It Happened at Two in the Morning

by Alan Hruska

  “What do you think? I’m an ignorant man? You think I have no subtlety? Can’t shade my statements?”

  “You told them Julian Althus called you that night. Told you that Riles wouldn’t be needing the car.”

  “Very true,” Khalil says, as if there’s more to that story. “He did say that.”

  “And that his daughter, Elena, called you right after to warn you off the Riles Whitney building.”

  “Ah,” Morrie says. “Maybe not quite. Here’s where the subtleties might come in.”

  “How much could you really change that?” Teddy says with a scoffing tone.

  “As much as I want.”

  “Because it didn’t happen at all.”

  Morrie simply smiles.

  They drink. A Filipino nanny walks by with her charges: twins in a carriage; another tot holding onto her hand. To a casual observer, like Teddy, they comprise scenery.

  Teddy says, “The more I see of you, Morrie, the more I see of you.”

  “So maybe you’ll find another client who will pay.” Khalil’s smile is filled with knowing.

  “Not possible. No one else has reason to want the murder rap pinned on either Althus or Elena.”

  Khalil laughs. “You’re toying with me, Teddy. Or trying to. If you didn’t already have another client, why would we even be sitting in this ratty café drinking reheated coffee? The fact is, I’ll need another two hundred thousand dollars. Before I go visit the DA tonight.”

  “You’ve been given three hundred thousand already!”

  “That was for the call to the DA’s office and the statement. This is for not changing it.”

  Teddy blows out his cheeks. “You’re too fucking much.”

  “Just think, Teddy, how useful I’ll be when I’m actually working for you.”

  Tom and Elena meet for a late lunch at a tiny Italian restaurant on West Fifty-Second Street. Their table is between a wall of exposed brick and another decorated with family photos. To Tom’s back is a large mullioned window onto the street; behind Elena, an open kitchen. None of the other five tables is occupied. After serving their meal, the cook and the waiter seem to have abandoned them.

  “So you going to do it?” she says, twirling the last of her spaghetti pomodoro around her fork. “Take the job?”

  “You see any downside?”

  “Where’s the plus?”

  “To being part of the investigation, not the subjects of it? And increasing the odds on staying alive?”

  ‘Hmm,” she acknowledges.

  “And we did agree to help.”

  “Great,” she says. “We’ll do the cops’ job. So where do we start?”

  “Your dad’s files. Especially those about GT&M.”

  “Been there,” she says. “This morning. While you were being stroked by Mike Skillan. They’ve already been ransacked. If there was anything there of importance, it’s gone.”

  “See. That’s interesting.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “Could mean anything.”

  “Any other files? That haven’t been raked over? What about your dad’s apartment?”

  “Nothing there. Not even a safe or a locked drawer. If he had private papers, they’d be at his place in Greenwich.”

  “His place?”

  “A house. A mansion,” she adds defensively. “I grew up there.”

  “I see.”

  She looks at him as if to say, You, in fact, know very little about me.

  “Under his will…?”

  “The house is mine,” she says.

  “You do seem very familiar with the will. I know you’re the executor, but—”

  “He asked me to read it. Made sure I understood it.” Her lips press against the emotion.

  Tom says, “You busy this weekend?”

  “You’d like to weekend in Greenwich?”

  “I’d like to look at his files,” Tom says.

  She looks down at her empty plate, then back up at him. “Won’t you have conflicts?” she says. “As an assistant DA? With me still a suspect?”

  “Absolutely not,” he says. “The case against you is essentially dead. Skillan would never have offered the job if he thought otherwise.”

  “But suppose he starts suspecting me again? You’d have to be loyal to Skillan, right?”

  He lowers his own fork still laden with pasta. “El, what do you think’s going on here?”

  “Where?” she says.

  “Where do you think? Here! Between you and me.”

  “Dunno. What’s going on?”

  He stares at her; she looks down again.

  “Jesus!” he says, ostensibly peering at the opposite wall.

