Murder in the North Tower

by Greg Smith

  Alex noted the date of the deaths. July 20, 1994. He couldn’t find any follow-up articles revealing what the official police investigation had concluded, nor any articles related to Jill’s death.

  “I’d be very interested to hear your story about these Muskolovs now,” he told the old man. “Do you know what the police determined?”

  Griggor shrugged.

  “Police, they do not care when bad guys, they kill other bad guys, hey?”

  Alex knew Griggor was probably right. They’d botched Jill’s murder investigation. Why would they do any better when the victims were gangsters?

  He could find nothing regarding any vehicular homicide cases connected to Sergei Muskolov. Nor any information on the younger Muskolov aside from his obituary.

  “Perhaps he is minor at time, hey? Records, they are…what is word? For hidden? Sealed?”

  “Expunged,” Alex offered.

  “Da! I think that is right word. Sergei, he is just twenty-two when he dies. You do not know what year your Jills, she is masacrat. Sergei maybe is minor then, hey? His records, they are…expunged.”

  “Or his father had them buried. Illegally,” Alex stated bitterly. “But the papers would have covered the hit-and-run story. The articles can’t be expunged. I just don’t have enough to go on. I need Jill’s last name. The date of the incident. Something more.”

  He was frustrated by his lack of information, perturbed by his failure. He clicked on a link to news about 9/11 that had caught his eye. The two men soon found themselves absorbed in the myriad of information and imagery that had been dedicated to the horrific attack. In just minutes, they’d been side-tracked, were jumping from one 9/11 link to another. Alex clicked on a video link, watched the Towers collapsing in slow motion.

  “I know I was there, Griggor. Not when they collapsed, sometime before. I’m pretty sure I worked there.”

  Griggor listened attentively, hoping Alex would remember something new. Even though the stranger had watched the images dozens of times, his memory today was already better than it had been yesterday or the day before. The same image, seen now, could trigger a memory it hadn’t previously awakened.

  Before they realized it, the entire afternoon had passed. Their two hours had expired long ago. Since no one else was waiting, the librarian had genially allowed them to continue using the workstation. Apparently, they were on the verge of overstaying their welcome.

  “That librarian, she gives us evil eye,” Griggor commented. “Nothing as compares to Nadia, but I think it maybe is best we should leave, hey? Call it today.”

  Alex didn’t want to leave. He could have spent hours online. However, it was obvious their time was up. And, that the technosaur was on the edge of overload.

  “Okay. Okay. Let’s call it a day,” he said, correcting the Romanian’s misuse of the phrase.

  He shut the computer down, leaned back, closed his eyes momentarily. He pictured the date of the Muskolovs’ deaths. 7/20/1994. Tried to force himself to remember it so he could add it to his index cards. Fatigued from the hours spent watching the monitor, he drifted.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  A series of playing cards floated through the air. They appeared slowly, spinning in slow motion, gradually revealing their values. Ace of spades. Ace of diamonds. Two of hearts. A Joker. Another ace, the ace of clubs. Nine of hearts. Six of clubs. Six of spades.

  He performed some quick calculation.

  Ace is one. Plus one is two. Plus two is four. Joker has no value. Another ace. That’s five. Plus nine is fourteen. Six and six is twelve. Fourteen and twelve is twenty-six.

  My age?

  Uh–uh. Wrong interpretation.

  The cards were on a surface in front of him. He arranged them in four piles of two cards each. Ace and ace. Deuce and joker. Ace and nine. Six and six. Two. Two. Ten. Twelve. 22-10-12. Could be a combination. To a locker? A safe?

  He studied the cards.

  Ace and ace. One and one. That was two. Or…eleven. Deuce and Joker. Two and zero. Twenty? Eleven-twenty. Ace and nine. Nineteen. Six and six. Sixty-six. 11. 20. 19. 66.

  He moved the last two piles together. One. Nine. Six. Six. Nineteen sixty-six.

  11. 20. 1966.

  Our birthday!

  The cards vanished in a whirlwind.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  Alex opened his eyes. Griggor was watching him carefully. The old man had seen the stranger enter his trance states before. He’d known Alex was having a dream-memory, had waited it out.

  “I saw numbers, Griggor. Eleven, twenty, nineteen, sixty-six. November 20th, 1966. Our birthday.”

