Murders & Acquisitions

by Haughton Murphy

  “When was this?”

  “Let’s see. February. No, first week in March. Shall we go in? They seem to be ringing the bell.”

  Frost did not concentrate much on what the new French Ambassador, one Robert Dujarric, was saying. Could Dawson be right? He mentally went over the conversations that had taken place the previous week when Robbins was present. Hadn’t he denied knowing Gruen? Frost was almost sure he had; certainly he had never come right out and said that he did know him.

  Could Robbins and Gruen be conspiring together? Frost tried to shut off his train of thought and concentrate on the words of the Frenchman speaking. But he could not stop the train, leading to the next question: did Robbins kill Flemming and Sorella to advance Gruen’s takeover scheme?

  As soon as the Forum meeting ended, Frost jumped up and left without speaking to anyone. Was it really possible that Casper Robbins was betraying his own employer? Or worse, killing his own employer? He tried to put the thought out of his mind as he walked down Fifth Avenue toward the Gotham Club. Thank God for the distraction of a Gotham evening, he thought.

  As he approached the Beaux Arts façade of the Club and entered the front door, he was greeted by Jasper Darmes, the new black doorman. Jasper was a mere twenty-five years old and therefore did not convey the comfortable, settled feeling of most of the Gotham’s older employees. But he had inherited the job from his father, John Darmes, who had greeted Gothamites for more than fifty years until his retirement to devote himself to the affairs of his evangelical church in Queens and (a fact known only to his closest confidants at the Club) to perfect his not inconsiderable skills as a ragtime piano player. Most members, respectful of his antecedent, gave young Darmes the benefit of the doubt. (Some found him a bit too pudgy for his role as the first person one saw on entering the Gotham, but that was a quibble, and most were delighted by the Darmes succession.)

  Jasper Darmes and Stanley, Darmes’s assistant, stood at a table inside and handed out blue-and-white ribands that signified membership in the Gotham and which the members solemnly wore around their necks at the monthly dinners.

  The cocktail hour preceding dinner at the Gotham was quite different from tea at the Foreign Affairs Forum. Alcohol was available, for one thing (including the famed double-sized Gotham martinis and a lethal rum drink called the F.D.R., named for an enthusiastic, and perhaps its most distinguished, member). And the tone of the party was one of self-satisfaction, of successful arrival, unlike the striving, job-seeking angst that so often pervaded Forum gatherings.

  At the Forum, tea was served beneath four walls of undistinguished portraits of (presumably) distinguished past leaders of the group; at the Gotham, cocktails were served in the opulent club library, surrounded by shelf after shelf of books, many by Gotham authors.

  Frost loved the club’s diversity. He now took delight, once he had donned his riband, in joining a small group standing in the middle of the room, the members of which he knew only through previous meetings at the Gotham: Leslie Grubert, an assistant to the Mayor (and slightly embarrassed about being a member of an all-male society); Raymond Sheldon, a boisterous and amusing American history professor at an upstate college (not at all embarrassed about the club’s male status and pleased to be there, away from the mean, bucolic and petty atmosphere of the institution of higher education that employed him); and Warner Kilbourne, a popular, solid and (to his credit) nontrendy New York City artist.

  “Hello, Leslie, gentlemen,” Frost said, calling Grubert, whom he knew best, by name. “What are you fellows discussing so vigorously?”

  “Machu Picchu,” Kilbourne replied. “Ever been there?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Frost said. “I assume all of you have?”

  “Good heavens, no,” Sheldon answered. “We’re all expressing strong views from positions of invincible ignorance.”

  Sheldon had nicely described many conversations at the Gotham, Frost thought.

  “The whole subject came up because my wife and I are going to Peru later this fall,” Kilbourne explained. “So I was simply asking if anyone had been to Machu Picchu. I was getting all kinds of responses—mostly ill-informed—when you joined us.”

  “I was saying,” Grubert said, “that some friends of mine once told me that one should stay overnight there, and not be rushed through on the day trip.”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” Frost said, adding to the store of secondary wisdom. “The little hotel at the ruins is supposed to be quite nice.”

