“She can say no to anything I ask her to do. She’s a grown-up.”
“Yeah, she’s a grown-up, but you’re an arrogant, con-niving son of a bitch. I think I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you.”
Timmy, never happier than when playing the task-oriented monk, was sitting cross-legged on the floor stapling maniacally, complaining from time to time of lower back pains but not letting up in raffle-book production.
Now he set his stapler down and said, “He s not always like that, Kyle. But when he thinks he can put one over on Albany municipal government, his brain sputters and shorts out. He turns into this one-man vigilante mob out to pour hot lead-metaphorically speaking, of course-into the corrupt guts of the Albany city fathers. If an innocent bystander or two gets in the way, tough luck.”
I said, “I’m being ganged up on. I don’t like that.”
“Rather than turning this whole business over to the police,” Timmy went on blithely, “where a murder investigation properly belongs, he’s got the both of us flying back and forth across North America-on my MasterCard, mind you; he’s over his limit, as usual-trying to get hold of five suitcases full of money that belongs to God-knows-who. And it’s all because I refused to run away to the Caribbean with him on a whim.”
“Not entirely true.”
“And,” he went on, as Toot listened gravely, “this whole deal is predicated on the assumption that Jack Lenihan’s two and a half million was legitimately obtained. Now that we know that Al Piatek was just a friendly conduit and not a wealthy philanthropist, we have to be highly suspicious of the money’s origins. I think we’re back to dopers’ money, and that scares the hell out of me. People like that are not to be diddled with, as it appears Jack Lenihan learned too late.”
He was relentless. He went on in this sententious vein for some minutes, as Toot sat there nodding and occasionally blanching at particularly breathtaking examples of my lunatic behavior. “On the other hand,” Timmy sweetly concluded, “Don is a loyal friend, a stimulating social companion, and a great fuck. It’s just that he’s sloppy around the house and unable to abide sloppiness outside it. As you can see, this makes life complicated for him-and for just about everybody who crosses his path.”
I winked at Toot and said, “Timmy likes to think of himself as my Boswell, but what he is is the National Enquirer of my soul. In his reporting on me, zany exaggerations and lurid distortions abound.”
Toot shrugged and said, “I’ve only known you for half a day, but it all sounded pretty accurate to me. Of course, I wouldn’t know about the ‘great fuck’ part,” he added and lowered his eyes shyly.
These two were meant for each other. I left them, borrowed a bathing suit from Teddy, and went out for a swim in the small pool, which at the Golden Grapefruit was gonococ-cus-shaped.
The three of us descended on Gail Tesney at her table in the hospital employees’ cafeteria. She was seated alone, and if she wanted company, her look suggested we were not it. She greeted Toot with what warmth she could muster and offered me a faint hello. I introduced Timmy, who immediately said, “Don here means well, but don’t let him push you around.” I wanted to pick up Tesney’s plate of chicken tetrazzini and push it in Timmy’s face.
Gail said coolly, “I can take care of myself, Mr. Callahan. I’ve been doing it for many years.” He seated himself, chastened for the moment.
I sat across from her and said, “Jack Lenihan is not coming back and I can’t do anything about that. But what I can do is finish the admirable job Jack started.” For ten minutes I described in what seemed to me irresistibly gut-wrenching detail the horrors of Albany city government and how two and a half million dollars in the right hands might change all that.
Throughout my dissertation, Timmy and Kyle sat stiffly, gazing at the walls.
When I concluded my remarks, Timmy’s stomach rumbled loudly and he said, “Sorry.”
Gail peered at me solemnly across her tetrazzini and said, “You want me to get information from Joan, is that it? Sneak around, perhaps read her mail, browbeat her, threaten to leave her-do whatever it takes to find out what happened to all that money-and then pass the information on to you. Do I understand you correctly, Mr. Strachey?”
“No, not exactly. I just thought if you happened to break through the wall of secrecy Joan has built up around herself, you would be happier, she would be happier, and it could only strengthen your relationship and clear the tension out of it. And if in the process you managed to convince Joan to share her knowledge of the history of Jack’s money with a trustworthy, well-meaning third-party-that would be me-then so much the better.”
She looked at me as if her tetrazzini were not agreeing with her. She said,
“You are the most arrogant and smugly presumptuous man I have ever met.”
“People have been saying that about me lately.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.” She tilted her head and gave it a quick shake, as if she’d been swimming and wanted to dislodge some water from her ear.
“You are something out of-I don’t know what.”
“Joseph Conrad? I sometimes fancy myself that way.”
“No, Judith Krantz, I think.”
“Oh.”
“In any case, you won’t be needing my help in your quest to alter history in the Hudson Valley.”
“I won’t?”
“No, you won’t. Joan has agreed to speak with you.”
“Well now-good for her!”
“Joan phoned me a while ago. She called in sick for her shift, and while she was at home some obnoxious policeman from Albany came to the apartment. She couldn’t stand him. He reminded her of the type of man who had made her life miserable twenty years ago. She didn’t tell him anything, but she realizes that someone has got to clear up the confusion and find Jack’s killer if she is ever to have any peace of mind again, and she has decided to take a chance on you. Jack trusted you, she said, so Joan is going to risk trusting you too. I’m beginning to wonder, though, if Jack was in his right mind when he got mixed up with you.”
