More Julius Katz and Archie

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” Casper said. “When we had dinner three weeks ago, I could tell how badly Lily wanted to see the play, which is why I nearly broke my neck getting you those tickets. I’m glad she won’t be disappointed.” He smiled apologetically. “Ah hell, Julius, sorry to have put you in this pickle in the first place. When I got them I wasn’t thinking about how it conflicted with today’s special tasting. I’m glad you were able to work it out.”

  Julius was in too good a mood to complain about anything, and he was magnanimously proclaiming that all’s well that ends well when he spotted Malcolm Coolidge coming toward him from two o’clock. He also must’ve recognized the look on Coolidge’s face given the slight change of inflection in his voice. It was a look that I had no trouble recognizing, and it caused my processing cycles to speed up a tick. Coolidge had a problem and he wanted to hire the great detective, which meant I’d soon have a chance to make further refinements to my neuron network. There were only a handful of people who could approach Julius at the Belvedere Club about business and not curtly be told to call his office for an appointment, and more likely than not have Julius later instruct me as a matter of principle to turn down this prospective client when he or she called. There were even less than that who could do so with any hope of success while Julius was enjoying a cognac such as Ancestrale. Lily, obviously could, even if she didn’t bat her eyes at him. Casper, maybe. A few other childhood friends. Possibly the chef at Le Che Cru. And Malcolm Coolidge. Not only was he a well-heeled client who had engaged Julius’s services in the past, but he had sponsored Julius’s membership into the Belvedere Club.

  I could almost sense Julius’s body stiffen as he looked for an escape route, but then he relaxed into surrender once he accepted that he was cornered. He clapped Casper on the shoulder, thanked him again for the tickets, and stepped past his friend so he could meet Coolidge head on.

  “Malcolm, have you had a chance to sample the Ancestrale yet? It’s extraordinary,” Julius said as if he had no idea about Coolidge’s intentions. Maybe it was simply wishful thinking on his part.

  “Not yet. I’m afraid it would be wasted on me.” Whatever was troubling Coolidge, it appeared to be weighing heavily on his round, jowly face. “Can we talk in private?”

  “Can’t this wait until Monday?”

  Coolidge’s face was a wreck as he gave Julius a pleading look. “I’d like to get this off my chest now,” he said. “Maybe I’d be able to enjoy the Ancestrale afterward.”

  “Very well,” Julius acquiesced. “Let’s find someplace where we can have privacy.”

  Julius grabbed his plate of food and led the way out of the main lounge. The hallway was empty, but Julius bypassed the first set of chairs since they was too close to the lounge’s doorway and he didn’t want to be overheard by anyone leaving, and chose one of the next available pair further away. Coolidge sat down heavily in the accompanying chair. He was two inches shorter than Julius, but at least a hundred pounds heavier, and was one of the members who added frequent wear and tear to the chairs.

  “I was so looking forward to this afternoon’s tasting,” Coolidge said with a note of melancholy. “You know they only release three hundred bottles of Ancestrale each year?”

  “I’m well aware of that.”

  “It’s nearly impossible to get. Last year I even flew to Paris the week it was being released, and I was still unable to buy any. It’s a near miracle that the club was able to acquire six bottles for today.”

  “How about you tell me what’s bothering you so we can get back to the tasting before those six bottles have been emptied?”

  Julius attempted to say this as a jest, but I’d been around him long enough to pick up the strain in his voice. This was a real concern for him!

  “Very well,” Coolidge said, his eyes shifting away from his folded hands and meeting Julius’s. “A painting was stolen from my gallery. Antoine Zukov’s The Canary. I had it priced at one point two million dollars.”

  “You must have insurance for it.”

  “The insurance will only cover my cost, not what I could’ve sold that little yellow bird for. Also, there’s my deductible and my higher premiums if I put in a claim.” Coolidge clamped his mouth shut for two point three seconds before adding, “Julius, if I don’t get that painting back, I’ll be taking a bath on it.”

