City Of Lies

by R.J. Ellory

  ‘So here’s where we stand on this,’ Neumann started. ‘Only people who know about the thing that happened to Lenny are me, Mr Marcus, Henry Kossoff and yourself. Only thing Henry knows is that you were s’posed to pay this McCaffrey guy off, he didn’t know any details. I’m lost on this one Ray, I really am. Tell me exactly what happened.’

  ‘We went to the meeting,’ Dietz said. He glanced nervously at Ben Marcus. He found it disturbing talking to Neumann, knowing that really he was speaking to Ben Marcus. ‘We went to pay McCaffrey the balance and he wasn’t there. He didn’t show. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘Someone would have to have a pretty good reason not to show up and collect fifty grand, don’tcha think?’

  ‘Fuck knows, Sol. I don’t know what the hell happened.’

  ‘You knew him from where?’

  ‘From Attica a few years back. We shared a cell together.’

  ‘And you rated him?’ Neumann asked.

  ‘Sure I did. McCaffrey and I were close. You spend that much time in a room with someone you either kill each other or wind up like brothers. I wouldn’t have suggested him for this thing if I didn’t figure he could do it.’

  ‘He did it, no question about that,’ Neumann said. ‘Didn’t do all that was needed, but we don’t know exactly what happened in that liquor store . . . we can’t make a judgement. Only thing we know for sure is that he’s done a runner.’

  ‘He has family,’ Marcus said, the second time he’d spoken since the others had left the room.

  ‘A brother and a sister here in New York,’ Dietz replied.

  ‘You know where they live?’

  ‘Can find them easy enough.’

  ‘So go find them,’ Marcus said. ‘See if they can’t help you find out where this guy is. I cannot have him running around New York with a .38 all spooked and upset. I need him found and I need him dead.’

  Dietz nodded. ‘I think I should have gone to the pay-off alone. I think he must have seen Henry with me and got frightened.’

  ‘Sure as shit he was frightened . . . bastard probably knew Henry was going to kill him,’ Neumann said.

  Marcus raised his hand. ‘Now it doesn’t matter. Turning this thing back and forth serves no purpose. I need him found Ray . . . take Albert, Karl, whoever you want. Victor needs a little time to work on some things with these sites. I need a day or two to sort things out with Freiberg before we have a full meeting of both crews. Get these people found, this brother and sister, see if they know where your guy is hiding. I need him found Ray, I need McCaffrey found and dead within twenty-four hours, okay?’

  ‘I’ll sort it out,’ Dietz said, and started to rise.

  ‘One other thing,’ Neumann added.

  Dietz sat down again, looked at Ben Marcus, back to Sol Neumann.

  ‘You probably know more about Bernstein’s people than anyone here.’

  ‘Jesus, that was twenty, thirty years ago Sol. I knew Garrett Sawyer, met his wife a couple of times. Think she had a sister that went out with Lenny. You’re talking history, real history.’

  ‘Lenny have a son you were aware of?’ Neumann asked.

  Dietz shook his head. ‘Maybe he did, I don’t know. Maybe he had a son with this girl, Evelyn Sawyer’s sister; Garrett never spoke to me about it. Jesus, I did a couple of things with the guy. We used to go out drinking every once in a while. Later, when the territories separated we went different ways. He killed himself more than twenty years ago.’

  Sol Neumann nodded, was silent for a moment. ‘And Walt Freiberg?’ he asked. ‘You know much about Walt Freiberg?’

  Dietz shrugged. ‘By reputation, nothing else.’

  ‘You think he’s a talker?’

  Dietz shook his head and smiled. ‘Freiberg? Christ, no. From what I’ve heard Lenny had Walt Freiberg on a short leash ’cause the guy was so fucking dangerous.’

  ‘So you think the right decision was made today?’

  Dietz nodded. ‘No question about it. Irrespective of whether or not Lenny has a son from Miami, and whether or not he has a crew he can bring here, I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to go to war with Walt Freiberg.’

