Death on a High Floor (7 page)

“He’s just pimping you. It was probably an old wine stain, left over from those dorky wine and cheese parties you used to have in your office on Fridays. I want to talk about your dagger collection. Why don’t I know about it?”

“Jenna, do you know how old I was when you were born?”

“What does that have to do with the price of beans?”

“I was thirty-two. Which means I was forty-three when you graduated from grade school. During those forty-three years, I managed to do quite a few things that you don’t know about. Then another ten years went by before I finally met you.”

“Huh.” We both laughed at her imitation of Spritz. “Alright, Robert, when we see Quesana at two, we can trace a little more of your collecting habits, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

She left too, followed by Gwen coming in.

“Mr. Tarza, we need to redo your schedule. I cancelled all of your appointments for today. They all understood.”

“I bet.”

She ignored my sarcasm. “To remind you, there’s a Hiring Committee meeting tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Oh, right.”

“Will you be able to attend?”

“No. There’s nothing critical happening tomorrow. The others can take care of it.” She made a note on her ever-present notepad.

“Gwen,” I asked, “do you know anything about the fabric that’s been cut out on the arm of my couch?”

“Yes. There was yellow tape across your office doorway when I got here this morning. Then someone from the LAPD in a white coat came and cut out the fabric. I asked him why he was doing that, but he wouldn’t say. When he left he took the yellow tape off and handed it to me. It’s in the waste basket. Do you want to see it?”

“No.”

“May I ask you something, Robert?”

“Sure.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not.”

“Good.” She said it as if someone had just reassured her that the grocery store had not run out of bananas. Then she said something that really caught my attention.

“I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said.

“You’re not? Why not?”

“He was mean to people.”

“Was he mean to you?”

“Yes.”

“He was?” We both knew what we were talking about, and I realized as soon as it was out of my mouth that my surprise had offended her.

“I was a looker back then.”

I ran my head back twenty-five years. Sometimes you have to do that quite consciously to remember how we all used to be. She was right. When she got to M&M, Gwen was, if not really well put together, at least very respectably put together. Simon arrived not all that many years after her. As a young associate he wouldn’t have been powerful enough to sate himself farther up the food chain.

“Well, Gwen, did
you
kill him?”

“No.”

“Thank God. That makes two of us who didn’t, then.”

“What about Jenna?”

“What about her?”

“She had plenty of motive.”

“How do you know that?”

“Robert, the secretaries are an in-house spy network. We know everything.”

“I suppose so.” Then I had a thought. “Do the secretaries know who did do it?”

“We have our theories.”

“Want to share them?”

“It wouldn’t be right. I mean, it’s just gossip.”

Over the years, Gwen has always, in the end, been willing to tell me everything the secretarial spy network knows. At least most of the time. About ten years ago, I’d had the temerity to doubt a secretarial finding that two of my married partners were having an affair. In fact, I had uproariously derided the information. So when the two partners eventually divorced their respective spouses and got married to each other, the secretarial network, offended at my derision, cut me off. I didn’t get another crumb of gossip for more than four years.

They had restored my security clearance about five years ago. As a thank you for leaking to Gwen, a week in advance of the announcement, that Simon was going to be the next managing partner. And for revealing the vote of the Nominating Committee.

I decided not to press her for the moment. In due course I’d find out who the secretaries thought had done it.

Gwen didn’t budge from her position in the doorway. “Mr. Tarza, you had a lot of phone calls today. Would you like the list?”

“Any that were important?”

“Your daughter called, for one. From Prague.”

“And said?”

“She said she loved you and was coming home to help.”

“Bullshit. She’s coming home to see her boyfriend.”

“She didn’t say that.” Gwen is a great secretary, but she is something of a literalist who is unable, or refuses, to read between the lines. You could say she doesn’t get sarcasm.

“Did she say anything else?”

“That she needed the airfare.”

“I’ll think about it. Who else called?”

“Mr. Penosco. He wants you to call him.”

