Act of God Read Free Page B

Streisand. Could have been worse, don’t you think?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    The lips curled so much they nearly bowed. “Well, how would you like going through life as ‘Barblene’?”
    I asked William Proft to wait outside until Pearl Rivkind came back. I turned in my chair, slid out my secretarial pull-tray and put my feet up on it. As always, there were a lot of people milling around the subway station. I raised my window a couple of inches.
    Two sketch artists, maybe Cambodian, were sitting in sand chairs next to their easels out of the sun, hucking the people who walked past. “Hey, lovely lady, we do your portrait? Seven minutes, no waiting.”
    An elderly black man, in broken boots with no laces, leaned against the wall of the station, talking loudly to nobody in particular. “No, I never did live there, man. Not in the new New York. Nossir, I lived in the old New York, the days gone by when New York was mostly white and all polite. My brothers and sisters of color, man, they ruint that city, ruint it for everybody.”
    In front of the black man, a carrot-haired boy in his late teens was ballroom dancing with a life-sized female doll wearing a white gown. Her high-heeled slippers were strapped to the tops of his Nikes as he whirled her around their cement dance floor, smiling proudly at the passersby as he gracefully avoided them.
    I went back to the notes on my desk. I don’t do divorce cases for the same reasons that Pearl Rivkind’s request troubled me, but I only had to think of Beth lying in her hillside overlooking the harbor in South Boston to know I’d already made up my mind in Rivkind’s favor. I could turn down William Proft, wanted to on personality grounds, but having a missing-person case as a cover would make it a lot easier to deal with the Homicide Unit regarding Abraham Rivkind’s death, and having Proft’s authorization would allow me to get into both problems faster and smoother.
    The knock on the pebbled-glass itself had to come from Proft, and when I said “Come in” this time, he had to hobble himself to allow Pearl Rivkind to enter first. Without my saying anything, they took the same chairs they’d chosen the first time.
    Rivkind already had a tissue in her hand. “Well, what do you think? Can you help us?”
    Proft didn’t speak, maybe sensing that Pearl made the better ambassador.
    “Let me spell out some ground rules first, then you can decide.”
    Rivkind said, “Go ahead.”
    “First, I’ll need my money up front. I don’t care how you arrange that between yourselves, but I won’t be allocating my time so much to the Rivkind side and so much to the Proft side. Second, I’ll consider a call or report by me to either of you to be a report to both.”
    Rivkind looked at Proft. “That’s okay with me.” He nodded back.
    “Third, I’ll keep going until I think it’s hopeless or until I see a conflict staring me in the face. If a conflict comes up, I have permission from both of you to stay with one side of the case and tell the other good-bye.”
    That seemed to give Rivkind a little trouble, but Proft nodded quickly, and she followed suit.
    “Fourth, coming at this from two sides will make it impossible to keep my investigation confidential. Given that, I’ll want you to lay groundwork for me with the people at the furniture store and Darbra’s apartment house.”
    Proft’s lips curled contentedly as he and I both realized I’d finally used his sister’s name, but Rivkind just said, “Whatever you need.”
    “Fifth, and I think last, since this is an open homicide, I have to start with the police.”
    Rivkind said, “I hope so.”
    “But, since Ms. Proft’s disappearance is the fresher trail, I’m probably going to visit her apartment before hitting the store.”
    Rivkind’s eyes told me she had more trouble with that, but she said only, “Whatever you think.”
    I looked at both of them. “So, we’re agreed?”
    Final, vigorous nods. As I asked