by Ann Aptaker
But when I switch on a lamp in the living room and open the door, it’s none of those people. It’s someone I’d least expect, never expect. It’s Vivienne.
She says, “May I come in?”
Dumbstruck, I step aside to clear the way, and in one of the great graceful moments of womanhood, she slides her clutch bag into her coat pocket and removes her purple evening coat as naturally as a snake slithering out of its skin as she walks through the door.
I take her coat, drape it over the back of a club chair while she looks around my living room. I can’t tell if she expected it to be more tasteful or less.
She finally turns to me, her dark hair swirling, her ruby necklace and black silk dress catching lamplight. My living room never looked so good.
“Wait here,” I say.
I go back to the bedroom, pick up the phone. “Listen, Rosie, I’ll have to call you back.” How long, I wonder when I hang up without explanation, until Rosie sees me for the heel I can too often be?
Back in the living room, Vivienne’s still standing there like a little kid who’s lost her way, maybe wondering if she should backtrack out of here.
“How about a drink?” I say. “Bourbon with a splash of soda, right? Make yourself comfortable, have a seat.”
She remains standing and seems to have a hard time trying to talk to me, even bites her lip, making a tiny scratch in her red lipstick. “Cantor, I…I came to apologize. Max was very rude to you, and well, he shouldn’t have been.”
“Then it’s Hagen who should apologize.” I hand her the bourbon and soda, then pour a scotch for myself.
Whenever I’m around Vivienne, in her office at the museum or when I’ve been in her house, two things are always clear to me: she’s really savvy about her Renaissance art and I really want to get her into bed. But earlier tonight, a third thing became clear: she’s one of those out-of-reach dames who teases. So if I want to keep my wits, I’d better take this party in a different direction. “All right, Vivienne,” I say, “you’ve fallen on your sword for Hagen. Real noble of you. Too noble for him, if you want my opinion. For that matter, Vern is probably too noble for Hagen, too. That boy’s heart is pretty beaten up.”
“Vern can hold his own. At least, I’ve always thought so,” she adds with a shrug before disappearing into her drink. After an awkward sip followed too quickly by another, she says, “Well, it’s getting late. Perhaps I’d better go.”
“Yeah, perhaps you’d better.”
“I’ll just get my coat.”
“Let me help you.” I take the coat from the chair, hold it out for Vivienne to slip into.
Except she doesn’t. Facing me, she says, “Cantor, are you really going to find the Dürer for Max?”
“I’m going to find the Dürer, whether it’s for Hagen or not. Why? You want it, too?”
“Well, the museum certainly would. And securing it for them would strengthen my position there.”
“Yeah, but I’ll get more money from Hagen.”
She doesn’t like my answer, her pretty green eyes flashing her annoyance. “Is that all you care about? Money?”
“All? No. Mostly? Yeah. I remember what it’s like to go hungry, and I didn’t like it.”
She waves that away with the nonchalance of someone who has no idea what I’m talking about and never could and just keeps going with her own concerns. “If Max gets the Dürer, it will go to a private collector God knows where, and no one else will see it. But at the museum, everyone can see it!”
“You’re pretty passionate about that.”
“Yes, I am. You know how I feel about museums.”
“Sure, I know. And I also know you’re even more beautiful when you’re passionate about something. Which means you’re damned beautiful right now, which means you’d better go.” I press the point by holding out her coat again.
“All right. If that’s what you want.” She slips an arm into the coat.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I want.” Her hair smells of lilacs.
After a deep, aristocratic breath of what I expect is condescending resignation, she turns around to me, one arm still in her coat, the rest of the coat draping down her back to the floor. But it’s not the aristocratic Parkhurst lineage looking at me; it’s the back-alley line of Trents. “No,” she says, “that’s not what you want. This is what you want.”
My fantasy of smearing Vivienne’s lipstick in the shadows is suddenly real. She’s kissing me, my mouth sliding along hers. I knew, in my imaginings of Vivienne, that her lips would be warm, that her body, against me now, would be supple in its movements. I knew all those things, but what I didn’t know was just how badly I wanted her, like an insistent, rutting animal.
