Third Victim (5 page)

“Sure. I’ll make two separate lists.”

“I understand that he might have had some recent luck with jobs in the theater.”

Eli seemed to perk up. “Yes. I mean hopefully. There’s this play that’s in development that he thought he was going to be hired onto as a regular cast member. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of weeks, but I know that he was up for an understudy role in
Pervy Pumps
. Lenny’s a talented guy.” His throat tightened. “Shit! I still can’t believe what you’re telling me.”

“How soon before we can get our hands on that list?” Lido asked.

“Can I get a couple of hours? The crowd is probably nuts out there,” he said as he motioned to the front of the restaurant. “Just let me get the first wave of diners seated. I’ll sit down and write out a list as soon as it calms down a little. A lot of the local places are closed on Monday and that’s why we’re busy as hell.”

I glanced over at my junior partner to see if he had any objections. He seemed content to give Danziger the time he needed. “Then we’ll leave you to it.” I checked my watch. “See you about eight?”

“Yeah. That’ll be good. See you then.” He rose from his chair immediately. “I’d better get out front. Some of the regulars will get nervous if I don’t greet them. They’ll think there’s been a change in ownership.”

“We can’t have that, now can we?” Lido asked.

“Not if I want to keep my job,” Danziger said with his eyebrows raised high. He showed us the door.

Chapter Eight

I was oh so ready to put my twenty-eight-year-old metabolism to the test.
I had already wolfed down a Shake Shack ShackMeister dog, and was salivating as I drew the first ice-cream-laden spoon of Concrete sundae toward my mouth. Mine was a custom blend of chocolate ice cream, hazelnut brown butter streusel, cheesecake blondie, and cannoli shells. Just a single scoop, mind you. A girl’s got to maintain some degree of sensibility. My hand trembled as the spoon approached my lips.

“Yo, chowhound, grab your goodies and follow me.” Lido’s words were garbled and with good reason. He had his teeth wrapped around a double SmokeShack burger. Fortunately, Lido had the jaws of a python and was able to unhinge them in order to swallow the mountainous burger.

I had only eaten a few spoonfuls of my gooey, creamy dessert but was already feeling guilty. Not for being indulgent but because both of my parents had diabetes, and I figured it was only a matter of time before it hit me too. My father had died from its complications, and Ma … well, she was a closet chocoholic of the highest magnitude and cheated on her diet constantly.

Let it melt,
I thought.
When you come back to your desk it’ll be a melted puddle of goo and you won’t … Ah, who am I kidding? What’s better than melted ice cream?
“What’ve you got, hot shot?” Lido and I had returned to the station to do some background checks before returning to Glatt Pita for Eli Danziger’s list of possible interviewees—hence the impromptu Shake Shack carry-out dinner.

“We scored on one of the security cameras.”

“I thought there weren’t any.”

“Nothing close to the crime scene, but I pulled the tapes from the subway station near Koufax’s apartment in Brooklyn.”

“Nicely done. Way to go, rookie.” I grabbed my thousand-calorie cup of goodness and followed Lido to the media room, where the scene frozen on the computer monitor depicted the interior of a subway station. The time read 5:33. There was no need for the a.m., p.m. designation as the security cameras run on a twenty-four-hour cycle or military time. Had it been 5:33 in the evening, the time would’ve been displayed as 17:33. The date stamp indicated 11/16, today’s date, Monday.

“Koufax was supposed to report to work at 7:00 a.m.” Lido got comfortable in his chair and cued the tape. “I figured he had to hit the train station somewhere between 5:30 and 6:15 in order to get to work on time.” He tapped the screen in the upper right-hand corner. “This is the entrance. In three, two, one …”

I watched as a man who could’ve been Koufax entered the station and walked toward the ticket machine. “Our boy’s an early riser. He shouldn’t need more than forty-five minutes from that station to midtown. Why’s he leaving so early?”

“One miracle at a time,” Lido quipped. “I’m still learning the ropes.”

I smiled and continued to watch the camera footage. “Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to sleep as late as possible on a frigid February morning? I wouldn’t have hit the subway for another forty-five minutes.”

“Maybe
he
likes to be punctual,” Lido jibed sarcastically.

