Corpus Corpus (10 page)

With a thin smile as he walked away, Janus answered, "Very droll response, Chief. I am certain that when I repeat it to my accountant he will be most amused. I hope you enjoyed the cigar."

"I know he's a friend of yours, Maggie," Goldstein said as he removed the half-smoked fake Havana from his mouth, "but that guy is a bigger horse's ass than any you'll find on that ranch of his upstate."

As the cigar went into an ashtray, Bogdanovic appeared in the doorway to beckon him with upraised hand and a wiggling of fingers. "Evidently Theo's acute sense of smell was right," Dane said. "It seems the game is afoot. Good sleuthing, Mr. Holmes."

"Oh no you don't. You're coming, too," Goldstein said, gripping her hand. "As Sherlock advised, A trusty comrade is always of use.' Especially if that comrade is one of the best district attorneys in the country."

When they reached the doorway Bogdanovic blurted, "There's big trouble at the hotel where the DA stashed Paulie Mancuso. He seems to have changed his mind about testifying. Half an hour ago he took a nosedive out a ninth-floor window." 

EXCEPT FOR THE curvy eastern boundary shaped by the East River, the Nineteenth Precinct formed a perfect rectangle with Fifth Avenue and Central Park on the west, East Fifty-ninth Street at the bottom and East Ninety-sixth Street at the top. More expensive land and more privileges of wealth could not be found in the city of New York. Politicians called it the Silk Stocking District. For more than half a century the most ambitious of their breed had done their best, and sometimes their worst, to reside within its most prestigious address. Located in Carl Schurz Park, a stately house built in 1799 by the Scottish shipping magnate Archibald Gracie became the official residence of the mayor in 1942.

Gazing past its surrounding trees as Bogdanovic turned the car onto East End Avenue, Goldstein said to Dane, "The first of New York's mayors to move into Gracie Mansion did so reluctantly. Fiorello La Guardia didn't think the people of New York should be footing his rental bill. He left his small apartment in Spanish Harlem only because of personal security considerations growing out of the fact that the country was in the midst of the Second World War. Plus the fact that he realized the taxpayers would be paying for the mansion's upkeep whether he lived in it or not."

One of the best-policed areas in the city, with its elegant town homes, high-rise co-op and condominium apartment houses, and a handful of residential hotels, the Gracie Mansion neighborhood qualified in terms of criminal activity as the quietest in the Nineteenth Precinct. Consequently, a report of a man found dead on the sidewalk across the street would have promoted a far more urgent response by the police than, say, the same scenario on a street in Harlem.

In this case, the bloodied, pulpy corpse had brought such a flood of blue-and-white patrol cars with flashing lights and men in plain clothes and unmarked cars that a passerby might assume an attempt had been made against the life of the person who lived in the large house in the park.

"Save for periodic eruptions from groups of protesters and picketers venting views on a variety of causes, from the cost of living to the Vietnam War," Goldstein continued as Bogdanovic stopped the car behind a radio patrol unit, "the only arrest we made in the mansion was in 1987."

Bogdanovic snorted a laugh. "I remember that one. A burglar was caught red-handed. When he found out the house he was burglarizing was the home of the mayor he asked, 'Can't I just put the stuff back and leave?' "

Stepping from the car, he turned up the collar of a heavy gray overcoat and peered up at a white curtain flapping through a ninth-floor window of the Hotel Radcliffe.

"The guy was a rat," he said, shaking his head as Goldstein and Dane came around the front of the car, "but that is a really nasty way for anybody to check out."

Goldstein looked up at the window. "Fifty years ago at the Half Moon Hotel out at Coney Island a hit man for the Murder, Incorporated gang, by the name of Kid Twist Reles, also went out on a flyer while in protective custody as a material witness. The newspapers had a field day writing about a canary who could sing but couldn't fly. What Kid Twist did not know was that the cops who were supposed to guard him were on the mob payroll."

As he spoke, they were joined by a rangy and rugged young man wearing an open brown suede duster coat and snakeskin western boots. "Evening, Chief. Sorry to have interrupted your night out to bring you to this mess." Recognizing the woman beside him, he asked, "Are you working for the New York DA now, Miss Dane?"

