Death on a High Floor by Charles Rosenberg Page B

the booths. He didn’t look good, even for Stewart. He looked fatter than ever, and his skin seemed to have a sickly pallor, or at least the patches of facial skin I could see through his ever-present hide-the-acne makeup. I thought to myself that I ought to stop disliking Stewart. After all, he was trying to help me. Maybe when this was all over, I’d see if I could find him a better dermatologist.
    Stewart already had the house breakfast special in front of him— Huevos Pancho Villa . Eggs under huge dollops of salsa, topped off with red and green peppers shaped to resemble a sombrero. All accompanied by a large stein of beer. I have never known whether the special had been given that name because Pancho liked an overabundance of salsa, because he wore a sombrero or because he drank a lot early in the morning. Whatever the answer, it has become a local culinary classic and there are lawyers and judges in town who make almost a cult of ordering it. I am not among them.
    I sat down across from him. I restrained myself from making a snide comment about the beer. He was already half done with his salsa and eggs and the beer was well below the mid-line on the stein, which was marked by the barrel of a six-shooter engraved into the glass. He didn’t look up. “Drugs were involved,” was all he said.
    “What kind of drugs?”
    “I’m not sure. Maybe heroin.”
    Stewart was still looking down, still eating.
    “And Harry Marfan did it,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “I’m pretty sure it was him.” He hadn’t yet looked up.
    “Why would he do it? He loved Simon like a son.”
    He looked up. “It had to do with drugs. I heard them talking about drugs.”
    “Who? When?”
    “I came into the office on Sunday afternoon. To work on a year-end tax deal. I stayed till around 2:00 a.m. that night. My office is right next to reception on eighty-five. But you already know that. Just before I got up to leave, the two of them walked through. Simon and Harry.”
    “Saying?”
    “I couldn’t hear it all. Something about a drug deal and something about ‘Hello.’”
    “Hello like on the telephone?”
    “Yeah. What you say on the telephone when you answer,” he said. “Except it sounded like they were talking about the name of a place.”
    “What else did they say?”
    “I couldn’t hear most of it. But Harry sounded really angry. Almost screaming. He kept telling Simon the drugs were late.”
    “So all that was when, exactly?” I asked.
    “Like I said, about 2:00. I left just a couple minutes later.”
    “Down the elevator?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did they see you?” I asked.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “So what’s your theory?”
    “Simon was involved in a drug deal, he got into an argument with Harry about it, and Harry killed him. Later that night.”
    The whole story was so absurd that I seriously considered getting up and leaving. But then I thought to myself that if I was going to be my own detective, I needed to pursue all leads, both the landish and the outlandish.
    It still didn’t make any sense, though.
    “Why would Simon and Harry be involved in drugs?” I asked. “Neither one of them needs the money. Simon was pulling down well over a million bucks from the firm and was independently wealthy to boot. Harry has more money than Croesus.”
    Stewart shrugged. “Simon actually made one million eight last year. And as for why, Harry told me you talked to him and he told you about Simon’s gambling problem.”
    “He did, but I find it hard to believe.”
    “Well, believe it. Simon told several of his friends about it.”
    “Including you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well,” I said, “I hadn’t been on his friends list for quite a while.”
    “Yeah, he pretty much hated you,” Stewart said. “I couldn’t understand why you sold him the Ides .”
    “He outbid everyone else. So fair was fair. Friend or no friend.”
    Stewart made no response to that. He just went on eating