  She props her elbows on the table. “I should tell you something.”

  “All ears,” he says in a tone implying limited patience.

  “I don’t like being a rich person. I’m going to give it all away. Almost all of it.”

  “Excellent idea.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course,” he says. “Having all that money is very limiting. In the kind of friends you can make, for one thing.”

  “How about you?” she says. “You became my friend, knowing I was a rich kid.”

  “I’m unusual.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Very broad-minded,” he says.

  “Willing to overlook extreme disadvantages, like filthy wealth?”

  “Possibly,” he says. “If the girl’s sweet.”

  She says, “I know I’m not sweet.”

  “You have moments.”

  “This isn’t one of them.”

  “Isn’t, no,” he says.

  “But you like me anyway?”

  “Like?”

  “You don’t?”

  “We’re in love, El.”

  “Love?” she says, looking as if she might faint. “That’s what’s going on here?”

  “It is,” he says.

  She pushes her dish away. “Whew,” she says. “Awful lot to take in so fast.”

  “Should we slow it down?”

  “Is that what you want?” she says.

  “What I want?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be what I want,” she says, as if surprised by that conclusion.

  “My darling unsweet girl—what is it that you do want?”

  Her lips part, but she says nothing, as if nothing in her vocabulary would seem to fit.

  “Question’s pending,” he says.

  “Want?” she says. “Ah, well … want—”

  “That is the question.”

  “So happens,” she says, a little breathlessly, “a block from here … you know what’s there?”

  “What’s there?”

  “A new hotel.”

  “I’ve seen it,” he says.

  “I own it.”

  “You’d like to inspect it?”

  “Just a room,” she says.

  “This is not my problem,” Rashid asserts vehemently. “I did not want Riles killed. That was entirely you and Jockery.”

  “Was I paid that large sum for nothing, then?” Teddy Stamos says.

  “I never asked you to kill the man.”

  “That man,” says Teddy. “Well. Perhaps a matter of interpretation?”

  Rashid had reluctantly agreed to a late-day meeting on the East River Esplanade near Carl Schurz Park. He and Stamos are sitting on a bench like any tourists, seemingly watching the boats, feeling the sun lowering on their backs through the tops of the East Side buildings. But for someone priding himself on control, Rashid looks dangerously close to losing it. “Have you just shifted our focus?”

  “Most sorry. But Rashid, it’s all rather tied together.”

  “I have absolutely no traceable connection to the death of Lowell Jockery. Not even you, Teddy, could—”

  “I wouldn’t! Couldn’t even, without ruining myself.”

  “You wouldn’t be believed. I and the Emirates have repeatedly made clear that we wanted Jockery
to run the combined companies.”

  “I understand,” Teddy says.

  “We were discussing Riles, as to whom you misread me.”

  “Let’s simply agree,” Teddy purrs, “you wanted him out of the way. His company out of the way.”

  “There were other methods of achieving that.”

  “Not really,” says Stamos. “Not effectively. And you knew what was happening. You went along.”

  “Are you threatening me, Teddy?”

  “I’m trying to make you see reason,” Stamos says. “If the Riles girl disappears, with her boyfriend, Weldon, no one can be convicted of the Riles murder. In all probability, no one could even be prosecuted. Because suspicion of that pair will always cast reasonable doubt on the guilt of anyone else. So whatever blame might otherwise attach to you—poof! Gone! But more than that—from a purely commercial standpoint—how effective can the Riles Whitney opposition be when the ownership of their controlling block of stock is in limbo? Which it will be for years when the sole heir is the likely suspect to a murder and apparently in flight. And when the CEO is himself tainted by suspicion. It’s an almost perfect scenario, don’t you think?”

  Rashid’s eyes remain fixed on the river traffic. An enormously elongated barge streams past, bulging with bitumen. Teddy says, “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Since you haven’t mentioned Khalil, I assume you’re not finished saying it.”

