Nice Place for a Murder (16 page)

“You say that as if you don’t believe it.”

“I said only that it was fascinating, yes?”

Rutkowski deposited us in Greenport, where we found Ingo’s Mercedes had been moved to the apron of the ferry ramp. Ingo and I got in, and Ingo drove to Eastern Long Island Hospital, where Lisa waited at the main entrance. By now even her composure was showing some cracks. It was a bad day for everybody, even the Iron Woman.

The three of us headed toward Stony Brook. In the forty-five minutes it took us to reach the medical center, not a dozen words were spoken.

We didn’t even have to go inside. The MedEvac helicopter was still on the landing pad, which was perilously close to the driveway of the main hospital building. The pilot stood there talking to a doctor and smoking a cigarette.

Ingo stopped the car and we got out.

Yes, they had just come from Greenport, they told us. Yes, they had picked up a man with a gunshot wound.

Was he in the operating room now? No, he wasn’t, not now. Where was he, then? Were we relatives? No, good friends.

I’m sorry to have to tell you, then, but he had a terrible wound, and he didn’t make it.

Did he die in the operating room, then? No, actually, he died on the trip here, in the helicopter.

Just like that. That’s how it all ended for Hector Alzarez, that thoughtful, well-mannered, elegant, beautifully dressed dude who played it smart, and came this close to becoming exceedingly rich.

CHAPTER XVII

It took the better part of two hours for Lisa to answer the questions and complete the paperwork in the hospital, so we could leave. As we headed back, we listened to the radio in the car. The two all-news stations out of New York already had the story on the air, and they were churning it endlessly.  WCBS had a telephone sound bite of Nugent spilling everything he knew about the shooting and predicting that the perpetrator would be run to ground in short order. “We know who he is. We know what he looks like. We’ll find him,” the police chief told the news anchor, and the world. WINS had their Long Island reporter on the scene, and cut away every ten minutes to his live reports, which included comments from the teen driver of the Toyota. That young man, his voice cracking with eagerness, described the shooter as a heavyset Hispanic. “That is, like, I think,” he said, summing it all up.

It was the sensational kind of story that journalists pray for on slow news days. Daring one-man assault of a ferryboat on the open water. Executive of a big company shot and killed as shocked passengers watch. Crazed former employee takes revenge. Blaze of gunfire as private investigator empties revolver at fleeing murderer.

Private investigator Ben Seidenberg, that is. They gave my name, but neglected to say ‘retired.’

I suggested Ingo drive back on the South Fork, taking the south ferry to Shelter Island. That way, I told him, we’d avoid the north ferry from Greenport, and the reporters who were sure to have come to town by now. He took the south route, but it didn’t much matter.  There were already two TV crews who’d crossed from Greenport over to Shelter, waiting at the long gravel driveway that led to Ingo’s place. Fortunately, also on hand were two Empire agents, quickly dispatched from New York by Teague, to keep them away from the house. Typical Empire operatives, they were burly, stone-faced types, with a demeanor that went beyond intimidating all the way to fearsome.  Not one of the TV people tried to rush the car as the two guards motioned us through.

Lisa was in emergency mode. She’d been on her cell phone in the car, giving orders to her staff in New York, pulling people out of meetings, calling in favors from friends in the media, putting a calculated spin on everything she said. Maybe the woman did sleep her way into her job, but it appeared she was more than capable of handling it once she got there. Now she was on the phone in Ingo’s study, breaking the bad news to Hector’s mother, a 74-year-old widow in Austin, Texas.

“Shouldn’t you be doing that?” I said to Ingo. We were in the great room, looking across the bay to the lights of Greenport. It was already seven o’clock.

“This is not a good time for you to tell me what I should be doing, yes?” he said, staring me down. Then, backing off, “Lisa is very capable at these things. She knows how to read people, say what they want to hear. I’m very blunt.”

“I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Blunt, but not forthcoming.”

“Oh?”

“You didn’t want me around, but you knew you needed me. Even so, you refused to let me get help. You wouldn’t tell me the whole story, let me inside, so I could stay ahead of the game. You kept your secrets, and now Hector is dead,” I said.

Ingo turned and stepped behind a white marble bar set against the back wall. “You’ve had a difficult day, Seidenberg. Let me pour you a drink. You’ve earned it. scotch, isn’t it?”

“You know everything, don’t you?”

“I know everything.” He filled a glass with ice from a fridge below the bar, poured a healthy measure of Glenfidich over the cubes and held the drink out to me. The willful expression on his face said if I wanted it, I’d have to come and get it.

What the hell. I went to the bar and took the glass from his outstretched hand. “You’re right about one thing,” I said.

“Delighted to hear it. And just what thing is that?”

“I’ve earned it.” I swirled the ice in the glass to chill the scotch, and took a sip. “Single malt,” I said.

“Do you like it?”

“Frankly, I like Dewars better. A good blend goes down easier.” A framed picture on a shelf behind the bar drew my attention. It was an engaging photo of two teenage boys grinning at the camera.

“My friends who drink scotch tell me single malts are for sophisticated palates, “ he said, “whiskey for the carriage trade.”

“That explains it, then. I’m irrevocably committed to middle class values, myself.” I gestured with my glass at the photo. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Me and my brother Felix. I was sixteen and he was fifteen.”

“I see the family resemblance.”

“Maybe a little,” he said. “Felix was more handsome. Every girl he met fell in love with him instantly.”

I pulled at my Glenfiddich, wishing it were Dewars. Ingo watched me closely. “Aren’t you having any?” I asked him.

“I don’t touch alcohol,” he said, in a way intended to make me feel ill at ease because I drank and he didn’t. As if I cared.

