Bad Business (22 page)

M
arty headed back toward Staniford Street and I sat on the bench for a while after he left. From where I sat I could see down Tremont to where the Eisens had their condo. In front of me a lot of black and Hispanic kids were heading down Winter Street toward Downtown Crossing. There was a little police substation down there. One of the cops told me once that the ghetto kids gathered there, not to make trouble but because it was safe.

This was new. I had information overload. Usually my problems went the other way. I knew that they were all in it, whatever
it
quite was, and whoever
they
quite were. We had a lot of money and a lot of sex, much of it adulterous. The top two motives. I knew the names of all the players. I knew who was getting the money and who was getting the sex. Within reason I understood what was wrong at Kinergy and what O'Mara and Eisen
were doing about it—they were taking the money and scuttling down the mooring lines. All I had to do was figure out which one of them killed Rowley and Gavin, and I was there. Wherever
there
quite was.

Assuming that Lance Devaney's murder scrapbook indicated something more than lurid fandom, he would be a nice choice. He'd be a better choice if I could suggest why he killed Rowley and Gavin. Gavin probably got shot because he got too close to something, whatever the
something
quite was. But why did Rowley get shot? My head felt overtaxed. I was thinking too much about too much and concluding too little. I wasn't used to it. I was much more adept at thinking too little and drawing conclusions from no information. I sat for a while and updated my ongoing survey of tightness trends in women's clothing. While I sat, a hard-nosed rodent with a ragged tail that spoke of battles won paused in front of me and glared at me for peanuts. There are some macho squirrels on the Boston Common. I needed a fresh and intelligent perspective on all this. It was quarter to two in the afternoon. Susan would be free at five. If I took my time over a late lunch, and was leisurely getting across the river, Susan would be almost through. I could go upstairs at her place and maybe have a little nap with Pearl until Susan was ready to enjoy my discussion of SPEs. I stood up. The squirrel with the ratty tail reared onto his hind legs.

“Don't push it,” I said to the squirrel, “I'm packing.”

“W
ouldn't Eisen seem a suspect?” Susan said. “Two people in a criminal enterprise, and one dies, isn't his cohort a logical possibility?”

We were sitting on her front steps watching whatever walked down Linnaean Street. Pearl sat between us. Alert.

“He would be if he got something out of killing Rowley.”

“What could that be?” Susan said.

“I can't find a way that it would be money,” I said.

“Weren't they involved with each other's wives?”

“Yeah. But as far as I can tell it was ‘you bop mine and I'll bop yours.' No need for jealousy.”

“Unless one of them wasn't as mutual as the other.”

“Marlene thought that Rowley was serious about Ellen Eisen,” I said.

“And Ellen?”

“I saw no sign of that.”

“Still, jealousy is possible.”

“Seems so old-fashioned and American a motive for this tangle of vipers.”

“But possible,” Susan said. “What else would there be in it for Eisen to kill Rowley? Don't focus on the case, just think of possibilities. Why would one conspirator kill a coconspirator?”

“Silence,” I said. “Rowley was going to blow the whistle and Eisen knew and killed him so he wouldn't.”

“So we have jealousy as a possibility,” Susan said, “and silence as a possibility.”

“He might kill him to get his share, but I can't see how that would have worked. And an investigation of the death might uncover the situation at Kinergy before Eisen had unloaded all his stock.”

“So that probably isn't a possibility.”

“No,” I said. “Probably not. I sort of like the silence theory.”

“Something makes it resonate?”

“Gavin,” I said. “Gavin was almost certainly killed to shut him up.”

“Ahh,” Susan said.

“I love it when you say shrink things,” I said.

“And when I don't,” Susan said.

“True.”

“Does Eisen strike you as a man who would kill people?”

“He's a yuppified, corporate jerk,” I said. “And we both know the range of people who might kill someone . . . but no. He doesn't strike me so.”

“Is there anyone who does strike you so?”

“Lance,” I said.

“If the scrapbook means what you think it means. People do collect fetish objects, you know.”

“Yeah, but assuming he's just a fetish object collector isn't useful to the project,” I said.

Susan smiled at me.

“Good heavens,” Susan said, “a variation on Pascal's wager.”

“So assume he's a serial killer who keeps his notices,” I said, “he'd make a first-rate candidate.”

