by Andy Straka
“Groucho’s?” I asked.
She nodded. No one had mentioned this before either.
“You found it with these other two items?”
“Yes.” She handed it over so I could take a closer look.
“It looks spotless. Have you cleaned it since you got it back?”
“No.”
“Had it stained with Luminol, anything to check for faint or aged blood?” I looked at Darla.
“I asked one of my old buddies who works forensics now to take a look at it yesterday. He said he couldn’t find anything on it,” she said. “And, before you ask, I had the area around the gutter and the curb where this stuff was found checked too and there was nothing. But the feather does have invisible traces of blood on it.”
“May I see the feather?” I asked Dr. Lonigan.
She handed me the bag.
I slipped open the seal, removed the feather, and ran my fingers along its edge. Owl feathers are soft. They also have serrated edges, like the k-bar stuck in Darla’s car seat, which helps the owl fly silently at night. The original stealth bomber.
“You want to know what I think?” I asked.
Dr. Lonigan, who had sat back down on her stool, crossed her legs again. “Yes. I do.”
“I don’t think your cat Groucho was killed by an owl. If he’s truly dead, that is.”
“What?”
“Sorry if I have to get too explicit here, but you’re a doctor and you should understand.”
She nodded.
“Owls are sloppy eaters. There is no way, if that big a bird of prey had somehow managed to pick the collar off of your cat, that there wouldn’t be blood on it.”
Lonigan didn’t miss a beat. “But what if this person, this falconer or whomever, took the collar off first and left it there with the remains as a ghoulish statement.”
I thought about it. “It’s possible, I suppose.”
“Look,” Nicole, who’d been silent all along finally said. “If someone is actually hunting with an owl at night in the city, then they’re doing so illegally. No falconer in their right mind—one who cares about their bird, anyway—would send their bird after a cat, especially a good sized tomcat. A great horned owl could kill a cat that big, it’s true. But not without a battle that could easily injure the owl.”
“Which only compounds the horror Watisi has brought on us, if it’s true,” Lonigan said.
“I agree with that, at least,” I said.
“We need to talk to Dominic Watisi,” Nicole said.
Darla cleared her throat. “Cause if this dude is operating on the sly like you say, maybe he not only steals the pets, he gets off on the owl and cat fights too.”
“Then what are we screwing around for?” I said. “Why don’t Nicky and I go have a chat with the man and see what we can shake loose?”
* * * * *
As promised, the good doctor was only too happy to let us take her rarely used sports car. She gave us the keys and an entry card and told us we’d find it parked in a private space beneath the building next door. (Apparently, even Grayland Tower’s costly renovation hadn’t included parking.) Lonigan also promised she’d be available later to answer more questions about the circumstances surrounding Groucho’s disappearance and the evidence she’d found.
Before we split up with Darla, however, in the elevator on the way back downstairs, my old friend looked me in the eye and said: “I want to get real serious with you for a minute, Franco. I want both of you to understand something.”
We waited.
“I know this case started out as some kind of crazy bird thing. Dr. Lonigan thought it was a good idea and I thought it was cool to bring you in. But the situation’s changed since this morning, and I think you know that.”
“Sure,” I said. “But it’s not that surprising. If someone was willing to steal pets, then it stands to reason their next step would be making more direct threats.”
“No matter. I want you to know you can just walk away right now and say screw it, if you want to. No problems, no worries. You’ll get paid for your time. I’ll put you back on a plane to Virginia tonight.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Why would we want to do that?” Nicole asked.
“Because,” Darla said. “Dr. Lonigan and I started this deal and I don’t know what kind of shit storm we may be stirring up. That’s why.”
The question had been on the tip of my tongue too, but since Nicole had been the one to speak first, I let her go on.
“I’m not worried,” Nicole said. I could see in her eyes it was true. Maybe bravado had some sort of genetic component, but I could never take credit for such a thing.
“Umm-hmmmm.” Darla turned to me. “Frank, no offense, but it’s been a long time since you worked up here. Players change. The game has changed. As bad as it was then, in some ways it’s better. But in a lot of others, it’s even worse now. You guys have moved on. You have another life in another place.”
She obviously smelled the fear in me, the father’s desire to shield his daughter from harm. I might not be able to put Nicole out on the front lines, even if the situation called for it. I wasn’t the only one who recognized that could be a problem.
“You need to get us those handguns,” I said.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said. “But that’s not the issue.”
Nicole asked: “What are you trying to say?”
“She means we could be in some danger,” I said. “And I’m your Dad, and she knows a big part of me is always going to be looking out for you.”
“I can take of myself,” Nicole said. “You don’t need to be concerned about me.”
I looked again at Darla. “I think what Nicole’s trying to say is that we have a special history. We’ve been through some things. She and her mom and I, well, we didn’t exactly grow up as a family together like Ozzie and Harriet.”
Darla’s face broke out in a grin. “Nicole, honey, do you even know who Ozzie and Harriet were?”
“Haven’t got a clue,” she said.
“Beautiful, Franco. Do you even know your own daughter?”
