He turned to face Bergman. “I’ve been a New Yorker ever since. And today? Today is the saddest day of all the years I’ve lived here.”
“I’m sorry,” Bergman said without emotion. “Thank you for seeing me.” He offered his hand and they shook.
Nevins was tall, trim, in good shape for a man in his sixties. He was wearing rumpled brown slacks, a gray sweatshirt and expensive loafers. No socks. Cosmetic surgery had stretched the age wrinkles from his face and his thinning, gray hair was combed sideways to cover up a bald spot. On a better day he could have passed for a man in his early fifties but the whites of his swollen, brown eyes were blood-streaked and his voice, forced reed-thin with grief, betrayed his true age.
“Have a seat. You look young for a detective. How about a drink?” Nevins ran the words together into a single sentence as he walked past Bergman toward the wet bar in the corner of the handsomely furnished room.
“Thanks, but I’m on the clock,” Bergman said.
“Going to make me drink alone? How about some fruit juice? We’ve got all flavors. My companion doesn’t drink.”
“Apple juice?”
“Fine.”
Bergman sat down in a large over-stuffed chair beside a wide, round glass table with black iron legs that curved out from a ring under its center.
“Know how many homicides have been committed this year?” Nevins asked as he poured the drinks.
“Four hundred and seventy-two so far,” Bergman replied. “Eight unrelated killings in one day last July. The oldest victim was a ninety-three year old woman shot in a holdup. The youngest killer was a nine-year-old girl who stabbed her best friend in a fight over a jump rope.”
The glass of apple juice made a soft clink when Nevins put it down in front of Bergman. Nevins pulled up another chair and sat next to him.
“Statistics, Inspector Bergman. Six months from now Raymond will be just another statistic. That’s one reason I’m sad. I’m sad because the only time I will ever see his beautiful face again will be in a coffin. I’m sad because he was the best at what he did, for which I can assume some responsibility. And I’m sad because I loved him like the son I never had. I’m sad because he thought of me as the father he never had.”
“Explain.”
“His father was killed when he was a child. His mother lived in California and died years ago. He had no family, except a sister who also died a few years ago.”
“How’d she die?”
There was an imperceptible pause before he answered. “A tragic accident,” he said. He took a sip of his old fashioned. “So, tell me what really happened to Raymond.”
“He was killed in his library. It wasn’t robbery. And we feel certain he knew his killer.”
“That’s it, that’s all?”
“It’s a case in progress, sir. I’m not at liberty to say anymore. I need to talk to you about Handley. Everything you know.” Bergman took out his notebook and pen.
Nevins leaned back and shook his head slowly as he stared at the ceiling. “Jesus, how many days do you have, detective? Or weeks, I should say. I’ve known this man since he was a sophomore at Princeton. We have recruiters at all the Ivy League schools, all the major firms do. He was called to my attention the day he entered college. I had his dossier from the day he was born. I monitored him through his first year and then I mentored him, groomed him, took him on the floor of the Exchange for the first time, saw his eyes light up watching the big board. He had it all. The fire in his belly, the instinct for the edge, the risk-taking, the focus, the intelligence, he was a natural for the game.”
“And a future son-in-law for Victor Stembler?”
“Of course. That was part of the package.”
“Did he ever fire anybody or damage someone’s career?”
“Not without cause. Raymond couldn’t stand incompetence. But he never did anything with rancor. He let them down softly. Others I know are not that kind.”
“But he liked to win.” It was a question framed as a sentence.
“Of course, whatever the enterprise. If you played racquetball with Raymond you would expect to come away with bruises. But it wasn’t personal. He was a ferocious competitor. Losing was never an option.”
“How about women?”
“His one flaw. He was born with the power gene that validates sex. But to my knowledge, he never conned a woman in his life. He always made it clear up front that it was for the joy of the moment. There were only two viable relationships in his life: the Stembler Company and Linda Stembler. So how exactly did he die, Inspector Bergman?”
“I’m sorry, sir, to have to tell you…His throat was cut.”
Nevins took it like a physical blow. But he took a deep breath and recovered. “I don’t mean to be rude, son, but if our talk is going to continue, put away your notebook. From here on, this conversation is quid pro quo. You ask and I’ll ask. And I promise you, I can keep a secret.” He tapped his forehead. “There are enough secrets in this brain to send half the people on Wall Street up the river.”
Bergman thought for a moment and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see how it goes.”
He put the notebook in his inside breast pocket and clicked off his tape recorder mike at the same time. “Before we start,” Bergman said to Nevins, “let me ask you one thing. Is there an outside chance that maybe, just maybe, Raymond Handley may have experimented sexually with men?”
“That sounds a bit homophobic.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. At this point we’re not sure whether the killer is a male or female.”
Nevins frowned and looked down for a moment. When he looked back he was staring past Bergman, his eyes fixed on some vague spot in a dark corner of the room.
“The first time I ever saw Raymond was in one of those old school restaurants,” he mused. “You know, all teakwood and dark colors. Framed in the sunlight streaming through the window, he looked like a cutout. A beautiful young man in a boat neck sweater, hair slightly mussed. Not a blemish on his skin. Confident brown eyes. For me, it’s an image frozen in time, like a black and white photograph.”
He stopped, drawn back to the present, and looked back at Bergman.
“He was a sophomore at Princeton. We chit-chatted for a while and sometime during lunch I leaned across the table and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you you have beautiful eyes?’ And Ray looked at me, laughed, and said, ’Well, Mister Nevins, no man ever has.’ So, it was on the table and off, just like that. He knew I was gay. I knew he wasn’t. I wasn’t serious, of course. It was what we call in the business a ‘clarification question.’ No, Inspector, Raymond loved the ladies. He also knew if he got involved with one, it could jeopardize his career at the firm. So, in college, and ever since, he was a one night stand man.”
“Do any of these names mean anything to you? Trapeze Lady? Tit for Twat? The Sex Circus?”
“Look, New York is full of sex clubs,” Nevins said with a dismissive wave of his arm, “Trapeze Lady performed at the Sex Circus. But it got too public and vice shut it down. Same with the Tit for Twat. Ray went to them once or twice until I warned him off.”
“Does the Staten Island Fairy ring a bell?”
Nevins face drained and became pasty. He was obviously shocked.
“Christ, where did you hear that?”
He got up slowly, his shoulders sagging wearily. He looked at Bergman’s untouched drink, and went back to the bar to fix himself another one.
He tinkered with the fixings and, without looking up said, “Only two people ever heard of the Staten Island Fairy. It was a joke.”
“A joke?”
“That’s right. I have a jousting sense of humor. Once the gay thing was out of the way I said to Ray, ‘From today forth I’m going to teach you the way we do business at Stembler.’ And I laughed and said, ‘The Staten Island Fairy and the Princeton Hunk are going to be partners.’ It put him at ease and he laughed and we shook on it. I lived on Staten Island at the time.”