Inherit the Dead by Jonathan Santlofer Page B

that being slender was a requisite in the area. But she also had curves, and the black tank and knit pants revealed that the woman didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat or extra skin—surely carbs never passed her full, well-formed lips.
    She was, he believed, thirty-plus, and maybe plus, but whatever plastic surgery she had endured had been done with greater artistry than that seen on any of her canvases.
    She looked up from her current work in progress as the butler led him in.
    “Mr. Perry Christo, mum,” the butler announced. The butler had already made Perry feel as if he had stepped into an old black-and-white English film on the aristocracy. He was dead straight, didn’t crack a smile, and wore an impeccable tux. Maybe that was what butlers really did—walk around in impeccable tuxes and look good and stiff.
    Hmm. If the guy were a stiff, he might not look much different.
    “Oh, dear! That was fast. You just called.”
    “I did say fifteen or twenty minutes, didn’t I?”
    “It seemed like only a moment ago. I’m a mess.”
    She is anything but, thought Perry.
    Lilith seemed disconcerted as she set her brush on the palette, rose from the chair she’d been sitting in before her canvas, and walked—no, sailed, and quite regally—over to him. She extended a hand—a perfectly manicured, soft hand—and smiled.
    “How do you do, Mr. Christo. It is Mr., right? It’s my understanding you’re a private investigator, and not a detective? I seldom see people, but you did sound as if you had such passion when you called!”
    The way she smiled at him—like a grinning bobcat about to pounce—he wondered if she had looked him up, if she knew about his past, too.
    “Yes, it’s Mr. Christo. But please, call me Perry,” he said.
    Her smiled deepened. She assessed him as he stood there. He felt a little like a cut of meat at a butcher’s shop. But maybe it was important. He took some of his frustrations and his anger—mostly at himself—out on gym equipment. That might stand him well today.
    Though at the moment, the way she was looking at him, he felt like some male escort. Clearly, she had deigned to see him because she was curious.
    “Call me Lilith,” she told him. “Jeeves, we’ll take champagne, please,” she said to the butler, not bothering to look his way.
    The butler’s name is really Jeeves?
    “None for me, thank you,” Perry said.
    “Oh, Mr. Christo—Perry!” she said. “Indulge me. Obviously you’re here because you want something from me. That does mean that you should humor all my whims.”
    He didn’t say yes or no; the butler with the improbable name silently turned and disappeared.
    “Do come on in, Perry,” Lilith said with a broad sweep of her hand. At the one end of her studio was a settee with a small table before it. She indicated that he should sit.
    As he walked toward the settee, he looked at her work. Lilith took the concept of “abstract” to the extreme. Splotches of color adorned most of the canvases.
    “What do you think?” she asked him.
    He smiled. “I once went to a showing at the Guggenheim,” he told her.
    “And?”
    “They had just spent an incredible sum on a painting called Black .”
    “And does my work remind you of that priceless piece of art?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “It was black.”
    “Ah, but art is in the texture, in the subtext! What was the artist saying?” she asked.
    “That he’d gotten a lot of black paint?”
    She waved a hand in the air. “Well, of course, you were a cop. You were, right, at one time?” she asked, her smile dazzling. Her lips were generous and well formed, rich. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, and they set in her perfectly chiseled face like twin beacons of mischief. One of her elegant ringed hands moved in the air with an expression of patience. “One doesn’t expect someone unschooled in the arts to understand.”
    He blinked, willing himself to keep his face impassive, and quickly put himself in check;