Madman's Thirst (11 page)

CHAPTER 14 – BOOMFIELD

The next day Scarne called Sandra
Doyle, the reporter. They agreed to meet for lunch at Rod’s, a popular Jersey
shore hangout in Sea Girt. On the way there, he left the Garden State Parkway
and cut over to Route 35, and drove through Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Bradley
Beach, Avon by the Sea, Belmar and Spring Lake, towns that brought back
memories of raucous summer weekends with Dudley Mack.

Rod’s was a classic pub, with a
huge oval bar surrounded by sturdy high-back swivel chairs. He managed to find
a quiet spot away from the TV, which was tuned to the Golf Channel. Scarne
loved golf, but he had no use for the poorly disguised 30-minute infomercial
where a bunch of Champions Tour players, instructors and “amateur” golfers were
shilling the latest miracle putter. The “amazing new club” – which looked like
one of the tools the torturer in
Braveheart
used on William Wallace –
featured “space-age technology” to “eliminate the three-putt.” And it only cost
“three easy payments of $79.99.”

With a closet full of putters, Scarne
spent the time more productively, sipping a beer and debating the latest
incomprehensible New York Knicks trade with the bartender. A very pregnant woman
walked in. She scanned the bar, locked eyes with him and walked over.

“Dr. Livingston, I presume?”

“It’s Jake.” He stood and pulled
out a seat for her. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t realize…”

The bartender walked over. 

“Hey, Sandy, the usual?”

She nodded, and he poured her a
glass of cabernet as she took off her jacket with a little help from Scarne.
She hung her purse on a hook under the bar and clinked glasses with him. She
saw the look on his face and laughed.

“Don’t worry. My doc says it’s OK.
I’m only having one. I mean, one drink. I’m having twins, so you’d think I’d
rate two glasses, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m just sorry you had to come
out and meet me. I certainly would have come to you had I known.”

“What century are you from? I’ve
been driving up and down the shore doing interviews with people losing their
homes. I’m not due for a month.”

“Who do you work for now?”

“
Asbury Park Press
.”

“Good paper. You must be happy you
landed on your feet. Not the greatest job environment for journalists.”

“Well, I was freelancing until two
months ago, but I just got put on staff.”

“Congratulations. You must be
good.”

“I am good.” She smiled wickedly.
“And, of course, it helped that the city editor is the father of these little
darlings. We married last month.”

“Way to go, girl,” the bartender said
as he set down a bowl of peanuts.

“Double congratulations,” Scarne
said, laughing. “I won’t offer you another drink, but how does lunch sound?”

“Food always sounds good.” She
patted her stomach. “I wonder why!”

Drinks in hand, they moved to a
nearby table by a window. As they walked over Scarne took her in. Sandy Doyle
was a very good-looking woman. Tall and, except for her belly, thin, with
strong, shapely legs and a fine-featured, though sensuous face surrounded by
tight blond curls. He suspected it didn’t take much prodding for her new
husband to do the right thing. A waitress came over. They ordered clam chowder,
New England for her, Manhattan for him, and two Reubens. Scarne asked for
another beer; Doyle a Coke.

They made small talk. The chowders
came. Steaming hot. Scarne burnt his lip.

“Put more oyster crackers in it,”
Doyle said. “You said on the phone that you need some background on NASCAR on
Staten Island.”

“That’s right. I understand that
Bob Pearsall had you and another reporter looking into some things. Come across
anything that didn’t seem quite right?”

“Why does a private eye want to
know?”

Scarne realized he’d have to be
careful.

“Well, the project is
controversial. I’ve been hired to look for surprises.”

“You working for the people who
want the track or the ones who don’t?”

“Sorry. I can’t tell you.”

“Then why should I tell you
anything?”

“Professional courtesy? Surely, a
reporter can respect someone protecting his sources.”

“I’m the reporter, not you.”

“I read
The New York Times
every day?”

“Un, unh.”

But she smiled.

“The lunch?”

“I love the cheesecake here.”

“You’ve got it. So, what can you
tell me? Or do I have to get some takeout for you, too?”

She laughed.

“Actually, you had me at the
Reuben. But there’s not much to tell. We had just started looking into some
stuff when Mr. Pearsall had a family tragedy and left the paper.”

