Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (3 page)

I was trying to work up the nerve for another attempt at setting da Silva straight when he put in, “I want you to start tomorrow morning. I have written the address of the police station on the back of the card. Ask for the chief—his name is Hicks, and he is expecting you. As for your fee, I believe you will find your compensation more than adequate.” And after a short interval that was obviously employed for effect, he quoted a figure that took away what little breath I had left. I’d never made even
half
that much on any investigation I was involved in before. “Is that satisfactory?”

He didn’t wait for a response. Which was fortunate because my mouth was still hanging open when he wrote out a nice, fat check as a retainer.

Well, that clinched it.

It’s more than likely that I’m the most cowardly member of my profession. Maybe the greediest, too (although this is something I seriously doubt).

But on the plus side, for a very brief time I was certainly the most expensive.

As soon as da Silva’s footsteps echoed down the hall, I inspected the card he’d given me. Centered on it was “Allied Plumbing, Inc.” And then about three-quarters of an inch below this and to the left: “Vito da Silva, President.” In the lower right-hand corner was an address and phone number, while scrawled just above that was another set of numbers, which I presumed belonged to da Silva’s home telephone. I flipped over the card. On that side he had jotted down the location of the Riverton police station.

Now that the threat of da Silva in the flesh was removed from my office, I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. How could I have become so intimidated by the man that I was unable to reject him as a client? I had another peek at the hefty check that was still clenched in my tight little fist—on the remote chance it might take a little of the edge off things. But it only got me thinking about how da Silva made his money.
Good Lord! And I’d just been put on his payroll!

It was in the midst of all this angst that Jackie burst into the room.

Before I go any further, I suppose I should say a few words about Jackie. When I rented my office space, part of the agreement was that I would get to utilize her services. And, let me tell you, Jackie is without a doubt one of the premier secretaries in New York—if not
the
premier. Of course, this only partially makes up for her also being the most aggravating. Although when she’s not lecturing me about my tardiness or getting on my back about my work habits, my thoughtlessness, my love life—or a dozen other things I could name—I don’t even have to remind myself that I’m really extremely fond of her.

At any rate, making a face, Jackie frantically waved her arms through the air in a fruitless attempt to dispel the cigarette smoke. Then she crossed the very few steps to my desk. Placing her palms flat on the top, she leaned over until we were practically nose-to-nose. “Was that
the
Vito da Silva?” she demanded.

“Exactly which Vito da Silva are you referring to?” I responded coyly, attempting to make light of the whole mess.

“Don’t be cute. I almost fainted when he walked in and gave me his name. But anyway, what did that crook want with you?”

“Whaddaya mean
crook
? Mr. da Silva’s a legitimate businessman.” I held out his card. “Have a look.”

“
Allied Plumbing, Inc.,
my ass.
Heads Busted, Inc.
would be more like it. So? Why was he here? And lose the smart talk, if you don’t mind.”

“He wants me to find out who killed his friend.”

“Why you? And how did he even get your name?”

“You’re not, by any chance, intimating that the Desiree Shapiro agency doesn’t have a worldwide reputation.”

Jackie frowned at me. “All kidding aside, huh?”

“Okay.” And I explained about da Silva’s having had an acquaintance of his call Elliot for a recommendation.

“You mean
our
Elliot? Elliot
Gilbert
?”

“Uh-huh. But don’t breathe a word to him about this. I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favor. After all, he had no way of knowing who that information was intended for.”

“You did say no to da Silva, didn’t you?” Jackie asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

“I tried to, honestly, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“Oh, come on,” she retorted. “How could you have agreed to work for someone like that? You should have told him you were too busy to accept another case or that you were going on an extended vacation in the Himalayas or that your poor old granny had just taken ill—anything!”

“Listen, I did everything I could to get out of this, believe me.”

