“No?” She turned sharply. Stopped. “No, it doesn’t matter. I have the house, the money. No more worry, no more girls.”
I said, “Max Bagnio ended it.”
“Yes,” Stella Pappas said.
John Albano touched my arm, we should leave. I shook him off.
“Was Andy involved in some big business deal, Stella?”
“He never talked business with me.”
“I’m not so sure Max Bagnio was in it alone,” I said. “You understand? Max killed him, but maybe for a different reason. Paid to do it. Then Max was killed to shut him up.”
Her eyes flickered away. She was silent.
“Did Andy mention Caxton Industries, or Ultra-Violet Controls, or Ramapo Construction Company?”
“Ramapo?” Stella said. “Charley’s company?”
“Did Charley have a big deal? Andy said something?”
She thought. “Yes. He laughed about Ramapo once. He was pleased. Charley had a sweet deal, he said, a real pigeon for plucking. Over in Wyandotte. A bonanza.”
“For Andy, or for Charley?”
Stella looked at John Albano. “Mostly for Charley, I think.”
“Any names? Irving Kezar? Lawrence Dunlap? Sid Meyer?”
“No, no names. The men don’t tell women details.”
“But Charley had a scheme, a bonanza?”
John Albano said, “Charley always has a scheme, a big deal.”
“Yeh,” I said. I turned to Mia. “Sid Meyer tried to talk to you. You said he never did. But what did he want, Mia?”
She hesitated. “He wanted me to take him to my father. I never did talk to him.”
“He wanted to meet Andy? Why?”
She shook her head.
“She doesn’t know, Dan,” John Albano said.
Stella Pappas laughed. “Maybe he had a new girl for Andy.”
“Stop it, Stel!” John Albano said.
“No more girls,” Stella Pappas said. Her eyes glittered. “Don’t worry about me, Papa. I’m good now. I’m fine.”
There was a certain triumph in her voice. John Albano wanted me out of the house. This time I went. In Albano’s car we drove back to New York. The late morning sun was almost hot.
John Albano said nothing for more than a mile. “Max Bagnio killed them, it doesn’t matter why. Leave it closed, Dan.”
“I thought you hated them-Andy, Charley, Don Vicente? I thought you wanted to know the truth? Are you afraid I’ll get too close to your family, Albano? You’re honest, and tough, but you’re a Sicilian, too, right? What would you do to stop me?”
He watched the road. “How close do you think it’s going to get to my family, Dan?”
“Close enough to know the truth.”
“We know the truth,” Albano said. “Enough of it.”
“Maybe, but I’m going to be sure,” I said. The stink of the Jersey Flats came to meet us, the city in the distance. “Everyone wants it closed. Andy’s dead, Max Bagnio’s dead, and all for the best. Forget it. A favor to the world.”
“No loss, Dan,” Albano said.
“None, and maybe there isn’t any more,” I said. “But Diana Wood is dead, too, and Emily Green. I care about them. I won’t let them vanish like flies swatted on a wall.”
John Albano watched the road the rest of the way into the city. We stopped, looked up Caxton Industries in the phone book. They were on Madison. We drove there. Mr. Martin Winthrop wasn’t listed on the lobby directory. Up in the Caxton offices they told us that Winthrop was only the assistant manager of the Accounting Department. I felt a sharp letdown.
“Yes?” Martin Winthrop said in his small office, nervous.
He was a tall, spare man with watery blue eyes and the look of an unimportant clerk. When I asked him about Irving Kezar, he was dismayed, even scared.
“Mr. Kezar simply made some investments for me. Personal,” Winthrop stammered. “I… I was aware that he wasn’t, well, exactly reputable, and his fee was high. But he made some very good investments. I hope there’s nothing illegal-?”
“You work for Ultra-Violet Controls?” I said. “Ever do anything with Ramapo Construction Company?”
“Oh, no. I work on some of the subsidiaries accounting, of course, but nothing direct. I’ve never heard of Ramapo.”
I was stumped, he sounded honest. “Who does work directly with Ultra-Violet Controls?”
“Well, that would be our home office. In Los Angeles.” He looked away, hesitant. “Mr. Kincaid is in charge. Peter Kincaid.”
I caught the hesitation, the reluctance. What did it mean? That he didn’t like Mr. Peter Kincaid? Or that…?
“How did you learn about Kezar?” I asked. “Meet him?”
“Yes,” Winthrop said, uneasy. “He was recommended to me, a man who could make me money. When I was in Los Angeles some months ago. Mr. Kincaid told me, said Kezar could fix me up.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Down on Madison Avenue I looked at my watch. Mr. Peter Kincaid was in charge of Ultra-Violet Controls, and Kincaid knew Irving Kezar. I just had time to catch the noon jet to L.A.
John Albano drove me out to Kennedy. He didn’t say much all the way, and as the jet taxied away, I saw Albano up on the observation deck watching me go.
CHAPTER 25
The magic of jet travel, and time zones, landed me at Los Angeles International before two-thirty, Pacific Time, and by three I was at the mammoth Caxton Industries main offices in Santa Monica. Mr. Peter Kincaid was a vice-president of Caxton, executive-vice-president of Ultra-Violet Controls, and sat in a giant office behind rows of secretaries.
My name didn’t get me past the first secretary. Mr. Kincaid is terribly busy, Mr. Fortune. If you’d care to leave your name, a telephone number, perhaps tomorrow or the next day?
“Tell him I’m here about Irving Kezar,” I said.
Mr. Peter Kincaid soon came out to greet me himself, usher me into the beautiful office with its dazzling view of the Santa Monica Mountains-through the smog; pale hills, almost invisible. Mr. Kincaid sat me down in an armchair that had cost more than my whole five rooms of secondhand furniture, sat himself at a desk that would have paid my rent for a year, maybe longer.
“You come from Kezar? About what?”
Smooth and pleasant enough, but blunt and direct. As neat and turned-out as Lawrence Dunlap, but on a higher level. He hadn’t shaken hands, no motion wasted. I wasn’t important to his work. In command, sure of both his ability and purpose. A lot of brains here, top of all his classes. One of those who really ran the country.
“No,” I said. “I came to ask about Kezar.”
“What about him?”
“Ultra-Violet has a deal going with him?”
“He works for us sometimes. Not with me. I can send you-”
“Then why did his name open your door?” I said.
My round, but his executive face didn’t change, and he didn’t answer. He would make me come to him.
“You, Kezar and Ramapo Construction in Wyandotte, New Jersey.”
“Come to the point, Mr. Fortune.”
“Okay. Ultra-Violet needs a laboratory in Wyandotte, a tract to house its workers. There was some problem. You got to Kezar, he got to Charley Albano at Ramapo Construction, and no more problem. Kezar and Charley Albano know how to handle these things, right? Money is spread around, Kezar gets his cut, and Ramapo gets the construction contract.”
“You came here to sell me something?”
“No. Nothing I want to sell.”
Kincaid stood. “Is that all, then?”
“I’m a private detective, Mr. Kincaid.” I held up my license. He barely glanced at it, but I don’t think he missed a comma. He remained standing. I said, “I’m not here about your business. I’m here about four murders, maybe five, and your Wyandotte operation could be indirectly involved. I won’t cause you trouble.”
“I know that. There’s no way you could.”
“Okay, you’re covered. But murder is investigated hard, and you never know what might come out accidentally. A risk.”
I watched his mind working like a computer without a trace of concern showing on his face. He wasn’t considering the horror of murder, or his duty, morals or ethics. He was analyzing how I could be best handled in his company’s interest. He sat down.