3 Strange Bedfellows

by Matt Witten

  After listening to ten minutes of this, I couldn't take it anymore. Without even waiting for him to get off the phone, I left the building. I got back in my rusty old car and drove home, feeling more despairing about my career and my life and the world in general than I'd ever felt before. Then, that night, I got a phone call from my agent. Someone had just offered me a million dollars for my movie script.

  And that was the last I'd thought about Dennis Sarafian until this very moment.

  "So why was Sarafian giving Pierce a payoff?" I asked Zzyp.

  "You want an awful lot of knowledge for a measly hundred ten bucks."

  I took a stab at it. "Was Sarafian doing Global El's dirty work? Bribing Pierce to take a stand against dredging?"

  "Like I say, you want a hell of a lot."

  I came at him from another angle. "How'd you find out about this payoff, anyhow?"

  He gave a self-deprecating wave of his hand. "In my business, you hear things."

  "Uh huh. So you called the Hack and told him what you heard. You even offered to get him proof—for a price."

  "Hey, it's called opposition research. Totally legal," Zzyp said. "All the politicians do it these days. I even put it on my business cards." He handed me one. "Big money in it."

  I examined the card. In addition to "opposition research," Zzyp specialized in "bankruptcy investigations," "personal injuries," and "divorce work." Definitely not a Sam Spade type of guy—especially not with that snot still hanging from his nostril.

  Nevertheless I said, "Very impressive," figuring the more I flattered him, the more information I'd get. "By the way," I added in a casual tone, "you ever do any other research for the Hack?"

  He paused just long enough so I doubted he was telling the truth, then said, "No."

  "Zzypowski, don't blow smoke up my ass. The Hack had dirt on Ducky Medwick, and a hundred to one he got it from you."

  "I wish he did. Would've meant big bucks for sure. Look, I got a client coming in any minute, so if you don't mind . . ."

  "I'll give you that five hundred bucks you wanted. If you tell me what the Hack had on Ducky."

  "I told you already, I got no clue what you're talking about."

  I took out my wallet. "Yeah, well, if you suddenly happen to remember, here's my card."

  "Don't need it. You're Jacob Burns."

  "How'd you know that?"

  "Saw you on the tube last night. Actually, I knew about you from before, when you solved those murders. Though the way I hear it, you solved them both wrong and just got lucky."

  "Something like that."

  "Word of advice." Zzyp leaned back in his chair. "You're not cut out for this game. Better get out before you get hurt."

  "Thanks for the tip," I said. "But it's hard to take advice seriously from a guy with a three-inch booger hanging from his nose."

  Childish, I know, but I was getting sick of every Tom, Dick and Harry reminding me of my shortcomings as a private dick. If I didn't watch it, I'd get a complex. I picked up the photograph and walked out.

  I mean, hey, at least I wasn't doing divorce work.

  9

  "Opposition research."

  I got the concept. But here's what I didn't get: what did the Hack actually do with his opposition research?

  Maybe he showed Pierce the incriminating photograph and told him, Don't you dare run against me for Congress, or I'll spread the word about your bribe.

  But wait a minute. This scenario couldn't be true, because Pierce did run against the Hack for Congress. He fought him for the party's endorsement. So what was going on here?

  Another possibility: the Hack showed the bribery photo to Ducky and the county chairmen, and warned them that if they gave Pierce the nomination, the shit would hit the fan.

  Puzzling. I drove back to Broadway, then went to my office to mull things over. By "office," I mean Madeline's Espresso Bar, which I've found is the best place on earth for deep ruminating. Also, they have free newspapers there.

  Today's Saratogian featured a big front-page story by Judy Demarest about last night's shooting excitement. I'd given Judy the broad strokes of my investigation, leaving out such minor details as who was sleeping with whom, who was beating whom, and who was blackmailing whom. I wasn't ready to go public with all that yet— though if the cops kept sitting on their hands and my investigation got nowhere, I might be forced to.

