From Manhattan With Revenge Boxed Set (25 page)

“It does.”

“Have a car waiting for me at LaGuardia in three hours.”
 
Spocatti gave him the flight
number.
 
“We’ll discuss any further
details later.
 
Oh, and can you do
me one little favor?” he asked.
 
“Just the one?”

“What’s that?”

“This Russian bullshit of yours is growing old.
 
I want to hear Iver.
 
Can you go back to your sheep roots and
give me a taste of Iver Kester, but without the cheese?
 
I want to hear what the real Iver sounds
like.
 
The one who is willing to murder
his family, especially his mother.
 
It will give me insight into who I’m really dealing with.”

Katzev severed the connection and wired the money.

CHAPTER TW
ENTY-TWO

In his townhouse on 118 East Sixty-First Street, James Gelling
was seated at a desk in his parlor, a telephone at his ear, listening.
 
When there was a break in the conversation,
which he considered long-since finished, he said, “Thank you, Bonzie.
 
This time you were helpful.
 
It won’t go unnoticed.
 
As soon as I hear anything about either
stock, and I expect to hear something soon, I’ll be sure to give you a call and
share the information before the market opens in exchange for your
kindness.
 
No, no.
 
I don’t do suppers anymore.
 
I can barely swallow.
 
And I’m in a fucking wheelchair,
Bonzie.
 
You know that.
 
I’m one-hundred-and-three years old.
 
These days, I can manage broth and tea,
but not always the former if it has too much salt, which causes my throat to
seize up.
 
It’s hell being me.
 
Good-bye.”

He hung up the telephone, wrote a few notes with one of his
arthritic hands and then tried to read what he’d written through the haze of
his milky green eyes.
 
The test was
simple.
 
If he could read his
handwriting, which he could, but just barely, then others could.

He had two more telephone calls to make and his job would be
complete.
 

“Frank,” he said.
 
“I need Piggy French’s telephone number.
 
She has homes in Paris and in New
York.
 
I hear she’s in New York
now.
 
I can’t read the book that
contains all of my numbers in it, but I know her numbers are there.
 
Would you mind finding her New York
number for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Frank, who was so tall, it fascinated Gelling, took Gelling’s
private book that he kept locked in a safe and fanned through it.
 
“Piggy French, you said?”

“Awful name, but that’s what I said.
 
They saddled her with it at Vassar,
because when she first arrived at school, she was a bit too fat for that
crowd.
 
When she lost the weight in
a matter of months and became svelte, she decided to keep the name as a
reminder of not to gain it back and also not to bow to her bullies.
 
When her transformation was complete, a
beautiful girl was revealed.
 
She
and her name became chic.
 
The
irony!
 
But then everything went to
hell for her when she married and divorced and became a drunk of the highest
order.
 
This is the sort of useless
information I’m filled with.”

Frank gave Gelling her number and Gelling, in the meantime,
tried to read the time on the watch stitched into Frank’s eyepatch.
 
Not great, but he did have some time
left.
 
“Would you like me to dial it
for you?” Frank said.

“That would be helpful, Frank.
 
My fingers are like pretzels.
 
Here.
 
Give me the receiver.
 
At least I can hold it.”

Within a few moments, he was speaking to Piggy French.

“Piggy,” he said.
 
“It’s James Gelling.
 
How are
you?”

“Right now, a little drunk, James.
 
Peter left me.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Was is the drink?”

“Was it the what?”

“What it the drugs?”

“Was it the what?”

“Never mind.
 
I
assume—”

“Don’t worry.
 
This
time, I had an air-tight pre-nup.
 
What’s left of Daddy’s money is safe.
 
I learned all about
that
after
Dick left me.”

“Why did Dick leave you again?”

“He called me a ‘cunt’ at Maisie Van Prout’s swank dinner party
for that sheik everyone loves.
 
Whatshisname
Quelquechose
.
 
Can’t remember right now.
 
But I remember the scene as if it were stamped on vellum.
 
Can you imagine?
 
That language hurled at me in front of
the sheik and everyone else at the table, which included the legendary Broadway
actress, Eve Darling?
 
When that
prick left the room, I excused myself and immediately stuck my nose in some peonies
Maisie had arranged in a vase in her living room.
 
I just breathed them in.
 
The scent calms me.
 
So sweet.
 
When he took me to court and got his ten
million, I did it again at my own house.
 
Stuck my nose straight in a vase filled with my own peonies.
 
They didn’t work as well that time,
probably because losing ten million to a bastard like Dick Weatherbee is worse
than being called a ‘cunt’ by him in front of a popular sheik and a Broadway
legend who was in the bathroom snorting coke throughout the evening.”

She was slurring her words.
 
“What are you drinking, Piggy?”

“Little bit of everything.”

“Pills?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t do the pills.”

“I loved him, Jamesie.”

