Nice Place for a Murder

NICE PLACE FOR A MURDER

A Ben Seidenberg Mystery

By Bruce Jay Bloom

CHAPTER I

Whenever Roger Teague succeeded in contacting me, I knew that at the very least he’d ruin my day, and at most, the rest of my life. So I did what I could to stay beyond his reach.

I didn’t return his answering machine messages at my home phone, and I refused to give him my cell phone number. But whatever I did to keep him away, it was never enough. He’d use messengers and e-mail, and once he actually drove the hundred miles from New York to the North Fork of Long Island so he could ambush me at my house. When it came to tracking me down, Teague had no equal.

If I’d ever thought selling Empire Security to
him would get me out of the investigation business, I didn’t any more. Teague figured he owned me.

So I was dismayed but not surprised that he’d phoned the marina where I kept my boat and persuaded the boss there, my pal Wally Prager, to call me on the radio. Teague had surmised, correctly, that on this brilliant afternoon I’d be out somewhere on
the Elysium, chasing big October bluefish. Now, with Wally relaying Teague’s message to me via radio, he’d tagged me again, even though I was out on the water at the very tip of Long Island, without another living soul to be seen.

Wally’s voice crackled though the radio speaker, telling m
e Teague’s news of a death on Shelter Island, the drowning of an Empire client. “Teague says you should go there now. Insists that you go, actually, if I’m reading him right.”

I squeezed the talk switch on the radio microphone. “Tell him no chance I’m leaving here,” I said. “There’s a blitz on and I’m the only boat in the Gut.” I looked over the bow north across the waters of Plum Gut toward Long Island Sound. From the lighthouse on the west to Plum Island on the east, two hundred yards of water were churning with slammer bluefish, ravaging schools of squid and baitfish they’d herded together for a long, violent meal. Swarms of seabirds above wheeled and screamed, diving to the water’s surface to snatch up the scraps of the carnage. One drift through the Gut with just a single-hook diamond jig lure on my line, and I’d alrea
dy put two ten pounders into Elysium’s fishbox. It was one of those extraordinary fall afternoons fishermen wait for, where you get even for a whole summer of so-so fishing.

“Seems to me it doesn’t matter if you go or not. The guy is cold and dead. Finito.” Pieces of Wally’s words were dropping out through the radio static.

“Cops there on Shelter?”

“Been and gone,” Wally said.

“Nothing for me to do there, right? Waste of time.”

“Far’s I care,” Wally Prager said, “But it’s not me, you understand. Your associate on the phone here’s the one’s getting all red-faced and bug-eyed.”

“If he’s on the phone, how do you know he’s red-faced and bug-eyed?”

“I can te
ll. Es mucho agitado.” Wally spent a week in Mexico City once, and learned maybe twenty-five words of Spanish. He liked to pitch them in, right or wrong, as the spirit moved him. Real Mexicans laughed at him.

“Tell him this is not my affair.”

“It distresses me, really, but Teague insists.” In my mind’s eye, I could see Wally tilted back in his swivel chair holding the microphone in one hand and the telephone in the other, those impossibly skinny bow-legs of his crossed on his battered desk, the smoke from his black Napoli cigar poisoning the air in the marina’s back office.

“I’m not going anyplace,” I said. “Tell him.”

There was an extended pause, as I drifted north on the slow tide, past the underwater blitz, from the bay out into Long Island Sound.

Finally, Wally was back.
“Teague says stop dicking around killing fish nobody wants anyway and go to Shelter Island directly. Particular stress on directly. The drowned guy’s name is Nellis. No, Newalis. Something like that. One of Julian Communications’ suits.”

“This happened where? Ingo Julian’s place?”

“He the big dog at Julian Communications?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s the place,” he said.

“What do they need me for?
Tell Teague to deal with Julian himself.”

“He says some wheel named Alzarez specifically requests that you handle this,” Wally said over the radio. “Only you, Ben Seidenberg, because you’re so smart and fearless. Alzarez
is on the Long Island Expressway now, but it’ll take awhile before he gets there, with the ferry to Shelter and all.”

