by Dion Baia
Walter touched his still-tender face. “Oh, just cut myself shaving is all.”
She leaned closer, possibly for effect. “Hmm, well you got a visitor up in your office. Real suave fella, I think he’s foreign.” She made a snooty face and pursed her lips.
Walter laughed. “Thanks for the heads up, Dolores. Keep up the good work.” He winked at her and walked away.
Laszlo Strozek’s gentle, soothing voice was as calm and accommodating as he could muster. He sat in the center of Walter’s inner office, right in front of the detective’s desk. The piano player lit a cigarette, and his tranquil eyes wandered around the room before settling on Walter.
“So then, you do understand why I was hesitant to interact with you regarding this emotional situation. You could have been anyone trying to pick a fight or looking for a scoop. As you can imagine, we are all extremely concerned about Caldonia, and we all want to find out where she is.”
“You ever read Dashiell Hammett, Mister Strozek?”
“Who?” Laszlo looked a little confused.
Walter smirked. “No matter. I got to meet your overprotective friends from the club. The slick-looking, zoot-suit-wearing souteneur and that side-show freak he has for muscle.”
Laszlo smiled, maintaining his sugar-laced demeanor. “Mister Morris, The Creo Room likes to make sure their entertainers are comfortable. We need to feel safe and at ease in order to perform.” He purposefully made direct eye contact with Walter before saying, “It is Harlem, Mister Morris.”
He stared right back. “It is Harlem.”
Walter subconsciously chewed on the cut on his lip. “So neither you nor anyone at the club have any idea where she could be or her condition?”
“We fear she simply has gotten fed up with her provincial life and jumped on a bus or hitchhiked out of the city.”
Walter raised an eyebrow. That was a new one. “So when did you last seen her, then?”
Laszlo gazed up to the ceiling before carefully replying, “I can vaguely recall, maybe three, four weeks ago?”
“Almost a month, huh?” That information completely contradicted what Hayden’s people had told Walt—that Caldonia vanished in front of The Creo Room only a week and a half ago.
Laszlo grinned, his smile very self-assured. “We were not an item; we were free to see other people. I didn’t have a hold on her, and she hung out with a lot of other men, you know.”
The more suave the piano player attempted to be, the more repulsed Walter felt. “Did you know much about her background? You said you met her at the club?”
“Yes,” Laszlo adjusted in his seat. “We met there and became acquainted with each other.”
“Do you know where she lived?”
“You mean the estate with Cuthbert Hayden up in Westchester?”
“And you know who he is?”
Laszlo appeared perplexed. “Of course I have heard of him. I read the papers.”
“That was my next question. Cuthbert Hayden.”
“Yes, I know him from the society pages.”
“You two ever m—”
“Nope,” the piano player answered before Walter was even finished asking the question.
“You’ve never met him?”
Laszlo shook his head. “I have never met him.”
Walt lit another cigarette, offering his visitor a fresh one in the process. “So, you honestly think she just up and left due to some kind of rebellious streak within her?”
The piano player politely waved away the cigarette. “Mister Morris, most girls at that age are confused and uncertain about life. All they need is a little guidance, and with some persuasion, you can usually get them to do anything,” he said almost seductively.
Directly across the street from the Roland and Morris office, in a small run-down room at the Park Avenue Hotel, Walter and Laszlo’s conversation came crackling through on a short-wave radio frequency, hissing through the extremely narrow space. A long German K98 Mauser sniper rifle with scope and sound suppressor leaned against one of the grimy walls, its steel tip starting to dig into the plaster. The window’s yellow drapes were drawn closed with only a small gap remaining, just enough for a pair of tripod-mounted binoculars to peek out. Connected to their small portable radio was a reel-to-reel machine, recording the conversation that was taking place right across the street.
