He opened the flap on his case and pulled out a document. I took it and had a sinking sensation when I read the opening words. I, James Harris, being of sound mind and …
I couldn’t help it. I blurted, “Oh God, not another will.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m working on a long and ugly case over a contested will,” I answered.
“And you’d prefer not to have another.”
“That about sums it up.”
There was a discreet tap on the door, and Norma brought in my coffee and Mr. Bryce’s Coke. She left again, closing the door behind her. I began flipping through the pages of the document.
“The relevant section is on page eleven, about midway down,” he offered.
I flipped to that page and found the relevant section. I read it and reread it, then looked up at my client.
“According to this, Mr. Bryce—”
“Please call me Jolly, or Joe.”
He just didn’t look like a Joe, and the Brits seemed to be all about silly nicknames. “Okay, Jolly, according to this document the underlying land already belongs to the city.”
“Yes, it was deeded to them at the time of Mr. Harris’s death in 1883.”
I went back to reading. “And it states that the property can only be used for a horse facility, and if it ever ceases to be a horse facility the property reverts to the Harris heirs.”
“Quite so.”
“Well, they can’t claim eminent domain on something they already own.”
“Could they let it go back to the heirs so the developers could then buy the property from them?” Jolly asked.
“Very unlikely. Once a property has been left to a state or a municipality, they never give up the asset. Political opponents would charge them with squandering an asset, violating their fiduciary duty, and being in thrall to special corporate interests.”
“All of which would be true in this case,” Jolly said with a smile. “So, it sounds like we’re home free?”
“I think so. It’s an unusual clause. It grants a license to someone to use the improvements on the property. It states that the license can be transferred so long as the transferee continues to operate it as a horse facility.” I looked up at Jolly. “Is that what you did?”
“Yes, I bought the license from Mrs. Maddy Unger. She’s been running the facility and giving children riding lessons for fifty-eight years. But she decided to retire.”
“Good God, how old is she?”
“Eighty-seven,” Jolly said with a smile. “And she rode up until last year.”
“Okay, that’s an inspiration.” I read through a few more sections of the will, but it looked like the lawyer who had drafted it back in—I flipped to the final page and read the date—August 31, 1877, had done a good job. “Okay,” I said. “I think we’re good. I’ll contact the Brooklyn city attorney and point out this little fact.” I waved the pages of the will. “But it wouldn’t hurt if you marshaled public support.”
“I’ll get on the press and public opinion angle right away,” Jolly said as he maneuvered back from the desk and turned his chair around so he faced the door.
I could tell from his expression that he wanted to say something more. “Was there anything else?” I asked.
My encouragement worked, because he turned his chair around to face me and said, “This will probably sound strange, but I was wondering if you would be willing to ride my horse for me?” He gestured down at his legs. “Obviously I’m no longer able to ride in any meaningful way, and this is a magnificent creature who needs a job and a partner. Mr. Ishmael told me you are quite the horsewoman. I don’t know if that would be some sort of conflict of interest.…” He allowed his voice to trail away.
“If I were representing Brooklyn in this dispute, then yes, it would be a conflict. But for us, no. And I would love the chance to ride regularly. What style? Tell me about the horse? How much training?” I pressed my lips together so I’d stop babbling.
“He’s a young Lusitano stallion, Vento. Blazingly white, ready to show Prix St. George. Once he has his tempi changes he’ll be ready for the Grand Prix.”
“So he has the passage and the piaffe?”
“They will amaze you. He’s very sensitive and sensible. It’s like dancing a tango with the perfect partner. So it’s settled?”
“Absolutely! When can I start?”
“How about this evening? There’s an indoor arena, so once winter comes you can still keep riding. Even after one of your very busy and long days.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tonight. I’m going to see a show. Friend of mine is in the chorus. Rain check?”
Bryce handed me his business card. “Call whenever you want to come, and I’ll have Vento ready for you.” He began to roll his chair back so he could get into position to head for the door. I jumped up to open it for him. He looked around the office, at the lighter squares on the walls that marked where Chip’s diplomas and pictures had hung and the stacks of Abercrombie files. One eyebrow quirked up and he said, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”
It took me a moment to grasp his meaning. Then I looked at my space and realized that there was no touch of my personality. My diploma was on the wall to my left, and that was it. I hadn’t even unpacked my wind-up Godzilla yet.
“Hmm, yeah, I guess it is a little … stark, isn’t it?” I said.
“You might say that.”
“I haven’t had this office all that long, and things have been…” I groped for a word and settled on “hectic.” I paused and then added, “I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity.”
He smiled up at me, and there was an expression in his eyes that made him look like an impish ten-year-old. “It was all part of my cunning plan. Once you ride Vento, you’re going to want to continue, and you won’t be able to do that if we can’t keep the stable open.”
I debated whether to be offended at the implication that I wouldn’t work hard without a bribe, but I decided that wasn’t his intention. Sometimes men of a certain generation can be a bit clueless where professional women are concerned.
“Don’t worry if you come late. If you ride past sunset there are lights on the outdoor arenas as well as the indoor.”
“Sounds good.”
“Do you want directions?”
I shook my head. “Google Maps and HopStop are my friends.”
