New York Dead

see Hiram Barker this afternoon, but seeing if Harkness is on that airplane is more important.”
    “You go on and see Barker, and I’ll meet the plane.”
    “It would be better if we both were there.”
    “Fuck procedure. We got a lot to do, right? I’ll meet you at the TV studio at six forty-five, and we’ll do Harkness together.”
    “Okay, you take the car, and I’ll get a cab.”
    As Dino drove away and Stone looked for a cab, he drew deep breaths of fresh, polluted New York City air into his lungs. From now on he’d have different memories when he caught the scent of formaldehyde.

Chapter
7

    Stone went to the
Vanity Fair
offices in midtown and, after a phone call was made, he was given Hiram Barker’s address. As he entered the lobby of United Nations Plaza, he remembered a line about the apartment house from an old movie: “If there is a god,” a character had said, “he probably lives in this building.” After another phone call, the deskman sent him up to a high floor.
    “I can just imagine why you’re here,” Barker said as he opened the door.
    He was larger than Stone had expected, in both height and weight, a little over six feet tall and broad at the middle. The face was not heavy but handsome, the hair sleek and gray, slicked straight back.
    “I’m Hi Barker,” he said, extending a fleshy hand. He waved Stone into a spacious, beautifully furnished living room with a view looking south toward the United Nations.
    Stone introduced himself. He heard the tinkling of silver in the background; he saw a woman enter the dining room and begin to set the table.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” Barker asked solicitously.
    Stone was thirsty. “Perhaps some water.”
    “Jeanine, get the gentleman some Perrier,” Barker said to the woman.
    She left and returned with a heavy crystal glass, decorated with a slice of lime.
    “Sit you down,” Barker said, waving at one end of a large sofa, while flopping down at the other end, “and tell me what I can do for you.” He cocked his head expectantly.
    “You can tell me where you were between two and three this morning,” Stone said.
    Barker clapped his hands together and threw his head back. “I’ve been waiting all my life for a cop to ask me that question!” he crowed.
    Stone smiled. “I hope I won’t have to wait that long for an answer.”
    “Dear me, no.” Barker chuckled. “I got home about one thirty from a dinner at the de la Rentas’, then went straight to bed. The night man downstairs can confirm that — ah, the time, not the bed part. Security is ironclad here, you know. We’ve got Arabs, Israelis,
and
Irish in the building, and
nobody
, but
nobody
, gets in or out without being seen.” Stone didn’t doubt it.
    “Am I a suspect, then?”
    “A suspect in what?” Stone asked.
    “Oh, God, now I’ve done it! I’m not even supposed to know there’s a crime!”
    “Is there?”
    “Well, didn’t somebody help poor Sasha out into the night?”
    “I’d very much like to know that,” Stone said, “and I’d like to know why you think so.”
    “She wasn’t the sort to take a flying leap,” Barker said more seriously.
    “That’s why I’ve come to see you, Mr. Barker.”
    “Hi, please call me Hi. I’ll be uncomfortable if you don’t”
    “Hi it is then.”
    “And why is it you’ve come to see me?”
    “Because of your
Vanity
Fair piece. I’ve read it, and it seemed extremely well researched.”
    “That’s a very astute observation,” Barker said. “Most people would have thought it produced from gossip. No, I spent a good six months on that. I was researching it even before Tina at the magazine knew I wanted to do it.” “And you talked with Miss Nijinsky at some length?”
    “I did, a good six hours over three meetings.”
    “Did you make any tape recordings?”
    “I did, but when I finished the piece I returned the tapes to her, as agreed.”
    “You didn’t, perhaps, make a copy?”
    Barker’s eyes turned momentarily hard. “No. That’s not the way it’s done.”
    “How well did you know her before you began research for the article?”
    “We had a cordial acquaintance. We’d been to a few of the same dinner parties. That was before the piece. By the time I finished it, I think I knew her as well as anybody alive.”
    “You can do that in six hours of conversation?”
    “If you’ve done six months of research beforehand, and if nobody else knows the person at all.”
    “She