Clamour of Crows

by Ray Merritt

  Nip and I have become a unit that no one has coined a collective noun for. Dixie came the closest—borrowing the words of Forrest Gump—“You two go together like peas and carrots.”

  24

  As we returned to the hotel, I saw Ben’s car approaching fast. It lurched to a stop a few feet away. Viggie bolted toward me. A freeze-frame of anger was etched on his face.

  “Stugot! Bastardo!”

  “Viggie, calm down!” I implored, putting a hand out to brace him. He was hyperventilating.

  Nip sensed that something was very wrong. She quickly moved behind me again. Her instincts signaled retreat; her tail was wagging but her eyes were bulging. They never left Viggie.

  “That shithead Sandino! His uncle killed mia famiglia. I told you about the man who killed my family—Greco Sandino. The Sandinos did Corleone’s killings, you remember. That bastard must be one of the Sandino sons. Now he’s capo to that man Grogaman.

  “I listened to them. I know you said I shouldn’t, but this time it was about family. Mine . . . and yours. I turned on the recorder. They gave me no attention . . . I didn’t matter to them.”

  He started shaking again.

  “Vig, keep calm. Remember you’re my capo now and I need you. You’re no good to me like this.”

  His head snapped back perceptibly as he exhaled. I thought I saw momentarily a flush on his face. I think he understood, perhaps for the first time, that he was valued for more than his driving skills and storytelling.

  “I’ll be OK, Mr. T, but it was—how do you say—a shot to me.”

  “I’m sure it was, but how do you know he was part of that family?”

  “Oh, you can tell. The hair! Blond men in my country they come from the North. That is where the Sandinos live. He has their hair. He carries their hate in his heart. Some things you just know.”

  Again rage began to spread across his face like the onset of hives.

  “Did they ask you for your name?”

  “No, I wasn’t important enough. Now you can hear and you will understand.” He handed me the recorder; I handed him Nip’s leash. She wasn’t so sure, but she gamely sidled up to him.

  “Meet me here in forty minutes, you could stand a little fresh air.”

  As they walked away, I called Dixie, advising him of my early return and asking him to meet me at Ben’s place. I then packed, paid our bill and had the concierge put my stuff in Viggie’s room. I waited for them at the steps of the park. This time Viggie arrived noticeably calmer. I knew Nip would calm him down. I then told him to drive back to New York, with a stern admonition to take care—no speeding—and to drop off the Ozone papers at Dixie’s apartment.

  “Nip may get antsy when she realizes that I’m not going. Have her sit in the front and just tell her more stories about Tuscany. She won’t understand, but she’ll listen.”

  I then cabbed it to the shuttle.

  As the plane leveled off at cruising altitude, I reached for the recorder. Fortunately it was a clear day as I headed to New York—no turbulence. I had about forty minutes to listen to the tape.

  I was crossing the line again. Each time it put me closer to where I did not want to be. Yet, again, with only the slightest pause, I hooked in the earpiece and turned on the recorder.

  . . . what a freakin’ asshole idea, selling ClearAire. Russett would love to take the cream from Ozone and leave us with the dregs. He knows what he’s doing. Goddamn! This is all Ben’s doing—the old fart! It wouldn’t surprise me if he probably put that in his Will. It doesn’t matter. I can stop this at the board if nothing new erupts. Baum was the only person pushing for the sale. I don’t like Tucker nosing around. He’s been trouble before. I really thought with Baum out of the way, we could rest easy with the Madeira operation. No one’s inquired about them for years. Now Tucker’s guy is asking for those files. This could be trouble.

  This, on top of the government sniffing around. The SEC doesn’t really worry me, though. They’re so full of shit, they couldn’t smell a rose if you shoved it up their nose. What does bother me is Russett. The brokers say that he is continuing to buy Ozone stock and lots of the hedge guys are following him.

  Maybe they figure he’ll do a back-end run—go for the whole pie. If he can’t get ClearAire alone, he’ll take Ozone and sell off the other pieces! His stock holdings are getting close to 5 percent. Smells like he’s lining up for some friendly fire. I will not give this up. Not now. Not ever!