And now Jackie plopped herself down on the chair. “I don’t like this, Dez,” she said earnestly. “Da Silva—well, he’s a dangerous man. A
very
dangerous man. Don’t you know how many people he’s supposed to have had shipped off to the great beyond? And I’m sure there are plenty of guys who’d be only too happy to send
him
on the same kind of trip. It’s not safe even being around your Mr. da Silva. What do you think he has a bodyguard for?”

“A bodyguard?” I echoed stupidly.

“That’s right. And I wish you’d seen him. Big, burly type. The kind that, take it from me, you wouldn’t want not to like you. Da Silva parked him outside the office when he went in to meet with you, and I was watching the guy through the glass doors for a while. He was pacing up and down by the elevators, and he kept looking over his shoulder every few seconds.”

“I appreciate your concern, Jackie, but if you’re worried about my safety, don’t be. I’ll be fine. Besides, I already accepted a retainer from da Silva—a very large retainer.”

“I don’t care how large it is. And since when did you get so mercenary?”

“Since he told me what he’d be paying me.” And because this was the only thing I had to smile about, I smiled.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Jackie snapped. “No matter what you’re making, it won’t be much good to you if you’re in your grave.”

“Gee, there’s a lovely thought.”

“I’m trying to talk some sense into you, Desiree Shapiro. Suppose da Silva decides that he . . . well, that he can’t stand the color of your hair. He wouldn’t even hesitate to have you rubbed out.”

“Oh,
puleeze
!” I protested, absently patting my glorious hennaed locks. “Don’t you think that’s maybe a little far fetched?”

“Of course it is. I didn’t mean for you to take it literally. I only want you to wake up. Let me give you a
real
possibility, though.

“Say you learn that one of da Silva’s cohorts—or whatever you want to call them—committed the murder.” Anticipating (incorrectly) that I might interrupt her here, she hurriedly answered the question I was not about to ask with a brusque “for whatever reason” before going on.

“The thing is, though, it turns out that da Silva is very close to this particular cohort, and he refuses to accept that the man murdered his friend. Do you think da Silva would allow you to go to the cops with what he considers your unfounded suspicions? Not on your life. He’d see to it you were put out of commission—
permanently
.”

It was more the dramatic reading it had been accorded than the word itself, but when Jackie said
permanently,
a knot began to form in my stomach.

“And that’s only one example of what you could be facing. Return the check, Dez.
Please.
” Even her eyes were pleading with me.

“I swear to you, I’d do it in a second if it would get me off the hook.”

“All right then. What if
I
call da Silva? You know how convincing I can be. I could give him some story like . . . like you’ve just been rushed to the hospital with a heart attack.”

I guffawed at that one. “You don’t think he would want to know which hospital? And that he might go just a tad ballistic when he found out I wasn’t a patient there?”

“I suppose,” Jackie conceded dejectedly. “Oh, how I wish that man had never walked in here.”

“So do I, Jackie,” I told her as the knot tightened. “So do I.”

 

I took off for home at around four-thirty, soon after the conversation with Jackie.

My answering machine was winking at me when I got in. I pressed Playback.

“Aunt Dez?” said this close-to-hysterical voice. “Call me right away. I’m at the store.”

Now, I know my niece well enough to recognize that this kind of urgency in her tone is not necessarily an indication that the sky is falling. Nevertheless, I dialed her number at Macy’s, where she works as a buyer, even before taking off my suit jacket.

She picked up on the first ring.

“What’s wrong, Ellen?”

“Why would you
do
that?” she screeched. A few notes higher, and the question would have been audible only to dogs.

“Do what?”

“How could you put yourself in jeopardy like this?”

“Would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?” I said, although the fog was beginning to lift.

“I called you at the office before, but you’d just left. Jackie told me you now have a
gangster
for a client? Have you got any idea at all what people like that
do
to someone who crosses them?”

God! As Yogi Berra would say, it was
déjà vu
all over again. I wanted to scream. But realizing that, like Jackie, Ellen was sincerely worried about my welfare, I made an almost Herculean effort to keep my tone level. “Listen, I don’t intend to cross the man, so I’ll be perfectly all right.”

