Killing Critics

by Carol O'Connell

  “Riker’s right,” said Mallory. “The game is tonight?”

  “Yes, in my apartment.” Charles sat down to breakfast with a bright smile. “Incidentally, I have figured out how to win at poker, and tonight I’m going to win big. And this morning I’m going to beat you, Mallory. Do we have a bet on Oren Watt?”

  “You’re on.”

  “Oh, I have your research.” Charles placed a bundle of Xeroxes by Mallory’s coffee cup. “These are samples of Dean Starr’s reviews under his real name. He was not a brain trust. Just barely literate.” He set another bundle on top of this one. “And these are all the articles that appeared following Watt’s confession. The first fifteen stories are descriptions of an affair between Peter Ariel and Aubry Gilette.”

  Mallory scanned the first two sheets. She turned to Riker. “According to Markowitz’s notes, Quinn said there was no personal relationship between the artist and the dancer. That’s it? There was no follow-up on these articles?”

  “I did the follow-up,” said Riker. “Quinn was the spokesperson for the family. According to him, the parents had no idea she was having an affair until they read about it in the newspaper. I talked to all the people quoted by the reporters. I had the feeling they didn’t really know Aubry at all. That happens sometimes. Everybody wants to get their name in the papers.”

  “So all we’ve got on her relationship to the painter is what we read in the papers? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Quinn told us no one who really knew her could corroborate it.”

  She handed him one of the sheets. “It seems Andrew Bliss knew her, and he corroborated it. He had his own newspaper column, so it’s not like he needed to break into print.”

  Riker read the short interview where Bliss was quoted, and he knew he was reading it for the first time. “Damn.” He looked at the date of the article. It was a full month after the case had officially shut down, but Markowitz had still been working it. So this had gotten by them.

  She plucked the sheet from his hand. “Didn’t Aubry have any friends who could help you sort this out?”

  “Naw. She was a lonely kid. She didn’t have any friends at all.”

  Mallory pulled an old battered notebook from her pocket and opened it. Across the table, Riker recognized the scrawl that had been Markowitz’s handwriting. She flipped back the first three pages and put her finger to one note. “Aubry was twenty years old. She attended the same ballet school for six years.”

  “A couple of girls who took classes with her were interviewed. None of them ever saw her outside of class.”

  Mallory scanned two more pages. “What about this Madame Burnstien? It says Aubry took classes with her for the entire six years.”

  “We couldn’t get a statement from Burnstien. She’s old but she’s fast. The first time, she gave Markowitz three minutes. The second time he tried to talk to her, she gave him the slip. I think Quinn had something to do with that. All the family information came through him, and he was really tight with the personal stuff. Maybe the old lady was close to the family.”

  “I want to see this woman.”

  “Lots of luck, kid. Markowitz could charm snakes, and he couldn’t get anything out of her. So I figure you haven’t got a prayer. I got five bucks says you can’t get near her.”

  “Deal.”

  Jack Coffey stood before the desk for a full minute before he was invited to sit down in the leather wing chair. Coffey stared at the window beyond Blakely’s head while waiting out the ritual of being ignored. This set his status in the world far below the level of the chief of detectives, a man with more important things to do, or such was the chief’s own personal mythology of himself. On his rare visits to the Special Crimes Section, Blakely carried his bulk like he owned all the real estate he walked upon.

  Coffey studied the man behind the desk, who filled a chair to overflowing, his body gone to soft flab, and skin the sallow color of sickness. The office had the smell of opulence, an odor that always made Coffey suspicious. The rugs were not the standard city expenditures on civil servants. The desk was miles too broad to have any efficient use. All over the walls were souvenirs and proofs of power. Blakely appeared in photographs with famous and important people. Every portrait represented the currency of a favor owed or a favor paid.