  “Ah, you now know how many years you are, hey?”

  Alex hadn’t been able to do the math. He was missing a crucial factor in that equation. The current year.

  “You are born day twenty, November, one-nine and six-six. This is day fifteen, October, two thousands plus one. Makes you thirty and five years, hey?”

  Alex regarded the old man with mild superiority.

  “Thirty-four years, ten months and twenty-five days,” he corrected, somewhat surprised at his mathematical proficiency. “Won’t be thirty-five for another month and five days.”

  “Ah.”

  Griggor noted the stranger’s math prowess.

  He is numbers man. Accountant for mafia, maybe, hey? I do not close that door.

  Something about the notion that the stranger could be an accountant with ties to a criminal organization disturbed the former member of Romania’s secret police. In the days ahead, the thought would nag at him ever so subtly. Like a grain of sand implanted in an oyster’s mantle, causing minor irritation. Griggor dismissed it for the time being, reminded Alex they had been about to leave before his spell delayed them.

  “You are ready then? It is nearly dinnertime, hey? You are not hungry?”

  “Are you ever not hungry, Griggor?” Alex responded.

  The old man simply held his hands out in mock apology.

  “First we eat, then we do anything else. I do not know who says this, but Griggor lives by it.”

  During the walk back to Nadia’s, Griggor rambled on about the architectural style and history of the library building, which had originally been known as the Jefferson Market Courthouse. Alex was lost in thought. About what his life had been. His thirty-four years, ten months and twenty-five days.

  • • • • •

  CHAPTER 43

 

  Connie Stanton was no scratch and dent special. No blem. She certainly was not socially inept. Nor was she someone her parents were trying to pawn off on a naïve, unsuspecting innocent like Step.

  Connie Stanton was drop-dead gorgeous. She was polished. Refined. Cultured. Like the finest Japanese pearl. She was intelligent. Outgoing. Witty. Her sexuality oozed out of her like the smell of an orchid after a fresh rainfall. Fragrant. Sensual. Moist. Connie Stanton was more woman than most men could handle.

  Aleks was overwhelmed by the beautiful woman the instant he laid eyes on her. She was elegant in a beige, mid-thigh bodycon dress that accented her sculpted figure. Her hair was styled in a braided updo. She appeared to be wearing little make-up. Her smile was warm, showing off perfectly straight white teeth. If Aleks could find a flaw in Connie Stanton, it was her height. Or lack thereof. Even with three-inch heels, the top of her head barely reached his or Step’s armpits. He preferred his woman much taller.

  They were dining at Guastavino’s, a trendy restaurant located underneath the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge. The nouveau establishment was an architectural masterpiece. Massive arched windows filled the span of the bridge, reaching from the polished marble floor to the vaulted, forty-foot tiled ceilings. The enormity of the place gave patrons the sense of dining in the great hall of a medieval castle gone ultra-modern. The venue was packed with glamorously fashionable people gorging on leg of lamb, brandade of cod, barbequed duck, platters of iced crab, lobster and oysters. Guastavino’s could have been s
erving dirty-water dogs and it would have been just as crowded.

  The trio was seated upstairs in Club Guastavino, enjoying drinks and an appetizer of frog’s legs and escargot with mushrooms.

  Ever since their chance encounter, Connie had been oddly titillated by Step. The strikingly handsome man who was so socially awkward. She’d considered his ungainliness cute at first. He was a walking, bumbling enigma. A tall, good looking, successful man who fell apart in the company of a woman.

  His twin brother was refreshingly opposite. The yin to Step’s yang. Or vice versa. The one who’d, apparently, gotten all the best personality parts in the genetic blender. Both brothers were handsome. GQ material. Both were intelligent, obviously well-educated. Where Step had a clumsy awkwardness to him, however, Aleks was smooth, glib. Where Step lacked confidence, Aleks exuded an air of self-assurance. Connie found her fiancé’s twin brother dangerously attractive.

  She was intrigued by the brothers. They were indistinguishable, shared so many mannerisms it was eerie. She smiled giddily, wondering if their similarity ran to the bone…er.

  “You also work in the financial sector, Aleks?” she asked, as she sipped Bombay Sapphire.

  “Actually, I’m between jobs at the moment.”

