Jonathan Kellerman - Compulsion

“ La Bella,” I said. “It’s on my list.”

Polito smiled. “Who do you think made up the list? Anyway, Korvutz eats early, is likely to be there six, six thirty. The chance of him offering to share a plate of pasta is not a high probability, but you can fly back to L.A., say you tried.”

“Does he use bodyguards?”

“We’re not talking Trump or Macklowe. This guy’s small-time. Relatively speaking, I mean. He still gets to live in a ten-room co-op in a prewar on Park, bought in years ago.”

“What does he develop nowadays?”

“He doesn’t. Collects rent checks.”

“Retired? How come?”

“Maybe ’cause he wants to be, or maybe ’cause he has to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“To play in the city nowadays, you got to have big-time dough. Starting with a B, not an M.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “What does he look like?”

“Sorry, no picture,” he said. “Guy doesn’t drive. What I can tell you is that eight years ago he was fifty-three. Little guy, glasses, reddish brown hair. Your basic Russian Woody Allen.”

“Thanks. I walked by the building on West Thirty-fifth. It’s back to being a factory.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s a warehouse, Doc. The braid’s manufactured in Queens, they store it on Thirty-fifth. So how come, after all that rigamarole, Korvutz never built his condos? What I heard is he got caught in some kind of financial squeeze, leveraged himself, then the market dipped, he had to sell a bunch of properties at a loss, including that one. It’s all about timing, Doc. The market’s crazy again, crappy tenements getting gentrified in the Lower East Side, Hell’s Kitchen’s full of yuppies, got a new name, Clinton.”

“The boom hasn’t hit West Thirty-fifth.”

“Those building’s are worth plenty,” he said. “Right now it pays to keep ’em commercial, but give it time. One of these days, the only people living on this island are gonna be the limousine bunch.”

I waved the tenant board list. “Any problem with me contacting Glusevitch and Mercurio?”

“Not from my end,” said Polito, “but you’ll have problems on both counts. Mercurio’s dead, got into trouble over a woman five years ago, ex-husband beat him to death, dumped the body in the Bronx. Nothing to do with Korvutz, the ex had a history of beating up boyfriends, only reason I found out is I noticed Lino’s name on a vic list. Kid was a moron and a wiseass, one of those hair-gel guys wants to come across like a gangster. I can see him ticking someone off real bad. Him, I woulda liked as a suspect, I could picture him thinking he could make his bones by taking on a contract job. Problem is, he was alibied tight. Vacationing in Aruba with a girlfriend the week the Safrans disappeared.”

“Convenient.”

“But righteous, Doc. I checked hotel and airline records, Lino was definitely there. Maybe he paid for the trip with money Korvutz gave him for being on the board.”

“Korvutz bribed the members to serve.”

“Can’t prove it, but why else would they want to bother?”

“And my second problem is Sonia Glusevitch is Korvutz’s distant cousin, why should she cooperate.”

He held up his palms.

I said, “Just in case, any idea where she is?”

“Let’s see if we can find out.” He pulled out his cell, dialed information, asked for listings for Sonia Glusevitch, came up empty, tried “initial S.”

One hand flashed a Victory V. “Three forty-five East Ninety-third. You wanna try Sonia first, be my guest, but I think it would be a mistake. Better to use the element of surprise with Korvutz, don’t risk Sonia alerting him.”

“I agree. What was Sonia like?”

“Young, good-looking, had a thick accent,” said Polito. “Bottle blonde but nice.” Shaping generous, imaginary breasts.

Monique, the waitress, observed his pantomime and frowned.

Polito waved her over. “Delicious, the salmon. He’ll take the check.”

She glanced at me, left.

“I was you, Doc,” said Polito, “I’d leave Monique a real generous tip. I come here from time to time.”

When Polito left at two forty-five, the restaurant had emptied.

Monique drank coffee at the bar. I paid the check and left a 30 percent tip. She thanked me with wide eyes and pretty teeth.

“Mind if I sit here for a few minutes?”

“I will bring you more wine.”

I had over three hours before Roland Korvutz unfurled his napkin at La Bella. Killed some of it drinking a better Bordeaux than had come with lunch, and thinking about my conversation with the old detective.

Polito was troubled by the possibility that he might’ve had his prime suspect right in front of him and missed something crucial. But Dale’s slipping under the radar was no discredit of Polito’s skills; if Bright was a high-functioning psychopath, he’d have come across super-normal.

Shape-shifter.

If Bright’s corpse wasn’t embedded in the foundation of some Manhattan high-rise, he was probably living under a new name and identity in L.A., toying with the boundaries of gender identity, getting off on the art of deception and worse.

I phoned in for messages, had three: Robin, Milo, and a lawyer chronically lax about paying his bills, and deluded that I’d want to talk to him.

Robin said, “I miss you but the big separation anxiety is Blanche. Not a single smile and she keeps sniffing around your office. Then she insists on going down to the pond, has to sit on the bench exactly where you do. When that doesn’t work, she hops down and stares at the fish until I feed them. If I don’t toss in enough, she lets out that girly little bark. I keep telling her Daddy’s coming back soon, but the way she looks at me, she ain’t buying it.”

“Tell her I’ll bring back a souvenir.”

“She’s no material girl, but sure. How’s it going?”

“Nothing much so far.”

“I checked the weather online. Sounds pretty.”

“Gorgeous,” I said. “One day we should go.”

“Definitely. Got a nice hotel?”

I described the Midtown Executive.

She said, “One advantage, we’d be bumping into each other.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow, plenty of bump opportunities. How’s work?”

“Picked up a couple of new jobs – easy repairs.” Brief pause. “He called this morning, wanting to make sure I’ll be in town when he’s here. He sounded different.”

“How so?”

“Distant – not brimming over with enthusiasm like he usually is. He claims he’s really into the project but the tone didn’t match the words.”

“Buyer’s remorse?” I said.

“Maybe he realized it’s an awful lot of money when you can’t play a note.”

“Worse comes to worst, you sell them to someone else.”

“I’m just wondering if he caught on that any amorous intentions are not going to be reciprocated. I have been avoiding small talk.”

“If he had ulterior motives and drops out, you’re lucky.”

“For sure,” she said.

Her tone didn’t match her words.

I said, “You’ve put a lot of work into this and now it’s complicated.”

“Maybe just in my own mind.”

“You’ve got good instincts, Rob.”

“Not always… guess I’d better clear my head before turning on the band saw. See you tomorrow, love.”

I told Milo about my meeting with Polito.

He said, “Deputy commissioner’s brother-in-law, huh? And this particular D.C. also happens to be His Holiness’s former driver.”

“Takes a village to catch crooks,” I said.

“And to breed ’em. So Bright didn’t come across gay to Polito?”

“Combine that with dramatic changes in appearance, pretending to be a vegan, the Jekyll-Hyde pattern his sister described, and we can’t be sure of anything about him.”