Mister X Part 16

Vitali gave in and helped himself to a brownie. Ida Frost withdrew from his personal s.p.a.ce.

"You said on the phone that you recalled something," Mishkin said, and took another bite of brownie.

"Did I? Oh, yes." Ida Frost looked at Vitali and at the half a brownie in his hand. "Do they meet with your approval, Detective?"

Vitali growled around a mouthful of brownie that they did.

"What was it you recalled?" Mishkin asked.

Ida Frost appeared puzzled.

"You called the precinct house and asked for Detective Mishkin," Vitali reminded her. "You left a message saying you remembered something about the Mary Bakehouse case and were calling as we'd requested."

"I liked Mary," Ida Frost said. "I wish she hadn't moved away."

"Probably it's better for her that she went somewhere else," Vitali said.

Ida Frost seemed to consider that; then she smiled. "Yes, she's probably safer if she moved out of the city. People in these big apartment buildings don't seem to know each other, don't have the time. Everyone's always rus.h.i.+ng around wrapped up in their own thoughts, busy, busy. I'm afraid we lead very insulated and uncaring lives."

"We should all take better care of each other," Mishkin said.

"Yes. We all share the guilt, in a way."

"We all agree that's true," Vitali said dismissively, trying to keep the Frost woman and Mishkin on point and hurry things along. What was it with Harold sometimes? "About your phone call, ma'am..."

Ida Frost's smile widened. "Am I a suspect?"

"Gosh, no!" Mishkin said, helping himself to another brownie.

She saw that Vitali had finished his brownie and advanced on him again with the pan. Though she had a slight limp, she was fast off the mark. "Do take another, Detective. They're sinfully delicious."

"They should be against the law," Mishkin said, and he and Ida Frost laughed.

Vitali took another brownie in self-defense. Or so he told himself, the brownies being h.e.l.l on his diet. "You did call the precinct house," he reminded Ida Frost. "What was it you remembered, ma'am?"

"A hat. I understand the thug who attacked Mary wore a hat." She paused for what might have been dramatic effect.

"A hat," Mishkin said.

"I saw a man with a hat that very evening, standing outside and looking suspicious. I pa.s.sed him when I went out for my daily walk."

"What time was that, ma'am?"

"Why, I couldn't say."

"Was it still light outside?"

"Outside, yes."

"What did he look like?" Mishkin asked.

"He was...just a man in a hat. A cap, rather. A baseball cap."

Mishkin glanced over at Vitali and almost imperceptibly shrugged. He couldn't recall if he'd mentioned to Ida Frost that the attacker had worn a baseball cap. "Do you remember the color, ma'am?"

"Blue, or perhaps gray. Or both. Now that I think of it, It was a Brooklyn Dodgers cap, I'm sure," Ida Frost said. "I spend enough time in Ebbets Field, I should be able to recognize a Dodgers cap."

"The Los Angeles Dodgers, you mean, ma'am?" Vitali asked. There was powdered sugar on his brown suit coat. "The Dodgers haven't been in Brooklyn for a long time."

"I attended the games often with my father when I was a young girl."

"We all miss the Dodgers," Mishkin said.

"The man in the cap. He might have been Pee Wee Reese."

Mishkin grinned broadly. "Say, you're a real Dodgers fan."

"I've always been partial to Pee Wee. Would you like a gla.s.s of milk with those brownies? I have nice cold milk for all my visitors."

Vitali and Mishkin regarded each other. Vitali had powdered sugar on his suit and the back of his right hand. Mishkin had more of the white dusting on his mustache and tie. Probably some on his white s.h.i.+rt that wasn't visible unless you looked closely. Some of the powdered sugar on Mishkin had drifted down and was on his right shoe.

"Milk would be great!" Mishkin said, and Vitali seconded him.

Ida Frost set the pan of brownies on a magazine on the coffee table and hurried off again to the kitchen. The two detectives shook their heads silently. They were going to get nothing of value from this witness other than brownies. Ida Frost was one of the older, lonely women who inhabited many of Manhattan's small, rent-controlled apartments. What she wanted was company, somebody to appreciate her brownies. She had found two such people. Alleviating her loneliness might have been the sole purpose of her phone call.

Mishkin helped himself to another brownie while Vitali stood brus.h.i.+ng at the powdered sugar on his suit coat with the backs of his knuckles, making more of a mess.

"Pee Wee," Ida Frost said to them, when she came back from the kitchen with two tall gla.s.ses of milk on a tray, "would never have harmed Mary Bakehouse."

Not Pee Wee, they agreed.

After leaving Ida Frost's apartment, Vitali and Mishkin slapped at their clothes to rid them of powdered sugar, trailing a white haze as they strode toward the elevator.

They both saw her at the same time, a woman standing watching them from beyond the elevator, near the end of the hall. She was wearing a dark raincoat and a dark hat with the wide brim bent low so her face was in shadow.

As if she'd just noticed them, she turned and walked quickly away, rounding the corner at the end of the hall and pa.s.sing out of sight.

"I'll go after her," Vitali said. "You take the elevator and beat her to the lobby, Harold. We'll have her between us, and we can flush her out."

Off he went.

The elevator was already at lobby level and took its time rising to where Mishkin waited.

