Too Damn Rich (58 page)

Zandra's mind was reeling. There has to be a
way to save Rudolph! she thought desperately. He's my brother! I
can't just stand by and let him be worked over and killed.

Joe Leach excavated his molars with the pick.
"Twenty-four 'ours, that's all 'es got, luv. Otherwise, 'e'll never
move 'is arms again, least not normally."

"You bastard!" Her voice was a whisper. "You
get your bloody jollies doing this, don't you? You're hoping he
can't pay!"

Joe Leach sat there, grinning broadly. She's
right, he thought. But there's one thing I enjoy even more. And
that's spunky women, especially beautiful spunky women. Getting my
hands on them and slowly but surely killing off that spunk is what
I really like doing best.

Zandra took a deep breath. "And if I pay the
gambling debt?" she said softly. "Then will you leave Rudolph
alone?"

He looked at her narrowly. "You got that
kinda money?"

"Not yet. But I can arrange it."

"In twenty-four 'ours?"

She shook her head. "I'll need at least two
days. Possibly even three."

He puckered his lips thoughtfully. "Aw
right," he said at last. "You got sixty 'ours. Period."

Zandra nodded.

"And if the money's not on time, it's bye-bye
elbows—yer elbows, not yer brother's. You understand?"

She nodded weakly, but her voice was firm.
"Yes," she said.

"And you got to pay the full amount. No
partial payments."

She raised her chin. "Did I ask for partial
payments?"

He didn't reply. "Mind telling me 'ow you're
gonna raise it?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact," Zandra said coldly,
"that is none of your damn business."

"Hell do you mean? Now that it's yer debt,
it's my business aw right. Get a bit worried, people owe me big."
He made a pistol with his fingers and pointed it at her. "Get my
meanin'?"

"And if I don't tell you," she asked
facetiously, "what are you going to do then? Tear out my
fingernails?"

"If I was you I'd bloody well take this
serious, luv."

"Well, you're not me, are you?" she said
wearily. "And, you don't really scare me." It wasn't exactly the
truth ... no, not the truth at all. In fact, she was scared—scared
stiff. But she wasn't about to give him the pleasure of showing
it.

With a squinty look, he reached inside his
jacket, took out a business card with nothing but a telephone
number printed on it, and used a gold pen to scribble down another
number and an amount.

"The bank's Barclay's. I wrote down the
number o' the account. The money can be wired directly into it, old
luv."

He extended the card across the table,
holding it between his index and middle fingers.

Zandra snatched it, looked down at it, did a
double take, and then glared at him. Her nostrils flared.

"What the hell is this shit? You said the
debt was a flat million. Here you wrote down a million and a
quarter!"

"Yeah." He grinned and rocked back in his
chair. "That includes additional penalties, interest, and transfer
of title."

She blinked her eyelashes rapidly. "Transfer
of what?"

"You know. Transfer fees. Like vehicular
ownership registration."

She stared at him. "You really are the most
amazing first-class prick."

"Yeah?" He leered. "That's me. First class,
an' all prick."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, give me a break,"
she said in a bored voice.

He stopped rocking his chair and leaned
forward. "I'll give you somethin' if you want it, luv. An', you
don't pay up, I'll give it to you even if you bloody don't. See,
I'm really lookin' forward to that."

She gestured for him to lean closer. When he
did, she said: "Dream about it, arsehole."

He grinned. "I already am!"

The waiter came with the check.

Leach waved a hand dismissively. "Lady's
payin'," he said, the toothpick bobbing up and down from the corner
of his mouth.

Zandra accepted the salver with the check on
it. As soon as the waiter had gone, she said: "I see that I've been
mistaken. You're not only a prick. You're a cheap prick."

He took the toothpick out of his mouth,
leaned across the table, and before she knew what he was up to,
stuck it between her lips.

She spat it out in disgust.

"
Adios
, countess," he smirked, getting
up and sketching her a mock salute. Then, adjusting his lapels, he
strutted off.

Zandra watched him leave. She didn't know
when she had met a more loathsome creature.

Wearily, she turned the check over and
stared. Dinner had cost the equivalent of a week's salary.

