Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery Read Online Free

names.”
    “You think the names are goyische, you should see the faces.”
    Stern laughed like a man not used to laughing.
    “I supposed it’s ridiculous, Mr. LeVine, but I still have a refugee mentality. I look first for a Jew.” He sighed. “Was not the nicest experience.”
    “I’m sure it wasn’t.”
    And with that he arose, swiftly, like a man with errands to run.
    “Should I leave some money now? I brought some just in case.” He smiled again. “In the movies …”
    “It’s just like the movies, Mr. Stern. You can leave me fifty bucks.”
    Stern took out an aging brown wallet and started counting out fifty dollars. He counted the bills very carefully.
    “Who should I see at NBC?”
    “Thirty-five, forty …” He looked up from the money. “I think you should attempt to see Mr. Sidney Aaron, who is the vice-president for what they call ‘special programming.’”
    “Which includes the concerts?”
    He nodded and finished his counting, then handed me the bills. I pocketed them without a glance; this guy would no sooner short change me than go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
    “He is not a nice man, Mr. LeVine,” Stern said solemnly. “Nor do I think he is a truthful one.”
    “That’s par for the course in my line of work, Mr. Stern. Let me worry about that.”
    Stern bowed politely and walked to the door.
    “I hope I am wrong, Mr. LeVine. I hope none of this is true.”
    “I hope it is true. Just for the hell of it.”
    Stern began to say something, then thought better of it and left the office, shutting the door behind him about as quietly as it can be shut. I stared at the door and ran my hand across my brow. My brow was wet, which meant I’d been concentrating. That happens to me a couple of times a year. The phone started to ring, but I ignored it. Instead, I arose, grabbed my hat, and left the office for the three-block walk over to NBC.

TWO
     

     
    Sidney Aaron’s office was located on the twenty-eighth floor of the NBC Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, more popularly known as Radio City. Thirty Rock was a building that had figured prominently in my storied professional history: In 1944 I had enjoyed the privilege of racing down its halls with a Philadelphia banker named Eli Savage, a pack of Democratic Party thugs in fevered pursuit of us. That’s when I was big news. Today I sauntered unimpeded into the building, past the wide-eyed tourists in their bright suits and pastel dresses, past the sweating messengers, past all the men and women who entered Thirty Rock with something to sell over NBC’s licensed airwaves—good health, fresh breath, clean teeth.
    But Sidney Aaron on the twenty-eighth floor was beyond any such mercantile concerns. I knew that because he had an English secretary working his desk. When someone named Sidney hires a girl from London to answer his phones and keep people waiting, it tells you something. It certainly tells me something: It tells me I’m about to meet someone I’m not going to like.
    “You have an appointment with Mr. Aaron?” she asked. Her name was Elizabeth Hamilton and she looked every bit of it: the faint blush in the cheeks, the lustrous straw-colored hair, the touch of lantern in the jaw.
    “I’m afraid I don’t,” I told her with as much fawning respect as possible. “But it’s quite important and I really only need about five minutes of his time. Maybe less, if I talk fast.”
    She smiled politely. “Well, Mr. Aaron is actually in a meeting right now, and then he has a luncheon engagement. Might I tell him what this is in reference to?”
    “You might, yes. It’s about the orchestra. Something’s up in the string section.”
    She delicately bit her bottom lip. “Are you a union rep?”
    “Technically, no. Let’s say I’m a bearer of information your boss should know about.”
    “I see,” she said, but her eyes told me that all she saw was a problem.
    “It’s important, trust me. If I take more than five minutes,