Detective Fiction

by William Wells

  When I was finished, Beaumont leaned back in his chair, rubbed his forehead, and said, “I want to believe him because that would mean he really is earning an average return of 28 percent on my money.”

  Hansen drummed his fingers on the desktop and asked, “So what’s this plan of his?”

  “He didn’t lay it out for me,” I answered. “Before he does, he wants a promise that, if he helps us, he’ll be allowed to continue with his investment business as Vasily Petrovich. He says he’ll open his books for an audit to prove that Atocha Securities is legit.”

  Hansen considered this, then said, “So we’ve paid you to recommend that we partner with a Russian mobster to hunt down a serial killer who, for all we know, may be him?”

  “It doesn’t sound so good when you put it that way,” I answered.

  “Put it any way you want. It’s fucking nuts.”

  “If Vasily really is the killer, he knows he’s our prime suspect, so he’ll stop,” I said. “If he’s not, and we work with him, maybe he can help. I don’t see a downside.”

  “How about this for a downside,” Hansen said, with stress and annoyance in his voice. “The Count From Montefucksto isn’t the bad guy, he helps us catch the real one, and then he owns us by threatening to hold a press conference if we don’t give him anything he wants, now and forever.”

  “I think it would be a case of what was called in the Cold War mutually assured destruction,” I said. “We want these crimes quietly solved, and Vasily wants to keep on turning borscht into gold. Nobody wants a press conference.”

  Hansen looked at Beaumont, who said, “All right. If Vasily’s plan sounds at all feasible, we make a deal with the Devil.”

  28.

  THE GANG OF THREE

  I was the last to show up for the meeting. I’d been up late showing Marisa how much I appreciated our relationship. I hadn’t seen her for a few days, and I didn’t want her to think I was neglecting her for the investigation. Been there, done that, with my family.

  When I arrived at city hall, Beaumont was seated at the head of the conference table with Hansen to his right and Vasily to his left. Vasily and Beaumont were looking at an oversized sheet of paper that contained a bar chart done in multiple colors. Later, Hansen told me they were reviewing the performance of the mayor’s investment in The Atocha Fund. We were after a serial killer, but first things first.

  Coffee, juice, and doughnuts were on a sideboard along the wall. No one had taken any. Maybe the goodies were made of wax for display purposes only. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I walked over and picked up a plain doughnut. It was real. No one would want a doughnut I touched, so I took it with me on a napkin and sat beside Hansen.

  “Vasily says he has a theory of the case, but we waited for you,” Hansen told me. He looked at Vasily and said, “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  Vasily folded the chart, put it into his briefcase, looked at the mayor, and said, “Have your ever heard of The Gang Of Three, Charles?”

  I’d heard of The Gang Of Four. They were men who, for a time, controlled the Communist government of China during the Cultural Revolution of the sixties and seventies.

  Beaumont said, “Sure, I’ve heard of them. That’s a Naples urban legend. They don’t exist.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Vasily responded. He looked at me. “The rumor, if it is a rumor, is that three men, bored with retirement, formed a triumvirate a couple of years ago. They amuse themselves by seeking to control certain events in town by bribing public officials, forming shell companies to buy land and get the zoning changed to allow development and make a profit, and spreading gossip, real or false, about people they dislike.”

  “There’s never been any evidence,” Beaumont said.

  “True,” Vasily admitted. “I always took it for a myth, as well. But several years ago, I decided I wanted to be on the board of the Naples symphony. I enjoyed the orchestra and wished to support it. I began making large donations, which is how you get asked to be on the board. My donations were more than enough to qualify me for consideration. But, after two years, I still had not been approached. I felt some invisible hand at work, blocking me. I was, in effect, being blackballed.”

  “Not every donor gets asked to serve on a board,” Beaumont told him.

  “True,” Vasily answered. “But I am, by nature, curious. And I was annoyed. So I invited Lauren Davidson, who is a friend, and the symphony board chairperson, to lunch. I asked her about the situation. She was hesitant at first, but then admitted that, when my name was mentioned, a board member who is one of the organization’s largest benefactors suggested to a number of board members, not herself, that he might have to reconsider his generosity if I became a member of the board. Lauren refused to reveal the identity of this man for fear of losing his support. I looked at the donor list, which is printed in the symphony’s programs. One of the annual million-dollar givers is a man who wanted to invest in my fund. I had to tell him that we were fully subscribed at that moment. I could tell he was upset.”