“You’ll feel different in a week.
 
You need to focus on that.
 
You need to think, ‘rebirth.’
 
Get through the week and you’ll see
things differently.”

“A week will feel like a year.
 
A lifetime!”

“No, it won’t.
 
And
don’t get all hysterical on me.
 
I’m
too old for it.
 
I need you to do
this.”

“OK.”

“And as long as I’m still here, which could end at any point,
as in minutes—seconds!—I’m available if you need to talk.”

“OK.”

“Piggy, I hate to call you when you’re so down, but I need some
information.”

“OK.”

“You know I’m discrete.”

“It’s why I love you.
 
And why I confide in you.
 
Everyone confides in you.
 
Some still think you’re still a practicing shrink.”

He hated the word ‘shrink,’ but he went with it because she was
in no condition to be corrected.
 
“Sometimes, I think I still am.
 
But I’m not, though my ethics have remained when it comes to honoring
that profession.
 
My lips are
tighter than a priest’s, which isn’t saying much these days.
 
Let’s just say they’re tighter.”

“You’ve got a filthy mind and I love you for it.
 
What do you want to know, Jamesie?”

He hated it when she called him ‘Jamesie,’ but now was not the
time to ask her to call him “James” or even “Gelling.”
 
He needed information from her, so he
just went with it.
 
“You and I both
know that you had Dick Weatherbee dealt with.
 
You told me so yourself in one of our
many unplanned sessions.”

There was a silence.
 
“I don’t, uh, remember that.
 
Was I drunk when I told you?”

“Sloshed.
 
You were
on the floor of your room at the Ritz Carlton in Paris and called me about an
hour after it happened.
 
You said
you had crackers, good vodka and cheap potato chips all around you.
 
You said you were on a binge.”

“Jesus.”
 

She said it like, “Hey-Zeus,” which surprised him.
 
“Piggy, are you part-Hispanic?”

“No, no.
 
I just
love the Romance languages.
 
I use
them often.”

“Anyway, your secret has and always will be safe with me.
 
But I seem to remember that you
mentioned a woman’s name in connection with the whole thing.
 
It was Greek.
 
Do you remember her name?”

Piggy said nothing.

“Now’s not the time to go all quiet, Piggy.”

“OK.”

“If I read you the list of names I have in front of me, would
you recall the name you used to off Dick?”

“What’s this about, Jamesie?”

“It has nothing to do with you.
 
I promise you that.
 
I’m investigating a syndicate, which you
mentioned to me that night when you were drunk and eating cheap potato chips at
the Ritz.
 
You said they were
instrumental in bringing down Dick.
 
I just need her name because I’m being threatened by her through them
and I need to have her handled, if she’s who I think she is.”

“Why are you being threatened?
 
You’re an angel.”

She said “angel” like “an-hell.”

“Piggy, drop the Romance.”

“OK.
 
But you
are
an angel.”

“Apparently, someone feels otherwise.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“I have it narrowed down to three names.
 
I know she belongs to that syndicate.
 
Does the syndicate ring a bell?”

“Right now, bells are clanging all around me, Jamesie.
 
Let’s just cut to the chase and quit the
guessing games.
 
I want to
help.
 
This list of yours.
 
I’m assuming Hera Hallas’s name is on
it?
 
The Greek shipping
heiress?
 
The one I went to
for...uh, you know...assistance?”

“She is.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences, Jamesie.
 
Why are you in trouble?”

“I have no idea, but now I can find out.
 
I can threaten her with exposure.
 
I owe you one, Piggy.”

“If it gets bad, this thing with me and Peter, who left me with
that cruel look on his face and that hateful barb I refuse to repeat because
it’s beneath me, I might need to call you a few times.
 
Talk things through.
 
Clear my head.
 
Is that OK?”

“Did he also call you a ‘cunt’?”

“He said it four times.
 
Is that what I am, Jamesie?
 
Am I really that?
 
Two men
have called me that now.
 
Two
men!
 
And then guess what he
said?
 
He said that word wasn’t even
low enough to describe the monster I am.”

“You’re no monster,” he said.
 
“And, yes, call me.
 
Just not when I’m sleeping.
 
At my age, I might be having my final
rest, which I’d rather like to enjoy.
 
Call late mornings or afternoons.
 
We’ll see if I’m still around.
 
At my age, it could be lights out at any point, Piggy.
 
I could drop dead after this phone
call.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“I can’t bear it.”

“You’ve got to face it sometime.”

“Not that.”

“And Piggy,” he said.

“
Oui
?”

“
Ne prenez pas les comprimés.
”

“What?”

“Don’t take the pills.”

CHAPTER TWEN
TY-THREE

“Frank,” Gelling said.
 
“Would you help me find another number.
 
Yes?
 
Sims Cliveden.
 
This will be the last one.
 
No time for others.
 
