SoHo Sins

by Richard Vine

  “Bob Andrews,” he said. “Comptroller and deputy chief executive officer. How are you?”

  His hair, thin and black, was gelled straight back close to his skull, pushing his blunt features into prominence. The severe style seemed to emphasize the swell of his oversized forehead. Whenever he turned his face, the light glinted sharply off his lenses and frames.

  “Mr. Wyeth, Mr. Hogan, thank you for coming.” He motioned us to two facing seats at the end of the table. He sat down between us, at the head. “I’m aware, of course, of the reason for your visit. An awful turn of events. Mrs. Oliver was well-known to us all here, and universally liked.”

  “So I hear,” Hogan said.

  “That’s why I want to assure you that you’ll have the full cooperation of Oliver Technologies in your investigation.”

  “A smart decision.”

  “We expect, of course, nothing less than a full exoneration of Philip.”

  “I’ll see what we can do. But there is the small problem of his confession.”

  “Phil is not a well man,” Andrews countered quickly. “Trauma, fatigue, self-blame have all, understandably, disoriented him.”

  “It happens a lot in this town.”

  Andrews nodded gravely, his lenses flashing like semaphore lamps. “And as you know, Philip has been suffering from Wolfsheim’s Syndrome for the past several years.”

  “How exactly does that work again?” I asked.

  “Insidiously. Phil retains his analytic and decision-making functions, but his memory is deteriorating rapidly. He tends to remember only those parts of his experience that he enjoyed at the time. The doctors sometimes describe it as ‘obliteration by bliss.’ ”

  “That must cut down on his bar bills,” Hogan said.

  Andrews looked at him blankly, as though he had just spoken in Chinese.

  “At the same time,” the comptroller continued, “Phil is consumed by guilt over his wife’s death—and unable to censor his own conversations.”

  “But he still runs the company?”

  “No one here, or anywhere in the world, has noticed any decline in Philip’s business acumen.”

  “So the stockholders are happy?”

  “Oliver Technologies has increased its global revenues at a rate of eighteen percent annually for the last five years. The stockholders are very pleased. Glowing.”

  “I imagine that Phil, you, and the other top staff members here all have a healthy portion of those shares.”

  “The portion set by the board’s compensation committee. In line with industry norms. It’s how we hire and retain a talented staff.”

  We all nodded amiably to each other.

  “The thing is,” Hogan said, “we’re actually here to see Mr. Oliver. We have an appointment for eleven o’clock.”

  “Of course,” Andrews replied. “Phil will be joining us shortly for lunch.”

  “It was a personal appointment. You know, for some reason folks tend to clam up with an investigator when their coworkers and friends are around. Maybe it’s a group-dynamics thing.”

  Andrews—a squash player, I’d wager—returned the shot deftly. “Surely you don’t expect someone like Phil, a grieving spouse with a brain disease, to submit to your questions without his lawyer present?”

  “I work for his lawyer,” Hogan said. “Which means I work for Philip, indirectly. So you guys and me, we’re all colleagues, in a way. And we’ve got a big problem to solve. Philip, our boss, waltzed into a police station a few days ago, dripping wet, and indicted himself for murder. Bernstein pulled him out of the fire that night. But if we can’t do a proper follow-up now, the cops are going to take Philip at his word. I guess you’ve heard how his statement begins.”

  Andrews grew rigid in his seat. “I really don’t think, as deputy CEO, that I can allow our company’s founder, chief stockholder, and managerial head to be interrogated alone.”

  “It’s an interesting point, Philip’s position here and all,” Hogan said, “especially since his father died. When was it—four years ago? That left Philip suddenly in charge of everything, didn’t it? Not just O-Tech but all of Oliver Industries.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Could be pretty overwhelming, don’t you think? A lone guy, under so much new stress. He’d probably want to reach out to his most trusted advisers.”

  Distractedly, Hogan was toying with a sugar cube on the table.

