“Then why’d you do it?” Taylor asked.
Steve shook his head. “I told you. I made a mistake. This morning I had two men waiting to see me. A businessman and a homeless man. I asked Tracy to show in the businessman, and she needled me about it-the homeless man was here first.”
Tracy opened her mouth to protest.
Steve held up his hand. “No, no. You were absolutely right. I’m just explaining what happened. Anyway, I saw the businessman first. For a number of reasons: the businessman would be impatient, he wouldn’t want to wait; the street guy would be more interesting, I saved him for last. Perfectly reasonable. But for all that, Tracy was basically right. All liberal protestations notwithstanding, I’m a snob and a bigot and I saw the rich man first.”
Steve chuckled and shook his head. “So what do I do? I take the rich man with his hundred-thousand-dollar retainer and throw him out of my office.”
Mark’s eyes widened. “Hundred-thousand-dollar retainer?”
“Yeah.”
“You turned down a hundred thousand dollars?”
“Believe me, we didn’t want it.”
Taylor rubbed his head. “Jesus Christ.”
“So I throw him out of my office, then I bring the street guy in, sit him down, treat him like a king, and sit there talking probate law with him like it was the most natural thing in the world.”
Steve frowned and shook his head. “Only it wasn’t. And if he’d been a normal client and not a street person, I wouldn’t have been talking abstract law with him. I’d have made him tell me the facts of the case. If he wouldn’t, I’d have sent him on his way. Only I didn’t. I was too busy bending over backwards playing Mr. Liberal. But hey, what’s the harm? None of it matters anyway, the guy’s only a street person. What the hell difference does it make how he changes his will? Then Carl Jenson tells me the guy’s a multimillionaire and suddenly it makes all the difference in the world. The guy asked me for advice. I gave it to him. If he goes out and tries to apply it himself, the results could be disastrous.
“And that’s just for starters. Add to that the fact the man may or may not be a lunatic. Throw in the fact he’s got a half a dozen greedy relatives trying to prove he is. Add in the fact they’re the people in the will he’s talking about. And top it off with the fact some of the things he’s asking me about smacked of collusion and fraud.”
Taylor whistled. “Jesus Christ.”
“Right,” Steve said. “The bottom line is, I am in one hell of a mess. And the worst thing about it is, it’s my own damn fault. I put myself there. I got no one to blame but myself.
“So, you ask me why I want to follow Jenson. I guess the answer is, because it’s too late to follow the bum.
“So, stick with Jenson and find out anything you can. If by any chance he should lead you to Jack Walsh-that’s the bum by the way-drop Jenson and tail him. Frankly, I don’t think he will. But tell your men to be alert.”
“Right,” Taylor said. “But how will they know?”
“Know what?”
“The street guy. Suppose Jenson goes looking for this guy on the subway? Suppose he talks to the homeless down there. There’s a million of ‘em. How are they gonna spot this Jack Walsh?”
“I never said it was gonna be easy, Mark. But if it’s our man, I think you’ll know it. The way I see it, if Jenson finds him, he’ll stick to him like glue.”
“If that happens, then what?”
Steve shrugged. “Damned if I know. Anyway, that’s our best-case-scenario. Frankly, I doubt if Jenson will see him again.”
“So what’s the point?”
“Damned if I know. All I know is, I’m in a mess and I want all the information I can get.”
Taylor thought that over. He shook his head. “Jesus, what a mess.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. He thought a moment. Then he chuckled. “The way I see it, there’s only one saving grace.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
Steve jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m off the hook with Tracy.”
Tracy looked at him. “What?”
Steve smiled. “Yeah. About the homeless man and the businessman. Seeing the rich man first.” Steve shrugged. “The way things turned out, I actually saw the rich man last.”
5
Mark Taylor took a sip of coffee from the paper cup on his desk, ran his hand through his curly red hair, and flipped open his notebook. “All right, Steve, here’s the rundown. If yesterday is any indication, Carl Jenson is a lily of the field-he toils not, neither does he spin. After leaving your office, he walked down Broadway to the local OTB and hung out all afternoon placing bets.”
Mark grinned. “Now, in a case like that, my operatives have a certain amount of leeway. If he feels he must in order to maintain his cover, a man may place a reasonable amount of small bets and write ‘em off on his expense account. On the other hand, if the guy should happen to win, it’s another story entirely-the guy was playing with his own money all along, and he pockets the winnings. In this case, my man happened to hit the daily double at forty-eight to one, and even on a two-dollar bet that’s a pretty nice bonus.”
Taylor took another sip of coffee. “Your buddy Jenson is another story. He bet every race, never got a nibble. Not that it would have done him much good. He was betting two bucks a pop, usually at very short odds. Once he bought a dollar box on the trifecta-that ran him six bucks. And once he put ten bucks on the nose of a heavy favorite that went off at even odds. The nag finished fourth.”
“How’d he take losing?”
“About how you’d expect. It pissed him off, and he’d bitch and moan and tear up his tickets and gripe about his luck to anyone willing to listen.” Mark shrugged. “But what the hell. A guy bets like that, he’s not desperate and he’s not plunging. He’s not gambling for the money, he’s gambling for recreation.”
“Some recreation,” Steve said.
“Hey,” Taylor said. “He may have had a fine day. A guy like that probably enjoys pissing and moaning about his luck more than he enjoys winning.”
Taylor referred to his notebook. “At any rate, he hung out there until seven o’clock. Then he had dinner at a Sabrett stand on the corner, and walked uptown to 57th Street. There’s a bridge club there, apparently has a penny-ante poker game in the back room for some of its more select clientele. How Carl Jenson falls into that category is beyond me, but apparently he did, ’cause he went in there and stayed until eleven o’clock. My man had to hang out in the main room and play rubber bridge for four hours. At two cents a point, that’s a heavy game, and he wound up throwing back twenty bucks of his horse race winnings.”
Taylor grinned again. “The guy tried to tell me he was playing the ponies on his own money and playing bridge on mine, but I wouldn’t go for it. I told him give me a break, gambling’s gambling. As it is, the guy made a tidy profit.
“Anyway, with my man in the other room, I can’t tell you how well Jenson did at the poker table, except when he came out he didn’t look happy. Of course, the way my man tells it, griping is Jenson’s middle name.
“Anyway, Jenson left at eleven o’clock, took the subway down to 14th Street, caught a PATH train to New Jersey, and took a taxi home. At least, I’d assume it was home. It was an address in Teaneck, New Jersey, which is where the guy told you he lived.”
Taylor took another sip of coffee. “Now, that’s the whole story, and it ain’t much. I know it’s not what you wanted, but I had a good man on him, and I’m sure he didn’t miss a thing. He phoned in from OTB and I talked to him myself, after I’d talked to you, so he knew exactly what we were after. So he was on guard, particularly when Jenson took the subway. And the one thing he’s sure of, is Jenson never made a move toward any street person. Never paid any of them the least attention. As far as he could tell, Jenson had only one interest in life, and that was Carl Jenson.”