AS SOON AS THE two patrolmen had arrived and been briefed, Moodrow and Dunlap walked from the lobby to Sylvia Kaufman’s apartment, their original destination when they’d happened upon Birnbaum and Ruiz. It was an obligatory visit for Moodrow, in light of his relationship to Betty Haluka and the Jackson Arms, but he didn’t see himself as an investigator. Nor was he going as a friend of the dead woman. He was occupying an uneasy middle ground, a position he’d occupied many times in the course of his policeman’s life. His best bet was to understand himself as a simple acquaintance (as Dunlap was doing), but the dual anger he felt (with himself for playing the fool and with men who kill with no regard for the manifest innocence of their victims) was too powerful to allow him that refuge.
Somebody had put up a card table outside the apartment door, and set a carafe of coffee on it. A smallish, middle-aged man sat on a kitchen chair by the table. “Hello,” he said, smiling up at them. “I’m Herb Belcher. Sylvia Kaufman was my mother-in-law. I suppose one of you must be Stanley Moodrow. Betty’s boyfriend.”
He stuck out a hand and Moodrow shook it briefly before introducing Dunlap. “Betty’s inside. Are you going in?” Belcher asked.
“Yeah,” Moodrow answered. “We’re not gonna be long, though.”
The first thing Moodrow saw, after ducking into the apartment, was a thick candle burning in a glass cylinder. It reminded him of the Russian Orthodox Church where he’d gone as a boy. Even the smell of smoke was like the smell of the incense pouring from the metal censer swung by the priest. Then he remembered the last time he’d been inside a church; not surprisingly, it was at the last funeral he’d attended. A thought popped up in his mind: this can’t be the same, because you didn’t really know Sylvia Kaufman. Followed quickly by: it never should have happened.
Marilyn Belcher, who had been Marilyn Kaufman prior to setting off for UCLA twenty years before, a heavyset, graying woman, was sitting on a low stool when Moodrow walked into the room. Betty was kneeling beside her on the rug and both were crying. Marilyn wore a dark gray dress decorated only by a torn black ribbon pinned below her left shoulder. She was in her stocking feet, her face free of makeup. Her hair, which had been cut and feathered so carefully in a Santa Barbara salon a week before, was barely combed now.
Later, Betty would tell Moodrow that Marilyn’s grief, already compounded by the sudden, violent nature of her mother’s death, had been aggravated by the years she and her mother had spent apart; Marilyn was blaming both herself and her husband for lost opportunities. At the time, however, Moodrow saw only the face of a woman made frantic by grief, a woman very near to tearing at her own flesh. The emotion was so strong, it stopped him as soon as he entered the room. It stood in his way and held him back, like the force field in a Hollywood science-fiction movie.
Sergeant Paul Dunlap (which is the way he introduced himself to Marilyn Belcher), on the other hand, had attended more than a hundred funerals in his official capacity as Community Affairs Officer. He walked directly to the women and began to offer his condolences in a strong, clear, hearty-Irish voice. “I’m so sorry,” he began.
If Betty hadn’t come over and taken Moodrow’s hand, he might have spun on his heel and walked out of the apartment. He’d turned his head away from Marilyn an instant after reading her grief, preferring to concentrate on the fruit and cake displayed on a coffee table, the white sheets covering the mirrors, the sharp, destructive odor of the smoke. The smell of smoke dominated the apartment; it stung Moodrow’s eyes and burned his nostrils, reminding him of the job ahead.
“Don’t stay long,” Betty, an unconscious angel of mercy, whispered. “Marilyn and I need to talk.”
The smell of smoke, powerful as it was in the apartment upstairs, was far worse in the basement. It rushed over Moodrow and Dunlap as soon as the elevator door opened, causing both to jerk their heads away from the open door as if they’d just come upon a moving rat in a narrow corridor.
“Jesus Christ,” Dunlap muttered. “You smell that?”