I wrinkled my nose and flipped Lido the bird. It was a playful bird, a blue jay or perhaps a sparrow. I watched as the subject pulled the subway ticket from the machine and slid his wallet into his back pocket. He turned and was now facing the camera as he approached the turnstile. I had a clear view of his face as he went through. “Looks like our man all right.”

Lido paused the tape. “Ready for my second miracle?” He pumped his eyebrows à la Groucho Marx.

“Settling into the job, are we? Don’t keep a girl waiting, JC. If you’re going to turn water into wine, you’d better do it before you lose your audience.”

“Fair enough.”

We both turned our attention back to the screen. “Wait for it. Here it comes,” Lido said, focusing me on the exact moment of his planned surprise. Once past the turnstile, Koufax hustled to catch up with another man, who looked back when he was tapped on the shoulder. The second man was holding a large Jamba Juice cup.

“Son of a bitch!”

“How’d I do?” Lido asked.

“Real good, rookie. Real good. Grab your jacket and let’s find out why Mr. Helpful withheld information.” The second man on the screen was Ira Bascom.

Chapter Nine

Ira Bascom opened the door as far as the security chain would permit and peeked out.
“Ah shit,” he grumbled unhappily. He looked normal in every respect except that he was wearing an avocado facial mask and looked very much like a leprechaun. “Can you come back in a little while? I’m waiting for my—”

“We prefer to wait,” Lido said.

Resigned to the fact that we were not going away, Bascom unlatched the security chain and let us in. “Give me a minute,” he said as he walked off.

Left to our own devices, I made a silly face and Lido reciprocated with one of his own, a real doozy. He was making splendid progress as a detective.

Bascom’s apartment was like a curio shop. It was filled with knickknacks and bric-a-bracs, which to be on point are probably the same thing. His apartment was a mini museum specializing in erotic statuettes. I whispered to Lido, “Get a load of these.”

He rolled his eyes. “I like this one.” He pointed to a small marble statuette of two rotund men intertwined in rapture.

“I didn’t have you pegged as a chubby chaser.”

We both had to wipe the sophomoric grins from our faces when Bascom reentered the room. “How can I help you, Detectives? Have the DNA tests come back yet?”

“Not yet,” Lido replied. “Figure another twenty-four hours.”

“Then what’s up?” He sounded mildly unhappy. I suppose the interruption had prevented his beauty mask from curing.

I pulled a photo out of a large envelope and showed it to him. It was a screenshot of the subway station video, depicting him next to Koufax, holding the large smoothie cup. “You were with Leonard Koufax at five thirty this morning. Care to explain?”

He studied the photo and handed it back to me. “There’s nothing to explain.” He plopped into a side chair. “We commute together. We’ve been doing it for over a year now. It’s nice to have company on a train filled with haters.”

“Haters?” Lido asked.

Bascom elaborated. “Gay haters. We’re a persecuted minority, and bring Jewish on top of it … I’d get fewer insults if I were a straight man with Ebola.”

Not touching that one.
“The difference being that your traveling companion might have been murdered today. Don’t you think you should’ve mentioned that to us?”

“I don’t see why. It had nothing to do with the explosion.”

“Where do you work, Mr. Bascom, and when did you and Mr. Koufax part company?”

“Henry’s on Broadway, the breakfast shift just like Lenny. I need the money to pay the bills when I don’t have an acting gig.”

We’d gotten to Koufax’s apartment sometime between twelve thirty and one in the afternoon. “You’re usually home by one?”

“Most days.”

“You and Mr. Koufax don’t travel home together?” Lido asked.

“No. Lenny finishes earlier. He cleans up after breakfast and leaves. I have to set up for lunch before I leave. He’s usually home before me.”

“Still,” I persisted. “You should’ve told us. You’ll have to account for your whereabouts so that we can rule you out as a person of interest.”

“This is ridiculous,” he said hotly. “You’re not even sure that it was Lenny who died this morning, yet you’re happy to harangue me and accuse me of being a suspect.”

“Let’s take a deep breath, Mr. Bascom. I’m sure you want to see justice served.”

“Then go find the bomber. Do I look like Ted Kaczynski to you?”

Why you obstinate little …

“We’ll need to verify the time you got to work this morning, and confirm that you were there until past the time of the bombing,” Lido said flatly.