Reaching for her purse, she blessed the
American Express card Burghley's issued its employees.

Thank God I didn't leave home without it, she
thought. If I had, I'd be in the kitchen washing dishes.

Unknown to Zandra, Joe Leach had passed the
maitre d' a business card, along with the extravagant tip.

"Call this number and tell whoever answers to
'ave Freddie meet me 'ere," he'd whispered. "Got that?" The maitre
d' obviously had.

Now, on his way out, Joe Leach met up with
the aforementioned Freddie. A handsome man in his early forties, he
could have passed for a respectable banker with his bowler, thick
topcoat, and umbrella.

"You get a good look at the bird I was with?"
Joe Leach demanded. "Yeah."

"Follow 'er. Don't let 'er out of yer sight.
Call me on the cellular phone. I want to know 'er every move."
"Consider it done, guv."

Zandra took the Piccadilly Line back to
Heathrow, where she planned to catnap in the waiting room.

I've got to come up with one and a quarter
million pounds, she thought over and over. Almost two million
dollars.

And she had all of sixty hours in which to
raise it. She glanced at her watch and felt a sudden chill. No,
that was wrong. Her calculations were flawed.

I have nearly eleven hours until my flight
departs, then six hours of flight time, and a good hour or two more
to go through customs and get into Manhattan. That leaves me with
only thirty-nine or forty hours—if the flight's not delayed!

Zandra sagged in her seat. She was almost
physically ill. One and a quarter million pounds, she kept
thinking. I have to raise nearly two million dollars—or else.

Meanwhile, the seconds were ticking rapidly
toward countdown— —like the timer on a bomb.

As the train pulled into stations, stopped
for passengers to get on and off, and pulled out again, she
wondered: What is my pain threshold? Will I pass out when it
becomes unbearable? Will I die? She had no idea.

Joe Leach was in one of the posh London
casinos he managed when the cellular phone chirruped. "Yeah?"
"She's at 'eathrow."

"Probably waitin' for a New York flight.
Stick around and see which one she's on."

"Should I try to detain her?" "No. Let her
go."

I'll have local talent waiting for her in New
York, he decided. They can trail her and make sure she doesn't take
a powder.

Monday morning in Manhattan. Clouds again.
Plus a few rents of pellucid sky, the weather's way of apologizing
for all the gloom.

Dina breakfasted with Robert, going on and on
about Becky's this and Becky's that. Robert, reading the Wall
Street Journal, grunted occasionally and did his best to tune her
out. If she wanted to hear herself talk, then that was just fine by
him. It wasn't as if he had to listen. In fact, he'd become highly
adept at turning a deaf ear to her chatter while still making the
appropriate noises when called for. However, when he heard her
mention Auction Towers, he decided it might behoove him to pay
attention.

"Back up there, will ya," he grumped. "You're
yakkin' a million miles a minute."

"Sweetie!" she accused, with a little-girl
pout. "You haven't been listening to a single word I've said!"

"Oh yeah? Then how come I asked you to back
up?"

Dina couldn't argue with that. "I was talking
about our move," she said.

"Move? What move?"

She rolled her eyes. "That's what I mean,
sweetie. You haven't been paying attention. I told you we'd have to
vacate the apartment while it's being redone. Right?"

"So?"

"So, it just occurred to me that you've
got—what? Thirty? Or is it forty?—unsold condos in Auction Towers.
All empty and going to waste."

"They ain't goin' to waste," he said
crabbily, alarmed by the direction the conversation was headed.

Thank God his ears had perked up in time to
avert Big Trouble. The last thing he needed was to move into the
same building as Bambi Parker. As if things weren't dicey enough as
they were!

"If they're sitting there empty, then what
are all those units doing?" Dina asked.

"They're bein' shown. Prospective buyers
tromp through 'em all the time."

"Through all of them?"

"You never know. Why? You suggestin' we show
a place we live in?"

"Of course not, silly!" she said, with a
touch of asperity. "I was only trying to save you money,
Robert."

Shit, he thought. Dina save money? That was a
laugh.

"Sweetie, we have to move somewhere."

