Gold Coast Blues

by Marc Krulewitch

  Margot laughed and nodded approvingly. “A cultured man, no less!”

  Her voice had the slightest echo of a smoker’s rumble, although I saw no ashtrays and detected no tobacco odor. She had quit just in time.

  “I’m Jules Landau, a private investigator. Were you expecting someone?”

  “No. I enjoy having visitors, so whoever rings comes in. I’m having a glass of pinot noir. Would you care to join me?”

  “No thanks.”

  The furniture was luxurious in the traditional style, fully upholstered with wood trim. “Please sit,” Margot said and lay on a chaise longue in front of the bay window. A small end table next to her held a half-full glass of red wine. In blue jeans, her figure could be that of a teenager. I took the love seat, along with its view of Margot’s profile.

  “I hope you weren’t serious about letting anyone in who leans on the buzzer,” I said.

  “You don’t know me but already you’re worried about me?”

  “I’d have to be in a coma not to be disturbed by images of what could come walking up those stairs.”

  Margot smiled. “You’re sweet but perhaps too imaginative. I don’t fear the city or what it has to offer. This couch is my favorite place to relax and feel the warmth. No matter how cold it is out in the streets, this chaise is a comfy haven. You can always create a little space of comfort for yourself, regardless of where you live. And I keep a .38 revolver in the desk drawer.”

  I wondered how comfortable she would feel when some crackhead stumbled into her bedroom.

  “You seem remarkably indifferent that a private investigator has dropped by.”

  Margot shrugged. “If you show up here investigating, I assume you want to talk about my husband.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “I’ve been hired to find a woman who used to work with your husband.” I stepped over to her with the picture of Tanya Maggio. Margot didn’t move, just glanced at the photo and then returned her attention out the window.

  After I sat back down she said, “You’re wasting your time. Doug killed her.”

  The matter-of-fact way she mentioned murder blindsided me. “You want to tell me how you know this?”

  “I just know.”

  “And have you told the police you ‘just know’?”

  “They’re both dead, what’s the point?”

  “Well, her family might appreciate knowing.”

  “I’m sure he did it, but I can’t prove it.” All of a sudden, she seemed less like a victim.

  “Tell me your theory.”

  Margot sighed then turned to me. “It just makes sense. He killed her and then he killed himself.”

  “Officially, he died in a car accident, right?”

  Margot swung her legs off the chaise, then walked to a writing desk against the wall, where she opened a drawer and took out a newspaper article. Without a word, she handed it to me and lay back down. A large photograph showed the charred, mangled remains of a car severed in half after crashing head-on into an oak tree.

  “They identified him through dental records—though it took a couple of days to find his jaw.”

  “But you’re saying the car crash wasn’t an accident?”

  “I’m saying there were only a handful of trees on that lonely stretch of highway in the New Mexico desert. There were no skid marks. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, plus the airbags in his BMW convertible did not deploy. Also, the cops think the gas tank was almost full—”

  “I get it. Why would your husband have killed Tanya Maggio?”

  Margot hesitated. “Why do men kill women?”

  Answering questions with questions was inherently suspicious behavior. “Why does anyone kill anyone?” I countered.

  Margot laughed. “Doug fell in love with her. She went along with it for a while, a flattered young woman, understandably mesmerized by his wad of cash. I found out he took her to Cancún. How could a working-class kid like that resist? But after a while, she probably felt trapped with this older man. When she started pulling away, Doug’s attraction became an obsession. You take it from there.”

  “Did Tanya go with him to New Mexico?”

  “I assume so. Around Thanksgiving, he closed the place and they ran off together.”

  “When did you realize he was having an affair?”

  Margot sat up and dropped her legs over the side of the chaise. “When he closed his bar and ran off with her last Thanksgiving.”

  “You had no idea before then that something was going on?”

  Margot took a deep breath. “I thought he was spending more time with his friends who shared his passion for magic tricks. I know he and those buddies ran an online supply business. Everything was very secretive with those guys. But I should’ve known better. Anyway, what difference does it make now?”

  I let a few moments pass. I expected her to throw me out soon. “When Doug up and left, he must’ve angered some folks. Had he paid his creditors off? Did he abandon the lease?”

  “I was his landlord. I bankrolled his business. I bought the BMW he wrapped around a tree.”

  This sudden shift in ballast upset the equilibrium of my working theory. Doug suddenly became a pathetic loser who took advantage of his loving wife’s trust to squander her money and run off with a younger woman.

  “What’s the matter, Detective? You look dazed.”

  “Call me Jules. And I’m a private investigator. Did Brenda call and tell you I was coming over?”

  Margot smiled. “Sweet girl. Needs more self-confidence.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “She thought I might be angry because she showed you where I lived.”

  “Were you?”

  “No. I told you I like visitors.”

  Margot turned her attention back out the window. She seemed remarkably comfortable splayed out in front of a perfect stranger. Too comfortable, as if anticipating something inevitable.

  “If you don’t mind—is this your main residence?”

  “This is my home. I could afford much more, but this is all I need. Doug and I had that in common—I thought. Have a nice car, take nice trips, enjoy hobbies, start a bar—whatever. But we don’t need an apartment on the Gold Coast or a country house or a place on Maui.”