  Russett will play hardball like he always does, but he’s picked the wrong dog to fight with. Trombley played it right in London—he came up with the idea to let me buy ClearAire. He knew that Baum would resist that. Now, with Baum gone, I suspect that control of his shares will shift to Trombley since he’s the executor. He’ll want to keep things the way they are.

  So, Boss, what do you want me to do?

  With Tucker and the SEC fishing around, and the Swiss gnomes going soft on secrecy, it is a good time to close down Barcelona. Where’s Trig? We might need him.

  Boss, I guess you didn’t hear. He took it in Fallujah last night, got in a street fight with three locals but a fourth guy popped him from a window.

  No! Too bad! But you know he was a bit over the top even for us. Well, what about you, Sandy? You up to that kind of task?

  You can count on me, Boss.

  Damn it to hell. Never expected Tucker back. Didn’t like him before, don’t like him now. Too bad he didn’t go down with the missus . . .

  Now I was the one hyperventilating. The woman next to me edged closer to the window. I was afraid she was going to reach for the attendant button.

  I forced myself to appear calm, but my mind was in overdrive. My animosity toward Luc was metastasizing into hatred. What did I expect from him? He liked to kill. Some humans—too many—do. Whether it’s an animal like Snowdrop or a human they decree to be the enemy, they get a rush when their prey is in the scope of their rifle.

  Some people are just that way. It kind of explains why we are the only species that kills its own on a regular basis. Perhaps Luc and his ilk are the denizens of the dark side that Ben was alluding to in his prec letter . . . “too despicable to speak of.”

  This matter had just gotten very personal. Somehow, I had to get a collar on my emotions. Either that or resign this job.

  A bumpy landing mercifully distracted me and I quickly exited to the relief of my seatmate. This tape I was not burning—or returning.

  This one was mine.

  25

  The fleet of curbside taxis was endless so the wait was short. The ride back was your standard New York experience—a crabby cabbie, pushing maniacally through city traffic, spouting cynicisms all the way in a dialect I couldn’t understand.

  Luc’s comments hung around in the back of my mind like a harbor bell in the fog, making idle thought impossible.

  I didn’t handle our meeting well. I must admit he’d made a good brief for ClearAire, proclaiming that his division was now the largest private military support company in the world, with 20,000 advisers in training at all times. “Balance and Support in the Battle for Security” was its slogan. He boasted that they had more than 18,000 operatives—each commanding an annual fee of $400,000, and double that amount for sensitive duty.

  In the past, I had tried to suck up to Luc, to no avail. His personal defense shield was impenetrable; there were no fissures. He wouldn’t submit to flattery; he wasn’t looking for an alliance. He never, at least in my presence, mentioned anything personal.

  He remained as I remembered him—drum-tight, fit, and always on the offensive.

  The Marine Corps had almost done the same to me. Military demeanor is all about physical prowess and respect for authority—programmed perfection, tight lips, and creaseless comportment. That was why I didn’t reenlist. Four years was more than enough.

  I found the law firm the polar opposite. The muscle mass was above the collar; fealty was only conditional. Professional standards had to govern
your actions. The means had to be as justified as the end.

  Being more Thomistic than Sophistic, I really thought I had found my place.

  Unfortunately you quickly learned that compromise was constant; rationalizations and exhaustion often overrode caution. Sometimes your standards got as wrinkled as your suits. Those were some of the reasons that kept me from rejoining the Firm.

  My vibrating thigh-mate beckoned, breaking my torment. I smiled ruefully. Nip wasn’t around to give me that look. She was unnecessarily jealous of the iPhone. “Nip!” I laughed silently. “Don’t be jealous. You’re not losing your place. Remember, I never turn you off.”

  The message that popped up was from Dixie, advising that he was on his way to the townhouse and would await my arrival. We lurched to a slow crawl as we passed the site of the world’s fair. The slower we went, the louder my hackie’s rant.

  Both were rankling me so I hit “D” on my speed dial and closed the partition. Dixie’s effervescence and benign irreverence made him easy to like, and his quiet savvy was earning my respect. He immediately launched into his report on his visit to the coroner’s office.

