Still River

by Harry Hunsicker

  Vera stood up beside the bed. “W-w-what happened?”

  I stepped into my shorts. “What do you think happened?”

  She looked at the bed and then back to me. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Me too.” I found my jeans in the doorway and slipped them on.

  “This isn’t the way I am.” Vera put on her underwear. “I’m sorry, Hank.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  She found the rest of her clothes in the hallway. “Don’t forget Charlie.”

  “I won’t, Vera. That’s what I was working on when you came over.”

  She looked at me for a few moments, both of us standing in the dim light of the hall. Without a word she turned and left. I called Nolan.

  She said, “Did I interrupt anything?”

  “No.” I went to the kitchen and pulled the coffeemaker out. “Vera came by.”

  “You screwed the client?” Her tone was incredulous.

  “Why do you psych types always assume there’s sex involved?” I turned the tap on and filled Mr. Coffee with Mr. Water.

  Nolan must have heard the activity. “What are you doing now?”

  “Getting ready to go see Roger Strathmore, Fagen’s son. Wanna go?”

  “Yeah.” Her voice dropped lower. “I need to get out of the house. Ernie’s not doing well. Miranda just cries. I try to say something, to do something, but it doesn’t help. She just cries.”

  “How is Ernie?” The coffee filter drawer lay empty, so I fashioned a substitute out of a paper towel. Taste wasn’t important at this point, wattage mattered.

  “Coma. They don’t know if he’ll come out of it or not.”

  I stopped shoveling coffee out of the can for a moment to let that sink in. I’d screwed and slept through my visit to Ernie.

  “Hank? Hank, you still there?”

  “Yeah. Meet me at the office in half an hour.” We hung up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Women are a pain in the ass sometimes.

  One little gunshot wound (okay, so it’s the second one in twenty-four hours) and they think you should go see a doctor. I said I was fine. Nolan said no, you should go see a doctor. I said no, really, it’s nothing to worry about. This went on for some minutes at the office, after I told her about the events of the morning. She looked suitably horrified at first, but then started in on me about going to the emergency room and how men in general are reluctant to see their primary care physician for anything. After asking her what a primary care physician was, I said that if I went to a hospital with a GSW then I’d have to fill out reports and explain what happened, which she could see from the puffy-haired anchorwoman here on Channel 8 was this really sleazy bar that burned down with a bunch of people in it.

  She quieted down a little, and together we watched the early news. The current version of the story went that it was a drug buy gone bad. Two bodies found so far. Tentative IDs put one of them as Kim Pak Yung, owner of the bar Roxy’s. Kim was a model citizen, if you didn’t mind the arrests for public lewdness, solicitation of prostitution, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, and a child pornography charge pending. The rap sheet made me feel better about shooting him in the crotch. Police speculated there was a) a gas leak; or b) he was operating a methamphetamine lab in the back of his club. Hence the explosion.

  A wallet on the second body identified the stiff as one Harvey McMillian, a former accountant now reputed to be a bookkeeper for the Russian mob. Three other bodies were found, no identities as of yet.

  Eventually, I assuaged Nolan’s concerns and we left for our unscheduled interview with the Strathmore son, Roger.

  I turned past the Dallas Country Club onto Beverly Drive, the main east-west thoroughfare in the small enclave of Highland Park.

  It was late Sunday afternoon, and the summer sun seemed to kiss the immaculate grounds of the town in a special way. The grass was greener, the flowers more vibrant than in the rest of Dallas. The people we saw were tanned and healthy-looking, in cars that cost more than I paid for my cottage in East Dallas next to Mr. Martinez and his chickens in the backyard.

  We passed a crew of Mexican yardmen tending a lawn that looked like the fairway at Augusta. One man drove a riding mower in a diagonal pattern across the immaculate turf, shaving off another half inch. The other worked a monofilament weed cutter on the edge of the grass as if it were an extension of his body, a third arm. They possessed an economy of movement and a synchronicity I found amazing, like the owner of the mansion paid them extra to look good while they worked.

