by Ray Celestin
PART SEVEN
‘A group of industrialists finance a group of mobsters to break trade unionism, to check the threat of Socialism, the menace of Communism, or the possibility of democracy … When the gangsters succeed at what they were paid to do, they turn on the men who paid them. The puppet masters find their creatures taking on a terrible life of their own.’
ORSON WELLES, FILMMAKER, 1944
15
Tuesday 4th, 12.00 p.m.
First thing that morning Michael had called Carrasco and told him about Ida’s theory, that the hotel was probably a dope-pad, that the owner might have secretly harbored a dealer, the real target of the attack. Carrasco said he’d do some digging.
Michael put the phone down and left his apartment, a cramped one-bedroom affair on West 58th and 7th. He walked a few blocks to a gunsmith’s. He bought a Belgian .22, a carton of rounds, a holster, a cleaning kit in a faux-leather pouch. He’d returned to the apartment and laid out his purchases on the bed, sat in the chair and stared at them. At first he’d told himself he’d bought it all just to be on the safe side, but the truth was he needed the gun, would be reliant on it, and that rankled Michael, reminded him of all he’d lost, of what he’d become – an old man who was out of touch with the world, who didn’t have the confidence in his arms to punch or in his legs to run.
He rose and strapped on the holster, inspected the gun, loaded rounds into its chamber, laid it flat on his palm, felt its weight, gleaming black. Then he slotted it into the holster. Death encased in metal and leather. Echoes of the electric chair.
Michael had been haunted by visions of the chair for weeks. It lurked in the recesses of his mind, crackling with deadly force. If it was the last thing he did, Michael would save his son from it, and that started with getting what he needed to know from the hotel owner. One way or the other.
He waited for Carrasco to call back. Three hours later he did. His digging had unearthed a possible motive for why the hotel owner had become entangled in it all. Which meant Michael had leverage against the man, leverage that meant he might not have to resort to the gun after all.
Michael caught the subway up to 125th Street. Crossed blocks to the hotel. White man in the ghetto, trailing stares in his wake. But years of living on the Southside had made him immune to it.
He reached the hotel, walked up its front steps once more. The man was behind the reception desk, reading the New York Mirror. He lowered it a little, saw who it was, narrowed his eyes. The radio was on again, playing jazz this time. Michael approached the wire mesh, leaned down, felt the weight of the gun nestled by his heart, the pull of the holster’s leather. He saw the hotel owner’s eyes were red raw from sleeplessness.
‘You want to look at the rooms again?’ the man asked, a trace of annoyance in his voice.
Michael paused. The man hadn’t asked for ID. After Michael’s appearance with Carrasco the day before, he assumed Michael was a cop.
‘No, I wanted to talk to you,’ said Michael. Speaking through the mesh like he was at a confessional.
The man swallowed. ‘I ain’t got nothing to say to you.’
‘You sure?’
They stared at each other, the blur of the mesh shadowing both their views.
‘We’ve done some investigating,’ said Michael. ‘Looks like maybe you didn’t tell the whole truth in your statement.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said the man. He let the newspaper drop into his lap. ‘How you figure on that?’
‘You said you didn’t know why the hotel was attacked.’
‘I didn’t and I still don’t. I wasn’t here that night. I’ve told you all this already.’
‘It’s just a coincidence you happened to take the night off?’
‘I take a night off every week. Maybe they knew I wouldn’t be around and that’s why they attacked.’
‘Or maybe someone tipped you off beforehand,’ Michael said, laying it out there to gauge the man’s reaction.
The man failed to stifle a twitch.
‘Looking back it would have been better maybe if you’d stuck around,’ said Michael. ‘Wouldn’t look so suspicious. In retrospect, I mean. Wouldn’t look like someone had told you it was going to happen before it did.’
The man did a good job of keeping the glare fixed to his face, but the paper in his hand trembled ever so slightly. The man’s reaction went some way to proving the hunch they had about him.
