The Investigators Part 27

"Your pal Susan shot me down in flames, you will recall."

"If at first you don't succeed," Daffy said.

"I have her phone number," Matt said. "You gave it to me."

"Call her. If nothing else, it'll keep you out of trouble with the call girls," Daffy said.

"I don't know," Matt said doubtfully.

"Call her, d.a.m.n you. She's a very nice girl."

A very nice girl, Matt thought, Matt thought, who is aiding and abetting four murdering lunatics. who is aiding and abetting four murdering lunatics.

"Are you going to be talking to her?" Matt asked.

"I don't know," Daffy replied. "I can. Why?"

"I don't suppose you would be willing to tell her you were only kidding when you told her what an all-around son of a b.i.t.c.h I am?"

"I wasn't kidding. But, okay, I'll call her and put in a good word for you. If If you promise to call her when you're there." you promise to call her when you're there."

"If I can find the time," Matt said.

"Find the time," Chad said.

"She's really a very nice girl," Daffy said.

Now, if you call our Susan and tell her, or let surmise, that my calling her was your and Chad's idea, and I'm not thrilled about it, that just may allay her suspicions that I might have a professional interest in her activities, and this charade will not have been in vain.

"Ah," Matt said. "Here comes the shrimp. Can we change the subject, please?"

"Take her to the Hotel Hershey," Daffy said. "That's romantic as h.e.l.l."

"All I want to do with her, Daffy," Matt said, sounding serious, "is get her in bed. I didn't say a word about . . ."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Daffy said, smiling at him. "Now I will will call her. Susan may be just the girl to bring you under control." call her. Susan may be just the girl to bring you under control."

Philip Chason, a slightly built fifty-five-year-old who walked with a limp, turned his three-year-old Ford sedan off Essington Avenue-sometimes called "Automobile Row"-and onto the lot of Fiorello's Fine Cars.

It was one of the larger lots; Chason figured there must be 150 cars on display, ranging from year-old Cadillacs and Buicks down to junkers one step away from the crusher.

Chason was not in the market for a car. And if he was going shopping for one, he wouldn't have come here. Joe Fiorello was somehow tied to the mob. Chason didn't know exactly what the connection was, but he knew there was one. And Chason had a thing about the mob; he didn't like the idea of them getting any of his money.

Chason had spent twenty-six years of his life as a Philadelphia policeman, and eighteen of the twenty-six years as a detective, before a drunk had run a red light and slammed into the side of his unmarked car. That had put him in the hospital for six weeks, given him a gimp leg that hurt whenever it rained, and gotten him a line-of-duty-injury pension.

After sitting around for four months watching the gra.s.s grow, Phil Chason had got himself a private investigator's license, made a little office in the bas.e.m.e.nt of his house, put in another telephone and an answering machine, and took out an ad in the phone book's yellow pages: "Philip Chason, Confidential Investigations. (Retired Detective, Philadelphia P.D.)."

It was not a quick way to get rich in any case, and it had been tough getting started at all. But gradually jobs started coming his way. Too many of them were sleaze, like following some guy whose wife suspected he was getting a little on the side, or some dame whose husband figured she was.

He got some seasonal work, like at Christmas at John Wanamaker's Department Store, helping their security people keep an eye on shoplifters and seasonal employees. And Wachenhut called him every once in a while to work, for example, ritzy parties at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, or a big reception at one of the hotels, keeping sc.u.mbags from ripping people off.

Both Wanamaker's and Wachenhut had offered him a full-time job, but the money was anything but great, and he didn't want to get tied down to having to go to work every day, especially when the leg was giving him trouble.

He got some work from the sleazebags who hung around the courts and called themselves "The Criminal Bar," but there were two things wrong with that: he didn't like helping some sc.u.mbag lawyer keep some sc.u.mbag from going to jail, and they paid slow.

And he'd done a couple of jobs for Joe Fiorello before this one. Fiorello had called him out of the blue about a year ago, said he'd seen the ad in the yellow pages, and needed a job done.

Chason had told Joey his "initial consultation fee" was fifty bucks, whether or not he took the job. He knew who Fiorello was and he had no intention of doing something illegal. Joey had told him no problem, that he should come by the used-car lot and he'd tell him what he wanted done, and Chason could decide whether or not he wanted to do it.

What Joey wanted the first time was for Chason to check out a guy he was thinking of hiring as a salesman. The guy had a great reputation as a salesman, Joey said, but there was something something about him that didn't smell kosher, and before he took him on, he wanted to be sure about him, and how much would that cost? about him that didn't smell kosher, and before he took him on, he wanted to be sure about him, and how much would that cost?