“I’ve taught her to use a gun.” Defensive.
“Oh, well that helps. Question is, what are you going to do if she has to use it?”
“I don’t care,” Nicole said. She turned to look Darla dead in the eyes.
“Say what?” Darla look half-amused.
“Dad and I can do the job. You’ll see.”
6
Dominick Watisi’s office was on a side street off of Malcolm X Boulevard uptown.
Two white faces cruising through Harlem in a red Porsche Boxster drew a bit too much unwanted attention, but there was no helping that. The car felt taut and shifted smoothly. Very few, if any, offices were open on a late Saturday afternoon, especially before a major holiday. But Darla assured us the developer would be working. Apparently, Watisi stuck to a rigorous schedule: six days a week, virtually fifty-two weeks a year. I guess luck alone couldn’t earn you the kind of wealth he possessed.
I would have expected the developer to keep a suite of offices somewhere in Midtown, but as Darla explained, Watisi’s operation was a little different. His headquarters occupied the first floor of a brownstone he had under renovation. The neighborhood was what the development trade liked to call “transitional.” Which meant that most of the pimps and dope dealers had moved on to greener pastures while children and grandmothers did their best to reclaim the streets from the homeless and assorted vagrants.
Someone had opened up a fire hydrant around 130th Street. Three or four dozen smiling, laughing kids were running in and out of the stream, some in swimsuits, some in their underwear, trying to beat the heat.
“What’s Watisi’s deal?” Nicole asked. “I mean, with all his money, he could afford a ritzier address.”
“Man’s probably no fool. He goes where the development action is.”
“And Harlem is happening right now.”
“You bet.”
“He doesn’t know we’re coming though.”
I shook my head. “I prefer the element of surprise.”
“Me too,” she said.
Half a block down from the address, we actually found a legal parking space. The stoop in front of Watisi’s brownstone was festooned with paint-speckled drop cloths and makeshift sawhorses. An elegant-looking brass and glass sign did, however, proclaim it the home of Watisi Enterprises, Watisi Partners, and Watisi Capital Development Corporation.
Two workmen wrestled with a heavy metal grate in the foyer. We simply ignored them and marched into the place as if we already had an appointment or belonged there.
A center hallway with a marble floor opened to a carpeted reception area where a tiny Middle-Eastern woman with dark eyes and beautiful olive skin worked away at a computer. She was wearing a telephone headset under a white head scarf.
“Yes,” the woman said. “May I help you?” She gazed at us with more than a hint of suspicion.
“My name’s Frank Pavlicek,” I said, producing a card and handing it over. “And this is my associate, Nicole.”
She read the card, but said nothing.
“I was hoping we might have a chance to speak with Mr. Watisi. Is he in?”
The woman’s expression remained unchanged.
“He’s in a meeting at the moment. He said he’s not to be disturbed.”
“I understand. But something very important has come up in regards to his dispute with some of the apartment owners at Grayland Tower.”
The woman crossed her arms and regarded us for a moment. “Why are you here from Virginia?” she asked.
“That’s one of the things we were hoping to talk to him about.”
She punched a button on a console to her left, waited, then turned and spoke softly in Arabic into her headset.
After listening to the reply, she said something else unintelligible and pushed the button on the console again.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Watisi is very busy now. He cannot talk to you.”
“He cannot, huh?”
She blinked at me and nodded. If I didn’t figure out how to get past her stonewalling—tomorrow being the Fourth of July—we’d be spending at least another thirty six hours without even having a chance to talk to our primary suspect.
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” I said in my best apologetic tone. “He’s involved in a dispute with some apartment owners and there have been allegations in the press, and—”
“There’s no misunderstanding. I’m telling you the same thing I told the black woman yesterday. Mr. Watisi has nothing to say to you. If you’d like to speak with his lawyer … .” She began reaching for the rolodex next to her phone.
“I don’t want to speak with his lawyer, thank you. I want to talk to the man himself.”
From somewhere back of the woman, a door softly thudded in a darkened corner of the room. A bald, twenty something year old man with flat green eyes to go with about two hundred and eighty pounds of muscle appeared out of the shadows.
“Is there a problem, Mrs. Watisi?”
So it was the Mrs. with whom we were dealing. “I don’t know,” the woman said, not turning but keeping her gaze fixed on us. The green-eyed monster blinked an instant appraisal. I must not have measured up.
“Sorry, buddy, but you’ve been asked to leave.”
I must admit, I have never responded well to intimidation. Maybe it’s a faulty gene somewhere, a throwback to some primordial past.
“Really,” I said. “I don’t recall hearing that request.”
“Well you’re hearing it now.” The big stiff advanced around the side of the woman’s desk.
Nicole brought her diplomatic charms to bear. “No big deal,” she said, stepping between us. “We’ll be more than happy to go.”
“That’s more like it,” the man said, crossing his arms.
“But we still would like to talk to your boss. Maybe Monday?”
The man said nothing. Mrs. Watisi shook her head.
