The Man in the White Linen Suit

by David Handler

  “When she wasn’t busy having sex with him, you mean,” Kathleen said bitterly.

  Norma sat there, tight-lipped and pale. “Must we talk about this?”

  “I’m afraid so. I apologize if this will make more than a few of you uncomfortable.” I turned to Bart. “I should also mention that Norma’s editorial assistant, Bart Shackleford, is the son of the late author Gerrard Shackleford, who wrote under the name of Tucker Maxwell.”

  Addison immediately perked up. “Is that right, young fellow?”

  Bart lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  “That son of a bitch was a hard-boiled genius,” Addison said, shaking a long bony finger at him. “Hell, I’d put him right up there with Cornell Woolrich and Jim Thompson. I loved his work. Loved it. What was that great line the killer said in Smoke on the Water? ‘The first man you kill is hard. The second is easier. The third is so much fun you wonder why murder hasn’t surpassed baseball as America’s favorite pastime.’ God, I wish I’d written that line.”

  “Okay, I’m getting confused,” Yvette confessed. “Why are we talking about him?”

  “Because Gerrard Shackleford was a Guilford House author for nearly twenty years,” I explained. “And when his sales dipped a few years back Sylvia dropped him. She could have kept him on out of professional respect and loyalty, considering that he’d written fourteen books for Guilford House and had been voted a Grand Master by the members of the Mystery Writers of America, which is their highest honor. But such things meant nothing to Sylvia. Plus she had a personal issue with him. Apparently she had a couple too many eggnogs at the annual Guilford House Christmas party, the only social event she ever attended, and made a pass at him. He politely declined, but Sylvia was positive he’d gloat about it all over town. So, Sylvia being Sylvia, she not only didn’t renew his contract but made sure he’d be unable to get a deal anywhere else.”

  “That was my dear sweet Sylvia for you,” Addison recalled. “It wasn’t enough for her to cut him loose. She also had to destroy him.”

  “When his agent tried to find him another publisher,” I continued, “she discovered that she was too late. Sylvia had already told every top editor in New York that his last several books had required total rewrites because he’d become a hopeless alcoholic.”

  “Which was a flat-out lie,” Bart said heatedly. “My father was a federal appellate judge in Trenton. He hardly drank at all. He was clearheaded, alert and highly respected by everyone who knew him.”

  “The kid’s right,” Mark Kaplan spoke up. “Judge Shackleford had a sterling reputation in the legal community. Furthermore, it was my pleasure to sit next to him at a charity banquet the year before he died. He was a class act. A gentleman.”

  Bart looked across the room at me, his jaw muscles tightening. “How do you know all of this, Mr. Hoag?”

  “My agent told me. She knows everything that goes on. How do you know about it?”

  “I told him,” Norma said. “It was still watercooler talk when I started working at Guilford House.”

  “So I’m guessing you weren’t a big Sylvia fan, were you, Bart?” I said.

  “I hated her with every fiber of my being,” he responded angrily.

  “If Judge Shackleford had sought my counsel,” Kaplan said, “I would have advised him to sue Sylvia for slander.”

  “Instead, he drank a bottle of Drano,” Addison recalled disgustedly.

  “Indeed he did,” I said. “Which, in a way, makes him our first casualty. And now there are a whole lot more of them.” I fixed my gaze on Richie Filosi, whose eyes avoided mine guiltily.

  Then I looked at Jocko Conlon, who warned me, “You better not be thinking about dumping this pile of crap in my lap.”

  “We already know that you’re into it deep,” Very told him bluntly.

  “I’m a licensed operative of a legit law firm,” Jocko fired back. “I get paid to do a job. Well paid. I’ve got a sweet setup at Klein, Walker and Pignatano, and I want to hold on to it. So when a partner tells me to do something, I do it.” His face darkened. “You see, back when I was on the job, there was always one tight-ass boss after another who had it in for me. So I . . . I have a couple of black marks on my record, understand?”

  “Are you done?” Very demanded.