  “And who was that man?” Hansen wanted to know.

  “Arthur Bradenton,” Vasily said.

  “The retired chairman of Bradenton Industries,” Beaumont told me. “That’s a big company that makes everything from communications satellites to oil and gas pipelines and drones for the military.”

  Another one of the town’s prominent used-to-bes.

  Beaumont drew in a long breath, as if pondering all that. That gave me an opening to get another doughnut. All of them were plain. I’d have to speak with Kathi about that lack of variety.

  Then Beaumont said, “You know, awhile ago a member of the city council changed his vote, allowing a big marina development to move forward. I thought that was odd at the time, because that councilman had been one of the project’s biggest opponents. It was to be adjacent to a nature preserve, and his wife was president of the local Audubon Society.”

  “Who benefitted from that vote?” I asked.

  “Christopher Knowland was behind the marina project,” Vasily said. “He founded Knowland Homes, one of the country’s largest homebuilders. His son runs it now.”

  Gangster number two.

  “And who do you think is the third member of this group?” Beaumont asked.

  “I have an idea, but I’d rather not name him until I’m more certain,” Vasily answered.

  “Let’s say you’re right about all this,” Hansen said. “Bradenton did keep you off the symphony board because you wouldn’t take him on as a client. And Knowland bribed a councilman to get his marina project through. Let’s even say that they made an unholy alliance with a third guy and formed a club to exert power and influence behind the scenes. It’s a very big leap from that to serial murder.”

  “It is indeed,” Vasily acknowledged.

  I noticed that, even though we all knew his real identity, Vasily remained in character as a member of the Russian aristocracy. I imagined that, in Brighton Beach, they said things like, “Sure as shit,” and not, “It is indeed.”

  “So what now?” Beaumont asked.

  It was time for me to contribute something more than decreasing the doughnut population of the room.

  “I need to get on their radar screen,” I said. “Find some way to annoy Bradenton or Knowland and see what happens, while Vasily does more research about the third guy.”

  Annoy them enough to get them to try to put me into the Starkey family plot in Graceland Cemetery.

  29.

  THE HORSEY SET

  Lena from Vasily’s office called to say that her boss was inviting me to attend a polo match in three days. She said that I’d have the opportunity to meet one of his friends there, a Mr. Arthur Bradenton.

  So he was the first gangsta on the agenda.

  “Do they sell hot dogs and peanuts at polo matches?” I asked Lena. “Like at a baseball game?”

  She hesitated. “I’m sorry but I really don’t know. I’ve never been.”

  �
�I suppose I could pack a lunch.”

  By this time, Lena either thought I was a pretty funny guy or that I was off my meds.

  “I don’t think bringing a lunch would be a problem, Mr. Chance,” she said uncertainly.

  “In that case, count me in.”

  I attended a polo match once, about two years ago, near Immokalee, an agricultural town northwest of Naples where migrant workers harvest oranges, melons, tomatoes, potatoes, and other crops. The players were mounted on ATVs; the field was a mud patch also used for swamp buggy races, which is a very big sport in Florida among what I would call “normal” people: those who don’t live in mansions and belong to fancy country clubs. The players used aluminum softball bats to strike a soccer ball. A spectator’s enjoyment of the match was in direct proportion to the amount of beer he drank. I was sober, so a large part of the enjoyment of the event was lost on me. I guessed that the match at the Naples Polo Club would be organized differently.

  I told Hansen about the invitation. On Friday, a uniformed police officer delivered a package to me at Ash’s house. It contained background on Arthur Bradenton. I learned that he and his wife, Paige, were from Minneapolis, where they still spent summers. In Naples, they lived on a twenty-acre estate outside the city limits, in horse country.

