by Jim Stevens
Alexis stares at her shoes.
“So, I conclude it was a family type operation. You did Alvin, Clayton, Brewster, maybe an uncle, a distant cousin… business partners when they were in town?”
Alexis bites her lip, “I only did Alvin.”
“Diane do the rest?”
“Brewster.”
“Really?” And they said he didn’t have the balls.
I pace around the small room. “Was it just you or was Diane also in the condo the night before Alvin died?”
“We weren’t there.”
I stop. “Dumb to lie now; don’t you think?”
“Both of us,” she says.
“You do Alvin that night?”
“Yeah.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Around one.”
“That jives with the cab.” I never checked with the cab company, but said this anyway to make myself seem a little more professional. “Leave alone?”
“I had another appointment. Fridays are prime time in this business.”
“Alvin promised to pay what he owed you that night, didn’t he?”
“How’d you know?”
“I’m real smart,” I say. “Why didn’t he?”
“He was in such a surly mood, that asking him would have been suicide.”
I pause to consider a number of questions.
“Was there an old guy there, about sixty, probably wearing a tweed sport coat, limping a bit?”
“His accountant.”
“You ever see him before?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Fun guy?”
“Swell, just swell.”
“Diane hang around after you left?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she get out of working for Nick that Friday?”
“Monthly excuse.”
At times being a woman has its rewards.
“Could Diane have gotten paid and not you?”
“Certainly hope not.”
I walk over to look out the window at the city beneath. “Were there guys at the party you had never seen?”
“One.”
“A guy named Joey Villano?” I ask, wait…see the name doesn’t register and add, “Italian, dark hair, maybe thirty, pudgy, maybe a bit on the nerdy side?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Small party, eh?”
“Intimate,” she says.
I check my watch. Tiffany is, no doubt, downstairs wondering how I have managed to last so long.
“Do you have my money, Sherlock?”
I flip two Ben Franklins on the coffee table. “I have what you’ll need to pay Nick for my time.” I wait for her to pick up the bills. “I hate to inform you, Alexis, but I’m not sure Diane and you were equal partners.”
“Why not?”
I’m not only fishing, but I’m casting way, way out. “I get these hunches. I can’t explain them.
Alexis asks, “Would you trust her if you were me?”
“She makes her living screwing people.”
“So do I.”
23
Exfoliate. You'll feel better
I sit in front of what is now a wall of recipe cards. The Original Carlo is totally covered. I remind myself that lives are a series of patterns.
Mine, for example, is a series of failed female relationships. To say I don’t do well with women is an understatement. My third grade, sixth grade, and junior year girlfriends dumped me for jocks. No wonder I’m not much of a sports fan. In college, the women I liked didn’t like me; and the ones that liked me, I didn’t much care for. My ex and I fell in love and our love resulted in a pregnancy. Pregnancy begat marriage. Marriage made for a life of diapers, credit card bills, and complaints, mostly about my job. In our first six months, we had less and less time together, and less and less love. After Kelly was born, the descent continued. To break the negative pattern, we took our first “weekend away,” which was meant to rekindle the love-lust my wife and I once thought we had for one another. The only success over that weekend was to get pregnant again, which doubled the daughters, diapers, bills and complaints. The only thing worse than my marriage was my divorce. Not only was I taken to the cleaners, but taken back repeatedly each time a wrinkle was discovered.
Now, in the middle of the night, I search the cards for patterns and see none. I am at the point of asking all the suspects to line up and take off all their clothes so I can see if each has a similar tattoo.
___
Joan Augustus lived in one of those highrise one-bedroom condos that, in my estimation, would have been considered a cramped, boring, non-descript apartment until the downtown condo conversion boom of the 1990s turned these units into chic, urban enclaves. For Joan’s sake, I hope her condo holds its value as well as she’s held the grudge against her ex-husband.
“I should have killed him,” she tells me. “I thought about it about a million times. I planned it, plotted it, and watched it play out in my head over and over. There is a window in the bank building across the street with a perfect line of sight to the front door of the Board of Trade. I was going to sneak up there, do a Lee Harvey Oswald, blasting him with a high-powered rifle the second he stepped out of that revolving door.” She pauses, reflecting, “Would that be a fitting end or what, his blood staining the spot of concrete where the sun never shines?”
“Certainly would have been poetic. Why didn’t you do it?”
“Somebody beat me to it.”
“Too bad,” I say, “would have made my life a lot easier.”
Joan sips coffee, seated at a small table pushed against the one wall in her kitchen. “I hated him. He made my life a living hell. I had every reason in the world to kill him and I should have; I don’t deny it.”
With each word, Joan rises rapidly upward on the list of The Most Likely.
“You wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it.”
“Satisfaction.”
“Pretty big risk for something you can’t take to the bank.”
