The Baxter Trust

laughed.
    “We’ll watch for you,” Teddy said.
    Phillip looked at his watch. “Come on, Dad. We’ll miss my bus.”
    “Right,” Teddy said. “We’ve got to get going.”
    They walked out into the foyer and rang for the elevator, which arrived promptly.
    “Well, so long,” Teddy said. “And thanks again.”
    “Don’t mention it,” Max said dryly.
    As the elevator doors closed, Maxwell Baxter wheeled around to regard Sheila. There was accusation in his eyes.
    Sheila didn’t like dealing with Uncle Max, but she could do it. She handled him the way she handled all men, by being cute and witty and adorable, by kidding him along with light irony and gentle sarcasm.
    Still, she always hated to take the initiative, especially under that steely gaze.
    But she had to, so she did.
    “Uncle Max—” she began.
    He cut her off with a voice as cold as ice. “How much?”
    Sheila smiled, one of her most adorable smiles. “Uncle Max, don’t be like that.”
    “How much?”
    “A hundred.”
    “For what?”
    “Rent.”
    “It’s the middle of the month.”
    “I’m late.”
    Maxwell Baxter turned and walked back into the living room. Sheila followed behind. He sat down on the couch, arranged himself comfortably, and assumed what Sheila well knew was his lecturing pose.
    “You know,” he said, “a girl your age needs something more than just acting. Do you know how many unemployed actresses there are in New York City?”
    Sheila sat on the couch next to him and smiled, playfully.
    “Uncle Max,” she said. “That’s your five-hundred-dollar lecture. I only want a hundred.”

4.
    S HEILA SNORTED THE STUFF UP her nose. She straightened up and sniffed twice.
    Michael Croft leaned back in his desk chair and watched her. Croft, thirty-five, lean, tanned, neatly dressed in a stylish tailored suit, was an advertising executive and junior partner in the firm of Hoffman, Whittiker, and Croft, but fancied himself a Hollywood agent. For him the coke was just part of the image.
    Croft cocked his head at Sheila. “Well?”
    Sheila took her finger and wiped the residue of the line she had snorted from the top of his desk. She stuck her finger in her mouth, licked it off.
    She smiled. “Pure milk sugar. It’d be great in coffee.”
    “I didn’t cut it at all.”
    “This could be competition for NutraSweet.”
    “Come on. Before I ground this up it was solid rocks.”
    “Yeah. Sure. And you got it from a little old lady who only snorted it on Sundays.”
    Croft laughed. “How did you know?”
    “Lucky guess.”
    “Are you saying this is the worst coke you ever had?”
    “That would be flattering it.”
    “I see. How much do you want?”
    “A gram.”
    Sheila emerged from the office building on Madison Avenue and hailed a cab.
    It was one-thirty by the time the taxi dropped her off in front of her building, and Sheila would have been hungry had it not been for the line she’d snorted in Croft’s office. As she went up the front steps, she realized it was just beginning to wear off, and she was in a hurry to get upstairs and snort another one. So she was halfway up the stairs before she remembered.
    The mail. The thought filled her with a sudden dread. She hadn’t picked up the mail. What if there was another letter? A more specific letter. A letter that told her what this was all about. Sheila wanted to know, and yet she dreaded to know. Not with Johnny gone. Please. Just keep this on hold till he gets back.
    Sheila went back down the stairs and looked in the mailbox. Shit! There was a letter in it. She dug her keys out of her purse and unlocked the box.
    It was a bill. Sheila had never been so happy to hear from Con Ed.
    Sheila stuck the letter in her purse, locked the mailbox, and went back up the stairs.
    She unlocked the door to her apartment, walked in, and stopped suddenly.
    The body of a man was lying sprawled on the floor. He was lying on his stomach, with his head twisted to one side, so that Sheila could see his face. He was a thin, gaunt man, somewhere in his fifties. Sheila didn’t recognize him—she had never seen him before.
    But she did recognize the large carving knife which should have resided in the rack on the wall in her kitchen alcove, but which now resided in the unknown gentleman’s back.

5.
    S HE DIDNT SCREAM. S HEILA COULD count that to her credit And, considering her state of mind, that was quite an accomplishment.
    If she had screamed, she realized, she would have been