Читать книгу Naked Cruelty - Колин Маккалоу, Colleen McCullough - Страница 7

Chapter II

The Glass Teddy Bear gift shop actually showed to best advantage after the Busquash Mall had closed its ornate doors and before the timer turned the shop’s interior lights out. No customers disturbed the glitter from arrays of exquisite wine or water glasses, the sparkle from cut crystal vases, the gleam from transparent plates, cups, saucers, ornaments and paperweights. It was a cavern filled with pools and points of light arising out of mysterious shadows, an effect enhanced because every background thing was painted black, or covered in black.

All else paled in contrast to the glass teddy bear himself. He sat in the window on a black velvet box, all alone, glowing like a phosphorescent sea creature. His plump body, legs, arms and head were colorless, made of glass so flawless it held not a single air bubble. His legs stretched out in front of his body, the pads on the bottom of his feet a clear yet satiny ice-blue, each surrounded by stitches in glass thread of a darker blue. One arm was slightly forward of the body; the other was extended in mute appeal. Each had an ice-blue, satiny paw pad. The little round ears were lined with the same glass as his pads, and his face, mouth fixed in a joyous smile, bore two huge, starry eyes of a deeper blue. Though of itself the bulk of his glass had no color, this genuine work of art picked up the blue of paw pads, ears and eyes, and shimmered as if an invisible palest blue flame rendered him incandescent.

Most amazing of all was his gigantic size: about the same as a hefty three-to-four-year-old child.

Though to some extent the shop was still illuminated from the Mall, the lights inside the shop had been out for five hours when the unfaltering forest of pinpoints and pools shivered, some snuffed out, some diminished, others unaffected. The door from the service corridor into the shop’s back room had opened, and remained open as a dark form passed back and forth through it, lugging plastic trash bags. This done, the door closed and a battery-powered lamp came on. From its position atop a filing cabinet, its rays lit up the curtain of glass beads, a frozen waterfall, that barred entrance to the shop itself. The dark form gathered the curtain up and tied all its fabulous ropes against the jamb. A trash bag disappeared into the shop, and came the noises of cans colliding, bottles clinking, boxes and cartons thudding, wet squelches from cascading organic matter. The bag emptied, the form went back to fetch another bag, empty it in a different place. Ten bags in all—more than enough.

The smell of decay was rising as the dark form moved then to the front of the shop, where the glass teddy bear sat on his black velvet box and the night lights from outside made him glow with a dimmer fire. Whoosh! A cloud of dust and debris flew from the smaller bag that the dark form held out and flapped; the glass teddy bear’s luminescence was extinguished under a pall of sticky, grimy vacuum cleaner residue.

There were several more whooshes in other parts of the shop, then the dark form released the bead curtain, which fell into place with a series of chimes that plastic beads could never produce. A knife came out to slash the strands holding the beads; it hovered, undecided, then the dark form snapped the knife closed, and the bead curtain was safe.

The Vandal moved into the back room, collected his flashlight from the filing cabinet, and let himself out. A good exercise … That idiot Charlie the Mall owners employed as their sole night watchman was on his coffee break, regular as the clock he consulted. How come such fools had the money and power to erect something as fine as this shopping mall, then didn’t see the virtue of good night security? They asked for everything they got. And, come to think of it, he could do with a second visit tonight.

From the Glass Teddy Bear he went down to the Third Holloman Bank, whose premises, inside a very up-market mall, boasted little in the way of precautions like time-locked vaults—no need, in a venue where the clients were after cash or validation of checks. He disarmed the device in the service hall, let himself in, and went straight for the cage wherein Percy Lambert kept his cash ready for the morning. Who would ever have thought that these keys would prove so handy? People were so careless! The fifth key fitted the lock, the door opened; the Vandal strolled in and helped himself to $50,000 sitting on the table in preparation for apportioning to the tellers’ drawers in the morning.

By four a.m. it was all over; the Vandal drove off just as Charlie was starting his rounds. He wouldn’t even notice, thought the Vandal, taking a bet with himself. It would take Miss Amanda Warburton and Mr. Percy Lambert to raise the alarm when they came in at eight.

Amanda Warburton smelled the damage before she set eyes on it, so stunned that she dropped the leashes in her left hand and ran into the shop feeling as if someone had cut off air to her lungs. Gasping, choking, she took in the enormity of this crime, and found herself unable to scream. Instead, she used the phone in her back room to call the Mall manager, Hank Murray. Because she was fifteen minutes earlier than Percy Lambert on this first day of October, Hank came racing with his bottle of emergency brandy and some paper cups oblivious to how bad his morning was going to get, intent only on Amanda.