  Two years ago, Coffey had been invited to sit down in Markowitz’s office for a chat with an FBI agent. The agent had asked him if he thought the mob owed Blakely any favors. Coffey had said no to the agent, never mentioning the rumors that said otherwise. He remembered Markowitz nodding his approval behind the agent’s back. It was best to keep the dirty stories in the family, and stories were all they ever were. But now Coffey looked at the photographs again, almost expecting to see Blakely frozen in a warm handshake with a Mafia don.

  He continued to wait while Blakely read his newspaper. From the opposite side of the desk, Coffey stared at the upside-down photograph of Mallory in a ball gown, dancing with a white-haired man. A cup of coffee sat at Blakely’s left hand and the aroma blended with a hint of rot. The patches of bad wood in the exposed floor near the baseboards might account for that, but he could not lose the idea that the decay originated with Blakely.

  The chief folded back the paper to frame the photograph. He held it up to Coffey. “You’ve seen it? This shot of Mallory and Gregor Gilette?”

  “Yes, sir. She went to the ball with Charles Butler, an old friend of Markowitz’s. Butler has some social connection to the Gilette family. It’s only natural that she should dance with the man. She probably danced with a lot of men.”

  “I thought I told you to pack her off to Boston.”

  “That was before the press conference.”

  “Nothing has changed, Jack. She goes.”

  “This can’t be the commissioner’s idea. He loved every minute of Mallory torching that fed in public.”

  “She’s going today. She can embarrass the feds in Boston, too. I know what you did at that press conference, Jack. You sicked her on that poor bastard, Cartland. And I know why you did it. And it worked for a while. Beale thinks she walks on water. But now it’s time for her to move on to another case. We’ll leave it to the feds to clean up the Starr murder.”

  “They’ll screw it up.”

  “And they’ll take the heat. This time you will do what I tell you to do.”

  “What’s the real reason for losing Mallory?”

  “I don’t need one, Jack. Insubordination is a bad mark on the record of a man who’s bucking for a captain’s rank.”

  “Who suggested it? The city attorney? Is he that worried about a lawsuit from the crazy artist? Heat from the Quinn family? Or maybe it’s Senator Berman. It wouldn’t look too good for the ex-commissioner if it turned out Markowitz could have proved Watt didn’t do it—if his hands hadn’t been tied.”

  “Jack, think about your pension, your job. Oh, and your promotion, which is all but in the bag as we speak. Then shut your mouth and get out of my office while you still have all of that in your future.”

  Andrew Bliss understood what it was to suffer for one’s art. As he leaned over the retaining wall, he felt dizzy. He pulled back and pondered the vitamin content of wine. He was weakening more each hour now, and his stomach was a churning knot of cramps.

  Lately, the avenue had been dominated by Kmart escapees. That tyranny must end, and he didn’t care how he brought it about. He had no time to ruminate on the morality of terrorism. He was on a mission. Ruthlessly, he would strike out at every passing offender.

  And he had been true to his cause, jump-starting his heart each morning with espresso and Russian cigarettes which were actually manufactured in New Jersey. The traffic-watch helicopter flew by. Andrew returned the cheery wave with a harsh critique of the traffic reporter’s tasteless, low-rent, polyester jumpsuit. The copter veered off sharply.

  And to every ragged panhandler, he screamed, “GET A JOB AND A CHARGE CARD!”

  After a ti
me, Andrew’s bullhorn fell silent. Green-haired children from SoHo and tourists from Iowa were allowed to stroll the avenue unmolested.

  No sign of life could be detected around the canopy of raincoats, nor through the leaves of the browning potted foliage which Andrew had thoughtfully watered with wine.

  The Koozeman Gallery was quiet today. And the walls were bare. The gallery boy left them alone in the main room, where Starr had died. Charles scrutinized the floor, disappointed that there was not at least the drama of a chalk outline to mark the place where the dead man had fallen. “Where was Dean Starr standing when he was stabbed?”

  Mallory walked to the center of the right-hand wall and paced four feet straight out. “Here. Slope said he lived for at least a full minute. So he might have been able to walk a few feet in any direction, but this is where he fell.”

