Within another hour he was deep, quite by accident, in the heart of the biggest part of his case. In a picturesque little arcade off Worth Avenue he came upon Mrs. Rabun’s gallery. Warlock nearly blundered right in but hesitated, then stepped around the corner to counsel himself. Was he a playboy or a portraitist? Why not both to thicken the stew? He entered and assumed the studious, hands-behind-the-back attitude of the gallery habitué. He exchanged smiles with a tall, handsome woman in her forties, reading the Italian edition of Vogue behind the desk. One wall featured drawings of contemporary British artists—Hockney, Hepworth, Silkworth, et al. It was surprisingly tasteful, Warlock judged, though the other wall contained the meat and potatoes mishmash that supports a gallery, and a league of expensive interior decorators: seascapes, birdscapes, framed tapestries, chinoiserie, ballerinascapes.

“How cold is it out there?” She stared out at the gathering dark with a cardigan around her shoulders.

“Beats the hell out of the blizzard in Detroit.”

“What a dreadful place.” Her nostrils flared.

“Stopped there on the way down from Minneapolis.” Why hadn’t he prepared better?

“Excuse me but I have to close now.” She handed him a card. “This place is hard to find.”

“You’re Nancy Rabun?”

“Yes. Unfortunately. It’s cold and I’m bored.”

“But you’re lovely. I’ll come by tomorrow and take another look at the Hockney.” He tried to impart into his stare a slight suggestion of savage lust, of a possible undreamed of afternoon that would be the spiritual equivalent of a mud wallow. He turned to go as a blush rose to her cheeks.

Chapter 34

Sometimes the only answer to death is lunch. The morning had been wickedly confusing, with the entire area failing to resemble the map. He had driven north on the island to reach Singer Island, the location of the marina, but when he had reached the Palm Beach inlet there was no bridge. His destination was only a hundred water yards away; in fact, Warlock could see the marina in question. He made the mistake of asking two little round-face snots fishing from the dock for directions. One grew very excited while the fatter of the two threw fishing sinkers at birds and, oddly, drank from a pint bottle of French olive oil.

“You can’t get there except to swim and this place is loaded with sharks. We pushed this German shepherd off the dock yesterday and the sharks ate him in no time flat.”

“Surely you can drive there. In fact I can see cars from here.” The presence of sharks was startling and he stared deeply into the water.

“I’m not old enough to drive. I’ll give you five bucks if you eat this,” he said, throwing a large chunk of rotten bait at his friend. The friend put down his sinkers and olive oil and took a tentative sniff of the prize.