Death Wish (2 page)

It seemed to conclude Dundee's anecdote-for-the-day; he cleared his throat, and when he resumed, it was in his getting-down-to-business voice. “Now. About Ira Nemserman. The damn fool's done it again.”

“Oh Christ.”

Dundee slid a couple of sheets of folded paper from his pocket and tossed them on top of the anti-computer manual. “Read it and bleed.”

Paul had a look. Ira Nemserman was one of the self-made men. He had learned to count money in the millions but to him any numbers which weren't preceded by dollar signs were numbers that had to be computed on fingers and toes, and usually inaccurately. Obviously Nemserman had typed the two sheets himself—a capsule summary of income and outgo for the past quarter—and someone, probably Dundee, had circled two items in red: a common-stock block purchase on January sixteenth and the sale of the same block on June nineteenth.

Paul said, “I don't believe it. I just don't believe it.”

“He's a child. You know that.”

“A filthy-rich child. It's not as if this is the first time.”

“I think you'd better get him on the phone, Paul.”

“God, I'd like to wring his neck.”

“Before you do, remember the size of the fees he pays us.” Dundee got up to go. “And don't forget to read that book.”

When Dundee was gone Paul reached for the phone and pushed the intercom button. “Get Ira Nemserman for me, will you, Thelma?”

It was ten minutes before she buzzed him back. “I have Mr. Nemserman for you now.”

“Good girl.”

“Benjamin?”

“Mr. Nemserman,” he said wearily. “Where are you?”

The voice sounded like lumps of concrete rattling down a construction chute. “Steam room at the gym. What can I do for you?”

“Can you talk?”

“Sure I can talk. I got no secrets from anybody. You ought to know that—you're my accountant, haw.”

Paul closed his eyes and squeezed his temples. “Mr. Nemserman, I've got your quarterly figures in front of me here.”

“Good. I did a nice job for you this time. Everything organized good and neat. Hell, Benjamin, I do three quarters of your work for you—you ought to cut your fee, you know that?”

“That's funny, Mr. Nemserman, because I was just thinking about doubling it.”

“Haw.”

“You've got a problem.”

“Will you listen to this.
He
tells
me
I've got a problem. Benjamin, right now I've got so many problems that if anything else happens today it'll be at least ten days before I can worry about it. What with the Dow Jones down more than eight points today, the Exchange Index down thirty-six cents——”

“Mr. Nemserman, you're trying to claim a capital gain on this block of Conniston Industries, is that right?”

“So?”

“You bought it January sixteenth, you held it until June nineteenth, and you sold it for a gain of four hundred and forty-two thousand dollars.”

“That's what is says on my paper, don't it?”

“Yes, sir. That's what it says. You're sure there's no mistake about those dates? You couldn't have written June when you meant July?”

“Now why the hell would I have waited for July when the stock was up that high in June?”

“Mr. Nemserman, from January sixteenth to June nineteenth is precisely five months and three days.”

“
Five
mon—oh my God.”

Paul rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “That's right. You've declared a capital gain, and your tax on that would be a little over a hundred and ten thousand, but actually this is straight unearned income because you didn't hold the securities a minimum of six months. So your total tax bill on the sale is likely to run you somewhere around two hundred and seventy thousand more than you figured.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” There was a moment of silence, either for thought or for prayer; finally Nemserman said, “What do I do about it?”

“Pay it.”

“Nuts. I'd sooner go to jail.”

“They probably could arrange that.”

“Come on, Benjamin, you're the whiz kid. Tell me what to do.”

“Well, you probably know the dodges as well as I do.”

“The hell. Who's got time to read all that crappy fine-print?” The man had an annual gross income in the neighborhood of a million dollars and didn't have time to read the Internal Revenue Code. Paul shook his head. Nemserman growled, “What do you suggest?”

“Well, of course you've got the standard gambits. Inflate your expenses grotesquely—they may buy part of it. You could cut thirty-five thousand off your tax bill by getting married, of course.”

“Forget that.”

“You could establish some trusts, taxable at the twenty-six percent rate. That would cut you back to the capital-gain level. It's a little late in the year to try that, but if you moved fast you might swing it.”

“Yeah?”

“Or foundations. You can set up your own foundation and donate money to it, and then borrow the money back from the foundation.”

“How do I do that?”

“IRS Form Ten-twenty-three. You fill it out and send it in to apply for tax-exempt charitable status. If you can make your foundation look religious or educational or charitable, you're in.”

“What are you waiting for then? Set me up a foundation.”

“It would be better if you had your lawyer do that, Mr. Nemserman.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, okay, Benjamin. Thanks. I'll get right on it. Christ, they're bandits, these federal guys, you know that? Christ, what a puking mess we're in in this country.”

“Well, maybe you'll get a sympathetic computer.”

“Haw.” Nemserman hung up on him without amenities and Paul leaned back in the chair filled with amused disbelief. After a moment he uttered a jocular bark of laughter. He laced his hands behind his neck and reared his head back lazily.

The smog was burning off the river and he saw a freighter fighting its way up against the current, screws churning the water. The electric plant was making a lot of smoke on the Queens side of the river.

The headache was gone; he felt good. Forty-seven years old, a little overweight maybe but in good health; all you really needed was a few laughs and with friends like Sam Kreutzer and Bill Dundee, and clients like Nemserman, the requirement wasn't hard to meet.

He reached for the stack in his In box.

The intercom.

“It's your son-in-law, Mr. Benjamin? Mr. Tobey?” Urgency in Thelma's voice. “He says it's an emergency?”