  “I’m just saying I’ve got to look out for myself, don’t I? All these years I’ve been working and I’ve got nothing to show for it. That’s nobody’s fault but my own. I admit that. I went in on an Irish pub with a pal of mine a couple of years ago and lost every penny I’d saved. So now I’m fifty-two years old and I’ve got no nest egg and who knows how many good years left. There’s a spot on my left lung that the doctors are watching. I’m on medication for high blood pressure. I have to use special eye drops for glaucoma. Plus I’ve got a prostate gland the size of a freaking beach ball. I’m damned lucky to be with that firm. I’d have a real hard time hooking up with another one. Probably have to go out on my own, which would mean scraping by month to month, waiting for the phone to ring, taking whatever crapola case comes along.” He let out a defeated sigh. “I’d probably end up bunking on my office sofa, showering at the YMCA and living on cat food.”

  “I understand that 9Lives canned mackerel is very tasty,” I said. “Just remember to brush after every meal.”

  Jocko glowered at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?” To Very he said, “Do you know what the fuck he’s talking about?”

  Very just stared at him. “Now are you done?”

  “What in the hell do you want from me, Lieutenant?”

  “For starters, to let you in on a little something. There’s an officer of the NYPD standing in the hall right outside of those doors and two more parked downstairs in the living room.”

  Jocko shrugged his meaty shoulders. “So?”

  “So just tell us how it went down. Tell it plain and tell it straight.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Jocko declared.

  “What for?” Very demanded. “I haven’t charged you with anything. I just want to know what you know, that’s all.”

  Jocko looked over at Mark Kaplan. “What do you think?”

  “As a caveat, I must preface my remarks by pointing out that I’m not a criminal attorney,” Kaplan answered carefully. “But from where I sit, the lieutenant is correct. Technically, he hasn’t charged you with a crime, although his allusion to you ‘being into it deep’ does suggest that he may, at some future point, elect to press charges against you. Then again he may not. I’m not privy to his intentions.”

  Jocko rolled his eyes. “Typical Park Avenue lawyer. Lots of smooth words and none of them make any goddamned sense.” To Very he said, “Forget it. I’m not talking.”

  “Fine, then let’s go find ourselves a nice, private interrogation room up at the two-four,” Very said brusquely, starting across the office toward him. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got a Manhattan Yellow Pages lying around somewhere. It’ll give me a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction to turn that skull of yours into a soft gelatinous mass. Let’s go, Jocko. We’re out of here.”

  Jocko stayed planted on the sofa, his eyes widening with fear. He did not, repeat not, wish to be hauled off to the precinct house. He was much better off right here, surrounded by all of these other people, and he knew it. “Take it easy, will ya?” he said appeasingly. “Just slow down a sec and let me think.”

  “Call me crazy, Lieutenant,” I interjected, “but I get the feeling that Jocko wants to cooperate. He’s a smart individual. He realizes what’s at stake here.”

  Jocko peered across the office at me. “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Meaning that if you’re cooperative, there’s a decent chance you won’t get charged as anything more than . . . what, Lieutenant? Aiding and abetting under extreme duress?”

  Very nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”

  “But if you don’t cooperate, there’s an equally good chance that all three murders will land right on top of you and
stay there,” I said. “That wouldn’t exactly be an ideal scenario for you, Jocko. You’ll be put away in a maximum security prison with other violent offenders, and they absolutely detest ex-cops. Plus the odds are not in your favor.”

  Jocko frowned at me. “Odds? What odds?”

  “The chances are pretty good that one or two of them ended up there because you put them there back when you were on the job. Wouldn’t you think so, Lieutenant?”

  “I would,” Very said, nodding. “Most def.”

  “Which means they’ll be harboring an extreme personal grievance against you, Jocko. Hell, you’ll probably get shanked less than an hour after you arrive.”

  Jocko swallowed, his eyes widening with fear again. “Can’t we work something out?”

  “Sure, we can,” Very said easily. “Just tell us what you know.”

  “About what?”

