Saratoga Payback Read online

  Charlie was always impressed by egoists who believed that other people’s undefined actions must have something to do with them. It seemed too much to worry about. “Dave Parlucci was murdered. His throat was cut, just like Mickey Martin. I happened to find the body.”

  “Don’t get yourself in trouble, Charlie! I need your help right now.”

  Campbell had shouted into the phone and Charlie held the receiver six inches away from his head to protect his eardrums. Glancing at Janey, he saw she could hear quite easily. “Didn’t you say you knew Parlucci?”

  “No, I told you I’d never heard of the guy. Don’t play games with me, Charlie.”

  “That’s right, it was Mickey Martin you knew.”

  “We’d had run-ins, that’s all, just a few run-ins. Come on, Charlie, I want to talk business. I heard from the guys that got Bengal Lancer.”

  Charlie saw Janey raise an eyebrow. “So what’s up?”

  Campbell lowered his voice slightly. “They want the money tomorrow and they want it delivered in Albany at noon. I said I had a guy who’d do it. They want it done in front of the statehouse. You’re to stand at the curb with the money in a briefcase; there’s a spot by a row of newspaper machines.”

  “The place’s going to be jammed with people going to lunch.”

  “That’s what they want. They’ll watch to make sure no cops are around; then they’ll grab the money. If everything goes to plan, I’ll get the horse a week later. Maybe sooner. You still have that porkpie hat? It was brown plaid or something. Looked like a dog had been chewing it.”

  My good hat, thought Charlie. “It’s in the attic someplace.”

  “Wear it. That’s how they’ll recognize you. Be at my place at nine and I’ll give you the money.”

  Campbell hung up before Charlie had a chance to ask any questions. Glancing at Janey, he saw her staring at him quizzically.

  “Charlie,” she said, “I believe there’s something you haven’t told me.”

  Six

  Friday morning was cold but the sky clear. This was just as well because Charlie had a scratchy feeling in the back of his throat, which he blamed on getting wet the day before, probably when hurrying across Home Depot’s vast parking lot. Now he was in Albany, standing in front of the capitol building by the row of newspaper boxes, wearing his heavy winter overcoat, his porkpie hat and trying to look businesslike. In his right hand, he carried the old leather briefcase that Campbell had given him that morning, saying, “No point in losing a new briefcase on the deal, is there? They’re lucky it’s not a plastic bag.”

  Charlie attributed Campbell’s remarks to the bravado of the defeated, but he’d dutifully laughed. Within the briefcase was a hundred thousand dollars, a mixture of older bills that Campbell had spent the previous day accumulating. The hurry of this had surprised Charlie, but Campbell said the crooks were afraid that the more time that went by, the more likely the police would get into the business and set up a trap.

  “But do guys, even rich guys, have that much money lying around?” Charlie had asked that morning.

  “Of course not, I had some people drive it up from the City.”

  By “the City” Campbell had meant New York City, since he belonged to one of those byzantine financial networks where the rest of the country was just a suburb of Manhattan. “Remember, Charlie, don’t do any funny stuff. Just stand at the curb and let them grab the money.”

  “How will I know it’s them?”

  “The guy will say the horse’s name. You remember what it is?”

  “Sure. Bengal Lancer.”

  Now it was shortly past noon, and hungry civil servants intent on lunch hurried down the capitol steps. A steady stream of cars passed the newspaper boxes in metallic indifference. Charlie tried to assume a relaxed demeanor, not shifting his feet or looking around. He guessed he was being watched, maybe by several people.

  When he had told Janey about Fletcher Campbell and his missing horse, she had not been pleased. “I thought you’d retired.”

  “It’s a thousand bucks.”

  “You sound like Victor. We don’t need the money.”

  “We can go on a cheap vacation.”

  “Like where?”

  “Like Utica.”

  “Is that a nice place?”

  “No, but it has cheap hotels.”

  Janey gave Charlie an exasperated look. “You said you were just going to sit around the house and read and tinker.”