“Oh, Miss Warburton, this is terrible!” he cried after one horrified glance into the shop. “Here, sip this, it will make you feel better. It’s only brandy—the best thing for shocks.”

He was a presentable man in his early forties whom Amanda had liked on her few meetings with him, so she sipped obediently and did indeed feel some strength flow into her.

“What did he do to the glass teddy bear?” she asked, tears coursing down her face. “Tell me the worst, please!”

Having assured himself that she wasn’t going to pass out, he toured the glass shop, more astonished now than horrified—what was this guy about, for God’s sake?

“Everything’s covered in filth, Miss Warburton,” he said, returning, “but it looks as if nothing’s been damaged—not even a chip. The glass teddy bear is fine underneath his dirt.”

“Then why—? What—?”

“I don’t know, except that it’s vandalism,” Hank Murray said in a soothing voice. “Because your stock is glass, it won’t suffer once it’s been properly cleaned. I know a firm will guarantee to clean up your shop as if none of this ever happened, honest. All we have to do is catch the Vandal, who couldn’t have done this if we had better night security.” He squared his shoulders. “However, that’s my business, not yours. Do I have your permission to get things rolling, Miss Warburton?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Murray.”

“Call me Hank. Are you insured for this kind of thing?”

“Yes.”

“Then it really isn’t a problem. Have you got a card for your insurance agent? I’ll have to see him too, and he’ll have to see this.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I guess I sound cold-blooded, but I have to get things started for you, especially if Mall rumor says aright.”

“What does it say?”

“That you’re alone in the world.”

“Except for a pair of very unsatisfactory nephews, rumor is true,” she said.

“Are the nephews hereabouts? May I call them?”

“No, they’re in San Diego. I’d rather you called Marcia Boyce— she’s my friend and lives next door to me.”

His hazel eyes showed concern for her, his attractive face very serious. “I’m afraid I have to call the police. Too much malice for simple vandalism, and I don’t understand why, if the culprits are simple vandals, they didn’t break anything.”

“Nor do I, frankly. Yes, I have to notify the police.”

Her phone rang; Hank answered it, growing stiffer by the second. When he put the receiver down he stared at Amanda in a new horror.

“You wouldn’t read about it, the Third Holloman Bank has been robbed. Looks like the Vandal was more than a vandal. Will you be all right until I can get Miss—Mrs.—Boyce here?”

“Yes, Hank, I’m over the worst. You go. I’ll call Marcia—she’s Miss Boyce—myself. I’m okay, truly.”

Only when Hank was gone did Winston make his presence felt with a long, highly displeased meow.

Amanda gasped. “Winston! And Frankie! Where are you?”

A growl in what sounded like a very big cat’s throat took Amanda’s eyes to a filing cabinet tucked in a corner; it didn’t meet the wall, which was on an angle, and two pairs of eyes stared at her reproachfully. But they wouldn’t come when she called—they were as upset as she was, obviously—so she had to go to them and remove their body harnesses; they walked on leashes with her to and from the car every day she opened her shop.

Winston, which had paws the size of a lion’s, it seemed to people meeting it, promptly took its twenty pounds to the top of the filing cabinet and hunched there, a magnificent marmalade in color, with unusual green eyes. The dog, which most people judged a pit bull and steered a wide berth around, was black-and-white, its ugly white head adorned with a black ring around its right eye. In actual fact Frankie was a gentle soul utterly dominated by the cat, to which it was passionately attached. Both animals were males, and both castrated.

At the end of a ten-minute sulk, the cat gave the dog its permission to go to Amanda, who clutched at its muscular back as if to a lifeline. What had happened? Who hated her enough to do this? The stench turned her stomach, but she couldn’t leave until the police came, and even then, she needed Marcia to drive her home, not trusting her own ability.

Two patrol cops arrived first: Sergeant Ike Masotti and his long-time partner, Muley Evans. Though Amanda couldn’t know it, she had drawn the best team on patrol in the Holloman PD.

“Weird,” said Ike to Muley after a cruise through the shop, “really weird, Muley. It’s not kids.”

“Nope,” said Muley, who knew his place: agree with Ike.

