Where Nobody Dies (12 page)

“… and some iced coffee.” He completed his order and folded the huge menu with a flourish.

“It's January,” the elderly waitress answered in a Bronx accent that could cut glass.

“I didn't ask you for the time,” Elliott replied with exaggerated patience, “I asked you for iced coffee.”

“We don't serve iced coffee in the winter,” the waitress replied. “We don't have it made up.”

“Let me make this easy for you,” Elliott persisted, going into his Nicholson impersonation. “You have coffee, right? And I presume you have ice as well? Good. Then a glass—you
have
glasses? Put the ice into the glass and pour coffee over it. Then bring it to me. Is that too hard for you, or do you think you can handle it?”

The waitress pursed her lips but said nothing. I had the feeling she knew Elliott would make maximum trouble for her if she said another word. I would have liked to apologize, but I settled for giving my own order. Blintzes, red, white, and blue (cherry, cheese, and blueberry); a trip to the moon on gossamer wings.

“You know,” I said when the waitress left, “all you're going to get is coffee-flavored water. The hot coffee will melt the ice and weaken the coffee. That's all she was trying to tell you, that there was no coffee already cooled.”

“But I
wanted
iced coffee,” Elliott replied petulantly. “I don't like stupid people telling me what I can't have.” The stubborn look on his face reduced him to babyhood; I wondered if he would have held his breath had the conversation lasted another ten seconds.

“What makes you think she's stupid?” Having no handle on Elliott the employee, I decided to try for one on Elliott the person.

He glanced disdainfully at the waitress, who was hauling a heavy tray to a table of Orthodox Jewish businessmen. “She works here, doesn't she?” he sniggered. “Hardly a job for a mental giant.”

“Intelligence is very important to you, then?” I asked noncommittally.

Elliott smirked. “When I was eight years old,” he said, “I realized that I was smarter than everybody I knew—including my parents.”

And you haven't met anybody since? I thought it; I didn't say it. Goading Elliott wasn't the game plan at this point. I had him pegged now; Mama's bright little boy all grown up and unable to accept the fact that a lot of people in the world had also been their mama's bright little boys and girls. He still wanted to show the grown-ups he could tie his shoes all by himself. He still wanted the gold star and the big red A on top of his paper. It was a good bet that working for the City of New York as a faceless bureaucrat had not been the height of his ambition.

“With your brains,” I said, hoping the soap wasn't too obviously soft, “I'm surprised you stay in the public sector. There must be a lot more money in private enterprise for someone like you.”

“Oh, I've thought about it,” he said airily. “But there are advantages to working for the government.”

“I'm sure there are. Especially,” I added dryly, “if you're working for Lessek at the same time.”

I got a smug smile. “If those idiots I work with ever knew,” he gloated. “They think I'm a loser like them, putting in my time, kissing the boss's ass, just waiting for my gold watch and pension.… If they knew,” he chuckled, savoring the thought.

“If they knew, you'd be canned,” I cut in. “Which is why you killed Linda,” I said, finishing my onion roll.

“A lot of good it would have done me if I had,” Elliott retorted sourly. “The blackmailer is dead; long live the blackmailer.”

I had come to lunch fully intending to disabuse Elliott of the notion that I was Linda's successor; now was not the time. “Face it, Elliott,” I said, “there
are
people smarter than you. I'm one of them. Linda was another.”

“Linda?” Elliott almost squeaked the name. “Smart? That little gum-snapping high-school dropout! That
sec
retary! That mental as well as physical midget—”

“That ‘mental midget' had you dancing on her string like a puppet, Elliott,” I pointed out. “What do you call that, stupid? She gave the orders and you obeyed. She called the tune and you—”

“Just because she had something on me, that makes her intelligent?”

“Elliott,” I asked softly, teasingly, “how did she know?”

I let him consider that proposition as the waitress deposited our lunch on the table. I couldn't look at her, still conscious of Elliott's tantrum, but he wasn't embarrassed to ask for more apple sauce for his potato pancakes. We ate in silence; even the oppressive atmosphere at our table couldn't dull my enjoyment of the heavenly blintzes. As I sipped my second cup of coffee, I said, “At the risk of repeating myself, Elliott, just how
did
little old dumb high-school dropout Linda Ritchie get the goods on brilliant Elliott Pilcher?”