Moodrow didn’t answer. Once over the initial shock, he eagerly snorted the odor up into his nostrils, using it like ammonia in the nose of a fainting virgin in a romantic novel. It pulled his attention away from the apartment above and focused it on the fire marshal in the spiffy uniform with the peaked hat. The man was standing in a large room just past a series of cheaply partitioned storage sheds. He had his hands on his hips, obviously impatient with his not-unexpected visitors.
“Sam Spinner?” Dunlap asked. “I’m Paul Dunlap, from the One One Five. This is Stanley Moodrow.”
Sam Spinner suspected that the two cops (he knew that Dunlap was a cop and he assumed Moodrow was Dunlap’s partner) were there to second-guess the investigation. His investigation. He was a short, thick man with a heavy face dominated by allergy-tormented blue eyes. Allergies had been the curse of his career and he was especially allergic to smoke.
“What’s up?” he asked curtly. Cop briefings were obligatory courtesies extended by one department to another. Spinner couldn’t avoid them, but he didn’t have to like them. Or to make them pleasant.
“I spoke to you on the phone yesterday,” Dunlap said evenly. “So you already know what it’s about.” Dunlap (as Sam Spinner had predicted) believed that all crime was the property of the NYPD. Including arson.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re the Sherlock Holmes who talks about arson before he even comes down to the scene. You’re a psychic, right?”
Dunlap threw Moodrow a sharp look before responding. He was trying to tell Moodrow that, as far as Sam Spinner was concerned, they were in trouble. Moodrow, who never doubted that he would eventually find proof of deliberate arson, was unimpressed.
“I take it you’ve completed your investigation?” Dunlap asked.
“Except for the lab tests,” Spinner announced.
“So whatta ya think?” Moodrow was all smiles as he suddenly entered the conversation. “Did you come to any conclusions yet?”
“Well, I sure don’t think it was arson.” Spinner turned to the more sympathetic Moodrow. “I think you cops are barkin’ up the wrong tree.”
“See,” Moodrow said, turning to Dunlap, “I told you it wasn’t arson. No way it could be arson. You’re buyin’ me lunch, Paulie. Don’t forget our bet.” He turned back to Spinner, still grinning. “I got a partner sees murder every time he farts.”
Spinner laughed. He didn’t like cops much. Most of them, he knew, held the Fire Department’s investigatory division in contempt, especially the detectives. “He oughta buy ya two lunches fa this one. I been through every inch of this basement and I don’t see nothin’ but an accidental fire.”
“But how do you know for sure?” Dunlap asked. “I mean, gimme a goddamn break. This guy eats like a horse.”
Spinner drew himself up. If they wanted a lecture on fire investigation, he would be glad to give them one. “First thing, there ain’t no sign of an accelerant anywhere. No gasoline, no kerosene, no lighter fluid, no nothin’. I took samples, nat’rally, and I’m gonna put ’em through the chromatograph, but I guarantee they’re gonna come out clean. Second thing is the mattress where the fire started. It’s been there for years. All ya gotta do is pick it up and look at the concrete underneath to see that. Third thing is there’s been people using this area for living quarters. There’s well-decayed human feces behind the boiler. There’s urine stains in several places along the back wall. There’s food particles…”
“How come there’s no damage? How come nothing got burned?” Dunlap continued to probe, asking his questions curtly while staring angrily at his partner. In every respect, he appeared to be no more than a dumb flatfoot pissed at being caught on the wrong side of an argument.
“Mattress fires don’t make a lotta heat. Smoke, yeah. Clouds of black smoke. Especially when they got motor oil soaked into one corner like this one did.”
“I thought you said there was no accelerant?” Dunlap said.
