Nice Place for a Murder

by Bloom, Bruce Jay

  “Shouldn’t you be doing that?” I said to Ingo. We were in the great room, looking across the bay to the lights of Greenport. It was already seven o’clock.

  “This is not a good time for you to tell me what I should be doing, yes?” he said, staring me down. Then, backing off, “Lisa is very capable at these things. She knows how to read people, say what they want to hear. I’m very blunt.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Blunt, but not forthcoming.”

  “Oh?”

  “You didn’t want me around, but you knew you needed me. Even so, you refused to let me get help. You wouldn’t tell me the whole story, let me inside, so I could stay ahead of the game. You kept your secrets, and now Hector is dead,” I said.

  Ingo turned and stepped behind a white marble bar set against the back wall. “You’ve had a difficult day, Seidenberg. Let me pour you a drink. You’ve earned it. scotch, isn’t it?”

  “You know everything, don’t you?”

  “I know everything.” He filled a glass with ice from a fridge below the bar, poured a healthy measure of Glenfidich over the cubes and held the drink out to me. The willful expression on his face said if I wanted it, I’d have to come and get it.

  What the hell. I went to the bar and took the glass from his outstretched hand. “You’re right about one thing,” I said.

  “Delighted to hear it. And just what thing is that?”

  “I’ve earned it.” I swirled the ice in the glass to chill the scotch, and took a sip. “Single malt,” I said.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Frankly, I like Dewars better. A good blend goes down easier.” A framed picture on a shelf behind the bar drew my attention. It was an engaging photo of two teenage boys grinning at the camera.

  “My friends who drink scotch tell me single malts are for sophisticated palates, “ he said, “whiskey for the carriage trade.”

  “That explains it, then. I’m irrevocably committed to middle class values, myself.” I gestured with my glass at the photo. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Me and my brother Felix. I was sixteen and he was fifteen.”

  “I see the family resemblance.”

  “Maybe a little,” he said. “Felix was more handsome. Every girl he met fell in love with him instantly.”

  I pulled at my Glenfiddich, wishing it were Dewars. Ingo watched me closely. “Aren’t you having any?” I asked him.

  “I don’t touch alcohol,” he said, in a way intended to make me feel ill at ease because I drank and he didn’t. As if I cared.

  “A pity,” I said. “I thought if you loosened up, you might let me in on the real story.”

  “This Sosenko maniac? You know the story. You’re the one who uncovered it.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened between you and Arthur Brody.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? A different story entirely.”

  “They don’t tie together?” I said. “Just a coincidence? Twist of fate, maybe?”

  His face began to redden, making his scars stand out in bold relief. “It’s none of your affair, Seidenberg. I suggest you remember that Julian Communications is your client, and make a strong effort not to stray into areas that don’t concern you.”

  “But it does concern me. I’ve been fed a well-rehearsed line by you and Lisa, and Brody, too. A man I never knew is drowned, and a good man I admire gets shot down in front of me. I get to sidestep bullets twice now, myself, and I’m forced to irritate the hell out of a wicked angina condition. And it all happens just when Julian Communications is about to go public. Strange, isn’t it? So I really don’t want to hear about your eight hundred million dollar jackpot again. You owe me more than a glass of high-priced scotch. Try paying me off with some truth.”

  “You think we’ve lied to you, is that it?” It was Lisa. I turned to see her standing in the archway of the great room. She held a pad of paper, the top sheet covered with her notes, and a pen.

  “Lie? No, I suspect you’ve told me the truth,” I said to her. “Just not all of it.”

  “Seidenberg is about to go back on the ferry,” Ingo said irritably, right to my face.

  “Hector told me you asked him out here to come up with a strategy to deal with Brody, mend the fences,” I said. “Tell me about that.”

  Ingo ignored my question. He walked past me as though I weren’t there, and sank into a chair. Superb physical condition or not, he had the fatigued look of a man with too many conflicts, too much on his mind. “Tell me what’s happening,” he said to Lisa.

