Long Time No See Read online

  With that, I found myself being transported toward the door that led from the garage into the house. I wasn’t being shoved or dragged so much as simply having my location altered by an elemental force. “You know who I am?” Fancy Phil inquired as his fingers grasped my upper arm. It was like being held by five bionic bratwursts, the smallest of which sported a ring with a diamond the size of one of Jupiter’s lesser moons.

  I stood before the entrance to the kitchen, my heart banging against my chest like some desperate creature pounding on a door, begging to be let out. In, actually, was the place I wanted to go. Nevertheless, I knew there was no real sanctuary: Garage, kitchen, this guy could kill me anywhere. I stood paralyzed, my face inches from the door, my handbag gripped under my free arm. My car keys were clenched so tight their metal teeth bit into the flesh of my palm. I didn’t realize I was hugging my grocery bag with such passion until I heard a dull bloop! of splitting plastic and immediately inhaled a whiff of vanilla yogurt. Finally some words emerged. “You’re Mr. Lowenstein,” I replied.

  “Yeah. Phil Lowenstein. And you know whose father I am.” I nodded. I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually turn to look at him, although I vaguely recall allowing my eyes to drift sideways. Fancy Phil’s head had been plopped midway between his shoulders without benefit of neck, so his second chin rested against the heavy gold neck chain exposed by the open collar of his shirt. He’d put on quite a few pounds since his last mug shot. “Call me Phil.” He released my arm and wiped his forehead. His skin, glazed with perspiration, was flushed an ominous red that, as I watched, was darkening to purple. “Hot in here,” he observed. A flash of gold caught my eye. A snake bracelet entwined around his meaty wrist, the mouth and tail separated by an inch of over-tanned skin and graying arm hair.

  “I know it’s hot,” I acknowledged. “And you having to stand in a garage, waiting for me, with the door shut and no air circulating—”

  “Lemme help you with that bag.”

  “No. No thanks,” I chirped much too quickly. “Really, I can manage!” I sounded revoltingly hearty.

  “So you can get to your key.” Obviously Fancy Phil was perceiving a smidgen of unease on my part because he took a step back—although he remained within easy stabbing/strangling/stomping distance. “We could sit down inside, where it’s cooler. You don’t have to be scared of me. I want to talk business.”

  “Business?”

  “Yeah. I’m here on business. You are the history lady? Right?” His “his-tor-y” was three deliberate syllables. No uncouth “histry” for Fancy Phil. My guess was he picked up the pronunciation from watching Public Television against his will during his last stopover at the Elmira Correctional Facility. Two and a half years, according to the news. For aggravated assault on the person of one Ivan “Chicky” Itzkowitz during a contretemps over certain funds obtained by withholding gasoline sales tax from the state of New York. “You’re a history professor.”

  “That’s right.”

  He smelled clean but insanely citrusy. This was one badass lime cologne, a scent for capos and rappers. “A doctor of history. Now listen, Doc. Don’t worry about Gregory, about him saying he wasn’t interested.”

  Who knows what happened in that instant? It could have been I recognized that Fancy Phil had indeed bothered to put on aftershave, or made the effort to grant “history” its three syllables. But suddenly I sensed that if I wasn’t safe, at least he had no intention of murdering me right away, although I was not unaware that he might delegate the job to some discount contract killer who hung out on the fringes of the Mafia or the Russian mob. My throat made a swallowing movement even though all my saliva was still sloshing in that secret reservoir to which bodily juices flow in times of terror.

  “Maybe I overstepped my bounds,” I began to apologize. “Going to his house—”

  He cut me off: “It don’t matter Gregory wasn’t interested. I’m interested.”

  And then we were inside. Fancy Phil offered to help me unpack the groceries, but seemed relieved when I said no thank you. I sat him at the kitchen table, an overly long, narrow, rickety quasi-antique of dark wood that was more appropriate for a Castilian monastery than a Long Island Tudor. But I’d bought it (along with a Swedish wood-burning stove and a frightening Art Nouveau umbrella stand) in the year I’d taken leave of my senses, after Bob died.

