Nice Place for a Murder

by Bloom, Bruce Jay

  “Share? Ideas?” It sounded filthy the way he said it. “About what?”

  “This whole business is not what you think it is,” I told him. “We’ve been jerked around royally by Ingo and by Brody, too. They used us. Me, you, Empire.”

  “So they used us. That’s what they pay us for, to use us.” Then, “How did they use us?”

  I boiled the story down into two precisely worded minutes, ignoring Teague several times as he tried to interrupt me. When I finished, I could hear his heavy breathing mixed with a few unintelligible syllables as he gathered his wits to respond.

  What came out, finally, was, “Some wild-ass story, Seidenberg. But can you prove it? Can anybody prove it? And so what, anyway?”

  “No solid proof,” I said. “But I know it doesn’t matter to you. Great moralist that you are, you don’t care if it’s true or not.”

  “What does it matter what I believe,” he said. “It’s what they think that counts. Julian Communications pays the bills we send them. We just do our job.“

  “Seems to me I do our job,” I corrected him.

  “An ex-con with a grudge against Julian Communications tries to get even, kills two of their suits. Tragic, right? We find the guy and take him out. Job finished. Why piss off Ingo Julian now with some story you can’t prove, anyway?”

  “Don’t forget Brody,” I said. “I already pissed Brody off.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “He won’t complain. I did prevent him from being murdered outside the Yale Club yesterday. That ought to be worth something. And so far as Ingo is concerned, I doubt that he would dare dump Empire, no matter what I say to him this morning. He’ll know we’re onto the game of killer-take-all he and Brody have been playing. I’m sure he’d rather we keep it to ourselves, even if we can’t prove it.”

  “We need Julian Communications. We don’t need you fucking up the relationship. Just what are you trying to accomplish?” he said.

  In my mind’s eye I could see the anger distorting Teague’s face as he spoke, that way he had of looking like an over-inflated balloon ready to pop. I could go on and give him all my good reasons for having it out with Ingo, but I was saving that speech for Ingo himself. Anyway, I knew the surest way to infuriate Roger Teague now that I had lured him into the truth of this bizarre story would be to shut him off. Which I did, just as the boat bumped its way into the ferry slip. “We’re at Shelter. Got to go,” I said into the phone, then rang off before he could respond.

  Ingo and Lisa Harper were in their Park Avenue business attire and about to head for the car when I arrived at the house on Shelter Island. Ingo’s custom-made suit did little to compensate for the warped posture and odd gait that dominated his appearance. He seemed a well-dressed, oversize gnome, covered with scars and discolorations. What had he looked like, I wondered, before the accident?

  “We’re about to leave for New York,” he said. “But I’m pleased to see you. Come sit a moment, yes?” He led the way into the great room and we took seats. “I heard what happened yesterday at Grand Central. It’s a relief to know we don’t have to worry about that Sosenko animal any more. You’re a courageous man, Seidenberg. Good job. We won’t forget it.”

  “I should hope not,” I said.

  Lisa leaned forward on the sofa with her elbows on her knees, as a man would do. “Yes, good job. I think I told you once I wondered if you were as good as Hector told us you were. It seems you are.”

  “I’m sure that was meant to flatter me,” I said to her. “But actually, I’m much better than you think.”

  Her smile was part amused, part puzzled. “Don’t be modest, Seidenberg.”

  “And how good are you, then?” Ingo said.

  “Good enough to know when I’m being manipulated. Good enough to understand, finally, that you never told me the truth behind this business with Sosenko.” It seemed a good time to pause and let it sink in, let them come to realize they hadn’t pulled it off. Not quite.

  They both looked at me in silence, trying, I thought, not to betray any doubt or vulnerability. Not that I cared. I stood and made my way to the white marble bar, which glowed in the morning sun streaming through the sliding glass doors to the balcony. “Would it trouble you if I made myself a drink?”

  “At nine thirty in the morning?” said Ingo.

  “Not morning for me. As I haven’t been to sleep, it’s still very, very late at night. I’m sure you understand my need for a potent adult beverage,” I said. “Been under a lot of stress. Need to loosen up.”