He punched the lighted button on the phone, more puzzled than alarmed. “Hello, Jack?”

“Pop, I—something's happened.” Jack Tobey's voice was metallic—emotion held severely in check.

“What is it?”

“I don't—oh, hell, there's no way. Look, they got mugged. Right in the fucking apartment. I'm on my way over to——”

“Jack, what the hell are you talking about?”

“They—I'm sorry, Pop. I'll try to make sense. I just got a phone call. Carol—and Mom. Somebody broke in, beat them up, God knows why. They're taking them in an ambulance over to emergency receiving at Roosevelt Hospital—you know where it is?”

“On West Fifty-ninth?”

“Yes. I think—I think Mom's pretty bad. Carol told the cops to call me.”

Cops. Paul blinked and gripped the receiver hard. “But what happened? How are they? Did you call Doctor Rosen?”

“I tried. He's out of town.”

“My God. But what
hap
pened
?
”

“I don't know. I'm on my way up there. The cop was pretty brusque on the phone.”

“But what—”

“Look, Pop, we'd better not waste time on the telephone. I'll meet you up there.”

“All right.”

He put down the phone and stared at the freckled back of his hand.

3

He followed the signs to Emergency and found Jack sitting tense with one shoulder raised, twisting his knuckles. Jack looked up without recognition.

“I'm sorry. My cab got hung up in traffic. You must have been here quite a while already.” He felt he had to apologize to someone.

Jack said, “You may as well sit down. They won't let us in there.”

People on the hard wall-benches sat holding minor wounds and invisible illnesses. The room had a smell and a sound; the sound was a muted chorus of agony but it was the smell that Paul couldn't stand. Hospital staff in dirty white clothes kept hurrying in and out. An empty ambulance pulled away from the open ramp. There must have been twenty people in the room, most of them sitting, a few rushing in and out, and except for one woman who sat blindly holding a little boy's hand, none of them seemed to pay any attention to one another. Pain was private, not for sharing.

A cop sat on the bench beside Jack. Paul sat down on the other side of him. Jack said, “The officer's kind enough to stay and see if he can help. This is my father-in-law.”

The cop extended a hand. He had a tough black face. “Joe Charles.”

“Paul Benjamin. Can you tell me—what's happened?”

“I was telling Mr. Tobey here. We didn't want to question Mrs. Tobey too much, she's pretty shaken up.”

“What about my wife?” He said it quietly; he wanted to scream it. But you talked in muffled tones in a room full of strangers in anguish.

A man sat holding an injured arm against his belly, bleeding onto his lap. Paul wrenched his eyes off him.

The cop was saying, “We don't know. She was still alive when they took her out of the ambulance.”

She was still alive
—the implications of the cop's choice of words set the pulsebeat drumming in Paul's temples.

A young man in white came into the room in company with a nurse. The young man beckoned to the woman with the small boy. The woman took the boy by the hand and followed the intern and the nurse out of the room. The man with the injured arm watched them until they were gone. Blood kept soaking into his trousers. After a moment the cop said, “Excuse me,” and got up to walk over to the man, dragging a handkerchief out of his pocket.

Paul stared at his son-in-law: Jack's face was gray. He didn't seem compelled to talk so Paul prompted him. “What did he say?”

“Not much.” Too stunned to be drawn out? Paul tried again:

“Did you talk to Carol?”

“Yes. She didn't say much that made sense. She seems to be in shock.”

“And—Esther?”

Jack shook his head. “Look, it's very bad.”

“For God's sake tell me.”

“They beat them both up.”

“Who? Why?” He leaned forward and gripped Jack's wrist. “You're a lawyer. Think like one. Testify like a witness, can't you? Tell me.”

Jack shook his head as if to clear it. “Pop, I just don't know. Two men, maybe more. Somehow they got into your apartment. I don't know if they broke in or if Mom or Carol let them in. I don't know what they wanted there. I don't know what they did or why, except that they—attacked—them both. Oh, not rape, I don't mean rape. That wasn't it. They just—beat them up.”

“With their hands?”

“I guess so. There was no blood that I could see. I don't think they could have used knives or anything, there would have been blood, wouldn't there?”

“Who called the police? You?”

“No. Carol called the police. Then the police called me.”

“When did it happen?”

“I don't know.” Jack looked at his watch and shot his cuff absently. “Couple of hours ago now, I guess.”

Paul tightened his grip on Jack's wrist. “What about Esther? What did he mean, still alive?”

Jack's chin dropped; he stared at his shoes. “Pop, they—they must have twisted her neck as if she were a rag doll.”

A nurse came in and touched the cop on the arm. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to stop the man bleeding.”

“It's not arterial, officer. And it's better to let him bleed a little than to put an unsterilized handkerchief on the wound.”

“Miss, I've seen enough cases of shock from loss of blood. Now I know you people are swamped. I'm only trying to help out.”

“Thank you, then. That'll be all.” The nurse took the injured man by the arm and led him away. The man looked over his shoulder at the cop but never changed expression.

The cop came back to the bench. Jack said, “What happened to him?”

“He was in a bar. Somebody broke a bottle in half and carved his arm. No particular reason—he didn't even know the man. These hot summer days people go a little crazy. But I guess you know enough about that.” The cop seemed to feel an obligation to apologize for everything that had happened in the world. Paul understood how he felt. It was as if whatever happened was your fault and you ought to try and make amends.

Paul said, “Can you tell me anything about this?”