by Ann Aptaker
He looks out at the passing streets again, more as a way to avoid looking at me than with any real fascination with the shiny new suburban landscape. After he clears his throat—another way of putting a bit of distance between himself, me, and his fear—he says, “A woman. A woman in black. I have seen her before. She has threatened me before.”
“Yeah? When? How do you mean, threatened you?”
“She warned me not to talk. And look, here I am, talking.” He’s sweating again, opening the collar of his overcoat, taking out his handkerchief and wiping his face with it.
“Talk about what? Dr. Stern, I’m not a mind reader. If you want me to help you, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
We’re stuck in a bottleneck, which further upsets Stern. “Ach, this traffic is terrible! My wife will be waiting for me. The rabbi is coming over.”
“He’ll wait. Rabbis are good at waiting. So let’s put the time to good use. Give me the story about this woman. Who is she and what is it she warned you not to talk about?”
“I don’t know who she is. She was waiting for me on the street outside my house when I came back from the police station last night. And she didn’t say her name.”
“The cops took you to the station? Why?”
“To show me pictures. In a book. Maybe I could recognize someone who knew my sister. Why would they think Hannah would know such disreputable people? Gangsters.”
“And did you recognize anyone?”
“Of course not. At least, not until I saw you at the cemetery and my daughter told me your name.”
Wonderful. Known by my mug shot.
Stern’s still talking. “But the police didn’t tell me how they connected you to Hannah, just that I should watch out for you. They didn’t tell me anything, really. I guess they never do. They just ask questions. That’s how they frighten people.” He’s getting more fidgety by the minute. “Can’t you get out of this traffic? And must everyone honk their horn? America can be a very noisy country.”
“Never mind the noise. What did this woman say last night?”
“She asked me if I had something. She kept saying, Do you have it? Did you take it? and things like that. She was in such a wild state she didn’t even say what it was she thought I had. I told her I had no idea what she was talking about, but she didn’t seem to believe me. And that’s when she threatened me. She said she’d kill me if I was holding out on her or if I told anyone about her talking to me. Oh God, this traffic is terrible. My wife will be very angry.”
“Settle down. Look, the lane next to us is starting to move. Okay, so let’s talk about what this woman looked like. Can you describe her? Was she in one of the pictures the cops showed you?”
“I never saw her face. She wore one of those hats with a veil, a wide black hat with a veil, and it was nighttime. She wore the same black hat and veil now, too, at the cemetery. Ach, traffic is stopping again. We’re getting nowhere. Maybe we could go around or something? Make a U-turn?”
“Dr. Stern, if I make a U-turn into oncoming traffic, the cops will hop on our tail and move us off the road and ask a bunch of questions neither of us would want to deal with and wind up giving me a ticket which I don’t need showing up on a police blotter. So just be patient.” That last word is lost in a bang as loud as thunder. Shards of glass fly past me, nearly take out my eyes. The passenger-side window is shattered into a million pieces, and bits of Marcus Stern’s skull and brains are splattered all over my face and coat.
Chapter Seven
Barking dogs. Snapping alligators. Dirty brown clouds fat with storms. I see their shapes in the soot and tobacco stains on the window behind Lieutenant Huber’s desk. Picking out shapes on the glass is all that’s keeping me from going loopy from the drone of Huber’s tedious grilling, or howling like a banshee at the memory of Marcus Stern’s exploding head.
Marcus Stern, Hannah Jacobson: brother and sister whose family has suffered more death and destruction than heaven should allow. And Huber, for all his droning, all his grilling, doesn’t know the half of it.
All he knows is that Mrs. J and Marcus Stern were murdered in the here and now and that I show up in both killings. Huber’s knocking himself out trying to attach their deaths to me, to somehow find some scrap that will give him the satisfaction of sending me to prison, which seems to be every New York cop’s wet dream.
So I’m stuck here in Huber’s office, my face still sticky and stinging, and my coat still reeking with the bloody remnants of Marcus Stern’s skull and brains.
