The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(49)

Smithback sat stiffly, listening to the laughter subside. Once again he tried to tell himself he was getting under Fairhaven’s skin. He spoke at last, keeping his voice as cool as possible.

“Tell me, Mr. Fairhaven, just why is it that you’re so interested in the Museum?”

“I happen to love the Museum. It’s my favorite museum in the world. I practically grew up in that place looking at the dinosaurs, the meteorites, the gems. I had a nanny who used to take me. She necked with her boyfriend behind the elephants while I wandered around by myself. But you’re not interested in that, because it doesn’t fit your image of the greedy real estate developer. Really, Smithback, I’m wise to your game.”

“Mr. Fairhaven—”

Fairhaven grinned. “You want a confession?”

This temporarily stopped Smithback.

Fairhaven lowered his voice to confessional level. “I have committed two unforgivable crimes.”

Smithback tried to maintain the hard-bitten reportorial look he cultivated in instances like these. He knew this was going to be some kind of trick, or joke.

“My two crimes are these—are you ready?”

Smithback checked to see if the recorder was still running.

“I am rich, and I am a developer. My two truly unforgivable sins. Mea culpa.”

Against all his better journalistic instincts, Smithback found himself getting pissed off. He’d lost the interview. It was, in fact, a dead loss. The guy was a slimeball, but he was remarkably adroit at dealing with the press. So far Smithback had nothing, and he was going to get nothing. He made one last push anyway. “You still haven’t explained—”

Fairhaven stood. “Smithback, if you only knew how utterly predictable you and your questions are—if you only knew how tiresome and mediocre you are as a reporter and, I’m sorry to say, as a human being—you’d be mortified.”

“I’d like an explanation—”

But Fairhaven was pressing a buzzer. His voice smothered the rest of Smithback’s question. “Miss Gallagher, would you kindly show Mr. Smithback out?”

“Yes, Mr. Fairhaven.”

“This is rather abrupt—”

“Mr. Smithback, I am tired. I saw you because I didn’t want to read about myself in the paper having refused comment. I was also curious to meet you, to see if you were perhaps a cut above the rest. Now that I’ve satisfied myself on that score, I don’t see any reason to continue this conversation.”

The secretary stood in the door, stout and unmovable. “Mr. Smithback? This way, please.”

On his way out, Smithback paused in the outermost secretary’s office. Despite his efforts at self-control, his frame was quivering with indignation. Fairhaven had been parrying a hostile press for more than a decade; naturally, he’d gotten damn good at it. Smithback had dealt with nasty interviewees before, but this one really got under his skin. Calling him tiresome, mediocre, ephemeral, nugatory (he’d have to look that up)—who did he think he was?

Fairhaven himself was too slippery to pin down. No big surprise there. There were other ways to find things out about people. People in power had enemies, and enemies loved to talk. Sometimes the enemies were working for them, right under their noses.

He glanced at the secretary. She was young, sweet, and looked more approachable than the battle-axes manning the inner offices.

“Here every Saturday?” He smiled nonchalantly.

“Most of them,” she said, looking up from her computer. She was cute, with glossy red hair and a small splash of freckles. He winced inwardly, suddenly reminded of Nora.

“Works you hard, doesn’t he?”

“Mr. Fairhaven? Sure does.”

“Probably makes you work Sundays, too.”

“Oh no,” she said. “Mr. Fairhaven never works on Sunday. He goes to church.”

Smithback feigned surprise. “Church? Is he Catholic?”

“Presbyterian.”

“Probably a tough man to work for, I bet.”

“No, he’s one of the best supervisors I’ve had. He actually seems to care about us little folk.”

“Never would have guessed it,” Smithback said with a wink, drifting out the door. Probably boning her and the other “little folk” on the side, he thought.

Back on the street, Smithback allowed himself a most un-Presbyterian string of oaths. He was going to dig into this guy’s past until he knew every detail, down to the name of his goddamn teddy bear. You couldn’t become a big-time real estate developer in New York City and keep your hands clean. There would be dirt, and he would find it. Yes, there would be dirt. By God, there would be dirt.





FOUR




MANDY EKLUND CLIMBED THE FILTHY SUBWAY STAIRS TO FIRST STREET, turned north at Avenue A, and trudged toward Tompkins Square Park. Ahead, the park’s anemic trees rose up against a sky faintly smeared with the purple stain of dawn. The morning star, low on the horizon, was fading into oblivion.

Mandy pulled her wrap more tightly around her shoulders in a futile attempt to keep out the early morning chill. She felt a little groggy, and her feet ached each time they hit the pavement. It had been a great night at Club Pissoir, though: music, free drinks, dancing. The whole Ford crowd had been there, along with a bunch of photographers, the Mademoiselle and Cosmo people, everyone who mattered in the fashion world. She really was making it. The thought still amazed her. Only six months before, she’d been working at Rodney’s in Bismarck, giving free makeovers. Then, the right person happened to come through the shop. And now she was on the testing board at the Ford agency. Eileen Ford herself had taken her under her wing. It was all coming together faster than she’d ever dreamed possible.