1 Runaway Man

by David Handler

  Also Mr. Can’t Miss. He had Meg by his side. Her family’s political machine in his back pocket. Media contacts and savvy of his own. A campaign war chest no one else could match. The man was a shoo-in to win the Democratic Party’s primary for governor of New York. And a lock to win it all in November. At the still-young age of forty, Bobby Kidd was going to be the next governor of the state of New York. There was no stopping him.

  Unless, that is, something or someone popped up out of nowhere to trip him up.

  * * *

  A UNIFORMED CAMPUS COP stood guard at the players’ entrance to the historic Stuyvesant Field House. To get past him I had to flash my laminated Canterbury College student photo ID and my press credentials from the Daily Athenian, the online student newspaper. Both cards were courtesy of Rita. When the campus cop grudgingly let me in, I found myself in a subterranean maze of dank, dimly lit concrete corridors. The historic Field House had been built just after World War I and probably would have been condemned decades ago if some genius hadn’t slapped the word “historic” on it. The bare lightbulbs flickered and sizzled. The exposed overhead pipes leaked. There were puddles everywhere. I saw one, two, three rats as I splish-splashed my way past the home and visitor locker rooms, which gave off the familiar scent of mildew, soggy gym towels and soiled jock straps. As I neared the entrance to the arena I could hear husky yells and the thudding of footsteps on hardwood flooring.

  Out on the court, the Athenians were running full court drills and their young head coach, John Seckla, was giving them a real earful. There was no way to tell from his tone or manner that his players had actually beaten mighty Syracuse last night. Another security guard intercepted me as I made my way down to the court. Again, I flashed my campus credentials. Again, I was allowed to pass. I slid into a seat a few rows behind the bench.

  “Billy, get on him, will you?” Coach Seckla hollered at the pimply scrub who was trying to keep up with the Charles Willingham in the open court. “Honest to God, son, my mother can defend tighter than that! Move those feet!”

  Mostly, my eyes were glued on Charles and the fluid, seemingly effortless way he flowed up and down the court, weaving his way through defenders, changing speeds, stopping, starting, pivoting. Charles was never off balance. Never out of position. Never out of breath. He was a faster, stronger animal than the others. But it wasn’t just his physical superiority that set him apart. It was his court awareness. He had a precise idea of where he was going and why he was going there. The others were just running up and down the floor.

  When the shoot-around was over, Coach Seckla blew his whistle and gathered his players around him at midcourt. He spoke to them quietly for a moment. When he was done, each player piled an outstretched hand atop another’s and—as one—they hollered “Team!” Then they broke practice and made their way slowly back toward the locker room. Over by the bench, a team manager tossed Charles a towel. Charles paused there to wipe his sweat-drenched face as the others filed out.

  I made my move, feeling like a tiny little boy the nearer I got to him. He towered over me by a foot. “I’m sorry for your loss, Charles.”

  He frowned at me. “What loss? We beat them by one point.”

  “I’m not talking about the game. I’m talking about Bruce. I’m the person who found him last night.”

  Charles’s eyes widened. He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to me, swallowing. “This isn’t a good time, man.”

  Coach Seckla noticed me there with his star player and started toward us. “Everything okay, Charles?”

  “I’m with the Daily Athenian, Coach,” I said, holding up my press ID.

  “Sure, that’s fine, son. Just haven’t seen you before, that’s all. What happened to Neal?”

  “He’s still around. I don’t usually write about sports. My thing is the theater.”

  The coach stared at me blankly. “Theater?”

  I waved an arm at the empty seats around us. “It’s all theater, don’t you think?”

  “Son, are you high on something?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you cleared this interview with Bucky?”

  “Yeah, he did, Coach,” Charles spoke up. “It was Bucky who set it up.”

  Coach Seckla shrugged. “Don’t keep him long, son. He needs to hit the shower.” Then he headed off the court with the others, leaving the two of us alone by the team bench.

  “Who’s Bucky?” I asked.