Scarne liked the fact that she
called her former boss by his formal name.

“Yes, I know about that. Was
Pearsall for or against the track?”

Their sandwiches came and they
moved their soup bowls to the side.

“He thought it was idiotic,” she
said, taking a bite of her Reuben, “with all the other problems it would bring.
I mean, on the face of it, putting a NASCAR track with an 80,000-seat stadium on
the North Shore of Staten Island is nuts. I mean, sometimes it takes people an
hour to go 10 blocks to get a loaf of bread, the traffic is so bad. The
Goethals Bridge, just north of the site, would get the bulk of the traffic
headed there. It was built in the Cretaceous Period, for Christ’s sake, and
can’t handle what’s going over it now. It’s two lanes in each direction and if
you try to pass a semi, it’s suicide. After Robert Moses built the Verrazano
Bridge, Staten Island became a major north-south road conduit between New
England and the rest of the U.S. Add the traffic from Jersey and points west
and forget about it! I spoke to residents who were up in arms about the idea.
Some of them remembered when you could drive from one end of Staten Island, St.
George to Tottenville – that’s 14 miles – without hitting a stoplight or stop
sign. Now you can’t do that without hitting a pedestrian.”

“What do you think of the idea?”

She took a spoonful of soup.

“Look, Staten Island has a lot of
problems that need addressing before it needs NASCAR, but I’m not one of those
NIMBY yahoos who thinks all progress is bad. I come from upstate New York,
around Oswego. There is no industry to speak of. Everybody was out of work even
before things went into the tank economically. They’d love a project like
this.”

Scarne tried his soup again. The
oyster crackers had helped.

“Oswego isn’t in the middle of the
biggest metropolitan area in the world.”

“I know, but the land NASCAR wants
to use is basically unusable for anything else. Do you know what a ‘brownfield’
is?”

“Land contaminated by chemicals or
other pollutants?”

Both Scarne and the reporter had a
good rhythm going, alternating soup and Reuben. He was having a good time.

“Roger. The whole North Shore of
Staten Island is basically a ‘brownfield.’ Abandoned oil tank farms, lumber
yards, service stations, junk yards, chemical plants, shipyards, you name it,
somebody has been dumping crap into the ground. Some of it can be reclaimed,
but it’s costly. The site NASCAR purchased, called the Bloomfield Dump, is 675
acres of environmental catastrophe. It’s where the BATX oil tank farm was
located and where an empty LNG tank caught fire and killed 40 workers in 1973.
Maybe you remember that? The LNG crowd had claimed that putting a huge liquid
gas tank inside New York City was perfectly safe. Then they put in a thimbleful
of LNG to test the tank’s integrity, then drained it. One of the workers lit a
cigarette and it blew up like Krakatoa.  Headline writers had a field day
calling it ‘Boomfield.’ Local residents have been waiting more than 30 years
for the city to do something with it. At first they were promised a park.”

“They always promise people a
park. Maybe that’s what Pearsall wanted. I understand he was a bit of a
crusader.”

“You’re not supposed to use that
word.”

“Balls,” Scarne said. “Pardon me.”

 “Double balls,” Doyle said. “I
hate all this political correctness crap. Anyway, Mr. Pearsall wouldn’t torpedo
something just because he didn’t like it. It would have to smell.”

They finished their Reubens and
Doyle tried – and failed – to suppress a satisfied belch.

“Pardon moi. Pregnancy
prerogative.”

“Did it?”

“Did it what?”

“Smell.”

“Well, he thought something else
was going on. He knew Staten Island like the back of his hand and didn’t like
some of the people involved.”

“Dr. Nathan Bimm, to be exact.”

She looked at him.

“I’m not your first stop, am I?”

“I spoke to Ev Harvey. He filled
me in.’

Then Scarne told Doyle about his
encounter with Bimm at Borough Hall.

“Harvey said Bimm…” He decided to
leave out the police reporter’s colorful phrasing. “… is close to the Borough
President.”

“As close as an enema,” Doyle
said.

So much for tact, Scarne thought.
Must be the pregnancy.

“Can I get you two anything else?”

It was the waitress, who began
clearing their places. Scarne ordered two pieces of cheesecake, and coffees.

