1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader

by Jim Stevens

  This case, one of my firsts, defined my career, because it taught me: 1. If you keep asking questions, somebody will eventually spill enough beans for you to make soup. 2. Newton’s law of physics applies to crime. 3. Given the opportunity, people will undoubtedly become their own worst enemies. 4. Put everything you know up on a wall, because it becomes easier to see what you don’t know, what you want to know, and what you should know.

  ___

  It is late in the evening. Television is boring. You would think with all the channels they have now, something interesting would be on all the time.

  I go into my kitchen and from the top cabinet I pull out a recipe box, a small, metal container. I remove the six or seven never-cooked recipes and lift out the blank three-by-five index cards. In no particular order I begin to fill in the cards with a hodgepodge of information, starting with the family.

  Alvin had two sons and one daughter, Clayton, Brewster, and Christina. Clayton’s mother was Alvin’s second wife, Joan. Brewster’s mom was Doris, the walking Botox prescription. Christina was a product of wife numero uno, Didi, who Alvin was married to for about sixty seconds and divorced even quicker.

  I place the completed cards back in the box and stuff some empties into my coat pocket for later use. I call Tiffany and mention that I’m meeting Brewster Augustus after the markets close that afternoon.

  At 3 pm I wait at the State Street door of the Board of Trade. On this particular piece of concrete the sun never shines. Somehow, the way it was built, direct sunlight never hits this spot. This fact should tell you a lot about life at the Board of Trade.

  Tiffany arrives, dressed down, way down in a pair of used designer jeans with holes in the knees and a man’s dress shirt, which could use a good pressing.

  “Don’t you look ravishing?”

  “I don’t want to be mistaken for one of those gold-diggers,” she says.

  Women have been known to wear wedding dresses, sexy cocktail numbers and stripper outfits to parade themselves in front of the wealthy traders and brokers on the floor. Whether this method of display has produced any marriages is anyone’s guess, but it does beg the question: women’s lib, where art thou?

  We take the elevator to the fourteenth floor, walk down the hall to #1406 and enter a door with no name plate or identifying label.

  There is a small foyer, empty of chairs, desk, or couch. If there was once a receptionist, she took everything with her when she left. We proceed into a large open room, where there are six long tables, the kind used at a VFW Hall. Computer terminals and telephones crowd onto each surface. The chairs vary, leather secretarial, folding, patio mesh, and one is the kind you need if you have a bad back. Wish I could afford one of these. All in all, a collection of what was either left by the last tenant or what was left next to the dumpster. The carpet is worn. The walls are bare, except for a few hand-drawn charts on easel-size paper stuck to the wall with push pins, and they scream for a fresh coat of paint. Empty beer cans lie next to trash baskets, having missed their mark. Four guys play baccarat; three play poker. The players range in age from thirty to sixty. Tiffany is the only woman in the room, but the boys are too busy gambling to notice.

  “Excuse me,” I pipe up. “Is Brewster Augustus around?”

  Without looking up from his hand of cards, one player responds, “He’s taking a leak.”

  “Good answer,” Tiffany remarks.

  We stand watching mini-Vegas in action until Brewster walks in the door.

  “I didn’t do it.” This is his initial comment; his next is, “Let me get a beer.”

  The three of us leave the den of gambling iniquity to sit at a card table in a room not designed to house a large side-by-side refrigerator, a microwave oven, and one outdoor trash can.

  “Like I told the other guys, I was at the bar with my brother.” Brewster finally notices my very good-looking, so-called assistant. “Who are you?”

  “Tiffany, detective in training.”

  I get the conversation back on track. “When was the last time you saw your father?”

  “Week or so ago.”

  “Any special reason for the visit?”

  “Usual stuff.”

  “When was the last time you two spoke?”

  “Thursday.”

  “Why?”

  “Usual stuff.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Asking for money.” Brewster finished his beer. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He said yes.” Brewster rose, went to the refrigerator, pulled out another beer, pops the top. “I’d offer you one, but you shouldn’t drink while you’re working.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” I say and continue, “What would your father be doing on a Saturday morning dressed in a suit out by the lake?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Did you see him the Friday before?”

  “No.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I told you. Out with my idiot half-brother until he gets picked up and leaves me flat.”

  “Where?”

  “Some club.”

  “You know where your dad was?”

  “It wasn’t my turn to watch him.”

  “Let me guess; you and daddy were not close?”

  “The old man came up the hard way and wanted us to do the same, which is difficult to do when you’re brought up in an eighteen-room mansion. He’d preach all this bullshit about hard work, nose to the grindstone, earning your keep; then go out and buy me a Porsche so I could keep up with the other kids at school.”

  “But since you have obviously followed in his footsteps, how has your relationship been since?”

  “We were joined at the wallet.”

  I was trying desperately to find some aspect of Brewster’s personality to like, but was having no success.

  “Your father an alcoholic?”

  “No.”

  “You?” Tiffany jumps in.

  “I used to be,” Brewster finishes the beer. “I’m better now.”

  Tiffany sits up straight, as if sizing up a foe.