  Bradenton’s passion was the breeding of thoroughbreds, the background said. Bradenton Farm horses regularly ran in major races around the country, including the Triple Crown, consisting of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. His steeds had never won any of the Big Three, or even placed. But Bradenton, the man and the farm, had high hopes for a three-year-old named Maiden’s Breath.

  I doubted that this horsey’s breath really was like that of a maiden, unless the maiden ate oats. I did once date a maiden who was quite fond of garlic; the relationship lasted for only a few meals. I like garlic, too, but not secondhand.

  My opinion of cutesy horse names is the same as it is of stupid boat names. Back in the day, I was a regular at Arlington Park, a racetrack in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. One time, all I had to do to hit a big Trifecta was for a pony named Chili Dog to show. Instead, the nag decided that running one entire mile on the turf was too much effort so he stopped on the backstretch while leading the pack by a half length and strolled the rest of the way home, ignoring his jockey’s whip and my shouted disapproval.

  Bradenton was seventy-eight years old, the background told me. Paige Bradenton was heiress of a Texas oil company fortune. Maybe Art was working in the oil patch when they met, and began laying pipe in Paige’s bedroom.

  One way to get Arthur Bradenton’s attention was to steal Maiden’s Breath. I was certain that, if I traced the Starkey family tree back far enough, I’d find a horse thief or two. I could sneak into the barn at night, saddle her up, and ride away, shooting my Glock and yelling yippee-ki-yay so that Bradenton would wake up, look out his bedroom window, and see who had purloined his prize mare.

  But maybe that was too heavy-handed. Instead of sending his hit man for me, he’d probably just call the cops. If he called the Collier County Sheriff’s Office and not the Naples PD, I’d be up to my neck in horse manure. I needed a Plan B that didn’t involve jail time.

  THE NAPLES Polo Club is located on a large tract of land adjacent to Bradenton Farm. Vasily told me that Arthur Bradenton had donated the land, and was one of the organizers of the club.

  I arrived at ten A.M., wearing a pink Lacoste shirt, white flannel pleated slacks, and black Gucci loafers with their trademark gold horse bits. When in Rome. No socks, of course. Topping off my outfit was a tan straw Panama hat, set at a jaunty angle. Before I left the house, I had Martin take a photo of me using my cell phone camera. Maybe I’d make an eight-by-ten print, frame it, and give it to Marisa, or hang it in my bar: Jack Starkey, bona fide member of the horsey set.

  I was driving Uncle Reggie’s Mercedes Gullwing coupe. I turned into the club entrance at the end of a long, winding road and drove though a gate in a white wooden fence that surrounded the club property.

  I followed the road to the clubhouse and handed over the Mercedes to a uniformed parking attendant. As the young man slid into the driver’s seat, I patted the car’s fender and said to him, “Take good care of my mount. Her name’s Thunder Road.”

  He drove away without comment. At least I didn’t tell him to wait until my car cooled down before putting her in the barn, as you would a racehorse.

  The clubhouse is a rambling, one-story, red wooden structure designed to look like an upscale horse barn, surrounded by flowerbeds and palm trees. I went inside and followed the hubbub of many voices conversing to a large clubroom and bar. The clubroom was paneled in knotty pine. On the walls were crossed polo mallets and photos of uniformed polo players swinging mallets at a small white ball while riding horses at full gallop as well as individual shots of men in ties and jackets, and women in stylish summer dresses and big hats. Small brass plaques at the bottoms of the picture frames identified the men in the photos as past or present officers of the club. Apparently the women in the photos were there as arm candy. Maybe this was the place to hang that photo of me.

  A long mahogany bar with a polished brass rail occupied one side of the room. On the opposite side was a large glass case containing shelves holding fancy silver trophies. Waiters in white jackets, bearing silver trays with champagne flutes and hors d’oeuvres, passed among the crowd of elegantly dressed people.

  As I stood in the clubroom doorway taking in this elegant scene, I noticed Vasily walking through the crowd toward me. He was wearing a white linen suit, an open-necked white shirt with a paisley ascot, and white suede shoes, which I hadn’t seen since Elvis’s early years.

  “I’m glad you could make it, Frank,” he said. “I’m a social member here, meaning I drink and dine, but don’t ride. In my view, a man of my age has no business in the saddle, unless it involves a dinner date.”

