New Tricks (4 page)

“Where the hell have you been?” is Vince’s warm greeting for me when I walk over to the table. Vince’s gruffness is skin-deep;
it extends from the skin on the front of his body to the skin on the back.

“Why? You were afraid you would have to pay the check?”

Vince smiles. “I do not fear the impossible.”

“I was almost killed in an explosion yesterday,” I say.

“Are your credit cards okay?”

I proceed to tell them my story, though they’re already familiar with what happened at, and to, the Timmerman house. They
didn’t have any idea that I was there.

“You were there to pick up a dog?” Pete asks.

“Not just any dog. He is my client.”

“Don’t you think you’re taking this dog thing a bit far? Maybe you should try some human companionship?”

I stare for a few moments at Pete, then Vince. “Maybe someday I’ll try that.”

I ask Pete if he can use his contacts to find out the status of the investigation, and after about ten minutes of grumbling
he agrees.

Then I turn to Vince. “You knew Timmerman, didn’t you?” Vince has mentioned him to me in the past, but even if he hadn’t,
the overwhelming likelihood is that he did know him, since he knows virtually everyone. He has a separate closet in his office
just for his Rolodexes.

He nods. “One of the worst low-life scumbags who ever lived. May he rest in peace.”

“I take it you didn’t like him?”

He grunts. “When he came up with that arthritis drug… he didn’t give me an exclusive on the story.”

In Vince’s mind, giving someone else a story is original sin. “That was fifteen years ago,” I say.

It takes Vince a lot longer than that to give up a grudge. “Feels like yesterday.”

“Who did he give the story to?”

“The New England Journal of Medicine,”
he says, frowning at the recollection. “Those hacks.”

Unlike most pharmaceutical semi-titans, who own or run companies in which other people do research and make discoveries, Walter
Timmerman was himself a chemist and researcher. Twenty years ago he developed a drug called Actonel, which revolutionized
the study of DNA by allowing for a much smaller sample to result in a reliable test. The implications to the justice system
were enormous.

As important as that discovery was, it was not what made Timmerman absurdly wealthy. That came later, when he developed a
drug that greatly reduced the pain, and therefore increased the mobility, of arthritis sufferers.

“Do you know the son?” I ask. “Steven?”

Vince nods. “Yeah. Good kid. Nothing like his father.”

“You like him?” I ask, making no effort to conceal my astonishment.

“Hey, I’m not in love with him. He’s a good kid, that’s all. He did me a favor once.”

“What kind of favor?” Vince generally doesn’t like to ask for favors, for fear of having to return them. I’ve done him a couple
of major ones, though he’s done more for me.

“He got his father to make a big donation to a charity of mine. And then he showed up and worked a couple of events; just
rolled up his sleeves and did whatever was needed.”

Vince is a huge fund-raiser for an organization called Eva’s Village, a Paterson-based group whose mission is to feed the
hungry, shelter the homeless, treat the addicted, and provide medical care for the poor. It is such an amazingly worthwhile
charity that I don’t know how Vince ever got involved with it. But he hits me up for a donation every year.

“You think he could have committed two murders?” I ask.

Vince sneers, which is pretty much his natural facial expression. “I said he’s a good guy. How many good guys murder their
parents?”

I can’t think of too many, and I’ve already reached my three-beer quota, so I call for the check.

Vince and Pete are fine with that.

B
EFORE
I
GO TO SLEEP
, I
CALL
L
AURIE
.

At times like these, I like to tell her what I’m thinking, so she can tell me what I’m really thinking.

This time I reveal that I’m getting semi-obsessed with the Timmerman murders, even though I know very little about the circumstances
and only barely knew one of the victims. “It must be because I was almost a victim myself,” I say.

“Or because you’re anxious to get back to work,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“Andy, when you’re working on a case, you’re engaged intellectually in a way that’s unlike any other time. I think you need
that more than you like to admit.”

“That’s crazy. I had a very satisfying intellectual discussion with Vince and Pete tonight at Charlie’s.”

“I can imagine,” she says. “What did you talk about?” “Faulkner and Hemingway.”

“What about them?

“Vince said neither of them can hit the curveball, and Pete said that Vince is an asshole.”

Laurie laughs, probably as appealing a sound as exists in the world. Then, “I’m serious, Andy. I’m not telling you to get
involved in this case, other than to take care of Waggy, but I do think it might be a good idea for you to get back to work.”

By the time I wake up in the morning, I’ve decided that it’s possible Laurie knows what she’s talking about. I place a call
to Steven Timmerman at the number that was in the records the court provided me. He answers the phone himself, which for some
reason surprises me.

I tell him that I’m trying to determine the proper home for Waggy, and that while I know this is a tough time for him personally,
he should let me know when he would be ready to meet with me.

“How about today?” he asks.

I’m fine with that, and I tell him so. He asks where I would like to meet, and I suggest his home. Since I might wind up putting
Waggy there, I want to get a sense of what it’s like.

He tells me where he lives, and I’m not pleased when I learn that it’s in New York City. I love the city, but it’s my least
favorite place in the world to drive.

Waggy a city dog? I don’t think so.