  Anyhow, I opened the back door, muttering something inane about loving the evening smells this time of year, although both of us knew I needed to see a way out. The air outside the screen door was cooling down fast: Summer was still a month away. I glanced around the kitchen. Being too nervous to think of a novel hors d’oeuvre to please the discriminating criminal palate, I microwaved a bag of popcorn and poured it in a salad bowl shaped like a deformed daisy—one of those hideous, indestructible wedding presents that lasts longer than the marriage. For a millisecond Fancy Phil’s boulder of a head wobbled on his shoulders, which I took to mean “Thank you.” He also accepted the only kind of beer I had in the refrigerator, some microbrew of Joey’s, one of those concoctions that have the hue and aroma of rancid pumpkin pie.

  “Essentially,” I said, at last feeling capable of uttering a simple declarative sentence, “your son didn’t want my services. He said he’d hired a detective.”

  After a couple of glugs of beer, Fancy Phil’s chubby cheeks and domed forehead were no longer that alarming aubergine, as if he were on the verge of a cardiovascular incident. His color subsided to a rosy flush—almost an exact match for the bright pink in the gingham of his short-sleeved shirt, an odd choice of fabric, but perhaps one of his chums had hijacked the wrong truck. His slacks were a white linen that picked up on the white checks in the gingham and matched the white loafers. As did his white patent-leather belt. I decided it was not politic to mention one does not wear such attire until after Memorial Day or, ideally, ever.

  “Gregory’s lawyer’s got some detective she works with,” Fancy Phil continued. “His lawyer’s a she. Anyhow, she says her guy—this ex-cop—knows his ass from his elbow. Pardon my French. But listen, an ex-cop ... What can I tell you? You know how the world works.”

  “I have a general idea,” I conceded.

  “What I mean is, you’re no kid.” Wearily, I nodded. “I meant that as a serious compliment.” With what I guessed was his suave gesture, Fancy Phil smoothed back his hair with the heels of his hands. The top had thinned, but the sides and back were thick and profoundly dark, a black that does not occur in nature. It was held in position by a mousse that apparently hardened into Plexiglas upon application. “Like, for instance,” he went on, “you didn’t scream when you saw me in the garage, which, to tell you the truth, I was a little worried you’d do. Not that I’d blame you. I mean, here I am, some guy you never met before. Except I figured, Hey, if she knows enough to think she should get hired, she probably saw my picture on TV or in the paper, with all the publicity about the thing with—” He looked away from me, past his snake bracelet, down into the jumble of popcorn, and in a mournful tone added: “Courtney.”

  For a moment after he uttered her name he seemed mesmerized by the yellow-white puffs, no two alike. Then he began playing knock hockey with one of the few unpopped amber kernels. At long last he shrugged and went on as if no time at all had passed: “So I figured about you, she’s not gonna think I’m some dangerous lunatic in her garage. Sorry if I scared you. But it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to sit outside in my car. You know how people are.” He shook his head, disheartened by man’s distrust of his fellowman. “One of your neighbors could dial 911.”

  “Where did you put your car?”

  “I had a friend of mine drop me off. I don’t want trouble with cops. Know what I mean?”

  “I do.” The popcorn, I was relieved to see, was a success, though some diet guru or woman in Fancy Phil’s life had clearly coached him to eat only one puff at a time, not a handful. But his arm kept moving so swiftly between bowl and mouth it was almost a bl
ur.

  I fetched a Diet Coke and joined him at the kitchen table. “Anyway,” he went on, “you not being a kid, you being someone who’s a doctor of history, you probably could dig up stuff from a library or computer or whatever that this ex-cop won’t even think of.”

  “I was trying to explain my research capabilities to your son,” I said. “Also, I know the mores of this community. Your son’s neighbors might offer me information they wouldn’t confide in an ex-cop.”

  “‘The Moreys,’“ he repeated. I saw he was trying to recall if the Moreys were a Shorehaven couple Greg had mentioned. Not that Fancy Phil was stupid. On the contrary. Even in the garage I sensed he was not just observing me, but was using my every word, my every action to add to his sum of knowledge. Moment by moment, he recalculated more precisely who and what I was.

