Act of Revenge (31 page)

“You should see the tapes, Butch, before you go off half cocked. They look bad, real bad. Your boy sounds like he's a fully paid-up Mafiosi. He even says it out of his own mouth.”

“Oh, Peabody, that is such
horseshit
!”

“Hey. I'm trying to be constructive, here. I tell you what: come over, we'll run the tape for you, and then look at me with a straight face and tell me you don't have a problem with it.”

“I'll be right there,” said Karp.

Marlene's next appointment was her lunch with Abe Lapidus, which had been scheduled for a restaurant in the Village, but on the way back from the Island Marlene decided that she was not up to facing stares in so public a place on her first day out, and so she called Lapidus from her car phone to cancel and he, sensing the problem, said, “Don't be ridiculous! You'll come up to our place. We got food, we got drinks, and later, if you want, you can visit Sophie.” To this she readily agreed; she was accustomed to making light of her physical beauty, as a good feminist ought, but in fact, although she had learned over the years to deal with the missing eye, she found that the loss of hair and the marred face had proved too much for mere ideology. She didn't like being repulsive, and she was not going to expose herself to its consequences if she could help it, at least not before age seventy.

The apartment of Abe and Selma Lapidus was furnished in what Marlene always thought of as bad good taste: that is, they had paid a decorator to give them whatever look was fashionable at the moment, although in this case successive waves of fashion were in evidence, like tidemarks on a beach. The wall-to-wall was pale beige, the couch was Duncan Phyfe in pale blue silk, the coffee table was thick glass and chrome, the chairs were designish Scandinavian in teak and leather, the breakfront was massive mahogany from the current plutocratic era, and it was full of bits of pre-Columbiana and African fetish work to exhibit the right political sympathies with the oppressed. The wall art was expensive investment-grade abstract, plus one bright rya from the sixties decor, and a couple of original oils, pasty sad clowns by, Marlene would have bet a million, the chatelaine herself. The room was spotless, and smelled of Pledge and rug shampoo.

“Selma will be out,” Abe had confided over the phone. “We won't be disturbed.”

Nor were they. Abe served tuna fish salad on croissants, which they ate around the coffee table, with a big bottle of San Peligrino to wash it down, drunk out of cut-glass tumblers almost too heavy to lift to the mouth. A silent brown woman in a white uniform drifted in and served and quickly vanished.

They small-talked during the meal, and when the servant had removed the plates, Marlene got out her notebook. Before many minutes had passed, it was clear to her that Abe Lapidus liked to talk, that he regarded her as a captive audience, and that he considered himself free to ramble on about whatever interested him, something, she suspected, that was fairly rare in his life with Selma. He spun anecdotes of the New York bar of thirty years before, political perceptions, contacts with the famous of that era, general appreciations of the urban scene then and now, comparisons of same, to the detriment of the current era, and around and around the old barn until he was ready to discharge a useful nugget.

“I'm rambling,” he confessed. “You wanted to know about Jerry Fein, and I'm rambling.”

“That's okay,” said Marlene. “Take your time.”

He peered at her, tilting his head back to catch her image in his bifocals, and shook his head and tut-tutted. “What a shame! All your hair! And those bruises! That little son of a bitch, they should throw the key away, that . . .” He drew a breath. “Always, he was like that, a vicious, brutal piece of dirt. I don't know how many times Jerry pulled him out of trouble, starting from young, thirteen, fourteen. But what do you expect from that family?”

“You mean that they were gangsters, Mafia?”

“Oh, Mafia, schmafia! Darling, believe me, it doesn't matter what side of the law, it's the
character
I'm talking about. I knew Meyer Lansky quite well, and he was always a perfect gentleman. Lucky Luciano the same. Murderers, dope pushers, but also gentlemen. Can you understand that?”

Marlene could. “I know people like that,” she said.

“Right. And there are distinguished citizens, businessmen, attorneys, never even dropped a piece of paper on the sidewalk, I wouldn't trust them alone with my daughter for five minutes. This one, the little Bollano, was a
momser
from the cradle, and the father was worse. If Jerry Fein had lived to see his daughter married to that piece of scum, he would have killed himself.”