Susan thought for a minute. Pearl eyed a man and woman walking by in funny hats. Her whole body stiffened with the desire to bark at them. Mine too. But we had both been urged repeatedly not to, and we were both practicing restraint.

“Or maybe you could partner him with your other candidate,” Susan said.

“How so?” I said.

“Well, you have two members of a criminal enterprise,” Susan said, “one of whom maybe has reason to murder but not the will; and the other of whom has no reason to murder, but, maybe, plenty of will. Makes kind of a nice fit, doesn't it?”

I nodded. Pearl put her head on my thigh and I patted her.

“I'd have thought of that in another minute,” I said.

“Of course you would have,” Susan said. “You're a trained detective.”

“And don't you forget it,” I said.

Pearl looked worried.

“You think I might be right?” Susan said.

“I do.”

“So have we solved your case?”

“We have, if we can find a judge and jury that will convict on your say-so.”

“Oh, that. Don't you just hate having to support a theory?”

“Supporting theories, little lady, is my middle name.”

“Really?” Susan said. “How odd.”

I
sat most of the next day in my office with my feet up drinking too much coffee and looking out my window and thinking. I made some phone calls late in the afternoon, and at about 6:15 I stood with Hawk in the shelter of a doorway on West Newton Street across from where Lance and Darrin lived. It was raining again.

“They're still in there.”

“They are,” Hawk said.” Should be having supper together.”

“Which condo?”

“O'Mara,” Hawk said.

“Okay, I got an appointment with Bernie and Ellen Eisen at seven-thirty,” I said.

“Wouldn't want to be late,” Hawk said and we went across the street.

The rain was hard, one of those humid weather downpours that usually don't last long, but also don't
usually solve the humidity. It had to do with a high or a low or an occluded or a nimbus cloud or something. We got into the shelter of the tiny doorway. I was looking at the bell listings.

“Ah took the liberty of having some keys made,” Hawk said. “Be on my expense report.”

“You don't have an expense report,” I said.

“Well, if I did, it be on it,” Hawk said and opened the front door of O'Mara's town house and went in. I could hear classical music playing on a good sound system.

“Bach,” Hawk whispered. “Brandenburg number three.”

“So you say,” I whispered.

The living room was to the right and past that the dining room. I could see O'Mara and Lance at dinner. There were candles, and a bottle of white wine in a bucket. They were both wearing coats and ties, as if they had dressed for dinner. When we came into the room, both men sat frozen for a moment, staring at us. The CD player was on a shelf next to the door. I shut it off. Lance put both his hands in his lap. I saw Hawk smile gently to himself. He walked around the table and stood near Lance.

“How did you get in here?” O'Mara said. “What on earth do you think you're doing?”

“We need you at a meeting,” I said.

“Meeting? What in God's name are you talking about?”

“We need you to come to a meeting with Ellen and Bernie Eisen,” I said.

“Don't be absurd,” O'Mara said. “We're not going anywhere.”

“Ah but you are,” I said. I took hold of the back of his jacket with both hands and lifted him out of his chair. He almost screamed, and his voice broke when he said, “Lance.”

With a quick movement in his lap Lance took out a nine-millimeter pistol. As he tried to cock it, Hawk took it away from him with his right hand, got a fistful of Lance's long hair with his left hand, and yanked Lance sideways out of his chair and stood him up.

“Gonna be the right caliber,” he said to me, and dropped the nine into the side pocket of his raincoat.

Lance tried to hit him but Hawk held him at arm's length and Lance couldn't reach. He kicked at him without much success. He bit at Hawk's forearm. Hawk hit him with a six-inch right-hand punch and Lance went limp. Hawk let go of his hair and Lance sank to the floor.

“I hate biting,” Hawk said.

“Oh God,” Darrin said. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

I let him go and he threw himself onto the floor covering Lance with his body.

“Oh God,” he said, “oh God.”

After a moment Lance began to move a little and after another moment he sat up.

“He'll be okay,” I said. “He just got his bell rung.”

“Give him back his gun,” O'Mara said to Hawk, “and we'll see how tough you are.”

“Loyal,” Hawk said to me.

“Nice trait,” I said.

“Don't see much of it,” Hawk said, “anymore.”

