A Long Line of Dead Men

21

"They each put up a thousand dollars," I told Elaine. "The ones who'd brought their checkbooks along wrote out checks, and the rest handed over markers."

"You had to take their markers?"

"Ray Gruliow took their markers," I said. "And their checks. He's the one they hired. They engaged him collectively as their legal counsel."

"What are they going to do, sue the murderer?"

"And Gruliow hired me. He gave me a check drawn on his office account for nine thousand dollars, which represents the checks and markers he received from the others plus a thousand dollars of his own."

"So you're working for him?"

I shook my head. "I've been hired by him," I said, "to conduct an investigation in his client's interest, his client being the group as a whole. The point of this, according to him, is to get me under the umbrella of attorney-client privilege."

"What does that mean? You can refuse to answer questions in court?"

"I don't think anybody's concerned about that. No, it means I'm not bound to divulge the results of my investigation to the police, or to repeat anything said to me by my employer, Gruliow, or his clients."

"Does that really cover you?"

"I don't know. Gruliow seemed to think it does. In any case, if I should feel it was appropriate for me to withhold information from the police, I'd do it irrespective of the legal ramifications. So it can't hurt to have whatever shield attorney-client privilege provides, but I'm going to do the same thing with or without it."

"My hero," she said. "He'll do anything for a client."

"Not exactly," I said, "because I told them I reserved the option of bringing the cops in at any point. My main concern is stopping this guy before there are any more killings."

"That's their concern, too, isn't it?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? I don't know what was said while I was sitting on the stoop across the street, but my impression was that they're more interested in keeping the club of thirty-one off tabloid television than they are in keeping their own names out of the obituary column. If the story ever breaks, that's the end of the club. Don't forget, it was in existence before they were born, and they expect it to survive them all. They're not particularly eager to die for it, but they don't want to have to live without it, either."

"Guys," she said.

"Hell, that's not the worst of it," I said. "Two of them were wearing identical red-and-black striped ties, and nobody said a word about it. I don't even think they noticed."

"Shocking," she said. "Except I don't believe it. You're making it up, aren't you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. How'd you know?"

"Because you wouldn't have noticed either, you bear."

"I might. I'm a trained observer."

"Describe their ties."

"Whose ties?"

"Everybody's ties."

"Well, Gerry Billings was wearing a bow tie."

"He always wears a bow tie. What color?"

"Uh-"

"And don't make something up. Do you remember any of their ties?"

"Some were striped," I said.

"Uh-huh. And some weren't."

"I had more important things on my mind," I said, "than ties."

"Right," she said. "I rest my case."

Before I took Gruliow's check I talked to them about security. "What you have to do," I said, "is pay attention to things you're in the habit of overlooking, or taking for granted. Is someone following you on the street? Is the same car circling your block over and over, or staked out across the street from your house? Are you getting a rash of suspicious phone calls? Is there a lot of static on your telephone line, or a batch of clicks along with abrupt changes in volume?"

"Paranoia time," someone said.

"A certain degree of paranoia's part of life in our times," I said. "You people have a right to be a little more paranoid than the norm. You've just paid out a thousand dollars a man because someone's trying to kill you. You don't want to make it easy for him."

"What about hiring bodyguards?"

"My driver's armed," Avery Davis volunteered, "and the car's bulletproof. That's not a response to this particular threat. A couple of friends of ours were carjacked- Ed and Rhea Feinbock?"

"I read about that," Bill Ludgate said.

"Well, I heard about it firsthand, from Ed. The sons of bitches pistol-whipped him. And then I read about other instances, and I bought a limo and hired a pro to drive it. While I was at it, I picked a man with bodyguard experience."

"Will he leap into the line of fire?" Bob Berk wanted to know. "Will he take a bullet for you, Avery?"

"I wouldn't think so, not for what I'm paying him."

I said, "I don't want to talk anybody out of employing bodyguards, but I don't think the situation warrants it. I think it's more important for you to live defensively than that you hire someone to defend you. You're going to have to keep your guard up all the time."

"By checking to see if we're being followed?"

"Among other things. Remember how Ian Heller died."

