Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  Rosen said, “You mean a last drink to go along with a last cigarette.”

  “I like a man with a sense of humor. Oh, but here they are already.”

  Trac staggered in, carefully balancing a drink with both hands. Sweat dripped from her forehead, but she blinked the moisture away, not daring to take a hand from the glass. She walked slowly toward Dickerson, her entire being concentrated into her hands and feet.

  Dickerson said, “How nice of you, my dear, but I would like it before all the ice melts. Hello, Dickie!”

  Junior sauntered into the room, a gun in one hand and drink in the other. He had unzipped the windbreaker halfway, revealing a Redskins T-shirt. Wind and rain had turned his face florid, and a cigarette dangled from his lips.

  “How’s she doing, Daddy?”

  “So far, good enough to be in the circus.”

  Putting the cigarette out in his glass, Junior took a syringe from his shirt pocket. “I told Trac if she wanted a reward, she couldn’t spill a drop.”

  His smile was so cold that even his father grew nervous asking, “Hadn’t we better get on with it? There’s still a lot to do tonight. When we return, we have their cars to dispose of.”

  “Another minute or two won’t make any difference.”

  His father yielded, and so they watched Trac’s progress, which only made her more nervous. Finally, tears in her eyes, her hands reached Dickerson’s, but as the glass was being exchanged a few drops spilled. She turned wild-eyed to Junior. He slowly shook his head.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” she sobbed.

  He returned the syringe to his pocket. “You lost. Better luck next time.” He lit another cigarette.

  “It wasn’t my fault, please!”

  Dickerson’s eyes darted from the prisoners to his son. “I spilled the drink. Give her what she wants, and let’s get on with it.”

  Junior approached Trac and his father. “That just wouldn’t be right—you know, rules are rules. But maybe if she earned it.” He looked at Rosen. “Hey, kike, how do you like your girlfriend now? I know you screwed her. I told her to do it, to keep tabs on you.”

  Rosen looked at Junior’s cigarette; it was dark brown, a Bushnells. “You were in her apartment when I was unconscious. Those were your cigarette butts.”

  “Yeah, I wanted to see how good a job my friends had done on you. And I wanted to use your face for an ashtray.” Junior took Trac by the arm. “How was she anyways? Not much I guess. Only when you get them hopped up on something are they any good. Like now.” He looked at Trac. “Why don’t you show him what you really can do.”

  “No, please,” she whispered. “The shame.”

  Junior laughed. “Nothing left for you to be ashamed of.” He threw Trac forward. She fell on her knees in front of Rosen, to whom Junior said, “Maybe it ain’t a whole last meal, but at least it’s an appetizer.”

  She looked back at Junior for a moment, saw he would not relent, then keeping her eyes downcast, fumbled for Rosen’s zipper. Rosen grabbed her hands, twisted them away, and their eyes met. For the first time that evening his face softened, but she backed away, arms tightly pulled across her chest, her body trembling from pain and humiliation. Rosen glared at Junior, who lost his smile while nervously fingering the trigger.

  Dickerson stood abruptly. “Time to get on with it.” Aiming his gun alternately between Wilkes and Rosen, he said, “The two of you carry Basehart on deck. Go on.”

  Wilkes checked the injured man’s head wound and pulse. “He seems worse. He shouldn’t be moved.”

  A smile crept back onto Junior’s face. He took a few steps forward, pointed the gun at the injured man’s head, and fired. Basehart’s face jerked as if suddenly awakened then fell forward awkwardly, a large hole just above the right eyebrow.

  As the gunshot exploded, Wilkes shrunk back terrified. When the bullet’s reverberations died away his hand reached timidly toward Basehart’s face and came away with blood. Feeling the great cold creeping up his body, he fought against the trauma he was falling into. He thought about his children, about a picnic they had gone to where he had spilled ketchup all over himself. His vision was blurring, and what Junior said at that moment wasn’t discernible. He couldn’t slip away now.

  “What’s the matter,” Junior was saying, “you don’t look so good. Can you make it upstairs, or we gonna have to carry you too?”

