Thomas Vickers, Attorney.
I copied down the name and number and handed the card back to Krug. I finished my cold coffee and asked a few more questions that he couldn’t answer, and he walked me to the door. When I thanked him for his time he stared at me. His face was like a weathered stone and his eyes were full of worry.
“Just tell her to call me,” he said. His voice was low and tattered and it followed me through the snow, all the way home.
18
When I have questions about lawyers, I call Michael Metz. I heated some soup from a can and watched a taxi skate sideways down Sixteenth Street while I waited for Mike to come to the phone. When I said Thomas Vickers’s name to him, he went quiet.
“You know this guy?” I asked after a long silence.
“I do.”
“And?”
“And Tommy Vickers is a very good lawyer. A very expensive and discreet lawyer. A lawyer about whom there is much rumor and speculation, none of which has yet been substantiated.”
“Rumor and speculation about what?”
“Tommy is in the tax consulting business these days- at least that’s what he calls it. Tax shelters, offshore corporate shells, and byzantine trust arrangements are the specialties of the house. Rumor has it that his client list is heavy with Wall Street types, and speculation is that his services run right to the edge- maybe over the edge- of tax evasion and money laundering. Our crackerjack Justice Department has apparently been looking at him for years without any joy.”
“How do you know so much about this guy?”
Mike chuckled. “Back when he was a litigator, a dozen or so years ago, he cleaned my clock in a civil case. I like to keep track.”
“I didn’t know you’d ever had your clock cleaned.”
“What can I say, the ink was barely dry on my law diploma. It was all very educational.”
“No doubt. What does he look like?”
“Somewhere in his fifties by now, medium-sized, silver-haired, and very old-school. Always the dark suit and white shirt and dark tie, like a G-man, and always the closed mouth.”
“Fits the description I got from Holly’s neighbor. What’s his firm called?”
“It’s called the Tommy Vickers All by Himself Firm. He’s not big on trust and sharing.”
“So what’s a high-priced tax consultant like him doing chasing down Holly Cade?”
“Only one reason comes immediately to mind.”
“And that is?”
“Because a very important client asked him to.”
I laughed. “I’ll call him today and find out who.”
“Get him to say more than twenty-five words, I’ll buy you lunch.”
I was about to ring off but Mike wasn’t through. “I spoke to your brother this morning, and told him what I’d learned about the cause of death, and the timing.”
“How did that go?”
“Not well. The news upset him- no surprise there- and he wasn’t particularly cooperative when I asked him his whereabouts that Tuesday.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And when I asked about Stephanie, he pretty much hung up on me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know I’ve worked with painful clients before- worse than David, if you can believe it- and I manage them fine, but he’s not doing himself any favors here. And of course it makes me wonder, and worry.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
“He needs to get past this angry denial crap soon. God forbid the cops call and we still aren’t straight about where he was that Tuesday, or about what your sister-in-law knows.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. For all the good it would do. Shit.
My appetite was shot, but I ate my soup anyway, and thought about my brother and his angry denial crap. I didn’t see him getting past angry anytime soon: he had too much to spare, deep wells of the stuff, and it was too dependable. Anger anchored David, and organized his world, and it gave him comfort somehow- though from what I didn’t know.
Denial was something new, though, and it spoke of an irrationality I wouldn’t have expected from him. David had always fancied himself a realist- pragmatic, unsentimental, and supremely logical; tough-minded, he liked to think. Refusing to answer your lawyer’s questions didn’t fit that picture. But then, what about this case fit any picture of David that I’d ever had? A wind was kicking up outside, and little funnels of snow spun up from the rooftops. I watched them rise and vanish in the air.
I put my soup bowl in the dishwasher and called Thomas Vickers. A frail-sounding woman answered and took my name and put me on hold. Vickers came on the line five minutes later. I started to introduce myself and he stopped me.
“I know who you are,” he said. “You’re a PI.” His voice was soft and raspy and it came from somewhere in Nassau County.
“I’m calling about Holly Cade,” I said, “or maybe you know her better as Cassandra Z.”
“What makes you think I know her at all?”
“Maybe the fact that you were at Krug Visual a while ago, looking for her, and that you were seen at her apartment last month.”
“Looking isn’t the same as finding.”
“Did you find her?”
“I’m not clear on how it’s any of your business.”
“Would you rather it be cop business?”
Vickers made a coughing sound that might have been a laugh. “So much for romance.”
“I don’t want to waste anybody’s time. Should we get together?”
“I need to make a call,” he said. “Give me your number.” I did and Vickers rang off.
I spent the next couple of hours not calling my brother, and thinking about what I’d say when I finally did. I picked up the phone a half-dozen times and put it down again, and while I wasn’t calling him, I tried the 9:3 °Club. I was surprised when someone answered.
The man’s voice was reedy and annoyed. “Sure we’re open tonightwhy not? Half my staff is stuck here, what the hell else should I do?”
“Is Jamie working tonight?”
“No, she’s in Wednesdays and Thursdays.”
She? “I’m talking about the Jamie who’s a guy- a big guy- and works the door sometimes.”
The man was quiet for what seemed a long while. When he spoke again, his voice was rushed and nervous. “Must be another place you’re thinking of,” he said. “No Jamie here.” And then he was gone.
I put the phone down and wondered. It was possible that Krug had been mistaken about where Jamie worked, but the man on the phone hadn’t been confused, he’d been tense. I recalled the tattoos on Babyface’s hands, and what Krug had said about Jamie having perhaps been in prison. If that was true, it might explain the tension: places with liquor licenses- places like the 9:3 °Club- weren’t supposed to hire convicted felons.
The apartment door opened and Clare came in. Snow dusted her long black coat and glistened in her pale hair. Her cheeks were red and her gray eyes were shining. She handed me a brown plastic sack and pulled off her gloves and whisked snowflakes from her sleeves. There was an overnight bag slung on her shoulder, and a larger bag rolling behind her on its own set of wheels. I wondered where her husband was, and how long he’d be snowbound, but I decided not to ask.
