But then Bimm found out that the Register’s editor, Pearsall, was looking deeper. The real estate transactions were layered with so many dummy corporations that even Arachne’s staff had trouble keeping them straight, but who knew what Pearsall could dig up. The man, after all, had won a Pulitzer.
Arachne, who had most of the land and permits he needed (no mean feat given the bureaucracies in the two states involved but made easier by the unwavering support of the Staten Island Borough President and other local politicians who were promised a piece of the action), was only weeks away from a multi-billion coup that could make or break him. Pearsall had to be stopped before he uncovered the real story behind the land purchases and started one of his damn crusades. Killing the man outright was also too risky. The Chinese would take to the hills if things went wrong. Even arranging an accident is never as easy as it sounds, as Arachne had just learned with Scarne. Bimm, who hated the editor, had provided the details about the death of Pearsall’s wife. The son of a bitch must be emotionally fragile, Bimm said. Another tragedy would surely tip him over the edge.
That could be arranged, both men agreed.
CHAPTER 30 – BREAKING AND ENTERING
Dudley Mack lived in a large brick house on a one-acre parcel on Howard Avenue in Grymes Hill. The property sloped down a heavily forested hill to Van Duzer Street 100 feet below, affording a spectacular view of New York Harbor from the rear deck, where he and Scarne were working on one of Mack’s usual pitcher of martinis.
Scarne asked, “Where is everybody?”
“They left about an hour ago to head down to the shore.” The Macks had a spectacular home on the water on Long Beach Island. Scarne had spend a couple of weeks there recuperating after the Ballantrae case. “Mom wants to clean it up. You know how she is. But cheer up. She knew you were coming and cooked up some of your favorites. We just have to heat them up. Sometimes I think she likes you more than me.”
“Do you blame her?”
“Not really.” Mack poured another martini for Scarne. “You look like you could use a few of these.”
“Where’s Bobo?”
“Gave him a few hours off. She didn’t cook for an army. Besides, I figure you can protect me.” Scarne smiled at the thought of Dudley Mack needing anyone’s protection. Bobo Sambuca spent most of his time saving other people from his boss. “Although looking at your puss, I have my doubts. What happened now?”
When Scarne finished recounting his recent misadventures, Dudley said, “Nitrous Oxide. I love it.”
“Thought you would.”
Mack handed him the pitcher.
“Finish up,” he said, “but take your time. I have to make some calls, throw the food in the oven and open up a bottle of cheap dago red.”
“You sure you’re not Italian?”
“Too good looking.”
After they ate a predictably delicious meal of veal parmesan and broccoli rabe, Mack said, “We can’t fuck around anymore. You’ve obviously stirred up a hornet’s nest and they want you dead. We’re gonna pay Bimm a visit. Or, rather, his house. Those calls I made; it’s all set up. Bimm is in the Bahamas.”
“Nobody else there?’
“Nobody would live with Bimm. We’ll take your cute little car, Jake. We have to stop at the 120 first. Bobo will meet us.”
Why even ask, Scarne thought, resignedly. When they pulled up to the precinct they found Bobo Sambucca leaning against a gray and black hearse. He was wearing a black suit and a ridiculously small chauffeur’s hat. Actually, Scarne noted, the hat was probably normal-sized.
“Be right back,” Mack said, heading up the stairs to the station house.
“You’re going to surrender?”
Mack ignored him and Scarne turned to Sambuca.
“Nice wheels, Bobo.”
“Short notice, Jake. It’s what I had with me.”
Passersby, mostly commuters hurrying home from the ferry, were giving them a wide berth.
“Must be a big hit with the ladies.”
“You’d be surprised how many times I get laid in this thing.” The massive driver nodded his head toward the rear of the funeral car, which blessedly was empty. “Got one of those pump-up air mattresses stored back there, for special occasions. You know how broads try to one up each other. Telling their friends they did the horizontal two-step in a hearse is hard to top. And I usually don’t have to buy flowers. Just pull a few from the baskets at the funeral parlor.”
