A Long Line of Dead Men

"Extremely successful, with an oceanfront house inEast Hampton and a state-of-the-art loft in Tribeca. You know, I've often wondered what became of that faux-brick wall Boyd painted. He slapped a couple of coats of flat white wall paint on it before he moved, so that the landlord wouldn't have a fit. Well, whoever's living there now has an original Boyd Shipton trompe-l'oeil mural under God knows how many layers of Dutch Boy latex. I suppose it could be restored, if anyone knew where to look for it."

"I remember when he was killed," I said. "Five years ago, wasn't it?"

"Six in October. He and his wife had come into the city for a friend's opening and went out to dinner afterward. When they returned to their loft downtown they evidently walked in on a burglary in progress."

"The wife was raped, as I recall."

"Raped and strangled, and Boyd was beaten to death. And the case was never solved."

"So you've had three murders."

"Four. In 1989 Tom Cloonan was shot to death at the wheel of his cab. He was a writer, he published quite a few short stories over the years and had a play or two produced Off-Off-Broadway, but he couldn't make a living at it. He'd make up the difference working for a moving company or renovating apartments for an unlicensed contractor. And sometimes he drove a cab, and that's what he was doing when he died."

"And they never cleared that case, either?"

"I believe the cops made an arrest. I don't think the case ever went to trial."

It wouldn't be hard to find out. I said, "Thirty men, and four of them have been the victims of homicides. I think that's more remarkable than the fact that sixteen of you have died."

"I was thinking that myself, Matt. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I don't think my parents were acquainted with a single person who'd been murdered. And I didn't grow up in some storybook town inSouth Dakota, either. I grew up in Queens, first inRichmond Hill and then we moved to Woodhaven." He frowned. "I'm wrong, because we did know someone who was murdered, although I couldn't tell you his name. He owned a liquor store onJamaica Avenue and he was shot and killed during a holdup. I remember how upset my parents were."

"There were probably others," I suggested. "You're less aware of that sort of thing when you're a kid, and parents tend to shield you from it. Oh, there's no question that the homicide rate's higher than when we were kids, but people have been killing each other since Cain and Abel. You know, in the middle of the last century there was a sprawling tenement complex in Five Points called the Old Brewery, and when they finally tore it down the workmen hauled sack after sack of human bones out of the basement. According to informed estimates, that one building averaged a murder a night for years."

"In one building?"

"Well, it was a pretty good-sized building," I said. "And it couldn't have been a very nice neighborhood."

4

In addition to the homicides, Lew told me, there were cases of suicide and accidental death, some of which might have been murder in disguise. He had a pair of lists, which he took from his inside breast pocket and unfolded for me. One bore in alphabetical order the names of the club's fourteen surviving members, along with their addresses and phone numbers. The other was a list of the deceased- all seventeen of them, including Homer Champney. They were listed in the order they'd died, with the presumptive cause of death noted for each man.

I read through both lists, drank some coffee, and looked across the table at him. I said, "I'm not sure what sort of role you have in mind for me. If you just wanted a consultation, I'll say this much. Your club's been hit with an awfully high death rate, and it certainly seems to me that a disproportionate number have resulted from causes other than illness. Any of the suicides could have been faked, along with most of the accidents. Even some of the deaths that look natural might be disguised homicide. This one fellow who choked to death on his own vomit, well, there's a way to make that happen."

"How, for God's sake?"

"The victim has to be unconscious. You jam a pillow or towel over his face and hold it there while you induce vomiting. There's an emetic you can give by subcutaneous injection, but something might show up in an autopsy if anyone had the wit to look for it. A knee in the pit of the stomach is almost as effective. The victim vomits and there's no place for it to go, so he automatically aspirates it into the lungs. It's an easy way to knock off a drunk, you just wait until he's passed out and sleeping it off. And drunks are apt to die choking on their vomit, so it's a very plausible kind of accidental death."

"It sounds absolutely diabolical."