Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) (5 page)

“Besides asking why Susan wanted me dead, he asked me a lot of questions about Joe Ning.”

“Ah.” Lucky nodded. “Chinatown underworld boss.”

“Organized crime,” John said to me. “Organized Crime Control Bureau. See?”

“So you’re sayin’ he came here because of his perfectly legitimate business interests.” Lucky added, “In a manner of speaking.”

“Seemed like it at the time,” said John. “Before the dead started dancing.”

“John,” admonished his father.

“And now?” I prodded.

John thought about it. “Honestly . . . it still seems like it. He was very . . . cop-like. You know. Asked a bunch of rapid-fire questions about the shooting, Susan, me. Then he suddenly switched to asking about Joe Ning—which caught me off guard and kind of confused me. Then he switched back to asking about Susan, which caught me off guard again.”

“I know the feeling,” I said gloomily. At his least romantic and most inquisitive, Lopez had used the same technique on me a few times. “What did you tell him?”

“That I’ve known Susan since I was a kid and thought we got along fine. We weren’t ever
close,
but it never once occurred to me she might try to—”

“No, I mean about Joe Ning.”

“Oh.” John shrugged. “Big man in Chinatown. Big funeral. It’ll probably have to be closed casket. Not much else.” John shook his head. “I don’t
know
much else. I met Uncle Six a few times, but it’s not as if we ever hung out together. I only know what everyone in the neighborhood knows, or what’s in the news.”

“Police!” his father said suddenly. “
That’s
what’s in the news.”

“Pardon?” said Max.

“I saw the story on local TV today, in passing,” said Nathan. “Uncle Six—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but could we talk about this somewhere else?”

I seemed to be the only one who minded that we were still in the same room with a dead body.

“Oh. Of course,” said Nathan. “Forgive me, Esther. Let’s go into the office.”

“Good idea,” said Lucky. “Esther’s an actress. She’s very sensitive.”

I didn’t think it was
sensitive
to want to finish our conference in a room without a corpse, but since I was getting my way, I didn’t argue.

To my relief, we left the workroom, crossed the hall, and entered an office with the usual administrative trappings and equipment—desks, computers, phones, paperwork, filing cabinets, and so on. I had been in this room several times before, and I found it reassuringly prosaic right now.

Nathan took a seat at his desk. John stayed on his feet, leaning against the other desk. Lucky, Max, and I all sat down. I was feeling the exertions of the day by now, so I was sure they both must be very tired, since they were each older than I—Lucky by at least thirty-five years, and Max by more than three hundred years. (He accidentally consumed a life-prolonging elixir as a young man in the seventeenth century, thinking it was remedy for his fever. It was this whole big thing. I think the lesson is: don’t drink anything brewed for you by an alchemist in the early stages of dementia. Anyhow, Max wasn’t immortal, but he had spent centuries aging at an unusually slow rate.)

Since I was the one who had interrupted him, I prompted Nathan to continue now. “You were saying something about today’s news?”

“Yes. Uncle Six’s lawyer is blaming the police for his death.”

I lifted my brows in surprise. “Well,
that’s
a theory I didn’t see coming. He thinks the cops pushed Joe Ning off that balcony?”

“No, the attorney claims the police drove him to suicide.”

I frowned. “How?”

I didn’t know much about Chinatown underworld bosses, but I assumed they were tough and resilient. Not the sort to dive off the sixth floor of a downtown building just because the cops had them on the ropes.

“I didn’t get any details,” Nathan replied. “I only saw the story in passing.”

John folded his arms across his chest. “But Detective Quinn coming here and asking me questions about Uncle Six would suggest that OCCB is investigating him.”

“What kind of questions did Quinn ask you? What did he want to know?” I asked John.

“Since I scarcely knew Uncle Six, it wound up being pretty general. And he had some questions I couldn’t even take a guess at.”

“Such as?”

“Did Uncle Six seem stressed or depressed lately? Was he anxious or afraid of something? Who stood to gain from his death?” John shrugged. “Quinn might as well have asked me questions about hockey or knitting.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, he wanted to know why Uncle Six was financing Ted’s film.”

“And since you’ve worked on the movie,” Lucky said doubtfully, “he thinks you’re a connection between Uncle Six and Susan Yee?”

“I don’t see how,” John replied. “If there’s a connection between Susan and Joe Ning, it’s not me, it’s Ted.”

