Dead Cat Bounce

by Norman Green

  “I got my own goddam phone,” the guy said.

  “Gentlemen?” It was one of the oglers from the outer doorway. “I’m a lawyer? And if this is a crime scene, you shouldn’t be in there? So come out into the hallway. Please? The police are already on their way.”

  This is great, Stoney thought. This is just great.

  The Westwood chief of police was an older guy, he had gray hair over a tired, lined face. “Sir,” he said, when he finally came down out of the building and out onto the sidewalk where they were holding Stoney, “thank you for waiting. Do you have some ID?”

  Stoney fished his New York license out of his wallet. His Jersey license had been yanked several years back. The cop looked at the picture on the little plastic card. “This your current address? You live in Manhattan?”

  Stoney was aware of how careful he needed to be. He’d done nothing for the past half hour but think of what to tell this guy. It was Prior who had done it, he knew that. And all his warnings to Tina to stay clear of the man did nothing to make him feel less responsible. But he couldn’t tell the cops about Prior. He suspected that they’d never be able to prove the man’s guilt anyhow, even if they knew he was the murderer. “Yeah.”

  “And what brought you out here today?”

  “I had an appointment to see Tina,” he said.

  “What was the nature of your business with her?”

  “She was looking into something for me,” Stoney said, his mind racing. You can’t say a word about Donna, he thought, you can’t even hint at who you used to be. “My partner and I are thinking about putting some money into commercial real estate out here, and we asked Tina to look around for us.”

  “Why not go directly to a real estate agent? Why hire an investigator?”

  “When you’re asking whether or not you ought to buy something,” he said, “you can’t take the word of a guy who makes his money by selling it to you. And we don’t know the towns or the players out here, so we thought we’d start with an objective viewpoint. We’ll get to an agent eventually, if we decide to go forward.”

  “I see.” The cop handed Stoney back his license. “Did you go into her office, upstairs? Or did you just see her from the hallway?”

  “I went in.”

  “You touch anything?”

  “Pushed on the outside door to open it. It wasn’t latched. Turned the knob on the inner door.”

  “Anybody see you when you got here this morning? Besides the people who were upstairs, I mean. Anybody see you park your car? Anybody see you before you went inside the building? Did you stop for a cup of coffee or a newspaper? Anything at all?”

  “No,” Stoney said, but then he remembered the woman in the mink coat.

  “She’s not gonna remember you,” the cop said. “We’re gonna have to take a formal statement.”

  It was a couple more hours before they let him go. They were very thorough. They had him go over exactly what he had done and seen several times before they codified it all into a written statement, which he signed. It might have turned out to be a lucky morning for me after all, he thought, even though it didn’t start out looking that way. On his way out to New Jersey, the traffic had been backed up all the way down the Harlem River Drive. Stoney, typically impatient, had detoured over the Triborough Bridge and up the Deegan. It was a little longer, probably not any quicker, but at least it had been moving, which fostered the illusion that he was getting somewhere. The detour had necessitated the payment of a toll on the Triborough, where he’d gotten a time-stamped receipt for his contribution to the greater good of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and that receipt seemed to allay the suspicions of the Westwood cops.

  Tina Finbury’s son was in the police station while they were questioning Stoney. Stoney heard rather than saw the man. It took the cops some time and effort to calm him down. The police chief, who had gone off to deal with the guy, apologized for the interruption when he returned. “It’s her son,” he told Stoney. “The man’s pretty upset. It’s understandable. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yeah.”

  The cop looked at him for a second. “Listen,” he said, “the man wants to talk to you. You’re certainly under no obligation, but if you agree to speak to him, I’d prefer the meeting take place right here. Mr. Finbury is very upset, and I don’t need anything else to go wrong.”

  They met in an interior hallway at the station. Finbury was shaking with rage and sorrow. He broke down when he saw Stoney walking in his direction, he stood there and wept openly and without apology. Stoney yielded to impulse and waved the cops away, he put an arm around the guy’s shoulder and led him down to the end of the corridor where two chairs sat under a window. Stoney sat across from the guy and waited for him to recover. It took a while.

  “I owe you an apology,” Finbury said finally. “They told me you couldn’t have done it. They said you were in the city at the probable time”—he swallowed—“when she was killed. And they told me to thank you for identifying…the body. I’m sorry if I…”

  “Forget it,” Stoney told him.

  “Did you…did you know my mother?”

  “I met her twice before,” Stoney said. “She seemed very nice.”

  “She was.” Finbury replied through gritted teeth. “Whoever did this to her, I want to find him and cut his balls off.”

  “Yeah,” Stoney said. “I understand. Look, I’m gonna give you my cell-phone number. Why don’t you give me yours? I’d love to get my hands on the guy who did this, believe me.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Her mother had been strangely silent the night before, she had asked none of the myriad questions Marisa had anticipated. She didn’t even want the normal details, where were you, who else was there, what did you do, what did everybody say, none of that. She’d asked one question.

  “Were you with your father all day?”

  “Only for the morning,” Marisa told her. “He had to do something in the afternoon, so he left me with Tommy.” She looked at her mother. “Didn’t you notice? It was Tommy who dropped me off.”

