Thayer charges me one hundred dollars for the first name and fifty for every other name. Which, depending on how many Samuel N. Bergmans there were, could get excessive. We settled on a five-hundred-dollar cap. Which was fortunate. There are thirty-two Samuel N. Bergmans in the United States. Probably more if we counted those who never applied for credit. But we don’t.
None of them lived in Manhattan. The closest one was in Piscataway, New Jersey. But he was born in 1952. My Samuel N.’s DOB was 1914. That gave me a cross-reference and cut the list down to one. In Tucson, Arizona. That particular Bergman listed his main source of income as a teacher’s pension from Atlanta. Which did not sound like my Bergman.
I asked Thayer if we could run it the other way. Through the bank account number. That pleased him. “Citibank.” He smiled. “I love fucking with Citibank. I’ll only charge you fifty for it.”
Account number 16652521 turned out to be a business account. It belonged to P.O.B. Services. Their address was a post office box, No. 23784, at Peck Slip Station, New York, N.Y. P.O.B. Services was not listed in the New York phone book. Another dead end.
Mr. Bergman was turning out to be a serious pain in the ass.
Desmond Kennel called shortly after I got back to the office. I hadn’t heard from Des in ten years. When last seen, Des had been a semiradical, somewhat investigative reporter for the Village Voice, the establishment paper of the counterculture. Des had been very hip in those days: Italian slacks, leather jacket, and Tony Lamas.
He wanted to meet me. And he didn’t want to tell me why until he saw me.
I asked when. He suggested we meet for drinks, around eight. I had a six o’clock squash game. What with a shower and all, there was no point in going home in between.
“That’s all right,” I said.
He named the newest, trendiest spot on the West Side.
2.
Frankly Ferns
FRANKLY FERNS SPECIALIZES IN vintage California wines with French château prices. They have an all-video room. At Frankly Ferns, real men eat quiche.
I was early. They didn’t seem interested in letting me in. I told them Desmond Kennel had probably made a reservation. They admitted he had. I would be permitted to wait at the bar. I asked the bartender for water.
“Apollinaris? Saratoga? GustaAvis?” the young man behind the bar asked. He spoke with verve. He was an actor. I might be a producer. There are no real bartenders anymore. Or waiters. There are only underemployed other things. Coloratura sopranos, prima ballerinas, video artistes, mosaicists, nouveau choreographers, auteurs de cinéma. “I recommend the GustaAvis. It’s new. It’s Swedish. Glacial.”
“Tap?” I said.
“I don’t tap,” he said. Very apologetic. “I just do jazz and a little classical. But I’m a quick learner.”
“Tap water,” I said. He looked at me, wondering how I’d gotten past the bouncer. “And a beer,” I said.
“Amstel? Beck’s? Heineken? Guinness? Molson Golden? LA? Grolsch? Dos Equis? Dortmunder? Pschorr Kulmbacher? St. Pauli Girl? Mitsubishi? Kirin? Coors? Grizzly? Nordik Wölf?”
“Schlitz,” I said.
Once it had made Milwaukee famous. He hadn’t heard of it. I settled for Mitsubishi. I thought it might taste like a car.
Des was late. He bustled in. Reporter on the make, still. There was a girl on his arm. The leather jacket had become a leather coat, he wore a suit underneath, and he had shoes on his feet. His hair was a little thinner and the mustache was gone. Des was pushing forty, the girl was pushing Bloomingdale’s. I understood why Des had picked Frankly Ferns. She was a Farrah Fawcett—cut border-states blonde with that natural look, all hypoallergenic. The tint in her contacts made blue eyes bluer, her lipstick was oral-sex coral, her designer breasts were in off-white cotton with dimple-pink trim.
“Sorry I’m late. Really am. Late breaker,” he said, hitting his attaché case. “This is Kimberly, this is Tony; Tony, Kimberly. They have my table ready for us.”
We slithered between tightly packed tables. Credit cards glittered.
“You still with the Voice?” I asked Des.
He looked at me in shock. “You don’t know?”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Action News. I’m Action News!”
