Ice Blues

NINE

I exited Queequeg's through the kitchen and went up a snowy alley to the side street where I'd parked the rental car. The night air was still now, frozen in place, it seemed, and a scattering of stars hung in a remote black sky. I had to remove a glove to insert the key in the Chrysler's ignition, and when I did so the front seat did not explode, blowing my lower torso into disgusting pulpy fragments. That was a relief.

My breath froze on the windshield, so while the car warmed up I tuned in the all-news radio station and learned that Albany police had no suspect in the Tuesday slaying of a Swan Street man, but that they had developed a number of leads and were searching for the Albany private investigator in whose car the body had been found and who was now believed to be in possession of "additional information." I also was informed that a gorilla in Woodside, California, had given birth to a single gray kitten, though by that time I was headed down Madison and on the lookout for cop cars, so I might have gotten the gorilla story wrong.

I left the rental car outside the Hertz office and dropped the keys through the night-return slot. Bowman would soon have a make on any car rented locally in my name, if he hadn't already, and I wanted to steer clear of him a while longer. Like so many people I kept running into, he would have his nosy questions concerning the whereabouts of Jack Lenihan's two and a half million, except Bowman's manner of inquiry would be ruder than that of the others and I chose to avoid it.

Up in room 1407 Timmy had the TV on and was watching a 20/20 report on a chemical animal feed factory built in 1983 next to an army base where all the soldiers soon grew breasts. The feed company's lawyers said it was a coincidence.

"We're going to where it's warm," I told him, kissing his bare ankle, which was propped atop one of Jack Lenihan's five fat suitcases.

"I don't think so. What's in these bags anyway? I just picked up a toothbrush, some underwear and a couple of shirts. You look as though you've settled in for the decade."

"The bags are Jack Lenihan's. They arrived by bus from Los Angeles and they contain two and a half million dollars."

He removed his ankle. "Did you steal them?"

"No, they were addressed to me-sent by Jack on Monday. As it said in the letter, I'm supposed to keep them safe until I hear from Jack."

He stared at the suitcases with his baby blues, which began to flutter arrhythmically.

"But you're not going to hear from Jack,'

"No. I'm not."

I flopped onto the bed as he sat on the edge of his chair shaking his head.

"It's not yours," he said. "I don't know whose it is, but it's not yours. I want no part of this."

"Part of what? Of course the money's not mine."

"You said we were going somewhere warm. You didn't mean Rio, did you, along with those five suitcases?"

"Nah."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Los Angeles. It's hardly Antigua, but it'll do for now. If I can prove that Lenihan came by this money legitimately, I can go ahead and carry out the project he was planning that was so important to him. Take the day off you've got one coming-and we'll leave in the morning."

Timmy looked perplexed, so I described the afternoon's and evening's events.

He said, "Let me see the letter again." I fished it out and he read it. "I don't get it. Jack says right here that what he was doing was not immoral but it was illegal. That doesn't square at all with this wild story he told the three pols about an inheritance from a godfather."

I brought out the documents Sim Kempelman had given me. "Sim says it's all on the up-and-up. Look at these."

He perused the papers. "This stuff looks okay, but that still doesn't explain the language in the letter. It doesn't fit."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Superficially it doesn't fit, that's true. But there are larger forces at work here, larger truths. I'll have to sort out the details as I go along."

He gave me a strained look. "Don, please come off it and don't give me that vague stuff you always come up with when it suits your current whim.

You've put aside your objectivity in this because you think you can give the Albany machine a kick in the groin. But it won't be that simple, and you know it. Maybe this so-called godfather is a Mafia godfather, a big drug dealer, or some other god-awful thing."

"A Mafia godfather named Al Piatek?"

"It's true, the name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe it's an alias."

"Sim Kempelman states unequivocally that these documents are genuine,"

I said, "and you can't get papers like these under an alias."

"Not unless you're powerful enough to own a few government clerks in the right places. Really, I think you should stay clear of this crowd, whoever they are. Hankie-mouth obviously doesn't work for the Department of Agriculture. Do you still plan on not meeting him tonight?"

"I'm not exactly meeting him, no. You're determined to keep me from getting away to a warm place, aren't you? But it won't work, my friend.

