by Jan Burke
“Well, my oldest girl pipes up and says, ‘There are seven of us and eight angels.’ Without missing a beat, my wife says, ‘The saddest angel up there is your father’s.’”
I smiled, but when I looked back at him, his face was full of regret.
“She was right,” he said. “Back then, I used to drink pretty heavy. Left her with so much work, I sent her to an early grave.” He opened his car door. “Come on, I’m getting tired of sitting in here.”
I got out, taking my envelopes with me. I watched him take out a separate set of keys and unlock the gate in the fence. He looked back at me, and said, “We won’t go upstairs, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know that’s where he was. But how about the lobby? Have you been in the lobby?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oh, you’re in for a treat. You’re gonna love it.”
A security company cruiser stopped by just then. Keene talked to the guard for a moment, then motioned me to follow him through the gate. He locked it behind us, and seeing my face said, “You want to hold the keys?”
“Yes.”
He handed them to me, but didn’t make a move toward the hotel. He was waiting for an explanation.
“I had a bad time once,” I said. “Being locked in a place.”
He nodded, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. He started walking toward the hotel, across grounds that were now swept clean.
I followed him to the top of the steps, where he stood looking up at the sad angels, then smiled at me. “One night,” he said, “while my wife and I were out, my second-youngest son was shoved into a broom closet by his older brothers, who thought all his screaming and carrying on was funnier than hell.”
I think my face went white.
“They didn’t let him out for over an hour,” he said, not smiling now. “Kid had nightmares for years after that. To this day, he can’t sleep in a tent, won’t go into a phone booth. Has to know where the doors are. Hates being in any closed place. One day, I had an idea. I let him carry my keys. As long as he had the keys in his hand, he was okay. Discovered it made life a little easier for everyone.”
“I guess there’s not much that raising seven kids won’t let you experience.”
“Not much. In some ways, we’re all kids, I suppose. So, would you please unlock the front door?”
I did as he asked. The glass-and-brass doors were almost as shiny now as they must have been in the 1920s. Keene stepped inside.
“They’ve done good,” he said with pride.
I followed him into the lobby of what must have been a grand hotel in its day. It wasn’t perfectly restored by any means, and it was empty and devoid of furniture, but it was also clean and smelled of wax and polish.
We stood on a large mosaic entry depicting Botticelli-like celestial beings. There were angels everywhere. A dry fountain in the entry was graced with carvings of embracing seraphim. Behind it, a grand staircase ascended to a wide balcony on the next level. Except for the angels and the elaborate woodwork, the Angelus seemed an entirely different hotel than the one I had been in on Sunday.
The room was open and the ceiling a full story above us. Marble columns rose to meet it. It was painted a twilight blue with gold stars, and all around its edges bemused cherubs looked down on us. Several walls were painted with murals; there was wood paneling elsewhere; the windows were tall and their casings ornate. Afternoon sunlight streamed in.
“Well?” he asked.
“You’re right, I love it.”
“Here, sit with me on the staircase,” Keene said.
We sat there in silence for a moment, then he said, “I’m not sure what you already know about all of this. I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out what I should and shouldn’t tell you. At first, I was just going to try to point you in the right direction. But things have changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Someone is just going crazy now. Honest to God, if I thought I knew who it was, I’d go to the police. You have to believe that.”
“Tell me what you mean by ‘going crazy.’”
“Hurting people! Maybe — maybe even worse. Hell, probably worse. When I heard about the woman who runs the shelter getting hurt, I guess I decided I’d tell you just about everything.”
I waited.
“I’ve got one or two promises to ask you to make. First, promise you won’t drag my kids into this. They’ve never known any of it, and I owe my late wife that much.”
“If they haven’t had anything to do with it, I won’t be the one to drag them into it, as you say. But I can’t make promises about what other reporters will or won’t do.”
“I understand. The second promise is more selfish, but I’m not ready to give up my hide yet, and I’m afraid that’s what I’d be doing if whoever is going around hurting people knew I talked to you.”
“What’s the promise?”
“You protect me as a source — keep my name and any description of me off the record. I’ll tell you all I can. But nobody knows I’m the one that talked to you. Not the police and not the public.”
I hesitated.
“I won’t do it any other way,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll protect you as a source. But if you’re investigated by the police, they may learn things on their own. I can’t protect you from the law.”
“Married to a cop, I suppose not.”
“Does that make you mistrust me?”
“Hell no. I know how you reporters work. You ever leak this to your husband, pretty soon you’ve got no reputation as someone who can be trusted. No one talks to you. You go nowhere, because no one will tell you anything they wouldn’t want the cops to hear.”
I nodded. “I guess you do understand how it works. But the cops are working on this, Keene. They aren’t stupid. Reed Collins, Jake Matsuda — the guys who are working these cases — they make connections on their own.”
“Good. I want the person who’s doing all of this to be caught. I just don’t want to be crucified while they’re looking for the guy.”
“So talk to me.”
He stared off toward the fountain, but I don’t think he was looking at it.
“Jesus, this is gonna be tougher than I thought,” he said.
“I’ll give you some help. Someone saw an opportunity in Las Piernas. In redevelopment.”
