On the other hand,death ds-2

by Richadr Stevenson

  The water upstairs was shut off with a clank. My mind attempted to construct a coherent thought, but again it failed. I said, "Sorry to hear about your run of bad luck, Tad. Good luck in the future.

  So. Tell me this. When did you last see Peter?"

  "When? Last night. What do you mean?"

  "I mean, what time? Did you speak with him again after your conversation at the bar, when I was with him? That was around eleven-forty."

  He laughed dryly and tapped another nonexistent ash into a blue ceramic ashtray the size of a hubcap. "Well, I wasn't really keeping track of the time last night. Anyway, not until desperation hour rolled around. But, no. I didn't see Peter again after our… initial discussion."

  Footsteps sounded above us.

  Purcell said, "Would you excuse me for one minute. Back in a sec."

  He bounded up the stairway behind the couch. There were muffled voices. I flipped through a copy of Food Product Management. I learned about the development of a square tomato to cut down on storage and shipping costs. Purcell bounded back, all pink again, like a winter tomato.

  What was making him blush?

  I said, "Tell me this then, Tad. What time did you leave the Green Room last night?"

  He lit another Kool. "Why do you ask that?"

  "I thought you might have run into Peter later."

  "Hah. If only. But no such luck. For what it would've been worth, of course. No, I hung around the Green Room till three-thirty, thinking Peter might come back and try to make me feel better.

  He always hated ending things on an unpleasant note. God, he was such a sweet person. But I guess he's changed. Gotten old and cynical like the rest of us, ha-ha. Anyway, about three-thirty I gave up on Peter and drove down to the Watering Hole. Last-chance gulch, right? Thought I might get lucky and fall in love again. It's been known to happen."

  "I've heard. Peter said you told him you haven't been making out well lately. Had a bad year financially. I'm sorry to hear that."

  He blinked, made a face, dragged on his Kool. "I lost my food supply business last year. Reaganomics did me in. And I voted for that phony. But what I've got now isn't bad," he said with a tentative shrug. "I'm in food services at Albany Med. The money there's not too bad. Maybe I'll be out of debt by the time I'm eighty." He smiled sourly.

  More footsteps above us. "It sounds as if you did get lucky last night," I said, glancing up. "Or do you not live alone?"

  He shifted and looked embarrassed, with a touch of irritation. "Oh, you noticed. He heard your voice and he's waiting for you to leave. He says he doesn't want to be seen. He's cheating on his 39 lover and doesn't want word to get back. I can't stand people who do that. I say either you're committed to another human being or you're not. There's no in between. Even though he says it's the first time he's done it in six months, I still hate it. The guy's really the dregs anyway. God, I must have been really plowed last night. My standards are not exactly what they used to be. Five till four at the Watering Hole. God. And I have this awful feeling the guy even has herpes."

  I checked my watch. Eleven-fifteen. "Well, I hope your luck isn't quite that bad, Tad. You mentioned earlier that you weren't surprised to hear that Peter might be in some kind of trouble.

  Why?"

  "Because," Purcell snapped, his face suddenly tightening, "Peter uses people. Sooner or later, treating people that way is going to get you into trouble. Your chickens come home to roost. You just don't get away with it forever. Squeezing what you can out of somebody and then dropping that person as if they have leprosy. Some people get mad. Very mad. Of course," he added with a tremulous sigh, "I got over that a long time ago."

  I thought about telling him that Greco had been with Fenton McWhirter in an apparently mutually satisfying and entirely healthy relationship for nine years. But Purcell must have known that already and chosen not to accept what it signified. He was going to believe what he wanted to believe.

  "Just do me a favor and call me if Peter shows up here or contacts you." I gave him my card and headed for the door. "Hope you don't come down with herpes, Tad. I hear it's murder."

  He glanced up the stairwell and winced. "The pits," he said. "The absolute pits. Miss Sleaze of Eight-two. Ecchh."

  I closed the door with the brass knocker behind me, thinking, Prepare. Prepare.

  I walked up Irving to where my car was parked in front of a house with petunia-filled window boxes under every sill. From a little two-by-five patch of marigold-bordered lawn, a wrought-iron post rose up to hold a bird-house, under whose single round opening was attached a miniature window box containing two tiny Johnny-jump-ups.

