Still River

by Harry Hunsicker

  I got back into my truck and drove the eighth of a mile to the office. There was a different car parked in the back, a canary yellow Eldorado, made sometime during the Carter administration. One quarter panel was Bondo colored. I guessed it to be Nolan’s car since neither of my office mates had clients visit very often.

  I entered by way of the front door. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the coffee table, a new addition. My finely tuned detective skills told me that Nolan put them there. The room smelled fresher too, less mildewy. The receptionist station lay empty and bare, the computer and typewriter turned off and covered. Amber must be sick. Again. Ferguson, the lawyer who occupied the office in front of mine, stopped me in the hallway.

  “W-w-who is that? In fucking Ernie’s office?” Spittle flecked his lips and I could smell last night’s whiskey or this morning’s eye-opener on his breath. “Yesterday, she put fucking flowers in our fucking office. Then she vacuumed. Today,” he paused and looked around to see if anybody was listening, like he had a big secret. “Today, she moved a chair, and then lit some smell-good shit. Place smells like a fucking fruit factory.”

  I was unclear on what exactly a fruit factory was, except that it was a bad thing in Ferguson’s world. I took a few steps down the hall and glanced into Ernie’s room. Nolan O’Connor sat behind his desk, talking on the phone. None of the things in Ernie’s work space had been disturbed, though there were some flowers on his credenza. Sandalwood incense burned on a small saucer on the desk. She waved at me and continued her conversation. I waved back and went into my office, Ferguson trotting behind me like a besotted Shetland pony. “That’s Nolan O’Connor,” I said. “Ernie’s niece.”

  “I know who the fuck she is. What the fuck is she doing here?”

  The liquor I smelled was definitely from this morning. Booze made Ferguson cuss more, like a drunken sailor with Tourette’s syndrome. I suspected that if he weren’t able to swear, he wouldn’t have the vocabulary to order breakfast. “She’s a private investigator, like Ernie. Just moved here; she’s using his office, temporarily. Didn’t she tell you that?”

  “Fuck yeah, she tried to lay some bullshit on me, said it was just for a while.” He threw up his hands. “Like I fucking care about what goes on in this crazy fucking place.”

  “Go take a nap.”

  Ferguson held his finger up like he was going to make an important point. But the words wouldn’t come. Finally he hung his shoulders and wandered away. I stepped into my office.

  Ten seconds later Nolan knocked on the door frame and stuck her head in. “He doesn’t like me much, does he?”

  “Ferguson doesn’t like anybody except Johnnie Walker.” I clicked and typed and doodled with the computer.

  “You guys ever clean this place?”

  “Not if we can help it.” I checked e-mail. Nothing but spam.

  “I found a Hoover in the closet.” She pointed down the hall. “He told me to quit using it, too much noise too early.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nah,” she said. “Told him to fuck off instead.”

  I nodded. “You’ll fit in fine here.”

  “The flowers.” She nodded her head toward the front of the office. “Miranda had them, and I thought they’d look good here.” She gazed at a spot on the far wall, ignoring me. “And, well … I did move some things around. There were a couple of chairs that needed … replacement. In the front.”

  I didn’t respond to what she said. Instead, I squinted at the hardwoods in front of my desk and said, “Why is there an orange bath mat on my floor?”

  She shrugged and rubbed her face. “I was getting to that. About the chairs I moved, I was going to tell you why. See, this place has a good layout, structurally, but it needs the final touches to channel the energy correctly.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Channel the whozit?”

  “Look. I know you and I probably aren’t going to see eye to eye about this—”

  I interrupted her. “About what? Orange bath mats, or channeling energy?”

  She sighed. “I moved some of the chairs in order to get a better chi. That’s the life force that flows through everything and everybody. It’s part of an ancient Oriental method of improving harmony with nature, called feng shui.”

  “Fung shway? Did you say fung shway? That Chinese karma stuff?” Olson had a brief run with the feng shui a few months back. It ended about the third time Delmar tripped over a chair trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

  “Karma. Exactly.” Nolan smiled. “Karma’s just another word for chi.”