“Action News?” I asked.
“Come on,” Des said. “WFUX Eight, New York’s leading independent. ‘The Hot One.’ ”
“Hey, hey,” I said. I had never actually watched it, but I had seen their posters in the subway. “Action News. ‘The Hot One.’ Great going, Des. It’s a long way from the Voice.”
The waiter arrived. Kimberly stared at him. He asked what we would like. She said, “Don’t I know you?”
“Two Chivas,” Des said. “What about you, Tony?”
“Some food,” I said.
“The Dark Before the Dawn,” the waiter said.
“Greg Diamond,” Kimberly cried. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
“Yeah,” the waiter sighed.
“You went over a cliff in that terrible crash. After you seduced Jessica, and her mother, and stole the secret formula for Dr. Horton’s immune vaccine.”
“It was my agent’s fault. I was up for renewal. There was no stopping my charming villainy. So my agent asks for double. There I am, a week later, over a cliff. The stupid bitch. I got rid of him.”
“You poor man,” she said.
“I have a new agent. There’s a good chance for resurrection.”
“Two Chivas,” Des repeated.
“Now, now, Des,” Kimberly said. “Perrier with a twist.”
“Come on, have a real drink,” Des said.
“My new agent is also the agent for one of the head writers,” the waiter said. “There are all sorts of possibilities. Maybe I wasn’t really in the car. Maybe I was, but I survived. Or I might come back as my brother, seeking revenge, of course. Death is no obstacle.”
“Two Chivas,” Des said.
“Des-s-s,” she said. A whole history of skirmishes in her tone. “It’s a work night.”
“We don’t have Perrier,” the recently deceased Greg Diamond said, “but we do have a fine selection of mineral waters, imported and domestic.”
“I recommend the GustaAvis,” I said. “It’s new. It’s Swedish. Glacial.”
“Exactly,” the waiter said. Impressed.
Des sighed.
“And a menu,” I said.
“It’s been a long time,” Des said to me.
“Yeah.”
“I never told you about Tony Cassella,” he said to Kimberly. “You’re looking at an authentic American hero.”
“Oh,” she said.
“You remember the Knapp Commission?” he asked her as if she would. Which was foolish. She wouldn’t know the Brooklyn Dodgers, Walt Frazier, sex without the pill, illegal abortions, Khe Sanh, Yippies, or any other ancient histories.
She nodded tentatively. But she had the same expression on her face that Luis has when I’m speaking English too fast and he’s embarrassed to admit he doesn’t understand.
“Frank Serpico?” he asked. “Serpico was made into a movie, with Al Pacino.”
“I like Al Pacino,” she said. “That’s an Italian name, isn’t it?”
“In those days, Tony was a prison guard—” Des said.
“Corrections officer,” I said. Auto reflex. Black men to boy, sanitation workers to garbage man, and liberal politicians to liberal.
“Back then,” he said, “corruption was pretty institutionalized.”
“Still is,” I said.
“And here is this young, idealistic guy—”
“Come on,” I said. “What did you want to see me about?”
Des ignored my question and went on making a major drama out of a relatively simple investigation. Corruption is easy to find once you’re on the inside. The waiter brought the drinks. Des’s media style was meant to be flattering to me or exciting to her. I didn’t care to hear it.
“Come on,” I said. “So how did you end up with ‘The Hot One,’ the Action News?”
“I went into crime. I realized crime is where it’s at,” Des said. “You got to target your market.” Des swallowed some Chivas. “Print is dead. The future is electronic, and the future is now.”
“So you moved to TV. Terrific. What you wanna see me about?”
“Things are popping. I’m talking cable. I’m talking satellite superstation. I’m talking news.”
“Des is tuned to the pulse of things. It’s important to be tuned to the pulse of things. Planning does not mean rigidity,” Kimberly said. Unless she said, “Planning does not mean frigidity.”
“I have a plan,” Des said.
“It’s important to have a Life Plan,” Kimberly said. “Do you have a Life Plan?”
“No,” I admitted.