  I unlocked my car and climbed in. The thing was ovenlike, hot enough to bake a quiche in. I rolled down the windows and sat there watching Purcell's house twenty yards down the street.

  The windshield was clouded from my breath and I turned on the defogger. Although Purcell's bitter stew of a biography had been just confused, self-deceptive, and sad enough to sound drearily plausible, I still wanted to witness who his overnight guest had been, or hadn't been.

  Within two minutes Purcell's front door opened and Peter Greco emerged. I did not fully believe what I was seeing. The slight dark figure moved quickly down the wooden front steps tapping the wrought-iron curlicued hand rail as he went, and turned east toward Swan.

  I was out and running.

  "Peter! Peter!"

  I caught up with him. He turned. He said, "Hey- Ron, was it? How's it shakin', good buddy?"

  "Hi. Hi, there. Hi, Gordon."

  It was the Greco lookalike I'd picked up in the Green Room and spent twenty-six minutes with the night before. For sure.

  He said, "Let's you and me get together again sometime, whaddaya say, Ron? But I can't right now. Sorry. Gotta visit my grandmother in the hospital."

  "Oh. Too bad. What's she in for, herpes?"

  He glared, then began to look a little worried, as if I might be someone not to be trusted, the Irving Street Toucher or something. He turned and walked quickly away, glancing back once to see if I was coming after him.

  I wasn't. end user

  8

  The ransom note was discovered just after eleven.

  Timmy had arranged for a tow truck to haul McWhirter's Fiat out to Dot's place until a locksmith could open it and the Fiat dealer could produce a new set of keys. The note, inside a plain white envelope, had been stuck under the Fiat's windshield wiper. The tow truck operator hadn't noticed it, but Timmy, always on the lookout for out-of-place objects, spotted it as the tow truck pulled in at Dot's. The envelope, which had not been on the Fiat at five in the morning when Timmy and I first discovered the empty and abandoned car, was addressed to Dorothy Fisher.

  I heard about it from Timmy when I checked in at Dot's from the Price Chopper pay phone two blocks from

  Tad Purcell's house. I bought a bag of ice and sucked on a cube while I drove straight out to Moon Road. The sun was brutal in a blinding white sky, and a puddle formed on the car floor where the ice bag leaked.

  At Dot's I read and reread the note, which was handwritten in an inelegant, almost childish script that none of us had seen before. It definitely was not the same handwriting as in Friday's threatening letter to Dot.

  The note said, "Pay one hundred thousand dollars if you want Pete to live, we will contact you Mrs. Fisher."

  McWhirter was dazed. He paced back and forth across Dot's kitchen looking enervated, helpless, alone. As the rest of us moved about the room we had to bob and weave awkwardly to keep out of McWhirter's path.

  I phoned the Spruce Valley Country Club and had Bowman paged from the locker room.

  "Greco's been kidnapped. Dot Fisher received the ransom note. They want a hundred grand."

  "You're making this up, Strachey. You'll go to jail for this."

  "No. It's the truth."

  "Kee-rist. On a Saturday. All right, all right, I'll be there in twenty minutes. This had just better be for real, Strachey, or you
are up shit creek with me, you get that?"

  '"Up shit creek with Ned if not for real.' Noted."

  I reached Crane Trefusis at Marlene Compton's apartment at Heritage Village. "One of Dot Fisher's house-guests has been kidnapped," I said. "There's a ransom note. They're asking a hundred. Do you know anything about this, Crane?"

  "Did you say kidnapped?"

  "Uh-huh."

  A silence. Then: "I know nothing about this, no, of course not. Have the police been notified?"

  "They have."

  "Who is the victim?"

  "His name is Peter Greco. A friend of Dot's who happened to be staying with her for a few days.

  Maybe you'd like to put up the hundred, Crane, to get Peter back. Dot hasn't got a hundred grand.

  All she's got is a schoolteacher's pension and Social Security. Plus, of course, a house and eight acres."

  A pause while the wheels turned again. Then, calmly, he said, "No. You are mistaken."

