A Cast of Killers (20 page)

"Do you mean to tell me that all of you are
nothing but vultures, riding the elevators day after day looking
for people to descend on?" T.S. asked.

"Certainly not." Lenny Melk was not the least
bit miffed at being labeled a vulture. He thrust a heavily jeweled
hand into his greasy hair and combed it back over a large bald
spot. "I am an entrepreneur and well worth my modest fee. Of
course, if you don't believe me, go right ahead and do it
yourself." He waved his hand in the general direction of a large
double doorway. T.S. peeked inside. Dozens of people were poring
over pages of records at scarred, ancient library tables. Others
were engaged in arguments with bored-looking clerks who stood
behind a pair of counters at one end of the room. Rows and rows of
card catalog drawers lined the walls and the clock on the far wall
was ticking ominously closer to five o'clock.

"Better hurry. You got all of five minutes,"
Lenny Melk assured him smoothly. "These people are civil servants.
They're going to start dragging their feet in about five minutes."
He checked his watch—a bad Rolex imitation—and began to whistle the
theme from Rocky.

"All right, all right," T.S. agreed. He dug
into his pocket for the money. "But I'm waiting here. This is the
address I need the info on." He handed the man a handful of bills
plus Emily's apartment building number. "I want to know who owns it
and if a condominium conversion plan has been filed. And anything
else pertinent."

"No sweat," Lenny promised him, pocketing the
money with practiced ease. "But I do need two more fivers, on
account of the time."

T.S. raised his eyebrows and stared at the
man.

"Not for me. For the clerk," Lenny explained
defensively.

"Of course," T.S. murmured in resignation. "I
forgot for a moment where 1 was." He handed over two more fives and
watched as Lenny practiced his magic. The man was right. He was not
an amateur at all. He was truly an entrepreneur. He quickly
snatched an oversized bundle of building plans from an abandoned
spot on a nearby table and sidled up ahead of several people
waiting in line. He held one hammy finger to a spot on the plans
and stared at it in mock confusion. Murmuring apologies to those
behind him, he bellied up to the front of the counter and snapped
his fingers at the clerk. The clerk, a skinny man blessed with the
embalmed attitude of all civil servants, turned his way with an
astonished glare that quickly changed to a look of barely concealed
recognition and what T.S. suspected was a spark of greed. Shielding
himself from the view of others with the large building plans,
Lenny slipped a five to the clerk and quickly barked out a
question. To the chagrin of the entire line, the clerk promptly
disappeared in back, behind a stack of drawers that bulged with
unfiled papers. Lenny half-turned and gave T.S. a coquettish wave.
Feeling foolish, T.S. waved back.

It took several minutes, but when the clerk
reappeared, he had a handful of papers that he handed over to
Lenny. Lenny stuffed them under his arm and quickly shook the
clerk's hand, passing another five to him as he did so. Smiling at
the enraged line still waiting, he headed back to T.S., pretending
to be unaware of the fact that the clerk was quickly sliding down a
wooden barrier and closing his station. "Sorry," the clerk's
expression conveyed to the line as he pointed to the clock. "But
not really. Better luck next time."

"Let's get out of here before you get
lynched," T.S. suggested. A large man, who had been elbowed aside
while preoccupied with his official papers, was making a beeline
for Lenny. His expression hinted that he was a man of action.

"No problem," Lenny said,
glancing over his shoulder. He grabbed T.S.'s elbow and pulled him
out into the hallway and into the first open door. It was the
ladies' room and, fortunately, it was empty. Pink paint peeled from
dingy walls and a cracked mirror had been decorated with a lipstick
to read
rosalyn loves randy
forever.

"Here's the story," Lenny announced in a
superior tone of voice. He scanned the papers quickly, his
expressions ranging from professional boredom to slight interest
and back again to boredom. "Looks like the building is owned by
some kind of holding company, probably just a dummy corporation,
that calls itself Worthy Enterprises, Inc. They've owned it just
over two years. They give their address as 1515 Broadway. I never
heard of them." He shrugged. "No conversion plan. It's all rental
apartments." He glanced at the date. "A couple of them go for
pretty cheap. Rent control, I guess. Real estate taxes are $8,567 a
year. Paid on time. Sort of. Anything else you need to know?"

"Anything else you can tell me?" T.S. didn't
think it was much to go on.

