Cold Night (Jack Paine Mysteries)

by Al Sarrantonio

  "All right," Paine said.

  He pulled himself off the desk. As he stepped into the hallway Jimmy Carnaseca was there, pressing the Velcro tab down on his camera bag. He had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his other hand, a spurt of steam rising from a corner where the plastic lid was pried up. "Got to catch somebody cheating on somebody," he grinned, moving past. "Don't let anybody mess with that thing on my desk."

  "Sure, Jimmy."

  Paine was alone in the hallway. He looked at the wall and suddenly it was moving at him, looking to squeeze him back until he was caught. Then it would come at him, pushing, pushing, until all the air was gone—

  A tomb.

  He closed his eyes tight and gently moved the panic away from his mind. In a moment, he was breathing easily. His hands unclenched. They were cold, covered with sweat. His forehead was covered with sweat, too. He took a deep breath and looked at the far wall. It was only a wall again, made white-yellow by the lights overhead.

  Okay, Jack, he thought. Okay.

  He walked into Barker's office.

  There was stenciled lettering a half-foot high on the door. It said "Robert Barker," in script. Inside, Barker was yelling, but the yelling abruptly stopped. The door opened and Margie hurried out, dipping under Paine's arm.

  "Go on," she said.

  Barker was in his chair with his back to him, facing the window. Jimmy had explained that the room was set up strategically. Barker faced away from you; you walked around the desk and the audience began when you were standing with your back to the window. You sat down in a low chair and Barker looked down at you. He was not as big as he looked. His suits were cut a little large, the shoulders padded; he had had his head shaved to look older and tougher. His shoes had heels laid a little higher than normal. He wore thick glasses though there was nothing wrong with his eyes. He was manicured and tailored to perfection, the knot in his tie so sharp you could cut yourself on it. He favored a large ring on his right pinky, a round sapphire surrounded by brilliant diamond chips. He kept the nails on his fingers longer than they should be. He was an illusion, but the illusion worked.

  "You wanted me," Paine said from the doorway, to Barker's back.

  "I don't want you," Barker said from behind his chair. "I sent for you."

  A thin plume of ochre smoke rose from Barker's Dunhill cigarette, and finally Paine went all the way in.

  He walked past the dark green plants, perfectly kept by Margie; the bookcases with leather volumes that had never been touched, the cases jutting out far into the room to make it seem claustrophobic on the visitor's side though in fact the place was huge. Music played softly through hidden speakers —Rachmaninoff, a piano sparring with a full orchestra, strangely muted by the lowness of the volume. A chair was left in the pathway, deliberately, so that the visitor had to step around it, coming close to Barker's high-backed lounge chair and desk but not touching it.

  Paine negotiated these obstacles and stood finally on the other side of the desk, in the light from the window. "What do you want?" Paine said, standing.

  "Sit," Barker said.

  Paine sat down in the low chair, and Barker loomed judiciously in front of him.

  "How many cases do you have at the moment?" Barker said.

  "Just this Grumbach business."

  "Just what is it you do around here?" Barker inquired mildly. His hand was cocked at an angle, holding his thin cigarette so that the smoke went up at just the right angle away from his face, as if he was posing.

  "What is it you wanted?" Paine answered.

  "Didn't you hear my question?" Barker said. "I asked: Just what is it you do around here?"

  "I work for you," Paine replied evenly. "I work in your freak show."

  Barker leaned back into the softness of the chair and put his cigarette into his mouth. He drew on it slowly, said nothing.

  "How old are you?" he asked finally.

  Paine sighed. "Thirty-six."

  "How long would you have been on the police force if you weren't here now?"

  Despite rising anger, Paine began to count years in his head.

  Barker answered for him: "Fourteen years. Six more and you would have been up for retirement. Here's another question. What would you be doing if you were not working for me?"

  Paine was silent.

  "Come on now," Barker said, waving his cigarette in front of him. "Give me an answer."

  "I'd be cleaning your toilets."

  A moment went by, and then Barker began to laugh. The cultivated titter he usually affected was overcome by great bursts of throaty noise. It was the kind of laughter a rude man in an audience makes when a juggler drops one of his tenpins. Barker leaned forward, his hand on his chest; he was wheezing with laughter. He put his delicate hands on the desk before him to steady himself. Eventually, his face relaxed.

