Part 25 (1/2)

”They are arresting Jade?” Van Zandt said. He looked pasty and ill in the daylight. He was wearing a

blue and red ascot at the throat of his blue dress s.h.i.+rt. Perhaps it was cutting off the blood supply to his brain.

”No. Routine questioning,” I said. ”His employee was murdered. Don't you find that shocking?” I asked.

”I've never known anyone who was murdered.”

Van Zandt shrugged. He didn't seem disturbed in the least. ”The girl was a s.l.u.t, always talking about this

boy and that boy, dressing like a wh.o.r.e. It's no surprise she would come to a bad end.”

”Are you saying she was asking for it?”

”I am saying if you lie down with the dogs, sometimes they bite.”

”Well, there you go. A lesson to us all.”

”This f.u.c.king sun,” he complained, putting on his shades, changing the subject as if a girl's violent death

was of no more consequence than a bad round in the showring. Less.

”What's your story, Z.?” I asked. ”You look like death, yourself. Were you out partying last night

without me?”

”Bad food. I don't get a hangover,” he said stubbornly. ”I never become drunk.”

”Is that from lack of trying or are you superior to the rest of us?”

He mustered a thin smile. ”The second, Elle Stevens.”

”Really? And I thought the Germans were supposed to be the master race.”

”It is only Germans who think that.”

”You've got it all figured out, Z. Come on,” I said, taking him by the arm. ”I'll buy you a Bromo-Seltzer and you can tell me all about the New World Order.”

You saw her at The Players last night. You had an argument.” ”It wasn't an argument,” Jade said calmly. ”She was dressed inappropriately-” ”What's it to you? Was she there with you?” ”No, but she's my employee. The way she conducts herself in public reflects on me.” ”You weren't there to meet her?” ”No. She worked for me. I didn't socialize with the girl.” Landry raised his brows. ”Really? That's funny, because she told me yesterday you were sleeping with her.” ”What? That's a lie!” Finally, a human reaction. Landry had begun to suspect Jade didn't have a nerve in his body. They sat on opposite sides of a table in an interview room, Jade-until that moment-perfectly composed, every hair

in place, a crisp white s.h.i.+rt accentuating his tan, his monogram on the cuff of the sleeve.

Michael Berne was next door with Weiss. The blonde was cooling her heels in the reception area. Jill Morone was on a slab in the morgue with an a.s.sortment of contusions but no obvious fatal injuries.

Landry figured strangulation or suffocation. She appeared to have been s.e.xually a.s.saulted.

Landry nodded as he took a bite out of his tuna salad sandwich. ”She told me she was with you

Thursday night when Michael Berne's horses were being turned loose.”

Jade rubbed his hands over his face and muttered, ”Oh, that stupid girl. She thought she was helping me.”

”Helping you, as in giving you an alibi? Why would she think you needed one? She was right there when

you told me you were with someone that night. Did she know otherwise?”

”Of course not. Jill didn't know anything about anything. She was a dim, pathetic girl with a vivid fantasy life.”

”She had a thing for you.”

He let go a long sigh. ”Yes, I suppose she did. That was why she was at the club last night. She was waiting for me, apparently with ideas to seduce me.”

”But you didn't want to see her.”

”I asked her to leave. She was embarra.s.sing herself.”

”And you.”