Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) (16 page)

“She’s due for a sabbatical,” Jimmy told us, “but according to my professor friends, that’s not a free vacation nowadays. You go on something like half salary, which means you can’t afford your life unless you work. The best solution is to get a grant for some kind of research. Lucinda was just turned down by two foundations, and she’s trying to get a second mortgage on her house.”

“Houses in the West Village are worth a lot,” Barbara said. “I’ve seen some gorgeous ones when I’ve walked through that neighborhood and peeked in windows. High ceilings, elaborate moldings, parquet floors.”

“Only guess what. It isn’t hers. It belongs to the family trust.”

Oops.

*

Barbara and I actually had a fight—well, a squabble—about which of us would go to Lucinda’s lecture and check her out.

“It’s a feminist event, you goop,” Barbara said. “The audience will be all women.”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

I hadn’t been down to the Village sober. Jimmy and I had had some riotous times there in our youth. I wanted to see if any of our old haunts were still there, including the lesbian bar on Eleventh Street where Jimmy and Barbara had had their first date. I was there. And don’t ask. That was what our lives were like back then.

In the end, we went together.

We took the C train down to the West Fourth Street Station and walked east from Sixth Avenue to NYU. Lucinda’s topic was family dynamics. I bet she had no intention of mentioning her own family. But maybe her professional armor would slip and she’d say something revealing.

“I love walking through the Village,” Barbara said happily. “I used to think the Square was so romantic.” She was talking about Washington Square. The “Washington” is silent.

“You did drugs back then?” I asked, surprised.

“Before drugs. I caught the tail end of the folkies, and I used to imagine the beatniks and bohemians before that.”

“Ah, the good old days.”

“Don’t laugh. Look at that. It’s a shame.”

She nodded at what looked to me like a normal lively scene. Big crowds around rappers and late-blooming break dancers with boomboxes; drug dealers hawking their wares with one eye out for the cops. One forlorn youth sat all alone on a bench, strumming his acoustic guitar.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Every performer’s passing the hat. People used to play for free.”

She swept a hand to indicate the brick and white row houses that rim the Square. They ooze charm. Someone is always using them in a movie.

“They all belong to NYU. Nobody else can afford them.”

“The university that ate the Village,” I agreed. “And?”

“My mother’s dentist had his office in one of those. My dad had a buddy from law school who lived across the Square. He wasn’t particularly rich either. My parents didn’t do rich.”

“They still have a few coffee houses on Bleecker Street and MacDougal,” I offered.

“Yeah, but beat poets and folkie wannabes don’t hang out in them,” she said. “They’re more like places you can get a four dollar latte if you don’t feel like walking another couple of blocks to Starbucks.”

“You can still get your nipple pierced or buy a sex toy,” I consoled her.

“And what does it say about our society,” she retorted, “that so much is gone, but the Pink Pussycat remains?”

The crowd on the street still looked like they were enjoying themselves. I said so.

“But where is that overimaginative teenager from Queens?” Barbara laughed. “I’m being silly, huh?”

“Not so terribly,” I said. “Now they’re underimaginative teenagers from Queens.”

“And Long Island and New Jersey.”

“Talking big about how they plan to score.”

“Plan? They don’t score?” she asked.

“Nah, they settle for a beer and a slice of pizza.”

“Is that what you and Jimmy did?”

“Hell, no,” I said. More like a twelve-pack each and forget the pizza. “But we were alcoholics.”

By the time we arrived at the lecture, the room was packed. To my secret relief, I was not the only guy. Lucinda was a tall, bony woman with a powerful jaw, an exceptionally resonant voice, and an emphatic delivery. She sounded as if she had never had a doubt in her life. She used all the buzz words. Patriarchy. Developmental perspectives. Attachment model. Self-in-relation. Family systems. Neurotransmitters. Barbara kept nodding her head, so I guess Lucinda knew her stuff. At the end came a question period. I didn’t understand most of the questions. Barbara raised her hand, but she didn’t get called on.

“She knows all their names,” Barbara murmured in my ear. “She’s calling on her own students.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Look, she’s leaving.” The great woman passed us, processing down the aisle with admirers swimming in her wake like pilot fish. “Let’s follow her home.”

