Whelan shook his head. “His partner?”
“Phil Fairs. The one who killed himself.”
“Oh, right.”
“Phil married a richie girl, too, Mr. Whelan, only her father didn’t trust him and would never give them more than a few dollars, nothing like the big money Phil and Rich thought they’d get from the Anders family.” She thought for a moment and then smiled. “Phil got more than he bargained for there.”
“Where? You mean his marriage? His in-laws?”
“His wife. There’s a princess for you, Mr. Whelan. I don’t know, maybe I seem like a bitch to you.” She shrugged. “Maybe I am.”
“Maybe you are. That’s not really the impression I’m getting.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I like to think I’m just a tough paisan. Anyway, you should meet Janice Fairs sometime. She’s an experience. She might not talk to you, though. You don’t wear a suit. She’s one of those people you read about. Somebody on her ma’s side came over on the Mayflower.”
“If everybody who makes that claim is telling the truth, the Mayflower was an aircraft carrier.”
She laughed. “Anyhow, you might want to look her up sometime, just to get her side of this stuff. Wear a nice suit, though, and rent a Porsche.”
Whelan gave a little shake of his head. “Look, Mrs. Vosic…I don’t really know a lot about the early days of High Pair and I know even less about Fairs, and I’m not sure any of it has anything to do with what I’m looking into. Your husband’s partner killed himself but two other people came out alive, and I’m trying to find out more about them. Your husband is doing just fine and the accountant, the mystery man of the whole business, he’s nowhere to be found. Cleaned out his bank accounts and made himself disappear.”
She watched him for a moment and then shrugged. “I assumed you wanted information about my husband. Did I misunderstand you?”
“No. I’m interested in anything you can tell me about your husband’s finances. I wasn’t sure I could expect you to be too frank about him, given the fact that what’s his is a matter of contention between you.”
“That’s true, but don’t overestimate the significance, Mr. Whelan. I’m not going to starve.” She indicated the room around her. “This is mine. All of it. There was never any question of that. We bought this house with my money, at a time when Rich and Phil didn’t have two nickels to rub together. You marry a nice Italian girl, Mr. Whelan, you can leave her, but you can’t take her house. It’s my house. I have a car, too, and a private bank account and a good lawyer. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.” She smiled.
“Okay. I appreciate your frankness.”
“My pleasure. Maybe you’ll tell me something I can use.”
“Maybe I will. First, I’d like to know anything you can tell me about George Brister.”
She frowned. “What’s to tell? I…it seems to me, Mr. Whelan, that you’re barking up the wrong tree. You want to know the truth? High Pair was run by a couple of good-looking, cocky, self-indulgent young crooks who both had gambling habits and both did a lot of coke and both drank like fish. They lied to people to get backing and took advantage of people who helped them. And when things got too heavy, one killed himself and the other one took a beating.”
She looked around the room and he wondered if she were reliving painful moments from that time, perhaps in this room.
“For a while,” she added a moment later.
“But not for long, it seems.”
She smiled. “If you knew him better it wouldn’t surprise you at all. He’s one of those people who always land on their feet. They always come out on top and no one seems to understand why. He has amazing luck, Mr. Whelan, just amazing.” She leaned forward on the couch as if to close the space between them, and she touched her temple with a long, pale finger. “And he’s very smart, a lot smarter than he seems. I think Phil found that out the hard way.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged again. “Nothing dramatic, Mr. Whelan. I just think…there was a certain relationship between them, all along, I think, even when they were college boys. It was Phil the leader and Rich the follower. The general and the soldier. And it was that way when they began High Pair—Phil had all the ideas and Rich bought it all, everything Phil said sounded brilliant to him, and for a while everything was that way, they made money hand over fist and it seemed they couldn’t make a mistake. They went into software and it exploded into money overnight. They went into real estate and the sky was filled with dollar bills. A couple of fair-haired boys with a golden touch.”
“The American Dream,” Whelan said.
She made a sniffing sound. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I thought it was. And that’s how we—” And she caught herself. She looked at him suddenly, then made a little fluttering motion with her hand as if to sweep away the thought. No, there would be no tearful recounting of the dissolution of her marriage. She was tougher than she looked, this woman, and no fool.
“Anyway, it all came undone eventually. They overextended themselves and gambled their money and spent incredible amounts on drugs and partying. And maybe that accountant took off with…who knows what, and they woke up one morning and found that they were in the deepest shit they could imagine. And Rich handled it and Phil couldn’t.”
“You implied a moment ago that their relationship changed at some time during the years at High Pair.”
“Yes. It didn’t really surprise me, Mr. Whelan. I had always known that Rich was a very strong person, stronger than people were willing to take him for. And it didn’t really take so long to see that Phil Fairs wasn’t superman. He was brilliant, I’ll give him that, and a very forceful personality, a great salesman, but…” She made a sour face. “He was also a very weak man in some ways, he had a lot of personal, you know, addictions. Liquor for one, and drugs.”
“You said they both did drugs.”
