Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel)

by Laura Resnick

  The prospect of actually being able to afford that cost of living was among the reasons I was so happy about what Thack told me the following morning.

  “I’m sorry to hear about ABC. And Ted Yee should have told me, not you—that bum!” Thack said over the phone. “It’s my job to break news like that to you. I suppose he was utterly tactless?”

  “Well, he’d had a run of bad lu—”

  “Well, don’t worry, Esther. His choosing not to finish the film has nothing to do with his obligations to you. I saw to that in your contract. If he’s got any of his backer’s money left, I’ll squeeze it out of him.”

  That was a conversation I would leave to Thack and Ted, though I suspected there wouldn’t be as much money left as Thack hoped.

  “Anyhow, this turn of events works out well, in its way,” he said, “because it would have been a shame if your contract for a low-budget, low-quality indie film that didn’t pay well wound up interfering with a juicy guest spot on an award-winning television show with an obscenely elastic budget.” He paused, then said, “Unless Ted Yee’s facile, inarticulate persona was just a façade, and he was actually a brilliant writer and director? Oh, dear, please don’t tell me ABC would have been the sleeper hit of the year or a standout sensation on the film festival circuit.”

  “No, it was pretty lame,” I assured him.

  “Just as well it folded, then,” Thack said ruthlessly. “I’ve had an availability check. D-Thirty would like to get you back on set in your previous role as Jenny Diver.”

  “Jilly C-Note.”

  “Close enough. You’ll be scheduled for scattered days over a period of about three weeks, doing both studio and location shoots. It’s a little vague at the moment because the scripts aren’t finalized yet.”

  “Starting when?” I asked.

  “Next week.”

  “And the scripts aren’t final?” I asked in surprise. Sure, things changed at the last minute all the time with TV and film, but shooting schedules, sets, and locations were usually determined in advance, not at the last minute.

  “Between you and me,” said Thack, “I gather this is Michael Nolan’s doing. He says he’s ready to go back to work now. He doesn’t want to wait until the new season starts filming.”

  “It sounds like Jimmy Conway is about to experience a miraculous recovery.”

  “Well, you know how competitive this business is,” said Thack. “Nolan has been out for months. Other actors saw their chance. So did writers who don’t like Nolan.”

  Nolan was not a likable guy. He was, however, a charismatic actor whose compelling performance as Jimmy Conway had done a lot to generate the fascination people had with this acclaimed show, which had not initially been expected to succeed (network television, the usual stomping ground of C&P programs, had refused to touch it because of the dark tone and raw subject matter).

  Thack continued, “So other actors stepped into the spotlight, and their characters have flowed in to fill the void left by Jimmy Conway when he got shot—again. That guy must be the unluckiest cop in the whole city.”

  “But Michael Nolan still has clout,” I guessed, “so when he recognized the danger, he decided he couldn’t afford to wait until next season to reclaim the focus.”

  “That would be my guess,” said Thack, “based on the tidbits my C&P contact has let drop.”

  It didn’t surprise me. In addition to being rude, arrogant, and narcissistic, Nolan was also a workaholic. He had risked his health to keep working, and he’d paid a steep price for that. He had his first heart attack on the D30 set while we were filming on location at night. The second heart attack a few days later—a day on which he tried to return to work—was so severe it nearly killed him. He’d been recuperating since then. Nolan no doubt hated being sidelined and would do whatever was necessary—after months of absence, during which time other actors’ characters had been fascinating his fans—to rise again to the top of the talented D30 heap.

  “So,” said Thack, “now there’s a frantic last-minute push to restructure the final episodes of the season in a way that inserts Detective Jimmy Conway back into the story arc. And that’s where your character comes in.”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea. And I don’t think the producers have a very clear idea, since they didn’t even know if you were available when I was contacted yesterday. In any case, they’re not going to tell me anything about the script. And you’ll have to sign a confidentiality agreement.” He added with amusement, “They seem to be treating their unwritten season finale as a bigger secret than the location of the Holy Grail.”

  “I suppose it’s a question of ratings.”

  “If anyone asks you, you are not to tell them your Chinatown film was canceled,” Thack instructed. “Because when I call C&P, right after I get off the phone with you, I shall negotiate a fee commensurate with the stress and inconvenience of your having to rearrange your schedule on a cutting-edge, award-quality indie film in order to accommodate D-Thirty.”

  “Ah. This is an example of why you’re the agent and I’m just the thespian.”

  “Another reason is that I get terrible stage fright.” He added, “Keep your schedule open for the next few days. If you’re filming next week, their wardrobe department will need to see you right away.”

  After we ended the call, I felt a burst of optimism and energy. My luck was finally turning around! The fee for this job would cover my bills for a while, I’d get to work on something a lot better than Ted’s film (let alone waiting tables or doing filing and typing), and I’d get exposure on a respected national TV show.

  It was all good.

  Until Lopez called.

  “Sorry I didn’t call you back last night,” he said. “I just got your message a few minutes ago. My phone died yesterday.”

  “When?” I wondered. It had been working fine before the shooting when I called him for help, and then I had seen him using it in the aftermath.