  “They’re trying to schedule the funeral for Tuesday or Wednesday in Austin. Will you go?” she said.

  “Tell Brody to go,” he said.

  “I think you should.”

  “Brody. Go with him if you want to.”

  Lisa made a note. Then, “The police chief, that Nugent, says the coroner will release the body Monday morning. An undertaker in Riverhead will send it to Texas.” She turned to me. “Oh, and Nugent says you can pick up your gun at the police station.”

  “See,” I said, “even the cops trust me.”

  “I talked to Lowell and Manheim,” she said to Ingo. “They’re the crisis public relations specialists. They handled the AuditCo insider trading thing. And CIM, the currency exchange problems.”

  “Spin doctors,” Ingo said.

  “Best in New York,” she said. “Tony Manheim says the story will be all over the planet by tomorrow morning. But he thinks the news can be handled, maybe even turned to our advantage. I hired him on the phone. Told him to get in his car and point it to the Long Island Expressway. He’s headed out now.”

  “Good.” Ingo turned in his chair and looked at me for a long moment. “I suppose you’re waiting for me to express a measure of gratitude, yes?” he said, his voice flat and indifferent. “Thank you for your assistance to my company. Thank you for shooting at that maniac, even if you missed all six shots. Teague has two of his Neanderthals from Empire on guard now, so there’s no reason for you to stay here. In fact, there’s only one more service you can perform for Julian Communications. Get this Sosenko.”

  “Police in two states are looking for him right now.” I said. “I’m just one man.”

  “But you don’t have all the legal constraints the police have,” he said. “Add to that, now you will have your gun back.”

  It was nearly eight when I called Alicia from the ferry to tell her why I’d missed dinner, and that I was too weary to come by tonight. She swore she would never forgive me, unless I helped her make veal marsala tomorrow night, and then stayed around for some romance. That sounded fair, so I accepted.

  It wasn’t until the late news on Channel 7 that anyone in the media tied the shooting to Julian Communications’ initial stock offering. No one suggested that the shooter was involved in a plot bearing on the IPO, but a snotty TV business reporter with a strange toupee speculated that the markets might be wary of a company being targeted by a murderer. Not only that, he added, but there had already been reports of a management power struggle in the big communications conglomerate, making the situation complicated, indeed. “We’ll watch this one with great interest,” he said, with an attitude that suggested this was all happening for his amusement.

  Once the IPO connection surfaced, other media picked up on it. I went out the next morning and bought all the papers. The story was squarely in the spotlight on the front pages of the Times, the Post, the News and Newsday, too. The headline in the Post, big enough to be read from down the hall and out the door, was the most unkind. It said, “REVENGE KILLING AT SEA; Hit-and-Run Gunman Dims Company’s Stock Plans.” Post headlines always did have a way of cutting through to the fundamental nature of things.

  The Wall Street Journal ran it, but far back, and mercifully noted that whatever troubles the company might be experiencing, its bottom line was still strong. This was the only positive note any of the media sounded all day long.

  Essentiall
y, the revenge angle was playing out just the way Ingo and the others feared it would. It looked as though their calculated program for marketing Julian Communications to Wall Street was teetering now, with a possibility that their six hundred million dollar payoff might fall off a cliff. Unless, of course, the public relations maven Tony Manheim was as good as they hoped.

  It wasn’t until I’d read everybody’s version of the story that I noticed the light flashing on my answering machine. A call had come in while I was out for the papers. I pushed the replay bar.

