by Al Roker
“How much do you get to keep after taxes?” someone asked her, maybe a journo, maybe a drunk; it was hard to tell the difference.
Once the firemen went into action, they became the focus of attention.
Gin drifted across the street to where Ted and I had been standing, he nattering incessantly into his cellular, I keeping on the down low. We had decided we would stick to a very simple story. Phil was a coworker and friend who’d invited us to his loft for wine and cheese. When we arrived we saw someone leave the building and run away as we approached. We went inside, called Phil, and received no answer. We saw that the loft was on fire and we ran from the building. Both Gin and Ted called their offices, who in turn alerted the NYFD.
That’s essentially what we told the pair of fire department investigators. They had a string of additional questions. Did we see Phil in the burning building? No. Could Phil have been the person we saw leaving? Hmmm. Maybe. Was I sure the rug was soaked with some chemical? Definitely. Did we know of any reason why Phil would want to set fire to his loft? No. Did we know if the building was insured? Isn’t everything? Any idea where they might find Phil? Inside the building.
It took the firefighters several hours to control and extinguish the flames. The building hadn’t burned to the ground, but it would have to be gutted and rebuilt.
“The place is just a concrete slab attached to steel girders,” one of the FD investigators told us shortly before midnight after he and his partner had checked out the interior. “Everything else is ashes and charred wood and hunks of melted plastic.”
“What about … Phil Bruno?” Gin asked.
The investigator’s sooty face registered dismay. “There’s a charred human body in there. Could be your friend. It’ll be up to forensics to make an ID.”
“Everything else is gone?” Ted asked.
“Pretty much. Looks like there was a lot of electronic equipment, cameras—all melted and burned to hell. Furniture, nothing but piles of ash. Porcelain sink, toilet, stove, all recognizable, but I’m not sure they can be reused. Same for the refrigerator-freezer. The heat buckled it but didn’t break it exactly.”
“Anything inside the fridge?” Ted asked.
“Melted and fried goo. Looks like the fire started in a small room to the right of what used to be the kitchen. The body was in that room. You say your friend was a photographer?”
“A television cameraman,” I said.
“Oh. Then I don’t suppose he worked with photographic chemicals.”
“He inherited the building from his father, who was a still photographer,” I said, “so there may have been chemicals.”
“Even with that, I don’t see this as an accident.” The investigator shook his head. “Somebody splashed combustible fluid all over the loft area.”
“Look this way, Gin,” someone called, and I saw a WBC news cameraman moving in our direction. I took a few quick backward steps out of the shot line. Gin was caught in the bright light, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.
I watched her field a few questions with a friendliness and poise that was both professional and a little chilling, considering what we’d just been through. I took another step back and stumbled over somebody hunkering close to the ground.
“Wha—?” I said as Ted jumped up, steadying himself enough to stop me from falling to the pavement.
“Billy,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“What were you doing down there?” I asked, once the surprise had worn off.
“There’s something odd there on the sidewalk,” he said.
I looked down.
On the pavement in front of Phil’s building was a childlike chalk drawing. Water from the fire hoses and the scuffling of gawkers’ shoes had done damage to the scrawled lines. But in the light from the cameras trained on Gin, I could easily make out the artist’s intent. It was an animal with matchstick legs, a tiny tail, pointy ears, black dots for eyes, and a tiny nose over three sets of whiskers.
A crude drawing of a cat.
“This isn’t exactly a neighborhood where kids play,” Ted said. “And I can’t be sure, but I don’t remember seeing it when we first got here. You make anything of it?”
“Not really,” I lied.
Chapter
TWENTY-THREE
It was clear that the members of the King of Prussia High School Glee Club hadn’t spent the very-early-morning hours watching the opening of our show, reading the papers, or cruising the Internet. If they had, they’d have seen news items, blogs, videos, and Twitters about my involvement in the unnatural deaths of two of my Worldwide Broadcasting Company associates. That might have made them at least a little less eager to shake my hand as I greeted them on the sidewalk in front of the Wake Up! window on the city. Instead most of the fresh-faced, high-spirited young Pennsylvanians were yahooing and screaming and laughing.