One man lay on the small single bed against the wall, its faded sheets untouched. His tie was loose and his top button undone. He listened with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together around his stomach, all focus on the conversation across the street. His partner had just enough room between the bed and far wall to fit a small folding chair. He hunched over the tripod so he could look through the binoculars. The air in the room was stale from cigar and cigarette smoke. The man watching by the window had taken his suit jacket off and was eating Chinese takeout with chopsticks. He stared past the “Roland and Morris” sign on the window at the men seated at the desk. Walter stood and walked around the desk toward Laszlo, they both shook hands, and the detective began to show the piano player out.
The man looking through the binoculars took a break from inhaling his meal long enough to breathe and let out a belch.
“I’m getting sick of chink food. A guy can only eat so much of this crap before—”
“Ed, shut up,” the man on the bed barked.
Across the street Laszlo left the office and headed out.
Walter pulled down the blinds, and from the side of the window, he watched as Laszlo left the building and walked across the street. Laszlo got into the back of a large Studebaker that was double-parked in front of a bus stop. The door shut, and the car attempted to speed off before getting stuck in the heavy 125th Street crosstown traffic.
Walter stepped back, turned the radio off, grabbed his hat and coat and dashed out of the office.
The man watching across the street turned with a mouthful of food and picked up the receiver to the telephone extension they had set up in the room. “Yeah, call that same number, please.” There was a slight pause while he waited for the front desk to dial out. The receiver clicked over. “Hey, he’s on the move.”
He hung up the phone and looked over at his partner, who had finally opened his eyes. He swallowed the remainder of his food. “You know, we should be following him wherever he goes. If he’s following the piano man, we should be there to see what develops.”
The guy on the bed nodded. “You’re preaching to the choir, Ed. Look at the upside, at least you get to listen to your stories.”
Seated at the window, Ed glanced at his partner and agreed. “I do wanna hear how King Fish and Andy get outta this one tonight.”
The man on the bed lowered his brow and angled his head in question.
“They’ve put a down payment on a place up in the Catskills,” Ed said.
“Ahhhh.”
In the heavy afternoon traffic, Walter quickly caught up with the Studebaker and tailed the black car downtown. Walt’s ’39 Mercury Town Sedan had been modified and reconfigured all to holy hell by Del Ray Goines, his old friend and mechanic who owned the garage two blocks north of his office. Walt and Del Ray had grown up in the same tenements and, despite the heinous odds, had both achieved the American Dream. Now, along with the bank, they both owned businesses within mere blocks of one another.
Having a mechanic’s garage so close made it possible for Walter and Jacob to have an automobile and a place to store it. It also let Del Ray tinker around, turning Walt’s car into a sort of inconspicuous vehicle like The Shadow and his taxicab. Walt loved The Shadow and never missed listening to the weekly show. Their Merc certainly wasn’t a yellow cab, but it was painted in such a way that it would blend into midtown traffic, looking like it belonged rather than sticking out like an unmarked police car. Del Ray had even installed a taxi sign on the
roof that could be turned on while in traffic or double-parked, helping the Merc blend in even further. When the sign was off, it melded into the roof and wasn’t even noticeable, looking decorative or perhaps like a kind of Art Deco-inspired fin. That was just the tip of the iceberg. There were police sirens hidden within to use when needed, among a few other surprises. The Mercury was a pretty neat piece of modern engineering, a Frankenstein monster of a car.
Walter zigzagged through traffic at a steady pace, all the while tracking the limo that Laszlo was in. The Studebaker made an abrupt stop around Seventy-Second Street. Walt passed the car and parked about a half a block away, turning his taxi sign on to illuminate “on duty.” He watched through the car’s sideview mirror as Laszlo jumped out and ducked into a nearby pharmacy. Walter was parked in a no-standing zone and clicked on the parking lights so the car would look like a taxi that was occupied.
Walter quickly made his way over to the pharmacy window, carefully making sure he was also staying out of the view of whoever was in the Studebaker. He caught a glimpse of Laszlo walking to the back of the apothecary, where he ducked into a phone booth.