  “So what’s that got to do with the orange rug?” I pointed to the terry-cloth fabric on my floor.

  Nolan walked to the other side of the bath mat. “A piece of appropriately colored floor covering converts the love chi through the power center of the structure, promoting overall harmony throughout.”

  I rocked back in my chair. “So you’re saying my office is the love center of this place?”

  “Don’t get smug. It’s the house. Not you.”

  I thought back to the night before. Maybe Ms. O’Connor was on to something.

  She sat down uninvited. “So how’d it go at Charlie Wesson’s place yesterday?”

  “He had a girlfriend his sister didn’t know about. Named Jenny.” I related the rest of the events of the day, only leaving out the location of the unit.

  “So that’s how you got the shiner.” She pointed to my face.

  I’d almost forgotten about that. “Yeah, hurt him worse, though.”

  “What’s your next move?”

  I sensed that Nolan did not have a particularly full caseload at the moment. “I need to figure out who the ‘big man’ is. Also, why the head drug honcho of all of Dallas has one of his goons there at that particular place.”

  “Why don’t you start with who owns the building?”

  “Yeah. That might be a good idea.” I hoped I kept the sarcasm out of my voice. My computer was already on so I typed in the web address for the Dallas Central Appraisal District, the local government agency that keeps track of who owns what. When the page appeared, I clicked the appropriate button and typed in the address of the building on Gano Street.

  Nolan stood behind me. She smelled like wood smoke and flowers, not an unpleasant combination. The server finished processing the request and the answer popped up. According to the county, Gano Street Joint Venture owned the building. The deed last transferred in July of 1996. The building contained 8,500 square feet and was built in 1910. The mailing address for the Gano Street Joint Venture was obviously a residence, in North Dallas.

  Nolan leaned over my shoulder and looked at the screen. “That doesn’t tell you much. I mean a joint venture could be anybody, and there’s no way to check.”

  “You’re right.” I had a thought and clicked another button.

  She tapped her finger on the screen. “Why don’t you see who owns the house?”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” I said, clicking things until the search page appeared again. I entered the address and waited.

  The place was huge, seven thousand square feet and change, on the books for two million two. Ownership data was the last to materialize as the bits and bytes flew across the Internet. The name of the owner finally appeared on the screen: the Children’s Residential Trust Number Four. That’s the equivalent of John Smith or Jane Doe. The address for the owner of the trust was yet another trust, someplace on McKinney Avenue. Before Nolan could point out the next thing to do, I entered that address. The name of the owner of that property came with no wait this time. Strathmore Real Estate.

  I pulled out Charlie Wesson’s flyer and looked at my notes. The sign in front of the building across the street belonged to Strathmore. Nolan started to say something but I waved her off and dialed the number I’d jotted from the sign.

  A woman’s voice answered. “Thank you for calling Strathmore Real Estate, how may I direct your call?”

&nb
sp; “Could I get your delivery address, ma’am?”

  “You sure can.” Her voice dripped honey as she rattled off the same address as on my computer screen. I thanked her and hung up.

  “It goes back to Strathmore Real Estate.” I shut down the Web browser.

  Nolan sat down. “That’s the people with the signs all over town, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s the company.” I made a list of the information in order to keep it all straight. “Strathmore Real Estate owns the building that is listed as the owner’s address for the children’s trust, which owns the house that is listed as the owner’s address for the Gano Street Joint Venture, the owner of the building which is the last place anybody saw Charlie Wesson.”

  Someone knocked on the door frame and we both looked up.

  Davis, my other officemate, stood there, holding the sports page. “The Stars play-off game’s tonight. You take the points?”

  A long time ago I worked for a bookie named Taco Mulrooney. Taco and I stayed friendly, doing the odd favor for each other on occasion. Davis, in addition to his other compulsions, had started on the long, slow slide into bankruptcy that is the mark of the degenerate gambler. He liked to think that my past association with a professional sports bookie made me some sort of seer, able to divine the outcome of a sporting event by osmosis. He might have stayed even or at least not too far behind if he didn’t make stupid wagers.

