Ed McBain - Cinderella

“Oh, sure,” Ernesto said.

“How about sixty-five?” Jimmy said. “And you take eight keys. That’s we’re talking five-twenty, that’s a good deal.”

Ernesto suddenly knew they were paying fifty thousand a key.

“Sixty-five is too high,” he said. “I could never clear that with Miami.”

“Must be a real high roller there in Miami,” Jimmy said, “he can’t go to sixty-five.”

Ernesto said nothing. He looked at Domingo. Domingo shook his head. Jimmy suddenly wondered if the big guy with the slick little mustache wasn’t the real boss here.

“What could you go for?” Charlie Nubbs asked. “I mean, what do you think your man in Miami would okay?”

“I told you,” Ernesto said. “Forty-five.” He hesitated and then said, “Maybe fifty absolute tops.”

“Tell you what we’ll do,” Jimmy said. “You take ten keys for sixty a key, you’ve got a deal. That’s cost , amigo, believe me. That’s exactly what we’re paying for it.”

Ernesto knew he was lying.

The question was whether they’d be willing to come down to fifty-five. He was afraid that if he offered fifty-five they might become offended and walk. Italians had pride. At the same time, he wondered how desperate they were for cash.

“What we’re talking is six hundred thou,” Charlie Nubbs said.

Jimmy was doing arithmetic in his head. Sell off ten for six hundred, that meant they were paying only forty a key for the remaining ten keys. That was very good. If the spics went for it. If not, he didn’t know what he would do. They were probably looking to pay fifty-five a key, which was why they’d started at forty. Sell them ten keys for fifty-five, that meant the remaining ten keys were costing forty-five a key... no, that sucked. Sixty a key, he thought, take it or leave it.

“Take it or leave it,” he said aloud.

Ernesto knew he meant it.

So did Domingo.

“I have to call Miami,” Ernesto said.

“There’s a phone booth in the lobby,” Charlie said.

“I want to call from the motel,” Ernesto said.

Everybody understood the need for privacy. They would not be discussing soy beans or hog bellies on the phone.

“Okay,” Jimmy said, “get back to us tomorrow sometime. I don’t hear from you by three o’clock, I figure you’re out.”

“Good,” Ernesto said.

“Good,” Jimmy said.

The headline on Wednesday morning’s newspaper read:

The article under it described a black Toronado that the police had found deep in the palmettos off Bay Point Road, near the old Adderby place. The car, the police said, was registered to a woman named Florence Goodel, who had reported it stolen on June 7, the day before Otto Samalson was murdered. The police said that Miss Goodel was definitely not a suspect. The article did not mention whether the police had found any latent fingerprints or spent cartridge cases in the automobile. Neither did it say how the police had known the black Toronado in the palmettos was the car driven by Otto’s murderer.

Matthew nodded sourly, threw the newspaper into his trash basket, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialed Jamie Purchase’s office.

Jamie Purchase.

Forty-six years old on the night of the Goldilocks murders, ten years older than Matthew. In the pale moonlight, he’d seemed much younger, or perhaps only more vulnerable. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt, white trousers, and blue sneakers. Matthew had introduced himself to the patrolman at the scene as Dr. Purchase’s attorney, which indeed he was.

Two years ago Jamie Purchase was a client for whom Matthew had reviewed and revised a pension plan. He was also a man who came home one night after a poker game to find his wife and his two little daughters brutally murdered. He called the only attorney he knew: Matthew Hope. On the phone that night, Matthew first asked him if he’d committed the murders, and then asked if he wouldn’t prefer a criminal lawyer to a man who’d never represented anyone involved in a crime. Jamie had said, “If I didn’t kill them, why do I need a criminal lawyer?” — which plunged Matthew headlong into the case.

Just like that.

This past Friday, Susan had said, “Why don’t you simply learn all there is to learn about criminal law and start practicing it?” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. But now, as he sat in Jamie’s waiting room, he wondered if in actuality he hadn’t started practicing criminal law away back then, when the phone call from Jamie had shattered the stillness of the night.

“Mr. Hope?” Jamie’s receptionist-nurse. “Doctor will see you now.”

“Thank you.”

Jamie looked good. Two years ago his world had disintegrated. He seemed all right now, looked all right. He had not remarried. Rumor around town had him dating a twenty-seven-year-old interior decorator. It did not sound too serious.

“I called Nathan,” he said. He was referring to Dr. Nathan Schlemmer, who had identified Cinderella as Mary Jane Hopkins but had refused to tell Otto why she’d come to see him. “Do you know him?”

“No,” Matthew said.

“Fiftyish,” Jamie said. “Gray hair, closely trimmed gray beard, blue eyes so pale they look gray.” He shrugged. “Dr. Nathan Schlemmer. I know him well enough to be able to state, unequivocally, that if you’d gone to him directly, asking about this Mary Jane Hopkins, he’d have told you — and I quote more or less accurately — ‘Mr. Hope, this is not information I care to divulge.’ That is Dr. Nathan Schlemmer, very uptight, very tight-ass. However...”

“Uh-huh,” Matthew said.

“Professional courtesy. Plus a slight lie. I told him the girl was a patient. I asked him why she’d gone to see him. I asked him if she was pregnant.”

“Was she?” Matthew said.

“She was not,” Jamie said.

“Then why did she go see him?”

“She suspected she had herpes,” Jamie said.

“Uh-huh,” Matthew said. “And did she?”

“Yes.”

The boat was a huge monster with a flying bridge.

Larkin was behind the wheel, guiding her in toward the dock, careful not to bang her up. A deckhand wearing a Larkin Boats T-shirt ran forward to toss a line to someone on the dock wearing an identical T-shirt, The Way to the Water. Another hand dropped fenders over the side. More lines came over, you’d think this was the QE2 Larkin was docking. Big boat, though, had to cost a pretty penny.

Two people were standing on the bridge with Larkin. Tubby little man wearing a sports shirt as colorful as a Portuguese man-of-war, and a blonde lady wearing yellow shorts, a white shirt, and a pair of sunglasses. Larkin frowned the moment he saw Matthew standing on the dock. He clambered down off the bridge, jumped ashore, walked immediately to him, and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Few questions,” Matthew said.

“Get lost,” Larkin said. “I’m about to sell a half-million-dollar boat here.”

“I’ll wait.”

“No, just get the hell off my property.”

One of the dockhands was helping the couple ashore now. First the lady in the yellow shorts. She was perhaps fifty years old, too stout, too heavily made up, and a bit unsteady in ankle-strapped sandals with very high heels. She came onto the dock with a smile of relief and a murmured “Thank you,” and then turned to watch her companion jump ashore. The man was grinning from ear to ear. He was eager to buy this boat. Matthew wasn’t sure the lady was half as eager. The man stepped back a pace, hands on his hips, and studied the boat from dockside.

“This won’t take a minute,” Matthew said.