“What for? Mona knew her husband, with or without his face on.”
“Tell me about Samson,” Joe D. asked.
Franklin thought for a bit before answering. His eyes narrowed and his lips puckered slightly; apparently talking about his late employer was painful.
“Whenever I hear people talk about a workaholic, I think, You don’t know the meaning of the word unless you’ve met George Samson. He was the most driven man I ever knew. For the eighteen years I knew him, he arrived in his office every day before anyone else, and left long after the cleaning crews arrived. Never took a day off, not even for vacations. If he wasn’t here he was visiting stores. He used to bring me along sometimes. His pace was exhausting, and he was several years older than me. Cheap as he was, he bought a jet a few years ago so he could visit even more stores in less time. I thought the jet would make traveling easier. It didn’t. With the jet he just doubled the number of stores we’d visit. Sometimes we’d see ten stores in a day, in ten different cities. And then we’d have dinner in a motel in some god-awful town and all George would talk about was the goddamn business. Not politics, sports, women, nothing but the business. And the next day? Ten more stores.”
“Sounds like your life will be easier, now.”
“If that’s an insinuation…”
“Call it a conclusion.”
“Well, it will be easier, then. Not that I’m one to slough off. But I don’t own half of this place. George pushed himself in a way that only an owner would. He had eight hundred and ninety locations, and he treated each of them as if they were his first and only store. In some ways I don’t think he ever stopped thinking of himself as Georgie Samowitz of the Lower East Side.”
“Samowitz?”
“Sure, he changed his name. His father owned a hosiery store on Orchard Street. I think it was called Samowitz’s, maybe Samowitz Hosiery. The family lived around the corner. George and his sister used to work every spare minute in the store. His mother, too. But it never went anywhere. They never starved, but they weren’t too far away from poverty, either. George would never talk about those days, but you hear things in this business. He went to work at the store full-time after the war. He had big plans for it. His father thought he should go to college, maybe afterwards to law school or medical school. He was an immigrant and dreamed of his son making a life for himself beyond Orchard Street. I guess George had dreams too, but they involved the store, not college.”
Franklin stopped and asked Joe D. if he wanted coffee. He declined. Franklin pressed a button on his phone and said “coffee” into the speaker. Nothing else, just “coffee.” Joe D. was eager to hear how Georgie Samowitz had ended up one of the wealthiest men in America—he always had a soft spot for rags-to-riches stories (who didn’t?)—but Franklin seemed disinclined to continue without coffee. Joe D. shifted in his chair, waiting. Finally, after an uncomfortably silent interval, a secretary, suitably attractive, brought Franklin’s coffee in a china cup and saucer on a small silver tray. No Styrofoam in the Samson Stores executive suite. It was a long way from Orchard Street.
Franklin took a sip and resumed his story. “George had big plans for the store. He wanted to enlarge it, expand the assortment, maybe open a branch uptown. His father was happy just to make the rent each month. Samowitz Senior wasn’t exactly a powerhouse, from what I hear. I think George lasted about two years in the business. It was George’s mother who ruled the roost, and when push came to shove she sided with her husband. George’s big plans were thwarted. So he left the business and opened his own store on Fourteenth Street. He called it Samson’s, not Samowitz, and eventually he changed his own name too. I don’t think he ever spoke to his parents or his sister again. George was like that. Cross him once and you’re finished. He didn’t have an ounce of forgiveness in him.”
“Any of them still around?”
“His father died a few years after the split. His mother died about ten years ago. George didn’t tell me any of this. His secretary gossiped with my girl. Apparently George had her send a check to pay for the funerals but didn’t attend himself. What a hard-ass.”
“And the sister?”
“I’m not sure. There’s a gaggle of relatives out in Brooklyn somewhere. Second cousins, great aunts and uncles. No one too close. Orthodox, some of them.”
Joe D. recalled the gang of somber, mostly elderly men and women at the funeral.