  “Help yourself, by all means,” he told me.

  Moving deliberately, I sought out a decent scotch blend behind the bar. Not finding any, I took the Glenfiddich and poured myself a gentleman’s portion, as opposed to a child’s portion, inspected my drink in the rays of the sun, and had a healthy swallow.

  “Let me save you this awkward little drama, Seidenberg,” Ingo said, after watching me savor his high-priced whiskey. “To begin with, I’m relieved you no longer think I’m really Felix.”

  “No, you are indeed Ingo Julian. Felix went to his reward a long time ago. My error. But you must admit I wasn’t all that far from the truth.”

  ”You mean this fantasy of yours about Arthur Brody mistaking me for my brother in the hospital, and proposing a devil’s bargain? Brody told me about it.”

  “You actually spoke to Brody? You two have kissed and made up, then?”

  “That’s an overstatement, I think. Let’s say we have finally agreed to set our differences aside in the best interests of the company.”

  “What are those differences you’re setting aside, Ingo? No one ever knew for sure.” I paced across the room and looked down at Lisa, who sat there on the couch. “Except you, maybe.” She made no response.

  “A personal thing,” Ingo said. “Nothing to do with you.”

  “Yes, personal,” I said. “Was it because you told him you’d had enough of him, that you were dumping him after the IPO? You’d let him get rich on the stock, but he wasn’t going to be the celebrated president of Julian Communications any more. Problem was, the power meant even more to him than the money. He liked that corner office. He’d sooner have you killed than let you fire him.”

  “No such thing ever happened.” Ingo’s raspy voice was composed and unemotional. He was very good at this.

  “Are you telling me that Brody wasn’t behind Sosenko’s attempts on your life?” I said. “That Sosenko just happened to know when you usually went swimming, the day he drowned Newalis by mistake? Just happened to know when you’d be on the ferry, the day Hector took the bullet meant for you? Tell me, please, how he could possibly have known you and Lisa were driving out with Hector if he didn’t get the word from New York.”

  “This Sosenko appears to have been a crafty and resourceful person,” Ingo said. “He had his methods, I’m sure.”

  “And I suppose you didn’t get to Sosenko and buy him off, turn him against Brody? Of course, who could blame you for fighting back? I’m sure it’s tiresome when someone keeps trying to assassinate you. But of course, that’s just another fantasy of mine.”

  “It would seem,” he said.

  “Now the killer you and Brody both paid is conveniently dead. What a break. A perfect time for you two to strike a new bargain, make a new show of solidarity and save the stock offering. What’s the deal, Ingo? You let Brody stay president and he stops trying to have you killed?”

  “Arthur Brody is immensely valuable to my company. There’s never been any plan for him to leave,” Ingo said.

  Lisa fidgeted uneasily, looking up at me as I stood beside her. “Think what you want, Seidenberg,” she said. “What I can’t understand is why you’re marching around here with a drink in your hand and telling us your absurd story. In addition to alienating your biggest client, what do you hope to accomplish? Why did you come here again?”

  I had some more of the Glenfiddich. “First, I promised Giannone I’d give you his message. He
wants twenty-five thousand dollars to go away.”

  “And not tell anyone his nonsense about what he says happened in the hospital?” Ingo said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Don’t do it, Ingo,” Lisa said. “No one’s going to listen to the babbling of a drug addict. And if you give him money now, he’ll be back for more.”

  “I could be wrong,” I said, “but I think this is a one-time thing. Giannone just wants to straighten himself out. Give him the money, and I believe you’ll never hear from him again. Don’t give him the money, and it’s likely he’ll embarrass you, even if no one believes him.”

  “It’s a bad idea to —“ Lisa began, to Ingo, but he held up his hand and silenced her.

  “All right, twenty-five thousand for this Giannone, then.” Ingo said. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else?”

  “There is,” I told him. “My friend’s brand new pickup truck got badly smashed on the Long Island Expressway while we were chasing Sosenko. As we were in the process of putting our lives on the line for Julian Communications — “

  “We’ll pay for a new truck,” Ingo said. “Anything else?”

