When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

Chapter 7

I took a train one stop into Brooklyn and met TommyTillary in Drew Kaplan's office on Court Street a few blocks fromBrooklyn 's Borough Hall. There was a Lebanese restaurant next door. At the corner a grocery store specializing in Middle Eastern imports stood next to an antique shop overflowing with stripped oak furniture and brass lamps and bedsteads. In front of Kaplan's building, a legless black man reposed on a platform with wheels. An open cigar box on one side of him held a couple of singles and a lot of coins. He was wearing horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a hand-lettered sign on the pavement in front of him said, "Don't Be Fooled by the Sunglasses. Not Blind JustNo Legs."

Kaplan's office ran to wood paneling and leather chairs and oak file cabinets that might have come from the place on the corner. His name and the names of two partners were painted on the frosted glass of the hall door in old-fashioned gold and black lettering. Framed diplomas on the wall of his personal office showed he'd earned his B.A. at Adelphi, his LL.B. at Brooklyn Law. Alucite cube on top of a Victorian oak desk held photographs of his wife and young children. A bronzed railway spike served as a desktop paperweight. On the wall alongside the desk, a pendulum clock ticked away the afternoon.

Kaplan himself looked conservatively up-to-date in a tropical-weight gray pinstripe suit and a yellow pin-dot tie. He looked to be in his early thirties, which would fit the dates on the diplomas. He was shorter than I and of course much shorter than Tommy, trimly built, clean-shaven, with dark hair and eyes and a slightly lopsided smile. His handshake was medium-firm, his gaze direct but measuring, calculating.

Tommy wore his burgundy blazer over gray flannel trousers and white loafers. Strain showed at the corners of his blue eyes and around his mouth. His complexion was off, too, as if anxiety had caused the blood to draw inward, leaving the skin sallow.

"All we want you to do," Drew Kaplan said, "is find a key in one of their pants pockets, Herrera's or Cruz's, and trace it to a locker in Penn Station, and in the locker there's a foot-long knife with both their prints and her blood on it."

"Is that what it's going to take?"

He smiled. "Let's just say it wouldn't hurt. No, actually we're not in such bad shape. What they've got is some shaky testimony from a pair ofLatins who've been in and out of trouble since they got weaned onto Tropicana. And they've got what looks to them like a good motive on Tommy's part."

"Which is?"

I was looking at Tommy when I asked. His eyes slipped away from mine. Kaplan said, "A marital triangle, a case of the shorts, and a strong money motive. MargaretTillary came into some money this past spring upon the death of an aunt. The estate's not through probate yet but the value's somewhere in excess of half a million dollars."

"Be less than that when they get donehackin ' away at it," Tommy said. "A whole lot less."

"Plus there's insurance. Tommy and his wife had a pair of straight-life policies, each naming the other as beneficiary, both with double-indemnity clauses and a face amount of"- he consulted a slip on his desk- "a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which doubled for accidental death is three hundred thousand. At this point we've got what begins to look like seven, eight hundred thousand motives for murder."

"My lawyertalkin '," Tommy said.

"Same time, Tommy here's hurting a little for cash. He's having a bad year gambling, he's into the bookies and maybe they're starting to press him a little."

"Not so it amounts to anything," Tommy put in.

"I'm telling it the way the cops would tell it, all right? He owes some money aroundtown, he's a couple of payments behind with the Buick. Meanwhile he's putting away this girl at the office, bouncing around the bars with her, sometimes not making it home altogether-"

"Hardly ever, Drew. I'd almost always make it home, an' if I couldn't grab a few hours in the sack I'd at least shower and change and have breakfast with Peg."

"What was breakfast?Dexamyl?"

"Sometimes.I had an office to go to, a job to do."

Kaplan sat on a corner of his desk, crossed his legs at the ankle. "That'll do for motive," he said. "What they don't bother to noticeis a couple of things. One, he loved his wife, and how many husbands cheat? What is it they say? Ninety percent admit they cheat and ten percent lie about it? Two, he's got debts but he's not in a crunch. He'sa guy makes good money over the year but he runs hot and cold, and for years he's been fat one month and strapped the next."

"You get used to it," Tommy said.

"Plus the numbers sound like a fortune, but they're not unusual figures. A half-million is substantial, but as Tommy said it won't net out to that much after taxes, and part of it consists of title to the house he's been occupying for years. A hundred fifty thousand dollars' insurance on a breadwinner isn't high by any means, and having the same coverage on the wife isn't uncommon, a lot of insurance agents try to write policies that way. They make it sound logically balanced, so you overlook the fact that you don't really need that kind of coverage on someone you don't depend upon for income." He spread his hands. "Anyway, the policies were taken out over ten years ago. This isn't something he went and set up last week."

He stood up, walked over to the window. Tommy had picked up the railway spike from the desk and was playing with it, slapping it against the palm of his hand, consciously or unconsciously matching the rhythm of the clock's pendulum.