“Probably why I never got around to doing it.”
“Any other reason?”
“Clayton.”
“Really? Because I don’t get the feeling he was all that enamored with his daddy, either.”
“As horrible as Alvin was, he was the father of my son.”
“Clayton is Alvin’s son?” I have no idea why I ask this question. It pops out of my mouth without forethought.
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure,” Joan shouts. “What kind of a person do you think I am?”
“You were just waxing nostalgic about putting a slug though his heart as he’s leaving work.”
“That’s different.”
“Of course, silly me.”
Joan has no job, no business or career; and I suspect few friends. She must hang around this place all day, reading bodice-ripper paperbacks, such as the one open on the kitchen counter with a Fabio look-alike on the cover.
“Those two detectives tell you where I was when Alvin was killed?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, “but I never said I was good at it.”
“You want to know?”
“Not really.”
I see on her refrigerator a number of magnets, but no pictures, notes, or lists being held in place. “You could have paid somebody to kill him.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Remember, ‘he made your life a living hell?’”
“I don’t think so,” she says.
“Did you know someone took a shot at him?”
“When?”
“A week or two before he died.”
“Too bad they missed.”
My back hurts. All the time sitting up nights, staring at recipe cards on the wall is taking its toll on my lumbar region.
I
cut to the chase. “Who do you think killed Alvin?”
“No doubt about it, Doris whacked him.”
___
Tiffany refuses to visit Herman alone. I have to meet her at his apartment and we go in together.
“What did you find out?”
Herman removes the toothpick from his mouth, tucks it into the greasy hair behind his ear for future use, and says, “It had to be an inside job.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t touch her credit cards. Whoever did Christina got her password, pin numbers, and merely transferred all her money from her account to a number of his accounts all within a few hours.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred grand.”
“The lesbo kept two hundred grand in her checking account?” Tiffany asks rhetorically. “Even I wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“Her last trust fund payment kicked in a week before.”
“She tell you all this, Herman?” I ask.
“No.” Herman rubs his ample stomach. “You guys want some cheese?”
“No thanks.”
“Pass,” Tiffany adds.
“How did you find out?” I ask.
“I’m sneaky,” he says.
Herman struggles out of the non-squeaking chair, goes to the refrigerator and removes a baggie from the crisper drawer. He finds a filthy Swiss Army knife in the sink and returns to his seat, where he removes the hunk of bluish cheese from the plastic, opens the knife blade and begins to shave the mold off the sides. “Ya always got to be careful not to let anyone see you put your pin number in the machine at the grocery store,” he tells Tiffany.
“I have my groceries delivered,” she explains.
“Where did Christina’s money end up?”
“The never-ending black hole known as cyberspace.” Herman whittles down the cheese as if he’s carving a duck decoy.
“Did you have any luck reviewing Alvin?”
“Nope.” Herman bites into the cheese, which I thought was Roquefort, but with the mold off, it is actually Muenster.
“Thought I would, but nope.”
“Doesn’t sound like you tried very hard.”
Herman chews a hunk of cheese in the side of his mouth as if it were a wad of tobacco. “They didn’t send me a lot to go on, but something’s funny about how he did it all.”
“Explain, Herman.”
“I can’t until I see his trades.”
Tiffany begins to turn pale from the smell of Herman’s cheese-tainted breath. I better get my assistant out of there before she passes out. “We got to be going, Herman, keep being sneaky.”
“Oh, I will,” he says. “Want some cheese for the road?”
“I’m going to get you his trades to look at,” I tell him. “You figure it out.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Herman is more interested in watching Tiffany’s backside as she heads for the door. “Ya know, Tiffany, you don’t always have to bring Mister Boring along when you come over to visit.”
“Oh, yes I do.”
Outside, as we head for her car, Tiffany says, “I feel like I should go home and take a shower. Herman’s bad breath has soaked though my clothes and is laying on my skin like a cheese fungus.”
“Herman does have that effect on people.”
Tiffany drops me off in the Jefferson Park neighborhood, not far from the Harlem “L” stop. “Go home, exfoliate, you’ll feel better,” I tell her.
The house is a small Chicago bungalow. There is a FOR SALE sign on its front lawn. On the sign is a picture of the broker, Honest Abe Benershevski, in an Uncle Sam outfit, finger pointing out with the slogan underneath reading: I Want You in a New Home.
I knock.
She sees me through the front drapes, then unlatches two deadbolts and opens the door.
“How did you know where I lived?” Millie asks as two cats scurry out of sight.
“I’m a detective, remember?” I stand on her doorstep. “May I come in?”
“The house is a mess.”
“Not compared to where I’ve just been.”
I step inside and am hit with the distinctive odor of well-used cat litter. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.”
“Is Mister Heffelfinger here?”
