Never Too Rich (55 page)

She was a big-boned woman, with a big bust, and
walked with a flat-footed gait. Her skin was the color of rich milk
chocolate, and she wore big glasses with an ornate gold E stuck to
the bottom corner of the left-hand lens.

Reaching the front door, she squinted suspiciously
out the peephole. Suddenly she frowned deeply. Standing there was a
uniformed police officer wearing mirrored aviator shades and a
visored hat pulled down low over his mustachioed face.

Now,
be
elicited a response from her, and it
wasn’t one of welcome. For Ermine Jeannot lived in Brooklyn, in a
neighborhood of fellow islanders—Jamaicans, Haitians, and
Grenadians—where she shared a big, inexpensive apartment with six
relatives, one of whom she knew dealt drugs. Well, not drugs
really. She didn’t consider marijuana a drug.

She kept the security chain across the door and
opened it only as far as it would go. “Yeah, mahn?” she demanded,
scowling. “What do you want?”

“
Is Miss Billie Dawn in, ma’am?”
the policeman inquired politely.

“
Why do you want to see
her?”

“
Sorry, but I’m not at liberty to
say.”

“
She is not here. She is at
work.”

“
Do you know when she’ll be back?
Maybe I can wait inside?”

Ermine shrugged, secretly relieved that he hadn’t
come about her cousin. And since he hadn’t, she didn’t care what he
wanted or where he waited, so long as he didn’t track around behind
her, messing things up.

She shut the door, undid the safety chain, and then
opened it wide. “Just don’t smoke,” she muttered darkly. “I don’t
want ashes and stink where I’ve already cleaned.”

“
No, ma’am,” he assured her, and
went into the house past her.

These places were all the same, he thought as he
looked around. For all the daunting security measures—ornate iron
grille over the first-floor windows, three-inch-thick oak front
door, state-of-the-art burglar-alarm system, and, here, two sets of
locked steel doors connecting the town house with the Cooper Clinic
next door—it was easy to gain entrance.

All it took was a uniform and one not-too-suspicious
cleaning woman.

Ermine led the way through an archway to the living
room. “I have already cleaned in here, so don’t go messing anything
up.” Hand on a hip, she pointed bossily at a white canvas couch
with giant pillows that looked like they’d received precise
karate-chops. “You sit anywhere but there. Okay?”

“
Yes, ma’am. Is anybody else
around?” he asked quietly. “That I can talk to?”

“
No.” She shook her head
emphatically. “The doctor is in the clinic next door.”

He nodded. “Any chance he’ll come over?”

“
How should I know? Sometimes he
comes and sometimes he doesn’t. It all depends on the surgeries.”
She stood there a moment longer, her head tilted, and eyed him
queerly. Strange, but there was something funny about him . . .
something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Maybe it was the
way his hat, glasses, and mustache hid his face? Or the way his
hair was a little
too
long? No, that couldn’t be it. Cops
all had hair that came down over their ears nowadays. Some even
wore earrings.

She turned to leave the room, but something else
caught her attention.

His hands were smooth. Too smooth. Grayish white,
like a corpse’s. And no human skin had such a sheen to it.

He was wearing gloves.

But not regular gloves.

She stared, recognizing them at once. During the
day, she cleaned apartments, but some nights she had a second job.
Whenever the agency she had signed up with called, she did stints
as a temporary nurses’ aide at various hospitals.

Surgical gloves.

Policemen didn’t wear surgical gloves. Surgeons wore
them. Doctors wore them.

And so did criminals who didn’t want to leave their
fingerprints behind.

But not policemen.

Ermine broke out in a sudden cold sweat. She knew
she should pretend to go about her business, that she shouldn’t
show her concern.

The thing was, she couldn’t move. She was frozen
with fear.

“
Is something wrong?” he asked
softly, advancing on her slowly.

Sweat rolled down her forehead in big streaky beads,
and every hair on her body stood up on end. She opened her mouth to
scream, but she couldn’t make a sound.

She could only stare at him wide-eyed.

She never saw the switchblade, but she heard it
click. Before she knew what was happening, he had one arm locked
around her neck and was pressing the sharp side of the cold steel
blade against her throat, just below her chin.