  “Well, not to worry. Daddy treats Step very well.”

  She reached over, placed her hand on Step’s, continued speaking to Aleks.

  “There will be no pissing contest over the check. Dinner’s on Step tonight,” the beautiful blond insisted.

  Step excused himself, turned to rise from his seat, head off to the men’s room. Just as the waiter appeared at his side with a bowl of lobster bisque. Which he unceremoniously spilled in Step’s lap.

  “It would appear,” Aleks stated with a chuckle. “That dinner is, quite literally, on Step.”

  “Easy for you to laugh,” Step grumbled. “You’re not the one bathed in bisque!”

  Fortunately, Step had still had his napkin in his lap. The table linen absorbed the majority of the spill. Step stood, towered threateningly over the much shorter waiter for a moment. Before heading off to the men’s room to clean up.

  Connie was incensed. Used to being catered to by those she considered beneath her, she was also accustomed to delivering a good browbeating, whether deserved or not. She turned her wrath on the apologetic waiter.

  “Of all the incompetent, unprofessional, humiliating–”

  Aleks cut her off, assured the embarrassed server that all was well.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he told the young man. “Just resign before my brother returns and has you fired, and everything will be forgotten.”

  Resigned to his fate, whatever it may be, the waiter stared down at his feet.

  “I’m kidding,” Aleks chuckled. “A complimentary round of drinks…,” he glanced at the waiter’s name tag. “Donte…and your future in the restaurant business should be secure.”

  “Seriously. A round of drinks. Now scurry,” Connie ordered, shooing Donte away.

  Donte hurried off, happy to have permission to leave, avoid further admonishment. Connie was uncertain whether she should be angry with Aleks…or impressed with the way he’d handled the situation so diplomatically.

  “No use reprimanding him like a…a misbehaved child,” Aleks remarked. “Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, that was as much Step’s fault–”

  He didn’t finish the comment. Step had returned to the table.

  “Well, no blood, no foul, as we say in the gym,” Step smirked. “Actually, I think I may have been as much to blame as our server.”

  Connie found it interesting that the twin brothers had come to the same conclusion. At almost the same moment. She eyed Step’s sports jacket and trousers, searched for a stain other than the water marks from his bathroom cleansing.

  “Are you sure, darling? We can make them pick up the dry cleaning bill. Or force them to replace your clothing.”

  “No. It’s fine,” Step answered. “This was going to the cleaner’s tomorrow anyway.”

  Connie seemed perturbed at the young waiter’s ineptitude.

  “They’re just so…insolent. Don’t know their place.”

  Different from her parents, huh? Aleks thought, reflecting that his brother’s fiancée, though easy on the eyes, did, in fact, have a dent of two in her character.

  “Insolent?” he said. “That young man did nothing but apologize. Politely. And genuinely.”

  “Well. I don’t see it that way,” Connie commented.

  She looked up to see Donte striding back toward their table, a trim, well-tailored man at his side.

  “Good evening. I’m Jose DiCarlo, the floor manage.”

  Two rows of exceptionally white teeth flashed as a practiced smile spread across Jose’s dark, mustachioed face.

  “Let me first thank you for choosing to dine at Guastavino’s. We realize you have many excellent choices when it comes to fine dining. We appreciate that you chose us.”

  Jose clasped both hands together, bent slightly at the waist,

  “Donte has explained what happened. That he was completely at fault. I extend our sincere apologies. Your meals will, of course, be complimentary. Tonight, you dine courtesy of Guastavino’s!”

  Again the rows of white flashed.

  “Is there anything else I can do to make your evening here more enjoyable? You are content with your table, yes? I trust our appetizers have met your expectations?”

  This is a man who enjoys his job, Aleks thought. Serving rich snobs.

  “I see you have a penchant for Bombay Sapphire,” Jose added before anyone could speak up. “Please enjoy this bottle. Compliments of the house, of course.”

  Jose tilted his head, held a hand up, refrained from snapping his fingers. On cue, Donte produced a bottle of the gin, held it in his hands for them to see before setting it on a cart he’d pushed up to their table.

  “It happens that Mr. Owen MacCandish is on hand tonight,” Jose continued. “Owen is a Senior Ambassador for Bombay Sapphire. He’s going to show you how he makes the ultimate gin and tonic. Owen.”

