A Long Line of Dead Men Read online

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  "You seem dubious. "

  "Well, theyve been doing this for thirty-two years. Do you really think nobody let something slip in all that time?" I shrugged. "Still, the fourteen surviving members would have to be the chief suspects. "

  "But why on earth would one of them want to kill the others?"

  "I dont know. "

  "I mean, if you got sick of the whole thing, couldnt you just quit? Didnt anybody ever resign, incidentally?"

  "After two or three years, Homer Champney read the group a letter from one of the members whod written to explain that he no longer wanted to participate. Hed relocated in California and didnt see the point in flying three thousand miles each way for a steak dinner. He had written to suggest that they might want to replace him. They all agreed with Champney that it was against the spirit of the thing to take in any replacement members, and somebody- Hildebrand thinks it would have been Champney- was going to write a letter designed to draw him back into the fold. "

  "What happened?"

  "I guess the letter got written, and it seems to have worked. A year later the would-be dropout was back at the dinner table. "

  "Just in time for some fatted calf," she said. "Well, there you go. They wouldnt let him leave, so he was quietly smoldering with resentment. Hes been getting back at them ever since, killing them off one man at a time. "

  "By God," I said. "I think youve cracked the case wide open. "

  "No, huh?"

  "I forget the guys name, but Ive got it written down. He never did miss another meeting, and if he had a resentment he kept it hidden remarkably well. Wayne Fletcher, that was his name. Hildebrand says Fletcher used to joke about the time he tried to quit, that it would have been easier to resign from the Mafia. "

  "Used to?"

  "He died eight or nine years ago, if I remember correctly. I dont remember the circumstances, but its in my notes. Its hard to keep it all straight. So many men, and so many of them dead. "

  "Its so sad," she said. "Dont you think its sad?"

  "Yes. "

  "Even if nobodys killing anybody, even if all the deaths are perfectly natural, theres something absolutely heartbreaking about the idea of this group just dwindling away. I suppose its life, but that makes life a pretty sad business. "

  "Well," I said, "who ever said it wasnt?"

  On the way past the desk we traded greetings with the concierge. We had our individual names on the mailbox and the buildings directory, but as far as the staff was concerned we were Mr. and Mrs. Scudder.

  ELAINE MARDELL, her shop sign says.

  Upstairs, she made coffee while I went over my notes. Wayne Fletcher had died six years ago, not eight or nine, of complications arising from coronary-bypass surgery. I told Elaine as much when she came into the living room with her tea and my coffee.

  "It may have been borderline malpractice," I said, "according to Hildebrand, but its a real stretch to call it murder. "

  "Thats something. The poor man didnt sign his own death warrant when he let himself be talked into rejoining the group. "

  "Unless someone visited him in the hospital," I went on, "and tampered with his IV. "

  "I didnt even think of that," she said. "Honey, are you going to be able to check out all of this on your own? It sounds as though youll have to go in a dozen different directions at once. And how much help can TJ be?"

  TJ is a black teenager with no fixed address beyond his beeper number. "Hes resourceful," I reminded Elaine.

  "So he says," she said, "and so he is, but somehow I cant see him interviewing middle-aged businessmen at the Addison Club. "

  "He can do some legwork for me. As far as the rest of it goes, I wont have to go over all seventeen deaths with a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. All I have to do is find out for certain if theres a pattern of serial murder operating, and be able to support that argument with enough evidence so I can turn it over to the cops and be sure theyll give it their undivided attention. If I can bring that off, the case will get the benefit of a full-scale official investigation without starting out as a media circus. "

  "God, once the press gets hold of it-"

  "I know. "

  "Can you imagine what theyd do with it on Inside Edition or Hard Copy? The club would come off sounding like a cult of moon worshipers. "

  "I know. "

  "And Boyd Shipton was a member. That wouldnt exactly discourage their interest. "

  "No, hed still be news. And he wasnt the only prominent member, either. Ray Gruliow is guaranteed front-page news. And Avery Davis is a member. "

  "The real estate developer?"

  "Uh-huh. And two of the dead men were writers, and one of them had some plays produced. " I looked at my notes. "Gerard Billings," I said.

  "He was a playwright?"

  "No, that was Tom Cloonan. Billings is a broadcaster, he does the weather report on Channel Nine. "

  "Oh, Gerry Billings, with the bow ties. Gosh, maybe you can get his autograph. "

  "Im just saying hes in the public eye. "

  "A mote in the public eye," she said, "but I see what you mean. " She fell silent, and I went back to sifting my notes. After a few minutes she said, "Why?"

  "Huh?"

