While My Pretty One Sleeps Read online

  Quickly she skimmed through the first three months of the year, noticing that next to her appointments Ethel had scrawled in the cost of cabs and tips, memos about lunches, dinners and meetings: “Good interview but annoyed if you keep him waiting. . . . Carlos new headwaiter at Le Cygne. . . . Don’t use Valet Limo—car smelled like Airwick factory. . . .”

  The notes were erratic jottings, the figures often crossed out and changed. Besides that, Ethel was obviously a doodler. Triangles, hearts, swirls and drawings covered every inch of the pages.

  On impulse Neeve turned to December 22, the day of the Christmas party she and Myles had given. Ethel had obviously considered the event important. The address of Schwab House and Neeve’s name were in block letters and underscored. Swirls and twirls accompanied Ethel’s comment: “Neeve’s father, single and fascinating.” On the side of the page Ethel had drawn a crude imitation of a sketch from Renata’s cookbook.

  “Myles would have an ulcer if he saw this,” Neeve commented. “I had to tell her that he was still too sick to plan any social events. She wanted to invite him to some formal dinner for New Year’s. I thought he’d choke.”

  She turned the pages back to the last week in March and began to copy the names Ethel had listed there. “At least it’s a starting place,” she said. Two names jumped out at her. Toni Mendell, the editor of Contemporary Woman. The cocktail party hadn’t been the place to ask her to search her memory for any comment Ethel might have made about a possible writing retreat. The other name was Jack Campbell. Obviously the book contract had been all-important to Ethel. Maybe she had told Campbell more about her plans than he’d realized.

  Neeve snapped her notebook shut and zipped up the case. “I’d better get out of here.” She reknotted the red-and-blue scarf at her throat. The collar of her coat was high, and her mass of black hair was pulled back in a chignon.

  “You look great,” Tse-Tse observed. “This morning on the elevator, I heard the guy in Eleven C ask who you were.”

  Neeve pulled on her gloves. “A Prince Valiant type, I trust.”

  Tse-Tse giggled. “Somewhere between forty and death. A bad rug. Looks like black feathers on a field of cotton.”

  “He’s yours. Okay, if Ethel pops up or her loving nephew comes home early, you have your story. Do some work on the kitchen cabinets, wash the glasses on the top shelves. Make it look as though you’ve been busy, but keep your eyes open.” Neeve glanced at the mail. “Take a look through that. Maybe Ethel received a letter that made her change her mind. God, I feel like a Peeping Tom, but this is something we have to do. We both know something’s strange, still we can’t be marching in and out of here indefinitely.”

  As she started for the door, Neeve glanced around. “You do manage to make this place look positively livable,” she said. “In a way, it reminds me of Ethel. All you usually notice around here is the surface clutter, and it turns you off. Ethel always acts so dizzy you forget she’s a very sharp lady.”

  The wall with Ethel’s myriad of publicity pictures was by the door. Her hand on the knob, Neeve studied them carefully. In most of her pictures, Ethel looked as though she’d been photographed in the middle of a sentence. Her mouth was usually slightly open, her eyes blazing with energy, the muscles of her face visibly in motion.

  One snapshot caught Neeve’s eye. The expression was tranquil, the mouth quiet, the eyes sad. What was it Ethel had once confided? “I was born on Valentine’s Day. Easy to remember, huh? But do you know how many years it’s been since anyone sent me a card or bothered to phone me? I end up singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself.”

  Neeve had made a mental note to send Ethel flowers and invite her out to lunch the past Valentine’s Day, but she’d been away that week skiing in Vail. I’m sorry, Ethel, she thought. I’m really sorry.

  It seemed to her that the mournful eyes in the snapshot were unforgiving.

  • • •

  After his bypass surgery, Myles had begun the habit of taking long afternoon walks. What Neeve did not know was that for the last four months he had also been seeing a psychiatrist on East Seventy-fifth Street. “You’re suffering from depression,” his cardiologist had told him bluntly. “Most people do, after this kind of operation. It goes with the territory. But I suspect yours had other roots.” He’d bullied Myles into making the first appointment with Dr. Adam Felton.

