Another Part of the City

13

When the knock sounded on the door, Olivia said. “There he is.”

“Are you positive I should be here?” Rothstein asked.

“Why not?” Olivia said. “You’re a business associate.”

“But he’s here about Joe. Your sister said...”

“All the more reason for your presence. Your partner absconded with three and a half million dollars worth of...”

There was another knock at the door.

“Just a moment, please,” Olivia called, and then shot Rothstein a warning glance and went into the entrance alcove and opened the door. The man standing there was perhaps thirty-seven, thirty-eight years old, Olivia guessed, with red hair and blue eyes. His complexion looked ruddy from the cold outside. He smiled pleasantly.

“Miss Kidd?” he asked.

“Yes?” she said.

A shield pinned to a leather fob appeared in his right hand.

“Detective Reardon, Fifth P.D.U. All right if I...?”

“Ah. yes,” Olivia said. “My sister phoned earlier, said you’d been to see her. How can I help you?”

“May I come in?”

“Certainly. What’s the problem. Detective Reardon?”

“No problem. Just a few things I wanted to ask you. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Please,” Olivia said.

He followed her through the open arch that led to the living room. Lowell Rothstein was sitting on a sofa near the windows. The drapes were open and the sky over Central Park was littered with stars.

“Hey, hello, Mr. Rothstein,” Reardon said pleasantly.

“Hello, how are you?” Rothstein said. “What a surprise.”

“Do you know each other?” Olivia asked.

“Only casually,” Reardon said. He smiled at Rothstein and said, “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“I... uh... was shopping at F.A.O.’s,” Rothstein said.

“Just around the corner,” Reardon said, and smiled.

“Lowell and I are old friends,” Oh via said.

“Too bad Phelps couldn’t join you, huh?” Reardon said, still smiling. “But he’s down at the Fifth Precinct. I guess your sister told you, huh?”

“You found him?” Rothstein said. “Good!”

Smooth as glass, Reardon thought. But there was apprehension in his eyes.

“We picked him up at Kennedy, buying a ticket to Rio,” he said, and smiled. “Why do they always go to Rio? His briefcase was full of U.S. Treasury bonds. Three million, four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Lots of money,” he said, and whistled softly. “In bearer bonds. That’s the same as cash. I guess you know that, Mr. Rothstein, being in the brokerage business and all.”

“Yes. The bonds belong to a woman named Phyllis Katzman. I discovered them missing at a little after eleven this morning. I don’t know what possessed Joe. I really...”

“But you didn’t call the police, huh?” Reardon said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“When you discovered the theft. You didn’t call the police, did you? My partner checked with the First Precinct down there. No record of anyone reporting the theft.”

“Well, no. I...”

“You went shopping at F.A.O.’s instead.”

“Actually, I... uh... didn’t know what to do. I was hoping Joe might have had some reason to...”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Instructions from Mrs. Katzman to return the bonds to her? Some reasonable explanation for what he did.”

“He had a good reason for running, if that’s what you mean,” Reardon said.

“Well, I guess they all have reasons, don’t they?” Rothstein said, and smiled. “Thieves, I mean. In any case, thank you for coming here to inform us. And thank you, too, for what I’m sure was splendid police work.”

“Only thing our guys did was hang around outside his apartment and follow him to Kennedy,” Reardon said, and shrugged.

“Whatever they did, you’ve got him,” Olivia said “Forgive me, can I order a drink for you?”

“Well, thank you. but this isn’t a social call. I mean, I didn’t just stop by to tell you we got Phelps and the bonds.” He looked at Rothstein, turned to Olivia again, and then said, “I came here to talk about silver.”

“The Lone Ranger’s horse?” Olivia said, smiling.

“No, but that’s very good. Miss Kidd. I mean silver silver.”

“And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. Reardon?”

“Well... according to what Phelps told my partner, your family’s been buying silver contracts, Miss Kidd, lots of silver con...”

“There is nothing illegal about buying silver contracts. We’ve done nothing that wasn’t entirely legal and aboveboard.”

“How about murder?” Reardon asked. “Is that legal and aboveboard?”

“Oh? Has someone been murdered?”

“Two someones. Three if we count the Arab, but you can’t be blamed for what some fanatics did, can you?”

“I have no idea what you’re...”

