Nothing Personal: A Novel of Wall Street (30 page)

“It may not have anything. But I do want to ask you some more questions. I understand your father was in town that day. Did you see him?”

“What? My dad? No, I didn’t see him. I didn’t even know he’d been in town until the next day. He was home by the time we left the AC dinner, I’m sure. How about we meet in my office tomorrow or the day after?”

“Are you avoiding me?”

“That’s a ridiculous question.” Warren felt the anger rise. “Actually, it’s outrageous.”

“You’re right. Maybe you should bring a lawyer.” Wittlin’s voice suddenly went hard.

“Hey, Detective, I don’t need a lawyer, and you don’t have to insinuate anything. You wanna piss someone off, catch the guy who killed Bill Dougherty.”

“Well, Mr. Hament, that’s just about exactly what I’m trying to do.”

Warren was surprised at himself, how angry he’d gotten, and how quickly. “Listen, Detective, I’ll be happy to meet with you anytime. We have our office Christmas party tomorrow night, and I’ll be free anytime before then or the day after. You just let me know what fits you best. I would prefer, if you can, to have you come to my office or home because I haven’t got a lot of free time to get away from the office. I expect you can get away easier than I can, since this is your job. Am I right?” Warren adopted a formal, conciliatory tone.

“Okay, Mr. Hament. I’ll call you tomorrow and set it up.”

“Super. No, make that super-duper.” Warren clicked off, not at all pleased.

*   *   *

The Seventh Regiment Armory has the best address of any National Guard unit in the country. It sits, like a squat, medieval fortress, on Park Avenue between Sixty-Sixth and Sixty-Seventh Streets, completely surrounded by elegant prewar apartment buildings, home to New York’s wealthy and its socialites. While most of the other armories in the city often double as homeless centers or soup kitchens, the Seventh Regiment, befitting its setting, moonlights as a tennis club and a party space. Four times a year, it houses antique shows, where $250,000 commodes and $500,000 paintings are picked over by women in $15,000 designer outfits at opening parties generally hosted by fabulous interior designers. Once a year, however, the armory is the venue for the Weldon Brothers Christmas party.

At about five thirty in the afternoon, the first waves of black sedans started dropping their passengers at the steps to the armory. The radio-car drivers would collect a voucher, then make a U-turn down Park Avenue, returning to Weldon’s offices for the next crew. Some people arrived on foot, and several buses disgorged their loads. By six, the party was in full swing on the expansive floor, with a loud rock-and-roll band echoing in the cavernous space, four bars, and about a dozen tables loaded with food. Before heading up, Warren had spent a half hour with Wittlin and discovered that the detective had made little progress, except for an account that a scruffy, destitute-looking man had been seen either stealing or driving a BMW in the neighborhood of the NYAC shortly after the murder. Warren owned no car, or at least none registered in New York State. Wittlin had checked. Warren assured Wittlin he wasn’t hiding a BMW in another state and had certainly not engaged in any used-car transactions while in California. The detective admitted Ken Hament seemed to have left the city well before the murder, and that Wittlin was just looking at every possibility. He had little to go on, and Warren was slightly annoyed that Wittlin had made it seem so important that they talk. Warren made the party hardly late at all.

Anson Combes stood apart from the throng of people at the bar, watching. The horn-rimmed glasses he wore constantly slipped down the thin bridge of his fine nose, and every minute or two, he’d push them back into place with his index finger. One of the new Finance associates, a heavyset Stanford business school student who had been working eighteen-hour days since June, had delivered a gin and tonic to Combes, who had thanked the young man and briefly talked to him about a new deal, complimenting him on his performance. The younger man drifted away, and Anson seemed lost in thought, the bright light of the ironic disco ball reflecting off his glasses. Something evidently amused him, and he let out a guttural snort.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, or whomever, I kind of feel sorry for them. I know that snort of yours.” Warren had come up behind him and was chewing on a stick of beef teriyaki. “It kind of sounds like tearing flesh.”

“Funny, or maybe ironic, you should say that.” Combes nodded at the stick of charred meat.

“Good party?”

Combes scratched his ear and let out a nervous titter. “Well, it was, right up until now. You?” Anson’s tone of voice was brutal—it conveyed pure hatred, hidden behind a thin veneer of good-natured ribbing.

