Dead Ringer (30 page)

“I did. . . . He was catching a smoke.”

“Do you remember if the steak knife was there when you cleared?”

Dante thought longer. “Nah, I don’t know. Sorry.”

“You sure? It’s very important.” Bennie waited for his answer as a busboy hurried past them to the kitchen with a clinking tray of empty plates. She edged farther against the wall, so they were standing next to the painted portraits above the wainscoting. Bennie felt eyes on her and looked over. On the wall, at eye level, floated a very familiar head with a name painted underneath. WILLIAM LINETTE. Bennie did a double take. “That’s Bill Linette,” she blurted out, startled.

“Sure. Mr. Linette, he’s a regular. Comes in all the time.”

“He does?” Bennie thought about it. “Of course he does. He’s a big-time lawyer.”

“
Real
big. Tips awesome. He wasn’t in my station last night, though. We gotta rotate.” Dante snapped his fingers in disappointment. Bennie couldn’t believe her ears.

“Did you say
Bill Linette
ate here last night?”

“Sure.”

“But I didn’t see his name in the reservation book.”

“He doesn’t have to call for reservations anymore. He comes in every Tuesday and Thursday for dinner, same time. Around seven.”

Bennie’s heart began to hammer. Did everybody but her eat at the Palm? “Did you see him last night?”

“Sure. He even said hi. Always does. Friendly dude.”

“Who’d he eat with?”

“Some guys he knows, I think. Suits. Two.”

“Quinones, Kerpov?”

“Don’t know them, only Mr. Linette.” Dante shrugged as another waiter hurried by. He shifted his feet. “Will this take a lot longer, sir? Miss?”

“I’ll make it fast.” Bennie tried to think through her excitement. “Was Linette here the same time as Mayer and St. Amien?”

“Wait. I want to get this right.” Dante paused, thinking. “Yes. Definitely. Mr. Linette came in later and he left later, I think. Mr. Linette likes to have his after-dinner drinks. Always picks a nice malt.”

“He drink a lot last night?”

“Well, yeah. Always. But he doesn’t get sloppy, he’s a classy guy. He holds it pretty good. He’s big.”

Bennie eyed the restaurant layout. “Where did Mayer sit and where did Linette sit? Tell me the exact tables.”

“Like I said, Mr. Mayer was in seven, I mean, that’s the table in my station against the front wall, in the window. In the middle, see?” He pointed.

In the window.
So anyone coming into the Palm through the main entrance would see Mayer and St. Amien. Linette had come in later, so he could have seen them in the window.

“And Mr. Linette was at his table in the back,” Dante continued. “Right here.”

Of course.
“Near his picture.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Now for a hard question. Do you know if they saw each other? For example, did you see Mayer or St. Amien stop by and say hello to Linette, maybe on their way to the men’s room?”

Dante shook his head. “Men never use the bathroom, only ladies. They’re in there all the time.” He chuckled, then caught himself. “I didn’t see them get together, no. I don’t know if they saw each other, but you can tell the way it is, with the tables.”

Bingo
. Bennie eyeballed the location of the tables. “There’s even a divider, that bank of booths that screens the front of the room from the back. You can’t see over that. So if Mayer and St. Amien didn’t go to the bathroom, they probably didn’t see Linette.”

“Right. They’re like separate dining rooms. If you’re sitting at Mr. Linette’s table back here, you don’t see to the front. Mr. Linette likes his table private. He does a lotta his business here. When he wants to party, he hangs at the bar.”

Bennie could barely suppress her excitement. So it was possible that Linette had seen Mayer and Robert last night when he came in. But they hadn’t seen him, because of the booth divider. “How can we find out what Linette ordered last night? Who was the waiter back here?”

“I know what he ordered.” Dante looked anxiously toward the kitchen, but Bennie hadn’t learned everything she needed to know.

“How do you know? You didn’t wait on him. He wasn’t in your station.”

“Don’t matter, he always orders the same thing, every Tuesday and every Thursday. He always says it’s doctor’s orders.”

Bennie’s hopes sank. “What, a salad?”

“No, the prime rib. He likes to joke around, Mr. Linette does.”

So Linette had a knife too.