Goldstein asked Reiter, "Where's your partner in crime, the indomitable Detective Leibholz?"

"Al's upstairs taking statements from the three blind mice." "Three blind mice?"

"The district attorney assigned a trio of assistant DAs to watch the store while the investigators who had been assigned to guard Mancuso got the weekend off. According to the mice, Mancuso said he was going to bed early to do some reading."

Goldstein grunted. "Who'd have thought Paulie Mancuso was a bookworm?"

"After about an hour watching TV," Reiter went on, "the mice heard a commotion from down on the street and when they looked out the window they saw what was left of Paulie splattered all over the pavement."

"Has District Attorney Vanderhoff been notified?"

"Yes. He's on his way into the city from his place in the Hamptons. Meantime, two of his deputies-Jeffrey Marx and Tommy Farley—are reportedly on their way. They ought to be showing up at any minute."

"What about the press? Do the newsies know about this yet?"

"This is also their weekend. The newsrooms are geared down. They've got their second-stringers working. It's also on the late side. The Sunday newspapers are already out and the TV news shows won't be cranking up until morning. I don't picture any of them creating a problem for us before then."

"Okay. But tell the uniforms that should any members of the Fourth Estate show up, they are to be kept at a distance. Now, let's go up and see what these three blind mice have to say for themselves before Marx and Farley get here and tell them to clam up. Marx and Farley! Sounds like a vaudeville act."

Dane turned away. "I'm going to be in your way. I'll wait in the car."

"Nonsense," exclaimed Bogdanovic, grabbing her coat sleeve. "You're coming with us."

She looked quizzically at Goldstein. "Only if your boss says it's okay."

Goldstein smiled. "Fur coat notwithstanding," he said, "only a cad would leave a lady outside on a night like this." 

"I'm merely an interested spectator" she said, lifting her eyes from the body. "A busman's holiday!" 

Entering the large lobby, they stepped into a green and red wonderland of seasonal decorations. Gleaming white marble walls were festooned with evergreen garlands. Giant wreaths were dotted with pinecones and striped candy canes, and a towering Christmas tree in a corner was decorated with angels. Two small trees atop the reception desk achoed the motif. Flanked by a pair of jolly Santa Clauses on the mande of a going fireplace stood a menorah with yellow electric bulbs signifying the next to the last day of Hanukkah. Two police officers flanking a waiting elevator added a dash of navy blue as they snapped salutes as Goldstein strode past them.

SEATED SIDE BY side on a couch, the three coatless young men appeared to Maggie Dane like first-year law school students holding an all-night cram session before an exam. Worried, tense, on the edge of their seats—literally—and quite possibly at the end of their wits, they looked up nervously as the door opened.

"This is Chief of Detectives Harvey Goldstein," Leibholz declared as they gaped with startled expressions. "He'll be asking you a few questions."

Rising abruptly and violently shaking his head, the middle youth was tall and slender with long coal black hair. "We've been advised to say nothing further about this incident until District Attorney Vanderhoff gets here."

Goldstein advanced briskly across the room. "Is that so? Who gave you that advice? And how did you get it?"

"By phone from Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Marx."

"I see nothing suspicious about it at all," Dearborn said as he smoothed his hair with a neatly manicured hand. "Mancuso leapt out the window. He committed suicide. End of story."

"When the state's star witness has been sequestered at great expense to the taxpayer in a posh Upper East Side hotel room with three bodyguards," Goldstein said sternly, "and he winds up with his guts all over a sidewalk right across the street from Gracie Mansion, I seriously doubt that the news media will think of this as the end of the story. I'd say that you and your two associates will be reading and hearing about yourselves in the papers and on the airwaves for quite a few days. Maybe weeks. End of the story? Hell, this is just the beginning. Now, have a seat and answer my questions. Unless you'd care to make things a whole lot worse by invoking your right to remain silent."

A fair-haired youth lurched up from the couch. Short and with an athletic build, he protested, "We're not criminals, sir."

"Your name, please?"

'James Tyson."

Goldstein looked to the third man. "And you are?"

Standing, he was as tall as Dearborn, though not as slender. A lush brown mustache seemed to be intended to divert attention from severely premature baldness. "I'm Spencer Davis."