A Long Line of Dead Men Read online

Page 35

 

  By early afternoon theyd found the car, a 1988 Ford Crown Victoria with Jersey plates, registered to an ophthalmologist in Teaneck. The vehicle had been located in the pound where it had been towed from a no-parking zone in the midtown theater district. Identification was made on the basis of a partial plate number supplied by a witness, and confirmed by paint scrapings on the car and on Rakhman Alis yellow cab. The ophthalmologists wife told police that her husband was in Houston attending a professional conference; hed flown there Friday from Newark, after having left his car in the long-term parking lot.

  There were fingerprints on the steering wheel and the dash, but they turned out to be those of the traffic officer whod opened the car door and put it in neutral so that it could be towed. There were no prints that could have belonged to the shooter, whom witnesses described as of average height and wearing a baseball cap and a glossy dark blue warm-up jacket with a name embroidered over the breast pocket. None of the witnesses had been close enough to read the name.

  The incident looked ordinary enough, newsworthy in that one of the two victims had enjoyed a measure of local celebrity. Someone had stolen a car from an airport parking lot, probably with the intention of using it in the commission of a crime. Maybe he was chemically impaired at the time of the accident. Maybe he was just having a bad day. In any event, hed reacted badly to an ordinary fender-bender. Instead of exchanging licenses and insurance cards, hed pulled a gun and started blasting.

  It could have happened that way.

  Or he could have parked his stolen car where he could keep an eye on the entrance to Billingss building, could have tagged along after the cab that stopped for Billings, could have engineered the collision and its aftermath.

  Nothing to it.

  * * *

  I was up all day, drinking too much coffee and fighting off exhaustion. At 8:30 I made myself go over to St. Pauls for my regular meeting, but I couldnt make myself pay attention, nor could I keep from leaving at the break. When I walked in the door, Elaine told me to take a hot bath and go to bed.

  "Just do it," she said.

  The hot water took away some of the tension, and when I got into bed I fell asleep almost immediately. I must have dreamed about Jim Shorter, because I woke up concerned about him. I said as much to Elaine, and she told me hed called the night before, while I was at St. Pauls.

  "He said it wasnt important," she said, "and not to call him because he was on his way out. So I didnt mention it. "

  I called him. No answer.

  I listened to the news and there was nothing about Billings. I went out and bought the Times and all three tabloids and read four versions of the same story. The Times article jumped from the front page to the obituary page, where his obituary included a photo and six inches of text. I read the obit, and the half-dozen others. And then I went on to read the half-page of paid death notices. Fully a third of these were for a man who had died the previous week and who had evidently contributed heavily to a wide range of charitable endeavors; each was now taking pains to reward him with a paid announcement of their sorrow at his passing.

  I raced through those, but read the others fairly closely, as is my custom these days. My attention slacked off some toward the end, as it generally does. Once Ive made it past the Ss without finding my own name, my appetite for the pursuit is a little less keen. But I stayed there right through the alphabet, and thus learned of the death on Monday of Helen Stromberg Watson, wife of the late Alan Watson, of Forest Hills.

  It took a few calls before I found a cop who would talk to me.

  "Accidental drowning," he said. "Coulda slipped, hit her head on the tile. Drowned right in her own bathtub. All you gotta do is lose consciousness long enough to fill the lungs with water. Happens all the time. "

  "Oh, really?"

  "Ask me, they oughta put warning labels on bathtubs. No, see, theres a possibility of suicide. Woman lost her husband earlier this year, despondent over the loss, so on and so on. We found a bottle of J&B on the floor next to the tub. You drink in the tub and pass out, you want to call that suicide? I dont, not without a note, not when you got the childrens feelings to consider, losing both parents in lessn six months. Sides, who knows whats in somebody elses mind? You have a few drinks, and before you know it you pass out and you drown. Or the drinks hit you hard, especially in a hot tub, and you lose your balance and smack your head and thats what knocks you out. Hey, accidents happen. "

  "And she died on Monday?"

  "Thats when they found her. Docs guess was she was in the water three days by then. " No wonder she hadnt answered the phone.

  "You know what the weathers been like," he said. "And maybe you know what a bodys like after a couple of days in the water. Put em both together, do I have to tell you what they spell?"

  "Who discovered the body?"

  "A neighbor. One of her kids called next door, concerned because he couldnt reach his mother on the phone. The neighbor had a key and let herself in. Hell of a thing to walk in on. "

  I called Jim Shorter. No answer.

  I called Elaine at the shop. I said, "When Shorter called last night did he seem nervous? Did he sound as though he was afraid?"

  "No, why?"

  "Alan Watsons widow drowned in her bathtub sometime over the weekend. The time of deaths hard to pinpoint, but it evidently happened after I went out to Corona and talked to the head of that security firm. "

  "Im not sure I see the connection. "

  "There has to be one," I said. "I think the killers tying off loose ends. He must be afraid somebody saw something, or knows something. He killed the widow, and the next logical step is the person who was first on the scene, the guard who discovered Watsons body. "

  "Jim Shorter?"