  “Mores,” I said offhandedly. “Local customs. Also, I’ve had a little experience investigating—”

  “Yeah, I know. The dead dentist. Dr. Dirty. I remember seeing your picture in the paper.” I must have looked surprised, because Fancy Phil gave me a smile, a surprisingly likable flash of teeth and popcorn. “I got an incredible memory,” he explained, in the modest manner of a man stating the simplest fact about himself. “I said to myself, way back then, ‘Hey, that’s one smart cookie.’ So, Doctor, I want you on the case. You want to work for me?”

  “You mean, for your son.”

  “No. When I say me I mean me. He don’t want no part of you.” Then, realizing he may have been a tad less than gallant, Fancy Phil offered an apologetic lift of his eyebrows. “Kids. Do I have to tell you?”

  “Did he think I was one of the local crazies, coming out of nowhere, knocking on his door?”

  “They grow up and what can you do with them?” A Kissinger-like response, I thought. “So, Dr. Singer, you charge by the hour or by the job?”

  “Please, call me Judith. For you”—I looked straight into his dark eyes. They absorbed the light in the room, yet gave off none—“there’s no charge.”

  “What are you not charging for? You still scared of me?”

  “Less than I was in the garage.” He nodded slowly—head down, head up—to show me he understood and that he was still listening. “I think it’s best for me not to be your employee. But I really would love to do the work.”

  “Why would you work for nothing?”

  “Intellectual curiosity.”

  The side of Fancy Phil’s mouth began to twist, but the expression vanished before it could become a smirk. “Okay. I can understand curiosity. But you should know something. I’m retired. Not dealing with my former associates.” He crossed his arms over his stomach, which was so rotund that his arms made their X right above his wrists. “I got grandchildren. You got any?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Well, when you do, your whole life changes. You don’t want them thinking, Hey, because of Poppy Phil, I didn’t get invited to some little kid’s birthday party. So I had to stop being what I was. Know what I mean?”

  “Sure.” I was not sure this was a genuine change of heart. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it was a change at all or simply the sort of line gangsters give girls with doctorates. I didn’t have time to reflect, because he was waiting for me to say more. “Wise decision,” I added. Not enough. “I bet it was a tough thing to do, not just to give up a way of life, but some of the friendships that go with it.”

  Fancy Phil thrust out his lower lip and gave me a slow nod of acknowledgment, a silent You get it. “So go ahead. Ask me anything.”

  “Well, as I told your son, the cops think they have their man. They’re not looking to clear Greg.” I stood to get him another beer. “So beside the fact that he’s the husband, which automatically puts him under suspicion ...” I handed him the bottle and the opener, sat, and leaned forward so I could look him straight in the eye. “Tell me, Phil. How come the cops are so damn sure it’s your son?”

  “Some money business.” He offered this complete explanation proudly, then pressed the cold bottle against his forehead with a soft “Whew,” just to let me know that such candor was enervating.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Money business.” He got busy studying the label, perhaps to find out what in God’s name the brewmeisters in the Bronx could be putting in their beer.

  “The more information you give me,” I told him, “the deeper I can dig. The less you give me, the longer it will take and the less effective I’ll be. You know that.”

  “It’s like this.” Fancy Phil was one of those men with the dexterity to uncap a bottle of beer with one hand. “Halloween was on a Sunday, right? So the Monday before the Monday before Halloween ... The cops found out Gregory transferred some money that day.” He sat back, took a swig of beer, and appeared happier, relaxed, as if he’d finally told the whole truth and nothing but.

  “Transferred whose money from where to where?”

  “Most of what was in their joint money market account.”

  “To?”

  “He transferred it to an account in just his name.”

  “How much?” I inquired.

  Fancy Phil emitted a minor snort, which I assumed was to show me he was amused, not irritated, by my persistence. “Forty and change,” he finally said.

  “Forty thousand? Greg took forty thousand out of his and Courtney’s joint account?”

