Thomas returned to New York the same evening. When he unlocked and pushed open the door to his apartment the white envelope was immediately conspicuous. "I Thomas turned on the light, closed the door behind him, and tossed his travel case onto a table. He picked up the envelope and tore it open.
From it he pulled a yellow ticket. Second Promenade, the ticket said, Madison Square Garden. Hockey. Rangers vs. Boston Bruins. February eight. Sunday evening.
It made no immediate sense. Then he unfolded a small piece of plain white paper that accompanied the ticket. It read: Mr. Daniels, Please be there. And don't tell anyone.
Leslie McAdam Thomas searched for a further explanation and found none.
He crumpled the note and dropped it into a wastebasket. He walked to a bookcase that was so crowded that each shelf held two rows of books, front and back, mostly paperback. He withdrew a novel, third from the left on the middle shelf, inserted the ticket in the book, and returned the book to its place.
A few minutes later he was seated at the kitchen table, a cup of black coffee steaming in front of him, and visions of the cryptic Adolph Zenger dancing before him. Zenger was a sneak if ever a sneak had walked the earth. But had the retired attorney at least been forthright with his trusted partner's only son?
Thomas wondered.
The telephone rang.
He took his coffee with him, sat in an armchair in the living room, and took the call on the fourth ring.
"Find out anything?" a female voice asked.
For a split second he envisioned Leslie. But the voice was familiar.
He felt a small tremor of disappointment as he recognized the caller.
Andrea Parker.
"Let's say that I'm in hot pursuit of the facts" he said.
"This Sandler mess is a can of worms. Walter Mitty's secret life was gossip-column stuff compared to this' ' "I'm onto a good story, in other words," she said.
"Of course. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling so often" "Don't be mean, Tom" she countered softly.
"I've done some homework for you, too. Did you see Zenger?"
"Yes, "Any help?"
"Some. He had some of the answers, but not all of them." He sipped the black coffee and listened to a guarded silence on the other end.
"This whole thing recalls a lesson I learned in law school, working on a claims adjustment case."
"A what?" she asked.
"A woman came to me and said she'd been sitting in her parked car when a truck had bumped into her hard from behind. She was claiming damages to her car, plus personal damages for whiplash.
She gave me her whole story. Then I talked to the driver of the truck.
He said he'd been double-parked and so had the woman.
Only she had released her brake and rolled back into him. Then I found two witnesses, a shop owner and a pedestrian. They told two other stories with even different details. Four different stories, none of them the same, all of them slightly suspect one way or another.
Know how I got down to the truth?"
"How?"
"I sat them all down together and wrote down the few points in the story upon which none would argue. With a little pressing and a few concessions here and there, I came out with a composite story.
That became the new 'truth' in the case. And that's what I finally went into court with." He sipped the coffee again. 'The Sandler case is the same thing all over again, on a greater scale. You hear stories, the stories conflict. You check and double-check, you distill a composite truth from them. And that becomes the factual basis that you must work with ' "What did Zenger say?" Andrea asked,
"Specifically."
"He said my client's a fake."
"Do you think she is?"
"I'm trying to be compassionate," he said, "as well as a realist."
"Evasive answer, counselor," she chided.
"So far, I believe her." He thought for a moment.
"She has those documents. They look strong. Damned strong. If I went to England, say, and got more corroborating evidence for her…
Well, she'd be in an even stronger position."
"Before you take any trips there's more you ought to know."
"Go ahead " "With the help of some of our financial editors at the paper we've put together quite a bit on our favorite family.
Interlocking corporations. Phantom ownerships. Trusts. Holding companies and such."
"In chemicals?"
"Chemicals and real estate. But that's not the point. It's mostly an odd assortment of smaller companies owned by slightly larger companies, equally strange. A merry-go-round of ownership, and no one can find where it started to spin."
"In other words," he said, 'no one can find out where the money came from to start with. Sounds familiar."
"Right" she said.
"And none of the companies do anything except hold wealth that seems to accumulate ' She paused for a moment. Thomas tried to conjure up an image of Arthur Sandler, the enigma at the center of the case.
Sandler's finances were like the master himself, invisible but very much alive.
"What do you think it's all worth?" she asked.
"Zenger guessed twelve million. Tops."
"Try again."
"More?"
"We're figuring it conservatively and we've got it up to fifty million.
That's five zero. And it's still growing. The more you trace, the more you find. It simply doesn't end' "Jesus " he said with a low whistle and now, suddenly, an uneasy fearful feeling.
"You could finance a small country with money like that."
"You said it, I didn't There was a pause on both ends of the line.
When she spoke again there was uncharacteristic concern in her voice.
