Sucker Punch

by Marc Strange

  The place has been trashed. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Books are scattered everywhere, cushions are torn, drawers are emptied.

  “This wasn’t vandalism,” I say.

  “Tell me about it,” Bubba says.

  “What were they looking for?”

  “For the will, Mr. Grundy,” Molly says. “They were looking for the will. The one that gives me everything. Buzz wrote it out exactly like the one Prescott wrote for him — word for word by hand. Then he had it witnessed and notarized and sealed. He said I had to carry on what he wanted to do.” She is sitting on a broken couch with torn leather cushions, surrounded by wreckage. Bubba brings her a glass of water, and she holds it with both hands, staring at the surface. “I told Buzz I didn’t want anything to do with all that money. I told him it would be nice if he left me this place and the car. Those I could use. I told him I didn’t want to get involved in all that other complicated stuff. But he did it, anyway.”

  “What did he do with the will?”

  “He had it with him,” she says. “With the money.”

  “Jesus fucking wept!” Larry Gormé is standing in the doorway, looking in on the chaos.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Bubba demands.

  “He’s with me,” I say.

  “What the hell happened? Didn’t you have any security?”

  “She has now,” Bubba says. “Maybe you guys should take off, eh?”

  “Ms. MacKay,” I say. “Your suit against the hotel notwithstanding, I’m really on your side. I’m trying to find out what happened to your brother. I think there were a few people involved. One of them probably has your will. I don’t think Jeff Axelrode has it, otherwise he’d have tried to make a deal with you. And Alvin Neagle didn’t have it, otherwise people wouldn’t still be looking for it.”

  “You don’t need it,” Bubba says to Molly. “You’re his only living relative. You’ve got a legal claim.”

  “Only if she didn’t shoot him,” Larry says.

  “You!” Bubba growls. “Get the fuck out of here before I mess you up.”

  “It’s my job to ask annoying questions.”

  “Do it somewhere else. You’re trespassing.”

  “I’m not his sister,” Molly MacKay says.

  That quiets things down for a moment.

  “I mean, we were brother and sister as much as anybody could be. But I’m not his blood kin.” She drinks some water, hands the glass back to Bubba. “Buzz was a foster child. He came to live with us when he was seven. We grew up together. I was a couple of years older than him. We were as close as could be. He was sweet, and gentle, and vulnerable. I looked after him.”

  “But unless you have the will, you’re screwed,” Larry says.

  “I told you to piss off,” Bubba snarls.

  “I’m going,” Larry says. “I’ve got a feature to write. Missing wills, dead bodies, romance amid the wreckage.”

  Bubba starts forward. I’m impressed that Larry stands his ground like a good reporter, willing to take abuse and assault in the interest of a good story.

  “That’s okay, Bubba,” I say. “We’ll take off now. I’m sorry we disturbed you.”

  “It’s all right,” he says. “It’s covered.”

  I usher Larry back through the house to the backyard. “Nice car,” Larry says over his shoulder. “Whose is it now?”

  “You want to get him out of here before I hit him?” Bubba asks icily.

  “My pleasure,” I say.

  chapter thirty-seven

  “I’m back in the car with Larry heading for Vancouver late in the afternoon with the sun in my eyes. Larry’s face is flushed. He’s scribbling notes in pencil on a folded wad of newsprint. “Drop me near a cab stand,” he says. “I’ve got to get to work.”

  “You look rejuvenated.”

  “A will, man. A holographic will missing, believed stolen as part of a robbery, maybe the reason for the robbery. A will that’s worth half a billion dollars if they can find it, if it’s legit. It’s a great story.” He scribbles again. “And Molly MacKay has no claim unless they find the damn thing.”

  “And there’s the Neagle development.”

  “Neagle turning up dead is part of it, definitely, but it isn’t mine. The paper will have had somebody else on that one all day. Smartass on the homicide desk. Hoo-boy, this is going to burn his ass.” He slaps me on the shoulder. “I knew hanging out with you would be good.”