  “Our sports information director,” Charles replied. “And just exactly who are you?”

  “My name’s Benji Golden. I’m a private investigator.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  Charles took a seat at courtside, stretching his long legs out before him. He exuded the physical vitality of a world-class athlete from every pore. Also an athlete’s tremendous physical calm. But while his body was at rest, his mind wasn’t. His large, liquid brown eyes watched me warily as he sat there, hands resting on his knees. They were enormous hands. He had the longest fingers I’d ever seen.

  “I’m surprised you made it to practice today,” I said.

  “Don’t have any choice. I’m expected to be here. I can’t just not show up because a buddy of mine got capped.”

  “No, I guess not. Except Bruce wasn’t just a buddy, was he?”

  Charles stared at me long and hard. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, I know the real story, okay? Sara told me.”

  Charles ran a hand over his hair, which he wore high and tight to his skull. “Why would she go and do that?”

  “Because she was worried about him. He could get really depressed sometimes. She wanted me to make sure he was okay.”

  “So you were working for his family?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

  He peered at me, his gaze softening. “How did he look when you found him?”

  “Very peaceful. He didn’t suffer.”

  “Sara texted me right after the police called her family. I was up all night surfing every news site I could find. The news reports were real sketchy—just a couple of sentences about a botched home invasion. Sounded like it was a couple of meth heads maybe. You don’t think about something like that happening in a million-dollar lakefront home in Connecticut. What did the fool bastards get out of it anyway—a lousy TV set?”

  “It was only one bastard. And he was no fool.”

  Charles Willingham’s face tightened. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “That it was no home invasion, botched or otherwise. Bruce was murdered by a professional hit man.”

  “That’s bull. Who would want Bruce dead?”

  “I was hoping you might have some idea.”

  “Why me?” he demanded. “Do you think I had something to do with it?”

  “Not directly, no. But the two of you were involved.”

  He ducked his head, sighing hugely. “Bruce was the only slice of normal I had. He kept me together. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”

  “His parents will be sitting shiva today. Are you planning to go?”

  “I can’t, man. I-I just can’t.” He swiped at his face with the towel again. “What is it that you want?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened.” I told him how Bates, Winslow and Seymour had hired us to find Bruce. How I’d managed to locate him but had unwittingly led his killer right to him. Doug, our techie, had swept the office earlier that morning. Found the place crawling with bugs. Our office phones were being tapped, too.

  “So you’re telling me,” Charles said slowly, “that a slick attorney scammed you into finding Bruce in order to have him killed.”

  “Exactly. It was a professional job all of the way.”

  “But who on earth would want to do that to Bruce?”

  “You tell me, Charles.”

  “Tell you what, man? How would I know anything? I’m a ball player.”
<
br />   “You’re a gay ball player. Who knew about you and Bruce?”

  “Nobody. My mom. Bruce’s roommate, Chris, and Sara. That’s it. As far as my teammates and Coach Seckla are concerned, Bruce and I were friends who shot hoops together. No one ever suspected that anything more was going on. Why would they? I’ve hung with a lot of girls since I’ve been here. Even had a steady thing going last year with a Nigerian girl. Her dad’s in the oil business. Terrific girl. Smart, beautiful. But there was no spark, know what I mean?”

  “I know.”

  “For me, there was never anyone special. Not until I met Bruce. And what we had going on…” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That was something neither of us had ever done before.”

  “And what about the NBA?”

  He stared at me. “What about it?”

  “You’re going to be worth hundreds of millions when draft day arrives. I know there are NCAA rules governing who you can and can’t talk to before you turn pro. I also know those rules are made to be broken. I need to know the real deal. Do you have a handshake agreement with a management agency or sneaker company or anyone else who might believe they have a financial stake in your future?”

  “Absolutely not,” Charles insisted vehemently. “I’ve stayed clear of those people. Coach Seckla has been real good about keeping them away from me. He’s an honorable guy. There’s no one, I swear.” He gazed out at the court for a moment. “Besides, I’m not even sure I’m going to play pro ball.”