Peter Penosco is the CEO of Bright Bulb Productions. Bright Bulb, or BBP, as we call it, was my largest remaining client. It used to produce feature films, but had shifted to mostly made-for-television movies and direct-to-video stuff. I did all of its contracting work, which was pretty interesting. But mainly I did BBP’s litigation. Peter had a habit of breaking the deals he’d made, so people often sued him. Call it his way of renegotiating the deals, which is not exactly unheard of in the movie business. Peter usually netted out a profit when the litigation was over. Whether that was due to his business acumen or my lawyering skills is something we’d been known to argue about.

“Okay. Would you let him know that I’ll call him back tomorrow?”

“I already did. I explained you were out this afternoon.” She smiled. Gwen knows that I make it a fetish to get back to clients promptly and don’t like them left in doubt about when I’m going to call back.

“Thanks. If you don’t mind, let’s go over the rest of the calls tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said, and left.

Once again, I was alone. And exhausted. I was in no shape to meet with Oscar Quesana or anyone else. I picked up the phone and called Jenna. She answered on the first ring. “James here.” I had always thought that an odd way to answer the phone. Maybe it sprang from her father’s career as a general before he became, later in life, a Senator.

“Listen, James Here, I’m toast. Can we put the meeting with Quesana off until tomorrow?”

“Sure. It can wait.”

“Good, I’m going home.”

“You don’t have a car.”

“Right. I forgot. Will you drive me home?”

“Be right there.”

The drive home was not much different from the drive in, except no TV truck shadowed us on the freeway. I gave the thumbs up sign to the Blob as we left the building, and, later, stared straight ahead as we inched through its companion Blob in the driveway of my house.

Jenna drove away as soon as she dropped me off, and went I knew not where. Once inside, I cleaned up the breakfast dishes, puttered around the house, and watched two old movies on Turner Classic Movies. Blissfully, TCM carries no news. I was in bed by ten. I slept neither fitfully nor well. But I did sleep.

I was awakened by the thin December light filtering through the trees. It must have been about seven. I thought about my situation, then just pulled the blanket up over my head and lay there for a few minutes, savoring the warmth of my bed. I would have lain there forever if I could have.

But I couldn’t. So I tossed the blanket off, got up, and vowed to myself that today was going to be different. For the last two days, I’d been a victim—reacting to events, letting others lead me around by the nose. Which was in stark contrast to the last thirty-six years of my life. I’d always been the take-charge person. An investigator of complexity. A solver of disputes. I could solve this one, too, if I just went about it methodically.

The way I figured it, Simon must have been party to a major dispute with someone. I needed to learn who that someone was. Because that someone probably killed him. To figure it out, I first needed to learn a great deal more about what Simon had been up to lately. Who he had spent time with. Where he had been.

I’d paid Simon scant attention of late, even though I had remained on the M&M Executive Committee, over which he presided monthly. I remarked sheepishly to myself that I hadn’t even clued into him and Jenna. I had a big task ahead of me.

After breakfast by myself—Jenna was nowhere to be seen—and with the goal of starting to find out more about Simon, I went out and climbed into my car. Someone, Jenna maybe, had thoughtfully had it returned to my garage. Apparently, the police had decided not to impound it.

I drove out of the garage, bulled my way through the driveway Blob, and headed down the 405 to pay a visit to Horace Crestway Marfan III. “Harry” to his friends, “Three” to his true intimates.

Harry’s grandfather founded the firm back in 1880. A few years ago Harry, by then in his eighties, had sold his Bel Air mansion and retired to Manhattan Beach, a small seaside town just a few miles south of LAX. It’s a picturesque place, with several streets of beach houses and sidewalk cafes that spill down a steep hill to the inevitable bike path, boardwalk, and white strip of sand. Harry lives in a contemporary townhouse two streets up from the beach. Considering his substantial fortune, it’s a rather modest place. He has no phone. He says its absence encourages people to drop by.

