Death's little helpers jm-2

by Peter Spiegelman

  A shower and a decent meal had restored Jane last night, and the prospect of the days ahead, full of lawyers and wall-to-wall meetings, had filled her with a taste for freedom, and so we’d stayed out late. A jazz trio was playing at Fez, and we’d gone there after dinner for the ten o’clock set. We lingered for the midnight show as well, and then we’d strolled up Broadway and had dessert at an all-night place off Union Square. Then we’d come back here and taken off our clothes and made love until we were insensate.

  And we did not once discuss my case or mention the scene on the sidewalk. Don’t ask, don’t tell. I finished stretching and got into the shower.

  I was drinking coffee when Neary called. He was on his cell and he spoke loudly over traffic noise.

  “I talked to some people about your pal out in Jersey,” he said. He told me what some people had to say.

  “His name is Valentin Gromyko, and he’s from the Ukraine by way of Paris and Madrid. And apparently he’s a real comer. He started here a few years ago with a crew of Slavs, doing hijack work around the Port of Elizabeth. From there he got bigger and branched out into protection, gambling, and loan-sharking. He’s moved north too, into Passaic and Paterson and, lately, Fort Lee. And he’s been giving the old guys a real pain in the ass- crowding them, undercutting them, stopping just short of out-and-out war. He took over a boiler-room operation from one of them a couple of years ago. Could be that’s what you saw.”

  “Any idea how he’s connected to Gilpin?”

  Neary snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “Gromyko owns the guy.”

  “Owns as in…?”

  “As in lock, stock, and barrel. It seems Gilpin is a big bettor, and a really stupid one, too. About a year ago, he got in over his head with his bookie- six figures over- and the bookie sold his paper to Gromyko. Gilpin’s been working off the debt ever since, doing what he does best. But you know how that goes. With a nut that size and the vig on top, he’ll never see the light of day. And it’s not like he can call the cops.”

  Neary’s voice dissolved into static, and the connection dropped. I hung up the phone and waited for a call back and thought about Gilpin while I did. I thought about what he’d told me of his last conversation with his brother- about the loan he didn’t get- and I thought about Gilpin’s exhausted caged-animal look. I felt sorry for the guy. The phone rang; it was Neary.

  “These people you’re talking to know a lot about Gromyko,” I said.

  “Not enough for an indictment,” Neary said. “They tell me Gromyko’s a cautious guy. He’s not flashy and he keeps a close eye on things, and he doesn’t make waves unless he has to. But when he does, he’s thorough about it. Nothing floats back up.” I was quiet and Neary swore at an unseen driver.

  “You have any more company?” he asked.

  “Not today,” I said, and I told him about the van. It was his turn to be quiet.

  “And you don’t think this comes from Gromyko?” he said finally.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should go over and ask.”

  “Ask nice.”

  “Nice is my best thing,” I said. Neary snorted. “Ever hear of an outfit called Foster-Royce?” I asked him.

  “It’s a Brit agency, and they work a lot in Europe. I’ve never dealt with them but I hear they’re pretty good. Why?” I explained how I’d come across the name, and Neary thought some more. “You think he hired them?” he asked.

  “Could be, or could be one of their people came to talk to him about something. Nobody at Foster-Royce will tell me one way or the other.” Neary made a sympathetic noise and rang off.

  I finished my coffee and called Nina Sachs and once again got no answer. I thought about driving over to see Gromyko, but I didn’t have nearly enough caffeine in me for Jersey just yet, and it was still too early. I went to the table and looked at the lists of phone numbers waiting for me there.

  I filled my mug and switched on the laptop. I checked my e-mail, but there was no sign of the phone records I’d bought last week. I cursed to myself; phone records would make this a lot easier. I opened a spreadsheet and began to transcribe dates, times, names, and numbers from my notes and to match answering machine messages to the telephone numbers from the caller ID list. It was a tedious process, but coffee helped. I ticked and tied, and whenever I came across a number with no name attached, I consulted an online reverse directory to fill in the blanks. I hadn’t paid much attention to the numbers as I’d copied them down at Danes’s place- I’d just wanted to get them all, and quicklybut now, typing them into the spreadsheet, I saw a pattern.