  "Thank you," he said, leaning back, "for saying what I'd hoped you would."

  Paine started to get up.

  "Sit down, Paine," Barker said.

  Despite his anger, Paine released the hand rests and sat back down.

  "I don't like you at all," Barker said. "In many ways, you're the biggest loser I've ever taken on. A failed police career, failing marriage, in and out of alcohol treatment centers and psychological counseling." Barker held up a manicured finger, searching for the phrase he wanted. "And yet here you are, working for me, because no one else will have you. Isn't that marvelous?"

  Paine said, "I don't like it much, either."

  Barker smiled, threatening to break into his laugh again. "Paine, I couldn't care less if you like me or not. To me you're just another of my—"

  "Cripples?" There was something hot inside Paine that wanted to boil out. But that was what Barker wanted. With effort Paine let the moment of heat pass.

  "Perhaps one day you'll clean my toilets," Barker said, swiveling his chair toward the invisible speakers that were now bringing the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto to a muted halt, "but now you do other things for me. While you were playing with Jimmy Carnaseca I took a telephone call of yours, from a Ms."—he looked down at a slip of paper in front of him—"Meyer. One of Grumbach's daughters, as you should already know. Her younger sister spoke with you at length this morning about signing one of our contracts." Barker didn't look up, but creased the slip of memo paper between his fingers. "Ms. Meyer said she has the signed contract for you, and that her sister left instructions that you stop by the Mallard Hotel." He swiveled completely away from Paine. The hidden stereo, its tape rewound, once again started on the Rachmaninoff piece. "She said her sister committed suicide this morning."

  FOUR

  "You have a letter for Mr. Paine?"

  The lobby of the Mallard Hotel was crowded, but the desk clerk recognized him, anyway. "Aren't you Mr. Johnson?"

  "My name is Paine." He showed the clerk his driver's license and a credit card.

  The clerk was gone a minute, then returned emptyhanded.

  "Sorry, nothing for Mr. Paine. But there's another letter for Mr. Johnson."

  "I'll take it."

  "But you said—"

  "Now I'm Mr. Johnson. Get the letter."

  He held a five-dollar bill out on the end of his fingers like a Christmas ornament. The clerk returned with an envelope. He hesitated before taking the money.

  "The Mallard is a good hotel, Mr. Paine."

  "And I'm a good customer," Paine said, taking the envelope firmly from him and dropping the five-dollar bill on the desk.

  When he got to his car he opened the envelope and drew out three photographs. There was nothing else. He spread the photos out on the seat. They were not the same as the others. These were three head shots of three different men. All of them looked like car salesmen. They looked like three salesmen for the same Plymouth dealership.

  Paine put the photos back into the envelope, holding it in his hand for a moment before putting it into his jacket pocket and starting the car.

  This time the Grumbach est
ate was alive with activity. There were two police cars parked at an angle in the circular drive, two vans with leading cables that could only be television crews. Two suicides in the same moneyed family in one week was obviously news. The gardener was nowhere to be seen. At the front door Paine waited for the ghostly maid to answer, but the door was opened by Rebecca Meyer.

  She was again in tennis whites. But now there were red puffy patches under her eyes, and her short hair was in disarray. As Paine stood there she brought her fingers up to her hair and drew them through it, making a nervous motion with her other hand.

  "Come in," she said.

  Paine took a step but she suddenly held her hand out and added, "No, don't. Let's walk." She stepped out quickly, closing the door behind her.

  "I hope you don't mind," she said as she brought him around the front of the house, across the manicured miniature garden and onto a flat-stoned path toward the side. "I just can't stand it in there. The television people, the police, it's . . . ghoulish." Once again her hand made its way up to her hair, but this time a tremble ran down her arm and made her shiver. "I'm sorry."

  Paine said nothing, because she wanted to talk.

  "My father," she said, "I was not very close to. In all honesty, I can say that when he killed himself I . . . wasn't very sorry about it. But Dolores . . ." The name trailed off; her hand made a movement out in front of her.

