Columbo: Grassy Knoll

by William Harrington

  Columbo drew down the comers of his mouth and tipped his head from side to side. “She and Sclafani were seen together a lot, I hear.”

  “I noticed. I figure she was into him for some money,” said Menninger.

  “Come again?”

  “Alicia dropped a lotta money at the tables. Look, she walked away from my table one night, down what had to be between fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. I mean, Christ, man, Drury wasn’t stakin’ her to that kinda dough! I mean, she was obsessed. You see the type all the time, you work around the casinos. A gentleman from Arizona was droppin’ more than ten thousand when you got me called away from my table. You know how they figure—they’re sure to win if they can just hold out through a little streak of bad luck.”

  “So Mrs. Drury…?”

  “Was into Piping Rock for a lotta money. I figure she was. That would’ve been what she was talking to Mr. Sclafani about when she was seen with him.”

  “Would he have been threatening to break her legs?” asked Columbo.

  “Naah. I doubt that. They got different ways of collectin’ these days. The Sclafanis are clean, man. It’s not like it was in the old days. The casino operators are businessmen. Well… some of them can get rough if a debt is not paid, but it’s not the usual thing. They don’t hire legbreakers. Only one kinda guy gets a visit from a legbreaker. Maybe two kinds. Cheaters and guys who just tell them to go to hell, they won’t pay. The casinos can get very tough about that.”

  “Let’s suppose Mrs. Drury did owe a lot of money,” said Columbo. “What kinda deal would they make?”

  “To start with,” said Menninger, “a high roller can usually settle for eighty cents on the dollar. Sometimes seventy. They’d rather have the business. They don’t want that known, but that’s the way it is. They negotiate. They take payments. They also work out business arrangements, if you know what I mean.”

  “Tell me,” said Columbo.

  “Some of the high rollers are in a position to take the casino operator in on a good deal. Look— I could get my legs broken for talkin’ too much, but I want you to lay off Bobby, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Columbo. It was an easy promise to make, since he had no thought that Bobby Angela had murdered Paul Drury.

  “Look. You remember the Wall Street scandals— Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, using inside information? If you got inside information about somethin’ goin’ on in a business, you can make a quick fortune trading in the right stock. Suppose a high roller is an officer of some company. He’s into a casino for, say, a hundred thousand. He tells the collector, ‘Look, man, I can show your boss how to make a million quick.’ He does, and the boss makes the million quick. The hundred thousand is forgotten. I mean, guys can do favors for other guys and wipe out debts.”

  “How do you figure Alicia Drury could wipe out a debt?” Columbo asked.

  “I dunno. What’s she got to offer? Her tail? Not worth much. Or… I guess maybe it might be, to the right guys.”

  “How’d that work out?” Columbo asked. “I mean, that’s a cheap commodity in a town like this.”

  Menninger smiled and shook his head. “Lemme tell you about Bobby, my daughter,” he said. “Phil Sclafani never asked her to sell herself. But he also made it plain to her that she could pick up some very good extra money if she’d— Well, you know what. Guys that saw her sing in the lounge. That made a fantasy for them, if you get me. Look, Lieutenant. The point is this. If a high roller gets a hard-on about a girl he can only find at, say, the Flamingo, he gambles at the Flamingo. It gets bigger than that sometimes. Look… there was a very big star-type comedienne worked Piping Rock a month last year. She gambled like Alicia.

  Man, she was into the casino for a hundred thousand if she was into it for a nickel. She paid off about fifty thousand, which was her salary for her work on the stage. The rest of it they forgave. Why? ’Cause she slept with two or three high rollers they shoved her way. She kept them in the Piping Rock Casino, they lost God knows how much, and Sclafani profited. I don’t know if Alicia did anything like that. What’s she… forty years old? But she’s got a name. She did the weather for a year or so, in a miniskirt, and she was a reporter, on camera all the time. She was on the screen every time the Drury show was on. Some guys might—”

  “I see what you got in mind,” said Columbo, nodding.

  “I dunno,” said Menninger. “I saw her around the place. She was hand-in-hand with guys I recognized as high rollers. I mean, could… hell, man, I don’t know.”