  "His phone doesnt answer. "

  "He could be anywhere," she said. "Maybe hes at a meeting. "

  "Or in a bar," I said. "Or in his room with a bottle, not picking up the phone. "

  "Or having breakfast, or catching the Rothko retrospective at the Whitney, which would be my first choice if I didnt have a business to run. What are you going to do?"

  "Look for him. Theres something he knows, even if he doesnt know he knows it. I want to find him before it gets him killed. "

  "Hold on a second," she said. She covered the mouthpiece for a moment, then came back and said, "TJs here. He wants to know if you want company. "

  By the time I got dressed and downstairs, he was waiting for me in front of the building. He was wearing his preppy clothes, the effect slightly compromised by the black Raiders cap. "We can lose the cap," he said, "if Is got to look straighter than straight, Nate. "

  "I didnt say anything about the cap. "

  "Guess I hearin things. "

  "Or reading minds. " I stepped to the curb, hailed a cab, told the driver Eighty-second and Second. "Anyway," I went on, "I dont think it matters what anybody wears. Were just wasting our time. "

  "You dont expect nothing. "

  "Thats right. "

  "Just brung me along sos youd have company. "

  "More or less. "

  He rolled his eyes. "Then what we doin in a cab, Tab? Man like you take a taxi, be somethin goin down. "

  "Well," I said, "lets hope youre wrong. "

  I had him wait in the cab while I climbed a flight of stairs and checked the meeting room at the Eighty-second Street Workshop. That was where Id brought Jim Friday night, and hed mentioned going to other meetings there since. There was a meeting going on, and I went in and found a good vantage point beside the coffee urn. When I was sure he wasnt there I went downstairs and got back in the cab. I had the driver go up First Avenue and drop us at the corner of Ninety-fourth.

  Our first stop was the Blue Canoe, and if Shorter didnt get drunk and didnt get killed, someday the place might figure in his qualification. "I met this guy there," he could say, "figuring I could con him into buying me a couple of beers, and the next thing
I knew I was at an AA meeting. And here I am, and I havent had a drink since. "

  He wasnt at the Blue Canoe now, or at any of the other bars or luncheonettes on First Avenue. TJ and I made the rounds together. It would have been convenient if we could have shared the work, but how would he know Shorter if he saw him?

  When wed finished with a four-block stretch of First Avenue, we walked west on Ninety-fourth to Shorters rooming house. Id have rung his bell if I knew which one it was. Instead I rang the bell marked SUPER. When it went unanswered we left and walked to Second Avenue, where we wasted some more time checking more bars and restaurants, from Ninety-second to Ninety-sixth and back to where wed started. I found a phone that worked and called Shorters number and it didnt answer.

  I was starting to get a bad feeling.

  There was no point combing the city for him, I thought, because we werent going to find him that way. And there was no point dialing his number because he wasnt going to answer the phone.

  I walked quickly back to the rooming house, TJ tagging along beside me. I rang the supers bell, and when there was no answer I poked other buttons at random so that someone could buzz me in. No one did, but after a few minutes a very large woman emerged from one of the first-floor rooms and waddled to the door. She frowned through the glass panel at us, and without opening the door she asked what we wanted.

  I said we wanted the super.

  "Youre wasting your time," she said. "He aint got no vacancies. "

  "Where is he?"

  "This is a respectable house. " God knows who she thought we were. I took out a business card from Reliable and held it against the glass. She squinted at it and moved her lips as she read it. When she was done her lips settled into a tight narrow line. "Thats him on the stoop across the street," she said grudgingly. "His names Carlos. "

  There were three men on the stoop shed pointed to, two of them playing checkers, the third kibitzing their game. The kibitzer was drinking a can of Millers. The players were sharing a carton of Tropicana orange juice. I said, "Carlos?" and they all looked at me.

  I held out my card and one of the players took it. He was stocky, with a flattened nose and liquid brown eyes, and I decided he must be Carlos. "Im concerned about one of your tenants," I said. "Im afraid he may have had an accident. "

  "Whos that?"

  "James Shorter. "

  "Shorter. "

  "Late forties, medium height, dark hair-"

  "I know him," he said. "You dont have to describe him for me. I know all of them. I just tryin to think if I seen him today. " He closed his eyes in concentration. "No," he said at length. "I dont see him in a while. You want to leave your card, I call you when I see him. "

  "I think we should see if hes all right. "

  "You mean open his door?"

  "Thats what I mean. "

  "You ring his bell?"

  "I dont know which bell is his. "

  "Dont it got his name on it?"

  "No. "

  He sighed. "A lot of them," he said, "they dont want no name on the bell. I put the name in, they just take it out. Then their friends come, ring the wrong bell, disturb everybody. Or they ring my bell. I tell you, its a big pain in the ass. "