  She regained some of her poise. They had rounded the side of the house and were making their way through a copse of trees as pampered as the rest of the grounds; each branch seemed sculpted to fit with every other, and there was not a leaf or blade of grass out of place.

  Rebecca Meyer said, "I suppose that must sound hard, or something, my not feeling anything for my father?"

  When Paine said nothing she added, "You think I'm cruel."

  "I don't know you," Paine said.

  "That's true," she said. "But I wanted you to know that . . . I was not very close to my parents."

  "Not many people are."

  "Dolores and I got along better when we were younger. She's been a troubled girl the past few years."

  "Lots of people are troubled."

  "You're mocking me."

  "No, I'm not," Paine said.

  Rebecca Meyer stopped for a moment. She looked like she was going to cry. "I found her. She'd locked the bathroom door. She'd taken a bottle of sleeping pills and run a hot bath. She was dead when they got her to the hospital."

  Paine thought of Dolores Grumbach drinking in front of him, telling him she was going to take a bath, just before he left her.

  "Did she leave a note for you, or anyone else?"

  "Just that note for you, laid neatly on top of the signed contract for your agency." She pulled a creased set of papers from the pocket of her windbreaker and handed it to Paine.

  "Mr. Paine," the note read, "there is something for you at the Mallard Hotel. Enclosed are the signed contracts you requested. Give one copy to my sister Rebecca. The check attached will cover any initial expenses my father's money does not; I am sure my sister will give you whatever else you need." It was signed in neat script, "Dolores Grumbach."

  There was a check for five hundred dollars clipped to the contracts. Paine looked up at Rebecca Meyer. She was regarding him curiously, her eyes searching his face.

  "This is all there was?" Paine asked.

  "Yes. Will you tell me what my sister left for you at the Mallard Hotel?"

  Paine handed the three new photographs to Rebecca Meyer. She turned through them slowly, more carefully than she had when looking over the first set of black-and-whites.

  "Have you ever seen any of them before?"

  "Yes." She pointed to one photo of a man with short sideburns and a pin-striped suit. "This is Les Paterna," she said. "He worked with my father for a while, about ten years ago."

  "Can you tell me anything about him? Was he close to the family?"

  "He was at the house occasionally."

  Paine put the photographs away. "Do you know where I might be able to reach him?"

  "He's in the Westchester phone book. His company is called Bravura Enterprises."

  They had reached the end of the path. It opened onto a vast glide of lawn. To the right, at the bottom of a hill, a flat tennis court was bounded by green fencing; behind that were a swimming pool and a skeet shooting range. To the left the lawn kept going, rising and falling steadily downward, till the Hudson River, a sparkling blue hedge of water, cut the world in two.

  They moved gradually down to the right, stopping by the green chain link surrounding the tennis court. There was a bench, the kind you order from a store in Vermont, with strong pine planking laid across a green wrought-iron frame. Rebecca Meyer sat down. On the tennis court someone had left a towel and a pair of sunglasses. A racket had been tossed carelessly aside to land on the white foul line.

  "I didn't tell the police about you or the note," Rebecca Meyer said.

  "That will help."

  "It's not any of their business."

  Paine found himself drawn to look into her eyes, which were studying him again. There was something about her that he couldn't put his finger on. Something that disturbed and attracted him.

  "I find it easy to talk to you," Rebecca Meyer said. The slightest of smiles touched her lips as she put her hand on his. "Would you mind telling me why?"

  Paine drew his hand politely away from hers and put it on his lap.

  After a moment, he asked her, "How close were you to your sister?"

  "I loved Dolores very much. But I can't say we were very close. She was moody and cynical. When she was in school she spent most of her time by herself. She read a lot. My mother doted on her as much as on any of us, but all I can remember Dolores asking Mother for were books. My sister Gloria and I watched television and played tennis, Dolores read books."

  They looked at the chain link fence.

  "Is your sister Gloria here?" Paine asked.

  "She was down from Boston for my father's funeral yesterday and then went home to her family. She'll be back tonight."

  "Was she very close to Dolores?"

  "Gloria is close to no one."