Inside, Laszlo made a call and recited the pharmacy’s number from the circular center of the rotor to the party on the other end. He hung up and waited inside the booth. Walt grabbed the late edition from a nearby paperboy and held it up to his face as if he was reading, but peeking over the top of the paper and through the window, keeping an eye on the enigmatic piano player.
Some minutes later Laszlo picked up the phone to answer it. He spoke excitedly for a couple of moments, then hung up and exited the phone booth. Walt hurried back to his own car as Laszlo left the pharmacy and jogged across the street to the large sedan. The Studebaker didn’t even wait for him to shut the door completely and pulled out into traffic. Walter was back behind them at a measured distance. The black sedan continued south, navigating the dense city traffic as it arrived in Midtown. It pulled up to the corner of Forty-Second and Fifth Avenue in front of the library. A man with a cane walked toward the car, and the door was opened from the inside. The gentleman unconsciously flipped back his overcoat and removed his hat when he bent down to enter the car, and before he was obscured by the suicide door, Walter caught a glimpse of his face. It was Garland Crane, Cuthbert Hayden’s manservant.
The door shut, and the Studebaker drove off.
“Ain’t that a fuck?” Walter said to the empty vehicle.
They continued south on Fifth Avenue. Walter opened the glovebox, where he removed a camera from among the gear secured inside. Some of Del Ray’s modifications, like his glovebox, were right out of a Dick Tracy comic strip. He anchored the base of the camera into a special screw mounted on the dashboard.
Walter got as close to the limo as he possibly could to try and see through the large back window. It looked like Crane and Laszlo were in a heated argument or a very animated discussion.
This day was full of surprises. He clicked the button on top of the camera, and it started to snap away on a crude timer.
The black sedan next stopped at Herald Square, and Crane exited the vehicle. As he switched his cane to his other hand, the pair had one last exchange. Laszlo threw Crane’s bowler hat out at him, and it fell to the ground.
The back door shut, and the Studebaker drove away. Crane grabbed his hat, swore out loud, and shot his arm into the air to hail a cab.
Walter made sure his lights were off and sped up to keep after Laszlo.
The Studebaker headed west and crossed the Avenues until it hit Eighth, where it turned right to head back uptown. It got to Penn Station and the car signaled left, crossing the lanes on the Avenue. It stopped right past Thirty-Fourth Street in front of the New Yorker Hotel. The back door opened, and Laszlo jumped out. By some miracle, Walter found a parking spot across the street. The Merc’s engine purred like a beast in hiding as Walt tapped the gas to inch into the narrow space.
From under his bench seat, he produced a large first aid tin. Stowed within were an assortment of basic disguises and other items to throw off the curious or suspicious eye. Walter found these tricks to be very helpful when he and Jacob did surveillance. If they changed maybe two things while following a mark, like add a mustache or sideburns or perhaps switching up their hat or jacket, people didn’t expect it, and they, in some instances, could go virtually undetectable throughout the day. Sherlock Holmes employed the same technique, and after seeing his idol Lon Chaney do it, why couldn’t a modest-yet-enterprising Harlem private detective firm do the same? Lon Chaney served as a lot of inspirations for Walter, who learned that he shared many things in common with the late screen star.
Walter unfolded a small piece of wax paper and removed a false thick-haired mustache. He lightly dotted some spirit gum to his upper lip and, using the mirror on the inside of the metal tin to get the angle right, he held it down with a couple of fingers and started to count the Mississippis to twenty. He let go and instantly had a hip bohemian/bebop-jazz-scene ’stache. He finished his new look off with a pair of thick glasses and jumped out of the car.
While crossing Eighth Avenue, he adjusted his fedora and flipped his overcoat inside out so it looked like a different jacket. He turned his collar up and used it to block his face when he passed the idling Studebaker.