"Jumped in front of a subway," someone said.

"Jumped or fell," I said, "and let's assume for the moment he was pushed. The cop on the case has spent enough time underground to be very cautious himself on subway platforms. He's wary of ambulatory psychotics, careful not to get between some potential maniac and the edge of the platform. But that kind of caution alone wouldn't have protected Ian Heller."

"Why not?"

"Suppose it was someone Heller knew. Suppose it was a friend of his."

"You're saying it was one of us," Ken McGarry said.

"Not necessarily, although I can't rule it out. You didn't all automatically clear yourselves by writing out a thousand-dollar check. But let's say Heller was in the subway, waiting for a train, and someone approached him."

"Someone he knew?"

"Someone who knew him," I said. "Someone who called him by name. 'You're Ian Heller, aren't you? You don't remember me, but we met at So-and-so's party.' He'd know enough about Heller to find a pretext for conversation. Heller wouldn't worry about getting shoved in front of a train. If anything, he'd feel more secure than he'd felt a few minutes ago. He wasn't all alone with a group of potentially dangerous strangers. He had a friend with him."

Gordon Walser said it was diabolical. Lowell Hunter said, "You know, it reminds me of The Godfather. 'The attack when it comes will be from someone you trust, someone you would never doubt for a moment. That's who they'll use.' "

"That's how he must do it," I said. "In a way, Ian Heller was a bad example. His death occurred during rush hour. The platform was crowded, and anybody could have positioned himself properly and given him a well-timed shove. But it could have happened at an off-hour in an empty station, just the way I described it."

"So we'll stay away from subways," someone said.

"What you ought to do," I suggested, "is think of the killer more as a confidence man than a wild-eyed assassin. Think of him stalking Alan Watson on his way home, then conveniently running into him after Watson stopped for pizza on Austin Street. 'Alan, how are you? You walking home? I'm going the same way, I'll keep you company.' Even if Watson had never seen the guy before, he'd have to assume he was a neighbor, someone he'd met and forgotten. And they probably had a very pleasant conversation, right up to the time when the guy stuck a knife in Watson's chest."

"I don't know if I got through to them," I told Elaine. "A couple of them wanted to know if they ought to arm themselves. I didn't know what to tell them. They probably couldn't get carry permits, certainly not in a hurry, so that would mean risking an illegal-weapons charge."

"That's better than getting killed, isn't it?"

"Of course, and these men are respectable establishment types; if they wound up defending themselves with an illegal handgun, nobody'd be in a rush to bring charges against them. But suppose some perfectly innocent person asked one of them for a match, or lost his balance and lurched into one of our armed heroes?"

"Bang bang."

"I told them to call me if anything out of the ordinary happens. They'll keep in touch with each other, too. It's funny."

"What is?"

"The way it's got them relating to one another. In one way they're closer. Remember, these are fellows who've shared a very intimate association for over thirty years- but only one night a year. They're united by deep and longstanding bonds of brotherhood, but they don't really know each other."

"And?"

"And now things have changed, and nothing brings you together like the need to defend yourselves against a common enemy. But at the same time, the enemy might be one of them."

"Didn't Pogo have something to say about that?"

" 'We have met the enemy and he is us.' The thing is we haven't met the enemy, not head-on. He may be one of us and he may not. So-"

"So they're closely bonded but a little uneasy about it."

"Something like that. For the first time ever they have to maintain contact with one another. And, also for the first time, they don't dare trust each other. It's like Cannibals and Christians." She looked bewildered. "You know, Cannibals and Christians. It's a logic problem, you've got six people trying to cross a river, three cannibals and three Christians, and the boat only holds three people and you can't have one Christian left alone with two cannibals or he'll get eaten."

"I don't think it's very realistic."

"For God's sake," I said, "it's not supposed to be realistic. It's a logic problem."

"Well, I'm a Jewish girl," she said. "Cannibals, Christians, what's the difference? Who can tell them apart?"

"Not you, evidently."

"Not me," she agreed. "You know what I say? Goyim is goyim. That's what I say."

We had dinner at an Italian place on the next block. It still hadn't rained, and looked and felt more like it than ever. "So you met Gerry Billings," Elaine said. "I hope you asked him if he could do anything about this weather."