  “So he might have been standing closer to the wall.” Charles ran one finger along the painted surface behind her and smiled broadly. “I bet I can sneak up behind you and stab you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  The sarcasm was well placed. Sneaking up behind people had always been her own special talent. How many times had she frightened him out of his skin, coming up behind him when he was convinced she was rooms away or even miles. Well, this would be fun. “Lunch, right? That’s the bet.”

  “It’s a bet, Charles. Go for it.”

  Charles left by a side door leading to a back room, saying, “I’ll be right back. Don’t move from that spot.”

  Three minutes later he opened a section of the wall behind her and said, “Mallory, you’re dead. Oh, and you owe me one lunch.”

  Mallory turned slowly, and he was somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t jumped. Had anyone ever taken her by surprise?

  She examined the section of wall. There was a beveled overlap at the edge of the wall, and a similar overlap lined the edges of the door. “It’s a perfect job. Nearly seamless.”

  When she opened the door wider, she saw the white curtain hanging over the opening. She looked up to the overhead track lights which illuminated the curtain, killing the dark hole of the small hallway beyond and maintaining the illusion of an unbroken wall, even when the door was slightly ajar. “Perfect.” Now she closed the door, and the wall became a single plane. She pushed lightly on the wall. The door opened. “Pressure lock. Just perfect.”

  “Like his shows. You never see anything but the art. Let’s say you had an interest in a particular artist, but his work wasn’t on display. Koozeman would position you with your back to this wall. A gallery boy would open the door, hand him a painting, and you’d think it had just materialized behind your back. He’s always been quite a showman. It’s the main reason I attend his openings—for the magic act.”

  Three gallery boys entered the room with buckets of whitewash, a ladder and brushes. One boy stood off to the side, unraveling the cord on a large industrial waxing machine.

  “Koozeman had the place freshly painted and waxed for the funeral,” said Mallory. “Why is he doing it again?”

  “Well, that’s pretty standard. You said there was artwork on the wall during the filming of the television movie. Now they’ll fill in the holes in the wall with plaster and paint again. Then the floors will be waxed.”

  “He always does that?”

  “Yes, always.”

  “Did you ever go to one of his shows at the old East Village location?”

  “Yes, a few times. Where shall we have lunch?”

  “Did he do this in the old days, too?”

  “The painting and waxing? Yes. Everyone does it. It’s standard.”

  “Thanks, Charles. Now I’ll tell you why Oren Watt couldn’t have used this door to kill Dean Starr. When Koozeman did his little trick on the patrons, he was the one who positioned them. No one behind the door would know who was on the other side unless Koozeman was doing a planned setup. So an accomplice would have to position the victim, and then signal Watt to come through the door and stab the man. According to Watt’s confession, he works alone and never plans that far ahead.”

  “All right. I’ll pay for lunch. Where shall we go?”

  She was distracted. He followed her gaze to the entrance of the gallery, where J. L. Quinn was standing. How long had he been there?

  “Mallory, isn’t this the second time he’s found you at Koozeman’s? It can’t be coincidence. He’s stalking you, isn’t he?”

  “Or maybe he has some connection to Koozeman. We’ll do lunch tomorrow, Charles.”

  “I was expecting the Gulag,” said Mallory, looking around at the appointments of the Tavern on the Green. She approved the cleaning job on the clear panes of glass looking out on Central Park, and she ignored the gang of tulips just beyond the window in a riot of color, each bloom openmouthed and screaming at the sun.

  Quinn was reading the wine list. “Unless you have a preference, I’ll—”

  “Frog’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, 1990,” said Mallory. “That year isn’t on the wine list. They only have a few bottles left. You may have to pay more to get the waiter to look for it.”