Huber’s had me going around and around about the Stern shooting for the better part of the afternoon, ever since he had me brought back to Manhattan for questioning after the Queens cops wasted about three hours of my time. The Queens boys weren’t happy about handing me over to their more well-connected rivals in Skyscraper-ville, but their hurt feelings were nothing compared to how I felt about it. I wasn’t crazy about them taking my gun, either.
My annoyance collapsed into bone-crushing tedium by the time Huber pumped me about the Stern shooting for the umpteenth time through that buzzy growl of his, though I’ve given him nothing new with each retelling. He’s taking his frustration out on his unlit cigar, chewing the end like a dog working a piece of gristle.
He can gag on that cigar, for all I care. He’ll never hear it from me about the mysterious woman who scared the crap out of Stern at the cemetery. I don’t share anything with cops.
And I’m sick and tired of Huber’s company. It’s time to get the hell out of here.
So I reach for the phone on Huber’s desk.
His hand slams on the receiver. “And whaddya think you’re doing?” he says.
“Taking my rights as a citizen, Lieutenant. I’m entitled to a phone call.”
“You’re entitled to what I say you’re entitled to.” He pulls the phone away from me, parks it close to him.
“Sure, I forgot,” I say. “You’re Daddy Law. Mustn’t disobey Daddy.”
He finds that funny; anyway, he’s laughing, sort of, if you can call that toothy rasp of his a laugh. “Daddy Law! Not bad, Gold. But I hope you don’t think it’ll make me like you any better.”
“You’ve got a right not to like me, Lieutenant, but I’ve got a right to use the phone.”
He’s not laughing anymore but he’s still enjoying himself, still playing petty with me. Maybe he can’t make me talk, but he can control my use of the phone.
He finally lights his cigar, takes his time about it, too, letting the match hover at the burning tip. Then he sucks two or three times on the damn thing, the flesh under the day-old stubble on his skinny face creasing like a dirty pillowcase. He finally tosses the match away, saying, “Okay, sure, go ahead, make your damn phone call. Calling your lawyer, I suppose?” He pushes the phone toward me like he’s offering candy.
“I guess you’re just too smart for me, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t get cute, Gold. You know, it could be a while ’til your lawyer gets here, and in the meantime you’re still mine.”
I do my best to ignore that stomach-turning thought, just take the phone and dial the number. The whir and click of the rotary almost mask the sloppy pop of Huber’s lips puffing the wet end of his cigar.
It’s not my lawyer I’m dialing, it’s my office. I get Judson on the line, but before I get a chance to say anything past hello, Judson says, “Hey, where you been? Drogan called. He wants you to meet him at Smiley’s bar. You know the place, across from Pier 18 near the fish market. He said he’ll wait.”
“Yeah, okay. Listen, I need you to spring my car from the police lot in Queens and get the busted window replaced and the interior cleaned up. And tell the repair guy he’ll see an extra fifty to get the job done this afternoon.”
“How the hell did the window get busted?”
“Tell you later. One more thing”—I look straight at Huber, who’s still puffing the cigar behind a cloud of smoke that can’t completely obscure his smug disg
ust with me—“call my lawyer. Send him to Lieutenant Huber’s office. Now.”
When I hang up, Huber’s grinning around that cigar. Then he talks around it, tobacco juice pooling between his teeth. “You know, Gold, for all your big money and flashy style, for all the fancy women in your life—yeah, sure, I know all about that, sickening, if you ask me—for all that, you’re nothing but a no-good lowlife who keeps lousy company. Death squads seem to follow you around. You visit Hannah Jacobson and she gets cut to ribbons. Her brother Marcus Stern gets into your car, and, bang, he’s blown to kingdom come. And how many times do I have to ask you what the hell he was doing in your car anyway? Why wasn’t he with his family after the funeral?”
“You’re wasting your time, Lieutenant. My lawyer’s office isn’t far. He’ll be here pretty soon to spring me, since you have nothing to hold me except your deep dislike of me, my love life, and my tailoring. So why don’t you forget about all that and do something useful, like arrange police protection for Stern’s wife and daughter? Or are you using them as bait? I wouldn’t put it past you.”