Five years ago, when the Nominating Committee had initially deadlocked on the choice of a managing partner to succeed me—I had termed out—Harry was the force that propelled Simon to the forefront. Harry had argued forcefully that the two leading candidates were “too old, too set in their ways and too damn stuffy” to lead the firm into the new century. Coming as it did from Mr. Stuffy himself, the argument persuaded four of the five of us. But I had already begun to have a glimmer of what an asshole Simon would become, and voted no. Simon, whose mentor I had once been, had never forgiven me.

After Simon became managing partner, Harry had taken him quietly under his wing. I had seen them huddled together in many a corner, talking earnestly, and once or twice noticed them drinking together at the
DownUnder
, a bar still frequented by what was left of the pinstripe crowd. If anyone knew about Simon’s recent activities, Harry did.

I didn’t think Harry would mind my asking. If nothing else, it could be justified by the many intertwined threads that connected the three of us. Thirty years ago, Harry had stirred my interest in ancient coins—beyond my idle curiosity about the one coin, the
Ides
, that I had owned since boyhood. I, in turn, had opened that world up to Simon. An interest in collecting old chunks of metal is something of an addiction, and addicts tend to gravitate to one another. And to help each other out. The three of us, as well as some others, had even met monthly at the DownUnder in what we called the Coin Club—a club that had died promptly upon Simon’s ascension to the throne.

When I knocked on Harry’s door, he swung it open almost immediately. He was dressed in what had become his new uniform since shedding his suit—topsiders, beige Dockers, and a blue work shirt. Harry, at 86, still towered over me, a good eight inches taller than my five-foot-ten. And he still resembled a big sheep dog, except that the shaggy thatch of hair has thinned some over the years. Still as black as the day we first met, though.

“Robert, Robert, do come in. I’ve been half expecting you.” He ushered me through the door and into the big square of a main room, lit from the front by floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the sea and from above by clerestory windows that hugged the tops of the other three walls. Through the tall windows, I could see the surf rolling in on long swells.

I plunked myself down on one of the beige couches that faced the ocean. Harry pulled up a weathered maple chair with a cane seat and sat himself down a few feet in front of me, but slightly to the side. The better not to block the windows. I ignored the view. I wanted to get down to business, and Harry apparently sensed that.

“So, my friend, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I need to figure out who killed Simon.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve been reading the papers. They think you did it, do they not?”

“Apparently so.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Well, didn’t think so, didn’t think so. You’re not the killer type, really.” He paused and peered at me. “But what makes you think I might be able to help you? I’ve been away from the firm some time now. Can hardly be said to have my ear to the ground anymore.”

“You knew Simon well. Had a lot of mutual interests. I know the two of you continued to talk even after you left,” I said.

“You were always a good observer, Robert. Did you observe who he was dating?”

“No, but if you mean Jenna, I’m aware of it now.”

“Yes, Miss James. She’d be
my
prime suspect. Simon wanted to end it, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Be that as it may, she was resistant—even threatened him with some sexual harassment law suit or other—and he was upset about it. Came down here on Friday night and used language that was unkind. Called her a conniving, manipulative little bitch.” He paused. “In fact, he used a much cruder word. One I do not wish to repeat.”

“She’s representing me, you know.”

Harry just looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Then he got up, walked over to the windows and stood with his hands behind his back, gazing out at the ocean. “Robert, you are, if I might be so bold, being blinded by a skirt. Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but you need to fire her and get yourself a real lawyer. One who isn’t a bigger suspect than you are.”

“She’s not the lead. She’s just backing up Oscar Quesana,” I said.

He turned to face me again. “Oscar Quesana? For God’s sake, Oscar does murders!”

“That’s what I’m suspected of, Harry. Remember?”

“Right. Of course. Nevertheless, you need an entirely different class of lawyer. But surely you already know that.” He fixed his gaze on me. “Or perhaps the stress has addled your brain.”

My goal in going there had been to learn more about Simon. Not to discuss my choice of lawyers.

“Harry, you may be right, and pardon me, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. I came to talk about Simon and who had a motive to kill him. Besides Jenna.”