  “Give me the names of these high rollers.”

  “Jesus, if—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m a cop, not a squealer.” Menninger glanced around: a self-conscious tic. “There’s a guy from LA that flies over here about once a month. His name is Henry Sanders. He was very cozy with Alicia Drury a coupla times. I don’t know if they were just a pair of gamblers who got to be friends, or what. Incidentally, he’s in town. The Piping Rock lost him. He’s staying at Caesars Palace. His is the only name I can think of.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Short, fat guy. Bald. Always wears black three-piece suits. It won’t be difficult to spot him if you see him around the casinos. There aren’t many of his type in Vegas.”

  “This has been very helpful,” said Columbo. “I’ll let ya get back to your work.”

  Eleven

  1

  When the cab dropped him at his motel, Columbo realized he was tired. As he often told people, he really needed his eight hours’ sleep every night; it was something about his metabolism; and he wasn’t much good after eleven o’clock. It was almost midnight now, and he was ready to go to bed. He decided he would not even call home until morning.

  “Lieutenant.” Cronin. It was Cronin, the security man from the Piping Rock Hotel, rising from the lobby couch where he had been sitting and smoking a cigarette. It wasn’t coincidence, that was for sure. If Cronin was here waiting for him, something was up.

  “Did you find Virgil Menninger, Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. You put me on the right track for that one.”

  “Hope he was helpful.”

  “Well… you know. Guy like that. You can never really tell if he knows anything or not.”

  Cronin grinned. “Wanta know why I’m here?”

  “I was wonderin’. Looks like you been waitin’ for me.

  “Mr. Sclafani would like you to join him in the penthouse for a late supper.”

  “Well, that sure is nice of Mr. Sclafani. I usually get to bed before this, but I wouldn’t wanta pass up an invitation to supper with Mr. Sclafani.”

  2

  Philip Sclafani was a tall, swarthy man, well put together, with a flat belly, wearing a silvery-gray suit that fit him perfectly. His iron-gray hair was brushed back and held in place, obviously, by a non-oily hair dressing. He wore aviator-shape eyeglasses in silver frames.

  "Paesano,” he said as he extended his hand to Columbo.

  "Sono molto lieto di fare la sua conoscenza,” said Columbo. “Come sta?”

  Sclafani grinned. “You got me. Lieutenant,” he said. “It doesn’t take much to run me through what little Italian I ever learned. But I am a paesano.”

  “We spoke it at home,” said Columbo.

  “My father speaks it,” said Sclafani. “He came to this country from Sicily, when he was a boy. He’s eighty-five now, but he hasn’t forgotten.”

  “When I was a boy,” said Columbo, “I knew his name. Giuseppe Sclafani. We knew the name.”

  “Different days,” said Philip Sclafani. “My father was at the Apalachin meet. I’m sure you know what that was.”

  Columbo nodded. “This is a beautiful place ya got here,” he said. “My—”

  “The penthouse is my father’s,” said Sclafani. “I live down two floors.”

  The penthouse was sumptuously furnished, though Columbo was at a loss to guess what word to use to name its style. It was luxurious with
out the elegance of, say, the Paul Drury offices in Los Angeles. On the wall behind the bar in the living room, a nude reclined languorously on rumpled sheets, painted with complete realism on black velvet. The bar glasses sat on lighted shelves before mirrors, so it looked as if there were twice as many of them as there really were. The furniture was expensive, but it gave the penthouse the air of a hotel suite, not a home.

  Sclafani led Columbo to the bar and pointed at the stainless-steel stools upholstered in tan leather. He sat on one, and Columbo sat on another. “What can I offer you to drink?” he asked. “Scotch? Martini? Vodka?”

  “Well, sir, at this time of night I oughta stay away from the hard stuff. A beer. Or a glass of red wine.”

  “Open a bottle of the Chianti Classico,” Sclafani said to Cronin. “Well, Lieutenant Columbo, I guess I know what brings you to Las Vegas. I assume that the fact you are here means you don’t really have any suspects in the Paul Drury murder.”