"Naw." Lenny finished scanning the pages and
showed them to T.S. "See for yourself."

It didn't help. He couldn't decipher a thing.
He simply verified the address of Worthy Enterprises and thanked
Lenny Melk for his help.

"My pleasure," the man replied, giving a
portly bow. "Here, please, take my card in case you ever find
yourself in need again of real estate consultancy services."

T.S. tucked it in his
pocket along with the business card of
Gregory Rogers, Dance Master Extraordinaire,
and made his getaway. He managed to squeeze into
the first elevator that arrived, which put him smack in the middle
of an angry crowd of patrons who had not made the five o'clock
deadline. Fortunately, no one had connected him with Lenny Melk and
he felt relatively safe, with the exception of his wallet, which he
discreetly patted periodically. He was, after all, in New
York.

As he hurried from the building, he saw the
small team of entrepreneurs lurking in the lobby and descending on
the dissatisfied crowd, offering their services first thing in the
morning. T.S. admired their nerve.

He stopped at the nearest public phone that
worked, which turned out to be near Canal Street in the heart of
Chinatown. Ignoring the shrieks of bargaining Chinese that whirled
around him, he picked his way through the debris of a corner fish
store and sought refuge in the gutter. Discarded lettuce lay across
his shoe like a deflated balloon and he had to keep one finger
firmly plugged in his free ear to hear the operator, but he finally
obtained the number to Worthy Enterprises and, ignoring the glare
of a waiting Chinese mother and small boy, quickly dialed it, not
sure of what he would say.

"Good afternoon," a breathless voice
answered. Another Marilyn Monroe wannabe. "This is the office of—"
A garbage truck roared past, obliterating the rest of her
sentence.

"Hello? Hello?" T.S. shouted. "Is this Worthy
Enterprises?"

"Drop dead," the breathy voice replied. It
was followed by a click.

It was a good thing Auntie Lil failed to warn
him that she was also planning to invite Lilah to dinner as well as
Herbert Wong. Had he known, T.S. would only have spent the few
hours of preparation in being nervous. As it was, he had to endure
a few seconds of a humiliating flush that crept up his neck when he
spotted her waiting at the bar. Fortunately, Harvey's still
believed that ambience required dim lighting and he knew his
surprise had been well concealed.

"Got yourself a sunburn, Mr. Hubbert?"
Frederick the bartender boomed.

"A sunburn?" he answered. "Why, no. I may
have gotten a little more sun than anticipated today. It was quite
warm, you know." He kept his eyes firmly away from Lilah.

"The usual?" Frederick asked him. "Auntie Lil
has not yet arrived."

"The usual," T.S. confirmed. "My aunt called
ahead?"

"No, but this lovely lady let me know the
score." Frederick bowed briefly toward Lilah, who flashed T.S. a
smile, giving him the opportunity to pretend that he had just
spotted her.

"Lilah. What a lovely surprise." He slid onto
the stool next to hers and immediately snagged the edge of his
sweater on a splinter, pulling out a large loop of yellow yarn that
gaped between them like spittle.

"Oh, your beautiful sweater," she fretted,
unhooking him from the splinter. "Wait just a moment and I'll fix
it." She produced a bobby pin from the depths of her upswept hair,
releasing a charming lock of white strands that fell behind one
ear. Holding the pin like a tiny sword, she reached one hand under
T.S.'s sweater and he breathed in deeply, willing his potbelly to
disappear, if only for the next fifteen seconds. She fumbled with
the nap, located the offending string and hooked the pin around it,
jerking it back through to the inside of his sweater with a quick
tug. Holding the side seams tightly between two well-manicured
hands, she stretched the nap smooth again. "There," she said,
smiling shyly at T.S. "I used to do this for my daughters all the
time."

"Not bad," Frederick interrupted from behind
the bar. "I could use someone with your skills around my house." He
set the Dewars and soda in front of T.S. It didn't stay there
long.

"Thirsty?" Lilah inquired. "Have you had a
hard day sleuthing?"

"Very hard," T.S. agreed. It seemed
incredibly warm in Harvey's. You would think that with all the oak
wainscoting and polished wood and brass and hanging plants that it
would be at least a little bit cooler than outside. But no, it
seemed hotter than a steam room in Hell, at least in his
opinion.