“I understand he even has to have a bodyguard! It’s like a movie, for heaven’s sake.”

Damn Jackie and that big, overworked mouth of hers!
I slipped off my jacket.

“Well, uh, it’s the kind of business he’s in,” I offered lamely. “There’s a lot of money involved.”

“It has nothing to do with money, and you know it,” Ellen retorted. After which she threw in the proof: “Not even Donald Trump has a bodyguard.” (Although it was delivered with a great deal of conviction, this information should not be taken as gospel, since Ellen and The Donald rarely hang out together.) “Jackie told me the bodyguard looked really menacing, too.”

“Anyhow, you have to get out of this,” Ellen insisted. “You’ll be able to think up an excuse. Tell da Silva you have a health problem or something.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy.” And then resignedly, as I kicked off my shoes: “Let me explain . . .”

Well, I talked my heart out about how determined da Silva had been that I take him on as a client—and that at this point there was nothing in the world I could do about the situation.

“Okay,” Ellen finally said. “I guess you’ll have to go through with it. But please be very, very careful, Aunt Dez.” Then muttering under her breath—and I could just picture her slowly shaking her head—“A bodyguard. What kind of a person needs a bodyguard, anyway?”

The instant Ellen hung up, I shed the remainder of my clothes.

I was having dinner with Al later. I had no idea where. All I could wheedle out of him was that we were going someplace really special to celebrate our three-months-of-seeing-each-other anniversary. Tonight wasn’t the actual “milestone,” though. We couldn’t make it on that date because Al was leaving New York tomorrow morning for over a week, first attending a dental convention in Vegas (did I mention that he’s a dentist—and with a very successful practice, too?) and then traveling on to L.A. for a visit with his brother.

Anyway, he was picking me up at seven-thirty, and since it was only a little past six now, that would leave ample time for any normal person to get ready. I, on the other hand, might very well have some difficulty in putting myself together by then. (Someday I have to find out why these preparations of mine are almost invariably fraught with minor disasters. It could be psychological, for all I know. Then again, it could also be that when it comes to something as simple as applying a little makeup, I’m just remarkably inept.)

At any rate, I decided that I didn’t really have time for a bath—at least, not a nice, leisurely one. So I convinced myself to settle for a quick shower. This would have kept me on schedule—if soon afterward I hadn’t broken the point on my eyeliner pencil and then discovered I’d misplaced the little sharpener that came with it. Of course, I wasn’t about to be seen in public with naked eyes, so after a fruitless, ten-minute search for the sharpener, I finally grabbed a kitchen knife. Which didn’t produce much of a point on the pencil but did a dandy job on my thumb.

Once the bleeding stopped I got into this new dress I’d acquired just for tonight: a two-piece, jewel neck in the most marvelous shade of blue. “So perfect with your
gorgeous
blue eyes, dear,” the saleswoman had gushed. “How can you even
think
of passing it up?”

Well, I bought the dress in spite of that irritating woman’s best efforts. And I love it. The top has these tiny, covered buttons to the waist, then flares slightly into a small peplum. And the skirt is a modified A-line that just grazes my knee. The style is really unusually flattering. Also, even if I do have to agree with that awful salesperson, the color
is
great for me.

After I was in my clothes and had engaged in the usual skirmishes with my impossibly stubborn hair, it was seven-thirty on the dot, and I was all set to go. As soon as I could come up with my navy leather bag, that is.

I tore apart the entire bedroom looking for that damn thing, eventually locating it in my sweater drawer, of all places. (And don’t ask me how it could possibly have found its way in there.) Fortunately, however, Al had run into some traffic on the way over here, and it wasn’t until a quarter to eight that he buzzed me on the intercom—at almost the same moment I laid hands on the bag.

He was standing in front of the building when I came downstairs. A very imposing man physically—easily six-two and with shoulders out to
there
—Al’s size initially had me somewhat intimidated. After only a few minutes in his company, though, I began to recognize that the really overwhelming thing about Al Bonaventure isn’t his appearance; it’s his
niceness
.