"God, he must get sick of hearing that."

"If he doesn't get sick of pointing at the wall and talking about warm fronts and cold fronts, he probably doesn't ever get sick of anything. When you see him pointing at a map or a chart, he's not really, you know."

"Somebody else is pointing for him?"

"He's pointing at nothing," she said, "and the image of him pointing is superimposed on another image of a map or chart. So it comes out looking right, but he's got to stand there and point at a blank wall. That's probably the hardest part of his whole job, remembering what part of the wall is Wyoming."

We fought over the check. She wanted to pay it because she'd sold one of the paint-by-number paintings for approximately a hundred times what she'd paid for it. I pointed out that that was still only a couple of hundred dollars, while I'd just scooped up a nine-thousand-dollar retainer.

"You still have to buckle down and earn it," she said. "The painting, on the other hand, is out of my hands and out of the store. The transaction is completed. Done, finis, finito."

"Too bad," I said. "This one's on me."

Back home, I checked the answering machine. Jim Shorter hadn't called, and I'd expected that he would. I tried him and he didn't answer. Then I tried my own number across the street, to see if I'd forgotten to engage Call Forwarding, but I got a busy signal, which indicated that I'd remembered.

I tried Alan Watson's widow in Forest Hills. No answer.

"You're restless," Elaine said. "Do you feel like a movie? Or do you think you ought to go to a meeting?"

I said, "I was thinking of taking a cab up to Yorkville."

"What's there?"

"A meeting."

"St. Paul's is handier. Why go all the way up there? You want to check up on your new sponsee, is that it?"

"He's not my sponsee."

"Your unofficial sponsee. He didn't call and you're worried about him."

"I suppose so. What would your friends in Al-Anon say about that?"

"They'd tell me it's none of my business how you work your program."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. You meant what would they tell you to do, and if you want to know that you'll have to ask them yourself."

"I should leave him alone," I said.

"Think so, huh?"

"I should go to meetings for myself, not for anybody else, and if he gets sober that's fine, and if he goes out and drinks again that's fine, too."

"So?"

"So I'm afraid he'll drink," I said, "and I'm afraid it'll be my fault. But it won't be my fault if he drinks, and it won't be my doing if he stays sober, and anyway he's got his own Higher Power. Right?"

"Everything you say is right, master."

"Oh, boy."

"So what are you going to do? Grab a cab uptown?"

"Nah, fuck him," I said. "Let's go to a movie."

The movie we saw starred Don Johnson as a homicidal gigolo and Rebecca De Mornay as his attorney. As we left the theater, Elaine said, "I cannot believe how much she looked like Hillary." Who was Hillary, I wanted to know, and who looked like her?

"Hillary Clinton," she said. "Who else? And De Mornay looked enough like her to fool the president himself. You didn't notice? I can't believe it. Where were you, anyway?"

"Lost in space, I guess. Regretting the past, dreading the future."

"Business as usual. Just to keep you abreast of things, Don Johnson was the bad guy."

"I got that much," I said.

"Well, how much more do you really need to know? I think it's finally going to rain. I just felt a drop, unless it dripped from somebody's air conditioner."

"No, I felt it, too."

"Dueling air conditioners? Unlikely, I'd say. What do you want to do now?"

"I don't know. Go home, I guess."

"Sit around and stare out the window? Make a few phone calls to people who aren't home? Pace the floor?"

"Something like that."

"I've got a better idea," she said. "Walk me home and then go see if Mick wants to make a night of it. Get blitzed on coffee and Perrier. Watch the sun come up. Go to mass, take Holy Reunion."

"Communion."

"Whatever."

"Goyim is goyim, huh?"

"You said it."

In front of the Parc Vendôme she said, "It's definitely raining. You want to come upstairs and get an umbrella?"

"It's not raining that hard."

"Want to see if anybody called? Want to catch the weather report and see what color bow tie your friend Gerry Billings is wearing? Naw, you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the rain is falling."

"No."

"Of course not. You just want to get to Grogan's. Give Mick my love, will you? And enjoy yourself."