The Guilty: (P.I. Jack Marconi No. 3) Page 7

  “Do you have an appointment?” she said. “Mr. David is extremely busy at the moment.”

  “He’ll talk to me even if I don’t have an appointment,” I said. “I’m convinced of it.”

  She smiled out the corner of her red-lipsticked mouth.

  “And how is that?”

  I raised up the pink box.

  “I have donuts.”

  Her grin turned into a smile, which turned into a giggle. Keeper, the lady’s man.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “A calling card will do for now.”

  I slipped the box of donuts through an opening located at the bottom of the glass. Then I fished out a calling card from my pants pocket and set it on the counter beside the donuts. The receptionist took the card, looked down at it, and then looked up at me again.

  “Can I tell him what this is regarding, Mr. Marconi?”

  “His son and Sarah Levy.”

  Her smile faded.

  “Just a minute,” she said. Turning, she walked toward the interior of the office building, offering me a parting shot of her perfect, valentine-shaped posterior.

  My heart was still racing when she returned a few seconds later.

  “Mr. David cannot see you right now,” she said. “But if you care to make an appointment, he will be happy to speak with you at a later date.”

  I came closer to the window, so close I could see my breath clouding the glass. As a former prison supervisor, I knew there had to be a button or an electronic release of some kind that would unlock the interior safety glass door. I also knew it had to be located somewhere inside the reception cubicle. If I had to guess, it would be mounted to the wall just a few inches to the left side of the reception window.

  “Are you sure he can’t see me now?” I said.

  When she brushed back her long, brown hair with her right hand, it gave my already thumping heart a start.

  “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she said while resting her perfect figure on a stool that was set before the counter and, at the same time, producing an iPad, which no doubt contained an electronic version of David’s schedule.

  “Well then, do you mind if I steal a donut?”

  She raised up her head and gave me a glare.

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “You paid for ‘em.”

  I reached in, opened the box, and squished a couple of the jelly donuts so that the red jelly oozed out of the dough like lava. Then I gave the box a little shove and dumped it all in her red lap.

  “Oh my!” I barked. “How clumsy of me.”

  She issued a shriek and jumped off the stool. Her pretty face assumed an expression of horror as the crushed jelly donuts and a chocolate frosted donut attached themselves to her skirt. That’s when I began to feel along the wall to the left for the switch. Sure enough, I found it on my first cast. I pressed the doorbell-like device, and the interior safety glass door popped open. Retracting my hand, I pulled it back out of the opening before she could take it in her pretty little mouth and bite it off in anger.

  “Sorry about the dress,” I said.

  “Asshole,” she said. “Total. Fucking. Asshole.”

  “Next time I promise to bring a full box of donuts,” I said, slipping inside through the open door.

  13

  I WASN’T THROUGH THE door a half dozen steps before a uniformed security guard grabbed hold of my right arm with one hand and pointed the lights-out end of a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson in my face.

  “Easy, killer,” I said. “I just want a little face time with your boss.”

  The guard was bigger than me. Wider. Stronger. Fatter in the gut. Shaved head, black goatee, and biceps that looked as though they were about to burst through his blue uniform shirt. If I had to guess, he was an APD officer forced into early retirement or even a New York State corrections officer washout.

  “Please unhand our guest,” came the voice of another man.

  I gazed in the direction of the voice. Down a long, narrow corridor created by workstation walls, all of which had the overcurious and somewhat alarmed heads of David Enterprise workers sticking out from behind them. Standing there tall and well dressed in a navy blue double-breasted suit accented with a silk red tie was the CEO himself—Robert David Sr.

  “Sir,” barked the burly security guard, “this man just snuck into the office when he was politely asked to leave.”

  “Hey,” I said, “I brought donuts.”

  David ran his right hand through his full head of thick, nearly white hair and stepped forward.

  “Well, if he brought donuts, he can’t be all that dangerous,” he said in a voice that was neither high nor low, but even toned. The voice of an educated, erudite man.

  The guard let me go. Not without a small shove for good measure.

  “Thanks, Lurch,” I said, straightening out the sleeve of my jacket.

  “Do you carry a pistol, Mr. Marconi?” asked David.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “Would you be so considerate as to surrender it to my security officer?” he requested.

  Without protest, I reached into my jacket, pulled out the .45, and handed it to the monster, grip first.

  He smiled as he took it, as though it were his for keeps.

  “Easy with that, Lurch,” I said. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  “Keep it up,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll find out where you live.”

  I turned to David Sr.

  “Your rent-a-cop could stand to learn some people skills.”

  “That’s quite enough, Rodney,” David said. “Why don’t you help yourself to one of those donuts Mr. Marconi claims to have brought us.” Then, with a gentle-but-sweeping gesture of his open right hand, David Sr. said, “And the rest of you, please get back to work. The floor show is officially over.” He didn’t command his people to get back to work, so much as he asked them to.

  “Please, follow me, Mr. Marconi,” David said, turning and making his way toward the opposite end of the building.

  Rodney took off for the reception counter and the now crushed donuts.

  I followed David, knowing that all eyes were peeled on my behind.

