Manhattan Nocturne

by Colin Harrison

  “This was in St. Petersburg?”

  “Yes, beautiful, the sky and air—”

  “Did you own any properties in New York City?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were they?”

  “Oh, we had four, I think. We had a couple of little houses in the neighborhood, around here, rentals. We had a store. And we had a building in downtown Manhattan.”

  “Number 537 on East Eleventh Street?”

  “Yes, terrible building. Frank—I mean Irving—never should have bought it.”

  She had made an odd mistake. “That was where Simon died.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “Oh, Simon had keys to our buildings. He sometimes looked in on them for me.”

  “Why? I don’t get it.”

  Her eyes searched my face, deciding what to tell me. I was pushing too hard.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Go back to what you were saying.”

  “I got ahead of myself, I think. See, after Michael died, Simon was over here a lot. I didn’t have a little boy anymore. These things, you can’t always come back from them, you know? By then I was too old. It was no good. But as I was saying, Michael—I mean Simon—used to come over and spend time with me, and I would read to him and show him stories and everything. I had a little easel in the kitchen, and he used to paint pictures. A very talented boy. We had one rule and that was no television over here. He was a very bright little boy, the brightest little boy this neighborhood ever produced, if you ask me. But he was short, you know, and he was starting—he had a kind of funny look about him, he took after his mother—the kids would sometimes tease, and he used to come over here and I would comfort him, I guess you’d say. We’d draw and look at books and sometimes cook together. I think Frank was—it made me mad to think of it—Frank had no idea how bright Simon was. Not one idea. Here he had a boy who was—well, I better hold my tongue. Anyway, those were good years for me. I had Simon, and I didn’t mind so much that Irving’s business wasn’t so good. Sometimes he used to take Simon around to all the buildings, and that way he met people or looked at people at least, because he was a quiet child. Somewhere in there Irving bought me a home movie camera, because we were still going to Florida, and I showed it to Simon and he wanted to use it. He used it a lot. He was about ten, I think. This was before these fancy new—I can’t remember the name. I don’t think I ever used it, but we have some—” She stood up. “I know I’m going on and on, but you see there’s nobody I can talk to about these things. Nobody is interested in what an old woman remembers, but what I was going to say is that I have one of Simon’s old movies that he made on our camera, somewhere upstairs—”

  “Is it a lot of trouble?”

  “Oh no, no, I’ll just be a minute.”

  And she was, for evidently she knew right where to look. She returned with an old Kodak projector and a box of faded yellow eight-millimeter film boxes. “My fingers …” she said, and I did it for her, carefully threading the film and aiming the white box of light against her kitchen wall.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Mrs. Segal turned off the kitchen light, and after the obligatory flickering frames there was the Segals’ house, the bushes pruned. The camera panned jerkily up and back. Then there was a cut of a dog playing in a modest backyard.

  “That was his dog. Can’t remember the name.”

  Then came a shot of Mr. Crowley sitting at a workbench.

  “That was in their basement.”

  Mr. Crowley looked up at the camera, then tipped his hat. He had the same flashing black eyes as Simon. The next shot was an interior, with Simon, age about ten, standing before the camera. He is small, smooth-cheeked, exuberant. He holds up a finger. Wait. Then he dashes out of the frame.

  “Irving or I took this, I think,” noted Mrs. Segal.

  Simon is gone from the frame for a moment, and I thought I recognized the scene as the Segals’ living room. Then Simon dashes back. He has on a New York Yankees uniform, a cap, a mitt, and a baseball bat. He struts around importantly, and then the reel ends.

  “That’s the only one I have of him,” she said.

  “Mrs. Segal, I need to ask you. a question now. You’ve told me about your relationship with Simon when he was a boy. But what about as a man? There are a cluster of facts that I can’t explain. You used to own a building in Manhattan, and Simon looked in on your buildings, and had access to the keys, I think you said. And he died in a building you used to own.” I took a breath. “You are seeing his father twice a week and have been for a long time. You are receiving regular compensation for that service from Simon’s trust, and you are receiving larger, irregular payments from the trust. I don’t know what all this adds up to, Mrs. Segal. I can’t connect everything. Can you?”