  “You see,” he said, “right now I’m just thinking of this as a nice simple homicide case. Woman gets shot in her apartment. She had some marital problems—who doesn’t?—but she was also in line for a very big inheritance from Philip, her mysteriously sick husband.”

  Without looking down, Hogan crushed the cube slowly between his thumb and index finger.

  “Now, with Amanda dead, that huge stash goes somewhere else—at least half to Philip’s daughter. All of it, if Philip dies soon. So there’s his first wife to think about. A woman scorned and all that—one who might like to secure her child’s future, along with her own. Also, closer at hand, we have Philip’s impatient young girlfriend, a struggling artist who could certainly use some cash.”

  “Yes, she certainly could.”

  “Then there’s always the chance that the lady was killed by an intruder who just wanted to rip off some very valuable art.”

  “An abundance of leads, as you call them,” Andrews said.

  “Not leads yet exactly. Just banal, everyday facts. The kind that make my job almost dull. But eventually, put together the right way, they might result in a break.”

  “What can we do to help you?” Andrews asked.

  “You can tell me what you think of Claudia Silva.”

  The executive’s big gleaming head turned away. “I try not to think about her at all.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Not for those of us at O-Tech. She has no relationship with the firm.”

  “Unless, now that Mandy’s dead, she becomes the new Mrs. Philip Oliver.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “Says who?”

  Something—a wince, perhaps—darted across Andrews’s face. “Just a surmise,” he said.

  “Yeah? You seemed awfully sure a second ago.”

  “Phil is much too sensible, where business is concerned, to allow a little peccadillo to endanger his fortune.”

  “I thought he was losing his mind,” Hogan said. Shifting slowly in his seat, he finished his coffee. “Seems to me that if a man is crazy enough to want to get married for a third time—especially to some hot number half his age—he’s probably crazy enough to kill for the chance.”

  “You can’t possibly regard Phil as a suspect.”

  “Right now I regard him as a guy with mental problems—a rich player who just suddenly got a whole lot richer, and more romantically available, than he already was. So the quickest way to eliminate him as a ‘person of interest’ to the police is to pick his crazy confession apart.”

  “Of course,” Andrews said.

  “Horror, panic, overreaction,” Hogan continued, “that’s all regular stuff. The cops are not about to arrest a man, sane or otherwise, for freaking out at the sight of his wife’s corpse.”

  Absently, he dusted the sugar off the table.

  “Where the situation could get sticky is if I’m suddenly denied access to Philip. Then I’d have to ask myself what might motivate the people who are keeping him penned up. What do they stand to gain from his confession? Or what do they have to hide that Philip, upset as he is, might blurt out to me face-to-face? Those are both very annoying questions because they get me into all kinds of things I know nothing about.”

  Hogan glanced quickly over at me before he went on.

  “I mean, we’d have to start looking at the effect that Phil’s gaining clear title to his wife’s fortune would have on Oliver Technologies. Like if he started buying up the company’s shares, the ones he doesn’t already own. And that involves lookin
g at ownership structures and profit distributions and offshore operations and IRS regulations—all crap I don’t begin to understand. So then I’d have to bring in outside help, some sharpie like Charlie Mullens over at the D.A.’s office.” Hogan bent toward me. “What’s that place Charlie used to work before? STC? CES?”

  “SEC,” I said. “The Securities and Exchange Commission.”

  “Right. It’s all Greek to me, but I suppose you fellows here know what they do. Real fussy stuff, I hear. All those subpoenas for files and records, all those sworn depositions, all those plea bargains where people start double-crossing each other left and right.”

  Andrew’s voice was flat when he answered. “We have some idea.”

  The executive fixed Hogan with his gaze, as if calculating the odds on a high-risk investment.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to confer with my staff down the hall for a few minutes. Phil should be available shortly.”

  Andrews rose in one quick motion and was gone.

  In the sudden silence, I turned to Hogan. “Who the hell is Charlie Mullens?” I asked quietly.

  “The bartender at Puffy’s Tavern.”

  A few minutes later, the attractive young businesswoman reappeared.

  “Mr. Oliver will see you now.”

  She smiled at Hogan as we made our way out to the long corridor.

  “You must have been very firm with Mr. Andrews,” she said.

  “I just told him what he needed to hear. It’s my version of the Dale Carnegie method.”

  “I wish I could learn your technique.”

  “You can,” Hogan grinned slyly. “I give lessons.”

  He slipped a business card from his jacket and handed it to the woman. “Might help you get your next raise.”

  “Thank you, Edward.”

  “My friends call me Hogan.”

  “Do they? You must get around.”

  “Sometimes. If I’m invited.”

  The girl reddened faintly, laughing at her own forwardness and palming the card as we approached the end of the hall.

  “I just try to help out where I can,” Hogan told her.

  “In this place,” she answered, “a woman needs all the help she can get.”

  13

  We had come to the most privileged corner of the O-Tech layout. In a large outer office, the entire senior staff was gathered in a tight knot around the slim, wan-faced Philip. He stood very straight, his slight frame impeccably turned out in a bespoke English suit, the sort that Angela had long ago taught him to require. With his salt-and-pepper hair slightly ruffled, he had the air of a crown prince fallen among pool-hall hustlers. The management staff—men in their thirties and forties, all in expensive shirtsleeves—introduced themselves in a flurry of handshakes and single-syllable, all-American names: Chuck, Dick, Tim, Steve, Mike.

  Hogan and I nodded, and proceeded to ignore them.

  “Philip,” I said, “how are you? I’m deeply sorry about Mandy. My sympathy.”

  He brightened suddenly. “Hello, Jack. So nice to see you here.”

  “Are you doing all right?”

  “Fine, fine. These gentlemen have been a great help to me. Especially Mr. Andrews. Have you met?”

  “I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Coffee?”

  “We’re good. I’d like you to say hello to an old friend of mine, a straight-shooter named Hogan. Bernstein asked him to clear up a few things about Mandy’s death.”

  Philip extended his hand. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Philip Oliver, and I believe I murdered my wife.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’m the private eye your lawyer hired.”

  “Excellent. I’m all in favor of transparency, Hogan. Investigative work must be very gratifying that way. You start with a cloud of uncertainty and then, bit by bit, everything becomes wonderfully clear.”

  “That’s the idea. Unfortunately, things don’t always turn out that way.”

  “Ah, but the process, Hogan. The rooting things out, the dogged search. What sport!”

  Philip had been using fake British phrasing so long—ever since he fell for Angela back in London years ago—that it had become natural to him now, even with his mind half gone.

  “Well, you’ve got that part right,” Hogan told him. “It is a dog’s life sometimes.”

  “But surely that’s nothing compared to the rewards,” Philip insisted. “So enviable, to live in pursuit of clarity—it sounds tremendously bracing. Do you know how many people try to make things needlessly muddy and complicated?”

  “Yeah, most of them I meet.” Hogan glanced casually around the room. “This is some spread. You could hold the World Series in here.”

  “It is quite grand, isn’t it? I told Andrews it was too much, but he insisted. He thinks I should be ensconced like an Arab sheik—to impress clients and scare the bejesus out of competitors. Or was it the other way around?”

  “You’ve got it right,” Andrews said.

  “Good. Some people think old Philip has lost it, that my brain has turned to mush or whatnot. But we know better, don’t we?” He paused, speaking next at a slightly higher volume. “We know better, don’t we?”

  “Yes, of course,” Andrews replied. “You’re completely clear, Phil.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We should have a little chat,” Hogan said. “Just you, me, and Jack.”

  “And Carl. I always have Carl Marks with me. He tells me exactly where Oliver Industries and I stand financially.”

  Andrews leaned toward us. “Carl Martes, actually,” he explained. “The nickname started as a little joke among some junior staff members here.”

  “It’s no joke,” Philip insisted. “Carl Marks keeps me fully informed. Constantly. I find it most comforting.”

  Eyes downcast, the so-called Marks—a tall man in an anonymous navy suit—stood wordlessly at Philip’s elbow, one step behind. I had met him several times before, though we never spoke. He carried a black laptop, prepared, on his employer’s demand, to provide financial stats at any moment. Bristling with colorful graphs and flowcharts, the device tracked data streams from the two Oliver firms and Philip’s various personal holdings—stocks, real estate, art collection, foreign currency, precious metals—then correlated them with current market values, deducted liabilities and expenses, and gave him a net asset figure updated automatically every hour. Philip thus possessed—continuously, no matter what the markets were doing in any part of the world—an answer to the vital question that plagued him: “What am I worth?”

  “We won’t need the kind of information Carl has right now,” Hogan said. “I just want to know a little more about you and Mandy.”

  “She was my one true love,” Philip replied. “Now she’s dead.”

  “That’s a shame,” Hogan said.

  Philip blinked at the two of us in turn. “What did I do?” he asked. “What? Tell me. Am I a killer?”

  “We’ll try to figure that out, Phil,” I said, nudging him toward the door of his inner office.

  Reluctantly, glaringly, Andrews and the others parted to let us pass. As Hogan closed the door behind us, I saw the execs start to deposit themselves on various anteroom chairs and couches, like buzzards perching on the edge of a safari camp.

  14

  Philip’s inner office was the size of a three-bedroom SoHo apartment, wrapped by glass walls that made his desk seem to hover magically six hundred feet above the frenetic streets, free floating among the towers of Midtown. Nervously, he pointed out his “mascots,” the sleek metal eagles on the Chrysler Building, a dozen blocks distant, gleaming in the unclouded sky like the rims of Andrews’ spectacles.

  “I can see nearly everything here,” Philip asserted. “Apartments, offices, hotel rooms—the whole mixed-up city at a glance. And everyone, if they only look, can see me. Total mutual exposure.” A chuckle escaped him. “Rather grand, wouldn’t you say?” He stared out at the steel-frame buildings, sha
rp against the sky. “Off we go,” he crooned softly, “into the wild blue yonder.”

  Stepping quickly away, he motioned us to a small table, far from the windows and their vertiginous view. We sat awkwardly in black leather chairs with chrome legs, arranged beneath a suite of Motherwell “Spanish Republic” prints that I had sold Phil and Angie fifteen years earlier, when O-Tech first exploded with absurd growth and profits.

  “I do imagine Jack told you about my Claudia?” Philip asked Hogan.

  “Better than that. We paid her a visit.”

  “How is she?”

  “Worried about you.”

  “Ah, the dear girl. Why does she put up with me? I called her right after I left the police station, you know. She took care of me for days on end, every minute. Then this week I started coming back to the office for a few hours at a time—because it was too strange, just the pair of us knocking around together in a suite at the Plaza. Like newlyweds on some macabre honeymoon.”

  “Why there?”

  “I couldn’t go to Williamsburg. The studio is pure Claudia—her work, her clothes, her music. All of it, like Claudia herself, so young.” He turned his face away. “She must be why I did it, don’t you suppose?”

  “Did what?”

  “Killed Amanda.”

  “It’s conceivable.” Hogan measured his words. “Some guys would sell their mother to the Turks for a woman like Claudia. I just don’t think you’re one of them.”

  “You don’t? That’s not good for my theory.”

  “What theory?”

  “That I shot Mandy to be done with her, once and for all. Done with the past, with our mutual friends, done with the stale married sex and the fights, free to have Claudia.” He looked down. “The odd thing is, I don’t feel very liberated right now.”

  “Maybe you chose the wrong approach.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is such a thing as divorce.”

  “Yes, if I wanted to lose everything—at least half my business and property. But I don’t. I love every one of my assets, my dear vulgar toys.”

  “That’s a lot of love, from what I hear.”

  “It is, isn’t it? A damned bloody lot, as Angela used to say.”