Toured to Death by Hy Conrad Page B

objected.
    â€œI don’t know about odds,” Georgina said. “But I saw the similarities from the beginning. Even the menu, at least I think. It was five years ago at a weekend party. And there was the host getting up halfway through dinner and walking out. And then the disappearance—except we called in private detectives, of course.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Paul demanded, his primness disappearing. “Was he ever found? Was he killed? Who killed him? This is so macabre.”
    â€œHey, Amy!”
    The words were shouted and startling. Frank Loyola and his pétanque /boccie/shuffleboard-playing teammates had finished their game and were walking down the steps back to the garden. Amy and her third-story balcony lay directly above their line of sight, and it hadn’t taken much of an effort for Frank to see her.
    The captain of the Stew Boys was a large man with a voice that carried. “You look like some bird in a cage. Why don’t you come down and join us?” At least half the crowd had heard Frank’s initial greeting. Now the entire tour was glancing up at her postage stamp–size balcony. A scattered few waved.
    Amy smiled wanly and looked everywhere but at Georgina. She had to be staring directly up. Was it a friendly stare or a hostile one? Amy didn’t dare risk finding out. “I’m coming,” she said to everyone but Georgina and reached for her drink.
    That evening, all through cocktails and dinner and after-dinner socializing, Amy was desperate to make a call. For someone who’d never been good at hiding emotions, she did well, smiling and pretending nothing was wrong. It was a few minutes after midnight when she was finally able to tear herself away.
    The local cell service, she discovered, vacillated between spotty and nonexistent. She was forced instead to use the landline that the owners had someone managed to squeeze into her room. Several calls and several recorded messages later, Amy gave up and dialed a different number, a number she’d first memorized in preschool.
    â€œMom? Hi,” she said, as if they were across town from each other and not across an ocean. “Going great. Look, I’m trying to get in touch with Otto Ingo. His phone seems to be disconnected or dead or . . .”
    â€œDead,” Fanny said. It was dinnertime in New York, and she had just sat down to a warmed-up casserole. “Otto’s dead. Not his phone. Him.”
    â€œCome again?” Amy had heard fine. She just wanted to give it a second chance.
    â€œOtto’s dead. He was murdered Thursday, less than an hour after I wrote the check. Bad luck, huh?”
    â€œWow!” The air hung heavy on the line as Amy tried to process the information.
    â€œYou still there?”
    Amy cleared her throat. “Uh, what exactly do you mean, murdered?”
    â€œI mean shot dead with a gun.”
    â€œThat’ll do.” Amy was still processing. “What happened? I mean, was he mugged? A family dispute? No, of course. He had no family.”
    â€œThey don’t know who or why. The police were here this morning. They’d found our check in his wallet. I wonder if anyone’s going to cash it.”
    â€œHis estate will, although it’s hard to think of Otto with a will and an executor. Have the police contacted Otto’s assistant? He should be informed.”
    â€œI asked the detective about that. He said he would look through Otto’s records for a name, but I think that’s pretty low on their list.”
    â€œWe have to get in touch with his assistant.”
    â€œI know. Oh, and his apartment was ransacked.”
    â€œThen it was robbery. No. You said he still had his wallet.” Amy was surprised at how analytically she was taking all this. Perhaps it was the distance between them, or the fact that she’d played murder games all her life and these were the standard opening gambits. Eliminating the