Compulsion (19 page)
“You’re
alonely.
You can eat with
us.
”
“Elena-”
The girl pulled at my sleeve. “
Eat
with us!”
I said, “If it’s okay with your dad.”
Korvutz’s face got hard.
Elena applauded. “Yay!”
“Elena, stop this. Let the gentleman-”
I got up and brought my water glass to their table.
“Yay!”
Korvutz said, “Sir, this is not necessary.”
“I don’t mind for a few minutes-”
“Yay!”
The intense couple glanced over. The woman whispered something to her companion. He shrugged.
“It’s
really
not necessary,” said Korvutz.
“It
is
nessery, Daddy!”
The hot-eyed couple smirked.
“Elena-”
“Nessery!”
“Shh, shh-”
“Nesse – ”
“Elena! Shh! What do we say about La Bella?”
The child pouted.
Korvutz said, “In La Bella, we need to be… say it, darling.”
A tear dripped from Elena’s right eye.
Roland Korvutz dried it and kissed her cheek. “Darling, in La Bella we need to be
quiet.
”
“Darling darling,” said Elena. “That’s
Mommy.
”
“You’re my darling, too.”
“No!”
Korvutz colored. “Sir, sorry to bother you, you can go back-”
“He’s a
lonely.
Ms. Price say be nice to alonely people.”
“That’s at school, Elena.”
“Ms. Price say always be nice.”
I said, “I can sit until my food comes.”
“Elena, let this man be.”
Korvutz’s voice had risen. Elena’s face crumpled. He muttered something in what sounded like Russian and reached for her. She jumped off her chair sobbing. The young woman at the next table rolled her eyes.
“Elena-”
The child ran to the rear door. “I
go,
again!”
Korvutz said, “Sir, I apologize. She is very friendly.”
“I think she’s adorable.” Trying not to sound patronizing.
Korvutz’s stare said I hadn’t pulled it off.
I said, “I work with kids.”
“Doing what?”
“Child psychologist.”
“Okay,” he said, with utter disinterest. “Have a nice dinner.” Eyeing my table.
I fished out the brand-new LAPD consultant badge the chief had expressed to my house last night and placed it on the table in front of him. “When you have time, Mr. Korvutz.”
His mouth dropped open. Gray eyes behind thick lenses bulged. Despite the sparse light, his pupils had constricted to pinpoints. “What the-”
I pocketed the badge. “We need to talk. Not about you. About Dale Bright.”
He started to rise from his chair, thought better of it. Both hands clenched but remained on the table. “Get the hell out of-”
“I’ve come three thousand miles to talk to you. Dale Bright may have killed other people. Extremely messy murders.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I stood, shielding him from scrutiny by the neighboring couple or Gio. Kept a smile on my face to feign friendly conversation.
“Dale Bright. Former chairman of the tenant board on West Thirty-fifth.”
Korvutz’s shoulders crowded his neck. His fingers grazed a butter knife.
“You’re not under suspicion. Bright is. What I need is details, anything that can help locate him.”
Spittle collected at the corner of Korvutz’s mouth. “I know nothing.”
“Just a brief talk at your convenience-”
“Again they torment me.”
“If you cooperate and help us find Bright, it’ll end any-”
“I know
nothing.
” Extruding the words through clenched lips.
“Even impressions. What he was like, his habits.”
“Dry eye!” announced a voice behind us.
Elena danced to my side, wadded tissue in hand.
Roland Korvutz said, “This man needs to leave.”
“
No,
Da-”
“Yes!”
“Daddy make me
sad
!”
Korvutz shot up and took her by the arm. “Life is sad. Even you can learn that.”
He pulled the child, wailing, from the restaurant.
Puzzled, Gio watched the door slam.
The tenor on the soundtrack moaned.
The young woman said, “Bringing a kid to a place like this.”
The young man smoothed a hand-stitched lapel. “Especially
that
kind of kid. Let’s book.”