“I have a Life Plan,” she said. “First, school. I’m done with that. Then Career Start. That’s where I am now. Then Career Firmly Established. When I reach that strata, that’s when I’ll get married.”
“I see,” I said. “When’s that?”
“When I’m twenty-four.”
“Hard news is one thing,” Des said. “Just the facts and nothing but the facts. Wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am. But there is another dimension. It’s called life. Real life. You can’t deliver real life in twenty-two-second clips. Make the viewer feel. Make ’em laugh, fear, cry, yearn. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
“Oh, yes,” Kimberly said, concentrating.
“I’m talking magazine format. Video column,” Des said. “My own show.”
“Oh. When?”
“Right now,” Des said. “I’m in development with the pilot. The city. That special energy. That nitty-gritty. Downtown, uptown. The Urban Experience. A show with heart and guts. And cheap to produce.”
“Heavy,” I said.
“Very,” Kimberly said.
“Exactly,” Des said. “It’s not just the opportunity to do a different kind of journalism, which is my first priority. It’s name recognition. A whole new level.”
“It’s a Life Plan,” Kimberly said. “Des has a Life Plan now. He’s in the process of formalizing it. Once it’s Formalized, you move on to Full Realization.”
“A Formalized Life Plan and Full Realization. I’m happy for you, Des,” I said.
“LPW makes a lot of sense, Tony,” he said a little defensively. His eyes went to her off-white pink-trim breasts.
“LPW?”
“The Life Plan Way,” Kimberly said. “Des was an Instinctive when we met. He was pushing very hard to become Master of His Environment, but he just didn’t know how. Now, with his Full Life Plan being Formalized, I’m certain he will achieve his each and every goal. Including wealth and happiness.”
Des gulped down the rest of his first glass of Scotch. He waved for the waiter.
“So what can I do for you, Des?”
The recently deceased Greg Diamond returned. I asked for the smoked-mozzarella-and-tomato platter and another beer.
“Two Chivas,” Des said.
Kimberly, who had finished her first Scotch, said “Des-s-s, I’m drinking water.”
“I want you to visualize this,” Des said to me. “From the towers of power to the back alleys. Des Kennel and the Insiders. I have some very heavy people lined up. So heavy that some of them, you will never see their faces. A Wall Street heavy. This is the eighties. Money is sexy. A City Hall power broker. Power is sexy. I have a madam. Sex is sexy. It still is. Really.
“The Insiders,” he said. “I want you to be one of them.”
“It’s great, Des,” I said. “But what do you want?”
“Can you dig it?” He punched me on the arm. “Do you love it?”
“Well, Des … ”
“Tony … it’s going to do you a lot of good.”
“You know your business better than I do,” I said. “So if you say I’m right for this, maybe you’re right. But I have to warn you, my business is divorces, employee theft, in-law embezzlement. Like that.”
“Right. You got it,” the waiter said—my food, a beer, two Scotches, and one water.
“All right,” Des said, “let’s put some cards on the table. It’s no secret”—he put a forefinger to the tip of his nose and pushed it sideways—“you’re connected.”
“Gimme a break, Des,” I sighed.
“Vincent Cassella,” he announced. My uncle.
“So?”
He looked at me, significantly.
“I’m not even going to bother to discuss it,” I told him. I don’t, in fact, know the man very well. I don’t know his business at all. Our lives haven’t crossed since I was ten. Well, hardly ever.
“Sure,” he said. Letting me know that he knew a lot more than he was supposed to know about me being connected, though he most certainly did not know what there was to know, and what he thought he knew was not there to be known.
Then he made another nasal gesture. He raised his pinkie to one nostril, like it had one long scoop-shaped nail.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Once upon a time. Who gives a fuck?”
“My only point is that you’ve been there. Been to the bottom. And clawed your way back up.”
“Hey, Des. By now, half the world’s been around that block.”
“It’s chic! It’s hip! It’s the eighties!” he said. “This is the age of the Betty Ford clinic. Get straight and you get on the cover of People. Donohue’ll bring you in to talk to the housewives.”
