Two Jakes (52 page)

“That
jacket would hide a Jackson Pollack.”

Harvey
laughed, then turned serious.

“Listen,
Jake. Be careful. Anyone who would kill a kid won’t stop at anything.”

“I’m
not too worried. If the people behind his daughter’s murder were afraid to go
directly after Pearsall, they’d probably be crazy to go after someone looking
into it. I’ve told a lot of people what I’m doing.”

“The
Fresh Kills landfill is full of guys who underestimated the scumbags out here.”

“Great
pizza,” Scarne said when they shook hands.

“It’s
the ovens.”

CHAPTER
14 – BOOMFIELD

The
next day Scarne called Sandra Doyle, the reporter. They agreed to meet for
lunch at Rod’s, a popular Jersey shore hangout in Sea Girt. On the way there,
he left the Garden State Parkway and cut over to Route 35, and drove through
Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Bradley Beach, Avon by the Sea, Belmar and Spring
Lake, towns that brought back memories of raucous summer weekends with Dudley
Mack.

Rod’s
was a classic pub, with a huge oval bar surrounded by sturdy high-back swivel
chairs. He managed to find a quiet spot away from the TV, which was tuned to
the Golf Channel. Scarne loved golf, but he had no use for the poorly disguised
30-minute infomercial where a bunch of Champions Tour players, instructors and
“amateur” golfers were shilling the latest miracle putter. The “amazing new
club” – which looked like one of the tools the torturer in
Braveheart
used
on William Wallace – featured “space-age technology” to “eliminate the
three-putt.” And it only cost “three easy payments of $79.99.”

With
a closet full of putters, Scarne spent the time more productively, sipping a
beer and debating the latest incomprehensible New York Knicks trade with the
bartender. A very pregnant woman walked in. She scanned the bar, locked eyes
with him and walked over.

“Dr.
Livingston, I presume?”

“It’s
Jake.” He stood and pulled out a seat for her. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t
realize…”

The
bartender walked over.

“Hey,
Sandy, the usual?”

She
nodded, and he poured her a glass of cabernet as she took off her jacket with a
little help from Scarne. She hung her purse on a hook under the bar and clinked
glasses with him. She saw the look on his face and laughed.

“Don’t
worry. My doc says it’s OK. I’m only having one. I mean, one drink. I’m having
twins, so you’d think I’d rate two glasses, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m
just sorry you had to come out and meet me. I certainly would have come to you
had I known.”

“What
century are you from? I’ve been driving up and down the shore doing interviews
with people losing their homes. I’m not due for a month.”

“Who
do you work for now?”

“
Asbury
Park Press
.”

“Good
paper. You must be happy you landed on your feet. Not the greatest job
environment for journalists.”

“Well,
I was freelancing until two months ago, but I just got put on staff.”

“Congratulations.
You must be good.”

“I
am good.” She smiled wickedly. “And, of course, it helped that the city editor
is the father of these little darlings. We married last month.”

“Way
to go, girl,” the bartender said as he set down a bowl of peanuts.

“Double
congratulations,” Scarne said, laughing. “I won’t offer you another drink, but
how does lunch sound?”

“Food
always sounds good.” She patted her stomach. “I wonder why!”

Drinks
in hand, they moved to a nearby table by a window. As they walked over Scarne
took her in. Sandy Doyle was a very good-looking woman. Tall and, except for
her belly, thin, with strong, shapely legs and a fine-featured, though sensuous
face surrounded by tight blond curls. He suspected it didn’t take much prodding
for her new husband to do the right thing. A waitress came over. They ordered
clam chowder, New England for her, Manhattan for him, and two Reubens. Scarne
asked for another beer; Doyle a Coke.

They
made small talk. The chowders came. Steaming hot. Scarne burnt his lip.

“Put
more oyster crackers in it,” Doyle said. “You said on the phone that you need
some background on NASCAR on Staten Island.”

“That’s
right. I understand that Bob Pearsall had you and another reporter looking into
some things. Come across anything that didn’t seem quite right?”

“Why
does a private eye want to know?”