“Sometimes I don’t understand my world,” Jolly said as we headed for the elevators.
“Now you sound like a vampire.”
“Meaning what?” David called, his acute, undead hearing allowing him to pick up my words even though I was on the opposite end of the room from him.
“That you’re dinosaurs and eavesdroppers,” I said in a normal tone of voice, assuming David would hear. Judging from the way his mouth twisted, he did, but I couldn’t interpret the expression.
Once Jolly was on the elevator and on his way, I headed back to my office with a decided spring in my step. I had a horse to ride again. And cases of my own.
* * *
Ray was dancing in a revival of Auntie Mame. I emerged from the subway and headed toward Forty-fourth Street and the St. James Theater. Occasionally people in the flowing crowds would stare down their noses at my roller bag since I was now a double obstacle on the crowded sidewalks. I realized I could have left it at the office, and I cursed myself for an idiot. It was too late now.
I went around the corner onto Forty-fourth Street, where marquees on various theaters presented a lot of revivals of older hits interspersed with musicals based on Disney movies and TV shows. I wondered when audiences had lost their taste for anything new and innovative. Was it because the audiences for Broadway shows skewed older? But why not embrace some rock-and-roll musical based on the antediluvian music of the Stones or the Beatles?
Or maybe it was the emergence of the Powers. Given their conservatism, it wasn’t surprising that they weren’t interested in a hip-hop
Broadway musical or a show built around Facebook or online dating sites. But that generalization didn’t really fit either. Werewolves tended to be found in the world of business and finance, and creating a successful new business meant you had to be forward leaning, not worrying about making better buggy whips. I chuckled out loud. Yep, vampires were definitely buggy-whip guys and werewolves were definitely killer-robot guys.
Or maybe it was about people retreating to the familiar in a desperate attempt to find some sense of security.
Or maybe the new shows and music just sucked, and that was why people wanted to see My Fair Lady or Oklahoma! over and over again.
I reached the theater, got my ticket from the will-call window, checked my bag with the bored coat-check boy, and headed to my seat. I loved the atmosphere in the old theaters, many of them built back in the 1920s and ’30s. I could picture gentlemen in tuxedos opening the doors to Packards or Dusenbergs and assisting women in fabulous furs, long gloves, and sparkling diamonds as they stepped out.
At the curtain call, Cole Porter or George M. Cohen would step out onto the stage and take a bow with the cast members, and then you and your date would head off to some club with an improbable name—the Copacabana, Clam House, the Nest—and eat supper and dance until three in the morning.
I watched a very large couple trying to wedge their enormous rear ends into the narrow velvet upholstered seats and made another extrapolation—people were a lot smaller in 1930. Then the conductor walked into the orchestra pit, accompanied by a ripple of applause, and I settled back to enjoy. Act One ended with the fox hunt and the big Mame production number.
Ray looked really cute in his red hunt coat, white britches, and tall black boots. Of course the “boots” were pliable so he could dance. Not like my dressage boots, with the steel rod up the back to keep the boot stiff and my leg in the correct position. Boots made me think about riding, which made me think about Ryan. I banished him from my thoughts.
The show wound down to the reprise of “Open a New Window,” the curtain rang down, curtain calls were taken, and the crowd began to disperse. I recovered my roller bag case, went around to the side of the theater and the stage door, and talked my way inside.
There was the smell of hot lights beginning to cool, grease paint, cologne, flowers, and sweat. Ray was in the chorus members’ dressing room. People were running in and out in various stages of undress. There were kisses and hugs, and the roar of conversation as excited performers relived the performance and began to come down off their performance highs.
Ray was talking with friends while Gregory tried to wipe off the excess cold cream smeared around Ray’s ears. Ray spotted me, let out a shriek of delight, bounded over, and hugged me hard. His skin was greasy against my cheek, and I just knew my makeup was also falling victim to his cold cream.
“Oh, sweetie, you came. I’m so glad. Are you coming to the party?”
I shook my head. “It’s a school night, I’ve still got to do some work before I get to bed, and I have to go to New Jersey tomorrow.”
“Okay, that’s just horrible,” said Gregory. “You should get a lot of sleep before you face that.”
13
Around 4:00 p.m., the lobby guard called to tell me my rental car had arrived. I packed up my bag and headed down.
Since I wasn’t sure the company would reimburse me for the rental, I went for a subcompact. What waited for me at the curb was a Chevy that looked like a cereal box on very tiny wheels. The young man from the Enterprise office handed me the keys, opened the trunk, and insisted on lifting in my roller bag. He then asked if I wanted any guidance on the car’s features. I resisted the impulse to ask, What features? Instead, I accepted the keys and climbed into the cramped interior.
It was the last day of July, and sizzling. I cranked up the air conditioner to maximum and tried to listen to the radio over the roar of the fan. With my usual impeccable timing, I had managed to hit rush-hour traffic. I had thought I was being clever going up to I-95 to cross over into New Jersey rather than taking the Lincoln Tunnel, but the traffic was terrible there too, so my journey into the wilds of New Jersey took forever.