  I was glad we were in the borrowed Mercedes; it fit in better. Nolan played swivel head, gaping at one large house after the other.

  “Nice cribs, aren’t they?” I said.

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “What? Oh yeah. Nice. Real nice. What do these people do? I mean, where do they get this kind of money?”

  “You got your oil guys, your real estate guys, your stocks and bonds guys, and a whole plethora of your captains-of-industry types. Lots of lawyers too, I would imagine. Some computer and software folks. And don’t forget the members of the lucky sperm club.”

  Nolan frowned. “Captains of what? The lucky who?”

  “The lucky—Never mind. Lots of trust funds out there too.” I made a turn past a lake. A group of ducks paddled serenely while two young lovers exchanged a kiss underneath a towering oak tree. One more left and we were on Roger Strathmore’s street. The lots were big, with the houses set back from the street. Roger’s house was on a corner, a two-story brick home with a circular driveway and a deep bed running along the front, stuffed with thousands of flowering plants, reds and yellows and blues, a French landscape painting on speed. The lawn was so green it looked like it had been applied with spray paint. I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car.

  “Just gonna walk up and knock on the door?” Nolan said.

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re going to ask Roger Strathmore if he knows where his father is and maybe could he tell you about the warehouse on Gano Street and what he knows about a hood named Coleman Dupree?”

  I opened the car door and the afternoon heat spilled in. “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

  Nolan clicked her tongue. “Maybe we could be a little more subtle.” She got out of the car too.

  “Nope.” We stood for a moment by the Mercedes and looked at the house. The air smelled of bougainvillea and magnolia blossoms.

  “How about you let me at least get a read on this guy’s body language?” She tugged at the bottom of her blouse.

  I waved my hand at her in a dismissive gesture and touched the butt of the Browning underneath my denim shirt with my elbow, making sure it was in place.

  “You have the cell phone with your lawyer’s number in it?”

  I wiggled the tiny Nokia at her and started up the walk. When we got to the front steps the door opened. A woman stood there, one hand holding the door and the other grasping a tumbler full of something milky and bubbling. She was attractive, a nip-and-tucked forty-five, tanned, wearing a tennis outfit and a gold Rolex.

  “You the guys from Designer Week?” Designer came out as s-ssigner and I could smell the alcohol from eight feet away.

  Before I could say anything, Nolan took the lead. “Yes, we are. Are you Mrs … . ?”

  The woman hiccupped. “Strathmore. Mrs. Roger Strathmore. Carla.” She took a big slug of whatever it was she was drinking and smacked her lips. “Y’all want to come in?”

  We said we did and followed her into the house. The entry was cavernous, a black and white marbled floor leading to a circular stairway. Two oil paintings of some fuzzy-haired lap dogs dominated the far wall. Each dog wore a pink bow and gazed idiotically at the other.

  “Roger’s in the study. Been looking forward to meeting you two.” She finished her drink and set the empty glass down on an antique sideboard resting against the wall. A middle-aged black man we
aring a white jacket and dark tie materialized.

  “Missus Carla, you want another of Henry’s potions?”

  The woman stifled a burp. “I sure as shit do, Henry. That was a frickin’ damn good batch last time.” She turned to us. “You guys want to try one of Henry’s potions? Damn fine, I’m here to tell you. Makes ’em with lemonade and gin and some other good stuff. Mmm, mmm, tasty.”

  Carla smacked her lips, Henry looked at us and winked, and Roger Strathmore swept into the room from our right.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got. Roger Strathmore was younger than his wife, by at least a couple of presidential administrations. He wore a pair of beige linen trousers and a lavender silk shirt. The weak chin was more pronounced in person. Receding hairline. He was shorter than his dad, maybe only six feet. The eyes, partially hidden behind a pair of narrow, horn-rimmed glasses, didn’t have the intensity of the father’s. He held a cordless phone in one hand and chewed on the end of the antenna absentmindedly.

  He sighed and said, “Carla, the last thing you need is another drink. Go lie down, for heaven’s sake. We’ve got the museum steering committee meeting tonight.”