  “For starters, who snatched Tulsa?” I asked him. “You were standing right there on the sidewalk outside of the copier shop when it happened. Don’t bother to deny it. Tommy described you right down to your boxer shorts. Actually, he didn’t say you were wearing boxer shorts, but I just really, really don’t want to picture you in a pair of briefs.”

  Jocko sat there in charged silence. Twenty-five floors below on Riverside Drive I could hear fire trucks go by, their sirens wailing, big horns honking. “It was Mel’s scheme,” he finally said. “Mel thought that if he had Tulsa he could pressure Sylvia into convincing the old man to give Yvette the prenup that she wanted. He figured she’d do anything to get Tulsa back.”

  Addison peered thoughtfully across the desk at Yvette, who continued to take tiny nibbles of her bagel and lick her fingers. She didn’t react at all to what Jocko had said. It was as if he were talking about someone else.

  “So you knowingly broke the law,” Very said to him.

  Jocko let out a scornful laugh. “Don’t jerk me off. You and I both know that the law’s elastic. You can bend it, twist it, stretch it. The law is whatever you want it to be.”

  Very wouldn’t go near that. Just looked at Jocko with distaste. “How did it go down?”

  “I offered a couple of street punks who I’ve known for years a C-note apiece to snatch O’Brien’s briefcase. I fingered him for them. Then they dashed down the street, handed his briefcase into a waiting cab, collected their money and were gone with the wind.”

  “Was it Mel who was waiting in the cab for them?”

  Jocko made a face. “Mel? No way. ‘I’m an officer of the court,’ he told me. Plus he was a major wuss. No, I gave an old buddy a C-note to help me handle it.”

  Kathleen immediately shot a glance at Richie next to her on the sofa.

  “And I bought him a steak dinner with all of the trimmings when we got home,” Jocko added.

  Very said, “I gather we’re talking about Detective Meade, your partner from your days on the job in Nassau County.”

  Meade shifted on the sofa in rumpled, uncomfortable silence.

  “Why would you think that?” Jocko wondered.

  “Because when we were at the crime scene today he couldn’t stop talking about what a great guy you are. Am I right, Hoagy?”

  “Yes, you are. It was kind of nauseating, actually.”

  “I don’t know what kind of game you two clowns are playing,” Jocko said. “But I got nothing to say about that. I’m no rat bastard.”

  Very looked at Meade. “How about you? Have you got anything you want to share?”

  “Not a thing,” Meade answered coldly. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Fine, have it your way, Meade. It’ll all shake out. I just hope you weren’t planning a nice cushy retirement tootling around on a golf cart in Boca, because you can kiss your pension goodbye.”

  “Before you got back into the cab with Meade,” I said to Jocko, “you showed Tommy your gun and warned him you’d be watching him. ‘Say one word about this to anyone and you’re a dead man,’ you told him. Tommy was justifiably terrified. In fact, he was so afraid that he ended up spending one whole night on my roof in the pouring rain. Why did you threaten him that way?”

  “Mel figured if we threw a scare into him he’d vanish, which would drive Sylvia even crazier.”

  I turned to Very. “Tell me, during the time we spent with Mel Klein, did he strike you as a fiendishly clever individual?”

  “Not really. More like a small-timer who was just trying to keep his head above water. You?”

  “Same.” I turned back to Jocko. “You don’t really think we’re buying that the little guy came up with this whole scheme on his own, do you?”

  Jocko glared at me before he said, “Believe what you want. I don’t give a fuck.”

  “No, this whole scheme was someone else’s idea. Someone who had a huge ax to grind.” My gaze fell on Sylvia’s bitter enemy, Norma Fives, the woman who’d hurled a Stanley Bostitch stapler across a conference table at her and nearly blinded her. It fell on Bart Shackleford, son of the late Gerrard Shackleford, whom Sylvia had driven to suicide. It fell on Kathleen O’Brien, Tommy’s high school sweetheart and wife of more than twenty years. Kathleen, whom Tommy had dumped for the much younger, thinner Norma. Kathleen, who sat there holding hands with Richie Filosi, who’d worked with Jocko at the two-four and knew all about how the law can be bent, twisted and stretched. Finally my glance fell on Yvette, who’d started blackmailing middle-aged men way back when she was a teenaged babysitter. “It was a good scheme, too, Yvette. No Tulsa manuscript would certainly mess with Sylvia’s head.”