“You got any enemies, Miss Warburton?” Ike asked.

“None that I know of, officer.”

“It might be the glass. Some guys are kinky enough to see a shop full of glass as their ma’s cabinet full of best glass and china, and maybe they hate their ma, but they’re too afraid of her to break anything—just dirty it,” said Ike.

“Right,” said Muley.

“Only thing is, how does it fit in with the bank burglary?” Ike asked Muley. “Fifty thousand smackeroonies! He just picked ’em up and left. Locked the place behind him. Reactivated the alarm. Want to know what I think, Muley?”

“Yep.”

“Two different crims. The guy that did this and the guy that did the bank are not the same guy.”

“Uhuh,” said Muley noncommittally.

“I like your animals, Miss Warburton,” said Ike, approaching Frankie fearlessly. “What a great dog!” He pulled its ears and it groaned in ecstasy. He examined its collar and disc. “Your name Frankie, huh? Who’s Mister Huffy over there?”

“Winston,” said Amanda, who liked Ike Masotti a lot.

At which moment Sergeant Morty Jones came through the back door, reeking so strongly of booze that the two patrolmen exchanged a significant glance.

“Taft High kids,” he said after inspecting the premises.

“You’re wrong, Morty,” Ike said. “A bunch of kids go to all this trouble? Never happen. They’d get their fun breaking glass, not covering stuff in filth. Did anyone else get vandalized?”

“Not according to Mr. Murray,” said Amanda.

“Then this is a personal vendetta, right, Muley?”

“Right.”

“In your ear it is, Ike,” said the detective, turning for the back door and freedom; the smell didn’t help his nausea.

“I’ll write my report as I see it, Morty.”

“You can write it as the devil sees it, Ike. Mine is going to say Taft High kids.” On that note, and with a curt nod to Amanda, witness to the entire conversation, Morty Jones left.

“The detective goes, we gotta go, Miss Warburton. Sorry,” said Ike in genuine regret. “You gonna be okay here alone?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“That’s one real nice lady,” Ike said in the service corridor. “Why did we have to get Morty Jones? That was fresh booze on his breath, Muley, not last night’s. If the Commissioner gets a sniff, Morty’s out, and Ava wouldn’t like that. I heard she’s making sheep’s eyes at young Joey Donaldson in Communications.”

“I heard that too,” said Muley, and offered a comment of his own. “We ain’t snitches, Ike, but one day someone’s gonna tell the Commissioner Morty’s drinking on the job.”

“The worst of it is that I remember Morty before he went upstairs to Detectives and Larry Pisano. He was a good cop,” said Ike. “It’s Ava. How could she be stupid enough to tell Morty he didn’t father his kids? I mean, he loves them! Who fathered them isn’t the point. They’re Morty’s kids. I curse that woman, I curse her!”

“May she rot in hell,” said Muley.

Thus Carmine didn’t get a full report on the vandalism at the Glass Teddy Bear or the theft of $50,000 from the Third Holloman Bank. Despite the demands of the Dodo, both cases would have interested him.

Steaming, Helen MacIntosh went off to Hartford on that same Tuesday, October 1, in time to join Abe, Liam and Tony for breakfast in their motel; this was one case would not permit a commute, Abe announced, which didn’t please the owner of a Lamborghini. Perhaps, she thought, speeding up I-91, I shouldn’t have called Lieutenant Abe Goldberg ahead of time to ask for tips and a detailed description of what to expect, but how many women will there be? According to Goldberg, just me. He was curt and unforthcoming— I’d find out when I got to Hartford, why waste his time? He treated me like shit, the scrawny little guy—how did he ever make it into the cops at his size? Well, Lieutenant Abraham Goldberg, you are about to find out that no one from the wrong side of the tracks—or the right side!—treats a MacIntosh like shit. I will make your life such a misery that you’ll send me back to Holloman, where I can do the job I’m suited to do—catch the Dodo.

Marcia Boyce drove Amanda Warburton home, Frankie and Winston, on their leashes, sitting royally in the back seat of Marcia’s Cadillac. Luckily Marcia knew Amanda’s pets quite well enough to know that there would be no “accidents” en route.

Amanda and Marcia loved their condominiums, which were on the eighth floor just below the penthouse, and filled it entirely. They had bought off the plans, which had enabled them to custom-design their kitchens and bathrooms, an en suite bathroom for each bedroom, plus a guest toilet in the foyer. What luxury! What vindication!