Elegant people walked refined dogs on Park Avenue.
Roland Korvutz’s building, on the west side of the street, was ten stories of somber gray stone, each level one apartment wide.
Gleaming brass rods supported a spotless maroon awning. A carpet of some weather-resistant material that looked good enough for my house led to dead-bolted, brass-framed glass doors. The
All Visitors Must Be Announced
sign was the same gleaming metal. So was the call button.
Inside the lobby, a maroon-clad doorman relaxed in a carved chair and watched me watch him. Hispanic, mustachioed, too young to be the retired cop Polito had spoken to.
As I approached, he stayed put. Light from a crystal chandelier ambered the black-and-white marble checkerboard lobby floor. Dark wood panels glowed like melting chocolate.
The doorman didn’t budge until I pushed the button. Even then, his movements were languid.
He opened the door a couple of inches. “Help you?”
“I’m here for Mr. Korvutz.”
“He expecting you?”
“I sure hope so.”
“Name?”
“Dr. Delaware.”
He closed the door, got on a phone. I cooled my heels under the awning, braced for refusal, maybe a warning to cease and desist. Felt guilty about cutting Elena’s dinner short, then thought about the Safrans and suppressed my regret.
The doorman hung up, cracked the door again. “He’s comin’ down.”
Roland Korvutz emerged moments later in brown shirtsleeves, baggy gray pants, and white sneakers, cradling a tiny white Pomeranian.
I prepared for rage. His face was blank.
The doorman fulfilled his primary job description and Korvutz walked through. He pointed south, kept moving, still holding the dog.
Small man but he pumped his legs fast.
I caught up. The Pomeranian yapped happily. Licked my hand.
Korvutz said, “Everyone thinks you’re a great guy.” Small man with a big baritone. In the comparative quiet his accent was more pronounced.
“Kids and dogs,” I said. “Sometimes they’re good judges of character.”
“Bullshit,” said Korvutz. “I had rottweiler, love everyone, the worst scumbags.”
“Maybe this dog’s smarter.”
“Gigi,” said Korvutz. “That’s her name.” He fastened a pink leash to the dog’s rhinestone collar, put her down.
“Like in the movie?”
“My wife like the movie.” Shaking his head.
Gigi raced. We covered a block. Korvutz waited as Gigi explored a lamppost.
I said, “Thanks for seeing me.”
No answer.
“Sorry for ruining your dinner.”
“It not you, it woulda been something else. My daughter. She love the place, but she not ready for it.”
“Too much pressure to be quiet.”
“Sometime Elena get what they call overstimulated.”
“I meant what I said. Cute kid by any standards.”
Korvutz stared at me. “You really a shrink?”
“Want to see my license?”
He laughed. “She my only one. Got married late.”
The dog pulled on the pink leash. Korvutz said, “Okay, okay,” and allowed her to lead.
Ten steps later: “That guy Bright really kill someone?”
“Maybe a bunch of people.”
“Crazy.”
“You never suspected him for the Safrans?”
He held up a palm. “Eh-eh, them I don’t talk about, no way. Brought me nothing but bullshit.”
“All I’m concerned with is Bright-”
“Bright I meet twice? Okay? Only thing I remember is he’s a big ass-kisser. Mr. K. this, Mr. K. that. Back then my buildings got four hundred fifty tenants, four seventy-five. I’m supposed to give a shit
‘Mr. K.’
?”
“What’d he ass-kiss about?”
“Trying to be my best friend, like I don’t know when I’m being rimmed.” Korvutz slowed, watched as the dog sniffed another post. Rearranged his eyeglasses. Gigi changed her mind. We resumed walking. “She take her time doing the business. C’mon, dog. I got homework to do.”
I repeated my question.
Korvutz said, “Bright had ideas. My benefit. ‘Have a
tenant
board, Mr. K., gonna make things smoother.’ I thought it was bullshit.”