  “A little while after my car died,” he said wearily. “When Quinn and I were ready to leave the scene of the shooting, we found out we couldn’t. The car wouldn’t start.”

  “Oh.” Car and phone dying on the same day. No wonder he didn’t sound perky. “This was a police car?”

  “Yeah—and it’s the third one in a row we’ve had problems with.” He added bitterly, “So much for providing the police force with reliable equipment so that we can protect and serve.”

  “Three cars in a row?” I could see how that would get wearing. Trying to see the bright side, I said, “But at least you don’t have to pay for repairs, right? The cars belong to the department.”

  “And considering what we use them for—going to crime scenes, investigating murder and armed robbery, responding to emergency calls—you’d think the department would maintain the damn things. It’s not as if I’m relying on their cars to cruise for chicks or go on a beer run.”

  “Did you just say ‘cruise for chicks’?”

  “But no, making sure we don’t freeze to death in the middle of winter because the heater keeps breaking down, or installing a police radio that actually works so that we know what’s going on in the city we’re paid to protect . . . That is apparently too much to ask of NYPD support services in the twenty-first century.”

  “You’ve made this speech before, haven’t you?” I guessed.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to . . .” Over the phone, I heard his long sigh. “But this has been going on for weeks. I’m getting really fed up.”

  “And yet you conceal it so well.”

  Now I heard his soft snort of laughter. “Yeah, well . . . I guess yesterday was the straw that broke my back. I waited forever in the freezing cold for the tow truck—which I think set out for the Bowery by taking a shortcut through Patagonia or something. I was there for so long, in te
mperatures that could kill a Yeti, I thought I’d start collecting my pension before the truck finally arrived.”

  “The car was parked on the Bowery?” In the whirling collage of my memories of the shooting, I vaguely recalled that was the direction I saw Lopez coming from, though he was on foot when he appeared on Doyers Street to help prevent Susan from killing John.

  “Well, not parked so much as just left sitting there,” he said. “As you may remember, we arrived in kind of a rush. Which reminds me . . . Susan Yee intended to kill this guy John Chen because . . . she didn’t want him to help her brother make the movie?”

  “Yeah. Where’d you hear that?” I wondered if Quinn had known when he’d questioned John about it yesterday.

  “Cops tell each other things.”

  “Oh, of course. You got it from the Fifth Precinct.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of really dumb, pointless, inane motives for murder,” he said. “But I think Susan probably wins the grand prize with that one. I mean, why not just sabotage the financing or vandalize the equipment? She’s a straight-A grad student, for God’s sake. You’d think she could come up with a better plan than one that’ll get her sent to prison for a long, long time.”

  “I think she had already tried sabotage and vandalism,” I said carefully. “But Ted was more perseverant than she expected.”

  “So she decided to make the leap to murder,” he said in disgust. “Jesus.”

  “Actually . . .” This might be the moment to raise the subject of the deadly fortune cookies.

  He continued, “And trying to kill Chen in the middle of that crowd was even crazier. Come to think of it, I’ll bet her lawyer has a good shot at an insanity defense.”

  I chickened out. Instead, I tried to direct the conversation to a different problem. “What does Detective Quinn think about it?”

  “Andy? I think he said, ‘Crazy murdering bitch.’ Which seems to be the majority view at the Fifth, too.” He paused, then said in a different tone of voice, “I’m really glad you didn’t get hurt. And I’m sorry that Ted’s not finishing the film. I know you were glad to have the work.”

  “You talked to Ted?” I asked in surprise.

  “No, that info came from my buddy in the department’s film unit who was helping me get those location permits for Ted. He called Ted to get some details he needed, and Ted told him it was over, no permits needed.” Lopez added, “Ted also told him about the fire. Did you know the Yees’ whole store burned down yesterday?”

  “Yes, I saw it,” I said. “I was, uh, walking that way at the time.”

  “Fortunately, no one was hurt,” he said. “It’s too bad about the movie, though. From what Susan told the cops about her reasons for trying to kill John Chen, it sounds like there was a new plan to get more backers.”

  “Well, a tentative new plan.” Trying to move the conversation back to Quinn, I said, “I stopped by the funeral home to see how John was after the shooting. He said Detective Quinn—um, Andy—had just been there.”

  “Yeah, he went there to get some details from the intended victim.”

  “But isn’t the Fifth Precinct in charge of the case?”

  “They are, but I thought we should follow up, too, since we’d been at the scene. And since Joe Ning’s wake will be at Chen’s, it also seemed like a chance to see if they know anything useful about his final days.”

  “But you didn’t go?”

  “Someone had to stay with the car,” said Lopez. “I lost the coin toss.”

  “Ah.”

  “And then I wasn’t able to reconnect with Andy until hours later, when I got to a landline.” He started to sound exasperated again. “That cell was the second phone that’s died on me this month!”

  “You are having a run of bad luck.” Not as bad as mine, but I could understand why he was aggravated.

  “Don’t even get me started,” he muttered. “Now my computer at work has gone haywire, and IT can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. I think Andy screwed up something when he used it, but he claims I’ve got gremlins.”

  “Anyhow,” I said, “you found out your phone wasn’t working while you were freezing to death in Chinatown, waiting eternally for a tow truck?”

