City Of Lies (21 page)

‘Good enough,’ Marcus said.

‘And you can let the word out, tell whoever you like, if something
does
happen with Lenny’s son then it isn’t going to be me they’re dealing with—’

‘I got the message, Walt, I got the message. Last thing in the world I want is a bunch of crazy Miami cokeheads and psychos running all over New York.’ He laughed. ‘So we have a thing?’

‘We have a thing,’ Freiberg replied.

‘Next meeting we bring our sites and layouts. I have some people working on some ideas.’

‘How many people do I need?’ Freiberg asked.

‘Including yourself, I’d say you need a crew of eight.’

‘And you, Ben? You going to be joining the party on this one?’

Marcus laughed. ‘Me? Hell, no. I’m like Lenny . . . find the money, pay everyone, sort out the details, the logistics. I’m too old to be running around with a semi-automatic.’

‘You got who you need?’

Marcus nodded. ‘I got some good people, people you know. Ray Dietz, Albert Reiff, Victor Klein . . . the usual crew.’

‘So, I’ll call you . . . we set up a meeting. Choose some place outside the immediate territories. We’ll go down there and start working out the details.’

‘Good enough, Walt, good enough.’

‘You got a date in mind?’

Marcus shrugged. ‘Seems to me we might as well go with Lenny’s idea.’

‘Christmas Eve?’

‘You have a problem with that?’

Freiberg shook his head. ‘I don’t have a problem with that, Ben.’

‘Then Christmas Eve it is.’

Freiberg rose, extended his hand. They shook – he and Ben Marcus.

‘So, until next time,’ Marcus said. ‘You take care, Walter.’

‘I will, Ben, I will.’

Freiberg gathered up his coat and made his way out of the Metropolitan Cafe.

Ben Marcus watched him go, and then reached into his pocket for his cellphone. ‘Make some calls . . . I need you to speak to whoever. Get some details about this Miami character. Get whatever information you can on him. Find out what kind of business he’s in down there, what kind of weight he carries, okay?’

Marcus paused. ‘You do whatever you have to . . . and call Ray Dietz, find out where he’s at on McCaffrey. This boy
has
to be found. Use whatever contacts you have. Don’t care how big New York is, he can’t hide for ever. Get him found, okay?’

Marcus nodded. ‘For sure. Speak later.’ The conversation ended, he called Neumann, told him to drive the car down to the Metropolitan and pick him up. He returned the cellphone to his jacket pocket and rose from his chair.

He pulled his overcoat around his shoulders and left the café.

Four and a half milligrams percent barbiturates, eight milligrams percent chloral hydrate. It took something in the region of thirty-five Nembutal to reach a blood level of four and a half milligrams. To get eight milligrams chloral hydrate someone would have to swallow eighteen or nineteen tablets. Such percentages indicated that she must have taken approximately fifty-five tablets. That didn’t include the thirteen milligrams percent pentobarbital found in the liver. That would have taken maybe seventeen more pills. That totalled something in the region of seventy-two tablets. There was no glass, no cup, nothing such as that in the room. Door was locked from inside. Surely no-one could take seventy-two tablets of anything without a drink to wash it down? And not one case – not one out of the many, many thousands of acute fatal barbiturate poisonings on file – had ever revealed a complete absence of residue in the digestive tract. In this case there had been no trace, no capsule residue, no refractile crystals, nothing. And another thing: the amount of pills taken was sufficient to kill between nine and twenty people.

Brentwood, Los Angeles; 12305 Fifth Helena Drive off Carmelina Avenue; warm breeze from the Mojave Desert into the L.A. basin; antique wind-chimes, a gift from Carl Sandburg the poet, whispering their song in the early morning light.

Frank Duchaunak opened his eyes. He rubbed them, felt the gritty reminder of insufficient sleep.

Blonde, beautiful, a glamorous icon, a Hollywood princess, Marilyn Monroe died tragically on Sunday, August fifth, 1962. The troubled, depressive star of more than twenty-five movies was found naked in her bed, a telephone in her hand. A bottle of sleeping tablets lay nearby
. . .

Duchaunak had not slept well since the shooting of Edward
Bernstein. He looked to his right, over the junction towards the facade of St Vincent’s, and he willed himself to go over there, to go see Bernstein lying there in the ICU. The man had been a giant, a legend in his own lifetime, and a single shooting, a single random shooting, the wrong moment, the wrong store . . .