“Must be something you people don’t like talking about,” I said.
Mrs. Watisi said, “My husband is a very busy man, Mr. Pavlicek. He has more important things to worry about than a few spoiled apartment owners who have nothing better to do than to try to create a public spectacle over nothing.”
“Like sending Ivan here to jam a Jim Bowie blade into ‘that black woman’ friend of mine’s child booster seat, I suppose.”
Actually, the glimpse of the dark head in green I’d caught flashing down the stairs at the airport looked nothing like the top of this goon’s bald head, though he could have been wearing a ski cap, I suppose.
Mrs. Watisi glared at me. “Please leave these premises immediately,” she demanded.
“Okay. But you may want to keep that lawyer’s number handy,” I said. “We’ll be back.”
* * * * *
Or, I forgot to add, we might never leave.
Out on the street, we took in the scene around the Porsche.
“Be a shame to give up this parking space,” I said. The block was quiet, peaceful. Nothing happening.
Nicole. “You want to sit on him then?”
“There might be a back entrance in the alley. You have your cell?”
“Always.”
“Okay. You go ahead and slide into the car. I’ll take the alleyway.”
Nicole looked around us at the row houses and newly gentrified residences. From somewhere not too far away, the notes of Latin music drifted down the sidewalk. The air was stickier than ever and smelled of charcoal. “Do you have any idea what normal people are doing this afternoon?” she asked.
“A weekend holiday? Pushing their kids’ swings in the park. Headed out to a ballgame. Grilling hamburgers. Why?”
“I was just thinking, that’s all.”
“Why did you step in like that, I mean between me and the lug?”
“Because I didn’t think it was a good idea, before we’ve even talked to Watisi, having two mounds of testosterone go toe to toe. Plus, the guy had almost twenty years and a hundred pounds on you. I didn’t know if you stood much of a chance.”
“You’re right,” I said. “About the first part, at least.”
I left her tuning the Porsche’s stereo, her eyes locked on the front of the brownstone, and walked down the street to a convenience store on the corner, where I bought a newspaper and a chocolate bar, before heading back to the alley. A gray dumpster full of construction debris offered just enough space for a car to pass and me enough cover between the building to move a stray cinderblock into position, sit down, and keep an eye on things without being obvious. The nose of a dark blue Mercedes was visible in a parking slot at the rear of the brownstone. The heat in the alley was stifling but not so bad down low against the cool wall of the building.
I too began to wonder where “regular” people were this afternoon. What was Marcia doing back in Charlottesville? Tending to her garden? Visiting an elderly acquaintance? Famous in her neighborhood for keeping track of everyone’s troubles, Marcia always found the time. Who tended to such needs here in the city where the enormity of human heartbreak and the riotous pace made even knowing your neighbors difficult?
I finished the candy and the sports section, and had just started in on the national and international news when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
“They’re coming out the front door,” Nicole said.
The Mercedes’ engine burst to life at the back of the building. I hadn’t seen a driver come out of the building or down the alley. Maybe the chauffeur had been sleeping in the car. As the car slid down the alleyway, however, I noticed it was the young man we’d met inside driving. There must have been another exit back where the car was parked, not visible from the alley.
“I’m out of the car and moving to intercept them,” Nicole said.
The Mercedes roared past my observation post, obviously in a hurry.
>
“I see a car coming out of the alley,” Nicole said.
“I’m right behind him.” I tossed my newspaper and candy wrapper over the rim of the dumpster and hustled it down the wall as he turned the corner onto the street.
“Okay. I’m on them,” she said and hung up.
A few seconds later, I rounded the end of the building to find Nicole at the curb in conversation with Dominic Watisi and his wife, who were standing next to the Mercedes. The bodyguard was out of the car, trying unsuccessfully to use his body to shield them from talking.
Physically, Watisi was not a large man. But he gave the impression of being one. Of average weight and a head shorter than I, he wore a tan silk coat and tie. His brown wrists and hands contrasted with the ends of the white cuffs of his shirt showing from beneath his jacket. His dark eyes looked almost luminous.
“You people certainly are persistent,” he was saying as I approached. The bodyguard frowned and stiffened at my presence.
“That’s because you make it hard to talk to you,” I said.
“I’ve no interest in discussing the Grayland Tower situation with anyone but my legal counsel,” he said, prodding his wife toward the car, the back door of which was now being held open by the younger man, who glared at me with a murder one stare.
“That why you’re threatening the other private investigator working the case?” Nicole asked.
Watisi paused for a moment, his hand on the door. “I’m doing no such thing.”
“Well someone is,” I said. “They’re trying to stick a knife into her business.”
Watisi looked perplexed. “I don’t understand.”
He listened for a moment while I told him about the threat and the incident at the airport.
“These things are linked then, you believe, this problem with the animals at Grayland, the phone threat, and the airport crime?” he asked.
“Looks that way, yes.”
He looked over at Nicole then back at me. “What do you people have to do with any of this?”
“We’re both falconers. Ms. Barnes and her client thought we might be able to help find this man with the owl.”