“One of the victims came to see you on the fifteenth, Mr. Rothstein. Remember? I asked you about him this morning, and you said you didn’t know him.”

“I... who do you mean?” Rothstein said.

“A man named Peter Dodge.”

“I still don’t know him.”

“Let me help you,” Reardon said. “He bought quite a few silver contracts. Bought them long, in fact. Which is what someone would do if he knew the price was going up.” He looked at Olivia. “If he’d seen the timetable, right, Miss Kidd?”

“Mr. Reardon, the legal buying and selling of silver...”

“Oh, sure,” Reardon said, and turned to Rothstein again. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” he said. “Here’s what Phelps says happened. At least, this is what you told Phelps happened, after which he ran to clean out Mrs. Katzman’s lock box.”

“If you’re ready to believe a thief...”

“Yeah, I’m ready to believe him,” Reardon said. “According to Phelps, this is what you told him. Dodge came to you that afternoon and showed you a piece of paper with a lot of dates on it. Dales for buying silver contracts. All spelled out. A textbook for making a fortune. And he also showed you...”

“No, he didn’t show me anything,” Rothstein said.

“Ah, you remember him now.”

“Vaguely.”

“Then why’d you tell me you hadn’t seen him?”

“Because...”

“Because you knew he’d been killed and you knew why he’d been killed!”

“No, I...”

“Yes. Which is why Phelps ran, by the way. The minute he knew you were involved in murder...”

“I had nothing to do with Dodge’s murder!”

“But he did come to see you, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Lowell,” Olivia warned.

“He’s accusing me of murder, damn it!” He turned to Reardon again. “He came to see me, yes. And, yes, he showed me the purchasing schedule.”

“You just told me he didn’t show you anything.”

“He showed it to me.”

“How’d he get it?”

“From a little Italian who owns a restaurant on Mulberry Street.”

“Ralph D’Annunzio?”

“Dodge didn’t tell me his name.”

“It was D’Annunzio. Who’d been sitting next to an Arab named Amin Abbas...”

Olivia looked at him sharply.

“... on the shuttle from Washington, D.C. Go on, Mr. Rothstein.”

“Are you charging Lowell with something?” Olivia asked. “Because if you are, I feel an attorney...”

“Sit tight, Miss Kidd,” Reardon said. “You’ll have plenty of time for attorneys. Let me hear it, Mr. Rothstein.”

“Apparently, they struck up a conversation on the plane. Abbas and the Italian. Abbas left his briefcase behind...”

“I know all this,” Reardon said, “I have it from D’Annunzio’s son. What did Dodge tell you when he came to see you?”

“He said a client of his had come into possession of a briefcase and was afraid to go to the police with it because its owner was the victim of a shooting at La Guardia. That’s exactly what he told me.”

“And, on the basis of what he found when he opened that briefcase, he wanted to buy silver.”

“On the basis of the purchasing schedule, yes.”

“And the timetable.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rothstein said. “A timetable? What do you mean? A man came to me to buy silver. I’m a stockbroker. I do a large business in commodities...”

“Your partner said Dodge asked for an unlimited line of credit, is that true?”

“Well... yes, I suppose...”

“Asked you to back him to the hilt in buying silver long, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he... well, yes, he did.”

“And incidentally signed his own death warrant.”

“I had nothing to do with Peter Dodge’s death,” Rothstein said.

“No? You knew he was in possession of the timetable, the one thing that could blow the...”

“He’s already told you he doesn’t know anything about this timetable of yours,” Olivia said. “No more answers, Lowell, until we get an attorney up here.”

She went directly to the phone on the desk and lifted the receiver.

“By the way,” Reardon said, “Abbas was ticketed Phoenix, Washington, New York, and Rabat. In Phoenix he went to see your father. To talk about money.”

Olivia looked at him.

“And in Washington,” Reardon said, “he went to see Senator Thomas Bailey. To talk about bombers.”

She put the receiver back on the cradle.

She turned from the desk.

“You’ve been busy,” she said.

“So have you,” Reardon said. “According to your brother...”

“My brother? What...?”

“Did I forget to mention him?” He looked at his watch. “He should be down at the precinct by now. He beat me to within an inch of my life, big fella, your brother. But we had a nice little chat afterward. And he told me all about the timetable.”