“I know, but with Rich it was recreational. He got into it because Phil and the crowd they hung around with all did drugs. Cocaine mostly. Cocaine was Phil’s drug of choice—Rich did coke but he really liked grass and hash. Loved hash.”
“And the gambling? You mentioned gambling. Did you mean horses, that kind of thing?”
“Horses, basketball, fights, baseball, football, anything. Anything at all. And they both gambled, a lot, and a lot of money, and I think…at the time I was worried that Rich had a problem with it, and now I think maybe I was right, but I know Phil had a problem with it. He was a little crazy where gambling was concerned, Mr. Whelan. Rich told me one time, after Phil had lost twenty-five thousand dollars on the Super Bowl, that Phil was obsessive about it because he viewed gambling as an extension of his business ability, of his…intellect.”
“If he could win at gambling, beat the bookies, it proved how smart he was?”
“Yes. That’s it exactly. He really thought he was a genius, Mr. Whelan. And when he found out he wasn’t—” She spread her hands.
“Were you surprised when he killed himself?”
“I think you’re always a little surprised by that, but I wasn’t, you know, amazed. Toward the end Rich told me Phil hardly ever seemed to be thinking clearly, he seemed to have delusions about how he could turn it all around. Effortlessly. It was the drugs and the liquor, I’m sure. He wasn’t all there anymore, and he killed himself. Maybe if he’d been sober it would have been different.”
“Did you ever suspect that maybe his death wasn’t suicide?”
She took the question in stride. “You mean, with all the seedy people he knew, did I ever suspect that one of them did it?” She smiled and nodded. “Sure. It was the first thing that came into my head. I was sure it was one of the people he owed money to—the gambling people, I mean, not the legitimate businesses or investors. They wouldn’t do anything to him; how else would they get their money back?”
He thought of Victor Tabor. “Makes sense, but sometimes people are motivated by things other than logic.”
“I told Rich what I thought, though, and he told me it couldn’t be the gamblers.”
“He say why?”
“Yes, he said the gamblers and even the drug dealers Phil knew were really small time.”
“Twenty-five thousand doesn’t sound like small time to me.”
“Not to me, either, but Rich said it wasn’t that big a deal. And as far as he knew, Phil didn’t owe any of those people anything major. It was the business that was in trouble. They had a number of notes due and several of their ventures were really busts, and it all seemed to fall apart at once.”
Whelan looked around and thought about what she’d told him. “How did your husband take the death of his partner?” he asked.
She gave him a frank look. “He didn’t grieve and he wasn’t happy. Toward the end they’d begun to argue about money and business decisions and Rich had started to assert himself, and Phil just couldn’t keep his end up. Rich said he’d seen it coming. I don’t even think he was surprised, Mr. Whelan. And—” She stopped.
“What?”
“I don’t know if it’s fair. As you know, Rich and I aren’t on the best of terms. But I’m certain that Rich viewed Phil’s death as an opportunity to save his own fortune. That it was too bad that Phil was gone, but he now had a chance to turn it around.”
“Which he did.”
“Not right away, Mr. Whelan. He took a beating for quite a while, and he had virtually no credit.”
“Did he declare bankruptcy?”
“Just to keep people off his back.”
“What did turn it around for him, then?”
She gave him a look of wonder. “Who knows? His luck, Mr. Whelan. I told you about his luck. Nobody believes me, but that’s what it was.”
“Is it possible that there was money put aside, safe from creditors, that he was able to use to buoy up the business?”
“I don’t see how, Mr. Whelan. Auditors were going over the company’s books like ants at a picnic. He couldn’t have hidden a thing from them.”
“Cash, maybe?”
She gave him an amused look. “You mean in a safe deposit box or something like that? No, Mr. Whelan. It would have had to be a big box, with a lot of money in it, and I think I would have known about it, because there were times during that first few months after the company went under when Rich was walking on eggshells. I would have known if he was digging into a hidden stash. We needed money, Mr. Whelan, and all of mine was invested in that company. No, I would have known if he had money. You want to know how he got the money to continue in business, don’t you? He just talked people into going along with him. Eventually he was able to dissociate himself from Phil Fairs and from the company and its troubles. If you want to know the truth, I think it’s why he brought his brother into the company. Ron gave him an opportunity to go after other investors, establish new credit, and he had no connection whatsoever with High Pair because he was living in Arizona all those years.”
“I don’t know anything about the brother.”
She shrugged. “Nothing to know. He owns a steak house on the North Side. He’s like a little imitation Rich. But without the brains. He’s conceited and thinks he’s a lady killer and a wheeler-dealer, and he has no idea, really, no idea that Rich is the brains of the outfit. He’s so young and he thinks he’s such a hot number.” She laughed and covered her eyes with her hand. “He’s a joke. He wants to be Rich, that’s what he wants. He even tried to make me once. He hit on me. His brother’s wife, you believe that?”
“I’ve seen the elephant.”
“Nothing should surprise me, right?”
“Doesn’t sound like the greatest manifestation of brotherly love, though. How do they get along?”
“Rich tells Ron to do things and Ron jumps up in the air and, you know, clicks his heels. That’s how they get along. Anyhow…it all worked. And now Rich is rich. And divorcing his wife, who intends to haul his ass into court and kick it.” She punctuated her statement with a little nod and he smiled.
