Frenzy (12 page)

26

A
fter talking with Renz, Quinn walked back toward the office, unobtrusively smoking his Cuban cigar until it was a mere stub. He dropped it on the sidewalk, stepped on it with a crushing turn of sole, and deftly kicked it into the gutter.

A heavily perspiring woman in blue Lycra and walking a bicycle glared at him as if he'd just killed a puppy.

“Biodegradable,” Quinn said.

She seemed not to hear.

He didn't enter the office. Instead he passed it by half a block and got into his old Lincoln, parked in the shade of one of the larger trees lining the sidewalk. The trees sprouted from five-foot squares of bare soil. Some of them had flowers planted around them to create miniature gardens.

It was too hot to walk, so Quinn drove the Lincoln to the Far Castle and found an illegal parking space near a fire hydrant. He placed his NYPD placard, which he'd taken with him when he retired, on the dashboard and strolled back to the restaurant on the corner. It occurred to him that he was becoming something of a scofflaw. Which made him smile.

 

 

Harley hadn't been kidding about the English garden. There was all sorts of greenery near the restaurant itself, which did indeed resemble a small medieval castle, complete with gargoyles and turrets and a crenellated roofline. There was room for half a dozen or so tables near the garden, protected by a fringed green awning.

The garden was deliberately slightly shaggy, in the way of English gardens, with geraniums and hibiscus plants, and various flowers and tall grasses Quinn couldn't identify. A large concrete birdbath was almost completely overgrown with vines. There were a number of rosebushes here and there, some of them with obvious thorns.

The only part of the garden that didn't seem to have taken root by chance was the hedge maze. It was about seven feet tall and in the slanted light presented a somewhat ominous entry point. The maze didn't cover a lot of ground, but it made a lot of right-angle turns. Quinn saw a woman's languid bare arm extend and wave near the center of the maze. He heard her laughing. She was having fun and not calling for help. He figured it would be hard to stay lost in the maze for long.

He watched a young server come outside and set up a large tray so she could deliver lunches to some of the tables. Glad he wasn't wearing armor, Quinn went inside where it was cooler.

Despite it being the slow time for restaurants, between the lunch and dinner crowds, the Far Castle was fairly busy. It was softly lit, with dark paneling beneath thick wainscoting. Some of the lighting was from the narrow archers' windows high above the tables. Between wainscoting and windows were mounted large posters featuring European films. Quinn recognized some of the better known ones:
La Dolce Vita, The Man Who Loved Women,
the Italian versions—or originals—of Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. There was a small bar where a few people enjoyed drinks while waiting for tables. Food servers in simple black-and-white, vested outfits bustled among the white-and-red checked tables, balancing large round trays of food. A door between dining area and kitchen seemed perpetually swinging. Soft opera music—Puccini, Quinn thought—wafted throughout the restaurant.

A maître d' in a black tuxedo appeared with an amiable smile and Quinn unobtrusively showed him the NYPD shield Renz supplied Q&A during these work-for-hire cases. He asked to speak with Mr. Castle. Quinn felt foolish the instant he pronounced the name, wondering if there really was such a person.

Well, why not? There was a Ben. There was a Jerry.

The maître d' didn't change expression. He led Quinn to the swinging door. Quinn was made suddenly hungry by the spicy scents that engulfed them as, timing it just right, the maître d' escorted him through the opened door to the kitchen. Some kind of pasta dish on a tray flashed past Quinn almost near enough for him to take a bite.

He'd expected to see Winston Castle in his office. Instead the maître d' motioned for Quinn to wait just inside the kitchen door, out of the way of the controlled madness, and went to speak to an overweight man in his forties in a white shirt and black-and-white tie. A white apron was tied around his bulging stomach. He had broad shoulders, a broad face. A stout, rather than sloppily fat, body. He gave the impression he might be extraordinarily strong and tireless.

There were two other chefs, thin, wiry types, who looked as if they were trying hard to keep up with human dynamo Castle.

The maître d' motioned for Quinn to come forward, which Quinn did, making sure he avoided the hot sauces and flashing knives, cleavers, and spatulas. Something sizzling and being deep-fried in a tall pot flecked hot grease with a slight sting on the back of Quinn's hand as if trying to draw his attention as he passed.

As he advanced through the warm and busy kitchen, and the assault of hot oil and spice scents, Quinn saw that Winston Castle's black mustache turned up at the edges in a way that made him appear to be always smiling, as if the surrounding havoc somehow pleased him. The kind of guy who always saw things as being under control, and so, for him, they were.

He led Quinn through a door at the rear of the kitchen that opened out into a section of the garden that was semiprivate, about twenty feet from the tables outside that were placed along the sidewalk. There was a single round metal table there, uncovered by a cloth. Castle motioned with a sweeping arc of his arm for Quinn to sit in one of the wrought iron chairs.

Quinn settled into a chair and looked around appreciatively. You usually didn't see a garden like this in Manhattan unless it was on a roof.

A waiter appeared with two tumblers of ice water on a tray. When he was gone, Castle lowered his bulk into a chair near Quinn's. It was cooler at this table, the view mostly limited to green shrubbery, some of it trimmed as topiary: a bird with plumage, a small horse, a large rabbit. This part of the garden was well tended and symmetrical, and the traffic sounds from beyond the shrubbery seemed out of place and time. Where was the stomping and blowing of horses? The bark of dueling pistols? The clashing of swords and lances?