  Sol Neumann smiled. ‘Okay . . . so you have to sort this thing out with your boy McCaffrey. He came to us on your recommendation Ray. You said he could do the hit on Lenny, and he was reliable. Well, he’s done a runner, and you have to find him and kill him, okay?’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ Dietz said.

  ‘I know you will Ray, I know you will. Stay in touch, let us know what’s happening – and get it straightened out because shit is going to happen fast once we’ve met with Freiberg.’

  Dietz rose from the chair and straightened his jacket. ‘I’ll take care of everything,’ he said. He glanced across at Marcus, smiled nervously, nodded his head deferentially. ‘I’ll find him and straighten everything out.’

  Ben Marcus raised his hand in acknowledgement.

  Ray Dietz turned and crossed the room to the stairs.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Sonny!’ Walt exclaimed from ten yards down the sidewalk.

  Harper felt cold and loose inside. What could he say? How do you ask someone not to do something like that? He smiled, stood there as Walt Freiberg hurried towards him. Cathy stood patiently, her hand through Harper’s arm. To an observer they perhaps looked like a young couple awaiting a family friend, a shopping trip, perhaps a theater matinee.

  Cathy stepped forward and greeted Walt. She kissed him on the cheek.

  Walt reached out and took both of Harper’s hands. He gripped tightly, looked directly at him, said, ‘Good to see you, John, really good to see you. You look better today, a little less ragged around the edges.’

  Harper smiled. Looked better yes, felt better no. He said nothing.

  Freiberg released Harper’s hands. ‘I checked on Edward,’ he said. ‘His vital signs are a little stronger . . . they feel optimistic that he might make a fight of this. He’s a tough man, your father, a very tough man. If anyone can make it through such a thing it will be him.’

  Harper, once again, said nothing. Walt Freiberg was speaking of someone that was as much a stranger as Cathy Hollander, more so in fact. Cathy he had spoken to, held at least two or three conversations with – awkward, ever present his awareness of how charged he felt around her – but nevertheless they had exchanged words. Edward Bernstein was a dying man in St Vincent’s Hospital, a man who’d shared only one word with him in his life, the one word he could remember, if in fact he’d said anything at all.

  Leave.

  Harper looked away. A knot of unidentifiable emotion constricted his throat. Anger, confusion, grief, emptiness? He didn’t know. Safer not to know perhaps.

  ‘So we are out together,’ Walt said. ‘I figured we should get some things for John, seeing as how he may be here for a little while—’

  Harper frowned. ‘A little while? What d’you mean?’

  ‘A few days perhaps.’ Walt looked concerned. ‘To see how he is doing, John. To stay a little while and make sure that he has all the support he needs.’

  Harper laughed. It sounded remarkably incongruous. He was amazed that anyone could speak of being there to support a father who had left a child alone, disappeared for more than thirty years, turned up seventy years old and shot, turned up in such a manner as to wreak havoc in other peoples’ lives, people he had evidently cared little for. ‘I don’t know that I’m going to stay, Walt. More I think about it the more it makes sense to go back to Miami.’

  ‘No,’ Cathy Hollander said. ‘You can’t go back to Miami.’

  Walt was shaking his head. ‘You should stay here, John, seriously you should, at least until we have a better idea of how Edward is doing.’

  Cathy stepped closer and touched Harper’s arm. ‘We want you to stay,’ she said. ‘Me and Walt, we really want you to stay, at least a few days more.’

  Harper shook his head. ‘I don’t know . . . I just don’t know . . .’

&nb
sp; ‘I understand,’ Walt said. He raised his hands, palms facing Harper. ‘I understand something, I think, at least something of how you might be feeling.’

  ‘Do you, Walt? Do you think you have even the faintest clue about what might be going on in my head?’

  ‘No confrontations, John, no confrontations. We don’t do confrontations here. This is all for another time, another day. I had Cathy come over and get you simply because I wanted to get a few things for you, that was all. I don’t want you to read anything into this. It’s not complicated. Your father and I have been friends and business partners all these years. Evelyn told you Edward was dead. I’ve carried that lie for thirty years or more. After your mother died I wanted to make sure you were okay. I felt a sense of duty.’ Walt smiled, shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me why, John. Maybe because I never had kids of my own. I wanted to make sure you were okay, so for a little while I kept an eye on you the only way I could. I couldn’t tell Evelyn what to say to you. Who the hell was I? I was just another of Edward’s no-good friends.’