  The Saratogian, along with the Albany Times Union, Schenectady Gazette, and every other regional paper, printed lengthy excerpts of the Shmuck-man's stirring speech in favor of truth, justice, and his own campaign. They had photos of him too, looking tall, dark, and if not handsome, then at least impassioned. It was awesome publicity. Again I got that prickly feeling climbing up my spine, that maybe my old buddy actually had a shot to win.

  From the Times Union, I learned that Pierce had two campaign rallies scheduled for midday down in Dutchess County, an hour and a quarter south of Saratoga. Much as I wanted to interrogate the guy, I decided to do it later when he was in a less public place, and easier to get to.

  Also, there was another fellow I wanted to question first: Dennis Sarafian. If I got him to open up, I could pile more pressure on Pierce.

  So I walked up Broadway toward my Camry, got in, and started off toward Sarafian's office. I made it about five feet before I stopped short. The car was making a loud thumpa-thumpa sound. And was it my imagination or was the car listing to the left?

  I got out and looked at my front left tire. No, it wasn't my imagination. The thing was flatter than a Steve Forbes tax plan.

  Both our cars getting flats in the same week—talk about bad luck.

  Wait a minute—luck? I stooped down, ignoring a twinge of pain in my forty-one-year-old back, and examined the tire. It took a while, but I found it.

  Someone had come up with a cute little way to slow down my investigation—with a jagged, three-inch-long tire slash.

  I straightened back up and looked quickly around me. But I didn't see any bad guys running away. The sidewalks were full of pleasant-looking people going about their weekend shopping.

  Yes, everything was perfectly normal, except that some creep had just slashed my tire in the middle of downtown on a beautiful September day.

  Was it the same creep who had killed the Hack? And almost killed me? How many creeps were running loose in this town, anyway? Even though it was seventy degrees out, I shivered.

  I took a deep breath, leaned against the downward-sloping car hood, and tried to sort things out. Apparently someone had decided last night's warning wasn't enough, and I needed another one. Maybe Zzyp had followed me back to town from his office and done the dirty deed . . . but at whose behest?

  I thought back to the murder weapon, with its filed-off serial numbers. It made the murder seem almost professional. Was the killer a hired gun? Could it even be Zzyp?

  I looked up Broadway and my eyes locked on Susan Tamarack's campaign headquarters, less than a block away. Maybe Oxymoron had vandalized my car, out of general hatred for me and revenge for his split lip. With its half-rusted-out driver's side door, my Toyota was easily recognizable. If Oxymoron spotted it, he could have decided to have some spontaneous thrills. He seemed like the type that would enjoy that.

  I considered going to the HQ to confront him, but since he'd almost rearranged my face the last time, I had trouble mustering up the enthusiasm. Instead I pulled out my AAA card and used it the way it was actually intended for a change, getting them to tow my car to a garage. To my eternal shame, I'm one of those guys who never learned how to fix a flat tire. In my defense, for most of my twenties and some of my thirties, I was too poor to afford a car.

  Since I wasn't poor anymore, and I was in a hurry, I slipped the garage guys an extra twenty to take care of my car first. After they worked their magic, I got back in the Camry and chugged up the Northway to Sarafian's office in Queensbury, hoping to catch him before lunch. I kept looking behind me to see if someone was following,
but I didn't spot anyone—although this is yet another private eye skill I haven't really mastered.

  For a company with such an impressive client list, Sarafian Communications had a surprisingly humble headquarters. It was just a regular clapboard house in a middle-class neighborhood, with Sarafian and his people working on the bottom floor and Sarafian living upstairs.

  I walked into his office and sat down in the reception area to wait. It hit me that I was sitting in the exact same spot where I'd sat when I applied for that job. And I was watching Sarafian's profile through the exact same gauzy curtains.

  And I was overhearing the exact same kind of conversation. "My friend," Sarafian was saying into the phone, "we're putting out a press release in the next couple of weeks that'll blow the EPA, the DEC, and all the rest of these radical environmental types right out of the water. So if I were you, I'd just sit tight and not run any editorials for a while."

