Lawrence Sanders - The seventh commandment

"Except Lewis," Dora said. "And Solomon Guthrie."

"Yeah," Trevalyan said, "except them. Have you talked to Starrett's attorney yet?"

"Not yet, but he's on my list."

"He probably won't tell you a thing, but it's worth a try. Ask him if Lewis kept a bimbo on the side."

Dora stared at him. "Why should I ask him that?"

"Just for the fun of it. You never know."

She sighed. "All right, Mike, I'll ask him. Now I'm going to pay for our lunch. But I warn you, I'm putting it on my expense account."

"Suits me," Trevalyan said.

On New Year's Eve, Dora and Mario walked to their church for a noon service. Afterwards, they went looking for Father Piesecki and found him in the church basement where he and a fat altar boy were gilding a plaster saint. They told him about the open house they were having that night and urged him to stop by.

"I'll try," he said, "but I have four other parties to visit."

"Homemade kielbasa," Mario said.

"I'll be there when the doors open," Father Piesecki promised.

It was a wild and wonderful evening, with friends and family members coming and going. Most of the guests brought a covered dish or a bottle, so there was plenty to eat and drink. Neighbors had been invited to forestall complaints about the noise. Father Piesecki showed up with his accordion and never did get to those four other parties.

No one got too drunk or too obstreperous, and if the Christmas tree was knocked over during a violent polka, it was soon set aright. Even Mike Trevalyan and Mario's trucker friends were reasonably well-behaved, and the worst thing that happened was when Dora's elderly uncle dropped his dentures into the punch bowl.

Mario started serving espresso from his new machine at 1:00 A.M., but it was almost three o'clock in the morning before the last guests went tottering off. It was an hour after that before the remaining food was put away, empty glasses and scraped dishes stacked in the sink, ashtrays wiped clean, and Dora and Mario could have a final Asti Spumante, toast each other, and fall thankfully into bed. They didn't make love until they awoke at eleven o'clock on January 1.

She returned to New York the following day. Manhattan was still digging out from a five-inch snowfall, but that was pleasant; garbage on the sidewalks was covered over, and the snow was not yet despoiled by dog droppings. Streets had been cleared, buses were running, and the blue sky looked as if it had been washed out and hung up to dry.

She called John Wenden from her suite at the Bedling-ton, but it was late in the afternoon before he got back to her.

"Hey, Red," he said, "how was the holiday?"

"Super," she said. "How was yours?"

"No complaints. I drank too much, but so did everyone else. How's your D.O.H.?"

"My what?"

"Your D.O.H. Dear Old Hubby."

"My husband is fine, thank you," she said stiffly, and Wenden laughed.

"Listen, Red," he said, "I finally heard from Records. What they dug up on Father Brian Callaway is pretty much what you told me: real name Sidney Loftus, smalltime scams and swindles but no violent crimes. He's never done a day in the clink-can you believe it? Nothing on either Turner or Helene Pierce. That doesn't mean they're squeaky clean, just that they've never been caught. Let's see, what else… Oh yeah, I had a nose-to-nose talk with the Starrett servants. They finally admitted the eight-inch chefs knife disappeared the evening Lewis Starrett was killed."

"John," she said, "I thought you were convinced Lewis and Solomon Guthrie were murdered by an ex-employee."

"Convinced? Hell no, I wasn't convinced. But when two guys from the same company get iced, it's S.O.P. to check out former employees who might be looking for revenge. It's something that has to be done, but there's no guarantee it's the right way to go."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. So you still think it might have been someone at that cocktail party?"

"It could have been Jack the Ripper for all I know," the detective said. "What's your next move?"

She thought a moment, remembering Trevalyan's warning not to reveal too much. "I don't know," she said. "Just poke around some more, I guess."

"Bullshit," Wenden said. "Unless I miss my guess, you're going to investigate where Callaway was at the time Solomon Guthrie took his final ride in a yellow cab."

"I might do that," she admitted.

"Don't hold out on me, Red," he said, "or I'll bring this beautiful friendship to a screeching halt. Forget about Callaway; I've already checked him out. He was in a hospital the morning Guthrie was offed."

"A hospital? What for?"

"Minor surgery. I'd tell you what it was, but I don't want to make you blush. Let's just say he's now sitting on a big rubber doughnut. Anyway, there's no possibility he could have aced Guthrie. Disappointed?"

"Yes," Dora said, "I am."

"Welcome to the club," John said. "How about lunch tomorrow?"

"Sure," Dora said. "Think you can stand hotel food again?"

"I can stand anything," he said, "as long as it's free. Can you make it early? Noon?"

"Fine."

"It'll be good seeing you again," he said. "I've missed you, Red."

"And I've missed you," she replied, shocked at what she was saying. Then: "John, what's the name of Starrett's attorney?"

"Oh-ho," he said, "the wheels keep turning, do they? His name is Arthur Rushkin. Baker and Rushkin, on Fifth Avenue. That's another one you owe me."

"I'll remember," she promised.

"See that you do," he said, and hung up.

She called Baker amp; Rushkin on Fifth Avenue, explained who she was and what she wanted. She was put on hold for almost five minutes while "Mack the Knife" played softly in the background. Finally Arthur Rushkin came on the phone. Again she identified herself and asked if he could spare her a few minutes of his time.

"I have to be in court tomorrow," he said, "but I should be back in the office by four o'clock. How does that sound?"

"I'll be there, Mr. Rushkin."

Then she dug out a copy of the progress report she had submitted to Trevalyan. She reread it for the umpteenth time, searching for what Mike had said was a logical motive for Callaway killing Lewis Starrett. She still hadn't found it, and thought maybe Trevalyan was putting her on; he was capable of a stupid trick like that.

But this time she saw it and smacked her forehead with her palm, wondering how she could have been so dense.

Turner had warned Helene of Clayton's reaction to Solomon Guthrie's death and had suggested the spin she put on it.

"You'll have no trouble," he predicted. "Most people believe what they must believe, to shield themselves from reality."

"But not you," Helene said.

"Oh no," Turner said airily. "I take reality raw a la sauce diable. Delicious, but it might make you sweat a bit."

Still, it was no easy task to convince Clayton that Guthrie's murder had been a simple mugging gone awry. He admitted that such senseless killings occurred every day on the hard streets of New York, but Helene could see that guilt gnawed; he could not rid himself of the notion that somehow he had contributed to Sol's death, that he was in fact an accessory. That was the word he used: accessory.

Finally she ignored Turner's instructions on how to handle this crybaby and resorted to a more elemental and effective method: She took him to bed. Within minutes sorrow was banished, guilt forgotten, and he was exhibiting the frantic physical ardor of a man who had been brooding too much on mortality.

She understood his passion was death-driven, but no less enjoyable for that. Afterwards, though, she had to listen to his banal maunderings on how fleeting life was; how important it is to "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"; how no man on his deathbed had ever said, "I should have paid more attention to business"-all hoary cliches Helene had heard dozens of times before, usually from older men.