Barbara hooked her arm through mine and set a pace that looked leisurely but took us along at a good clip. We never lost sight of Lucinda’s back. And by scooting a bit at the avenues, we made all her green lights—or at least didn’t let the red ones stop us.

Lucinda lived on one of the quiet side streets west of Seventh Avenue. These were mostly residential, with a few understated restaurants and chi-chi shops nestled into blocks of Federal-style row houses and a surviving wooden house or two. The tangled streets were almost impossible not to get lost in. Good thing we were following Lucinda.

Lucinda turned in at a little jewel of a house. The West Village was pricey to move into, though it still housed some families that couldn’t afford to move out. Old Italians from when it was an ethnic neighborhood. WASPs like God’s family.

“I bet she’s had it since the Flood,” Barbara said.

“The family did. They probably had their own Ark, too.”

We hung out on the corner till she unlocked the door. Then we strolled down the block arm in arm. I tried to look like I belonged. The façade was clean red brick with sparkling white trim. In the tall windows, gold drapes with tiebacks and swags framed glimpses of gilt mirrors and crystal chandeliers in a long parlor with elaborate moldings on the high ceilings. When Lucinda closed the door behind her, we moved forward for a better view. Lights went on in the windows on the next floor up. A hand, presumably hers, pulled curtains across the windows of what must be a bedroom. The lights were still on in the parlor.

“Let’s see what’s on the walls,” I said. A wrought-iron railing blocked the small patch of concrete in front of the house, but she’d left the gate open. It didn’t even creak when I pushed it with one finger. I walked right up to the house and kind of chinned on the sill of the nearest window.

“Don’t,” Barbara said nervously. “We’ll get caught.”

“I’m the one who’ll get arrested as a burglar,” I said. “If anyone comes, all you have to do is take a giant step backwards and look like a Jewish girl from Queens.” I might not jump turnstiles any more, but I hadn’t turned into a total wimp. I hoped. “I want to see what she has on the walls. Oh, wow!”

“What?” Barbara performed a series of contortions.

“Is that a Maori haka or a kung fu kata?” I asked.

“Shh. I can’t jump up far enough to see.”

“Stop trying to jump on tiptoe,” I advised, trying to laugh quietly. “Stand on the railing. Looks like she’s got a spectacular collection of Russian icons.”

“They could be worth a lot,” she said.

“And I’m not so sure you can just go out and buy them,” I added.

“Let me see! I want a closer look.” She tried to clamber up the wrought-iron fence and slipped. Her foot dislodged the cover of a metal garbage can. It clattered to the pavement with a noise like clashing cymbals.

“Who’s there!” Lucinda’s voice called out sharply from upstairs.

“Shit! Let’s go!” I hissed. I was back out the gate in a flash. “Come on!”

Barbara growled at me under her breath as she struggled to extricate her foot from between two wrought-iron rails. I grabbed her hand and whisked her past the house next door to Lucinda’s. Then I put on the brakes.

“Easy now. Let’s stroll. We’re innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with the disturbance.”

Luckily, the street remained quiet. Lucinda didn’t come downstairs, open the door, or even peer through the upstairs curtains. A real New Yorker. When we hear an alarming noise, we might check for a second to make sure we’re not in actual danger. But then we tend to shrug and go back to whatever we were doing.

Barbara whimpered and held back as I started to move on.

“What’s the matter?”

She hung from my arm like a twenty-pound pocketbook.

“My ankle. I twisted it.”

“Badly?” I let her lean her whole weight on me, hopping on one foot, as I bent down to feel it.
“Ow!”

“Big ow or little ow?”

“Little ow. I’m okay. Really.” She put the damaged foot down gingerly. Nothing bad happened. “Let me lean on you.” The dead weight gradually eased off.

“Good to go?”

“Yeah.” She limped, but we made it to the corner. “Now let me rest for a second.”

It was brighter on the corner. The cross street had restaurants and shops in between the residential buildings. I looked around, checking once more for any signs of pursuit. A bulky figure turned the corner on the other side of the street. I grunted softly in surprise.

“Look, Barb. Across the street. Is that Boris?”

“Boris who?”

“Boris Goudonov. Don’t stare! The Russian counselor from the detox.”