  The moment of dilation. Mrs. Segal stared at me fearfully and I reminded myself that I didn’t know what it was like to be a sixty-eight-year-old woman with a senile husband dot-tering around and no children to take care of me. Mrs. Segal fingered the porcelain salt and pepper shakers on the table, little Dutch boys that somebody probably collected now.

  “Mr. Wren, I—oh, I suppose I’m just an old woman with my silly secrets. You see, I loved Frank Crowley,” she cried. “I loved him—like a wife, I guess you could say. He was, he was gentle to me. We—for years—if you understand.” Her eyes were wide at the magnitude of her confession. “My husband—after Michael drowned, he didn’t want another child—he couldn’t, or wouldn’t—and Simon was here a lot, and it’s hard to explain. My husband knew, of course, but he didn’t mind, he didn’t—” She shook her head sadly, as if she wished her husband had cared enough to be jealous. “Frank was … he was a lovely man, very compact, very fine. After his wife died, was the most gentle—” Mrs. Segal looked away. “Oh, all of this is silly, of course, no one cares.”

  “I care.”

  She lifted her eyes. “You do?”

  “Yes,” I told her softly.

  “Well, I don’t know what question you want me to answer first. I can tell you that Simon asked me if he could take care of us, once he started making some money, and I told him no, that it was his money, he made it. But he insisted. His law firm started sending me money, a thousand a month. Well, I felt terrible about that, and I thought I should show them something for their money, even though it was Simon’s money. I was seeing Frank twice a week or so, and so I just started to write down my visits with a thank-you note. They called me and said, ‘Please formalize your bill on business stationery,’ and so I did. We have some old legal stationery here, and so I did that. Simon found out about it and was very pleased. He didn’t like these lawyers and accountants and people. It was our little joke, you see.”

  “What about the big payments?”

  “That was something different. Simon knew we were having money troubles. Irving hit a Korean man with his car and the man had a very bad broken hip. Couldn’t walk anymore. Then he sued us. So we had some money troubles. I didn’t really tell Simon how bad it was, but he offered to buy us a new house, anything. But I said no, I was happy where I was. I mean, everybody I know lives in my neighborhood—the butcher, the people at the supermarket. Finally Simon said he wanted us to do something for him, and we could bill the firm. I was to send something to a third party, and then I was to bill the firm on the old stationery—”

  “For five thousand dollars?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it a videotape, Mrs. Segal?”

  She looked at me with great brimming fear. No one spoke, and I could hear the radiators hissing softly, the sound of her husband shuffling papers in his office. The house was full of time gone, death approaching.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Segal said, “it was a videotape. I was to send it and bill for special services or something like that. Vague, you know. Simon seemed very pleased by this arrangement.”

  “Were you supposed to send out the tape at a particular time?”

&
nbsp; She shook her head. “Whenever I wanted, Simon said.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I found Irving holding the tape one time and I took it from him so he wouldn’t lose it. Then I had the tape copied down at the camera store where they know me, just in case Irving lost the first copy. I’ve had a terrible time, you see. We’ve lost all our old clients, we’ve had a terrible—well, you can see—”

  “The tape, Mrs. Segal.”

  “Yes, well, I sent the tape to the address—I mean the copy of the tape. I didn’t dare look at it, of course, but I sent it, and then I sent the bill to Simon’s law firm. I hope I haven’t caused people too much trouble with this. I just put the tape in a brown envelope and mailed it, and then three weeks later I got a check for five thousand dollars. It was the most remarkable thing I ever saw.”

  “This was after Simon died?”

  “Yes. We had just gone through this terrible lawsuit, see—”

  “So did you send it again?”

