Chasing this one was a suicide mission, plain and simple.
“Nina.” I still didn’t completely know what to say.
Mild surprise played across her porcelain features. “Yes?” Was she…entertained by this?
“I—”
I was struggling. Floundering. I should have just said good night and walked away. Let her remain on the periphery of my life where she belonged.
But I couldn’t.
“Dinner.” The word fell out of my mouth like a bouncing ball.
Her brows knit together with confusion. “I’m sorry?”
I pulled at the knot of my tie. Get yourself together, Zola. “I’d like to have dinner. Tomorrow, if you’re available.”
She stepped toward her building with regret. “Oh, Matthew, I don’t think—”
But I shook away her excuses. “No, no, not like that. Look, there’s a lot more to discuss, like I said. About the gala, the plan, everything. You said you wanted to help Jane and Eric. This is the way to do it, all right?”
I was chattering—who was I kidding? I had questions, so many more now that this angel-faced bombshell had been dropped in my lap. But I wasn’t lying. If Nina could help at all with this case, I needed that too. There was some kind of involvement she was leaving out, and I needed to know what it was.
“Look,” I said. “I’m doing my best, but I could use all the help I can get. Would you be willing? Dinner. Tomorrow night.”
She inhaled deeply, then exhaled, long and low, glancing from side to side. She was nervous. Of course. Any idiot could sense the tension between us.
“All right,” she said. “But not tomorrow. Next Friday. I’ll meet you at—”
“Farina,” I interrupted, and then with a smirk: “In Chelsea. I promised you Italian the next time, didn’t I?”
“Matthew…”
I held my hands up. “Jokes, baby, just jokes. It’s pasta, not sex.”
“Matthew!”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be the perfect gentleman, I promise.”
I took off my hat and put it back on, tipped slightly to the side, just the way Nonno used to wear it. Nina watched the movement with her bottom lip clenched between her teeth. Shit. I really needed to get out of here. Remind myself why I really did need to keep things purely professional with this one.
“All right,” she said slowly, still staring at my hat. “Seven?”
I smiled. “Seven…would be heaven.” Then I winked. Like the corny bastard I suddenly was, I winked.
Nina laughed. And every worry I had evaporated into the night. How in the fuck had I forgotten the sound of that laugh? Like the fuckin’ bells of heaven.
“Seven at Farina,” she agreed. “I’ll see you then. Good night, Matthew.”
“Night, doll.”
I watched her disappear into the lobby, waiting until she’d entered the same elevator as her daughter. Then, as I started toward the nearest subway, I pulled out my phone and, against my better judgement, googled Nina and her husband, under the correct names this time. And immediately felt like a fool.
Nina Astor had turned up nothing for months, but Nina de Vries had been making Page Six since she was a teenager. Nina Gardner even more. There she was at Eric and Jane’s big engagement party last year. Again at their splashy society wedding. She always wore a lot of white, silver, and very light blues. Colors that almost weren’t colors. And yet she stood out on every page, often on the arm of a short, melon-shaped man who looked at least twenty years older than her.
I expanded a picture of the two of them at the New Year’s party where Eric had been arrested. Nina stood by while Eric was carted away, delicate hand covering her shock-opened mouth. God, she was beautiful. Even in distress, even in the harsh glare of a paparazzi picture, fuckin’ stunning. Her hair was pulled up in some kind of twist, while the ice-blue gown she was wearing made her eyes glow.
Calvin Gardner, however, looked like a mushy cantaloupe in a bad tux. I squinted. He was watching with a pinched face, but he didn’t look particularly surprised to see his cousin-in-law being taken away by the FBI. Or even that upset. Actually, he even looked a little…satisfied.
Immediately, I dialed Derek.
“What up, Zola? Tell me you’re not still at the office.”
“Nah, D. I happen to be out. How’s your Friday night, man?”
“Well, I was planning to go out in a bit until you called.”
“Liar. You’re at home watching the Knicks, aren’t you?”
“It’s a good game tonight. Did you read that file Ramirez sent over?”
“I glanced through it, yeah.”
“Heavy shit, but looks like some solid leads. You want me to look into Letour’s businesses?”
I worried my mouth a minute, pausing outside the entrance to the subway. “Yeah, I do. But first…I have another name for you.”
“Shoot.”
I turned around to look up at Nina’s building. I wondered which of the lit windows were hers. If her husband was there now, lying through his teeth. It was just a hunch. I had no real official lead on the guy. But everything in my gut said he was involved in this. And I had been doing this too long not to trust my gut.
She wouldn’t like it. She wouldn’t want me to get involved.
Fuck it. I said I’d be a gentleman. But I never promised to be a saint.
“Remember Calvin Gardner?” I asked. “Eric’s cousin’s husband?”
“Yeah. But you said that was a no-go, so I never looked into him.”
“I was wrong. And I have an address. 9211 Lexington. He’s connected to all this shit. I know it.”
Chapter Seven
“So, what’s it for?”
The next day, I stood in my living room while two of my sisters and my four-year-old niece watched me try on a suit. It was a familiar scene. My house in Brooklyn, which I currently shared with my sister Frankie and her daughter, Sofia, was a second home base for our family, especially when they wanted to get out of the Bronx. Kate, who owned the vintage menswear store that had provided me with the Armani Nina mentioned, often passed through on her way back from scouting estate sales in Connecticut or Long Island on the weekends. And like a good sister, she always put the best aside for me first.
I turned from side to side, examining the charcoal gray secondhand Prada. Maybe it was used, but a good suit makes a man look like a million bucks. And in a city like New York? Money talks. Loud.
I turned to where Kate was sorting through a pile of handkerchiefs with Sofia. “What do you mean? Hey, keep that one for me. I like it.”
Sofia handed me a red paisley pocket square, but Kate kept right on talking while I tucked it into the breast pocket.
“Mattie, come on. All of a sudden, you need a new three-piece? What’s it for? Or, I should say, who?”
“Maybe I just wanted to spruce things up a little.” I turned back to the mirror on the wall and pulled at the lapels. Were they too thin or just right? I didn’t usually go for a peak like this, but I was kind of feeling it.
“You’ve turned down everything I’ve put aside for you since January because you said you had to save money.”