Quick & Dirty

33

Stone got to P. J. Clarke’s and found Art Masi waiting for him.

“Bring me up to date,” Masi said.

“Wait until Dino gets here, I don’t want to have to do it twice.” They ordered drinks.

Dino got there half a drink later. “Let’s sit down, I’ll order at the table.”

They got a table. “Okay, now what the hell is going on?” Dino asked. “You first,” he said to Stone.

“Okay. On the day he was killed, Mark Tillman invited Pio Farina and his girlfriend, Ann Kusch, over for a drink in the early afternoon. They say he was still alive when they left, and he asked them to drop off a package at FedEx, on Second Avenue. Art tracked it down. Tillman had sent it to himself, and it was delivered on the following Wednesday.”

“The van Gogh?” Dino asked.

“As it turns out, yes. A doorman named Ralph Weede signed for the package but used his colleague’s name, then he opened it, had a look at the contents, and delivered it to the apartment, where Margaretta Fernandez, Morgan’s maid, took charge of it. She took it home, hung it on the wall, and a couple of days ago her junkie son, Manolo, stole it and sold it to somebody for a hundred bucks.”

“Good buy,” Dino said.

“I got Bob Cantor to track the kid’s cell phone. He went into a building on 125th Street, near Fifth Avenue, went up to the roof, encountered someone there who tossed him six stories onto the sidewalk. This is about a block down the street from Sam Spain’s Bar, and Manolo had their card, with a phone number written on the back, in his pocket. Come to think of it, a cell phone number, area code 917. A few minutes later I saw Ralph Weede, the doorman, walk down 125th and into the bar. I didn’t recognize him at first because he wasn’t in his uniform.”

They ordered steaks.

“So that’s where we are?” Dino asked. “Masi, you got anything to add?”

“Sam Spain has a lot of pictures on the walls of the bar,” Masi said. “Posters, stuff he got off the Internet, nothing real, but he fancies himself a collector. Manolo might have picked him for a buyer.”

“Tell you what,” Dino said, “after dinner we’ll go uptown and take a look at the art collection of Sam Spain.”

“Just the three of us?” Stone asked.

“Who else?” Dino replied.

“You and Art both made it sound like we’d need a platoon of uniforms to tackle the place.”

“You and I have walked into worse places and come out alive,” Dino reminded him.

“We were younger then, and stupid,” Stone reminded him.

“Well,” Dino said, “sometimes we’re still stupid.”

Fortified with a couple of drinks each and a shared bottle of Cabernet, the three of them piled into Dino’s SUV.

“What’s your plan?” Stone asked.

“I thought we’d walk in there, slap Sam Spain around a little, then relieve him of the picture,” Dino replied.

Masi made a little groaning noise. “Let’s not do anything that might damage the picture.”

“Yeah,” Stone said, “Arthur Steele wouldn’t like that.”

It was fairly late, but it was the shank of the evening in Sam Spain’s, and everybody looked and sounded drunk. Stone let Dino take the lead, followed by Masi, and then he did what he used to do in places like this: he watched the crowd at the bar for signs of discontent. Then something happened: somebody opened an office door at the rear of the place, and for a millisecond before the door closed, Stone caught sight of a picture on the wall above the desk that was the color of sunshine.

The man who’d left the office ducked behind the bar and replaced a large, older man on the stool in front of an old cash register. The older man, who had big shoulders and a flat gut, spotted Dino and pretended to smile. He pointed his chin at Stone and said, “Hey, Dino, who’s the civilian?”

“He doesn’t look it, Sam,” Dino said, “but he’s the meanest sonofabitch you ever met, and he’s heeled.”

Sam Spain snorted. “Yeah? If you say so.”

Dino said, “You don’t mind if we have a look around the place, do you, Sam?”

“Especially in the office,” Stone said.

“You mean tear it apart and run off my customers?” Spain asked. “You’re going to need a warrant for that, and I’ll still sue your ass and the department’s when you’re done.”

“Sam,” Dino said, “you know a junkie named Manolo, don’t you?”

“I know three or four guys who match that description,” Spain replied.

“Last name Fernandez,” Stone said. “This afternoon he ended up in a puddle of his own blood on the sidewalk, just down the street, after a dive off a rooftop.”

“Oh, yeah, I know that kid. He’s always offering me stuff he’s stolen. I never want any of it.”

“Sure you do, Sam,” Dino said. “You buy stuff from everybody. Anything to turn a buck.”

“I got no objection to turning a buck, but I do it by selling booze,” Spain said, waving a hand at the array of bottles behind the bar. “Have one on the house.”

“I’m too young to go blind,” Dino said. “Why don’t you unlock the office door?”

“Is that door locked?” Spain asked with a smirk.

Dino turned around, walked to the door, and delivered a kick just above the doorknob. There was a splintering sound as the jamb gave way, and the door flew open. He walked in, looked around, then opened another door that led to the alley beside the bar.

Stone ran outside and checked the alley from the other end; nothing but garbage cans. He came back inside, looked at Dino, and shook his head. “It was there a minute ago,” he said, “now it’s not.”

Back in Dino’s car, he turned toward Stone, who was in the rear seat with Masi. “Did you actually see it?”

“For just a second, when the guy came out. It was hanging over the desk in a cheap frame.”

“Have you ever even seen the picture?” Dino asked.

“I have an eight-by-ten transparency of it,” Stone replied. “It makes an impression that stays with you.”

“Masi, did you see it?” Dino asked.

“No,” Art replied, “I was looking for blades.”

“Dino,” Stone said, “check your computer and see if you can find a record and an address for Ralph Weede, with an e at the end.”

Dino pulled the car’s computer around on its supporting arm and did some typing. “He has a conviction for assault and battery twelve years ago,” Dino said. “Suspended sentence. I wonder how he got the job at 740 with a record for violence?”

“I wonder, too,” Stone said.

“Oh, and we just passed the building where he lives, sixth floor.”

“That’s the building where Manolo Fernandez took a swan dive off the roof,” Stone pointed out.

Dino did some more typing. “We’ll get him in for questioning,” he said.

“I can put him at Sam Spain’s half an hour after the murder.”

“I’ll mention that to Homicide,” Dino said.