by Marvin Kaye
I didn’t want to argue the point with him, I needed the dough and I didn’t want to talk myself out of a lucrative case. Turning to the end of the report, I fixed my eyes on an eight-by-ten color glossy of a young brunette whom I took to be little Suzie. She was standing at the wheel of a handsome sailing yacht, her father holding her up while she steered. She was dressed in a blue blouse and white shorts and a navy sailing cap. I slid the photo over to Stevens.
He smiled as he looked at it. “I took this last winter at our cottage on Anguilla. She looks the same now, maybe a tad taller.”
I took the photo back. “I’ll need the name of your law firm; I’ll have to speak to them.”
“Pushkin and Salz. They’re matrimonial attorneys. I’ve already alerted Tony Pushkin that you’ll be by to see him.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“In my line of work I have to be.”
“Is there a number I can reach you directly if I have to?”
Stevens took out a gold plated pen from his inside left breast pocket and jotted down a number on the back of the manila folder. “Only call if it’s really necessary, I’m a very busy man.”
“Only if it’s necessary,” I repeated.
Shanahan was looking out the window when I went back to his office.
“Still magnificent?” I said.
He turned to me. “So Doherty, will you help Mr. Stevens?”
“And you and the Mayor. Yeah, but we’re talking trial rates. Fifteen-hundred a day and I want some upfront money for expenses.”
“You understand that there can be no paperwork, no usual retainer agreement.”
“I trust you.”
“A matter of professional courtesy, then?”
“No, this is too big for you to try and screw me. But I want the upfront money now.”
Shanahan went to his credenza and opened a door to reveal a small safe. Twisting the dial, he popped it open and brought a thick brown envelope over to his desk. He took out a stack of hundred dollar bills and spread out five evenly on the blotter, as if he was a casino blackjack dealer paying off a winning gambler. He didn’t know how close to the truth that was.
“Five hundred. That should last you a couple of days.”
I scooped up the bills and stuffed them in my trousers pocket. “Do you want a receipt?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, nothing on paper.”
* * * *
Pushkin & Salz had their offices on the eighth floor of an old building near Hanover Square. I walked down there from Shanahan’s digs and was sweating heavily by the time a red-headed receptionist in black toreador pants, black silk blouse and stiletto shoes escorted me into Tony Pushkin’s office. Pushkin was a pudgy middle-aged man with a sharply receding hairline above a florid, lined, overworked face. There was a tuna salad plate and an unopened bottle of seltzer on his desk. He was dressed in a tan linen suit and white shirt, but with no tie, he wasn’t greeting a client.
“Doherty,” he groused as he extended his hand. The grip was limpid, disinterested.
After we were seated, he continued. “Mr. Stevens has asked us to extend every courtesy to you.”
“And his wish is your command.”
“Something like that.” He gestured at the manila folder I was still holding in my hand. “You have our report, I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
The air conditioner hummed. I said, “What about his firm’s finances, business dealings? Anything that might concern Mrs. Stevens?”
Pushkin smiled wanly. “I’m afraid those affairs are handled by another law firm. We’re strictly matrimonial. And what we don’t know can’t hurt our client.”
The air conditioning was humming louder. “Or your firm,” I said.
“You catch on quickly, Doherty. Ever thought about doing divorce work?”
“I’d rather drink rat poison.”
Pushkin laughed. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea, that’s for sure.” He stabbed at a piece of tuna with his fork and popped it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
“Yeah, it takes a special kind of lawyer,” I said.
“That it does,” he said, spearing some more of the fish. “Dealing with cheating spouses, kids in therapy, hidden assets, he said-she said. Every day of the week.”
“It’s a tough life.”
Pushkin looked at me for a moment, trying to figure out if I was being sarcastic, then ate another forkful of tuna.
“Was Mrs. Stevens cheating on her husband?”
“Not that we know of,” he said.
“What about him?”
Pushkin unscrewed the bottle top and drank some of the seltzer, and then wagged his finger at me. “That’s a no-no. Attorney-client privilege. But I’ll say this, he’s married to his job.”
“What about the little girl?”
“Sweetest kid you’d ever want to meet. Loves both her parents, though I don’t know why.”
This wasn’t getting me anywhere so I changed tack and asked about the schoolteacher Padavan. He told me one of his young associates, Conrad Rivers, had interviewed her. He buzzed the receptionist out front. “Ms. Palmeri, tell Conrad to come to my office right away.”
While we waited for Conrad, Pushkin attacked his salad, finishing off the slices of hard-boiled eggs, then the rest of the tuna and the tomato. He left the lettuce untouched.
The door opened and a tall, gawky kid walked in. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt and tie. The shirt had large circles of sweat stains under the armpits and the kid smelled with the perspiration of fear.
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Pushkin?”
“Conrad, this is Mr. Doherty. He’s working for Mr. Stevens. Tell him what you know about the schoolteacher, Padavan.”
“Not much to tell,” the kid said.
“Probably not, but I want to hear it, anyway.”