  14

  “NOW THEN,” SAID THE David Enterprises CEO as he settled in gracefully behind his desk, “What’s this all about, Mr. Marconi?”

  As if you don’t already know . . .

  I was seated in an expensive leather chair in front of the desk inside an office that was larger than my Sherman Street flat. Like the rest of the office building, the walls consisted of exposed brick that had been painted black in some areas and red in others. The ceiling was open, the mechanical workings and lighting fixtures exposed but also painted an industrial black. Trendy. The floor was wood with a few expensive, imported rugs placed here and there. To my right was a kind of sitting area with a couch and matching easy chairs that faced a gigantic wall-mounted plasma TV. To my left were floor-to-ceiling industrial-style windows that faced Broadway and beyond that, the Hudson River.

  The door opened behind me, and I instinctively turned to get a glance at who it could be.

  “Pardon me, Mr. David,” said the same beautiful brunette in red who met me earlier at the reception counter. “Will you be wanting coffee?”

  She looked as stunning as ever, even after the donut attack. Not a trace of strawberry jelly on her red dress.

  I turned back to David. He issued me one of those sweeping hand gestures as he had to his crew only moments ago. It was sign language for, “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Please,” I said, throwing a smile over my shoulder at the brunette. “Milk, no sugar. Oh, and I like it hot.” I tossed her a wink with my right eye when I said hot.

  She rolled her eyes as though it were going to cause her pain to facilitate my need for caffeine.

  “Mr. David?” she said.

  “I’m fine, thanks, Victoria.”

  She closed the door, leaving us alone.

  “Victo
ria,” I said, rolling the name off my tongue and lips as if it tasted of milk and honey.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Marconi?” David said, sitting back with ease and grace in his black, tall-backed, leather swivel chair, setting his elbows on the armrests and cathedralling his fingers together.

  “Your secretary,” I said. “Her name is Victoria. How apropos for such an attractive woman.”

  He smiled and rested a prominent chin onto his clamped fingers.

  “Yes,” he said, “Victoria has her talents. But I wouldn’t go around referring to her as a secretary. She might bite your nose off. Refer to her instead as my special assistant.”

  “Sounds like an important job,” I said.

  “It is, indeed,” he said, raising his chin up from his fingers. “My day is extremely busy, and she has a way of organizing it so that it runs as smoothly and beautifully as her silk, black panties.”

  I couldn’t help but grin when he said panties. Which is exactly what he was looking for. He was trying to find common ground with me by proving he had an eye for the girls.

  “How nice,” I said, noticing that his desk was empty of anything that suggested work. Other than a black telephone, not even a laptop computer occupied the long glass desk.

  “So what is it you are so anxious to ask of me?” the CEO said, getting right to the point.

  Before I could answer him, the door opened, and my coffee arrived. Victoria breezed in and set it on David’s desk. The coffee was served in a real china cup and saucer emblazoned with a hot red D and E that made up the David Enterprises logo. She set a silver spoon onto the saucer, and as I watched her leave the room, I couldn’t help but picture those black panties clinging to the smooth skin underneath her red dress.

  When the door closed behind her and the oxygen returned to the room, I said, “I’ve been hired to investigate the Sarah Levy case.”

  I looked for a reaction.

  David gave me nothing. Not even the blink of an eye or the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple. He did, however, sit up straight in his chair, setting his still cathedralled hands onto the desk.

  “And what is it exactly that you feel the need to investigate and who are you working for?”

  Again . . . as if he didn’t already know.

  He smiled when he spoke, as if hiding his anger. His teeth were perfect. I wondered what he would look like with sharpened vampire incisors. Probably just like his angry namesake son.

  “My client,” I said, “who shall remain confidential, is concerned that you and your son, Robert Jr. covered up a possible assault with the intent to kill.”

  He maintained that smile. No blinking. No swallowing. Even his red tie remained completely vertical and ninety degrees to the floor. Chalk one up for Mr. Calm and Composed.

  “And what is it you want from me, Mr. Marconi? An admission of guilt?”

  “Maybe you can tell me why your forty-one-year-old son lives in one of your houses. You also employ him. He seems to bear no responsibility of his own.”

  “The domestic and business arrangements I share with my son are none of your business, not to mention that of your mysterious client who most certainly goes by the name Harold Sanders, the formerly in-demand architect.”

  His use of “formerly in-demand” took me a bit by surprise. I asked him why he would say such a thing about an obviously talented individual. That is, judging by the metrosexual’s manner of dress along with the hefty retainer check he laid on me.

  “Sanders is a capable architect. But his talent is limited. Commercial construction is way down, and so is his once-thriving business. No wonder he wants money from me that he doesn’t deserve.” He looked away and shook his head. “You ask me, he’s exploiting his daughter’s misfortune in order to line his empty pockets.”

  “He has an office in Hong Kong,” I said. “He must be doing something right.”

  David Sr. went wide-eyed and laughed.

  “Had an office in Hong Kong for about five minutes,” he said through a giggle. “He’s strictly Albany material now, and barely surviving that.”