She looked in the direction I was looking. He was as big as a dancing bear in a heavy black wool overcoat and one of those massive fur hats. Could it be some other Russian? I didn’t think so.

“Yes, it is Boris,” she said. “What’s he doing on Lucinda’s block?”

“A coincidence?”

“There are no coincidences.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” I said. “Hmm. He could be one of Lucinda’s Russian refugees.”

“Maybe,” Barbara said. “But does that explain what he’s doing on her block at ten o’clock at night?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Freud. What do
you
think?”

“Maybe they’re having an affair,” Barbara said.

“Or maybe he’s casing the joint. Like us.”

“Let’s wait and see if he rings her bell,” she suggested.

And so we would have. But an oil truck too big for the street chose that moment to get stuck turning the corner. By the time we could see Lucinda’s house again, Boris had disappeared.

I had another pink collar temp job. Even in what Barbara calls the postfeminist era, a guy being a secretary is still considered cute. If it had been a permanent job, I could have joined the secretaries’ union. That would have been even cuter. The women in the office considered me harmless. They tended to treat me like one of the girls. This could have been a great preliminary to getting inside their underwear if I had been the slightest bit interested. My night with Laura notwithstanding, my libido was still in very early sobriety. So I was perfectly happy to share their tuna fish sandwiches and tell them comforting lies on their bad hair days and hear all about their boss. Especially since their boss was God’s nephew, Charles G. Standish.

They all called him Chuckie, but not to his face. If I had to describe him in one word, the word would be “tightass.” Not much over thirty, he was one of those men who seem to have been born middle aged. He skated as close to old-fashioned sexism as he could get away with in a union shop. He was finicky about the work. When he wasn’t taking a client out, he ate the same thing for lunch every day: half a lean pastrami on rye with mustard and extra pickle and a diet Sprite. He never got the mustard on his tie. He had an annoying tendency to micromanage. When he got on the intercom, which he did dozens of times a day, he would never tell you if it was to give you a rocket or just a task. He would say, “I’d like to see you in my office.” Never by name. I didn’t care, but the permanent staff resented it. In retaliation, they snooped in his desk and gossiped about him and his family whenever he wasn’t around.

Beverly, the office manager, reigned as queen of the office. She was in her forties. Her figure was lush. Her hair had an identity crisis every other week. Her pouty, squashed-together face made her look like Tweety Bird, and she had a squeaky voice to go with it. She wore tight skirts, high heels, and about a pound of makeup. Beverly knew the location of every ballpoint pen and yellow pad that she had ever ordered. It didn’t take much to get her going about Chuckie. She’d been there forever, but she was not one of those loyal clerical slaves. In fact, she had been instrumental in getting the union in. She had been shop steward until she got promoted into management. While she did her job with fierce rectitude, she had no scruples about responding to an innocent leading question with a flood of information. When Chuckie got a call from his uncle, Dr. Samson Weill, I let Beverly tell me all about it.

“That’s Uncle Sam. Chuckie is actually his wife’s nephew. They have lunch together about once a month. Dr. Weill does face lifts and tummy tucks; he does very well for himself. Though like everyone else, he’s taken a few hits in the past year as far as investments go. He’s a good client, and Chuckie gets upset if he isn’t happy.”

“Why wouldn’t he be happy?”

“Oh, money, it’s always money, isn’t it? They both belong to an expensive golf club, they go to the Caribbean every winter and the Hamptons every summer, their wives spend a fortune on their clothes, the kids go to expensive schools.”

“It costs a lot to keep up the perfect family, huh?”

“Perfect! Ha! You can’t buy a perfect family.”

“Trouble in Paradise?”

“Uncle Sam’s wife has a black sheep brother,” she said with relish. “Chuckie’s other uncle. They’ve shelled out plenty in
that
direction over the years.”

“Bailing him out?” Beverly didn’t seem to know that Uncle God was dead. Talk about a news blackout.

“And paying him to go away. Not that it’s ever worked for long.”

“So where’s the black sheep now?” I made the question sound as idle as I could.

“I don’t know,” said Beverly, “but I can tell you where he was at Christmas: in here asking for a handout. He crashed the office Christmas party and went through half a bottle of Chivas Regal before Chuckie managed to hustle him out of here.”