"Tom?"
"What?"
"You know you might consider dropping it. The whole thing's starting to look a lot kinkier than anyone realized."
"I should just drop it?" he scoffed.
"Maybe a different approach would be better. A newspaper expose which then tosses it at the feet of the justice Department. it's just a suggestion."
He could feel a headache begin.
"It's not quite that easy after someone has fried your office," he said.
He pondered it. She, too, was thoughtful on the other end.
"You have no idea whom you're dealing with," she said.
"None at all. If only you could take some sort of precaution…"
"Do you have any police contacts through the paper?"
"What sort of police contacts?"
"Someone on the force who could check fingerprints. On the sly."
She thought.
"I don't know anyone. Wait! I know someone who does "Who?"
Another reporter, she explained, a man named Augie Reid. He was an older journalist who now worked Albany for the paper but who over the years had developed friends within the New York State Police. It was worth a shot, she suggested, to try him.
"The girl gave me a photograph," Thomas said, 'of her father. If I give it to you first thing tomorrow morning will Reid see what he can do with it?"
"He'll do anything," she said, seeming confident.
"He loves me."
He changed the subject.
"What's happened about that mugging murder in front of my building?"
"What normally happens about muggings?" she answered.
"Nothing. Why?"
"I got a note from some detective today. They're talking to everyone in the building. They want to see me." He shrugged.
"The guy didn't even live in our building."
He could hear distant traffic in the background, and Mrs. Ryan's discordant piano was playing upstairs. Andrea continued to speak.
"You didn't tell me the end of the first story," she said.
"Which?"
"The automobile claims case. What finally happened?"
"I lost it," he said.
"The woman who came to me was lying completely."
The afternoon of the next day Thomas walked down Third Avenue to the Nineteenth Precinct. He asked for Detective Aram Shassad by name and was shown through a large squad room cluttered with desks, chairs, and patrolmen in uniform. Then he was guided upstairs to where Shassad sat alone in the small space he shared with Hearn.
"I'm Thomas Daniels," said Thomas, offering his hand.
"I received a note saying you wanted to see me."
"Seventy-third Street?" asked the harried Shassad.
"Yes, "Of course. Sit down."
"I don't know how much I'll be able to help you Thomas said.
"I didn't know the victim."
"We're talking to everyone" said Shassad.
"Formality really."
"I understand. I'm an attorney-, "I see" said Shassad.
"Single? No wife?,? Thomas nodded.
At that time Patrick Hearn entered the cubicle, drew up a chair and sat at his own desk. Shassad introduced his partner brusquely to Daniels.
He also sought to dispel the inner dislike and distrust he had of lawyers. Lawyers and judges, to Shassad, were the people who kept the felons on the street.
Shassad briefly outlined the problem with which the police were posed.
A homicide had been committed in front of Daniels's building. Was Thomas home that night or at that hour, they asked, and had he seen or heard anything at all unusual? They omitted mentioning that they had linked the dead man with a woman, and that the victim had stepped from Daniels's building just prior to being murdered.
"To tell you the truth" said Thomas routinely,
"I left the building in the middle of the night' Hearn's attention perked, as did Shassad's.
"Why did you do that?" asked Hearn politely.
Thomas explained about the fire in his office.
"Do you know what time it was?"
Thomas thought for a moment.
"Yes, I should be able to recall exactly. Let me think." He pondered it for a moment then answered assuredly.
"Three forty-five."
Hearn and Shassad recognized the almost pinpoint time of the slaying.
But they refused to even exchange a glance.
"Are you sure?"
"Sure," said Thomas, 'almost to the minute."
"Why?" -The night janitor at my office building. Kind of a cantankerous old character. He wanted to know exactly when I'd be going out the door or when I'd be there. He had the fire department there. I guess he wanted to know."
"So you think you left at three forty-five?" asked Hearn casually.
Shassad was making notes.
"I know I did."
"But you didn't see anything in front of the building?" asked Shassad.
According to Minnie Yankovich, two men had been lurking there for half an hour.
"No" said Thomas.
"But I wouldn't have. I left by the back exit. It comes out on the avenue."
"Why'd you do that?"
"I was going to my car on Seventy-fourth Street. It's a shortcut."
"And you heard nothing?"
Thomas started to say no. But then he stopped in mid-sentence.
"Come to think of it. he began, having dismissed the incident in the travail of that particular night.
"Yes?"
"I heard someone come out of the apartment below me. Three c "A man or a woman?"
"I couldn't tell. I heard the voices of each. And frankly, I had other things on my mind. Hell, my office-' "Did one of them go downstairs?"
Thomas I thought.
