by Dion Baia
“Yes, of course.” This might have been the most honest yet betraying action by Hayden. He quickly pulled out his wallet from his inside breast pocket and removed a picture, then carefully handed Walter the photo. A beautiful young black woman was seated in a professional art studio, the photo was artificially colored, as the old-style portraits were once done. “Crane will provide you with whatever else you may need. List of friends, anything.”
“I’d like to come back and talk to the staff if I may. Her friends and everyone she palled around with here on the estate. And I’ll need access to the room where she slept.”
“Done.”
Walter paused a moment to contemplate and exhaled a long, slow breath. “Okay, I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Remember, Mister Morris, please be discreet with this matter.”
“Of course.”
Hayden studied him with the conviction that only a ruthless cutthroat tycoon with years of experience like Cuthbert Hayden could possess. “I would hate to see what would happen to an up-and-coming firm like yours if you were to foul up a tremendous chance like this.”
Walter nodded solemnly. It was all he could do.
Hayden abruptly took a 180-degree turn with his chair and rolled away into the darkness.
“Thank you, Mister Morris. I trust you’ll be in touch.” It seemed as if the light in the huge space left with him as the buzz from his electric chair faded away from earshot. It was now back to being dimly lit and hard to see.
Once Hayden was gone and the sound from his chair had ceased, it was replaced with a loud silence and the far-off bass of swinging jazz. Walter suddenly felt very uneasy.
Chapter 5
OFFICE OF CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
The city morgue was a filthy place. It was filthy to visit and an even filthier place to work. The caked-on grime looked to go as far back as the nineteenth century. Walter could only begin to imagine the grotesque images these disgusting walls had been exposed to. The subway tiles, ancient and decrepit, had long ago lost their white sparkle veneer and assumed a nauseating yellowish-green or brown color, depending on the location and light. It was a place Walt never felt comfortable in. Death was all around.
The hallway was littered with gurneys with bodies atop covered by white sheets. Some of those sheets were stained with dried blood; others had bodily fluids soaking through. Walter rounded the corner with a freshly lit cigarette in his mouth. His eyes fixated on the man he was looking for, the assistant medical examiner, Tony Vincenzo. A stocky Italian with a short, military-style haircut, he was sucking on a lollipop and directing various assistants and staff.
“Larry, you can’t leave him here. Take him over to the fridge ’cause the air is starting to make him fall apart. Popeye, stop acting like Mortimer Snerd and take her over to Phil so he can start that postmortem.”
Walter glanced down at one of the bodies Tony was referring to but quickly looked away. “Whatdaya say, Tony?”
Tony removed the sucker from his mouth. “Walter.”
Walt inhaled a large drag of his smoke and blew it out into the room. He was the only one in the office smoking. “Looks like business is popping. Speaking of popping, what’s with the lollipop?”
A few of the various workers took notice of Walt’s cigarette smoke. They snuck glances at their boss, Tony, and went on with their work.
Tony studied Walter with annoyance and waved his hand casually to dissipate the smelly smoke from around him. “How many people do you think come through here who smoked?”
“You mean who smoke?”
“No, they’re dead. It’s past tense.”
“Wait. How’s that now?”
Tony stopped what he was doing, put down the clipboard he had been looking at, and gave Walter his undivided attention. “I said, how many people do you think come through here that smoke? Smoked. Jesus, now you have me messing up.”
Walt looked around, quickly realizing he was the only one smoking. “Well, I’d—”
“Do you know how many black and gray damaged lungs I see?”
Walter looked disappointingly at the cigarette in his hand.
“How much spaghetti-like fat we see that builds up, clogging veins, the arteries and valves?”
“So you quit?”
Tony laughed. “Yep, I quit, that’s my point.”
Feeling slightly disgusted, Walter threw his smoke to the floor and stepped on it with his shoe. “Well, good for you.”
He followed Tony into the main examination room where several autopsies were currently underway.
“So, are you here to see the specials on tonight’s menu?” Tony asked.
Walter chuckled. “Seeing if you have any female black Jane Does around the ages of sixteen to twenty-one. Would have come through in the last five days?”
“Negro, Jane. That all?”
Walter nodded. “That, and some advice on my victory garden.”
Tony walked toward a collection of clipboards hung on the wall, filled with reports of those who had come in and gone out. “What’s the weight and height?”
“About a hundred twenty to a hundred thirty-five pounds, around five-six.”
Tony cross-referenced a sheet on a different clipboard then stepped into the adjoining refrigerator room. Walter, who had been staring at the bodies being dissected around him, hurried to catch up to Tony. In the next room the far wall had a dozen or so rectangular doors that hid coffin-sized refrigerated compartments.
Tony quickly scanned the small doors looking for the right number. A second later, after finding what he wanted, he opened a bulky door and pulled out the slab inside. He lifted the sheet and before them lay the body of a dead black female, roughly in her mid-twenties, her eyes glazed and her eyelids and lips eaten by the critters in the East River. Walter viewed his photo and compared the two. It was not Caldonia.
“Naw, not her, Vinn.”