  With great effort Wilkes stood, propping one hand against the wall while waiting for his head to clear. He was still facing away from the body.

  “C’mon!”

  Wilkes turned to look at the dead man. Basehart’s face was already drained of color, its eyes dull and cold. Rosen had taken hold of the dead man’s feet and waited patiently, his face as devoid of expression as the corpse’s. Fighting down his queasiness, Wilkes lifted Basehart by the shoulders, but the head fell back to allow a rivulet of blood to collect on the cushion.

  “No, no, you’re making a mess!” Dickerson shouted. The Senator had gathered several towels, some of which he used to support the dead man’s neck. He used the others to mop the cushions and floor. “We can’t leave a trace for the police . . .” His voice trailed off, as he grew more absorbed in his task. “Th . . . There. I think that’ll do it. What do you think, Dickie?”

  “Just dandy,” Junior replied. “Let’s go.”

  Junior went first, backing up as he led them through the two rooms and up the stairs. Holding Basehart’s feet Rosen came next, also facing the rear, followed by Wilkes cradling the dead man’s shoulders, and finally Dickerson, who bent every few steps to wipe the floor of blood. Somewhere behind them was Trac. Wilkes couldn’t see her but was sure that was on whom Rosen’s eyes were fixed.

  Struggling up the stairs Wilkes followed Rosen through the narrow doorway into the darkening twilight. Rain continued to drum upon the deck from a sky devoid of moon or stars. Junior had put his hood back over his head and indicated for the two attorneys to place Basehart’s body down next to the railing. Having done so, they moved away to sit against the cabin wall, sheltered from the rain by a low overhang, and watched Dickerson wiping up after them. The Senator looked nervously along the deck for traces of blood, walking back and forth in minced steps.

  Junior said, “Get over here, Daddy. The rain’ll take care of anything you missed.”

  Dickerson nodded yet took one final look before joining his son. A moment later Trac stumbled through the doorway, shivering as the rain swept against her face and, looking from one pair of men to the other, moved reluctantly to Junior’s side.

  Junior laughed. “What’s the matter, Slant, your boyfriend over there not good enough for you anymore? Go ahead and sit with him if you want to.”

  Trac shook her head and leaned over the railing, her hands sliding back and forth across the smooth cold metal.

  Stuffing the gun under his belt, Junior lifted Basehart by one arm until, gaining leverage, he pushed under both arms to balance the body precariously against the railing, its head cocked as if waiting for some question to be answered. After pausing a moment to catch his breath, Junior shoved the corpse over the side. The body barely made a splash as it slid under the water.

  Drawing out his gun, Junior looked at the two attorneys. “Next?”

  Wilkes shook his head. “How can you possibly hope to get away with this? How can you explain the disappearances of three men?”

  Dickerson said, “We won’t have to. After all this is finished, Dickie and I will return to the club and, using your keys, he takes your car up Ocean Drive while I follow in mine. We send the car over the cliff into the ocean—it’s a dangerous night for driving, so dark and wet and slick. If the police inquire, I just say that you two gentlemen came here to ask some political questions concerning my views on the Guardians of an Undefiled Nation and then left together. A tragic accident.”

  “And if they find our bodies riddled with bullets?”

  Dickerson laughed. “Out here? No, no, the ocean can keep a s
ecret. Believe me, we know from experience.”

  Wilkes leveled his gaze from son to father. “The night of Nguyen Thi Nhi’s murder, you took your boat out. You killed her brother Van and dumped his body into the ocean, just like you did Basehart. Just like you plan to do with us.”

  “That’s not quite accurate. Van came to us that night badly wounded and frightened half to death, for he had just walked in on his sister’s murder and was himself shot running away. Since Dickie and he were business associates of sorts, I suppose he felt we would shield him from the killer. He died of his wounds on board. What could we do without implicating ourselves? So we dumped the body. Somehow that nigger nightclub owner found out and tried to blackmail me. Can you imagine that? I did have him eliminated. But Van—you can’t hold us responsible. Even Van’s sister understood after we explained it all. Didn’t you, Trac? Trac!”