Kaplan said, "One of the killers, Angel Herrera, except I suppose he pronounces itAhn -hell, did some odd jobs at theTillary house last March or April. Spring cleaning, he hauled stuff out of the basement and attic, did a little donkey work for hourly wages. According to Herrera, that's how Tommy knew to contact him to fake the burglary. According to common sense, that's how Herrera and his buddy Cruz knew the house and what was in it and how to gain access."

"How'd they do that?"

"Broke a small pane in the side door, reached in and unlocked it. Their story is Tommy left itopen for them and must have broken the glass after. It's also their story that they left the place relatively neat."

"Looked like a cyclone hit it," Tommy said. "I had to go there. Made me sick to look at it."

"Their story is Tommy did that the same time he was murdering his wife. Except none of this works out if you take a good look at it. The times are all wrong. They went in around midnight, and the medical examiner places the time of death at between ten P.M. and four A.M. Now Tommy here never made it home from the office that evening. He worked past five, he met his friend for dinner, and he was with her in a variety of public places over the course of the evening." He looked over at his client. "We're lucky he's not much on discretion. Hisalibi'd be a whole lot thinner if he'd spent every minute in her apartment with the blinds drawn."

"I was discreet as far as Peg was concerned," Tommy said. "InBrooklyn I was a family man. What I did in the city never hurt her."

"After midnight his time's harder to account for," Kaplan went on. "The only substantiation for some of those hours is the girlfriend, because for a while they were in her apartment with the blinds drawn."

You didn't have to draw the blinds, I thought. Nobody could see in.

"Plus there was some time she couldn't account for."

"She fell asleep and I couldn't," Tommy said, "so I got dressed and went out for a couple of pops. But I wasn't gone that long, and she woke up when I got back. I had a helicopter, maybe Icoulda got to BayRidge'n ' back in that amount of time. Never do it in a Buick."

"The thing is," Kaplan said, "even supposing there was time, or discounting the girlfriend's alibi altogether and only accepting the times substantiated by unbiased witnesses, how could he possibly have done it? Say he sneaks home sometime after the Spanish kids have paid their visit and before four A.M., which was the latest the murder could have taken place. Where was she all this time? According to Cruz and Herrera, there was nobody home. Well, where did he find her to kill her? What did he do, haul her around in the trunk all night?"

"Let's say he killed her before they got there," I suggested.

"And I'mlookin ' to hire this guy," Tommy said. "I got an instinct, you know what I mean?"

"Doesn't work," Kaplan said. "In the first place the times simply won't fit. He'salibied solid from before eight until past midnight, out in public with the girl. The M.E. says she was definitely alive at ten, that's the absolute earliest she could have been killed. Plus even forgetting the times it doesn't work. How could they go in, rob the whole house, and not see a dead woman in the bedroom? They were in that room, they were in possession of stolen articles from that room,I think they even found prints in there. Well, the police found the corpse of MargaretTillary in that room, too, and it's the sort of thing they probably would have noticed."

"Maybe the body was covered up." I thought of Skip's bigMosler safe. "Locked in a closet they didn't look in."

He shook his head. "The cause of death was stabbing. There was a lot of blood and it was all over the place. The bed was soaked, the bedroom carpet." We both avoided looking at Tommy. "So she wasn't killed elsewhere," he concluded. "She was killed right there, and if it wasn't Herrera did itit was Cruz, and either way it wasn't Tommy."

I looked for a hole in it and couldn't find one. "Then I don't see what you need me for," I said. "The case against Tommy sounds pretty thin."

"So thin there isn't any case."

"Then-"

"The thing is," he said, "you get near a courtroom with something like this and even if you win you still lose. Because for the rest of your life all everybody remembers about youis you once stood trial for murdering your wife. Never mind that you won an acquittal. Everybody just figures some Jew lawyer bought a judge or conned a jury."

"So I'll get a guinea lawyer," Tommy said, "and they'll think he threatened the judge and beat up the jury."

"Besides," Kaplan said, "you never know which way a jury's going to jump. Remember, Tommy's alibi is he was with another woman at the time of the burglary. The woman's a colleague, they could choose to regard it as completely aboveboard, but did you see the piece in the Post? Whatjuries'll go and do, they decide they don't believe the alibi because it's your girlfriend lying for you, and at the same time they label you a scumbag for getting your carrot scraped while your wife's getting killed."

"You keep it up," Tommy said, "I'll find my own self guilty, the way you make it sound."

"Plus he's hard to get a sympathetic jury for. He's a big handsome guy, a sharp dresser, and you'd love him in a gin joint but how much do you love him in a courtroom? He's a telephone securities salesman, perfectly respectable thing to be, calls you up,advises you how to invest your money.Fine. That means every clown who ever lost a hundred dollars on a stock tip or bought magazine subscriptions over the phone is going to walk into the courtroom with ahardon for him. I'm telling you, I want to stay the hell out of court. I'll win in court, I know that, or worse comes to worst I'll win on appeal, but who needs it? This is a case that shouldn't be in the first place, and what I'd love is to clear it up before they even go so far as presenting a bill to the grand jury."