  Quinn set down the menu. He seemed only vaguely disquieted by the fact that she might be accustomed to this place where one did not escape the table without a substantial outlay of cash. She sat back and watched him through half-closed eyes, wondering what other small cracks she might make in his composure.

  When he had ordered the wine and the lunch, he folded his arms and leaned toward her. “Well, what shall we discuss? Art?”

  “Marketing.”

  “Same thing.”

  “A lot of money flowed through Koozeman’s hands after Peter Ariel was killed. But most of it didn’t stay in his bank account or his investment portfolio.” And it never appeared on Koozeman’s tax returns, but Quinn didn’t need to know she’d found a back door to the IRS computers.

  “Part of the money would have gone to investors. Koozeman was small-time in those days, so we can assume there was substantial backing to promote Peter Ariel. I imagine you’ve seen Koozeman’s old gallery in the East Village.”

  She nodded, though she had never seen it except in cyberspace visions of paperwork, rent estimates, map locations and a floor plan. Now she thought she might make the trip to the East Village to check it out in the dimensions of real time and space.

  A plate of appetizers appeared on the table with the unobtrusive flash of a waiter’s sleeve.

  “There were no profits on Peter Ariel’s show,” she said. “Not on paper. But Ariel was dead less than three months, and suddenly Koozeman was paying ten times the rent for his new SoHo location. His investors paid for that, even when he had no buyers for the art?”

  “The investors were the buyers.” The wine arrived and he paused for the rituals of reading the label and testing the contents. “It’s difficult to launch an artist in the primary market, particularly a sculptor like Ariel—no talent. Sometimes a dealer creates an artificial market to get the ball rolling.”

  “The primary market—you mentioned that before.”

  “That’s the initial sale. The secondary market is the resale of work. If you can generate a lot of hype, the demand for the art will exceed the supply. Then you go back to the buyers of the early work, and you broker resales for a share of the profit.”

  Salad plates appeared with the finesse of fine service, and disappeared to be replaced with main courses. Between the leafy vegetables and the red meat, she learned the fine points of faking success in the art world—the kickbacks to grant committees for impressive lines on a resume, the trade of advertising money for guaranteed reviews, and even the publicist’s fees.

  “I can’t question Koozeman on the old case,” she said. “How do I find out who participated in the sales of Ariel’s work?”

  “You don’t.” Quinn caught the waiter’s attention and mimed the word “coffee.” “Even if you could approach Koozeman, he wouldn’t give you any names. That list would be the most closely guarded thing he
possessed.”

  “Because he doesn’t want the police to bother his clientele?”

  “Because some of the people on that list are probably not paying any capital gains taxes or sales tax.”

  “He ran a tax scam?”

  Conversation stopped as coffee cups were filled.

  “I don’t know that he did anything illegal—I’m only speculating. You said there were no profits on paper from the last Ariel show. Let’s say most of Peter Ariel’s work was reported damaged on the night of the murder. In a tax audit, Koozeman would only have to produce the police report and letters from the initial buyers saying their money was returned to them because the work was damaged prior to delivery. But they might hold on to the work, and Koozeman might not actually return the money.”

  “So he voids the check transactions by claiming refunds in cash. Then the cash goes into a safety deposit box?”

  “If it happened that way, the initial buyers would make a substantial tax-free profit on a cash resale. No capital gains tax for the initial buyer, no sales tax for the resale buyer, no income tax for Koozeman.”

  “Could he use the same racket to sell what’s left of Dean Starr’s work?”

  “I hardly think so. He actually did make a few sales the night Dean Starr was murdered. But the art is such a crock, the A list people wouldn’t touch it. The work was bought by ignorant gate crashers. For the second showing, he’ll probably sell directly to the amateurs.”

  “So the primary market is the A list.”

  “Right. That would be the money people. They’re not art lovers—only looking for investment ventures. Now if an artist dies with a lot of notoriety, that’s a windfall profit. The art is knowing when to unload the work before its value falls off.”

  “So the A list unloads on the suckers from the B list.”