  Walt stepped forward and took Harper’s arm. He led him to the edge of the sidewalk away from the road, out of the path of other people who were walking back and forth.

  ‘I was never your father,’ he went on. ‘I never tried to be anything other than a friend to you. Evelyn didn’t want me coming around, and after a while it seemed pointless. I didn’t want to see you get caught in the middle of some imagined upset she had with me. I never did anything to harm her. I never said anything that was designed to be anything other than helpful, but she had her reasons, and who was I to question them? When you were old enough to recognize that everything she said wasn’t the gospel truth I left. I didn’t want to, it made me feel bad, but I left. I had a life to get on with as well. I was young then, younger than you are now, and there were things I needed to do, people I had to deal with. I did what I felt was the right thing, and when I felt you could deal with things yourself I let it all go.’

  Walt Freiberg paused to catch his breath. It was bitterly cold.

  ‘So it is what it is. She told you your father was dead. I didn’t agree with her, but Evelyn Sawyer was never a woman to wait for anyone’s agreement, right?’ Walt smiled, squeezed Harper’s arm. ‘Right, John?’

  Harper nodded.

  ‘So it went the way it went. And then when Edward was shot and I figured he might not make it I felt the very least I could do was make her call you. Whether that was right or wrong I don’t know, and now it’s too late to make a judgement. The call was made. I insisted she tell you. If she’d had her way you’d still be in Florida none the wiser. Tell me I made the wrong decision. What can I do?’

  ‘It’s okay Walt,’ Harper said resignedly, perhaps for no other reason than he couldn’t listen to any more. ‘It’s okay. It’s been one helluva couple of days, that’s all I can say, and I haven’t had a chance to figure out what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Do?’ Walt asked. ‘What makes you think you have to do anything?’ He smiled, laughed almost. ‘You don’t have to do a goddamned thing, John. Just stick around for a few days, have Cathy and me keep you company. We’ll go out, have dinner, maybe see a show or something.’

  Harper shook his head. He couldn’t really comprehend what he was hearing. Have dinner? See a show? He possessed no context within which to place any of this.

  ‘John?’

  Harper looked up at Walt Freiberg.

  ‘It won’t make sense, none of it. He was shot. He was in a liquor store Sunday night and someone shot him. He’s going to make it or he isn’t, it’s no more complicated than that. He’s in the hospital, and those people know what they’re doing. Everything that can be done is being done, and there isn’t anything we can do apart from be here. The doctor is going to call me if he comes round, you know? And if he does we go see him, okay?’

  Harper nodded. Walt was right. There was nothing any of them could do.

  ‘So we go see someone,’ Walt said. ‘That’s what we were going to do today, go meet someone and get some things organized for yourself.’

  ‘What things?’ Harper asked.

  Walt smiled. ‘It isn’t a big deal, John, just a little sartorial influence. If you’re going to play the game then you have to look the part, right?’

  Cathy smiled. She took Harper’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go see Mr Benedict.’

  Harper walked with them to Walt’s car. He didn’t enquire where they were going or who Mr Benedict was. Truth be known he was past the point of challenging any of it. The questions he asked never seemed to realize answers. A little while longer, a few days, surely no more, and regardless of what happened he would be out of New York and on the way home. Had to be. There they were again, the rock and the hard place – Evelyn and Frank Duchaunak on one side, Cathy and Walt on the other. Perhaps the easiest thing was not to try and make a choice. Go with it, go with the flow, deal with whatever might come when it came.

  Harper sat in the back of the car, Cathy Hollander right beside him, and he was intensely aware of her closeness. At one point she reached out and closed her hand over his, gave it a reassuring squeeze, and then let go. He looked at her but she did not look back. He wanted to feel her hand again, wanted to touch her once more, but he dared not. The woman was a confusion of messages, or perhaps not. Maybe it was him, him and him alone. Maybe he just wanted something to be there, wanted it so much that he justified his wishful thinking with everything Cathy said and did. His life in Miami, however narrow it might have been, was neverthless under control. This was the opposite, a complete dichotomy, and dealing with it did not come easy.