“So Samson opened his first store on Fourteenth Street…”
“That’s right. Turns out he had a genius for merchandising. This was right after the war. George guessed that young women were tired of shortages and drab colors. He filled his shop with knockoffs of the latest styles from the department stores uptown. Bright colors, bright displays, everything upbeat. Pretty soon he outgrew that first store. He opened a second one on Forty-second Street. Then he opened one in Harlem. I think he branched out into the suburbs in the early fifties. Before long he was on the main street of every city in America. Always the same merchandise, the same displays. Everything standardized.”
Joe D. pictured Samson Stores spreading across the country the way the old newsreels showed Hitler’s army spreading across Europe.
“Then, in the early sixties, he made the decision that put him in the major leagues.” Franklin paused to take a sip of coffee from the delicate china cup. “Shopping malls were opening up everywhere. Some of his competitors saw them as a threat, and put money into modernizing their downtown locations. Samson saw them as an opportunity and started opening stores in every new mall that came along. If he was short of cash to finance the new locations he’d close a downtown store rather than miss out on a new shopping center. Some of his competitors went out of business in the sixties. Samson flourished. He signed thirty-year leases in some of these malls that are worth millions today.”
“When did you join the company?”
“Around that time, in the sixties. The company was already well on its way. But I was able to give it some structure, impose some controls. George was brilliant at spotting good locations and filling the stores with the right merchandise. But he had absolutely no interest in finance or accounting. When he tried to go public in the early sixties the investment bankers told him he’d have to hire a number-two man to oversee operations. I’d already developed a good reputation in the business so George brought me on board. I don’t think he ever liked the idea of a second-in-command. He thought he could do it all himself, and he knew that I was considered his successor. He didn’t think of himself as mortal, I suppose.”
No, Joe D. agreed, Samson thought he could mastermind his own death just as he’d masterminded the growth of his empire.
“George had no friends, not even in the business. And he was ruthless. I once saw him physically attack a manufacturer who wouldn’t cut his prices during the ’82 recession.”
“Samson attacked him?”
“He had summoned the man to his office to talk over terms. The guy owned a big blouse company. He’d been giving the buyers a hard time over prices. Samson didn’t even let him into his office. As soon as his secretary announced him he raced out into the waiting area and started screaming at the guy: ‘You son of a bitch,’ he yelled. ‘After all the fucking business I’ve given you over the years.’ ‘But George,’ this poor schnook says, ‘we cut our prices any more, we’re losing money on the deal.’ That’s when George went at him. Started pushing him on the chest, had the guy backing out into the outside hallway. ‘I don’t want to hear your fucking problems,’ he yelled. I heard the commotion and went to see what was happening. I held George back but he kept on yelling. The manufacturer left in a hurry, I can tell you.”
“Sounds like quite a guy.”
“George? He was a genius. That manufacturer, he calls the next day and drops his prices ten percent. During that recession, a lot of our suppliers went out of business. Happens a lot on Seventh Avenue during a slump. But Samson Stores? Record profits every quarter.”
“Any of his suppliers mad enough to kill him?”
“Sure, dozens of them. But business has been good these last five, ten years. If he’d been killed after the ’82 recession, then I might have suspected one of our manufacturers. But lately George was a hero on Seventh Avenue. No, if you’re looking for his killer, look no further than his wife.”
“When did she enter the picture?”
“About fifteen years ago. George had never married, though he went through a lot of gorgeous women. I wonder what they saw in him?” Franklin rolled his eyes to underscore that this was a joke. “But he never got serious. The only thing he cared about was his company. Then he met Mona.”
Joe D. recalled her from the funeral. Attractive, in a gaunt way, but hardly gorgeous. “What made Samson fall for her?”