  “Well, it didn’t start out that way,” explained Mrs. Segal. “Not really. But then one month we were behind on something, one thing or the other, you know how it is, and so I just thought maybe I’ll try it again, and so I made another copy of the tape and sent that one to the same address, and then I typed up another bill. I just billed it to Simon’s estate as per instructions prior to decease, special services, something like that—I’ve picked up a lot of this language over the years—and again, I was so surprised, I got another check for five thousand dollars!”

  “You kept doing this?”

  She nodded. “We do not have very much money, Mr. Wren. And I, well, yes, to answer your question, yes, I kept doing it. I figured, Who is going to throw a poor eighty-year-old man and his wife into jail? So yes, I did it a few more times.”

  “I was told that it’s been four or five times over the last sixteen months or so.”

  “Well, again, I hope I have not caused anyone any trouble,” she insisted, “because certainly I thought that if the law firm decided not to pay, then they would have a good reason …”

  “I want the tape now, Mrs. Segal.”

  “Mr. Wren—”

  “You can give it to me now or deal with some very unpleasant people, Mrs. Segal. I daresay I’m saving you some unhappiness by taking it off your hands.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to comply, but you have to understand that we have very little—”

  I nodded, knowing what she was going to say. In the great scheme of things, hers was a small transgression. “Keep billing the firm, Mrs. Segal. In fact, you can raise the bill to seventy-five hundred.”

  “I can?”

  “Yes. Just give me the tape now.”

  She stood up and went to the kitchen counter. My beeper trilled again: NO JOKE, PORTER. I slipped it back into my pocket, trying to remember what question I had forgotten.

  Mrs. Segal was opening a wooden recipe box. “I always kept it here, see, because that way I would know where it was. Irving is very forgetful. Can’t remember a thing.” She handed me the tape, and I looked at it intently. Simon’s hand-lettered label was still on it: TAPE 63.

  “I need to use your phone.” I called Campbell, skipping any inquiries about his health, and told him to tell Hobbs to get on a plane north from South America.

  “He’s already in the city,” Campbell said.

  Amazing. “He flew last night?”

  “He likes to sleep on planes, prefers it.”

  “If he wants his little tape, tell him to meet me at the Noho Star, corner of Broadway and Lafayette, two o’clock.”

  “Mr. Hobbs usually lunchs at the Royalton.”

  A ridiculous place full of trendologists who talked only with one another; the urinal was a chrome wall you pissed against. “Why inconvenience him?” I said. “Let’s make it there.”

  And then I was out the door, tape in my pocket. I knew there was some question, or maybe two, I had forgotten to ask Mrs. Segal, but for now I was too excited about the tape to try to remember them. And, anyway, I needed to call Hal.

  “Porter, we have a velocity problem,” he said after I found a corner phone.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My guy got a little excited about the Fellows thing—I told him we had a delay but he didn’t listen—and well, he told Giuliani.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Hal.” I hung up. Inside the five boroughs a police trace on a call takes under ten seconds. The notion that a newspaper reporter might be delaying the identification and arrest of a murderer of a cop would send Giuliani into an insane rage. Here, after all, was a man who loves Italian opera. I dialed back.

  “Hello?” said Fitzgerald. “Porter?”

  “Where are we?” I asked frantically. “Your guys torn apart my house yet?”

  “Well, they’ve been through it.”

  I hung up. Then called back.

  “Porter. We’re not trying to—”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “You need to come in.”

  “That won’t help. I’m working on it, I’m almost there.”

  “Listen, now, Porter, let’s think this thing—”

  Ten seconds. I hung up. Dialed back.

  “Jesus, Porter.”

  “Tell the mayor I’m working on it.”

  “You fucking tell him, Porter!”

  “I will.”

  A pause. That made ten seconds.

  “Porter Wren?”

  A stern voice. A voice that ran a city. Giuliani.