I watched the birds plunge into the water after the bits of baitfish, heads mostly, because the blues like to bite the tail ends off. “So Alzarez is almost here.
What does he need me for?”

“How about this, then, muchacho?” Wally said. “Your pal told me remind you the Julian Communications retainer has a lot to do with your payout, and does this approach hold any appeal for you?”

I held my fishing rod up against the cloudless sky, watching the shiny jig dangle at the end of the leader. I wanted Teague to leave me alone, stop calling me, vexing me, drawing me in, keeping me close. But why should I expect him to let me go, ever?

But w
hat I couldn’t escape, even in my anger, was that Teague was right about the Julian Communications retainer, the half million a year they paid for providing security services to their three divisions, plus background checks on anybody the brass wanted to hire, sell to, buy from, or destroy utterly. Trouble with the Julian account would suck the dollars out of my pocket, because the money Teague was paying me for the company I’d founded was based on Empire’s profits year by year. Big profit, big payment. Small profit, small payment. No Julian Communications, likely no payment at all.

“Come to a conclusion,” Wally said. “I got to go feed the chickens.”

“What chickens?”

“I’m getting some. Talk to me.”

I stuck my pole into a rod-holder on the Elysium’s gunwale. “Tell him he has engaged my attention, and reaffirmed his reputation as a world-class prick.”

“That mean you’re going?” Wally said.

“Shit.”

“Well, in general that is a sensible decision. Didn’t know you had one in you. What you going to do with a box full of blues, anyway? They’re fish, for chrissakes. Now, if you could pull some rib-roasts out of the water, then you’d have something.” Wally left the mike open so I could hear him talk on the phone to Teague. “Ben says he’s on his way.”

“I told you tell him he’s a prick,” I said.

“Hung up now. Anyway, you need help with the way you express yourself. You want me to show you where the Julian place is?”

“I know where it is.”

“You want me to meet you there?”

“Thanks. Don’t bother,” I told him.

“You might need backup.”

“Not necessary.”

“You might wish you had me along.”

“Go feed the chickens” I turned off the radio, wishing I’d never left it on in the first place.

Now
Elysium rocked in the swells of the Sound, the cries of the sea-birds growing faint as the tide drew the boat farther from the frenzy of fish. With a phone call Roger Teague forced me back into the wearisome pursuits I’d schemed so hard to escape. But it was Hector Alzarez who’d asked for me, and I found it difficult not to feel flattered. Alzarez was general counsel for Julian Communications. He’d opened the doors of his company to Empire, when Empire was just a runt in the business, and his company on our client list moved us up fast. I owed Alzarez, and I liked him, too. 

I fired up the twin 200-horse Yamaha outboards and turned the Elysium back through the fish and the birds, then around the Plum Gut lighthouse, toward Shelter Island and Ingo Julian’s place.

I saw it from a mile away. Julian’s island retreat was one of those showplaces you point out to guests on your boat as you motor by. It was a distinctive architectural statement, a modernist’s delight, all angles and glass, perched on the rocks high above the narrow beach. Julian had himself a wraparound view of the world, with a protected harbor on one side and the Greenport waterfront across the bay on Long Island’s North Fork.

A single boat was in the bay, a smallish, grime-stained commercial fisherman a hundred yards out from the Julian dock. Strange, because a commercial boat wouldn’t normally work these waters. The professionals liked a deeper bottom, and a more appealing catch than the porgies that lived here. I turned the Elysium and stopped, put the engines into idle, moved back to the stern and raised my binoculars for a better look.

Even with the lowering sun painting painful yellow circles inside the binoculars, I saw the rifle barrel seeking me out. Across the water on the commercial boat, the gunman was steadying himself against the back of the wheelhouse, taking his aim. A lanky, shirtless guy with the broadest chest I’d ever seen, both arms and both shoulders covered with tattoos. I lurched toward the throttles on Elysium’s console, trying to thrust the outboards into gear and put distance between me and the man with the gun. I felt the binoculars swinging hard against my belly from the strap around my neck.