“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years. You ask me, she’s repulsive. No meat on her. No tits. Not in the same league as his other dates, though she was younger then. I think what George saw in Mona was his ticket to respectability. No matter how rich he got, he was still a peddler of polyester in the eyes of a lot of the high society types in this town. A Jewboy from the Lower East Side. Mona showed him how to spend his money in the right places, the places where it would do him some good. And Christ, could she spend it. Their apartment alone cost six million, and probably twice that to decorate, with all the Picassos and Monets and who knows what. But it got written up in all the right magazines, so I suppose it was worth it. And every time he bought a painting he made news. Always paid top dollar. Not that I’ve ever been to his place. To Mona, I was a reminder of the grubby way George made his money. She wanted no part of me or Samson Stores. Except the dividends, of course. Mona liked the dividends. She was the one, by the way, that moved us into these offices. Before Mona came along we were on two floors of an un-air-conditioned building on Seventh Avenue. Where we belong, as far as I’m concerned.”
Joe D. didn’t buy this. Franklin looked very much at home in these posh digs, and Joe D. doubted he’d be moving the company back to the West Side any time soon. “You said they didn’t have a close marriage…”
Franklin shrugged. “I’d see them at charity dinners now and then. They looked like colleagues more than husband and wife. Which, in a sense, is what they were. He married her for her social skills. She married him for his cash. It was a merger more than a marriage. If George ever mentioned her it was only to complain about her spending.”
“I’ll pay her a visit tomorrow.”
“Good. Now, tell me what it is you know about George Samson’s death.”
“Nothing more than I read in the paper,” he said smoothly, then grinned, as if proud that his “practice development” ploy at the funeral had paid off. Joe D. had only one advantage going into this case: A strong hunch that the victim had wanted to arrange his disappearance before he disappeared for real two days ago. He resolved not to second-guess his initial decision to keep this bit of information to himself.
Alison was elated that Joe D. had a new client. She offered to buy him dinner to celebrate, but he insisted on taking her out. He picked her up at Many Fetes, and they walked to their favorite pasta place where the tiny chairs were murder on the coccyx but the food was balm for the soul.
She lifted a glass of white wine. “Things are going to be great from now on.”
Joe D. knew what she meant by things. His lack of an income was putting a strain not just on their finances but on their relationship as well.
They talked constantly about the need to separate what they felt about each other from practical considerations, like work and the mortgage (or Alison talked constantly about this—Joe D. had limited patience for such conversations, while Alison relished them, it seemed). But they never could compartmentalize their lives, and so a kind of cold war had settled between them, with the threat of open hostilities just an ill-chosen word away. Until tonight.
“If it wasn’t a random burglary, then it had to be someone Samson knew,” Joe D. said, thinking aloud.
“Why are you so sure?”
“If it was random, a hijacking, then the perp just waited at a certain corner for a cab or a car to stop at the light. But if the murderer had Samson in mind, he couldn’t just wait at a certain corner and then hope that the light would be red. What are the odds of that? He’d have to know Samson’s route that night, wait for him somewhere along the route, and then flag him over—whether or not the light was red.”
“And Samson wouldn’t tell the cabbie to pull over unless it was someone he knew.”
“Right.”
They concentrated on their pastas for a while. Growing up, Joe D. had thought pasta meant spaghetti and linguini, plus ravioli from a can. Since moving to Manhattan, he’d been introduced to capellini, rotini, penne, fresh ravioli stuffed with lobster, fussili, and a host of other pastas he never could quite remember.
“Thing is, I still don’t have any proof that Samson was the guy I met with.”
“But it does seem coincidental, this guy getting murdered the day after he hires you to fake his death.”
“Did you ever have any dealings with Samson Stores, or know anyone who worked there?”
She shook her head. “They’re down-market from Bloomingdale’s. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who worked for them. They cater to teenagers and women in their twenties who want the latest trends but don’t have a lot of cash. They’re in all the malls. They’re incredibly profitable.”
“I talked to Samson’s successor today. Apparently the old guy wasn’t too popular.”
“He’s a legend. There’s a Samson wing at the Met, a Samson dormitory at NYU and Columbia, a Samson Library at Lincoln Center.”