“I spent an hour with her at her place. Lives in a brownstone on West Eighty-Fourth Street. Said she witnessed the abduction, got the make, model and license plate. Said she saw Mrs. Stevens, or rather thought she saw Mrs. Stevens uptown a couple of weeks ago, driving away from an art gallery. Said she recognized the car, had seen it lots of times. All of this is in the report.”
I stared at the kid. “No, it’s not.”
“Whaddya mean it’s not?” Pushkin’s question was a low growl.
I handed him the folder. “There’s nothing in this about an art gallery, or that Padavan had seen the car previously on numerous occasions, so she’d be sure to recognize it.”
Pushkin opened the folder and read the contents. Then he slowly closed the folder and set in on his desk. He threw Conrad a look that caused the kid’s face to become ashen and the sweat stains on his shirt to widen.
“Jeez, Mr. Pushkin, I didn’t think every detail was important.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I told him. “Anything else that you left out of the report?”
Conrad rubbed his eyes and thought real hard. “No, that’s it.”
“Did you go to the art gallery and speak to someone?”
The kid turned even paler and shook his head.
I took the photo of Suzie Stevens out of the folder and asked Conrad to run off a stack of fifty copies. I sat there, trying not to be disgusted.
“He’s my sister’s kid. Just out of law school. What can you do? I can’t send him into court, he’d stink the place up, so I figured he could handle a simple interview.”
I looked at him.
He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “No harm done, right?”
“No harm done.”
“You don’t have to tell Mr. Stevens, do you?”
“Nah. Now tell me about Stevens cheati
ng on his wife.”
2
My usual table by the front window at McSorley’s was vacant, a reserved sign sitting on its scarred wooden top. I sat down and signaled to Richie the waiter to bring two light ales and my laptop computer, which I kept stored behind the bar. I needed to think and ale was the best lubricant to keep the wheels turning. Outside, the sun was beating down on the pavement and shirtless hardhats were busy tearing down a building across the street. Soon, another structure, a modern monstrosity with million-dollar condos, would be born. When Richie brought me the holy waters and my laptop, I asked him to also bring me a cheddar cheese plate and handed him one of the c-notes Shanahan had given me.
“What’d you do, hit a long shot?”
“No, but thanks for the idea.”
After Richie went off to serve some other tables, I logged onto the computer and went to the Daily Racing Form website. Scrolling down the listings for today’s races at ’Toga, I stopped at the tenth race. It was an optional claimer on the inner turf with superfecta betting and Jean-Luc Samyn was riding a longshot called Patria o Muerte. Samyn on the green was the saying. So I wrote down six combo bets keyed around Jean-Luc’s horse. There was a payphone next to the table, but I went outside and used my cell phone to call my regular bookie, Sonny HaHa in Queens.
When I returned, my plate of cheese and onions, a package of saltines and my change was waiting. Minnie and Stinky, the two gargantuan house cats that actually ran the establishment, were prowling back and forth along the sawdust covered floor.
I ate some of the cheese, slipping a slice to the cats, and drank my ale. Finishing, I signaled to Richie for more ale. He brought two frothy mugs and cleared away the table. The felines, realizing that my largesse was spent, trotted off after him. Alone again, I decided to Google all the sailing clubs in the metropolitan area. I came up with a list of forty-seven, including Long Island and New Jersey. Between sips of ale, I went outside and called the telephone numbers on the list, asking for a Mrs. Stevens, insisting she must be there and describing her and little Suzie.
Two hours and eight ales later, all I had to show for my effort was a swollen bladder.
After a trip to the men’s room, I came back to the table and decided to work a new angle. But first I had to think of one. Two ales later I tried the number listed in the report as belonging to Janet Padavan. A sugary female voice answered.
“Janet Padavan?”
“Yes. Who’s calling?”
“My name is Doherty and I’m working for Mr. Stevens. Mr. Pushkin’s associate, Conrad Rivers, said he has spoken with you about the abduction.”
“Abduction? Oh my gosh, is that what it is?”
“It could very well be. I’d like to talk to you about the woman who looked like Andorra Stevens, the woman you say came out of the art gallery on the Upper East Side.”
“She didn’t look like Andorra Stevens. It was Andorra Stevens. I’ve been in their home at least a dozen times and I’ve also met and talked with her at school functions.”
“You saw her come out of the gallery?”
“Well, not exactly. Her Lexus was parked right outside and I saw her pulling away from the curb.”
“So what makes you think she was in the art gallery?”
“I was on foot and I couldn’t follow her to be sure it was her so I went into the gallery and said I was there to meet Mrs. Stevens. The sales assistant said she had just left. I asked for her address but all they had was the apartment on Park Avenue.”
“Did she purchase anything?”
“No. Funny thing, the manager said she was considering selling a few of the minor pieces in her collection.”
“Collection?”
“Oh, didn’t you know? Mrs. Stevens has one of the largest private collections of Korean art in the world. Much of it is on loan to museums but I’ve seen beautiful objects in her home. Really beautiful.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Maybe, I’ve been of some help then.”
“Yes, you have,” I replied. “Thank you, Ms. Padavan.”
“Call me Janet, I’m a friendly sort of person.”
“Okay, Janet. I’m also a friendly sort person. You can call me Doherty.”