  Yvette said nothing. Just sat there across the partners desk from Addison, calmly waiting for me to continue.

  Addison peered at her, then at me. “Why would Yvette care about Sylvia’s ‘head,’ as you so ineloquently put it?”

  “Because she wanted Sylvia’s backing, which she was never, ever going to get unless she had extraordinary leverage over her.”

  “Backing? What sort of backing?”

  “Jocko was spot-on. Yvette is desperate to renegotiate that cheapskate prenup she agreed to when she married you. And she wanted Sylvia to persuade you that it would be the right thing to do.”

  The old man scoffed at me. “Nonsense. I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “She also wanted to give Sylvia a taste of her own medicine. You see, Yvette happened to hate Sylvia, who treated her like nothing more than a trampy little gold digger.”

  “So what? Everyone hated Sylvia. She was impossible to like. That’s not an easy thing for a father to say, but it’s true.”

  “And yet Detective Sensenbrenner here says that she was very well liked in Willoughby. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

  Sensenbrenner sat his narrow self up a bit straighter on the sofa and cleared his throat. “Quite right. Miss James was regarded around Willoughby as a kindly and generous person. She did many, many fine things for the people in our community and asked for nothing in return. Just her peace and quiet. She was a private person. But she was respected and well liked, as Mr. Hoag says.”

  Addison peered across the office at him. “You must be talking about someone else.”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  “Well, I never knew a thing about that.”

  “Possibly because she didn’t want you to,” I suggested.

  “Why would that be?”

  “Because she was afraid you’d heap scorn and ridicule on her.”

  “Young man, did you come here tonight to berate me for my parenting skills?”

  “No, I came here because Sylvia hired me to do a job, find Tulsa, and I intend to do it.”

  “Fair enough. I’ve always respected professionalism. But are we finished now? I’m tired and I want all of these people to leave.”

  “Not just yet, Mr. James,” Very said.

  Jocko Conlon had gotten up off the sofa, fetched a Moosehead ale from the cooler and stood at the table drinking it, his eyes flicking around the office at the pocket doors, at the door
to Addison’s bedroom.

  Very’s eyes never left him. “Who killed Tommy O’Brien, Jocko?”

  Jocko took a gulp of his beer before he said, “Mel did.”

  “You just told us he was a wuss. You expect us to believe that?”

  Jocko shrugged his meaty shoulders. “Believe what you want. It’s what happened.”

  “And Mel’s no longer around to say otherwise. I’d call that mighty convenient, wouldn’t you, Hoagy?”

  “Yes, I would.” At my feet Lulu let out a low moan. “And I’m not the only one.” I stood there for a moment, tugging at my ear. “You know, Jocko, I keep thinking about something that Tommy told me.”

  “Which was what?” Jocko wondered.

  “That he smelled ex-cop all over you when you were threatening him on the sidewalk outside of that copier shop. Tommy was a police beat reporter for five years. Damned good one, too. You knew his byline. Every cop in the city did. You also knew that once the dust from this mess settled, he was the kind of reporter who wouldn’t rest easy until he found you. He’d work his old sources and contacts for as long as it took until he was able to attach a name to your face and man boobs. Deep down inside, you knew it. And it unsettled you. It would certainly unsettle me.”

  “Me, too,” Very agreed.

  “Leave no loose ends,” Addison said in a soft, hollow voice.

  I turned to look at him. “What was that, sir?”

  “Leave no loose ends,” he repeated in that same soft, hollow voice.

  “Which was exactly what Tommy was,” I said, nodding. “And it started to eat at you, didn’t it, Jocko? Eat at you so much that you went to Mel and said that you couldn’t risk letting Tommy walk around alive. You told Mel that you wanted to take Tommy out, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no,” Jocko answered, slowly and carefully. “I will say that the idea did happen to come up in conversation, and that Mel was a hundred and ten percent for it—with one major stipulation.”