  “Right,” says Teddy, giving a sharp tilt to his head. “Khalil is the key. He adds materially to the evidence against both—has already intensified suspicion of them with his telephone call to Riegert, which his office certainly recorded. But if Khalil recants tonight….” Teddy makes his clucking sound of doom. “Then the finger points right at us! Why is he recanting? Who’s paying this guy to do what? But the beauty of the whole thing is we can buy him for a paltry two hundred thousand, when there are billions to be gained.”

  Rashid says, “Why wasn’t Riles’s car there?”

  “Honestly, we don’t know. Seems like a happy coincidence. We knew Riles had a date with his daughter; we had a tap on her phone. And we were prepared to deal with the driver, if he showed. But why Riles released the car….” Teddy shrugs. “Dumb luck. And it turns Khalil from victim to accomplice, for a few hundred grand.”

  Rashid gives a crooked smile. “And you think you can trust this man?”

  “I do. If we give him the money, I think he has only one course of action.”

  Rashid says, “No one should pin any hopes on the word, or acts, of a bribed person.”

  “So how would you deal with tonight’s problem?”

  Rashid gives him a look, as if to say, it’s obvious, and the sky reddens melodramatically, as if on cue.

  “No,” Teddy says flatly. “Too suspicious. And too much blood. Especially given … our needs with regard to the daughter and boyfriend. And Rashid—we really are talking about a trivial amount of money, in the larger scheme of things.”

  “It’s not the amount, my friend. It’s the efficacy. Regarding tonight. I should think Khalil’s likely to see himself in a box. Two people, a lot more important than he, have already been murdered. If he changes his story, he might well join their ranks. But if he sticks with his story—well, that’s a real pit of uncertainty. Who knows, he’ll think, who’s really on the other side and what they’ll do to him once they get what they want? Also, will he have to testify at trial or a deposition and risk a perjury indictment? Especially, if Althus refutes his story. So who knows what Khalil’ll say tonight, no matter how much money he’s given?”

  “If he’s there,” Teddy says calmly.

  Rashid looks at the little man and repeats pensively, “If he’s there.”

  “After all,” Teddy says, “now that he’s already muddied up the case, he’s safe to us only if gone—with the motivation and resources to stay gone. As you just explained, with your customary brilliance. No doubt he sees exactly the box he’s in and that flight is his only recourse.”

  After a moment, Rashid says, “You’re sure he sees that?”

  “I am,” Teddy says. “The man is really quite clever.”

  Rashid closes his eyes, as if sinking into meditation, except that appearance is betrayed by a repeating twitch in his right cheek.

  Teddy says, “We’re running out of time.”

  “Hmm,” Rashid says.

  “So the extra funds?”

  Rashid’s head leans slightly forward, then back.

  Teddy says, “I saw you nod—barely perceptively, but enough for me to go on. So it’s two hundred thou for Khalil, another two hundred for my people and their chore—the daughter and her boyfriend; another hundred for—”

  Rashid gets up and starts walking away.

  “I’m not wearing a wire, Rashid!”

  The UAE man doesn’t stop.

  “You have my address, right?” Teddy calls after him. “For wire transfers?”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Tom jabs the buzzer of Khalil’s two-family in Brooklyn, while Elena waits patiently on the wide stoop. She’s always wondered where a man like Khalil would live. The settled aspect of the house, the quietness of the street, the morning sun in her face—indeed, everything!—seems to be pleasing her at the moment. How uncharacteristic of me, she thinks. But, after several minutes of fruitless waiting, she presses her nose to the window. “No one home,” she announces. “People live here, but they’re gone.”

  She crosses to the other side of the stoop and peers into that window. “This one’s empty.” She comes away. “Curious,” she says. “No To-Let sign.”

  “So what now?” he says.

  “No point standing around here.”

  “No point,” he echoes.

  “So let’s go see Sofi.”

  “Sofi Harding?” he says, with surprise.

  “She’s probably at home. I’ll call first.”

  “You know her?”

  “She’s practically a relative.”