  "Mistaken about what?"

  "That Millpond has anything to do with this."

  "Uh-huh."

  "We have our limits, Strachey."

  "Right. We are not a crook."

  Another silence. Then: "I–I'll go so far as to put up a reward for the safe return of this young man. From my personal accounts."

  "How much?"

  "Five."

  "This is a human life we're talking about, Crane."

  "Of course. Seventy-five hundred."

  "You're paying me ten to catch somebody who wrote on the side of a barn."

  "Eight."

  "Ten, at least."

  "All right, ten." He sighed. "You're an extremely hard-nosed man, Strachey. You'll go far in this business, I'm sure." This business? "You know as well as I do that you are the man who's probably going to bring about an arrest and collect the reward. You play all the angles, don't you?

  My sources were correct in their assessment of your abilities. I'm impressed."

  I'd been playing games with him over the reward money and hadn't, in fact, thought ahead to who might collect it. But the idea of an additional "ten" dropping my way for a particular purpose did not fill me with repugnance. It seemed, as I thought about it, that the ten could become useful, even necessary. The thing that scared me was the thought that the reward money would not be collected at all.

  "I'll donate the money to charity if I'm the one to collect it," I lied. "Meanwhile, Crane, one question: Is Bill Wilson working for you in any capacity?"

  "William Wilson of Moon Road?"

  "Right. Kay's hubby."

  "No."

  "Kay told me you said you were keeping your eye out for the right spot for Bill."

  "Yes, well. Regrettably the position of vice president for community relations at Millpond is occupied at the moment. But I'm certainly keeping Mr. Wilson in mind. Why do you ask about Wilson?"

  "He was on your list of suspects, remember?"

  "That was for the vandalism, not the kidnapping. Do you think the two are connected?"

  "Could be. The motive for both appears to be forcing Dot Fisher to sell out to you, Crane."

  He said nothing.

  "Crane? Are you there?"

  "I was just thinking."

  "What did you think?"

  "I was thinking, Strachey, that you and Mrs. Fisher and her friends might be-how shall I put it?

  — engaged in an unethical act? Is that possible? An act calculated to elicit public sympathy and bring pressure to bear on Millpond to increase its offer to Mrs. Fisher? Of course, it was just a thought."

  "Think again, Crane. I work for you, don't I? I'm doing that because our interests have happened to overlap in a limited way, and of course I'm thrilled to be able to make off with your 'ten.' At the point where our interests diverge and I can't work for you anymore I'll let you know fast. Meanwhile, be assured that I will not plot against you. And I'm confident that your thinking vis-a-vis me is likewise. Am I right?"

  "Of course," he said emphatically, hollowly. "What kind of man do you think I am?"

  "Swell. I'll expect the ten-grand reward to be announced as soon as the news of the kidnapping is made public. For now, I think that the police, if they know what they're doing, will want to keep it quiet. But your offer, if I understand you, is in effect immediately. Agreed?"

  "Agreed. And… meanwhile, you can inform Mrs. Fisher that Millpond is willing to raise its offer for her property by another ten percent."

  "I'll pass along your timely point of information, Crane."

  "Thank you."

  A sweetheart.

  I dialed the number on outer Delaware Avenue of a man whose family conducted games of chance in a well-organized way throughout the capital district. We'd enjoyed a couple of personal encounters seven years earlier, but broke it off over a conflict stemming from the disapproval each of us strongly felt over the other's way of looking at the human race. Vinnie and I still kept in touch from time to time, though, and exchanged confidences.

  I asked Vinnie about Crane Trefusis's connections with the mob.

  "Lotta dough. Crane makes it squeaky clean. Why do you wanna know this, Strachey?"

  "I'm on his payroll for a couple of days. I like to know who I'm working for. But what I'm really interested in, Vinnie, is who Trefusis's muscle is. When he wants to make a point with somebody he considers dumb, who does he send out to make it?"

  "I'd hafta check, but I think maybe it's one of his own. A guy in his security office. Dale somebody. Ex-cop. A boozer. You want me to find out for you for sure?"

  "I do. Don't let anybody at Millpond know you're asking. But check."

  "For you, I'll do it. Half an hour."