“So far. Say, how’s Philippa doing? I saw her on Madison Avenue the other day. She must be due any day. I thought she looked terrific.” Warren had been surprised when Combes had gotten married. He’d been divorced twice and, as Kerry Bowen had recounted, broken off an engagement with a gorgeous twenty-two-year-old associate just three days before the wedding a couple years ago. His new wife was pleasant, in her midthirties, but seemed antithetical in every way to the thin, model type Combes usually went for. She’d been four months pregnant at the wedding, which took place in the late summer.

“What?” Anson looked confused.

“I said that I saw Philippa—your wife, remember?—the other day, shopping on Madison Avenue, and I thought she was carrying the baby very well. She looked terrific.” Warren had to shout a little as the band had picked up the volume.

“Yeah, she looks great—for a fat fucking pig.” Anson snorted. “I call her the Waddler. It’s just gross.” Anson snorted again, and his glasses slipped down as he scratched his ear. He pushed them up.

“Jesus, Anson. Jesus H. Christ.” Warren looked at Combes with disbelief. Stan Heifitz, a corporate trader, with his back turned to them, choked on whatever he was eating, having heard what Anson had just said about his wife. His savagery went beyond just business. Warren wanted to just get away from him. “Umm … I think I’ll go ask Bev for a dance.” Bev Gershon was the heavyset, maternal woman who ran the closing department. She was eternally single, ate constantly, always had a ready smile and a big laugh, and loved to get drunk and dance. She was across the floor, talking to a group of trading assistants, throwing back her curly hair and roaring in laughter, her glasses, attached to her neck with a beaded chain as always, bouncing on her chest.

“Yeah. That’s a good idea. I could use a dance too.” Combes looked around. “Maybe I can find that girlfriend of yours, Bonnie.” Warren had been uncomfortable when a girl he’d dated for a few months back in college, an attractive woman from Hong Kong, wound up getting a job in the syndicate area. Nobody knew they had once dated, and her familiarity with him had caused some comment. People speculated that Warren had a crush on her. He’d taken some teasing, most of it jealous and playful. He knew Combes had been hitting on her for a while and also knew Combes figured Warren was a frustrated suitor. This undoubtedly made Anson even more interested in bedding her, his peculiar one-upsmanship driving him and his marriage inconsequential. Bonnie was a grown-up and could make her own decisions. Warren let Anson think he was winning this game.

“Yup. Well, catch you later, Anson.” Warren spun on his heels and wandered toward a group of salesmen who surrounded a waiter with a tray of shrimp puffs. He saw Larisa across the room talking to Anson’s secretary, Annlois, and felt a slight pang. Larisa looked fantastic, in a fitted suit, her hair let down from its usual work ponytail or bun.

Dutch Goering had one hors d’oeuvre in his mouth, and two reloads in his left hand. He grabbed Warren as he walked by, spilling a little of the vodka from the cup in his right hand. Warren hadn’t had a drink since he and Sam had drained a bottle of champagne sitting on a rock watching the seals play in Monterey two weeks before. They’d had a great two days together. Thinking about her made him thirsty.

“Hey.
Hey, Anson!
” Goering shouted over the music, but Combes didn’t hear. “Aw, fuck. I wanted to know how it went with Golden State yesterday. That fucking psycho sees my buddy Dick Leahy and doesn’t even call me in. Fuck him.” Warren noted that Combes had met with First Cal again, this time in New York, and, as usual, completely ignored the professional etiquette of letting the salesman who covered the account know.

“Hey, Dutchie boy, easy on the sauce. We don’t want the National Guard to be called out to their own armory. “Goering was notorious for his inability to hold liquor and his love for pouring it down.

“Hey, Hament, blow me, okay? I can outdrink you any day, you little Semitic pussy.” Dutch was slurring his words only mildly, a sign that this was his first drink.

Warren seized the opportunity. “Yeah? Five hundred bucks says we both drink a glass of vodka and I can stand on one foot longer than you. What do you say, O brownshirt
Jugendmeister
?” Warren poked him in the ribs with the skewer from the chicken kebab.

“No fucking way. Let’s do it.” Goering knocked Warren’s hand away.

“Right away,
Führer
.” Warren made a beeline for the bar, where he got one straight vodka, and one light vodka and water, no ice. He walked back and offered the vodka and water to Goering.

“Give me that one, scumbag, I know your tricks.” Goering grabbed the straight vodka. He saluted Warren with the cup, and they both chugged them empty.