You’d think I’d have learned by now not to toy with cops, but it’s too much fun and I can never resist an opportunity to stick a pin in their puffed-up chests, like calling Huber Daddy Law. But I’ve gone too far this time. I know it because I recognize what’s going on in Huber’s eyes and on his face—darkening, reddening—as he puts his cigar down, stands up so slowly, and moves his stick of a body around his desk so calmly that the air around him doesn’t even ripple. I know what’s coming and there’s nothing I can do about it, because if I raise a hand to a cop in a police station I’ll wind up broken and bleeding on the floor of a holding cell, worked over by every cop in the building, even the traffic boys. So when Huber’s fist slams into the left side of my jaw I’m stung by the pain but not by surprise.
He grabs the armrests on either side of me, pins me to the chair. His flushed face and cigar-stained teeth are a grotesque study in red and yellow. Stick a picture frame around his bony head and he’d pass for an Expressionist portrait of meanness. “You got your nerve, Gold,” he says through a predatory growl. “Everything about you is an insult to what’s good and decent in this country, you hear me? You think you know my job? Well I’m way ahead of you. I posted a patrol at the Stern house while you were on your way here from Queens. I was free to do that, Gold, while you were stuck in a paddy wagon. You get my drift?”
The temptation to rip his lips to shreds and get that smug ugly smile off his face is so strong I figure it might be worth the beating I’d take in the slammer, but I’m distracted—and Huber’s mouth is saved from disfigurement—by the musky tang of expensive men’s cologne drifting into the room. Irwin Maximovic, my lawyer, is coming through the door, all three hundred elegantly fat pounds of him.
If you want a lesson in just how confident, quiet, and polite pure power can be, all you have to do is listen to the refined patter of Winnie Maximovic. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Huber. Always a pleasure to see you. I know a policeman’s lot is a busy one, so I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time. May I inquire on what charge you are holding my client?” The smile on Winnie’s fleshy face, like a fold in a satchel, would charm the stars out of the sky, and then he’d step on them.
Huber picks up his cigar again and chomps it between his teeth. “You can skip the theatrics, counselor. Just get lost and take your client with you. She’s stinkin’ up the joint, and so are you, if you want my opinion. The sooner the two of you get out of here, the sooner my office can air out.”
Winnie, still smiling, says, “Well then, let’s go, Cantor,” but he immediately changes his mind and says, “Sit down again, Cantor.” He’s seen the bruise on my jaw, my split lip, the smears of Marcus Stern on my face. “Lieutenant? To what do we owe the injuries to my client’s face?”
“Haven’t you heard? She was behind the wheel when the passenger in her car was shot to death. Head blown to bits. Glass and flesh and pieces of the guy’s skull flew everywhere. She must’ve caught some. Isn’t that right, Gold?” It’s not a question. It’s a coded instruction not to make trouble for him. Ordinarily he wouldn’t care; cops slap people around every day and get away with it. But he knows that Winnie Maximovic has more lines into City Hall than the phone company. Huber may not care who digs around in his personal life, a fact he lorded over me last night, but no cop really wants their name dangled like fruit in front of the higher-ups, even if their name is clean. It annoys those higher-ups, makes extra paperwork for them, puts blisters on their fingers, and if that happens, Huber would take it out on me. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but down the line, when the heat’s off him and no one’s looking.
Winnie, dry as toast, says, “Is the lieutenant’s account true, Cantor?”
“True enough,” I say. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” Getting rid of Huber feels as good as having a good shit.
Before Winnie and I leave the building, I stop in a restroom to wash up. There’s nothing but cold water, and its chill stings the cuts on my face. Framed by the mirror, I look like a recruiting poster for one of those death squads Huber says follow me around. Last night’s gash to my chin has new company: the patch on my jaw where Huber walloped me is red as raw meat and already turning black-and-blue; there’s blood on my split lip and crusting remnants of Marcus Stern on my cap and overcoat. I wash the blood off, get rid of as much brain pulp and bone splinters as I can, but violence and death still cling to me like sweat.
*
Winnie’s black Lincoln, with its slathering of chrome and bright whitewall tires, is fat, heavy, and expensive, just like Winnie. It moves through midtown traffic with the ponderous grace of a whale in a tuxedo.