Hang on." I picked up the phone, got an outside line, and dialed the McConkeys' number on Walter Street. Dreadful Ed answered and grudgingly called Corrine to the phone.

"Don Strachey, Corrine. How are you doing?"

"Not very well, Mr. Strachey. But some very nice people are taking good care of me, so I'm just trying to count my blessings and hang on. Oh, did you know Officer Bowman was looking for you? Maybe you better see what he wants. It sounded important."

"I'll give him a call when I get a chance. Tell me something, Corrine. Did Jack have a godfather?"

"Jack's godfather was a real sweetie-Mike Tompkins, a friend of Dad Lenihan's. He would have been just crushed by Jack's passing, so maybe it's best that Mike joined the majority himself last year."

For a second I thought she meant the Moral Majority, but then it sank in.

"Mr. Tompkins died recently?"

"Oh, it's been almost a year now. Last February or March, I think. I know there was snow on the ground. Mary Tompkins dropped by earlier tonight and we talked about Mike's passing. It was merciful, she said, because the cancer had turned him into a little tiny thing not much more than a ghost.

He'd been suffering quite a bit. He lived down the street from Dad, and Dad misses him too."

"Was Mr. Tompkins a wealthy man?"

"Wealthy? Oh, no, I wouldn't think so. Oh, no."

"Does the name Al Piatek mean anything to you?"

"Piatek?"

"Yes."

"I can't think of any Piateks. I've heard the name, I guess."

"Thank you. I'm sorry to have bothered you and I hope I won't have to do it again. But I might."

"Oh, that's all right. I was just having a cup of tea and a sticky bun."

When I'd hung up, Timmy said, "So."

"So? So what? This just makes it all the more imperative that I fly out there and sort this out."

"The beaches won't be any good. This time of year the water's too cold."

"You're not coming along?"

"Of course I'm coming. It's just for the weekend."

"Good. Bowman wants to haul me in and might have the security people at the airport watching for me, so we'll drive down and fly from Kennedy. Did you rent a car?"

"It's down on Lodge Street. God, an Albany Lenihan who turned into a civic reformer. Who'd ever have thought it? If Jack hadn't died, what an amazing historical event that would have been."

"Will be," I said. "An amazing historical event that will be."

He'd had enough of me for a while and watched the eleven-o'clock news while I phoned my airline contact at home.

"Don Strachey, Alex. What did you come up with?"

"Joe's here for a few hours and he's awake. I'm busy."

"Give him my best-or yours, if that's what he prefers- but in the meantime, go get that stuff on Lenihan I asked for, will you? I'm going to be out of touch for a couple of days and I need it before I leave."

The phone hit something with a clunk. He came back rattling papers. "John C. Lenihan flew to Los Angeles via

O'Hare on Tuesday, October sixteenth, and returned to Albany on Sunday, October twenty-first, again changing at O'Hare. If he flew anywhere on any other dates during the month of October, it wasn't with us. May I go now?"

"You may. And thanks-many thanks. You'll be rewarded for this on some distant day."

"Oh, it won't be that long."

I hung up and dialed Ned Bowman at home. "Fenton Hardy here. Is this Chief Collig of the Bayport police department?"

"You're under arrest, Strachey!"

"Nope."

"Well, you sure as hell will be if you don't haul your ass down to my office at eight A.M. sharp. And you are not at the Americana. You lied."

"Listen, Ned, I want to help you out, so don't make it hard for me. Our separate efforts on this one can be complementary and beneficial."

"You have it, don't you?" he hissed.

"Have what?"

"The famous two and a half million bucks everybody and his brother keeps walking in off the street and telling me about. You know, Strachey, Larry Dooley is awful mad at you. When you make a mistake, it's a pisser."

"Dooley may have killed Jack Lenihan. Are you pursuing that?"

"Dooley, Kempelman, Creighton Pell-they're all suspects until they can establish alibis, which naturally they're all busting their asses to come up with real fast."

"There's a better suspect, I think."

"What? Who do you mean?"