Scarne
realized he’d have to be careful.

“Well,
the project is controversial. I’ve been hired to look for surprises.”

“You
working for the people who want the track or the ones who don’t?”

“Sorry.
I can’t tell you.”

“Then
why should I tell you anything?”

“Professional
courtesy? Surely, a reporter can respect someone protecting his sources.”

“I’m
the reporter, not you.”

“I
read
The New York Times
every day?”

“Un,
unh.”

But
she smiled.

“The
lunch?”

“I
love the cheesecake here.”

“You’ve
got it. So, what can you tell me? Or do I have to get some takeout for you,
too?”

She
laughed.

“Actually,
you had me at the Reuben. But there’s not much to tell. We had just started
looking into some stuff when Mr. Pearsall had a family tragedy and left the
paper.”

Scarne
liked the fact that she called her former boss by his formal name.

“Yes,
I know about that. Was Pearsall for or against the track?”

Their
sandwiches came and they moved their soup bowls to the side.

“He
thought it was idiotic,” she said, taking a bite of her Reuben, “with all the
other problems it would bring. I mean, on the face of it, putting a NASCAR
track with an 80,000-seat stadium on the North Shore of Staten Island is nuts.
I mean, sometimes it takes people an hour to go 10 blocks to get a loaf of
bread, the traffic is so bad. The Goethals Bridge, just north of the site,
would get the bulk of the traffic headed there. It was built in the Cretaceous
Period, for Christ’s sake, and can’t handle what’s going over it now. It’s two
lanes in each direction and if you try to pass a semi, it’s suicide. After
Robert Moses built the Verrazano Bridge, Staten Island became a major
north-south road conduit between New England and the rest of the U.S. Add the
traffic from Jersey and points west and forget about it! I spoke to residents
who were up in arms about the idea. Some of them remembered when you could
drive from one end of Staten Island, St. George to Tottenville – that’s 14
miles – without hitting a stoplight or stop sign. Now you can’t do that without
hitting a pedestrian.”

“What
do you think of the idea?”

She
took a spoonful of soup.

“Look,
Staten Island has a lot of problems that need addressing before it needs
NASCAR, but I’m not one of those NIMBY yahoos who thinks all progress is bad. I
come from upstate New York, around Oswego. There is no industry to speak of.
Everybody was out of work even before things went into the tank economically.
They’d love a project like this.”

Scarne
tried his soup again. The oyster crackers had helped.

“Oswego
isn’t in the middle of the biggest metropolitan area in the world.”

“I
know, but the land NASCAR wants to use is basically unusable for anything else.
Do you know what a ‘brownfield’ is?”

“Land
contaminated by chemicals or other pollutants?”

Both
Scarne and the reporter had a good rhythm going, alternating soup and Reuben.
He was having a good time.

“Roger.
The whole North Shore of Staten Island is basically a ‘brownfield.’ Abandoned
oil tank farms, lumber yards, service stations, junk yards, chemical plants,
shipyards, you name it, somebody has been dumping crap into the ground. Some of
it can be reclaimed, but it’s costly. The site NASCAR purchased, called the
Bloomfield Dump, is 675 acres of environmental catastrophe. It’s where the BATX
oil tank farm was located and where an empty LNG tank caught fire and killed 40
workers in 1973. Maybe you remember that? The LNG crowd had claimed that
putting a huge liquid gas tank inside New York City was perfectly safe. Then
they put in a thimbleful of LNG to test the tank’s integrity, then drained it.
One of the workers lit a cigarette and it blew up like Krakatoa. Headline
writers had a field day calling it ‘Boomfield.’ Local residents have been
waiting more than 30 years for the city to do something with it. At first they
were promised a park.”

“They
always promise people a park. Maybe that’s what Pearsall wanted. I understand
he was a bit of a crusader.”

“You’re
not supposed to use that word.”

“Balls,”
Scarne said. “Pardon me.”

“Double
balls,” Doyle said. “I hate all this political correctness crap. Anyway, Mr.
Pearsall wouldn’t torpedo something just because he didn’t like it. It would
have to smell.”

