“Blovardi? Bimm is so far up his ass only his shoes stick out.”
“What’s Blovardi’s position on the race track? And, for that matter, Bimm’s?”
“I’m not sure, anymore. Initially Blovardi said he would keep an open mind. He always says that but everyone knows he’d do whatever Bimm wants, since Bimm runs both the Chamber of Commerce and the Borough Economic Development Corporation. And the NASCAR people aren’t dumb. They knew there would be resistance. So they hired a local law firm to run interference for them. Just happens to be Paul Salamiro’s firm. He’s getting a $20,000-a-month retainer to lobby for the track.”
Scarne knew that Salamiro was the former borough president, who handpicked Mario Blovardi to succeed him.
“It sounds like they have all their ducks in order. What’s the problem?”
“I just get this feeling, from talking to people in Borough Hall, that they’re just giving lip service to NASCAR now. The Chamber and the B.E.D.C. recently both came out in favor of commissioning more studies about the plan. That’s usually the kiss of death.”
“Sounds like Salamiro isn’t earning his money.”
“Makes you wonder, don’t it?”
Scarne paid the check while Harvey used the men’s room. A few moments later the two men stood outside on the sidewalk talking in what was now barely a drizzle. A front had gone through and it was noticeably colder.
“Thanks for the gourmet dinner,” Harvey said. “I hope you’re wrong about Elizabeth Pearsall. But if you’re not, I’d like something done about it.” He hesitated. “Are you going to tell Bob?”
“Not until I’m sure. And even then, I don’t know how to handle it. I’d have to find him first.”
“I can help you with that.” Harvey took his business card from his wallet and scribbled on its back. “That’s his number. A few of us have been in contact. I think he’d want to know.”
He handed Scarne the card. A stream of commuters was walking from the SIRT station. Some peeled off to their cars in the lot or started walking home down nearby streets. A fair number, all men, headed toward Lee’s. A few of them exchanged greetings with Harvey as they entered. One said “nice jacket.” Harvey shrugged to Scarne and said, “It hides the sauce stains.”
“That jacket would hide a Jackson Pollack.”
Harvey laughed, then turned serious.
“Listen, Jake. Be careful. Anyone who would kill a kid won’t stop at anything.”
“I’m not too worried. If the people behind his daughter’s murder were afraid to go directly after Pearsall, they’d probably be crazy to go after someone looking into it. I’ve told a lot of people what I’m doing.”
“The Fresh Kills landfill is full of guys who underestimated the scumbags out here.”
“Great pizza,” Scarne said when they shook hands.
“It’s the ovens.”
CHAPTER 14 – BOOMFIELD
The next day Scarne called Sandra Doyle, the reporter. They agreed to meet for lunch at Rod’s, a popular Jersey shore hangout in Sea Girt. On the way there, he left the Garden State Parkway and cut over to Route 35, and drove through Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Bradley Beach, Avon by the Sea, Belmar and Spring Lake, towns that brought back memories of raucous summer weekends with Dudley Mack.
Rod’s was a classic pub, with a huge oval bar surrounded by sturdy high-back swivel chairs. He managed to find a quiet spot away from the TV, which was tuned to the Golf Channel. Scarne loved golf, but he had no use for the poorly disguised 30-minute infomercial where a bunch of Champions Tour players, instructors and “amateur” golfers were shilling the latest miracle putter. The “amazing new club” – which looked like one of the tools the torturer in Braveheart used on William Wallace – featured “space-age technology” to “eliminate the three-putt.” And it only cost “three easy payments of $79.99.”
With a closet full of putters, Scarne spent the time more productively, sipping a beer and debating the latest incomprehensible New York Knicks trade with the bartender. A very pregnant woman walked in. She scanned the bar, locked eyes with him and walked over.
“Dr. Livingston, I presume?”
“It’s Jake.” He stood and pulled out a seat for her. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t realize…”
The bartender walked over.
“Hey, Sandy, the usual?”