Reminded Duchaunak of the fragility of humanity. Reminded him of Marilyn, and such thoughts became thoughts of Anne Harper, and how everything seemed to turn within its own self-generating circle. Six degrees of separation. He’d been born on the night Marilyn Monroe had died, and such a seemingly disconnected fact had fascinated him for most of his adult life. He knew he was just a little crazy, not the
Jesus told me to stay home and clean my guns
-crazy, but crazy nevertheless.

Frank Duchaunak glanced in the rearview. He smiled at himself; the smile of a tired and slightly desperate man. He lifted the door lever, stepped out onto the sidewalk, locked the car behind him and started over towards the hospital.

‘Two visitors in one day,’ Clare Whitman said.

‘Two?’

‘Mr Bernstein’s son . . . he’s up there now.’

Duchaunak raised his eyebrows.

Clare Whitman leaned forward. ‘Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘Him up there . . . he’s really
the
Edward Bernstein?’

Duchaunak smiled. ‘I only know one Edward Bernstein. Which one are you talking about?’

She looked awkward for a second, like she’d overstepped the mark. ‘You hear things,’ she said, as if that was some sort of explanation.

‘Things?’

She looked down at the phone, perhaps willed it to ring so she could extricate herself from the conversation she’d started.

‘What things?’ Duchaunak asked. He was interested in what had been said at the hospital, interested to know if word had gone out.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing specific.’

Duchaunak leaned forward to read her name-tag. ‘Clare Whitman . . . so do me a favor Clare Whitman.’

She looked up.

‘My name is Detective Frank Duchaunak. I’m going to be coming down here every once in a while to check on Mr Bernstein. You hear anything, any rumors, any word about Mr Bernstein, anybody coming around here showing more than a passing interest, then I’d like you to tell me about it. You can do that?’

Clare Whitman seemed relieved. ‘Yes, Detective, I can do that.’

‘That’s good,’ Duchaunak said. ‘That’s going to be a great deal of help to me.’

‘Right, of course.’

‘So I’m going to go up there now.’

‘Yes sir.’

Duchaunak turned and started walking, paused as he reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘How long’s he been here?’

‘Mr Bernstein?’

‘His son.’

Clare Whitman glanced at her register. ‘Half an hour, a little more than half an hour.’

Duchaunak nodded, started up the stairwell.

Vander’s Market; delicatessen on the corner of Greenwich and Gansevoort, maybe half a dozen blocks north-west of St Vincent’s. Narrow building, tall, and up above the deli are three or four apartments where people lead their lives unaware of the business that is transacted beneath them.

Table in the back right-hand corner. Walt Freiberg, Cathy Hollander, another man with a smallpox-scarred face. Smallpoxface is talking rapidly, his voice hushed, his eyes furtive, and it seems every second sentence he’s turning and looking nervously over his shoulder towards the front of the store.

Freiberg is shaking his head, looking down at his hands, glancing at Cathy Hollander to his left. She nods, says something that’s all of five or six words, and then Smallpox-face reaches out with his right hand, grips Freiberg’s hand and holds it for a moment. Then he’s up, sliding out from behind the table and buttoning his coat.

He stands there for a few seconds. He glances towards the street. Cold outside, bitter wind travelling east from the Hudson. Out in the street you can hear sounds from the Fire Boat Station and Pier 53. He doesn’t relish the prospect of leaving the deli,
but realizes that the conversation is done, the coffee’s finished, and Walt Freiberg isn’t a man to stay and share lunch with if you’re not invited.

‘So he’s going to do what it takes?’ Smallpox-face says.

‘He’ll do what it takes,’ Walt Freiberg says. ‘And whenever he’s mentioned you call him Sonny Bernstein, not John Harper or John Bernstein, but Sonny Bernstein, you understand? Anyone calls you, anyone from here in New York or any other place, then that’s who he is. He’s a player of some kind, maybe a big player . . . you’re not so sure. He’s Lenny Bernstein’s son, he’s come up from Florida, and he’s pissed about his father getting shot. That simple enough for you?’

Smallpox-face nods, would’ve smiled perhaps but is too preoccupied with whatever runs through his mind. He almost forgets to say goodbye, takes a step, starts to turn, and then turns back and wishes farewell to both Walt Freiberg and Cathy Hollander.