“Listening at keyholes, probably,” he sneered. “How smart do you have to be for that?”

“In other words, you don't know. Elliott”—again I went into a soft, insinuating tone—“don't you think someone with
real
brains would have found out how she knew? Don't you think a really clever man would have figured a way to get Linda off his back? It hardly takes a genius to pay up week after week, does it?”

“I had plans,” he replied truculently. “I had ideas.”

“Of course you did, Elliott,” I said in a soothing voice, calculated to drive him up the wall. “I'm sure you could have done something very smart—but only
after
you'd found the blackmail papers. Am I right?”

He nodded.

“Otherwise, she'd be dead, but you'd be in hot water.”

“Right,” he agreed. “And then fate stepped in and made it all unnecessary.”

“You mean, someone killed her.”

“I mean, her husband killed her.”

I shook my head, a teacher despairing of a pupil she'd thought was finally showing some brains. “No, Elliott, you don't really believe that nonsense, do you? The police just arrested him as a smokescreen while they investigate the blackmail angle.”

Elliott thought about it. His petulant face was screwed up with the effort. But he wasn't as dumb as I'd hoped. He put his finger on the problem right away.

“If the police know all this,” Elliott said suspiciously, “why haven't they been to see me?”

“They will, Elliott, they will,” I said confidently. “But you have nothing to lose by answering my question. Who killed Linda? I'm convinced her death was motivated by the blackmail, so which of her other victims got mad enough to do the job? If not you, how about your boss? How about Lessek?”

“Let me tell you something, Miss Smartass.” Elliott pointed a shaking finger at me. “I don't believe your phony story for a minute. If the cops knew what you said they knew, they'd be all over me. You're pulling some cheap little hustle on your own, and I know it. But hear one thing, lady, you play this little game with Mr. Lessek and you'll be sorry.”

“Oh?” I raised my eyebrows. “Will he do to me what he did to Linda?”

“He's got ways of taking care of business,” Elliott bragged. He was like the fat kid at camp who taunts the others and then hides behind his best friend—the camp bully. I suddenly had a strong desire to meet Todd Lessek face-to-face. The prospect even reconciled me to paying the check after Elliott walked out, ostentatiously leaving me with it.

I stopped in a plant store on the way back to the office. I bought a giant hanging fuchsia for Vince and Jenny Marchese, who were buying a co-op on Amity Street. I'd have to schedule my visit to Lessek around the formalities. I smiled at the thought; somehow I didn't recall Philip Marlowe postponing an investigation in order to do a closing.

10

When I saw the red Ferrari, I knew I was in the right place. Amid the gray warehouses and deserted streets of Brooklyn's waterfront, it shone like a rose. A neon sign, flashing “Lessek is here!”

I looked up. The warehouse was a cast-iron beauty, all spindly columns and newly cleaned window panes. Perched on top of the building like a flashcube sat a little widow's walk. Todd Lessek, King of the Waterfront, had appropriated it for his headquarters and raved to the newspapers about his spectacular skyline view of Manhattan. What he'd failed to add was that at street level all you saw were other warehouses—and, of course, Lessek's Ferrari.

The elevator was still the creaking, clanking freight job that had hauled sewing machines up to the small businesses that used to occupy the premises. I'd seen their faded logos in the lobby—Royal Baseball Cap Company, Pearl Ribbons and Trimmings, Del-Mar Sportswear. I wondered idly what had become of them, and of the people they'd employed for so many years.

The building itself might have been put up in the 1880s, but Todd Lessek's office was strictly 1980s. The elevator doors opened to reveal a high-tech paradise, with office supplies lined up neatly on open shelves, streamlined chrome chairs, black desk accessories; even the staplers had won design awards. The only thing of beauty was the panorama, visible on three sides, of Lower Manhattan, the bridges, and, finally, the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. When I could tear my eyes away, I had to admit I'd finally seen a justification for the aridity of high-tech. It was the only possible backdrop for that incredible view.