  “Lucky you had the foresight to get the letter from Evan . . . er, Mr. Trombley. Normally they won’t speak to anyone but the next of kin. The London office also helped in getting me quick access. Seems the coroner’s staff wanted no more to do with the Baum matter—but more on that later. Normally in London corpse removal is handled by funeral homes or crematoriums, under the direction of the deceased’s doctor or the hospital administrator. The coroner’s office gets involved only if there is something fishy—or, as in this case, if the decedent is a foreigner.

  “The officer assigned to this case, Dr. Blakely, was friendly but not very forthcoming. He said that his office received a call from the hotel’s physician asking them to process the body. Shortly after the body was released to the funeral home, he received a visit from Mr. Abelard, armed with a letter from the widow authorizing him to make arrangements for Ben . . . excuse me, Mr. Baum’s burial.”

  I smiled. For associates, working out the protocol for addressing clients and partners is an important part of their maturation. Deference must be rendered to both but the salutation is not to be excessive or fawning. And partners are rarely helpful. They seem to relish an associate’s unease. The first week every partner is referred to as “sir,” until you begin to blanch at your own obsequiousness. Out of earshot, partners are simply referred to by either their last names or their first—the former to register distance or disdain, the latter to suggest an enviable intimacy.

  “Dixie—let’s set some ground rules. The three of us are going to be up close and personal for the next few weeks. You can call me Tuck, Jonathan, or Mr. Tucker—just never Tucker. I prefer Tuck; my friends use that. And as for the Wiz, let’s just call him Ben. Nicknames seem best for the living.”

  “Thanks, that makes it easy . . . and I’ll advise Drew.”

  Dixie quickly resumed. “Next I visited with the hotel doctor—Dr. Cornelius. He asked if I was aware of Mister—Ben’s—medical history, and when I responded ‘his cancer,’ he relaxed and opened up. Seems he arrived in response to Ms. Krkavec’s call. He examined Ben in his bedroom, confirming that he was dead. He volunteered that there were no signs of contusions or injury and, in the absence of any other indicator, he concluded the cause was a coronary event. He then called the coroner’s office, following the protocol for deaths of foreigners. He indicated that Mr. Trombley and Ms. Krkavec were present when he arrived, but that she left shortly after he confirmed Ben’s passing.

  “He told me that the widow’s assistant, named Abelard, had later advised him that the widow wanted the body buried at sea. When told that was illegal, she opted for cremation and directed that the ashes be immediately scattered at sea without any ceremony.

  “The hotel doc. He is a bit of a character. He is small and very officious. He told me that although he was Austrian by birth, his father was English and that he has worked in London in his present position for eight years. He reminded me of the Munchkin coroner in the Oz movie. I almost expected him to proclaim that Ben was ‘really most sincerely dead!’ But it didn’t take him long to loosen up. He considered himself Ben’s London doctor and friend. He often provided Ben and his son with prescriptions for an assortment of pills, including Mr. Blues. Not sure that Pfizer would welcome that endorsement. He also advised that this was his last week at work and that he was moving to Africa to work with the poor.

  “A few other points. The good doctor confided that the body was exceedingly moist with sweat when he arrived. Then following hotel protocol, he stayed with the body until the ambulance arrived and he then accompanied the body to the morgue. He seemed very genuine. I think he really cared about Ben. He said he didn’t spend any time with Evan. He noted that just before the body was removed, Mr. Abelard arrived, apparently dispatched by the widow. He insisted on staying in the living room until the body was gone. According to Evan, Abelard then went into the bedroom and removed all of Baum’s clothing, jewelry, papers, and personal items and he remained until the maids came and repaired the room.

  “Dr. Cornelius told me that he has had more than thirty guest fatalities, every one of them due to heart issues. He explained there was a hotel protocol for making the process as discreet as possible. They had to respect the living. I assume he meant the other paying guests.

  “So those are the highlights. I’ll write up my notes tonight in memo form. One last thing that might be of interest. I asked the doctor for his personal feeling on the event and his response was pretty fascinating. I had used my pocket recorder to help me when I wrote my report and I copied his last comments verbatim. I then destroyed the tapes. I had not gotten his permission. I’ll read it to you.”