Vincenzo replaced the sheet and rolled the Jane Doe back into the freezer. He walked out of the room with Walter quickly following. Tony crossed over to his desk and checked his other logs.
Walter leaned against the counter, once again glancing at the various bodies being autopsied. One was an obese man, his chest was wide open in a hinge-door-like fashion, while another was that of a white blonde woman who was being cleaned with a trickling hose and a sponge. An electric saw sounded from the other end of the room, to which Walter shot a glance over. An attendant started the exploration of a cadaver’s skull cavity.
Tony finished looking through his logs. “Nope, that’s the last Negro female we got in that age range.”
“Thanks for looking, Vinn.” Walter sized up the busywork going on around them. “You got a proper Eli Whitney assembly line going on down here.”
Tony exhaled loudly and gave a look of frustration. “With this Ripper character going, they got us working eighteen-hour days trying to make sense out of it all. It’s up to six now.”
“Yeah, heard that on the wireless.”
Tony put the clipboard in his hand down and stepped closer so he could talk softer. “Walter, it’s horrible. They’re like grave robbers. You know, the robbers that used to dig up the English countryside to give med students fresh bodies to dissect? Eh? You know?”
Walter nodded. “We called ‘em Night Doctors in our neighborhoods.”
“Yeah, I heard of them down South. That’s what this feels like. All these bodies are coming back with various organs perfectly removed. And you know what else? We’ve been finding dead skin, all around the victim’s throat.”
“Dead skin?”
“Yeah, all around the neck area. And the weird thing is I don’t think it belongs to them. I think that if I—”
Tony’s boss, the head New York City medical examiner, entered the morgue, and Vincenzo quickly silenced h
imself. “Erm, Sir.”
Walter immediately spoke up, acting as though he didn’t notice Tony’s boss enter. “I guess next time watch out not to leave your wallet in a Parmelee cab. Luckily, I employ only honest drivers.” Walter glanced over to the medical examiner then back at Tony. “And I’ll take you up on those Dodger tickets, so let me know if anything comes in then.”
“Okay, buddy, and thank you again.”
Tony walked away in the direction of the medical examiner. Walter turned to leave, but he paused.
The blonde-haired female body was just being moved from a table by two attendants and it caught Walter’s eye. Rigor mortis had set in and the left hand was caught, almost holding onto the side of the metal table before being pulled free with an unpleasant dragging sound. Like it was the last desperate inanimate action of a brutalized victim.
It brought Walter back to unpleasant memories he’d rather not have dancing around in his head.
Walter held up the small picture of Caldonia closer than necessary to the tiny man’s face.
It was particularly loud in the seedy pool hall and thick with a haze of cigarette and cigar smoke. The clacking of cue balls being smashed together and the chatter of the many groups hanging out in the dimly lit establishment was all around them. It was more crowded than would be expected for a weekday afternoon, but for a lot of these patrons, this was their livelihood. The weathered clientele resembled men out of the Depression era, with gaunt faces of all sizes and styles, wearing all manners of facial hair—clean shaven to mustaches to stumpy beards. They barked back and forth bets, side bets, and side action; it was like the floor of the stock exchange, in a massive hypnosis as they watched the events of the many games happening on the tables.
Walter stood next to the owner’s desk. It was slightly raised against the wall, like a judge’s podium. Below the front counter, a large aging sign hung with the hourly rates and rules of the establishment. The lanky poolroom owner, “Small Change,” was sat up high behind the tall counter and was dressed in an old, stained shirt, dusty cardigan, and wrinkled hat. His round glasses were about an inch from Caldonia’s picture.
A waft of thick gray smoke escaped Small Change’s nose and mouth while he spoke through stained yellow teeth, engulfing the detective. “Nope, never seen her before. I would have remembered a beauty like that. Sorry, Walt.”
Walter lowered his arm and put the photo away. He peered around at the groups of men huddled around tables and seated up on the wooden pews that were built in below the dado rail on the outer walls. “You’ve always got your ear to the pavement. You hear about any extortions or ransoming of wealthy Westchester tycoons?”
Small Change followed Walter’s eyes out toward his congregation and felt a sense of pride looking out on his flock. “Nothing like that since the war’s been on. All the big-time confidence games have been halted. Sure, there’s some petty pickpocketing or maybe an obituary-page con, but that’s it. Nothing as high profile as a kidnapping or extortion, not with the war. We’ve all come together to help Uncle Sam and our boys.” Small Change grinned as he looked back down at his old pal who stood below him. “I got ration cards if you need them.” Walter winked at Small Change. “You looking for anything—gas, meat, alcohol?”
“Naw, Small Change, I’m okay with ration cards. Can you do me a favor and check the flophouses and shelters? Here’s her info.” Walter tore off a sheet of paper from his notepad, handed it to him, then asked, “What’s the latest you hear about this New York Ripper thing?”
Small Change took a long drag before the journey. “I’ve heard the bodies are having organs removed….” His calm eyes accentuated the last words spoken.
“That’s why they’re calling him the New York Ripper.”
Small Change nodded. “That’s not the only goings-on.” He exhaled the smoke, which poured out like an exhaust pipe into the detective’s face. “The police are holding back some details that the papers haven’t reported either.”