"Yes. There were footsteps. I waited till they were gone." He eyed both cops.
"You know how it is. Middle of the night. You avoid strangers on staircases."
"Of course," nodded Hearn sympathetically.
"You never saw him? Or her?" pressed Shassad.
"No," answered Daniels flatly.
"Did you think it unusual that someone would be leaving that apartment at that hour?"
Thomas shrugged.
"No he said.
"What's the nice way to put it?
She has a lot of male visitors."
"Oh, I see," said Hearn.
"She's popular, in other words."
"You could call it that."
"Do you know her very well yourself?" asked Shassad.
"No," said Thomas tersely.
"Nor do I want to."
The interview finished amiably several minutes later. Hearn politely walked Thomas downstairs to the main entrance of the station house.
Then Hearn rejoined his partner upstairs.
"What did you think?" Hearn asked.
"Intriguing, that one-," said Shassad.
"He's either lying or he actually heard the victim walking downstairs prior to getting carved."
"Not only that'" noted Hearn, 'but he practically put himself at the crime scene at the minute the stabbing took place. Think he was telling the truth?"
"Some of the truth" said Shassad.
"I already know a little about him from others in the building. Know who his father was? William Ward Daniels."
"The shyster mouthpiece?" Hearn, like his partner, had little love for those who returned felons intact to the street.
"The same," said Shassad.
"That doesn't speak too well for the integrity running through the family. And do you know what else?"
Hearn asked what.
"Our friend Daniels has a girl who spends nights there. Some girl who works for a paper or something. No big deal, except maybe she was there that night with Ryder, not expecting Daniels to come home. Daniels shows up unexpectedly and drives Ryder out, out into the hands of two goons he has waiting for him ' "In other words, Daniels sets up Ryder to be killed. And Daniels's girl is the girl Ryder was screwing' "Well," shrugged Shassad, "it may be farfetched, but it's a workable theory. And Christ knows, the son of William Ward Daniels would probably know every kind of goon in the city-, "So?" asked Hearn.
"We watch Daniels?" The question was rhetorical. He nodded in thought.
"We've got no one else to watch yet. Maybe he'll lead us to his girl.
Then we might get something out of her." Shassad smiled faintly Chapter 9 Thomas arrived at Madison Square Garden at seven fifteen, fifteen minutes before game time, walked quickly among the scalpers and loitering boisterous teenagers on Seventh Avenue, and was in his seat by seven twenty.
She wasn't there yet. The seat next to his was empty On the ice there were no players. The goals were being adjusted and the ice was being smoothed. He watched the minutes tick off on the electronic clocks at each end of the rink. Seven twenty-eight. Seven thirty. He wondered whether she'd be there.
The teams began to skate out onto the ice. The crowd roared.
There was an inattentive hum as the recorded voice of Robert Merrill sang America the Beautiful.
Thomas was still looking around, more nervously now.
As the referee dropped the puck all eyes went to the ice. Thomas glanced down to the game as the puck was shot into the Rangers'end.
Then he was aware of people standing to one side of him, allowing someone to enter the row. He turned his head quickly. Leslie.
She stepped past him and sat down.
"Welcome," he said.
"Thanks." She was slightly out of breath, still wearing her heavy overcoat. She quickly unbuttoned the front buttons. He raised his hand to help her with the coat. She motioned his hand away.
"You haven't missed anything," he offered.
She motioned indignantly toward the ice, toward the Ranger end.
"They were damned fools to trade Ratelle and Park' she said.
"I didn't know you liked hockey."
"I don't. I hate it?"
"Then… "We're here because it would be difficult to follow me," she said.
"I bought the tickets from a scalper a week ago. If anyone followed me or you here, I'd hope the difficulty posed by the ticket takers would cause him, or them, to lose me."
"Clever," he allowed.
There was a roar as a Ranger shot hit a goalpost and flew back in front of the net. A rebound shot was deflected by the goaltender's stick and a third shot flew wide by a foot. The crowd was howling and Thomas turned to watch the play.
She spoke loudly, to be heard.
"I didn't come here to watch grown men play a boys' game. What about the will?"
The puck flew out of bounds. Play stopped. The crowd quieted.
He looked her in the eye.
"I don't have it," he admitted.
"Not yet" She stared at him coldly.
"Why?"
He thought quickly
"It's taking time he said.
"My father kept important records very secretively. There yier-e file references which only he could understand. I've got to go through everything to locate it" She dicht appear pleased.
"Then we're at a standstill," she said impatiently.
"No" The play moved back to center ice,
"I'm building a case for you. I'm looking for witnesses" "What are you talking about?"
"I talked to Adolph Zenger, my father's former-' "I know who he is.