  . . . so sad. He was having a harvest of trouble. To me, though, he was, as my grandmother used to say, mein gute alter Freund. He had been slipping a bit lately, and his memory was failing him. I wonder if he might even have had early dementia.

  Did you order an autopsy?

  Oh, heavens no! Unless there was physical evidence of trauma or a wound, our protocol is to release the body to the next of kin. That was Mrs. Baum, and if she wanted an autopsy, she could have requested the coroner’s office to conduct one. He was a good person, a generous person. I’ll miss him. He still had a lot of life left in him. He should not have let all of this happen.

  “He wouldn’t elaborate. I felt he wished he could have taken that last comment back.”

  “Dixie, thanks, but I have to get off. I’m pulling into my apartment and I’m off to see Charlotte for an update. It’s too late to meet with you now. Oh, before I forget, would you check with Terry to see if she has any executive travel records relating to any trips to Florida in the last four years and also to Spain—Barcelona in particular. Also can you find out if there is much office buzz about Russett’s interest in Ozone? And finally, call a Mr. Sandino, in Grogaman’s office, and find out when we can get the complete file on those Madeira companies. It wasn’t included—notwithstanding our request—in the files given to Viggie when he went out to ClearAire.”

  I thumbed my phone off. It was becoming apparent that Dixie was a good and patient listener. He makes people feel he is giving them his full attention. That’s a seductive trait lost on many young lawyers. And his humility, candor, and humor are disarming. They cause people to take him into their confidence.

  He was, as we say, a keeper.

  26

  I have a set formula for selecting my attire. Shirt from the top of the pile, shorts with the most elastic, trousers with remnants of a crease, shoes with a semblance of polish. Then I top that off with the sweater with the least lint balls and the jacket with the fewest dog hairs. Finally, double-checking that the socks are a close match, I am ready to roll.

  Style tips from the fashion-challenged.

  That evening, though, I was obsessing over my sweater, which for me was abnormal. Nip foun
d my fussing quizzical and fixated on my ritual, her head tilted to the side in puzzlement.

  “Don’t give me that look! I am not going on a date. This is business . . . and no, you’re not coming. Why don’t you just butt out!”

  The fact was that I was looking forward to dinner. Charlotte was one of the few links to my past. Other than Nip, she was the only one who knew my family. When I lost Alice and the kids, we became good friends.

  Nip just doesn’t like it when I leave. She really never got used to being alone. When I wasn’t there, she always had Alice and the kids and she still misses them. I tried to visualize Alice’s reaction to all of this. I could no longer quite see her with the clarity of three years ago.

  It is upsetting when memories fade.

  I looked at my watch. “Nip,” I said in my best White Rabbit voice, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-bye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”

  And, in fact, I was.

  I had made the reservation for six thirty at the East Side Social. The restaurant was not too far a walk for me, but too short to cab it. So I had to hustle. It was a good place for us to meet. The food was excellent, the decor nonoffensive, and the tables sufficiently spread apart that we could talk in other than whispers and code. Dark wood, dark tables, no tablecloths—except in the booths. The most distinctive wall art was the neon exit sign. I picked that time to meet—much too early for the latte-lite crowd and little chance of meeting any Firm personnel. Its rigorous ordinariness made it comfortable for me.

  To my dismay, Charlotte was already there. She was wearing loose black slacks and an oversized gray cashmere turtleneck that cradled her cascading black hair. Her hands were almost white, unblemished by sun or age. She didn’t walk in the woods, I surmised. Her long fingers held no jewelry. I liked that. I’d always found her great-looking, but on this particular evening a tenseness diminished her beauty. After a brief exchange of mea culpas and absolutions, we ordered. Pork, lamb, strip, and rib eye were the menu’s mainstays, garnished with an assortment of mushrooms, marsala, and parmesan. I, as always, ordered the Sunday Spaghetti—Grandma’s Special Recipe, which when decoded meant meatballs and spiked with an abundance of garlic, chili, and a touch of cream. Charlotte demurred and settled on mixed baby lettuce with lemon and olive oil—a feast for a size three.