I find a parking place at 89th Street and West End Avenue. The Upper West Side is the part of Manhattan I like best; it has
the excitement and pace of the city, but with the feel of a real neighborhood. Just by walking on the street you know that
real life is being lived there.

Steven lives on the fourth floor of a brownstone between Riverside Drive and West End on 89th. There is nothing pretentious
about it at all, though I’m sure that it’s expensive, real estate prices being what they are.

I’m not put off by the fact that there is no yard for Waggy to ultimately run around in. Many people have the mistaken notion
that dogs shouldn’t live in apartments, because they therefore won’t get exercise. The truth is that dogs don’t go outside
by themselves to do calisthenics; they have their needed physical activity when their owners take them out. New York has dog
owners as good as anywhere in the country. You only need to take a walk through Central Park to realize that.

I ring the buzzer at the street level, and Steven’s voice comes through the intercom. “Come on up,” he says.

“Okay. Where’s the elevator?”

“There isn’t any. The stairs are on your left.”

“It’s a walk-up?” I say, trying to mask my incredulity.

He laughs; I guess I’m not real good at incredulity-masking. “Yes. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” I lie.

Waggy a walk-up dog? I don’t think so.

The inside of Steven’s apartment is as unassuming as the exterior. My guess is that he didn’t put a dent into his father’s
fortune by decorating this place.

He shakes my hand when I enter and notices that I’m still out of breath from the three flights of stairs. “Sorry about the
stairs,” he says. “I’m used to it, but most people aren’t.”

“No problem,” I gasp. “You mind if I borrow your oxygen tent?”

He laughs and gives me a chance to catch my breath. While I’m doing so, I notice that there are a number of pictures of Steven
and his father, but images of his late stepmother are nowhere to be found. One of the pictures, in which Steven appears to
be no more than ten years old, includes the now destroyed house in Alpine.

He sees me staring at it and says, “I guess we got out just in time, huh?”

“That’s for sure,” is my less-than-clever retort. The incident has left me a little shaken, and seeing the house triggers
that feeling again.

“I loved that house. I guess you always love the house you grew up in. You feel that way?”

I nod. “I do. That’s why I’m still living in it.”

“I envy you,” he says. Then: “You feel like a slice of pizza? There’s a place on Broadway that’s the best in the city.”

Now he wants me to go back down the stairs? “Why didn’t you suggest that before I climbed Mount Brownstone?”

“I figured you wanted to see my place, because hopefully Waggy will be living here soon. Now that you’ve seen it, we can talk
over pizza,” he says. “Or we can stay here; whatever you like.”

I opt for the best pizza in the city. The stairs on the way down fortunately turn out to be far easier to navigate than the
same stairs on the way up.

I think it’s a gravity thing.

N
EW
Y
ORK HAS BY FAR THE BEST PIZZA
in the world.

This is not a debatable issue among serious-minded pizza eaters, of which I am one. And not only is the pizza the best, but
it is everywhere. There are apparently thousands of pizzeria owners who have mastered the art, and they’ve all chosen to gather
on this tiny piece of real estate called New York City. If you live here and throw a dart out your window, you will hit a
great piece of pizza.

What is bewildering to me is why it has come to this. I can’t imagine there is anything about the ingredients or expertise
necessary to make New York pizza that would disintegrate if transported across city or state lines. Why doesn’t one of these
pizza geniuses set up shop in Teaneck? Or Philadelphia? Or Omaha? They would throw parades for him; he would be presented
with ceremonial keys to those city’s ovens and hailed as an unchallenged genius.

Instead they fight among themselves for a small “slice” of the pizza market, and the rest of the country is left to munch
on pizza that comparatively tastes like cardboard soap.

Steven takes me to Sal and Tony’s Pizzeria, on Broadway and 101st Street. Either Sal, or Tony, or both, are truly artists,
the pizza is beyond extraordinary. They serve the slices on those cheap, thin, paper plates that cannot even support the weight
of the slice, but that’s okay. They clearly are investing their money in the proper place, in the pizza.

Steven starts telling me about Waggy, though he admits he doesn’t know very much. Waggy is the only son of Bertrand, a Westminster
champion who was widely regarded as the finest show dog this country has ever produced. Bertrand died suddenly in his sleep
about a year ago, an event that sent the dog show world into mourning.

“What about his mother?” I ask.

“Another dog in my father’s stable. I think she did some shows for a while, but Bertrand was the star of the family. Apparently
they all hoped that Waggy would follow in his father’s footsteps.”

“They?” I ask. “Not you?”

He grins. “Personally, I don’t give a shit. I think a dog should be a dog, not a performer. Waggy should have fun.”

“He would have fun living with you?”

He nods, perhaps a little wistfully. “I think so. I know a lot about fun, or at least I used to.”

“Not anymore?” I’m finding myself liking him, much as Vince had predicted.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know… it’s all tied in to my father… I’d rather not go there. Self-psychoanalysis isn’t a requirement to take care
of Waggy, is it?”

“Have the police talked to you about the murders?”

“Twice, including this morning. I think they’re floundering, because the guy in jail couldn’t have blown up the house. Maybe
they think I did it.”

“Does that worry you?”

He shakes his head. “No, I just figure the truth will win out. That’s more your field; isn’t that the way it works?”