“Get him on his feet,” I said to O'Mara. “We need to get going.”

“You can't just come in here,” O'Mara said, “and, for God's sake, kidnap us.”

“Sure we can,” I said. “Let's go.”

“Now,” Hawk said.

O'Mara got Lance onto his feet. He looked at Hawk and made an odd reptilian noise. It was more than a hiss and less than a snarl, and it oozed out of him as if he didn't even know he was making it.

“Hum a little more of that,” Hawk said. “Maybe I know the words.”

Lance's eyes were very wide and round-looking, and his breathing was shallow and rapid and the nasty sound kept oozing. O'Mara had his arm around him and was whispering to him as we walked close together out of the town house and through the rain to the hydrant where I was parked. O'Mara got in back with Lance, with his arm still around him. Hawk got in front beside me and turned and rested his arm on the back of the seat and looked at O'Mara and Devaney. This time there was a silvery .44 Magnum revolver in his right hand. Nobody said anything. I started up, turned on the wipers, took a right onto Columbus Avenue, and went across the wet city.

By the time we circled the Common and got to the Eisens' building on Tremont, Lance had stopped making his reptilian sounds, though his breathing was still shallow and fast. He had not, as best I could tell, stopped staring at Hawk. Hawk, as best I could tell, didn't much care. Bernie and Ellen answered our ring together at their front door. When they saw O'Mara and Devaney, they tried so hard to have no reaction that it was a reaction.

“I'll tell you right now,” O'Mara said when we were
inside and sitting in the living room, “they forced us to come here with them.”

“Forced?” Bernie said.

“They hit Lance. The black man hit Lance.”

Hawk smiled at Ellen.

“Kinda liked it,” he said.

Lance hissed again. But briefly.

“Bernie?” Ellen said.

“What the fuck,” Bernie Eisen said, “is going on here.”

“Funny you should ask,” I said.

W
e had ourselves arranged in the living room. Hawk was leaning against the wall near the door with his raincoat still on but unbuttoned. I was on a straight chair, turned around so I could lean my forearms on the back of it, like the cops in film noir movies. Ellen and Bernie were on a couch. Darrin and Lance sat in matching wing chairs set at a slight decorator's angle on either side of the window through which you could see such a great view over the Common where not long ago Marty Siegel had explained special purpose entities to me. I was more comfortable now. I understood this kind of thing better.

“Here's an interesting thing,” I said. “Hawk and I have consistently acted in a high-handed, indeed, quite probably illegal manner, both at the O'Mara home earlier this evening, and here in your lovely condo high above the city.”

No one said anything. Lance was giving me the death stare with his little reptilian eyes. The stare would have made me more nervous if Hawk hadn't taken his gun.

“And no one has mentioned calling the cops,” I said. “Seems odd.”

No one said anything.

I had Lance's scrapbook in a manila envelope. I picked it up off the floor by my feet and opened it and took out the scrapbook. I opened it to the pages devoted to Rowley and Gavin, leaned around the back of my chair, and placed it faceup on the coffee table where all of them could look at it. Everyone looked at it. No one spoke. Lance licked his lips once.

“We found that in Lance's shirt drawer, which, incidentally, Hawk, who is clearly fashionable, tells me is filled with handsome shirts.”

“What is it?” Ellen said.

“A scrapbook filled with press clippings about murders dating back some years, of which our particular case is only the most recent.”

“Who would have such a thing?”

“The murderer might, if he was sufficiently creepy.”

The Eisens looked at Lance. Lance kept his obsidian stare on me. There was a trace of saliva showing at the left corner of his mouth. O'Mara sat very stiffly, and didn't appear to be looking at anything. Hawk was motionless, as he often was. His expression was pleasant. He didn't look interested, but he didn't look bored. He looked like he might be reviewing a highly successful sex life.

“And,” I said, “I gotta tell you that Lance seems to me sufficiently creepy.”

Lance spoke for the first time.

“Fuck you,” he said.

“Well, that's a valid point,” I said. “But let me remind you that we have your gun, and I'm betting that the slugs match up.”

“Fuck you.”

“Well,” I said to the group, “Lance has made his position clear, but let me expand on mine a little.”

Bernie was still trying to be a ballsy executive. After all, he belonged to a health club. He had a trainer.