She nodded, and he poured her a glass of cabernet as she took off her jacket with a little help from Scarne. She hung her purse on a hook under the bar and clinked glasses with him. She saw the look on his face and laughed.
“Don’t worry. My doc says it’s OK. I’m only having one. I mean, one drink. I’m having twins, so you’d think I’d rate two glasses, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m just sorry you had to come out and meet me. I certainly would have come to you had I known.”
“What century are you from? I’ve been driving up and down the shore doing interviews with people losing their homes. I’m not due for a month.”
“Who do you work for now?”
“Asbury Park Press.”
“Good paper. You must be happy you landed on your feet. Not the greatest job environment for journalists.”
“Well, I was freelancing until two months ago, but I just got put on staff.”
“Congratulations. You must be good.”
“I am good.” She smiled wickedly. “And, of course, it helped that the city editor is the father of these little darlings. We married last month.”
“Way to go, girl,” the bartender said as he set down a bowl of peanuts.
“Double congratulations,” Scarne said, laughing. “I won’t offer you another drink, but how does lunch sound?”
“Food always sounds good.” She patted her stomach. “I wonder why!”
Drinks in hand, they moved to a nearby table by a window. As they walked over Scarne took her in. Sandy Doyle was a very good-looking woman. Tall and, except for her belly, thin, with strong, shapely legs and a fine-featured, though sensuous face surrounded by tight blond curls. He suspected it didn’t take much prodding for her new husband to do the right thing. A waitress came over. They ordered clam chowder, New England for her, Manhattan for him, and two Reubens. Scarne asked for another beer; Doyle a Coke.
They made small talk. The chowders came. Steaming hot. Scarne burnt his lip.
“Put more oyster crackers in it,” Doyle said. “You said on the phone that you need some background on NASCAR on Staten Island.”
“That’s right. I understand that Bob Pearsall had you and another reporter looking into some things. Come across anything that didn’t seem quite right?”
“Why does a private eye want to know?”
Scarne realized he’d have to be careful.
“Well, the project is controversial. I’ve been hired to look for surprises.”
“You working for the people who want the track or the ones who don’t?”
“Sorry. I can’t tell you.”
“Then why should I tell you anything?”
“Professional courtesy? Surely, a reporter can respect someone protecting his sources.”
“I’m the reporter, not you.”
“I read The New York Times every day?”
“Un, unh.”
But she smiled.
“The lunch?”
“I love the cheesecake here.”
“You’ve got it. So, what can you tell me? Or do I have to get some takeout for you, too?”
She laughed.
“Actually, you had me at the Reuben. But there’s not much to tell. We had just started looking into some stuff when Mr. Pearsall had a family tragedy and left the paper.”
Scarne liked the fact that she called her former boss by his formal name.
“Yes, I know about that. Was Pearsall for or against the track?”
Their sandwiches came and they moved their soup bowls to the side.
“He thought it was idiotic,” she said, taking a bite of her Reuben, “wit
h all the other problems it would bring. I mean, on the face of it, putting a NASCAR track with an 80,000-seat stadium on the North Shore of Staten Island is nuts. I mean, sometimes it takes people an hour to go 10 blocks to get a loaf of bread, the traffic is so bad. The Goethals Bridge, just north of the site, would get the bulk of the traffic headed there. It was built in the Cretaceous Period, for Christ’s sake, and can’t handle what’s going over it now. It’s two lanes in each direction and if you try to pass a semi, it’s suicide. After Robert Moses built the Verrazano Bridge, Staten Island became a major north-south road conduit between New England and the rest of the U.S. Add the traffic from Jersey and points west and forget about it! I spoke to residents who were up in arms about the idea. Some of them remembered when you could drive from one end of Staten Island, St. George to Tottenville – that’s 14 miles – without hitting a stoplight or stop sign. Now you can’t do that without hitting a pedestrian.”
“What do you think of the idea?”
She took a spoonful of soup.
