Ice Blues ds-3

by Richard Stevenson

  “Do they know how it happened?”

  “Snow on the roof, they think.”

  “Good. They might figure out otherwise in daylight, but that’s okay. I’ll send Mrs. Trenky four or five grand for a new porch if her insurance doesn’t cover the damage. See you in a little while.”

  “I hope so.”

  Timmy and the T-bird were long gone, so I stood inside the convenience store drinking coffee and chatting with the clerk about the neighborhood excitement for twenty minutes until I saw Toot load the Ford with Timmy’s gray bags. He asked the firemen to move their pumper six feet so that he could get his car out, and after some jawing and milling about, they did. Toot pulled onto the avenue, cruised over to the convenience store, then moved over to the passenger seat. I climbed’in and drove directly to the Green Island bridge, then south to Albany, where we rendezvoused in Room 1407 at the Hilton just after one.

  “First thing in the morning,” Timmy said, “I am going to confession for the first time in eighteen years. And then I am going to work. Right now I am going to sleep. If I scream in the night, rush me over to the Albany Med burn unit.”

  Toot said, “I’m taking a hot bath before I do anything. I think I’ve got gangrene of the prostate.”

  “Timmy will sleep, but you can’t,” I told him. “I’m driving you to JFK, where you’ll get on the first flight for LA. Fay is going to draw some conclusions very fast, and if you hang around here you might be recognized. The cops won’t be a problem-I don’t think Fay will report his loss to the authorities-but it’s better if you are three thousand miles away when Fay puts one and one and a half together and comes up with Jim O’Connor the Third, the fan-belt salesman.”

  Timmy said, “Fay’s not dumb. Won’t he also realize that you’re somehow involved? Hell, we’re never going to be able to go home.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that too. I also have been starting to miss evenings by the picture of the fire. I think I know how I can work it all out.

  There are just a couple of things I have to check on tomorrow.”

  “It’s practically tomorrow already. Kyle, good night and good luck. And, Donald, congratulations on your civic-minded grand larceny. You’re Legs Diamond with a heart of gold.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and gazed at the five suitcases full of money. It occurred to me that I could probably spend the two and a half million on the purchase of a small island in the Bahamas. St.

  Don’s. I reluctantly shoved that thought aside, although suddenly it became brilliantly clear to me that now, finally, I did have real choices to make.

  At the airport I asked Toot, “What will you tell people who ask where you disappeared to for thirty-six hours?”

  He grinned. “I’ll say I was in Troy, New York, helping a private eye and his boyfriend demolish Carole Lombard’s back porch in order to steal two and a half million dollars.”

  “That’s a wonderful story. Nobody will believe it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You learn fast.” I tried to stuff a roll of fifties in Toot’s pocket, but he wouldn’t have it. “You’re a business expense,” I said. “Jack Lenihan wrote that I should take what I needed for my expenses. It’s legitimate, believe me.”

  He looked a little hurt. “I’ll take twenty for cab fare back to West Hollywood, but otherwise forget it. I’m not supposed to take non-union acting jobs anyway. Not that I could ever include this one on my resume. This performance was for Al Piatek-and for the memory of Al and Jack Lenihan back in the Piateks’ attic. Who knows, maybe they’re together now.”

  “It would be nice to believe that.”

  Having gone without sleep for nearly forty-eight hours, I drove directly to the airport Sheraton, bought a room with six twenties, lay down, and conked out. I wanted to be wide awake and in full possession of my faculties when I got back to Albany, because the tricky part was coming next: disbursing the two and a half million, handing Jack Lenihan’s murderer to Ned Bowman, and staying alive while I was at it.

  SIXTEEN

  I phoned Sim Kempelman from a thruway rest stop and met him at six Monday evening at Queequeg’s. He ordered the scampi and a glass of white wine, and I had two bowls of cream of broccoli soup, two spinach salads and a Beck’s.

  I said, “I’ve got it.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Two and a half million.”

  He whistled, impressed.