  “Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, I’m working on it, I promise.” I hung up and walked briskly away from my car. The cops would find it within ten minutes. They probably already knew the phone booth location and were sending a car over. I went down the subway steps and took the train away from Manhattan. Then I grabbed a cab and hopped on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, ran into lower Manhattan, right along Canal Street, thinking, worrying, keeping my head low. The city is full of police cars if you don’t want to see one. Before I met Hobbs, I needed to view the tape to be absolutely sure it was the right one. But where? The police would be watching my home—a car outside my gate, engine running. My office? Too many people around. Maybe a detective sitting in my chair right now. I needed a videotape player and privacy. I wondered if the location of my beeper could be traced—I clicked it off. On Seventh Avenue I hopped out and bought a red knit cap and some sunglasses. Then I called Caroline. Ten rings, no answer. Maybe she was out. Maybe fucking Charlie. Protecting her investment. Maybe I could go to the Malaysian bank and talk my way in and use the machine in her walk-in vault. But maybe not—they would have to call her for approval to let me in. And she wasn’t there and might not be for hours. I could walk into an electronics shop, buy a videotape player and a small television, then rent a room in a hotel. But it could take a good hour to find a hotel that actually had a room. I needed something much quicker, a place where—I had it, and not far away, either.

  We live in strange times. A fifty-two-year-old black woman with a shot-up knee lies in her bed in her private hospital room, the one with all the amenities available in the land of the dollar bill, her mind a Biblical dream of morphine, and when she opens her eyes, as she seems to do slowly every ten minutes or so, she thinks that she is seeing a white man sitting in a chair next to her bed, not paying attention to her but staring intently at her television, which she likes very much. The white man is familiar. He is her employer, in fact. She prefers the wife, actually. She would like to ask how are the children, how is Tommy, but somehow the formulation of the question removes the necessity to ask it, and besides, now there are funny pictures of a fat man on the television and so she watches it, or dreams it—she will never remember.

  [Jerky view of an opulent hotel room. Camera stabilizes. One corner of the frame is blurred by an unidentifiable object, perhaps the strap of a purse. On the far side of the room is a large bed, a plush chair, and a window. It is night.]

  Caroline: … would be int
eresting, that’s all. [Into view comes the immense figure of Hobbs, wearing an expensive suit. His back is to the camera. He picks up the phone.]

  Hobbs: Operator, this is room 1412. I want no interruptions, no calls. With one exception. If a man named Murdoch calls, that call gets put through. Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch. M-U-R-D-0-C-H. Yes, quite right, thank you, nobody but him. [He replaces phone.] Unlikely he’ll call, but there is a chance that my office gave him this number. [Hobbs turns his head at the sound of a knock. He checks his watch.] Yes?

  Voice: It’s Springfield, sir.

  Hobbs: Come in, Springfield.

  [A figure appears in the room, back to camera.]

  Hobbs:Yes.

  Springfield: We’ve finalized the London schedule, sir. Mr. Campbell said that I should inform you.

  Hobbs: Very good, Springfield, give me the schedule.

  Springfield: Well, sir, we have Mr. Trump at eight A.M., then Mr. Ridgeway from the bank at ten; then lunch with Mr. Lok’s group—

  Hobbs: Do we have the figures put together for that meeting?

  Springfield: I’ll have to ask Mr. Campbell, sir. But I would assume so.

  Hobbs: Tell Mr. Campbell that if he doesn’t have the figures prepared, he can buy himself fish and chips.

  Springfield: Yes, sir. Will that be all for tonight?

  Hobbs [turning toward Caroline]: Miss, is there anything you want, anything Springfield can get you? Cigarettes, flowers, anything you’d like?

  Caroline: No, I’m fine, thanks.

  Hobbs: [lifting a hand]: Okay, Springfield.

  Springfield: Good night, sir. Miss. [Springfield leaves.]

  Hobbs: Let’s be very clear about this.

  Caroline: Okay.

  Hobbs: [takes off his suit jacket awkwardly]: I want you to tell me what you want, exactly.

  Caroline: Okay.

  Hobbs: You were looking for some sort of payment?

  Caroline: No.

  Hobbs: Odd. You’re not expecting some kind of job or regular money or anything?