“Look, Staten Island has a lot of problems that need addressing before it needs NASCAR, but I’m not one of those NIMBY yahoos who thinks all progress is bad. I come from upstate New York, around Oswego. There is no industry to speak of. Everybody was out of work even before things went into the tank economically. They’d love a project like this.”
Scarne tried his soup again. The oyster crackers had helped.
“Oswego isn’t in the middle of the biggest metropolitan area in the world.”
“I know, but the land NASCAR wants to use is basically unusable for anything else. Do you know what a ‘brownfield’ is?”
“Land contaminated by chemicals or other pollutants?”
Both Scarne and the reporter had a good rhythm going, alternating soup and Reuben. He was having a good time.
“Roger. The whole North Shore of Staten Island is basically a ‘brownfield.’ Abandoned oil tank farms, lumber yards, service stations, junk yards, chemical plants, shipyards, you name it, somebody has been dumping crap into the ground. Some of it can be reclaimed, but it’s costly. The site NASCAR purchased, called the Bloomfield Dump, is 675 acres of environmental catastrophe. It’s where the BATX oil tank farm was located and where an empty LNG tank caught fire and killed 40 workers in 1973. Maybe you remember that? The LNG crowd had claimed that putting a huge liquid gas tank inside New York City was perfectly safe. Then they put in a thimbleful of LNG to test the tank’s integrity, then drained it. One of the workers lit a cigarette and it blew up like Krakatoa. Headline writers had a field day calling it ‘Boomfield.’ Local residents have been waiting more than 30 years for the city to do something with it. At first they were promised a park.”
“They always promise people a park. Maybe that’s what Pearsall wanted. I understand he was a bit of a crusader.”
“You’re not supposed to use that word.”
“Balls,” Scarne said. “Pardon me.”
“Double balls,” Doyle said. “I hate all this political correctness crap. Anyway, Mr. Pearsall wouldn’t torpedo something just because he didn’t like it. It would have to smell.”
They finished their Reubens and Doyle tried – and failed – to suppress a satisfied belch.
“Pardon moi. Pregnancy prerogative.”
“Did it?”
“Did it what?”
“Smell.”
“Well, he thought something else was going on. He knew Staten Island like the back of his hand and didn’t like some of the people involved.”
“Dr. Nathan Bimm, to be exact.”
She looked at him.
“I’m not your first stop, am I?”
“I spoke to Ev Harvey. He filled me in.’
Then Scarne told Doyle about his encounter with Bimm at Borough Hall.
“Harvey said Bimm…” He decided to leave out the police reporter’s colorful phrasing. “… is close to the Borough President.”
“As close as an enema,” Doyle said.
So much for tact, Scarne thought. Must be the pregnancy.
“Can I get you two anything else?”
It was the waitress, who began clearing their places. Scarne ordered two pieces of cheesecake, and coffees.
“Harvey told me some other stuff. That you were looking at Bimm’s real estate dealings in both Bloomfield and Stapleton, and that Pearsall thought there might be a connection. He also said that he was getting the feeling that the original ardor Bimm and Borough Hall had for the NASCAR track has cooled of late.”
“Really. That’s interesting. They were all so gung ho in the beginning, even if they pretended to be neutral.”
“What’s your take on Bimm?”
“Heard he was a hell of a doctor once. I know some women he worked on. Men, too. Was so successful he had to open up a string of clinics to keep up with the demand. His main offices were located near Todt Hill, Grymes Hill, Emerson Hill, where all the money is. The joke was that the rich wives would head down to Silicone Valley for their nip and tucks. There was some talk that many of his surgeries were unnecessary but nothing ever stuck. No big malpractice suits that I can recall. Real estate is another matter. He ruins everything he touches. Put up shabby condos. Bulldozed trees. Filled in streams. Knocked down beautiful old houses. Cut every corner. Screwed every partner. Mr. Pearsall assumed that if Bimm was involved in the track project there had to be something wrong.”
“Find anything?”