Castle was wearing black boots that looked as if they belonged in a pirate movie. A watch on a gold chain peeked out of a small pocket in his vest. Despite the heat of the weather and the kitchen, he wore a puffy blue-and-white ascot. Quinn felt as if he were talking to someone from the nineteenth century. Or was it the eighteenth?

It made him feel odd when he said, “Messages to your cell phone suggest you know someone named Jeanine Carson.”

Castle seemed to think over his answer, which seemed odd. He either knew or he didn't know the late Jeanine.

“I knew her, but not as a friend.” He affected a slight English accent. “She did call me several times.”

“What was the purpose of those calls?”

“I'm not sure. I had to leave our conversations rather abruptly because of pressing business. You might have noticed we're understaffed here.”

“No,” Quinn said. “It looked to me as if you had so many employees they were getting in each other's way. How about Andria Bell? Know her?”

Castle gave his broad smile, but it seemed slightly forced. “Busy as I am, I keep up on the news. I know Andria Bell as one of the victims in that horrible mass murder at a hotel. I'm assuming that's why you're here.” His smile grew even broader, revealing impossibly perfect, very white teeth, perfect for clenching a knife blade as he swung aboard another ship. “Am I a suspect?”

“You and over ten million others.”

“It sounds as if you have long and tedious job.”

“It works out that way sometimes.”

“You'll need extra help from time to time, as I do here at the restaurant.”

The jovial smile remained the same on Castle's flesh-padded features, but Quinn understood that this wasn't a stupid man; Castle was more than ready to play conversational darts. “Did Jeanine mention anything that might have suggested she felt she was in danger?”

“Not that I could surmise. But when I saw her name in the paper, and what had happened, I determined to phone you.”

“But you didn't.”

“That's because I had another, more curious phone call, and I wondered if the calls might be connected.”

“Why is that?”

“I said I didn't know Jeanine Carson as a friend, and that's true. I also know that Andria Bell and Jeanine were . . . quite close. They were both involved in the art world. So was a woman named Ida Tucker, who called me.”

Quinn was wondering where this conversation was going—if anywhere. He was trying to keep it straight even as he wondered about Winston Castle's sanity. This guy was too much of a character to be genuine.

“That would be after Andria's death,” Quinn said.

“Yes. This Ida Tucker tried to negotiate by phone to buy a piece of art that I don't possess.” Something, along with a wider smile, an added sheen to his complexion and sparkle in his dark eyes, transformed Castle's face. “She claimed it was a lost Michelangelo sculpture titled
Bellezza.
” He leaned closer to Quinn and dropped his voice even lower. “That means—”

“It means
beauty
in Italian,” Quinn interrupted.

“Very good! The Tucker woman described a small white marble bust of a beautiful woman that was said to have been modeled after a
very
influential courtesan of the church. Legend has it that she was murdered to ensure her silence.”

Quinn met Castle's glance, trying to determine what the game was.
What the hell am I getting into here?

Castle seemed dead serious.

“So what did this marble bust look like?” Quinn asked. “Other than it was white?”

“She didn't describe the bust in detail, but said she inherited some letters her brother-in-law, Henry Tucker, wrote on his deathbed that do describe it. She said she was afraid to mail such information or discuss it over the phone. So she gave the letters to a trusted friend, who was traveling to New York with some students anyway. She was to show the letters to me.”

“Andria Bell,” Quinn said.

Castle nodded. “Exactly. She phoned but didn't make a connection. When she did reach me and we talked, she seemed to be feeling me out. She did say she had some letters, but she was hesitant to show them to me.”

“Why would she be hesitant?”

Castle shrugged his beefy shoulders. “I suppose she wanted to make sure I was the right man. I would think this bust is worth a great deal of money.”

Quinn smiled. “Money enters into almost everything.”

“Yes,” Castle said, “but this seemed to be about something other than money. Something more was making her cautious.”

“What would that be?”

The thick black mustache across from Quinn perked up in a grin. “That's what I want to hire you to discover.” Castle's twinkling dark eyes looked beyond Quinn.

“Ah, Maria!”

Quinn looked where Castle was staring and saw that a dark-haired woman, attractive but built somewhat too short and heavy to be fashionable, had come outside to join them.

“My wife, Maria,” Castle said, with a sweeping motion of his right arm, as if introducing a celebrity. “Detective Quinn is about to agree to help find
Bellezza.
”

The fleshy, dark-haired woman smiled warmly. Flesh crinkled around her dark eyes, but not in a way that made her look older. “That's wonderful.”

“I haven't exactly—”

“We're paying him fifty thousand dollars if he's successful,” Castle said.

Maria seemed unmoved by the number.

“You have to understand,” Quinn said. “I'm leading the efforts to find and stop a serial killer.”

“The one who killed Andria Bell and those other poor women.”

Maria appeared distressed. Quinn thought she'd surely cross herself, but she didn't.

“This is something of a bonus for you, Detective Quinn,” Castle said.

Quinn wasn't thinking of the money. Well, the money came second in his musings. The city of New York was compensating Q&A generously, but Castle had a point in suggesting that this wouldn't be a conflict of interest. The missing bust and the mass murders at the Fairchild Hotel had become intertwined—find
Bellezza
and find the killer. That seemed to be how Winston Castle saw it. He was probably right.

This was, Quinn decided, one investigation. Why had D.O.A. become not only a serial killer but a mass murderer? The likely answer to that was something in his conversation at MoMA with Grace Geyer. As he was stalking Geyer, she had unknowingly tipped him to even bigger game. D.O.A. had simply seized opportunity.