He entered the vast Art Deco lobby of the New Yorker Hotel and scanned the massive hall, looking for Laszlo. He spotted him by the check-in desk with his elbow resting on the counter. Walter pulled out the evening paper from his jacket, adjusted the thick pair of glasses on his nose, and sat down on one of the lush, red circular couches that surrounded the huge lobby columns. He opened the paper and acted like he was reading while focused on the front desk.
Laszlo asked the hotel clerk to ring a room. Focusing in on their lips, Walter easily read what they said to each other. He jotted down in his notepad the room number, 1213.
The clerk retrieved the house phone, dialed a four-digit number, and spoke to someone on the other end. After a moment Laszlo nodded in thanks and headed toward the elevator bank at the back of the lobby. After a short wait he entered an elevator. Walter checked the time on his wristwatch and logged it in his tiny notepad.
An hour later Walter was reading the evening paper for the third time. He took off his glasses and carefully cleaned them with his handkerchief. He put them back on, carefully folded the material, and replaced it in his pocket. He tapped his mustache to make sure it wasn’t starting to peel off, then took out his notepad. He paused for a moment, then removed his wallet from his inside breast pocket where an old, faded black-and-white photo fell out onto his lap. He grabbed it before it could fall all the way to the floor. He carefully turned it over in his fingers. It was a picture of his brother Stevland, sitting on a young Walter’s lap outside on their tenement stoop on a sunny day. Walter was in his late teens, and his brother was maybe seven or eight. Walt stared at the old picture intently, his eyes focused on his brother’s smiling face. The boy was filled with joy and excitement.
Walter smiled. He was tickling Stevland’s sides that day to make him pose for the camera. The happiness and laughter on his little face was infectious. This picture always made him smile. As long as he didn’t think too hard or too much about his brother, he could always smile.
He couldn’t think too hard about his poor, innocent little brother, or Walter’s thoughts always took him to the same place. Back to what the final hours must have been like for that sweet little child.
Laszlo exited an elevator with two men in tow. Walter put his photograph and wallet away. One of the men was the older gentleman Laszlo had been arguing with the night before in the basement of The Creo Room. The other appeared to be their muscle. Walter picked up his paper with one hand, and with the other he went into his inside overcoat pocket and removed a small camera. He quickly adjusted the aperture so it was wide open and discreetly snapped a few pictures as they crossed the
lobby.
Even though Walter hadn’t been able to clearly see the face of the man Laszlo was having words with the night before, he recognized the slender figure, high cheekbones, and haircut of the man. Laszlo’s friend was dressed in an elegant tuxedo and topcoat. Walt’s stare immediately went to the man’s eyes and his scarred face. The same soulless, empty eyes from last night. Behind them was the tall man from the basement. He was like a gorilla in a black overcoat bulging at the seams, dressed in all black with an unusually long collar on his jacket, his black fedora hat and large brim obscured any of the features underneath the almost seven-foot-tall mountain of a man. As they walked by, the lobby’s lights caught the reflection of the sunglasses the man wore beneath his large hat.
The group headed for the front doors.
As they walked out, Walt stood up and tucked the paper under his arm. He kept his distance but made his way to the revolving doors while the men stepped outside and waited for the doorman to hail a cab.
A checkered cab pulled up and the men separated. Laszlo went solo in the taxicab, and the other two men got into the waiting Studebaker, which had been idling outside and out of sight this whole time.
“Interesting,” Walter mumbled to himself. He exited the hotel, nodded to the doorman, and quickly headed back to his Merc. He took off his jacket, snagged the first aid kit from under his seat, and started the car. He pulled out and decided to tail the two gentlemen in the Studebaker. He wanted to see where his new friends might take him.
He sped up and kept a comfortable distance, using the spirit gum remover to take the mustache off his face with one hand. He put the thick glasses in the tin and put the ’stache back in the wax paper.
Chapter 11
PIER 72, ICEHOUSE #4