“A pity,” I said. “I thought if you loosened up, you might let me in on the real story.”

“This Sosenko maniac? You know the story. You’re the one who uncovered it.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened between you and Arthur Brody.”

“What does that have to do with anything? A different story entirely.”

“They don’t tie together?” I said. “Just a coincidence? Twist of fate, maybe?”

His face began to redden, making his scars stand out in bold relief. “It’s none of your affair, Seidenberg. I suggest you remember that Julian Communications is your client, and make a strong effort not to stray into areas that don’t concern you.”

“But it does concern me. I’ve been fed a well-rehearsed line by you and Lisa, and Brody, too. A man I never knew is drowned, and a good man I admire gets shot down in front of me. I get to sidestep bullets twice now, myself, and I’m forced to irritate the hell out of a wicked angina condition. And it all happens just when Julian Communications is about to go public. Strange, isn’t it? So I really don’t want to hear about your eight hundred million dollar jackpot again. You owe me more than a glass of high-priced scotch. Try paying me off with some truth.”

“You think we’ve lied to you, is that it?” It was Lisa. I turned to see her standing in the archway of the great room. She held a pad of paper, the top sheet covered with her notes, and a pen.

“Lie? No, I suspect you’ve told me the truth,” I said to her. “Just not all of it.”

“Seidenberg is about to go back on the ferry,” Ingo said irritably, right to my face.

“Hector told me you asked him out here to come up with a strategy to deal with Brody, mend the fences,” I said. “Tell me about that.”

Ingo ignored my question. He walked past me as though I weren’t there, and sank into a chair. Superb physical condition or not, he had the fatigued look of a man with too many conflicts, too much on his mind. “Tell me what’s happening,” he said to Lisa.

“They’re trying to schedule the funeral for Tuesday or Wednesday in Austin. Will you go?” she said.

“Tell Brody to go,” he said.

“I think you should.”

“Brody. Go with him if you want to.”

Lisa made a note. Then, “The police chief, that Nugent, says the coroner will release the body Monday morning. An undertaker in Riverhead will send it to Texas.” She turned to me. “Oh, and Nugent says you can pick up your gun at the police station.”

“See,” I said, “even the cops trust me.”

“I talked to Lowell and Manheim,” she said to Ingo. “They’re the crisis public relations specialists. They handled the AuditCo insider trading thing. And CIM, the currency exchange problems.”

“Spin doctors,” Ingo said.

“Best in New York,” she said. “Tony Manheim says the story will be all over the planet by tomorrow morning. But he thinks the news can be handled, maybe even turned to our advantage. I hired him on the phone. Told him to get in his car and point it to the Long Island Expressway. He’s headed out now.”

“Good.” Ingo turned in his chair and looked at me for a long moment. “I suppose you’re waiting for me to express a measure of gratitude, yes?” he said, his voice flat and indifferent. “Thank you for your assistance to my company. Thank you for shooting at that maniac, even if you missed all six shots. Teague has two of his Neanderthals from Empire on guard now, so there’s no reason for you to stay here. In fact, there’s only one more service you can perform for Julian Communications. Get this Sosenko.”

“Police in two states are looking for him right now.” I said. “I’m just one man.”

“But you don’t have all the legal constraints the police have,” he said. “Add to that, now you will have your gun back.” 

It was nearly eight when I called Alicia from the ferry to tell her why I’d missed dinner, and that I was too weary to come by tonight. She swore she would never forgive me, unless I helped her make veal marsala tomorrow night, and then stayed around for some romance. That sounded fair, so I accepted.

It wasn’t until the late news on Channel 7 that anyone in the media tied the shooting to Julian Communications’ initial stock offering.  No one suggested that the shooter was involved in a plot bearing on the IPO, but a snotty TV business reporter with a strange toupee speculated that the markets might be wary of a company being targeted by a murderer. Not only that, he added, but there had already been reports of a management power struggle in the big communications conglomerate, making the situation complicated, indeed. “We’ll watch this one with great interest,” he said, with an attitude that suggested this was all happening for his amusement.

Once the IPO connection surfaced, other media picked up on it. I went out the next morning and bought all the papers. The story was squarely in the spotlight on the front pages of the Times, the Post, the News and Newsday, too. The headline in the Post, big enough to be read from down the hall and out the door, was the most unkind. It said, “REVENGE KILLING AT SEA; Hit-and-Run Gunman Dims Company’s Stock Plans.” Post headlines always did have a way of cutting through to the fundamental nature of things.

The Wall Street Journal ran it, but far back, and mercifully noted that whatever troubles the company might be experiencing, its bottom line was still strong. This was the only positive note any of the media sounded all day long.

Essentially, the revenge angle was playing out just the way Ingo and the others feared it would. It looked as though their calculated program for marketing Julian Communications to Wall Street was teetering now, with a possibility that their six hundred million dollar payoff might fall off a cliff. Unless, of course, the public relations maven Tony Manheim was as good as they hoped.

It wasn’t until I’d read everybody’s version of the story that I noticed the light flashing on my answering machine. A call had come in while I was out for the papers. I pushed the replay bar.

“This is for you, Mr. Seidenberg.” It was a man’s voice, low-pitched and halting, a distressing rattle in his throat. He sounded sick, or maybe drunk. “My name is James Giannone. I think — I think there is a huge fraud that you may — .” His voice trailed off and there was a long pause in which I could hear his labored breathing. Then he began again. “Let me say that — that you are being duped into thinking — thinking —.  It’s a lie. A plot, you understand. People are being murdered. I have to talk to you. I will call back at exactly one o’clock this afternoon. Did I — did I say one? Yes, one o’clock.”