  “This is for you, Mr. Seidenberg.” It was a man’s voice, low-pitched and halting, a distressing rattle in his throat. He sounded sick, or maybe drunk. “My name is James Giannone. I think — I think there is a huge fraud that you may — .” His voice trailed off and there was a long pause in which I could hear his labored breathing. Then he began again. “Let me say that — that you are being duped into thinking — thinking —. It’s a lie. A plot, you understand. People are being murdered. I have to talk to you. I will call back at exactly one o’clock this afternoon. Did I — did I say one? Yes, one o’clock.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  It might have been a crank message, some joker getting off at my expense. Easy enough. My name was in the news, and in the Greenport phonebook. No problem finding me and ringing me up. But I didn’t think that’s the way it went. The call from James Giannone had sounded too pained, too desperate, to be a hoax. Anyway, I wanted it to be real because I needed a break. I was pissed with myself for letting matters pull away from me, and I couldn’t get Hector off my mind.

  What could I have told him to keep him alive? Don’t come to the North Fork, Hector, because Sosenko may be out here. Well, then, stay in the car so he can’t get a clear shot at you. Get away from the rail. Be smart and watch your ass, Hector.

  Too late now. I didn’t shoot the man. Sosenko pulled the trigger. But what really killed Hector Alzarez was all that money.

  It was ten o’clock, three hours to wait for Giannone’s promised phone call. I still hadn’t had breakfast, so I walked to Bruce’s Café, part rustic restaurant, part fancy grocery, on Main Street, chose a stool at the long granite counter and ordered coffee and a scone. What I really wanted was a stack of Bruce’s blueberry pancakes, but thinking ahead to my dinner with Alicia that night, I thought it would be smart to pace myself today. A scone was not altogether a bad compromise, as it was studded with fat raisins, and served with Bruce’s raspberry preserves. You could learn to like these.

  The back wall behind the counter at Bruce’s was hung with a half dozen small hooked rugs, each with words and a picture worked into the design. I’d seen them a thousand times, drinking coffee here, but only today, with my mind roaming as I searched for logic in the universe, it occurred to me that there was mistake in a decorative line of poetry that surrounded a fanciful lighthouse and seagulls. It read, “And all I ask for is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.” If I couldn’t deal with life’s bigger issues, I decided to pounce on a small one. I called to Bruce, who was fiddling with the espresso machine.

  “There’s something terribly wrong here,” I told him when he stood opposite me, leaning on the counter. “Do you know there’s a mistake in that rug, or whatever it is?”

  “Certainly I know.”

  “You do?”

  “You mean the part about ‘all I ask for is a tall ship?’ Oh yeah, it should be ‘all I ask is a tall ship.’ If you put in the ‘for,’ it doesn’t scan properly. Any schoolchild would know that.” He put his hand on his chest, cleared his throat and began to orate. “’I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky. And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.’ Shall I go on?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said.

  “It’s been six years since I put those things up, and you’re only the second person to spot the mistake” he told me.

  “Really? What do I win?”

  He got a pot of coffee and refilled my cup. “Congratulations.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I’ll shake your hand, too, if you want.”

  “Surprised you’d keep that thing hung up there, knowing there’s such a conspicuous mistake” I said.

  “Took you a while to find it, though, didn’t it?” Touché, Bruce. He set the coffee pot back on a warmer and headed for his fancy cheeses, where a customer was beckoning.

  He was correct, of course. The words were right out there, not hidden away, and I’d looked at them again and again for years. Looked, but hadn’t seen. But that’s how it works, isn’t it? Some days you just don’t get it, and some days it jumps right out at you.

  I had another scone, telling myself I was eating a late breakfast and an early lunch at the same time, so my second helping wasn’t an indulgence. It was, in fact, a clever way to eliminate an entire meal today. The Seidenberg Diet.

  It was eleven forty-five when I returned to the house. The unpleasant voice waiting on my answering machine belonged to Roger Teague, who ranted on with orders and demands until I hit the rewind button and made him stop. Let him take care of guarding the Julian people. I had my own kite to fly.

  Precisely at noon my phone rang. Even before he spoke, the strenuous breathing told me it was Giannone.

  “You’re early, Mr. Giannone. You told me one o’clock.” I said.