Michael decided to take a chance.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know you’re not the bad guy here. I know you did it for a good reason. Because of your son, right?’
At this the man folded his arms across his chest. Maybe as a display of anger, maybe to smother tell-tale emotions.
‘Your son’s up in Dannemora, right? Doing a ten-stretch for armed robbery? Up before the parole board in what? Six months?’
The man’s lip trembled, he frowned at Michael, acting offended. Which was good.
‘Is that what the cops used to twist your arm?’ Michael asked. ‘Told you if you didn’t play along they’d pull strings with the parole board? Keep him locked up? But here’s the thing. Thomas James Talbot’s in prison, too. But he isn’t facing a prejudiced parole board. He’s facing the electric chair.’
Something changed in the man’s demeanor. His eyes narrowed, his face closed tight.
‘You don’t know nothing about it all,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, playing it hard-boiled.
But Michael could hear emotion in his voice. He was making inroads.
‘I know there was a dope pusher in that room with Bucek. And you were getting kickbacks, and a hit was arranged and the cops told you it’d all go smoothly, but the next day you woke up to four people dead.’
‘You don’t know nothing about it all,’ he hissed.
‘I know the guilt’s tearing you up ’cos you swapped shifts with Diana Hollis and now she’s dead. But there’s a kid up in Rikers looking at a jolt. And if you don’t tell me what you know and you let him die, that’s another man’s blood on your hands.’
Michael could feel himself getting angry, breaking the first rule he had for working any case. He needed to calm down, check himself, especially with the gun strapped to his chest. But this wasn’t an ordinary case.
The hotel owner stared at him through the mesh. Michael could see water in his eyes, emotions swirling across his face. Confusion, pity, guilt, defiance. The man wanted to talk, Michael could see it. He wanted to be unburdened of his sins. But he was scared, too. Michael had offered him absolution, but first he needed to offer him reassurance.
He kneeled down so he was level with the man, looking at him straight through the mesh.
‘Tell me what happened,’ said Michael, more softly. ‘And it won’t go any further. I’m not with those other cops. I’m the good guy. I’m the guy who’ll make sure no one finds out you said anything. I’m the guy who’ll help you save an innocent man’s life.’
The water that had been pooling in the man’s eyes began to stream down his face.
‘You want to save a life, don’t you? Make amends?’ Michael paused. ‘That’s gotta mean something to you after all those people died.’
‘You don’t get it,’ the man said. ‘I wanna help that boy up in Rikers. But I can’t. They didn’t say my boy wouldn’t get parole. They said they’d have him killed.’
Michael’s heart sank. The two of them were in exactly the same bind.
‘They’re not gonna touch your son,’ Michael said. ‘One way or the other. If they think you’ve talked, it’s you they’re going to kill. And deep down, you know it. The only way out of this for you, for your son, for everybody, is catch these men and have them locked up. Tell me the names of the cops you were paying protection to. Tell me the name of the dope pusher. Tell me something so I can get started fixing this mess. Don’t let them get away with what they’re doing.’
The man looked down. ‘She was my girl,’ he mumbled. He looked up, his fa
ce soaked. ‘Diana Hollis. You saw what they did to her.’
Michael nodded.
The man wiped tears from his face.
‘I didn’t know the cops. They weren’t the usual bagmen. They just came in that day, stated asking questions, about the guests, what rooms were occupied, where everyone was at night. Then they told me I had to keep it secret that they’d come. Then they started talking about my boy up in Dannemora. But I didn’t take the night off on purpose. I always take Fridays off. They must have known that.’
‘Who was the target? Gimme a name.’
‘Gene Cleveland. He rented the room back there.’
‘He sold dope?’
The man nodded. ‘He paid me double rent to keep quiet.’
‘You know why they were after him?’
‘No.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘He disappeared the night it happened.’
‘What about the cops, you get their names?’
The man glared at Michael. ‘What do you think?’
‘What did they look like?’ Michael asked.