"Whoever killed Jack Lenihan was smart enough to dump him in my car instead of in a ditch somewhere. This served the purpose of frightening me into turning over the two and a half million-which, incidentally, I've never seen-and also of pointing a finger at me. It follows that the killer was also smart enough to go through Lenihan's pockets and remove any paper with his own name and phone number on it, but leave behind any papers with Dooley's, Prell's and Kempelman's names. I suggest you check out other reform-minded politicians whom Lenihan might have approached with his proposal. The ones who are not showing up are the ones who, I think, bear scrutinizing. I'd do it myself, but far be it from me to involve myself in an investigation that properly falls within your purview."

"Are you trying to tell me how the Albany police department should conduct an investigation?"

"I've been trying for years with scant success. But think it over. It makes sense, Ned. Have you traced Lenihan's movements in the days before he was killed? I've been curious about that."

"He was in Los Angeles," Bowman said. "One of my officers found it on some flight manifests, and we assume Lenihan was visiting his mother, but I haven't been able to get Joanie to come to the phone. Of course, I'm sure you already know all about that, you being my superior officer in this investigation. Am I right, huh? Am I right?"

"I did hear something about Los Angeles. Or was it Salt Lake City?"

"I might be flying out there tomorrow if the chief okays it, so you be here bright and early, no later than eight. You got that?"

My heart sank. "Why are you going to LA? To question Lenihan's mother?"

"That, and to find out who this Al Piatek character is who's supposed to have left Lenihan a lot of money. Hell, I'm beginning to have my doubts about whether these famous millions even exist."

I glanced at the suitcases, which Timmy had an ankle propped up on again.

I said, "Have a nice flight."

"And I'll see you at eight."

"Sure you will." I hung up.

"That's an interesting idea," Timmy said. "But I don't think it holds up."

I said, "Crap. Bowman might be going to LA tomorrow. We'll have to leave tonight and get there first, or he'll just send everybody running for cover.

What's an interesting idea?"

"About some other pol Lenihan might have approached whose name was removed from Jack's belongings. Except, who would it be? There's nobody else running a mayoral candidate who's even vaguely reformist."

"What about the Liberal party?"

"They're not putting anybody up in local elections. Anyway, who ever heard of a liberal beating somebody over the head with a tire iron? We're more subtly insidious than that."

"True, Lenihan wasn't mollycoddled to death."

"What did you mean when you said you were 'not exactly' meeting Hankie-mouth tonight?"

"I'll show you if you feel like accompanying me out into the winter air which you find so bracing. It's eleven-twenty, time to get going."

"You're going out now?"

"Just down the hill. I want to watch something happen."

"The weather twinkie on Channel 12 just said it was three below out. I'm not going out into that."

"And you're the one who finds this arctic purity so invigorating," I said, and dropped an ice cube down his back.

Using the deserted side streets north of the Hilton, I walked down the hill toward the river, the snow underfoot grabbing my boot soles with its tiny fangs. I scraped it away at each curb I came to. At 11:40 I fiddled the lock of a rear door on an old four-story business building at Clinton and Pearl. Inside the darkened top-floor front office of Nardia Prosthetic Technicians I found a quietly sighing radiator beneath a clean-enough window overlooking the intersection. I pulled up a wheelchair, applied the brakes, and waited.

Traffic below was light and sporadic. From time to time a car cruised down the I-787 exit ramp and turned onto Pearl or ground on up Clinton on the hard-packed snow. A few lights burned in the Federal Building, catty-corner from where I sat. Across Clinton the old Palace Theater was dark; the marquee said GIV NOW TO THE UN TED AY.

At 11:56 a large station wagon rolled down from the expressway in the left-turn lane and paused. It made an illegal left through a red light and moved slowly south on Pearl. The wagon left my field of vision but reappeared a minute later heading north. This time it made a U-turn in the intersection and pulled into the no-parking zone in front of the Palace. The wagon was a black late '70s model Ford with New York plates, possibly number ATX-947, though the numbers and letters were partially covered with winter road grime, so I wasn't certain.

The station wagon waited in front of the theater, its lights off but engine idling, for just under half an hour. The front seat was occupied only by the driver, whose face was obscured by the glare of a streetlight on the car's windshield. When the wagon had been maneuvering earlier, no passengers had been visible in it.