* * *
Gentrification and urban renewal had definitely not reached the part of Bayonne where the rental house was located. Deserted factories and warehouses gazed out across the waters of the Newark Bay on one side of the peninsula and the Upper Bay on the other. The rusting struts, girders, and unknown equipment looked like relics of an ancient and alien civilization. Mr. 2 Mil’s address was a couple of blocks inland from the rotting buildings.
Older-model cars, many showing dings and dents, were parked on the streets. The houses were narrow, three-story affairs with steep steps leading up to porches. Some had been screened, but the mesh showed tears, and there were no people sitting on the porches enjoying a summer evening or children playing in the unkempt yards.
I located the address, found an empty space along the curb, and parked. My phone chimed. I opened the large metal clasp on the front of my purse and pulled out my phone. I had a new text message from Kevin Phenrod, May’s lawyer, telling me the settlement check would be ready next week. I texted back to tell him that was okay, and that I’d send a runner for it when it was ready. Then I got out of the Chevy and slammed the door. The loud clunk briefly silenced the droning cicadas. In the distance I heard the faint sound of cheering. I looked around for the source, then spotted the tall lights and backstop of a city sports facility.
I locked the car and started up the stairs to the front door. The curtains were drawn on the windows. I heard the sound of a car passing in the street, then silence aside from the cicadas that had resumed singing.
The doorbell was broken. I pulled open the sagging screen door and hammered on the wooden front door. I was just about to turn away, assuming no one was home, when a strange, buzzing mechanical voice responded from the other side of the door.
“Who is it?”
It seemed male, so I said, “Sir, my name’s Linnet Ellery. I found a note among my boss’s files with this address and an interesting notation. I’d like to talk to you about it.”
“Who’s your boss?” the robot voice asked.
“Chip Westin.”
I heard multiple locks being thrown and chains rattling. I had thought that amount of security was only found in Manhattan, but apparently Bayonne was also a hotbed of crime. The door opened to reveal an old man—make that an ancient man—dressed in slacks and an undershirt that had once been white but was now gray, scuffs on his feet, and a tatty plaid bathrobe over the clothes. The hand, holding an artificial larynx to his throat, was ropy with thick blue veins that wound between dark brown age spots. He was nearly bald, but a few wisps of white hair were draped across a scalp also mottled with age spots. The eyes behind thick-lensed glasses were cloudy with cataracts.
“You his secretary?”
“No. I’m—” He interrupted before I could continue.
“Girl lawyer?” Even through the buzzing mechanical sound I could hear the disdain.
“Yes, ’fraid so,” I said. “You are?”
“Thomas Gillford,” rasped the robot voice. He gestured toward the mechanical larnyx. “Throat cancer. It was worth it. Loved my cigars.”
A sensible response was hopeless. I settled for “Okay.”
“Come in. Your boss send you?”
He moved aside and I stepped into the dim interior. There were trails through piles of magazines and newspapers, none of which bore recent dates. Some of the piles were over my head. In addition to the papers, every available flat surface was covered with tchotkes, and shelves, similarly filled, covered the walls. The dust that covered every surface was so thick that it resembled brown felt, and the room smelled both musty and sour.
“Not exactly. Mr. Westin is dead.”
“Heart attack? He was fat as a pig.” He patted his sunken belly. “Me, I’d never let myself get in that kind of shape.”
No, I thought
. You just smoked until your throat fell out.
But I stayed polite. I also saw no reason to lie so I said, “No, he was killed—”
The reaction was startling, and if Gillford’s frailty hadn’t been enough, this made it clear he wasn’t the person behind Chip’s murder. Gillford slammed shut the door, then frenziedly threw the bolts and hooked the chains. He then twitched aside the dusty curtain and peered out. Apparently satisfied, he allowed it to fall back into place and gestured toward the stairs.
“Come upstairs. More room up there.”
There were shelves on the wall next to the staircase, and my eye kept being drawn to the gaggle of Hummel figurines, the big jar filled with marbles, the grinning Ho Tai figures with their arms upraised in celebration, dollhouse china tea sets, and porcelain-headed dolls with their legs hanging limply over the edge of the shelves. Above the shelves was a collection of reproduction shields, swords, and daggers, both Asian and European, a set of nunchakus, and a fighting staff.
He noticed the direction of my gaze. “My wife. God rest her. She loved to collect and couldn’t throw anything away. I keep it to remember her. And it’s also too damn much effort to get it cleaned out. It’d take a backhoe.”
“And the papers and magazines?” I asked.
He looked back over his shoulder. “Okay, that’s me.”
“Looks like you suited each other.” He grunted in assent.
I had plenty of time to study the junk, because the pace set by Mr. Gillford was glacial at best. Frankly, I was afraid he’d die before he made it to the second floor, but he hung in there. He led me to a bedroom. If he hadn’t been a thousand years old, it might have made me uncomfortable. As it was, I was grateful to reach the room because it was reasonably uncluttered. The sheer volume of stuff was making me claustrophobic.
There was an unmade double bed shoved against one wall, a bedside table loaded with library books, and against another wall a rolltop desk and a chair. Gillford waved me toward the chair and lowered himself stiffly onto the bed.
This Case Is Gonna Kill Me Page 16