“Nobody here is interested in your damn position.”

“I know, Bernie, that you and Rowley were manipulating mark to market accounting and SPEs in a criminal manner.”

I managed to do things when I said it: to sound like I knew what I was talking about, and to do it with a straight face. It made me proud to be me.

“You're fucking crazy,” Bernie said. “You know that?”

“I know that you and Ellen were wife-swapping with Marlene and Trent Rowley,” I said.

“You're disgusting,” Ellen said.

I looked at Hawk.

“You like me, don't you?”

Hawk's expression didn't change.

“Honky bastard,” he said.

“See?” I said to the group.

“You're not funny,” O'Mara said.

“I am too,” I said. “But we'll let that go. I know you and Lancey Pants are involved in this criminal affair with Bernie and the late Trent, because you are listed as owners of some of the SPEs. I know that you, Darrin
darlin', supply black women to Bob Cooper through the good offices of your seminar scams.”

“My seminars are not scams,” O'Mara said.

I ignored him.

“In return for which, I suspect, but can't prove yet, he turned a blind eye to what was going on with Rowley and Eisen.”

“We were doing nothing illegal,” Bernie said.

“Meanwhile, in my theory, Gavin, being Cooper's keeper, so to speak, got wind, because getting wind was his job, of some problems. Something was wrong in the company's cash flow, some of the company's top executives were living sort of exotic sex lives.”

“Our sex life is our private business,” Ellen said.

“There is nothing illegal about it,” Bernie said.

The little dab of saliva was still there at the corner of Lance's mouth. But he wasn't saying
fuck you
to me at the moment, which seemed progress. O'Mara was quiet too, but his shoulders had grown more rigid. He was probably the smartest of the group, and he might have known, while the rest of them were still denying it, that the jig was up.

“And his own beloved Yale buddy and CEO was exercising some sexual bad judgment of his own. Now, it would have been one thing if Gavin hadn't cared about Cooper. And it would have been something else if Cooper didn't want to get elected senator, and, later, president.”

“I'm not going to listen to any more of this,” O'Mara said, and stood up stiffly.

It was an empty gesture, and it was almost as if he knew it.

“We won't let you leave until we're finished,” I said.

O'Mara looked at me for a moment and then at Hawk. Hawk smiled at him and gave a little what-can-I-say shrug. O'Mara shook his head wearily and sat back down.

“But Cooper did want to be senator, and did want to be president; and Gavin did care about him, and maybe about being close to a guy who was president. So he hired a couple of private eyes to follow some wives around and see what he could learn about the wife-swapping. Meanwhile, Marlene Rowley came to believe that Trent and Ellen had stepped out of bounds in the wife-swapping deal, and Marlene decided to secure her position in case of divorce proceedings, so she hired me to follow Trent in case he and Ellen decided to walk into the sunset together. Incidentally, clever devil, he told each of the private eyes he was the aggrieved husband so he wouldn't blow his position and bring shame to Coop and Kinergy.”

They had all given up posturing. They seemed if not actually interested, at least accepting of the proposition that they had to listen to me.

“Now here's what I don't know, but seems a good guess. Things are going swimmingly for Eisen and Rowley. They know that Kinergy is going to implode pretty soon. But they are successfully keeping stock prices up, and unloading their stock in smallish batches so as not to cause a stir on Wall Street.”

I paused and looked at them. Then I looked at Hawk.

“I always hoped,” I said to Hawk, “that I'd have a case where one day I could use the phrase ‘cause a stir on Wall Street.' ”

“Not much left to live for,” Hawk said.

“So,” I said to the group again, “it's a kind of race to get their money out before the company went bankrupt. And they're winning the race, but Rowley gets an unfortunate case of conscience. We're destroying a great company, he says, employees will lose their pensions, he says, we can't do this, he says.”

I stopped and looked at Eisen.

“Something like that?” I said.

Eisen didn't speak. He just shook his head, trying to look bemused and disgusted. He looked scared to me.

“So he says he's going public, going to tell the SEC, whatever, and, Bernie, you find that unacceptable. It'll cost you millions of dollars. It might cost O'Mara and Devaney millions of dollars. In any case, you have to do something. My guess is that you went to O'Mara, and O'Mara turned to his in-house serial killer, and Lance, of course, is about to wet himself at the prospect of indulging his hobby and pleasing his lover at the same time.”