  “The world’s most expensive bird bath,” I said.

  I might’ve made that smart-alecky comment because of Julius’s earlier crack. I don’t know. But if Julius found it at all amusing, he not only didn’t show it, but he signaled for me to be quiet. Fine. I decided to get a leg up on Julius, so to speak, and start searching the dark web to see if anyone was looking to unload the stolen painting.

  Julius asked, “When was the painting stolen?”

  Coolidge showed a helpless look. “I can’t tell you that exactly. I remember seeing it a week ago last Tuesday, then I left on a trip for five days and only noticed yesterday that it was missing. One of my employees thought she remembered seeing it a week ago last Thursday, but she couldn’t swear to it. The other two were even less specific.”

  “Is it unusual that none of them would notice it was missing?”

  “No, not at all. I currently have two hundred and fourteen paintings on display in the gallery, a dozen or so more valuable than The Canary. There’s no reason to do daily inventories. That’s why I hired Stone Surveillance. To make sure nothing is stolen from the gallery.”

  “How do they accomplish that?”

  “They monitor the gallery twenty-four seven. They have wired the doors and windows, and have placed cameras covering the front and back doors. Of course, I contacted them immediately after discovering the theft, and they claim there was no interruption in the security cameras operations, and that the gallery could not have been burglarized since I last saw The Canary safely perched in my gallery.”

  I had a new idea, which was to see whether Coolidge could’ve hired foxes to guard the henhouse, and this was an area of investigation I much preferred—not only did it have a better probability of leading to results, but the dark web can be a creepy place, and after spending the last three minutes and twenty-eight seconds crawling around in it I’d had enough. Julius must’ve had the same thought, because he asked Coolidge whether he doubted the veracity of this.

  “I have no reason to,” Coolidge admitted. “I just don’t understand how the painting could’ve been stolen from the store without them noticing it or capturing the act on their surveillance video.”

  “And you scoured the store to make sure the painting hasn’t been misplaced?”

  “Of course.”

  Julius and Coolidge paused their conversation as the front door to the club swung open and two men walked in. Craig Braxton was one of them. I’d inventoried him in the past as one of the club’s members. He was a real-estate developer, and seemed in awe of Julius’s celebrity. He also several times had tried finagling an invitation to Julius’s poker game. Even though Braxton impressed me as being a world-class pigeon, Julius so far had ignored his hints.

  I didn’t recognize the man with Braxton. He was in his late thirties, had a wiry build, and a certain hardness that was unmistakable. He was dressed in the requisite suit and tie that was required for all male members of the club, and while his attire was as conservative as what Julius and the other club members wore, he looked like a fish out of water in them, like he was meant to wear flashier, more stylish clothing. Something about him caused my processing cycles to jangle. Call it intuition, which was a development Julius had noticed in me over a year ago.

  Braxton spotted Julius and showed a goofy grin as he came over and introduced his guest, Don Spenser. Julius being Julius didn’t offer his hand, and neither did Spenser. I’d say they were both equally standoffish as they regarded each other.

  Braxton said, “Word is Don’s a damn good poker player. Just saying in case you ever get a couple of open seats at your game
.”

  “I’ll keep that under advisement,” Julius said.

  Braxton grin showed some strain as he began to realize he might’ve overplayed his hand. He nodded to Julius and Coolidge, and he and his guest headed to the main lounge. The Belvedere Club allowed each member to bring up to three guests each year, and the members had to pay heavily for that privilege. It was frowned upon for members to take advantage of this during one of the club’s special tastings, such as today, and that could’ve been the reason for the frosty tone Julius used with Braxton, but I suspected it was because his own intuition was telling him something was wrong with Braxton’s guest. I confirmed this when I told Julius that Spenser reminded me of card mechanics who had gotten into past poker games with Julius, and Julius indicated that he had the same impression.

  “Is it possible Braxton brought him here to sucker you into a game with him and his card shark buddy?”