  She turned to face them; her brow furrowed trying to remember what he had said. She nodded, begging Junior, “Give me it now! I can’t stand it!”

  The Senator continued, “See what I mean—a totally amoral people. It was her own brother who turned Trac and her sister onto drugs, then sold the women. Trac tried to run away from it all, but she made a mistake. When her sister died, she came back. I guess Dickie’s charm was too much for her. And the other one, a little whore too.”

  “Why was she killed?” Wilkes asked.

  “For love. Yes, that’s right. Because a fool who should’ve known better wanted her. And now I own that fool for the rest of his life.”

  Dickerson fingered his gun and was about to continue, when Rosen said, “Give it to her, Junior.”

  Junior squinted through the rain. “Huh?”

  “Give Trac her fix, or did you throw that overboard too?”

  Dickerson’s son took the syringe from his shirt pocket, while Trac moved toward him.

  Rosen asked, “Are you going to kill her too?”

  Junior looked the woman up and down. “I think she’s already dead.”

  “She’s a witness, son,” Dickerson warned. “She’d be the only one standing in the way of you succeeding me. The money, the power, the prestige, all for you. Let’s not jeopardize . . .”

  “She’s not gonna be just a witness, Daddy. She’s gonna do the job.” To Rosen, “Get up, kike. You’re next.”

  Rosen stood and took a step forward. Junior’s arm encircled Trac, bringing her body next to his and facing the lawyer. Holding the syringe in front of her, he placed her right hand covered by his on the gun, her finger on the trigger. Trac’s eyes were fixed on the syringe.

  “Go ahead, honey,” Junior cooed, “just pull the trigger and all that sweet sweet shit goes into your arm.”

  “You never give me . . .” she began to whimper.

  “This time for sure, honey. This time for sure.”

  “That’s right, Trac,” Rosen said. “Then you can dump me over the side just like Junior did to your brother, and I can join the spirits of Van and your sister walking the earth demanding observance, listening to Van whisper in your ear how your family is lost forever, whispering, ‘the shame, the shame.’”

  “Go on, honey, go on!”

  “The shame.”

  What happened in the next few seconds Wilkes couldn’t quite follow, because of the rain, the darkness, and because of the great void through which he had to squint to see any goodness. What he did see was Trac turning on Junior, her right hand twisting the gun toward him while her left struggled for the syringe. A series of shots were fired, and arms entangled with the weight of Junior’s body slumped against her, they fell overboard.

  A long moment of silence followed, then Dickerson let out a primordial scream, a howl hurtling itself through the rain until at last dying in the distant wind. He rushed to the railing, leaning over dangerously, peered into the ocean and called his son’s name over and over. Rosen was directly behind him; one slight movement of the lawyer’s hand would have sent Dickerson into the same black abyss, but instead he moved beside the older man and chanted softly in Hebrew. Rising to his feet, Wilkes walked to the other side of the Senator and took the gun from his hand as easily as if from a child. Below them the ocean had healed its wound and undulated softly like a sleeper disturbed but for a moment, then once again oblivious. To Dickerson’s sobbing, Rosen’s chant of mourning, or the spirits of Junior and Trac rising to begin their journey, a journey beyond justice and shame.

  Chapter Eighteen – FRIDAY MORNING

  All night the rain never quite stopped, the sky glazed gray so that, had Wilkes not known the time was 8:30 a.m., it might as easily have been twilight. He pulled into his reserved spot in front of the county building—the first of his colleagues to arrive—and hurried inside, holding back a sneeze until he passed through the doorway. Blowing his nose gingerly, he took the elevator to the second floor, passing the empty reception area before going into his office. His head throbbed from the cold, lack of sleep, and from the thought of what he had yet to do.

  Night had passed slowly with enough events to fill a week. Neither Basehart, Trac, nor Junior surfaced, and Dickerson had collapsed into a state of incoherence, oblivious to everything except the ocean, his eyes searching the water while his hands gripped the railing like talons. Having remained in that condition when the yacht returned to shore, he was placed in custody. Wilkes had not yet formally charged Dickerson with any crime, and the police involved in the Senator’s detention were sworn to secrecy. Dropping Rosen at his hotel, Wilkes had driven home to change clothes and catch a few hours’ sleep—not even telling his wife what happened—and here he was at the office as on any working day.