“You’re not thinkin’ that Mr. Linette
killed
that dude, because Mr. Linette would never—”

“Shhh.” Bennie put a finger to her lips. “Don’t speculate. Leave these matters to the police.” Not that she would. “Who was the busboy at Linette’s table?”

“Think it was Marky, but he isn’t on tonight. And if you’re gonna ask him if he picked up a knife, he won’t remember. The kid likes the ganja, he don’t remember his name.” Dante’s hand flew to cover his mouth. “Oh, shit. Did I just get him in—”

“No, I’ll keep it to myself. You do the same.” Bennie placed an ersatz-official arm on his shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone we spoke, and say no to drugs. Thanks for the help, and sorry to have kept you. You can get back to work now.”

“Thanks, Officer,” Dante said, and he practically bolted toward the kitchen, leaving Bennie with a promotion.

And a painted picture of a toothy Bill Linette.

Bennie and Sam chugged along, walking down the crowded sidewalk toward her office. She slipped her Ray-Bans on in case any stray reporter was out there, and also to continue her strategy of differentiating her appearance from Alice’s. Also she was carrying her doggie bag.
Take that, Alice!

“So he’s behind us?” Sam asked as they walked. He had his navy blazer hooked on his index finger and thrown over his shoulder. “He’s following us? David Hottie?”

Bennie smiled. “Holland. Keep your eyes front and don’t look back.”

“This feels strange. Having him following us.”

“No stranger than having
her
follow us.”

“She’s following us, too? Christ, we’re a parade!”

“Really.” They turned onto Locust, toward Bennie’s office. Sam was going to drop her off, then go on to Grun. She checked her watch. Half past one. She had her meeting at two. She scanned the bypassers reflexively for Alice, then breathed a relieved sigh. She didn’t have to be so worried anymore with every step. “I feel better knowing that he’s watching.”

“But he’s so big, how can he blend in?”

“He’s a master of disguise. He even has a witch hat.”

Sam looked over. “Be serious.”

“He knows stuff.”

“He’s a soldier, not a spy.”

Basically the same thing.
“He has common sense, doesn’t he? He hangs back, changes his appearance slightly day to day, and he makes it work. You don’t need a surveillance degree to follow somebody around. Besides, Alice isn’t expecting this. She might expect me to hire a uniformed security guard, but she wouldn’t expect this. And she doesn’t know David. She won’t be looking for him to be following her following me.”

“Huh?”

“See? It’s too confusing.”

They passed some office buildings a block from Bennie’s. The breeze was coolish and pleasantly free of humidity, and the foot traffic dying down. It reminded Bennie of the day she had walked back to her office with Robert, only to get arrested in front of him. She couldn’t believe that he was dead. Whoever had killed him wasn’t playing games. She stopped in her tracks and turned to Sam.

“Sam, the truth is that beggars can’t be choosers. I know that the plan isn’t perfect, but it’s the only one I have. And it won’t last forever. I think it will only take a few days. She’ll show her hand very soon, and we’ll get her.”

Sam inhaled. “But it’s like using you as bait.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Got you last,” Bennie said. She wasn’t about to admit as much to Sam, but she
had
thought of that.

25

“Mort Abrams,” the young man said, shaking Bennie’s hand with assurance. He was younger than she had expected, about her own age, with a friendly array of crow’s-feet at the corners of his light brown eyes. He was short, with brown hair brushed neatly to the side, and he was dressed business casual in a forest green Lacoste shirt and charcoal Dockers. “Pleased to meet you in person, Bennie,” he said as they shook hands.

“My, in person.” Bennie laughed and gestured to introduce the remaining associates. DiNunzio had left for Washington, and the boss was experiencing an uncharacteristic pang of maternal concern. But she still had two baby birds left, and this case was big enough to need them both. “Mort, these are my associates, Judy Carrier and Anne Murphy.”

“Great to meet you,” he said, shaking each one’s hand, more stiffly than Robert had and with less charm. Bennie knew the associates would be remembering Robert, too; that was why she had scheduled the meeting in the large conference room. The windows lining the north wall filled the place with bright natural light.

“Good to see you,” Carrier said, lifting her chin gamely as she sat down in her denim smock and white T-shirt, and Murphy extended her hand over the table.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, more quietly than usual, and sat down. She wore her favorite black knit dress, sadly appropriate for today. Bennie decided not to ignore the subject.