There was a pause. Walter regarded Small Change and the latter slowly nodded, with a coy smirk that revealed the pride he felt in knowing that he had a piece of information no one else knew. It was one of the reasons why Small Change was such a wealth of information and a great source for a private investigator. This particular private detective always knew exactly the right way of getting it out of him.
Walter realized Small Change was waiting for an acknowledgment. “Really?” he said with an elongated reply.
Small Change removed his glasses and used the bottom of his cardigan to clean microscopic splashes of coffee off the lens. “Well, from what I’ve learned, the bodies have had all their blood drained right out of them. They’re bone-dry.” He looked through each lens to inspect the job he had done.
“Really?” Walter said again.
“Yep.” Small Change did a final polish and held his glasses up to the desk lamp light for inspection. “Like a vampire.” His eyes widened as he went on. “They got two puncture wounds in the jugular. And no blood. So where is it?” His eyes locked on Walter’s. “It ain’t at the crime scene. Savvy? It’s taken. Someone’s stealing their blood, along with their organs.”
Around the corner at the closest bench seat, out of the view of Walter, a small, almost emaciated Japanese man sat puffing on a long, thin pipe. His eyes had a cloudy, fogged appearance as if he were blind, and he was wearing a large-brimmed hat, partially obscuring his face. His head was cocked slightly toward them so his ears could pick up what was being said by the billiard room’s proprietor and the private detective.
Small Change put his glasses back on, taking the time to hook the thin wire tips around the back of his ears. “Now we gotta worry about goddamn Bela Lugosi creeping around the back alleys of this decaying berg. Who the hell knows? Maybe it’s the Nazis’ secret weapon for a New York invasion.”
Walter looked back out toward the crowd. “The war will be over any day now in Europe,” he said to the small man lurking behind the desk. “So, they’d be a little late for that.”
A loud crack that sounded like a pistol shot reverberated in the smoky hall as the clay billiard balls smacked together on a nearby table.
Walter spent most of the next day scouring every inch of his home turf, Harlem. Pounding the beat, he showed the people he passed Caldonia’s picture but got nowhere. He tried almost every business applicable, but still, nothing.
At one point he stopped to view a long procession coming down the street. The spiritual guru and demigod himself, Father Divine, sat atop a float that was being carried, surrounded by white-robed disciples. He claimed to be God, and his followers believed him. And when he had a parade, everyone knew about it. The procession sluggishly made their way along the road singing old spirituals, backed by a brass band taking up the rear.
Walter took a break and had a quick bite to eat at the nearest soapy saucer. He ate in silence, contemplating his case thus far while watching Father Divine’s parade pass. When he was done refueling, he stepped back outside and walked across a side street, stopping in front of Caldonia’s church called the Divine Grace. He heard singing inside. He quickly checked his notepad and walked up the stairs.
As he opened the large double doors, he immediately felt like he wasn’t “in Kansas anymore”. The packed congregation swayed to a large, boisterous, all-female choir that sang up front next to the pulpit. They were singing a lively rendition of the traditional spiritual song “I’m On My Way to Canaan’s Land.” It reminded Walter of the fevered energy he used to encounter going to church as a child with his little brother and mother before she died; the joy and excitement was intoxicating. The congregation were all on their feet, stomping, clapping, and moving in time with the music.
“Had a mighty hard time, but I’m on my way. Had a mighty hard time, but I’m on my way.”
The atmosphere was contagious, and before he knew it, Walt found him
self unconsciously mouthing along too. “It’s a mighty hard climb, but I’m on my way; On my way-hey! Glory Hallelujah, I’m on my way.”
As the song and its lyrics came flooding back to him, a broad smile appeared on his face. He gradually lost his demure insecurity and sang along with the next verse.
“Along the way, Satan lies a-waiting; Every night and day, Satan lies a-waiting.”
Walter sang louder in sync with the congregation and began to sing with the same heart, soul, and feelings as everyone else in there.
“Hear me shout and say! Get behind me Satan! I’m on my way, Glory Hallelujah, I’m on my way.”
At the front of the church on the stage next to the large choir, the reverend sang along. He was an elderly, round-bellied, dignified gentleman whose scant gray hair encircled the top of his head like a halo. He watched Walter since he’d entered, nodding with a smile of satisfaction, seeing a newcomer off the street joining right in.
Walt continued singing happily along with the congregation.
“Fight the devil and pray, take another step higher; Fight the devil and pray, Lord, I wanna climb higher.
“Chase the Devil away, Lord, I’m caught in his fire; I’m on my way, Glory Hallelujah, I’m on my way.”
The song ended and everyone applauded, including Walter.
When the services were over, the parishioners exited the church and passed the reverend, who stood on the top step just outside the large doors, saying goodbye and shaking hands with each churchgoer. Walter waited patiently, remaining last in line, and only after every member was gone did Walter walk out to chat with the reverend.
“Reverend? Might I have a word with you?”
“Of course. I saw you in the back there. What can I do for you, son?”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about one of your flock.”