“Harvey told me some other stuff.
That you were looking at Bimm’s real estate dealings in both Bloomfield and
Stapleton, and that Pearsall thought there might be a connection. He also said
that he was getting the feeling that the original ardor Bimm and Borough Hall
had for the NASCAR track has cooled of late.” 

“Really. That’s interesting. They
were all so gung ho in the beginning, even if they pretended to be neutral.”

“What’s your take on Bimm?”

“Heard he was a hell of a doctor
once. I know some women he worked on. Men, too. Was so successful he had to
open up a string of clinics to keep up with the demand. His main offices were
located near Todt Hill, Grymes Hill, Emerson Hill, where all the money is. The
joke was that the rich wives would head down to Silicone Valley for their nip
and tucks. There was some talk that many of his surgeries were unnecessary but
nothing ever stuck. No big malpractice suits that I can recall. Real estate is
another matter. He ruins everything he touches. Put up shabby condos. Bulldozed
trees. Filled in streams. Knocked down beautiful old houses. Cut every corner.
Screwed every partner. Mr. Pearsall assumed that if Bimm was involved in the
track project there had to be something wrong.”

“Find anything?”

“We had just started looking
through real estate transactions in the County Clerk’s office, set up an
interview with Bimm. But then Mr. Pearsall’s daughter was murdered, you know.
He kind of fell apart. No one blamed him. He’d only just lost his wife,
really.”

So, Scarne thought, the good
doctor knew about their investigation, if it could be called that.

“You didn’t pursue it any
further?”

“We didn’t see the point. It was
basically just a feeling Mr. Pearsall had.  He was our mentor, the reason we
went to the
Register
. After he left we just wanted to get off the
Island.”

Their cheesecake came. It was
good, almost Junior’s quality, but he preferred the Italian kind, made with
ricotta and lemon rinds and dusted with powdered sugar. The bar was beginning
to fill up. A couple came by to say hello to the reporter and coo over her
stomach. They left.

“Did you ever speak to Bimm?”

“No, he cancelled our interview. I
could have cared less at that point.”

“Tell me
about the Home Port. Harvey said you were checking on Bimm’s involvement there
as well.”

Doyle
looked at Scarne closely.

“Is this
about Bimm or NASCAR?”

“Sounds
like the question Pearsall was asking. And he had a Pulitzer.”

“Fair
enough. Well,  back in the Reagan Administration they decided to re-commission
some old battleships. One of them was going to be stationed there, along with a
few other ships. I think it was the
Iowa,
but I’m not sure. They spent a
freakin’ fortune on the base and a couple of years later they put the
battleships in permanent mothballs, where they should have stayed to begin
with. It was just a pork barrel move, anyway, to reward Staten Island for
always voting Republican. Some of the local activists opposed it, on the
grounds that a Navy base in New York Harbor might attract Soviet ICBM’s. It was
the Cold War, remember. How nuts is that? As if Manhattan, the biggest target
on the planet, didn’t have about 30 H-bombs aimed at it already. Just proves
the libs are as dumb as the conservatives.”

“So,
what’s going on there now? I read someplace it was supposed to be a movie
studio.”

“It
would have been perfect,” Doyle said. “The big Navy Yard buildings would have
made great studios and soundstages. Plus a lot of movies are shot on Staten
Island anyway, so it would have been convenient.”

“What
happened?”

“Political
bullshit. Big contributor to the Mayor’s campaign had an investment in the
Silvertop Studio complex on the waterfront in Brooklyn across from Manhattan.
He didn’t want any competition so they scotched the Stapleton deal. Now I hear
the whole thing is going to be developed by some Chinese investors as a
mixed-use project. Some retail, some residential.”

“Any
connection between Bloomfield and the Home Port?”

“You
mean other than Bimm?”

“I mean
would one affect the other.”

“They
are on opposite sides of the borough. Apples and oranges.”

“Anyone
really angry about it?”

“Not
really. A lot of people will have their views of the harbor ruined, and a few
seagulls will be pissed off, but it means jobs and may even revitalize the
Stapleton and Rosebank areas, which could use it. Even Mr. Pearsall thought it
might be a plus. The only thing that bothered him was Bimm buying up all that
real estate near it.”