Read Online Murder Without Pity by Steve Haberman - Free Book Online Page B

apartment Friday evening, the sixth. About 8:30?”
    “ Sir, you warned me not to call there anymore. Remember? I only saw your Mercedes parked on the street this morning, and here I am. You sound more agitated than the last time we talked. Hello? Hello? Mr. Boucher?”
    “ I was just thinking.”
    “ A friend of yours? Or a wrong number? Anyway while you’re on the line, sir, you’ll be pleased to learn we’ve bidders for the Steuben crystal.”
    “ Whatever they pay won’t go far. Anyone interested in the Madonna and Child?”
    “For the right price, sir, there are always bidders.”
    “I asked you a question. Any other buyers as we speak? I’ll need the money before long.”
    “None except that Mr. Gaaf. The market for Old Masters is rather soft these days. I still think a blind intermediary as the seller through Christie’s or Sotheby’s might work wonders.”
    “And risk exposure? It’d humiliate my family if word got out. Your network’s worked wonders so far. Go with this Mr. Gaaf then. And quickly.”
    “ Very well. The lads will arrange everything. And fear not, sir. Discretion is our byword. Oh, almost forgot. About our added ten percent contingency fee. Your changed circumstance, telephoning from a call box. Why is your affair. But I assume the lads and I are as much at risk as you from whatever the threat is.”
    “I don’t need you to remind me. Upon the sale’s consummation to Mr.Gaaf, of course. The added premium.”
    “Payment in American dollars would be lovely, the lads think.”
    “ Yes, yes, yes, Lenny. U. S. dollars. Good-bye .” The line went dead. The phone booth’s door swung open. A melee of children’s screams filled the cabin.
    Stanislas frowned as he pressed a button. The tape rewound. This wasn’t the Boucher, whose suffocating arrogance he had endured during the hearing. The man on the tape sounded somewhat panicky. And despite being wealthy, he was desperate for cash, using someone with a British accent to auction valuables for a vague deadline. Was it next week? Next month? And did any of the tape relate to the Pincus dossier?
    “Boucher speaks good English,” Henri said over his shoulder.
    “After his interrogation,” Cassel said, “I did a quick history on him; he acted too sure of himself for my taste. I discovered he lived for a time in London before the war as an exchange student.”
    “Their code was certainly simple.”
    “They must have prearranged everything. How Boucher would signal this Lenny for a contact. What time to call. What phone booth to dial.”
    “What could be the motive for slipping the gift to us?” Henri asked.
    “Boucher served on something called the Economic Inspection Board in Paris during the German Occupation.”
    Henri eased up on the gas. Again he half-turned toward Stanislas.
    He seemed no longer interested in small talk, Stanislas thought. This bit of history had triggered something in him. “The EIB wrote up volumes of black market regulations and punished hundreds of smugglers. Many by firing squad. He must have collected a number of enemies over the years.”
    “Settling a score at this late date?” The van swerved. Henri steered back onto the street as another wave of mist rolled over them.
    “It’s a remote possibility. Revenge,” Stanislas said.
    “French revenge,” Henri added. “With no mercy or personal statute of limitations. More power to whoever hates that bastard.”
    Stanislas rocked from Henri stomping on the gas pedal.
    “You ask me,” the officer continued, “functionaries of the president sent the tape. They could have given us chaff from some illegal tap.”
    “It could have come from a ministry, say Interior,” Stanislas said. “That could explain why you got the tape and not me.”
    Henri slowed the van. “I thought you might want to see where he lives.”
    Stanislas peeked through a slit in the curtain to a row of darkened luxury off to his right. “Who?”
    Henri flexed his right hand