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.” He provided the name of his supervisor and the phone number at work. “Is there anything else?”

Bascom was pissing me off and I wanted to stay longer just to bust his chops, but it was already after eight and I wanted to get back to Eli Danziger before he left for the evening. Lido said goodbye, but I walked to the door and exited in silence. Was I being passive-aggressive? Perhaps, but the man just rubbed me the wrong way.

Chapter 10

“Does Lido know?”
Tay asked, the tone of her voice excited as it traveled over the phone line.

“Know what?”

“That you want to jump his bones.”

“Yeah, of course. It was the first thing we covered. It’s in the detective’s manual on crime scene investigations and properly servicing your senior partner: Chapter One.”

“Don’t waste time, Stephanie. Lido’s handsome, available, and geographically desirable. Besides, you haven’t had a real relationship since Noah built the ark. Aren’t you dying to get some?”

I was working on the computer at home, checking background on the list of acquaintances Eli Danziger had provided, when Tay hit me right between the eyes with brutal truth. It was hard to rebut her, especially since she was dead on point. I hadn’t been on more than a couple of dates in the fifteen months since my dad had passed away, and there was no doubt that I was long overdue for a little somethin’-somethin’.

“Does he even know that you spotted him in Florida?”

“
Allegedly
spotted him in Florida.”

“Oh! Excuse me, Mrs. Lady Cop.
A-ledge-ed-lee
. Shoot, girl, you know it was him. You saw him three times—on the airplane going down, getting into the elevator, and getting into a cab.”

“I saw him from the back each time. I never saw his face.”

“Shoot, girl, you’re not sharp enough to make a positive buttocks identification? A booty check is as reliable as a retina scan in my book.”

Tay and I had been down in Florida for a little R and R. In between charging into a murder conspiracy like a bull in a china shop, I had perused a suave gentleman on a few occasions, who I suspected might be Gus Lido. I’d met him briefly before the vacation but hadn’t spent any significant time with him until I returned and he became my partner. “I wouldn’t even know how to ask him.”

“Seriously? You’re a fully-grown woman. You don’t know how to ask a man if he spent a week in Florida? That’s just downright pitiful.”

“I know, I know, but it all seems so contrived.”

“Lamebrain, just bat your pretty eyelashes at the man and ask him where he got the great suntan.”

“I suppose that would work, but then what? I tell him that I thought I saw him in Florida and bought a vibrator and had his name etched on it?”

“
Lord almighty
, shoot me. Shoot me
now
. You are hopeless, girl. It’s not like you have to present him with your trousseau or anything. Just talk to the man, that’s all.”

“I talk to him all day long.”

“Yeah, about murder and blood and guts and whatnot. How romantic—I’m surprised he doesn’t hit your ass right then and there at the crime scene. I know that
I
get all hot and bothered when a man whispers the words
blood spatter
in my ear. Dear Lord,” she lamented. “Let me say a prayer for this helpless child. I went down to Miami Beach with you for some sun, fun, and love, and what did you do?”

“But—”

“But nothing. What did you do?
What did you do?
You almost got the two of us killed. I had to cut my vacation short because you went up against the Jamaican mafia. Are you crazy or something? You think this is God’s plan for you?”

“Easy, would you. I’m just a flesh and blood mortal.”

“Easy, my ass. You’re working next to that Adonis of a man and all you can think about is bullets and forensics bullshit. Wear a skirt tomorrow. Show that boy some
leg
.”

“It was twenty degrees today.”

“Man up, biatch,” she howled. “Tough it out and show Gus some skin. He’s a detective. He’ll figure it out. Ask him to check your hooha for fingerprints.”

“Ha!” I snorted. “Rookie detective,” I reminded her.

“Ain’t nothing rookie about that man. Yum, yum. If you don’t make a move on that boy,
I’ll
go and get me some of that.”

“Okay, I get it. It’s a thong and a peekaboo blouse tomorrow.”

“Ha! Just mind the girls in that peekaboo blouse. Supposed to be even colder tomorrow. You don’t want to be putting the man’s eye out.”

“He knew there’d be risks when he took the job.”

“You’re being funny, but mind my words—that boy won’t stay available forever. You’d better get motivated before some hot-blooded seductress casts a spell on him.”