That was, in fact, the connection which had gotten Uncle Six killed by a cursed fortune cookie, but I decided not to digress. Nathan and John had both been skeptical about that theory the last time we met, and the matter was resolved now, after all.

“Then I assume the police will talk to Ted, since it was his film.” I added uncertainly, “Unless a defense attorney keeps him away from cops because his sister is being charged with attempted murder.”

“Why
did
Susan try to kill me?” John wondered. “What did I ever do to her?”

I figured he and Ted would talk about it, since they were friends, and I didn’t want to expose anything Ted would prefer not to reveal. So I kept it brief. “It was the film, John. Susan didn’t want Ted to complete it. She heard you talking to Ted about your plan for finding more backers. And she knew that, unlike Ted, you’re an organized, capable person with follow-through, so if you were involved, it would actually get done . . .” I shook my head. “And she went off the rails. Decided to kill you in order to—”

“To bring a halt to Ted’s film?” Nathan blurted in shocked outrage.

“Seriously?” John looked stunned.

“That—that—that
lunatic
girl!” Nathan sputtered. “Trying to take John’s life for something so . . . so . . .”

He couldn’t find the words. Which was understandable.

“Poor Ted,” John said pensively. It seemed typical of John to think about how his friend must feel now, despite what had nearly happened to
him
today. “And poor Lily.”

Lucky, Max, and I exchanged a look, wondering what to say. I guess we decided to say nothing, since we all remained silent.

Nathan paused in his sputtering. “Yes . . .” he said slowly. “Poor Lily. Husband dead. Wretched daughter going to prison. Business burned down. And Ted . . . well, he’s not a
bad
son, I suppose, but . . .”

“He’s no murderer,” I said. “That puts him a lot higher than Susan on the merit chart.”

We talked for a little while about today’s events as Nathan wrestled with the realization that he’d nearly lost his son over such a trivial matter as Susan being embarrassed by Ted’s film. I thought it was ironic that she was so angry that Ted was doing business with people like Joe Ning and Danny Teng, since that fastidiousness had not prevented her from going to Danny when she wanted to get her hands on a gun.

I wondered if the police would be able to charge him for that. The gun had been used in an attempted murder, after all.

Cheered by the thought of Danny Teng potentially going to prison (a place I suspected he’d been before), I decided to get off the gloomy subject of the Yee family.

“Is there anything else that Quinn asked you about?” I said to John. “Did he, for example, ask if you had any corpses here today? Did he see Mr. Capuzzo?”

“Or touch him?” Max asked.

“No, we stayed in the reception area, and Uncle Six was the only cold body we talked about.”

“So that was it? Nothing more?”

John thought back. “Oh, he also asked me about Paul Ning—Joe’s brother. But that was another dead end. I know Paul’s reputation, and I saw him around Chinatown once in a while, but I never met him,” said John. “And based on what I’ve heard about him, that seems to be the only way to get along with him—just never meet him.”

“Hm.” Paul Ning was in prison for murder. Lopez had been the arresting officer. He and Quinn had recently been rebuilding Lopez’s original case because Joe Ning had hired an expensive lawyer to get the conviction overturned and free Paul—a man who no one but Joe, his older brother, seemed to think should be free again. Now that the powerful Uncle Six was dead, it was assumed that the effort to free Paul was also dead. I said doubtfully, “I suppose Quinn could have come here to tie up some loose ends . . .”

“Strictly business?” Lucky shook his head. “Maybe, but I don’t buy it. Not yet. This guy who Nelli thinks is dangerous shows up here, and a corpse starts walking? We gotta follow up on this.”

“Yes,” I agreed firmly. “We must.”

“I know you’re worried about your boyfriend. But me, I’m thinking about how much damage an evil cop can do. ’Cause even when they
ain’t
evil, they’re a whole lotta tr—”

“Boyfriend?” John repeated sharply, looking at me.

I returned his gaze and felt so awkward I couldn’t think of what to say.

Lucky glanced at John’s face—and started back-pedaling. “More like her
ex-
boyfriend. Or maybe not even that. Just some bum who didn’t deserve her. But she still cares about h . . . cares what
happens
to . . . Um, just because things didn’t work out between them, it don’t mean she wants to see him get whacked by something evil.”

“Close enough,” I said. “Stop talking now.”

