Book of Nathan (26 page)

“What the hell was some halfwit backwoods hick from South
Carolina doing in New Brunswick at midnight, for chrissakes?” asked the same
senior cop who had hassled the two sausage drivers earlier in the day.

“Same thing as us other halfwits,” Doc piped up. “Getting a
close-up look at Dubensko’s kielbasa.”

Twyla, Doc, Yigal, and I were questioned separately, each of
us sticking to our story. None of us mentioned that Kyzwoski had been carrying
a palm-sized video camera which I had tucked away in my jacket pocket moments
after Conway died.

Just as Kyzwoski was being carted off to the morgue, the
cops located his Dodge Ram pickup parked outside the Hyatt in a space reserved
for Hertz rental cars. As Doc refused to let me forget, it was the same truck
the professor had spotted earlier in the evening.
 

Shortly before one a.m., I dropped Twyla at the Hyatt and
then Doc and I drove to the emergency room at the Robert Wood Johnson
University Hospital. We found an exhausted-looking resident attending to Yigal,
who was seated on a gurney.

“Any problems?” I asked the doctor.

“Twelve stitches in his arm. He’ll be hurting for a day or
so.”

“Yeah, but he’ll be okay, right?”

The resident stared at the professor who was talking to
Yigal. “Hey, isn’t that One Nut Waters?”

“Just a look-alike. What about Rosenblatt?”

“Who?”

“The guy you just stitched up,” I reminded the resident.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. He’ll be okay. Says he’s a lawyer so he’ll
probably sue the shit out of whoever made him bleed.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Not even a competent lawyer could
squeeze a dime out of the late Conway Kyzwoski.
 

A few strokes shy of two a.m., Yigal was patched up and
ready to leave the hospital emergency room. “Be careful,” I said to both Zeus’s
lawyer and Doc Waters.
 

“Don’t worry about us,” replied Yigal. “Worry about
yourself.”

Doc agreed. The professor looked more at ease than I could
remember. And I knew why. For years, he had been a mob target who wore the
most-likely-to-be-assassinated
crown.
Now, for some unfathomable reason, I had become the prey of choice.
 

Part III

Chapter 17

Tuesday
noon. New Brunswick was awash in scarlet and black. It was the start of another
academic year and Rutgers’ colors were as much a harbinger of fall as the
turning of hardwood leaves or the squadrons of southbound birds. Students
flooded the streets and the old city reverberated with an injection of youthful
energy.

The downtown McDonald’s buzzed with the college set and the
usual blue-collar fast-food junkies. Doug and I sat in one corner of the
restaurant looking like two lumps in an otherwise well-blended lower income
batter. I dabbled with my grilled chicken sandwich, trying not to show my
irritation. The last time we shared a meal, I was the one who shelled out good
money for a decent Italian spread—dessert included. Now it was Doug’s turn to
pick up the tab and here I was working on a five-buck combo. Life isn’t fair.

“Great news,” Doug said between mouthfuls of his Big Mac. We
were down to the reason he had taken the 10:40 a.m. New Jersey Transit to New
Brunswick.

Doug’s news really was great—Universal Studios was ready for
Twyla Tharp. But naturally there was a hitch. Manny Maglio wanted me to escort
his niece to Florida for a second time.

“Are you insane?” I shouted.
 

“Hear me out,” Doug said in his usual unexcited way. “Maglio
will pay for your time and expenses.”

“Sorry. Once was enough.”

Doug squeezed his lips into a thin line. “Think about your
situation. Somebody hired a backwoods, Polish nutcase to ride you like a fly on
a turd.”

I grimaced. “You paint a beautiful picture. But the answer’s
still no
.
”

“Remember the little movie what’s his face Kazakny made?”

How could I forget? I had replayed the footage stored in
Conway Kyzwoski’s video camera a dozen times. There was nothing compromising
about what Conway had recorded, but the fact he had been logging my day-to-day
routine put me back on my heels.
  

“The guy was filming your life story for a bunch of
fanatics,” Doug said.

“Can’t argue that. And he did it like a pro. Never had a
clue he was on my trail.”

“He’s from South Carolina, for godsakes. Next to tracking
possums and weasels, you were child’s play.”

“Yeah, well, think about this: Conway’s being shipped back
to Goose Creek in a body bag, so I don’t need Maglio’s protective services. But
thanks for the offer.”
   

“Don’t be so damned naïve.” Doug’s brow wrinkled a
trumped-up look of concern. “Think about what’s going on, Bullet. We’re not
just talking about some wacko chasing you with a camera. You’ve already had two
close calls, right? If the word gets out that Manny’s your guardian angel, you
won’t have to run around wearing Kevlar twenty four seven.”

Score one for Doug. He knew how to sweeten a deal. “So I
take care of Twyla and Manny takes care of me.”

“That’s how it works.”

“And once I deliver Twyla to Florida—”

“Look,” Doug said, wiping a drop of McDonald’s secret sauce
from the corner of his mouth, “putting a little distance between you and the
Gateway for a few days isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe things will sort themselves
out if you take a short leave of absence.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Maglio has the money to hire any Tom,
Dick, or Luigi he wants to haul Twyla back to Orlando.”

“True. But Manny likes what you’ve done with her. Twyla’s
morphing into the kind of person Manny thinks she should be. You’ve got her
cleaned up, dressed decently, and she hasn’t been turning tricks. Bottom line?
He trusts you.”

