Madman's Thirst (10 page)

Scarne repeated what he had told
O’Connor. Scullen saw through the lies immediately. He had probably been a good
cop once, and maybe still was. He walked over to the donuts and brought the box
back, placing it between them.

“Clichés aside, these are fucking
great donuts,” he said. “Now, are you going to tell me what you really know? My
friends in Manhattan said you probably wouldn’t be wasting your time out here.
So why waste mine?”

Scarne picked up a plastic knife
and cut a cruller in half. It was fresh. He took an appreciative bite while
debating how much to tell Scullen. The guy was close to being a burn out. A
lush whose superiors unloaded to Staten Island. But probably not for
incompetence. He was still sharp enough to have checked Scarne out.

“What I say has to stay between us,”
Scarne said, rolling the dice. “Nothing goes up the street, for now.” The last
thing Scarne wanted was a grand jury subpoena demanding the source of his
information. Scullen picked up the other half of the cruller, took a bite and
nodded.

“Whatcha got?”

“There was no anonymous phone
call. Guy who passed the information on to me will never – and I mean, never –
confirm it or reveal his source. But you can take it to the bank. Elizabeth
Pearsall was killed by two pros hired by someone who wanted to hurt her father
enough so that he wouldn’t have the heart to keep working on some story. Forget
about looking for some run-of-the-mill pervert, or a panicky burglar. I can’t
tell you what to do, but I’d be shaking the trees to find out what on Staten
Island is worth murdering a high school kid over, and who might let the
contract, if it’s local.”

“You got any leads on the pros?”

Scarne didn’t want to tell Scullen
about the bakery, or mention the name Gadomski. That angle would be easy to run
down. He wanted the cops looking over their old case files.

“Not much. Just that one of them
is of Polish extraction, has pancreatic cancer and probably lived here 40 years
ago. He may be dead by now, or is near death in any of 50 states. I suppose he
could be abroad, too.”

 “Jeez. You’ve got him cornered.”

Scullen pulled out a file. In it
were the crime scene photos. Nothing shocked Scarne anymore, but it was obvious
that Elizabeth Pearsall had died hard. Her face was a mask of terror. Scarne
picked up a photo of the girl taken before the murder. He stared at it a long
moment.

“Yeah, I know,” the cop said.

Scarne riffed through the other
photos: open drawers, loot piled up neatly. A little too neatly.

“We figured they got scared and
bolted,” Scullen said. “Son of a bitch.”

“Don’t second guess yourself,
Scullen. It’s what I would have figured. But now we know what they wanted us to
think.”

***

It was after 4 P.M. by the time
Scarne finished reading the police reports. He and Scullen reached an
agreement. Scarne would pursue the long-shot lead on the hit man, while the
detective would concentrate his resources on Staten Island. They would keep in
touch.

When Scarne got to his car, he called
Dudley Mack.

“I told Scullen that you were on
the side of the angels on this one. He got a kick out of that.”

“You know he’s a rummy, right?
Been thrown out of several of my gin mills. They probably dropped the case on
him when it looked like a dead end.”

“I think he still has some moves
left.”

Scarne’s phone beeped.

“Deadly, I’ve got another call.
It’s Harvey, the Register’s police reporter. I’ll get back to you.”

CHAPTER 13 – IT’S THE OVENS

There is an ongoing debate among
Staten Islanders over which restaurant serves the best pizza in the borough –
and thus in the city, there being no debate about that among locals. Denino’s
in Port Richmond usually gets the nod (and actually does have
New York
magazine’s imprimatur as having the best pie in all of New York City!). Second
place usually goes to Joe & Pat’s in Castleton Corners. But there are those
– and Scarne was among them – who believe that there are no finer slices to be
had in the New World than in Lee’s Tavern in Dongan Hills. It had something to
do with the ovens, he’d been told many times. That didn’t matter to Scarne. He
was just delighted that Harvey had suggested an early dinner at the tavern for
their meeting. With only a half Danish and half cruller in his stomach since
breakfast, he was starving.

Lee’s is on Hancock Street and
faces the Dongan Hills station of the Staten Island Rapid Transit system. The
venerable SIRT, as it is known to all Islanders, is a 14-mile-long, 21-stop
commuter rail line that runs from Tottenville, the southernmost town in New
York State, to St. George. It is noted for its clean cars and on-time
performance and wends its way through many communities established in the 17
^th
and 18
^th
centuries, including Prince’s Bay, Huguenot, Annadale,
Eltingville, New Dorp and Stapleton.

Scarne was sitting in a booth near
the tavern’s door, as far from the kitchen and its delicious smells as he could
get, salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs. It had started to rain heavily and
he was glad to have found a parking spot just outside the front door. A
waitress brought over a pitcher of Budweiser. In the past, Scarne knew,
ordering any other brew in Lee’s branded you as un-American. He wondered if
that would change now that Bud was foreign-owned. In any event, the beer was
ice cold and delicious. Drinking in a quiet, classy tavern during a rain storm
was one of life’s great pleasures, and Scarne forgot his hunger. Lee’s was
fairly empty, but he knew that in an hour the commuters would be stopping in
for a drink before going home. Then the regular dinner crowd would build,
augmented by the lawyers and politicians who had made the bar area a place to
be seen and be seen.

