by Adam Pepper
Juan Lopez, the building superintendent was the eyewitness. Mr. Lopez was questioned on four different occasions. His story was consistent, and backed up by security camera footage. He received a complaint of noise coming from the Olsen apartment. Went to check it out. Knocked, didn’t hear an answer, so he used his master key to get in. When he opened the door, a Caucasian woman, attractive, late thirties to early forties, barreled him over and ran out of the building. Juan turned on the lights and saw Mrs. Olsen, then called 911 immediately.
“That’s it, huh?”
“In a nutshell,” Vic replied. “That’s all we have. We have an eyewitness and security tapes, but no one knows who this woman is, much less why she’d do such a thing.”
“Vic, can you take me down to the scene?”
Vic shrugged. “I guess so. But what you see is what you get. Me and Tate have been over there a dozen times. We’ve interviewed the entire building. No one knows who that mystery woman on the security tape is.”
“Humor me.”
“Okay. This afternoon. I’ve got a lot to do this morning.”
“Great, see you then.”
“I’ll call you when I have time.”
“Thanks, Vic.”
When I walked outside the stationhouse, I noticed the little envelope on my cell phone. Someone had left a message while I was inside. Cell service was always a little dicey inside the precinct. On a good day you got perfect reception, other days, like today apparently, the phone didn’t even ring.
My hopes were fulfilled as I listened to the message and heard the voice of Warren Hill. His voice was raspy and he sounded every bit his sixty-seven years of age when he spoke in slow deliberate tones, as if each word might be his last. He smoked three packs a day, minimum and had a nasty coke habit for much of his adult years; although he’d kicked those demons at least ten years ago, many of the scars remained. Still, I was one of the few people who got along with the guy.
“Hey, Hank,” his voice on the message said, “good to hear from you. You know I can always use some lunch. Especially if you’re buying. I’m free about noon. Call me and confirm. Bye.”
I hit the callback button and the phone rang. Warren picked it up on the fourth ring.
“Warren Hill.”
“Hey Warren. It’s Hank.”
“Hank. How goes it?”
“Good. Good. Yourself?”
“Let’s see, my doctor says my cholesterol’s too high, my blood pressure’s too high, and my prostate’s too big. Other than that, I’m fuckin’ wonderful.”
“Good to hear.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Get to the point, Hank. I’m late on a deadline and my editor has been busting my balls. He still thinks if he makes my life miserable enough, he can get me to retire.”
“You’ll show him, Warren. You’ll show him.”
Warren laughed, a long wheezing laugh. I could hear him sucking on a cigarette, then exhaling between chuckles. “I’ll outlive that snotty little shit, just like the last two editors.”
“I thought the last one moved on to The Daily News and the other one just quit.”
“Whatever, they’re both dead to me.”
“Listen, about lunch.”
“Yeah, about lunch,” he said, then sucked in another hit of smoke. “You’re buying, and I’m talking.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
“What am I talking about?”
“Thomas and Mackenzie Blake.”
“Ah. The egomaniac and the spoiled brat. I know them well.”
“I figured you’d be the perfect guy to help me.”
“Why you interested in them? They hire you or something?”
“Warren,” I said in an admonishing tone. “You need to keep this talk off the record.”
“Okay. Okay.” Between his pseudo-guilt and the early stages of emphysema, he was practically whispering. “I had to ask. As long as you’re paying for lunch, I’ll keep a lid on our talk.”
“Great.”
“But I’m picking the restaurant.”
“Fine. But try not to clean me out.”
* *
We agreed to meet at Vladimir’s Steakhouse on the west side, which, in spite of its Russian name and décor, served American food. Warren loved the place and even with the money I’d given Marco and Avi, I could still spring for a steak lunch and have enough left over to cover my anticipated expenses. Worst case, I’d hit Blake up for some more money, but it was too soon for that.
