“Jesus, this is gonna be tougher than I thought,” he said.
“I’ll give you some help. Someone saw an opportunity in Las Piernas. In redevelopment.”
He cleared his throat and said, “Allan Moffett and Roland Hill. It started with them.”
“Allan gave inside information to Roland, and Roland gave Allan kickbacks.” It was a guess, but I wasn’t out on any limb.
“Yes. And I went along with it. I don’t mean they ever cut me in on their deals, but because I was willing to keep my mouth shut, a lot of business came my way.”
“How much business?”
“Millions of dollars’ worth. Millions. I wouldn’t be sitting here calling this my hotel if it wasn’t millions. Not all with redevelopment. But because Roland used my company, other developers came to me.”
“And I’m sure Allan helped you to put in competitive bids for city projects.”
“There was that,” he admitted. “They weren’t stingy with financial advice and inside info-as you know. They handpicked all of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“They knew Selman was weak: guy had two separate child-support payments, expensive habits, and was always trying to impress young broads. I had seven kids, and even though the business was growing, I was having trouble keeping ahead of my suppliers’ bills. Corbin Tyler, he just had one kid, but she had some heart problem that kept him in the red. Booter Hodges is just a damned glad-hander. That joker would do anything to rub elbows with money, ’cause unless he brings the bucks into the college foundation, he’s out of a job. He was the one that suggested Selman.”
“And Ben Watterson?”
“Watterson came into it a little later, more reluctantly, I guess I’d say. He liked what it did for his business, liked what it did for the city. But it ate at him. I’ll tell you something. It ate at me. Still does. Maybe I’m telling you this because I don’t want to end up like Ben. I don’t want my kids to find me in a shower with my brains blown out. How he could do that to Claire, I’ll never know.”
“I’ve tried to understand that myself. Maybe he was afraid she’d be ashamed of him if the truth came out. Maybe it was easier to die than to see all those people disappointed in him.”
“Nuts to that,” Keene said. “People expect too much. Ben was only human. We all are.”
“Ben was in a position of trust. I can try to understand him, but I also have to be concerned about what he may have done to the city.”
“The city! Christ, that’s what gripes my ass. The city benefitted like crazy. Jobs, retail sales-tax income-I could go on and on. Sure, a couple of projects didn’t work out, but most of them pulled lousy neighborhoods out of the toilet. The people I hired-they’re part of this city, too.”
“I see. ‘The poor you have always with you,’ unless you can make them move to some other town.”
“It’s not so simple!”
“No. Neither is fixing a deal so that your competitors don’t have a fair chance to provide those jobs.”
When he finally answered, his voice was much quieter. “No,” he said.
“And for that matter, neither is murder.”
“No. But will anyone else see it that way? That’s what scares the shit out of me.”
“You know something about murder, Keene?”
The cavernous room was silent, so silent that I heard Keene Dage swallow hard before he said, “I’m not sure. I’m not sure, but I think I do.”
“Then tell me what you think you know.”
He looked down at his shoes and said, “Numbers. It all started with numbers.”
34
THE NUMBERS AND RESELMANcooked up?”
He nodded. “Allan didn’t like the original numbers Selman was coming up with on his study.”
“Too many people being evicted?”
“Jesus. You do know. Yeah, Allan didn’t think he could make his projects fly if there was some big protest over the number of people who’d have to move out. Allan and Roland called him in to talk things over. It was the first time they had worked with him, and Selman was smart enough to figure out just what kind of bonanza he had lucked into.
“So he starts giving his research assistant a hard time. This was Lucas. Lucas was ambitious, you know? Selman thought he could convince him that he had figured the statistics wrong, that Lucas wouldn’t risk pissing off his-what do they call it?”
“His advisor for his thesis.”
“Right.”
“Andre was also his employer,” I said. “Lucas needed the job to stay in school. But he didn’t understand that he was supposed to compromise his principles, did he?”
“Oh, I think he understood, although no one spelled it out-that would have been too dangerous. He just refused to do it. Selman’s not stupid. Fire this kid, and he’s going to have all kinds of trouble. This kid might turn his ass in, let it be known what the professor is up to.”
“So he found a replacement,” I said, “and a cocon spirator in Nadine Preston.”
“Replacement, cocon spirator, typist, bedmate-you name it. She was a piece of work.”
“I’ve seen her transcripts,” I said. “She got a D in Andre’s upper-division stat class. She’s got a D, and he hires her as a graduate assistant on a largely statistical study. She retook the class from him, and she got an A. Quite an improvement.”
“Yeah, well, I can tell you she truly studied under him.”
“So Andre’s foofing Nadine, and Nadine is retyping Lucas’s thesis.”
“Shit, you know all of this already.”
“Some of it. You’re filling in a lot of gaps. I know that Andre managed to discredit Lucas. I’m not so clear on what happened after that.”
“That should be plenty, right? I’ve just told you enough to get you a headline or two, right? Why not leave it there?”
“Because I’m not your chump, Keene. You said it yourself. I knew almost all of this. You’ve confirmed a few things for me, filled in some details. But you really haven’t told me much at all. Where’s Nadine Preston now?”
He looked away from me. “I don’t know.”
“Keene, this is not the time to get mule-headed. You think this will all stay a secret? Roland Hill’s little gang is coming apart at the seams. You know it is.”
“I don’t know!”
Too vehement. He knew something, but he was scared. I decided to take a softer approach. “Something happened. Something that made Nadine decide she would offer Lucas an opportunity to prove that his thesis had been tampered with. What happened?”
“Selman’s inability to keep his pud in his pants, that’s what. He got bored, found another broad, and Nadine learned about it. They broke up. Selman was such a stupid ass. Here he knows not to out-and-out fire Lucas, but when it comes to women, he’s not so bright. Roland blew a gasket-asks him if he’s been taking drugs like his pal-I forget the kid’s name. OD’ed later on.”
“Jeff? Jeff McCutchen?”
“Yeah, that was it. Jeff. I’d forgotten about him. He used drugs all right. You’d never know it just to see the guy out on the street-that’s this myth. People think they know who’s a druggie because they’ve seen a few druggies who are out of control. Figure all druggies are like that. Just like they think they know who’s a drunk because they figure sooner or later a drunk will put a lampshade on his head at a party or live on the streets like your friend Lucas. Hell, I was a millionaire drunk. No one ever saw me drunk in public. Same with this Jeff. Hid it.”