I was still a giant step away from the throttle levers when I heard the crack of the rifle across the water. A hole appeared in the Elysium’s vinyl side-curtain, and the windshield glass shattered as the bullet exited.

I dropped down on all fours, with the Elysium’s gunwale shielding me from the shooter. Crouching there, my binoculars bumping against the deck, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the Grady-White boat company had built enough fiberglass into this hull to stop a bullet. It was a fishing boat, after all, not an invasion craft.

Another shot, then another, the noise crisp across the quiet bay. I could hear the gunman working the rifle’s bolt, thrusting a new round into the chamber as each shot echoed away. Then the fisherman’s engine starting, flatulent diesel sounds, belching and growling. The gunman had ducked into the wheelhouse to start up.

I poked my nose over the gunwale, hoping to find I had enough time to get to the console and power out of there. But the gunman was already back outside the wheelhouse, lining up another shot. Dropping down again, I heard the bullet thump the Elysium’s stern. Instantly, the starboard engine shuddered and died.

Now the fisherman’s engine revving, smoothing out and rising in pitch. The gunman had to be back inside the wheelhouse, busy piloting the boat, giving it plenty of throttle. But I heard the diesel growing louder, more insistent. He’s bearing down on me, I thought. He’s not giving up.

Can’t run for it now, I told myself. No way to win a race with one engine gone, even against a clumsy commercial fishing craft that might make eighteen, twenty knots, tops.

Protected by the gunwale, I crawled to the hatch, swung my legs around and slid down the two stairs into the cabin, reaching into the aft bunk to pull out my lever action Remington 30/30 by the stock. I’d had it aboard since Wally and I battled a
seven-foot mako shark to a standstill in the ocean off Montauk a year ago last July, then lost it when we tried lash it to the stern. I’d vowed never to go shark hunting again without some firepower to finish the job. Thus the rifle.

As I sat on the bunk shoving cartridges into the Remington, I felt my angina kicking in, as it always stood ready to do when I gave my 56-year-old heart too much to handle. I tried not to acknowledge the familiar tightening across my chest, but it was too strong, too insistent. Get past it it, I told myself, because there’s this guy who’s coming right now to wipe you out.

The sound of the diesel grew louder. I cranked the lever to cock the Remington and moved up onto the deck. The other boat was maybe a hundred feet off, heading right down my throat. I raised my gun to my shoulder, and as soon as I did, the boat veered away hard, leaning over precipitously in the water. The shooter didn’t want a fight, not if I had a gun, too. He was running away, heading around the island and back to Plum Gut. I squeezed off a shot at him, but couldn’t tell where — or if — it hit

I was wheezing now, and feeling the thump of my heart as it struggled to keep up with me. Ignore it, I thought, and maybe it won’t kill you right this minute.

The fisherman was at the bend of the island. No way to miss letters over a foot high on the stern. They proclaimed that the boat’s name was Lulu.

With a weapon in my hands, I was bent on some
ass kicking of my own. I’d been surprised and puzzled by the attack, but right now I was more wrathful than mystified. Shot at with grave intent, one of Elysium’s big outboards out of commission, the boat’s right windshield a spider’s web of cracks with a three-inch hole in the middle. All accomplished in less than two minutes by an unknown shooter from a boat called Lulu.

Elysium’s port outboard was still alive and idling. I pushed the throttle forward and the bow moved up as the boat responded. I spun the wheel and turned to follow the fisherman around the bend of the island. The bow leveled as the boat struggled up on one engine and began to plane. I had the throttle full forward now, but the engine peaked at 3800 revs, far less than the 5000 it could crank out if the starboard engine had been helping. The heavy boat was creating
backpressure that overwhelmed the single Yamaha still firing. Elysium could fly on two engines. On one, she was limping.