  "Not even to your mother?"

  Rebecca nearly laughed. "Gloria is exactly like my mother."

  Paine waited for her to say more.

  "My sister Gloria," she went on, "is gracious, smooth, cold, and everyone loves her." She stopped, took a long breath. "I'm sorry if that sounds bitter, but it's true. My mother and she always got what they wanted, which was everything."

  "Your mother—"

  "She died a year ago," Rebecca Meyer said. Then she added abruptly, "I think we should be getting back."

  She got up and Paine went with her back toward the house. As they reached the grove of trees, Paine saw the man he had seen the day before. He was out of his tennis outfit today, leaning in a polo shirt and chinos against a tree bordering the path.

  "The police have been looking for you," he said to Rebecca.

  She brushed past him. "I told them all there was. This is Mr. Paine, a detective. This is Gerald."

  "I know," Gerald said. "I told Inspector Dannon that Paine was here."

  Rebecca turned on him. "I told you we were going to keep him out of this," she said between her teeth.

  He spread his hands innocently. "What could I do? They asked where you were."

  "Idiot," she said, continuing on to the house with Paine.

  "I'd better go," Paine said.

  She took his arm, squeezing. "Please," she said. "Not yet."

  Dannon was waiting for them in the front driveway by the open door to his car. The TV crews had vanished, looking for other carrion.

  "Mrs. Meyer," Dannon said politely, "there was just one other thing I wanted to ask you. Your husband mentioned something about a note your sister left." He didn't look at Paine.

  Paine took the note from his pocket and handed it to Dannon. "It was a business matter between her an
d me. Not a suicide note, if that makes you feel better."

  Dannon ignored Paine and took the note. He read it over quickly, then brought his eyes level with Paine's. "Mrs. Meyer's husband said something about some other papers, too." He pointed at the note. "What's this about something for you at the Mallard Hotel?"

  Paine handed Dannon the agency contracts and the check. "The Mallard Hotel thing didn't exist," he said evenly. "They had nothing for me there. Look into it if you want."

  "Are you fucking with me?" Dannon spat. Immediately he turned to Rebecca Meyer to apologize.

  "No," Paine said. "Check it if you want. Ask the afternoon clerk if there was anything for a shithead named Paine."

  "Don't fuck with me."

  "Farthest thing from my mind.”

  Dannon’s ears turned red, and he put out his balled fists, but Rebecca Meyer intervened.

  "Please, Inspector," she said, "Mr. Paine told you the truth." She glanced toward the open door of the car. "Is there anything else you wanted?"

  "I guess not."

  Paine said, “Let me have that note back.”

  "No way." Dannon got quickly into his car and closed the door.

  He gunned the accelerator and slipped the car into gear. Suddenly he reached out through the open window and grabbed Paine by the arm.

  "Don’t fuck with me," he whispered. His eyes were tight and hard, and he released the brake, making Paine stumble a few steps along with the car before giving his arm back to him. The car slammed ahead, squealing around the circular driveway, and then was gone through the gates.

  Paine stood rubbing his arm as Rebecca Meyer came up to him.

  "I had some trouble with that guy once," he explained, his eyes on the gates, the place where the car no longer was.

  FIVE

  Paine was in one of the bad places.

  It wasn’t bad to begin with, but it would get bad very soon. He was back with his father, after the long dark space that he didn’t want to think about, and his brother, Tom, was there, too. They were all in the house together, just like they had always been, and thought it didn’t feel the same, though that dark place was just behind him, he knew that this was as close to good as it would ever get again. His father was smiling. They sat around the nicked-up kitchen table and his father made them waffles like he always had on Saturdays. This wasn’t Saturday, it was Friday, but that didn’t matter because only the waffles mattered. He had slept in his own bed the night before, and he had slept well though there were times during the night when he had come awake clutching the mattress right through the covers, and breathing hard. He had rubbed his wrists, feeling not manacles but only their receding, sore marks. That had happened three or four times, but by late into the night, when it was almost morning, his body had finally realized where it was and he had slept. He must have gotten the good sleep because when he woke he felt as if he had been out for two days. And then he had smelled waffles, and coffee and bacon.