“Motor oil, unless you got tremendous heat, puts a fire out. Ain’t you seen all the ads on TV about engine heat and the oil don’t break down? You practically gotta use napalm to ignite motor oil. Here, lemme learn you a little something about fires.” Snorting triumphantly, he led them to the back of the room where the remains of the mattress, a jet-black rectangle almost lost against the smoke-scorched-wall, still lay. The fire had evidently begun in the center of the mattress and, fueled by the newspaper padding, spread to the edges. One corner was almost untouched and it was here that Sam Spinner pointed. “See this here?” he said. “Where it ain’t burnt? This corner is soaked with motor oil. I figure there musta been oil in the middle, too, but when the fire reached where the oil was thick, it went out. That oil, in case ya thinkin’ about askin’ me, is gonna show up in scrapings we took off the wall and ceiling. It don’t mean nothin’ in terms of heat, but it makes very dense smoke.”
“How do ya know someone didn’t pour the oil on the mattress, then set the fire?” Dunlap asked.
Spinner looked at Moodrow, gesturing over at Dunlap. “Some guys don’t like ta lose,” he said, sarcastically.
“You got that right,” Moodrow agreed.
“The reason,” Spinner announced, turning back to Paul Dunlap, “why I know how long the oil has been in the mattress is that I picked up a corner of the goddamn mattress and checked to see if there was oil on the bottom. That mattress, my friend, is soaked through and the oil in the mattress is gritty and dry. That’s because it’s been there for a long time. No way it coulda been put there even a week ago.” He glared at Dunlap contemptuously, leaving a long, empty silence before taking up the thread of his logic. “Now the third reason why this fire was accidental is the presence of drug paraphernalia. Crack vials, glassine envelopes, syringes, candles, bent spoons, scorched bottle caps, etcetera, etcetera. Evidently, the neighborhood druggies come down here ta get their jollies and somebody didn’t blow out his candle. Could be the asshole just nodded out, as junkies are known to do. He nods off and, when he wakes up, the fire is too strong to put out. Or maybe he could put it out, but he don’t give a shit. Whatever the case, he takes off for parts unknown without havin’ the decency ta call 911.”
“It sounds right to me,” Moodrow interrupted. He had less than no interest in Spinner’s speculations. What he wanted was a rundown of the physical evidence, which he’d already been given. Now it was time to see if there was any profit to be squeezed from that evidence. “It’s too bad about the lady upstairs.”
Spinner’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I feel like shit about that,” he said, piously. “The bad breaks she got are almost unbelievable. First, when the landlord decides ta put in new pipes, he hires a lumberjack with a chainsaw instead of a plumber. The hole on this goddamn retrofit is nearly twice as big as the pipe. Second, the guy livin’ above the old lady stuffs the hole around his pipes with insulation so the smoke can’t go up. Third, she’s got the windows closed tight, the bedroom door shut and the smoke alarm out in the hallway. See, that’s another reason why this fire was an accident. What did an arsonist stand ta gain? How could he know all those things would be that way upstairs? I mean about the windows and the smoke alarm? It don’t make sense anyone should do it deliberately.”
“Say,” Moodrow interrupted, changing the subject abruptly, “did you mention you dusted that paraphernalia you found? I don’t remember.”
“For fingerprints?” Spinner was incredulous.
“Yeah.” Dunlap joined in, even though he didn’t know what Moodrow was getting at, either. “For goddamn fingerprints.”
“It’s just paraphernalia,” Spinner insisted. “Like ya find in every empty lot in the city. You’re actin’ like crack vials are weapons. Gasoline cans get dusted, right? Window glass. Lock handles. Since when do ya dust crack vials? Not that I didn’t gather all the paraphernalia. I got it bagged and tagged, just like they taught me in fire school.”
“Sam,” Moodrow said, again changing the subject. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor. Would you let me take the paraphernalia over to the precinct and let our print guy take a look at it? I promise I’ll have it back to you tomorrow.”
“I don’t know…” Sam Spinner didn’t want to refuse his pal, and his conviction that the fire had been accidental made it possible to agree. After all, once his report was written, the samples he’d collected would be so much garbage. Still, doing favors for cops went against the grain.
“It’s not for what you think,” Moodrow said quickly. “It’s for the narcs. There’s been a lotta dope in this building and if we can find a brand name on the vials or the envelopes, or even a print we can match with a known dealer, maybe we’ll finally be able to pinpoint the dirtbags bringing the dope in. Tomorrow—I promise—I’ll personally bring the bag anywhere you say.”