  “The fact is, what I’ve got is too many suspects,”

  said Columbo. “What I’m workin’ on is trying to get some of them off my list. You know how that is. Of course the ex-wife is always a suspect. Just like the wife always is—unless they got some ironclad alibi.”

  “And Alicia Drury doesn’t have an alibi?”

  “Well… I’d say she’s got a pretty good alibi,” said Columbo. “But it’s not perfect.”

  “And you want to know what is my relationship with her?”

  Columbo turned up his hands. “If you wanta talk about it, sir. I don’t mean to get too personal.”

  “If, Lieutenant, the question is whether or not I slept with Alicia Drury, the answer is no.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Mr. Sclafani. I don’t like to have to get into those personal things.”

  Sclafani lifted the bottle of wine and stared at it critically for a moment. He sniffed the cork. Then he poured a swallow into a glass and tasted it. Finally he poured a glass for Columbo and one for himself.

  Columbo didn’t perform the wine ritual. He just sipped the wine and said, “My, that is good! Chianti. My favorite.”

  “My relationship with Alicia Drury was entirely simple,” said Sclafani. He paused to salute with the wine. “She gambled heavily here and lost a lot of money. The question was, how was she going to pay? I suppose she met with me a dozen times, proposing a payment schedule, trying to get me to omit interest, and so on.”

  “Was it a really big amount of money, sir?” asked Columbo.

  “Let’s say it was a very substantial amount of money,” said Sclafani. “Look… I’ll give you an idea of how she tried to pay what she owed. She gave me a stock tip. She tried to get me to buy a short position in an oil company called Orange International. If I’d done it and credited the profit to her. I’d have made enough to retire her debt. The problem was, she was offering me insider information picked up by researchers for the Drury show. If the SEC had figured out the connection…”

  “I get ya.”

  “The woman is no innocent. Lieutenant. I can’t believe she killed Paul Drury, if that’s what you’ve got in mind, but she’s no innocent.”

  “Does she still owe you money, sir?”

  “No. She paid off. That was… about four or five months ago. In full.”

  “Was that in cash?”

  Sclafani nodded. “In cash.”

  “All at once…” said Columbo, shaking his head in apparent amazement.

  “All at once.”

  “Isn’t that interestin’? She comes up with it all of a sudden, huh?”

  “I’m like you. I wonder where she got it. Maybe she got some more insider information. But to make money off insider information, she’d have had to have money to invest. Anyway, she paid. I figured she’d found a man who’d pay it for her.”

  “This is excellent wine, Mr. Sclafani. I really appreciate your openin’ a bottle like this.”

  “The hotel is bringing up some roast beef in a little while,” said Sclafani. “The wine will go well with roast beef. Let me pour you some more.”

  “Very kind of ya,” said Columbo, watching with satisfaction as Sclafani poured.

  “Philip… the name had been spoken in a cracked, weak voice, by an elderly man who had just entered the room.

  “My father,” said Sclafani quietly. “He’s eighty-five.”

  The elderly man walked slowly toward the bar, not shuffling, yet not lifting his feet more than an inch or so off the floor. His chin was high, and he held his body straight, even though it was obviously fragile and slow to respond to the commands of his brain. His yellowish-white hair was thick across the top of his head. He wore round horn-rimmed eyeglasses. A big cigar, unlighted, hung limply in the fingers of his left hand. He wore a blue blazer with the crest of the hotel on the pocket, white shirt, striped necktie, gray flannel slacks, and polished black Gucci loafers.

  “Papa, this is Lieutenant Columbo of the homicide squad, Los Angeles Police.”

  “Ahh…” said Giuseppe Sclafani, using his tongue to shove his dentures back into place as he spoke. His voice was raspy, but his words were fully intelligible. “A homicide detective. Pour me some wine, Philip. Well, Lieutenant Columbo… am I glad to see you? Or am I not glad to see you?”

  “I hope you’re glad to see me, sir,” said Columbo. “I’m just here askin’ a few routine questions. Nothin’ special. Nothin’ to worry about.” The old man sampled the wine, then nodded emphatically—whether to approve the wine or to agree with Columbo was not evident. “Detectives investigating murders,” he said, “never play games. They are always the finest sort of fellows. The others— Well. You know how it can be.” He shrugged.