  “Being joined at the wallet,” I ask, “does that mean you worked for your father?”

  “I trade off one of the seats he owns.”

  Traders and brokers have to own a seat to be able to trade and, since there are only so many seats to be had, they are a valuable commodity at the Board, no pun intended. Some pay rent well into five figures monthly.

  “Do you pay rent?”

  “No.” Brewster burps.

  “How much actual jail time did you end up serving?” My question surprises Tiffany as much as it surprises Brewster.

  “How did you know about that?” Brewster places the beer on the table and leans forward.

  “I have ways.”

  “The file was sealed; it was part of the court order.”

  “I told you; I have ways.” A good detective can find out just about anything, if he wants to take the time and effort.

  Brewster sits, contemplates.

  Tiffany is about to speak, but I kick her under the table to keep her quiet.

  Brewster tries to wait us out, but no way. “Sixty-eight days,” he says, pretending to read the back of the beer can. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “You got drunk, you got stoned, you got in a car, and you hit a rival frat brat. What part wasn’t your fault?”

  “The idiot ran right in front of the car.”

  “Which you were driving at eighty miles per hour down a back alley at two in the morning.”

  This is all news to Tiffany and she soaks it in.

  “If it really would have been my fault, it would have been Marion, not Cook County.”

  “Maybe.” I pause. “Was AA part of the deal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t work, eh?” Tiffany says.

  “Not a DUI since.”

  “Hard to believe,” Tiffany says.

  The rich-brat verbal battle roars
back, full throttle.

  “I went cold turkey.”

  “That ain’t no O’Doul’s you’re drinking.” Tiffany uses the double negative for effect.

  “I haven’t been behind the wheel in years.” Brewster grins from ear to ear. “After AA, I went DA.”

  “Never heard of it,” Tiffany admits.

  “Sold the car, cleaned out the garage, and tore up the license.”

  “Driver’s Anonymous?” I ask.

  “Think of what I save on car insurance, gas, and oil,” Brewster says with a smirk.

  “Not to mention what you’re doing for the environment,” Tiffany adds without missing a beat.

  I can’t believe how well these two have hit it off. I get up and wander over to the microwave, which is surrounded by thousands of crumbs of every variety. “How well do you think you’ll do in the settlement, Brewster?”

  “I have no clue.” Brewster crushes the beer can and tosses it into the trash, a two-pointer, not long enough for a three. “My father was a funny guy, not ha-ha, but peculiar. All he really loved was money, not what it could buy, but making money. Money was his booze. He was addicted to his bank account. He didn’t care how he made it, who he took it from, how it got into his wallet. Money to him was the trophy, his daily validation he was alive. He once said to me, ‘I’m rich, therefore I am.’”

  “Why don’t you trade on the floor like your daddy did?”

  “Different generation.”

  I waited. Brewster twisted a diamond pinkie ring around and around. I sensed he was going to wrap this up.

  “I’m sorry to inform you, but I didn’t have anything to do with his death. I feel sorry that he died. I promise I will try to shed a few tears one of these days, but daddy wasn’t much of a daddy.”

  “Except for being joined at the wallet?” I ask.

  “Whatever.” Brewster finishes his beer. “There is a slew of people who hated him a lot more than I did. Good luck hitting bingo.”

  One positive about Brewster Augustus, he was able to bring things down to the simplest common denominator.

  ___

  A ringing phone at two-eighteen in the morning is a part-time dad’s greatest fear.

  “What?”

  I shake waiting for the response.

  “Get your ass out of bed,” Steve Burrell says. “Get dressed and meet us at the mansion. The case just got a little more interesting.”

  8

  Feng shui your gaydar

  The Augustus house is lit up like a movie set. There are three squad cars, two fire trucks, Norbert’s and Steve’s sedans and now my Toyota. The front door is open; I walk right in.

  “If we got to be here,” Norbert says, “we thought you should, too.”

  “It’s always nice to be remembered,” I say as he leads me inside.

  The den is a shambles. Drawers open and emptied onto the floor, books tossed off the shelves in no particular order, cabinets emptied, pictures and artwork off the walls.

  I mill around in the mess. “A scavenger hunt gone horribly wrong?”

  “Your sense of humor is hard enough for me to take when I’m awake, much less when I’m half-asleep,” Steve says.

  “Any other rooms get a makeover?”

  “Bedroom.”

  I pace around the walls of the den. Two wall safes have not been touched. “Where’s Theresa?”

  “Night off.”

  I picture her lying beneath Hector, whispering sweet nothings into his ear. A tank of bug spray sits next to their bed.

  “Alarm on?”

  “Was.”

  “See anything missing?”

  “Not that we can remember,” Norbert says.

  “Call the wife?”

  “She didn’t answer her phone.”

  “Beauty sleep,” I say.

  “We’ll have the room dusted tomorrow,” Steve says.

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Why not.”

  “Won’t do a bit of good.”

  “What makes you so sure, Sherlock?”