Eight other cars, including an Albany PD black-and-white, passed through the intersection during the period the wagon stayed there. None stopped or slowed down in any way not dictated by the changing traffic signals. At 12:26 the wagon's lights went on. The driver waited for another thirty seconds before suddenly sending up a shower of sand and snow, then roaring through a red light and on up to the interstate, where it turned north toward either Troy or the I-90 east-west interchange.

No other cars appeared below, and I sat for a time warming my hands over the friendly radiator. I wheeled over and used Nardia Prosthetics' telephone to wake up an acquaintance who worked for the Department of Motor Vehicles. He agreed to track down the ownership of the station wagon the next day and leave the information with my answering service. I called the service-which reported no messages other than many urgent requests to contact Lieutenant Ned Bowman-and told them I would continue to be out of touch over the weekend but that I would check in periodically.

For a while longer I sat in the wheelchair warming my hands and watching the traffic signals change. At one o'clock I pulled my cap down over my ears and went back out into the cold, locking several doors behind me, and wondering why Hankie-mouth had been so certain that I would not show up for our rendezvous with the cops on my side and accompanying me.

"I'm packed," Timmy said. "Will they let us on the plane with just a Macy's shopping bag?"

"You're really coming? I'm glad. I like to travel with you. Except for your psychopathic insistence on clean sheets wherever you sleep, you travel well. You're open to the vicissitudes."

"I woke up the boss and told him I wouldn't be in tomorrow. But I'm counting on you to keep the vicissitudes to a minimum on this trip."

"That's always my firm intention."

"You have cash, I hope. I've only got about twelve dollars."

"Do I have cash? Do I have cash?" I took out the five small numbered keys Jack Lenihan had sent me, flopped a suitcase onto the bed, and unlocked it. I undid the latches and raised the lid. We stared silently at the contents.

After a moment, Timmy said, "That's one."

"One what?"

"Vicissitude."

The suitcase was full of newspapers.

"Let's try another one."

With my pulse rumba-ing in my ears, I opened the second bag.

"That's two."

"Oy."

We opened the three remaining bags and sorted through the contents. All five contained copies of the Los Angeles Times dating back over the past nine months. The most recent was the previous Saturday's, January 12.

"You have been diddled," Timmy said.

"Somebody has. Bloody hell."

"Are we still going?"

"Hell, yes, we're going. We'll pick up some cash from a machine at Kennedy. Hell."

"That's not what I meant. Maybe Lenihan was nuts, and he created this furor out of nothing. This is insane."

I took out Lenihan's letter and reread it carefully. I said, "No. I don't think so, no. Lenihan had a history of erratic behavior but not of mental illness.

This letter is not only sincere, it shows every sign of his having a firm grip on a quixotic but plausible reality. No, Lenihan shipped these suitcases believing the money was inside them-the two and a half million legally passed on to him by Al Piatek. The money was removed from the bags between the time Lenihan locked them and the time we opened them. Now it's just a matter of following the track backwards. Look, I know you think I've lost my marbles on this one. That I've been bewitched by the possibility of defanging the municipal werewolves of Albany. I admit that I am salivating at the thought. But there is something genuine going on here.

Something so real to somebody that Jack Lenihan was killed over it. And that's real enough for me."

He sighed resignedly, one of his sighs that originate down around his knees and work their way up through his thighs, groin, midsection, chest, trachea, and out his mouth, nose, ears and hair follicles. "Maybe you're right. I've got to try to open my mind and keep it that way a while longer. My own objectivity has been clouded somewhat by the fact that what I really want right now is to go home and set the electric mattress pad on high.

Maybe I'm getting too old for vicissitudes this messy. But I have to admit that now I'm almost as curious as you are, so let's go. Let's get it over with."

"Now you're talking-showing the trust and generosity of spirit that I've come to expect of you, and which you've hardly ever regretted. Could I borrow some of the underwear and socks you bought? I'll take a quick shower and then we'll hit the road. Is your new toothbrush in the bathroom?"

"You didn't pick one up? God, you know I hate it when you use my toothbrush."

"I can put your cock in my mouth, but not your toothbrush."

"I don't brush my teeth with my cock."

"That's not what they say about you in Poughkeepsie."