Vincent slipped his arm around Sheila’s shoulder, who placed a hand on his chest — Gino who?
I said, “Casey Shannon was murdered.”
“What?” Agape, he said, “My God, what happened?”
I filled him in, including the crushed chest cavity, and told him about the similar fate that had met Roger Kraft, the mechanic used by his friend and co-worker, William Owens, on a certain Ferrari — the one that had been tentatively identified as the vehicle in the hit-and-run at Pete’s Chophouse.
Sheila looked stricken and Vincent didn’t look much better.
“This is a nightmare,” he said quietly. “A freaking nightmare.”
“We’re now at four homicides and your near-miss hit-and-run,” I said. “All connected in some fashion to the Colby brokerage... and, frankly, you.”
Alarmed, divining the accusation in that, Sheila said, “Mr. Hammer, Vincent and I have been together all day!”
I said to him, “I thought you had an appointment with your shrink.”
“With my psychiatrist’s blessing,” Vincent said, “I took a day off from work and from therapy. We went to the theater, a matinee, Cabaret, ate at the Four Seasons, spent some time at Sheila’s apartment, and came here to round the day out with a little harmless fun.”
“In the Dungeon Room?”
Sheila blushed, but all Vincent did was smile a little, saying, “It’s perfectly innocent, Mr. Hammer. Some mild spanking, whips that don’t hurt, hands tied behind the back while your partner does whatever he or she would like, within reason...”
I wondered what “within reason” was in a club where you could get your ashes hauled in a booth and then share a mirror of cocaine with your sweetie-pie.
I asked, “How well did you know Lt. Shannon?”
“We were friendly,” Vincent said with a shrug. “At least... superficially. I suspect that he suspected me.”
“In that secretary’s death?”
“Yes. I’d... well, I’d seen Victoria a few times. That was her name, Victoria Dorn. As I say, she and I’d gone out. I’d stayed over a few times.” He glanced at Sheila. “Sorry, honey. That was way before us.” To me he added, “But the lieutenant never found anything, ’cause there was nothing to find.”
“What about the other death?”
“Paul Matthews? He was just a broker out on the floor. I didn’t know him well. But that was an accident.”
I grunted a laugh. “What, like your ‘accident’ outside Pete’s? Vincent — it’s no accident when a car has worked up enough speed in a parking ramp to run somebody down.”
“That’s not true, Mr. Hammer! Think about it — we’ve all seen people come roaring around corners in parking garages, and said, ‘That’s guy’s crazy!’ Maybe not often, but it happens.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Look,” he said, and swallowed, “I’m getting scared. I don’t mind admitting it. Somebody’s killing people, and if it wasn’t for me being a target myself, I’d say whoever it is, is trying to lay blame on me!”
“Frame you,” I said.
He nodded. “It sure feels like it. Sure looks like it.”
“I thought you wanted me to stay out of this.”
He shook his head slowly. “I was wrong, Mr. Hammer. I was way out of line at Dad’s office. I’m trying to work on this, this... temper of mine, flaring up like it does. I really can’t control it yet. I am getting help. You know that.”
Sheila hugged his arm. “He’s trying. He really is.”
“I gather that,” I said.
His chin went up slightly. “Mr. Hammer, I want your help. I need your help. And I’ll cooperate in any way I can.”
“You can start by telling me whether you think Shannon was still zeroing in on you.”
A sigh. “I can’t really say. We were friendly at the gym. But you know, I felt he got a membership there just to... watch me. Get close to me. I got a ‘Columbo’ vibe off him. You know, he’d spot me when I was working on a machine or lifting weights. Helpful, interested. Just too damn nice.”
“It does appear,” I said, “that he was still working on the case, even though he’d retired. Shannon seems to have lied to his partner, Chris Peters, saying he was leaving for a few weeks for some R & R in Florida.”
“Why would he do that?” Vincent asked.
“Good question,” I said.
Chapter Eight
After two days of getting nowhere chasing down leads Chris Peters provided, a morning workout seemed in order.
The Solstice Fitness Center, on Broadway between East 19th and 20th, had little in common with my gym of choice, Bing’s, where boxers and businessmen in sweats worked the bag and wore out machines. At Bing’s you got a high-school phys ed feel and equipment often in worse shape than you were; you could rent a stained towel with holes for a buck, and endure lockers so small that you soon learned to arrive already in your sweats, unless you didn’t mind going straight to the dry cleaners for a post-workout press of your incredibly wrinkled suit.
The Solstice, on the other hand, sported three levels with a top floor suspended over the main one where men and women pedalled stationery bikes and climbed ropes and ran in place like the starting gun of the New York Marathon would go off any second. Clients male and female in matching gray-and-white togs from the in-house boutique slow-jogged over to the juice bar or maybe for their massage. Disco on formidable speakers rivaled the sound level of the Tube’s techno tripe, and the locker room was operating-room clean, the lockers themselves roomy, with towels included.
The endless array of equipment gleamed like a 1930s Hollywood-movie nightclub, with all the weight machines, treadmills and Stairmasters you could ever hope for, though no bags to punch. Personal trainers supervised about a third of the clientele, and in various areas coaches worked with groups.
It cost thirty bucks for a one-time workout, which made me regret not going on expense account. I was the sole soul in sweats from home, and easily the oldest person there. I put in a good workout and the six-foot guy about thirty who’d checked me in came over as I sat on the edge of a leg-weight machine, toweling off.
“What do you think, Mr. Hammer?” His voice was as husky as he was, muscular but not muscle-bound, a blandly handsome bullet-headed guy in a black t-shirt, matching polyester sweat pants and gray sneakers. He had a name tag that said ROD and a whistle around his neck. “Is Solstice for you?”
“I like all this equipment,” I said. “Where I been going, the machines seem tied up half the time.”
“We have a special going.”
“Yeah?”
“Fifteen thousand a year. Regularly twenty-five.”
Bing’s was fifty bucks a month. Of course, I had to pay for towels.
I stood, wrapped the towel around my neck. “You wouldn’t happen to know who I am, would you?”
“You’re Mr. Hammer.”
That’s what I thought.
“My badge is in my locker,” I said, which was a good way to make him think I was a cop without lying. He didn’t have to know it was a private investigator’s buzzer. “Casey Shannon was a member here, right?”
His expression didn’t shift at all. “That was in the papers and on TV. He was killed, huh? Terrible.”
Rod here didn’t know how terrible. Pat Chambers was holding back the exact cause of death — “blow to the chest” was as far as the statement to the press went.
“Terrible,” I agreed. “You mind answering a few questions, Rod?”
“No.” He gestured toward where I’d checked in. “We can go in the office if you like...”