Ten minutes later, Moodrow and Dunlap stood outside the Jackson Arms, equally grateful for the fresh air. Moodrow held a large manila envelope in his right hand and both men were looking at it.
“What do you want with that crap?” Dunlap asked. “I’ve been going along with you. No problem. But how about letting me in on the secret?”
Much to Dunlap’s surprise, Moodrow took the question seriously. “The fire was meant as a warning. It wasn’t supposed to kill her. Sure, the mattress has been down there for years. The janitor who got fired when the new management took over was an alkie. He slept down there, hung out when he didn’t wanna be found. Maybe he even resented the tenants so much, he pissed and shit down there. But the janitor wasn’t on drugs. In fact, according to every tenant in the building, there wasn’t any drug problem at all until six weeks ago, so how do you figure the crack vials got down there? And the syringes? And the candles and the fucking spoons? It stinks, Paulie. It fucking stinks and you oughta know it.”
Dunlap flinched at the contempt in Moodrow’s voice. “And what do you expect to find? You think all the prints are gonna be the same?”
“The first thing I wanna know,” Moodrow replied evenly, “is if there’s any prints at all.”
The headquarters of Precision Management, the entire second floor of a small shopping plaza on Hillside Avenue in eastern Queens, was far from the suite of posh offices envisioned by Paul Dunlap. Five thousand feet of unwaxed, unwashed, black floor tiles, of desks lined one behind the other like beds in a homeless shelter, supported the various endeavors that made up the total business of Precision Management Consultants, Inc. There were two lawyers, their busy outlines just visible through dirty glass doors; an active insurance brokerage with phones ringing everywhere; a much quieter real estate division with three tired saleswomen talking shop; and, finally, almost as an afterthought, a small section specializing in residential real estate management.
As the two men crossed the big room, both were reminded of the detectives’ room in a precinct. Virtually everything above the floor was dirty metal: gray desks, filing cabinets, dusty shelves. The legs of the desks were black with dirt and looked sticky and there was a smell of physical neglect that utterly belied the powerful drive for achievement that had created that neglect in the first place.
“I think the cops subcontract the maintenance for this fucking place,” Moodrow whispered. “It’s a sewer.”
Suddenly, one of the real estate saleswomen, her square Irish face split into a smile, looked away from her conversation and asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah,” Dunlap said. “We’re looking for Precision Management.”
“It’s all Precision Management,” the woman observed.
“Al Rosenkrantz,” Moodrow said, drawing the woman’s attention. “That’s who we’re looking for.”
“Sweet Al?” The woman broke into laughter.
“Yeah, Sweet Al. Where could we find him?”
“His office is against the far wall. In the real estate management division.” She watched them go for a moment, before calling out. “Make sure he keeps his hands in his pockets.”
When Moodrow pushed open the door to Al Rosenkrantz’s office, Rosenkrantz jumped straight out of the chair. “If this guy can’t control himself,” he said to Paul Dunlap, “get him out of here. There’s two lawyers at the other end of the building. Any repeat of the other night and I’m gonna send them after your pension.”
“Why don’t you sit over there, Moodrow?” Dunlap said, pointing to a dirty gray metal chair by the door. “And keep your face shut for a change.” He glared at Moodrow briefly, then turned back to Rosenkrantz. “Look, Moodrow apologizes for the other day. He was way outta line. Of course, you shouldn’t have said what you said, either, but that’s past us now. All we want is a few minutes of your time.”
Rosenkrantz, encouraged by Dunlap’s apologetic tone, pulled himself up in the chair before answering. “So take your few minutes and be on your way. I don’t mean to be abrupt, but I seem to be giving all my time to the Jackson Arms these days. It’s really a nothing project for us.”
“First thing I should tell you,” Dunlap said, “is that the fire is an open investigation at the 115th Precinct. It’s official, right? A suspicious fire.”