“
Let’s you and me go to the nearest
bathroom,” he said softly, looking down at her lint-speckled hair.
His mouth turned down in revulsion. This was one scalp he could
well do without. “We wouldn’t want to mess up your nice clean
house, now, would we?”

Her terrified eyes tried to see down to her
chin.

With a grunt, he wrenched her so far backward that
her fat legs flipped out from under her, and his chokehold was all
that kept her from falling.

“
And walk slowly. One wrong move
and . . .” Miss Bitch let the threat dangle.

Ermine Jeannot had no choice but to comply. Her feet
had to scramble to keep up with him as he crab-walked her
backward.

She was terrified that if she didn’t keep up, or
happened to slip, the blade under her chin would slice her throat
in two.

“
Yeah, Superdelicious, spin
around!”
Alfredo Toscani called out. “Make the skirt
move!
Faster! Faster! Superfast!”

Billie Dawn twirled around and around, the studio
spinning past her eyes in a blur. Blinding lights, silver
reflecting umbrellas, backdrop, and assistants—all were a dizzy
haze. She could hear the soft whirring of Alfredo’s motor drive,
the clicking of his Leica’s shutter as he hopped around
counterclockwise like a frog on speed.

“
I’m getting dizzy,” she
warned.

He ignored her. “Throw your arms out
wide
as
you twirl!”

Click-whir-click-click. “Just like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music.” Click-whir-click-whir. “Now, faster!” Click.
“Faster!” Click-click. “That’s it! Make that skirt whip around.”
Clickwhirclickwhirclickwhirclickclickclick.

In one magnificently choreographed moment that
lasted no longer than two seconds, Alfredo and one of the waiting
assistants exchanged the Leica he was using for another, identical
reloaded one and, jumping closer in on her, snapped off one last
speedy roll of film.

“
Okay, Superfabulous,” he called
out. “It’s a wrap.”

“
Thank God!” Billie Dawn gasped.
Breathing heavily, she teetered unsteadily toward the nearest chair
and clung to its back. Even now that she stood still, the room kept
moving around her. But at least it was starting to slow
down.

The assistants switched off the hot lights and
helped her undress. One of them slathered her face with cold cream
and gently wiped away the brilliant makeup with soft tissues.

Star treatment for the supermodel.

Alfredo, arms outstretched, glided swiftly toward
her. “You were superterrific!” The trim, wiry photographer took her
hand and kissed her fingertips noisily. “Superdarling, I swear you
get more beautiful and talented with every passing day!”

“
And you lay it on thicker every
single time.” Billie laughed good-naturedly as she got up and
headed to the showers.

When she came back out, she was wearing the latest
in distressed faded denims and a man’s peacoat, a soft leather
shoulder bag slung casually over one shoulder.

Outside at the curb, the hired limousine was
waiting.

She paused midway down the front steps and breathed
deeply. It was one of those perfect snappy days in New York, with
sun and clear skies and a sharp nip in the air.

Standing there, her head tilted back, she
contemplated the sky. It was glorious out. Far, far too glorious to
be cooped up in a car, even if it
was
a limo.

The temptation to dismiss the limo and walk was
strong—stronger than it had ever been before.

She hesitated. Would it be frivolous, and would she
be taking her life in her hands if she walked just this once? If
she breathed the crisp fresh air deep into her lungs and sailed up
the avenues on foot, eyeing all the enticing shop windows as she
went? And wasn’t it possible that she was just a little
too
cautious—that she wasn’t living anymore, but merely existing?

She sighed. Maybe. But then again, maybe not. There
was simply no way to know. Snake was out there somewhere, probably
no further than a scant mile or two from where she was standing
right this very minute.

And the same probably went for the killer who was
preying on cover girls.

A chill ripple of dread strummed up and down her
spine. No. She wasn’t keen on becoming another headline and gory
statistic.

Better safe than sorry, she thought as she ducked
into the long black car.

“
Home,” she told the chauffeur, and
luxuriated in the leather seat. She adored limos. She positively
loved all that splendid leg room.