“But you agreed.”
“Someone wanna help, it’s no skin off. I’m figuring Bright’s gonna ask for something, I want, I say no. Turns out it was nothing.”
“He never asked for anything?”
“Go figure.”
“No break on the rent?”
“Hey,” said Korvutz, “that I do before.”
“How much of a discount did you give him?”
“Who remembers – maybe coupla thousand total.”
“Goodness of your heart,” I said.
Korvutz turned to me. “Like I said, I met him twice. He want to help out, why not? In the end, it don’t help. Stupid tenant board.”
“No help with the condo-conversion.”
Scowling, he walked faster. “That building screwed me. Financed it with other properties, shoulda known better than to invest in that piece of shit. Then I got short, rates are getting worse, the banks not gonna lend unless they got you by the – the paperwork get all – crazy time it take this damn city to get something done. What the hell do you care? You want know about Dale Ass-kissey? That’s the story. Period.”
I said, “How’d he come to rent from you?”
“Referral.”
“From who?”
“What’s the difference?”
We walked until Gigi grew fascinated with the scents emanating from a trash can on the corner of Sixty-ninth.
“Go, already,” said Korvutz.
“Dog.”
I said, “Who referred Bright to you?”
“Again?”
“What’s the big secret?”
“I didn’t even want new tenants. You convert, you need it
empty.
Bright get guaranteed no-hassle, I say what the hell, okay. That’s my problem. Soft heart.”
Gigi moved from the trash can. We covered another half a block before I said, “Who guaranteed him?”
“This is a big goddamn deal, huh?”
“Sonia Glusevitch?”
Korvutz licked his lips. “You know Sonia?”
“I know she’s your cousin and she served on the board with Dale.”
“Cousin,” he said, as if learning a new word. “Her mother’s second husband is nephew of one of my stepsisters.”
“She knew Dale and recommended him.”
Reluctant nod.
“Was she involved with him?”
“Sonia was married.”
“Same question,” I said.
“I don’t nosy in other people’s business.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Look,” said Korvutz, “Sonia come to me, say she got friend need a place. I say six months, tops.”
“That could’ve fit Dale Bright’s needs perfectly.”
“What you mean?”
“He moves around,” I said.
“Good for him.”
“There’s no record of him after he left your building. Any idea where he went?”
“I should know?”
“Where’d Sonia meet him?”
“That I know,” said Korvutz. “Doing a show.”
“What kind of show?”
“Sonia want to be actress. That time, she has terrible English, she a little better now. One year I’m here from Belarus, I’m talking perfect. Two years, I got the Puerto Rican Spanish, five years I’m talking to Chinese people. Hasta luego ying chang chung.”
“Sonia has no gift for language.”
“Sonia?” Chuckle. “What they say, not swiftest knife in pantry?”
“But she thought she could act.”
“Wanna be big star.”
“Movies or stage plays?”
“Even now,” said Korvutz, “she go to classes at the New School. Paint pictures, make pots, ashtrays, candleholders.”
“Artistic.”
“Live off divorce money, you got time take lessons.”
“Rich ex.”
“Plastic surgeon. He do her boobies, like what he do, marry her, get to look at it all the time.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who remembers?”
“He marries your cousin and you don’t remember?”
“Jewish guy,” he said. “They get married in Anguilla, no one invited. Five years, she move to a big house in Lawrence, then divorce.”
“She still gets alimony?”
“She live good.”
“Where’s this doctor’s office?”
“Also the Five Towns.”
“Which one?”
“Maybe Lawrence, maybe Cedarhurst.”
“You don’t remember his name.”
“Jew name, some kind of Witz, maybe Markowitz, maybe Leibowitz – no, no, Lefkowitz. Bob
Lefkowitz.
Plays tennis.” Miming a wide swing.
“So Sonia was seeing Dale Bright while she was married to Dr. Lefkowitz.”
Silence.