  “It’s all in US currency, in a safe place. The cash’s arrival was delayed for a variety of reasons, but before he died, Jack prepared to send it to me and now I’ve got it.”

  “That’s a lot of money, kid. You’re rich.”

  “Not me. You and your slate of candidates are rich. The citizenry of Albany is rich.”

  He gazed at me solemnly. He asked, “Has a will been located?”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make? Lenihan sent me the money before he died, with instructions to-”

  “To what?”

  “To-to hold it for him. To keep it safe.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “But Jack’s intentions were clear from the context of his letter. It was plainly his wish that if anything happened to him, I should carry out the project. There is no arguing with that. None.”

  Kempelman sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know about you, kid, but I’m too old to go to jail. I like my cup of tea when I crawl out from under the covers in the morning, and I like a little smootz from Mrs. Freda Kempelman when

  I get back underneath the covers at night. No, I think I’ll steer clear of jail houses and any of the multitudes of sets of circumstances that might land me in one.

  “Now don’t get me wrong, Mr. Strachey, I do want that money. But it has to be on the up-and-up, with all the legal niceties attended to-which is in no way an impossibility. In fact, that is the way I earn my living, and nine times out of ten I can find a way to get what my client wants-or what I want-and still meet the requirements of the law. I’m an old hand at that.

  “The question is, where do we go from here? How do we get that two and a half million dollars from your bank account into my organization’s bank account without my walking out the side door of Judge Feeney’s courtroom a year from today with his Honor’s dentures locked on my neck? What we need is a will. Kid, I think you should look into that. Find a will. As I see it, that’s your next move.”

  “What about a letter?”

  “A letter?”

  “Say Jack wrote a letter before he died, turning the money over to me for a specific purpose which he described. Would that do it?”

  “Does such a letter exist?”

  “It might.”

  “This is the first time you have talked about such a letter.”

  “There was no need previously to have mentioned it.”

  A sad shake of the head. “No forgeries,” he said. “I believe you have in mind an act of forgery, and that, Mr. Strachey, it strictly no-go.”

  I saw it all falling away. I said, “Do you want the money, or don’t you? Do you want to clean the crooks and phonies out of city hall, or don’t you?

  Which is it, Sim? Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “Yours,” he said. “I think I am. Except, I was told that you are a rational man. One of the few in this town. But now I am beginning to wonder.”

  “Rational? What is rational? It seems to me rational is people running their own lives without extortionist goons reaching into their wallets twice a year. Rational is-”

  He waved a hairy finger. “Whoa-wait a minute. Wait one minute. Let me tell you about rational. Rational is getting what you want without offering your own head on a platter in return for it. Suicide will get you some ugly sympathy, but it is not rational. Martyrdom will get your name in the papers, but it is not rational. Irrationality has its uses in public life, that I concede, but a price must be paid, and I, for one, am not prepared to pay it.

  If you think about it, I doubt that you will wan
t to pay the price either. You know, I think you’ve gone a little cuckoo on me since I saw you last week.

  That two and a half million has softened your brain, is that it? Relax a little, and let’s think this thing through. Maybe there’s a way.”

  I felt myself redden. I said, “I’ll see Creighton Prell. He’ll deal.”

  “No, he won’t. Republicans hate going to jail. They think the jails are full of Democrats who’ll laugh at them mopping up the lavatories. No, Republicans are proud. They only go to jail at the national level, and Creighton is not that ambitious. You can try Creighton, of course, that’s up to you. But it will be a waste of your valuable time, believe me.”

  I slugged down some Beck’s. “Larry Dooley will be interested,” I said, and then had to laugh.

  Kempelman smiled. “Sure. That’s Larry’s style. Play now, pay later. He might even get away with it. He has friends in the courts. But I think that is not what you want, kiddo. In fact, that is the very opposite of what you want.”

  He had me and he knew it, and I wanted to throttle him because I knew that everything he told me was the bare, unadorned, rock-bottom truth. Fucking liberals.