  Julius signaled that he didn’t know what the reason was, but the appearance of Braxton and his guest seemed to distract him. He rather brusquely told Coolidge to make an appointment for Monday, and that they would further discuss the matter of his stolen painting then.

  “So you’ll take on this investigation?”

  “I believe I just said I would,” Julius said. “We should head back to the tasting while there’s still Ancestrale to be tasted.”

  A weight seemed to have been lifted off of Coolidge, and he more nimbly rose from the chair than when he had sat down. Julius had finished his first glass of cognac while talking with Coolidge, and he seemed relieved when he went back to the bar and discovered they still had three bottles of his precious elixir left and was able to get a refill. After that he mingled with other members, mostly exchanging small talk about cognac, wine, and restaurants, and while he did this I got nowhere trying to find out whether any of the employees at Stone Surveillance could’ve been behind the theft of the painting. There were no recent windfalls showing up in any of their bank accounts, and nothing in their emails or phone records to indicate any of them were involved. But like Julius, I was also distracted. I had an itch regarding Braxton’s guest, and I finally scratched it by hacking into the Registry of Motor Vehicles’ computer system.

  “There are thirty-seven Donald Spensers with driver’s licenses in Massachusetts,” I told Julius. “And none of them are the guy you were introduced to. I’ll hack into the RMV systems for all the other states, but I’ll give ten to one odds that guy’s name is not Don Spenser.”

  Julius signaled that he agreed it was unlikely, and I realized that his milling about wasn’t by happenstance. That he’d been keeping an eye on Braxton’s guest.

  Over the eight minutes and thirty-four seconds I was able to hack the RMVs for the other New England States, as well as for New York and New Jersey, and was unable to find a Don Spenser who matched the guy introduced to Julius by that name. During that time Julius continued to mingle, sip cognac, and discreetly shadow Braxton’s guest. This changed dramatically when a loud clattering noise distracted most likely everyone in the room except myself, Julius, and the mysterious guest. It took me all of twenty-eight milliseconds to deduce that the noise was made by a tray of dishes and glasses crashing to the parquet floor.

  I knew the noise didn’t distract the mystery man because I saw him slip a vial of liquid into the glass of a club member he was standing next to—a man by the name of Thomas Pierpont. It was a deft and quick spiking of the cognac, which confirmed my earlier impression that this man was a card mechanic, or at the very least, a skilled magician. It was something that most people would have missed, even if they were looking directly at him. Since a second is a virtual hour to me, it didn’t slip past me. I knew that Julius wasn’t distracted by the racket, because he didn’t miss the guy’s sleight of hand either.

  “Pierpont,” Julius shouted out in a voice that cut through the room, “do not drink your cognac!”

  Pierpont turned away from the source of the racket to give Julius a befuddled look. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “This individual,” Julius said, referring to Braxton’s guest, “slipped a poison into your glass while your head was turned. We need to have a lab analyze whatever it was he put in your glass.”

  The culprit tried smiling as if this was a joke, but the violence shining in his eyes was unmistakable and gave him a feral look. “You’re trying to be funny or something?” he forced out in tight, strangled voice, then without giving Julius a chance to respond he swung his elbow, knocking the glass out of Pierpont’s hand. As others scattered away, Julius stepped toward him and the man pulled a switchblade from his pocket and thrusted it at Julius as he lowered himself into a fighting crouch. An item that Julius kept out of the newspapers was that he held a fifth-degree black belt in Shaolin kung fu, and he sidestepped the attack. When the man tried a second time to skewer Julius, Julius was able to grab hold of his wrist, but before he could twist the knife out of the man’s hand, Casper slammed a crystal ashtray into the back of the man’s head. I knew the man was dead even before he slumped to the floor and I could see the damage done to his skull.

  “He was trying to kill you,” Casper whispered to Julius, his face drawn as if he’d seen a ghost. “I was only trying to stop him.”