  He nodded. The sun had set. The patio and lawn beyond the open kitchen door lay black in darkness, but the window over the sink was still a rectangle of indigo. “The cops think that’s suspicious,” he sniffed.

  “How did he account for moving the money?”

  “He told them the truth.” I waited. “Look, honey, Doc, what can I tell you? He’s got a business.”

  “Soup Salad Sandwiches,” I said.

  “Right. But he’s got a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Me.” Fancy Phil fiddled with the medallion on the buckle of his belt, a circle about the size of the average grapefruit. “I’m not what a CPA would call an asset. That’s why I made Gregory change his name to Logan before he went to college. He went to Brown, in the Ivy League. Just like Harvard, only in Rhode Island. Anyway, Gregory’s a straight kid. I swear to God. And smart. All he wants is to keep his business on the up-and-up. But if I’m the problem, here’s the catch: Courtney.”

  “How was she the catch?”

  Wearily, he shook his head. “StarBaby. You know about that?”

  “Her company,” I said. “Videos of baby’s first year.”

  “Right. So here’s my kid, who’s dealing with bankers who are totally legit. If he wants to grow legit, expand his business, the bankers gotta lend him money. Understand?”

  “I’m with you.”

  “So when they lend money, they gotta see all his business records. Plus his personal stuff. It’s called net worth.”

  “I know what net worth means. Go on.”

  “He has to prove he’s a solid citizen. Like, he has to be substantial enough so he’s not gonna loot Soup Salad Sandwiches to, whatever, pay his liquor bill—not like he drinks, maybe a couple of glasses of wine. None of that single-malt yuppie crap.”

  “What did StarBaby have to do with Soup Salad Sandwiches?”

  “Courtney thought ‘joint account’ meant ‘Take me. I’m yours.’ Two or three times she dipped into their money market account. She helped herself from their brokerage account, too: She sold stock from their Smith Barney thing that was also joint. One time she put it back. The other times ... And the thing of it was, she didn’t say, Hey, Gregory, I’m borrowing from the brokerage thing because I need to buy thousands of dollars’ worth of”—for an instant Fancy Phil’s generous-lipped mouth contracted into a bitter slit—“camera junk to take pictures of babies and to advertise. She just took it. Like it was all hers. She kept pouring big bucks into that fershtunkiner StarBaby. Gregory told me about that afterwards, after she was missing. He’s never been, you know, a c
rybaby. Whatever was going on, he kept it between man and wife.”

  “What did he think was going on?”

  “He said all he thought at the time was that Courtney was a little out of control businesswise.”

  “How come she didn’t go to one of those legitimate bankers for a loan?”

  “Trust me, honey, she did. And they said, Hey, not one thin dime more until you start doing serious business.”

  “Was StarBaby failing?”

  “No. But she wasn’t breaking her back carrying sacks of money to the bank vault either. She was doing so-so.” Speaking about his daughter-in-law, Fancy Phil’s face didn’t harden into anything resembling hatred, but it didn’t get warm and fuzzy either.

  “Maybe she would have built the business up in time.”

  “Maybe. And in time maybe the bank would have given her a big loan. But meanwhile, she couldn’t believe the real reason the business was slow: because it was a stupnagel moneymaking idea. No, Courtney was positive all she needed was capital. Capital, capital. She wouldn’t shut up about having to capitalize.”

  “And Greg?”

  “Gregory was scared she’d go through everything they had together without telling him. Then the banker would check his net worth figures and say, Hey, Logan, you’re full of it. You don’t got no fifty-five thousand in the money market account and eighty in stocks.”

  I must have blinked: a young couple in their thirties with so much. Even though Bob had done well, there were years we had to choose, especially early on, and the choice hadn’t been between a BMW or a Mercedes; it was a new roof or a new septic tank. But the Logans had it all, along with money in the bank. “How much did Greg say Courtney took without telling him?”

  “Fifteen from the money market. Twenty total from Smith Barney. So she took thirty-five. But she put back ... I forget. I think ten. So they were down a total of twenty-five big ones for the cameras and for ads.”