“You poor bastard, you were caught in the middle. The wife is shaking you down and holding you as a trapped lover, and her old man is jealous as hell and wants to kill you. After that scene at your apartment house with the gun, you had no choice. You got them together for a supposed payoff and brought the wine to seal the deal. It’s widely known that you only drink vodka and tonic, so you let Velker open the champagne and unsuspectingly pour his wife and himself a toast... a toast of freedom for you and death for them. What did she have on you, Kelly?”
On and on he went with his boring fairy tale, while I was trying to think the whole thing through.
Theory #1: Samson Velker killed his wife and then took a suicide sip, but that idea had two flaws. Why go through with the hypodermic jazz with a sealed cork, and if he was so hurt, why didn’t he try to kill me?
But that scenario was more acceptable than Theory #2, which had Jay Porter in the starring role, taking matters into his own hands. True, he keeps his Chateau La Codar at my place, but he must keep some at home, too. He was in a panic, called Gina direct, got her and Velker together for a payoff, and voilà! the poison toast bit. This also had a flaw, mainly that Samson Velker, by Mrs. Rosen’s observation, was alive at two fifteen on my doorstep, and Gina was still breathing when I dropped her off around twelve forty-five. The M.E. fixed their deaths at between four and five A.M. and, due to the baby blizzard, no one, but no one, was able to get from Jay Porter’s manse out at Little Neck, Long Island, to Gina’s place on East 89th Street.
I might add that Mrs. Rosen must have gone off duty after the corridor fracas with my pathetic gunman because she told the cops she couldn’t give me an alibi for four to five o’clock. Of course, for it to have been an ironclad alibi, she would have had to be in bed with me, but the least she could have done was to say she never saw me leave the apartment. Never have a non-fan for a neighbor.
I was still ignoring Jaffee and working on Theory #3 when a uniformed cop stuck his head into the office and said, “He’s here.” Jaffee cocked his bald noggin at me. “Your attorney has finally arrived. We’ve documented that you were allowed to call him five minutes after you arrived.”
Touchy, touchy. The uniform led me to a private room where I expected to find Ted Summers. Instead, who is perched on a chair with all the presence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes? It is none other than Tall Tommy Tanuka, ligner of ligners.
“Thank you, officer, I’ll buzz when we’re through,” he says as he waves me to a chair.
“What in the...”
Tall Tommy gives me a shush sign with fingers to lips as he places a briefcase on the table and takes out a small black oblong box. He flips a few switches and turns a dial as he looks innocently up at the ceiling. As a look of satisfaction crossed his face, I said, “You practice in downtown Moscow, counselor?”
“Better be safe than sorry, Chick. That’s a cardinal rule by me. I’m here because your legal eagle is in Albany or some other place up in Canada, so I decide to jump in with an assist. ’Ja really kill ’em?”
“No, ’ju?”
“Hey, Chick, serious up. This is a twenty-to-life we’re talking. If you didn’t knock them off, we have to find out who did. Okay? Okay! Ever read a detective story?”
“There are times, Tall Tommy, when I believe I’m living in one.”
“Then you know that one of the sure-fire ways to catch the culprit is to detect a flaw... a lie... in his alibi.”
“Sure, Tommy,” my mouth is saying, but my mind is wondering when in hell Summers is coming back from Albany. “Tommy, I appreciate your help, but, man, I need a lawyer, not a liar.”
“What’s the dif? Come on, Chick, all the details.”
All things considered, sitting there talking with Tommy was more pleasant than going back to Jaffee’s harangue, so I humored him with all the details from the supermarket spill to 21 and on until the gaming bust.
“The gee’s wife, this Byerle, maybe has something going with the boat jockey?” he asked when I reported the overheard “suppose Jay Porter finds out” bit between Tierney and Byerle when they were going up to the Bottle Room.
“Maybe, but that’s got nothing to do with the Velker deaths.” Even as I said it, my mind must have put a checkmark next to the thought, because it surfaced again within the next forty-eight hours. Meanwhile, Tall Tommy is up on the ankles, as he put it.
“Sit tight and hang tough, Chick. I’m on a quest.”
“What’s the quest?”
“The truth about the matter at hand.”
“Tommy, you’re a lie expert, remember?”
“Takes one to know one,” he says, and he’s off.
Like I said, forty-eight hours later, a thought popped out of my memory bank and took on interesting dimensions. It had zoomed through my head while I was talking to Ted Summers, who had finally gotten Albany back into the union and had time for my problem. I had been in the Tombs prison for two days, having been sent there because a judge felt I was a poor bail risk. By the way, I can tell you this: one does not need electronic devices to keep one’s conversation private in the visitation pens. In fact, the only device you need is a hearing aid to overcome the din in that zoo of babble.
“You realize, Chick,” Ted was saying — shouting, “that it’s a pretty thin argument, and I don’t think the D.A. will buck Jay Porter Pemberton just to satisfy the questions you’re raising. Hell, I’m ninety percent convinced we can go to trial and beat this thing. All the state has is circumstantial crap, and the D.A. knows it’s full of holes. But we can make a strong emotional case for a husband who was a loser and a psycho, committing murder and suicide in a jealous rage. You get a little dirt on you, but...”
“How much did he offer you, Ted?”
“Ten thou. Fifty more if you’ll go along.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something? Jay Porter is scared, my friend.”
“Of course he is. He has a reputation to protect.”
“And the old bum of the month here doesn’t.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it. The public expects a touch of scandal from showbiz types. Besides, if you introduce the stuff about your scam to neutralize the criminal conversation action, you’ll look like a real bum, the bum of the century, never mind the month. The papers would tear you apart and you might just put yourself in jeopardy of a conspiracy charge.”
“What are you trying to do, Ted, scare me?”
“If Velker couldn’t with a gun, how can I with logic? If you want me to bring the Pembertons into this, Chick, I’ll do it, but at least let me do it my way. Or rather, the diplomatic way, so you have a bridge to retreat over just in case you’re wrong.” Ted leaned closer to the divider screen between us. “Chick, just tell me why you won’t take the easy way out. You’re losing your mortgage, the sixty G’s, and the backing of a very powerful man. Irish pride?”
“No, it’s because of something Tanuka asked me several days ago, about Gina Velker’s shying away from the Plaza setup. I think I have the answer now.”
“So be mysterious,” Ted was getting to his feet, “and remember, I promise nothing regarding the D.A.’s reaction to your proposal.”
I had to yell over the din, “We can but try,” to which a woman visiting a prisoner in the stall next to mine responded, “A-men, brother, a-men!”
That “amen” was the only response I got over the next three days. No D.A. response, no Ted Summers response. Jack Mac and I played every two-handed card game known to man during “in cell” hours and every horse race in America in “out cell” time. One thing you can do at the Tombs is use the pay phones to make bets and, for the first time in years, I was ahead on the ponies, so prison has its mind-sharpening aspects. Finally, on a dismal, cold morning, a screw (see how I’ve warped) rattles our cage and tells me, “Ya goin’ ta Leonard.”