Where Are You Now?

38

A ccompanied by his lawyer, Paul Murphy, Nick DeMarco returned to the Detective Squad section of the District Attorney’s office on Thursday afternoon. This time, the atmosphere in Captain Ahearn’s office was openly hostile. There were no handshakes, no brief expression of thanks that he had promptly responded to the phone call requesting his presence as soon as possible.

But Nick had other problems on his mind. Early Tuesday morning, after a frantic call from his mother that his father was being rushed to the hospital with chest pains, Nick had flown to Florida. By the time he got there, the tests had so far been negative, but his father had been kept in the hospital to guard against the possibility that he was building up to a heart attack. When Nick entered the hospital room, his mother had rushed into his arms and hugged him fiercely. “Oh, Nick, I thought we had lost him,” she cried.

His father, an older image of himself, propped up on pillows, his face pale, an oxygen tube in his nostrils and an IV drip in his hand, was clearly unhappy. “Nick, I hate hospitals,” was his greeting, “but maybe it isn’t such a bad thing this happened after all. In the ambulance, I was thinking about things I wish I’d said to you, only your mother wouldn’t let me say them. Now you’re going to hear them. I’m sixty-eight years old. I’ve been working since I was fourteen. For the first time in my life, I feel useless, and I don’t like it.”

“Dad, I bought a restaurant for you to run,” Nick protested. “You’re the one who decided to retire.”

“Sure, you bought a restaurant here, but you should have known it wasn’t right for me. I was a round peg in a square hole in that place. It made me sick to see you bleeding money with your fancy overhead and pricey food. I’ve seen these places come and go. Do yourself a favor and sell that one, or else put some staples on the menu that people can count on when they don’t want fois gras and caviar.”

“Dominick, don’t excite yourself,” his mother pleaded.

“I have to excite myself. I’ve got to get this off my chest before I do have a heart attack. Bachelor of the Month! It was disgusting to watch how pleased you were. You’d think you got the Congressional Medal of Honor. While I’m still around to tell you, cut it out.”

“Dad, I hear you. And believe it or not, I’m listening this time. Tell me, what do you want? What can I do to make you happy?”

“I don’t want to play golf and I don’t want to sit in a pricey condominium where I might get beaned by a golf ball because we’re next to the sixteenth hole.”

“Dad, all that’s easy to take care of. What else?”

Nick had not yet gotten over the look of scorn in his father’s eyes. “You’re thirty-two years old. Get real. Be the son we were so proud of. Stop running around with the women you meet in clubs. In fact, get out of the club business! You’ll get in trouble. Find yourself a nice girl. Your mother and I are pushing seventy. We were married fifteen years before God sent us a son. Don’t make us wait fifteen years from now to have a grandchild.”

All this was going through Nick’s mind as he and his attorney settled themselves in hard, uncomfortable chairs in front of Captain Ahearn’s desk. Detectives Barrott and Gaylor were seated on either side of the captain.

It’s a firing squad, Nick thought. A glance at his attorney showed him that Murphy was having the same reaction.

“Mr. DeMarco,” Ahearn began, “you didn’t tell us you have a Mercedes 550 sedan which you only use when you are being driven by your chauffeur.”

Nick frowned. “Wait a minute. If I’m right you asked about cars I drove. I never drive the sedan. It’s either the convertible or the SUV when I’m on my own.”

“You didn’t mention your chauffeur, either.”

“I wouldn’t have thought there was a reason to mention him.”

“We don’t agree, Mr. DeMarco,” Ahearn told him. “Particularly since your chauffeur, Benny Seppini, has an extensive criminal record.”

Without looking at him, Nick knew what Paul Murphy was thinking. Why didn’t my client tell me that?

“Benny is fifty-eight years old,” Nick told Ahearn. “As a kid, he had no home life and became involved in a street gang while he was in his teens. When he was seventeen, he got sentenced as an adult to prison for burglary and served five years. When he got out, he started working for my father. That was thirty-five years ago. When my father retired five years ago, he began working for me. He is a decent, good man.”

“Didn’t his ex-wife get a restraining order on him ten years ago?” Ahearn snapped.

“Benny’s first wife died young. His second was trying to get him to sign over their condo to her. That was a phony, trumped-up charge and she dropped it the minute she got the condo.”

“Uh-huh. Mr. DeMarco, do you do much walking around Greenwich Village in the daytime?”

“Of course I don’t. I’m a businessman.”

“Did you ever see Leesey Andrews before Monday night a week ago?”

“To the best of my knowledge, absolutely not.”

“Let me show you a picture we have of you, Mr. DeMarco.” Ahearn nodded to Barrott, who shoved copies of the enhanced photographs Leesey’s roommate had taken of her across the desk to Nick and Murphy.

“Recognize the fellow in the background of the second one, Mr. DeMarco?” Barrott asked.

“Of course that’s me in the background,” Nick snapped. “I remember that day. I was meeting a real estate agent for lunch. I’m interested in buying property in the area near where the old railroad tracks are being developed. Once that development starts, the surrounding property will go sky-high. I saw all the paparazzi in action and looked over to see what was going on. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were there.”

“Where were you having lunch?”

“At Casa Florenza, right around the corner from where the picture was taken.”

“Then you claim you didn’t see Leesey Andrews being photographed by her friend?”

“I not only claim, I didn’t see her,” Nick replied heatedly.

“Do you have the bill for that luncheon?” Gaylor asked in a tone that suggested he would be surprised to see one.

“No, I do not. The real estate broker is trying to sell me property, so he paid. If he succeeds, his commission will keep putting gas in his car for a long time.”

“How long will you be able to continue putting gas in all your cars, Mr. DeMarco?” Ahearn asked. “You’re stretched pretty thin financially, aren’t you?”

“What do Mr. DeMarco’s business affairs have to do with our presence here?” Paul Murphy demanded.

“Maybe nothing at all,” Ahearn replied. “And maybe a great deal. If the state decides to cancel the liquor license of the Woodshed, I don’t think your client will make a living selling Popsicles there. And trust me, we will find a reason to have it canceled if we even suspect that Mr. DeMarco is not being totally candid with us.”

Ahearn turned to Nick. “Do you have the unlisted phone number of the MacKenzie home on Sutton Place?”

“Unless it’s been changed, I’m sure I have it somewhere. I remember phoning Mrs. MacKenzie after her husband died on 9/11.”

“Do you think Leesey Andrews is dead?”

“I certainly hope not. That would be a tragedy.”

“Do you know if she’s still alive?”

“What kind of unbelievable question is that?”

“We’re out of here, Nick.” Murphy was on his feet.

Ahearn ignored him. “Mr. DeMarco, do you own a cell phone that is not registered to you, one that uses a prepaid card, the kind gamblers and wiseguys use?”

“That’s it! We’re not going to listen to any more of your cheap insinuations,” Murphy shouted.

It was as though Larry Ahearn had not heard him. “And does your troubled chauffeur have a similar phone, Mr. DeMarco? And if he does, did he respond to your frantic call to get Leesey out of your loft apartment? And if she wasn’t already dead, did he decide to keep her around for his own amusement? And if that was the case, has he kept you informed as to her welfare?”

Nick, his fists clenched, was almost at the door when he heard Ahearn’s final question. “Or are you protecting your college roommate Mack MacKenzie, or perhaps helping his pretty sister to protect him? You had a little tête-a-tête with her last Friday night, didn’t you?”