“That’s very interesting, because I spoke to the fire marshal not more than ten minutes ago and he thinks the fire was accidental. The building is insured through our brokerage, by the way, and the carrier is ready to cut a check as soon as the lab reports come back.”
Dunlap, nonplussed for the moment, looked over at Moodrow, whose face, unfortunately, remained blank. “Be that as it may, it’s still my duty to tell you that, as far as the New York Police Department is concerned, the origins of the fire remain suspicious.”
“Okay, you told me.” Rosenkrantz was beginning to enjoy himself. The cop was already uncomfortable and he was just getting started. “Now what could I do for you?”
“Of course, we’re not here to question you about the fire,” Dunlap admitted. “We’re here on behalf of the tenants.”
“If it’s about the dispossess notices, I already heard from this Legal Aid guy…” He searched his notepad for a moment before spelling out the name. “K A V E C C H I. I wouldn’t even make a guess as to the pronunciation. He informs me that all the tenants who received dispossess notices have retained a Legal Aid attorney to represent them. He says they intend to prepare a motion asking that all the cases be consolidated and dismissed at one hearing. Legal Aid is also going into Supreme Court to ask for some kind of injunction. This guy K A V E C C H I is very pushy; he expected me to make him an answer right on the spot. I told him that I just take orders…”
“From who?” Dunlap asked innocently.
“From the landlord.”
“And who’s the landlord?”
Rosenkrantz smiled and shook his head sadly. They were so stupid. “The Jackson Arms and the two adjoining buildings are owned by Bolt Realty Corporation.”
“That’s where you get your instructions? From a corporation?”
“Bolt Realty is represented by an attorney named William Holtz.”
“You got his address and phone number?” Dunlap asked.
“My secretary can give you that information.”
“Why don’t you get it for him?” Moodrow rose halfway out of his chair. “This is a police investigation, you asshole. Whatta ya think, you’re the fuckin’ mayor? Get the goddamn address.”
Dunlap smiled apologetically, gesturing wildly for Moodrow to sit back down. “Please, Al, if you could help us out, we’d appreciate it.”
Rosenkrantz, who had less desire to deal with his irascible secretary than Dunlap, flipped the pages of his Rolodex briefly, then handed a card bearing the address and phone number of William Holtz to Sergeant Paul Dunlap, who dutifully copied it into a small notepad.
“There’s one other thing,” Dunlap said. “You promised the tenants you were going to make some repairs. You know, the mailboxes and the front locks and the elevator? I tell you the truth, Al, I was scared myself when I used that elevator. It banged around like it was gonna fall apart any second…”
“While we’re talking,” Rosenkrantz interrupted.
“Pardon me?”
“All three of those things are being done while we’re talking. The crews are on the scene right now.” Rosenkrantz leaned across the desk to tap the back of Dunlap’s hand. He was sweating profusely, but he smiled his brightest smile, nonetheless. “Look, I admit things haven’t worked out as well as they could have, but I intend to keep the promises I’ve made. Now, for God’s sake, sergeant, you and the rest of the cops have to take some of the blame. You say there’s dealers and whores in the building? Then arrest them. Put them in jail. When I went to Bayside High School, they taught me that a body can’t be in two places at the same time. If you put them in jail, they won’t be in my buildings.”
The Manhattan offices of Holtz, Meacham, Meacham and Brount, located in the Kalikow Building at 101 Park Avenue, were everything the offices of Precision Management weren’t. The beige carpet pushed back against the soles of the feet like brand-new sixty-dollar Nikes. The brown burlap-covered walls sported a matched set of eight oil paintings depicting a fox hunt, from the huntsmen’s breakfast to the bloody corpse held triumphantly aloft. The receptionist, suitably young and beautiful, wore a necklace and bracelet of woven gold worth more than Moodrow’s entire wardrobe. Not quite sharp enough to make Dunlap and Moodrow for cops, she began to smile as soon as the door opened far enough to reveal the two visitors.
