In for a Ruble tv-2

by David Duffy

  “Would he have gone to your brother or Julia for a loan?”

  “Not Sebastian. They argued over money before. You know about his temper…”

  I nodded. “What about Julia?”

  “Maybe. They’re not that close. And he’d have to get her attention.”

  “Meaning?” Although I knew the answer.

  “Julia is what people politely call a workaholic. She never leaves the office. Barely has time for her own family.”

  “What about her husband? Would he have gone to him?”

  “Oh no.” The answer came fast, too fast, not as if she were trying to head me off, but a knee-jerk response, as though the idea itself was preposterous.

  “Why not?” I said as innocently as I knew how.

  She shook her head. “He just wouldn’t. That’s all.”

  That wasn’t remotely all, but intuition intervened again—don’t press it, move on. I took a shot at another question, half expecting it to bring the interview to a close.

  “What happened to Sebastian’s first marriage?”

  She shook her head and looked out the window.

  I waited.

  She shook her head again and started to cry. I’d lost her.

  “You know… You think your problems are the worst anyone could have. Then…”

  She balled her fists and hit the table again, grabbed the cup, and emptied it.

  “Maybe I’ll join you,” I said, and went to the cabinet. I poured her a healthy shot, found a cup that looked clean, and gave myself a finger and half.

  I put the cups on the table and she reached for hers hungrily. I took a sip from mine. Presidente burned, not unpleasantly, on the way down.

  “We don’t talk about it, you know. We never have. Unwritten rule. Forbidden subject. Taboo.”

  I waited again. Booze versus taboo—I was betting on booze, and the need to unburden.

  “It was four years ago now. Sebastian had two kids with his first wife, Pauline—Andras and Daria. Daria was twelve when…”

  The fists balled once more, and the head fell on top. Her whole body heaved with sobs. She tried to talk in between. I had to lean forward to make out the muffled, tear-and-brandy-soaked voice.

  “She… she had… she had a gun and… she shot… shot herself… in her room. She… she laid down a plastic drop cloth first so she wouldn’t make a mess. Oh dear God, why? It was so horrible. We were all there. We all saw the body. Thomas… poor Thomas he got there first, he was in the upstairs bathroom. He… hasn’t been the same. None… None of us has.”

  I waited until the sobbing subsided.

  “Does anyone know why she did it?”

  She looked up, eyes wet and blurred. “No. Daria… She was always such a happy girl. Her brother’s the moody one, Andras. Daria was always smiling, laughing. I can still see her—those big blue eyes, blond curls…”

  She broke down sobbing again. I didn’t try to intervene. Several minutes passed before she looked up again.

  “It devastated Pauline. She suffered some kind of breakdown. Spent time in an institution. Sebastian stuck by her until she announced she had to leave. She moved back to Minnesota, where’s she’s from.”

  Had to leave. Does a mother have to leave her family, her kids? My mother held me until she died on a train somewhere in the Urals. Polina abandoned Aleksei. But I always figured that was my fault.

  “Was there an investigation?”

  “The police came, of course, questioned all of us. They ruled it a suicide. She’d taken the gun from a friend’s house a few days before.”

  That indicated some degree of premeditation on the girl’s part, but I didn’t need to point that out. I said, “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up painful memories.”

  She nodded and looked into her cup. “Like I said, we don’t talk about it, but it’s always there, you know, like an ache you can’t get rid of. Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge it, put it out in the open.”

  “Your brother—Sebastian, I mean—he doesn’t agree with you?”

  “No. I mentioned Daria once, about six months after it happened. He got so angry, he totally lost it, threw things… I thought he was going to hit me. I never tried again. Neither has anyone else, so far as I know.”

  Her cup was empty. I went to the cabinet and poured another shot. I caught my refection in the window as I returned to the table and turned to ignore it. Aleksei wasn’t wrong in his digs—you learn to be a bastard in the Cheka.

  “What’s Andras like?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “As a kid. You said he’s moody. He must have been affected by his sister’s death.”

  “Of course he was. But…”

  I waited once more.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t see that much of him. He went away to school.”

  “You see him at Christmas?”

  “Yes… I guess so. Sebastian had the usual family get-together. He was there.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Fine, I guess. I didn’t really notice, to tell you the truth.”

  That was probably true. The booze would have had an impact. But I also sensed there was something she wasn’t telling me.

  “Have you met his girlfriend?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t know he…”

  “Girl from his school. She lives in New York. Irina’s her name.”

  She shook her head again. The name didn’t register. Her eyes blurred again. The booze was working its will.

  “I have to ask one more question,” I said. “I’m sorry. Your husband. What happened?”

  She clutched the cup in both hands and looked up, eyes open wide and angry.

  “What happened? WHAT HAPPENED? He fucks every woman he can sweet-talk into bed, that’s what. TWAT, TWAT, TWAT! THAT’S ALL HE CARES ABOUT! Not me, not the kids, just…”

  She threw the cup across the kitchen. Brandy splattered on the wall, but the cup rolled to the floor, unbroken.

  “GET OUT!”