“Thank God you cleared that up for me, Bobo. I was worried you were a necrophiliac.”
Sambuca looked confused for a second, then shrugged.
“Nah. I feel fine. Not like Dudley. He’s always complaining about his health. If it ain’t one weird disease, it’s another.”
Scarne let it drop. Mack came out of the precinct, followed by Detectives Abel Crider and Francis Scullen.
“Hey, Bobo,” Crider said. “Howzithanging?”
“Down to my knee.”
Scullen stared at Sambuca and then pointed at the hearse.
“We expecting trouble?”
“I’ll ride with Jake,” Mack said. “Bobo, go with them. Leave the hearse.”
“Take the cannolis,” Scarne murmured.
“Give me the keys,” Mack said. “Been a while since I drove one of these things.”
“You can drive a manual shift?”
“Sure. Some of the cars I stole as a kid were stick.”
Scarne gave him the keys with some trepidation, which was confirmed when Mack stalled the car and then ground the gears before finally moving.
“It’s a new gearbox, Duds.”
“Like I said, been a while.”
As they pulled away with the other three men following them in an unmarked car, Scarne turned to Mack.
“That was some phone call.”
“Actually, I haven’t exactly been sitting around on my ass while you’ve been running around trying to get killed.”
“What did you tell Crider and Scullen? I want to get my story straight when I’m indicted.”
Mack laughed.
“Just that Bimm may have some info in his house on the Pearsall murder.”
“We don’t know that.”
“So?’
A minute later the two cars pulled up outside a ramshackle two-story building on Central Avenue. A sign on the door said “Project Redemption.” Scarne knew it was a halfway house for non-violent criminals a block from the courthouse and police complex. Its residents didn’t have to be reminded of how tenuous their grip on freedom was.
“What now?”
“You’ll see,” Mack said as they got out.
The other three men got out of their car. Crider walked into the halfway house and Scullen and Bobo came over to them.
“I’m a little surprised to see you here, Detective,” Scarne said.
“I was surprised to get a call from the Police Commissioner. Seems you and he are pals.”
“He was very helpful when I left the Department.”
“He means he fired his ass,” Mack said.
“But I think he felt bad about it,” Scarne said.
Crider emerged from the halfway house talking animatedly with a very frightened-looking man.
“That’s Herbert Lemming,” Scullen said. “I wouldn’t shake his hand if I were you.” Lemming was small and ferret-faced, with a bad complexion and thin brown hair. “He’s one of Abel’s snitches. Likes to feel up little kids. When he dies he wants to come back as a little girl’s bicycle seat.”
“I presume Detective Crider has explained the situation to you, Herbie,” Mack said.
“Yes, sir, but I only understood about half of it.” Lemming stared at Sambuca like a field mouse stares at a python. He appeared to be having trouble swallowing. “He talks kinda fast.”
“No matter, Herbie. Now you and Bobo sit in the back of the nice police car and get acquainted.”
“I hate chicken fuckers,” Bobo said, grabbing Lemming
by his shirt collar and throwing him into the car.
“Herbie will do just fine,” Mack said. “He’ll be motivated.”
“Where do you get these guys,” Scarne said, “central casting? And what do we need him for?”
“In addition to his other talents,” Scullen said. “Herb’s a computer geek. He’s not allowed near them without supervision now, so he was kinda looking forward to this.” There was a squeak from the back seat of the police car. “At least he was until a minute ago.”
Bimm lived 10 minutes away in a McMansion in a new millionaire’s circle of houses recently constructed on the grounds of the former St. Charles Seminary on Todt Hill. It was a monument to bad taste that stood out even among the homes of his garish neighbors.
“You guys should probably wait outside,” Mack told the two detectives. “Maybe keep an eye out for prowlers.”
“Sure,” Scullen said, looking around at the million-dollar houses that surrounded them. “It’s a dangerous neighborhood.”