  An extended silence, then I said, “But why? Had your marriage—”

  “Men desire younger women, Jules. It’s not complicated.”

  “He must’ve had a plan, though. Something more complicated than wooing away a naïve woman using your wealth. Was he stealing? Are you missing large sums of money?”

  “Of course.”

  I thought it strange that she didn’t elaborate. “Will you be able to recover any of it now that Doug is dead?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “So the police are involved?”

  “No.”

  I stared at her profile. She had mentally left the building. “I know settling an estate can be complicated—”

  “It’s not complicated!” she shouted, scaring the hell out of me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no right to raise my voice. It’s just that sometimes— It’s just that money and younger women are not complicated concepts or motivations. I think you’d do your client a favor by just accepting the obvious. They’re both dead and that’s all that matters.”

  “But you won’t tell me how you know for certain Tanya is dead.”

  Margot stood and walked to the door. “I really don’t want to talk about this anymore. It was nice meeting you, Jules. Pick another subject to discuss next time you drop by.”

  I left, but forgot to leave a card. While walking back to my car I tried to re-create her tone of voice in her last sentence—and what the hell she was talking about, for that matter. Despite her outburst, I didn’t perceive anger, rather fear and disappointment, with a touch of expectation.

  Chapter 7

  “How many goddamn times I gotta
tell you I’m retired?” Kalijero said.

  “I’ll pay you as a consultant—just to have a conversation on the phone, to give me your opinion. You don’t even have to get out of your easy chair.”

  “I charge five bucks a minute.”

  “That’s three hundred an hour. You trying to save up so you can die in a Gold Coast condo?”

  “No, I spent forty years as a cop. And I’m worth it.”

  It was true. “Deal. Fifty-something dude has business bankrolled by rich wife. He runs away to New Mexico with twenty-something after stealing even more of his wife’s cash. Then he dies in car wreck. Wife says it’s suicide after he murdered twenty-something who got sick of him.”

  “How the hell does she know this?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Well, it sounds like she knows a lot more than you do. The young broad. Is that the Jersey boy’s girlfriend? You gonna tell him to get the New Mexico police to start digging up the desert?”

  “I’m not sure if I should tell my client anything yet. But I’m wondering just how well your cop buddy in Jersey knew him.”

  “I don’t know about that. He’s ancient history to me. As far as I’m concerned, Cooper is still a prick. And I can’t see him in Irvington and not being a crook. But what do I know?”

  “Eddie freaked out on me when I suggested I might get in touch with Tanya’s friends back East.”

  I could hear Kalijero thinking through the extended silence. “So he’s hiding something. You said he’s paying you in cash, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Keep that in mind. You know what I mean?”

  He meant drugs.

  —

  Eddie answered, “Hello?” as if he wasn’t sure which end of the phone to speak into.

  “Hey, let me buy you lunch. Okay?”

  I counted to five, then heard, “Yeah, sure, but you don’t have to pay or nothin’.”

  My impression was that New Jersey people had a special fondness for pork, so I gave him the address of the Pork Hut, a greasy spoon within walking distance of his hotel. The Pork Hut did an enormous takeout business in pork sandwiches. Little money was wasted on trying to get people to eat in, and it showed. All the vinyl seats were slit open and the floor was almost as sticky as the tables. I arrived to see Eddie sitting at a table, looking at the menu.

  “What do you think?” I said. “Garden State quality?”

  For the first time Eddie smiled like he knew what I was talking about. “The number three works.”

  A hunk of pork with egg and cheese on a kaiser roll. “What is it with you Jersey boys and pig meat?”

  Eddie shrugged. “We like eatin’ our own.”

  His deadpan coolness evoked loud laughter followed by an embarrassingly loud roar from Eddie, who I’m sure had only tried to sound self-deprecating. Either way, the moment seemed to break through one of those walls that stood between almost-strangers and the first degree of trust. After we composed ourselves, I put our new relationship to the test.

  “I’m a curious guy, Eddie. I hope you don’t mind me asking why your dad didn’t take the family and move out of Irvington?”

  Eddie’s stare suddenly had a menacing quality, like a sociopath about to blow someone’s brains out. Then he blinked a few times and averted his gaze. “I guess he was afraid or didn’t know where to go.”

  “But what about you—his kid? He wanted you to grow up in a shithole neighborhood?”

  “You know about Irvington?”

  “Yesterday you called it a ghetto. And Kalijero told me something about it.”

  Eddie nodded. “My aunt said Vietnam messed up my dad. He came back and started drinkin’, druggin’. He didn’t give a shit. Just worked in the steel mill and got blasted. Married his high school girlfriend and they partied together. Been that way my whole life.”

  The waitress arrived. When I ordered a salad, she gave me a dirty look.

  “How did your dad keep a job if he was drinkin’ and druggin’?”

  “He did it after work, I guess.”

  “Bad habits like that cost money. The steel mill paid pretty good?”

  Eddie shifted in his seat and looked around. “Well, I guess so, until they shut it down when I was a little kid. And, uh, he started workin’ with my uncles and cousins. They started buildin’ fences for people and other stuff.”