He had just topped off his second
glass when a large man in a loud sports jacket ran in the door and slapped a
newspaper against his thigh to shake off rainwater. He looked like a police
reporter from a Hollywood B movie and immediately spotted Scarne, who looked
like a man who was expecting a police reporter. He walked over to the table and
nodded when Scarne picked up the pitcher and tilted it towards an empty glass.
He drained it appreciatively while still standing and then sat down. They shook
hands, introduced themselves, and Scarne refilled the glass.

The waitress reappeared.

“How’s it hanging, Ev? Large pie,
crispy, and another pitcher?”

“You got it, Flo.” He looked over
at Scarne. “You up for splitting a cold antipasto to start, with a little
garlic bread?”

“Sure,” Scarne said, hoping the
greens in the antipasto would mitigate his recent artery-clogging diet.

The two men spent the next 20
minutes drinking beer and talking about the people they knew in common on
Staten Island. Harvey was at least 15 years older than Scarne, but both were
from generations that still viewed the borough as small-townish. And both
realized that in a very few years such nostalgic conversations would be rare.
Finally, Harvey wiped up some olive oil with a piece of Italian bread, took a
swig of beer and belched loudly.

“Pardon moi,” he said. “Had to
bring that one up for a vote. Now, you said on the phone you wanted to talk
about the murder of Bob Pearsall’s daughter.”

There being no real reason to hold
back from a police reporter who would soon get wind of everything he was doing,
Scarne filled Harvey in.

“Shit,” Harvey said. “You’re sure
about your source?”

“Absolutely.”

“Cops know?”

“Told them a few hours ago.”

“They want to know the source.”

“Absolutely.”

“And you stonewalled?”

“I lied. They know I lied. But
there’s nothing they can do about it. Told Popp, too.”

“You’re trying to stir up a shit
storm and see what washes up on the beach.”

“It’s been a productive use of my
time in the past. Now, Popp said Pearsall wasn’t working on anything important
enough to result in murder. That true?”

Harvey hesitated. Then their pizza
came and he hesitated some more while they started eating. Finally he said, “As
far as it goes.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Listen, I’m just an ex-flatfoot.
I don’t pretend to be a journalist. Probably why this job appealed to me. I go
around and check the precincts for burglaries, car crashes and D.U.I.’s.
Occasionally someone gets popped, especially in the projects, or a ginzoni gets
dumped in one of our vacant lots. Biggest story I had recently was when the
D.A.’s office raided bookies all over the Island. Somehow they missed the ones
working out of our pressroom. I call the stuff in, and the night staff churns
out a bunch of 200-word stories than make it sound like we’re on top of
everything. I get to see old friends on the force, people buy me a lot of lunch
and dinners – thanks for this by the way – and I tack on another pension. Can’t
have too many of those with all these idiots running around Washington.”

The pizza was as good as ever. Scarne
signaled for another pitcher of beer. Harvey held up a hand.

“Could I talk you into a bottle of
wine? They have a great Ruffino here. Practically at cost.”

Scarne ordered the bottle.

“Where was I? Oh, yeah. The job
meant nothing to me, until I met Bobby Pearsall. He was a real newsman. Before
I knew it, he had me looking for good stories. Like why there were so many
burglaries in a certain area? Which gangs were getting stronger? How crime
affects the poor and the like. I have to tell you, at first I resisted it. It
was work. And that’s not what I signed on for. But he was a really nice guy and
we hit it off. And pretty soon I got into it. Then he won the
Pulitzer
–
I did some legwork on that one – and he started to get even more feisty. I was
worried something might happen, but nothing like this. I can’t believe someone
would do that.”

The waitress brought over the wine.
She filled two glasses. Lee’s Tavern wasn’t the kind of place where one twirled
the wine, sipped it and nodded approval. The waitress was two tables over
taking an order by the time the two men picked up their glasses.   

“I heard it might have something
to do with the proposed NASCAR track.”

Harvey shook his head in
dismissal.

“Can’t be. I mean there’s a lot of
dough involved, but nobody thinks it’s gonna happen. Bob couldn’t be a target
over that.” Harvey suddenly hesitated. “Unless….”

“Unless, what?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing, but one
day I spotted two of Bob’s favorite reporters down at the County Clerk’s office
going through real estate records related to the area where the track is supposed
to go, out in Bloomfield. I asked them what was up but they said it was just
routine stuff. You have to understand that the young kid reporters don’t really
trust me, because I’m an ex-cop, and still too close to my ex-pals. I don’t
really blame them. Besides, good reporters don’t like to blab about stories
they are working on. And these kids were good. But I can play that game, too.
So I asked one of my clerk friends what they were looking for. It seems they
were also pulling all the recent land deals around the Stapleton Home Port. You
know, the old Navy base.”

“Did you find out why?”