Olivia was watching him intently now. Rothstein was sitting on the edge of his seat, as if he would bolt for the door at any moment.

“Abbas was in Washington to talk to Senator Bailey about getting more planes for his country. Because once the timetable went into effect...” He looked at his watch again. “What time do you suppose it is in Saudi Arabia?”

Rothstein looked sharply at Olivia.

“How many hours ahead are they?” Reardon asked. “Eight, nine? Let’s say it’s three in the morning there, okay? That leaves how much time to six A.M. on Christmas Day?” He paused. “That’s when they start bombing the oil fields, isn’t it? Six A.M. on Christmas Day?”

Neither of them said anything.

“First wave of planes is supposed to go over the Rub’ al Khali at six in the morning, isn’t that right?” Reardon said. “According to the timetable?”

Silence.

“Kidd International won’t do too bad, will it?” he said. “With a war in Saudi Arabia, and you sitting with oil interests all over the Middle East. Your brother seems to think you’ll make trillions of dollars.”

“Zillions,” Olivia said, and smiled.

He had to hand it to her, that smile.

“But again, Mr. Reardon, we’ve done nothing illegal,” she said. “The silver we’re buying...”

“How about financing a little war? Your brother says that’s why Abbas was in Phoenix, Miss Kidd. To get additional backing from your father. Phoenix to Washington, right? First more cash, then more bombers. Right, Miss Kidd?”

“That may be immoral,” she said, smiling again, “but illegal? Really, Mr. Reardon...”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said, “but murder is illegal. According to your brother, the minute Dodge left Rothstein’s office...”

“I had nothing to do with the murders!” Rothstein said.

“You knew what that timetable meant, didn’t you? The minute you laid eyes on it...”

“Yes, but...”

“The minute you linked it to the silver purchasing schedule...”

“Yes, but I’m not the one who...”

“Shut up, Lowell!”

“All I did was call Phoenix!”

“Damn you, I...”

“She’s the one who put the Arabs on Dodge! She’s the one who ordered them to...”

“You are a very stupid man,” Olivia said.

Reardon looked at both of them.

“I think you’d better come with me, huh?” he said. “We can talk more about this downtown.”

“Why?” Olivia said.

“Miss Kidd, maybe you don’t understand the situation here...”

“Yes, I quite understand it, Mr. Reardon,” she said, and smiled again. “You’ve stumbled upon what you imagine to be a vast money-making scheme...”

“Never mind imagine, Miss Kidd.”

“All right, you know, or at least you believe you know because Joseph Phelps has so informed your colleagues — if a thief is to be trusted at all — and my brother has seemingly corroborated...”

“Your brother isn’t a thief.”

“No, he’s merely a fool. But let us say, Mr. Reardon, that a war will in fact begin on Christmas Day, and that there will be fighting around oil fields, and that the Kidd oil interests in the Middle East will benefit from such fighting, and let us also say that greed — there’s no other word for it,” she said, and smiled, “has led the Kidds to invest heavily in silver, on the premise that the price of silver will rise in tandem with the price of oil, and let us further say that a smart speculator, a man like your Mr. Dodge, for example...”

“Who got himself killed...”

“Yes, but that was unfortunate. A smart speculator, let’s say, who knew all about this... well, such a speculator could very well get into the market himself, couldn’t he?”

Reardon looked at her.

“Buy himself a little silver, Mr. Reardon? Mm?”

“If I’m hearing you correctly...” Reardon said.

“I believe you’re hearing me correctly. Why don’t you buy yourself some silver, Mr. Reardon? The price is certain to double, at least, within the next several weeks. You’d be betting on a sure thing, Mr. Reardon. You could make yourself a small fortune.”

“Uh-huh,” Reardon said.

“How much do you earn, Mr. Reardon? If I may be so bold.”

“A Detective/Second makes a bit more than thirty-seven a year.”

“Do you know how much you could earn in two weeks, Mr. Reardon? If you invested wisely in the silver market at this point in time? If you invested, say, half a million dollars before the close tomorrow? Bought yourself, oh, a hundred and fifty lots, something like that?”

“Half a million, huh?” Reardon said, and shook his head. “Too bad I’ve only got three thousand and some change in the bank.”

“There are people who might be willing to advance you that kind of money... perhaps even more... huge sums of money, Mr. Reardon, if they knew they were backing a sure winner.”