  Carla rattled the ice in her empty drink and glanced at Henry. “Oh yeah, the steering committee. How could I forget? I’ll be upstairs then.” The black man nodded at her and left the room.

  Roger Strathmore turned to us and clasped his hands to his breast. “Do my ears deceive me or did I hear you’re from Designer Week?”

  “Your ears are marvelous, simply marvelous. As is this lovely house.” Nolan’s voice beamed, and she swept her arm around, indicating all the objets d’art.

  “You must be Phyllis and Terry.” He approached us with his hand outstretched. Either I was Phyllis or he shook my hand first because I was closest. “Roger Strathmore. So nice to meet you.” Firm handshake with the left hand grasping the elbow. Mr. Sincerity. He repeated the operation with Nolan. “Let’s go back to my study and we can get started.”

  Nolan and I shrugged at each other and followed him into the interior of the house. We passed through several rooms, each with a different theme. The solarium was light and airy, done in yellows and other soothing pastels. It overlooked a garden with a fountain, and a half dozen Greco–Roman-style statues. Most were of nude or partially nude men. Next came a library, a large room with dark paneling and walls of bookshelves stuffed with leather-bound volumes that appeared to match the coffee-colored leather furniture. A large birdcage containing a white cockatoo sat in one corner.

  The last room was undefinable, a cowboy/western motif with rugged sofas covered in Indian blankets and deer mounts on the walls. And everything done in some shade of pink.

  Finally, we entered Roger Strathmore’s study. The room was only slightly smaller than my entire house. Crucifixes and other religious icons dotted the white plaster walls. The whole place was taken up with various arrangements of chairs and tables, each set up just so. Lots of china and porcelain stuff everywhere else, the kind of crap my ex-girlfriend from a couple of years ago, the interior designer, would have called decorative accessories.

  In the middle of the room sat a Queen Anne–style desk, really a table with a couple of drawers. A young man with short, gel-spiked hair, a stretchy T-shirt, and khakis sat on one side of the desk, scribbling something on a yellow pad. He looked Queen Anne style too.

  Roger breezed into the room and sat behind the desk. “Phyllis, Terry, this is my assistant, Dirk.”

  Dirk stayed sitting, and in lieu of shaking, held his right hand out, palm down, and allowed us to grasp it. “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said.

  Roger smiled at us, clasped his hands together, and scrunched his shoulders up. “This is so exciting. Designer Week, interviewing me.”

  “We’re excited too.” Nolan sat on one of the spindly chairs in front of the desk.

  “I’m all tingly,” was probably not the right thing for me to say judging by the looks I got from Nolan and Dirk.

  Roger ignored me and concentrated on Nolan. “So tell me where you want to start.”

  She pursed her lips. “Let’s get some background first. What you do when you’re not … well, you know—”

  Roger interrupted her with a chuckle. “When I’m not designing award-winning apartment interiors that bring such fun people as you two to my front door, is that what you mean?”

  Nolan and I both nodded enthusiastically.

  “Well, my day job is as executive vice president of Strathmore Realty. That’s one of the ways that I got involved in apartments since we build quite a few of them.”

  “Tell us a little bit about your company,” I said.

  Roger quit smiling and put on his serious face. “Strathmore Realty is a full-service real estate firm. We offer development, brokerage, leasing, and management for all aspects of commercial real estate. Strathmore currently has eighty million square feet of office space in twelve metropolitan areas. In terms of multifamily development we have seven thousand units in—”

  “Hold on just a sec.” I pulled a pen that didn’t work very well from my back pocket along with last week’s grocery list. “That’s seven thousand units, right?”

  Roger nodded. He looked relieved to have quit reading from the corporate brochure.

  I scribbled some more. “So what do you have going on here in Dallas?”

  Roger and Dirk frowned, looking puzzled. Wrong question.

  “This is just for background,” Nolan said matter-of-factly, trying to get us back on track.