  “Well, I certainly thank you gentlemen for all your good advice,” Kilbourne said, laughing. “Oh, oh, there’s young Darmes. He’s about to ring the bell for dinner, so I’m going to get another drink.”

  The stout doorman did indeed begin sounding the gong that meant dinner was about to begin. Frost had accepted the invitation of an old friend, Vincent Kendall, a curator at the Modern Museum, to sit at his table, so he now scouted the dining room for him. He located Kendall without much effort, and found himself with what promised to be a congenial group, Kendall flanking him on one side and Christopher Terry, a New York book editor, on the other.

  The group of eight, seated at a round table, began at once discussing one of the three most frequently addressed topics at the Gotham—the quality of the food; the quality of the wine; and the quality of the members. This time the subject was the quality of the wine, which Gothamites generally assumed (not quite correctly) was below that in other clubs around the city. The Gotham’s mistake had been leaving the decisions about wine purchases to the club manager. For many years, this had been perfectly satisfactory, but the manager a decade ago had turned out to be woefully ignorant of the subject—a fact now coming to light as his misguided selections reached what should have been the proper age for drinking.

  When the deficiencies of the club’s cellar were discovered, a committee of Gotham oenophiles had been hastily assembled to supervise future purchases, but it would unfortunately be some time before their efforts would be evident to the club’s drinkers.

  The conversation quickly switched to topic number two—the food—when the main course arrived.

  “Wouldn’t you think they could cook a simple lamb chop?” a member across the table from Frost said, eyeing contemptuously the partially cooked pieces of meat on the plate in front of him.

  “My boy, the attraction here is the conversation, not the food,” Vincent Kendall declared.

  “That’s what Toots Shor said, and his restaurant went bankrupt, remember,” the complaining Gothamite said.

  As often happened at these gatherings, dinner conversation started rather stagily, with each person speaking to the whole table. Only later did the general conversation split into smaller segments. By the time dessert was served, Frost was engaged in a serious and private conversation with Christopher Terry about the future of American publishing.

  “Back in the seventies, everyone was worried that the conglomerates would kill publishing,” Terry was saying. “That didn’t happen. But now, we’ve got an absolute invasion by foreigners, and nobody seems to care.”

  “Will it make any difference, do you think?” Frost asked.

  “Not politically or ideologically, if that’s what you mean,” the editor responded. “But it’s going to affect quality. Those absentee owners in Germany or London or Milan are going to want profits. Big profits. That means you’ve got to concentrate on the bodice-rippers and the beds-in-Hollywood stuff.”

  “You really think this will happen?” Frost asked.

  “It’s started already.”

  “At your house?”

  “At Miller’s? No. We’re still independent. Nobody’s bought us yet.”

  “What have you got going at the moment?”

  “Oh, the usual. A couple of novels by old reliable hands. A nice history of opera in the United States. They’ll be out this fall. And right now I’m working on a manuscript that might interest you. A real feminist book about business—about a daughter whose family s
crews her out of her rightful place in the family business.”

  “A corporate Mommie Dearest?”

  “Not quite. Not as vulgar as that. But damned outspoken stuff. A woman named Diana Andersen, whose family owns most of Andersen Foods.”

  Frost could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

  “Did you say Diana Andersen?” he asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “The daughter of the man who was murdered last week?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Frost said.

  “That’s not surprising. There hasn’t been any publicity—yet.”

  “No, it is a little surprising. You see, I’m rather close to the Andersen family. My firm’s been counsel to the Company for many years. So I might have heard about it.”

  “I do see,” Terry said. “Diana doesn’t have much use for lawyers.”

  “When will this book be coming out?” Frost asked.

  “Oh, it will be a while. I’m still working on the manuscript with her,” Terry said. “And I expect she’ll want to do some rewriting after the events of last week.”

  “But you have a manuscript now?” Frost asked.

  “Yes, yes. I worked on it all day today, as a matter of fact.”