  “I didn’t see the car.”

  That was it, that was the end of the conversation. Donna usually didn’t miss a trick, and Marisa began cataloging the possible reasons for this change of attitude. Was she still mad at Stoney? Absolutely. Was she jealous of the time Marisa spent with him? Hard to believe that. Afraid Stoney would turn Marisa against her? Marisa couldn’t believe that one, either. Afraid Marisa might get in harm’s way? But they weren’t doing anything, they were only talking about it, her mother had to know that. Worried that she and Eddie were getting too comfortable? She kicked that one around for a while. She had sensed that her mother was not overly fond of Eddie, but that only made him one more member of an expanding fraternity. That’s her job, Marisa thought, she’s supposed to be tough on young guys…. But it didn’t feel right. Donna’s distrust of Eddie might be part of it, but it wasn’t the whole story. There had to be something more.

  And what had she done yesterday, anyhow? Sat around reading the paper and listening to Tommy, her father, and George. God, it had been duller than an all-day calculus lecture. Jesus, didn’t they have computers for all that now? And why on earth did they waste everyone’s time trying to drill all of that arcane crap into your head, especially when everyone knew that you were never going to actually do anything with it?

  I was there all day long, and all I did was watch them getting ready to do what it was that they did….

  Yeah, she thought. Yeah. That had to be it.

  Her mother had always maintained a sort of willful ignorance of her father’s life. She had her house out in the burbs, she had her kids, and her stuff, her car and all of that, but what Stoney did all day long, why he went into the city every day, that was a whole separate thing, Donna kept a wall up between herself and all that. And now I’ve been over the wall, my innocence is gone, and hers is threatened. And then there was the issue of Marisa’s dancing career, her mother to
tally could not get with it, she kept saying, over and over, that she could never understand why any self-respecting person would ever…

  Everyone thinks less of me now, Marisa thought. They all think I’m president of Future Sluts of America or something.

  Jesus.

  Her mother came down the stairs looking tired and grim just as Eddie pulled up outside. Marisa went and looked out the window to make sure it was him. “I gotta go, Mom,” she said, and she grabbed her bag. She was going to be better equipped today, she’d packed a couple of books, some seltzer water, and even her brother Dennis’s old Game Boy, he’d surprised her and let her take it.

  Donna came back out of the kitchen, looking haggard. “Be careful,” she said. “Call me.”

  “I didn’t know how you took your coffee,” Tuco said. “I got it with cream, sugar’s inside the bag.”

  Marisa didn’t drink coffee. “Thank you,” she told him, accepting the cup. “This is fine. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “S’okay.” He backed out of the driveway. His own cup was wedged into one of the Beemer’s cup holders, a small hole torn in the lid. Marisa tore hers open and took a sip. “You miss me?” he said.

  She didn’t know if he was serious or not, the guy almost never smiled, although she supposed she hadn’t given him much cause. “Yeah,” she said, admitting it to herself. “I did. What did you do yesterday? Did you sleep all day?”

  “About half,” he said. “Stoney says you know where this place is at.”

  “I do,” she said. “Left at the end of the street, then right at the light. What else did you do?” God, I’m just like my mother, I’m interrogating this poor guy.

  “Caught up on stuff,” he said. “Pissed off one of the tenants.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  He glanced at her, then quickly looked away. “Oh, you’d be amazed at what some of these people think you got to do for them.”

  Everybody had something to do except her. Tommy and her father were still working with George, although, thankfully, they were done with the part of his job that required temper tantrums and had moved on to more esoteric matters. It seemed to be more in Tommy’s court now, with long discussions about the stock market. They didn’t seem to mind her listening in, but it bored her to tears. Eddie was down in the basement with some new guy, Jack Harman. She had been instinctively wary, when they’d been introduced, ready to dislike the guy, though she couldn’t have said why. He’d held her hand gently instead of shaking it, bowed slightly, saying how pleased he was to meet her, and he wore a smile that signaled how desperately he needed her to approve of him and said nothing about what he really felt inside. That’s how it seemed to her, anyhow. She had observed him as the day had gone on, and that smile never slipped, his carefully managed appearance always stood between the world and what Jack Harman really was.

  She went downstairs, sat at the bottom of the cellar steps, and watched as Harman picked the locks on the safe-room door, with Eddie watching intently. “It’s a useful skill,” Harman said, his ever-present smile telling her that it was all in fun. “Sort of like playing the piano. You never know when you’re going to be called into service.” He opened the door when he was done, then closed it and relocked one of the locks. “Your turn, Tuco,” he said. Eddie took the tools from him and started in. It took some time. Eddie was on his knees in front of the door, a far-off expression on his face as he worked, cocking his head to Harman’s instructions. He finally got it open, and Harman took the lock apart to show Eddie how it worked.

  It bothered her.

  She didn’t know why it should. These guys were not choirboys, she knew that, and Eddie had been too quick and too efficient in the parking lot the other night to have spent all his life working at a regular job someplace. Harman took the cylinder out and handed it to Eddie. Eddie began using Harman’s picks as he listened to Harman’s explanation of how you used them to feel for the pins. Would you rather see him learning how to be an accountant? she asked herself. George had been right, the day before. Men were not baboons, but still, part of the reason you like him is because he’s bad enough….

