Synopses & Reviews
The Berkley Building Company's office is always closed on week-ends. So when, Rose Shapiro, arrives for work on Monday one June, 1966 morning, she has to unlock the door to the building to get in. She sorts the mail, and when she enters her boss, Max Robbins's, suite to put the mail on his desk, she finds him lying on the floor...dead. She assumes that he has died from a heart attack. Because at the funeral home bruises are found on his body, an autopsy is performed. The Medical Examiner's opinion is that Max did die as the result of a heart attack, except one caused by powerful blows to his solar plexus. So who killed Max? Max, a crude, fat, slob, know-it-all loud mouth, black-sheep, disinherited son of real estate mogul, Sam Robbins, wasn't short of enemies. David Lev, Max's boyhood friend and lawyer, becomes the most likely candidate, when the police discover evidence that David was the last person to see Max alive. David, usually calm and the soul of probity, but now bordering on panic, is so unsettled that for the first time in his life he turns to his former mobster cousin, Jack Lerner, once head of Detroits notorious Prohibition era Purple Gang, the cousin, whom for years he has criticized for his criminal life. At great risk to himself, Jack, ever the stand-up guy, makes the problem go away. And Max Robbins's killer is never discovered. But David, Jack, and Chick Marcus, also a boyhood friend of David, know who he is and why he was never discovered, but keep it a secret. Forty years later, David and Jack are dead. Chick, eighty, garrulous, living in a retirement facility, and with time on his hands, and deeming he is free from his oath of secrecy, tells us who killed Max and why.
Synopsis
The Berkley Building Company's office closes on week-ends. So when Rose Shapiro arrives for work on Monday morning June 20, 1966, she has to unlock the door to gain entry. She finds her boss, Max Robbins-dead-the apparent victim of a heart attack.
At the funeral home because bruises are found on Max's body, the Medical Examiner performs an autopsy. He opines that Max did die of a heart attack, but one caused by powerful blows to his solar plexus.
So who killed Max? Crude, black-sheep son of real estate mogul, Sam Robbins, Max wasn't short of enemies. The police discover evidence that David Lev, Max's boyhood friend and lawyer was the last person to see Max alive.
David, normally unflappable, borders on panic. He turns for help to his ex-mobster cousin, Jack Lerner, once head of Detroit's infamous Purple Gang, whose criminal activities teenaged David abhorred and which embarrassed him. With input from Chick Marcus, another childhood friend of David and Max, Jack makes the problem go away. Max's killer is never discovered.
Thirty-eight years later, Chick, only survivor of the trio, eighty and frail, but with perfect recall tells us who killed Max and why.