“I don’t see how we’ll ever know,” Corey said gloomily. “Everyone attached to the table is dead.”
“What I want to know,” said Abe, “is why did four months elapse between this banquet and the murders?”
“I don’t think we’re going to find that out, so I propose we shelve it for the moment,” Carmine said.
“But we can find out the names of plenty of people who went and didn’t die,” Corey said. “We need to get a feel for the kind of function it was.”
“Silvestri!” Carmine exclaimed. “He was there, so were Danny and Larry.” He was halfway to the door in seconds. “I’ll talk to him, so don’t mention it to the others. For the time being, we sit on this.”
John Silvestri listened raptly, intensely proud of his niece and in a lightning moment resolving to write to his uppity Oxford brother-in-law to the effect that Delia would leave more of a mark on history than her father would. Then reality crunched down and he concentrated on Delia’s actual revelations. “Jesus H. Christ!” he said at the end of it. “What was that tricky bastard doing? There’s no use asking me, Carmine, I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
“Yes, John, but you were present,” Carmine said. “We’d just had Julian, and weren’t. Tell me what it was like, what went on. I need to get a picture of things.”
Silvestri closed his eyes, the better to remember. “I guess it stayed in my mind better than these charity functions usually do because, to pinch a phrase from Stan Freberg, it ran on mink wheels. Smooth! We got three courses in an hour, so there was plenty of time for dancing and socializing without our needing to be there until after midnight. The food was good, and it was served without a hitch because of the sheer number of waiters and waitresses. Once the dessert plates were cleared, they kept the coffee and after-dinner drinks coming as fast as we wanted them. The coffee was good and kept hot, there was tea for those who wanted it. I remember we all agreed you couldn’t find a thing to complain about.”
Carmine listened intently, then zeroed in on one word. “You said there was time for socializing, John. What did you mean?”
“If you went to more big events instead of dodging them, Carmine, you’d know,” the Commissioner said, deftly inserting a tiny shaft of reproach. “New York City this ain’t. A lot of the people who go don’t meet much anywhere else, so as soon as the coffee’s on the table, they start table hopping to catch up. Like Elder Jesse Bateman of Busquash—I hardly ever see him, so when a couple at his table got up and went somewhere else, the wife and I joined them. It was a big dance floor and the band was playing Glenn Miller, but not everybody wants to dance. Table hopping is probably more popular than dancing.”
“And there were two vacant chairs at the Fourth National table,” Carmine said. “That means other people must have joined Norton and his guests.” He let out an explosive sigh. “Somewhere in Holloman are a bunch of people who included Norton’s table in their hopping. All I have to do is find them.”
“Well, don’t count on me,” Silvestri said quickly. “I took one look at Desmond Skeps sitting there and steered a wide berth around the Fourth National. So did a lot of others, including the Mayor and his ass-kissers.”
“Why?” Carmine asked, astonished at the Mayor’s omission.
“Even long distance, anyone could see Skeps was as drunk as a skunk.”
“Wow! So much for the temperance myth. A million thanks, sir. You’ve helped immeasurably.”
He returned to his office in a very thoughtful mood, to find Corey and Abe leaning over the Maxwell Foundation plan of fifty round tables, each one labeled with its sponsor and number. The Fourth National table was number 17, with 16 to its left and 18 to its right. There were ten rows of five tables, number 17 near the north end and well away from any important Cornucopia table. Phil Smith’s was number 43, Wal Grierson’s 39, Fred Collins’s 40. Everywhere around number 17 were tables of relative nonentities. So why did Desmond Skeps sit there? Because he knew he’d be on the sauce? Or because, squiring Dee-Dee, he had to walk almost the length of the hall to reach number 17?
“So why with Peter Norton?” Carmine asked yet again.
“And why with Dee-Dee?” Corey asked yet again.
“Erica Davenport would have been his logical choice,” Abe said.
“No way! He’d just dumped her as his mistress,” Corey said, “and she was with her usual date, Gus Purvey.”