by Chris Knopf
“Do you know where Johnnie’s working?”
“He’s a sous chef somewhere downtown, but don’t ask me where.”
“I was going to ask you. Do you think I could give you a note to drop in his mailbox? I’ll let you see what it says.”
She said sure and watched me write it out on a sheet of paper torn from the little notebook I kept in my back pocket.
“Johnnie: Please contact Sam Acquillo asap. Important.” And included my phone number and e-mail address.
“You’re from Out East,” she said.
“Southampton. I’m a carpenter.”
It was always important to set one’s socioeconomic status with a new person, since the word Southampton could have you living on the ocean or in a run-down rental with ten other people.
“Can you believe some rich guy threw Darby out a window?” she asked, taking the note from me.
“I don’t think that’s a sure thing quite yet,” I told her, not wanting to get more into it than that.
“They seemed happy,” she said.
“Who?”
“Elton and Johnnie. I’m not sure Elton was the faithful type, but when I saw them together they looked pretty lovey-dovey. No way he’d kill himself.” I was reminded of Milton Flowers’s sister-in-law, but didn’t think it worth bringing up. “Why do you want to talk to Johnnie?”
“I met him at Elton’s funeral. Just wanted to follow up on our conversation,” I said. “He asked about restaurant gigs out in the Hamptons, and I might be able to help him,” I lied.
“He’d like that,” she said. “They had one of those relationships where Johnnie was the serious one, responsible, but could never find decent work, and Elton made all the money and was a total nut-boy. In a ha-ha way, not like a depressed nut.”
I watched her through the door window stuff the note into a mailbox before using a key to open her own. I waved and she waved back. Then I sat back down on the stoop, deciding to give it another hour or so, before retreating back to Southampton. I didn’t have long to wait, though, because the woman came back out again, looking concerned.
“Hey, Sam. Can you come up here? Something’s goofy.”
I followed her up the three flights of stairs and she guided me to apartment 3C. We stopped at the door.
“Notice anything?” she asked.
I didn’t at first, but then I did. And I knew what it was. I pulled out my phone and called 911.
“Is it what I think it is?” she asked. I nodded. “Shit.”
I gave the dispatcher the address and told him we probably had a dead body behind a locked door. The woman listened with her hand over her mouth, out of fear or revulsion, or both.
“I grew up on a farm,” she said, explaining how she knew. In death, all God’s creatures end up smelling more or less the same.
I called a friend of mine in the NYPD, told him what I thought was going on, and asked if he could get to the responding cops so I could look over their shoulders. The woman listened to my side of the call with some curiosity, and suspicion.
“You a cop?” she asked.
“Private investigator.”
“I thought you were a carpenter.”
“I’m that too. Mostly that. The cops will want to talk to you when they get here. If my buddy reaches them in time, I can help make it easy.”
“Nothing’s easy,” she said, and I couldn’t disagree.
True to her farming heritage, she stood her ground when the cops arrived with a crowbar and busted open the door. People describe a wave of strong odor as a wall, and that’s what it felt like. The cops had been given a heads-up about me, and they just asked to see my PI license and let me stand in the hallway with the woman, who continued to show remarkable fortitude. I couldn’t see much from that vantage point, but I could hear the cops call it in, and knew enough of the code numbers and acronym-filled nomenclature to tell her it was a white male, mid-thirties, in the bedroom, apparently battered, though early decomposition made it hard to confirm.
When the cops set about securing the scene, they had us move away from the door to the end of the hall, where one of them took our statements. The woman learned a lot more about me, though not enough to have her feel like I’d totally bamboozled her with my story. I made sure to include the bit about meeting Johnnie at the funeral and my efforts to get all the facts straight in Darby’s death. I didn’t have to say that Burton was my friend, or that I was working for his lawyer. I could fill that stuff in later with my buddy on the force.
I wanted to take a direct look at the crime scene, but didn’t push it with the serious-minded cops, and I trusted their CSIs and medical examiners to observe and interpret far better than me. So I just left them and the late Johnnie Mercado’s neighbor to her disrupted day. Surprisingly, she stuck out her hand to shake.
“I wish I could say nice to meet you,” she said. “But that’s not your fault.”
“Sorry.”
“Elton and Johnnie. Boom-boom. Just like that.”
I wanted to give her reassurances that these things don’t just happen, that there was something purposeful behind it all, but if she’d asked what, I wouldn’t have had an answer. So I just shook her hand, thanked her for her help, and drifted on out of there.
I TOOK the subway over to Worldwide Loventeers where I hung out with a Nigerian guy selling umbrellas and native art, manufactured in China, so I could stake out the entrance of their office building. He tolerated my company, especially after I bought an umbrella, suggesting that all the hot weather was a sure harbinger of big rainstorms to come. I would have opened it to create a little shade and maybe draw in a few more customers, but I didn’t want to catch the attention of Milton Flowers, whom I finally saw at a little before four in the afternoon, making a break for it.
