Three Fates

say I do.” He went back to his sandwich. “That’s personal. On another level, I’ve got nothing on her but speculation.”
    “How do you connect her to Dubrowsky?”
    “Round about.” He moved his shoulders. “Another client told me how Anita was hassling her about a certain art piece. Enough high pressure that this client was uneasy, and tells me how she’s seen this guy following her. Described him to me, I described him to you, and you tell me he’s stiff. She ID’d him from the picture you slipped me.”
    “I want a name.”
    “Not without her okay. You know I can’t, Bob. Besides, all she knows is Anita spooked her, this guy tailed her, and now he’s dead.”
    “What about the art piece?”
    “Pieces, actually. They’re called the Three—”
    “Fates,” Bob finished, and Jack registered surprise.
    “You are a detective.”
    “Got the decoder ring to prove it. What do these statues have to do with you?”
    “I just happen to have one.”
    Bob’s gaze narrowed like pinpoints. “Which one?”
    “Atropus. Third Fate. Came through the family, the Brit side of it. Anita doesn’t know that, and I want to keep it that way. She wanted me to get some information on them for her, which got me to thinking and led me to Tia Marsh and my other client.”
    “Why’d she come to you if she didn’t know you had one?”
    “She knows I’m a collector, and she knows I’ve got connections.”
    “Okay.” Satisfied, Bob dipped into Jack’s fries. “Keep going.”
    “The Marsh woman’s phones are tapped. My client, who’s the lead to Lachesis, or Fate number two, is being tailed. And Anita’s been pressuring them both. You do the math.”
    “Plugging a guy full of bullets is a long way from trying to finesse a couple of statues.”
    “You talked to her. What did you think?”
    Bob said nothing for a moment. “What I think is I’m going to dig deeper.”
    “While you’re at it, look into a homicide on West Fifty-third a few weeks ago. Black guy, dancer. Beat to death in his apartment.”
    “Goddamn it, Jack. If you know something about an open homicide—”
    “I’m giving you information,” Jack said evenly. “Check the witness descriptions of the guy who went in and out of the building. It’s going to match the hired fist you got from New Jersey. Find a way to get a warrant for Gaye’s private line. I bet you’ll find some interesting calls on it. I’ve gotta go.”
    “Stay out of the police work, Jack.”
    “Happy to. I’ve got a hot date with a gorgeous Irish redhead.”
    “The one you brought into the station? Rebecca,” Bob remembered. “She your client?”
    “Nope. She’s the woman I’m going to marry.”
    “In your dreams.”
    “There, too.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a box and flipped it open. “What do you think?”
    Bob’s jaw dropped, nearly bounced off the table as he stared at the ring. “Holy shit, Burdett, you’re serious.”
    “First time around, I went to Tiffany’s. But Rebecca, she’ll like the heirloom thing. This was my great-great-grandmother’s.”
    “Well, hell.” Bob climbed out of the booth and gave Jack a one-armed hug. “Congratulations. How the hell am I supposed to be pissed off at you?”
    “You’ll find a way. You want to give me a wedding present? Take Anita Gaye down.”

Twenty-six
     
     
     
     
    W HEN he was parked, sitting behind the wheel of Jack’s SUV, Gideon was happy enough with his assignment. It was just when he actually had to drive that he cursed his luck. It was bad enough to be swallowed up by the intrinsic anger of New York City traffic and its seemingly mad competition between cars, cabs, the ubiquitous delivery trucks, the kamikaze bike messengers and the always-in-a-damn-hurry pedestrians. But he had to contend with it all from the wrong bloody side of the road.
    He’d practiced. Even managed to negotiate the viciously jammed cross streets, the wide avenues where everyone drove as if they were on a raceway, without killing anyone. And so had been elected for this task.
    As he sat brooding a half block from Anita’s posh house, he wondered whether any of them had considered that driving around with a coach and driving alone—with the express purpose of following a car to the airport—were vastly different matters.
    Still, he’d been drafted for it, as he and Rebecca were the only ones whose faces Anita wasn’t personally familiar with. And Rebecca was needed at the keyboard.
    He’d have