“I didn’t want to ask them, so I
went to Bob. Asked him if there was something I should know. I mean, I cover
the police and courts so I spend a lot of time in Borough Hall and the County
Clerk. Sometimes I hear things. I told him I might be useful in whatever bee he
had in his bonnet. He knew I walked a thin line. I wasn’t going to blow the
whistle on everything I knew about the cops. Hell, I’d never get anything. But
he knew I wouldn’t roll over for something really bad. Besides, if there was a
big scandal and I was blindsided, my credibility would be shot to hell and that
was bad for the paper.”

“What did Pearsall say?”

“That his gut told him the two
land deals were connected, mainly because he was suspicious of anything Bimm
was involved in.”

“Dr. Bimm? Fat guy. White suit.
White Lexus SUV? Looks like his neck is blowing a bubble?”

“Yeah. Nathan Bimm. Big real
estate investor. Plastic surgeon who made a mint with his clinics. Bob had a
real hard-on for him. Said he was ruining Staten Island. You know him?”

“He almost ran me over in front of
Borough Hall.”

“He wouldn’t need a car to hurt
you if he ran into you. He’s a fuckin’ hippo, but not as good looking.”

So Bimm was involved in buying
land in both Bloomfield and Stapleton.

“How much money are we talking
about?”

“Millions.”

“He has that kind of money?”

“He’s got plenty, but Bob assumed
he was acting on behalf of other people. Some of the plots had his name on
them, others were in the name of various corporations, trusts, partnerships and
the like.”

“Any of them stand out?”

Harvey pointed to the last slice
of pizza.

“You gonna eat that?”

Even though it was rightly his, Scarne
shook his head.

“I don’t think Bob or his reporters
got far enough to dig into the documents,” Harvey said as he put grated Romano
cheese on the slice. “His daughter was killed and he left the paper. The kids
did, too. They came from top journalism schools, lured by the Pulitzer
.
Bob was their mentor. When he left, Staten Island lost its appeal to them.”

“Did Bimm know they were looking
into his deals?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask
them.”

“I intend to.”

“Need their phone numbers? I have
them on my cell.”

“I got them from Human Resources.”

“Try Sandy Doyle first. She’s
still around. New Jersey. Chris, the other one, is in New Zealand, I hear.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“Took a year off to see the world.
Madeline got a card from him. He comes from money. Main Line Philadelphia.”

The pizza was gone. They sipped
wine in silence for a moment. The bar began filling up. A few people stopped by
their table to say hello to Harvey. Scarne shook hands with a City Councilman,
a Criminal Court judge and several political aides. Introductions and
conversations were perfunctory. The first cocktails of the day awaited.

“I hear Bimm is tight with the
Borough President,” Scarne said when they were again alone.

“Blovardi? Bimm is so far up his
ass only his shoes stick out.”

“What’s Blovardi’s position on the
race track? And, for that matter, Bimm’s?”

“I’m not sure, anymore. Initially
Blovardi said he would keep an open mind. He always says that but everyone
knows he’d do whatever Bimm wants, since Bimm runs both the Chamber of Commerce
and the Borough Economic Development Corporation. And the NASCAR people aren’t
dumb. They knew there would be resistance. So they hired a local law firm to
run interference for them. Just happens to be Paul Salamiro’s firm. He’s
getting a $20,000-a-month retainer to lobby for the track.”

Scarne knew that Salamiro was the
former borough president, who handpicked Mario Blovardi to succeed him.

“It sounds like they have all
their ducks in order. What’s the problem?”

“I just get this feeling, from
talking to people in Borough Hall, that they’re just giving lip service to
NASCAR now. The Chamber and the B.E.D.C. recently both came out in favor of
commissioning more studies about the plan. That’s usually the kiss of death.”

“Sounds like Salamiro isn’t
earning his money.”

“Makes you wonder, don’t it?”

Scarne paid the check while Harvey
used the men’s room. A few moments later the two men stood outside on the
sidewalk talking in what was now barely a drizzle. A front had gone through and
it was noticeably colder.

 “Thanks for the gourmet dinner,”
Harvey said. “I hope you’re wrong about Elizabeth Pearsall. But if you’re not, I’d
like something done about it.” He hesitated. “Are you going to tell Bob?”

“Not until I’m sure. And even
then, I don’t know how to handle it. I’d have to find him first.”

“I can help you with that.” Harvey
took his business card from his wallet and scribbled on its back. “That’s his
number. A few of us have been in contact. I think he’d want to know.”

He handed Scarne the card. A
stream of commuters was walking from the SIRT station. Some peeled off to their
cars in the lot or started walking home down nearby streets. A fair number, all
men, headed toward Lee’s. A few of them exchanged greetings with Harvey as they
entered. One said “nice jacket.” Harvey shrugged to Scarne and said, “It hides
the sauce stains.”

“That jacket would hide a Jackson
Pollack.”

Harvey laughed, then turned
serious. 

“Listen, Jake. Be careful. Anyone
who would kill a kid won’t stop at anything.”

“I’m not too worried. If the
people behind his daughter’s murder were afraid to go directly after Pearsall,
they’d probably be crazy to go after someone looking into it. I’ve told a lot
of people what I’m doing.”

“The Fresh Kills landfill is full
of guys who underestimated the scumbags out here.”

 “Great pizza,” Scarne said when
they shook hands.

“It’s the ovens.”