  Walt Freiberg drove, silently for a little while, and then he started to tell Harper a story about Edward Bernstein, his friend and partner, and Harper listened with a sense of detached interest. But within moments his attention was distracted by the city beyond the window. It started to rain, lightly at first, and then Walt had to put the wipers on to facilitate a clear view of the road ahead.

  Harper leaned back. He closed his eyes. He felt the warmth of Cathy Hollander beside him, the ghost of her perfume, not only that which she had applied, but also that which she possessed.

  Walt’s voice was something that belonged to a distant past. Try as he might to associate and identify with all that it represented, everything within John Harper urged him to leave that past alone. What was done was done.

  And if his father lived? Well, if he lived, that would be another bridge to burn or build when the time came.

  Harper listened to the sound of the rain, the sound of the engine, the wheels on the road, the breathing of New York City as it swallowed him. Here he possessed no real identity, and perhaps never had. Surely without awareness and recognition of the past there could neither be present nor future. A tree without roots is not a tree.

  John Harper opened his eyes as the car drew to a halt.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Cathy asked.

  Harper turned and looked at her. She was smiling.

  ‘Nowhere special,’ he said quietly, and then a gust of rain unexpectedly caught him as Walt Freiberg opened the door.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘Who said that? That New York becomes a small town when it rains?’

  Duchaunak shook his head.

  Evelyn was silent for a moment, and then, ‘Gunther, John Gunther, I believe.’

  She reached into her apron pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. She opened it and offered one to Duchaunak.

  He raised his hand, shook his head, smiled. ‘Trying to quit,’ he said.

  Evelyn laughed.

  Duchaunak frowned, watched her as she lit her cigarette. ‘So you were saying?’ he prompted.

  ‘I was saying that Walt Freiberg called me the night Edward was shot. He told me that it was what Anne would have wanted now, that she would want John to know he had a father, that I should call him and tell him to come to New York.’

  ‘And if Walt Freiberg hadn’t called you?’r />
  ‘I would’ve left it all well alone, Detective. I have to admit there was an element of self-preservation in there somewhere.’

  ‘Self-preservation?’

  Evelyn nodded. ‘I was the one who told John that his father had died. I’ve kept that up for thirty years or more. That’s what Anne wanted me to do right from Edward’s departure, and it went on after her death . . . went on until the day before yesterday.’

  ‘It came as a shock to him,’ Duchaunak said.

  ‘What do you think, Detective?’

  ‘I think it came as a shock to him, Mrs Sawyer.’

  ‘A thunderbolt.’

  ‘And now?’

  Evelyn shook her head. ‘I’ve told him to leave, to go home, but knowing John he will please himself. John is a single-minded and independent man, was that way even as a child. He stayed here long enough to save enough money to move out, and then he left, went all the way down to Florida. We didn’t keep in touch, not the way a family’s supposed to, and that was how he wanted it. We had a difficult time. He lost his mother, I lost my husband, and yet we somehow made the best of it despite everything. There is a certain irony, however, in how things have turned out, don’t you think?’

  Duchaunak said nothing. His expression was quizzical.

  ‘That the one man we decided to have disappear from our lives is the one man who brought us back together.’

  ‘Edward Bernstein,’ Duchaunak stated matter-of-factly.

  Evelyn smiled resignedly. ‘Edward Bernstein.’

  ‘You don’t like him . . . never did like him, did you?’

  ‘You ever read Stanislavski?’

  Duchaunak shook his head.

  ‘You know who he is, right?’

  Duchaunak shrugged. ‘Some Russian guy?’

  ‘Constantin Stanislavski. He developed a school of acting, a philosophy if you like. He wrote things, you know? One of them was about the phenomenon of an actor being entirely alone despite the audience. He called it ‘solitude in public’. He suggested that even though an actor is presenting himself to an audience of thousands he could still remain in a circle of light, like a snail in a shell, and he could carry that shell with him wherever he went and whatever he did—’