I arrived first and got us a table for two in the back. I sat down, my back to the wall. I would have preferred a booth but they were all taken. The place was dark. The floor and walls were finished in dark stained wood. Hanging red curtains with yellow tassels and trim were draped over paintings of Stalin and Lenin. Red tablecloths adorned the tables. I wasn’t exactly hiding, but I didn’t really want to be seen with Warren Hill either. Someone might overhear something and start asking questions. I needed to keep a low profile until I had a better idea of exactly what I was dealing with. Vladimir’s was the perfect place to stay below the radar. The lunch crowd was mostly men in suits eating steaks, drinking wine and charging their excesses to the company expense account. They were apt to pay us as much mind as we were going to pay them—that is, none.
A waiter, middle aged guy in a white button-up shirt covered with a black apron had just brought me over a bourbon on the rocks with a lime when I noticed Warren outside through the tic tac toe board of windows to the side of the bar. He stopped in front of the place, closed his eyes and took one last pull on his cigarette, stamped it out on the sidewalk, ignoring the conveniently placed ashtray, then came inside.
He spotted me right away and walked straight to the back, then took the seat across from me. Like most Manhattan restaurants, the tables were very close together, but the tables on both sides of us were vacant.
“Hi, Hank,” he said as he shook my hand.
I nodded and smiled. “Nice to see you again, Warren. Been a while.”
“It has. It has.” He picked up the menu in front of him as the waiter walked over.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Yeah,” he thought for a second, then eyeballed my drink. “What he’s having. But light on the ice and no lime.”
“Sure.” The waiter disappeared.
“Limes are for sissies, Hank,” he said with a laugh, then picked up a cloth napkin and wiped his runny nose.
“Yeah, yeah.” I smiled back. “Maybe if you drank more lime and less bourbon your prostate wouldn’t be so damn big.”
“You leave my prostate out of this, pal. You’ll be my age soon enough.”
I threw up my hands in mock surrender. “Kidding! Just kidding.” I reached into my drink, pulled out the lime and tossed it wildly over my shoulder.
Warren smiled and ran his hand through the semicircle of gray hair that wrapped around the back side of his head. “That’s more like it. But I think you just gave Stalin a bath.”
I laughed and twisted my body around, the red pad on top of the brown wooden chair shifted and squeaked. Stalin had a wet spot, but appeared otherwise intact. Looking around sheepishly, I realized no one seemed to notice.
“So, Hank. You’re interested in the Blakes.” He observed me looking around and said, “Don’t be so paranoid, Hank. No one in here cares about you.”
“I’d like to keep things quiet all the same.”
“I know. I know. You are a loyal man. You promise your clients anonymity and discretion and that’s just what they get.”
I nodded. “Something like that.”
The waiter came back with Warren’s drink, then asked, “Would you like to hear our specials today?”
“No, no,” Warren said with an abruptness that made me a little uncomfortable, considering this guy was about to be handling our food. “We don’t need any of that fancy stuff. We’re ready to order. If I take more than an hour for lunch, my editor whines like a bitch.”
“Certainly,
sir. What can I get you?”
“And he’s half your freakin’ age, barely a third of mine.”
The waiter smiled and adjusted his apron.
“Okay,” Warren said more calmly, “We’ll take the porterhouse for two. Okay with you, Hank?”
“Of course.”
“I like it bloody. Don’t kill the bacteria…or the flavor.”
I nodded. “Rare is fine.”
“And since my doctor says to watch my cholesterol, bring me a baked potato, loaded. Bacon, cheese, and anything else you can think of.”
“Of course, sir.” The waiter nodded but didn’t write anything down.
“You getting all this?” Warren asked.
“Yes, sir. Porterhouse for two, bloody. Baked potato, loaded. What else?”
Warren looked at me and said, “These waiters today have damn good memories. I need a notepad, myself.”
“He’s good,” I said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll take a baked potato as well,” I said.
“Load his up, too,” Warren said. “And don’t bring anything green. No salad. No broccoli. No spinach. None of that. Got it?”