As if all that were not enough, no sooner was the block of soaring glass up and its occupants moved in than the residents of Busquash, horrified at how it altered the antique patina of their world, fired the town Elders and put an iron-clad ordinance on the books that forbade the erection of anything over two storeys or modern in appearance. As the condos were dream apartments, they zoomed in value at once. What had cost a hundred thousand was now worth a million—and rising.

Marcia fixed a pot of English Breakfast tea and laced it liberally with cognac.

“Who would want to do such an awful thing?” Amanda asked, sipping with care: it was hot.

“Not high school kids,” said Marcia emphatically. “Drink up, honey. That detective must have been a dope.”

“You really don’t think it was high school kids?”

“Too malicious in a plotty, planny way, if you get my meaning. Hank Murray told me that nobody else’s shop was touched, and that baffled him. Everyone, even the dope of a detective, thinks the bank robber is a different person.” Marcia sipped her aromatic tea with enjoyment. “Face it, honey, Hank and I both think this was personal, aimed at the Glass Teddy Bear and you.”

Her bright eyes surveyed her friend affectionately—such a doll, Amanda! Pretty too, with her streaky blonde hair and her big blue eyes. Why had she never married? Her figure was good, and her legs tolerated the current above-the-knee hemlines better than most women her age. Marcia herself was a childless divorcee in comfortable circumstances, but, she admitted, her chances of a husband to keep her company in old age weren’t half as good as Amanda’s. Marcia was plain, dark, and distinctly overweight.

“A lot of my pleasure is gone,” Amanda said desolately.

“Huh?”

“The Glass Teddy Bear is all my dreams come true, but after this I feel—oh, I don’t know—kind of violated. I sank all my available money into the Busquash Mall business—the shop and the mail orders. After all, I did well in my shop downtown, even though I couldn’t display my better lines,” said Amanda. “I leased off the plans at Busquash, and I was right—I’ve done amazingly well. Now—this! Why my shop? Why me? Some of the Mall antique stores leave my prices for dead.”

Marcia listened, intrigued. Though they had been friends and neighbors since taking up residence in Busquash over two years ago, today was Amanda’s first confidence. So she’d had a shop downtown? Where? My own business has been downtown for ten years, but I never remember a glass shop … Yes! In the arcade that ran through to Macy’s. Waterford, Stuart, Bohemian, Swedish glass and crystal, wine glasses, tumblers and vases, and a good price for top quality things.

“Do you have family, Amanda?” she asked, emboldened.

For a moment Amanda’s face went expressionless, then she smiled and answered, her tongue loosened by the brandy. “Yes. Robert and Gordon, my late brother’s boys. They live in San Diego.” She frowned. “Not very satisfactory—they have such delusions of grandeur they remind me of patients in a book on psychiatry I read once.” She visibly shuddered. “And the—the affectations! I dislike them.”

“Oh, poor Amanda!” Marcia cried, moved. “It must be lonely for you.” She looked brisk, smiled brilliantly. “Cheer up, my dear. On Friday you and Frankie and Winston are going to return to the Glass Teddy Bear to find it exactly as it was—a crystal cave of beauty and delight.”

At the mention of their names the dog and cat stirred from their vigilant doze, but when the conversation didn’t continue about them, they snoozed again. It had been an upsetting day, and the only cure was sleep.

Amanda Warburton smiled, an enormous effort. “I hope you’re right,” she said doubtfully. “The smell! The filth!”

Time to introduce another subject. “Hank Murray is smitten with you,” Marcia said.

But that didn’t have the desired effect. Instead of going coy or bridling with pleasure, Amanda looked grim. “I hope not,” she said after a pause. “He hardly knows me. You’re mistaking kindness for interest, Marcia—at least, I hope so. I’m not searching for a boyfriend, let alone a husband.”

“Then you damned well should be!” Marcia said, astonished. “I wasn’t implying love or marriage, Amanda. I just meant that Hank’s a nice guy who’d like to know you better. Wouldn’t it be fun to have dinner with a good-looking man at Sea Foam instead of with me at the Lobster Pot?”

“No, it wouldn’t be fun!” Amanda snapped.

“But—”

“Leave it, Marcia! Just leave it!”

Marcia left it.

Expression flinty, Carmine stared at an unrepentant Helen MacIntosh as she sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table he preferred to a desk, with its drawers, knee-holes, modesty panels and nice wood tops. Who could ruin Formica, already?