I said, “You already told me she was.”
“What I
say
is she tell me Bright needs apartment.”
“Living with her husband but she kept an apartment on West Thirty-fifth?”
Korvutz looked away. The cords in his neck were miniature bridge struts. “I give her apartment, so what?”
Gigi beelined for another can.
Korvutz said, “Here we go again.”
I said, “What show was Sonia in when she met Dale Bright?”
“Who remembers?”
“Did you see it?”
“She keep saying come. For free. Finally, I have to go. Some stupid place.”
“Downtown?”
“East Village, no theater. Room over a Mexican restaurant, they set up chairs, piano, black drapes. Everyone dressed black, black bathrobes, black hoods. The whole time they run around chanting. At the end, someone throws up. Then you clap.”
“What was the name of the show?”
“Maybe Black Bathrobes and Throwing Up?” Snickering at his own wit.
I pulled out the list I’d gotten from the newspaper files, began reading off titles.
“Yeah,” said Korvutz. “That’s the one,
Dark Nose Holiday.
What the hell does that mean,
Dark Nose
? I ask Sonia. She say it’s climb into someone’s brain. Like a tunnel here.” Wiggling a nostril. “In here the truth.” Laughing. “Achoo, eh? No more truth.”
Gigi checked out the flower bed in a towering brick building. I examined the listings for
Dark Nose Holiday.
The
Times
was the only paper to capsulize the play.
“Neo-absurdist drama exploring mystical meta-motivations.”
No cast or credits cited.
I said, “How many people were in the play?”
“This is important?”
“Could be.”
“How many? Four? I don’t know. Not a lot.”
“Was Dale Bright one of the actors?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I told you, hoods, the faces you don’t see, maybe it was him, maybe Mickey Mouse.”
“Sonia definitely said she’d met him at the production.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Nothing.”
“When the Safrans disappeared-”
“Uh-uh, no, no, I told you, we don’t go there. They almost ruined my life.”
“The Safrans?”
“The cops. Harassing, I try to do business, they come in the office with badges, bye-bye business. This Italian guy, look like a gangster. Harass ’cause I’m Belarusssian, want to know about smuggling, Moscow Mafia. Stupid.”
“Prejudiced,” I said.
“I keep telling him, look, you not going to find nothing ’cause there is nothing to find.”
Gigi trotted to a discarded cardboard box and lifted her leg.
Korvutz saluted the air above his head. “Finally, dog.”
I said, “The Safrans only interest me because-”
“Good night and good luck. Only reason I talk to you first place I don’t want you bothering my kid no more. Also, I got nothing to hide. You gonna be back in L.A. soon?”
“Soon enough.”
“Say hello to the palm trees.”
“Talking about the Safrans really bothers you.”
Keeping his mouth shut, he blew out air, ballooning the skin around his lips.
I said, “If you’ve got nothing to hide-”
The air escaped in a hiss. “Maybe they fly to the moon. Maybe Ass-kiss do something to them. Do I give a shit? Not even a little one – not even a Gigi shit.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” I said.
“Hey,” he said, “don’t put words in. Why I gonna cry for them? They fight me just to fight me. I run away from all that.”
“From fighting?”
“From
communism –
little slow dog, finish
finish
aready.”
“The Safrans were communists.”
“Bother someone else, mister.”
“Is Sonia in town?”
“I should know?”
“Call her. If she can talk to me right now, I’m finished with you.”
“You finished anyway.”
“Call her.”
“Why I do you a favor?”
“Your kid and your dog like me.”
He glared. Laughed. “Why not, Sonia recommend stupid ass-kisser to me, I recommend
you
to
her.
”
He left me outside his building, handed the Pomeranian to the doorman, used the house phone. Brief chat; thumbs-up okay.
I mouthed, “Thanks.” Korvutz gave no sign he’d noticed as he crossed the lobby.
The doorman followed. Impassive, as the dog licked his face.