What did he say?"
"He told me the story of your father's background. The family. The activity during the war, or at least leading up to the war." He paused.
She was nervously glancing around, looking down into the aisles through the crowd. He continued,
"In a roundabout way, he confirmed a lot. it's slow, but it's progress' ' She looked back to him, her eyes wide and extremely angry now.
"Do you trust him?" she snapped.
"Who?"
"Zenger! Who else are we talking about?"
"I think so," he said.
"Who could he have talked to?" she snapped.
"About me?"
"He never talks to anyone anymore. And we talked in total confidence."
"Well someone" she said angrily, pronouncing each syllable at a time, 'has a big mouth. We're followed' She motioned to the walkway down below them. Standing at least forty feet apart were two men, neither of whom was watching the hockey game. They were looking away from the ice, back up into the spectators. Directly toward Leslie and Thomas.
"The one on the left," she said, acting as if she hadn't seen them yet, 'has a camera."
Thomas watched the man from the corner of his eye. The man indeed had a small concealed camera in his palm. It was aimed up toward the two of them.
"How," she asked him bitterly, 'does a thing like that happen?"
He was speechless.
"They can't do anything in here" he offered weakly "Too many people."
"Mr. Daniels," she intoned, 'you underestimate people' He glanced around again and couldn't tell if a third man was with the other two.
The crowd began to roar again as the Rangers worked the puck into the attacking zone. For those seconds they were fully in control, the Boston team only trying to knock the puck back to center ice.
"Obviously," she said, 'we'll have to meet again at another time and place. Somewhere more private. Like your home office" There was a scramble in front of the goal. The din had increased to such a point that he hadn't heard her.
The collective voice of the fans suddenly erupted. The red lights beneath the scoreboards flashed and the crowd came rudely roaring to its feet. Ranger goal.
Thomas looked to the far end of the ice to see the crowd of five white shirts in front of the enemy goal. The scorer was being mobbed. A dejected goaltender swept the puck out of the net.
Thomas turned back to Leslie, began to speak loudly, to be heard above the din, and stopped short before speaking a single word.
An empty seat. She was gone.
He looked to her end of the row, knowing she hadn't crossed in front of him. He could just see her stepping away from the final seat in the row and moving back up the aisle between sections.
"Leslie!" he called after her. His voice was lost in the roar as the Rangers skated slowly back to center ice for the next face-off. Those around him took amusement from the fact that his 'girl' had seemingly walked out on him.
He called after her again, then pursued. He pushed rudely through the row, more aggressively as she disappeared -through a gateway and from his sight. He was jostled in return by those whom he struggled to get past.
At that moment, the eyes of the men who'd followed them returned from the ice. They saw that she was gone. They saw that Thomas was leaving. Quickly, the three of them followed.
He ran back up the steps and knew that she was way ahead of him now. He ran to the escalator, craned his neck over its side to see two flights below, and saw her running down. He called again to her. She only moved faster.
He tore down the escalator behind her and momentarily was aware of the three heavy sets of feet behind him, pursuing him just as he ran after her. Thomas couldn't believe how fast she moved.
She was out the Eighth Avenue entrance to the Garden. He had no idea which way she'd turned until fifteen seconds later when he ran out the same exit. He looked each way. He saw nothing. But he knew that the three men were not many seconds behind him.
He looked north again, south again, in desperation. Then, through the traffic, on the opposite side of eighth Avenue, he saw her to the south. Still running, passing bemused pedestrians and attracting the leering catcalls endemic to that section of the city.
Thomas looked at the traffic. The light was changing. He saw the traffic south of him, given a green light, start to move toward the center of the block where he stood. He heard the men behind him reach ground level. Thomas ran out across the avenue as the lead car screeched its tires and its horn shrieked its complaint. Other cars screeched their suddenly slowing tires into the asphalt and other horns blared their disapproval.
Halfway across the avenue his left foot caught a pothole. His arms waved wildly as he tried to catch his balance. Then, quickly steady again, he continued. One car roared in front of him and he darted in front of another which abruptly slowed. He crossed the last lane of the avenue and was on the sidewalk of the opposite side, in front of the Thirty-third Street post office, its giant steps and columns.
Neither rain, nor snow… Everywhere, the Federal government intruding.
He looked south. He saw her enter a building beneath a yellow sign with giant blue letters. PA-R-K. Leslie McAdam had escaped, if that was what she was doing, into a five-story self-service parking lot a block and a half away.
Thomas ran after her. When he crossed Thirty-second Street he was aware again of the three men on the opposite side. They were waiting for the traffic to allow them to cross. They had Thomas in full view and they followed him southward on the opposite side.