They both froze for an instant at this, and both then let out a burst of embarrassed laughter.

Abe took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “My God in heaven, some things are so tragic the only thing you can do is laugh.”

“Yeah, about that: Why
did
Vivian Fein marry Sal Bollano? Any ideas?”

“Oh, well, you know, I only knew Jerry as a colleague, I wasn't intimate with the family. It's possible Sophie would have some thoughts on that, if you can get her to talk about it. She and Ceil were close for some years.”

“Ceil is the mother?”

“Yes, and I believe she's still in their old house in Brooklyn. You think you'll talk to her? I hear she's not so good.”

“If she'll talk to me. Vivian doesn't want me to.”

“Ah, Vivian, what a shame, what a shame! Oy! A gorgeous girl, and he worshiped her, Jerry. For her sweet sixteen party he took over the Versailles ballroom, everything the best, fountains flowing with champagne, Lester Lanin orchestra, must have been five hundred people. Let me tell you, darling, if a bomb had gone off at that party, it would have wiped out organized crime in New York,
and
half of law enforcement. Jerry knew everyone, on both sides, and if you treated him with respect, he treated you with respect, he didn't care from what you made your money.”

“Did he have any enemies that you know of?”

The man made a sour pickle face. “Enemies? What are you talking
enemies
? He was an attorney. He wasn't in politics, he didn't have the kind of practice where he would screw people. He represented defendants in court, that's what he did. If some of them were gangsters, then some of them were gangsters, big deal, the law says bad people are entitled to representation, too. This is not a life that makes enemies.” He paused and looked at her more sharply. “So, how come you're asking ‘enemies'?”

“The cop who investigated his suicide thinks there was something not right about it.”

“Who, that what's-his-name, the big Nazi?”

“Mulhausen. No, he's dead. His partner, Doherty.” She offered a summary of what she had learned from the former detective.

Lapidus waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, don't get me started on the cops. They do a perfunctory investigation, and then this guy gets a guilty conscience twenty-five years later. Phooey!”

“You think they were bent?”

“Think? No, they were all Abe Lincolns. Don't be ridiculous, the fifties? In New York? Sal Bollano had a bigger payroll in some precincts than the police department.”

“Just a minute, Abe. You're suggesting that Sal Bollano had Fein killed and bribed the cops not to look so hard?”

“No, I'm suggesting look at the facts you just told me. One, no note. A man who loved his family? He wouldn't try to explain, say he loved them one last time? I can't believe it. Two, his appointment book was chock full for weeks after the death. A man makes dozens of appointments he knows he'll never keep because he's going to kill himself? Nah!”

“Were you interviewed by the police at the time?”

“Me? Nah, I told you, we weren't that close. But they did people I knew, and it was naturally, such a thing, a subject of discussion around the courthouse. No one could believe it, no one!”

“Except Panofsky.”

“Aha!” Abe raised a finger in the air, as if he had discovered something. “Smart girl. Except Panofsky.”

“But eventually everyone went along with the suicide finding, nobody objected.”

Abe sighed. “Darling, the family accepts it, the law partner accepts it, what can you do? We all figured there was stuff, disgraceful things, we didn't know about. You know, back then some people wouldn't say the word ‘cancer.' This other business, what you see on the talk shows, people wouldn't even confess to their closest friends.”

“But his secretary didn't accept it, did she?”

“Oh, well, that was different, the poor woman! See, that was Jerry again, he would make people love him. Charming, even if you would have lunch with him, a casual thing, you would go away thinking what a guy! And to tell the absolute truth, you would think you were closer to him than you really were. Anyway, Jerry took in this kid, Shirley, just out of high school, a nice girl, plain but nice, very efficient. She was with him years, never married, devoted, totally, you know? And, you know how it is, that kind of thing, she thought the sun shone out of his
tuchas
. So it was a killer for her when he died, she couldn't understand it. And she would go around with the appointment book, showing it to everyone, to
prove
that he couldn't have done what they all said he did, jump like that. Panofsky, the
momser
, threw her out right after the funeral. He didn't have the balls to do it himself even, is what I heard, he got Jimmy Nobile to do it.”

