“It is a silly name, really. A prep cook does very little cooking. He does all the dicing and slicing of raw ingredients. Any cooking he would do would be limited to maybe skimming stocks, reheating sauces, things of that nature. It is hard, tedious work.”
“Did you like him? Did the kitchen staff like him?”
“I never thought about it. I am running a restaurant, not a social club. I was pleased to have a good prep cook who spoke good English. Most prep cooks these days are Hispanic and my Spanish is terrible.”
“Can I look at his job application, do you think?”
Chef Liu screwed up his face. “Why are the police so interested in Robert? The man died of an aneurism.”
“We’re just making sure we didn’t miss anything before.”
He liked that answer about as much as Esme had liked my answers. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m just following my orders, Chef Liu. Gimme a break, okay?”
“Okay, but there is no job application. It’s all word of mouth here. Somebody knows someone else. Like that.”
“Who brought Robert Tillman to your attention?”
“Tino.”
“Tino?”
“Tino Escobar. He’s no longer here. And no, I don’t know where he went. Now, if you don’t mind, I have-”
“One last question, then I’m outta here. Do you remember the restaurant Robert worked at before he came here. I mean, you didn’t just hire him on Tino’s word, right?”
“Kid Charlemagne’s on 2nd Avenue and 7th.”
Chef Liu gestured that we were leaving and he shut off the office lights in case I was thinking of another question.
Back on the street, I punched in Maya Watson’s number. Voicemail again. I was apparently at the top of her shit list. This time, I didn’t bother leaving a message.
The phone vibrated in my hand. Assuming it was Maya Watson calling me right back, I didn’t check the number and picked up.
“Hey, Moe.” It wasn’t Maya Watson, but Nick Roussis. “How’d that intel I got you on Delgado work out?”
“Yeah, Nicky, I meant to thank you for that. First real lead in the case.”
“Not a problem. So did he do it? Did Delgado kill that EMT?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means maybe. Some evidence points his way and some doesn’t. Besides, I’m looking into other possibilities too.”
He sounded disappointed. “Whatever you say, but let me know how it works out, okay?”
“You got it, Nicky. And thanks again. I won’t forget your going out of your way for me.”
Frankly, I was with Nick. I was disappointed too, but nothing is ever easy or uncomplicated. Nothing, at least where I’m concerned.
THIRTY-TWO
Man, Robert Tillman had really gotten under Esme’s skin. The problem was that it wasn’t particularly obvious why or how he’d done it. Chef Liu hadn’t shed much light on the subject and given that I’d already cost him his day bartender, I somehow didn’t think the time was right to start questioning any of his other employees. My initial inclination was to rush right over to Kid Charlemagne’s, but I decided that would be a mistake. I wanted to find out a little bit more about Tillman before I went stumbling around the way I was prone to do.
As I got to my car, it hit me for the first time that no one had mentioned Robert Tillman’s family filing a lawsuit. That seemed very peculiar in a city where litigation was everyone’s second favorite sport and where there were as many lawyers as cockroaches. Don’t get me wrong, those same lawyers and their evil big brothers, the insurance companies, kept Prager amp; Melendez Investigations, Inc. in the black until the day we closed our doors. The thing was, the case was such a total slam dunk; I could have tried it and won or gotten a huge settlement. With a guaranteed multimillion dollar judgment just sitting out there for the taking, I couldn’t understand how some enterprising lawyer hadn’t hooked up with a greedy member of the Tillman clan. I aimed my car toward the Brooklyn Bridge because there was someone I knew on the other side of the bridge who might be able to clarify things for me.
I walked through the lobby of 4 °Court Street for the first time in many years. This building had been the longtime home of Prager amp; Melendez Investigations, Inc. It was also home to most of the major criminal law and personal injury firms in Brooklyn. Given that Brooklyn Borough Hall and the courts were across the street, Brooklyn Law School was a few blocks away, and the Brooklyn House of Detention was a short walk away on Atlantic Avenue, it was all very convenient or, if you were more cynically minded, very incestuous. To my way of thinking, it was both.
The firm of Pettibone, Kinder, Hart, and Wang were Brooklyn’s kings of torts and they had been Prager amp; Melendez’s most lucrative account. They worked big money cases: major product liability, aircraft disasters, class actions. Cheesy TV ads weren’t their style. They didn’t beg for clients. Clients begged for them. They were the type of hired guns that insurance companies either loved or loathed depending upon which table they were paid to sit at. If anyone could explain to me how a case as ripe as Tillman’s was still unpicked on the vine, Harper Pettibone Jr. could do it.
Harper was about my age, but still had an athletic build. He had been a club champion squash player and had obviously kept at it. Squash. No one in Coney Island played fucking squash. Then again, no one in Coney Island had a name like Harper Pettibone Jr. I used to bust his chops about his upbringing all the time. I think maybe that’s why we got along. I wasn’t big on kneeling to kiss anybody’s ring and he liked that about me. He also liked that we did good work for him without padding our invoices.
“Moses Prager!” He put his arm around my shoulder when he stepped out of his office. “God, you look awful,” he said with a laugh in his voice, but his soft blue eyes weren’t smiling. “How are you, my friend?” Harper didn’t wait for an answer. “Come in. Come in.” He looked at his watch and turned to his secretary. “No calls for fifteen minutes, please.”
Fifteen minutes. I’d hate to see how much time he gave people he didn’t like.
We moved into his office. It was much the same as it had been the last time I saw it. Very classic. Very old school. One wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, walnut paneling, a brown leather sofa, two green leather wing chairs, a big-assed desk, and a properly stuffy portrait of his late father and his partners.
“You’re a blended scotch man, if I remember correctly,” he said as he fiddled at the little dry bar in a cabinet to the right of his desk. “Sit.”
I settled into a chair across from his desk. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
Harper twisted his lips in disappointment. “Well, I never did enjoy drinking alone.” He closed the cabinet and sat behind his desk. “What can I do for you, Moe?”
I began to remind him about the circumstances of Robert Tillman’s death, but I didn’t get very far. Harper was well familiar with the case and with Alta Conseco’s subsequent homicide.
“But what’s all this to do with you?” he asked.
“Alta Conseco, the EMT who was murdered, she was Carmella’s older sister.”
Harper shook his head. “How awful.”
“The cops haven’t gotten very far with finding her killer and Carm asked me to try my luck with it.”
“But you two are-”
“-divorced. Yeah, I know. There was too much history there for me to say no.”
“I understand that. I do indeed. But how can I help?”
“Harper, if I told you that no one in Robert Tillman’s family has filed suit, what would you say?”
“I would say his relatives are either very foolish or very dead because the case is a walk in the park,