One of them, a cheery young female, somehow managed to bridle her enthusiasm long enough to inform our viewing audience how much they were enjoying their visit to New York City and how grateful they were to have been invited to participate in the All-American Sing-off that would take place at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night at seven p.m.
That gave me the opportunity to trot out one of my all-time faves, “Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?” When the young girl said no, the crew and I shouted in unison, “PRACTICE!” Gets ’em every time.
Near the gleeful glee clubbers was a quartet of Asian women wearing large, lumpy, but colorful costumes, their lovely faces partially covered by bright orange and yellow and green masks that included brown papier-mâché animal horns that curved down to their shoulders. “Chef Blessing,” one of them called out.
“Hi, ladies,” I said. “What’s the story on your wardrobe?”
“We’re in oxen costumes,” their apparent spokeswoman explained.
“You certainly are,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“I am Tina. With me are Lotus and Lucy. We here to remind everyone that this is the Chinese Year of the Ox and”—she reached down with black gloved hands to retrieve from the sidewalk a huge can labeled CHINA KITCHEN OXBLOOD SOUP—“for you,” she said, handing me the can, which, judging by its weight, may have contained a complete ox simmering in its own juices.
“We call this special soup seonjitguk.”
“Seonjitguk,” I thought I repeated.
“No, no,” she said. “Seonjitguk. Anyway, you try soup. It is delicious. And … it is a wonderful way to rid the body of the toxins from overindulgence.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Thank you.”
I was about to move on when she reached out and touched my arm. “Chef, we were concerned by your absences on Wake Up, America! We are so happy to see you back. You are our favorite. You are why we watch the show each morning.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. I could have added a special thankyou to Tina’s boss, Wally Wing, my lawyer, for concocting the whole Year of the Ox sham just to send the message to the WBC brass that I had been missed. But that would have been self-defeating. Instead I said, “Thank you, I’m very happy to be back.”
Which was the truth. Even though the start of the show had been a bit uncomfortable.
The local news lead-in at six-forty-five a.m. had been all about the fire, the charred victim, presumed to be WBC cameraman Phil Bruno, and the fact that two other employees of the network, Gin McCauley and myself, had reported the conflagration. The beautiful, unblinking, and inexperienced talking head had then added that Gin and I would be discussing the fire immediately after the newscast on Wake Up! It was, in effect, a promo plug tagged to a hard-news bulletin, a cheesy exploitation method that must have had legends like Ed Murrow and Chet Huntley doing flip-flops in their tombs.
It was the inspiration of our temporary executive producer, Trina Lomax. She had insisted that Wake Up! begin with Lance Tuttle seated in what I called the “restricted men’s-club set,” a faux-book-lined oiled-wood study. Using his most
sincere delivery, Lance informed our viewers that a second member of the WBC family had died at the hands of a vicious killer.
It was an audacious statement. The body had not yet been officially identified as Phil’s. And even if it had been, the suggestion that a serial killer was setting us up like prospective victims in an Agatha Christie novel was nothing if not premature. And unsettling. Especially if one was to make the connection between a cat drawing at the scene of the fire and Felix the Cat, the hit man original gangster Henry Julian had warned me would be coming to New York to kill someone in the media.
“I’m now being joined by our good friends Gin McCauley and Bill Blessing, who were both on the scene last night when Phil was murdered and his elegant town house burned to the ground.”
Feeling a little light-headed, I followed Gin onto the set, where we sat, flanking Lance. A male model in butler’s livery, the living embodiment of The Daily Brew’s Billionaire Blend logo, suddenly appeared, filling china cups with our sponsor’s product. This was supposed to create the impression that we were having an off-the-cuff coffee klatch, unaware that the world was looking in, all in a nice tight three-shot.