  The waiter interrupted, taking orders for the Gotham’s special Port and other after-dinner drinks. Frost ordered a Port, as did Christopher Terry.

  “You staying for the speech?” Terry asked, their orders completed.

  “Yes,” Frost answered. “And you?”

  “I can’t decide. Should I go play bridge downstairs or listen to the speech?”

  “Try the speech. Never heard of the fellow giving it. Some classics professor from Chicago. But a most intriguing subject—‘The Contract as Promise on the Bay of Naples.’”

  “Yes. An extraordinary topic,” Terry said. “Do you suppose it’s about the ancient Romans or the Mafia?”

  “I don’t know,” Frost answered. “But they certainly can cook up some good titles in academia.”

  “Shall we go down to the library?” Terry asked. Port glasses in hand, both he and Frost got up from the table.

  “Yes, let’s go,” Frost said. Then, taking his dinner partner by the arm, Frost asked if he would be in his office the following day.

  “As far as I know,” Terry said. “But why do you ask?”

  “I may want to come to see you,” Frost answered.

  Terry, realizing the possible implications of Frost’s statement, looked stricken.

  “I hope I haven’t been indiscreet,” Terry said.

  “Not at all,” Frost replied, silently grateful for the editor’s enormous indiscretion.

  In the library of the club, Professor Clyde Anthony Fleese of the University of Chicago gave a witty talk on the commercial legal system in Naples at the time of the Roman Republic. He avoided the pitfalls unsuccessfully negotiated by many a Gotham monthly speaker: he was brief and did not, in his brief moment in the spotlight, try to tell his fellow Gothamites everything he knew and everything he had ever learned. Instead, he did just what a speaker at the monthly meeting was supposed to do—inform his audience, in a sprightly manner, about some topic on which he was expert and they were not. The result was far fewer listeners off in slumberland than had been the case at the earlier speech by the French Ambassador at the Forum.

  Frost tried to concentrate on Fleese’s diverting talk, but his mind kept coming back to Diana Andersen’s manuscript. He had never heard so much as a hint about it, nor did he think any of the Andersen family had. What could the woman be saying at book length that an experienced New York editor found so compelling?

  The thought of what lay ahead made Frost tired. He must, one way or another, get a look at Diana’s manuscript. And he must get to the bottom of Casper Robbins’s involvement with Jeffrey Gruen.

  But tired or not, Frost found that his night was not yet over. Stanley, the assistant doorman, was standing outside the library when the speech ended and signaled to Frost as he left his seat.

  “You have a message, sir. He said it was very important.”

  “Who called?” Frost asked.

  “Man by the name of William O’Neal. Said it was important that he meet you.”

  “And where am I to meet him?”

  “At the Red Rose Bar.”

  “Did he say where that is?”

  “Avenue D and Ninth Street.”

  “Oh my God,” Frost mumbled, groaning. He knew that O’Neal must be on one of his low-life bar rampages and needed a sounding board. But tired as he was, Frost had no choice. With two unsolved murders outstanding, O’Neal might, in his condition, have something of interest to say about them. In vino veritas, or so one could hope.

  ANOTHER ENCOUNTER

  17

  Frost left his blue-and-white riband at the table by the door and went outside the Gotham to look for a taxi. It was just eleven o’clock, when the Broadway theaters were breaking; a most inconvenient time to find a cab, leaving aside the annoyance of meeting what would probably be a nearly incoherent drunk in a dark and smelly bar in the East Village.

  Frost had been down this path before, always the “friend” summoned in the middle of O’Neal’s monumental binges—or, given the difference in their ages, perhaps O’Neal’s uncle (Dutch or otherwise). Out of loyalty to the Andersens, Frost had responded over the years when at all possible, going to O’Neal’s side and gradually talking him back in avuncular fashion to his wife and family and polite society. Whether the stray alcoholic was in Baja California, or Fairbanks, Alaska, or Hoboken or Coney Island, or Times Square at three in the morning or (as now) the East Village, Frost had dutifully gone to fetch the stray Executive Vice President of Andersen Foods, keeping him from being found sleeping in the gutter or otherwise disgracing family and corporation.