On the way out of the hospital, Timmy said, “Mr. Charm strikes again.”
Toot added, “Back east you must be considered the David Susskind of your profession.”
I insisted on going off to see Joan Lenihan alone and dropped Timmy and Kyle off at the motel. But I was beginning to suspect that they might be on to something. Inept attempts at psychological torture were not among my usual bag of tricks. But then this situation was special, wasn’t it? I had to drive the beasts from the city. I had a quest, a mission. Everybody thought I was nuts, but what I was was inspired.
Aflame, I drove over to Scotsmont Avenue, where I was certain Joan Lenihan would add fuel to the holy fire. But that is not what she did at all.
THIRTEEN
“I have returned the money to its rightful owners, Mr. Strachey. I hate to disappoint you, but I really had no choice in the matter.”
I glanced into the dining room, where the five suitcases were no longer stacked up. “It was in those bags that were in there when I was here earlier, right?”
“No. The cash was in trash bags in our storage area in the basement of this building. Now it’s in the suitcases and on its way back to the people it belongs to. I just returned from the Air Freight office a few minutes ago.”
Air Freight. I briefly considered a grand heist but figured pantywaist Timmy would consider armed robbery going too far. I said, “Why?”
She lit a cigarette and stuck it up under her overbite. She was wearing a Yucatecan huapili white shift with fancy blue and green embroidery and she was barefooted. Her toenails were cracked and painted fuchsia. She said, “My son took something that didn’t belong to him. He was killed because of it. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt-you, or your friend-or Gail, or me. Or Corrine. Poor Corrine, she’s so unsophisticated and innocent, and who knows what people might suspect. No, it’s not worth it.
What Jack wanted to do-what y
ou want to do with the money-I admire it.
Truly, I do. When Jack first told me about it, I had to laugh. I admit it, I laughed.” Her eyes brightened at the thought of it, then went gray again.
“But you cannot-cannot ��� get away with something like that. Not when the people you are dealing with are savages.”
“And who are these savages?”
“I think you must know.”
“No.”
She looked at me carefully and said, “Dope pushers. Surely in your line of work you must have heard the type of people they are.”
“Which dope pushers?”
“The ones Jack was arrested with. Robert Milius and-I’ve forgotten the names of the others. Jake something, I think.”
“They’re still in prison, aren’t they?”
“But they have friends on the outside. People who were protecting the money for them until their release. Jack somehow got hold of the money and came up with this crazy pipe dream of his. And they found out he had taken it.”
“Precisely who was keeping the money in what place, and how did Jack manage to take possession of it?”
She coughed out some smoke and said, “Oh, I wouldn’t know that. Jack never went into the details. He just said they could never prove he’d taken it, and he had all these alibis worked out, he said, and-I just don’t know all the details.”
“And you urged him to return the money?”
“Of course I did. Anyone who sees the six-o’clock news knows that you simply cannot cheat people of that type and expect to get away with it.”
“Jack must have watched the six-o’clock news too, and he had firsthand knowledge of dealers and their ways as well. Why didn’t he listen to you?”
A wan smile. “I’m his mother. When your mother offers you advice, do you accept it for what it’s worth, or do you just think, oh, crazy old Ma, there she goes again?”
“My mother hasn’t offered me advice for a number of years. She’s a little confused about my life and how to approach it. Gail told me Ned Bowman had been here. I’m sure he had some motherly advice. What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want Jacks name brought up again in connection with drugs. I’m thinking of Corrine, and of Jack’s memory. I told Officer Bowman I knew nothing. He didn’t take it well, but that’s his problem.”
“He knows about Al Piatek. He’ll learn soon enough that Piatek had no money to speak of and couldn’t have left Jack the two and a half million in Piatek’s will. He’ll lean on you and on Kyle Toot, and possibly Gail. He won’t let up. I think you should tell him everything you told me. Tomorrow, I mean-tell him tomorrow. Don’t you want Jack’s killer punished?”
A look of profound sadness settled across her face. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do. So much, I do. But maybe that isn’t possible without ruining other people’s lives. Good lives that people have made out of-of nothing at all.”
“I don’t follow. Whose lives?”
She said nothing, just stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray full of half-smoked butts.
I said, “Who did you ship the money to? Not Milius, if he’s in prison. How did you know who to send it to? Jack didn’t provide details, you said. Have these ‘friends’ of Milius been in touch? How did they know you even had the money? Back in Albany word is going around that I’ve got it. Mrs.
Lenihan, you’re not making sense.”
She looked away and thought hard about something. She said, “I can’t tell you any more. I’m sorry, but I can’t.” She faced me again. “The important thing is Jack is dead, and nothing anyone says or does is going to change that. So forget the money, Mr. Strachey. Just go on as you did before. I’ve written a check that should cover your trip out here, but that’s as far as I’m able to help you. I’m still paying off a loan I took out to underwrite Jack’s legal fees when he was arrested. I have eight more years to go on that loan and I only hope I live that long, because Gail has agreed to inherit my debts as well as my meager assets.