I pulled my baseball cap down low on my forehead and followed as far back as I dared. He moved quickly enough for a wide little guy, so we kept a steady pace all the way to the subway entrance. I tightened up the distance as we trotted down the stairs, and took a few anxious seconds buying a ticket while Flowers used a pass to move through the turnstile. I guessed he was heading downtown and was rewarded by seeing him on the platform checking his phone like 90 percent of the other subway passengers. This let me close in without notice so I could board the same car.
After the doors shut, I sat down next to him.
“Hi, Milt,” I said.
He jumped a little.
“Shit, you startled me.”
“Sorry. Where’re we headed?”
“I’m going home. I don’t know where you’re headed.”
“With you. I thought maybe we could get a drink on the way. I’ll buy.”
“I don’t think so. What’re you doing here?”
“I was planning on talking to Johnnie Mercado, but when I got to his apartment, he was dead. Probably beaten to death. So I thought I’d use the time to talk to you instead.”
“Jesus Christ. You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. I’m the one who called the cops.”
He seemed equal parts frightened and annoyed. I considered trying to calm his fears but decided against it.
“I just want to talk,” I said. “Burton Lewis has been charged with killing Elton Darby. And now an important witness is also dead. You can understand why I have questions.”
“That’s your problem. Nothing to do with me.”
He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and tie, another thing that reminded me of the rank-and-file engineers back at the company. Contrary to popular myth, you didn’t see many pocket protectors, though a lot of their pockets had ink stains from pens stuck in with the caps off.
“Ten minutes,” I said. “What can it hurt?”
“My wife is waiting for me,” he said.
“Invite her along. I’ll pay for her too.”
We endured a few stops with commuters getting on and off, some of them eyeing our seats with weary envy. I tried to guess his destination, answe
red when he stood up on the approach to Spring Street and Lafayette. I stood up next to him.
“This isn’t going away,” I said. “We’ll have to talk eventually. Why not now?”
He didn’t answer, but let me follow him up to Spring, where he walked with authority into a little bar that was filling up, though still with a few empty booths. He sat with his back to the door, and I was happy to sit across from him, always wanting to see who was coming and going.
He waved at the bartender and signaled for two of something he must have usually ordered. I hoped it was drinkable.
“I liked Mercado,” he said. “More than Darby, to be honest. Good kid. Not that I didn’t like Darby as well. I told you that.”
“You did.”
For some reason I hadn’t remembered that he had a moustache, more grey than black, that was slightly bigger than something Hitler would wear. I noticed it when the beers arrived, cold and foamy straight from the tap.
“Art Reynolds came to see me out in the Hamptons,” I said. “Do you wonder why he’d do that?”
Flowers looked settled in with his beer in his favorite spot, as if achieving refuge from the overtaxed burdens of his day-to-day life. I thought it might discourage him from talking, but it had the opposite effect.
“I can guess,” he said, “but you already know. For the record, I gave him my resignation today. Sent it by e-mail. Haven’t heard back, but that’s not unusual. Art always expects a speedy response and never gives one back in return. Just another power thing.”
I told him I liked his choice in beers. He said it was a special brew the owner of the place mixed up in his basement, probably illegal. Then he told me his old fire station was only a few blocks from where we were sitting. That on 9/11 he was in Asbury Park with his wife on vacation. Most of his mates perished. He tried to get there, but it was too late. All that was left was the giant mound of rubble and a whole lot of smoke, and even the cops he knew wouldn’t let him through the roadblocks. They told him to go back to New Jersey and wait for news.
“I slept in a church that night,” he said. “Episcopalian, even though I’m Catholic. I spent most of the time comforting the priest, or minister, or whatever you call those people. We got soused on communion wine. Worst shit I ever drank.”
I couldn’t add anything to that, so I just sat there and listened, slowly turning the tall glass of beer in the slick on the table.
“I’d already decided that I was quitting the department and going to work for God,” he said, “though the priest really helped put it over. The whole thing sounds really stupid, so I don’t normally talk about it. Seeking out God after being spared from a horrible death that swept up your best friends. The guilt, the need to do something different with your life. I hate hearing all that crap when other people talk about it, but that’s what happened. I had the accounting degree from night school, I just needed to do the CPA exam. I like numbers. Math is math. The same numbers will always add up to the same thing. It’s about the only thing a person can believe in. My only job criterion was working for people doing some good in the world. I started with the Salvation Army, then went to the Red Cross, and some other nonprofits you never heard of, till landing with the Loventeers. You’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.”
“Cause I’m a good listener?”
“You are, but that’s not why. You’re going to want me to say why I quit the Loventeers, what the organization is like, how Darby got along with other employees, all that stuff. Which I’m not going to do. Whatever I told you already is all you’re going to get from me.”
Without taking his eyes off me he twirled his finger in the air and the bartender said coming right up. Flowers said it would have to be his last one, since his wife really was waiting for him.
“She won’t have a bite to eat until I show up,” he said. “Thinks it’s rude. I tell her I don’t care, especially if she’s hungry, but she has her principles. Like I have mine.”