  "It just struck me. All these deaths over all those years. Its not like a disgruntled postal employee showing up on the job with an AK-47. Whoever is doing this must have a reason. "

  "Youd think so. "

  "Is there money in it?"

  "So far theres twenty-five hundred in it for me. If Hildebrands check is good, and if I can remember to deposit it. "

  "I meant for the killer. "

  "I figured you did. Well, if he gets a good agent maybe hell do all right when they make the miniseries. But if he gets away with it there wont be a miniseries, so where does that leave him?"

  "High and dry. Dont you get something for being the last man alive?"

  "You get to start the next chapter," I said. "You get the right to read the names of the dead. "

  "Youre sure they dont all leave their money to each other?"

  "Positive. "

  "They dont each kick in a thousand dollars to start things off, and the money got invested in a small upstate corporation that changed its name to Xerox? No, huh?"

  "Im afraid not. "

  "And the whole club isnt some kind of a tom-tom?"

  "Huh?"

  "Wrong word," she said. "A tom-toms a drum. Dammit, whats the word I want?"

  "Where are you going?"

  "To look it up in the dictionary. "

  "How can you look it up," I wondered, "if you dont know what it is?"

  She didnt answer, and I drank the rest of my coffee and went back to my notes. "Ha!" she said, a few minutes later, and I looked up. "Tontine," she said. "Thats the word. Its an eponym. "

  "Is that a fact. "

  She gave me a look. "That means it was named for somebody. Lorenzo Tonti, to be specific. He was a Neapolitan banker who thought it up back in the seventeenth century. "

  "Thought what up?"

  "The tontine, although I dont suppose he called it that. It was a sort of a cross between life insurance and a lottery. You signed up a batch of subscribers and they each put up a sum of money into a common fund. "

  "And it was winner take all?"

  "Not necessarily. Sometimes it was set up so that the funds were distributed when the survivors were down to five or ten percent of the original number. Others, smaller ones, stayed locked up until there was only one person left alive. People would be enrolled by their parents in early childhood, and if the investments did well they could wind up looking at a fortune. But they couldnt collect it unless they outlived the other participants. "

  "You got all this from the dictionary?"

  "I got the word from the dictionary," she said, "so Id know what to look up in the encyclopedia. I knew the word, I just couldnt think of it. Fifteen or twenty years ago I spent a weekend at an i
nn in the Berkshires. There was this historical novel on the subject, I think it was even called The Tontine, and somebody had left a copy there and I picked it up. I was only a third of the way through it when it was time to leave, so I stuck it in my bag. "

  "I think Godll forgive you for that. "

  "Hes already punished me. I read it all the way through, and do you know what it said on the bottom of the last page?"

  " Then she awoke and found it had all been a horrible dream. "

  "Worse than that. It said, End of Volume One. "

  "And you were never able to find Volume Two. "

  "Never. Not that I made searching for it my lifes work. But I would have liked to know how it all came out. There were times over the years when thats what kept me from jumping out the window. Im not talking about the book, Im talking about life. Wanting to know how it all comes out. "

  I said, "You really look beautiful tonight. "

  "Why, thank you," she said. "What brought that on?"

  "I was just struck by it. Watching the play of emotions on your face. Youre a beautiful woman, but sometimes it all shows- the strength, the softness, everything. "

  "You old bear," she said, and sat down on the couch next to me. "Keep saying sweet things like that and Ive got a pretty good idea how tonights going to turn out. "

  "So have I. "

  "Oh? Give me a kiss, then, and well see if youre right. "

  Afterward, as we were lying side by side, she said, "You know, when I was saying earlier that the club was a real guy thing, I wasnt just making war-between-the-sexes jokes. Its very much a male province, getting together to work out a relationship with mortality. You boys like to look at the big picture. "

  "And girls just want to have fun?"

  "And pick out drapes," she said, "and exchange recipes, and talk about men. "

  "And shoes. "

  "Well, shoes are important. Youre an old bear. What do you know about shoes?"

  "Precious little. "

  "Exactly. " She yawned. "Im making it sound as though womens concerns are trivial, and I dont think that for a minute. But I do believe we take shorter views. Can you think of a single female philosopher? Because I cant. "

  "I wonder why that is. "

  "Its probably biological, or anthropological, anyway. When you guys finished hunting and gathering, you could sit around the campfire and think long thoughts. Women didnt have time for that. We had to be more centered on home and hearth. " She yawned again. "I could formulate a theory," she said, "but Im one of those practical broads, and Im going to sleep. You work it out, okay?"

  I dont know that I worked anything out, but a few minutes later I said, "What about Hannah Arendt? And Susan Sontag? Wouldnt you call them philosophers?"

  I didnt get an answer. Ms. Practicality was sleeping.

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