“I don’t mean to pry into what was obviously a painful time for you, and I appreciate your frankness. So let me just ask this: what can you tell me about George Brister?”
“Not much. Mr. Whelan, he was just the hired help to me. I met him a couple of times. There was a party I went to at High Pair, and I met him there. He was drunk, which I gather was his normal state. He’d only been with the company for six months or so and they were already talking about canning him.”
“Who was, exactly?”
“Rich, mostly.”
“I was under the impression that Rich brought him in.”
She frowned and shook her head. “Not what he told me. Said somebody referred Brister to them. Anyway, Rich couldn’t stand him. He thought Brister was a bum. A ‘slug’ he called him. He had no use for run-down men like that in the first place. You’ve seen him, Mr. Whelan, he’s in perfect condition and expects everybody else to be.”
“So why did they want to fire Brister?”
“He lost some records. Lost his entire briefcase, actually. In a bar someplace. Some of the records were in the computer and some were duplicates of things Rich and Phil had in their files, but they had to go to a number of their business associates to get copies of some of the things Brister had lost. Phil was furious—embarrassed, mostly—but Rich was nervous that if the guy could lose his own briefcase, he probably couldn’t be trusted with much.”
“Doesn’t sound much like a guy who made off with enough money to bring down a company, does it?”
“No. I never really believed that business about him taking hundreds of thousands, you know? Phil said that. Rich didn’t believe it. He believed Phil was taking money out of the company to feed his habits.”
“And Brister wasn’t smart enough?”
“Oh, he thought Brister took money. And a lot of it. But more like forty or fifty thousand. Enough to hurt the company but not enough to bring it down.”
Whelan thought for a moment. “Did he strike you as the cunning type?”
“God, no. You could have knocked me over when I heard he’d taken off like that. But the most surprised person of all was Phil Fairs. Phil had gotten into the habit of browbeating that man, abusing him in front of the people in the office, and I think he was stunned to realize that there was this little tiny piece of George Brister that he hadn’t anticipated.”
“Sounds like there was a piece of George Brister that took everybody by surprise.”
“Yes, that’s true. Rich was floored. I remember him coming home and telling me that Brister had taken all this money and made it out of town. He just kept shaking his head and saying, ‘I can’t believe he had it in him. That fat slug.’ He was more pissed off about a drunk swindling him than he was about the money. I know Rich, and I can tell you that much.”
“I’ve seen George Brister’s file, and the application. There’s no record of anyone referring Brister to High Pair. And the initials on the application are Rich’s.”
She shrugged. “Maybe so, but probably just because Rich was the one responsible for hiring. He was the personnel officer. They both wore about a dozen hats in that company, Mr. Whelan. There were times when it would have cost them deals for somebody to know what a dinky little company they were. A couple of guys and some clerks and an accountant and…I don’t know what else.”
“And from what you’re telling me, if a lot of money disappeared from the company, then it was Phil Fairs who took it—at least most of it. Is that right?”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. And I hope I’ve convinced you I don’t want to defend Rich or anything, but…”
“A good lawyer would say that by defending Rich, you’re ultimately defending your own interests.”
She nodded. “Right. A good lawyer probably would, but that wouldn’t change the truth. And I’ll tell you what, Mr. Whelan: you prove Rich took a lot of money out of that company and I’ll give it back to whoever it belongs to after
I stomp Rich in court.”
There was an edge to her voice now and a luminous quality in the dark eyes, and he almost felt sorry for Rich Vosic, who had married far, far above his station in life and then compounded his mistake by underestimating her.
“I believe you will.”
She sat back and gave him a satisfied half smile. “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Yes. Tell me, in your opinion, if your husband is capable of killing a man, or of ordering someone else to do it.”
Her eyes widened and she shook her head slowly. “No. Oh, jeez, no. He couldn’t do anything like that. He just…he’s a sleaze, Mr. Whelan, but he doesn’t have the stomach for anything like that. Why? What are you telling me? This is about Phil Fairs, isn’t it?”
“You’ve told me a lot of things about Rich and his partner, and it’s obvious that there were some tense moments at the time in question, and I just wondered. It was just a question. Did you ever hear Rich mention Harry Palm?”
“No.” She looked around the room and shook her head. “No, why? Is he one of your clients?”
“No. He’s involved in some aspects of this, though. I just wondered if you knew him.”
“No.”
“Well, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about. I’m not sure where it leaves me, though.” He stood up and shook her hand. There was a vague disquiet in her face and he felt sorry for her. “So you think I should be talking to Janice Fairs, right?”
A little light came back into her eyes and she smiled. “Yes, I do. But remember—”
“I know, a Porsche and a nice suit.”
“That won’t be enough. Garlic, Mr. Whelan. Wear a clove of garlic around your neck. You know? Wards off evil spirits.”
She smiled and looked surprisingly young, almost girlish, and Whelan laughed. He thanked her for the warning and she showed him to the door.
A Body in Belmont Harbor Page 18