“Like not talking about your employers,” I said.
“Nothing bad about my employers. I’ll tell you good things all day and night.”
He said I could find it all on their website, but their main mission was fighting poverty in remote rural regions around the world. Improving health care and nutrition, advancing economic well-being, making the world a better place.
“I guess that’s noble,” I said. “Unless it helps people get away with bad things.”
“Here’s another of my principles,” he said. “My family comes first. Then God. If he doesn’t like that, I’m sorry, but there’s no sense lying about it since he knows everything.”
“I don’t get the connection. You won’t talk about the Loventeers because of your family?”
He looked at me with the indulgence you’d reserve for a child or golden retriever.
“How long you been in the private detecting business?” he asked.
“Officially? Not too long. My friend Jackie Swaitkowski talked me into getting my PI license. She thought it would keep me from getting in trouble with the cops. Not sure it would have made much difference.”
He drained off his beer, looking at the bottom of the glass as if another swallow might magically appear.
“Then I got some advice for you,” he said. “Just let all this alone. No way they’re going to convict a big wheel like Burton Lewis. Surprised it got this far. There’s nothing you can do but make things worse for everybody.”
I thanked him for his excellent advice, assuring him I would back off as soon as the earth reversed its axis and the Mets won the World Series. He told me he wasn’t surprised.
“You got a family, too, though, right?” he asked. “Everybody’s got people they’d rather not see hurt. That’s the real higher power. Bigger than yourself.”
I ran through a mental checklist. My daughter and her boyfriend were in France. Amanda was two hours away. Probably still at her project, a tear-down in Sag Harbor. Burton was with Sullivan, both secure. Jackie? Who knew?
I left him at the booth and went out to the curb. I called Nathan, Allison’s boyfriend. He was reasonably glad to hear from me. I asked how they were doing, if everything was okay, nothing out of the ordinary.
“Should there be?” he asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “But I’m hiring some people over there to look after you for a little while. Expect to be contacted soon. Do you know the name of Allison’s pet hamster?”
“I do. Don’t ask me why.”
“They will too,” I said. “They’ll stay in the background, but if they want you to do something, please do it. Meanwhile, just stay tucked in for a few hours.”
“I know what to do,” he said.
“I know you do, and so does Allison.”
I got off the phone so I could make another call. In a few minutes, things in France were underway. You could say I was an overly protective father, though once I wasn’t, and it almost cost me my daughter.
I called Amanda.
When she answered the phone I said, “You once told me how much you love staying at Burton’s house.”
“Oh, please. Not again.”
She knew what I was going to say. That I couldn’t concentrate on helping Burton if I was worried about keeping her safe. She didn’t ask me to explain over the phone the sudden concern, only that she looked forward to an interesting conversation.
“You bet. Sullivan’s already at Burton’s. I’m sure you can have your regular bedroom. Isabella still has a big stock of dog biscuits.”
“When were you thinking we should go?”
“Nowish?”
Milton Flowers came out of the bar as I was finishing up with Amanda. He stood with his hands in his pockets and just looked at me. I stared back at him.
“I rest my case,” he said, then strolled off like he was taking a Sunday walk in the park.
CHAPTER NINE
I called Burton Lewis and told him to expect Amanda and Eddie showing up within the ho
ur.
“Seems like an uptick in precaution,” he said. “Not that I don’t enjoy having those two around.”
I asked him if he ever met a guy named Mikolaj Galecki, friend of Art Reynolds. I described him as best I could. He said he hadn’t.
“I haven’t spent much time with Reynolds,” he said. “Only at charity events. I noticed he always had a different young lovely hanging off his arm, not always his wife. Quite the rake.”
There was a lot more I wanted to ask him, but not over the phone. I hated talking on the phone, with only words doing all the work. Though one question popped out of me.
“Say, Burt, you sure you don’t know more about the Loventeers, what they actually do?”
“Just what I already told you. They had the Edelsteins’ imprimatur, which is good enough at that point. I haven’t given enough to bother vetting them beyond that.”
When we got off the phone, I called Jackie and gave her the rundown. I was able to get most of it out despite frequent outbursts of “Jesus Christ!” and “Son-of-a-bitch!” whenever I was forced to take a breath.
“I could get through this faster if you stopped interrupting me,” I said.
“I’m not interrupting. I’m actively listening.”
Before hanging up, I gave her an assignment, tracking down Mikolaj Galecki.
“I thought the tracking down part was your part of the deal,” she said.
“Not when you need investigative software. That’s a job for you kids.”
“You can’t hide behind ignorance forever,” she said.
“I didn’t know that.”
MY NYPD friend was a detective named Bill Fenton. I got involved with him when my daughter, Allison, was beaten up in her apartment on the Upper West Side, not far from Darby and Mercado’s place. I called him and he agreed to meet me at a joint where we’d spent some time in the past, close to where he worked and full of other cops, so pretty safe, unless it was the cops you were afraid of.