“Gail has been-except for Jack and Corrine, Gail has been everything to me. I met her three days after I arrived in California eighteen years ago next Sunday, and in many respects that was the day my real life began. I told Jack I would do almost anything to keep that life from falling apart and-if he had only known-” Her face trembled and she looked away, suddenly slapping the side of her head as if she had misbehaved and was striking out at herself in anger and confusion.
I said, “I won’t bother you anymore. But if you would just tell me who-”
She shook her head once vehemently.
“I know you don’t deserve any of this,” I said. “You’ve obviously paid heavily in advance for your life here. I hope it lasts a long time.”
“It will,” she said, in tears. “I’ve been happy-a happy person. I never used to believe there was such a thing. And Jack was-he was happy for me.”
Stevenson, Richard
Stevenson, Richard ��� [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] ��� Ice Blues
She wept.
Timmy and Kyle Toot were sitting on the motel-room floor stapling raffle tickets and discussing my character flaws.
“Pack your shopping bag. We’ve got to get back to Albany fast.”
“Now? I thought we could find a good Mexican restaurant, see some sights, and then sack out for twelve hours. Come on, we’ve earned it.”
I described my visit with Joan Lenihan. “I’ve got to see who picks up the five suitcases that were in Joan’s dining room. They were a kind of maroon plastic with a black band around them. I’ll stake out the Albany Air Freight office tomorrow, and when somebody shows and claims those bags I’ll be back in the ball game.”
“Doesn’t Air Freight deliver a lot of its arriving cargo by truck? It’s not like shipping by bus, where you have to pick up your own packages.”
“Crap. That’s right. Do we know anybody at Air Freight in Albany?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’ll find somebody. I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls, and then let’s get going.”
The two of them sat there clutching their staplers and looking irritated. “I thought you two might like to see some LA gay nightlife,” Toot said. “It’s Friday night in West Hollywood. You can see some of your favorite TV
Stevenson, Richard
Stevenson, Richard ��� [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] ��� Ice Blues stars with their hair down. Down around their ankles in some cases. For instance, Bonkie Dimpleton of Undertaker Uggams usually shows up at the Compost Heap around two in the morning with his slave Raoul, who wears a T-shirt with a picture of the Colombian flag on the front made out of sewn-on dia-monds. Do you want to miss out on that?”
“It sounds like an eye-opening way to spend an evening, but I’m afraid Timmy would become disillusioned and never watch Undertaker Uggams again. There’s nobody from Masterpiece Theatre out here acting like that, I hope.”
“Oh, sure. Even Wall Street Week in Review. Especially Wall Street Week in
Review.”
“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Travel is sometimes unavoidably broadening,” Toot said.
Timmy looked glum. “I’d really like to get a glimpse of it. Just once. My life in Albany is so glitzless.”
“I thought you preferred it that way. Quiet evenings by the picture of the fire, building snowmen in the park on a Sunday afternoon.”
“I just want to see it, that’s all. So I can go home feeling morally superior.”
“You can’t manage that on your own? You live in Albany, for chrissakes.
And, of course, you’ve got me for that too.”
“Would you mind a whole lot if I stayed over until Sunday? I could be back home early Sunday night. You won’t need me for anything, will you?”
“Well, naturally I’ll need you for something. I always need you for something.”
“You’re envious. You want to stay too.”
“There is that, yes.”
“Kyle was telling me about this good production he heard about of Krapp’s
Last Tape at a storefront Chicano Theater in East LA. I’d like to go with him to see it.”
“Hispanic Beckett? You once told me you didn’t even like it when Pearl Bailey went into Hello, Dolly! You said there wouldn’t have been any black Jews in Yonkers in 1912. You’re the most neurotically purist theatergoer I’ve ever known.”
“Well, I’m in LA now, where the biggest service industry after movie-making, drug pushing and prostitution is the human-potential movement.
Come on, Don, give me a break. It’s no big deal for us to be out of each other’s company for a couple of days. We’ve done it before. We’re friends and lovers, not Siamese twins.”
“He can stay at my place,” Toot said, “and I’ll be careful to keep him out of harm’s way. I’ll keep him on the sidelines as it boogies by.”
I was a little worried about Timmy showing up in the barrio in the company of a man wearing a lavender T-shirt that said BORN TO RAISE ORCHIDS, but if that’s what he wanted to do, who was I to keep him from widening his cultural horizons? The main truth was, I just wanted him with me for the next few days back in Albany. The more I thought about it, the more Joan Lenihan’s story of unnamed dope dealers losing two and a half million in cash-actually three and a quarter million-to Jack Lenihan, and then fumbling and bumbling around trying to get it back, sounded screwy. There were too many holes in it, too much that was only shakily and superficially plausible. Still, I didn’t know who or what I would run into back in Albany, and I was apprehensive-scared-and would have liked Timmy nearby. If I had told him that, he would have come with me without a second thought.
Out of habit and dumb pride, I didn’t say it.
I said, “I’m deeply envious, but it’s up to you. You’d just better have some good stories to dine out on when you get back.”
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