superior artist.
11:54 A.M.
“Up here in her place,” Azalea said, “we’re at the point now where we’re doing over the kitchen and the last three bathrooms. Then we’re all done.”
They stepped from the elevator directly into the apartment’s large foyer.
Following the briskly moving Azalea Butte, Flo passed through a long living room, a restaurant-sized dining room, and into the kitchen, where two workmen were laying a travertine stone floor along the length of the breakfast bar, behind the bar a panorama window and a postcard view north up the west side of Manhattan.
The rain was letting up, and winds propelled clouds fast enough so the peaks of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings loomed above the mists.
“I see what you mean,” Flo said. “A very successful owner.”
“Ballz only knew successful people. He said failure was a disease and he didn’t want to catch it. He hated failures. And he had no time for wannabes.”
“He made a lot of enemies that way?”
“Well, let’s just say he didn’t have any friends who were flops. None that I ever heard of anyway. Check this. Flops don’t have this.” They paused to watch a workman installing a Jacuzzi next to its backup bath, a twenty-inch-deep Zuma soaking tub with Zucchetti shower wand and chrome controls, all in a bathroom corner facing a large window with a southerly view of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. “Bathrooms like this,” Azalea said, “only belong to the biggest winners.”
As they mounted an interior staircase winding past another south-facing, harbor-view window, Azalea described the detailing with the pride of a designer coloring her voice. “You got carved stone arches here, all embellished with Corinthian Wheat Shaft terracotta apron work, and fitted with custom fabricated, solid oak sound-attenuated frames. As pricey as it gets.”
When they reached the top of the stairs, Flo popped the question. “You think anyone would’ve wanted him killed? And paid someone to do it?”
While mulling over this one, Azalea gave orders to a mason installing a slate wall in a tropical-garden shower-and-steam room meant to resemble a pool in the Amazon rain forest. Then to Flo she said, “Only a rich asshole would do something that stupid. And I don’t know any assholes, Officer, not in my business. I don’t employ them. And they don’t employ me. Assholes don’t get to buy apartments like this. They lose their money first.”
“Interesting observation,” Flo said, although she had no plans to exclude the rich from any list of suspects. She didn’t feel beholden to them, not like Azalea.
They paused in the doorway of the third bathroom. “No window on this side,” Azalea said. “So we got that wall-sized flat screen displaying great art pieces, one at a time. All twentieth-century masters, Pollock drips, Picasso blue nudes, Klimt gold-draped beauties.” A television technician was adjusting the equipment. “We need some Warhols on this visuals wall here, some Johns, Koons, lots more pop to brighten the mood. Which reminds me. Time for tensies.” Azalea extracted a large bottle of pills from her shoulder satchel, meds of many hues. She selected a pale green capsule. “All prescription, Officer, so don’t you worry. And no OxyContin either, no heroin in a pill, not for this girl. None of that stuff, no way. I don’t do illegal drugs, believe it or not. Ballz did, but then that’s the music business for you.”
“Did he deal?”
Azalea fell silent.
“Did he invest in drug deals?”
“I don’t know, Officer. I didn’t go poking my nose into coke or into any other business of his except real estate. Do I look like a jerk? I sure hope not.” She stopped to wash down the pale green capsule with a swig of mineral water.
“You have to take a lot of medications?”
“What’s a lot? My kind of life, there’s never enough. But Ballz. Poor Ballz, and I mean it, really. Ending up dead way before his time.
11:54 A.M.
“Up here in her place,” Azalea said, “we’re at the point now where we’re doing over the kitchen and the last three bathrooms. Then we’re all done.”
They stepped from the elevator directly into the apartment’s large foyer.
Following the briskly moving Azalea Butte, Flo passed through a long living room, a restaurant-sized dining room, and into the kitchen, where two workmen were laying a travertine stone floor along the length of the breakfast bar, behind the bar a panorama window and a postcard view north up the west side of Manhattan.
The rain was letting up, and winds propelled clouds fast enough so the peaks of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings loomed above the mists.
“I see what you mean,” Flo said. “A very successful owner.”
“Ballz only knew successful people. He said failure was a disease and he didn’t want to catch it. He hated failures. And he had no time for wannabes.”
“He made a lot of enemies that way?”
“Well, let’s just say he didn’t have any friends who were flops. None that I ever heard of anyway. Check this. Flops don’t have this.” They paused to watch a workman installing a Jacuzzi next to its backup bath, a twenty-inch-deep Zuma soaking tub with Zucchetti shower wand and chrome controls, all in a bathroom corner facing a large window with a southerly view of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. “Bathrooms like this,” Azalea said, “only belong to the biggest winners.”
As they mounted an interior staircase winding past another south-facing, harbor-view window, Azalea described the detailing with the pride of a designer coloring her voice. “You got carved stone arches here, all embellished with Corinthian Wheat Shaft terracotta apron work, and fitted with custom fabricated, solid oak sound-attenuated frames. As pricey as it gets.”
When they reached the top of the stairs, Flo popped the question. “You think anyone would’ve wanted him killed? And paid someone to do it?”
While mulling over this one, Azalea gave orders to a mason installing a slate wall in a tropical-garden shower-and-steam room meant to resemble a pool in the Amazon rain forest. Then to Flo she said, “Only a rich asshole would do something that stupid. And I don’t know any assholes, Officer, not in my business. I don’t employ them. And they don’t employ me. Assholes don’t get to buy apartments like this. They lose their money first.”
“Interesting observation,” Flo said, although she had no plans to exclude the rich from any list of suspects. She didn’t feel beholden to them, not like Azalea.
They paused in the doorway of the third bathroom. “No window on this side,” Azalea said. “So we got that wall-sized flat screen displaying great art pieces, one at a time. All twentieth-century masters, Pollock drips, Picasso blue nudes, Klimt gold-draped beauties.” A television technician was adjusting the equipment. “We need some Warhols on this visuals wall here, some Johns, Koons, lots more pop to brighten the mood. Which reminds me. Time for tensies.” Azalea extracted a large bottle of pills from her shoulder satchel, meds of many hues. She selected a pale green capsule. “All prescription, Officer, so don’t you worry. And no OxyContin either, no heroin in a pill, not for this girl. None of that stuff, no way. I don’t do illegal drugs, believe it or not. Ballz did, but then that’s the music business for you.”
“Did he deal?”
Azalea fell silent.
“Did he invest in drug deals?”
“I don’t know, Officer. I didn’t go poking my nose into coke or into any other business of his except real estate. Do I look like a jerk? I sure hope not.” She stopped to wash down the pale green capsule with a swig of mineral water.
“You have to take a lot of medications?”
“What’s a lot? My kind of life, there’s never enough. But Ballz. Poor Ballz, and I mean it, really. Ending up dead way before his time.
Similar Books