There was something artificial about the place. It was like a movie set; the slim, glossy secretaries who bustled around bearing computer printouts were too perfect; the shrilling phones too insistent upon conveying an impression of high-powered real-estate deals conducted at breakneck speed. The young men who sat in shirtsleeves, phones cocked at an angle under their chins as they stirred coffee and doodled on notepads, were pure Central Casting. After a while, I got tired of watching the movie and drifted over to the lone wall, where a wash drawing of Lessek's dream development occupied most of the available wall space.

I identified the building I was in by its flashcube penthouse. It was evidently destined to become a shopping mall, with prestige stores, boutiques, and specialty shops. Next door, the windowless brick warehouse I'd passed on the way would emerge, suitably windowed, as a luxury co-op. The low-rise buildings nearer the river would house the sports complex. In the picture, well-dressed people walked along tree-lined streets (the secret of growing trees in cobblestones was not revealed) into the renovated warehouses. Colorful banners proclaimed the fanciful names Lessek had given the buildings. It was South Street Seaport by way of Faneuil Hall with a touch of Akron's Quaker Square thrown in. A shopping mall for people who hate shopping malls.

“Fantastic, isn't it?” A voice as deep and rich as a David's cookie sounded behind me. I turned to see Todd Lessek beaming at his proposed baby. “And it'll be a reality by 1990—I guarantee it.”

I decided against explaining that I wasn't a potential investor; I got the feeling everyone from the garbage collector on up got the sales pitch. Lessek ushered me through the movie set to an oversized slab of ebony laid over heavy chrome struts. The effect was of an extremely elegant sawhorse. Lessek waved me to a chrome-and-velvet chair, and I sat down.

“I'm not quite sure I understand,” he began smoothly, “just what it is you want, Ms. Jameson.”

“Well, you know,” I answered conversationally, “I'm not sure I would have come if it hadn't been for Elliott Pilcher's mentioning your name.” I sat back to watch Lessek's reaction to a name I was certain he didn't want coupled with his.

What I got was a slight puckering of the tanned forehead, a raising of the bush eyebrows. “Pilcher, Pilcher,” he murmured. “I meet so many people,” he said with a deprecating smile that reminded me of Tom Selleck, “and I'm ashamed to confess my memory for names is atrocious. It's a terrible handicap for someone in my business. Just where”—he added the slightest touch of shrewdness narrowing his eyes—“did you come across this—Pilcher?”

“Never mind that, Mr. Lessek,” I said crisply. “What's really interesting about Pilcher is that when I had lunch with him and tried to ask him a few simple questions, he started threatening me, telling me all about what this friend of his would do to me if I didn't lay off. His words,” I added with an apologetic smile.

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“You,” I replied, watching him carefully, “were the friend.”

His laughter sounded almost genuine. “This Pilcher must have quite an imagination. I hope yours is a little less fanciful. You can get in a lot of trouble, believing everything you hear.”

“That's why I came here,” I said. “To see for myself.”

“Did those questions you were asking,” he began, leaning back in his chair like one of the Central Casting minions, “have anything to do with the fact that you were Linda Ritchie's lawyer?”

“I should have known Elliott would make a complete report to his boss as soon as he left me,” I responded, hoping I sounded cooler than I was. I'd come expecting to put Lessek on the spot, not watch him do the same to me.

“Oh, come now,” he answered, sounding genuinely annoyed. “Do you think I depend on the likes of Elliott to tell me what's going on? I knew who you were from day one. What I don't know is what you hope to gain by running around questioning everybody. If you want to pick up where Linda left off, just name your price and let me get back to work. I've got a multibillion-dollar project here.” The tone was affable in a superficial way, but there was a bite underneath that let me know he was serious. It was time to get down to cases.

“I can't help the timing,” I shot back. “I'm sure if she'd known it would inconvenience you, Linda would have gotten herself murdered some other time, but—”

“Don't be a smartass,” Lessek snapped. “There's no connection between me and Linda, so it doesn't matter when she was killed. It's not my problem.”