"Look. There's Aunt Lil." Lilah turned on her
stool and stared at the doorway. So did nearly everyone else in the
restaurant. And no wonder. Auntie Lil was wearing a neon green
pants suit of a diaphanous material. In response to the draft from
the front door, it billowed about her like a cloud of poisonous
gas. An enormous matching shawl exploding with bright purple
flowers trailed off one of her shoulders onto the floor behind her.
Suddenly, the front door opened again and a small man hurried
inside, hot on the trail of the shawl's tail. Scooping it off the
floor, he carefully brushed the dirt from the fabric and tucked it
back over Auntie Lil's other shoulder.

"It's Herbert!" Lilah cried in delight.

Herbert Wong blinked his eyes slowly as he
adjusted to the dim lighting. He was a petite Asian man of
undeterminable age, with a military bearing and a small, rounded
belly. His skin gave off a burnished glow and warm age spots dotted
his pear-like complexion. Thinning hair was impeccably combed back
from a jolly oval face that was dominated by sharply alert eyes. He
was wearing a closely cut mustard-colored suit nicely set off by a
gray and black diamond-patterned silk shirt. It was snazzy attire
that any rock-and-roller would have been proud of, but on Herbert
Wong it did not look out of place at all. Its gaudiness was tamed
by an inner reserve evident in his regal bearing, and it suited him
as appropriately as the colorful plumage of the male peacock.
Preening ever so slightly, he scanned the restaurant's interior
quickly and his face lit up with undisguised admiration when he
spotted T.S. at the bar.

"Mr. Hubbert," he called across the foyer,
following this respectful greeting with a tiny bow. Reflexively,
T.S. tried to bow back and nearly toppled from his stool, saved
only by the quick grasp of Lilah's surprisingly strong fingers.
That first gulp of Scotch had gone straight to his head, he'd
better slow it down.

Auntie Lil did not call out a greeting. She
was too busy tussling with the new maître d', who had obviously not
yet had the pleasure of making her acquaintance. If he had, he
would not have been wrestling with her or trying to convince her to
give the shawl to the coat-check girl. As it was, he held one end
of the enormous wrap and was tugging on it firmly while Auntie Lil
gripped the other end with no intention of letting go. T.S. slid
from his stool to intervene. He wanted the evening to start off
smoothly.

"Madam, this is as big as a tablecloth," the
maître d' was growling. "I really must insist that you check it."
He was a small trim man with a pretentious pencil mustache,
squeezed into a too-tight tuxedo. He was obviously singlehandedly
trying hard to restore 1940s elegance to an unwilling Harvey's
Chelsea Restaurant.

"Let go of my clothing, you worm," Auntie Lil
said calmly. "This is a Donna Karan original and I'm not giving it
up."

"Aunt Lil," T.S. interrupted. "Who would
steal it? It screams louder than a burglar alarm. I don't think
anyone will even try."

"I don't care. I like my clothing near my
body. That is why I wear it." She and the maître d' squared off
again and pulled, neither of them willing to let go.

Noticing the skirmish, a waiter hurried up,
anxious to placate Auntie Lil. She was a notorious overtipper and
thus, a favorite customer. The waiter had wisely decided that it
would do no good to antagonize a valuable source of his income.

"Pierre," the waiter cried frantically. "It's
no problem. I've plenty of room in my section." Before Pierre—who
was more probably named Chip or Bruce—could protest, the waiter led
Auntie Lil to her usual table at the rear of the dining room where
she had an equally good view of the front door and the huge dessert
cart. Herbert darted forward and pulled out her chair for her after
cleverly outflanking the overly attentive waiter. The waiter
countered by carefully wrapping the shawl around Auntie Lil's chair
so many times that it was left looking positively upholstered. T.S.
contented himself with helping Lilah to her seat and grabbing the
spot next to hers.

"A lovely outfit," Lilah murmured Auntie
Lil's way.

"Isn't it?" Auntie Lil turned proudly in her
seat. "These are the latest colors. A bit bright, so I decided not
to wear a hat. It stands on its own, don't you think?"

"Indeed," T.S. affirmed. "I'd say it more
likely races." He greeted Herbert politely and, after the usual
round of inquiring after everyone's health and settling a few
matters of an ingrown toenail here and a vacation to Mexico there,
they all settled into ordering a new round of drinks and letting
Auntie Lil order everyone's dinner.