  Frost had to admit that in his younger days acting as O’Neal’s keeper had not been entirely unpleasant. Even when tight as a tick, O’Neal was usually amusing (though he often repeated a good line or a joke several times over). There had been the five-day fiesta in Acapulco, when Frost had been sent south of the border to retrieve O’Neal after a particularly long absence. Or the three-day binge in Wilmington, Delaware, of all places, where O’Neal had been determined to drink absolutely dry the aptly named Brandywine Room of the Hotel DuPont.

  Disagreeing with Flemming Andersen, Frost had always felt that O’Neal, if he ever pulled himself together, would be an effective executive and a perfectly logical heir to Flemming.

  O’Neal’s adolescent escapades had long since ceased to amuse Frost, but he still, as this evening, was pressed into service. When drinking in the city, O’Neal usually sought out the lowest dives imaginable. The degree of cleanliness, the sexual orientation of the customers, a threat of violence, none of these things mattered to O’Neal when he was drinking; indeed, the seedier the better seemed to be his aesthetic premise at such times. (A psychiatrist friend had once explained to Frost that this preference for squalor often went along with the desire to go on a bender.)

  Frost dreaded what he would find at Avenue D and Ninth Street. In his younger days, the “alphabet avenues” had always seemed provincial and ethnic and not worth a visit, and later, when the East Village achieved a sordid reputation as a drug center, there was even less reason to go there. In fact, he had been in the area for the first time only recently, visiting a chi-chi art gallery in one of the gentrified parts of the East Village.

  When the taxi got to the appointed intersection, there was nothing that Frost saw that reassured him—the wreckage of a burned-out and vacant tenement on one corner, a crowd of teenagers on another. And no sign of the Red Rose Bar. Not exactly the place, at midnight, for a solitary seventy-five-year-old in a dinner jacket.

  Looking out the taxi window, he finally spotted a red neon Max Beer sign in a window down the street.

  “I think it’s down there,” he said, pointing toward
the sign. “Would you mind waiting for me? I want to check and see if my friend is here,” Frost asked.

  “Are you kidding? I’m not staying around here any longer than it takes you to open that door and get out,” the driver said, doing nothing to reassure Frost.

  “Look. Let me pay you what’s on the meter,” Frost said. “And a tip, and ten dollars besides. When I get out, you can lock the doors. And if anything happens that you don’t like, you can take off. If my friend’s here, I’ll come and tell you in one minute. If he’s not, I’ll come back and you can take me home. All right?”

  The driver paused and then grudgingly accepted the offer. “But I’m not going to stay here and wait very long,” he said.

  “Fine,” Frost said, paying him and then heading toward the gray, small-windowed façade of the bar, which indeed had a beaten-up tin sign across the front reading “Red Rose Bar & Grill.”

  Entering the narrow front door, Frost found himself in a public room than confirmed all his worst forebodings. In the corner was a food steam table, now closed, but still emitting fetid and rancid odors from the day’s overcooked “specials.”

  The stale cooking odors were not the only reminders of the past: here, in the beginning of September, were Christmas tinsel and ornaments from the previous Christmas, or perhaps several Christmases ago. And dead center, fastened to the mirror behind the long wooden bar, was a badly colored lithograph of General Douglas MacArthur.

  There was only one customer in the dimly lighted room—Billy O’Neal, seated at the last stool at the bar, slumped against the wall, a drink and a pile of change and bills in front of him. He had loosened his tie, which hung at a rakish angle outside the vest of his three-piece suit.

  “Reuben, ol’ buddy!” O’Neal called out, when he spotted Frost entering.

  “Hello, Billy,” Frost called across to him. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He went back outside to dismiss the waiting taxi driver, then returned and joined O’Neal.

  “Glad you could make it, Reuben, my friend,” O’Neal said, putting an unsteady arm around Frost. “Have a drink.”