  Roger scratched his forehead. “Well, the biggest thing we’ve got going on is the Trinity Vista.”

  “Of course,” I said. “The Trinity Vista. As I understand, that’s a group of developers.”

  “Well, yes. That’s right,” he said. “But we’re supposed to be the lead entity.”

  Nolan cut me off before I could ask another question. “I think we’ve got enough background info. Let’s get to the fun stuff.”

  Roger brightened at the same time as a phone rang. Dirk picked up a receiver from the desk and spoke into it. The expression on his face went from puzzled to hostile. He hung up.

  “That was Henry. The people from Designer Week are here.” He looked at us. “At the front door.”

  After a couple of heartbeats’ worth of silence, Roger Strathmore said, “Who are you two?”

  I thought about bracing him with the Trinity Vista and why was a hood named Coleman Dupree interested in his building on Gano Street. I passed on all that. I said, “What’s up with Corrine? Is that your stepmother?”

  Dirk clicked his tongue and snorted, rolling his eyes skyward. “That woman.”

  Roger Strathmore lost all traces of his smile. For an instant, his eyes took on the intensity of his father’s, a penetrating gaze that laid you bare. He smiled without humor and said, “Dear, sweet Corrine. Is that what this is about? She using me to try and do some end run around the prenup?”

  I didn’t reply.

  Roger filled the silence. “That woman is a piece of work. Dad always had a thing for the leggy types, the dancers. ’Course, the only place that slut ever danced was on the main stage at the Men’s Club.” I nodded. Dirk stood up and flexed his pectorals through the thin material of his T-shirt. “I think you two should leave now.” He’d butched his voice up.

  Nolan scratched the corner of one eye and said, “Shut the hell up, Dirk. We’ll leave in a minute.”

  “We’re not here about Corrine,” I said to Roger, before Dirk could strike another pose. “Tell me about the Trinity Vista.”

  Roger snorted. “Oh, it’s not about Corrine. Hmm, let me guess, you two are reporters and looking to get the inside story on Strathmore’s participation in the Vista project. That right? Well, there is no inside story.”

  “Tell us about Aaron Young,” I said, aware that our window of opportunity was fading away.

  “I’m calling the police now.” He picked up the phone but didn’t dial. �
��For the record, Strathmore Realty will be the leader of the Trinity Vista project. Aaron Young does not have the expertise or capital to undergo such a venture.” He sounded like he was reading from a teleprompter. The next part didn’t come from a script, it came from the heart, judging by the intensity in his voice. “I will get the Vista project, if for no other reason than the Big Man thinks I can’t.”

  “What’s Coleman Dupree have to do with it?”

  “Who?” Both Dirk and Roger at the same time. Genuine puzzlement at the name.

  I started to say something else but Dirk interrupted me. “This has gone on long enough, you need—”

  I raised my voice, drowning out Dirk. “Somebody died, Roger. I’m trying to find out how and why.”

  “I think we’re finished here.” Dirk’s voice had gotten deeper still. I turned to him and noticed he held something silvery and tiny in his right hand.

  “That’s not a gun, is it, Dirk?” I said.

  “I know how to use it.” He waved it at us and scowled, trying to look menacing.

  Roger gasped. “Dirk, put that thing away.”

  Nolan and I stood up slowly. She said, “You know, Dirk, some psychiatrists consider a pistol to be a phallic extension. What are you trying to tell us?”

  Dirk smirked, and then rolled his eyes. In midroll, I grabbed his right hand and twisted. He yelped and I came away with the gun. It was a .22 derringer, about as big as a book of matches.

  “We’re leaving,” I said. “I’ll drop this with Henry at the front.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” Roger Strathmore’s voice sounded weary and resigned.

  I flipped a card onto the desk. “If you ever need to get in touch with me …” He didn’t respond.

  We turned and made our way to the door on the far side of the room. Before I left I turned around and said, “Hey, Roger. If you want to get the Big Man going, ask him about Coleman Dupree.”

  “Just leave.” Roger sat back down behind the desk and crossed his arms.