“No problem,” said the old mobster.

J
ohn turned his gaze from Lucky to me. And unlike
some
people, he chose his words carefully. “The cop you’re concerned about—Quinn’s partner—is the guy you’ve been seeing?”

I suppose “seeing” was vague enough to be accurate, so I said, “Yes.”

“Are you still . . . I mean, is it over?”

“Um . . .” I had no idea what the answer was to that.

He asked, “Do you still want . . . um . . . do you—”

“John,” his father admonished. “Is this any of our business?”

Apparently recalling that we weren’t alone, John cleared his throat and changed the subject. “So the question is, what do we do about our . . . your . . . the suspicion that Detective Quinn is dangerous?”

“The same thing we must do about Mr. Capuzzo,” said Max.

“Bury him as soon as possible?” I guessed dubiously.

“No, find out everything we can about him,” Max replied. “Between Nelli’s reaction to the detective’s presence at the crime scene today, and the detective’s subsequent presence here today when Mr. Capuzzo was reanimated by an as-yet-unidentified influence, there is currently only one thing we can state with certainty.”

I guessed again. “There’s something very strange about one or both of them?”

“Correct!” Max beamed at me, his favorite student. “Therefore, our first task is to learn as much as we can about both men, so that we can ascertain—”

“—exactly
what
is strange about one or both of them,” I concluded.

“Precisely!” He paused, then said, “You’ve met Detective Quinn, Esther. Did you notice anything about him? What sort of man does he seem to be?”

“He seems like . . .” I shrugged. “A regular guy.”

Detective Andrew Quinn looked like he was in his late thirties. Average height, average build, average features. The most noticeable thing about him was probably his red hair. His face was lightly freckled and a little careworn, like he’d known his share of trouble in life. He was a bit of a smart aleck and perhaps a little crass, but he seemed serious about his work and, on the whole . . .

“Just a regular guy,” I said again.

“That was my impression, too,” said John. “He was deep into cop mode when he came here, so I wouldn’t say he was
friendly,
but he seemed reasonable, professional . . . ordinary. I don’t think it would have occurred to me in a million years that he might have something to do with Mr. Capuzzo getting, uh, reanimated. Not until you guys brought it up. There was nothing . . . weird about Detective Quinn. He didn’t give off a ‘vibe’ or anything like that.”

I nodded in agreement. “He’s only been partnered with Lopez for a few weeks, and I’ve only spoken with him once.” He had urged me to sleep with Lopez (again), which Quinn figured would put the guy in a better mood and make him easier to work with. “It would be a wild exaggeration to say we hit it off, but he was pretty easy to talk to, and I can’t think of anything about him that seemed ‘off’ or odd. Not even in retrospect.”

“His reaction to Nelli today seemed pretty normal, too,” Lucky added.

“That’s right,” I said. “He just acted like a guy avoiding a vicious dog. Not like some evil entity who felt
exposed
by Nelli’s keen animal instincts.”

“Still, if he
is
strange . . . evil . . . whatever,” said Lucky, “he’d be good at covering, right?”

“True,” I said. “If he weren’t good at it, then he’d have been exposed before now.”

“Yeah, for one thing, your boyfr—uh, Detective Lopez would notice quick if Quinn ever seemed, y’know . . .
wrong.
”

“Lopez?” John looked at me again. “That’s his name?”

“The guy is smart. He don’t miss much,” said Lucky. “I’m not Wonder Boy’s biggest fan, but—”

“Because of Esther?” John asked.

Lucky scowled. “Because Lopez is the cause of these unconscionable intrusions of privacy that are hurtin’ the perfectly legitimate business interests of Victor Gambello and a bunch of our associates.”

“Oh!” John said in surprise. “He’s in charge of the investigation into, um . . . that?”

The Chens never mentioned Lucky’s criminal life. It was a feat of considerable tact, given that Lucky had been deeply involved in Gambello business for decades and was famous—or notorious—in certain circles.

“No, I think his lieutenant is in charge of the case,” I said. “And it’s a big investigation, involving a bunch of detectives. But Lopez is the one who found some key evidence, and he’s been making a lot of the recent arrests.”

“Is Detective Lopez . . .” Nathan glanced anxiously at Lucky. “Is he still making arrests? I mean—should you leave town for a while, Alberto?”

“It’s okay, Dad,” said John. “A cop at the scene of the shooting today told Uncle Lucky he’s in the clear.”

