Part 11 (2/2)
”Yes, well, I'll leave you to your unseemly mirth then, won't I. Oh, and I notified Mario that we'll need a reasonable meat tray, breads, and salads delivered by six o'clock, as well as a cake, preferably a flavor he knows Sterling to favor.”
”Because I should at least offer to feed everybody, right. I would have thought of that,” Maggie said, sobering. ”Eventually. Thanks, Alex.”
And with that he was gone, hastening his steps, but not so much as to seem to be rus.h.i.+ng, like so many unfortunately harried-looking others on the pavement at five o'clock, as he made his way to the headquarters of Santas for Silver.
Once inside the small storefront, a bell above his head surely alerting anyone inside as to his presence, Saint Just was quickly confronted by a rather blowsy blond woman wearing clothing guaranteed to greatly constrict her breathing and possibly even the blood flow to her feet. ”Good afternoon, madam,” he said, bowing gracefully. ”I am Alexander Blakely, here to exchange my friend's battered costume that has been damaged in a recent a.s.sault upon his person.”
”Huh?” The woman s.h.i.+fted a large wad of gum from one cheek to the other. ”Oh, right. You called, right? For that guy Sterling, right?”
”Right,” Saint Just said, feeling facetious. ”And you'd be-?”
”Oh, right. Marj McDermont. That is, I'm Ms. Marjorie McDermont. I'm Mr. Goodfellow's, um, personal a.s.sistant. I handle all sorts of things for Mr. Goodfellow. So you can just gimme that, okay?”
Saint Just handed over the bag and the woman opened it, poured out its contents on a remarkably clear desk, if one were to discount the bottle of nail polish, a nail file, and a copy of Soap Opera Digest.
”Wow, what a mess, right? You weren't kidding, were you?” She spread the bits of costume across the desk. ”I don't see it. Where's the money?”
Straight to the heart of the matter, Saint Just thought, not feeling very in charity with Miss McDermont. ”Safely tucked away until Sterling brings it to you tomorrow after his ... s.h.i.+ft, is it? Is Mr. Goodfellow available?”
Miss McDermont was shoving the costume back in the bag. ”He's here, sure, but he's not-hey!”
Saint Just employed the tip of his cane to push back the small wooden gate in the low railing dividing the lobby from the few desks and opened the mottled-gla.s.s-topped door to what one could only a.s.sume-correctly, as it turned out-to be the office of one Joshua Goodfellow.
”Good afternoon, Mr. Goodfellow,” he said loudly, so as to be heard over the noise of a fairly elaborate coin-sorting machine the tall, blond-haired man was operating.
Saint Just had seen a similar machine in Atlantic City when he'd gone to one of the cas.h.i.+er windows to redeem chips he'd won at blackjack. A half dozen or more full burlap bags were already stacked in the corner, and the bags attached to the machine at the moment were fairly well bulging with newly sorted coins.
Joshua Goodfellow looked to be a man who enjoyed his work-but not interruptions.
”d.a.m.n pennies, they screw up the machine every time, Marj. Can't these losers remember not to-who are you?” he asked, turning off the machine. ”Who let you in here? Marj! You in a coma out there, or what?”
Saint Just looked the man up and down, and then concentrated his gaze on Joshua Goodfellow's handsome face. ”One of your volunteers, Sterling Balder by name, was accosted this afternoon and done bodily injury. Sir.”
”Did he lose the money?”
Saint Just smiled. ”Thank you, sir, for salving my conscience over any a.s.sumptions I might have made without first bothering to indulge my curiosity in any actual investigation. And, to answer your question, no, Mr. Balder did not relinquish the money. Indeed, he will be on duty at his a.s.signed corner tomorrow morning, battered but unbowed. Loyal to a fault, Mr. Balder is, sir.” He let the s.p.a.ce of three seconds count out, and then added, his eyes squarely on the man, ”As am I. Good day, sir.”
”Wait!” Goodfellow came around the desk and put his hand on Saint Just's arm, then just as quickly removed it when Saint Just continued to look at him evenly. Coolly, even dispa.s.sionately. ”I'm so sorry for your friend's trouble, and I'm guilty of giving completely the wrong impression, aren't I? It's just that ... well, we've had so many incidents. Robberies. And we need every penny-well, every nickel, dime, and quarter, as we are Santas for Silver, aren't we, ha-ha. I'm ... I'm devastated that your friend Sterling was injured in the cause. Is there anything I can do? He has our most heartfelt prayers, of course, but if there's anything else we can do, he has but to ask.”
Saint Just allowed himself a smile, a softening of his features. ”Why, thank you, sir. Your kind concern is more than enough, Mr. Goodfellow, I a.s.sure you, and I'll be certain to convey your best to my good friend for his rapid recovery. Tell me-as I do so worry about Sterling-have there been many robberies?”