“Oh, shit, why’d you go and do that?” Mike Barnes, a thin, well-dressed black man said as he watched in horror. “We’d better call the cops now and get it over with.”

“Don’t give up on him yet, Mikey. Pretty boy’s got money on the line here. Maybe he’ll be able to hold on this time.” Warren smiled.

Barnes rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“Hey, I’m shick of you fuckersh making fun of me. Ohhh, fuuuck! Look at the body on that fucking bitch over there. Fuuucck! How’d you like to have her sucking on your fucking giant bone, huh? Nah, you wouldn’t like that at all!” Goering threw back his head and guffawed, his perfect, white teeth catching the light. He slapped Barnes on the shoulder.

“Hey, Dutch, I don’t think that’s a woman at all. I think that’s one of the waiters.” Barnes laughed. Warren was amazed at how much Goering got away with. Barnes acted like a buttoned-down Ivy Leaguer most of the time, like a badass gangbanger when he wanted to be cool, and a good old boy when he wanted to fit in. He accepted Goering’s racist rants in good humor, which they were, but Warren knew even he must have wanted to knock Goering’s teeth out just then.

“Yah, well, you just wish you could get the slack a good-lookin’ white guy like me gets, don’tcha?” Goering roared again and made sucking motions with his hands and lips.

“Christ, Dutchie, you sure know how to sweet-talk. Your wife like it when you talk to her like that?” Barnes handed Goering a napkin to wipe off the vodka he’d sloshed onto his sleeve.

“Fuck that bitch. What’s she going to do? She’s got her cute little hubby-wubby and his nice fat paycheck. So what if I like to get a sweet fucking piece of ass? What’s she going to do? Leave me? Take da baby-waby and go ’way? Aw,
boo-hoo
!” Goering mimed wiping his eyes with both hands. “
Boo-hoo!
All my fuckin’ dough’s in the Channel Islands. She couldn’ find it with a fuckin’ telescope! Fuck her.” He waved his hands in disgust.

“Poster boy for the American family.” Barnes smiled.

“Hey, stud, you wanna just pay me the five hundred, or you want to give it a go?” Warren was perched on his left foot, the right one hovering six inches off the ground. His balance was perfect.

Goering scowled and tried vainly to keep his equilibrium, but he couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds. Hament laughed and waved him off. “Save your money. You’ll probably need it to make bail later tonight.” He knew Goering would never pay on the bet anyway.

“I tell you what I wanna do.” Goering was having a little difficulty standing even on two feet.

“What’s that?” Barnes asked.

“I want to fuck that little Chinee piece of ass Combes is trying to jam.” Goering nodded to the dance floor, where Combes was dancing with Bonnie.

Warren looked over and smiled. The two were grinding slowly against each other. The cute associate and the married managing director with his first child on the way. There was nothing like the sight of true romance to gladden even the jaded heart.

thirty-four

Some blocks in Greenwich Village lend the city a vaguely small-town feel. In summer, the trees are almost as tall as the brownstones, and their droopy leaves make a dappled shade that cools the asphalt. In the winter evenings, with a coating of snow, the streetlamps form pools of light, and the smell of wood fires wafts down from the old chimneys and kindles memories of other places, with a muffled serenity that echoes with the reverberation of faded hoofbeats and an era before time began to move so quickly.

Anson Combes had ridden in a cab to such a spot, the nobly named King Street in the West Village. It was a quiet night, and the couple were slightly drunk, intoxicated more by the sexual tension than the liquor. Bonnie Chian had decided this was not going to be a mistake. Anson was a good-looking man and kept himself in excellent shape. She knew he’d recently remarried and also knew that the word was he hadn’t wanted to. His wife’s Catholicism and his position had conspired to leave him no choice when Philippa turned up pregnant.

Having a managing director in her thrall, especially an attractive and dynamic one such as Combes, couldn’t hurt. She hadn’t slept with anyone for a long time, and the fumbling come-ons from the younger men at Weldon had gotten boring. Half of them were terrified of even approaching her because of the new, fierce morality enforced by Human Resources, at least on junior employees, and the other half were intimidated by her Eurasian good looks. Combes had an arrogant self-assurance that made accepting his offer of a ride home easy. He expected her to say yes, and his kisses and caresses in the car were clearly foreplay, not entreaties.