  “So this takeover … she and your dad—”

  “No question. Gave Dad a huge advantage. Probably bigger than Althus thought. But of course Jockery and the Arabs had been buying for months, and she has her own board to contend with.”

  “Your dad told you all this?”

  She sits again on the stoop. “Well, he tried to.” She takes out her phone and dials. “Hello? Is this Clive? Hi. Elena Riles. Is she in?” Elena stands, still holding the phone. “It’ll be fine,” she says to Tom. “Let’s get going.”

  “Excellent timing,” says Sofi. “I have tea every morning at approximately this hour and usually in this spot. Delightful to have your company, both of you.”

  A bit dazzled by the elegance of the Harding living room, with its “important” antiques and extraordinary views of the park, Tom has a hard time voicing anything but reciprocal delight.

  “I assume you know,” Elena says, “I’m suspected of murdering my father.”

  “And isn’t that preposterous!” Sofi exclaims.

  “Tom is now working for the office that suspects me.”

  “Nice for you, darling. Having a friend in court, as it were.”

  “The blunt question, Mrs. Harding,” says Tom, “is whether you have any information that might lead us to the actual killer?”

  “Since I intend to address you by your first name, you should call me Sofi. Is that understood?”

  “Plainly.”

  “Very good. And I’ve lots of reasons, Tom, to suspect many people. Too many. Robbie didn’t seem to care very much about how he was regarded. When he trampled over someone, which was a daily occurrence, he didn’t pause to sew up their wounds. As for information, there’s a great deal of public stuff, most recently about this takeover skirmish. But private information that’s relevant? I can’t think. I have talked to your office, you know. A very aggressive young man.”

  “That would be Sammy Riegert. You talked to Mr. Riles about a takeover?”

 
“Of course,” Sofi says. “It was my idea. I learned that that loathsome man, Jockery, was buying stock, and then the Emirates, so I talked Robbie into it. About seventy percent of the company is publicly held. We started buying late, but would have pulled it off if he hadn’t been murdered. I don’t know Julian Althus well. At all, really. He seems bent on the same outcome, but I’m not nearly as comfortable with him in my company as I would have been with Robbie.” She turns to Elena. “Now, if you would become involved, my dear, that would change everything.”

  “I,” Elena says, “know absolutely nothing about running a company.”

  “You were at business school!”

  “I rest my case.”

  “Well, whatever they taught you there,” Sofi says, “it couldn’t be simpler. You get the best people you can find on opposite sides of any question you’re considering, hear them out, then exercise common sense. Much more difficult being lower down. At the top, it’s child’s play.”

  She butters some toast. “But you didn’t come here for my principles of corporate management, as excellent as they may be.”

  Tom says, “Did you and Elena’s father talk about the Riles Whitney loan to the UAE?”

  “We did.”

  “Was he planning to call it?”

  “He was thinking about it,” Sofi says. “I suspect Robbie’s interest in taking over my company came as a complete surprise to the Arabs and very bad news. They were vulnerable to him; he could have used the loan as leverage. Though I doubt they would have murdered him for that. Too obvious.”

  “Maybe. But calling that loan, foreclosing on the Emirates’s property, bringing the State Department down on your head—Robbie Riles was known to have the nerve for that; not sure how many others are.”

  Sofi sips her tea, then takes it to the window. “Have you talked to Teddy Stamos?”

  “Stamos?” says Tom. “Isn’t he a gumshoe?”

  “Yes he is.”

  “And involved, I assume from your tone.”

  “Up to his elfin ears.” Sofi laughs. “Robbie wanted me to hire him. I said he was already working for the UAE. ‘All the more reason,’ said Robbie.”

  “Conflicts?” says Tom.

  “There are no conflicts for Teddy Stamos. Only opportunities. Both sides? No problem. As far as Teddy’s concerned, working for one side simply makes him more valuable to the other. And he’ll do the approaching. Everyone with any conceivable interest in the matter. I didn’t even have to call him. He called me.”