The trip downtown gives me time to fill Winnie in on everything that’s happened since I left Mrs. Jacobson’s apartment last night. The story’s up-to-date by the time we’re downtown and pull up to the East River waterfront.
“Listen, Winnie, any chance you can get my gun back from the Queens cops?”
“Is it registered to you?”
“No. It’s clean.”
“Then leave it. They can’t frame you if the gun is ever used in a crime, accidental or otherwise. You’re already in a tough spot. A passenger being assassinated in your car does not bode well for your health and safety, Cantor.”
“Spare me the lecture. You sound like Rosie.”
“Whom, I must say, you do not appreciate sufficiently.”
“You can spare me the guilt angle, too.”
“All right, but what can I do to get you to be less reckless in your work? Cantor, my friend, I can more than likely remove you from the Law’s grip when you need me to, but keeping you safe from murderers or the likes of Jimmy Shea is outside my sphere of influence. In those matters, I’m afraid you’re on your own.”
“I know, Winnie. Just stay available for a while, yeah? Huber’s not going to let up on me. I might need you to get me free of him again.”
“Do you want me to contact my friends at City Hall? See about having Huber called off altogether?”
“No, let’s give him his rope, see where he dangles it. I might see something useful there.”
“You play dangerous games with the police, Cantor.”
“And you don’t? I’ve seen what’s in your bedroom closet. Someday those gowns will get you arrested.” I get out of the car to the sound of Winnie’s guffaws echoing along the docks.
*
Smiley’s bar has been at this same spot on the waterfront for so long that river fog permanently floats through the room. Walk through the briny mist and the floorboards groan and sour fumes rise from an ancient broth of spilled whiskey, tobacco spit, and vomit. Several generations of Smileys have kept the place a bare-bones saloon where dockworkers and fishmongers do their light lunch drinking at noon and their serious drinking at night. Mornings and afternoons, the rickety tables and scratched-up bar stools are occupied by the out-of-luck guys who’ve fallen out of favor with
Jimmy Shea’s dockside Mob bosses, who pass them over for work. Someday maybe these guys will get smart, or at least get angry, and go to war to break the Mob’s grip. Until then, they just smoke and drink and mumble.
I spot Red through the river fog and cigarette smoke circling a table in the back where he’s sharing a bottle with a woman. As I get closer, the woman’s story gets clearer: she’s a working girl, a still-attractive redhead with a good figure, which helps keep attention off the faded state of her floral print dress. And she’s still trying to pass for a hot kid of twenty, but the sway of her hair against her face and along her shoulders can’t completely hide her pinched cheeks and the thickening skin of her neck, which peg her just over the dark side of forty. That faded dress and those hollow cheeks tell me she’s on her way down in the trade, but with her big blue eyes and round, plump breasts that push nicely against that floral dress, her goods are still sweet enough for johns to work on her in carpeted bedrooms. It won’t be long, though, before she’s sliding her backside along the dockside streets. Maybe she already is. Her story’s an old one but it’s a heartbreaker every time.
When I get to the table, Red asks, “You wanna drink? I’ll get an extra glass.”
“Don’t bother,” I say and just pick up the bottle of the no-name whiskey that he and the woman are drinking. I take a slug, hoping its rotgut fire can burn away the crappier elements of my day. It does, a little, blurs the tedious malice of Lieutenant Huber, but can’t touch the memories of Mrs. J’s bloody outline on her carpet or Marcus Stern’s head exploding all over me.
I take a seat, say, “Where are your manners, Red? Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lady friend?”
“Cantor, this here is Miss Iris Page.”
“Hello, Miss Page. I’m—”
“I know who you are.” Her voice is breathy and raw, fine-tuned by whiskey and cigarettes and sex. So when she says, “You’re Cantor Gold,” it sounds like a three a.m. proposition. The way she’s looking at me, though, is anything but a proposition, more like a mother hen. “Uh, are you gonna be able to get through this conversation? You look like you need more than a drink. You look like you need an ambulance.”