When I said “lover,” Ellen Eisen's head jerked around toward O'Mara. I looked at Hawk. He raised his eyebrows and nodded. He'd seen it too.

“You didn't know that Darrin and Lance are a couple?” I said.

Ellen looked at O'Mara.

“Darrin?” she said.

“Matters of the heart know no restrictions,” O'Mara said.

It was limp, but the best he could do. I think he knew it was limp. I think he knew it was all going to go south, and take him with it. And I think he had given up, and
most of what he did now was reflexive motion. Ellen stared at Lance.

“Him?” she said.

O'Mara didn't bother to answer.

“And just what was going to happen to us when the time came?” Ellen said.

This time Bernie's head jerked around.

“What time came?” he said.

I looked at Hawk. He grinned. It was beginning to boil.

“When you got the money,” she said.

“Money?” Bernie said.

“Ellen,” O'Mara said.

“Fuck you, you goddamned fairy,” Ellen said.

It was going great.

“What was going to happen when we got the money?” Bernie said.

“I was leaving you.”

“With him?” Bernie said.

“Yeah, isn't that fun, I was going to troll off into the sunset with a fucking queer.”

“I think I proved to you, Ellen,” O'Mara said, “that I could love you as well as any man.”

This time it was Lance's head that jerked around.

“You didn't say anything about fucking her,” Lance said.

Better and better.

“I had to,” O'Mara said. “It was just until . . .” He made a little trailing-off flourish with his hand.

“You were fucking my wife?” Bernie said. “You son of a bitch.”

“Until the money?” Lance said.

His voice bubbled with something more complicated and much nastier than anger.

“What money?” Bernie said.

O'Mara pressed his head against the back of his chair and tilted his chin up and closed his eyes. Ellen sat beside Bernie on the couch. Her face was white. Her eyes looked sunken and dark.

“When you finished cleaning out Kinergy, we were going to take the money and go away,” she said.

Her voice was thin and flat and tinny.

“Take the money? How the fuck were you planning to take the money?”

Ellen turned the dark sunken stare to O'Mara, who still sat with his eyes closed, his face toward the ceiling.

“Darrin said he'd arrange so I'd inherit the money.”

I smiled at Lance.

“And we'd get married.”

I shot at Lance with my forefinger.

“That be you?” I said to him.

“You motherfucker,” Lance said to O'Mara. “Have me kill her old man so you could fuck her and get the money?”

With his eyes still closed, O'Mara spoke in a voice without affect.

“It would have been only temporary,” he said.

Bernie was rigid on the couch. His eyes were wide. There was a small twitch near his left cheekbone. His hands lay on his thighs, the fingers splayed stiffly.

“My God,” she said. “You were going to have him kill me.”

Her voice had gotten higher and she was pressing her hands against her stomach as if she were in pain.

“And you were going to have him kill me,” Bernie said.

You could barely hear his voice. No one else said anything. I glanced at Hawk. He seemed peaceable, leaning against the wall, his lips slightly pursed, so that I knew he was whistling something quietly, to pass the time. The silence expanded. Time to prime the pump.

“So Gavin came to you, Bernie, and raised the issue of financial problems at Kinergy,” I said. “And you told O'Mara.”

I saw no reason to mention Adele if I didn't have to.

“I told Ellen,” he said. “That's what Trent did too, the poor dumb bastard. He told her he was going to turn himself in.”

“Ah,” I said. “Of course, and, in both cases, she told O'Mara and,” I shot my forefinger at Lance again, “who ya gonna call?”

“Him,” Bernie said softly.

“Correct,” I said. “Lancelot de le pistolet.”

“I don't like you calling me funny names,” Lance said.

“I don't give a rat's ass what you like,” I said. “You shot Trent because O'Mara asked you to and you shot Gavin for the same reason.”

The saliva at the left corner of Lance's mouth began to trickle down his chin. He started to make the wordless reptilian hissing sound again. I sat back a little in my chair and was quiet, while they all contemplated where they were. Lance looked at O'Mara. O'Mara looked at the inside of his eyelids. Bernie didn't look at anything, and Ellen looked at O'Mara.