  “You mean you may not?”

  “Just because you can do something reasonably well doesn’t mean that you want to devote your life to it. That was the truly whack thing about Bruce and me. He loved the game of basketball much more than I ever have. Every facet of it—practice, the weight room, being on the bus with the guys. Me, I’d just as soon start law school in the fall. I want to help other people.”

  “And you don’t think you are?”

  “By playing ball? This is strictly theater, like you said.”

  “Charles, did you know that the Weiners weren’t Bruce’s birth parents? That they adopted him when he was a baby?”

  He raised his chin at me. “Sure, I knew. And it was no big deal. Or at least it wasn’t until his birth mother suddenly decided she wanted back into his life. She provoked contact, as we say out on the court. Approached him right here on campus.”

  “When was this?”

  “The day after we played St. John’s. That was a week before Thanksgiving.”

  Which translated to several weeks before Sara said that a woman had accosted Bruce at a mall in Willoughby. “And how did Bruce feel about it?”

  “He was freaked out. This total stranger coming up to him out of nowhere, wanting to start up a relationship. He wanted no part of it. Or her.”

  “He’d never expressed any interest in meeting his birth mother?”

  “Never. The Weiners were his parents, period. Don’t ask me how this woman found him because I don’t know.”

  “Did you meet her?”

  “No, I didn’t. I can’t tell you much else about her—except that she really got under his skin. After that he started obsessing about his adoption. Asking his parents about the details. The name of the adoption agency, that kind of thing.”

  “Were the Weiners forthcoming?”

  “Anything but. They wouldn’t talk about it at all. When he asked to see his original birth certificate they gave him the runaround about that, too.”

  “When you say ‘original’ you mean?…”

  “The Weiners had to apply for US citizenship for Bruce after they adopted him.”

  “So he was born overseas?”

  “Apparently. Bruce never found out where. Or got a look at his birth certificate. They have it hidden away somewhere and wouldn’t show it to him. He had no idea why. It really bothered him. It was … a sore subject. Whatever that lady told Bruce was eating at him. He went up to Candlewood Lake because he needed some time alone to figure things out. But h-he…” Charles broke off, his face etched with misery. “I would have been there for him, you know? Whenever I was down, he was right there to pick me up. We would have handled it. Together, we could handle anything.”

  “Charles, do you have someone who you can be with?”

  “My mom,” he replied, his eyes puddling with tears.

  I opened my daypack and showed him the two New York State driver’s license photos that Rita had pulled from the DMV’s database. “Have you ever seen either of these women on campus?”

  He studied the photos carefully before he said, “No, I don’t believe I have. Although this one here looks vaguely familiar. I may have seen her picture in the newspaper. Is that possible?”

  “Yes, it’s possible. And what about this other one?”

  “I don’t recognize her at all.” He narrowed his gaze at me. “Who are these women?”

  “That, my friend, is a very good question.”

  * * *

  “I’M SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS,” I said when Paul Weiner opened his front door.

  The street outside of the house was lined with parked cars. I’d had to park ten houses down Powder Horn Hill Road.

  Paul stared at me, bewildered and blown away. He looked like a man who’d just gotten poleaxed with a two-by-four. “What … are you doing here?”

  Sara rushed toward the door and said, “Daddy, I invited him, okay?” Then took me by the hand and tugged me inside.

  Sara had her hair pulled back with a clasp. She was wearing a white silk blouse and a short, rather tight black skirt with low heels. Her smooth white legs were bare. Her eyes were puffy. She’d been up late last night, I happened to know. It was nearly four A.M. by the time I delivered her home from Scotty’s diner. She dozed for the last hour of the drive, her down jacket thrown over her like a blanket. I had to wake her up when I pulled up outside of the house. Before she got out she kissed me on the cheek, her breath warm on my neck, and said, “G’night, Benji. Thanks for being such a sweetie.”

  I thought about her breath on my neck the whole way back to the city.