  “You going to say anything about Wade Hubble or Gowins?”

  “Not much. Nothing libellous, that’s for damn sure. Not yet. I’ll have to tread carefully on that one. The paper’s got two lawyers checking every word I write these days.”

  “They have to be mixed up in this somehow.”

  “No doubt. And in the fullness of time, if there is a God, and if I can track down that mole inside Horizon, maybe we can start chipping away at those walls.”

  We’re soon back in the city again. Rush-hour traffic is easing up. My route back to the Lord Douglas takes me close enough to the Emblem office that it requires one left turn and two rights to put Larry in front. He collects his scraps of paper and wipes his hand across his face as if he’s putting on a face guard, preparing for battle.

  “You going to eat something?” I ask as he climbs out.

  “Oh, yeah. Pastrami on rye right at my desk. Just like the old days. This one gets the full treatment.”

  “Where do you get decent pastrami in this town?”

  “Gimple’s. You should try it.”

  “Nice place?”

  “It’s a deli. What do you want?”

  “I may have a dinner date tonight.”

  “Really? Well, I don’t think you want to be taking Ms. Gagliardi to a deli on your first big date.”

  “I guess not.”

  He stands on the sidewalk in front of his building, gazing up, imagining a front page with his byline. He leans back in. “Take her to the Palm Court. Rolf Kalman will treat you like visiting royalty.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want — one of Rolf’s Hungarian cousins playing Gypsy music in my ear.”

  “So let her pick something. She probably knows you’re clueless.”

  “I am?”

  Gritch gives me a hard time as I attempt to put a reasonable knot in my good tie with the stiff fingers of my right hand. “Been outside the hotel more this week than you were all last year,” he says.

  “I get out.”

  “You’re a regular man about town.”

  “I’m broadening my horizons.”

  Rachel has gone home for the day. A young man named Todd, from Moonlight Security, is managing the shift. Rachel figures to have four permanent staff hired by Monday.

  “Did Lloyd get to the hospital?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah, but he took backup — Rolf Kalman with a platter of the kitchen’s best, along with Maurice, not to mention Andrew in full uniform. Wouldn’t be surprised if he brought along a marching band. The last thing he wanted was to face the old man on his own.”

  “What about the brothers?”

  “Ha! Lenny went. He wasn’t part of the putsch. He’s the good son this week.” Gritch fires up the cigar he’s been chewing for the past five minutes. “Gonna run through your entire closet if you’re not careful.”

  “I might buy myself a new shirt.”

  “Watch out if she starts buying them for you. Once a woman starts buying a man clothes…”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “How would you know? You’re completely inexperienced in these matters.”

  “Give it a rest, okay, Wallace.”

  “Wallace?” Gritch says. “I must’ve struck a nerve.”

  “She wants to get posted to Baghdad or Tel Aviv. This has no future whatsoever.”

  “So relax. You’ve got no worries.”

  I stare at myself in the mirror, more or less satisfied with the knot around my throat, when it suddenly hits me. “Damn!”

&n
bsp; “What’s the matter? It’s not a bad knot.”

  “I just saw how it happened. It’s all Arnie’s fault.”

  “How so?”

  “He screwed up all their plans. He took the money on the spur of the moment, and when they showed up, the thing they wanted was long gone. That’s why Buzz’s room was trashed. Somebody was looking for the will.”

  “And when they didn’t find it, they killed him.”

  “And they, whoever they are, are still looking for the will.”

  Todd knocks on my open door. “Mr. Grundy? There’s a call for you in the office. A Mr. Gormé. He says you’ll want to talk to him.”

  “Thanks, Todd. I’ll take it right here. Line one?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Everything running smoothly?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, the hotel is functioning just fine.” Todd turns smartly and heads back to the office.

  “Geez,” Gritch says. “Do I feel redundant? Or merely superfluous?”

  “Think of it as being kicked upstairs.” I grab the phone and hit line one. “What’s up, Larry?”

  “It’s a picture, Grundy. It’s a freaking portfolio. You’ve got to come and meet this guy.”