“Who?”

“Nobile. They called him the office manager, but he was a, what they call a gofer, he did a little investigation work, collections, like that. If he's still alive, he'd know a thing or two.”

“Any ideas on where to look for him?”

Abe shrugged. “No, no idea. You know, after I said to you, I mean there in the hospital, I could help you on this, I got to thinking, Who really knows the story? And it occurred to me, the people who know if there even
is
a story, they're either dead or they probably won't talk. Panofsky—”

“What's the book on him? I don't like that he was the only one who thought Fein was despondent.”

Abe leaned back and rolled his eyes. “Oh, don't get me started on Heshy Panofsky! What can I say? You know the man from the bench. You know what he looks like, how he acts?”

“You mean arrogant?”

“Yeah, not unusual among judges, but Heshy was arrogant when he was a pissy little shyster with a walk-up office on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn. There was some family connection, in-laws or something, I don't know what, but in the early fifties it must have been, Jerry took him into the firm. And he found out—and you know, this was a litigating firm, pardon the expression, balls of brass, sue their ass, that kind—anyway, Jerry found out that Heshy was from hunger in the courtroom. It was all front with Heshy. It came time to put it on the line, he shut down. So, and this shows you what a decent guy Jerry was, he still kept him on. Him and Bernie Kusher took the court work, and Heshy became the fixer.”

“What kind of fixer?”

“Oh, you know—traffic tickets, drunk driving, getting a contractor's license. He knew all the pols, all Tammany back then. The machine. Heshy moved a lot of fat brown envelopes around town, and a lot of the money wasn't so clean, if you catch my drift.”

“Panofsky supplied Mob cash to politicians?”

Abe smiled. “You didn't hear it from me, darling. Which is why it was so ironic and so fishy that when somebody finally got caught moving one of those fat envelopes, it was Jerry and not Panofsky. Makes you think, don't it?”

“Panofsky framed Jerry?”

“Go and prove it.”

“Jesus! How did he ever get to be a judge?”

Another smile, this one more patronizing. “Darling, listen to what you're saying. I told you he had the politicians by the you-know-whats. What, you think you get to be a judge because of your legal brilliance?”

“I stand corrected. Okay, forget Panofsky for now, who else besides this Nobile would know something?”

“Well, that's like I say, the problem. Mulhausen the cop, but he's dead. The judge in the tampering case, Mohr, and the prosecutor, Currie, also both dead. Bernie Kusher, who knows? Probably dead already—”

“Tell me about Bernie. He was the third partner, right?”

“Right, Bernie Kusher, the third partner. He defended Jerry in the tampering case, or he would've if Jerry hadn't copped out. Another character. Bright, tough, a damn good lawyer. Very close to Jerry, very close: they went to Columbia Law together, started their practice together. I didn't know him well, but the pair of them were devastating in a courtroom. They won a lot of big cases back in the fifties. Sophie socialized with them more, the Feins and Bernie. He was divorced, I seem to recall. You could ask her. I don't have to tell you Panofsky hated him; they were poison together.”

After that they talked desultorily about the tampering case, for Abe Lapidus recalled only the broad outlines of the plot, which centered upon the famous zippered bank envelope full of cash (the envelope itself amply stamped with Fein's prints) and a note typed on Fein's office typewriter, indicating that a vote for acquittal in the Gravellotti case would earn double what was inside.

Abe began to maunder again, supplying unwanted details about some peripheral courtroom figures.

“Oh, hell, Abe,” Marlene broke in with heat. “You're telling me everything but what I want to know. Why didn't Jerry fight the thing? Why did he cop on it?”

Abe poured out some water, rattled the ice cubes, took a long drink. He gave her an odd look, compounded of assessment, affection, cynically exhausted humor.

“You're a smart cookie, Marlene. That's the big one. We all wondered about that too. Why did one of the sharpest courtroom jockeys around go into the tank when his own
tuchas
was on the line?” Another long pause.