  Silence descended. I watched Eddie push a packet of sugar back and forth between his hands. “Was any of that ‘other stuff’ illegal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You get into a lot of trouble as a kid?”

  “I got really mean, especially after drinkin’. Fightin’ was the only way I was gonna get respect.”

  “That’s how you got to know this cop, Cooper?”

  Eddie chuckled. “He couldn’t wait for me to turn eighteen. He kept sayin’, ‘When you turn eighteen, Eddie, it’s the big house. Your ass is mine!’ ”

  “He took an interest in you.”

  “He kept bustin’ me for any goddamn thing and tried to get me to snitch. They wanted to know stuff. They thought I’d rat ’em out. A real dumbass.”

  “Okay. I’m an eight- or nine-year-old kid growing up in Eddie’s Irvington neighborhood. What’s my day like?”

  Eddie didn’t need time. “Steppin’ over dope-sick junkies on the way to school. Hidin’ any money I had in my socks. Gettin’ held down while someone stole the shoes off my feet. Syringes layin’ all over the playgrounds. Gettin’ jumped in stairwells or locker rooms…”

  When the food arrived, Eddie began devouring his pork, egg, and cheese sandwich while I picked at a plate of yellowish iceberg lettuce.

  “This investigation could take a while,” I said. “What’re you going to do with your time?”

  Eddie stopped chewing, looked at me, then resumed chewing. “I don’t know.”

  “Gonna do some other stuff for your uncles?”

  Eddie chewed a bit more. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t care what you do. But make damn sure I don’t see anything I can’t ignore. If the cops have the slightest suspicion I know about other stuff, I lose my license—if not more. Got it?”

  Eddie finished his sandwich, licked his fingers. “I don’t want you feelin’ sorry for me ’cause I’m ghetto. I tell you stuff because you asked me.”

  “You ever consider that Tanya might be dead?”

  Eddie’s eyebrows creased. “No.”

  “Was Tanya involved in other stuff?”

  “I told you she wasn’t from Irvington. She stayed away from—”

  “She didn’t stay away from you, right? Just tell me she wasn’t doing anything she should not have been doing and I’ll believe you. Okay?”

  “Tanya never did nothin’ bad. She’s not that way.”

  As if on cue, we both leaned back in our chairs. “I met a woman who thinks Tanya was murdered by Doug Daley, her boss from the Webster Avenue Saloon. In New Mexico.”

  Eddie rested his forehead in his hand for a few moments. “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he loved her to death. I don’t know. Tanya could be alive and well.”

  “If you don’t know, why you tellin’ me this?”

  “You should know I’m not going to get the New Mexico police involved. They might get in the way of finding the truth, especially if she’s intentionally hiding.”

  “She’s got no reason to hide, Mr. Landau. I swear.”

  “You’ve been in the joint three years. How do you know?”

  “Because—I know.”

  “You just know she has no reason to hide and the wife just knows she’s dead. Am I the only one who doesn’t know something?”

  Eddie sat and stared at his knees, like a discouraged little boy. Then he said, “Do what you think is right, Mr. Landau. I just want to find Tanya.”

  Chapter 8

  Three bulk-mail envelopes lay on the floor inside the door to my office, waiting to be recycled. Afte
r propping the door open with a wooden shim, I leaned back in my chair, feet on desk, and thought about the seven bucks I’d dropped on a plate of wilted lettuce. Then I thought of Eddie’s words, “She’s got no reason to hide.” Hell, Eddie’s fish-eyed stare alone made me want to hide.

  An unknown number appeared on my cellphone.

  “Are you the private investigator guy?” a female voice asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m calling for a friend of a friend. They want to hire you for an easy job.”

  “Why isn’t the friend of a friend calling to hire me for an easy job?”

  “I don’t know. She asked me to call so I’m doing it. You’ll get your normal fee just for picking up a package.”

  “Did she say what the package was?”

  “I have no idea. I just need to know if you’ll do it. It would take like a couple of minutes. You give an envelope to someone, they give you the package, then someone will pick up the package from you.”

  “When?”

  “Sooner is better. They’re just waiting for my call and then you’ll get more instructions.”

  “You sound like you’re full of shit. Come to my office now. Then we’ll talk about instructions.”

  The woman sighed. “Sir, I’m not involved other than making this phone call and bringing your fee and the envelope. If you agree, someone else will call with the details.”

  “I’m going to ask a question out loud, knowing you won’t know the answer. Why doesn’t the someone else who is going to give me the details also give me the money?”

  “My friend thought it had to do with trusting the someone else.”

  What the hell. If they wanted to give me the money up front, I could always back out. “Okay. Bring the envelope and a separate envelope with ten hundred-dollar bills—my fee. It’s three-thirty. I’ll give you till four to get here. After I get the package, I bring it back to my office. Tell your boss, take it or leave it.” I hung up.

  If the woman or her friends knew my phone number, they probably had my address or knew where to find it. If not, then it was probably bullshit. In the meantime I called Johnny “Bail Bonds” Duggan.

  “Johnny Bail Bonds.”

  “Jules for Johnny.”