The sun had moved to the west, creating a reddish hazy sky. The air was heavy and I was sweating bullets. Back inside McSorley’s, two more ales cooled me off. I couldn’t think of anything further to do on the case so I went back to my apartment, stopping at the Chinese restaurant around the corner. While they cooked some shrimp in chili sauce to go, I called my service to see if the courts had any assignments for me. Nada. Upstairs, I ate and watched the news, hand feeding slices of shrimp to Momma Sweet and Diva, my number one and two cats.
I was about to turn in when an idea hit me. I picked up my phone and punched in the numbers for the Stevens’ home.
A young female voice answered.
“Good evening,” I said. “This is the McSorley’s Gallery. We’re trying to reach Mrs. Stevens about some objects she may wish to sell. Is she available?”
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Stevens is out of town.”
“Is there any way she can be reached?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
I thanked her and hung up. Then I punched in the numbers for the Winstead cottage in Newport. This time a man answered and I ran down the McSorley’s gallery spiel I had come up with a few minutes ago.
The voice told me in a clipped English accent that Mrs. Stevens was not occupying the premises at the moment and that he had no way of getting in touch with her. I left my name and number and hung up. I was zero for two on the calls but at least I knew where Andorra Stevens and little Suzie weren’t.
* * * *
I ate breakfast at the Cadman Restaurant, which was a diner with a fancy name across the park from the Brooklyn federal courthouse. With a full stomach and my nerves wired with three cups of coffee, I was ready to spend the day tracking down the Stevens mother and daughter. My Boxster was parked on Orange Street and as I eased out of the space and headed down the street, I could see through the side view mirror that a black Chevy Tahoe was pulling out behind me.
As I turned through the narrow streets, heading south towards Atlantic Avenue, the Tahoe stayed with me. The sun was bright and I had the top down, looking like an urbanite taking a leisurely morning jaunt. Until right before Atlantic when I slowed, watching the light change to yellow before I jammed my foot on the gas pedal. I made a sharp turn onto the avenue just as the light flicked red. That fixed the Tahoe, except that it sped through the red light and pulled up in traffic right behind me, making no effort to conceal that it was tailing me.
I gave up trying to lose it but when I parked across the street from the Brooklyn North headquarters, it was gone. Inside, I told the police aide sitting behind the Plexiglas divider that I wanted to see Lieutenant Lou Parella of the Auto Crimes Task Force. She checked the roster, picked up the phone and said a few words into it, then nodded and hung up. Sliding the visitors log towards me, she said someone would be down to escort me to Parella’s office. I signed the log and waited.
When I looked inside the watch room, I could see Sergeant Ike Spaulding, Parella’s right-hand man, standing at the foot of the stairs, an unlit cigar crammed underneath a thick mustache.
His heavy ebony face split into a grin when he saw me and he waved a sheaf of papers at me in a come on over motion.
“Counselor, what brings you to the Bat Cave?”
I told him I needed to see Parella on a personal matter.
“Personal matter,” he repeated slowly, the grin still fixed on his face. “Right.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, I asked, “Where is he?”
Spaulding motioned up the stairs where I knew the Brooklyn North Auto Crimes Task Force was locat
ed in a cramped set of back rooms. At the top of the stairs, I walked down the hall to the tiny office that had the name plate “LT L. Parella” tacked to the door. I knocked and opened the door just as Parella said, “Come in.”
“Doherty, what brings you into the clutches of the NYPD on a lousy August day like this?”
The office was a small, beaten up room, one of a thousand used by law enforcement workhorses throughout the city. Parella had not even tried to liven it up, knowing it was a losing battle. Its smallness was made even more constrictive by a bank of battered putty-colored metal file cabinets that lined one wall. The only furniture was Parella’s desk, a couple of wooden chairs and a small ratty couch covered with case files. A clothes tree stood sentinel in the far corner and the air conditioner rattled noisily. I took a seat in one of the chairs and explained in a vague way why I needed the NYPD’s help.
“The Department resources are not at the disposal of the civilian population, you know that.”
“I know, Lou, and I’m not asking you to violate Department rules, at least not major ones.” I leaned forward, closer to him. “Remember the Lee Burke case?”
Parella nodded glumly and the tattooed eagle on his forearm started quivering. Lee Burke had been a contract killer but he botched a job and when I was still with the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, I prosecuted him for attempted murder. Parella was to have been my star witness.
“The judge said no more adjournments and sent me out to pick a jury. And you were supposed to go on vacation the next day, a scuba-diving trip to Bonaire. Your airline tickets and hotel were already booked and paid for, I believe?”
Parella nodded again.
“And the judge expected you testify the day after you were to leave. You would have eaten the airfare and hotel deposit and the Department would have had to pay you overtime.”
“So what’s your point?”
I leaned even closer to him. “The point is that right before jury selection, I paraded up and down the courtroom, vowing that if Burke was convicted, I would have the court declare him a mandatory persistent felony offender and demand a life sentence after conviction. I browbeat the defense attorney into having his client plead to the top count. And you got to go on your vacation, after all. And the Department saved on OT. It was a win-win situation for you. And now I need some help from the Department.”