  Thursday at two was his regular time. He hated the idea of lying on a couch and instead sat in a deep leather chair. Adam Felton was not the stereotypical psychiatrist Myles had expected. In his midforties, he had a crew cut, somewhat rakish-looking glasses and a slender, wiry body. By the third or fourth visit, he had won Myles’s trust. Myles no longer felt he was baring his soul. Instead he had the feeling that when he spoke to Felton it compared with being back in the squad room, laying out all the aspects of an investigation to his men.

  Funny, he thought now as he watched Felton twirl a pencil between his fingers, it never occurred to me to talk to Dev instead. But this was not a matter for the confessional. “I didn’t think that shrinks were supposed to have nervous habits,” he observed dryly.

  Adam Felton laughed and gave the pencil he was twirling another deft spin. “I have every right to a nervous habit when I’m giving up smoking. You seem pretty upbeat today.” The remark could have been made casually to an acquaintance at a cocktail party.

  Myles told him about Nicky Sepetti’s death and at Felton’s probing questions exclaimed, “We’ve been through this territory. I’ve had seventeen years of feeling as though something would happen to Neeve the minute Sepetti got out. I failed Renata. How many damn times do I have to tell you that? I didn’t take Nicky’s threat seriously. He’s a cold-blooded killer. He wasn’t out three days before our guy was shot. Nicky probably fingered him. He always said he could smell a cop.”

  “And now you feel your daughter is safe?”

  “I know she’s safe. Our guy was able to tell us there’s no contract on her. It must have been discussed. I know the rest of them wouldn’t try. They were going to ease Nicky out anyhow. They’ll be happy to drape him in a casket blanket.”

  Adam Felton began to twirl the pencil again, hesitated and dropped it decisively into the wastebasket. “You’re telling me that Sepetti’s death has released you from a fear that has haunted you for seventeen years. What does that mean to you? How will it change your life?”

  • • •

  Forty minutes later when Myles left the office and resumed his walk, his step was reminiscent of the brisk pace that at one time was typical of him. He knew that he was almost fully recovered physically. Now that he didn’t have to worry about Neeve, he’d take a job. He hadn’t told Neeve that he’d had inquiries about his availability to head up the President’s Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington. It would mean spending a lot of time there, getting an apartment. But it would be good for Neeve to be on her own. She’d quit spending so much time home and get involved with young people. Before he got sick she used to spend summer weekends in the Hamptons and do a lot more skiing in Vail. In the last year he’d had to force her to go away even for a few days. He wanted her to get married. He wouldn’t be around forever. Now, thanks to Nicky’s timely heart attack, he could be in Washington with a free mind.

  Myles could still remember the awesome pain of his own massive heart attack. It was as though a steamroller with spikes had rolled across his chest. “I hope that’s what you felt on the way out, Buster,” he thought. Then it was as though he could see his mother’s face, sternly fixed on him. Wish evil to someone else and evil will come to you. What goes around comes around.

  He crossed York Avenue and passed Bella Vita restaurant. The faint delicious aroma of Italian cooking tantalized his nostrils, and he thought with pleasure of the dinner Neeve had prepared for tonight. It would be good to get together with Dev and Sal again. God, how long ago it seemed since they were kids growing up on Tenbroeck Avenue. The way people knocked the Bronx these days! It ha
d been a great place to live in. Only seven houses on the entire block, woods that were thick with birch and oak. They’d made tree houses in them. Sal’s parents’ truck garden on what was now industrial Williamsbridge Road. The fields where he and Sal and Devin had gone sleigh riding—the Einstein Medical Center covered those fields now. . . . But there were still plenty of good residential areas.

  On Park Avenue, Myles walked around a small mound of slushy melting snow. He remembered the time Sal had lost control of his sled and run over Myles’s arm, breaking it in three places. Sal had started to cry, “My father will kill me.” Dev jumped in to take the blame. Dev’s father had come to apologize. “He meant no harm, but he’s a clumsy oaf.” Devin Stanton. His Grace the Bishop. Rumor was, the Vatican had its eye on Dev for the next archdiocese opening, and that could mean a cardinal’s hat.