“We had just started looking through real estate transactions in the County Clerk’s office, set up an interview with Bimm. But then Mr. Pearsall’s daughter was murdered, you know. He kind of fell apart. No one blamed him. He’d only just lost his wife, really.”
So, Scarne thought, the good doctor knew about their investigation, if it could be called that.
“You didn’t pursue it any further?”
“We didn’t see the point. It was basically just a feeling Mr. Pearsall had. He was our mentor, the reason we went to the Register. After he left we just wanted to get off the Island.”
Their cheesecake came. It was good, almost Junior’s quality, but he preferred the Italian kind, made with ricotta and lemon rinds and dusted with powdered sugar. The bar was beginning to fill up. A couple came by to say hello to the reporter and coo over her stomach. They left.
“Did you ever speak to Bimm?”
“No, he cancelled our interview. I could have cared less at that point.”
“Tell me about the Home Port. Harvey said you were checking on Bimm’s involvement there as well.”
Doyle looked at Scarne closely.
“Is this about Bimm or NASCAR?”
“Sounds like the question Pearsall was asking. And he had a Pulitzer.”
“Fair enough. Well, back in the Reagan Administration they decided to re-commission some old battleships. One of them was going to be stationed there, along with a few other ships. I think it was the Iowa, but I’m not sure. They spent a freakin’ fortune on the base and a couple of years later they put the battleships in permanent mothballs, where they should have stayed to begin with. It was just a pork barrel move, anyway, to reward Staten Island for always voting Republican. Some of the local activists opposed it, on the grounds that a Navy base in New York Harbor might attract Soviet ICBM’s. It was the Cold War, remember. How nuts is that? As if Manhattan, the biggest target on the planet, didn’t have about 30 H-bombs aimed at it already. Just proves the libs are as dumb as the conservatives.”
“So, what’s going on there now? I read someplace it was supposed to be a movie studio.”
“It would have been perfect,” Doyle said. “The big Navy Yard buildings would have made great studios and soundstages. Plus a lot of movies are shot on Staten Island anyway, so it would have been convenient.”
“What happened?”
“Political bullshit. Big contributor to the Mayor’s campaign had an investment in the Silvertop Studio complex on the waterfront in Brooklyn across from Manhattan. He didn’t
want any competition so they scotched the Stapleton deal. Now I hear the whole thing is going to be developed by some Chinese investors as a mixed-use project. Some retail, some residential.”
“Any connection between Bloomfield and the Home Port?”
“You mean other than Bimm?”
“I mean would one affect the other.”
“They are on opposite sides of the borough. Apples and oranges.”
“Anyone really angry about it?”
“Not really. A lot of people will have their views of the harbor ruined, and a few seagulls will be pissed off, but it means jobs and may even revitalize the Stapleton and Rosebank areas, which could use it. Even Mr. Pearsall thought it might be a plus. The only thing that bothered him was Bimm buying up all that real estate near it.”
“Would your partner, Chris, know anything you don’t?”
“I doubt it.”
“Do you keep in touch?”
“Through the Internet, occasionally. He’s in New Zealand.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to call him anyway, aren’t you?”
“It’s the call that you don’t make that you later find out you should have.”
“Well, don’t forget the time difference. He’s 13 hours ahead.”
***
As Scarne headed back to New York, he called Chris Tighe. If Sandy Doyle was right about time zones, it would be about 9 AM in New Zealand.
“I’m just heading out,” Tighe said when he answered. “Surf’s up.”
Tighe obviously had his priorities right.
“Listen, Chris, can I call you Chris?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Chris, I’ll make this quick. I’m doing a follow up on a story that you and Sandy Doyle were working on together at the Richmond Register, the proposal for the NASCAR track. I just spoke to her.”
“How is Sandy?”
“She fine. Expecting twins.”
“Yes, I know. We Tweet. You at the Register?”
Scarne didn’t want to go through the whole private eye rigmarole. Tighe might be more comfortable opening up to another journalist.
“Yeah,” he lied. “Just started. They gave me some old stories to revisit. NASCAR, the Home Port, you know the drill.”
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