  “Don’t bet against the spread.” I leaned back in my chair. “What do you know about Strathmore Real Estate?”

  “Take the points, huh?” Davis scratched at something in his crotch and studied the paper.

  “Yeah. What about Strathmore?”

  “They’re one of the largest firms in the southwest. Development, brokerage, you name it, they do it.”

  I kept a small, dorm room–size refrigerator in the corner of my office. It’s good to keep the information source lubricated so I got out three cans of Budweiser and came back to the desk. “It’s noon somewhere, how about a beer?”

  Davis didn’t hesitate. He plopped down in the only other available chair. “Sure. What the hell, I stayed home last night.”

  I handed him a can, placing one on the corner of the desk for Nolan. We opened them and said a toast to midday. The first gulp tasted good. Nolan took a sip of hers and replaced it on my desk. She said, “So what kind of real estate does the Strathmore Company do?”

  Davis swirled a mouthful of beer over his tongue, like it was the ’82 Rothschild. He swallowed and smiled. “They do all kinds, mostly apartments, retail, and office. Some industrial properties here and there.”

  “Would they be doing anything south of downtown, say on Gano Street?” I said.

  “Nah, nothing down there. Nobody does anything there.” Davis took another swig. “Lessee … before he retired, I think the Big Man did some apartments in DeSoto, or maybe Duncanville, but that’s so far down it’s beyond south.”

  Nolan’s eyes lit up but she didn’t say anything. I kept my voice casual. “The Big Man?”

  Davis drained the last of his beer and helped himself to another. “Yep. The Big Man. That’s what they call him. Fagen Strathmore.”

  “Who calls him that?”

  “Everybody in the business. Kinda like Elvis was the King, and Sinatra was the Chairman of the Board.”

  “Why’s he called the Big Man?”

  Davis chuckled and cocked an eyebrow. “Because he’s big. Like six and a half feet tall big. And he’s big as in a big deal businesswise.”

  “You said he was retired.” I took a small sip of beer. “What’s he do with himself?”

  Davis made a noise, somewhere between and belch and a hiccup. “I think he’s working on wife number four or five. She’s in the society pages all the time. He’s been out for ten years, maybe fifteen. His son, Roger, runs things now. He’s still involved, though, just not in the day-to-day stuff. Guy like that never gets all the way out. They’re hooked on the deal-making. It’s in their blood.” A phone rang from the front of the office. Davis stood up. “That’s me. Better get it, might be a customer.”

  After he left, Nolan threw away the beer cans and said, “Type A social drinker or full-blown lush?”

  “Just a simple drunk without a title.” I moved to the windows and looked outside. “Probably because he doesn’t have the love center in his office.” The wisps of clouds from earlier in the day had disappeared, leaving only the hot blue sky. I thought out loud. “So the last person we can place Charlie with is the Big Man, Fagen Strathmore, at the Gano Street building Monday afternoon. What happened between them?”

  “Also, what’s the connection between Strathmore and Dupree?” Nolan said.

  “Maybe if we knew that, it would explain how Jack Washington knew I was at Callahan’s office.”

  She nodded and was quiet for a few moments. Then she said, “I think maybe we need to get a little more information on Fagen Strathmore.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I picked up my address book and thumbed through it. I found the page I was looking for and reached for the telephone. “You ready to take a little drive?”

  Nolan smiled and nodded. I made a phone call and a quick conversation ensued. When I hung up, we headed for the suburbs, after a quick stop for Vietnamese food at a little place I knew.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Traffic ran light and we made good progress. Nolan passed the time by pestering me about the man we were going to see, wanting to know if he knew Strathmore, and if he did, how well. And what he would be able to tell us. I rolled my eyes and dodged her questions until we were about halfway there. Finally I said, “Enough already. Let me do the talking, okay? The Diceman is probably going to know something because he was connected, in a big way. If Strathmore is dirty, he’ll know. It was his business to keep track of people like that.”