He cleared his throat and said, “Allan Moffett and Roland Hill. It started with them.”
“Allan gave inside information to Roland, and Roland gave Allan kickbacks.” It was a guess, but I wasn’t out on any limb.
“Yes. And I went along with it. I don’t mean they ever cut me in on their deals, but because I was willing to keep my mouth shut, a lot of business came my way.”
“How much business?”
“Millions of dollars’ worth. Millions. I wouldn’t be sitting here calling this my hotel if it wasn’t millions. Not all with redevelopment. But because Roland used my company, other developers came to me.”
“And I’m sure Allan helped you to put in competitive bids for city projects.”
“There was that,” he admitted. “They weren’t stingy with financial advice and inside info — as you know. They handpicked all of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“They knew Selman was weak: guy had two separate child-support payments, expensive habits, and was always trying to impress young broads. I had seven kids, and even though the business was growing, I was having trouble keeping ahead of my suppliers’ bills. Corbin Tyler, he just had one kid, but she had some heart problem that kept him in the red. Booter Hodges is just a damned glad-hander. That joker would do anything to rub elbows with money, ’cause unless he brings the bucks into the college foundation, he’s out of a job. He was the one that suggested Selman.”
“And Ben Watterson?”
“Watterson came into it a little later, more reluctantly, I guess I’d say. He liked what it did for his business
, liked what it did for the city. But it ate at him. I’ll tell you something. It ate at me. Still does. Maybe I’m telling you this because I don’t want to end up like Ben. I don’t want my kids to find me in a shower with my brains blown out. How he could do that to Claire, I’ll never know.”
“I’ve tried to understand that myself. Maybe he was afraid she’d be ashamed of him if the truth came out. Maybe it was easier to die than to see all those people disappointed in him.”
“Nuts to that,” Keene said. “People expect too much. Ben was only human. We all are.”
“Ben was in a position of trust. I can try to understand him, but I also have to be concerned about what he may have done to the city.”
“The city! Christ, that’s what gripes my ass. The city benefitted like crazy. Jobs, retail sales-tax income — I could go on and on. Sure, a couple of projects didn’t work out, but most of them pulled lousy neighborhoods out of the toilet. The people I hired — they’re part of this city, too.”
“I see. ‘The poor you have always with you,’ unless you can make them move to some other town.”
“It’s not so simple!”
“No. Neither is fixing a deal so that your competitors don’t have a fair chance to provide those jobs.”
When he finally answered, his voice was much quieter. “No,” he said.
“And for that matter, neither is murder.”
“No. But will anyone else see it that way? That’s what scares the shit out of me.”
“You know something about murder, Keene?”
The cavernous room was silent, so silent that I heard Keene Dage swallow hard before he said, “I’m not sure. I’m not sure, but I think I do.”
“Then tell me what you think you know.”
He looked down at his shoes and said, “Numbers. It all started with numbers.”
34
“THE NUMBERS ANDRE SELMAN cooked up?”
He nodded. “Allan didn’t like the original numbers Selman was coming up with on his study.”
“Too many people being evicted?”
“Jesus. You do know. Yeah, Allan didn’t think he could make his projects fly if there was some big protest over the number of people who’d have to move out. Allan and Roland called him in to talk things over. It was the first time they had worked with him, and Selman was smart enough to figure out just what kind of bonanza he had lucked into.
“So he starts giving his research assistant a hard time. This was Lucas. Lucas was ambitious, you know? Selman thought he could convince him that he had figured the statistics wrong, that Lucas wouldn’t risk pissing off his — what do they call it?”
“His advisor for his thesis.”
“Right.”
“Andre was also his employer,” I said. “Lucas needed the job to stay in school. But he didn’t understand that he was supposed to compromise his principles, did he?”
“Oh, I think he understood, although no one spelled it out — that would have been too dangerous. He just refused to do it. Selman’s not stupid. Fire this kid, and he’s going to have all kinds of trouble. This kid might turn his ass in, let it be known what the professor is up to.”
“So he found a replacement,” I said, “and a cocon spirator in Nadine Preston.”
“Replacement, cocon spirator, typist, bedmate — you name it. She was a piece of work.”
“I’ve seen her transcripts,” I said. “She got a D in Andre’s upper-division stat class. She’s got a D, and he hires her as a graduate assistant on a largely statistical study. She retook the class from him, and she got an A. Quite an improvement.”
“Yeah, well, I can tell you she truly studied under him.”
“So Andre’s foofing Nadine, and Nadine is retyping Lucas’s thesis.”
“Shit, you know all of this already.”
“Some of it. You’re filling in a lot of gaps. I know that Andre managed to discredit Lucas. I’m not so clear on what happened after that.”
“That should be plenty, right? I’ve just told you enough to get you a headline or two, right? Why not leave it there?”
“Because I’m not your chump, Keene. You said it yourself. I knew almost all of this. You’ve confirmed a few things for me, filled in some details. But you really haven’t told me much at all. Where’s Nadine Preston now?”
He looked away from me. “I don’t know.”
“Keene, this is not the time to get mule-headed. You think this will all stay a secret? Roland Hill’s little gang is coming apart at the seams. You know it is.”