And so I pick her up and carry her to my bed.
*
I’m in an ecstasy of Vivienne, of her lavish breasts in my hands, her hard nipples in my mouth, her legs around my waist, turning and rolling with her, hearing her moan, feeling her shiver. She’s still hungry, and so am I when she pushes me down and grabs my head between her legs, pressing her sweet juiciness into my mouth. She’s hot and swollen. She’s screaming.
There’s just the night and the flesh, Vivienne’s and mine, sliding along each other, enveloping each other, blocking out anything outside of us, blocking out thought. I don’t remember reaching into the drawer of the beside table. I don’t remember strapping on. There’s only now, a relentless now, and Vivienne’s groaning rasp in my ear, “Yes, Cantor, fuck me.”
*
Noise is invading my dozing, something loud, over and over again, until I’m not dozing and I know the sound. It’s the phone.
I have to roll away from Vivienne to grab it. Her arm, limp with sleep and catching light from the window, is still across my leg when I pick up the receiver and mumble, “Hello.”
“Cantor? It’s me. Red.”
“Yeah, sure…okay Red, what’s up? And what the hell time is it?”
“Almost one a.m. You sound groggy. Sorry to wake you, but I know you’ll wanna hear this. Listen, I’m still here with Iris at her place—you remember Iris Page, from this afternoon at Smiley’s joint?”
“Yeah, I remember.” I wonder, grinning, how much of his dough Red’s turned over to her by now, assuming she charges an hourly rate.
“Yeah, well, she’s in the kitchen, makin’ coffee,” he says, “so I figured I’d give you a call. Anyway, we was talkin’ a few minutes ago, I asked her about, you know, her life and all on the docks, and she tells me about all the funny business she’s seen down there, and one night stuck in her mind ’cause it scared her plenty.”
“Sure, Jimmy Shea’s Mob guys can do some pretty scary stuff,” I say. “What’s Iris got on them? Anything I can use?”
“Cantor, it ain’t about Shea. It’s about Sophie.”
Chapter Ten
The last of my sleep and any remnant glow from my tumble with Vivienne are gone, ripped away by the sound of Sophie’s name.
“What about Sophie,” I say, almost barking it but squelching it down so I don’t wake Vivienne.
“It’s something Iris saw one night, a coupla years ago,” Red says, “by the downtown docks on the East Side. Yeah, March of ’48 she says. She’s sure of it because it was the last night to see that Tyrone Power pirate movie in her neighborhood before the theater changed features and she was annoyed she’d missed it ’cause she likes that pretty Tyrone Power. Anyways, she’d just finished a little business with a longshoreman in Cuyler’s Alley when she sees these two guys drive up in a truck and park by a freighter docked at Pier 8. So she hangs around, figuring she’ll pick up another coupla tricks, make a few more bucks.”
“Drogan, what the hell does this have to do with Sophie?”
“I’m gettin’ there, Cantor. Just listen. So at first Iris thinks the truck is one of those fruit-’n-vegetable rigs that pick up produce for early morning deliveries. But this truck wasn’t for no fruits and vegetables. It’s carrying live cargo, human carg
o. Women, maybe a dozen of ’em, pulled outta the back of the truck by them two guys. You know what I’m saying, Cantor?”
I do, and it’s scaring me.
“You still there, Cantor?”
My throat tight, I manage, “Just keep talking, Red.”
“Okay. Look, Iris knew right away what was going on and it shook her. She knew about the flesh-slavers working the city, grabbing women off the streets and shipping ’em off on freighters and trawlers to nobody knows where. She knew all about the captains paid off to hide women with the legit cargo and deliver ’em when they reach port. So Iris ain’t no fool—she slides into shadow against a wall so them guys won’t see her and take her, too, but she could see everything goin’ on. She says the girls were screaming and crying, but they was chained together like a prison gang and couldn’t get away, and the guys are slapping them around, telling them to be quiet and—”
“Drogan, what’s this got to do with Sophie?”