Sims will know what I need to know
because I happen to know he didn’t kill his mistress himself, all those years
ago, on that awful night is Sagaponack, when it happened by a hand that wasn’t
his.
 
He’s a coward.
 
He hired it out.
 
Guilt brought him here one evening and
he told me all about it in such a gushing, blubbering rush, I think he thought
I could offer him atonement.
 
All I
could do was listen and not judge, which is what I do best.
 
But what I remembered earlier today
while thinking about this syndicate angle I’m pursuing was being confused at
the time of Sims’s breakdown because it was the first time I heard mention of
the syndicate, which he talked about.
 
Sims used them.
 
He must
have.
 
And it has to be the
syndicate we’re after.
 
I mean, how
many syndicates
are
there?”
 

He looked at Frank as the man raised an eyebrow and then he
held up his frail hand as far as he could lift it, which wasn’t far, given the
arthritis that had consumed it.
 
“Don’t answer.
 
You’re a
former Marine chock-full of intelligence and it might ruin this for me.
 
Here’s the book.
 
You’ll find his number in there.”

“Would you like me to dial again for you, sir?”

“That would be great, Frank.
 
You know I can’t see shit.
 
And I’ve got pretzels for fingers.
 
Sometimes I’m surprised when I whizz
around this joint in my wheelchair that I don’t crash into things.”

“Sometimes, I worry about that, sir.”

“Don’t.
 
I know
every nook.
 
Every cranny.
 
It’s my racing track and it’s my
escape.”

“Here’s the number.”

“Perfect.
 
You know,
Frank, once this is finished, I’ll have all of the names of those who comprise
the syndicate.
 
Or at least a good
deal of those names.
 
There’s likely
more, but this is a good start and if Carmen uses the list correctly, which she
will, it will rattle the cages.
 
And
then we’ll see what Illarion Katzev does then.
 
I’m giving the list to her and I know
she must have it soon, so time is of the essence.
 
I must get these names to her.
 
Beyond helping her, I think this Katzev
person will piss in his kilt when he finds out about the list because he’ll
know that when it’s in Carmen’s hands, it’s a game-changer.”
 

He saw the confused look that crossed Frank’s usually stoic
face and explained.
 
“Katzev was
born Iver Kester on a second-rate Aberdeen sheep farm before he turned Ruskie,
hooked a flight to the States and started watching too many American mafia
movies, the lot of which informed who he is today.
 
He’s a Scot through and through, but
he’d deny it in a minute.
 
An old
acquaintance once told me that he spent years with a personal tutor, who taught
him how to speak perfect, fluent Russian, and also how to speak English as if
his native language was Russian.
 
Who
thinks
like that?
 
If I was younger and still publishing for the journals, I’d write a case
study on him in a second.”

He looked up at Frank’s bum eye, checked the time on the
sapphire-colored watch that gleamed there, then switched to the other eye to be
polite.
 
“This has been
invigorating.
 
All this
sleuthing.
 
Thank heavens I once
treated so many wealthy, murdering swells.
 
It’s exciting.
 
You realize,
this might have even bought me another year.
 
I can feel my heart beating like a young
man’s again.
 
Can you read my
handwriting here?”

He showed Frank the piece of paper with the list of names,
addresses and other information.

“I can.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Perfect.
 
Let me
talk to Sims and remind him what I know about him and his mistress.
 
He’ll talk.
 
Like Piggy French, Sims Cliveden always
talks.
 
The good news is that you
just don’t need him to be drunk or on pills to do so.”

*
 
*
 
*

Later, Sims Cliveden of the Pittsburgh Clivedens, told Gelling
the name of the person Sims used to knock off his mistress, Jacqueline, nine
years ago, before she came through with her threat of causing trouble between
Sims and his wife of twenty-three years, Florette.
 

Gelling knew the story because at the time of Jacqueline’s death,
Sims was his client and, guilt-ridden Catholic that he was, he blushed when he
told him everything during one of their sessions.

Gelling went to his files and found his old notes.
 
The man Sims used was named Conrad
Bates.
 
For some reason, the name
was familiar to Gelling—he sensed there was a Northeast
connection—though he didn’t know why and it certainly didn’t matter now.

What mattered is that he had compiled eight names, and while he
doubted that covered all who belonged to the syndicate, it was plenty to arm
Carmen with the information she needed to disarm Katzev now.
 

He read the list over again and, with pride, he placed it back
on the desk.
 
In a moment, he’d call
Carmen with the information and have her come pick it up.
 
This was her trump card against Katzev
and the syndicate.
 
And he’d made it
happen.
 

Even at my age
, he thought with a thrill.

In a whirring rush, he backed away from his desk in his
electric wheelchair and looked around the room for Frank, who must have left
either to use the bathroom or to grab himself something to eat.
 