“I don’t know!”
Too vehement. He knew something, but he was scared. I decided to take a softer approach. “Something happened. Something that made Nadine decide she would offer Lucas an opportunity to prove that his thesis had been tampered with. What happened?”
“Selman’s inability to keep his pud in his pants, that’s what. He got bored, found another broad, and Nadine learned about it. They broke up. Selman was such a stupid ass. Here he knows not to out-and-out fire Lucas, but when it comes to women, he’s not so bright. Roland blew a gasket — asks him if he’s been taking drugs like his pal — I forget the kid’s name. OD’ed later on.”
“Jeff? Jeff McCutchen?”
“Yeah, that was it. Jeff. I’d forgotten about him. He used drugs all right. You’d never know it just to see the guy out on the street — that’s this myth. People think they know who’s a druggie because they’ve seen a few druggies who are out of control. Figure all druggies are like that. Just like they think they know who’s a drunk because they figure sooner or later a drunk will put a lampshade on his head at a party or live on the streets like your friend Lucas. Hell, I was a millionaire drunk. No one ever saw me drunk in public. Same with this Jeff. Hid it.”
“He hid it from me. I didn’t learn that about him until recently,” I said.
“The McCutchen kid was brilliant,” Keene said. “Brilliant in every way but two: drugs and people. He couldn’t keep away from pills and dope, and he was a social zero. Sometimes I think he was just such a smart kid, the only way he could stand to be around anyone else was to get loaded, you know, make himself as dumb as the rest of us. Sad kid. Lonely, I think. Odd.”
“Let’s go back to Nadine,” I said.
“Oh, right. Well, Moffett tells Selman he should have at least stayed with her until the final acceptance of the redevelopment proposal. Selman says there’s a problem. Turns out this Jeff is on to everything. He’s caught Nadine going through Selman’s papers.”
Keene paused, then shook his head. “Now whatever else I could say about Selman — and don’t get me started — he could charm the horns off the devil himself. He gets people to be devoted to him, although I don’t think he’s ever truly cared about another person in his life.”
“Not even his son?”
“Not his son, and sure as hell not his daughter.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Anyway, this McCutchen kid thinks the world of Selman, and he starts warning him that Nadine’s on to his scheme.”
“Jeff knew about Moffett and Roland?”
“Figured it out very early on. Bright kid, like I said. Selman said he could be trusted, and it seemed like he was right. So Selman tells Roland that he wanted to get Nadine out of the picture before she learned too much.”
“But she didn’t stay out of the picture, did she?”
“No. She already knew everything she needed to know. She waited a while, probably planning her strategy, then she goes up to Lucas Monroe and promises him the world.”
“What did she want out of it?”
“I don’t think she ever planned to help Lucas out. She was the perfect match for Selman. She was right about that. He didn’t exactly appreciate it when she told him so. Came over to his place one day, told his current lover to scram. Then she announced to Selman that she wanted to get back together. And she wanted money.”
“I can imagine how well that went over
with the others.”
“Roland and Allan were furious, but honest to God, Selman frightened me. Not because he was losing his temper. He was coolheaded, not panicked at all. You ever see him when he’s angry with his daughter? With Lisa?”
I nodded. “Different than with other people.”
“Yeah, only it’s the same this time. Pleasant, but icy. I can tell he’s really pissed at this woman who would dare to presume to threaten him.”
“So he’s angry. But what could he do about it?”
“Selman tells Roland and Allan not to worry. Says he’s got a plan. Get everybody together for a fishing trip. This can all be worked out. So we’ve got this ‘drop everything’ command from Roland and Allan to go fishing. I used to hate this crap. But I go.”
“This was on Ben’s boat?”
“Yeah, that big Bertram. Same one you saw in that photo Lucas took. Different day, though. He took that photo back when Andre was still inviting him along. Nadine’s first trip out on it. Big boat. More than big enough to live aboard.
“Anyway, on this day I’m telling you about, there sure as shit weren’t any photos being taken. Allan and Roland come aboard carrying this huge canvas bag, and it’s got some kind of heavy chain in it. Ben asked them ‘What’s that?’ and Allan shoots him a dirty look, but Selman’s the one that speaks up. ‘It’s a new anchor for you, Ben. We bought a spare. You should always have one.’ Ben was just looking at Roland. Nadine — oh, Christ! — she says, ‘Aren’t you going to thank him?’”
He put his head in his hands, stared at his feet on the stairs.
“Who went out on the boat that day?” I asked.
“Ben, Selman, Allan, Roland, me, Corbin, and Nadine. Booter wasn’t there. Booter used to get sea-sick. We’re out fishing most of the day. Fishing and drinking. I’m thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ Nadine is there, she’s all over Andre. They’re so huggy and kissy, it’s awkward for the rest of us. Ben tries to stow the canvas bag, Selman says leave it there on the deck, he’ll take care of it. So all day, Ben keeps looking at the canvas bag like it’s a snake. Ben’s unhappy, Corbin’s unhappy, I’m unhappy. I had this bad feeling, I’m drinking a little more than usual. Roland and Allan don’t seem to be bothered in the least.”