  I didn’t know whether to believe him or not or if the state of Sanders’s finances really mattered all that much. So long as his checks didn’t turn to rubber every time he signed them.

  “Good to know you two won’t be in-laws anytime soon,” I said.

  He lost his smile when I said it.

  I decided it was a good time to cease with the low blows and change the course of my questioning.

  “Why didn’t you tell your son to call 911 when he called you in the middle of the night asking you to come to his aid over a severely injured and unhappy Sarah Levy?”

  Now he swallowed. And blinked. Score one for Keeper.

  “The David family isn’t used to dealing with such emergencies. We are a peaceful, responsible family that has contributed more than most to this fine capital city. After Sarah slipped on the ice and hurt herself, my son panicked and called me first. He loved Sarah very much. He would never willingly hurt her or anyone else.”

  “Yet you didn’t insist he call 911.”

  “We both thought it would be quicker if the two of us were to drive her.”

  “How far away do you live from your son?”

  “About six and a half minutes by car.”

  “How long, in your humble estimation, sir, would an ambulance have taken to make it to the scene?”

  “Certainly more than six and a half minutes.”

  I smiled.

  “Good answer,” I said, knowing it had been rehearsed. “But at least an ambulance is manned by EMTs, who have access to knowledge and equipment that can save lives should they require saving.”

  He stood up. “I haven’t spoken to the police this much regarding this non-matter, and I certainly don’t need to discuss it with you. I trust our conversation is over?”

  I gazed at my coffee cup.

  “I haven’t had my coffee yet, Mr. D.,” I said.

  “My apologies,” he said. “Perhaps you can get some coffee on your way home.”

  “Not going home,” I said, getting up.

  “Oh, and why is that?” he said, coming around his desk and heading for the office door.

  “I’m going to make a flyby to your crib. Talk to the missus. I bet her coffee is better than yours anyway.”

  His face went so red it matched his tie. He swallowed and began blinking rapidly. Yet another score for Keeper.

  He opened the door, but then he slammed it closed.

  “Let me warn you, Mr. Marconi,” he said, turning to me. “If I find out you are harassing me or any members of my family, I will come down on you like a pack of rabid wolves.”

  “Oh my,” I said. “That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.”

  “Joke all you want. But I’m dead serious.”

  “So am I, Mr. D.,” I said.

  He opened the door. I stepped out. I heard the door close behind me. Hard.

  Up at the reception counter, I asked the rent-a-fat-cop for my piece. He wiped powder and jelly from his mouth and handed it to me. There was jelly stuck to the grip. Red jelly.

  “Oops,” he said, his cheeks full of dough. “My bad.”

  I grabbed a napkin from off the counter and wiped the jelly away. It was still sticky when I shoved it into my shoulder holster. But I chose to deny him the satisfaction of knowing that.

  When I turned for the interior door that would let me out of the building through the vestibule, I caught site of Victoria. The lady in red. I nodded at her and smiled. To my dismay, she did not smile back.

  “You have my card,” I said. “Call anytime. For any reason.”

  Knowing I didn’t have a chance in hell of ever seeing her dressed in only those silk, black panties, I let myself out and never once looked back.

  Comment by HiImBi

  The one thing I can’t stop thinking about is the lawsuit price tag: 40 million freaking dollars. I mean, what would be happening if Robert Jr. worked a
t Target or Wal-Mart? What if his daddy-o were a state worker or worse, unemployed? Bet there wouldn’t even be a lawsuit if those were the circumstances. Somebody stands to make a lot of money out of one poor woman’s bad luck.

  Comment by Jillypoet

  Duh, HiImBi, have you checked into the cost of rehabilitation these days? Poor Sarah Levy deserves the best care she can get. Doesn’t matter if her own father is a wealthy architect. The cost of the lawsuit will certainly defray costs that can break even a rich person. I think you’re just jealous of people who have more money than you. Rich people are human too.

  Comment by HiImBi

  COMMENT DELETED BY MODERATOR

  Ted Bolous, Albany Times Union Senior Food Blogger, Responds

  Let’s all get along, people, just like the fine ingredients of a devilishly hot chili con carne. J

  15

  THE DAVIDS DIDN’T LIVE in a house. They lived and thrived on a country estate. The giant main house was a Moby Dick white, three-story colonial with big square pillars that supported a large portico. The driveway that led up to it was about a half mile long. Or so it seemed. The driveway wasn’t gravel-covered or even blacktopped like the driveways of the common proletariat. It had been laid out by masons with stone pavers, making it look a lot like a yellow brick road without the yellow. The long drive was bordered on both sides by tall pine trees, and the grounds were meticulously maintained and lush and green, despite a searing hot, dry summer only the devil could love.

  I pulled up to the end of the driveway where a three-car garage faced me. Two vehicles were parked outside. The one closest to me was a pristine but older model Mercedes sports convertible with the top down. The vehicle beside it was a white Range Rover. It had a small, red-white-and-blue flag-shaped emblem stuck to the back windshield that contained the letters L and G. I knew the letters stood for the Lake George Yacht Club, which was located about fifty miles north of Albany where the Adirondack Mountain region began.