  Settling back in the chair, he closed his eyes and massaged his temples until the pain deadened; his breathing was slow and deep. The county once hired a psychologist to lecture on stress, and she had suggested a person pretend to be somewhere quiet and peaceful. As was his custom, Wilkes thought of the weathered bust of Jefferson but only became agitated. It was easy to believe in the strength of a republic, as long as it was an ideal shelved in the library between the Revolutionary War and the Constitution. But when the leader became Dickerson, not Jefferson, and his followers not the Minute Men but Pelham’s Guardians of an Undefiled Nation—what was left to believe in?

  Wilkes heard the doorknob turn. Before opening his eyes he pulled out Dickerson’s gun and pointed it at the intruder.

  “Jimmy! For God’s sake!”

  He focused past his throbbing temples and dropped the gun onto the desk. Martha ran to his side.

  “Jimmy, what’s happened to you? You look half dead. I couldn’t sleep all night. I wanted to call you but was afraid of upsetting Ellie. My God, what happened?”

  Wilkes ran a hand through his hair, trying to collect his thoughts. “Those files I gave you . . . did you hide them like I asked?”

  “In a drawer under my corsets. No one’d ever look there.”

  “I want you to get them.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. A couple things first.”

  “Let me put on some coffee. I think you could use it.”

  “First I want you to call downstairs to the squad room. Lt. Canary’s scheduled to come on duty at nine o’clock. Leave a message that I want to see him as soon as he comes in. Immediately. Then cancel all my appointments this morning.”

  She asked, “What about your appointment with Judge Spencer?”

  “What?”

  “You had a ten o’clock appointment with Judge Spencer to request that Edison Basehart’s bail be revoked. Remember how insistent Mr. Simpson was.”

  He stared past her, seeing Junior throw Basehart’s body into the ocean, and struggled to keep the edge from his voice. “Cancel the appointment, and let Mr. Simpson know that I’ve canceled.”

  “All right, Jimmy. Anything else?”

  “Coffee. Then bring me those files from home. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I just have to get through this morning.”

  She left the door ajar
, so that he heard her brew the coffee, telephone his message for Canary, and greet the other secretaries as they came in to work. The coffee smelled good when Martha brought it to him.

  “Sure you’re all right?” she asked.

  Wilkes nodded. “See you later. Leave the door open.”

  Closing his eyes he sipped the hot black coffee and listened to the office awaken to the ringing telephones and opening and closing of the outer door. His environment—where he had worked daily for nine years—but this was the first time he had really been aware of it, like a lumberjack stopping to listen to the sounds of the forest. It comforted him, the same way Martha’s coffee had, but he knew it wouldn’t last. This world which he had always considered reality would never again be quite so firm, not after the rain and the ocean.

  A loud tapping on the door. He opened his eyes and was ready. “Yes?”

  Edgar Simpson.

  Wilkes checked his watch; it was just nine o’clock. “You don’t usually arrive this early.”

  “What’s this about you canceling your meeting with Judge Spencer? I told you I want Basehart’s bail revoked. I mean it, Jimmy.”

  “There’s no need to see Judge Spencer.”

  “No need!” Simpson’s face turned crimson. “I just told you . . .”

  “Basehart’s dead.”

  “What?” The color drained from his face. “What did you say?” His hand fumbled until guiding him to a seat opposite Wilkes.

  “Basehart’s dead.”

  Wilkes recounted last night’s events, ending with Senator Dickerson’s detention. While listening Simpson sank deeper into his chair, and at the end he could only whisper, as if afraid someone else would hear, “Dickerson in jail?” Wilkes remained silent, watching the other man run his hand through his hair, still not comprehending. “Are you telling me that he and his son killed all those people?”

  “Not everyone. Not the Vietnamese woman, Nguyen Thi Nhi.”