by Alan Annand
Once that was done, I plugged the blue flash drive into my tablet to see what was on it. It held only a single file called “Ladybug Blues” but it was password-protected so I couldn’t open it.
I made a quick call to Finder, explained the situation and copied the three files to a joint folder we shared on the cloud. He was off the clock at this late hour but promised to tackle it tomorrow.
I unplugged the flash drive and hid it inside a box of cereal. But I was confused. Was this the only flash drive or were there two?
Someone had mailed Crabner a snotty tissue and a flash drive with a locked file last month. Independently, after intercepting Jordan’s phone call today, Jack had tipped off Tatiana that LeVeen was supposed to receive a flash drive from his DMV informant. That’s why she’d gone to his place today – to get her hands on the incriminating data.
Were Crabner and the informant linked? If this wasn’t the DMV data, what was Ladybug Blues all about? I guessed I wouldn’t know until Finder had unlocked the file.
When Darcia showed up at my door a few minutes later, I caught a subtle whiff of perfume.
“What’s your poison?” I asked after she’d looked around my place and taken a seat at the kitchen counter.
“Got any pot? That always makes me sleepy.”
I poured us each a glass of red wine and rolled a skinny joint that was gone in six puffs. We sat at the counter and yakked. Maybe because we were both a little high, sitting near a window with a view of the city, it was like chatting with someone in the adjacent seat on a flight. Nice and easy, no affectation, and surprisingly intimate.
“What kind of work do you do, Keith?”
“Private investigation, security, extermination.”
She gave me a nervous look. “You kill people?”
“Bugs. When cockroach moms want to scare their kids, they tell ‘em stories about me.”
She laughed in relief. “Tough guy, are you?”
“I have a tough time making ends meet. Otherwise, I’m okay.”
“I’ve never seen you with anyone. How come a good-looking guy like you doesn’t have a girlfriend?”
I told her about Gwen, how we’d been married seven years, and just when the itch was supposed to have started, I’d fallen more in love with her than ever. Once we’d had Lily, it seemed our life was as complete as it could get. And then the Brooklyn Blast had blown it all away...
I choked up, as I do on the rare occasions when I confess my loss. It always felt like trying to cough up a giant hairball nobody wanted to see. But Darcia placed a hand on mine and gave me a gentle squeeze, and in her touch I felt more compassion than words could say. I knew she’d lost her husband to cancer a few years before the Blast and I suspected she’d never quite got over it. Some relationships are like that...
We turned to different topics. After discovering we both loved Chinese food, we agreed to go for Dim Sum one weekend. She liked hiking and, although I hadn’t been in the woods since I was Boy Scout, I was game for a day trip to the Adirondacks. I liked to play the ponies but, with Aqueduct and Belmont Park closed, suggested we could drive up to Saratoga Springs some day.
We succumbed to the munchies and ate half a bag of cashews. Next thing we knew it was pushing one thirty.
“I’d better go,” she said. “That smoke did the trick. I’m ready for a mattress meltdown.”
I walked her to her door. We looked at each other a moment and then leaned in for a kiss. It didn’t last long but it was nice. I hugged her and closed my eyes a moment. It felt good. No, better than that – it felt right.
“Thanks for what you did tonight,” she said. “Those guys meant trouble.”
“No problem.” After she’d closed the door I went back to my place. As I brushed my teeth, I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t look like a hero, but maybe a man who’d caught a glimpse of hope in a desperate world.
THURSDAY
Chapter 39
Over morning coffee I checked the news services. LeVeen’s death had generated stories in every online publication. Maybe it’d been a slow news day, but journalists liked to honor their dead. His brief bio revealed that he’d contributed to almost every publication in town. It seemed common knowledge he’d been helping the Harris Jordan campaign, covering stories of political corruption involving the Russian mafia. Most publications were demanding prompt police action to bring his killer to justice.
The Daily News mentioned LeVeen was survived by one brother Dale, both of their parents having died in the Brooklyn Blast. I googled Dale LeVeen and found a phone number and a Village address. I made a note to contact him, offer my condolences, see if he could shed any light on the case wherein our paths had crossed. Although I could’ve phoned, I favored the face-to-face approach, getting my foot in their door, looking them in the eye when I asked them questions. It probably wouldn’t lead to anything, but if I didn’t try, I’d never know.
As for my associate Walker, there was only a brief mention in the Chelsea Crier of a mutilated body found on Pier 57, identity withheld pending contact with family. That’s how it was in my business. Some got the 21-gun salute as a fallen hero, others got the grave of the unknown soldier. I wondered what would happen to me. Given the way I’d misspent my last five years, they’d probably shove me behind the fridge and invite the neighborhood cockroaches for an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I boiled two eggs while I took a shower, and made toast while I toweled off. Cooking was not my forte. Considering the way this case was going, I wondered what was. Investigating wasn’t topping the list.
Over breakfast, I ran a search on the Schiller Gallery. I got the art dealer’s full name and gathered some background on him. He had a good professional reputation, so I did a little more poking around into his social and family life. All squeaky clean, but good to know.