Crider passed out sets of surgical gloves.
“Noprints.”
“House probably has a primo security system,” Scullen said.
“One of the best,” Mack said. “I should know. One of my companies installed it.”
***
“These are classics,” Lemming said. “I can’t believe he’s got the one with the elephant screwin’ a…” He never finished the sentence as Mack slapped him on the head.
“Shut up, numbnuts. He got any child porn?”
They were in Bimm’s home office, which like the rest of the house, was decorated with hotel-quality furniture and paintings. Lemming, who was sitting at Bimm’s desk, had sweated through his shirt and smelled badly of a combination of body odor and fear. He was having trouble concentrating with Bobo Sambuca hovering menacingly a few feet away. They had been inside only a few minutes before finding Bimm’s cache of pornography in the desk’s bottom drawer.
“You’re thinking blackmail,” Scarne said.
“In my circles we call it leverage,” Mack said. “Come on, Herbie, don’t lick the fucking CD’s. Just look at them.”
“Nah. Nothing good,” Lemming said, sounding disappointed. “Borderline stuff. Teen-agers.”
Bobo walked over and knocked him off his seat. Lemming howled.
“Easy, Bobo,” Mack said, picking up Lemming. “Herbie, important safety tip. Watch what you say around him. Hearse sex aside, he’s pretty conservative. Bobo, go watch the front door.”
“Let’s go through his computer,” Scarne said.
Sniffing dramatically for effect, Lemming opened Bimm’s laptop. It was password protected, but he had little trouble breaking the code.
“Herbie, go sit in the living room and whack off or something,” Mack said. “We can take it from here.”
After Lemming shuffled out, Mack took his seat and started opening the folders. Most were filled with letters to lawyers, contractors, accountants and other brokers, usually threatening to sue. Just about everything was related to real estate. The two men were quickly bored with the minutia.
“I’d rather look at his porn,” Mack said.
“Open that one,” Scarne said, pointing to a folder marked “NASCAR.”
It was almost as boring as the others. Bimm was obviously involved in buying up the land surrounding the proposed track site.
“Nothing illegal about this,” Scarne said. “If the track goes through any businesses in the area will see a benefit. Some of those plots are a fair distance from the track, though. They go all the way to the Arthur Kill.” He was referring to the narrow waterway dividing Staten Island from New Jersey.
“Yeah,” Mack said. “Think it means something?”
“Maybe he just was able to get them cheap. And didn’t I read something about a ferry service to the track from Manhattan and Jersey?”
“Makes sense. Nobody ever said the fat bastard was stupid.”
One of the folders caught Scarne’s eye.
“Open that one,” he said, pointing to a folder named “Tunnel.” Within it was a subfolder marked “A.A. Meetings” and scores of WORD docs. When he tried to open the subfolder, nothing happened.
“Forget it,” Scarne said. “Open the documents.”
Mack did and they started reading.
CHAPTER 31 – TUNNEL
“I hate to say it, Jake,” Mack said when they finished, “but this is a brilliant idea.”
“Yes,” Scarne agreed. “Too bad it got Elizabeth Pearsall killed.”
“Are you sure?”
“In my gut. One of the kids working the story for Bob found out about the old tunnel projects. He was thinking about doing a whimsical story about them. He even told Bimm, who said it was news to him.”
“He lied. Both the track and Home Port were covers for modern tunnels.”
“And if I’m right, the real tragedy is that the reporter didn’t know what he really had. Pearsall wasn’t interested, but Bimm didn’t know that. He would have assumed that the reporter was just being cagey and that Bob was behind the inquiry. Bimm was afraid that he would eventually find out something he shouldn’t.”
They heard a slap and a yelp and then Bobo Sambuca walked in the room.
“Some kind of neighborhood security patrol car just stopped outside. Our police guys shooed him away, but they say we’d better wrap this up soon.”