  I felt like I'd entered a time warp. Two years ago, I just turned tail and slinked home. But today I said the heck with it. I got up, opened Sarafian's door, and strode inside. The receptionist, a willowy brunette with translucent skin, called out to me to stop, but I ignored her.

  Sarafian, still in mid-harangue, gave me an irritated look. But then I took The Photograph out of my jacket pocket and held it up. Sarafian stared at it, then at me, and said into the phone, "Uh, listen, something just came up, I gotta run," and hung up.

  "What do you want?" he snarled, skipping the small talk.

  "Information," I replied.

  "Then call the phone company."

  I sized him up. He was in his late thirties and wore what looked like a thousand-dollar suit and a hundred-dollar haircut. They did nothing to disguise his thin face, thin nose, thin hair, and sloping forehead, all of which combined to make him look like a ferret. On the positive side, he did have a strong jutting chin and aggressive eyes. If he had gone into show biz, he would have been an agent or producer, something slimy like that.

  Interesting that Sarafian didn't ask who I was. Did he see me on TV last night, too?

  "No, I'll skip the phone company," I said gruffly, shooting him my toughest Jesse Ventura glare. "I'll call the newspapers instead. Tell them I have a photo of you bribing a state assemblyman."

  "Bullshit, that was a legitimate campaign contribution."

  "Don't insult my intelligence."

  He pointed at the photo. "You wanna know what's in that envelope? A thousand bucks. I reported it and everything."

  "There's a lot more in there than just one grand."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  "Yeah. You were loading Pierce up with Global El cash. What was the payback—he was gonna fight against dredging?"

  "Hey, it's your theory. You tell me."

  I spread my palms and tried to put a conciliatory tone into my voice. "I got no desire to bust your chops. I'm investigating a murder, not a bribery. You make it easy for me, I'll do everything I can to make it easy for you."

  "I know how to make it easy for both of us."

  "How's that?"

  "Just get the fuck out of my office—and stay out."

  So much for sounding conciliatory. I went back to my Ventura routine, but that didn't work any better. Either the man really had nothing to fear or he was too afraid to open his mouth. I couldn't tell which.

  Finally I stood up, growled, "I'll be back," and stalked out. Not a great exit line, I know, but it was the best I could think of. My morning coffee was wearing off, and I had the disheartening feeling that a real private eye would have brought this no-goodnik Sarafian to his knees begging for mercy in no time.

  Luckily I had other fish to fry. One of my major fish, Susan Tamarack, had a 12:30 rally scheduled at the Knights of Columbus hall in Schuylerville, ten miles east of Saratoga. I grabbed a chocolate bar and coffee at Stewart's, upstate New York's version of 7-Eleven. Then I hit the road for beautiful downtown Schuylerville, driving past trailer parks, decrepit houses, and half-rotted pickups adorning front yards.

  Schuylerville may be only ten miles away from Saratoga Springs geographically, but in other respects it's ten worlds away. For a small town, Saratoga has heaps of "culchah." We've got three classical music quartets, two ballet companies, and one folk music coffee shop. We even have Jews.

  Schuylerville has none of these things. What it does have is an economy that's even worse than Troy's and a cultural insularity that's truly frightening.

  When I entered the Knights of Columbus, which was filled with about a hundred of Susan Tamarack's supporters, my eyes were immediately struck by a huge surrealistic painting of the Crucifixion on the front wall. Warriors in red loincloths and evil-looking, yellow-faced guys in yarmulkes lurked all over the painting. Jesus was front and center, covered with blood.

  The painting looked disturbingly familiar, and I quickly placed it: this was the same painting that was all over the local newspapers eight or nine years ago. At that time, the painting hung prominently in the auditorium of the Schuylerville public high school.

  Now, when I said that Schuylerville has no Jews, I exaggerated. Actually, Schuylerville has about six Jews. Two of them, parents of high schoolers, went to the school board and complained that the painting violated the separation of church and state.