“Guys, that must have been horrendous,” Lance said, “seeing those flames coming toward you and running for your lives from the building. And then having to stand by, helplessly, while our pal Phil Bruno burned to a crisp.”
My immediate thought was to smash this pompous ass in the face for referring to our friend like a slab of bacon. I replaced that thought with an urge to remind him that the DNA analysts were still a few days away from an official identification of the corpse. But I knew the rules of the game and so, like Gin, I kept up my end of the discussion by finding new ways of paraphrasing the fear and frustration I’d honestly felt.
The segment ended. During the ensuing three and a half minutes of commercials, Trina and Arnie gave us attaboys, Lance and Gin headed for the anchor desk, and, with the help of my assistant, Kiki, I got ready for my people-in-the street segment.
That segment, after nine minutes, was nearing its close.
I was talking with three gentlemen in formal kilts, representing the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Scottish Festival to be held in three weeks. Two of the men carried bagpipes and seemed ready to wail. The third presented me with a basket containing an assortment of pastries. “I bet you were expecting haggis, Chef Blessing,” he said. “But we decided on something different. These are Forfar bridies.”
“Meat pies, right?”
“Right, chef. Mince meat, onions. Delicious. Just one of the delicacies we’ll be having at the festival. Along with bagpipe bands, dancing, athletics. Try a bridie.”
A mincemeat pie wasn’t exactly my idea of breakfast food, but what the hell, it beat haggis. I lifted one of the pastries from the basket, took a bite.
It stuck in my throat. Nothing to do with the bridie, which was no doubt delicious. I’d let my eyes drift past the Scotsmen to two grim figures standing across the street. Detectives Solomon and Butker. Staring at me with all the intensity of wolves zeroing in on their prey.
I coughed.
“You all right, chef?” the Wyoming Scott asked.
“Fine,” I said, turning to Kiki, who, ever alert, handed me the remains of her mug of Billionaire Blend.
I took a swallow, cleared my throat again, and asked the Scotsman, “Don’t suppose you have any single malt in that basket?”
“Just bridies,” he said. “But at the festival …”
Chapter
TWENTY-FOUR
“What exactly were you doing at Bruno’s place last night?” Solomon asked about twenty minutes later.
The detectives and I were in my dressing room, along with Kiki, who silently and unobtrusively observed the Q&A while keeping track of the minutes and seconds I had left before my next on-camera appearance. Solomon had browbeaten Arnie Epps into shifting a couple of segments to make time for the interrogation, simultaneously reminding all present that the NYPD still considered me to be a one-man Murder Incorporated.
“Phil invited Ms. McCauley, Mr. Parkhurst, and me to visit,” I said in answer to his question.
“Just phoned you out of the blue?” Butker asked.
“I phoned him, actually,” I said.
“Out of the blue?” Butker asked.
For some reason, his repetition of the phrase annoyed the hell out of me. “No, not out of the blue,” I said. And I told them my theory about the connection between Rudy Gallagher and the murdered Touchstone guard in Kabul.
“So Bruno had this video of the guard passing some object to Gallagher on the QT?” Solomon asked. “Only you couldn’t make out the object?”
“It was a blur.”
“But he told you he was clearing it up, and that’s the real reason you and your friends went to his place? To see the footage?”
I nodded.
“So let’s say the stiff in the fire is definitely Bruno,” Solomon said. “That’d make three guys at that Irish pub in Kabul now murdered. And they’re connected by this unknown missing object.”
“That’s what I think,” I said.
The two detectives exchanged looks. Butker appeared thoughtful. Solomon frowned and went “Hmmm.”
I could’ve asked Solomon if he shared my deduction but instead tried a different approach. “What do you think?” I asked eagerly.
He stared at me for a few beats, then said, “That’s just about the biggest pile of horse crap anybody ever tried to sell me.”
“What?” I was thunderstruck.