“Certainly, sir. Just the steaks and potatoes. Anything else?”
“Yeah, bring me another drink with the meal. And don’t bug us until the food is ready.”
“Of course.” He quietly walked away.
“Nothing more annoying than one of these guys hanging over you. We need to talk in peace.”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Thomas Blake. Well, he likes to say he’s a self-made man. I suppose he is, if you consider being born a millionaire and turning yourself into a billionaire self made. His father, Thomas Blake the third, that’s right, Blake is a typical blue blood, pass down their name for generations. Anyway, so his old man made his living in real estate. But it wasn’t always that way. He was one of the original corporate raiders. Venture capital, buyouts and takeovers. Mergers and acquisitions. That shit is all way over my head but the old man did all that stuff to stroke his own ego. Thing is, most of the companies he bought wound up bigger piles of shit when he was done with them than when he bought ‘em in the first place and instead of stroking his ego, he just stroked out. Wound up a miserable old man in a wheelchair. But the guy did one thing right. He bought a ton of real estate. Most of it in Manhattan. So when prices skyrocketed, he made boatloads.”
“Sounds smart enough to me.”
“Yeah, sure. Made all that money but couldn’t enjoy any of it. Ended up eating meals through a straw and drooling all over his nursemaid instead of his hot young trophy wife.”
I laughed, then asked, “What happened to her?”
“She took a nice chunk of money and married some other rich guy out in L.A.”
“Figures. And Thomas Blake the fourth?”
“Your client…”
“Warren.” I said in a scolding tone.
He laughed, “Okay. Okay. I had to try.”
“Go on. Tell me about the guy.”
“He’s a chip off the old block. Buys all kinds of companies. You name it, he’s got his hands in it. Financials, insurance, oil, retail. The guy has a piece of everything. But he’s a pig. Like they all are. Eyes are always bigger than his belly.”
“Yeah.”
“So he’s got a big deal brewing a few months back, and the rumor mill was claiming that one of his partners, fella by the name of Bill Palmer didn’t want the deal done.”
“Interesting.”
“Palmer and Blake go way back. Been in many business ventures together. Made a ton of money together. And apparently, they were perfect for one another. Blake has drive and ambition. Palmer has keen business sense and a more conservative approach to things.”
“A yin and yang thing.”
“Exactly. A lot of smart folks, like my friend Walter over at the Wall Street Journal, said a big reason why Blake was so successful was because he trusted Palmer’s instincts, and Palmer was able to rein him in when he got too, shall we say, exuberant about a deal.”
“Okay. I’m following.”
“So here’s the thing. Palmer, who has equal say in the partnership, doesn’t want the deal done. First time in their partnership that they couldn’t agree on something.”
“Right. Right. And?”
“And, Palmer just disappears. Vanishes. No one has heard from the guy in months.”
“Wow. Is Blake a suspect?”
“Cops questioned him, for sure. But it’s not like they’re actively making a case on him. At least as far as I know.”
I shook my head. “That’s crazy. What about Mackenzie Blake?”
“Ah, the sniffling debutant.”
“That’s a new one.”
“New? I thought you read my column!”
I shrugged.
“She’s more trouble than a leaky gas pipe blowing into a smoldering ashtray.”
“Another new one. You’re on a roll, Warren.”
“Girl has a thousand dollar a week coke habit. Drinks more than you and I do, and has a set of titties that can make even my shriveled up dick feel young again.”
“Nice, Warren. That’s very sweet.”
“Truth is blunt, my friend. That girl is trouble. If, and I’m only saying if, those two have hired you, you need to watch your back at all times. They are ruthless.”
“Ruthless, huh?”
“Ruthless.”
“The old man, I can see. But the girl too? With those bad habits you mentioned, and her having everything handed to her in life, I’m thinking maybe she’s just a little nuts.”
“Crazy? Mackenzie Blake. Nah. Trust me, Hank. Ruthless, the both of them.”
