The Man in the White Linen Suit

by David Handler

  Very double-parked his Crown Vic out front, which is one of the genuine pleasures of driving around New York City with a cop, and in we went. The doorman phoned the penthouse and up to the twenty-fourth floor we rode in the Jameses’ private elevator. Once again, I buzzed the door for guests. Once again, it was Yvette who answered it.

  I truly did think that Yvette was going to faint when she set her huge baby blues on Very. They seemed to roll back in her head, and she teetered slightly on her pampered bare feet. She wore a new color of polish on her toenails and fingernails today—oxblood. Her hair had been so expertly trimmed by Guillaume that I couldn’t tell that it had been trimmed at all, except for a slight tapering at the neck. She was not dressed in a mourning ensemble out of respect for Sylvia’s violent death. Not unless you consider a skintight bright pink sheath with nothing underneath it a mourning ensemble.

  Romaine Very, who I happened to know hadn’t been very active in the female department lately, was rendered momentarily goggle-eyed himself as he stood there gaping at her cleavage, nipples and belly button.

  “Hello again, Hoagy,” Yvette said finally, her voice quavering slightly. “And, wait, don’t tell me, the short one was . . . Lulu, wasn’t it?”

  “Still is.”

  “Forgive me if I seem a bit thrown. I’m still in a state of shock over Sylvia and Tommy.” She turned her blue-eyed gaze back to Very. “Are you the detective who’s investigating their murders? We were told to expect someone.”

  “I’m Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very. And I’m sorry for your losses, Mrs. James.”

  “Call me Yvette, please. And do come in. Addy’s on the phone upstairs in his office,” she informed us as she padded her way up the grand curving staircase, all curves and wiggles and jiggles in that tight, thin sheath. “Reporters have been calling all morning nonstop. His attorney, Mark Kaplan, is with him.”

  “So are you still in touch with Mick, Yvette?” Very asked as we followed her.

  “Mick who?”

  “Mick the Quick, your partner. The one who took the fall on the jewelry heist in Nyack.”

  She halted on the stairs and turned around, her face drawn tight, her gaze chilly. “I’m not that person anymore.”

  “So you’ve made a clean break with the past?”

  “Exactly, Lieutenant.”

  “I understand you’ve retained a Babylon lawyer named Mel Klein.”

  “What of it? He’s a fine, reputable attorney and a gentleman.”

  Very let out a laugh. “I’ve never heard a South Shore shyster called either of those things before. I’ll have to pass that one along to the boys at One P.P. They’ll get a real kick out of it.”

  Yvette glared at him. “You’re not a very nice person, are you?”

  “They don’t pay me to be nice.”

  “That’s a shame, because with your looks you’d be fighting the girls off with a stick.”

  “Even you?”

  “Especially me.” She reached over and ran a small manicured finger along his stubbly jaw. “If you play nice, you’ll find out that I’m worth it.”

  “Is Mel playing nice?”

  “Our relationship is strictly business,” Yvette said curtly, resuming her climb up the stairs.

  She led us down the long parquet-floored hallway past her suite, where she’d been listening to Mariah Carey try to bring up a lung. It was becoming clear to me that Yvette’s taste in music was not my idea of music.

  “You and your husband have separate rooms?” Very asked her.

  “We prefer it that way. We both value our privacy.”

  The big oak pocket doors at the end of the hall were closed. She knocked.

  Addison yelled, “Enter!”

  We entered.

  He was on the phone with a reporter, it appeared. “For the eighth time, I have nothing more to say about yesterday’s events!” he roared. It also appeared as if he’d just completed his Royal Canadian Air Force exercises. He was standing at his desk stripped down to his jockstrap, eye patch and combat boots, covered with sweat. “And now this is me hanging up on you!” Which he did, slamming the phone down hard before he fetched a towel from the bathroom, mopped himself dry and put on his terry cloth robe. Then he grabbed a bottle of Perrier from the refrigerator and took several huge gulps.

  His attorney, Mark Kaplan, was seated at the partners desk in the non-rolling chair. He seemed very calm, composed and dignified, if you go in for that sort of thing.