  “I’ve done that. I’ve been reading and tinkering, and now I’m bored. It’s not as if I’m really working. I’m just making a delivery for an old acquaintance. It’s getting me out of the house, that’s all.”

  “Charlie, this is how it always begins. There’s some small thing and a few days later, people are shooting at you. What’s the connection between Fletcher Campbell and Mickey Martin?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all.”

  When the driver of the yellow cab honked at him, Charlie at first didn’t attribute it to anything important. The driver maybe wanted directions or wanted Charlie to grab him a newspaper. So Charlie only shook his head and looked away.

  When the driver honked again, Charlie saw someone sitting in the backseat. His adrenaline gave a little hop. The cab was drawn up at the curb to his left beyond the newspaper boxes. Charlie strolled to the cab, trying to look calm, but his foot slipped on the curb and he had to catch himself on the cab’s fender. He straightened up again and proceeded to the rear window. Inside was a man in a charcoal-gray overcoat, dark glasses and a Yankees cap with the brim covering his forehead.

  “Bengal Lancer.”

  It pained Charlie to give up the money, but he could think of no options. He passed the briefcase through the window.

  “Go back to where you were standing,” said the man. “Stay there for fifteen minutes. If you reach into your pocket or use a cell phone, the deal’s off.”

  The cab pulled away from the curb and slid into traffic. Was it only out of habit that Charlie memorized the license plate and hack number? It was twelve fifteen. Returning to his position by the newspaper boxes, he watched the cab proceed down the street. People streamed past, oblivious that a hundred thousand dollars had just changed hands. That’s as it should be, Charlie thought. Who knew how much nasty business occurred only a centimeter or two beneath the surface of daily intercourse? The best idea, Charlie thought, was not to think about it. Brooding on unpleasant truths only led to cynicism and a fondness for conspiracy theories.

  The cab was now out of sight; either it had turned or had seamlessly blended in with other cabs. Charlie thought about the man with the cap. The bulky overcoat had concealed his shape, but he appeared to be of average height and any age between thirty and fifty. He had no rings on his fingers and no watch was visible. On one cheek were traces of old acne scars. The skin was pale, parchment-colored, as if rarely exposed to sunlight. Charlie hadn’t seen his forehead or eyebrows. The hair on the side of his head had been dark brown. His one visible ear had been small, almost without a lobe, and reminded Charlie of a cat’s ear. His nose had been short with a slight thickening at the end and nostrils like olive pits. Thin lips, a pointed chin and no chain visible around his neck. His voice had a nasal quality and he hadn’t pronounced the “g” in “standing.” Did Charlie find the face familiar? There was something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  By now fifteen minutes had passed. Charlie turned to his left and strolled to the corner. He wanted a cab, but not any cab, he wanted a cab from the same company that his contact had used: Veterans Cab. At first it seemed that every company except Veterans was visible, and then the only Veterans cab that went by had several business-suited men in the backseat. But within five more minutes Charlie found the cab he wanted and he flagged it down.

  “Where to?” The driver had an Eastern European accent and a saucer-size
d bald spot. He looked at Charlie in the rearview mirror.

  “It depends. Another Veterans cab passed here about half an hour ago. He probably picked up his fare from someplace nearby a little after twelve-oh-five and dropped him off around twelve twenty-five, maybe at the same place. How do I find out where he was picked up and dropped off?”

  “You a cop?”

  “Retired,” said Charlie. “I’m not anything.”

  “You gotta be something.” The driver squinted at Charlie. “Everybody’s something.”

  “Let’s say I’m a concerned citizen.”

  “That not good enough.”

  “Okay, it’s a husband-and-wife thing. I’m sorry, it’s embarrassing.”

  “I know all about that,” said the driver. “I could write a book. I touch your pain, is that what they say? I touch your pain?”

  “Feel.”

  “That’s right, I feel your pain.”

  “So how do I find out?” Perhaps, thought Charlie, I’m too old to be ashamed of these lies.