  “I swear, the Bowery must be the windiest street in this hemisphere. And when I tried to call to ask where the damn truck was and found out I couldn’t call . . . I got upset.”

  “Upset?”

  “Okay, I acted out. Shouted and cursed and kicked things.”

  “Color me astonished.” It wasn’t hard to picture him blowing his stack at that point. Everyone has their moments.

  “I scared some kids,” he admitted guiltily. “That was unintentional, but their granny got mad. She hit me and called me bad names. I think she was speaking Fujianese, so I didn’t know what she was saying. But I could tell from the kids’ faces, they were bad words.”

  “You had a hard day.”

  “Yeah. Still I guess Ted Yee and John Chen both had a worse day than I did.”

  “What are you doing to your phones, anyhow, that they keep dying on you?”

  “I’m not doing anything to them. They’re just dying! Shoddy manufacturing or something.”

  I could tell from his tone that I was the umpteenth person to ask him that, so I dropped the subject. “Look, the reason I called you . . .”

  When I didn’t continue, he prodded, “Yes?”

  “Well, we didn’t finish talking about what happened the other night, did we?”

  “The other night?”

  “What I did the other night,” I specified.

  “What you did . . . Hmm. Remind me what you did the other night?”

  “All right, I know you’ve had a bad week, but that’s no reason to be mean,” I admonished.

  “Okay. You’re right.” There was a pause. “Well, do you want to start, or should I?”

  “I’ll go.” I took a breath and forged ahead. “I panicked when I saw the cookie in your car, because those things are deadly. If you had cracked it open—if anyone had cracked it open—it would have killed you instantly.”

  There was a brief silence.

  Then he said, “Killed me instantly?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? Would death rays have burst out of it and turned me into ashes?”

  “Don’t be facetious. I’m trying to—”

  “You’re telling me that a cookie crumbling would have killed me, and you think I’m being facetious?”

  “These deadly cookies are what killed Joe Ning and Benny Yee.” Benny, an underworld figure of lower status than Ning, was Ted’s uncle, and he had been the film’s previous backer—until Susan killed him with a misfortune cookie. His death had been attributed to natural causes.

  “I see. Benny Yee and Joe Ning were killed by cookies.” Lopez’s voice was deadpan. “That’s your theory?”

  “They were killed by mystical curses concealed in the cookies,” I clarified.

  “Did Max give you this idea?” he asked wearily.

  “That’s not important. I’m trying to tell you—”

  “How many times do I have to ask you to stay away from him?”

  I tried to keep my voice level and reasonable as I said, “He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known. You have no idea how many people he has helped.”

  I could tell Lopez was trying to sound reasonable, too, when he said, “Look, I know you’re very fond of him. And I know he’s devoted to you. But, all things considered, I still don’t think this is a good friendship for you.”

  “I’m not letting you pick my friends for me,” I said firmly.

  “Esther, he keeps putting these crazy ideas into your—”

  “Will you stop blaming Max?” I said irritably. “Lucky is the one who—who . . . uh . . .”

  “L
ucky?” His voice was tense now. “Oh, that’s great.”

  Well, the cat was out of the bag, so I might as well continue. “The death curses were originally Lucky’s theory, not Max’s,” I said. “And he was right.”

  “Just great,” Lopez said. “While I’ve got some fast-talking TV lawyer breathing down my neck and claiming I’m a corrupt cop just because Joe Ning fell off a slippery balcony, my girlfriend is chasing magical cookies with a famous Gambello killer. My week just can’t get any better, can it?”

  I sifted through that outburst, trying to decide which item to address first. I picked the part that was unfamiliar to me.

  “What TV lawyer? Who’s calling you corrupt? I don’t . . .” Then I remembered what Nathan had said he’d seen on the news. “Oh, wait. That attorney who’s claiming the cops drove Uncle Six to suicide—he’s blaming you?”

  “Yep,” was the terse reply.

  “Why?”

  “Because he wants attention,” Lopez said sourly. “He wants TV cameras focused on his face and microphones shoved under his nose. And because he thinks an NYPD cop trying to keep a killer in prison is an easy target.”

  “This is the same lawyer that Uncle Six hired to get his brother’s conviction overturned?” I guessed.

  “Yeah. But Joe’s eldest son, who’s head of the family now that the old man is dead, isn’t dumb enough—thanks be to God—to throw away a fortune in legal fees trying to overturn a rock-solid case, if I do say so myself, in an attempt to get his rotten uncle back out on the streets so he can commit another murder,” said Lopez. “Uncle Six’s body—or what’s left of it—wasn’t even cold by the time the family terminated Goldman’s services.”

  “Goldman?”

  “Alan Goldman. The lawyer.”

  “Ohhh,” I said in disappointment.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I scowled. “I just hate it when the rich, sleazy lawyer is Jewish, you know?”

  “Yeah, and I hate it when the drug-dealing thug is Hispanic,” he replied. “But that’s life, and nobody asks our opinion before they make those choices.”

  “I guess,” I grumbled. “But why doesn’t Goldman just move on to defending the next wealthy criminal?”