  Danes had gone on vacation just over six weeks ago, and the first of the fifty calls in his telephone’s memory was dated two days after he’d left. But the messages on his answering machine went back only three weeks or so. Almost thirty calls had come in during those first two and a half weeks. Had none of those callers opted to leave a message? Somehow I didn’t think so.

  I recognized many of the numbers on the caller ID list, including Danes’s own cell phone number. It appeared over and over again, at regular intervals of three days, and always around the same time of day: 6 p.m. And then, just over three weeks ago, just before the first message had been recorded on his answering machine, it stopped appearing. I was pretty sure Danes had been calling in to retrieve and erase the messages on his answering machine. But I had no idea of where he’d been calling from and no more than a bad feeling about why he’d stopped.

  I listed the names that owned the numbers appearing on Danes’s caller ID. It was a short list, and, other than Danes’s divorce lawyer, I’d already spoken to all the people on it. But the names on the list didn’t account for every call that Danes had received. Scattered across the six weeks of his absence, there were over a dozen calls that had registered on Danes’s phone only as PRIVATE, with no number or name associated. Telemarketers maybe. Or maybe not. I looked at the short list of callers and wondered again at how small his world seemed to be.

  I drove a Buick across the bridge. Other than that, things were pretty much the same in Fort Lee: asphalt and bad traffic, all covered in rain. The little office building was still there, with its white bricks stained the color of tea. The smell was still bad in the tiny elevator, and worse in the fourth-floor hallway. And the girl was still there, with her white skin and tattoos and scary breasts, smoking behind her desk and watching TV. She looked at me with tiny, empty eyes. After a while recognition came.

  “What you want?” she asked, and blew smoke at me.

  “I need to talk to Gromyko.”

  She looked at me some more and took a long pull on her cigarette. “Who’s Gromyko?” she said.

  I sighed and shook my head. “I’ll be at the bar down the street.” The girl blinked at me and said nothing, and I left.

  Roxy’s was empty, and dim enough that the dA©cor was mostly hypothetical. Amber lamps shone behind the battered black bar onto the bottles and the glassware and the chromed cash register, and the only other light came from the EXIT signs and through the small front window. There was a gray-haired guy built like a fireplug behind the bar, and a shadow at the far end that might have been a waitress. I bought a club soda and took it to a table by the window. I drank slowly and watched the rain come down. It took Gromyko an hour to get there.

  The black Hummer pulled up in front of the bar, and the big blond guy who looked like a shark got out of the passenger seat, opened the rear door, and held an umbrella. Gromyko stepped out and said something to the shark, who nodded. He got back in the front seat and Gromyko crossed the pavement and came in.

  He ignored me and went to the bar and spoke quietly to the bartender, who passed him a steaming paper cup and a napkin. Then he walked up front and sat down across from me. Raindrops beaded on his short blond hair, and his pale narrow face was still. He dunked his tea bag in and out of the hot water and looked at me.

  “I did not expect to see you again,” he said quietly.

  “Same here, but so
mething’s come up.”

  Gromyko took his tea bag out of his cup and put it on the napkin. He blew on the tea and swallowed some and looked at me, waiting.

  “When I drove back to the city on Friday, I had some company. Two cars: a black Grand Prix and a brown Cavalier. Ring any bells?”

  Gromyko sipped more of his tea. A tiny crease appeared between his canted gray eyes. “No.”

  “How about a Ford Econoline van, light blue, with smoked glass and mud on the plates?”

  He raised his head slightly, then turned and motioned through the window. The shark climbed out of the Hummer and trotted into the bar. Gromyko spoke softly and rapidly and I understood none of it. The shark nodded and replied and Gromyko dismissed him.