Leave him alone
, he thought to himself, a whiff of an
idea already forming.
 
Opportunity
knocks.

Five months after his ninety-sixth birthday, James Gelling was
told by doctors that he’d never walk again.
 
His hips, replaced twenty years earlier,
had worn out, as had his replaced knees, which now locked whenever he went up
or down stairs.

He wanted to undergo surgery to replace his hips and his knees,
but due to his age, his doctor warned him against it.
 
“It’s unlikely that you’ll make it,” the
woman said.
 
“It’s too risky.”

“Why?” Gelling asked.

“You know why.”
 

“The gas?” he said.

“That’s right,” she said.
 
“The gas.
 
And also your
age.
 
You’re not young anymore,
James.
 
It’ll be too much for your
body to handle, especially given the length of the surgery.
 
It will kill you.
 
You know that.
 
Unless I’m misreading you, I don’t think
you want that to happen.”

“You don’t know what I want.”
 
He paused as a sense of defeat overcame
him.
 
He wanted a normal life.
 
He wanted to continue his practice, but
she also asked him to end it because he needed his rest.
 
The idea infuriated him.
 
She was taking away everything that
mattered to him.
 
“Are you
suggesting I spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair until death carries me
out of it?” he asked.

“What I’m giving you is my best advice,” she said.
 
“And, no, that’s not what I’m
suggesting.
 
With assistance, you
still can have a meaningful life.
 
What you need to figure out is what that life will be in your current situation.”

He remembered looking out a window and losing himself in the
rainy gray gloom of the Manhattan skyline.
 

“I’ve started to shit my pants,” he said in a distance
voice.
 
“I haven’t told you about
that.
 
I wear a diaper now, which I
can’t change myself, so there’s the added humiliation that someone has to
change it for me and wipe my ass because I’ve become incontinent.
 
The man who does it is Frank.
 
He’s a gem.
 
A great guy, former Marine, taller than
is genetically possible, though he has only one eye and I’m dying to see what’s
beneath the patch.
 
He won’t show
me.
 
Probably humiliated.
 
Obviously, embarrassed.
 
I get it.
 
What I love about him is that he’s an
eccentric.
 
He has a watch stitched
into the front of his patch.
 
Can
you imagine?
 
I think he does it to
put people off—they don’t know where to look when they address him.
 
I know I’m lucky to have him, but I want
to walk again.
 
I don’t want to be
in a fucking wheelchair.”

“Who does?”

“But that’s where you’re putting me.
 
What am I going to do in a
wheelchair?
 
Seriously?”

“Something different.
 
Something that matches skills you don’t even know you have.
 
You need to come to terms with
this.
 
You’ve had a good life,
James.
 
And with the exception of
your legs and your knees and your deformed fingers, you’re also in excellent
health, which many people half your age can’t claim.”

“My deformed fingers.
 
Is that also supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s meant to give you a sense of scope.
 
You’ve had a good ride.
 
You have years ahead of you, especially
if you find a new reason to get up in the morning.
 
A new kind of career.”

He consulted other doctors, but to his disappointment, they all
agreed.
 
Surgery would be the end of
him.
 
He’d die on a table with one
of his titanium hips already removed, but instead of putting it back properly
inside his corpse, he knew how it worked.
 
They’d just shove it back inside improperly and sew him up, regardless
of how bad it looked.
 

For Gelling, who had very specific plans for his own funeral
and burial, to the point that he hired a theatrical agency to plant nine
character actresses of various ages along the periphery of his grand mahogany
casket, where they would weep for him when he went into the hole, the thought
of going into the dirt with such a disfigurement repelled him.
 

When he finally decided to give himself over to life in a
wheelchair, he bought the top-of-the-line turbo model he used now.
 
And then he rethought his life.
 

What were his passions?
 
What did he want to do before he died?
 
It was when his longtime acquaintance
Babe McAdoo called to ask him for a favor, which involved tracking down a man
she knew he knew through mutual friends, that he started to suspect things
about her that he couldn’t have known when the man was found beheaded days
later.
 

It was an event that made international news because of who the
man was.
 
Over drinks, which he
demanded she share with him, he learned of her “secret life,” as she called it,
which stunned him, but which he found rife with excitement.

“You know a lot of people,” Babe said to him.
 
“More than anyone I know, really,
including me, which is saying plenty.
 
And you’ve always had an inquisitive mind.
 
You’re good with puzzles and you
understand the human mind in ways that most don’t because of your medical
background and your longtime practice, which is now defunct because of your
age, your bum legs and your twisted fingers.
 
You could be an asset to certain people
I know.
 
And you could do it all
from that chair.”

Before she left, he was sold on the idea.
 
And his life, at ninety-six, began anew
with a string of thrilling adventures he never dreamt of having in his
townhouse off Park, which had been streamlined and decluttered to accommodate
the wheelchair.