The James Deans

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Geary had sent a limo to pick us all up. Unlike this morning’s press conference, there would be no somber pretense this evening. Tonight was about celebration, about showing gratitude for a job well done. I wasn’t going to argue the point. In spite of my past successes, circumstance had conspired to prevent me from sharing them. At last, I had completed a case with no dark secrets to keep, no personal price to pay. The tragedies were someone else’s.

  We were shown into a private dining room inside what had once been a meat locker, the main design feature being stainless steel. Given Moira’s fate, it seemed an odd choice, but even that wasn’t going to upset me, not tonight. It was the usual cast of characters: Wit, Pete, Larry, Gloria, Spivack, Geary, Brightman, and me. Geary had promised a dinner at some later date, when things had settled down, that would include our families and friends.

  The champagne was flowing and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Everyone, that is, except the still rather dour-looking Joe Spivack. He had taken his failure to make the connection between Ishmail Almonte, Ivan Alfonseca, and Moira very hard and very much to heart. Not a man in the room blamed him for what had happened. Like I said before, sometimes it takes time and distance to see the things that are there to be seen. Though I wasn’t particularly fond of the ex-U.S. marshal, I couldn’t help but feel for him. I knew only too well what a case of the ifs could do to a man.

  Dinner was okay, if you were fond of starvation. 10-9-8's chef’s favorite ingredient seemed to be big, mostly empty plates. Clearly, he had read too much French existentialism and wanted to make a statement about the importance and isolation of the individual in a starkly judgmental world. Who knows, maybe Camus wasn’t dead, but cooking in Manhattan.

  I whispered to Pete, who passed it down, that I’d treat them all to their choice of a roast beef sandwich at Brennan & Carr’s or hot dogs at Nathan’s. The world knew Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island, but only Brooklynites knew about Brennan & Carr’s. It was situated at the strategic crossroads of Avenue U and Nostrand Avenue, and you could smell the roasting meat for blocks around. They’d slice you a hefty mound of buttery soft beef and then dip the bun in the rotisserie drippings. The sandwich fairly melted in your mouth. You just sort of chewed out of habit.

  Following dessert—smaller portions on bigger plates—we all split into groups of twos and threes, chatting, smoking contraband cigars, drinking port or cognac. The taste of the earthy, sweet cigar made Joe Spivack smile in spite of himself. It seemed to me he was transported back to his time in South Florida when he was a part of the big agency and the spotlight shone a little less brightly on an individual’s mistakes. I didn’t approach him for fear of breaking the spell. All the alcohol was getting to me, and I excused myself in an attempt to find a bathroom among the meat lockers.

  When I got back from the bathroom, they’d all returned to their seats and Geary was giving a little thank-you speech to the boys. He wasn’t quite the speaker his protégé was, but few were. He was just full of compliments for everyone and asked that each of us speak with him privately before leaving. That was the Crocus Valley in him. We were going to get our Christmas bonuses, but not in a gauche, public display.

  Then Brightman stepped up to speak. He hesitated, allowing enough time for the waiter to fill our fresh champagne flutes with Dom Pérignon. When the waiter left, Brightman did not launch into one of his inspirational talks. He asked simply that we raise our glasses.

  “Gentlemen. To Moe Prager. A man who will go a long way for an expensive meal.”

  “Here. Here,” Larry seconded.

  “Expensive, yes,” I said, raising my glass, “but hardly a meal.”

  Even Geary laughed. The champagne, wonderfully cool and yeasty, went down easily.

  “I’ve done enough public speaking today for several lifetimes,” I said. “Good luck to Thomas Geary and Steven Brightman. Again, thank you all.”

  When I sat back down I noticed one of my business cards where the flute had sat before I raised it. I flipped it over.

  There once was a man who with magic

  Turned to good use events that were tragic

  He was cleared of a murder with delicate aplomb

  Because his men were blind, deaf, and dumb

  And now he’s free to run without static.