“Well, I suppose it could have been somebody from the nether world which he had been—how shall I put it—exploring?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Simon had developed an interest in high stakes gambling. The kind where you wear a tux, play with silver chips in an elegant private room, and are served champagne by women who look like they just stepped out of a James Bond movie. Unfortunately, gambling turned out not to be Simon’s forte.”

“He owed them money?”

“In the vicinity of five million dollars.”

“To whom, exactly, did he owe it?”

“He declined to tell me. All I know is that he didn’t have the sum and that it was woefully overdue.” Harry had begun to pace up and down in front of the windows with his hands behind his back. He had always been a guy who couldn’t stay put.

“Who else knows about it?”

“Well, the policeman who came to visit me last night, for one. Spitz I think his name was. He asked about it.”

“Spritz.”

“Yes, that’s right. Spritz.”

“Did he tell you how he knew about it?” I asked.

“No, Robert, he didn’t. But as I think you know, when the police interview you, they generally ask the questions.”

“What else did he want to know?”

“In addition to asking about the gambling debts—about which I knew and know almost nothing—he inquired about Simon’s interest in ancient coins.”

“What did you tell him?”

Harry walked over to a low cabinet and bent down to open it. He lowered himself slowly, in a way that betrayed the age of his joints. I had known him since he was in his early fifties, and it pained me to watch.

He pulled from the cabinet a thin, white, folio-sized book, not yet bound, and brought it over to me. “I told Spritz that Simon had been a collector for more than twenty years and showed him this.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the printer’s proof copy of Simon’s private catalog. For his coin collection.”

I was taken aback. Normally,
museums
make catalogs of their coin collections. I opened it. It was arranged chronologically, coin by coin. I paged to the section that covered the 50 years before Christ. There, exactly where I had expected them, were thumbnail pictures of both sides of the
Ides denarius
of Brutus
. Brutus’ portrait on one side, double daggers and the words “Eid Mar”—Ides of March—on the other.

“This is a picture of the one I sold him?”

“Yes. Although he was planning to strike it from the final, bound edition.”

“What did you tell Spritz about it?”

“Not much.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m afraid I volunteered that you and Simon were having a tiff about the authenticity of the
Ides
.”

“So you know about our dispute, then?”

“Sure. Did you ever take the coin back, as Simon asked, and return his money?”

I hesitated. I do not make a habit of lying. Little white lies in social situations, maybe.

“I did,” I said. “At his request, I picked it up from his office last Saturday morning when I was in for a few hours. I’ll need to send his estate a check.”

Harry gave me what I interpreted as an odd look.

“So you came to agree the
Ides
was a fake?” he asked.

“No, no. I just got tired of arguing about it. I’ll sell it to someone else. You were bidding on it, too, Harry. Maybe you’ll want to buy it.”

“Not now. It’s got a cloud over it.”

“It’s not a fake, goddamn it.”

Earlier that morning, I had picked up the coin flip and put it in my suit coat pocket. I stuck my hand in my pocket to assure myself that it was still there. It was. I had a decision to make. Once I showed it to him, there would be no going back on my lie.

I pulled the vinyl flip out of my pocket. “Here it is. Look for yourself.” I held it out to him.

Harry came over, took it from me, and sat down again in the wooden chair. He opened the flip and took the coin out, holding it up to the light between his fingers. Even in the bright light from the windows, it did not glimmer. Coins that old can often appear dull, with no sheen.

“It looks real enough to me,” he said. “Good patina, correct heft. Feels pretty much the same as it did the few times you let the rest of us touch it.”

He put it back in the flip and handed it back to me. “But I’m hardly an expert.”

I dropped it back into my pocket. “What else did Spritz ask you about, Harry?”

“He wanted to know about someone named Susan Apacha. I told him I did not know who that was.”

“I do.”

“Well, please do not tell me. I want to be nothing more than a distant witness to this whole sordid thing.”

“Did he ask you anything about the frosty nature of my relationship with Simon in the five years since I voted no?”

“No.”

“Thank God. They would probably drag that out as another motive.”