Her pose was slightly insolent, slewed sideways on the old kitchen chair, legs crossed nonchalantly, one foot flopping up and down in its Ferragamo flattie, both legs on full display because she was in the shortest miniskirt Carmine had ever seen. A mane of hair flowed loose down her back, she was wearing enough make-up to put Delia in the shade, and her décolletage was—low. All told, his years of police training told him, she was flaunting about $3,000 in clothes, for nothing had been bought off the rack.

“What made you decide to join Lieutenant Goldberg in Hartford wearing exactly the kind of apparel I told you was inappropriate?” he asked, a hard edge to his voice.

“With about seventy cops in my immediate vicinity, sir, I figured I wouldn’t need sensible shoes to chase any fugitives, or worry about what the public thought of my miniskirts,” she said lightly, foot still jiggling.

“You were more than Lieutenant Goldberg’s assistant, Miss MacIntosh. You were in Hartford representing the Holloman Police Department, on duty as a trainee detective, the first in a brand new program every police department in the state is watching. I did not send you to Hartford to model for Mary Quant, as you well know. Instead of looking professional and as unobtrusive as possible, you tricked yourself out as if your function in the Holloman PD is to tease cock, if not service it.” Carmine’s voice didn’t change. “Who were you impressing? Or rather, to whom were you determined to give a wrong impression?”

Her cheeks were red, her mouth tight. “They stared at me like a dummy in a shop window. I knew they would no matter what I wore, so I decided to give them a thrill.”

“And when are you going to learn that being a cop isn’t about yourself, Miss MacIntosh? Did you stop to think what his peers and superiors would think of Lieutenant Goldberg, towing a sex kitten as his personal assistant? Under ordinary circumstances, Miss MacIntosh, there’s only one reason a forty-year-old man tows a sex kitten as an assistant. If you’d been in Detectives longer, I would have let Lieutenant Goldberg figuratively strip you in front of seventy men, but you and he aren’t acquainted yet. After this, you never will be. I hear tell that he simply looked you up and down, and told you to go home to Holloman. With, after you left, an apology on your behalf.” The amber eyes blazed. “What a fool you are, Miss MacIntosh! I handed you an ideal opportunity to get to know the best detective in the division, and you screwed it up because of your own ambition. No wonder the NYPD did nothing with you. How long did it take them to realize that mentally you’re on a par with any spoiled fourth grader? You’re puerile! Asinine!”

Her hands were trembling, she had swung to sit upright on the chair, and the beautiful face was rigid—with rage or with mortification was impossible to tell.

“Am I to take it that you didn’t understand the valid and necessary reasons for wearing sensible clothing on duty? That you have some scrambled feminist idea that I’ve put you down to feed my own masculine ego?”

“No, Captain, I got the message the first time,” she said, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “It’s for my own safety and protection, I understand that.”

“You will apologize to Lieutenant Goldberg. In writing, and in person.”

“I’ll be back there properly clothed in an hour.”

“No, you won’t. Lieutenant Goldberg doesn’t trust you. You get your wish, Miss MacIntosh, and stay in Holloman. But not with the Dodo. Nick Jefferson will go to Hartford.”

Her skin lost color, she gasped. “Sir, please!”

“No. The subject is closed, and we won’t discuss it again.”

“As you wish.” Her shoulders straightened.

“However, I have a question to ask that I didn’t when I interviewed you. What drives you to a police career?”

She had risen to her feet. “I avoided that at interview, sir, I know. I’m attracted to the armed services, but the very idea of trying West Point or Annapolis—brr!” She shuddered. “They really are institutions for men, and I’m not a committed enough feminist to buck those two fortresses. Besides, I have a funny feeling that being a cop is a more interesting life. I like working for solutions, I guess.”

“I see.” He stood, a powerful man whose muscular bulk diminished his nearly six feet of height. The face turned to look at his wayward trainee was both broad and angular, its nose imperious and its mouth’s natural sensuousness disciplined into firmness. His eyes, as gold as brown, were widely opened and well apart, and had a fearless quality.

Why did I try that stupid stunt? Helen asked herself as she left Captain Delmonico’s office. For the same reason, she decided as she climbed the stairs, that a little kid pokes a sleeping tiger with a stick.

“Very true,” said Delia, in a frightful combination of acid-yellow and mustard-yellow with bright blue bows. “But in future, dear, do remember that poking a sleeping tiger is bound to see you squashed flat under one paw.”

