She thought for a moment. “Any immediate family members nearby?”
“Stembler will know, but we’re getting that he had no family left. If we have to, we’ll call the fiancee. I think we can count on Stembler to soft peddle any details we give him.”
“Wow, you, Butch, and Jonee work the phones. You’ve all been in vice. Call any old contacts, find out everything you can about sex clubs in Manhattan until Wolf is ready to brief us on the autopsy. After that I want Jonee on RR. Wow, you and Butch take on the area in Greenwich Village. I want to know where he went. What he did. Who he saw? Any clubs in that neighborhood? If so, shake ‘em but don’t break ‘em. We’re interested in Handley’s activities, who he might have connected with during that half-hour or so. Our story is we need to talk to him about a case in progress.
“Si, start working on back stories. You know how far you can go with that.”
“Yes sir,” the little man answered.
Cody looked up at the timer.
“We’re two hours and twenty-four minutes into the show.”
“Same song, new verse,” Rizzo said.
“Maybe. But I have a feeling this is one song we’ve never heard before.”
11
Cody and Kate Winters took the elevator to the garage on the first floor. Rizzo was waiting, holding the rear door of a black Lincoln open for them. They crawled in and Rizzo got behind the wheel. The large steel garage door rolled up.
“Where to, Cap?”
“Financial district,” Cody said. “Exchange Place, across the street from the Stock Exchange.”
“Easy one,” Rizzo said. “We’ll cut over to Broadway and head down. Ten minutes.”
“No rush.”
Rizzo snaked his way through Little Italy, turned onto Broadway and headed south toward the few cramped blocks that formed an empire whose heart was the stock market; its blood, dollars, Euros, yen, and market shares; and brokers the jaded knights that jousted for power and control over its fortunes. Its main artery was Wall Street, which someone had once called Heart Attack Alley. And little wonder. Millions could dissolve in a day because of bad weather in Texas, a bad crop in Kansas, some sick cows in Canada, or a Ponzi scheme outed. Compared to this win or lose fiefdom, Las Vegas was a nickel-dime poker game.?
Victor Stembler was one of the elite members of a round table of multi-millionaires who were major players on the street. He had inherited his seat from his father, Chester, who in turn had inherited it from his father, Sidney, Victor’s grandfather, a robber baron of the old school who had made his first fortune in the railroad business.
Victor’s genes came from Sidney, a ruthless but charming rogue who loved the competition almost as much as the money.
Chester was neither charming nor competitive, he was simply greedy. A humorless and stingy alcoholic bigot, he had forced one of his partners, Herman Marx, out of the business because he hated being in business with a Jew. He had endured Trexler, reduced to a junior partner because he was smarter than Chester. It was a known fact that Chester had kept the name Marx, Stembler and Trexler because he was too cheap to spend the money to change letterheads, logos, and various other accoutrements attached to the corporation. He had died in his private rail car traveling from San Francisco to New York. His death was attributed to a heart attack although Victor liked to say his father, “choked to death on his own gall.”
Victor had taken over the business and was soon known on the street as a man to be reckoned with. But his only son, Victor, Jr., had drowned in a yachting accident. And his daughter, Linda, had no taste for the business.
Raymond Handley had come along at the perfect time. He was handsome and charming, captain of the Princeton Lacrosse team, a top student and a ruthless competitor, who had worked his way to the top in the corporation with a combination of talent and an instinct for the jugular. And he treated Linda like a princess.
The perfect candidate for a future son-in-law.
Victor was delighted when his daughter fell head over heels for Handley. At sixty, Stembler was smugly successful and looking forward to shorter days in New York and more time on his backyard tennis court in Boston.?
Cody didn’t know any of this background. Larry Simon would later fill him in with the details. He only knew he was about to give Victor Stembler a very hard kick in the head and he felt badly about it.
He and Kate exited the elevator on the top floor of the building across the street from the Stock Exchange. Stembler’s office was on northeast corner of an elegant hallway, its teakwood walls and floors subtly lit by antique lamps on pedestal tables. It was deathly still.
“A little depressing, don’t you think?” Cody said in a half-whisper.
“I think we’re supposed to be intimidated,” Kate answered.
When they reached Stembler’s office Cody tapped on the door and they entered the secretary’s lair which was a bit cheerier although the secretary, whose placard told them was Eleanor Wood, was archly solemn, archly coiffed, archly dressed, and archly challenging.
Cody tried a smile. She reacted as though he had committed a mortal sin. He got serious. He handed her his card.
“My name’s Captain Micah Cody, NYPD Tactical Assistance Squad. This is my associate, Assistant District Attorney Winters. We’re here to see Mister Stembler.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, Ms. Wood. It’s a matter of some urgency.”
She looked at the card, snapped it with a fingernail, and looked back at him. “He’s on the phone,” she said sternly.
“Tell him we’re here, please.”
“I can’t interrupt him. It’s an international call,” and she leaned forward slightly, “of some urgency. ”
As she said it, the red light on her multi-line phone blinked off.
“He’s off the phone now,” Cody said with quiet authority. “Tell him we’re here or I will gladly save you the trouble and go in and tell him myself.”
“Really!” she said, her eyes widening.
“Yes really,” he said. “Now.”
She turned sharply and entered Stembler’s office closing the door behind her.
“I thought she had the jump on you for a minute there.”
Cody answered with his usual cryptic smile.
The secretary returned. “Mister Stembler will see you now,” she said.
“Thank you,” Cody said and motioned Kate to go in first. The office was large but not expansive, tastefully decorated and brighter than the hall and the secretary’s anteroom. They were facing his desk, which was waxed to perfection. The phone, a leather writing blotter, a pen set, a cigarette box and matching ashtray and a gold lighter were all placed in perfect symmetry. There was a sofa and a coffee table in one corner, two leather trimmed chairs in front of the desk, and large windows on the walls to their left and right, one overlooking the East River, the other the Hudson.
Stembler was a tall man, six-one or two. His gray hair was neatly trimmed as was the pencil thin mustache that lined his upper lip. He had a tennis tan and stood as erect as a king’s guard. He was wearing a pinstripe double-breasted suit with a flash of silk in the breast pocket and he was smoking a cigarette.
He spoke in a deep, cultured voice. “Well, uh,” he looked at the card, “Captain Cody, what can I do for you?”
“Raymond Handley works for you, doesn’t he Mister Stembler?” Cody said.
Stembler looked annoyed. He took a drag on the cigarette. “Raymond is a vice president of this company and about to become a junior partner and my son-in-law, which I’m sure you’re aware of,” Stembler snapped.
“He’s dead,” Cody said.
Stembler’s attitude vanished. His tan seemed to drain from his face, replaced by skin the color of an oyster shell. His hands shook and his lips moved a moment before he spoke. Kate stared at Cody, a bit shocked by his abrupt disclosure.