  “Did he know something about this?” I asked, but Gromyko ignored the question.

  “Why do you bring this to me?”

  “I thought there might be a connection,” I said. “I picked up the tails after talking to you.”

  Gromyko shook his head. “Did it not occur to you that that was simply the first time you noticed them?” he asked, and he sipped again at his tea. “There are more profitable ways for me to allocate my resources than to following you, and more pressing business for me to attend to.” He emptied his cup and crumpled it so quickly and completely that it seemed to vanish before my eyes.

  “What about your colleague, Goran? Is he up to any freelancing?”

  Gromyko’s small mouth moved minutely. “Goran is no longer with me,” he said. “It is not Goran.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Utterly,” he said. I was quiet, thinking. Gromyko was poised to stand, but he didn’t.

  “Is it possible someone latched on to me while they were looking at you?”

  A colder light came into his eyes, and the little crease on his forehead deepened. His voice grew quieter. “I think not,” he said.

  I nodded and gestured toward the Hummer. “Did he know anything about this?” I asked.

  Gromyko nodded imperceptibly. “He was escorting Gilpin from the office on Saturday and thought a blue van might have followed him for a time. It broke off before he could act on it. The license was covered with dirt.” I waited for more, but nothing more came.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “No theories on what it was about?”

  Gromyko’s face was as calm as an icon’s. “It is possible that I could be of assistance to you, Mr. March, but I do not operate a charitable organization. My advisory services are valuable, and for them I expect payment in kind.”

  I laughed and put on my best Marlon Brando voice. “Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.”

  Gromyko raised an eyebrow and gave me an icy microscopic smile. “It is not a currency I expect you wish to part with,” he said, and he stood. “Your calculation in the garage, with Goran, bought you something, Mr. March, but do not be misled by that. Do not intrude on my business again. Do not come here.” He picked up the crumpled cup, the tea bag, and the napkin and placed them on the bar and left. The shark was out of the car again, umbrella in hand, before Gromyko was through the door.

  I took a deep breath. A television came on at the far end of the bar. A soccer game was in progress, before a large crowd in a sunny clime. The play-by-play was in a language I didn’t recognize, but it was lively and plentiful and the barman seemed to find it amusing. Outside, the street was wet and ugly, and the prospect of walking to my car and driving back to the city seemed, all of a sudden, a hideously complicated thing.

  I ran a hand over my face. I was tired, and only some of it was lack of sleep. Too many hours at the laptop had left me with bleary eyes and a bad feeling about Danes, but little else, and this trip to Fort Lee had been only slightly more productive. I believed Gromyko when he said he wasn’t having me followed- even if there was more to the story that he hadn’t told me. That let me take his name off my list, but it got me no closer to whoever was following me, and certainly no closer to Danes himself.

  I drank off the melted ice at the bottom of my glass and rubbed my eyes. It was warm in the bar and soothing in the dim light. The images of running men were bright and cheery, and the foreign words were animated and friendly sounding. The shadow at the end of the bar began to move around the room, lighting the little candles on the tables. It was a waitress. She was black-haired and lithe, and I wondered what her name was and what her voice might sound like. The barman put two shot glasses on the bar and pulled a bottle from beneath the counter. Vodka. He filled a glass and looked over at me and held up the bottle.

  “You want?” he asked. “On house.”

  I was scared by how long it took me to tell him no.

  Nina Sachs had called while I was in Jersey, and when I called her back she actually answered the phone.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she said. “I left a message over a day ago.” Her voice was scratchy and fast and made me grind my teeth.

  “And I’ve called you back- but no one picks up.”

  “I’m working,” she snapped. I heard her lighter spark.

  “So am I, Nina.”

  “Yeah- for me.”

  “For the moment.”

  Nina Sachs sighed and cleared her throat. “All right, all right, let’s stop pissing at each other. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  I started with Gilpin. Sachs smoked and listened while I told her about my trip to Fort Lee, and her only response was mild surprise that Danes had had any contact at all with his half brother. I tried the name Gromyko out on her, but she’d never heard of him.

