Windsong estates was a rambling property on the north side of Saratoga Springs. It abutted a dense pine forest and was comprised of a huge old mansion, various bungalows, and modern-looking residence buildings.
The parking lot was red clay. I walked from my classic ’57 white-and-green Pontiac across a broad lawn to the terrace-like veranda that went all the way around the front of the whitewashed house.
No one was on the green, well-trimmed lawn.
No one was on the porch until I put a foot on the first stair.
Then a short Japanese woman in full-length baby blue nurse’s garb came out the screened door. Behind her ambled a huge white orderly with a bald head and porcine eyes. He was pale and heavy, but the fat was held in place by a goodly amount of muscle.
“May I help you?” the woman said with a perfect American accent.
“Nova Algren.”
“And you are?”
“Tell her that Leonid McGill brings her greetings from Bingo Haman.”
“And your business?”
“Is with Ms. Algren.”
The orderly’s shoulders raised a quarter inch.
The Japanese nurse was in her fifties, on the short side and the color of dark honey. She was fit and serious.
“Salesman?” she asked.
“No.”
“Insurance?”
I shook my head this time.
“I have to tell her your business.”
“Leonid McGill with greetings from Bingo Haman and his crew. That’s all you need.”
“This Haman is a sailor?”
“No.”
“What kind of crew, then?”
I was tired of negativity and so did not answer at all.
The orderly’s squinty eyes were getting restless.
The nurse turned, made an impatient gesture at the big man, and they both disappeared into the dark maw beyond the screen door.
No one invited me in so I leaned against a white column, which had once been a tree, on the left side of the staircase.
I thought about lighting a cigarette and decided against it. There were four left in the pack. I had to finish them off before the next morning but the need would most likely be greater later on.
I had discovered after many years of trial and error that if I smoked for only twenty-four hours the withdrawal symptoms were negligible. It was like a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card, if I was disciplined about the slip.
“Mr. McGill,” a wispy gentlewoman’s voice said.
She was standing behind the gray haze of the screen door, tall in a dark green pantsuit, her gray hair coiffed, with glasses hanging from a string of natural freshwater pearls around her neck.
“That’s me,” I said, pushing myself to an erect posture.
The elderly woman smiled and pushed open the door. Her steps had an extra oomph to them, a little more energy to make sure her feet didn’t stumble. The older you are, the harder you have to work.
“You’re here for Bingo?” she asked.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I thought he had died.”
“The dead often leave messages behind.”
“Mysterious.” She must have been a beautiful woman in her youth. She was handsome at seventy-something.
“Shall we go over to the side of the building?” she suggested.
I followed her well-metered gait around the porch to the side of the house. There we came upon an iron table attended by four iron chairs, all painted pale pink.
“The staff doesn’t like us to be in view of the public,” she said as we both sat. “They feel an onus, to go out there to make sure we aren’t kidnapped or mugged.”
I liked this lady very much.
“You were saying something about Bingo?” she asked.
“You knew him?”
“I knew a man named Aaron Sadler,” she said.
Aaron Sadler. The police were after him for a string of extortions where the threats were always shams; kind of a soft-porn crook. He found rich kids that didn’t mind fooling their parents for a twenty-five percent cut of the take. Aaron used his own name but had a stand-in, Poland Jarvis, as the contact for his youthful confederates. It all went along swimmingly until Jarvis got arrested for DWI and Sadler had to make contact with one of the kids in person.
Aaron’s luck worsened when the cops tumbled on the conspiracy and put pressure on the young heir to a Midwestern dairy empire, Robert Fleiner.
It fell to me to gather evidence that young Mr. Fleiner was involved in the death of a prostitute some years before. Faced with a life sentence versus the possibility of getting cut out of a healthy will, Bob decided to forget what the real Aaron Sadler looked like.
“Bingo is dead,” I said, “as you’ve heard.”
Nova’s eyes were blue-gray and had the mien of matronly kindness. There was no change in them.
“I thought so.”
“So are Mick Brawn and Simon Willoughby.”
“Really?” The slightest bit of concern gathered around her light-colored orbs.
I handed her the rather graphic photographs of the dead men.
She flipped through them like a grandmother pretending to be interested in another old woman’s family album.
Handing the pictures back to me, she said, “Horrible.”
“A police captain named Lethford told me that these deaths were connected to the Rutgers heist.”
“How is Clarence?”
“Mad at the world and proud of it.”
She laughed pleasantly.
“He came up here a few times, thinking that an old woman like me would have anything to do with thugs and thieves. But he always brought me chocolates.
“Why are you here, Mr. McGill?”
“Two men broke into my home and tried to murder me.”
“Tried?”
“I killed them.”
Without missing a beat she said, “I killed my stepfather, Charles Clement, when I was only eleven years old. No doubt the men after you made the same underestimation that Mr. Clement did.”
We were on equal footing. I wondered if she had a derringer somewhere on her person; the best assumption would be that she did.
“The people that sent those men after me, if they become aware of you, might send a visitor to Windsong.”
Nova’s smile was wan and unconcerned.
“I want to know who it is,” I said, “for obvious reasons.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Can you help me?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”
“As I said — your life could be in danger too.”
“My death is already a foregone conclusion, Mr. McGill. Thank you for your concern but I have never relied upon the good graces of another to protect me.”
“So you have to think about it?”
“Yes.”
“When will you know?”
“When I know.” She stood up and began walking toward the front of the building.
I followed her to the screen door and even opened it for her.
“Thank you, Mr. McGill. I don’t need the help but I do appreciate good manners.”
39
The traffic was pretty good and I made Lower Manhattan somewhere between two-thirty and three.
That afternoon I told the first-line security desk at Rutgers Assurance that I was there to speak to Johann Brighton. That request altered the mode of access. I was guided to an elevator at the front of the building that took me to the twenty-seventh floor, leaving me at what can only be called a large glass cage where a young receptionist sat behind a bright blue desk.
The carpet surrounding the desk was black, and across from it, against a glass wall, was a row of seven padded yellow chairs.
Beyond the transparent walls were many doorways. For a moment I imagined that I was in a theater where the audience sat center stage and the actors performed on the periphery.
In this flight of fancy I had arrived, no doubt, at intermission.