The Fallen (Amos Decker #4)(79)

“Okay, but I meant is he lucid?”

“Oh, oh yes, there’s no problem there. At least not yet.”

They stopped at a door. The name STANLEY NOTTINGHAM had been written on a slip of paper and inserted in a brass holder screwed to the door.

“Well, here we are.”

Crandall knocked. “Mr. Nottingham? Stanley, can I come in? It’s Mr. Crandall.”

A deep throaty voice answered in the affirmative and Crandall opened the door. He and Decker stepped in.

Stanley Nottingham was sitting in a chair next to a bed. He was tall and cadaverous, with a fringe of white hair encircling his head. He wore a pair of thick black glasses. He had on what looked to be silk polka-dot pajamas.

A tank of oxygen was parked in one corner.

On the walls were large framed black-and-white photos of a variety of models on the catwalk.

“Stanley, this is—” Crandall paused and said to Decker, “I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“I’m Amos Decker, Mr. Nottingham. I’m with the FBI.”

Nottingham, who had been slouching in his chair and looking immensely bored, immediately righted himself and sat up straighter. He looked positively delighted by this development and clapped his hands together.

“The FBI?” He smiled broadly. “How exciting!”

Decker glanced at Crandall. “I’ll handle it from here, thanks.”

Crandall looked put off by this, but nodded curtly and left. However, he kept the door open.

Decker went over and closed it and turned back to Nottingham.

“Thanks for meeting with me.”

“Have we met before?”

“No.” He looked at the photos arrayed on the walls. “So, you were in the fashion business?”

“For about fifty years. I worked for all the big houses. Dior, Versace, Valentino, Calvin, Tommy. The list goes on and on.”

“What did you do there?”

In answer Nottingham waved his hand at all the photos. “I was a photographer. One of the best, if I do say so myself. I flew with Valentino on his personal jet. Giorgio had me on his speed dial. Hubert de Givenchy was a dear friend. Audrey Hepburn. Elizabeth Taylor. Jackie O. I photographed them all. The greatest moments of my life.” The man was absolutely beaming even though he had closed his eyes. When he reopened them and gazed around at the small confines of his room, the happy look faded.

He said, “But that’s not why you’re here, obviously.”

Decker drew up the only other chair in the room and said, “Bradley Costa?”

Nottingham screwed up his features. “Oh, Brad, yes, yes, of course.” He next looked perplexed. “Is he in some sort of trouble with the FBI?”

“No. Just following up some leads on a case. He was your neighbor back in New York?”

“That’s right. He bought an apartment in my building in SoHo. I’d lived there for decades. I sort of took him under my wing. He was a delightful person. Very handsome. He could have been a model, if you ask me. And smart. He was very successful. Worked on Wall Street.”

“And then he moved?”

“Yes, yes he did. That was very sudden. I was a little hurt, to tell the truth. He never even said goodbye. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

“You have an ancestor, Nigel Nottingham?”

The old man smiled. “Yes. The butler. He was my great-grandfather. Worked in a horrible place called, um, well, I can’t remember right now, but he labored away for an absolute miser there.”

“John Baron. The place is called Baronville.”

Nottingham snapped his fingers. “Yes, that’s right. In, what was it, Ohio?”

“Pennsylvania.”

Nottingham looked sadly at Decker. “In the last year my memory, which used to be razor sharp, seems to be leaving me. That’s one reason I came here. I…forget things. And I didn’t want to burn my building down by mistake.”

“No reason to be sorry. You’re doing fine. Was Costa interested in the Barons?”

Nottingham scrunched up his features once more. “Well, come to think, it was at a dinner party I threw a number of years ago. I remember because I had just been given an award by the fashion industry. It was one of those things you get for being around as long as I had,” he added with an embarrassed smile.

“What happened at the dinner party?”

“Well, it was after we ate and we were having port in my little room of photos. Brad picked up a picture from off a table and asked me about it. Well, it was Nigel. I told him all about him, or at least what my father and grandfather had told me. Nigel was born in England, Surrey, long, long ago and then immigrated to the United States. I’m not clear on how he made it to Baronville. But he became Baron’s butler. His son, Samuel, my grandfather, left Baronville as a young man and moved to upstate New York, where my father was born. My parents moved to Brooklyn after they were married, and that’s where I was born.”

“So no one in your family wanted to stick around Baronville?”

“Oh, God no. From what I remember being told, it was this dreary piece of dirt where they had coal mines and filthy factories and people were worked to death. My grandfather actually told me that he left because he hated the place. Wanted to get away as soon as he could. And he did. Thank God for that. I doubt I would have had the same career if I had been born and raised there.”