  When he reached Fifth Avenue, Myles glanced to the right. His eye took in the roof of the massive white structure that was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He’d always meant to get a better look at the Temple of Dendur. On impulse he walked the six blocks and spent the next hour absorbed in the exquisite remnants of a lost civilization.

  It was only when he consulted his watch and decided it was high time to get home and set up the bar that he realized that his real intention in coming to the museum was to visit the site of Renata’s death. Forget it, he told himself fiercely. But when he was outside, he could not keep his footsteps from leading him around the back of the museum and to the spot where her body had been found. It was a pilgrimage he made every four or five months.

  A reddish haze around the trees in Central Park was the first promise of the greening that would soon take place. There were a fair number of people in the park. Joggers. Nurses pushing baby strollers. Young mothers with energetic three-year-olds. The homeless, pathetic men and women hunched on benches. A steady stream of traffic. Home-drawn carriages.

  Myles stopped at the clearing where Renata had been found. Funny, he thought, she’s buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, but for me it’s as though her body is always here. He stood with his head bowed, his hands in the pockets of his suede jacket. If it had been a day like this, there would have been people in the park. Someone might have seen what was happening. A line from a Tennyson poem ran through his mind: Dear as remember’d kisses after death . . . Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

  But today, for the first time in this place, Myles experienced a tentative sense of healing. “No thanks to me, but at least our girl is safe, carissima mia,” he whispered. “And I hope that when Nicky Sepetti stood before the Judgment Seat, you were there to point his way to hell.”

  Myles turned and walked briskly through the park. Adam Felton’s final words echoed in his ears: “All right. You don’t have to worry about Nicky Sepetti anymore. You experienced a terrible tragedy seventeen years ago. The point is, are you finally ready to get on with your life?”

  Myles whispered again the answer he had snapped decisively at Adam. “Yes.”

  • • •

  When Neeve arrived at the shop from Ethel’s apartment, most of the staff were already in. Besides Eugenia, her assistant manager, she employed seven regular sales-women and three seamstresses.

  Eugenia was dressing the showroom mannequins. “I’m glad ensembles are in again,” she said as she expertly adjusted the jacket of a cinnamon silk outfit. “Which purse?”

  Neeve stood back. “Hold them up again. The smaller one, I think. The other has too much amber for the dress.”

  When Eugenia retired from modeling, she’d happily gone from a size four to a size twelve, but she still retained the graceful movements that had made her a favorite with the designers. She hung the purse on the mannequin’s arm. “You’re right as usual,” she said cheerfully. “It’s going to be a busy day. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Keep feeling it.” Neeve tried to sound casual, but the effort failed.

  “Neeve, what about Ethel Lambston? She still hasn’t shown up?”

  “Not a trace.” Neeve glanced around the shop. “Look, I’m going to hole up in the office and make phone calls. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t let on that I’m here. I don’t want to be bothered with salesmen today.”

  Her first call was to Toni Mendell at Contemporary Woman. Toni was at an all-day seminar of magazine editom. She tried Jack Campbell. He was in a meeting. She left word for him to return her call. “It’s rather urgent,” she told his secretary. She went down the list of the designers whose names had been scribbled in Ethel’s book. The first three she reached hadn’t seen Ethel last week. She’d simply called to confirm the direct quotes she was attributing to them. Sportswear designer Elke Pearson summed up the irritation Neeve caught in all their voices. “Why I let that woman interview me I’ll never know. She kept hammering questions at me till I was dizzy. I practically had to throw her out, and I have a hunch I’m not going to like her damn article.”

  Anthony della Salva was the next name. Neeve didn’t worry when she couldn’t reach him. She’d see him tonight for dinner. Gordon Steuber. Ethel had confided that she’d crucified him in her article. But when was the last time she saw him? Reluctantly, Neeve dialed Steuber’s office and was put through immediately to him.

  He did not waste his time on amenities. “What do you want?” he asked stiffly.

  She could picture him, leaning back in the ornate leather chair with its elaborate brass nailheads. She made her voice as cold as his. “I’ve been asked to try to locate Ethel Lambston. It’s quite urgent.” On a hunch she added, “I know from her appointment book that she met with you last week. Did she give you any indication of where she might be planning to go?”