  I’d found the line and crossed it, in best Cheka fashion.

  I picked up the cup and wiped down the wall with another dish towel.

  I put the cup in front of her and said good-bye. She was crying again and didn’t look up.

  When I walked out to the car, I looked back to see her watching me from the door, cup in hand—hers or mine, I wasn’t sure. I had the distinct impression she was making sure I really left. But she could have been waiting until I was out of sight to pour another drink.

  CHAPTER 12

  Still feeling like a heel, I found a parking place on First Avenue, a block from Jenny Leitz’s coffee shop. I was a few minutes early. I’d taken my time, driving slowly along East Meadow Road until I approached the county highway that would take me to I-684. I pulled over and put my cell phone to my ear. A minute later, the gray Camry appeared in the rearview mirror. I tried again to get a look at the driver but he gave me the back of his balding head a second time. The car went right toward the interstate. I let him get a good head start.

  Leitz was on my message machine, shouting orders. “Call me immediately! This harassment of my family has gone far enough!”

  I saw no point in engaging his temper, and I had a hunch Jenny hadn’t told him we were meeting. Two good reasons not to call him back. By the time I reached the highway, there were no gray Camrys in sight. I didn’t see any on the drive back to Manhattan.

  The coffee shop was long and narrow. A counter with stools down one side, booths along the opposite wall. The woman I made as Jenny sat in a booth facing the door, halfway down the aisle. She made me too, and stood as I approached. The antithesis of her sister-in-law Marianna—in appearance and feeling. No more than five feet tall, with narrow shoulders, tucked waist, and trim hips. If Leitz rolled over in bed, he’d smother her. Her black hair was cut short, which showed off her big eyes and smooth Oriental features. She wore red-framed glasses, a purple top, rose-pink sil
k pants, and two rings—a big shiny rock and a gold band—on her left hand.

  “You must be Turbo,” she said. “I’m Jenny. Nice to meet you.”

  Something was wrong. The way she moved. She’d been tentative climbing out of the booth, and she was careful to balance herself as she stood, her hand on the table top. Now, she slid deliberately back into her seat. When she got settled, I saw the sadness and worry behind the glasses. Jenny Leitz was making the most of it, but she was not a well woman.

  She had a bowl of soup and a glass of water in front of her. I ordered coffee and an English muffin. She waited until the waitress moved away and said, “You’ve been with Marianna.”

  News traveled fast in the Leitz family. Not necessarily good, for my purposes.

  “That’s right. She call you?”

  Jenny shook her head. “Sebastian told me, when I said I was meeting you. He wants you to call him.”

  So much for my hunch. No secrets in the Leitz family. At least, not unimportant ones.

  “How is she?” Jenny asked with a concern that was far from perfunctory.

  “Not good. Unhappy, depressed, drinking too much. For openers.”

  Jenny nodded. “Her husband. She told me all about it. It’s killing her. She won’t let anyone help.”

  I must have looked perplexed.

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “She told me, not Sebastian. He thinks everything’s fine. It’s our secret.”

  “But…”

  “Sebastian can be difficult, as you know. He told me what happened at the office. The conference table…”

  I nodded.

  “His intentions are good—he wants to make things better. He doesn’t understand that’s not always possible—or even desirable. It may not be what the other person wants. Then there’s his temper. It’s hard for Marianna, or others, to confide in him.”

  I took a shot. The odds were comparable to holding a four-card straight and hoping to draw the fifth, at either end—not short, not too long either.

  “That apply to you as well?”

  The straight filled. The black-brown eyes behind the red frames withdrew, just for a moment.

  “We have our problems, like any married couple. Tell me what you want you want to know.”

  “There are people asking about your husband. People who want to do him harm. They went to see Marianna. She didn’t help them, at least I don’t think she did. But if they went to her, I assume they’ve been making the rounds of the family.”

  “Not me,” she said.

  I nodded. I didn’t think they’d be brazen enough to brace the wife. “I’m sorry to ask it this way. But… your husband is difficult, as you say, which for me means uncommunicative. I’m trying to determine if anyone in the family might be willing to help these people.”

  She shook her head. “No one. It’s a family, like any other. Well, maybe not exactly like any other, but a family with all the usual jealousies, peeves, and resentments. But I don’t believe for a minute anyone wants to do real harm to anyone else, including Sebastian.”

  “Marianna said your husband can be very controlling…”

  “That’s true, but I still don’t believe anyone means him harm.”

  “Thomas? Marianna says he and Sebastian don’t always see eye to eye.”

  “That’s true too, but no, I don’t think so.”

  “Even if he had financial problems?”

  “He’s had those in the past. He went to Sebastian for help.”

  “Recently?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Would you be?”

  She paused a beat, for emphasis, her eyes holding mine, before she said, “Yes.”

  “What about Julia, or her husband?”

  “Julia and Sebastian depend on each other in their own unique way. Walter… I can’t say for sure. I hardly know him, to tell the truth.”

  “You don’t get along?”

  “No, not that. He’s… He’s just never around. I’ve only met him a few times. Of course, we don’t see much of Julia either. She’s always working on something. Neither of them were at our wedding, now that I think about it. But I still don’t think he’d do anything to hurt Sebastian.”