  “I’m from New York, Mr. Sclafani,” said Columbo. “When I was a boy, I already knew your name.”

  “When I was a boy, I knew the name of Julius Caesar,” rasped Giuseppe Sclafani.

  His son laughed. Columbo joined in.

  “You ever hear of the Castellammarese connection?” the old man asked Columbo.

  “Yes, sir. I’ve heard of it.”

  “Salvatore Maranzano… he brought me to America, from Sicily. Paid my passage. Later he was murdered. That’s how things were in the old days. He was murdered.”

  Giuseppe Sclafani spoke with a faint accent. He put the unlighted cigar between his lips from time to time but quickly took it out, as if he found no satisfaction in it and longed to strike a match and light it.

  “That’s how things were in the old days. If a man offended you—”

  “Papa.”

  “Well. It is so. These things are history today. Except in Sicily, where they still do it.”

  “Except back home in New York, where they still do it,” said Columbo.

  “No,” said Giuseppe Sclafani, turning down the comers of his mouth. “Hoodlums. Hoodlums killing hoodlums. In the old days, it was business. Strictly business. No one died unless he had given offense. Major offense. Major offense, giving honest men reason to put him aside. No… all that is gone. Lieutenant— I have never been in prison. Not a single day. If what some say about me were true, would I not have been in prison? Even Meyer Lansky served six months in jail. My son is timid.” The old man paused and smiled. “Maybe that is why I live in comfort today. But… forgotten. You know, I haven’t been out of the hotel in two or three years, not even downstairs for… what, Phil? Two years?”

  “You came down for the staff Christmas party in 1991, Papa. But you know you don’t have to stay up here. You can go anywhere you want, anytime. We can arrange a flight back to Sicily if you want to go-”

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I’d like what I’d see there.” The old man turned to Columbo. “My health isn’t too bad for a man my age. I’ll leave it to you to judge if I’ve lost my mind or not. I listen to music, watch television, read. Once in a while I have a showgirl come up and eat dinner with me, just so I can look at her, just so I can hear a young voice and hear how much they haven’t learned. I don’t have
any reason to leave the penthouse. The first time I think of a reason, I’ll go. Anyway, for me it’s a good idea to be forgotten.”

  “I haven’t forgotten you, Mr. Sclafani,” said Columbo.

  “Nor has the FBI,” said the old man. “If we open the door, maybe we find one of those scumbags listening. Maybe the apartment is bugged. So okay. ‘J. Edgar Hoover was a faggot!’ Get that on your tapes, smart FBI men!”

  “Papa… We’re going to have a supper.”

  “And I’m going to light my cigar,” said Giuseppe Sclafani defiantly.

  “I’ll join ya in that, sir,” said Columbo.

  “No. You have one of mine. From the humidor, Cronin. A cigar for Lieutenant Columbo!”

  “Oh my!” said Columbo as he accepted the cigar and sniffed at it. “I’ve never smoked one as fine as this. This is real nice of you, Mr. Sclafani.”

  “Cuban,” said the old man. “Not easy to get. I lived in Cuba for a while and acquired the taste for them. Castro smokes Cuban cigars. Can you imagine that? He smokes Cuban cigars, but we are not supposed to. What case are you working on, Lieutenant? The Drury murder?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s the one.”

  “I watched his television show. Not all the time. Sometimes. He was an evil man. You could see why somebody would want to kill him.”

  Columbo savored the big Cuban cigar. “I get your point,” he said.

  “What’s more, his wife is a hooker.”

  “Papa!"

  “Well, she is. Do you deny it? I do not condemn her, you understand, but I thought I should have seen in her eyes the decent shame a woman should feel when she is a whore. It wasn’t there. No such thing. Her eyes are cold as ice, and she stares at you without humility. I—”

  “Will you sit down to dinner with us, Papa?” the younger Sclafani interjected forcefully.

  “Only if you are having farsumagru palermitano.”