“Generous guy.”
“He’s got a lot left over.”
They walked home slowly, relishing the cool evening air. When you’re feeling low, New York is the worst place in the world to be, its smart stores and smartly dressed inhabitants a constant reproach. But when you’re feeling good, New York is a city of limitless possibilities, a treasure house of pleasures just waiting for your selection.
Tonight, holding Alison’s hand, Joe D. felt great, and New York seemed like heaven.
Five
The Samson apartment was on Fifth Avenue in the seventies. Even Joe D., who was only just learning what was and wasn’t a “good” address in Manhattan, knew that Fifth Avenue in the seventies was prime real estate. The building occupied an entire block front on Fifth, but the lobby was unexpectedly small, even intimate. The floor was highly polished white marble with little black-marble inserts. There was a fireplace at one end with a seating area in front of it. The lobby in Alison’s—their building—was much larger, but the Samson’s lobby reeked of money seasoned by class, while their lobby reeked only of the former.
A uniformed doorman opened the gleaming, smudge-free brass door for him. Another man, also in uniform, announced him over the house phone. A third man took him up in the elevator: Apparently, automatic elevators were a modern convenience but not a modern luxury.
Joe D. stepped off the elevator on the eleventh floor expecting the usual apartment-house corridor of doors. Instead, he found himself in a rectangular vestibule girded with polished-wood wainscoting and lit by a large crystal chandelier. The floor was an expanse of luminous pink marble. There was only one door, and it was opened even before he rang the doorbell by a white maid in a black uniform.
“Mrs. Samson is expecting you in the library,” she said almost shyly, looking at the floor. Did she know he was a private investigator?
She led him through another hallway (“foyer” is what such rooms are probably called, Joe D. thought), this one filled with oil paintings that looked vaguely familiar. In a less expensive place they’d be posters of museum pictures. Here they were no doubt the genuine article; even with virtually no knowledge of art he thought he recognized a Picasso, a Degas. They entered a library through an oversized door. Once Joe D. was in the room his escort r
etreated, closing the door behind her.
The room was enormous in every dimension—width, length, height—and lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Joe D. guessed that the leather-bound books were the buy-them-by-the-yard type. Two oversized couches were positioned before a massive, immaculate fireplace. On one of these was perched a woman so thin, so insubstantial, she barely made an impression in the puffy upholstery. In fact, the library itself seemed to overwhelm her; in this dignified, carefully composed room, she struck Joe D. as far less consequential than one of the several table lamps scattered throughout the room, or one of the doubtless unread leather books.
“I still don’t understand why my husband’s murder isn’t being handled by the police,” she said, once Joe D. had introduced himself and sat across from her. Unlike Mona Samson, he felt himself engulfed by the sofa, swallowed.
“They are investigating the murder. But Seymour Franklin felt…”
“Frankly I’m surprised that Seymour hired you. If this wasn’t a random murder, then I’d say he’s your prime suspect.”
“Franklin?”
“He’s the new C-E-O.” She over-enunciated the three letters with a sarcastic twang, as if she were describing the new leader of a Boy Scout troop. “It’s what he’s always wanted.”
She was perfectly composed, bordering on smug. Joe D. decided to shake her up. “He seemed to think that you had the best motive.”
“My husband’s money?” she said with an amused grin. It would take more than a murder accusation to rattle her. “I had more than I needed when George was alive. No, Seymour wants to muddy the waters because he knows that once I’m in charge of Samson Stores I’ll have him fired.”
She smiled, relishing the thought, but her skin was as taut as a filled balloon—a very narrow balloon; she managed only a stifled grimace. Her hair was pulled straight back from her face and clenched in a tight little knot at the back of her head, giving her a wide-eyed, perpetually startled expression. With all the surgical work (even Joe D. could tell that this was a much-altered face), it was difficult to gauge her age, which was doubtless her intention. Joe D. guessed she was somewhere in her forties.
Vanishing Act Page 3