  I said, “Has Ned Bowman been in touch? Maybe you’ll go to prison anyway, for the murder of Jack Lenihan. Of course, you wouldn’t have used a tire iron. You’d have lectured him to death. Or jumped on him from your high moral plain.”

  “Oh, I’m clean enough, but I hear Larry Dooley’s in a bit of a pickle. The word is, Larry spent Tuesday night with the young missus of a certain up-and-coming young council member who was off in Rochester on a business trip. All Larry will tell Bowman is, he was attending to personal business at the time of Jack Lenihan’s death, but he says he can’t go into detail and then he winks, but Bowman keeps missing the point. Bowman is leaning on Larry real hard and is threatening him with the DA. What Larry and Bowman both don’t know is that two-I said two-assistant DAs have been dipping their wicks in the misguided doxy as well-simultaneously, according to one possibly misinformed distant observer. So you see how complicated life can become for those caught in the grip of irrational impulses.”

  I said, “Maybe in the interest of fairness the Times Union will run a smug, finger-pointing editorial on the health risks of heterosexual promiscuity, but I doubt it. Is Bowman back in town? I heard he was away for a few days.”

  “I wouldn’t know. But I did hear that you were out of town for a couple of days. I was planning on mentioning this earlier, but we got sidetracked.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “At Jack Lenihan’s funeral yesterday.”

  “I missed it. I feel bad about that, but it was unavoidable and he would have understood. Who told you I was out of town?”

  “Pug Lenihan.”

  At last, here it came. I didn’t need this, didn’t want it. I said, “Not old Pug, no. What does he know about all this? About me?”

  “Beats me. I was wondering about that myself. On account of the snow and cold weather, they didn’t take him out to the cemetery, but they carried him into the funeral home and propped him on a lounge chair for half an hour, and I noticed he was watching me, and after a while he sent Corrine over to relay the message that he would like a few words.”

  “What were you doing there in the first place? The Lenihans didn’t even know you’d had a connection with Jack. Your presence wouldn’t have made any sense to them.”

  Kempelman took a sip of wine and smacked his lips. “This is quite an adequate chablis. Of course, that is the extent of my sophistication as a wine connoisseur. For me, there are two grades of wine, adequate and inadequate. Nearly all of them I find adequate.”

  “You can tip the sommelier on the way out. Why did you attend Lenihans funeral?”

  “I was invited.”

  “By whom?”

  “Corrine McConkey. She phoned me Sunday morning and told me that her grandfather-Dad Lenihan, she called him-wanted me to be present. She said it would mean a lot to him, and I respectfully went along. She did not elaborate.”

  “This is just terribly, terribly interesting. So you went, and then Pug called you over. Do you two know each other?”

  “I had never set eyes on the man. It was all very strange and discombobulating for me. I have to tell you, Mr. Strachey, that I was just a little bit frightened. Pug Lenihan is not a powerful man anymore, but I presume that he remains influential in some circles. Additionally, it entered my mind that somehow he’d gotten wind of my conversations with his late grandson and about Jack’s project.”

  “Right. That could make you jittery. So he called you over.”

  “He beckoned for me to bend down-no mean feat for a man with a herniated-disk operation behind him-and I painfully obliged. He said-Pug Lenihan said to me- ‘You’re in on this, aren’t you, Kempelman?’ I said, ‘In on what, Mr. Lenihan?’ ‘Oh, don’t you bullshit me!’ this doddering ninety-six-year-old croaked in my ear. ‘I know you’d be the one,’ he said. ‘Now I don’t know this Strachey from a peck of potatoes, but you tell him I want to talk to him. You hear what I’m saying to you?’ I stood there for a few seconds looking at the hardest, iciest set of blue eyes I’d ever seen in my life, and then do you know what I said?”

  “You said, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  “‘Yes, sir.’ You got it, kid. I said, ‘Mr. Lenihan, yes, sir.”’

  “So he told you he wants to talk to me. Well, hell. Did he say what about?”