He had a good mind to tell her, No, we don't
have to move anywhere. He had a good mind to tell her, I was just
getting used to the current decor as it is. He had a good mind to
tell her, I liked the place on Central Park West the best. He had a
good mind to tell her, I still miss my good, serviceable GoldMart
furniture. And he had a good mind to tell her, Above all, I miss my
goddamn recliner!

"I guess you'll just have to find us a
place," he said.

"You know that's easier said than done,
sweetie."

"Then what's wrong with stayin' in a hotel?"
he suggested.

Dina's eyes lit up. "What a good idea!" she
squealed. "Oh, Robert! I just knew you'd think of something!"

"You make the arrangements," he told her, and
thought: How much can a hotel suite run? Not nearly as much as an
overstaffed apartment. Besides, with hotel services, we can fire
everybody—cook, major- domo, maids ...

"I'll get on it first thing," Dina
promised.

"You do that," he said, congratulating
himself on steering her clear of Auction Towers.

"And you'll have final approval of whatever I
find," she told him.

"Unh-unh." He shook his head. "I'm much too
busy to waste time lookin' at places," he said, deciding to drop by
Bambi Parker's later that day. "It's all in your hands."

"You won't be sorry, Robert," Dina said—key
words which should have set off all his internal alarms.

But he wasn't listening. Having decided to
visit Bambi, he spent the rest of the meal fantasizing about what
the morning might bring. Dina would have his ass in a sling if she
guessed what he was planning.

Luckily, her mind was on other matters,
notably which hotel she preferred—the Pierre, the Sherry
Netherland, or the Carlyle—and how many rooms they would need.

Needless to say, her idea of hotel living was
different from Robert's. And, best of all, he'd forgotten to put a
cap on expenditure, another major mistake.

Not that she saw any reason to broach that
particular subject just yet. He'd find out soon enough, anyway.

By which time it would be too late.

Just as well I don't have a window office,
thought Kenzie, schlepping into work with a small paper bag
containing two paper cups of takeout coffee and two cheese
Danishes.

"Rovery!" Arnold Li cried.

"Please," Kenzie begged. "It's too early for
that."

"In that case, thank you kindly. Oh. I
checked our voice mail. Here're yours." He handed Kenzie pink While
You Were Out slips.

Kenzie swiftly scanned them. "Nothing from
Zandra?" she asked.

"No. Why?"

Taking off her coat and scarf, she quickly
filled him in on Zandra's sudden departure.

"Well, time to hit the grindstone," she said.
"I might as well start by getting these calls out of the way."

"Forget the calls," Arnold said. "The only
important one's the three- one-three area code."

"Three-one-three ..." Kenzie frowned.

"Detroit and environs. Specifically, Grosse
Pointe."

"Ah."

"And, more importantly, it's where one of the
bodies is buried."

"Oh-ho!"

"Where the bodies are buried" was art world
jargon, and referred to certain treasures whose changes of
ownership everyone kept track of.

Kenzie felt a potent surge of excitement.
"Don't tell me," she breathed, her eyes sparkling. "Da Vinci's
studies for his unfinished Adoration of the Magi!"

"Bingo! That's the good news."

"Oh. So there's bad news, too?"

"Yep. The trustees for the heirs are trying
to pit us, Christie's, and Sotheby's against one another."

"So what else is new?"

"Apparently, they're demanding special terms,
including a guaranteed flat amount, whether or not the sketches
fetch that much."

"Shit," she said quietly.

"I couldn't have expressed it better myself.
Christie's will probably balk, but knowing Sotheby's, they'll jump
at it. They've done it often enough in the past."

"Not to mention making preauction loans to
buyers," Kenzie gloomed.

"Uh-huh. Anyway, I called Sheldon D. Fairey,
and he wants to see you ASAP." Arnold swiveled in his chair and
picked up his phone. "Just to be on the safe side, I'd better call
the airlines and see about getting you on a flight to Detroi—"

He swiveled back around, but Kenzie was
already gone.

For once, the dour Miss Botkin did not
solemnly usher Kenzie into Sheldon D. Fairey's office—she
practically hustled her inside.

"Ah, Ms. Turner."