“No,” she says. “Why would he be?”
“Just wondered.”
She leads me to the front room, points to where I should sit, but another cat is stretched out on the cushion. “Sit over there,” she says, motioning.
“I won’t take a lot of your time.”
Millie sits next to the cat.
“Moving?”
“I have a sister that lives in Florida.”
I take a little time before I begin. “Millie, do you know how much Alvin was getting in rent for his trading seats at the Board?”
“He used to get eight thousand.”
“Used to?”
“I don’t know anymore since he was taking the money in cash.”
“From whom?”
“The company was called Nivla or Nivia or something like that.”
“Wouldn’t you have to know the name for the license renewals and whatever?”
“I was supposed to.”
“But you didn’t?”
“Alvin said he’d handle it.”
“Why?”
“I think Alvin was using the rent as his walking around money.”
“He’d walk around with eight grand in his pocket?”
“He had a big bulge.”
A line I wasn’t going to touch.
“Do you know where this Nivia or Nivlia had offices?”
“No.”
“Did you know when he put the seats up for sale?”
“No,” she said, “but that could be why he said he’d handle the paperwork.”
“Was Alvin good at paperwork?”
“Terrible.”
“Do you think he was going to pocket the money for the seats, too?”
“That would be hard to do with all the regulations.”
“If Alvin was losing all this money in trade after trade, and his account was in arrears, wouldn’t the Board hold up a sale until all trades were complete?”
“Yes.”
I was about to ask my next question when a knock came on the door.
“Excuse me.” Millie gets up goes to the door and ushers in Honest Abe, who left his Uncle Sam hat at home.
“We have a showing, Millie,” he tells her.
“Oh, I forgot.”
Abe begins to open up doors and windows. “It’s not going to sell if it smells like a cat kennel.”
I wait for Abe to rush off to another part of the house. “One last question?”
“Fine,” she says.
“Was Alvin a crook?”
“You mean, did he cheat?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Lots of people cheat.”
“Did Alvin?”
“If he did, he had his own system, because it is tough to do when it’s all done electronically.”
“Easier to cheat if you trade on the floor?”
“Oh, yeah, they use the honor system on the floor.”
“Thank you for your time.” Walking towards the front door, I see Honest Abe emptying cat litter into a garbage bag.
“Good luck with the house.”
Before I leave, I sneak in one last question, “Do you know where I can find Mister Heffelfinger? I’ve been unable to reach him in the last few days.”
“He’s out of town. I don’t know where.”
“Well, then, meow.”
She smiles at my goodbye.
I pass the prospective couple on their way into the showing. I hope they are cat lovers.
___
I walk six blocks to the “L” station and ride the Red Line, transfer to the Brown at Fullerton, and get off at the Board of Trade stop.
I head inside to the administration office and flash my license at the clerk.
> “Yeah, what?”
“I’m looking for a company or individual names Nivlia or Nivia or a sounds-like.”
“Good for you,” the clerk, a middle-aged man, who obviously doesn’t like his job, or doesn’t like me - or both, says.
“Could you help me?”
“I could.”
Out of my wallet I pull out a ten and slide it towards him. His fingers snap up the bill like a lizard tongue finding lunch.
“Hey, Bruno,” the clerk says to the janitor emptying wastepaper baskets behind him. “This guy wants to see the Nivla office.”
Bruno stops his collection process. “Another one?”
“Bruno don’t come cheap, either,” the clerk informs me.
I pull out another ten-spot and follow Bruno to the service elevator.
“I’m not allowed to use the regular elevator,” Bruno says as he hits the number-twenty-three button.
“Why did you say ‘another one’ when the clerk mentioned Nivla?”
“You’re the third guy to want to get in.”
“You make ten bucks each time?”
“The last guy gave me a twenty.”
The elevator jerks to a stop and we walk down the hall to the last door before the one marked MEN. On the spot where the company plaque should be is a small piece of paper with the name NIVLA CORP. Scotched-taped in its place. “Classy,” I remark.
“People here are too busy making dough to be classy,” Bruno says as he pulls out a key ring with about a thousand keys. He picks one right out of the middle, slides it into the lock and opens the door.
“You don’t knock?”
He looks at me like I’m nuts.
One room, long and narrow with one desk, one chair, one phone. I pick up the receiver, no dial-tone, and place it back down in its cradle. I hear a slight whooshing sound.
Bruno hears it, too. “You can hear the toilet flush,” he says.
“Quaint.”
“Not the urinal, just the toilet.”
“Thank God for small favors.”
I pace around the room to the one window and look down on the alley below. “Tell me about the other guys who came and saw the place.”
“No.”
I hand him another ten-dollar bill.
“The first guy was like one of those muscle-head guys,” Bruno says and puffs up his chest like Charles Atlas. “The other guy was old.”