“Won’t be much longer,” Scarne said. “What did you just do to Herbie?”
“Just a little practice,” Bobo said and went out.
Another slap and yelp and then all was quiet.
“OK, Jake. But what? People can get killed when billions are on the table. But why in this case? Would the tunnels be that bad for Staten Island? I can think of a lot of reasons why they might do some good. And most of those reasons have exhaust pipes.”
Scarne tilted his chair back and put his hands behind his head, thinking.
“I don’t know. But we do know that Bimm is fronting for someone. He doesn’t have the resources to pull this off. Who does?”
“Nobody on Staten Island. Maybe some big Wall Street honcho, or a foreign government. It would be interesting to find out who owns the land on the Brooklyn and New Jersey sides.”
“Whoever it is,” Scarne said. “They don’t want their involvement known. Might be criminal. Might be something else.”
“It would eventually come out, Jake. Somebody might notice the big fucking holes.”
“Once they got all their ducks in order they might be willing to go public. Maybe they hadn’t finished paying off all the right politicians.”
“I love it when you get cynical. Now what?”
“We’ve got nothing. All this legal gobbledygook won’t hold up in court. We can’t even tie Bimm to Lacuna with this stuff. And with Sallie Mae and Banaszak dead all we have are some phone records that a first-year law student could explain away.”
“We could give what we’ve got to the cops. Condon may be able to shake something loose.”
“And Bimm will lawyer up. And the people behind him probably can senator up. And then we’d have to give up the priest or go to jail. No cops.”
Dudley Mack shook his head.
“You know, you amaze me. I keep forgetting that I’m supposed to be the crook. You’re saying we have to squeeze Bimm ourselves. Get him to roll.”
“Yes.”
“Works for me. You’d better let me do it. You’re too dainty.”
There was another yelp from Lemming.
“Better than a doorbell,” Mack said as Bobo walked in to the room.
“Fuzz are antsy,” Bobo said. “They’re talking about their pensions.”
“OK, we’re done,” Mack said, reaching into his pocket for a flash drive, which he inserted in one of the computer’s UBS slots. “Let me copy all this.”
“You must have seen that in a movie,” Scarne said.
While Mack was downloading, he wandered around the room looking for anyth
ing incriminating. Perhaps Bimm had a hidden safe full of numbered bank accounts in Switzerland. He wondered if Herb the Perv had safecracking on his resume. He squinted behind a huge painting of a Bengal Tiger. Nothing. He started heading toward some other Holiday Inn art work on a far wall when he passed a bureau covered with photo frames. Bimm apparently wasn’t a family man. But he was definitely a narcissist. All the photos featured the fat real estate lawyer at business meetings.
Scarne was about to move on when a familiar photo caught his eye. It was a shot of a luncheon or dinner table at some civic function. Beldon Popp was sitting between Donald Trump and Aristotle Arachne, who both had the same dyspeptic looks on their faces. It was the picture Scarne had seen in Popp’s office at the Register. He realized that the one at the newspaper had been cropped and blown up. This one showed everyone at the table – including Nathan Bimm. Scarne glanced at an inscription in the lower right-hand corner. The photo was taken two years earlier at the New York Hilton.
Arachne had told Scarne that he didn’t know Bimm. Of course, the photo didn’t necessarily make him a liar. Arachne probably attended scores of functions a year. He might not have remembered Bimm, even though the man was hard to miss in his white suit, which made him look, especially in a photo, like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. And that didn’t mean Ari would recall his name. But something nagged at the back of Scarne’s brain. Then it hit him.
“Bobo! Bring Herbie in here. Alive.”
Scarne went over to the computer.
“What’s up,” Mack said. “I was just about to close it down.”
“I got a bad feeling about something.”
Bobo came in with Lemming.
“Herb,” Scarne said, pointing to the screen. “Open up that folder.”
“A.A. Meetings? The guy’s a lush?” Lemming said, disapprovingly. “Can’t trust a boozer.”
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