“Would you excuse me a minute?” Kimberly said. We watched her walking away. She was good at it.
“She’s a great kid,” Des said, “and I have a lot of feeling for her. She’s very, very cerebral.”
“Cerebral?”
“Yeah. Analytical. Analyzes everything; very sharp.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“But underneath that serious exterior … ”he said. “Once she gets a little drunk, she’s hot. She thinks sex is dirty. So when she does get to it … it’s hot. Sex as sin. It makes me feel like a teenager. A teenager stud. You know what I mean?”
“Is she Catholic?” I said.
“It’s really hot,” he said. “Things go in cycles. I think sin is going to make a comeback. And big tits.”
“They both have a lot of potential, Des.”
“What I’m offering you,” he said, “a press agent couldn’t get you. You could pay him fifty, sixty grand a year and he couldn’t deliver what I can deliver. Media power. I can make you a star. … Are you on board?”
“I’m giving it serious consideration,” I said. And I was. It was time for some kind of move. Even if we got a client to replace Bazzini, we were just treading water. And the water was rising. Our insurance had doubled in two years. Our office lease was coming up. Commercial rents are not controlled or stabilized. It was going to go up 400 or 500 percent.
Kimberly came back while Des was saying, “Tony, let me say this, and I won’t say any more. You’ve always made other things more important than money. I respect
that—”
“Anyone who leaves money out of their Life Plan,” Kimberly quoted, piously, “is unrealistic, or a fool.” She returned to her drink. She was the only person I’d ever seen drink Scotch through a straw.
“ … But you’re shortchanging yourself,” Des said. “Until you’ve had it, you don’t realize what money can buy. Not just materially, but in self-respect, in the respect granted you by others, even in social and romantic relationships.” His words ricocheted around the table, a silent clicking slide show of what we were, relations that were, that had been, that could be and couldn’t. “The higher you go, the better it gets. Believe it.”
“OK, I believe it,” I said.
“Are you on board? Can I count on you?”
Television has made successes out of people who are far bigger assholes than I am. “I can see the potential of the idea,” I said. The last ti
me I’d been in the spotlight, it had torn me up. But that was about real things. That was about accusing my brother correction officers of corruption, and convicting them. Destroying them. Des’s “concept” sounded a lot more soft-core, an Entertainment Tonight of crime. Pleasant, profitable, and bullshit. “Yeah, I could get on board.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Des said.
We all touched glasses and had a swallow. Des finished his.
“Hey, can you help me with something?” Des said, offhand, waving for the waiter.
“What?”
“Did you catch the Six O’Clock Report?”
“Mostly I read the papers,” I said.
“You been following this special prosecutor thing with Randolph Gunderson?”
“The attorney general?”
“That’s the one,” he said. “The grand jury came to a decision today.”
“Wasn’t one of the witnesses killed?” I said. I’d read about the Scorcese murder. And the papers had tied the murder of Arthur Scorcese directly to an attempt to silence his father, Santino Scorcese.
“Two,” he said. “Two ‘mob-style hits.’ Like we like to say.”
“Did the grand jury indict?”
“Background,” Des said. “You have to dig the background. That’s what makes it tasty. It starts out standard: President nominates, the Senate holds hearings. The guy’s not much of a lawyer; he’s more a big-time real estate dealer. But who cares. There’s an FBI check on the guy. They do that on everybody. The FBI says he’s clean. The Senate approves the appointment.
“Two weeks later, the rumors start to fly. The Senate reopens the hearings. It turns out the FBI knew of some kind of links, through wiretaps, between Gunderson and organized crime. And they lied about it. It looks even worse because the agent who lied got promoted practically the next day.” Des opened his briefcase and pulled out a clipping from the Times.
New York Times
WASHINGTON TALK (September 22, 1983)
______________________________
Briefing
Promotion Deferred at DEA
Ex-FBI Special Agent Vernon W. Muggles, who had been promoted to Deputy Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is now temporarily Ex-Deputy Director and a Special Agent again.
You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries) Page 3