I didn’t bother to toss in a couple of minor corrections.
Apparently Manny’s intelligence network didn’t know about the Wayside
fee-for-service exchange between Twyla and the late Conway Kyzwoski. Then there
was Yigal Rosenblatt.

“It’s just a couple more days.” If Doug weren’t concerned
about wrinkling the crease in his Gucci suit, he might have gotten on his
knees. “Go to Florida, drop Twyla off in Orlando, and you’re back in Jersey in
a flash. Want to take another day or two for some R&R? Manny will pick up
the tab.”

I could see right through my long-time friend. “And what do
you get out of this?”

“The satisfaction of helping a young lady turn her life
around.”

“Yeah, and a fat bonus for getting Maglio to come through
with his megadollar pledge to the United Way.”

“Why do you love to make things difficult?” Doug used one of
those premoistened towelettes to clean his fingers. “What else do I need to do
to make this happen?”

I was ready. “You’re the point person for the United Way’s
national donor recognition dinner, right? The big deal on Ellis Island
scheduled for this coming Saturday night.”

Doug burped. The fat grams he had just consumed suddenly
weren’t sitting right. “So what?”

“And at the dinner, who will United Way be honoring as the
donor of the year?”

Doug’s answer was barely audible. “Arthur Silverstein.” The
billionaire banker wasn’t exactly Bill Gates, but he was on the radar screen as
a very rich American who once in a while tossed a load of appreciated stock at
a nonprofit or two, including the United Way. Since he was old, Doug probably
wanted him in the spotlight while he still had a pulse. That might spell
b-e-q-u-e-s-t, which could mean really big money once Silverstein checked out.

“I want in.”

“What?”

“I want my name on the invitation list.”

“Bullet, this is an orgasmic event for the United Way.
Understand? It’s a
heavy-duty
fundraiser. Tables go from fifteen thousand dollars to fifty thousand each. No
offense, but it’s not your kind of crowd.”

“You asked what it would take to close the deal and I’m
telling you,” I said. “I want to be at that dinner.”

Doug drew a long breath. “So, if I get you a seat, we’re
square? Orlando gets to see you and Twyla a second time?”

“Seats—not seat. There are a couple of other people who need
to be on the guest list.”

“No way.”
 

“Two more passes or we’re done talking.”

“For whom?”

“Doc Waters,” I said softly and watched Doug’s eyes double
in size.

“What?”

“The professor’s smart, a good conversationalist, and can
charm the bling off your high rollers.”

“Waters is the Mob’s Salman Rushdie. Jesus. Besides, he
looks like a sheep dog.”

“I’ll clean him up,” I pledged.

Doug threw up his hands. “Of all the people you could bring
to the black-tie dinner of the year, why pick Waters?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Not good enough.”

“Good enough to get me to bring Manny’s niece back to
Florida.”

Doug threw his napkin on his tray. “Who else?”

“The same guy I brought to Florida, when you forced me to
handhold Twyla. Maurice Tyson.”

“You’re out of your mind. This is not a soirée for bums.
Think about what you’re asking me to do.”

I thought about Doc and Maurice waltzing with a
cross-section of America’s Who’s Who and conceded that Doug had a point. “All
right,” I said. “Add both of them to the waitstaff.”

Doug pushed himself forward, his silk tie dangerously close
to a pair of uneaten fries. “What’s this all about anyway?”

“I’m looking for something.”

“What?”

“The truth.”

Doug grimaced. “Listen, if you want me to put you and your
two loose cannons on Ellis Island, then I need to know why. Even if it means
giving up Maglio’s donation to the United Way, I can’t risk flushing hundreds
of United Way’s biggest check writers down the toilet.”

Doug was a man facing a couple of bad options and was
closing in on picking the worst of the two. Maybe I had pushed him to the
limit.

“All I want is another one-on-one talk with Silverstein,” I
confided. “That’s it.”

“So make an appointment to meet with him, for godsakes.”

“Won’t work. I can’t get past Arcontius.”

Doug knew what kind of monumental roadblock Arcontius could
be, so he didn’t waste time suggesting there might be other ways to leapfrog
Silverstein’s chief of staff. “Did you ever consider there’s a reason
why so few people ever get to see
Arthur in person?”

“I saw him,” I reminded Doug.

“Yes, you did, and I was surprised as hell he met with you.
It wouldn’t have happened if he weren’t so interested in the Benjamin Kurios
case.”

“He’s got a problem meeting people?”

“It’s a bigger problem than that. Silverstein’s got
something called Lewy body dementia. It isn’t pretty. He flips back and forth
from being lucid to being delusional.”

“The man was perfectly sane when I met with him.”

“Then you got him on a good day. From what I’ve been told,
he spends a lot of time chasing ghosts—especially his dead daughter. When he’s
not nuts, Arthur hits the bottle and hits it hard. Can’t blame the poor
bastard. There’s no way he’s going to bounce back.”

This didn’t sound like the Arthur Silverstein who had given
me a walking tour of his mansion. “All I can tell you is he wasn’t crazy and he
wasn’t drunk when I was with him.”

“My source tells me that’s a rarity. Which is why I get
diarrhea wondering if Arthur will either be too whacked out or too sloshed to
show up at his own testimonial. The United Way made the call to put him in the
spotlight knowing this will probably be his last public appearance. It’s one
hell of a gamble.”