  The handwriting was, as near as I could tell, the same as on the first card. Though the syntax had improved, the general theme remained consistent. Someone, a man most probably in this room, was not so fond of Steven Brightman as he pretended. I slid the card into my wallet to keep the first limerick company. Maybe someday I’d look into the authorship, but not tonight.

  Geary called an end to the evening’s proceedings. He and his boy thanked us again, individually, as was the plan. Brightman, of course, disappeared when the envelopes were passed out. I went last of all.

  “ ‘Thank you’ loses all meaning after a while, don’t you agree?” Geary offered, shaking my hand with a genuine firmness I had not expected. “One day you may be able to say that you had a large part in turning this state, maybe the country, around.”

  “Please, I’m already a little nauseous. Don’t make it worse. I just did a job and I got lucky and had a lot of help.”

  “You see,” he said, smiling smugly, “never underestimate luck.”

  “Never.”

  He handed me an envelope. “Open it at home, please. As you requested, Steven has made arrangements for the reward money to be placed in a scholarship fund in Moira’s name. I have added a matching check to that amount, and Steven has promised to set up a charity to continue adding to the scholarship. Strangely, Moe, it has been a pleasure knowing you. You’re not at all what I’d been led to believe.”

  “Talk about a Jewish compliment.”

  “Yes, well, things don’t always come out quite how you mean them. Please, if you ever need a favor …”

  I left it at that.

  None of us spoke much in the limo. To a man we were pretty well beat and several times drunk by any legal standard. Though we all kept our envelopes unopened, I noticed we all patted our jacket pockets with regularity to make sure they hadn’t disappeared. No one seemed inclined to take me up on my offer of free food, and the limo emptied out one man at a time, until only Larry and I were left.

  I asked the driver to pass by Brennan & Carr’s before dropping me at home. I didn’t get out. The place was closed, the spits had long since stopped spinning, but the aroma of the roasting meat had so thoroughly basted the air that my mouth still watered. It seemed every stray dog in the neighborhood had the same reaction. We must have been quite a sight, a long black limo stuffed into the tiny parking lot surrounded by a pack of hopeful strays. The back door opened and someone tossed out scraps to the dogs. Just then, Larry patted his envelope. It was time to move on, I told the driver. My appetite was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  WITH THE FOURTH of July two weeks gone, summer was in full bloom. I have always disliked characterizing my life as having returned to normal, but it had, at least, returned to a familiar, comfortable rhythm. Even the pain of the miscarriage had ceased hanging over the front door to our house like Passover blood, and the hoopla surrounding the events of June had thankfully faded.

  The funeral mass and memorial services for Moira were long complete. Her mother and brother had returned to Florida, and John was back to the business of drinking himself to death. Ivan the Terrible had been replaced on the front pages by some other psycho killer whose name lent itself to witty headlines. And the men with whom I had shared a very intense few weeks had gotten back to the business of their own lives, all, of course, with a bit more cash in their pockets and some with more brass on their collars.

  Captain Larry McDonald was now Deputy Chief McDonald. Detective Gloria had gotten the bump up to first grade and been moved out of Missing Persons and inside One Police Plaza. Pete’s kid had fulfilled a lifelong dream by exchanging his corrections uniform for the blue of the NYPD. Wit
h the money he received, Pete Sr. finally felt comfortable enough to let his partners buy him out of his share in the bar. Apparently, he and his wife were seriously considering moving down south. Wit’s piece on the resolution of Moira’s death and Brightman’s public absolution was to be the featured story in the August edition of Esquire. Aaron and I had received an amazing number of contracts from big catering companies, and our phone-order business was up 50 percent in a month. Coincidence had nothing to do with any of it.

  The only person who’d dropped out of sight was Joe Spivack. Soon after the last of the memorial services and dedications, which we were all sort of required to attend, Spivack closed down his office in Brooklyn Heights and moved out of the city. No one knew where he’d gotten to, and, as none of us were exactly buddy buddy with him, no one seemed particularly concerned. To his way of thinking, he’d fucked up. Nothing anyone could say was going to change that. With time, maybe he’d come to see it differently. Oh, and that dinner Geary had promised that would include our families and friends, it never came off. That was fine. We had moved on.

