They think of everything.
He's not paying attention to the route, because if you don't know where you're going, what does it matter how you get there? On Canal Street he sees the signs for the Manhattan Bridge, and he crosses into Brooklyn and drives south on Flatbush Avenue, and now he knows where he's headed.
If you just wait, he thinks, you find out where you're going.
And you get what you get.
And isn't it traditional, returning to the scene of the crime? And he's done it before. Twice, since that evening, he's found himself walking across that block of West Seventy-fourth Street. He's slowed as he passed the house, but hasn't wanted to linger, hasn't cared to invite a second glance. Still, people will stare at the house for perfectly innocent reasons, won't they? With all the news, all the media coverage, the house has become a notorious site. It hasn't reached the point of tour buses cruising by, the drivers rattling off the gory details over their loudspeaker systems, and it wouldn't come to that, not in this city where there was always a fresh outrage to erase the memory of the last one.
Still, why tempt fate? On his second walk past the house, he'd been tempted to browse the ground-floor antique shop, maybe buy something for a souvenir. And what could be more innocent than to patronize a retail establishment? But no, he let it go.
He keeps one hand on the wheel, reaches to his throat with the other. Puts a finger inside his shirt collar, touches the thin gold chain around his neck.
The best souvenirs, he thinks, are ones you don't have to buy.
He turns right off Flatbush onto Cortelyou Road, turns left again on Coney Island Avenue. He drives to the house where it happened, and coasts right on by when he notices a police cruiser parked illegally two doors away. There's no one in it, and there could be any number of reasons to park a police car beside a hydrant on that particular block. There are a good many homes and apartment houses within walking distance, and a cop might have cause to visit any of them. There didn't even have to be a crime involved, or a complaint. He could just be visiting a girlfriend, or a favorite uncle.
He circles the block, parks legally a few doors down the street where he can watch the house. He's got his eye on it when the door opens and two men come out, the younger one looking Brooklyn-debonair in a boisterous Hawaiian shirt and dark trousers, the other older and more conservative in his dress. The two men shake hands, and then the younger man- and yes, he looks like a cop on vacation, a cop on his day off- gets into the police car and pulls away from the curb. The older man watches him go and heads back into the house.
The landlord, making sure he can rent out the apartment again without destroying evidence? Some city employee, some political functionary?
Or maybe the next tenant, concerned about building security. Except he looks wrong for the neighborhood.
The landlord, he decides. But it doesn't concern him, not really. He doesn't live here, and there's really no reason why he ever has to return to this neighborhood.
It's not like Seventy-fourth Street, where he has ongoing interests to consider.
TEN
Over the next several days I talked to ten or a dozen people, some on the phone, some face to face. I didn't have a client, or any real reason to be running an investigation, but I couldn't have been busier if I had.
I called a few lawyers I knew, including Ray Gruliow and Drew Kaplan, on the chance that somebody might know something interesting about Byrne Hollander. Ray had met a junior partner of his once, a fellow named Sylvan Harding, but remembered him chiefly because of his name. "Only man I ever met named Sylvan," he said, "and it was a constant struggle to keep from calling him Mr. Fields, because I absolutely could not get the phrase 'Sylvan Fields' out of my head. And still can't evidently. I'm not sure he'd even remember who I am."
"When did anyone ever forget Hard-Way Ray?"
"Well, you've got a point. If you want, I can call him and tell him to expect to hear from you. But I'm not sure if that'll smooth the way for you or just get him to keep his guard up."
"Just so it gets me past the reception desk," I said.
He made the call, and it got me past reception and all the way into Sylvan Harding's office. The first thing he did was apologize for the view. "If you're in the Empire State Building," he said, "you ought to be able to see three or four states, wouldn't you think? But we're on the seventh floor, and for all the view we've got we might as well be in the basement." He smiled in the right places as he told me this, and it had a very pat feel to it; I had the feeling every visitor got to hear the same little speech.
I was on a fishing expedition, looking for anyone who might have had something against the late Byrne Hollander, and I didn't get a lot from Harding. He couldn't come up with a single disappointed client or disgruntled employee, and seemed puzzled by the notion that anyone anywhere could actually harbor ill feeling toward a member of the legal profession.
I learned that Hollander had specialized in estate and trust work, which made it even less likely that a resentful client had sent Bierman and Ivanko to his door. In his line of work, his clients were dead and gone before any failings on his part became evident.
I asked about Bierman and Ivanko. Had Byrne Hollander ever represented either of them, or had any dealings that involved either man? Harding recognized the names and was shaking his head before I could finish asking the question. "Ours is an exclusively civil practice," he told me, and he didn't mean they were polite to one another, although I suppose that went without saying. "None of the partners or associates handle criminal cases."
"Even crooks draw wills," I said, "or get named in other people's. I'm trying to find a connection between either of the two killers and the Hollander family- or to rule it out."
"My feeling is that you can do the latter. Rule it out."
Just by force of will, evidently. "What I'd like you to do," I said, "is run a global search of Hollander's hard drive." I'd memorized what T J had suggested earlier, and I could rattle it off, even if I didn't entirely understand what I was saying. "Not just file names but within the files, looking for either of the two names, Bierman or Ivanko."
He swore he couldn't do that. The files were confidential, first of all, their contents subject to attorney-client privilege. On top of that, Hollander's computer files were protected by Hollander's password. I told him he'd obviously found the password or he'd be too busy to talk to me, with all of Hollander's unfinished work clogging the system. And I told him I didn't want to violate attorney-client privilege, just to look for two names. If he couldn't find them, it would be no violation to tell me so. If they showed up, he could always tell me he'd changed his mind and I should go to hell.
In the end, I guess it was easier for him to enter a few keystrokes and click his mouse a few times than to explain to me all that was wrong with my reasoning. And, as I'd anticipated, he didn't have occasion to strain his ethical conscience. Neither name, Bierman or Ivanko, appeared anywhere in Byrne Hollander's files.
When I talked to Ray Gruliow, I'd also made it a point to ask him about the two killers. They didn't strike me as likely clients for him, but you never knew. If there was a way to paint the violation of the Hollanders as a political act, a blow against the system struck from the left or right, Hard-Way Ray could have done what he does best- i.e., put the system on trial, confuse the hell out of everybody, and win an acquittal for his loathsome clients.
He'd never represented either of them, or so much as heard of them until they turned up dead on Coney Island Avenue. Drew Kaplan, who has a one-man general practice in Brooklyn, hadn't had any contact with them, either, but he said Bierman's name was familiar, though he couldn't say why. "You ought to be able to find out who represented them in their court appearances," he said. "It's a matter of record. Whether the attorneys will feel free to talk to you is something else, but finding them ought to be easy."