  There was a box of yarmulkes by the door in the entry hall. I put one on and followed her toward the cavernous showroom of a living room. It was full of mourners that day. Full of a heavy, quiet sadness. At least three dozen people were sitting shiva for Bruce. Most of them were older people. Relatives and family friends, I imagined. Bruce’s mother, Laurie, sat crying on the sofa. Two women were trying to comfort her. When Laurie caught sight of me in the doorway, holding Sara’s hand, she glared at me and murmured something to the women next to her. They glared at me, too.

  A group of big, husky young guys were seated in there. I figured them for Bruce’s high school basketball teammates. His Canterbury roommate, Chris Warfield, was there, too, yarmulke perched high atop his mop of curly blond hair. When Chris spotted me he came right over to give me a sympathetic hug. He was still under the impression that I was Bruce’s cousin—a deception that made me feel slightly soiled under the circumstances.

  “Real sorry about what happened, bro,” he said softly.

  “Me, too. It was real nice of you to come, Chris.”

  “Hey, least I could do for my roomie.”

  “Chris, will you please excuse us for a sec?” asked Sara. “Benji and I have to talk.”

  She led me toward the kitchen, which smelled of fresh-brewed coffee and marble cake. A half-dozen women were bustling away in there. Working the phone. Slicing the cake. Getting plates, cups and silverware ready.

  “Your mother needs you to unload the dishwasher,” one of them barked at Sara.

  “In a minute, Aunt Stella,” she responded, leading me out the door that was next to the pantry.

  It was a bit chilly out in the attached garage, but not too bad. The garage door was down. Two cars were parked inside—a Lexus SUV and a BMW convertible. One wall of the garage was lined with steel industrial shelving. Sara reached around behind a carton on the top shelf and came aw
ay with a small package wrapped in tissue paper. I thought it might be her dope stash but it wasn’t. That was on a different shelf, tucked inside of a Twinings Tea tin. She removed a joint from it and returned the tin to its hiding place. Then she started toward a cast-iron spiral staircase that led to an enclosed loft space over the garage.

  That was when the kitchen door opened and out came Laurie, who wore a black dress that was so shapeless she looked like a stick figure inside of it. Her shoulders were hunched, her complexion grayish. “What’s going on out here?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” Sara shot back defensively. “We’re talking.”

  “About what? What is this person even doing here?”

  “I invited him.”

  “How dare you? And how dare you sit shiva for your brother without wearing any stockings?”

  “What the fuck difference does that make?”

  “Don’t you talk to me like!—”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Weiner,” I interjected.

  “Young man, I want you to leave my house right this second. You came here the other night with some cockamamie story about some cockamamie inheritance and now my son is dead.”

  “You’ve had contact with Bates, Winslow and Seymour before, haven’t you?” I suggested.

  Laurie lowered her eyes. “Why, no. Whatever do you mean?”

  “Mom, he knows all about Bruce being adopted.”

  “How would he know that?”

  “Because I told him,” Sara answered.

  Laurie took two steps toward her and slapped her hard across the face. It made a loud smack. “Young man, I want you to leave.”

  “I want him to stay!” Sara cried out, a red splotch forming on her cheek.

  “I do not have time for this right now. I have a house full of people. But we will talk about this later,” Laurie vowed, shaking her finger at Sara. Then she stormed back inside the house, slamming the door.

  “I hate you!” Sara hollered after her.

  “Maybe she’s right. I’d better take off.”

  “No, please don’t, Benji.” Sara held her hand out to me. “Come upstairs with me, okay?”

  There was a ton of clutter up in the room over the garage. Assorted half-finished craft projects that seemed to involve seashells, dried flowers, pebbles, bits of colored glass and a variety of X-ACTO knives, clamps and glues. I had no idea what any of them were supposed to be. I’ve never understood the concept of crafts. There was a desk in there. A daybed. One window that faced the street. Another that looked out over the Weiners’ backyard, which appeared to be at least two acres of snow-covered lawn and iron-gray bare trees.