Lawrence Block - A Long Line of Dead Men

"And?"

"And then you have this white guy walking down the street, and he wants to get a cab, and who can blame him, a white guy in that neighborhood?"

"It's not a bad neighborhood."

"Can we just accept the idea that a white guy on that block might just as soon get in a taxi? He sees this cab, and there's a man behind the wheel, and he opens the door to ask if the guy's waiting for a fare."

"And he sees the driver's dead."

"Right. And he does what most people would do, especially out of their own neighborhood, which is get the hell out of there, because who wants to be a witness, and maybe he was up in the Heights buying dope or getting laid, so why get involved?"

"And the witness didn't see him until he was getting out of the cab?"

"Why would she?"

"I don't know," I said. "She doesn't see the shooter get out of the cab and she doesn't see the white guy get in."

"Why should she? She's got other things on her mind."

"I guess."

"Basically," he said, "you haven't got anything, have you?"

"No."

"In terms of evidence, I mean."

"Not even close."

"But if you're trying to build a case that a single killer did these four people-"

"Five, with Shipton's wife."

"- then this doesn't slow you down any. I can't recommend you talk to anybody up in the Three-four, though. They got enough open files, they don't have to get cracking on one of the closed ones."

"I know."

"Unless you wanted to go on the record. Reopen all those cases at once. If your client'll go for it."

"My client and some of his friends are meeting in a couple of days to see what they want to do."

"What, all twenty-six of them?"

"Where'd you get twenty-six?"

"Thirty guys, four of them killed. That leaves twenty-six, right?" He grinned. "Nothing wrong with this granny's short-term memory."

"The arithmetic's wrong." He looked at me. "Thirty minus four equals-"

"Fourteen."

"Huh?"

"There were four murders," I said, "and twelve other deaths."

"What kind of deaths?"

"A few suicides, a few accidents. A few resulting from illness."

"Jesus Christ, Matt!"

"They weren't all faked," I said. "It's hard to make murder look like testicular cancer, or a combat death in Vietnam. But the suicides could have been, and a few of the accidents."

"What's your guess?"

"Including the four that went into the book as homicides? A guess is all it is, but I'd say twelve."

"Jesus Christ. Over how many years?"

"Hard to say. Thirty-two since the group was formed, but the first deaths didn't happen for a couple of years, and they were probably legitimate, anyway. Say twenty, twenty-five years."

He pushed his chair back. "I don't see how I can sit on this."

"Sit on what?"

"Do you swear this isn't a sex thing?"

"On a Bible, if you've got one handy."

"You know what I think? I think I ought to take a statement from you."

"Fine. Type up 'No comment' and I'll sign it."

"You'd hold out?"

"Until I'm instructed otherwise."

"I don't get it," he said. "What's your client more scared of than getting killed?"

"A media circus."

"What makes you think they'd be that interested?"

"Are you kidding? Some clown targeting a group of men and taking decades to knock them off? If that won't put reporters in a feeding frenzy-"

"Yeah, you're right. And Boyd Shipton was one of the victims."

"There are three survivors who are at least as prominent as he is."

"Seriously? That's some club. And it had a cabdriver in it, and a commodities broker, and what was the gay guy? Interior decorator?"

"Carl Uhl? I think he was a partner in a catering firm."

"Same thing. Three guys as prominent as Shipton?"

"Household words."

"Jesus."

"I don't want to sit on this, Joe, but at the same time-"

"Yeah, sure. You said the fourteen of them are having a meeting?"

"Some of them, anyway."

"When's that?"

"Tuesday."

"Today's Friday. What do you do between now and then?"

"Whatever I can," I said. "I was thinking about Forest Hills."

"The guy who got stabbed. The commodities guy, Watson."

"Right. I was wondering what the private security guard might have seen."

"He saw a man lying on the ground and he ran over and called it in. If he saw anything else it would be in his statement. Believe me, they would have asked him."

"Would they have questioned him about what he saw earlier?"

"Earlier?"

"If someone was waiting for Watson, planning to ambush him-"

"Oh, I get you. Maybe they would have, back when they were thinking it might be a client with a resentment. But it wouldn't hurt to ask him again. You want his name?"

"And where he works."

He reached for the phone, then turned to look at me. "You seen these AT amp;T ads about the information highway? They don't say anything about it's a one-way street."

"I know that, Joe."

"Just so you know," he said, and made the call.

I caught the Number Seven train and got off at the 103rd Street station in Corona, two stops before Shea Stadium. Two blocks away on Roosevelt Avenue, Queensboro-Corona Protective Services occupied the top floor of a two-story brick building. The store on the ground floor sold children's clothing, and had a lot of stuffed animals in the window.

Most security firms are run by ex-cops, the majority of whom look the part. Martin Banszak, head man at Queensboro-Corona, looked as though he ought to be downstairs selling jumpers for toddlers. He was a small man in his sixties, round-shouldered, balding, with sad blue eyes behind rimless bifocals and a severely trimmed mustache under a button nose.

I carry two styles of business cards. One, a gift from my sponsor, Jim Faber, has nothing on it but my name and phone number. The second, supplied by Reliable, identifies me as an operative of that firm. It was one of the Reliable cards that I gave to Banszak, and it led to a little confusion; the next thing I knew he was explaining that Queensboro-Corona was mostly involved with furnishing uniformed guards and mobile security patrols, that they didn't employ trained operatives of my caliber often, but that if I would fill out one of these forms he'd keep it on file, because they did have need of investigators periodically, so I might get some occasional work from them.

We got that straightened out and I explained who I was and what I wanted.

"James Shorter," he said. "May I ask the nature of your interest in Mr. Shorter?"

"There was an incident several months ago," I said. "He was the first person on the scene of a street crime in Forest Hills, and-"

"Oh, of course," he said. "Terrible thing. Hardworking businessman struck down on his way home."

"I thought your man might have noticed something unusual that night, some unfamiliar presence in the neighborhood."

"I know the police questioned him at length."

"I'm sure they did, but-"

"The whole episode was very troubling for Shorter. It may have precipitated the other problem."

"What problem would that be, Mr. Banszak?"

He looked at me through the lower portion of his eyeglasses. "Tell me something," he said. "Has Jim Shorter applied for a position with your firm?"

"With Reliable? Well, I don't think so, but I wouldn't know if he did. I'm not part of management. I just give them a few days now and then."

"And you're not working for them now?"

"No."

He thought about it. Then he said, "He was, as I said, very troubled by that crime. After all, it had occurred on his watch. There was never the slightest implication that he ought to have been able to prevent it. Each of our mobile units has a considerable area to patrol. We aim for maximum deterrent capability through maximum visibility. The criminals see our marked patrol cars, they know the area's under constant surveillance, and they're that much less apt to commit their crimes."