  “Because whoever did this entered, turned off the alarm, trashed the place, turned the alarm back on, and split. No one could do this much damage in the time between the alarm going off and a patrol car arriving. Nothing is missing and there is no sign of forced entry.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say,” Norbert says. “But why all the fuss?”

  “They were pissed because they didn’t find what they were looking for.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The detectives look at each other, look at their shoes and back towards me.

  I yawn. I’m tired. I hate my job.

  “If we assume…”

  “Don’t assume anything; that’s my first rule of life.”

  Steve does not continue.

  “There is a reason, and probably a bad one, for this happening,” I say. “But the only thing I’m certain of is we won’t be figuring it out tonight.”

  Steve and Norbert sigh.

  “I’m going home.” I turn to exit. “I got a big day tomorrow.”

  ___

  Clayton Augustus was as miserable a human being as his younger brother, but in an entirely different way.

  “You talk to that half-wit, half-brother of mine?” Clayton asks as Tiffany and I sit in his renovated Lincoln Park greystone, beneath an oil painting that could double as a Rorschach test.

  “He said he didn’t do it.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “So far.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill him, either.”

  I look over at Tiffany. “Can I go home now?”

  “No.”

  Tiffany was dressed junior executive, matching skirt and jacket, white blouse and sensible, but expensive, shoes. She must have more clothes than Diane von Furstenberg. No doubt, I could fit my entire apartment into her closet and she would still have room for her winter outfits, ski equipment, and an inflated white water raft.

  “How do you think you’ll do in the will?”

  “Like, I care?”

  “I would,” Tiffany says.

  “The money certainly didn’t do Daddy much good in the long run, now did it?”

  “He had a pretty good run,” I say.

  Clayton puts his feet up on his coffee table and leans back onto his leather couch. He had been whisked off his exercise room treadmill to come and talk with us. The odor of sweat mixed with designer aftershave wafted from his Under Armour workout attire. He was about twenty-seven, four years older than Brewster.

  “Did you ever see or talk to your father?”

  “When I had to.”

  “And when would that be?”

  “Whenever.” Clayton was trying hard to act bored.

  “Saturday or the Friday before he died?”

  “No.”

  “You get this all from your father?” I ask motioning to the lavish décor or the room.

  “No.”

  “Then, how?”

  “I tap into people’s greed.”

  “That was your major in college?” I can play his verbal game, too.

  “I didn’t go to college.”

  Tiffany removes a steno pad and pen from her purse and begins to take notes. I wonder what she could possibly find interesting in this inane conversation.

  “I match people with a lot of money, with people who have ideas that can make them a lot more money and take a piece of the action from both parties. Actually, it’s quite a simple business.”

  “If it is so simple, why doesn’t everyone do it?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  Clayton Augustus founded INCUBATE INC. when he was twenty, to fund biotech research for the pharmaceutical industry. His business recipe was to add large parts private capital with very adept drug science, let it marinate into the promise of the next Viagra or Xanax, then sell the sizzle to the highest bidder. With a number of the biggest drug companies in the world in the
Chicago area, Abbott Labs, Baxter Intl., to name two, the market was hungry. With the old money he grew up around, as well as the venture capital millions available, there was cash around to invest. And with Northwestern, University of Chicago, Children’s and Rush/Presbyterian research hospitals subway distance apart, he never lacked for good ideas.

  “For not caring much for your dad, you sure ended up a lot like him.”

  Clayton didn’t appreciate my assessment. “Bullshit.”

  “You don’t make, create, manufacture, or market any product or service. You might as well be jumping up and down at the Board of Trade.”

  “What I do has nothing to do with what my father did.”

  Tiffany stood up, breaking the tension as she sizes up the room.

  Clayton watches her like a lion stalking prey.

  “This room feng shui?”

  “What?” I ask, wondering where that came from.

  “You would have to ask my designer,” Clayton answers.

  “Marceau DeLeon?”

  Clayton perks up at Tiffany’s knowledge. “You’re good.”

  “Marceau doesn’t feng shui.”

  Clayton sits up, turns to face Tiffany.

  “You should have it done.”

  I have no idea what these two are discussing.

  Tiffany begins to move furniture, re-aligning the angles of the chairs and tables. “Way too much negative energy in the room.”

  “I didn’t know I’d be getting a decorating detective, too,” Clayton says, glancing my way.

  “At no extra charge.” Tiffany heads for the stairway. “I can’t wait to see the master bedroom.”

  Clayton gets up to follow her.

  “Ah, Clayton…”

  He stops, returns, and sits. “Can we hurry this along? I have a hot chick in my bedroom.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Think daddy left anything for your mother?”

  “No.”

  “She still pissed?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  The second Augustus divorce was a pit bull fight to the death. Joan claimed Alvin had been screwing around for years. Alvin countered with Joan being an unfit parent and mounted a case so strong, even Joan started believing she was a little loony. There were lawyers upon lawyers, accusing, briefing, motioning, declaring, posturing, and pleading. The legal bills could have fed a third world country for a month. The court, in the end, gave most of the money to the son, Clayton, via an executor, to dole out the dollars as he saw fit. Joan was left, not the happiest of campers.