Naked Greed

24

Jerry Brubeck got to work on time, as usual. Late the evening before he had had a call from his sister, Maria, wanting to know where Gino was — not why he was out late, just where. Jerry figured there was a girl in the picture.

He let himself into the office and stopped at the break room to make himself a cup of coffee, then he walked into his office and spilled coffee everywhere. Gino was lying on the floor in front of the safe, and his head was a mess. Jerry didn’t even try for a pulse, he just sat down at his desk, swiveled his chair away from Gino, and called 911.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“I want to report a murder.”

Not quite ten minutes passed, and he heard the elevator open. He walked into the reception room and found Hilda, the receptionist, hanging up her coat. “Hilda,” he said, “the police are going to be here in a minute. When they come—”

The elevator door opened again, and two young uniforms stepped out. “Where’s the murder?” one of them asked.

“Murder?” Hilda asked.

“Hilda, you just sit down at your desk and I’ll deal with this.”

“Who’s murdered?”

“Hilda!”

“Yes, Mr. Brubeck.” She sat down.

“In here,” Jerry said to the cops, holding the door open for them.

The two cops walked in and gazed at Gino’s body. “This the guy?”

“How’d you guess?” Jerry asked drily.

“You touch anything?” the other cop asked.

“Just my telephone, when I called nine-one-one.”

Two detectives walked into the office. “Okay, you two,” one of them said to the uniforms, jerking a thumb toward the door. “We got this.” The two uniforms left, muttering under their breath.

The younger of the two detectives closed the door. “We’re Detectives Mills and Schwartz,” he said, indicating he was Mills. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jerry Brubeck.”

“And who’s he?” He pointed at the corpse.

“He’s Gino Parisi, my business partner.”

“You two have a little argument over business?” Schwartz asked.

“No, I just arrived at work and found him like that.”

“You touch anything?”

“Just my phone.”

“When did you last see Mr. Parisi alive?”

“He was here when I left work last night, at six-thirty.”

“He was working late?”

“He was about to leave when he got a call. I left him to it.”

“Anything missing?”

“I don’t think so, but he’s lying in front of the safe. You want me to open it?”

Schwartz handed him a latex glove. “Please.”

Jerry put on the glove and opened the safe. “There was some cash,” he said. “It’s gone.”

“You keep a lot of cash around?”

“Some of our customers pay in cash. After it builds up, we take it to the bank.”

“Any idea how much it built up by yesterday?”

“Maybe twenty-five, thirty thousand. Our bookkeeper can give you an accurate number, when she comes in.”

Mills called for a medical examiner, and they all sat down.

“How did you and Parisi get along?”

“I got along fine. Gino didn’t get along with anybody.”

“So he had enemies?”

“Almost everybody he knew, I imagine, to one extent or another.”

Mills pulled out a pad. “Give us the ones who hated him enough to want him dead.”

“I don’t have those names,” Jerry replied. “Gino dealt with certain clients, I did everything else. For what it’s worth, I don’t think a client did this. We’re in the beverage distribution business: wine, liquor, soft drinks. It’s not a contentious business anymore.”

“But Gino was contentious?”

“Gino was old-school — he liked to tell clients what they were ordering, not ask them. Call it a personality quirk.”

“There used to be a Carlo Parisi around.”

“Gino’s old man.”

“So your business is mobbed up?”

“No. We’re clean as a hound’s back teeth. Gino, I don’t know. He lived in his own world. We had just agreed that I would buy him out.”

“So what happens to his share of the business now?”

“I guess it will go to his son, Alfredo. I haven’t seen his will, if he’s got one. Had one.”

“How did Gino and Alfredo get along?”

“Gino gave orders, Al carried them out — as best he could. Al’s more like his mother.”

“Did he work in the business?”

“He was on the books as a salesman. I agreed with Gino to keep him on after I bought his share of the business. I guess I’ll buy it from Al now.”

“Cheaper?”

“Gino and I had a contract with a very explicit formula for determining the value of the company. All we have to do is the arithmetic, and we come up with a number. One of us buys out the other. Al will take the money and run, I expect.”

A medical examiner arrived, and the three men moved to a seating area to get out of his way, while the detectives continued to question Jerry in a desultory fashion.

Half an hour later, the ME ordered the body removed.

“What’s the verdict, Doc?” Schwartz asked.

“He took two to the head, twelve, fifteen hours ago. No sign of a struggle. Somebody will need to identify the victim.”

“He was my brother-in-law, and his name was Gino Alfredo Parisi,” Jerry said. He gave him Gino’s address and his wife’s name. “I’ll notify her.”

The ME gave him a form to sign, then left.

The two detectives stood up. “We’ll be in touch,” Mills said.

Jerry shook their hands, and they left. Jerry picked up the phone and called his sister. “Maria,” he said, “I’ve got bad news. You’d better sit down.” After that, the conversation was brief.

After Jerry hung up he felt curiously weightless, as if he were floating a few feet above the floor. He would take the day off, for appearance’s sake; he’d get through the wake and the funeral and the weeping relatives, then he’d sit Al down and take the company away from him.

The future looked sunny.