After that, I checked the lineup for today’s races at Saratoga Springs. A few horses looked promising. I did some online research on a few punters’ sites to bolster my gut sense with a little track history. Since I was solvent again, I placed bets on three races and left it at that.
I’d no sooner finished cleaning up when I got a text from Natalie Jordan, suggesting I join her at the Hutton Hotel for a progress report. I brushed my teeth, put on my only suit and took the elevator to the parking level. As I passed the storage section, I thought of my bike that had been eaten last night by EDGAR. I hoped the damn thing choked on a sprocket.
~~~
The Hutton was at Eleventh and 24th, overlooking the Chelsea Waterside Park. Built just before the Brooklyn Blast, it’d been designed as a period piece catering to British tourists and fans of the Royal Family. Its gala opening had been attended by King William and the Queen. In the lobby was a large canvas of King George V with a bulldog, the King wearing a WW1 officer’s tunic, his watery eyes looking like he’d just escaped an attack of mustard gas at the front. A suit of armor stood guard at the front desk. The bellhops dressed like English butlers. At the front desk, a clerk called upstairs to confirm Ms. Jordan was ready to receive me.
I knocked on the door of her ninth-floor suite. Natalie Jordan answered wearing a business suit. The suite had wallpaper and wainscoting, antique furniture and a chandelier. She beckoned me to join her in the lounge area where a silver tray on the coffee table bore continental breakfast fare.
“Coffee?”
“Sure.” I accepted a cup. “How was the West Coast?”
“Getting crowded. Every day I meet another New Yorker who’s decided to give it a chance.”
“Hope springs eternal,” I said, “everywhere except in this town.”
“Speaking of hope, how’s it going? You still haven’t found Marielle?”
“No, but I’ve learned a few interesting things about her.”
“Such as?”
“That she’s your half-sister.”
She flushed. “I guess you’ve done your homework.”
“Right. I also learned you work for
The Confidant.”
She frowned. “What about it?”
“What’s your agenda? The Confidant churns out an amazing volume of scuttlebutt. You don’t care about the facts, so long as you titillate the masses. Sex Lives of the Stars. Mother Eats Only Child. Vampires in the Subways. Distribution in the millions. A network of writers cranking out offbeat stories, the more bizarre the better. Your tagline could be, It might not be true, but you heard it here first. What’ve you got planned for Marielle?”
“It’s not like that at all.”
“Tell me how it is. And if you really care about her, tell me everything.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t planning to write a story on her. I was in town last weekend researching another story when I spotted something in a Twitter feed covering the SoHo art scene. Reclusive artist paints insect portraits. That sounded like Marielle, so Sunday afternoon I checked out the Schiller Gallery mentioned in the Twitter feed.
“I recognized Marielle’s work immediately. I’d seen sketches years ago but had no idea she’d honed her talent and found her niche. Nor that she was making so much money. I called Vivien, thinking this might be a win/win situation, wherein I could write an exclusive profile, and Marielle would get publicity.
“When Vivien answered the phone, she was hysterical. She thought I was someone else, and kept asking, Is she okay? I told her it was me. Right away she blurted out that Marielle had disappeared. I dropped everything and drove out to Long Island. Vivien and I hadn’t seen each other in years. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a nice social visit but, given her state, it was anything but.”
“Was Jack there too?”
“Yes. He was upset, and they’d been arguing ever since they’d discovered Marielle had disappeared on Saturday. Vivien wanted to call my father and tell him what’d happened. Jack was dead set against it. He insisted she hadn’t been kidnapped, probably just run away, and after a few days she’d return home. She had a dozen paintings in progress, and she couldn’t just leave it behind. It made sense, but mostly he was afraid that if my father found out Marielle had disappeared on Jack’s watch, he’d be out of a job.”
“Did Vivien tell you about Marielle’s friends Crabner and Myers?”
“No, and I had no time to play detective. My editor wanted me back in California for a huge story.”
“The Governor’s suicide?”
“Big smelly scandal. We’ll be writing follow-up for months. I’m only back here for two days, to interview some women from the governor’s past.”
“And the story on Marielle…?”
“Under the circumstances, that’d be very inappropriate. Bad publicity could compromise my father’s run for mayor.”
“You don’t have an axe to grind?” I told her what I’d learned about the late Jennifer Teale. “Payback for what he did to you and your mother?”
Natalie shook her head. “When Marielle was born, he came clean with my mother. It was her choice to forgive him or condemn him. She chose divorce, and he managed the best he could with the consequences.”
“Alright, then.” My conscience was clear, so long as I wasn’t an unwitting pawn to skewer Jordan. This mayoralty race was shaping up to be a game-changer for New York politics, a classic showdown of fundamental values. If public sentiment turned against Jordan, who’d be left to wage war against organized crime? “So, no story.”
“I just want my sister found, back home safe where she belongs.” Her voice quavered. “Why can’t you find her?”
I brought her up to speed. Myers was hospitalized with a poisonous spider bite. Crabner had dropped out of sight, his former roommate LeVeen murdered. Vivien’s ransom payment had been picked up by a swarm of giant hornets. Marielle’s paintings had been stolen. Jack was in debt to Russian loan sharks. Walker had been killed by an unknown assailant. And the man Marielle may have approached for prosthetic surgery was the genius Dr. Globik...
