note doubtless planted by her on poor old Custer's body, giving that phony name, Gloria, and the real one, Demos. Him.

Well, it was over now. He was safe.

 

Lindsay took a taxi from San Francisco airport to Presbyterian Hospital on Webster Street. It was midafternoon when she arrived. The first person she saw was her new stepmother, Holly, sitting in the small waiting room reading a magazine. She was swinging her leg, her shoes off. She looked up, saw Lindsay, and smiled.

“The dutiful granddaughter is here. Well, good. The old lady's been asking for you nonstop. I didn't want your father to call you—it's such a horribly long trip for you—but he said his mother told him that if you didn't come, she'd blame him and she'd fix him but good, and that, we all know, means
money. You see, she knew you'd come, regardless of what you were doing. She's an old witch, God knows, but tough. I have to admire her for that.”

“Yes, I'd come for her.”

“You think she'll give you any of her fortune, Lindsay? Is that why you're such a little sweetie?”

“No.”

“Good, don't ever kid yourself, because she won't. Everything will go to your father and to me. It's only fair. He's her only son. Too, she knows you're making good money now with your modeling.”

“I'm going to see her now. Where is Father?”

“He's in court, naturally. He works, you know. He told me to wait here until you arrived. Now that you have, I'm off. Have fun with the old witch. Oh, incidentally, you're to stay at the mansion, Grandma's orders.”

Lindsay didn't want to go anywhere near the mansion, but she didn't say anything. She walked to her grandmother's room and quietly pushed the door open. It was a lovely private room, decorated in soft pastels—peach and pale green. Several French impressionist paintings, excellent copies, were on the walls. There was a small sofa and two chairs near the hospital bed and a large window.

She stood there quietly, looking at her grandmother. She looked small, that was Lindsay's first thought. She was eighty-three years old but she didn't look it. Her skin was smooth and soft-looking, supple, her silver-white hair still thick, her eyebrows well-defined, her cheeks pink. Lindsay had seen very old people before, and invariably they looked like fleshless mummies, all seams and bones, with their pink scalps showing through sparse hair. But Gates Foxe looked like she always had. She
was wearing a soft yellow bed jacket with antique Carravannes lace around the collar. Lindsay walked quietly to the bed and stood there.

Gates opened her eyes.

“Hello, Grandmother.”

“I'm glad you're here, Lindsay.”

Lindsay grinned at her. “Why is it you always look so wonderful and make me feel like a grub?”

“It's my bones. Excellent bones, and you've got them too, my dear. Except for my blasted hip. I fell on the stairs, so clumsy of me really, and it snapped like a wishbone. But I'll be up and about in no time at all. No more bed for me than is absolutely necessary. It reduces one, you know, to have to look up at people.”

“I believe you. Do you have much pain?”

“No. See this tube here? Whenever the pain is too bad, I simply press this little button and painkiller is released directly into my bloodstream. No waiting for the nurses to decide enough time has passed. Medical practices are improving. Now, my dear, tell me how long you can stay. Tell me how the modeling is going and when you'll hit the cover of another big magazine.”

Lindsay had sent her a half-dozen copies of
Elle.

“I canceled out three shoots. They weren't all that important. I just have to be back in New York in a week and a half. That's a biggie for
Women's World
I have to be there for. I'll be passing myself off as a professional stockbroker, I think, complete with business suit and briefcase, shot down on Wall Street near Trinity Church. As for another cover, who knows?”