  But the school board refused to take down the painting, so the New York Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit on the Jewish family's behalf. Then the fun really started. The family was ostracized, the kids were beaten up by their classmates, and the father's auction business was boycotted. On Yom Kippur, the Ku Klux Klan came to town to march on the Jewish family's house and burn some crosses.

  We Saratoga Jews tried to reassure ourselves that Schuylerville was a whole different world, and It Couldn't Happen Here. But we were relieved when the courts finally ruled for the Jewish family, the painting was removed, and the furor died down.

  But now here the painting was again, bringing back all those bad memories. It suddenly came to me that I was just deluding myself when I imagined that Will Shmuckler had any hope of getting elected. The 22nd District was full of backwater towns like Schuylerville that would never dream of supporting a Jewish candidate. Half the folks in this room probably believed in some kind of worldwide Jewish conspiracy. I wouldn't be shocked if a few of them even believed that Jews have horns.

  I looked up at the painting. Sure enough, I saw a pair of dark red horns peeping out from underneath an evil guy's yarmulke.

  I tried to erase all these thoughts from my mind and focus on the campaign rally. Phil Rogers, the whiny chairman of the Saratoga County GOP, was delivering his colorless opening remarks. I gazed around at the assembled throng—the men with their careworn faces and checked flannel shirts, the women with their faded sweatshirts. I sat next to a middle-aged couple that was quietly holding hands. The woman smiled hello.

  It was disconcerting. These were good people—good parents, good workers, good husbands and wives. And yet, they just stood by silently when the KKK came to town.

  Up at the podium Rogers stepped down and the widow stepped up, dressed all in black and looking sexy as hell. Something about her thin frame and big, fawnlike eyes made you want to hold her tight and take care of her. The crowd applauded, and she launched into her speech.

  Or rather, plodded. The only half-decent part was where she talked about how much she loved her husband and wanted to carry on his work, fighting for the issues he believed in. But she never said what those issues actually were.

  Not that the crowd seemed to mind. They clapped for her lustily. Who needs issues, anyway?

  Even with Susan's sexy widow appeal, I was still surprised that so many people were attending her small-town rally. On a gorgeous day like today, why wasn't everyone out apple picking and leaf raking? But when she finished her speech and everyone immediately crowded around the three long tables at the far wall, I figured out what was going on. The tables were loaded with goodies, and not just the cheap salami and American cheese you find
at an upstate Democratic rally. We were talking fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, and seven different kinds of soda. In impoverished Schuylerville, this was more than enough incentive to sit through an hour-long rally. Actually, it was just thirty minutes—I had to give Susan credit for that. Maybe she had nothing to say, but at least she said it quickly.

  I was starved myself, so I filled up a plate with chicken and mashed potatoes while I waited for a chance to catch the widow in private. Since the food was paid for by the Republicans, I considered it my moral duty to consume as much of the stuff as I could.

  Meanwhile Susan was constantly surrounded. When she got around to dating again, she'd have no trouble finding prospects. But it wasn't just the men who loved her. I kept hearing women congratulating her for her courage, saying things like "How do you ever find the strength?"

  Courage? Strength? Personally, I saw Susan Tamarack as an opportunist trading on her dead husband's name to hustle a $140,000-a-year job she was hopelessly unsuited for.

  Finally the woman of the hour broke free of her fans. She headed for a corner door and went through it to a hallway. I grabbed my plateful of grub and followed her.

  I reached the hallway at the same moment she turned a corner into another hallway. I hurried onward, but before I hit that second hallway she was gone. It was dark here, far from the madding Schuylerville crowd, but after my eyes adjusted I was able to make out a women sign above a door. She must be inside there. I settled back against a wall and gnawed on a chicken leg, lying in wait.

  I didn't hear anyone coming. I didn't see him, either. But suddenly I felt a cold hand on my shoulder.

  I would have screamed, but my mouth was full so I choked instead. Then I dropped my plastic plate, but it didn't go far. The mashed potatoes made it stick to my blue jeans.