  “Addy, this is Detective Lieutenant Very,” Yvette informed him. “He’s the homicide investigator you were expecting.”

  “Come on in, Lieutenant,” he said to Very. “Yvette, go away.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  “Quite sure,” he said testily.

  She slid the door shut, pouting slightly.

  Addison acknowledged me with a nod before he studied Very with his one not-so-good eye. “I was expecting a schlub in a rumpled suit, not some kid in a T-shirt and jeans. And yet I’m told you’re Dante Feldman’s best man.”

  “I just try to do my job, sir,” Very said.

  “Say hello to Mark Kaplan. He handles my legal and business affairs. Mark, the tall one is the writer I was telling you about, Stewart Hoag, who seems to go everywhere with that dog.”

  Kaplan got to his feet. He was an athletically built man of about sixty, so sleekly put together that he bordered on senatorial. He had gleaming silver hair, a long narrow blade of a nose, a high forehead, and a strong, decisive jaw. He wore a beautifully tailored navy blue pinstripe suit, a red tie and a spread collar white shirt with French cuffs and silver horseshoe cuff links. Since he was a Park Avenue lawyer and not a racetrack tout, I took that to mean he was a horseman who weekended up in Bedford along with the posh likes of Ralph Lauren.

  “Pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” he said in a rich burgundy voice as he shook each of our hands. His grip was firm and calloused. Definitely a horseman. He smiled down at Lulu and said, “I’ve always wanted a basset, but my wife claims they have a reputation for being stubborn.”

  “That’s actually a bum rap—they’re as compliant as little lambs,” I assured him. After all, the man was a lawyer. I was entitled to amuse myself.

  “Good to know. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He raised his gaze back to Very. “Is this an official visit, Lieutenant?”

  Very frowned. “Official as in . . . ?”

  “An interrogation.”

  “Not at all. It’s a conversation.”

  Kaplan thumbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Still, perhaps I ought to stick around, Addison.”

  “No need,” Addison said, waving him off. “You can go.”

  “I think I should stay. This is why you pay me, after all.”

  “And I just told you to go,” Addison shot back. “So go!”

  Kaplan let out a courtly sigh. “Very well. I gave up trying to argue with you twenty years ago.”

  “You’ll see to Sylvia’s affairs?” Addison asked him.

  “I shall. We drew up her will together two years ago and it’s fairly straightforward. She wished to leave the bulk of her estate to her alma mater, Bryn Mawr. The proceeds of the sale of her home in Willoughby will go toward endowing a Sylvia James Memorial Scholarship Fund at the local high school. The town’s public library will come into some money as well.” Kaplan hesitated before he added, “Would you like me to contact anyone for you?”

  “Such as who?” Addison demanded.

  “Your physician. You’ve had quite a shock. Perhaps he ought to swing by and check your blood pressure.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure. I’m fine.”

  “Of course. Whatever you say.” Kaplan turned back to us and said, “Gentlemen, nice meeting you. Sorry it couldn’t have been under happier circumstances.” Then he picked up his leather briefcase, one of those accordion numbers designed to hold a multitude of legal briefs, and strode bri
skly out, sliding the pocket door shut behind him.

  Very watched him go, noticing the old man’s collection of exotic walking sticks that were in a copper stand by the door. He moseyed over and admired them. “You’ve got some real beauties here, sir.”

  “Why, thank you, Lieutenant,” Addison said, moving toward him. “They’re the fruits of my travels. Do not mistake them for mere souvenirs. Nearly lost my left leg in the war and I’ve used them one and all. This one here is still my favorite, because it was my first. Pure hickory. They gave it to me in the military hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.” He pulled it out so that Very could have a better look at it, then shoved it back in with the others. “This one with the knob at the top is called a shillelagh. I got it in Dublin many years ago. It’s made of blackthorn. This is a Malacca, a Malay stick made of rattan palm. I got that one in Burma. This is a makila, a Basque walking stick, made of medlar. And this one here is a whangee, made of bamboo. Which one do you think I used to whack Tommy O’Brien on the back of the head before I hurled the worthless son of a bitch off the roof of Hoagy’s brownstone?”