‘Like cops,’ said the man. ‘White, middle-aged, red faces, beer guts.’
‘Were they in uniform?’
The man shook his head.
‘Could you spot them if you saw them again?’
‘I ain’t doing no line-ups. I thought you said this wouldn’t go any further.’
‘It won’t.’
‘Bullshit.’ The man’s expression hardened, like he’d realized he’d spoken too much. ‘You need to go now,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you enough.’
‘Please, I need to ask you about Cleveland.’
‘I’ve told you enough.’
‘I need to know where I can find him.’
‘You ain’t gonna find him,’ said the man. ‘After what happened that night, he’s long gone.’
‘You know anyone who knows him?’
‘No!’
The man slammed his fist onto the desktop, hard enough to break bones, trembled as he stared at Michael, mucus pooled on his upper lip.
‘I wish I never let that sorry motherfucker in this place. I hope he’s dead. Then maybe they’ll leave me alone. Now get out of here.’
Michael paused. He’d let the interview run away from him. He could have got more if he’d played it better. But he knew from bitter experience there was no reeling the man back from this.
He rose unsteadily, his hand on the counter, ruing how rusty he’d gotten, how bad his technique, wondered if he’d ever get it back.
‘You’ve done a good thing,’ he said. ‘But you need to take care. These men might come after you. Not because of what you told me, but just because you’re involved.’
‘You don’t think I know that,’ the man said, defeated.
The sun was bright on the street. Michael had a name. From the name he could trace a line back to the attackers. He’d got what he’d come for and the gun had stayed nestled in its holster the whole time. But he didn’t feel any sense of achievement. He felt used up somehow, powerless, low.
Two school kids walked past, stared at him. Maybe because he was white, maybe because of all the smallpox scars across his face, the scars that in the past had helped make him look fearsome. Maybe they stared because he looked as much of a wreck as he felt.
He eyed the kids back, watched them as they crossed the road in front of the root doctor’s shop with the neon sign. Something nagged. Michael considered, imagined the police arriving on the night of the murders, seeing the carnage, thinking they needed to obfuscate, muddy the waters, seeing the root doctor’s opposite, going in there and gathering up the voodoo junk, strewing it across Tom’s and the Powell brothers’ rooms.
He followed the children’s path, approached the shop. Underneath the flashing green Louisiana Voodoo sign was a placard declaring the shop sold Authentic Mary Laveau Love Potions. Michael shook his head and stepped inside.
It was a small store, looking something like a down-at-heel pharmacy. There were tiny red lights dotted about, icons of the Madonna on the walls, there was a section at the back partitioned off by an ancient net curtain whose fabric had curdled yellow. The curtain swirled to the side and a man stepped out of the back – middle-aged, dark-skinned, unshaved and unkempt, dressed in a gray wool suit and mustard-yellow sweater.
‘Afternoon,’ said the man, surprised maybe that his visitor was white.
‘Afternoon,’ said Michael, browsing the wares on the counter. The hokey, inauthentic aura established by the window display continued inside. There were dream books and spell books and lucky-number books for sale. Rabbits’ feet and monkey paws. Crocodile teeth. There were jars full of strange-looking roots in murky liquid, soil, bark-like substances which the labels informed him were snake-skins.
Michael had been involved in busting similar places back in Chicago. The owners were soaking the herbs supposed to help with colds and other ailments in antihistamines. The potions designed to fight off melancholy were laced with morphine. If the customers had known what they’d become addicted to, they could have bought the same drugs on the street for a third of the price.
And there in amongst the herbs and the potions were the same objects found in Tom’s room and the Powell brothers’ room. The straw dolls, the crucifixes, the icons. The cops had boosted them from here and dumped them in the hotel and probably hadn’t even paid the man. A huge risk for the cops to take. Why had they felt the need?
‘Anything I can help you with?’ the man asked, and this time Michael caught his accent. Louisiana by way of New York.