  I was certain we had, but Wit’s phone call put a dent in that notion.

  “Hey, Wit,” I picked up, actually happy to hear his voice, “what’s up?”

  “I … I thought you might want to know,” he said in a sort of odd monotone.

  “Know what?”

  “It just came across the wire. Spivack’s dead.”

  “Shit! How?”

  “He ate his .357 Magnum for breakfast yesterday.”

  Neither one of us was shocked by what he’d done or how he’d done it. There was a few seconds of silence between us.

  “Where was he?” I asked.

  “Up in the Adirondacks someplace. Apparently, he owned a cabin up there.”

  “Anything about a note?”

  “Nothing in the wire story, no,” Wit said, sounding a bit distracted. “I’ll find out about the funeral arrangements and get back to you.”

  So, Spivack had taken his own forgiveness out of the equation. Some people are just more comfortable with punishment than forgiveness. Forgiveness is always a messy proposition; complicated, ambiguous, hard to accept. Sometimes a bullet is easier to take. I’d never put a barrel in my mouth, not in jest or in the depths of despair, but I’d been a cop. Cops understand punishment. They believe in it. On the job, they live by it. Some die by it too.

  THE CORONER’S REPORT was straightforward enough. Joseph Spivack had consumed nearly a liter of 100-proof vodka before pressing the tip of his big handgun to the underside of his jaw above his Adam’s apple and dispensing a single round. He had left no note, but even the most devout conspiracy theorist couldn’t have spun much of a tale out of Spivack’s death. Since closing down his firm, he’d spent most of his time drinking alone in his cabin. Still, his suicide made me uneasy.

  He was afforded the honor of a pretty nice military funeral out at the Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island. There was no twenty-one-gun salute or anything like that, but there was a small honor guard and a flag-draped coffin. No family showed that I could tell. Some of his old marshal buddies and a few ex-employees came. Wit, Pete, and I were there. Rob Gloria and Larry Mac couldn’t get out of work. Neither Geary nor Brightman was anywhere in sight.

  When the honor guard finished folding the flag that had draped Spivack’s casket into a taut triangle, an officer asked if there was a Mr. Moses Prager in attendance.

  “That’s me.”

  The officer approached. “Sir,” he said, placing the flag in my hands, “I’ve been instructed to deliver this to you. On behalf of the United States Army, my condolences.”

  I was utterly and completely stunned. Though this must have been either a mistake or a very bad joke, the grave site was not the place to delve into it. As they began lowering his coffin, a Navy F-14 passed directly overhead on its way to the nearby Grumman plant. It was purely coincidental, of course, but we chose to ignore that fact and saluted the roaring jet.

  We retired to a local bar. Kilroy’s Place uniquely reflected the bulk of its clientele. The decor was an interesting mixture of Grumman and military paraphernalia ranging from fighter group patches to helmets to bayonets to a piece of a lunar module mockup. In a place of honor above the bar sat a wood-and-glass framed flag just like the one I cradled in my arms.

  “What do you think the flag thing is all about?” Pete Parson was curious to know.

  “Fuck if I know. His life must’ve been sadder than we thought for him to have left this to me.”

  Wit was noncommittal, staring into his Wild Turkey as if it were a crystal ball. “He obviously respected you and the work you did for Brightman, Mr. Prager. You should be honored.”

  “Wit, I think the time has come for you to call me Moe. You think, Pete?”

  “I suppose you two have dated long enough.”

  Wit liked that. “Okay, Moe it is.”

  Maybe because I had been ceded the flag, all the other attendees stopped by to reminisce. Two consistent themes emerged: Joe Spivack was one tough motherfucker and loyal as any man who’d ever lived.

  “Even last year when the company started taking on water, he wouldn’t let any of us go,” Ralph Barto, a fellow ex-marshal and former Spivack employee, wanted me to know. “Anybody else would have started throwing anything that wasn’t nailed down overboard, but not Joe Spivack. Somehow, he pulled us through. Even when he shut us down, we all got two weeks’ severance. I bet you it came out of his own pocket. I don’t know what you did to deserve that flag, mister, but it must’ve been something special.”