They
finished their Reubens and Doyle tried – and failed – to suppress a satisfied
belch.

“Pardon
moi. Pregnancy prerogative.”

“Did
it?”

“Did
it what?”

“Smell.”

“Well,
he thought something else was going on. He knew Staten Island like the back of
his hand and didn’t like some of the people involved.”

“Dr.
Nathan Bimm, to be exact.”

She
looked at him.

“I’m
not your first stop, am I?”

“I
spoke to Ev Harvey. He filled me in.’

Then
Scarne told Doyle about his encounter with Bimm at Borough Hall.

“Harvey
said Bimm…” He decided to leave out the police reporter’s colorful phrasing. “…
is close to the Borough President.”

“As
close as an enema,” Doyle said.

So
much for tact, Scarne thought. Must be the pregnancy.

“Can
I get you two anything else?”

It
was the waitress, who began clearing their places. Scarne ordered two pieces of
cheesecake, and coffees.

“Harvey
told me some other stuff. That you were looking at Bimm’s real estate dealings
in both Bloomfield and Stapleton, and that Pearsall thought there might be a
connection. He also said that he was getting the feeling that the original
ardor Bimm and Borough Hall had for the NASCAR track has cooled of late.”

“Really.
That’s interesting. They were all so gung ho in the beginning, even if they
pretended to be neutral.”

“What’s
your take on Bimm?”

“Heard
he was a hell of a doctor once. I know some women he worked on. Men, too. Was
so successful he had to open up a string of clinics to keep up with the demand.
His main offices were located near Todt Hill, Grymes Hill, Emerson Hill, where
all the money is. The joke was that the rich wives would head down to Silicone
Valley for their nip and tucks. There was some talk that many of his surgeries
were unnecessary but nothing ever stuck. No big malpractice suits that I can
recall. Real estate is another matter. He ruins everything he touches. Put up
shabby condos. Bulldozed trees. Filled in streams. Knocked down beautiful old
houses. Cut every corner. Screwed every partner. Mr. Pearsall assumed that if
Bimm was involved in the track project there had to be something wrong.”

“Find
anything?”

“We
had just started looking through real estate transactions in the County Clerk’s
office, set up an interview with Bimm. But then Mr. Pearsall’s daughter was
murdered, you know. He kind of fell apart. No one blamed him. He’d only just
lost his wife, really.”

So,
Scarne thought, the good doctor knew about their investigation, if it could be
called that.

“You
didn’t pursue it any further?”

“We
didn’t see the point. It was basically just a feeling Mr. Pearsall had. He was
our mentor, the reason we went to the
Register
. After he left we just
wanted to get off the Island.”

Their
cheesecake came. It was good, almost Junior’s quality, but he preferred the
Italian kind, made with ricotta and lemon rinds and dusted with powdered sugar.
The bar was beginning to fill up. A couple came by to say hello to the reporter
and coo over her stomach. They left.

“Did
you ever speak to Bimm?”

“No,
he cancelled our interview. I could have cared less at that point.”

“Tell me about the Home Port. Harvey said you were checking on
Bimm’s involvement there as well.”

Doyle looked at Scarne closely.

“Is this about Bimm or NASCAR?”

“Sounds like the question Pearsall was asking. And he had a
Pulitzer.”

“Fair enough. Well, back in the Reagan Administration they decided
to re-commission some old battleships. One of them was going to be stationed
there, along with a few other ships. I think it was the
Iowa,
but I’m
not sure. They spent a freakin’ fortune on the base and a couple of years later
they put the battleships in permanent mothballs, where they should have stayed
to begin with. It was just a pork barrel move, anyway, to reward Staten Island
for always voting Republican. Some of the local activists opposed it, on the
grounds that a Navy base in New York Harbor might attract Soviet ICBM’s. It was
the Cold War, remember. How nuts is that? As if Manhattan, the biggest target
on the planet, didn’t have about 30 H-bombs aimed at it already. Just proves
the libs are as dumb as the conservatives.”