“With your relationship to her,” I say.
“I’m a political consultant; I find politicians and try to move them up the ladder. I teach them what to say, how to say it, and who to say it to. But they need to have something special going in, something that’s there before I get to them, or they can only go so far. Linda had it, and there was no ceiling for her. None at all.”
“Why did she want to go up that ladder? What was in it for her?” I ask.
“The real reason, or the one she would give if your client hadn’t killed her and you could ask her yourself?”
The question isn’t worthy of a reply, so I don’t give him one.
“She would tell you she wanted to help the people on the bottom,” he continues. “So that everybody could have a shot at the American dream like she did. She would even have believed it while she was saying it.”
“So what was it really? The power? The celebrity?”
“Duhhh . . .” is his mocking reply, letting me know that of course it was the power and celebrity, that it’s always the power and celebrity.
“Was she wealthy?” I ask.
He nods. “Loaded. Linda had the first nickel she ever made, and the last couple of years she was making a shitload of nickels.”
I continue asking questions, but he answers mostly in generalities, not providing much insight into who Linda Padilla was. There’s a good chance he has no idea, that she never let him get close.
I finally ask about the rumored connections to Dominic Petrone and organized crime, and he’s careful and measured in his response. “I never saw them together. Nothing was ever said in front of me.”
“But you have reason to believe she knew him?” I ask.
“I don’t have reason to do anything.”
Finally, probably to get me out of there, he suggests I talk to Padilla’s boyfriend, one Alan Corbin. Corbin is a high-powered businessman and had only recently been seen with Padilla in public. According to Spinelli, they were considerably closer than they let on to the press.
“Just don’t tell him that I sent you to him,” he says.
“Why not?” I ask. The fact is, Corbin was next on my list to talk to anyway, so Spinelli’s naming him is not in any sense a big deal.
“He’s not a guy I want pissed at me.”
My next stop is Sam Willis’s office, to ask him to use his computer expertise to help us on the case. It’s a move I make reluctantly because of the death of his assistant. But we need someone, and Sam has often expressed a desire to contribute, so I convince myself it’s okay.
I spend about ten minutes repeatedly and obnoxiously telling him to be careful, that if he senses anything unusual or dangerous, he is to stop and call me. There’s no reason to think he’s in any danger, but I want to make totally sure he’s safe. He promises he’ll call, more as a way to shut me up than anything else.
“I want you to find out as much information as you can about these people,” I say, referring to the victims. I give him the documentation we’ve accumulated from the police reports and other sources. “I especially want you to look for any connection at all between them. If they ate at the same restaurant, sat in the same section at Mets games, whatever, I want to know about it.”
He glances through the documents. “Not much here,” he says. “Is there a last name on this one?”
He’s talking about Rosalie, whom we and the police know almost nothing about. “She was a street hooker. I’ll get her roommate to try and come up with any information she can, but there won’t be much. Hold her off for last.”
He nods. “Okay. This could take a while.”
Sam’s ability to hack into computers and come up with information is legendary. It also was once criminal, and I represented him when charges were brought against him for hacking into a large corporation’s computer system. He had done it in retaliation for the corporation’s mistreatment of one of his clients. I got him acquitted on a technicality and in the process developed a healthy respect for his unique talents.
“If you can’t come up with anything, don’t worry about it,” I say, knowing he will take it as a challenge.
He motions me closer. “Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?”
He’s doing the Beatles, but I pretend not to notice. “I promise,” I say, though he knows I noticed.
“If it’s in the computer, and it always is, I can find out anything about anyone.”
It’s a process that truly amazes me. “How does it all get in there?”
He shrugs. “Companies that people deal with share the information with other companies-that’s part of it. But you wouldn’t believe how many people sit in their rooms and type their life into their computers.” He shakes his head sadly. “All the lonely people . . . where do they all come from?”
My mind, already cluttered, races to find a Beatles reference that I can counter with. Alas, I cannot, so I decide to leave and let Sam get started. “Call me if you come up with anything good. Okay?”
Sam nods. “Okay. And take it easy, Andy. You look tired. Something wrong? Did you have a hard day’s night? Been working like a dog?”
Got it. “I don’t know,” I say, “it must be this case, but suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be. There’s a shadow hanging over me.”
He nods. “Let it be. I’m speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.”
• • • • •
ALAN CORBIN DOESN’T want to talk to me. I suspect this because I’ve been trying to reach him for a week with no luck. And that suspicion was strengthened somewhat yesterday when he accidentally picked up my call and said, “I ain’t fucking talking to you, you little roach.”
Vince knows Corbin, of course, since Corbin is an inhabitant of this planet, but even he has been unable to arrange a meeting. I’ve used Vince to get messages to him, and one of them was a threat to subpoena him for a deposition. It was an empty threat, since I’m not legally empowered to do so, and Corbin’s lawyer called me and told me to back off.
Since backing off is not my forte, I sent another message, again through courier Vince, in an attempt to be more persuasive. I warned that I was going to go on
Vince further conveyed to Alan, although he said Alan was by this time screaming so loud he might not have heard, that the only way I would cancel the
After threats of lawsuits for slander and libel, and so much wrangling and negotiating that Vince likened it to the U.N. Security Council, Corbin agreed to see me in his office for fifteen minutes. That is why I am right now in his reception area, with his secretary glaring at me as if I were Andy bin Laden.
I’m finally let in to the great one’s office. It’s immediately evident that there is a difference between “high- powered businessman” and “tall-powered businessman.” Corbin can’t be more than five foot five; one of his reasons for dating the much taller Linda Padilla must have been to secure her help in reaching things on high shelves.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I say cheerfully.
He looks at his watch. “You’re on the clock, asshole. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” He’s referring to the agreed-upon length of our interview, and I’m somewhat put off by his attitude.
I look at my own watch. “You’re short,” I say.
“I told Vince fifteen minutes,” he insists.
“I wasn’t talking about the time, I was talking about your height,” I say. “You’re short. I would say . . . five two-ish? Asshole?” It’s a tough call whether or not I should be coming back at him like this, but there’s no chance I’ll get something out of him if he thinks I’m just going to accept his bullshit.
He seems ready to go back at me but then thinks better of it. We’re even with the insults, and he wants to get this over with.
“Ask your questions,” he says.
“Who might have had reason to kill Linda Padilla?” is my first softball.
“No one that I know. But then again, I never met your client.”