  “A coupla ways. I take you back to the office and you talk to the dispatcher. He’s, what you say, hard as tacks. Or you give me twenty bucks and I find out for you. Sorry, even though I feel your pain, I gotta eat.”

  Ten minutes later the cab pulled up to the Downtown Hilton four blocks from the capitol building. “It’s been a gladness,” said the driver as Charlie got out.

  Charlie paid his fare, a two-dollar tip and the twenty bucks. “Likewise.”

  A doorman in a dark burgundy uniform stood by the entrance to the hotel. Charlie approached him. “You been on duty long?”

  “Since ten this morning, why?” The doorman glanced at Charlie and glanced away, scanning the traffic.

  “A man caught a cab here at twelve-oh-seven and returned at twelve twenty-three. He wore a charcoal-gray overcoat, a Yankees cap and dark glasses.”

  “I’m a Red Sox fan. I don’t remember the dark glasses.”

  “Do you remember his eyes?”

  “They were just regular eyes. He had two of them.” He focused on Charlie for the first time and lowered his voice. “What’s this about, anyway—you a cop? You’ll have to see the manager.”

  “It’s a husband-and-wife thing. How old would you say he was? How tall?”

  “Maybe thirty-five or forty. I’m not good with heights. He was taller than me and I’m five-ten.”

  “Was he staying at the hotel?”

  “I can’t say. He came out of the lobby and took the cab that was standing here. I opened the door and he gave me a buck. Then he was back, I don’t know, ten minutes later. I opened the door and he gave me another buck.”

  “Did he have a briefcase?”

  “This is Albany; everybody’s got briefcases. He went through the revolving door and that was that.”

  “Did he go toward the front desk or toward the elevator?”

  “Once they go through the door, I’m no longer interested.”

  Charlie gave the man a ten-dollar bill, passed through the revolving door and walked to the front desk, where a young woman was staring at a computer screen. She looked up when Charlie lightly tapped on the desk with a knuckle.

  “I’m late for a business meeting in the coffee shop. The man I’m supposed to meet got dropped off by a cab about thirty minutes ago: gray overcoat and a Yankees cap, six feet tall, about forty. He was probably carrying a briefcase. I’ve misplaced his name. Do you know if he’s staying here?”

  “I noticed him, that’s all. He’s not a guest. My boyfriend’s got an overcoat just like it. Barneys’ January sale. Armani. He saved a bundle on it. I looked to see if this guy’s was an Armani, but it wasn’t. You can always tell, can’t you? A cashmere blend at best, just a little cashmere. And too big for him, a forty-eight when it should have been a forty-four. My boyfriend—really, my ex-boyfriend—was a perfect forty-six regular.” The woman looked away. She was around twenty-five and pretty.

  “And what about the man thirty minutes ago?” asked Charlie gently.

  “Oh, him? He walked down that hallway to the men’s room.”

  —

  Twenty minutes later Charlie was on the Northway, driving back to Saratoga. He felt sure that the man with the Yankees cap had simply walked through the hotel to the rear entrance, where he had been picked up by an accomplice. Now they were a hundred thousand dollars richer. Even though it wasn’t Charlie’s money, it stuck in his craw. He thought again of the man, the acne scars and small ears, the nasal voice. Had there really been something familiar about him or was it just that he wanted to find him familiar, wanted some clue? And was he doing this only because he was bored?

  As for the time he’d spent in Chief Novak’s office the previous night, its effect hadn’t been to dissuade Charlie to butt out, as Novak said, more or less, but the reverse, though he wasn’t sure what he’d do. But the looks he had gotten from Novak and Hutchins when his cell phone began playing “The Mickey Mouse Club March” remained vivid in his memory. It wasn’t that he was angry, but he disliked being seen as a trifler. And if he poked around in this business a little more, he wouldn’t be investigating like a PI investigates. No, that sort of investigation required that Charlie have a client and, of course, he had no client. What he was doing was merely interfering in police business, which, he told himself with a grim smile, would be a lesser charge and add up to no more than six months in the county slammer.