  “Where?”

  “At the paper. My desk. I’ll leave word downstairs. But don’t say a thing to anyone. Swear. This is the big one, baby.”

  chapter thirty-eight

  “The young man sitting beside Larry Gormé’s desk looks familiar. Fashionably spiked blond hair, butter-soft Italian loafers, alpaca jacket.

  “Jeremy?” I say.

  Edwin Gowins’s executive assistant, guardian of the burled walnut door to the chancel. I still remember how beautifully he snubbed me on my visit to the Crystal Cathedral. Jeremy acknowledges my arrival with a modicum of grace. At least he doesn’t sniff. “Mr. Grundy, nice to see you again.”

  “I wasn’t sure you saw me the first time.”

  “I see just about everything.”

  Larry Gormé keeps his eyes on the other reporters in the room, like a wolf guarding his dinner. “Look at this gold.” He spreads a fan of photographs on his desk — different locations, different lenses, some of them poor quality, but all of them of interest. Wade Hubble and Edwin Gowins, mortal enemies, arm’s-length co-managers of Parker Prescott’s fortune, on a yacht, checking into an expensive hotel, side by side at a roulette table. “Thick as thieves,” Larry says. “Go ahead,” he urges Jeremy. “Tell Joe what you told me.”

  “They have secret meetings,” Jeremy says. “Like Mafia dons. They have code words. They meet on the water, on Gowins’s boat, or sometimes in some other city. If Mr. Gowins, say, has to meet a symphony guest conductor in Seattle, Mr. Hubble has to go to Los Angeles for a board meeting for some reason, and they met in Las Vegas.”

  “See?” Larry picks out a picture. “Vegas. By the pool, sipping tall cold ones and ogling the local talent.”

  “Who took all these?” I ask.

  “I did,” Jeremy says. “Some of them. Or I hired someone to take them when I couldn’t get away. I had … a special commission. My budget was off the books. I was Mr. Parker Prescott’s eyes and ears inside Horizon. He wanted to know if Mr. Gowins and Mr. Hubble were in collusion.”

  “And they were.”

  “Oh, yes. They’ve been skimming money for years. For all the years Mr. Prescott was ill. Perhaps even before then.”

  “Working as a team.”

  “They’re in it together. For public consumption they loathe and despise each other. Hubble calls Gowins a parasite, Gowins calls Hubble a tightwad.”

  “Notice that neither one uses the word gonif,” Larry says.

  “You’re the one who sent me that picture,” I say.

  “Yes,” Jeremy says. “I tried to give the information to Mr. Buznardo, but he wasn’t really interested. He said it would all come out in the wash. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. I was working secretly for Mr. Prescott for three years, putting together a file, bank accounts, transfer payments…”

  “Oh, Jesus!” Larry says.

  “But I didn’t know what to do with it after he died. Legally, it belonged to Mr. Buznardo. Legally, ethically … I don’t know. He was Mr. Prescott’s heir. The file was part of Mr. Prescott’s estate.”

  “Why not go directly to the police?” I ask.

  “I’ll be going to the police, Mr. Grundy, very soon. Just as soon as their perfidy is made very, very public.”

  “You could’ve made yourself a mint blackmailing Hubble and Gowins with this stuff,” Larry says.

  Jeremy sniffs. “Mr. Prescott paid me very well for the work I did. He gave me stock in his holding company. I want to do what’s best for Mr. Prescott.”

  “Didn’t mean anything, Jeremy,” Larry says. “I’m just saying —”

  “I know what you’re saying. Mr. Gormé. But it’s inevitable that the conspiracy will be revealed, and when it is, I’d prefer that I was on the side of goodness.”

  “And Horizon will probably need a new managing director,” Larry says.

  “As you say,” Jeremy says.

  “When can I get a look at the money files?” Larry asks.

  “The files are in the possession of Leonard Rosten, an independent forensic accountant. I’ve told him he should feel free to talk to you.”

  “Why did you pick me?”

