Instead of law books here, the room was lined with aquaria of tropical fish. There were tanks of all sizes and shapes, lighted from behind. Bubbles rose constantly from aerators. The atmosphere of the room was oppressively warm and humid. There were guppies, sea horses, angels, zebras, pink damsels, clowns, ghost eels, fire fish, purple queens, swordtails and a piranha.
They all made a glittering display in the clear, backlighted tanks, darting about, blowing bubbles, kissing the glass, coming to the surface to spit.
The first time I'd met Mr Tabatchnick, he'd asked me if I was interested in tropical fish. I'd confessed I was not.
'Hmph,' he'd said. 'Then you have no conception of the comfort to be derived from the silent companionship of our finny friends.'
This was followed by a half-hour, tank-by-tank tour of the room, with Mr Tabatchnick expounding on the Latin names, lifestyles, dispositions, feeding habits, sexual tendencies, and depravities of his finny friends. Most, apparently, ate their young. The lecture, I discovered later, had to be tolerated by every new employee. Thankfully, it was a one-shot, never repeated.
The man seated in the leather swivel chair behind the trestle table appeared to be in his middle seventies. He had a ponderous head set on a large, square, neckless frame, held so rigidly that you wondered if he had left a wooden coathanger in the shoulders of his jacket.
His hands were wide, with spatulate fingers, the skin discoloured with keratosis. His arms seemed disproportionately long, and since he tended to lumber as he walked, with hunched shoulders, heavy head thrust forward, and a fierce scowl on his fleshy features, he was referred to by the law clerks and paralegal assistants as 'King Kong'. In very small voices, of course.
But there was nothing simian about his face. If anything, his were the features of a weary bloodhound, all folds and wrinkles, wattles and jowls, with protruding, rubbery lips (always moist), and eyes so lachrymose that he always seemed on the point of sobbing. His normal expression was one of mournful distress, and it was said that he used it with great effect during his days as a trial lawyer to elicit the sympathy of the jury.
'Good morning, Mr Tabatchnick,' I said brightly.
He bestowed upon me the nod of sovereign to serf, and gestured to a club chair at the side of the table.
'Sol Kipper,' he said. His voice was stentorian, rumbling. An organ of a voice. I wished I had been in the courtroom to hear his summations.
'I beg your pardon, sir?' I said.
'Sol Kipper,' he repeated. 'Solomon Kipper, to be precise. The name means nothing to you?'
I thought desperately. It was not a name you would easily forget. Then it came to m e. .
'I remember,' I said. 'Solomon Kipper. A suicide about two weeks ago. From the top floor of his East Side townhouse. A small story in the Times.'
'Yes,' he said, the folds of skin wagging sadly, 'a small 27
story in the Times. I wish you to know, young man, that Sol Kipper was a personal friend of mine for fifty-five years and an esteemed client of this law firm for forty.'
There didn't seem any fitting reply to that.
'We shall be handling the probate,' Mr Tabatchnick continued. 'Sol Kipper was a wealthy man. Not very wealthy, but wealthy. Cut and dried. I anticipated no problems.'
He paused, leaned forward, punched a button on the intercom on the table.
'Miss Potts,' he said, 'will you come in, please? Bring your notes on the conversation I had late yesterday afternoon with that stranger.'
He settled back. We waited. Thelma Potts entered softly, carrying a spiral-bound steno pad. Mr Tabatchnick did not ask her to sit down.
'Occasionally,' he said in a magisterial tone, 'I deem it appropriate, during certain telephone communications, to ask Miss Potts to listen in on her extension and make notes. Very well, Miss Potts, you may begin…'
Thelma flipped over a few pages and began to translate her shorthand, peering through rimless spectacles and speaking rapidly in a flat, precisely enunciated voice:
'At 4.46 p.m., on the afternoon of Monday, February 5th, this year, a call was received at the main switchboard downstairs. A male voice asked to speak to the lawyer handling the Kipper estate. The call was switched to me.
The man repeated his request. I asked him exactly what it was he wanted, but he said he would reveal that only to the attorney of record. As is usual in such cases, I suggested he write a letter requesting an interview and detailing his interest in the matter. This he said he would not do, and he stated that if the lawyer refused to talk to him, he would be sorry for it later. Those were his exact words: ' H e will be sorry for it later.' I then asked if he would hold. He agreed. I put him on hold, and called Mr Tabatchnick on the intercom, explaining what was happening. He agreed to speak to the caller, but requested that I stay on the extension and take notes.'
I interrupted.
'The male voice on the phone, Miss Potts,' I said.
'Young? Old?'
She stared at me for a few seconds.
'Middle,' she said, then continued reading her notes.
'Mr Tabatchnick asked the purpose of the call. The man asked if he was handling the Kipper estate. Mr Tabatchnick said he was. The man asked his name. Mr Tabatchnick stated it. The man then said he had valuable information in his possession that would affect the Kipper estate. Mr Tabatchnick asked the nature of the information. The caller refused to reveal it. Mr Tabatchnick said he assumed then that the information would be available at a price. The caller said that was correct. His exact words were: 'Right on the button, baby!' Mr Tabatchnick then suggested the caller come to his office for a private discussion. This the man refused to do, indicating he had no desire to have his conversation secretly recorded. But he said he would meet with Mr Tabatchnick or his representative in a place of his, the caller's, choosing. Mr Tabatchnick asked his name. The caller said ' M a r t y ' would be sufficient. Mr Tabatchnick asked his address, which Marty would not reveal. Mr Tabatchnick then said he would have to give the matter some thought but would contact Marty if he or his representative wished to meet with him. Marty gave a number but the call had to be made within twenty-four hours. If Marty did not hear from Mr Tabatchnick by five o'clock, Tuesday afternoon, 6 February, he would assume Mr Tabatchnick was not interested in his, quote, valuable information regarding the Kipper estate, unquote, and he would feel free to contact other potential buyers. The conversation was then terminated.'
Miss Potts closed her steno pad with a snap, and looked up.
'Will that be all, Mr Tabatchnick?' she asked.
He raised his heavy head. 'Yes, thank you.'
She drifted from the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
He stared sombrely at me.
'Well?' he demanded. 'What do you think?'
I shrugged. 'Impossible to say, sir. Not enough to go on.
Could be attempted blackmail, or attempted extortion, or just a cheap chiseller trying to make a couple of bucks on a fast con.'
'You think I should communicate with this man and arrange to meet him?'
'No, sir,' I said. 'I think I should. He said you or your representative.'
'I don't like it,' Leopold Tabatchnick said fretfully.
'I don't like it either, sir,' I said. 'But I think it wise to meet with him and try to find out what this 'valuable information' is he thinks he has.'
' M m m. . yes… w e l l. . ' Tabatchnick said, drumming his thick fingers on the tabletop.
Then he was silent a long moment, and I had the oddest impression that he knew something or guessed something he hadn't told me, and was debating with himself whether or not to reveal it. He finally decided not to.
'All right,' he said finally, bobbing that weighty head slowly, 'you call him and arrange to meet. Try to find out exactly what it is he's selling. Refuse to buy a pig in a poke.
And don't commit the firm for any amount, large or small.'
'Of course not, sir.'