“Can’t I help you with the Dodo?” Helen begged.

“No, dear, I have no desire to be pulp under the tiger’s paw. You’re with Paul Bachman in forensics for many days to come.” Delia sighed wistfully. “I scraped into Detectives through the back door—a head for plans, lists, paperwork by the ton—and it didn’t hurt to be the niece of the Commissioner, whose secretary I was. Before that, I had ten years with the NYPD in documentary fraud and anything else involving paper. But look at you! It really is a splendid program they’ve worked out for you. Everything we had to pick up on the job, so to speak, you’re being properly taught. So don’t you let my Uncle John down! If you do, you’ll feel the size of my paw.”

“The cleaners did a wonderful job,” said Hank Murray as he emerged from the service elevator with Amanda Warburton on Friday, October 4. “You’ll be able to open for the weekend.” He produced his own keys and opened her back door, one of many on a broad service hall.

As they walked inside he sniffed, smiled. “Smell, Miss Warburton. Sweet yet a tad herby—I hope that you don’t mind my picking the fragrance on your behalf. You’d never know that there was ever rotting garbage in here, would you?”

“No,” said Amanda, sagging in relief.

“Come on, take a look at the shop,” Hank encouraged as he steered her toward the shimmering curtain of glass beads. Then he stopped, so suddenly that Amanda cannoned into him.

“Dear God!”

She couldn’t help herself. Amanda shoved the Mall manager aside and ran into the shop.

Almost every item had been moved to form a gigantic mound where her sole counter had been; it had been pushed, complete with cash register, against the only free wall, where her array of Lalique and Murano picture frames had hung. They too were in the huge heap displaying a corner here, an edge there. But the “yard” for drinking a yard of beer was still in place on the same wall high above, and below it, the entirely ornamental “half yard” of thick, heavy crystal was intact.

Tears pouring down her face, Amanda rushed to the front window to check on the glass teddy bear himself. Yes, yes, he was there, unshifted, unmarked, sitting on his black velvet box and apparently ignored by the Vandal.

What kind spirit had prompted her to leave her animals at home this morning? Fishing up her sleeve to find a handkerchief, Amanda Warburton knew in her heart of hearts that she had expected more trouble today; the dust and dirt of the previous assault had seemed— yes, definitely—unfinished. Today was a logical sequel to the first attack.

Having notified the police, checked that no other stores had been vandalized, and learned that the three banks the Busquash Mall harbored were all okay, Hank was now kneeling alongside the pile of glass, not touching anything, but eyes busy.

“Weird!” he exclaimed. “Miss Warburton—Amanda!—it is weird. As far as I can tell, nothing’s been broken—or cracked—or chipped. Look for yourself. If I get the same cleaners back to pick up everything wearing gloves, you shouldn’t lose much if anything. No, no, don’t cry, please.” He hugged her, trying to convey comfort and sympathy. Miss Warburton was a lamb, she didn’t deserve this malice, this—this cruelty.

By the time Ike Masotti and Muley Evans arrived, Amanda was in the back room, with Hank Murray persuading her to have a little of his emergency brandy.

“I have to notify Detectives,” Ike said on taking a look at the mound of glass. “May I use your phone, Miss Warburton? The air waves are full of flapping ears shouldn’t be listening.”

“Please do.”

“There’s definitely something weird going on,” Ike said to the phone. “You’d better come take a look-see, Morty. This is definitely not high school kids.”

They waited over an hour.

He couldn’t help himself; he’d had to call in to the Shamrock Bar for a quick snort en route to the Busquash Mall and that persnickety bastard, Ike Masotti.

Nothing was improving, for all that Delia Carstairs kept telling him things had. She’d found him a great housekeeper, but he didn’t want a housekeeper, and nor did the kids—his kids. They all wanted Ava back. Bobby and Gidget, the lights of his life, not his? It was typical Ava, that’s all, to throw that one in. Only why had he decked her? So many years of knowing she played around—what was so different about that Saturday night? Except that he snapped at the taunt about the kids.

Now the kids cried all the time, he cried whenever he could sneak to the cells … He cried into his Jameson’s too, and had to clean up in the Shamrock bathroom before he could nerve himself to do whatever Ike Masotti said at the Busquash Mall. His head was spinning, he had to stop and park for a few minutes to get some sanity back … Oh, Ava, Ava! Bobby and Gidget are mine!