  Long seconds passed in total silence. He’s trying to decide what to say, she thought. When Steuber spoke, his tone was detached and even. “Ethel Lambston tried to interview me weeks ago about an article she was writing. I did not see her. I have no time for busybodies. She phoned last week, but I did not accept her call.”

  Neeve heard a click in her ear.

  She was about to dial the next designer on the list when her phone rang. It was Jack Campbell. He sounded concerned. “My secretary said your call was urgent. Is there any problem, Neeve?”

  She suddenly felt ridiculous trying to explain to him on the phone that she was worried about Ethel Lambston because Ethel hadn’t picked up her new clothes.

  Instead she said, “You’ve got to be awfully busy, but is there any chance I could talk to you for about half an hour very soon?”

  “I have a lunch date with one of my authors,” he said. “How about three o’clock in my office?”

  • • •

  Givvons and Marks occupied the top six floors of the building on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and Forty-first Street. Jack Campbell’s personal office was a huge corner room of the forty-seventh floor with dazzling views of downtown Manhattan. His oversized desk was finished in black lacquer. The bookshelves on the wall behind the desk were filled with manuscripts. A black leather couch and matching chairs were grouped around a glass cocktail table. Neeve was surprised to see that the room was devoid of personal touches.

  It was as though Jack Campbell could read her mind. “My apartment isn’t ready yet, so I’m staying at the Hampshire House. Everything I own is still in storage, which is why this place looks like a dentist’s waiting room.”

  His suit jacket was on the back of his desk chair. He was wearing an argyle sweater in tones of green and brown. It suited him, Neeve decided. Autumn colors. His face was too thin and his features were too irregular to be deemed handsome, but were infinitely attractive in their quiet strength. There was good-humored warmth in his eyes when he smiled, and Neeve found herself glad she had changed to one of her new spring ensembles, a turquoise wool dress and matching stroller-length jacket.

  “How about coffee?” Jack offered. “I drink too much of it, but I’m still going to have some.”
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  Neeve realized she had skipped lunch and her head was vaguely aching. “I’d love it. Black, please.”

  While they waited, she commented on the view. “Don’t you feel like the king of New York at least?”

  “In the month I’ve been here, I’ve had to fight to keep my mind on work,” he told her. “I became a would-be native New Yorker when I was ten. That was twenty-six years ago and it took all this time to make the Big Apple.”

  When the coffee came, they sat around the glass table. Jack Campbell lounged on the couch. Neeve perched on the edge of one of the chairs. She knew he had to have pushed off other appointments to see her so quickly. She took a deep breath and told him about Ethel. “My father thinks I’m crazy,” she said. “But I’ve got a weird feeling that something happened to her. The thing is, did she give you any indication that she might be going off by herself? I understand that the book she’s writing for you is scheduled for fall release.”

  Jack Campbell had listened to her with the same attentive posture she had observed at the cocktail party. “No, it isn’t,” he said.

  Neeve felt her eyes widen. “Then how . . . ?”

  Campbell sipped the last drops in his coffee cup. “I met Ethel a couple of years ago at the ABA when she was promoting her first book for Givvons and Marks, the one about women in politics. It was darn good. Funny. Gossipy. Sold well. That’s why when she wanted to see me, I was interested. She gave me a rundown on the article she was doing and said she might have stumbled across a story that would rock the fashion world and if she wrote a book about it, would I buy it and what kind of advance could she expect?

  “I told her I obviously had to know more about it, but, based on the success of the last book, if this one was as explosive as she claimed, we’d buy it and we’d probably be talking a midsix-figure advance. Last week I read on Page Six in the Post that she had a contract with me for a half-million dollars and the book would be on the fall list. The phone’s been ringing off the hook. All the soft-cover houses want to have a chance to bid on it. I called Ethel’s agent. She never even talked to him about it. I’ve tried phoning her without success. I’ve neither confirmed nor denied the terms. She’s a real publicity hound, but if she writes the book and if it’s good, all the advance interest is just fine with me.”