  The room had grown deathly quiet as if everyone were holding their breath. Casper asked if the man was dead.

  Julius didn’t bother to check for a pulse. “Very dead,” he said. “We need to talk in private before the police arrive.”

  A group of stunned club members had gathered around Julius, Casper, and the corpse, and they quickly parted like the Red Sea to let Julius and Casper pass. Julius led the way to the club’s library, which was occupied by a lone club member, Martin Goldfarb, who was sitting in one of the burgundy-colored leather chairs sipping cognac and reading a biography on Samuel Johnson. The tone of Julius’s voice when he told Goldfarb that he needed to have a private conversation with Casper was enough to get Goldfarb picking up his glass and leaving. Or maybe it was the look on Casper’s face that did the trick. Whichever it was, Julius was soon alone with Casper in the room, and Casper collapsed onto one of the leather chairs as if his legs had given out from underneath him.

  “It happened so fast,” Casper said, shaking his head as if he still couldn’t believe what had happened. “When that guy attacked you with a knife, I reacted without even thinking about what I was doing.” He shifted his gaze from his clasped hands to give Julius a confused look. “Who was he? And why did he try to kill you?”

  “Stop it.”

  Casper’s face scrunched into a mask of confusion. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I’m not a dunce,” Julius said. “Quit treating me as if I am one.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Julius was no longer looking at Casper as if they were childhood friends. Instead, his facial muscles had hardened to where he could’ve been carved out of marble. I felt a surge of heat in my processing cycles as I began piecing together what had happened, seeing things the same way Julius had.

  “You gave me those theater tickets so I wouldn’t be here today,” Julius said. “You should’ve called off your assassin when I showed up. It was utter temerity on your part not to have done so.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not the one who brought that guy here as a guest!”

  “But you’re the one who caved in his skull so that he wouldn’t be able to talk to the police. It wasn’t enough for you to hire this man to kill Pierpont, but you needed to arrange it so you’d be a witness to the murder. Why? What did Pierpont do to you? Steal money? Damage your business? Or is this about your wife? A mistress?”

  Casper had been doing a good job with his confused, aggrieved act, but he always had a lousy poker face, and he gave himself away at the mention of “mistress.”

  “Bingo,” I said.

  To give Casper credit, he accepted that it was over and gave up his act compl
etely then. He even showed a little smile. “I should’ve known better than to try to pull something like this off under your nose, and you’re right it was over my mistress. Caterina. Twenty-six years old, body like a goddess, and it made me feel alive every second I was with her. That sonofabitch Pierpont bumped into us at a club in Charlestown and had to steal her away from me. But Julius, I swear I can see now how badly I overreacted. With Dancer dead, nobody can connect me to him. I was careful to leave no money or phone trails.”

  “Dancer was the hit man you hired?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sure somebody in the club saw you rig that tray of dishes to fall over.”

  “Nobody did. Not even you, Julius. I was careful. Look, I admit I screwed up, but all we have is a dead hit man. No harm, no foul, right?”

  Casper correctly interpreted the stony silence that followed. “Damn it, Julius, we’ve been friends since we were nine!”

  “And you bought me those theater tickets,” Julius noted, his voice sharp enough to cut.

  “That’s how it’s going to be, huh?” Casper rubbed a hand across his jaw as he sized Julius up. He knew about Julius’s martial arts prowess and had to know he wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he still considered it. “Will you try to stop me if I walk out of here?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ll be squealing me out to the police.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Casper made a disgusted face, but he must’ve decided it would be better to make a run for it than to argue any further. He jumped out of the chair and hustled to the door, but he wasn’t about to get any sort of head start on the police. I’d been monitoring their radio broadcasts, and two minutes and thirty-seven seconds ago the first of three police cars had arrived at the Belvedere Club with sirens turned off, and I had informed Julius of that fact. Because of that it was no surprise—at least to me and Julius—that when Casper opened the door he found Homicide Detective Mike Griff and two of Boston’s finest standing on the other side of it.