  “Only one thing,” I said.

  “Say it, then. We have to leave for the city.” She rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt.

  I wished I were as loose as I’d hoped, with the scotch and all, but the truth was, I was at such a keen edge the drink didn’t matter at all. Didn’t even taste it going down. “You wouldn’t let me in on what was really going on. While I was getting shot at, I was also being lied to and manipulated by experts — Ingo Julian, Arthur Brody and Lisa Harper. Face it, because of you, Hector got slaughtered in the crossfire. And you nearly got my friend shot while we were chasing your killer through Grand Central Station. The sad part is, you really don’t care, any of you. The stock deal will go forward and you’ll all get even richer than you are already. But I want you to know that in the end, I found you out.” I set my glass down on a side table. “I know what you did.”

  “Are you finished, Seidenberg, yes?” Ingo said. I did not respond. He went on, “No matter what you may believe, Kenny Newalis and Hector Alzarez were murdered by a man who thought he had a reason to seek revenge against our company. Working for us, you found that man and put a stop to him. I’m truly sorry if that sounds too simple for you, but clearly that’s what happened. Why confuse the issue? Julian Communications will always be grateful to you and to Empire Security. Our debt of gratitude will be even more valuable to you as our company grows, and Empire becomes more important to us.” He stood, and steered Lisa through the archway that led to the front door. Then, with what appeared to be an afterthought, he stopped, and turned to look at me. “Of course there’s the matter of the fifty thousand special fee Arthur paid you. And another fifty yet to come. No reason for Teague to know about it.”

  “You want it back?” I said.

  “Of course not,” Ingo said. “Given what was at stake, I told Arthur you were cheap at the price. And now this matter is completed.” He opened the door. They both walked through it without looking back.

  CHAPTER XXX

  The Elysium was one of ten boats working the incoming tide at Plum Gut, but none of us were doing any good, that I could tell. I hadn’t seen a fish being boated since we got there.

  We’d motored through the Gut into Long Island Sound and drifted back into the bay a half dozen times, Wally and I dropping chrome jigs to the bottom and reeling them up fast, trying to entice bluefish to chase the shiny lures. Alicia was at the helm, doing a skilful job of keeping the boat right at the edge of the rip where the blues like to snap up the baitfish and squid. Right place, right time, gorgeous calm day. In a perfect world, the big October blues would be walloping anything that moved, but either they weren’t hungry or they weren’t there.

  My experience at the Gut was, if you couldn’t get a strike in the first half hour, chances were you wouldn’t get one all day long. I was ready to move on. “Let’s head out and try Pigeon Rip,” I said. “When they’re not here, they’re at Pigeon Rip.”

  “You know that for a fact, right?” Wally’s voice was muted and constrained, because he barely opened his mouth as he talked. The rifle butt Sosenko had smacked him with had left his jaw an unhealthy shade of purple, and the inside of his mouth painfully scored by his own teeth. I didn’t even like to think about it, but Wally never complained.

  “Guaranteed bluefish at Pigeon Rip,” I told him. Then to Alicia, “Go around the buoy, then steer zero-three — “

  “Zero-three-zero. Yes, I know. Don’t insult me with your directions. I know all the secrets of the sea.” She pulled at the wheel and steered us north out into the Sound.

  Pigeon Rip is a bluefish hot spot three miles from Plum Gut, roughly halfway to New London, Connecticut. Surrounded by water two hundred fifty feet deep, the bottom at the rip rises like an underwater mountain to a depth below the surface of a hundred feet or so, shallow with respect to the rest of the Sound, but still enough water to wear you out when you’re pulling a fighting twelve-pound bluefish off the bottom and up the whole way to the boat.

  As I’d promised, the fish were waiting for us, and while Alicia maneuvered Elysium back and forth across the rip, Wally and I had our way with the blues below. They attacked in a fury with every drift, bending our poles over sharply as they struck the lures, then battled for their lives. Shouting encouragement to each other, Wally and I strained against our poles again and again, and soon had eight fat blues thumping away inside the Elysium’s fish-box.

