Too Many Murders(39)
“I’m not an anything buff when it comes to food or drink,” said Mr. Sykes. “Model soldiers, now, that’s different!”
“Shiloh spread out in the basement, huh?” Abe asked.
Sykes looked scornful. “No! I’m a Napoleonic era man! Austerlitz and Marengo.”
“And Waterloo?” Carmine enquired.
“Waterloo is like the Civil War—common.”
“How common is wealth among the Cornucopia executives?” Carmine asked, wondering if Mr. Sykes’s war games extended to military takeovers of industrial giants. That would certainly lift his basement activities out of the common way.
“Apart from me and Erica Davenport, they’re all as rich as Croesus.” Michael Donald Sykes carefully cut his Jell-O into cubes and topped each one with a dollop of cream. “It’s an old-boy network—Mayflower families, fancy prep schools, Chubb University. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were all related. Desmond Skeps’s father was well heeled, you know, otherwise he would never have found the capital to establish Cornucopia. Up until 1938 he’d manufactured parts for automobiles, but it was chickenfeed, couldn’t have funded Cornucopia. Yet he had the clout to call on enough private loans among his friends from family and school to do it. But he was too smart to part with shares. As soon as the Second World War was raking in the money, he paid his loans back with interest and sat on the company like a dog with a dinosaur bone.”
Well, well, thought Carmine, leaning back. Mr. Sykes might dwell in a limbo between middle and top management, but he sure knows all the dirt. A wonderful thing, the soul of a gossip.
“So where does Philip Smith fit in?” he asked.
“A Skeps connection by blood or marriage, certainly. Hugely rich! You always know how rich they are by the size of their salaries and perks. Like a vast fortune automatically entitles you to more. Take Gus Purvey, managing director of Landmark Machines—that’s a polite term for field and naval guns. Not one of the biggest or most profitable subsidiaries, but Gus Purvey earns almost as much as Phil Smith. On a par with Fred Collins of Polycorn Plastics, and Wallace Grierson of Dormus—turbine engines. Their take-home pay would stagger you, Captain. It would stagger the President of the United States of America, for that matter. Whatever they work for, it isn’t the money. Every last one of them could live the life of a playboy until he died, and still not have dented what he’s got.”
“The Puritan work ethic?” suggested Abe.
“Or the impulse to make even more?” asked Corey.
“Huh!” Michael Donald Sykes sucked up the last cube of Jell-O. “I don’t believe it’s any of those reasons. I believe that the life of a playboy would bore them, but they can’t stand being at home all day with their wives. They’re avoiding their wives without the grief of philandering. I mean, can you see Philip Smith working up a sweat fucking? Nah! Never happen.”
“Sykes is a cuckoo,” said Corey as they departed.
“Maybe, but we know more about the men at the top of the Cornucopia heap,” said Carmine, very satisfied. “Philip Smith, Gus Purvey, Fred Collins and Wallace Grierson. Fine old WASP names, apparently accompanied by fortunes in the league of Scrooge McDuck. I know I have to dig deep into the contents of Special Agent Kelly’s filing cabinet, but I also have to dig into those four gentlemen, all of whom have the money to hire assassins.”
“Speak of the devil,” Carmine said not a minute later, when Special Agent Kelly appeared out of the elevator. “How goes it?” he asked amiably. “Get your warrant?”
“Tell me something, Captain, is everyone in this pint-sized state a total eccentric? My bosses are convinced Commissioner Silvestri is ready for the men in white coats, and the judge who finally issued me a warrant is like someone out of Longfellow!”
“Longfellow is a poet,” said Carmine, “who didn’t versify about eccentrics. But I’m glad you got your warrant.”
“Yes, and my filing cabinet,” Kelly said triumphantly. “Too soon for you to bust into it, lucky for you. But one thing—how did you wind up with Delia Carstairs? When the Director heard that she’d finally left the NYPD, he tried to get her, but she’d fallen down a crack somewhere.”
“A crack named Holloman. She’s a total eccentric, you see,” Carmine said gravely. He jerked his head at a vacant table in the cafeteria, rapidly emptying. “In here, Special Agent, only that’s the last time I’m calling you something so clumsy. From now on, it’s Ted. I’m Carmine, no diminutive. Corey and Abe here are going back to Desmond Skeps’s offices while you and I have a little chat.”