The green WALK sign had changed to flashing DON'T WALK.
In fifteen seconds they, whoever they were, would be on his side of Eighth. One of them carried something black in his thick fist.
He fled into the parking lot, stood at a frenzied halt at its entrance way and looked in every direction.
Nothing.
He looked to the man behind a glass, the man whom a driver would pay on the way out. The man's face was quizzical as he watched Thomas.
"Did you see a girl?" Thomas called frantically.
The quizzical expression creased into a knowing grin.
"I seen lots of girls!" The accent was singsong and Jamaican.
"This Eighth Avenue, mon!" As if that explained everything.
"A woman ran in here ten seconds ago!"
The man laughed and nodded toward the only stairwell.
"She go upstairs, mon. Happy evening!"
Thomas listened. He could now hear the footsteps of someone running-one flight up. Leslie! But he could also hear the footsteps pursuing him.
He turned. The men who were chasing him burst into the parking garage.
They froze, staring at him. First three men, then a fourth.
Thomas Daniels recognized Shassad, the last to arrive. He whirled again and ran not upstairs but straight to the rear of the garage to a door marked EXIT.
Two of the plainclothes policemen pursued Thomas. Two others slowly took the stairs.
Thomas reached the exit door and pushed it open, stopping, looking out onto Ninth Avenue, and calling Leslie by her first name.
He stood in the exit staring at the empty avenue, as if searching for her. There was no Leslie running in either direction. Shassad and Hearn were next to Daniels. Hearn was breathing hard, Shassad wasn't.
Shassad stepped past Daniels and looked up and down Ninth Avenue. He looked back to the attorney and spoke sourly "Where is she?"
"You got a hell of a nerve! Where's who?"
"Don't get smarttassed," Shassad grumbled.
"Where is she?"
Thomas Daniels was incensed.
"It's you who owes me the explanation! You frightened away an important client" "My ass, we did!" snapped Shassad.
There was the sound of a mechanical voice. A walkie-talkie.
Thomas heard the voice say,
"Sergeant, we might have something.
Second floor."
Shassad smiled slightly.
"Not so smart after all, are you?" he said.
Hearn held up and answered the walkie-talkie.
"We'll be up." The detectives walked quickly upstairs. Thomas Daniels followed.
There was no woman to be seen anywhere in the second story. just an assortment of parked cars, plus one car for which the owner had arrived. The car, a long dark-blue Pontiac, was at the top of the second-floor ramp. Its owner, a tall, conservatively dressed man in an overcoat, was standing beside the car. He'd been confronted by the first two detectives.
"We looked on every other floor," said one of the detectives to Shassad.
"She's not in here' "This guy wants to take his car out the other cop told Shassad.
"I asked him if he'd open his trunk and he wouldn't" Shassad looked the man up and down. The man had been the first to appear who wanted to remove a car fron the premises. The car owner looked ordinary enough, but Shassad was laden with suspicion. He asked the man again if he'd open the car's trunk. Thomas Daniels studied the victim of the harassment.
"I'm sure you're only trying to do your job, patrolman," said the man, 'but-" "De-tec-tive corrected Shassad, pronouncing all three syllables succinctly.
"-but, yes, I do mind" The two other detectives ea suafly stepped up and down the sides of the car, eyeing it as if they could see through it. The back seat and interior had long since been looked into.
"Why do you mind?" pressed Shassad, buying time.
"Because," said the man with growing annoyance,
"I don't like being treated like a criminal. My trunk's empty," he said caustically.
– You have my word."
The man's key was in his hand. He opened the door on the side of the driver's seat and began to step into the car.
"Suppose I insisted" said Shassad angrily, placing a hand on the man's shoulder.
Thomas, observing, spoke,
"Couldn't an officer get a pretty severe reprimand for in sistine asked Thomas. All five heads turned to Thomas.
"For insisting without a warrant? In front of a witness who also happened to be an attorney?"
Shassad removed his hand from the man's shoulder. He looked at Thomas Daniels bitterly When he stepped from the cab on Seventy-third Street, he looked both ways, a habit he'd developed in light of recent events.
Daniels entered his building and climbed the stairs. He was still somewhat preoccupied with the events of the evening. He noticed nothing conspicuously unusual as he unlocked the double lock on his apartment door and entered.
He had already turned on the dim light in the entrance hall and had taken two steps forward into the living room. It was at that time, from the side, that an unseen hand turned on the living-room light and Thomas whirled to see a stunning second presence in the room with him.
In that immeasurable short lapse between realization and recognition, a thousand fears flashed through his mind. Not the least of which was that this was how people were murdered.