Melancholy Baby

Peter looked bemused.

“Am I on Candid Camera?” he said. “What are you up to, Sunny?”

I took one of my cards out of my purse and handed it to him. He read it and sat back.

“Aha,” he said. “Well, you are about the best-looking detective I know.”

“Yes, thank you, I probably am,” I said. “Tell me about Lewis Karp and Ike Rosen.”

“I can tell you about Rosen,” Peter said. “He is a drunk and a compulsive liar. We fired him here.”

“What was he disbarred for?” I said.

“I don’t know the details. Some sort of financial irregularities. It was after he’d left us.”

“He says he put you in touch with a lawyer in Boston named Lewis Karp,” I said.

Peter smiled broadly.

“Ike Rosen? If I need a contact in Boston I can get one without Ike Rosen. Usually, we do business with Cone Oakes.”

“Good firm,” I said. “But according to Lew Karp, you needed someone who could arrange to have Sarah Markham beaten up. Cone Oakes might not have been your best bet.”

Peter took his praying hands down from his lips and clasped them on the desk before him and leaned toward me. Sincerity radiated from him like strong aftershave.

“I don’t know Sarah Markham. I don’t know Lew Karp. I don’t want anyone beaten up.” He smiled at me. “Except maybe all of the Knicks. I represent some of the most important media people in the country. I don’t arrange beatings.”

“So Rosen’s lying and Karp’s lying.”

“I don’t know Karp. I don’t know what he’s doing. Rosen is lying.”

“Did you have a hand in firing Rosen?” I said.

“I was on the review committee,” he said.

“Maybe it’s revenge,” I said.

“Maybe.”

Peter looked at his Rolex.

“Damn,” he said. “Sunny, I’m stalling a record producer to talk with you. I really have to get to him.”

“Of course,” I said. “If I need anything more I’ll call you.”

“I can do better than that. Why don’t I meet you after work at the bar in the Four Seasons restaurant and buy you a drink.”

“I’d love that,” I said.

“About, say, six-fifteen.”

“Perfect,” I said. “That’s the restaurant not the hotel.”

“Yes.”

“Fifty-second Street,” I said. “Between Park and Lex.”

“Exactly.”

“Six-fifteen,” I said, and stood up.

He stood. We shook hands. He gave mine a little squeeze. Our eyes met. He smiled. I smiled. This could be the start of something big. The only thing was, I thought as I went down in the elevator, that the first picture in the top row of his client gallery was Lolly Drake, the big-star talk-show woman who had started in Moline with George Markham more than twenty years ago.

That was bothersome.

32

Sitting at the bar in the Four Seasons Grill Room under the several-story ceiling, sipping a martini made with Grey Goose L’Orange vodka, I was on my first date since Richie got married. Unless you counted Ike Rosen. Granted, it was a working date. It was still a date. The room was full of well-dressed people who looked successful in that New York way, including my date.

“So how did a beautiful woman like you,” he said, “turn out to be a detective.”

I had hoped for a more original opener. But he had said beautiful.

“I was an art major in college,” I said.

“Art history?”

“No,” I said. “I paint.”

“Wow,” Peter said. “I’d love to see some of your work.”

He was drinking Glenfiddich on the rocks in a squat, manly glass.

“I hope you will,” I said.

“So, how’s that segue to detective work?” he said.

“I needed to earn a living until my paintings began to sell,” I said. “And my father was a cop. I like the work. It’s interesting. Sometimes I’m helpful to people. And I get to set my own hours.”

“You live alone?” he said.

“I live with Rosie, the world’s most beautiful bull terrier.”

“Being the world’s most beautiful bull terrier,” Peter said, “is not necessarily a challenge.”

I stared at him without speaking. He looked at me and smiled.

“She must be very beautiful,” he said. “I gather you’re not married.”

“Divorced,” I said.

He nodded as if to say, “Aren’t we all.”

“Anyone in your life right now?” he said.

“Right now?” I said. “You.”

“Well, aren’t you literal,” he said.

I smiled. “So why did you decide to see me?” I said.

“I had a premonition,” he said.

“The names I mentioned didn’t count?”

“Well, hell,” he said, and sipped his scotch. “I knew Ike Rosen, at least.”

“The receptionist didn’t expect you to see me.”

“Just that feeling,” he said.

He gave me a little toast with his glass.

“You know... this could be the start of something big.”

“And you never heard of Lewis Karp.”

“Must you keep carping on him?”

I smiled.

“That’s awful,” I said.

He nodded.

“Awful,” he said.

“You represent Lolly Drake?”

“I do,” he said. “And Andy Wescott — you know, the star of that cop show. And Chuck Wells, the news anchor.” He smiled. “Lawyer to the stars,” he said.

“What’s she like?” I said.

“Lolly?”

I nodded.

“Just what you see and hear,” he said. “Smart, tough woman. Sees clearly, thinks clearly. And a knockout to boot.”

“Do you know where she started?” I said.