“Is there anything I can do. Do you need to recruit extra help?”
“Maybe it’s time to call in the FBI. If it’s really a kidnapping, they’ve got more clout than me…”
“Can you give it one more day?” She seemed to take it for granted that murders might obstruct my search for Marielle. “I’ll double your bonus if you can find her by the weekend.”
“Who are you doing this for – Marielle or your father?”
“Family,” she said. “In the end, that’s all that matters.” There were genuine tears in her eyes as she clutched my hand and squeezed it.
I stood up. “Thanks for the reminder.” Gwen and Lily were never far from my mind, and I’d have gone to hell and back to rescue my family.
I retrieved my Charger from the hotel valet service and headed for the Village. Like everything else these days, the pursuit of truth was an urgent proposition.
Chapter 40
The Schiller Gallery was on Greenwich Ave. I found parking a block away. Walking to the gallery, I saw a band of Hare Krishna devotees, orange-robed and head-shaven, all wearing white painter’s masks, an inexpensive form of environmental protection. They were jamming on a street corner with flutes, bells, drums and tambourines, chanting a muffled version of Hare-hare, rama-rama-ding-dong.... Some things never change.
The gallery didn’t look like much from the outside, just a few paintings in the front window featuring barnyard animals whose dull expressions reminded me of commuter train passengers. Inside, the walls were filled with works of several artists, all graduates of the hyper-realism school.
A man in a white linen suit rose from a desk at the rear and approached me. He had a nice tan and moved with the athletic grace of a tennis player. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Schiller?”
“Yes.” He cocked his head at me. “Have we met?”
“No, but I was given your name by Jack Randall.” I’d decided to play Schiller a bit before I solicited his cooperation, run him around the court a little before I slammed one into his offside.
“I don’t believe I know anyone by that name.”
“You know his wife, Vivien.” I paused for effect. “Tall Nordic beauty, platinum blonde, the woman who represents Marielle.”
He flushed. “What’s this about?”
“My name’s Keith Savage.” I gave him one of my cards. “I’ve been hired to make a few discreet inquiries...”
He stared at my card. “You’re a private investigator?”
“Also an exterminator. It doesn’t say that on my card, but I like to let people know. If you have vermin of any kind, call me. I’ll check out your property and give you a quote. My rates are aggressive. You don’t want termites eating your stock, do you?”
“I don’t have any bug problems.” He pocketed my card. “What do you want with me?”
“When did you last talk to Mrs. Randall?”
He looked flustered. “Well, I don’t know... It’s been a while.”
“That’s not what her husband thinks.”
“Look, Mr. Savage, I don’t want any trouble. If Vivien... I mean, Mrs. Randall... is having some sort of trouble at home, I have nothing to do with it. I’m a married man, you know.”
“Yes, I do. Your wife’s name is Sarah. You have two daughters named Helen and Rebecca. You have a nice house in Gramercy Park.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Didn’t I just give you my business card? This is what I do for a living. Investigate. And exterminate.”
He shook his head. I knew that look. It was classic denial. This can’t be happening to me. But it was... And he had guilt written all over his face.
“Let me ask you again. When’d you last see Vivien? And don’t fabricate anything to protect anyone. The truth is the simplest.”
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Maybe there was an answer written on the ceiling, or maybe he was looking to God to throw him a lifeline. “Last Wednesday evening.”
“Any phone calls since then?”
“No.”
He gestured to a cartridge coffee machine on a counter behind him. “Do you want something? An espresso?”
“Sure.”
He made the coffee and served it in small Italian cups with a wrapped chocolate in the saucer and a glass of water on the side. I felt like I was in a Fellini movie. If a 21-year-old Sophia Loren walked in right now, my day would be complete.
“Mr. Schiller, I’d like to be transparent with you. But the quid pro quo is that our discussion must remain completely confidential. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“Here’s what’s happening. The other day, there was a break-in at Marielle’s studio and a couple of her paintings were stolen.” That was an understatement, and not completely transparent of me, but Schiller didn’t need to know the extent of the crime.
“Oh my God! Is Marielle okay?”
“Yes. She was out at the time.”
“Which paintings did they take?”
“I don’t have photos with me, but they were both finished paintings.”
“Has Vivien... Mrs. Randall... filed a police report?”
“No. There are some... um... complicating circumstances.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. Suffice to say, I’m conducting an investigation into where the paintings may have ended up.”
“Surely you don’t think I have anything to do with this?”
“Of course not. You’re already Marielle’s agent, and from what Mrs. Randall told me, you’re an ethical man.”
He smiled as he nodded, relieved I didn’t regard him a suspect, or pleased that Vivien had endorsed his good character. “How can I help you?”
“Regarding the theft, I assume three possibilities. They were stolen for a private collection, for resale into the general art market, or it was just a theft of opportunity. I discount the last because other things of value weren’t taken. It seems the thieves were only interested in her art.”