When he shuffled into the Glass Teddy Bear the two patrolmen exchanged glances—the smell of liquor was overpowering, worse than it had been last Tuesday.

Morty gave the mountain of glass a cursory inspection and returned to the back room. “High school kids,” he said, shrugging. And, to the cops, “You’re wasting my time, guys.”

“Less time to elbow-bend, you mean, Morty?” asked Muley when Ike wouldn’t. No one made undeserved cracks at Ike.

“It’s high school kids,” Morty maintained.

“It is not high school kids!” Ike yelled, exasperated. “This is nasty, Sergeant Jones. It feels wrong. No way that high school kids would pile up all that glass without breaking some, and none’s broken—not even chipped. This stinks of vendetta.”

“I don’t care what it stinks of, Ike. No real damage has been done, there’s not enough here to put anyone up on charges.” Morty licked suddenly dry lips. “I gotta go.”

Blinking, Amanda sat listening as if in a drugged haze; she was conscious that Hank’s hand on her shoulder had tightened its grip, and understood that the detective’s indifference had angered him. As Sergeant Morty Jones disappeared, she reached up to pat the hand. Thwarted, Ike and Muley followed Morty out, gazing at her in mute apology.

“Would you mind calling the cleaning firm for me, Hank?” she asked. “I’ll have to stay to supervise them—they won’t remember whereabouts things belong, now I tore the plan up.” She gave a small squeak of distress. “To think I had to draw a plan even once! But to think I’d need it twice!”

“First, your insurance agent,” Hank said firmly. “That lazy soand-so of a detective didn’t take any photographs, and someone should. If anything is damaged, you’ll need proof.” He pressed Amanda’s fingers gently. “From now on the Mall is going to be protected by a professional security company, something I’ve been saying to deaf ears since the Mall opened. But no, the owners didn’t want to spend the money. Now, they have no choice. A bank robbery and a vendetta against a tenant with fragile stock. I mean, what if the Vandal had decided to target Quattrocento, down on the first floor? You can clean the filth off glass, but not off a fourteenth century credenza.”

“Who would do this?” Amanda asked for the tenth time, unable to get past her own violation.

“I have no idea.” Hank paused, then said, very delicately, “It’s going to be a very long day for you, and you shouldn’t be alone this evening, Amanda. May I take you to dinner?”

“Thank you, I’d like that,” said Amanda, sounding surprised.

The dinner with Hank Murray at the Lobster Pot went so well that the next evening, Saturday, he took her to Sea Foam.

Though she admitted that Hank was an ideal escort for a forty-year-old spinster, she wasn’t about to let him put his shoes under her bed. An occasional man had enjoyed that privilege, but only one had mattered, and he was long dead. If her heartache was permanent, that was her business. Financially she was comfortable; she didn’t need a meal ticket. Though, she couldn’t say why, she had a feeling that Hank wasn’t nearly as well off as the manager of a famous shopping mall ought to be. He paid the Sea Foam prices without a blink, yet when he fished for his wallet at the Lobster Pot, Amanda fancied that he was relieved she had indicated she preferred classy diners to up-market traps for gastronomes.

She had acquired Frankie and Winston, now three years old, as a deliberate ploy; with two cute animals in her window, her shop was visited by everyone who came to the Busquash Mall. No one else was allowed to have a pet; that Amanda was, was due to a clever sales pitch she had made to the Mall owners, a bunch of tightwads, combined with impeccably trained animals. At home the dog and cat were great company, though now that Hank had appeared, Amanda realized that no animal was a full-time substitute for a man. Hadn’t Marcia said so? Yes, and had her head bitten off for her pains. Still, Hank might have worked out differently had he been a different kind of man—pushed for an intimate relationship, for instance. But he hadn’t, and wasn’t. Hank seemed willing to keep on an outer orbit, never close enough to get burned.

On Sunday night she worked late, though she hadn’t told Hank. They hadn’t made any plans for the evening because he was involved in the outfitting of a new shop only three doors down from hers. It had been a dismal, unsuccessful outlet for vacuum cleaners—not the kind of thing people shopping at the Busquash Mall were after. Now it was going to be full of American Indian goods—blankets, ceramics, paintings, silver-and-turquoise jewelry. Hank had high hopes for it, and Amanda understood why. Buying Indian wares east of the Rockies wasn’t easy.