“I know that part. I meant, why was he unhappy with you?”
She looked at the tabletop. “He’s angry- hurt, I guess- about some of the stories we ran on analysts. He thinks they were one-sided. I’ve told him a lot of people thought our coverage was pretty one-sided in the other direction, back when the Dow was at eleven thousand, but he doesn’t want to hear that. And I’ve told him he should just forget it and move on- between nine-eleven and war, it’s old news anyway- but that just makes him crazier.”
“Is that what you talked about at lunch?”
“Yeah. And if I’d known that was going to be the topic, I’d have skipped the whole thing. But like I said, I thought we were done with that. It turned out Greg just had a different approach; he had an idea to pitch to me. A special segment of Market Minds-‘An Analyst’s Perspective,’ he wanted to call it- with himself as the only guest.”
She shook her head in disbelief, and an indignant tone came into her voice.
“You like that- an hour of Greg Danes telling his side of the story? Maybe we could get some harp music in the background and big blowups of his baby pictures. Can you believe I actually had to explain to him why that would never fly? Jesus, he could be so tone deaf about some things.
“And then he had the nerve to get all pissed off at me. He started in with how he felt used, how we treated him like a trained seal or a circus geek- something to sell tickets with- really fucking abusive. I finally got fed up listening to him and left.” Sovitch straightened and tossed her hair back. It occurred to me that Danes might’ve had a point about selling tickets, but I kept it to myself.
“That was the last you heard from him?”
“The last I heard, and the last I hope to hear. Greg’s a smart guy, but he’s a fucking nut, too, and times have changed. He’s just not worth the trouble anymore.” She looked at her watch.
I nodded. “One last thing, Ms. Sovitch. Has anyone else called to ask you about Danes?”
She shook her head. “Lucky me, you’re the only one.” She glanced at Brent and cocked an eyebrow. He and the big guy got up and stood by the door. Sovitch turned back to me. “You got twenty minutes out of me, March.”
“And I’m grateful for it. I’ll try not to ask for more.”
Sovitch smiled coolly. “Ask as much as you like,” she said. “You won’t get another damn minute.” She slipped her sunglasses on and left, her minders close behind.
I walked home from there. There was a chill in the air, and faint traces of yellow and orange in the sky over New Jersey. I thought about what a great pal Linda Sovitch was, and about the little she had told me. Her story was consistent with the others I’d heard: that Danes was angry and bitter, fixated on his lawsuits and bad press and on the raw deal he thought he’d gotten.
But more interesting than what she’d said was what she hadn’t said- or asked. For someone who called herself a journalist, Sovitch had been remarkably incurious about Danes being missing. Other reporters I knew would’ve been crawling through my socks and picking my pockets the instant they’d heard, and they certainly wouldn’t have answered my questions without asking some of their own in return. But not Sovitch. All the way back to 16th Street, I wondered about her lack of curiosity and about why she’d agreed to see me in the first place.
It was after five when I got home, and there were messages. The first was from Simone Gautier, out in Queens. Danes’s car wasn’t at the airports and his body wasn’t in the local morgues. Written reports and bills to follow.
The second message was from Danes’s vacationing doorman. His voice was gravelly and full of Brooklyn. There were other voices in the background and what sounded like a ballgame on TV.
“This is Gargosian; you left a message with my wife. I’ll try you later, or when I get home- be about ten days.” Shit. I called his home on City Island and left another message with Mrs. Gargosian. I made a note of it on my pad and saw my earlier entry there, to call Anthony Frye, late of the Pace-Loyette equity research department. I flicked on my laptop and picked up the phone again.
It didn’t take long to find a residential listing for Frye, and he answered on the first ring. He spoke with an upper-class English accent, and his voice was young and ironical. I explained who I was and what I wanted, and nothing that I said seemed to surprise him very much.
“I heard about Greg storming out,” he said. “But I understood he’d decided to take some sort of impromptu sabbatical.”
“Maybe, but his ex-wife and his son would like to get in touch with him. Were you there when he left?”
“No. I’d resigned the week before, and Pace likes deserters off the premises straightaway.”
“Was that the last time you saw Danes- the day you resigned?”
“Yes,” Frye said. “Though I barely saw him then, they had me out the door so fast.” A doorbell chimed on his end and he called out. “Come ahead- it’s open.” There was a swell of voices and laughter on the line, and it became difficult to hear.
“It sounds like this is a bad time to talk.”
Frye laughed. “Yes, an excellent time to drink, but a bad time to talk. How about tomorrow?” We agreed on a time and place and he rang off, to the sounds of reggae and clinking glasses.
I looked at my watch and took a deep breath. It was time to call Nina.
“We’ve got things to talk about,” I said. “Can I come over this evening?”
“You found something?”
“Not Danes, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then what?”
“Something we need to discuss in person. Is this evening okay?”
“Very mysterious. But sure, come on over. Shit, you’re becoming a regular here, March. Better watch it, people might start to wonder.” She laughed and hung up.
I drank some water from a pitcher in the fridge and looked at Jane’s tulips. The stalks hung bare and limp in their vase; the petals were turning brown on the counter. I hung up my suit and pulled on a pair of jeans and sat down at my laptop. I opened the file I had saved this morning and reread the details of Sachs v. Danes.
Peter Spiegelman
JM02 – Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home
9
It was past seven when I got to Sachs’s place. The temperature had continued to drop and the wind had teeth as it whipped between the old factory buildings. Across the East River, the downtown office towers were lit and limned with the last colors of sunset. There were lights in the windows of the I-2 gallery, too. I looked in and saw Ines’s skinny hipsters rearranging the partitions around a new set of crates, but I saw no sign of Ines.
She was upstairs. She answered my knock, and tension washed through the doorway with the cigarette smoke and paint smell and too-loud music and raised voices. Ines was still and quiet in the tide.
“I don’t care what the fucking guidance counselor says, I’m not staying in that shithole another fucking year!” Billy’s voice came from the far end of the apartment. It was raw and hoarse. Ines didn’t react.
“She’s expecting me,” I said. Ines nodded.
“Now may not be the best time, detective,” she said softly. I heard Nina’s voice. I couldn’t make out the words, but the anger and frustration in them were clear. Billy answered at full volume.
“I don’t care how good you say it is, you don’t have to go there. You don’t have to deal with those fucking assholes every day!” A door slammed.
“Fine!” Nina yelled. “Go to public school then! See how you like it when the fucking assholes have guns!”
“You think they don’t have ’em at my school?” Billy yelled back. “You don’t know shit.”
There were fast footsteps and Nina Sachs crossed the apartment, an angry cloud of smoke swirling behind her. She glanced at me, snorted, and went into her studio without a pause. Ines and I looked at each other.