When it arrived at his floor he quickly stepped in and punched the lobby b.u.t.ton, then the b.u.t.ton that closed the elevator door.

The elevator stopped at the floor below, and a woman with two identical corgis on red leather leashes got in. One of the corgis began licking Mishkin's right shoe.

Another floor down, an elderly but alert-looking woman with an aluminum cane boarded the elevator. She and the woman with the Corgis ignored each other. No one paid the slightest attention to Mishkin except for the corgi licking his shoe.

When they reached lobby level, Mishkin, out of habit and because they crowded past him, let the women and the two dogs exit the elevator ahead of him. He stepped out just in time to see the door to the stairwell burst open and a panting and heaving Vitali come skidding out.

Both men looked at the street door shutting slowly on its pneumatic closer as the women and dogs disappeared into the night.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, Sal," Mishkin said, "but I think our shadow woman beat you down the stairs and got out of the building."

"How did you get your shoe wet, Harold?"

"Huh? Oh. Dog."

"She's probably gone, Harold, but maybe she didn't leave at all. Let's get some uniforms down here to check the building."

Two hours later, all the occupants and apartments were accounted for. The shadow woman had escaped again.

"I don't understand it, Harold," Vitali said, as everyone was leaving the building. "I was really flying down those stairs."

"Don't feel bad," Mishkin said. "She had a good head start."

They pushed through the pneumatic door out into the night.

Three radio cars were still parked at the curb. Two uniformed cops were lounging against one of the cars, and three more cops were standing around nearby on the sidewalk, chatting.

Ida Frost emerged from the building, wielding her pan of brownies.

29.

In the Nickel Diner on Broadway in TriBeCa, Joyce House laid out a breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and coffee for the good-looking guy.

That was how she'd come to think of him, because that was what he was-good-looking. He was slightly built, with a mop of curly black hair and magnetic blue eyes, and always dressed a bit showily and expensively. This morning he had on designer jeans, pointy-toed boots that looked like they were ostrich skin, and a tailored short-sleeved black s.h.i.+rt with white b.u.t.tons. His silver belt buckle was in the form of a soaring eagle. A silver stud earring glinted in each earlobe. Just this side of ghetto fabulous Just this side of ghetto fabulous, thought Joyce. But somehow the good-looking guy could bring it off.

Joyce was no slouch in the looks department herself. She was medium height, trim, and buxom, eye candy even in her yellow and white server's uniform. She had straight brown hair with bangs, a perfect pale complexion, and widely set eyes that were like calm dark lakes.

Mick, the diner's owner and overseer of the kitchen, leaned down to look at Joyce through the serving window. His beefy red face was perspiring after a busy breakfast hour. Mick had one of those florid complexions, as if his tie were always too tight and choking him. It was almost ten o'clock, and the diner was empty except for an elderly couple at a table near the rear, and the good-looking guy in a front booth by the window.

"We stay slow," Mick said to Joyce, "why don't you come back and help with the dishwas.h.i.+ng?"

Joyce nodded. It was their usual routine. She didn't know why Mick even bothered to ask.

Alice the cas.h.i.+er would remain at her place behind the counter to greet any customers who happened to wander in during the void between breakfast and lunchtime. Alice was a gum-chomping, henna-haired former stock trader who'd opted out of the world of finance five years ago to live a simpler life with Mick. For years they'd been going to get married someday.

"I see you and Mr. Hotshot over there," Alice said, "and I can't help thinking I'm looking at two of G.o.d's beautiful creatures. He's been coming in regular for a few weeks now. He ever put any moves on you?"

"None that I noticed," Joyce said.

"You think he might be gay?"

"Hmmm. No."

"Married?"

"Irrelevant."

"So maybe you oughta go over and talk to him. Strike up a conversation about his pancakes. If you don't, I will."

Joyce laughed. "Yeah, you will. With Mick in the kitchen with all those knives."

"He might be in show business or something," Alice said, watching the good-looking guy fork in a bite of pancake. "Now that I look at him, I think I might've seen him in something."

"He might need more coffee," Joyce said.

She lifted the gla.s.s pot of decaffeinated from its burner and approached the good-looking guy, who was chewing and staring out the window.

He caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window but didn't turn around, letting her come to him.

"Top you off?" she asked.

He counted to three and swiveled around on the booth's hard wooden seat. Gave her a smile. "Pardon?"

"Your coffee, I mean."

"Sure." He nodded toward the pot. "That decaf?"

"Sure is. Always the pot with the orange top." She poured steaming coffee into his half-full cup. "My friend over there thinks you might be somebody. I mean, in show business."

He laughed. He had very white, very even teeth, made to appear still whiter because he apparently spent time in a tanning salon. And there was something about his hair, like maybe it wasn't so dark and had been dyed. So it could be he was a celebrity who had to be careful about his appearance. He didn't look like the type to be in any kind of outdoor work. Theater in the park, maybe.

"You're an actor," she said.

Big smile. "Yes, I'm Brad Pitt."

Joyce gave him his smile right back. "Well, I guess that makes me Angelina Jolie."

He added cream to his coffee from the little silver pitcher on the table. "Would you really be Angelina if I were Brad?"

The coffeepot was getting heavy, so she set it down. "Why not? That would be kind of a perfect world."