  “Enough,” Alicia said. “Who’s going to eat all these fish? Leave some for the poor people. Anyway, I’m hungry for lunch. What a lunch I got. Wait till you see.” She motored Elysium out of the path of the two other boats working the rip and headed back toward Plum Gut. In a few minutes she killed the engines and let the boat drift to a standstill in the calm water off Plum Island. She ducked down into the cutty cabin and reappeared with the cooler box, then opened it to reveal, first, a plate of fresh white figs, halved, with each piece wrapped in prosciutto. “Melon with prosciutto is for tourists. Fresh figs with prosciutto is for royalty,” she told us. “Dried figs you get everywhere, but fresh figs are completely impossible to find.”

  “Where did you find these, then?” Wally asked her, wincing with the discomfort of talking.

  “I went to the ends of the earth, and I begged for them, ” Alicia said. “To please two such brave men as you, it was just my small gesture.” She uncorked a bottle of red wine and poured three generous portions into plastic glasses. “A cabernet from the Macari winery, over on the North Road. Pressing from the older vines. Makes a difference. Taste.”

  The lifted our glasses in an unspoken toast and drank, eating the figs until they were gone. Then Alicia unwrapped sandwiches of roasted red peppers, slabs of feta cheese and capers, on French baguettes, perfumed with fruity olive oil and fresh herbs. Wally ate his with some difficulty, moving his jaws in slow motion, but seemed to savor it, anyway. The combination of tastes was just slightly superior to remarkable. The three of us sat in the sunshine, washing down the last of Alicia’s brilliant lunch with the remains of the cabernet. The boat rocked almost imperceptibly in the slight breeze that was beginning to come up from the south.

  “So, Wally,” Alicia said, “you have bought a new pickup truck, then? For the one smashed on the expressway?”

  “Actually, no,” Wally said. “Did the next best thing, though. I took the old one to the auto body shop in Mattituck. They said it’ll be as good as new.”

  “How much?” I said.

  “To the body shop?” said Wally. “Forty-eight hundred.”

  “So subtract that from the twenty thousand Ingo handed over to buy you a new truck, and that gives you —“

  “Fifteen thousand two hundred dollars is what it gives me,” Wally said. “I figure that part’s my fee for pain and suffering. Little enough. You don’t have trouble with that, do you, amigo? Hell,
you got a hundred large, altogether, and you didn’t have to get slugged with a rifle butt to earn it.”

  “I get paid for delivering the goods, not for taking a pounding,” I said. “Anyway, you’d been a little quicker, Sosenko wouldn’t have tagged you.”

  Alicia leaned toward me and screwed her fist, none too gently, into my arm. “You shut up, you. Without Wally you don’t get that Sosenko, and just maybe Sosenko gets you instead.” She brushed her fingers lightly against Wally’s bruised jaw, squinting at him to show she shared his pain. “You are a beautiful man, Wally Prager. Courageous, and handsome, too. I love you forever.”

  Wally smiled a crooked smile, distorted by his tender jaw. “I think I could get to like this investigator stuff. You get adventure. You get money. You get a sexy Italian lady telling you she loves you. I may sell the marina.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said. “These twenty thousand dollar payoffs don’t come along every day.”

  “And what about that drug addict, the one who used to be a doctor?” Alicia said to me. “They give you money for him, too? What does he do with it.”

  “Giannone? I figured if he lived in that warehouse with all that cash on him, somebody’d kill him for it before too long, so I gave it to his sister, “ I said. “He owed her a good piece of it, anyway. And I thought she’ll dole out a few bucks to him when he needs it for clothes, food. Maybe he won’t be able to pump it all into his arm.”

  “So sad,” Alicia said. “A doctor. You think he can recover, ever?”

  “He wants to,” I told her. “But he’s pretty far gone. He sees little animals. I don’t know. Anybody’s guess.”

  “This is such a strange story, all this business,” she said. “Those two men from the company — what are the names?”

  “You mean Ingo and Brody?” I said.

  “Yes, them. They actually try to kill each other. Now they forgive everything because of all the money. Like it never happened. Unbelievable. In Italy, one of them would be dead a long time ago.”