“Some merc in Afghanistan, who’s hated by ninety-eight percent of the population and barely tolerated by the rest, gets his throat cut,” Solomon said. “Wow, what a surprise! A TV asshole in New York pisses off one of his business associates and is poisoned. A third guy dies in a fire, and, for all we know, he may have been trapped trying to burn down the place for the insurance. But everything’s connected. Mystery solved by Sherlock Homey here.”
“You don’t find it odd that three men who had drinks together in Kabul just a few weeks ago have been murdered?” I asked Solomon.
“Maybe odd,” Solomon said. “If it really happened.”
“Of course it happened,” I said. “Ask Ted Parkhurst. He was there.”
“That being the case, I imagine he’d be a little spooked right now,” Solomon said. “He didn’t sound spooked when I talked to him on the phone. He didn’t mention any drinks with the dead guys, either.”
“Why would I make up something like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Why would he do that, Butker?”
“To get the pressure off him,” Butker drawled. “Divert us from the real situation.”
“I’m just a simple working detective,” Solomon said. “I look at evidence. I look at facts. I look at motives. You know a Franz Paska, Blessing?”
“Of course. He’s one of the great young chefs. He’s at Saint Julienne.”
“Well, it seems that Gallagher talked with him a couple of hours before he was murdered,” Solomon said. “Told him he was dropping your cable show and offered Paska the time slot. I’d been thinking jealousy was your motive, Gallagher busting up your romance with Ms. Di Voss. Now I’ve got a double motive. I’ve got the means, the poisoned food from your eatery. And I’m moving closer every day to the opportunity.
“So excuse me if I don’t just go running off to check on some secret bullshit over in the Middle East when I should be here concentrating on the plain and simple fact that you hated the victim’s guts.”
He gave me a fake smile, turned, and sauntered from the room with Butker at his heels like a good dog. “Enjoy your freedom, chef,” Solomon threw over his shoulder. “It’s not gonna last much longer.”
“Whoo-eee,” Kiki said when they’d left. “That gent’s mind isn’t just closed, it’s locked up tighter than a Flatbush bank. And you’ve got three minutes to get ready with the joke of the day.”
I took out my cellular phone and pulled up
the snapshot I’d taken last night, the drawing in front of Phil’s destroyed building. I’d assumed it would be the pièce de résistance that would move Solomon to look into the whereabouts of the hit man known as Felix.
That optimistic assumption was my own personal joke of the day.
Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
“See, this the reason I don’t wash car,” my driver Joe was saying as we bounced along a potholed section of Brooklyn far from the borough’s pockets of yuppie gentrification. The parked cars had broken headlamps or were missing wheels. Trash littered the street and the sidewalks. Young brothers and a few sisters sat unmoving as statues on the steps of mottled brownstone apartment buildings, following us with their eyes.
“Even with the dirt camo, we’re still not exactly blending in, Joe.”
“Maybe not. But we not making anybody mad enough to throw rocks, neither.”
One block farther, the atmosphere did a 180. The street was clean, the buildings well tended and slacker-free. It was like finding a model-neighborhood color photo in the middle of a black-and-white panorama of life’s defeat.
The reason was Glory’s Doughnut Shoppe, a freshly painted storefront with a bright-red awning that was on the ground floor of a well-cared-for building in the middle of the block. I told Joe to park directly in front.
“You not be long, right?” he asked.
“Relax,” I said. “This is the safest place in all of Crooklyn.”
I pointed to a bicycle with a large front basket that rested on its kickstand near the door. A metal sign attached to the basket read: GLORY’S—FOR THE BEST BREAKFASTS AND LUNCHES IN BROOKLYN.
“Do you see a lock and chain on that bicycle?” I asked Joe.
“No.”
“That’s because it, the shop, and the building are owned by a friend of mine, Henry Julian. You know the name?”
“Maybe. Old gangsta. Scary.”
“More or less,” I said, getting out of the car. “Glory’s was his mother’s place. It’s run now by Henry’s sister and her daughter, Ramona. Nobody in their right mind is going to be stealing anything that belongs to Henry or bothering anyone who’s visiting Henry’s shop.”
