“Ex-con’s easier to control. Come on. Why don’t you help me out? You follow her for two days and put an end to the debate.”
“No, thanks.”
“Don’t say no right off the bat,” he said irritably. “Think about it.”
Ari insisted on giving me a tour of his security system, which did seem to be state-of-the-art. In the endless stretches of basement, there was a room dedicated to closed-circuit television sets, where banks of monitors showed a succession of pictures from cameras that covered views of each room, shots of the corridors, shots of the entrances and exits, and wide-angle shots that covered the exterior. While I looked on, the views flipped like a slide show, first one room and then the next. It was hard to focus on all the screens as they rotated through.
“You have someone who actually sits and monitors these?”
“I just hired a guy. Couple of blind spots in there, but good otherwise.”
“Impressive,” I said.
“Glad you think so. Come take a look at this.”
I followed him through the gloom to a side room about the size of a broom closet. He flipped on the overhead light and a forty-watt bulb illuminated a massive round brass-and-steel safe that resembled an oversize antique diver’s helmet on a chunky base. The faceplate was jeweled and the combination lock sat in the center of the round door. A large hand crank was affixed to the front and the hinges were hefty.
“Called a Diebold Cannonball Safe. Thirty-six hundred pounds. Three time-locks you can set so the mechanism can’t be opened for as much as seventy-two hours. It was the latest technology of its time.”
“Which was when?”
“Late 1800s. It was in the house when we bought it.”
“Is it in working order?”
“Oh sure. I had to have a guy come in and open it the first time. I had this fantasy of gold pieces. It was empty. Just my tough luck, but it’s come in handy since.”
“That’s where you keep the necklace?”
“Better here than that dinky wall safe upstairs. Besides, Teddy knows the combination to that one. Not this.”
“You didn’t change the combination to the safe upstairs?”
“What good would it do? She knows how my mind works. She could probably figure this one out now that I think about it.”
He flicked off the light and led the way out of the basement. I’d have thought the shadowy chambers would be spooky but the whole of it was tidy and dry, with nary a spider in sight. We took the elevator up. Walking back through the hallway, I could see that additional pieces of furniture had been brought up, some swaddled in sheets. Worker bees were still on the scene. A two-man team wrapped and packed blue-and-white glazed ceramic pieces, part of a collection of Chinese porcelains. There was no sign of Stella.
I made my exit, exhausted by the entire encounter. In spite of myself, I liked the guy. He was a bit of a blowhard, but he had a sweetness about him. I wondered if Stella had any idea what she was up against. Ari wasn’t complicated. He was still in love with his wife.
While I’d continued to decline his offer of paid work, I did consider his proposal for thirty seconds on my way home. I had said no in part because sometime soon I’d need to have a talk with Christian Satterfield and I didn’t want to do so with Ari’s employment offer hanging over my head. One thing I’ve learned about money: the guy who pays has the power. Saying no kept our relationship equitable and on an even keel.
34
On my way to Taryn’s office, I stopped off at a delicatessen, where I bought one tuna salad sandwich on rye and one egg salad on whole wheat, plus Fritos and the Pepperidge Farm Milanos on which my mental health is so often dependent. I hadn’t mentioned dinner in our phone conversation, but I was hungry and I took a chance she’d be hungry as well. If she already had dinner plans, I’d take the leftovers home with me. I parked in the lot behind her building. I’d barely settled on the love seat when she came out to the waiting room.
“Your timing’s great. Turns out my last client canceled, so I managed to get caught up. Come on in.”
She wore tight jeans with a pair of spike heels and a dark red blazer that was open as far as the first button, her cleavage modestly veiled by a lacy white camisole. She wore the same big hoop earrings and the messy hairdo that somehow looked chic. Her lipstick was bright red and looked like it wouldn’t come off on the lip of her coffee cup the first time she took a sip. I report this in detail because she’s the sort of woman I want to be when I grow up. No chance of it at this late date, but all the same . . .