"So from me you want-"

"Whatever you can find out, Matt.Whatever discredits Cruz andHerrera. I don't know what's there to find. I'd love it if you could find blood, their clothes with stains on it, anything like that. The point is that I don't know what's there to be found, and you were a cop and now you're working private, and you can get down in the streets and the bars and nose around.You familiar withBrooklyn?"

"Parts of it.I worked over here, off and on."

"So you can find your way around."

"Well enough. But wouldn't you be better off with a Spanish-speaker? I know enough to buy a beer in a bodega, but I'm a long way from fluent."

"Tommy says he wants somebody he can trust, and he was very adamant about calling you in. I think he's right. A personal relationship's worth more than a dime's worth of 'MellamoMatteoycomoestáusted?' "

"That's the truth," TommyTillary said. "Matt, I know I can count on you, and that's worth a lot."

I wanted to tell him all he could count on were his fingers, but why was I trying to talk myself out of a fee? His money was as good as anybody else's. I wasn't sure I liked him, but I was just as happy not to like the men I worked for. It bothered me less that way if I felt I was giving them less than full value.

And I didn't see how I could give him much. The case against him sounded loose enough to fall apart without my help. I wondered if Kaplan just wanted to create some activity to justify a high fee of his own, in the event that the whole thing blew itself out in a week's time. That was possible, and that wasn't my problem, either.

I said I would be glad to help. I said I hoped I would be able to come up with something useful.

Tommy said he was sure I could.

Drew Kaplan said, "Now you'll want a retainer. I suppose that'll be an advance against a per diem fee plus expenses, or do you bill at hourly rates? Why are you shaking your head?"

"I'm unlicensed," I said. "I have no official standing."

"That's no problem. We can carry you on the books as a consultant."

"I don't want to be on the books at all," I said. "I don't keep track of my time or expenses. I pay my own expenses out of my own pocket. I get paid in cash."

"How do you set your fees?"

"I think up a number. If I think I should have more coming when I'm finished, I say so. If you disagree, you don't have to pay me. I'm not going to take anybody to court."

"It seems a haphazard way to do business," Kaplan said.

"It's not a business. I do favors for friends."

"And take money for them."

"Is there anything wrong with taking money for a favor?"

"I don't suppose there is." He looked thoughtful. "How much would you expect for this favor?"

"I don't know what's involved," I said. "Suppose you let me have fifteen hundred dollars today. If things drag on and I feel entitled to more, I'll let you know."

"Fifteen hundred.And of course Tommy doesn't know exactly what he's getting for that."

"No," I said. "Neither doI."

Kaplan narrowed his eyes. "That seems high for a retainer," he said. "I'd have thought a third of that would be ample for starters."

I thought of my antique dealer friend. Did I know what it was tohondle? Kaplan evidently did.

"It's not that much," I said. "It's one percent of the insurance money, and that's part of the reason for hiring an investigator, isn't it? The company won't pay off until Tommy's in the clear."

Kaplan looked slightly startled. "That's true," he admitted, "but I don't know that it's the reason for hiring you. The company will pay up sooner or later. I don't think your fee is necessarily high, it just seemed a disproportionately large sum to lay out in advance, and-"

"Don't argue price," Tommy cut in. "The fee sounds fine to me, Matt. The only thing is, being a little short right now, and coming up with fifteen C in cash-"

"Maybe your lawyer will front it to you," I suggested.

Kaplan thought that was irregular. I went into the outer office while they talked it over. The receptionist was reading a copy of Fate magazine. A pair of hand-tinted etchings in antiqued frames showed scenes of nineteenth-century downtownBrooklyn. I was looking at them when Kaplan's door opened and he beckoned me back inside.

"Tommy's going to be able to borrow on the basis of his expectations from the insurance monies and his wife's estate," he said. "Meanwhile I can let you have the fifteen hundred. I hope you have no objection to signing a receipt?"

"None at all," I said. I counted the bills, twelve hundreds and six fifties, all circulated bills out of sequence. Everybody seems to have some cash around, even lawyers.

He wrote out a receipt and I signed it. He apologized for what he called a little awkwardness around the subject of my fee. "Lawyers are schooled to be very conventional human beings," he said. "I sometimes have a slow reaction time when it comes to adjusting to irregular procedure. I hope I wasn't offensive."

"Not at all."

"I'm glad of that. Now I won't be expecting written reports or a precise account of your movements, but you'll report to me as you go along and let me know what turns up? And please tell me too much rather than too little. It's hard to know what will prove useful."

"I know that myself."

"I'm sure you do." He walked me to the door. "And incidentally," he said, "your fee is only one-half of one percent of the insurance money. I think I mentioned that the policy had a double-indemnity clause, and murder is considered accidental."

"I know," I said. "I've always wondered why."