“Thanks, Warren. If I need anything else can I call you?”
“Of course.”
“Even if I can’t afford a steak?”
“I can be bought cheaper than this,” he said with a sly smile. “But I always expect to be fed by my dates.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The waiter brought over our steaks and we enjoyed them, talking about sports, current events, and anything other than the Blakes for the rest of the meal.
* *
Cab fare was starting to add up, so after thanking Warren for the info, I took the subway downtown. The bumping and rattling of the ride made it tough to think, and I needed time to process. Warren gave me a stern warning about the Blakes, and I trusted Warren’s opinion. He said to be careful with them and he had good reason, no doubt. I’d be on my guard, but I always was. And truth was, it didn’t matter anyway. The Blakes could be murderers, terrorists or child molesters. Charlie Fucking Manson could have walked into my office, and I’d take his case, and his cash, without the slightest compunction. Business was business, point blank.
When I got to the office, Sandy was on the phone. I walked in and her back was turned to me. She was talking in a very serious tone. It’d been a while since I heard her talk like that.
“Are you actually working?” I asked, but she didn’t answer, so I threw in, “You could almost pass for a college graduate when you take that businesslike tone.”
She held up her hand and extended her middle finger, but still didn’t turn around, instead, without missing a beat or even slightly changing the polite inflection in her voice, she continued talking to someone on the other end about some money matter. I knew she must be dealing with a credit inquiry. We ran routine credit histories and background checks from time to time. It was easy money and great work when we could get it.
“Huh, you are actually working,” I said.
She spun around in her chair, tilted her head to one side to cradle the phone between her shoulder and neck, then shot me double middle fingers. It was impressive how she could look so mean and yet sound so nice to the caller on the other side of the phone. I blew her a kiss, then walked into my office and closed the door.
I sat at my desk and waited for my phone to ring. I needed Victor’s help. I was eager t
o make some progress on the case. It wasn’t long before my patience started wearing thin. I picked up the phone to call him, but then dropped it back down. I couldn’t push Vic too hard. He was doing me a favor. I played solitaire on my computer until thankfully, around two-thirty, I got the call on my cell phone.
“Vic. Thanks for calling.”
“Hey, Hank. Been busy. Doing the best I can.”
“I know. I understand.”
“Listen, I’ve got a car. I’m on my way over. Be there in about ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Great. I’ll be ready.”
I reached in my desk, found a fresh notebook but couldn’t find a pen. “Sandy!” I yelled, then stepped out of my office and into the main room.
“What is it, Hank?”
“My pens. I need one.”
She reached into her pocketbook and took out a box of pens, handing me an unused one.
“Thank you, Sandy.”
She crinkled her nose at me, and I couldn’t help but lick my lips while thinking that she was the cutest little kleptomaniac I’d ever met.
“I’m going out.”
“Bye.”
I stepped outside.
“Hi, Mrs. Kim.” I said as I waved. She was in her usual spot behind the sewing machine. “Do you ever take a day off?” I cracked a smile.
“Too much to do. Too much to do,” she replied.
Mr. Kim stood behind the cash register and nodded and waved. I waved back just as I noticed a gray Dodge sedan approaching—standard unmarked police cruiser. It slowed and I could see Vic’s silhouette behind the tinted glass. Once it came to a stop, I walked around the back end and hopped in on the passenger side.
“Hey, Hank.” Vic said once I was inside.
“Nice suit.” Victor had on a striking burgundy suit with a matching tie on top of a dark shirt.
“You wish you could pull off a suit like this.”
“I’ll say.”
“You should start by washing yours. Those nice Koreans next door would do wonders with that suit, if you’d only let them.”
I sniffed the lapel of my jacket. “It’s clean.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Clean enough, anyway.”
There were no legal parking spots in front of the yellow brick building, so Vic parked the car right in front, ignoring the paint stripes identifying the fire lane, and we walked in together.