“Mort, you’ll have to excuse us here,” she began, taking her seat at the head of the table. “We’re all feeling pretty shaken today, with Robert St. Amien’s death last night. He was our client and our friend.” She gestured Abrams into a seat to her left, giving him the view of the cityscape.

“Of course, I understand.” Abrams sat down and glanced around the table, with a puckered lower lip. “I met Robert only once, but he was a fine man and an excellent businessman. In fact, I owe him a debt of gratitude. He was the one who put me onto the notion of expanding into Europe, and we acquired an English sub.”

“A subsidiary,” Bennie supplied, though he could just as easily have meant an English submarine, for all she knew about business.

“Yes. I’m American, obviously, and my core business is manufacturing calibrated fittings for medical equipment.”

“Fittings, I see,” Bennie said, though she was constantly amazed by the number of widgets it took to make a machine of any kind. The only thing she could make was a brief, and the only widgets she understood were words. “What exactly is a fitting?”

“Well, a fitting is a little ring that”—Abrams made an O with his index finger and thumb—“well, forget the details, the bottom line is that fittings are rings that fit like collars on things, in my case most types of medical equipment. My company, FitCo, manufactures them in West Chester, outside the city.”

“Okay, I’m with you.”

“Last year, I wanted to expand my business, so I acquired a small English concern that manufactures medical lenses. My English sub, also called FitCo, has been damaged by the trade association’s boycott against foreign lenses. We’ve lost two contracts since the association’s meeting.”

“You can document this?”

“Easily.” Abrams spread his palms. “I’m wondering if I can join the class-action litigation against the association.”

“What were the damages from the lost contracts?” Bennie slid a sharp pencil and a fresh legal pad from the center of the table.

“Nothing in the neighborhood of St. Amien & Fils’s, but significant for us. A contract with Key Medical, Inc. A half million dollars.”

“That’s significant, all right,” Bennie said, writing it down. It was five hundred grand more than she had, for starters.

“It certainly is, and it was only the beginning for our little sub.” Abrams tented his fingers. “We use outside counsel for business work, but he doesn’t do much litigation, and no class-action litigation. So I find myself in the position of needing a lawyer but not knowing whom to choose. I think a lot of us smaller companies are in the same position. I thought I’d come here to speak with you.”

“Thank you for giving us a shot,” Bennie told him, but her blood didn’t race as it had that morning with Robert. If anything, she should have been more excited about signing Abrams, because she was more broke now, if such a thing was possible. Everything hung in the balance, but she couldn’t muster the requisite enthusiasm for a dog and pony show.

“I saw your argument yesterday in the courtroom. I was in the gallery.” Abrams smiled in an encouraging way. “I thought it was very interesting, what you did. I didn’t follow all the technicalities, but I liked how you handled yourself, and the motion you filed seemed to do the trick.”

“It may have, but the judge didn’t exactly rule,” Bennie said, then kicked herself. Why was she talking Abrams out of hiring her? What was the matter with her? Plus she hadn’t even offered him coffee. She started to rise. “Excuse me, would you like some coffee?”

“Don’t drink coffee.”

“Okay.” Bennie sat back down.
Bad to worse.
She could hear her house selling at foreclosure, a gavel hitting a wooden block. She’d have to find an apartment that took Bears.

“I am considering retaining Rosato & Associates because of what I saw, and part of my thinking is that if Robert chose you as counsel, that’s a very high recommendation. There are a lot of lawyers in this suit, and he could have gone anywhere.”

“Thank you.” Bennie tried to rouse herself. “We may not have the experience the other firms do, but we’re more than qualified, and we can get the job done for a fraction of their cost because we’re smaller. We were very pleased that Robert selected us from among all the class-action counsel in the suit.”

“I’ll say. My corporate lawyer says that the roster reads like a who’s who of class-action lawyers. Linette, Brenstein, Quinones, and a man named Kerpov, I think. My lawyer did some asking around, and he referred me to Bill Linette.”

Bennie almost gagged on the irony, considering the steak knife still in her purse. She swallowed hard, relieved she hadn’t had the chance to brief the associates on what she’d learned about Linette’s dinner last night. They were too young to have developed a poker face. She said evenly: