Bloody London

by Reggie Nadelson

  I could already write the headline in the Post: WHACK! HEAD OF CO-OP LOSES HEAD. It was gonna play big.

  Sonny Lippert’s a federal prosecutor with a lot of connections and a special interest in Russians; there was a Russian involved, I could speak the language, Sonny feels I owe him in perpetuity, so here we were again.

  “Homicide victims, if they got dough, Art, they’re like cannibals, they eat your life.” Sonny pulled me away from the technicians. Impatience drove Sonny as he looked at the scene and tapped his foot.

  He was a small, compact man, like a bantam, a fighter, with a tight hood of black curls, arms and legs pumping like a wind-up toy. I don’t know if Sonny dyes his hair, but he’s probably close to sixty and he looks forty-five. That morning, he wore tobacco suede Guccis, no socks, faded jeans and a white T-shirt. A black cashmere crewneck was knotted around his neck. He was small but lean; Sonny works out religiously, usually at night. He doesn’t sleep good.

  I took hold of his arm. “I’m glad as hell to see you, Sonny, but I was on a job.”

  “What kind of job? Sniffing the swordfish? Trying to figure if some wiseguy’s pushing tuna past its natural prime?”

  I laughed. “Snapper.”

  “An old Russian, calls herself a princess, you know? She finds the body. In the swimming pool. Bangs right into him, head bobbing around, man, I mean, she starts yelling. She’s been here fifty years, pretends she doesn’t speak English, no one understands what the hell she’s saying, but they can see. Severed almost. Like a piece of fruit. Pineapple on a stalk. The head, I mean. Pascoe’s head.”

  “And?”

  “One of the janitors says she’s down here most days early, doesn’t like swimming with other people. What do I know, maybe she figures the rest of the residents are proles, maybe she hates herself in a swimsuit.” Sonny changed his tone. “You’re looking very good, Art, man. Lost some flab there, been working out?”

  I could read the flattery: Sonny needed something. It used to grate, the style, the tone – he addresses everyone as “man” – but it mostly makes me laugh now. A lot of water went under the bridge with us and I’m used to Sonny Lippert.

  “You saw her already?”

  He looked at his watch. “No, I been here since, Christ, six-thirty this a.m., but I didn’t see her yet. Medics were working on her, she must be eighty. I want to hear how come she’s in the pool and what she knows about this piece of real estate, you dig? Art, OK?”

  “The swimming pool was part of the original 1920s building design. Influenced by Rosario Candela, but maybe better,” said Lippert, who’s a pedagogical asshole. “You know about Candela? He did a lot of great buildings up around here, this was a tribute. One of his students.” Sonny looked at his watch again.

  I was staring at the pool, trying to imagine the scene: Pascoe down for a swim; someone goes for the neck with a saw, a sword, a knife. The old woman who finds him going nuts. I said, “What else we got on Pascoe?”

  “Like I said, he was head of the frigging co-op here,” said Sonny, as we made our way through other basement rooms, some now used for storage, all with old cold stone floors. “So maybe it was symbolic, you know? Maybe they whacked his head ’cause he was head of the co-op. Maybe they didn’t like his rules.” Lippert was already working up one of his arcane theories.

  I followed Sonny and the small procession of special squads, looking for access routes and broken locks. There was nothing out of place. A photographer snapped every possible angle.

  The ceiling seemed to vibrate. I said, “What’s up there?” and a short guy answered in halting English. “Generators,” he said. “Air con.” Like the other back-of-the-house guys, janitors, supers, handymen, he was Spanish speaking. He leaned against the wall, waiting until we finished. He worked on a scratch card.

  I grinned and said, “So, you win, you’re gonna buy a place here?”

  He was a small man with straight black hair and a Yankees cap on. The face was smooth, high boned; Peruvian, maybe, I figured; there was Indian in it, anyhow. He swivelled the cap so the peak faced forward. “You must be kidding, man, you think I wanna live in here?”

  “How come? They treat you bad?”

  He covered his eyes, then his ears and mouth and laughed. “They treat me like a monkey, I make like a monkey.” He added, “Is OK, you know, most of the tenants. Front-of-the-house, Irish guys onna door, management, treats us like garbage sometimes, you know what I mean? They’s under-educated, the Irish. You a cop?”

  I shrugged. “What’s your name?”

  “Pindar Aguirre,” he said, and I slipped him twenty bucks and said, “What time’s the pool open usually?”

  He said, “Seven o’clock.”

  “Anyone ever come down before?”

  “I don’t know, I go off usually by six, I’m a night guy. Sometimes I seen Mr Pascoe coming in. Only Mr Pascoe. Only him allowed before opening. He OK, Mr Pascoe.”

  “What about the elevator?”

  “Regular elevator from the lobby got an operator and goes up. Elevator to the pool for residents only.”

  “Automatic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What were you before? Back home, I mean?”

  He said something to himself in Spanish, then glanced up at me and said, “A poet.”

  It reminded me of the big Moscow buildings when I was a kid: those Stalinist palaces, it was always the poets, brooms made of twigs, who cleaned the floors. The Nomenklatura, the bigwigs with a name, parried; the poets wiped up the shit.

  We got to the elevator. Sonny grabbed my arm.

  “Art?”

  “You were saying?”

  “I don’t think anyone broke into this place. I think someone had access. You saw the security. I looked at the key system. Brand new. Electronic”

  “Yeah, Sonny. It’s some kind of fortress. Whoever did what’s his name – Pascoe – probably knew his way around. Or hers. Anyway, New York City, we ain’t got no crime, doesn’t exist now, right, Sonny?”

  He got in the elevator and gave a tight little smile. “Yeah, right. Coulda been a female?”

  “Sure. You don’t need that much heft if you get the right kind of knife and your victim’s not expecting you. Coulda been a female. Coulda been a kid, for that matter, you got the right kind of weapon.”

  “Shoulda coulda woulda, yeah, but what kind?”

  I said, “Remember Brighton Beach, they got those knives could take your head off in three seconds flat. Chinatown too.”

  “But it ain’t gonna be your first choice of weapon unless you want to make a statement.”

  “Unless you’re nuts. I assume no one found the weapon.”

  Lippert shook his head.

  I said, “I talked to a guy says the pool opens at seven. What time did the old Russian find Pascoe?”

  Lippert looked at me. “Before seven. I was here by six-thirty. Jesus.”

  “So if she went to the pool before it opened, maybe someone invited her.”

  “Like Pascoe himself.”

  “Or whoever sliced his head.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “One other thing.”

  “What’s that, Art?”

  “So they left Pascoe’s eyes intact? Or they cut them out?”

  2

  “No one except New Yorkers would take the shit these co-ops hand out, you with me here, man?” Sonny Lippert looked irritably around the lobby. “Goddam Russian princess lives in a couple of maids’ rooms at the top of the building, she has to use the service elevator, Christ, man. Jesus.”

  In the lobby the mayor, baseball jacket zipped to his throat, worked the room like election day. The morning crackled with cellphones and walkies. A tenant pulled a wellbred pup with attitude to the elevator; the animal yapped so loud I wanted to stick it with a fork. Through the window I saw a camera crew get out of a van.

  A doorman, six feet four of middle-aged Irish condescension, held court. The name tag on his uniform sai
d he was Ryan Sweeney. He had a silver pompadour like Boris Yeltsin and he was big.

  The young cops listened to Sweeney hold forth; they were intent, earnest, hopeful of a collar. My official ID still shows me like that, face solemn, dark blue shirt, hair ruthlessly slicked down under a blue cap. It expired when I finally quit the NYPD last year; I keep it in my pocket anyhow for luck, like a charm.

  Sonny Lippert ignored the doorman’s supercilious gaze, then cracked his own knuckles; it sounded like he was crushing the bones of little animals. He began pacing the dark lobby, appraising the bronze lampstands, the worn oriental rugs and I followed him, cooling my hand on a marble plinth that supported the bronze figure of a languid girl with a whippet on a leash.

  Lippert was restless. This wasn’t his kind of job. It was homicide, but there was no politics except of privilege, and the victim was British, which didn’t count in his book. He likes their novels, the Brits, but that’s it. Once, Sonny Lippert would have killed to get in on something like this, the mayor calling him in special, the brass asking his opinion. All that changed a coupla years back when the sweatshop downtown burned. A hundred women died in it. It changed him.

  “Look at that.” Lippert put his hand on a small brass plaque on the wall.

  I looked at it. “Middlemarch. So?”

  “You never read George Eliot? It’s a great book, man. A-list, top of the line. It’s not an Eastside kind of thing, a building with a name. Central Park West, they got the San Remo, the Majestic, the El Dorado, Beresford, whatever. Here they got tasteful stuff, River House, like that. I read once the guy who built this place was a big-time bootlegger with a daughter who liked books. He indulged her, that’s how the place got its name.”

  “Look, Sonny, I got a job to do.”

  “Stick with me, OK?” Sonny was nervous. He bunched his shoulders up and unknotted the sweater, then tied it around his neck again.

  I made conversation. “So why’d they leave the name plaque up?”

  “I don’t know, man. How do I know why they left the fucking name plaque up? Who knows, maybe they think it’s a piece of goddam history. Christ, what’s taking so long? I’m going up, I don’t want her dying on me before you see her. Come on, man.” He was walking and talking, headed for the elevator when it opened and a woman emerged.

  She said, “I’m Frances Pascoe, and you’re right, it is a piece of history, the name of the building, that is.”

  Mrs Pascoe was tall, slender, big shoulders like an athlete, five ten, maybe more. Great silky skin. She wore a tailored white shirt, cuffs folded stylishly back over the freckled wrists, gray slacks, cream-colored sweater unbuttoned but tossed over her shoulders, wide gold wedding band.

  Gliding forward from the elevator, hand outstretched, she greeted me and Sonny like she owned the building. She had her part all ready: gracious lady was the role, and there was a script in her head. You need a script these days; even for grief we get our manners off the TV, even death. Christ.

  Lippert’s jaw line twitched, the veins in his neck stood out, and he said to her abruptly, “I was looking for you earlier.”

  It was hard to read Mrs Pascoe’s age. The cheekbones were world class, the good skin was like a girl’s, the dark hair was short, but her long thin hands were freckled. The eyes were lighter than hazel, like seawater, and wide set, one slightly larger than the other; she fixed me with those green-brown lamps for a few seconds, then took some shades out of her sweater pocket and slid them on.

  Thomas Pascoe, the dead guy, was a Brit. His wife Frances was too, but the accent had faded, bleached by years in New York. Brit-Lite, I thought; I’d met a few like her. She gestured for us to sit; instinctively she arranged the seating so we sat in the sun, the light in our eyes, and she was in the shadow, watching us.

  “I’ve already talked to three different detectives this morning,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re going up to talk to Mrs Ulanova,” Lippert said.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Sonny was pretty blunt. He didn’t offer condolences; Mrs Pascoe didn’t look like a woman who wanted them either, not from strangers, not from anyone.

  “When she found poor Tommy earlier, something happened, an embolism probably.”

  Sonny said, “I knew that.”

  “They took her to the hospital an hour ago.”

  “How the hell did they get her out? Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Sonny was furious.

  “Service lift. And there’s a side door,” said Mrs Pascoe. Her laugh was harsh. “You could say she blew her top. Who can blame her? I’m sorry.”

  Sonny said, “Yeah, so am I.”

  “I meant for myself. Sorry for myself. Madame Ulanova might have noticed something. Told us something. About Tommy. I don’t think she’ll do much talking now.”

  Sonny stood up. “We’ll get to her in the hospital. Art, you ready?” He turned back to Mrs Pascoe. “Your husband was head of the co-op here, is that right? He virtually ran the building?”

  “Yes. My husband was head of the co-op board here for almost forty years, but you knew that.”

  Sonny said, “Yeah, OK, while I get on to Ulanova, you could help me out, make me a list of everyone who tried to get an apartment here the last couple of years.”

  She said, “We don’t keep lists. I don’t suppose you’d have a cigarette?”

  I tossed her a pack; she lit up, sucked in a lung full of it and grunted, “Thanks.”

  I got the impression Mrs Pascoe was ripped on something; the queer calm, the pupils of her eyes – the peculiar sci-fi headlights – that turned into pinpricks. Then she said, “We were going to London tonight, you see. It was planned.”

  “But you’ll stick around now. Won’t you?”

  “I thought I might bury my husband. If that’s all right.”

  Sonny Lippert saw the mayor signal to him, got up and said to me, “You talk to her.”

  Mrs Pascoe stood up too, then stumbled. I put out my hand. She ignored me. I lit a cigarette for myself and said, “What about financials?”

  “Everything’s paid in cash.”

  I said, “A list, some names, it would help us out.”

  “I told you, there isn’t any list. Everyone who was interviewed for an apartment was known to us.” She looked at the lobby. “This was our home. Ours.”

  “OK,” I said. “So I’ll put the word out we’re looking, see who shows up. All right?”

  Frances Pascoe got the message. “I’ll see what I can do.” She stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray on a table, turned to go, then added very softly. “We were already packed.”

  Outside, Sonny Lippert looked up at the fourteen-story limestone building. I followed his gaze, both of us shading our eyes, looking at the bronze Art Deco sculptures of stylized women – the Muses maybe – carved in the façade, gilded by the sun off the river. Sonny put on sunglasses and said, “They built it back when there wasn’t any air conditioning. They built so when it got hot the building was always in the shade. So the rich people could stay cool.”

  We stood on the river side of the building on the little piazza that faced the water. The place was festooned with yellow police tape like Christo was getting ready to wrap it, and now Sonny lifted some tape for me to pass. I walked to the railing and looked at the water.

  From the piazza, the drop to the East River was terraced, like a vineyard. A flight of stairs led down to a pocket park and then again to the river front. There was a jetty on the water, once used by residents for their private craft: men who went to work on Wall Street by boat, bootleg guys who unloaded supplies for the rich, spies, crooks. Once upon a time. Now a helicopter buzzed the scene, and if I listened hard there was the mild chop that splashed the seawall and made a smacking sound like babies chuckling.

  I said, “You were pretty rough on the wife. How come you’re so obsessed with who wanted an apartment? There’s a million possibilities on this one.”


  “There’s rumors all over town. Real estate. Market’s too volatile. Up. Down. People wanting in. Management companies embezzling funds. Bribes. Maybe other stuff. The rules are off,” he said. “So go get me a witness, Artie, man, OK? I don’t care if you have to dress up and play doctor to get into the Russian’s room, but please? OK?”

  “I’m freelance now. I’m expensive.”

  Sonny said, “You’re worth it,” which surprised me.

  “Where’s the money coming from?”

  “We got a law and order mayor in residence at Gracie Mansion, which is just up the street – you think he wants this kind of shit in his neighborhood when he has his eye on national office? Gimme a break! Thomas Pascoe was a player. For an uptown job like this there’s always money. Anyhow, you speaking Russian, I can make a case I need you on the witness.”

  He hurried across the piazza and around the building to the street, where a crowd had gathered. Sonny got to his black Lexus, then opened the car door. “I just gotta ask myself, Who wanted in? Who did Pascoe reject? Who got shafted by the co-op board? Who had to sit with the sun in their eyes for an interview?”

  Across the street a homeless guy sat on the curb, face to the sun, squinting at the spectacle. A supermarket cart was beside him, piled with empties. Men and women in suits emerged from the buildings that lined Sutton Place, the insular, elegant riverside avenue. They looked up at the blue sky, smiled, and went to work. A trio of private-school kids loitered near by. They were maybe fifteen and they gaped at the crime scene, caught some morning rays, drank coffee out of Starbucks containers, smoked.

  The two boys, shirts untucked, ties at half-mast, were still kids, and I felt for them. The girl in a yellow blazer and a pleated skirt flipped her shiny hair, hiked her skirt higher on her fleshy thighs, pushed out her hip at the boys, taunting them.

  But the sun shone, the streets up here were clean as a fucking whistle. No garbage bags sat out on Sutton Place, and the air off the river was fresh, clear, almost succulent. Paradise in Manhattan, except for the dead man in his tower.