  She made each statement calmly and good-naturedly. But Walter Coryell bore looking into.

  “I’m sure you’re right about no one wanting to hurt your husband. But do you think anyone could be compelled—bribed, blackmailed, pressured—into helping bug your husband’s computers?”

  “I think if anyone tried to get them to do that, Sebastian would be the first to know.” She smiled. “He said you’d ask me to spill the family beans.”

  “I suppose I am, but I’m only looking for points of exposure.”

  “That’s another way of saying secrets, isn’t it?” She smiled again.

  “If you say so.”

  “I’m a relatively recent arrival. Not much help, I’m afraid.”

  “Tell me this. Anyone in the family really good with computers?”

  She smiled once more. “That would be Andras, Sebastian’s son. He’s a whiz.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Surely you don’t think he’s the culprit!”

  “No.” Though I was tempted to mention eleven million reasons why he could be. “Just trying to get as complete a picture as I can. Marianna says he’s moody.”

  She thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t put it that way. Quiet, certainly. Introspective. He keeps to himself. And he spends too much time online, in my opinion.”

  “Your husband doesn’t agree?”

  “He eggs him on. He’s thrilled Andras has an interest, something he’s good at.”

  She didn’t know the half of it. Neither did he.

  “So many children today, they just drift,” she said. “Andras has focus. He’s looking forward to college—computer science, of course. His first two choices are Stanford and Cal Tech. I don’t know who will be more thrilled if he gets in—him or his father. I try not to get too involved. I’m very fond of Andras, but I’m not his mother. She’s still very much on the scene, even from Minnesota, in a good way. That’s her role, not mine.”

  “Have you met his girlfriend?”

  “The Russian girl? What’s her name?”

  “Irina. Irina Lishina.”

  “Once. Last summer. She struck me… She struck me as much older than he is, much more experienced. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. He’s quite taken with her, that much was clear. I hope he’s not headed for a hard landing.”

  “How long have they been going out?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Since the summer, I think. She goes to the same school.”

  I nodded. Time to resume the role of heel. “I only have one more question. You mentioned secrets: What’s yours?”

  The eyes retreated behind the lenses. The voice took a less friendly tone. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with doctors in this part of town.”

  “How do you know that?” Her hands clutched her soup bowl. The eyes flashed, angry.

  “I know a lot of things I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.” I hoped I sounded sincere.

  “How?”

  “I just know.”

  She thought for moment. “It’s Foos, isn’t it? That data-mining machine of his.”

  I nodded.

  “Shit. He’s told me about it. I never thought about having it turned on me. What did it tell you? I want to know.”

  “It takes data like credit card and phone records and looks for patterns, discrepancies from patterns, things that constitute behavior, things that indicate a change in behavior. So it told me about the calls back and forth with the neurologists. It identified the imaging lab. It reported you’ve been spending a fair amount of time here, at the coffee shop, at the bookstore down the street, at the pharmacy on Second and Sixty-eighth, at the nail salon on the next block. The doctors, they’re self-explanatory. The rest
suggests a lot of time waiting, between appointments, between tests, so I’m inferring you’re dealing with some complex medical issues. I’m sorry—both that that’s the case and that I had to find out about it.”

  “But it didn’t tell you anything about my exact situation, my diagnosis?”

  “No. It has some limitations, fortunately.”

  “That’s something, at least. And Foos didn’t say anything?”

  She’d confided in him—that surprised me. Then again, maybe not.

  “Not a word. And I asked him about you.”

  She nodded. “He’s a good friend.”

  She raised the soup bowl to her mouth and sipped over the lip. Her eyes stayed on me as she gathered her thoughts. I took a swallow of my coffee. Lukewarm.

  “I’ve been diagnosed with ALS. You probably know it as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative neurological disorder, usually terminal.”

  “I know what it is. I’m very sorry.” I felt worse than ever—about her, about what I’d found out, about the whole family.

  She seemed to read my mind. “Thank you. And don’t worry—you were doing the job Sebastian asked you to do. I don’t hold anything against you. I just found out for sure a few days ago, and I’ve been keeping it close until I could talk with the doctors about the ramifications and possible treatments. I haven’t told anyone, other than a few friends like Foos. Sebastian doesn’t even know. I’ll tell him tonight, now that I have the full picture. I wanted to know everything I could before… They tell me there are drugs now that can slow the progress… There’s also a chance of remission, a small one. I’m not the usual candidate for this illness either, so…”

  “If attitude is anything, you’ve got a great shot.” I meant it. A new mother, she was dealing with the worst kind of death sentence with remarkable equanimity. Most people would have been barely functioning.

  “I’m trying to stay positive—as positive as I can under the circumstances. We have money, I’ll have the best care. I’ve determined… I determined we should all lead as normal a life as possible. For as long as possible.” She looked up at the clock on the coffee shop wall. “Speaking of appointments, I’ve got one in ten minutes.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. I keep telling myself I’m a lucky person. Everything’ll be fine.”