Nathan looked relieved. He asked Lucky, “This is definite? You’re sure?”

The Chens had been worried about Lucky during the OCCB’s recent sweep through the Gambello family. Lucky had been worried, too, in fact, and he’d been hiding out here in the funeral home before finally learning earlier today that the cops weren’t looking for him.

“Definite,” said Lucky. “Detective Lopez and I kinda bumped into each other today, and to give him credit, he told me fair and square, they got no evidence against me.”

“
That
was Lopez?” John said to me. “That cop who told us that?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” John looked bemused for moment, then shrugged. “He didn’t seem . . . Well, I guess after Uncle Lucky told me about the guy who didn’t treat you right, I pictured this cop walking around with
jerk
stamped on his forehead. But that detective seemed like an okay guy.”

“He is an okay guy,” I said. “We just . . . never mind.”

“And he seemed like he was on top of things, too,” said John. “Good at his job, I mean.”

“He is good at his . . . Can we talk about something else?”

“How about we return to my point,” said Lucky, “which is that Detective Lopez would notice if there was something weird about Quinn. I don’t mean that Quinn’s
not
weird. I just mean, if Lopez don’t see it—even after spending every day with the guy for a few weeks—then we sure ain’t gonna see it just from meeting him once or twice.”

“Yes, you’re right,” said Max, who’d had a frown of concentration on his face while the rest of us had been talking. “Another police interview or a social encounter is likely to be insufficient exposure for our purposes. Especially if Detective Quinn is a skilled dissembler, as we suspect may be the case. It would be advantageous if we could monitor him for a protracted period.”

“You mean, spy on him?” I asked doubtfully. “Follow him?”

“Don’t you think a detective would notice something like that?” said John.

“Especially if he also has mystical power?” I added.

“Mystical . . . Oh, you mean if he’s someone who can animate a corpse, for example?” said John.

Nathan said faintly, “Between John nearly being killed and then Mr. Capuzzo . . . Well, this is turning out to be one of the worst days of my life.”

“Hang in there, Nate,” said Lucky. “We’re on it.”

“It’ll be okay, Dad,” said John. “I’m fine, Susan’s in jail, and Dr. Zadok—I mean, Max—knows about stuff like our—our . . . stuff like this.”

“We need to get in this cop’s life and dig deeper,” Lucky said to Max.

“Yes, we shall have to find a way,” Max agreed.

Lucky said hesitantly to me, “It seemed today like you’re on speaking terms with Lopez again. Am I right?”

“Yes . . .” Well, for the moment, though it might not last. I met Lucky’s gaze and realized why he was asking. “
Oh.
You want me to pepper Lopez with questions about Quinn.”

Max said gently, “If it wouldn’t be too awkward for you, Esther, it could be useful. Detective Quinn’s professional partner—a person who spends a lot of time in our quarry’s company—is our most likely source of information until we can think of something more inventive.”

Thinking of my smash-and-grab last night to steal Lopez’s deadly fortune cookie, I said, “I’m not so sure Lopez will be forthcoming, but I’ll figure out something.” If Quinn was a danger to Lopez, then I was going to find out, one way or another, whether Lopez was speaking to me or not.

“And I will pursue inquiries about Mr. Capuzzo,” said Max.

“Where will you start?” Nathan asked—a little anxiously, I thought.

“The widow,” Max replied. “I shall visit her under the guise of discussing the details of her late husband’s upcoming wake.”

“Oh.” Nathan looked sad for a moment. I supposed he was thinking wistfully about the large Capuzzo family who had some money and were easy to work with. And also thinking about how they might abandon their sentimental attachment to this funeral home after meeting Max.

“I’ll go with you, Doc,” said Lucky.

“Oh?” Now Nathan looked alarmed. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Alberto? The Capuzzos might recognize your name.”

“Hmm. Good point.” Lucky nodded. But Nathan’s relief was short-lived. “I’ll use a fake name. Do you think I should wear a disguise?”

“No,” I said quickly, recalling Lucky’s brief masquerade as Sugarplum, one of Santa’s elves, when we were investigating the mystical mayhem at Fenster & Co. during the holidays. I had seldom seen anything more tragic than Lucky in that disguise, and I shunned anything that might keep the memory alive—such as another disguise.