  Jose swept one arm aside as a stout man with a faceful of fiery reddish beard and an abundant mustache sauntered up to the cart. The mustache flowed across Owen’s lips and cheeks before overtaking the rest of his facial hair. He wore a kilt and a tam o’ shanter, spoke with an entertaining Scottish accent.

  “Awrite,” the jovial Scotsman said. “’At’s ‘hello’ in Scottish.”

  He set a large wine goblet on the table in front of him, filled it with ice, explained exactly what he was doing step by step.

  “Ah starts wi’ a large burgundy wine glass, fills it completely wi’ ice. ‘En Ah grabs me bar spoon an’ swirls th’ ice aroun’ several times tah chill th’ glass. Noo we’ve got some water in th’ bottom ay th’ glass, so Ah jist grabs me trusty Hawthorne strainer an’ pours th’ water off. Loch so. We don’t wants any water in th’ glass dilutin’ our gin, our tonic or our fresh lime.

  “As fur our lime, whit Ah likes tah do is cut them straight down th’ middle. Right athwart th’ equator. ‘En in half again. ‘En at forty-five degree angles. This way, ye retains more juice.”

  As he spoke, Owen effortlessly demonstrated each phase of the process.

  “So, we’ve got our glass ready. We’ve got our lime garnish. Ah jist takes a wedge, gives it a wee squeeze as Ah orbits about. ‘En Ah tucks it intah bed.”

  He tapped the lime delicately into the ice.

  “Noo Ah likes a ratio ay one body part gin tah two parts tonic. Ah pours in fifty mils ay Bombay Sapphire. A drap or two extra if ye likes them strong.”

  He glanced at Connie, winked. He hadn’t needed a jigger to measure his pour of the gin.

  “A quick stir wi’ me bar spoon tah brin’ th’ gin down tah th’ temperature ay th’ ice.

  “Next is th’ tonic water. Ah prefers Fentimans. Th’ quinine is extracted from th’ bark ay th’ Cinchona Tree ay Indonesia.

 
; “Noo instead ay jist splashin’ th’ tonic water over th’ ice, ah puts me bar spoon over th’ top ay th’ bottle, puts me thumb over th’ top ay th’ bar spoon, an’ pours th’ tonic water down th’ spoon whilst stirrin’ slowly. This is gonna help wi’ th’ effervescence, keepin’ our bevvy bubbly…provocative…invigoratin’.”

  His eyes grew large as he described the cocktail.

  “An’ there ye have it. Th’ definitive gin an’ tonic!”

  The entire process had taken less than two minutes. Owen held the drink out to Connie to sample.

  “Superlative, Owen,” she complimented. “That’s the best gin and tonic I’ve ever tasted. And, trust me, I’ve had a few.”

  “An’ that’s jist tonight if Ah’m not mistaken, aye?” Owen joked.

  They all chuckled. The Scotsman bowed slightly, repeated the process quickly four more times before handing Step, Aleks and Jose each a drink, saving the last for himself. Jose held his glass aloft.

  “Virginia Woolf said, ‘One cannot think well, love well and sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ Here’s to industrious thinking, illustrious lovemaking…and a damn good night’s sleep!”

  “Hear, hear,” Aleks and Step chimed simultaneously.

  “Cheers,” Connie said.

  “Slàinte mhath (slan’chay va)!” Owen toasted. “Good health!” he translated.

  All five tapped glasses, drank. Several servers arrived with their entrees.

  “We’ll leave you to your dinners,” Jose said. “Again, my sincere apologies for Donte’s transgression. Enjoy.”

  “Thank you Jose,” Connie said. “And thanks for the drinks, Owen,” she added, holding hers aloft. “Superlative!”

  “Mah pleasure,” Owen replied. “An’ a pleasure tah meet ye all.”

  He waggled his fingers as though tickling the ivories of an invisible piano as he departed.

  “I could get used to this,” Aleks commented.

  “This is all I’m used to,” Connie remarked.

  Aleks raised his eyebrows, looked to his twin.

  “Well, little brother, seems you’ve got a hefty job in front of you. Hope you don’t disappoint.”

  “Better to have a hefty job in front of me than…uh…a job hefting…stuff…behind me.”