She stretched deliciously. It was barely two in the
afternoon, and she didn’t have another shoot until the day after
tomorrow.

The thought of just lolling around the town house
and catching up on her reading until Duncan’s surgeries were over
was mighty appealing. Oh, yes, home and Doc suited her just fine.
What more could a girl possibly want?

He was waiting with the patience of the hunter.

Instead of secreting himself, he had pulled a chair
near one of the front windows and sat back a ways from the
curtains. He wanted to see her the moment her car pulled up
outside.

The town house was very quiet now that the maid was
lying in the second-floor tub, her throat slit from ear to ear.

He laughed softly to himself. It had been
surprisingly quick and easy. First, she had been so frozen with
terror, and then so fatalistic, that she hadn’t bothered putting up
a fight. It was as if she had resigned herself to dying. It had
gone so neatly that he hadn’t gotten so much as a drop of blood on
his police blues.

Of course, the shower curtain had helped a lot.

He wondered if all women from the islands were that
fatalistic. It would be interesting to find out.

But she had to be beautiful. Oh, yes. Very, very
beautiful. Not like that pig upstairs.

Only the best for Miss Bitch.

Humming softly to himself, he kept an eye peeled on
the quiet street. He felt absolutely no rush; none in the least. If
anything, the anticipation just made it all that much sweeter.

He thought about touching himself. The hunt always
made his penis hard, and it was straining painfully against the
tight tan panty hose he wore under the NYPD regulation trousers.
But he wouldn’t touch himself. No no
no!
That would only
ruin it for him.

He poised a finger against his glued-on mustache to
make certain it wasn’t coming loose, kept his cap visor pulled low,
and still had his mirrored shades on. The warmth of the wig he wore
to disguise his own hair made his scalp tickle and itch.

His lips curled into a twisted smile. A scalp itch
was the least of his worries. In fact, it didn’t bother him at all.
He was used to wearing itchy warm wigs of all kinds—synthetic hair,
real hair, real hair with the scalps still attached.

He sat back patiently to wait. Miss Bitch had all
the time in the world!

Chapter 57

On the sidewalk, Billie Dawn exchanged a joke with
the chauffeur, said good-bye to him, and waited as two men jogged
past. One was in his seventies, creased like a walnut, but tanned
and fit as the proverbial fiddle. He was wearing expensive exercise
clothes and had weights strapped around his ankles and wrists. He
was also pressing a springed exercise grip in each hand. The other
man was identically outfitted, and was in his late teens:
impossibly attractive, all blond hair and pink cheeks. A grandson?
Billie Dawn wondered. A kept lover?

She smiled. It was the type of scene you saw only on
the Upper East Side. Cute.

As soon as they passed, she waved at the chauffeur,
hurried up the front steps, and dug into her bag for her keys.

She was here.

Miss Bitch adjusted the police cap to make certain
the visor was pulled as low over his nose as possible. From his
vantage point behind the curtains, he could see Billie Dawn’s
incredibly long splendid legs striding up the front steps.

Inside him, everything surged and tensed. Hammered
and shrieked.

He slipped a hand into his pocket.

The switchblade felt both hot and cold at the same
time.

Ooooh! But he couldn’t wait to get hold of that
hair!

The house seemed unnaturally silent as Billie Dawn
let herself in. “Ermine?” she called out, and listened for a
moment. “Ermine?”

Shrugging, she shut the door, locked it by habit,
and headed straight for the stairs, not even stopping to glance
into the living room. If she had, she would have seen him.

“
Ermine?” she called out again when
she got to the landing. Grabbing the banister, she leaned way back
and looked up the stairwell. “Ermine?”

Nothing.

“
That’s strange,” she murmured to
herself. “Oh, well. Maybe she ran out of something and had to pop
over to the store.” Heading into her bedroom, she dropped her bag
on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She stretched luxuriantly in
front of the dresser mirror. How perfectly wonderful to have a
couple of days off work! Too bad Duncan had a clinic full of
patients, otherwise she’d suggest they fly down to Puerto Rico or
the Keys for a day or two of doing absolutely nothing.