“Yeah, you’re right, kid,” he said. “My face ain’t famous.”

“Actually, it is,” I said, “but only in very specific venues.”

Nathan cleared his throat. John looked at Nelli, who lay snoozing quietly on the floor at Max’s feet.

Lucky said, “So a phony name is all I need to go undercover with the doc.”

“Oh, good,” Nathan said in a thin voice, his expression strained.

Well, he had wanted our help. He had no one to blame but himself.

“So we’re goin’ to pump the widow for info about Capuzzo, while posing as associates of Antonelli’s Funeral Home.”

“It’s a fine plan,” Nathan said wanly.

Lucky looked at me. “And you’ll pump Lopez about Quinn.”

I nodded, feeling a little wan myself.

Max said to the Chens, “Be sure to notify us if anything else alarming occurs.”

“We will,” said John. “I have to admit, I’m looking forward to getting Mr. Capuzzo out of here.”

I rose to my feet. “Well, it’s been a long day for all of us.”

“It’s a New Year I’ll certainly never forget,” said Nathan, also rising.

As we all left the office and headed toward the building exit, John took my elbow and guided me out of earshot of the three older men, who were chatting about the fire at Yee & Sons, Max’s sooty appearance, and the fact that Nelli was probably hungry by now.

“It
has
been a long day,” John said to me in a low voice, “but I’m kind of keyed up. I don’t suppose you’d like to go somewhere and . . . just talk for a while? We could get a drink or something to eat . . .”

Since I had a shrewd suspicion that he wanted to talk about me and Lopez—or maybe about me and him—I was relieved to have a good excuse for declining. “I’m sorry, John, I can’t. Max has had an exhausting day, including being caught in that fire at the Yees’ store. He’s older than he looks, and I think he’s running on fumes by now. I want to get him home, get a hot meal into him, and take Nelli for her late walk so that he doesn’t have to.”

“Right. Of course.” John nodded, obviously understanding my concern. “He does look pretty worn out. Okay, well, maybe next time?”

“Sure.” I pulled out my phone as I said over my shoulder, “Max? What’s the name of that pet transport service you use? I really don’t think we’ll get a taxi.”

Looking at the face of my phone, I realized I hadn’t checked my messages yet.

“Oh, don’t call a service,” said Nathan. “John will give you a lift in the hearse.”

“Absolutely,” said John.

“How thoughtful,” Max said with a tired smile.

“Oh.” I put my phone back in my pocket. “Thanks.”

 • • • 

Max lived in a roomy but spartan apartment above his perfectly legitimate business interest, Zadok’s Rare & Used Books, which was in an old townhouse on a narrow street in the West Village.

The bookstore had a small, fiercely loyal customer base, and it got some foot traffic from curious passersby. But the shop was primarily an inconspicuous home base for Max’s demanding role as the Magnum Collegium’s local representative, responsible for protecting New York and its inhabitants from Evil.

His laboratory, where strange and magical things happened, was in the cellar below the store. Among other things, it was down there that he had conjured Nelli last year. Max’s mystical familiar had entered this dimension as a large, furry, enthusiastic champion in the perpetual confrontation against Evil—and had scared me to death at the time, before I realized she wasn’t some voracious hellhound intent on ripping out our throats.

Looking at her now, I reflected—not for the first time—that she’d be a more convenient comrade if she could speak, or write, or at least mime. If only she could
tell
us why she had reacted so hysterically to encountering Quinn. Was it something about the way he smelled? Or the way he moved? Was there an evil light glowing in his eyes that the rest of us couldn’t see? Did other dogs react negatively to him, or was the triggering factor something that only a mystical being could sense? I suspected it was the latter, since Quinn’s life would be awfully inconvenient if every canine who saw him went as crazy as Nelli did today.

I had initially hoped Nelli had made a mistake—perhaps confused Quinn with someone or something else and was reacting on the basis of misidentification. But after what had happened at the funeral home as soon as Quinn visited the place . . . No, it was no mistake. I felt certain of that. Nelli had definitely sensed something dangerous about him.

But
what?

“I wish Nelli could talk,” I said to Max in frustration.

“If she could talk, then she might not be able to detect dangerous entities or contribute powers to our work which I lack,” he said placidly. “A mystical familiar possesses gifts which are not available to other types of beings. Just as you and I possess the gift of speech, which is not available to an individual of Nelli’s nature.”