‘Maybe,’ said Michael. ‘What time do you close at night?’
‘Oh, about eight o’clock,’ said the man, frowning.
‘What about weekends?’
‘A little later, depending.’
‘What about one Saturday night last summer? When there was the incident in the hotel over the road? You open late that night?’
The man paused. ‘I was closed the night those murders happened,’ he said, the accent veering from Louisiana all the way to New York.
‘Anyone break in?’
‘No.’
The man was lying. Lying and scared of the police. It was all the confirmation Michael needed. He headed for the door and opened it and the cold from outside swept through the store. He turned back to look at the man.
‘That sign in the window,’ Michael said. ‘Your authentic Marie Laveau potions might seem a bit more authentic if you spelled her name right.’
He smiled, stepped out on the street, headed back up the block. He had what he’d come for. He had a name. But who was Gene Cleveland? And why the hell did the attackers want him so bad they murdered four people to get to him?
16
Tuesday 4th, 9.00 a.m.
The Temple of Tranquility was located in a brownstone on 133rd Street between a radio repair shop and a dime-a-dance nightspot. When Ida got there she saw the place was closed, but there was a noticeboard outside which she stopped to read, a piece of paper pinned above the other notices: Soup Kitchen Tonight. 8.00 p.m. Come eat and learn about the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ. All welcome.
Other scraps of paper gave notice of previous events, lectures on the Kings of Africa, the Black Star Line, Freemasonry and the Establishment. There were details of programs designed to wean people off narcotics. She thought about the last, wondered if it provided a link between the dope pusher in the hotel, and the Powell brothers and the temple.
She stepped back and looked up at the brownstone, decided to go back that evening and see what the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ had to say.
She returned to her hotel, picking up food along the way, and sat in her room going over the evidence once more, waiting for Michael to call. She phoned Tom’s lawyer – the third time she’d done so – and for a third time she was palmed off by the man’s secretary.
She thought about calling Jacob out in California, but when she
checked her watch she saw it was still too early. Just as she was starting to feel antsy and the evidence was beginning to blur, the phone rang: Michael.
‘You get anything at the hotel?’ she asked.
‘Oh, sure.’
He told her the hotel owner had spilled. There had been a mystery guest – a man called Gene Cleveland who’d disappeared on the night of the killings. He told her how two plainclothes cops had coerced the hotel owner. He told her that he’d failed to get a description.
‘I’m gonna call Carrasco,’ Michael said. ‘Get him to run a check. What are you planning?’
‘I’ve got time to kill before going back to the Temple,’ she said. ‘I might canvas the local junkies, see if I can find one of Gene Cleveland’s customers.’
There was silence over the line.
‘You got a gun?’ Michael asked.
‘Sure, I got a gun.’
‘Take it with you. Call me when you’re done.’
They ended the conversation. She took her .38 out of her suitcase, inspected it, loaded it, inspected it once more, slipped it into her holster, left the hotel.
She made a beeline for the Palmer. She walked the blocks adjacent to it, talked to junkies and drunks and vagrants with sidewalk eyes, wrapped up in blankets, huddled around trash-can fires. The conversations all ran similarly – I’m not a cop, I’m looking for Gene Cleveland. Used to sling dope out of the back of the Palmer Hotel. You know him? There’s money in it. I’m not a cop.
Blank stares, shakes of the head, one man said he’d stab her, one man spat at her, another just hissed at her, narrowed his eyes and hissed. Some were kind, gentle, told her they were sorry they couldn’t help her in voices that belied deep mental disturbance. With most of them she had to fight the urge to cover her nose.
Amongst the junkies she spotted a pattern – they were all male, between twenty and forty, Negro. Many seemed to congregate around the derelict, burnt-out buildings that littered the neighborhood, the empty lots that collected weeds and refuse. Many wore giveaways from the Salvation Army mixed in with military items – combat jackets, brogans, suntans ripped at the knees – making Ida wonder how many of them had fought in the war.