  I moved on to Danes’s apartment and the evidence I’d found of a relationship between him and Linda Sovitch. The news brought laughter rather than surprise.

  “Christ, is that how she lines up her guests?” she said, with a nasty chuckle. Then she thought about it some more. “You think Sovitch was bullshitting you when she said she didn’t know anything about where Greg is?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t know for sure that there was anything going on between them. That’s why I want to talk to her again.”

  “Trust me”- Sachs snickered-“she leaves her underwear, there’s something going on. What else did you come up with?”

  “A business card,” I said, and told her about Foster-Royce. “It’s a detective agency, based in London. They have offices in New York and a bunch of other places, and apparently they do a lot of international work. And they’re at least good enough at it not to tell me whether Danes is a client of theirs. You have any idea why he’d hire an outfit like that?”

  There was silence, and then Nina sighed. “How the hell should I know?”

  “Has he hired PIs before?”

  “I told you, I have no idea. What else did you find?”

  I took a deep breath and told her that Danes’s apartment had already been searched, and that someone had been following me, at least since my first trip to Fort Lee. Sachs went quiet, and all I heard for a long while were the soft sounds of her smoking.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she asked eventually. Her puzzlement was genuine.

  “Someone else is looking for him. I haven’t figured out who yet, or why.”

  Frustration boiled in Sachs’s voice and spilled out as anger. “I thought I paid you to figure things out, for chrissakes. But all I get from you is speculation and more fucking questions!”

  I didn’t hang up on her, but I thought hard about it. I took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “That’s the way this works sometimes, Nina. In fact, that’s the way it works most of the time- and getting mad about it doesn’t change things.”

  She started to speak, stopped herself, and swallowed everything but a derisive snort. “Fucking racket,” she said under her breath. “Do you have any actual progress to report?”

  “I have more fucking speculation,” I said. “You can decide if it’s progress.” I told her about the phone messages on Danes’s mach
ine, and the calls on his caller ID, and the pattern I’d seen. Saying it out loud made it more troubling.

  “He was calling in on a regular basis, Nina, every three days, for over two weeks. And then he just stopped.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “When was this again?” she asked finally.

  I read her the date of the last call from Danes’s cell phone. “The messages on the answering machine start piling up right after.”

  “Maybe he was waiting for a call,” she said softly. “Maybe he finally got it, so he stopped checking in.”

  “I suppose that’s one possibility.”

  “And the other is what, that something happened to him?” The irritation and petulance were back in her voice. “And I suppose you’re going to lecture me again about calling the cops? Well, I don’t have time for it.” I heard her suck a lungful of smoke.

  “You have to make time soon, Nina, because I’ve only got a few more people to talk to, and if they don’t lead anywhere I’m going to be out of things to do for you- not without spending a lot more of your money.”

  Nina Sachs swore to herself. “Look, I’m working right now. Give me a day or two and we’ll talk about this, okay? Come by on Thursday.” I sighed and agreed and she hung up.

  I put my phone on the counter and looked out the window. The rain had stopped and a breeze stirred the water that pooled at the curbs and on the rooftops. Umbrellas had vanished and people moved more easily on the sidewalks. Traffic was light and nicely unfamiliar.

  Peter Spiegelman

  JM02 – Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home

  16

  “You’ve got to take it outside, sir,” the security guard said. “And there’s no loitering anywhere on this block.” He was six-foot-five and about 275 pounds, and his maroon blazer was strained to tearing across his shoulders. Of the dozen or so armed guards in the stone lobby of BNN’s fortresslike West Side studios, he was the most petite. He held his big arms wide and made a little pushing motion in the air, in the direction of the revolving doors. I was not inclined to argue. Besides, I was used to it; people had been telling me to get lost for much of the day. I walked over to Broadway and found a coffee place.