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Lovell nodded. “I’ll give you the name of me sponsor, if you like.”
“Please,” said Chu as he took a pen to his notebook. Lovell rattled it off, along with a telephone number.
“Thank you, Mister Lovell,” Chu said.
Pro chimed in. “Unless you have anything else you want to tell us. I mean, I’d like to know how you knew Ms. Gray and Mister Mystique were looking into Prism.”
Lovell shrugged. “I keep me ear to the ground. It’s a tight community, and when things ‘appen, we all know. That’s ‘ow I knew about poor Al.”
“I take it you don’t think Max killed him?”
“Max? Kill Al? Neveh!”
Pro and Chu exchanged a look.
“Max might’ve been angry, maybe said a few thing ‘e didn’t mean, but Max wouldn’t ‘urt Al. Not ever!”
13. Fire Wallet
Fifteen minutes later, Chu and Pro were headed up the steps of a brownstone on 70th Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenue.
“Anything on the phone that can help?” Chu asked.
“No, it’s pass-coded, so I can’t open it. However, the last missed call was from my mother. I recognize the number.”
“At least she tried to get in touch with him,” Chu pointed out.
“I asked her to convince him to surrender,” Pro said. “Any reports about Max? Has he been spotted at all?”
“It appears Max Marvell is quite good at covering his tracks. And with his phone tucked away at Lovell’s store, we couldn’t even track him down with that if we’d gotten the chance.”
At the top of the short flight of stairs and built into the brick wall was a metal plate with several white buttons. Chu pushed the one with a label marked “Novack” as Pro put the box with the cell phone in her attaché.
There was a loud buzz, and the detectives opened the door and entered the building.
“The buzzer said 1-D,” Chu stated.
“At least we’re not doing stairs,” Pro said as they reached the door with a brass “1-D” screwed to the front.
Chu knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” came the reply.
“NYPD, ma’am. We need to talk to you about Albert Floss.”
The door opened abruptly, and an average-height woman with a wild mass of blonde hair stood in the doorway. She was at least fifty, though her body was curvaceous from workouts and possible surgical augmentation. She was wearing a leopard-spotted cat suit, and Pro couldn’t help but wonder how she got out of it when she needed to pee.
She wore the scent of scotch and sweat.
“Come in, detectives. Please show me your badges.”
“Shields, Miss Novack,” Pro countered as she opened her billfold. “Detectives have shields.”
The woman pushed her hair to one side to better see the identification. “You guys want a drink? It’s Sunday, and I’m off, so I’m drinking.”
It appeared to Pro that Miss Novack had started imbibing early in the day and was very far ahead of any visitors who might drop by.
“No, ma’am,” Chu said.