“May I help you?” Her low, musical voice was stunning, as carefully prepared as her tightly curled and slightly unkempt hair. Hearing it, Moodrow couldn’t help but wonder how rich a law firm had to be to afford such an ornament. If, he concluded as he asked for William Holtz, the woman had put as much effort into school as she’d evidently put into her appearance, he’d be talking to a neurosurgeon. Still, her equally musical, “Mr. Holtz, there are two policemen to see you,” failed to get them into the lawyer’s office. Instead, William Holtz, tall, tanned, and heavily muscled in his middle age, strode into the reception area to confront them publicly.
“Gentlemen?” Holtz, whose dark pinstriped suit, handmade by a Hong Kong Chinese with a showroom on East Broadway, had cost more than his receptionist’s jewelry, spoke sharply. He (a rare exception to the rule) accepted Moodrow and Dunlap’s respective IDs and began to examine them closely.
Moodrow waited patiently, at first, then stepped in close and looked directly into the lawyer’s eyes. He wasn’t operating under the delusion that he could intimidate the man—lawyers are exempt from all forms of police bullying and they know it—but Moodrow’s cop radar had begun to beep the minute Holtz had appeared. He could feel himself drawing closer to the end of the mystery and he wanted to let Holtz (and whoever he was fronting for) know that Stanley Moodrow was coming. That simple. That final.
“Which one of you is Sergeant Dunlap?” Though he maintained the eye contact, Holtz took a step back.
“Right here.”
“I’m very busy at the moment, sergeant. I’ve a client in my office and I’m late for a partners’ meeting. I’ve also had a long conversation with Mr. Rosenkrantz…”
“This’ll only take a few minutes,” Moodrow said.
“Mr. Moodrow,” Holtz returned, stepping around the larger man, “this conversation will be completed much more quickly if you stay out of it. I permit you to remain as a courtesy to Sergeant Dunlap, but I’m sure you realize that you’re a private citizen and have no standing here whatsoever.” He hesitated, allowing Moodrow the opportunity to challenge his statement, but Moodrow let it pass. “As I said, sergeant, I’ve just had a conversation with Mr. Rosenkrantz and I’m familiar with the condition of the property belonging to Bolt Realty.”
“We were wondering if you knew about that,” Dunlap said quietly. He was half in a daze. The furnishings had gone to his head, the receptionist had gone to his crotch, and William Holtz’s wardrobe had gone to his heart. Holtz, Meacham, Meacham and Brount was a long way from the Elks Club.
“Wonder no longer, sergeant. I have absolute confidence in Precision Management. Needless to say, Bolt Realty deplores any illegal activity occurring on its property and will, within reason, take whatever steps are necessary to repair the damage. Mr. Rosenkrantz has been so instructed, not only this afternoon, but on several occasions in the past.” He smiled briefly. “Are we done?”
“There’s just one more thing,” Moodrow said.
Holtz, who stood between Moodrow and Dunlap, didn’t bother to turn around. “Mr. Moodrow,” he began, “do you think you can stay out of this? If you can’t, we’ll end the conversation right here.” Again, he hesitated, waiting for Moodrow to respond, expecting and hoping the big ex-cop was infuriated and impotent.
“There is one more thing,” Dunlap, who’d nearly forgotten, said quietly. “The landlord. We were hoping to appeal directly to the landlord. Would you have a problem giving us the landlord’s name?”
William Holtz was genuinely amused. His salt-and-pepper crewcut seemed to leap erect as he grinned broadly. “Sergeant Dunlap, do you know anything about New York State corporate law? Or about the New York State housing code? Suffice it to say that my clients have no wish to be subject to the harassment of guerrillas like Stanley Moodrow. I have complete power of attorney with regard to the properties in question and am prepared to exercise my authority in a manner furthering the aims of my client. And that is all, gentlemen. That is the end of the interview. Please keep the following in mind: I will not receive you again unless a court compels me to do so. Have a pleasant afternoon.”