  “Hey, do you know why he rated such a nice funeral?” I wondered.

  “No. I know he was early in ‘Nam, even before Kennedy was shot, but that’s about it. Listen, I’m out on my own now,” Barto said. “Here’s my card. If you ever need backup, I’m there.”

  On the way back into the city I asked Wit if he thought there might be a story in Spivack’s suicide.

  “No story for me,” he said, “but there might be one for you.”

  He didn’t volunteer a further explanation and I didn’t ask him for one. I had a comfortable life that needed getting back to.

  Chapter Twelve

  SARAH’S THIRD BIRTHDAY had come and gone when the package from Florida arrived at the Brooklyn store. At first, I was as surprised by it as I had been by Joe Spivack’s flag. Then I remembered that I had asked Moira’s mother to send it up to me. Inside was a hodgepodge of the personal effects her mother had held on to during the nineteen months of her daughter’s disappearance: pictures, a college ID, a ring of keys, her checkbook, some mail. Her mother had attached a handwritten note which included her good wishes that I find whatever it was I was looking for.

  Although I considered it a blessing to have finally been involved in a case that I could hold at arm’s length, I was daunted by my inability to make any emotional connection with Moira Heaton. I suppose I was saddened, too, by her inability to connect with people in life as she had in death. She would be remembered now, if only through the scholarship that bore her name. It had seemed painfully important at the time, just after the case had come to a head, to somehow discover the essence of Moira Heaton. Six or so weeks had surely numbed the ache, but I flipped through her things anyway.

  I don’t know what I had expected to find when I asked to see these things. Whatever it was, it continued to elude me. Flipping through her checkbook ledger, I did find one entry from a few weeks prior to her murder that got my attention:

  CK NO. DATE CODE TRANSACTION PAYMENT/DEBIT

  426 11/7/81 HNJ 1956 Headlines Search, Inc. 115.00

  It stuck out for several reasons, not the least of which was the size of the check. After her rent, this was the biggest check she’d written in months. What could be so important to a woman making barely ten grand a year, I wondered, that she’d be willing to spend almost half a month’s rent on it? Second, Moira was nothing if not consistent. She wrote the same checks for roug
hly the same amounts in the same order for months at a time. There was her rent, her phone bill, her electric, her student loan, and an occasional check written to the local supermarket. Page after page had the same entries, then, a few weeks before she disappears, bang! Naturally, I was curious about exactly what goods and/or services Headlines Search, Inc., had provided to Moira for her money. I didn’t waste the time guessing and let my fingers do the walking.

  “Media Search, Inc.,” a woman answered, “how can we help you?”

  “Was your firm once known as—”

  “—Headlines Search, Inc.?” she completed the question. “Yes, sir. We are in the process of making the changeover, but unfortunately some of our ads continue to display our former name.”

  “What is it you do, exactly?”

  “Why, are you from Dun and Bradstreet or something?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I’m actually a private investigator and I’m looking into a missing-wife thing,” I lied casually. “I’m going through her financial records and I see she wrote a check to you guys about twenty months ago. I guess I’m just curious.”

  “Oh, you’re an investigator. We do a lot of work with you guys.”

  “That’s great, but it doesn’t tell me what kinda work that is,” I said, letting her hear a hint of impatience.

  “Sorry. My name’s Judith Resnick, by the way.”

  “Moe Prager.”

  “Well, Moe, as our name implies, we do searches. You give us a locale, a date, a subject, any sort of reference, and we’ll look through the search area’s media and collect related materials. Let’s say a freelance reporter is relocating from out of state and he has to do catch-up on local politics. He names some names and we search available archives for his info. It saves him a lot of time and legwork. For years after my dad founded the company, we only did newspaper searches. These days we’ve expanded to include radio and television as well. We even have computer hookups to libraries and a few police departments. Only public-record stuff, of course.”