  “Nope. He said he heard you were out of town, and when you got back to give Corrine a call and she would take you over to his house. So. I have now carried out my instructions. Sim the message-delivery boy.”

  “Or Sim the something-else-less-innocent.” I glanced around at the other drinkers and diners but saw no familiar faces. “I just hope I’m not being set up for-what?”

  “No.” He got his hurt Saint Bernard look on again. “Not by me, at any rate.

  But I do advise that you take care. Avoid irrational outbursts.”

  Again I considered bolting with the two and a half million and picking up a pleasant small island somewhere. Then the almost-obvious hit me, and I said to Kempelman, “If Pug Lenihan knows about Jack’s project, then maybe the machine knows. Pug surely is in touch from time to time with his political progeny.”

  Kempelman didn’t move, except to elevate grandly two eyebrows the size of field mice.

  I said, “Naturally they will not want the project carried out. They will want it stopped.”

  “Yes, that would be my guess too. Definitely they would.”

  “Is that why you suddenly have cold feet, Sim? Is that it?”

  Wearily shaking his head, he said, “No, I explained plainly the reasons for my ‘cold feet,’ as you choose to term it. But don’t let’s get into that again.

  Stevenson, Richard

  Stevenson, Richard ��� [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] ��� Ice Blues

  Fisticuffs might be the end result this time, and that could have serious repercussions for my spinal column.”

  I said, “Oh, hell.”

  “You’re looking a little sickly, kid. It’s those rich soups. Stay away from soups that go sour on your intestinal wall.”

  “Maybe the machine has known all along,” I said. “Maybe Larry Dooley tipped them off right at the beginning, as soon as poor naive Jack contacted Dooley with his proposal. Maybe it was some of them who got Jack killed. They figured out that Jack had the doper’s boodle, tipped the convicted dealers down at Sing Sing, who arranged for friends on the outside to recover the two and a half million and do away with Jack. That way the machine, using a chain of non-criminal and criminal intermediaries, could eliminate a threat and still hide behind a wall of deniability. They’d get the result they wanted, but they could rest certain that the means to that end would never reach back to them.”

  Kempelman screwed up his face. After a moment of pained thought, he said, “I don’t think so. They would never go that far. They are crude, b
ut they are not evil. No-no, they would never go that far. Listen, kid, they don’t have to.”

  But he sat there awhile longer silently mulling over the possibility, as did I.

  SEVENTEEN

  I phoned Timmy, holed up at the Hilton, and said, “Did you go to work today?”

  “Yeah, I was pretty worn out, but I managed a couple of reasonably productive hours.”

  “Could you have been followed back to the hotel?” A silence. “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe you should make a discreet move. Is the money safe?”

  “The bags are in the closet.”

  “Have you gone out since you got back there from work?”

  “No, I just came in a couple of minutes ago. I worked late, then ate at the Larkin with Moe Dietz. Spit it out, Don. What are you trying to tell me? Is Mack Fay on to us?”

  I described the meeting with Sim Kempelman. I could hear Timmy swallowing repeatedly as I spoke. I said, “If you still have the rope from the porch-wrecking episode, I suggest you rappel down the side of the Hilton with the five suitcases attached to your belt and meet me in East Timor later in the week.” He said nothing. “Timmy?”

  “I’ve got the door locked and I am not leaving this room until you get over here and explain to me how you’re going to get both of us out of this endless chamber of horrors. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

  “I thought all the early Peace Corps groups learned rappeling at a remote camp in the mountains of western Puerto Rico, and now that you finally have some use for this arcane skill, you’re going to crap out. I just hope Sargent Shriver never hears about this. But have it your way. I’ll be over there in another hour or two. First I want to drop in on Corrine McConkey.

  When I get to the hotel I’ll call you from the lobby to let you know it’s me coming up. Just hang on, okay?”

  “I’d rather you came now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Look, it’s seven-thirty. Ill be there by nine-thirty.”