Chason had told him it would probably take about ten hours of his time, at twenty-five dollars an hour, plus expenses, like getting a credit report, and mileage, at a dime a mile, and Joey thought it over a minute and then said go ahead, how long will it take, the sooner the better.

That time, Chason had found out the guy was what he said he was, what his reputation said he was, a hard-working guy with a family, who paid his bills, didn't drink a h.e.l.l of a lot, went to church, and even, as far as Chason could find out, slept with his own wife.

Chason couldn't figure why a guy like that, who already had a good job as sales manager for the used-car department of the Pontiac dealer in Willow Grove, would want to work in the city for Fiorello. The answer to that was that he didn't. The second time Joey Fiorello called Chason, to do the same kind of a job on another guy Joey was thinking of hiring, Chason asked him what happened to the first guy, and Joey told him he'd made the guy an offer that wasn't good enough-the guy wanted an arm and a leg, Joey said-and that hadn't worked out.

The second time had been like the first job. Only this time the guy was selling furniture on Market Street, and thought he might like selling cars. Another Mr. Straight Citizen. Wife, kids, church, the whole nine yards. And he either came to his senses about what a good job he already had, or somebody whispered in his ear that Joey Fiorello wasn't the absolutely respectable businessman he wanted everybody to think he was. Anyway, he didn't go to work for Fiorello Fine Cars, either.

This last job was something else. This one was a young guy, from Bala Cynwyd, who was a stockbroker. Chason thought there was something fishy about a stockbroker wanting to be a used-car salesman right from the start. Usually, it would be a used-car salesman trying to get into something more cla.s.sy, like being a stockbroker, not the other way around.

Once he started nosing around, Chason thought he understood why. This guy was a real sleaze, too sleazy even to work for a sleazy greaseball like Joey Fiorello.

One of Joey's salesmen, a young guy wearing an open-collared yellow sport s.h.i.+rt with a gold chain around his neck and a phony Rolex on his wrist, came out of the office with a toothy 'h.e.l.lo, sucker!' smile on his face.

"Can I be of some a.s.sistance, sir?"

"Mr. Fiorello around?"

"Yes, sir," the salesman said. "But I believe he may be tied up at the moment. Is there something I can do for you?"

"No, thanks," Chason said, and walked around the guy and into the office.

Joey's secretary, a peroxide blonde with great b.r.e.a.s.t.s who Chason had learned wasn't as dumb as she looked, smiled at him, then picked up her telephone.

"Mr. Chason is here, Mr. Fiorello," she announced, listened a minute, and then hung up.

"Mr. Fiorello said he'll be right with you, Mr. Chason," she said. "How have you been?"

"Can't complain," Chason said. "How about yourself?"

"Well, you know," the blonde said. "A little of this, a little of that."

A moment later, the door to Joey's office opened and a guy who looked like another salesman came out. Then Joey appeared in the door.

"Hey, Phil, how's the boy? Come on in. You want a cup of coffee, or a c.o.ke or something?"

"I could take some coffee," Chason said.

"Helene, how about getting Mr. Chason and me some coffee. How do you take yours, Phil?"

"Black would be fine," Chason said as he shook Joey's extended hand and walked into the office.

He had to admit it, Joey had a cla.s.sy office. Nice furniture, all red leather, and a great big desk that must have cost a fortune. The walls were just about covered with pictures of cla.s.sy cars and of Joey and his family on his sailboat. There was a model of the sailboat, sails and everything, in a gla.s.s case.

The blonde delivered two mugs of coffee. The mugs said, "Fiorello Fine Cars. We sell to sell again!"

Joey waited until the blonde had closed the door behind her, then asked, "You got something for me, Phil?"

"I don't think you're going to like it, Joey."

"I pay you to find things out. Who said anything about me having to like it?"

"Mr. Ronald R. Ketcham is a sleazeball, Joey," Chason said.

"How is he a sleazeball?"

"You understand I can't prove prove anything, Joey. I mean, if I was still a cop, I don't have anything I could take to the district attorney." anything, Joey. I mean, if I was still a cop, I don't have anything I could take to the district attorney."

"Tell me what you found out," Joey Fiorello said. "That's good enough for me."

"Okay. The truth is, he is a stockbroker. For Wendell, Wilson and Company, in Bala Cynwyd. Before that, he was a stockbroker with Merrill Lynch, here in the city. He told Wendell, Wilson he wanted to leave Merrill Lynch so he wouldn't have to come into the city every day. The truth is, he resigned from Merrill Lynch about five minutes before they were going to fire him."

"Fire him for what?"