”Well, one other, and we think the volunteer was lying, as we smelled liquor on his breath when he came to report the loss,” Goodfellow said sheepishly. ”But Sterling makes two, doesn't he? It's just the idea of it, you know? We simply can't afford losses, not with so many mouths to feed.”
”So you feed the poor?”
”Oh, oh yes, of course. Food, clothing. Anything we can do to help. Your friend Sterling is doing good works, sir, I a.s.sure you. Here, let me get you a pamphlet.”
Goodfellow gave Saint Just two pamphlets, as a matter of fact, and within a few minutes he was back on the street, a new costume in the paper bag, leaving behind him the impression, he most sincerely hoped, that he thought Santas for Silver was a jolly good charity, one that had his full support, as well as the twenty-dollar bill he slipped into Goodfellow's hand, apologizing that it wasn't silver.
Which actually might have been true, were it not for the avaricious gleam in Joshua Goodfellow's unguarded eyes as he'd watched the coins swirl about on the tray of the machine, then drop into the bags. Or the way the man had, once he thought Saint Just was gone, slipped the twenty-dollar bill into his own pocket as he winked at his personal a.s.sistant.
As far as clues went, that twenty-dollar bill traveled straight to Saint Just's already suspicious mind, stopping briefly at his anger, but then coolly moving on.
Reaching in his pocket for his cell phone, Saint Just then took out his billfold to retrieve a business card with a cell phone number scribbled on the back in thick black ink. Stepping under the awning of an electronics store, he punched in the numbers, hit send, and a few moments later said, ”Mr. Campiano? Alexander Blakely here. A question if you please. You did mean it when you said I could apply to you for a favor? Thank you, sir, I knew I recognized a gentleman of honor when we first so happily met. I would much rather not bother you, make my own inquiries, but I'm afraid I'm rather involved with another pressing matter at the moment, and feel certain you will find my needs a simple matter.”
He listened for a few moments, then switched the phone to his other ear and smiled. ”Yes, yes indeed. We most certainly are enjoying the fruit ...”
Chapter Fourteen.
”Gla.s.ses, napkins, paper plates. Ice. Condiments. This isn't so hard,” Maggie told herself as she inspected the informal buffet she'd a.s.sembled on the counter in the kitchen. She'd had parties before. Granted, they'd all been catered, soup to nuts. And this wasn't exactly a party, was it?
Definitely not to Steve, at any rate. She could feel him behind her, staring holes into her back.
”Look, Steve,” she said, turning around, holding a Ritz cracker in front of her like a s.h.i.+eld, ”Alex thought he was doing the right thing.”
”Yeah, I've heard that story a few times before, Maggie. He was withholding evidence.”
”But he didn't know it was evidence when he withheld it. He only thought he was protecting me.”
”And you're all right with that?”
Maggie hesitated, feeling defensive about Alex, and maybe about herself. ”Yeah. Yeah, I'm at least sort of all right with that. He really can't help himself, Steve, it's just the way he's ... the way he was made. Now come on, stop looking like the high executioner or something, the others will be here any minute.”
Steve took the cracker from her, popped it into his own mouth, then followed her into the living room just as the intercom buzzed twice, Socks's signal that someone she knew was on the way up. ”You know, Maggie, we probably should find some time to talk sometime soon,” he said, looking-gosh, he looked sort of guilty, didn't he?
”Sure. About what?” Not Alex, Steve, she thought. Please, tell me this talk is not going to be about Alex.
”Uh ... nothing much, it can wait. Somebody's already on the way up. I, um, I'm officially off duty, so I think I'll go grab a beer. You want anything?”
”No thanks,” Maggie said, frowning as she watched him head for the kitchen once more. Were his ears red? Boy, he was nervous. What was he so nervous about? She was the one who should be nervous. She was the one who had-well, he didn't have to know that, now did he?
At the sharp knock on the door, Maggie trotted over to open it and admit Bernie, who had two fully stuffed briefcases hanging from leather straps over her shoulders.
”This had better work, Mags. I haven't lugged this much work out of the office since I was an a.s.sistant editor,” she said, dropping the briefcases one after the other to the floor just inside the door. ”Here,” she said, pulling a jar of cherries out of her purse and handing it to Maggie. ”Just ginger ale, four ice cubes, a cherry and some cherry juice in a highball gla.s.s, okay?”
”A s.h.i.+rley Temple? I used to get those when we went out for dinner-when I was a kid. You want me to make you a s.h.i.+rley Temple? s.h.i.+rley you don't.”
”Funny. No, sweetie, I want a Johnnie Walker on the rocks, but I'll settle for s.h.i.+rley. Just so it looks good. It's n.o.body's business that I don't drink anymore.”
”It's not Bruce McCrae's business, you mean. Everybody else knows-and we're d.a.m.n proud of you, Bernie.”
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