  Very studied him coolly. “How did you know he was hit on the back of the head? That information hasn’t been made public.”

  “Reporter from the New York Post just told me. It’s in the coroner’s report. And I most certainly am.”

  “Are what, Mr. James?”

  “Fit enough to climb the five flights of stairs to Hoagy’s apartment. I’m in tip-top condition. I’m also at your complete disposal. How I can help with your investigation?”

  Addison sat at the giant partners desk in his rolling desk chair. I sat in the junior partner’s chair with Lulu at my feet. Very didn’t sit. He preferred to pace the office like a panther, his jaw working on his gum. Addison smiled faintly as he watched him pace back and forth, back and forth.

  “Mr. James, someone put a tap on Hoagy’s phone. I understand from our trace that one of the people who Tommy called yesterday was you.”

  Addison nodded his shaved pink head vigorously. “Correct.”

  “What was the purpose of his call?”

  “The purpose?”

  “What did the two of you talk about?”

  The old man sat there in silence for a moment, gazing out at the summer haze that hung low over the Hudson. “Everything. Nothing.”

  Very came to a halt. “All due respect, can you be more specific?”

  “He called to tell me he didn’t have Tulsa and that the fellow who stole it from him had threatened his life. He sounded frightened. Guess he had reason to be, considering what ended up happening to him.” Addison peered at Very, shaking a long, crooked finger at him. “Now I remember.”

  “Remember what, sir?”

  “Slinker Raab. That’s who you remind me of. We came out of Yale together. He was a brilliant mathematician. We called him Slinker because he had such a strange, slinky way of walking. We both ended up working for Wild Bill in Europe. He liked dogs same as you, Hoagy. Had a wire-haired terrier named Victor. Funny how the human mind works. I can remember that dog’s name, but I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night.”

  “An aged porterhouse from Peter Luger with creamed spinach and hash browns,” Very told him.

  “Have you been checking up on me, Lieutenant?”

  “You and everyone else. It’s nothing personal.”

  “Slinker bought it parachuting into Yugoslavia. Had the same dark eyes and coloring that you have, Lieutenant, though he was a good deal taller than you. My God, he’d be an old fart now just like I am, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes sir, I suppose he would.”

  Addison let out a mournful sigh. “So many friends lost. I was one of the lucky ones. All I lost was an eye. Those poor bastards lost their whole futures. They’re for them, you know.”

  “What are, Mr. James?” I asked.

  “All of those gaudy homes that I own from Aspen to Maui. I’m leaving them to the Veterans Administration to be repurposed as recovery hospitals, same as the one in Asheville where I recuperated after I was wounded. They came home from Desert Storm by the thousands. The Pentagon talked about our ‘surgical strike’ in Kuwait as if there weren’t men getting limbs and chunks of their brains blown to bits. And there’ll be more, mark my word. Saddam Hussein backed off this time, but I guarantee you within ten years we’ll go into Iraq and take him out. It’ll be a colossal mistake, but we’ll do it anyway because we’re a nation that’s led by unbelievably stupid men. Saddam’s a thug, I’ll grant you, but he’s our thug. His soldiers are fighting with weapons that we supplied them with. The unlucky ones will come home in coffins. The lucky ones will come home like I did, missing pieces of themselves. And when they do they’ll be cared for at one of my retreats at no cost to the American taxpayer. I’m leaving the VA the income from all of my book royalties to make sure of that. It’s all spelled out in my will, chapter and verse. Chapter and . . .” He trailed off for a moment before he roused himself and said, “Have you figured out who killed Sylvia, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir, just that it was carefully planned by someone who was waiting there for her and ran her over multiple times when she went to get her mail.”

  “How many, Lieutenant?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How many times was she run over? Was it two times, three, four . . . ?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “Two times would signify someone who had a mission and was being thorough. Three or four times, that’s more a sign of outright hatred. She hated me, you know. I gave her a prominent publishing career, not to mention as much money as anyone could ever dream of, and yet she hated me.”