  “I got a call from Warren Carleton in Harrison. He said you were the right person to break the story.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus on a bicycle,” Larry says. “It will be my very great pleasure, in full colour, on the front page.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a picture there with Jeff Axelrode in it?” I ask.

  “No, there isn’t,” Jeremy says.

  “Can’t have everything,” Larry says. “This will do for now.”

  “Why now, Jeremy?” I ask.

  “Because they’re at it again. They had to stop for a while during the fight over Mr. Buznardo’s legacy. Hubble had to freeze everything.”

  “That lasted almost two years,” Larry says.

  “They had a meeting yesterday evening. I couldn’t get a picture. They met in the park and kept walking. They were both agitated, triumphant. They think they can open the taps again.”

  chapter thirty-nine

  “Larry Gormé says it will be okay for me to give Connie

  Gagliardi a heads-up about what the front page of the Emblem is going to look like in the morning. I manage to get the cell phone to work and give her a rundown on what Larry has. She immediately pushes our dinner back ninety minutes and rushes off to organize Channel 20’s handling of the story. She seems excited. I feel honoured that she didn’t cancel entirely.

  I decide to walk to the restaurant. The rain has stopped, the air is still. Back when I was boxing, I used to wander the streets of whatever city I was in at the time after a fight maybe. There weren’t many big victory parties. Morley Kline would attend to business, make sure we were covered, rent a car, whatever we had to do to move on, and then sometimes, not always, I’d go on a walk by myself. In the early years I’d walk and think about what it would be like to fight for the title, what I’d have to do to be ready, who I’d have to face to get that far up the ladder. Later, I stopped thinking about that. I thought about other things. What it might be like to have a regular life. I wasn’t sure what that meant, a regular life, but it sounded nice. It seemed then, as it seems now, as remote as a title fight.

  The imminent exposure of Hubble and Gowins notwithstanding, I’m still no closer to finding out who shot Jacob “Buzz” Buznardo. I suppose that will come out in the wash, too, as Buzz would have said.

  “I wore heels,” Connie says. “A major concession.”

  “They look nice,” I say. “You can kick them off under the table.”

  “I intend to.”

  Connie picked the restaurant. Il Giardino d’Umberto. Very classy. Scary prices.

  “I don’t know many places other than the Lobby Café
and Connor’s Diner next to the Scientology Reading Room.”

  “You don’t get out much,” she says.

  “There’s an understatement.”

  “Why?”

  “Asked myself the same question on the beach this morning, watching Buzz’s dust blow away. Seven years, more or less, looking after Leo’s house, nice apartment, job security, easygoing boss.”

  “This last episode must have disrupted your life a lot.”

  “It’s been … broadening.”

  She smiles at that.

  “I like to know my parameters, my fencelines. In the ring the arena’s clearly defined — the contest will take place within these ropes. If a thing happens inside the hotel, to one of the guests, to one of the staff, I attend to it. I have no business poking my nose into things outside the hotel. Corporate malfeasance, financial skullduggery — not my department.”

  “Definitely mine,” she says. “Things like that keep me awake. I hit the ground running. I want to know. I need to know.”

  Connie orders the wine. I’m not much of a wine drinker, but I can appreciate that it’s rich and deep. It tastes of flint and sunshine and the scent of dark curly hair.

  “This is good,” I say.

  “It’s a Barbaresco. It goes well with wild boar, don’t you think?”

  “Wild boar? Is that what I’m eating?”

  After dinner we walk for a while. Connie has a pair of Adidas in her leather bag. The high heels, nice ones, have seen only a few minutes’ service. We stroll the streets, not looking for a private spot, window shopping, carefully not holding hands.

  “Thanks for the call,” she says.

  “Thank Larry Gormé.”

  “I already have. He’s preparing a speech for his Newspaperman of the Year Award.”

  “He just might get it.”

  “Channel 20’s going to do all right, too. We’ve got a big head start. Turn on your television in the morning. I’ll wave at you. I’ll get Larry to wave at you, too. He’ll be my first guest.”

  “I don’t have a television.”