  “Twelve o’clock, I said. And right now it’s -- the time is exactly twelve o’clock noon. Precisely,” he said. “And it’s not -- it’s not Mr. Giannone. It’s Doctor.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Doctor, I said. Doctor James Giannone.”

  “Are you a medical doctor? A physician?”

  “Just what do you -- who are you to question me?” His voice was impatient and angry. He started to cough hard, rolling, violent spasms that fed on themselves, and I waited until they finally subsided. “I am a physician. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, that’s where,” he went on. “I come from a family -- a family -- a distinguished line of doctors.” He fell quiet.

  “You said you knew about a plot. You said I was in danger. The message you left on my machine.”

  “What? I said they might do away with you,” he told me. “And that’s -- that’s right. This shooting on the boat –- the man from the Julian company who died. I heard about it on my radio, over and over. And about the stock on Wall Street. It’s a plot. And I know what happened back when they -- so they –- they’d be happy to kill me, too. If they could. I have to be vigilant.” Silence, again.

  Finally I said, “What do you know about the plot, Dr. Giannone?”

  “What?”

  “I said what do you know about the plot — this plot you’re telling me about?”

  “Oh, I know things, Mr. Seidenberg,” he said. “They don’t want me to talk, or –- or I could destroy everything. So that’s what I want.”

  “What? What do you want?”

  “What do you think I want?” he said. “Money, is what. Listen to me, Mr. Seidenberg. I know they pay attention to you. You tell them –- no, you absolutely insist –- that they pay me.” I could hear street noises in the background. He was calling from a pay-phone.

  “Who should pay you money? And why should they pay you?”

  “This is –- it is not a joke, and I am not a fool.” In an instant he was raging. “Just think about this. I know the secret of the Julian company. And if they don’t want me to say –- to talk –- to tell about it, then they have to pay.”

  “What is it you know?”

  Suddenly he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “No, no. Are you insane? Not –- not on the phone. I have to see you.”

  “Why me? Why don’t you go directly to the company?”

  “Ingo Julian, you mean? Arthur Brody?” he said. “No, I can’t put myself in that position. These men, they have powers, connections. They’d destroy me. No, I want to meet you, Mr. Seidenberg. They said on the radio you tried to protect the man w
ho was — who got killed on the boat. I want to meet you to see if — you are a smart person I trust to speak for me. You have a Jewish name. You’re a Jew, right?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “Does that make a difference to you?”

  “Oh yes, yes. You Jews are smart. You keep your word. I’m a judge of these things. I have it all completely –- all figured out. You’ll meet me at the train station in Ronkonkoma. You know where that is?”

  “Where are you? Are you in New York?”

  “I’m in Shangri-La. But I’m going to Ronkonkoma. You know Ronkonkoma?”

  “I know.” Ronkonkoma is two-thirds of the way out on the main body of Long Island, a busy commuter center, trains running often, with a good-sized station and vast expanses of parking lots.

  “I’m taking the 1:33 from Penn Station. Come by yourself,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, because –- because they’ll find out and follow you and the blood this time will be yours and mine. Understand?”

  “All right. What time?”

  “Understand?” he said again.

  “Yes, I understand. What train will you be on?”

  “The 1:33, I told you,” he snapped back. The anger again.

  “That’s when your train leaves Penn Station. When does it arrive? What time do we meet in Ronkonkoma?”

  “Look it up,” he said. “I’ll be at a bench near the ticket windows. Take the back roads. Look in your mirror. Don’t let anyone follow you.” There was a click. His voice and the background noises ended abruptly. Somewhere on a street in New York, Dr. James Giannone was walking away from a public phone.

  I got in my car at one PM, calculating that I could make it from Greenport to the Ronkonkoma station in fifty minutes, an hour at most. The 1:33 from Penn Station wasn’t due until 2:58, but I wanted some slack to get the feel of the place, discreetly and carefully, before Giannone walked off the train. Also, it would be prudent to get there before he did. I thought: about time for me to be the power guy. Any more surprises, I’d like them to be on somebody else.