  “I doubt that very much, sir,” Very said.

  “And you’d be wrong. I’m a cruel bastard. Rode her mercilessly because she was a fat cow who wouldn’t stand up straight and look you in the eye. She also picked her scalp. Truly disgusting habit. Couldn’t stand to look at her when she . . .” He trailed off again, gazing out the window. “I don’t think I ever saw Sylvia smile. Not once.”

  “Was she aware that you intended to leave your houses to the VA?” I asked him. “Or was she expecting to inherit them?”

  Addison studied me across the partners desk with his one not-so-good eye. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “Just curious.”

  “You’re curious about a lot of things. I still can’t decide whether you’re keenly perceptive or simply the possessor of a mediocre wandering mind.” He waited for me to react to his attempt to goad me. When I didn’t, he said, “No, she didn’t know. It was none of her damned business. They’re my houses.”

  “And she was your daughter.”

  “Wasn’t a family matter. It was personal. I worked it out several years ago with Kaplan. He has all of the paperwork.” Addison sat back in his rolling chair. “He handles all of my publishing deals, too. Foreign rights, movie sales, all of it. I don’t have a literary agent. Why should I give an agent ten percent of everything I earn when I can simply pay Kaplan by the hour?”

  Very studied him, his head nodding. “Is it true that Tommy O’Brien wrote your last three books for you?”

  The old man flared instantly. “That’s bullshit. Stop. Backspace. Erase. That’s total bullshit. Our arrangement was the same as always. I’d give him the broad strokes of the story. He’d do the research that I’d need to give it authenticity and flavor. Then I’d get it down on paper with my trusty old machine,” he said, patting his Underwood next to him.

  “So it’s not true that Sylvia had promised him coauthor credit and a share of the royalties?” I asked.

  Addison turned and looked at me, his eye narrowing slightly. “If that’s what Tommy told you, it’s a goddamned lie.”

  “Do you think he lied about the mugging, too? That he was using Tulsa as a bargaining chip?”

  “I really wouldn’t know.”

  “Mr. James, who do you think took it?” Very asked.

  “
I really wouldn’t know,” he repeated with a casual wave of his hand.

  “And what about Mrs. James?”

  “Yvette? What about her?”

  “Does she know that you intend to leave your homes to the VA?”

  “No reason for her to. I spelled things out very clearly to her in our prenuptial agreement. When I’m gone, she’ll get this apartment and a monthly income. Should she choose to sell this place and move somewhere else, she’s free to do so. But she has no claim to any of my money, royalties or houses. She’s well aware of that. Cheeses her off, too. She’s even hired some lawyer who thinks he can talk me into drafting a more generous agreement.”

  “Can he?”

  “Not a chance, sonny boy. He knows it, too, unless he’s a complete idiot. He’s just trying to get in her pants. It’s not very hard, I’m told.”

  “By . . . ?”

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant?”

  “You’re told by whom?”

  “The doormen. They’ve witnessed her slipping out late at night for years. She usually returns shortly before dawn, unless she decides to go away with her latest beau for a week or two. She doesn’t go in for long-term relationships. I think her record is one month. That was two years ago, maybe three. I was told he was a professional poker player from Atlantic City. Yvette is partial to low-class greaseballs who like to live on the edge. No surprise there. She lived that way herself before she met me.”

  “So she was candid about her past when she came to work for you?”

  “Didn’t have to be. I can read people instantly. It was my job to read people. I was damned good at it, too. That’s why I’m still alive and Slinker isn’t. Still am good at it, even with one eye. You, for instance, Lieutenant.”

  “What about me?” Very asked him.

  “You’re wondering if this senescent gasbag is capable of masterminding the deaths of two people very close to him, and if so, why I would.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Why would you?”

  “No reason. Tommy was as loyal and hardworking as they come. I’ll never find as good a legman. As for Sylvia, I was right here at the time of her murder. That would mean I had to go to the trouble of hiring someone to run her over. What possible reason would I have for doing that? There is none.”