  Charlie got back to Campbell’s farm at two o’clock. A wind was blowing and the day, which had started out clear, had grown overcast. There was even a chance of snow later in the evening. Charlie found Campbell in his office in front of a fire, finishing his lunch and glancing through a horse breeders’ magazine. On the walls were paintings of Campbell’s prize-winning horses, some in fields sniffing the breeze, others in winner’s circles. A seven-unit floor-to-ceiling bookcase covered one wall, though only the center unit contained books. The others held trophies.

  “No problem?”

  “The man came by in a cab at twelve fifteen. He had dark glasses and a Yankees cap. I gave him the briefcase, then waited fifteen more minutes. He’d taken the cab from the Downtown Hilton and then went back to the same place, but he wasn’t a guest. He just walked through the building and out the back.”

  “How d’you know that?” Campbell had paused with a sandwich quarter lifted halfway to his mouth.

  “I found out. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “Charlie, I’m not interested. Your job ended when you handed over the bag. You’re not working for me. Everything’s finished. And let me tell you,” said Campbell, raising his voice, “if you’ve done anything to screw up this deal, I’ll take it out of your hide. Maybe worse. Do I make myself clear?”

  A variety of angry words began to form in Charlie’s brain, but he said nothing. Campbell, of course, was right. He should have left well enough alone. He had no business following the cab. It was just old habits, he told himself. But even that answer was unsatisfactory. It was as if he were trying to show himself that he was capable of action, of doing something.

  “It’s clear.”

  Campbell gestured toward an envelope on the table. “Then take your money and get outta here.”

  Charlie stayed where he was. “Listen, Campbell, I did what you told me to do. I don’t like being talked to like this.”

  “And what the fuck are you going to do about it?” Campbell shoved the sandwich quarter into his mouth and returned to his magazine.

  Charlie continued standing, but Campbell didn’t look up. Charlie took the envelope and left.

  He tried to let go of his anger as he drove back to Saratoga. Campbell was a rich guy and could do what he wanted. But he’d also been right. Charlie shouldn’t have dug out the information about the cab and the rest of it. On the other hand, Campbell shouldn’t have been rude.
But that was Campbell’s problem, not his. Charlie’s problem was plain nosiness. In fact, his mother used to say he’d been born nosy, always sticking his nose into what didn’t concern him. No, all that he regretted was having made himself smaller in Campbell’s eyes, and even that wouldn’t mean much after Campbell got his horse back.

  Charlie drove home, intending to get busy with his 18-volt drill-and-driver combo and make repairs. He had to spend a few hours being a good citizen. In any case, he had Campbell’s money—not a check but ten one-hundred-dollar bills. It would more than make up for the money he’d been passing around. As that thought crossed his mind, he remembered the old fellow on Van Dam to whom he’d paid twenty bucks for Parlucci’s address. What else did he know? Surely, if Charlie talked to him, it would only delay the repairs by ten or fifteen minutes. It’d be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity.

  The sky was solidly overcast when Charlie parked his Golf on Van Dam; the day had gotten darker, even though the sun wouldn’t set for several hours. As he walked to the rooming house, he noticed a single snowflake zigzag downward toward the street. An advance scout, he thought.

  The old man lived in Apartment Three, but there was no name on the mailbox. Charlie knocked and waited.

  “Who is it?”

  Charlie heard fear in the man’s voice. “Charlie.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I gave you twenty dollars last night.”

  “You can’t get it back. I spent it.”

  “I don’t want it back. You were right about the address. I saw Dave.”

  There was a scuffling behind the door and the lock turned. The door opened about three inches and an unshaven face looked out.

  “The only problem was that Dave had his throat cut.”

  His eyes widening, the man shoved at the door, but it was blocked by Charlie’s shoe. After a moment Charlie gave a hard push and the door opened. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  “Who else did you give Dave’s address to?”