"If I die, I die," was Estabrook's response. "As long as she goes first. I'd like it done as quickly as possible."
"You said she's in New York. Do you want me to follow her there?"
"Are you familiar with the city?"
"Yes."
"Then do it there and do it soon. I'll have Chant supply extra funds to cover the flight. And that's that. We shan't see each other again."
Chant was waiting at the perimeter and fished the envelope containing the payment from his inside pocket. Pie accepted it without question or thanks, then shook Estabrook's hand and left the trespassers to return to the safety of their car. As he settled into the comfort of the leather seat, Estabrook realized the palm he'd pressed against Pie's was trembling. He knitted its fingers with those of his other hand, and there they remained, white-knuckled, for the length of the journey home.
2
DO THIS FOR THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD, read the note John Furie Zacharias held. Slit your lying throat.
Beside the note, lying on the bare boards, Vanessa and her cohorts (she had two brothers; it was probably they who'd come with her to empty the house) had left a neat pile of broken glass, in case he was sufficiently moved by her entreaty to end his life there and then. He stared at the note in something of a stupor, reading it over and over, looking—vainly, of course—for some small consolation in it. Beneath the tick and scrawl that made her name, the paper was lightly wrinkled. Had tears fallen there while she'd written her goodbye, he wondered? Small comfort if they had, and a smaller likelihood still. Vanessa was not one for crying. Nor could he imagine a woman with the least ambiguity of feeling so comprehensively stripping him of possessions. True, neither the mews house nor any stick of furniture in it had been his by law, but they had chosen many of the items together—she relying upon his artist's eye, he upon her money to purchase whatever his gaze admired. Now it was all gone, to the last Persian rug and Deco lamp. The home they'd made together, and enjoyed for a year and two months, was stripped bare. And so indeed was he: to the nerve, to the bone. He had nothing.