  “Connected?” she said.

  “Yeah. As in mobbed up. You know, a bunch of guys wearing shiny suits, with names like Fat Tony and Earless Mario. Catch my drift?”

  “Oh.” She paused for a moment and looked out the window as we passed another shopping center with a Strathmore Realty sign on it. “So what do you mean he keeps track of people like that?”

  I turned up the AC. “The mob gets a bad rap these days; people tend to underestimate them. They’ve got an intelligence-gathering apparatus that rivals the CIA. Especially with anybody who’s wealthy, they maintain files on them, what they do, where they live, family, friends, vices, their life story, really. Always looking for the weaknesses. Anything that was exploitable.”

  Nolan nodded. “Antisocial.”

  “No. Actually, they’re pretty fun to hang around with.” I slowed as the traffic thickened. “Great parties. I remember one time, the Harrah’s in New Orleans had just opened—”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She sighed theatrically. “Antisocial as in a personality type. A lack of regard for moral or legal standards of society.”

  “Oh. That antisocial. Yeah, that describes most of them perfectly.”

  “They don’t get along with others, or rules. The pain they cause is rationalized away, or not even addressed emotionally.” Nolan adjusted her seat belt and then spoke again in a quieter tone. “Sometimes they’re called psychopaths.”

  “Save it for somebody who cares, okay?”

  She obliged, the faint smile on her face irritating me more than the psychobabble.

  We hit the freeway, and I turned on the cruise control. We had another half hour to travel before we could maybe start to find some answers. If anybody could tell me whether Fagen Strathmore was dirty, the Diceman could.

  Victor “the Diceman” Lemieux started life as a seven-and-a-half-pound fuck trophy, in a third-floor walk-up brothel off Canal Street in New Orleans. The product of a forced union between a seventeen-year-old prostitute and an aging vice cop, Victor was busting heads for a local shylock about the age most kids were learning to drive. When he retired forty years later, courtesy of a .38 s
lug to the abdomen from a cranked-up Jamaican coke dealer, he was in charge of real estate investments for a certain union’s pension fund controlled by the Marcello crime family.

  We were friends, the Diceman and I, after a nasty street brawl one sultry summer evening in an alley off Conti Street in the French Quarter. For reasons that are best left unsaid, I ended up saving his life that evening. Victor had two blades stuck in him, thigh and ribs. I had a fractured wrist and a two-inch gash in my temple, but still managed to pull him down a narrow alley, just as the police arrived. He directed me to a friendly doctor who patched us up. Despite the fact that he had about as much Sicilian blood in him as did Jerry Falwell, Victor was old school, omertà and honor and all that other Godfather crap. He maintained that he owed his life to me and never forgot it. After the thing with the Jamaican, the Diceman retired and moved to the Dallas area to be near his only daughter.

  He lived in a suburb near the airport now, part of the vast Texas prairie converted haphazardly into a sliver of the American dream, in a three-bedroom slap-up job the developer quaintly called the “Jubilee Floor Plan.”

  I drove down the main north-south thoroughfare, trying to remember the correct turn. The streets all had western-tinged names like Ponderosa Place and Meandering Canyon. They possessed a dreary sameness, block after block of treeless yards and poorly built brick edifices with miniature turrets and ridiculous-looking two-story arched entryways. I wondered how an old wiseguy called the Diceman fared in this land of minivans, Pottery Barn furniture, and five-digit credit card debt.

  His house was in the middle of the block, a dead ringer for all the others except for the LSU pennant hanging over a bay window. We were halfway up the sidewalk when he opened the door, leaning heavily on a cane, his bulk resting against the edge of the entranceway.

  “Hot damn. If ’n it ain’t Mr. Oswald. Done come all the way out here.” Victor loved to play up the Cajun accent.

  “What’s happening, Victor?” I stepped into the foyer and embraced him.

  He slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Little of this, little of that. And who might this purty gal be?”