Walt raises his hand. The man walks, black and white checkerboard tiles beneath his feet, and then he’s out through the front door and into the street.

‘This is going to go?’ Cathy asks.

Walt shrugs. ‘That a question or a statement?’

‘Question.’

‘It’s going to go,
has
to go – or we’re all in the can this time.’

Cathy Hollander nods. A flash of anxiety disturbs her usual imperturbable expression. ‘You think Harper will hold up when we need him to? Hell, Walt, he’s gonna be dealing with Ben Marcus directly.’

‘I think what I think,’ Walt Freiberg says drily. ‘Let’s go . . . I have to speak to someone about something.’

They stand, put coats on, make their way to the front door. Walt Freiberg raises his hand and waves goodbye to an ancient-looking man in a white apron behind the counter. The ancient man doesn’t notice.

They step out into the street. Cathy Hollander looks up at the sky – flat like still water, wedding dress-white; figures it’s going to snow.

‘Good,’ Duchaunak said. ‘Good enough to have me start it and finish it in one sitting.’

Harper smiled and looked away, looked around the interior of the hospital cafeteria where they were seated. Pale grey walls, too-high ceiling, acres of silver pipework, endless ducts and vents and a subliminal hum above and beneath everything

‘You bring it here I’ll sign it for you,’ Harper said.

‘Can’t do that . . . came from the library.’

‘You couldn’t afford a few dollars to buy one?’

‘Couldn’t find one.’

Harper frowned. ‘Didn’t look so hard, eh?’

‘Hard enough.’

‘So it’s such a good book they’ve stopped selling it.’

‘I wouldn’t be so cynical. Want to build a reputation and keep your stuff in print, I figure you have to write more than one book.’

‘You would know this because?’

Duchaunak shook his head. ‘Because of nothing. I don’t know squat Mr Harper. Sometimes I think like a detective. Sometimes I figure in a little bit of common sense and come up with something that’s close to the truth.’

Harper nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Like being a detective. You don’t build a reputation for solving one case. You get a reputation for solving many cases. You have to keep doing things over and over otherwise you’re just a one-hit wonder.’

‘Is that so?’

‘I reckon it is.’ Duchaunak leaned back. ‘So what’s with the clothes?’

Harper smiled wryly. ‘It was my birthday. Uncle Walt took me out and bought me some things.’

‘Just like old times, eh?’

Harper smiled again. ‘Sure, just like old times.’

‘That’s one helluva suit he got you . . . that English?’

‘I believe so, Detective.’

‘How much a suit like that cost?’

Harper shrugged. ‘God knows. I didn’t pay for it.’

‘Figure maybe Walt Freiberg didn’t pay for it either.’

Harper looked at Duchaunak. ‘I have a question for you.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Heard you paid five thousand dollars for a baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio ’cause you figured Marilyn might have held it one time. That true?’

‘You know anything about Marilyn Monroe?’

‘You didn’t answer the question.’

‘No, Mr Harper, I did not pay five thousand dollars for a baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio.’

‘Okay,’ Harper replied. ‘And no, I don’t know a great deal about Marilyn Monroe. I do know a little about Arthur Miller.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Pulitzer Prize 1949. Willy Loman,
Death of a Salesman. The Crucible
.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘But you just know about her marriage to him I guess,’ Harper said.

‘June twenty-ninth, 1956,’ Duchaunak replied. He looked up from stirring sugar into his coffee. ‘You know she went down to a place called Juarez in Mexico to divorce him on the same day Jack Kennedy was inaugurated just so the press would leave her alone?’

‘Why would I know something like that?’

Duchaunak shrugged. ‘’Cause it’s interesting. ’Cause it’s got something to do with Arthur Miller and he was a writer like you.’

‘He was a playwright not a novelist.’

Duchaunak didn’t reply.

‘So what’s the point of all this?’

‘All what?’

Harper looked directly at Duchaunak. ‘All this talking back and forth. Coming down here and harassing me—’

‘I’m harassing you?’

Harper smiled. ‘Well no, not harassing—’

‘You just said I was harassing you. If you feel I’m harassing you Mr Harper then I’ll leave right now. I wouldn’t want—’

‘Enough. Enough already. Cut the crap.’

Tense silence between them for a few moments. Duchaunak glanced to his left, towards the door. A doctor walked in, looked around for someone, and then left. The door slammed shut behind him.