  You can take the boy out of Brighton Beach, but . . .

  Vasily led me around the room with his hand on my elbow, like a horse by the reins, introducing me to various club members. They all wore what Marisa would describe as “smart casual” attire. She termed my personal knockabout outfits as “dumb casual.”

  We went outside to a bar and dining area behind the building and stopped at a group of two men and two women who were chatting and sipping champagne.

  “I’d like everyone to meet a friend of mine,” Vasily said to them. “Frank Chance, this is Alex and Dedria Cruden and Arthur and Paige Bradenton.”

  I saw no indication that Arthur knew who I was, or that Vasily had ID’d him as the man who vetoed his Naples symphony board membership. Maybe Art studied at the Actors Studio in New York, or maybe that break-in at Ash’s house was really just a burglary.

  We shook hands all around as I assured them that I was delighted to make their acquaintances. They were delighted to meet me too. Delightfulness was in the air.

  Bradenton was tall, maybe six three, with an aquiline nose, dark hair greying at the temples, and the fleshy physique of a man who might have been in shape during the Eisenhower Administration. He was wearing sunglasses with green lenses and tortoise-shell frames. His wife was slim and pretty, with brown hair to her shoulders; she was wearing a green blouse and tan slacks.

  “Frank is the late Ashley Howe’s nephew,” Vasily told them. “He was visiting her when she passed away.”

  “My condolences,” Bradenton said, looking like he meant it. The Actors Studio had taught him well.

  “How long will you be staying in Naples?” Alex Cruden asked me.

  “Just long enough to help put Aunt Ashley’s affairs in order,” I answered.

  “I knew her,” Dedria Cruden told me, touching my arm. “She was a fine lady.” Then she squeezed my bicep. Maybe Alex traveled a lot on business, just like Peter Lemaire, Jennifer’s husband, from Ash’s dinner party.

  A waiter passed among us, hitting a set of chimes he was hol
ding with a rubber-tipped mallet.

  “The match is about to begin,” Vasily told me.

  I’d hoped that also meant that lunch was about to be served. Along with everyone else, we walked to a large, canvas tent like the one at Ash’s dinner party, set up on the edge of the polo field at what would have been called the fifty-yard line at Soldier Field. Valet parking and circus tents seemed to be de rigueur among the upper crust.

  A long buffet table held an array of food. There were mounds of shrimp, oysters, and stone crab claws on ice; trays of sushi; and a carving station where a chef wearing a white toque and starched white jacket (his name was Frank, just like mine wasn’t) stood at the ready, holding a knife with a long, serrated blade, ready to serve us slices of ham, turkey, pork tenderloin, and beef fillet. A dessert table held all manner of sweets—including doughnuts! There was also a bar where the bartender was making drinks in a whirring blender. Maybe he could make a milk shake.

  On the field, eight riders, four on a team judging by the color of their shirts, were maneuvering their mounts into position. There was also a rider wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, obviously the referee.

  Vasily told me that the green team was from the home club and that the men in red shirts were from the Palm Beach Polo Club. What looked like oversized hockey nets were placed in each end zone.

  “How long does a match last?” I asked Vasily. We were each holding plates of food.

  “About an hour and a half, with six chukkers of seven minutes each plus a halftime break,” he told me.

  “I always wondered how long a chukker lasted,” I said. How had I survived this long without that knowledge?

  Bradenton was at the bar in the tent, chatting with a man sipping a mint julep. That man was short, stocky, and bald, with a florid complexion. Was that one of the other coconspirators? To find out, should I walk over, order a drink, and throw it in his face in order to provoke him? Did the club employ security people with Mace and stun guns?

  During the first couple of chukkers, the red team was kicking the greenies’ asses, scoring three goals to zip. Then the green riders had a reversal of fortune, tying the match. All riders were highly skilled as they jockeyed for position and swung their mallets in graceful arcs at the white plastic ball, every now and then slamming it into the net with the accuracy and speed of a Bobby Hull slap shot. No one seemed to be rooting for one team or the other, which must have been considered gauche. Everyone applauded all goals. Not at all like when the Bears play the Packers.