  She left them there, went back up to one of the upstairs bedrooms, intending to take refuge in one of her books, but she couldn’t get into it. Would you seriously go out with a guy who mops hallways and takes out the garbage for a living? Yeah, but, that interior voice said. Yeah, but. That’s only what he’s doing right now. You have to start someplace, don’t you? He might become an engineer, or a mathematician, or…

  Right. The dude is downstairs learning how to be a guy who can open locked doors without using a key. This is just great, she told herself. An apprentice thief and a former stripper. She put her book down and began crying softly.

  “So tell me,” Harman said. “Where did you guys come up with XRC Technologies? Can’t Prior just look them up?”

  “We’ve had our eye on it for a year or two,” Stoney said. “Tommy found the stock. It’s one of those companies that has possibilities, because they make good stuff, but they’re not going anywhere. I mean, they’re not quite dead in the water, but they’re close. The CEO is this Italian guy, he’s gotta be ninety years old, but he keeps hanging on. His son is the CFO, he’s the guy that’s actually running the company. He’s the guy Tommy is supposed to be. That’s what makes them so interesting.”

  “Anthony Bonanno,” Harman said. “So it’s all real, if Prior does any research.”

  “He can find them listed,” Stoney said. “He’ll see their peak share price two years ago of eighty-six and change, and he’ll see how they’ve been dragging along the bottom at ten or twelve bucks for the past six months. Their bonds are junk, and they’ve got two superfund sites dragging down their balance sheet. Plus, they’ve got an attitude problem. If Prior calls them up, he won’t find a single person at XRC who will talk to him. They’re perfect.”

  “What if he looks at their Web site? Isn’t the real Bonanno’s picture on it somewhere?”

  “It used to be,” Georgie said, and he snickered. “I fragged it. Try and look at their site now, you get bounced to a porn site, and the only way to get loose is to log off and reboot. I can’t imagine anyone trying that more than once.”

  “So we’re covered, then.”

  “Jack,” Tommy said. “Whaddayou worry about? Everything is under control.”

  “Sounds like it,” Harman said. “But it’s my nature to sweat the details. It’s an occupational hazard: I like to know everything before I go in. There’s a lot at stake.”

  “That’s okay,” Tommy told him. “In case it’sa make you feel better, go ahead and sweat.”

  “Thanks, I will. So what does XRC really do?”

  “Tell him, Georgie,” Tommy said.

  “Chemicals,” Georgie said. “Industrial batteries, like for golf carts and forklifts. They make electrical components in Italy, those are mostly marketed overseas. And they have an automotive-products division, which is the part of the company that makes the most money. But it’s pretty boring stuff.”

  “So how are you going to get Prior interested in a dog like that?”

  “If you could get rid of the morons in charge,” Georgie said, “XRC would really be a nice company, they’ve got decent market share, their stock is undervalued, and they do a lot of cutting-edge research in their field, but you’ve got that senile old goat and his half-wit son sitting in the driver’s seat. The two big problems with batteries, and believe me, everyone in the business is working on this, they’re heavy and they take too long to recharge. Now imagine this: What if someone at XRC came up with a battery that was half the weight of the ones we use now, and that would recharge from flat to full in, say, a half hour?”

  Harman shrugged. “So what? You wouldn’t have to leave your golf cart plugged in all night. Who cares? What am I missing?”

  “Actually, you’re not far off,” Georgie told him. “We can build an electric car right now that has a range of some
thing like two hundred miles. The problem is, once you’ve gone that distance, you’re done, you can’t move for another eight hours or so.”

  Harman was nodding his head. “Okay. Okay.”

  “And since our mythical new battery is half the weight, now our range is closer to three hundred miles. So you go on a road trip in your new XRC Electrocoupe, you drive for, say, five hours, and then you pull in at a rest stop. You plug your car in, and in the time it takes you to have a piss, a cup of coffee, and a candy bar, you’re ready for another five. And all of this happens with no big changes to the infrastructure.”

  “No helium, then.”

  “Hydrogen, you mean. You know, everyone’s talking about hydrogen power as though we could start using it next year, but the fact is, we’re decades away. There are all sorts of technical problems we haven’t begun to solve, not to mention refueling, or big tanker trucks of the stuff running around to resupply gas stations.” Georgie was getting excited, waving his arms around. “Or detonate when the truck driver falls asleep and runs off the road. It’s like Reagan and SDI. Oh yeah, let’s build a fucking laser so we can shoot down incoming missiles with it. These people have been watching too much science fiction. So, yeah, batteries are dull and boring, but compared to hydrogen, they’re easy. Imagine it: overnight you cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in half.”

  “Wouldn’t you still have to burn oil to generate the electricity to recharge the batteries?”

  “Sure, initially, but power plants don’t have to be oil-fired. We’ve still got coal and nuclear. And if your car is parked most of the time, like most cars are, you could use solar cells.”