A Long Line of Dead Men

I nodded. "Food wasn't great."

"No, terrible. Vegetables out of cans, and dented cans at that, but you could get a steak for half what it cost most places and if you had a sharp knife you could even manage to cut it." He laughed. "It was a hell of a good place to sit around with friends and drink until closing time. Now it's calling itself the Grange, and the food's much better, and you can't drop in for a quiet drink because you can't hear yourself think in there. The customers are all my wife's age or younger, and Christ they're a noisy bunch."

"They seem to like the noise," I said.

"It must do something for them," he said, "but I've never been able to figure out what. All it does for me is give me a headache."

"I'm the same way."

"Listen to us," he said. "We're a couple of old farts. You're a lot younger than I am. You're fifty-five, right?"

"I guess it stands out all over me."

He looked me in the eye. "I made it my business to learn a little about you," he said. "That can't come as a surprise to you. I imagine you did the same."

"Your credit rating's good," I said.

"Well, that's a load off my mind."

"And you're sixty-four."

"I mentioned that a few minutes ago, didn't I? Not that it comes under the heading of closely held information." He leaned back, one arm extended along the back of the sofa. "I was the second-oldest member of the club of thirty-one. Not counting Homer, that is. That's Homer Champney, he's the man who founded our chapter."

"So I understand."

"I was thirty-two then, working for Legal Aid, thinking about joining the Village Independent Democrats and trying to make a place for myself in politics. Trouble was I found the reform Democrats even more odious than the regulars. The old clubhouse hacks were full of crap, but at least they knew it. The reformers were always such sanctimonious little shits. Who knows, if I could have learned to put up with them I might have turned out to be Ed Koch."

"There's a thought."

"Frank DiGiulio was about ten months older than me. I barely knew him but I liked him. Face off an old Roman coin. He died, you know."

"Last September."

"I saw the obit in the Times. That's the first page I read these days."

"I'm the same way."

"That's my definition of middle age. It starts the day you pick up the morning paper and turn to the obituaries. When Frank dropped dead, I thought to myself, Well, Gruliow, you're walking point." He frowned. "As if it would be my turn next. Instead it was Alan Watson. Decent fellow, very straight, stabbed to death for his watch and wallet. You don't expect that in Forest Hills."

"They've evidently had more street crime lately. It was a private security guard who found him, and you don't hire a private security force if you don't have to."

"Sign of the times," he said. "They'll have them everywhere soon." He looked down into his glass of whiskey and soda. "I had a call from Felicia Karp," he said. "I didn't know who she was, and when she told me she was Fred Karp's widow I was still in the dark. Fred Karp? Who the hell was Fred Karp? A lawyer, a mob guy, a radical? Remember, he was a guy I used to see once a year at di

"And?"

"And I did what I could to conceal my own ignorance, which at the time was all-encompassing, and told her I'd see what I could find out. I made the obvious phone calls, and when I felt I'd learned enough about you I called you up myself." He smiled engagingly. "And here you are."

"And here I am."

"Who's your client?"

"I can't tell you that."

"You're not an attorney, you know. It's not privileged information."

"And we're not in court."

"No, of course we're not. I have to assume your client is one of the other surviving members. Unless you've been hired by a widow or some other survivor." He watched my face as he spoke. "You're not giving anything away," he said after a moment.

"My client may be willing for you to know who he is. But I'd have to check with him first."

" 'He, him.' Hardly a widow, not with those pronouns. Although I think you might be a subtle man, Matt. Are you?"

"Not very."

"I wonder. Still, it almost has to be a group member, doesn't it? Who else would know the names of all the other members? Although I suppose some of us may have talked openly about the club with our wives." A smile, this one a little darker at the corners. "Our first wives," he said. "If your first divorce teaches you nothing else, it teaches you discretion."

"Does it matter who hired me?"

"Probably not. I like to know everything about people- jurors, witnesses, the lawyer on the other side. Preparation's everything, you know. The courtroom thearics may make me a hot ticket on the lecture circuit, but it's the pretrial prep work that wins the cases. And I like to win cases."

He asked if I wanted more Perrier. I said I was fine.

He said, "Well, what's your best guess, Matt? Is someone killing us off? Or is that confidential, too?"

"The club's had a lot of deaths."

"I don't need a detective to tell me that."

"Several murders, several suicides, a few accidents that could have been staged. So it looks as though more than coincidence would have to be involved."

"Yes."

"But it's impossible. The killer would almost have to be one of you, and there's no motive, no financial incentive, at least none I'm aware of. Or am I missing something?"

"No," he said. "There was some talk early on about laying down a case of good Bordeaux for the last man to drink. We decided whoever was left would be too old to enjoy it. Besides, it seemed inappropriate, even frivolous."

"So the killer would have to be crazy," I said. "And not just sudden-impulse crazy, because he'd have been at it for years. He'd have to be long-term crazy, and all fourteen of you look to have been leading sane and stable lives."

"Ha," he said. "I've got two ex-wives who would give you an argument on that point, and I could name a few other people who'd be quick to tell you I'm only eating with one chopstick. Maybe I'm the killer."

"Are you?"

"How's that again?"

"Are you the killer? Did you kill Watson and Cloonan and the others?"

"My God, what a question. No, of course not."

"Well, that's a load off my mind."

"Am I a suspect?"

"I don't have any suspects."

"But did you seriously think-"

"That you might have done it? No idea. That's why I asked."

"You think I would have told you?"

"You might have," I said. "Stranger things have happened."

"Jesus."

"What I was taught to do," I said, "was ask all the questions, including the stupid ones. You never know what somebody'll decide to tell you."

"Interesting. In a trial it's the exact opposite. There's a basic principle, you never ask a question of a witness unless you already know the answer."

"You'd think it would be hard to learn anything that way."

"Education," he said, "is not the object. I'm going to have another drink. Join me?"

I let him top up my Perrier.

I said, "I'll tell you this much. I was surprised to see your name on the list of members."

"Oh?"

"It seemed to me," I said, "that it was an unusual group for you to join."