  "I'll phone you back. Hey, Vinnie, who was that fair-haired boy I saw you with on North Pearl Street last month? Your pop know you're dating the Irish?"

  "Heh-heh." He hung up.

  Next I dialed a number in Latham belonging to a man I'd once helped out. Whitney Tarkington, fearful that his grandmother, a straitlaced Saratoga grand dame, would discover his homosexuality and disinherit him, had hired me five years earlier to take care of a blackmailer.

  I'd done the job, discreetly if a little messily, but Whitney's accounts were closely monitored by a committee of bankers and he hadn't been able to pay me an appropriate amount for my fee.

  Instead, he had promised me the assistance of his wealthy circle of gay friends if and when I thought they could be useful in a particular way.

  "Hel-ooo-ooo."

  "Hi, Whitney. It's Don Strachey. The day has come. I have a favor to ask of you beautiful upscale guys. I want to borrow a hundred grand."

  "Good-bah-eye."

  "Wait, don't hang up, Whitney! You'd have the money back within.. three days. I guarantee it.

  And the trustees of your zillions, Whitney, will pin a medal on you. Because-now get this, Whitney-I'd be paying ten percent interest. Ten percent in three days."

  "At the sound of the tone, you may repeat that last part. Beep."

  "Ten percent in three days. That's what I said, Whitney baby. What a killing you'd be making!

  And if you haven't got a hundred grand in your wallet, you just ring up some of your railroad-and-real-estate-heir-type jerk-off buddies and collect, say, twenty grand each from five of 'em. And Tuesday noon, or thereabouts, I repay the hundred, plus an additional ten. In cash. Even a Pac-Man franchisee doesn't rake in that kind of money in three days."

  "Donald, my dear, I must confess that you have piqued my interest. But really, Donald, haven't 43 you heard? Wholesaling cocaine is against the law in the State of New York. We'd all be found out, and when word reached Saratoga, what would mother say? I have promised her, you know, that I would never embarrass her in public. And my getting dragged off to Attica in chains by some humpy state trooper in a Gucci chin strap would be a bit of a social blunder, don't you agree? And grandmother! Why, I'd be finito with Grams!"

  "I can promise you that there is no dope involved, Whitney.
"

  Except, possibly, me. My palms were sweating, my pulse interestingly elevated and erratic. I explained about the kidnapping, and he listened, uttering occasional little ooohs and ahs.

  "Taking a bit of a gamble, aren't you, Donald?"

  "Uh-huh. But don't mention the kidnapping to anybody, Whitney. Not yet. Just say it's a sure-fire investment opportunity that came up. Hog bellies from a freight train that derailed on Gram's croquet court or something."

  "Well, my dear, this is simply dreadful. And even though, as you well know, I have precious little time for starry-eyed radicals, under the circumstances I suppose I have no choice except to-"

  "Could you just hurry it up, Whitney? The banks in the shopping malls close early on Saturday.

  Now, here's where you can drop off the hundred…"

  I went back to Timmy and Dot, who were attempting to calm McWhirter down with a cup of herb tea.

  Timmy said, "Who was that?"

  I said, "Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Saratoga branch."

  "Oh, swell. They should be helpful. Did you open an account?"

  "Nope. Just made a withdrawal." end user

  9

  Bowman sat scowling at the ransom note for a long tense couple of minutes, as if the mere passage of time might cause the letters on the sheet of paper to rearrange themselves into THIS IS ALL A CRAZY MISTAKE, LIEUTENANT.

  YOU CAN GO BACK TO THE GOLF COURSE NOW WHERE YOU BELONG. But it didn't. They didn't.

  "This isn't the same handwriting as on the other note, is it?"

  "No," I said. "It's different, messier. And the syntax and punctuation are even worse."

  "Who here has handled this piece of paper?" he snapped. Four of us raised our hands. "I'll need prints from all four of you. You haven't made matters any easier for me, that's for damn certain. I suppose yours are already on record, Strachey, you being a famous certified pain in the ass and all."

  "For sure, Ned."

  Glowering, he went to the phone, called his bureau, and asked that two of his assistants be sent out to the Fisher farm.