"For one thing, he didn't go to work very often, and for another, there was talk that when he did show up for work, he did a lot of business his customers didn't know about. You know what I mean?"

Joey shook his head, "no."

"Stockbrokers work on commission. The more stocks and bonds and stuff they buy and sell, the more money they make. So, if they aren't too ethical, they call their customers up and suggest they sell something he hears is going to go down, and buy something else he hears is going to go up, and maybe his information isn't so kosher. He did a lot of that at Merrill Lynch, but that isn't all. If they have customers that are buying and selling a lot, so their monthly statements are pretty complicated, what some of those guys do-what Ketcham got caught doing-is making trades their customers didn't order."

"Explain that to me," Joey said.

"Like you own five thousand shares of, say, General Motors. Ketcham would sell, say, a thousand shares one day, and buy it back the next. And get a commission selling it, and another commission buying it back."

"The customers don't notice?"

"A lot of the customers don't keep good records," Chason explained. "They get their statement, it says they sold a thousand shares at fifty bucks, and then, a day later, they bought a thousand shares at forty-seven-fifty, which means they picked up twenty-five hundred bucks less the commissions, why ask questions?"

"What if they sold the stock at forty-seven-fifty, and then bought it back at fifty, and they lost lost twenty-five hundred? Don't that ring bells that something ain't kosher?" twenty-five hundred? Don't that ring bells that something ain't kosher?"

"From what I hear, believe it or not, most people don't catch on right away. The company itself catches more salesmen doing stuff like that than the customers do. And that's what happened to Mr. Ketcham at Merrill Lynch. The company-they call the people who do it 'internal auditors'-caught him."

"But they didn't fire him?" Joey asked. "You said he resigned, right?"

"Like I said, I can't prove this happened to him at Merrill Lynch, but this is the way something like this works, all right? The internal auditors catch a guy doing something like this, what can they do? If they fire the guy because he's been making unauthorized trades for his customer, and they tell the customer, the customer is going to be p.i.s.sed, right? And take his business some other place, and tell all his friends what Merrill Lynch, or whoever, has done to him. "

"Yeah," Joey said, considering that. "So what do they do?"

"They call the guy in, tell him that they have enough on him to get him kicked out of the stockbroker business for life, and that the smart thing for him to do is have his desk cleaned out by five o'clock, keep his mouth shut, and if he gets another job, to straighten up and fly right. You get the picture."

"Jesus, you just can't trust anybody these days, can you?" Joey said.

"There's more crooks out of jail than in," Chason said.

"So he went to this company in Bala Cynwyd, you're telling me, and started this s.h.i.+t all over?"

"No. Not exactly. He's about to get canned from Wendell, Wilson for not producing. That means not selling or buying enough for his customers. The reason he's not producing enough is that he comes to work late, leaves early, or doesn't come to work at all. You can only get away with telling the boss you were 'developing business' on the golf course, which is why you weren't at work, if you actually produce the business."

"If he's not 'producing business,' what's he living on, if he's working on commission?"

"That's what I wondered," Chason said. "He lives good. He pays a lot of money for his apartment, drives a fancy car, dresses good, and he's got a girlfriend who probably costs him a lot of money."

"You mean a hooker?"

"No, I mean one of those Main Line beauties, who expect to be taken to expensive restaurants, and weekends at the sh.o.r.e. Like that."

"How do you know about the girlfriend?" Tony asked.

Chason took a small notebook from his pocket.

"Her name is Cynthia Longwood," he said. "Her father is Randolph Longwood, the builder."

"I heard the name," Joey said.

"Anyway, they have been running around for some time. So I wondered how he was paying for all this, and started asking some questions around. I got to tell you again, Joey, that I can't prove any of this, it's just . . ."

Joey Fiorello indicated with his hands that he understood the caveat.

"If I was a betting man, Joey, which I don't happen to be, I'd give odds that this sleazeball is into drugs. Maybe not big time, but not small time, either."

"No s.h.i.+t?"

"It all fits, if you think about it."

"You tell me."

"If somebody has an armful of that s.h.i.+t, everything is rosy. You don't give a s.h.i.+t about anything. You don't feel like going to work, you don't go to work. Everything will be all right. And if you do go to work, you put some s.h.i.+t up your nose, it turns you into a f.u.c.king genius. You're too smart to get caught buying and selling stocks and bonds n.o.body told you to. You understand?"

"I'm getting the picture."

"You get your hands on, say, twenty thousand dollars' worth of heroin, or cocaine, any of the high-cla.s.s stuff, if you know where to get it and where to sell it, you keep out what you need to shove in your own arm, or up your own, and your girlfriend's, nose-"

"You think his girlfriend is a junkie?"