“Olivia’s right, you know.” Rothstein said. “You could come out of this a very rich man. Not on such a small investment, of course. Not on three thousand dollars.”

“What you said was half a million, right?” Reardon said.

“Yes,” Olivia said. “Or perhaps more. Depending on what your needs are.”

“And you think there are people who’d let me have that kind of money, huh?”

“I’m sure we could find... investors for you,” Rothstein said, and glanced quickly at Olivia.

“Backers,” Olivia said, and smiled.

“You could be a very rich man,” Rothstein said again.

“Gee, and here I thought three grand in the bank was rich,” Reardon said.

Still smiling, Olivia moved closer to him.

She put her hand on his arm.

In a voice that was almost a whisper, she said, “Move uptown, Mr. Reardon. It’s another part of the city up here.”

He looked into her eyes.

“You’ll like it up here,” she said.

He nodded.

“Lowell,” she said, “order Mr. Reardon a drink. What would you like to drink, Mr. Rear...?”

“What I think,” Reardon said, “is we all better move downtown.”

He smiled.

“You’ll like it down there,” he said.

You wouldn’t have known there’d been a pretty interesting fight here just a few hours ago. Everything back in its place, furniture where it belonged, cozy fire going on the grate.

“You shoulda seen the place when I walked in,” Sandy said. “I must’ve bad a burglar or something.”

“No, you had me,” Reardon said.

“Some mess you made.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“I sure could use one.”

She poured scotch over ice for him, and they sat by the fire, she curled in the beanbag, he sitting on the floor at her feet, telling her earnestly about the trail that had led to Olivia Kidd.

“The D.A. thinks the case has more holes in it than a sieve,” he said. “Actually bawled me out for dragging him over to the precinct too soon. Said we had the Arabs cold — the three Arabs, you know — not because they admitted the murders, but because one of them was carrying a gun we’re fairly sure was the murder weapon. An exotic pistol made in Switzerland, Ballistics is running it through now. But he wanted to know how we could prove Olivia ordered the hit. I told him we had to work some more on the Arabs, maybe plea-bargain them, find out who their phone connection was, trace that back to Olivia. He told me I shoulda worked on the Arabs first, and then called him when I knew I had a case that would stick all the way up the line.”

Reardon sighed heavily.

“So she walks, right?” he said.

“Maybe not,” Sandy said.

“Sure, she’ll walk. Her money? Even if we did manage to get her into a courtroom, she’d walk.” He shook his head “This job,” he said, and fell silent.

He did not say anything for a long while.

Then he said, “What do I tell the D’Annunzios? They asked me to stop by on Christmas Day. How can I go there, what do I say to Mrs. D’Annunzio? That these three dumb Arab hit men killed her husband, but the one who ordered them to do it has a good chance of walking? Two murders to protect a money-making scheme, and she walks? How’s that gonna wash? What’s that gonna tell them about justice?” He shook his head again. “I can’t even tell them I’m busy, I’d be lying to them. I mean, my daughter’ll be in Jersey with her mother, I’ve got no real excuse.”

“So go,” she said. “Tell them the truth.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, and looked up at her. “Will you come with me?” he asked. “If you’re not busy.”

“I’m not busy,” she said.

“Then... would you?”

“If you want me to.”

“I want you to,” he said. “ ’Cause I’ll tell you, Sandy, it’s not gonna be easy, telling them the truth. I may need some help there. Somebody to hold my hand.”

“I’ll hold your hand,” she said gently.

“ ’Cause you see, if she was right, there’s no sense being a cop at all.”

“Who?” Sandy said, puzzled. “Who do you mean?”

“The Kidd woman. Olivia. I hate to think she might have been right. I’d throw my shield in the East River if I thought she was right.”

“I still don’t under...”

“She said it was another part of the city up there. Well, if it is... if where the rich people are, the powerful people... if that’s another part of the city up there... then what’s the sense, Sandy? There’s no sense even trying, is there?”

“There’s sense,” she said.

“I hope so,” he said, nodding. “I hope so.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she said.

“Yeah, the principle,” he said, and sighed heavily. “So, good,” he said, “you’ll come with me, okay? We’ll stay there awhile, and then... I don’t know... we’ll find something to do later. Maybe go sing carols or something.”

“Or something,” Sandy said, and took his hands.