“I’m gettin’ to that, Cantor. So Iris remembers one of the women being different than the others. Instead of crying, she fights back, kicking and spitting at them guys until one of ’em puts a knife to her throat and threatens to kill her right there on the dock and toss her body in the river. But she don’t shut up. She keeps on fighting and yelling and the guy gets madder and madder, and Iris is sure it’s curtains for that dame until the other guy pulls off the guy with the knife and says something about the dame being worth a lotta money. Then the two guys pull all the women to the pier and onto the freighter. And I tell you, Cantor, the way Iris described that girl, the one who fought back—”
With every word out of Red’s mouth, every nerve and muscle in me twists into knots, my brain trying to build a wall against what I know deep down is going to be the unbearable finale to his story.
“—the way Iris described her with dark hair, wearin’ the sorta polka-dot dress I remember she fancied and the way she hollered at them guys in what Iris is sure was Spanish, that girl sounds a helluva lot like Sophie.”
I can barely breathe. I’m even afraid to breathe, afraid of letting time move forward and bring this nightmare with it.
Somehow I muscle enough air up from the pit of my stomach to say, “The freighter, Red. What was the name of that freighter?”
“I dunno, Cantor. I asked Iris, figuring I could get a line on her, but after them guys got the women on board, Iris wasn’t about to hang around and risk getting spotted when they came back to their truck. She got the hell outta there. She never saw the name of the boat. The next time she was down that end of town, the freighter had already sailed.”
I can’t speak, not a word, not even to say good night to Red when I hang up, not even a word to Vivienne, who’s awake now, sitting behind me and turning me to her, her face pale in the city light coming in through the window. I don’t know what she heard, I don’t know if she heard me say Sophie’s name, but she heard enough to realize that the pain of my life just invaded the night we shared and destroyed it.
Shipping the women off to nobody knows where, Red said. Well, somebody knows where, and that somebody is Jimmy Shea. He knows every port of call of every ship in New York Harbor and scrapes a percentage of profit from every ounce of their cargo. Even human cargo.
I don’t care if it’s after one thirty in the morning, when all upstanding citizens are asleep. Jimmy Shea isn’t asleep. The gutter crowd’s not asleep. Time to go deeper into the gutter, to Jimmy’s place.
Vivienne doesn’t question me or try to stop me when I get out of bed and get dressed. She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t either. I don’t even look at her. A few minutes later, after a quick washing up, after putting on a clean white shirt and zipping up a pair of pants, I grab one of my spare .38s and a shoulder rig along with a handful of extra slugs from my bedroom safe, take an overcoat and cap from the closet, and walk out the door.
*
I park my Buick near Jimmy’s place on Stone Street, a cobblestoned alley of small sagging buildings near the downtown docks. Jimmy’s place isn’t any fancier than the other architectural cadavers on the street, just an old brick job he owns with an apartment above a hardware store. But Jimmy’s not a fancy guy. His neighborhood’s as cut-rate as his clothing. I guess the only thing he spends his money on is whores, and if Iris Page is an example, he even does that on the cheap.
“He’s not home,” a guy says behind me when I’m at Jimmy’s door. I turn and see a regular sort of guy, a working-stiff type in a lumber jacket and beat-up fedora. “You must be lookin’ for Shea,” he says through whiskey breath, “’cause I don’t know you so you ain’t lookin’ for me. And the only other person who lives in this building is Shea.”
“And who are you?”
“Shea’s tenant. This here’s my hardware store. I live in the back.”
“Uh-huh. So if you’re just getting home, how do you know Jimmy’s not here?”
“’Cause I just saw him. In fact, he even bought me a drink,” he says as I bolt away. “Hey, don’t you even wanna know where he is?”
I know where he is.
*
Coenties Slip is four blocks from Stone Street and around the corner from Cuyler’s Alley, where Iris entertained her longshoreman. The slip ends at South Street along the East River’s downtown docks. Right at the corner, in one of the wooden buildings still hanging around from New York’s sailing-ship days, is a saloon as old and crusty as Smiley’s but with an even tougher clientele. Up until about five years ago the place used to be called Joe’s, but if there was ever a Joe he’s long gone and now the joint doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t need a name, because the only people who go in there under the present ownership are friends or associates of Jimmy Shea. He’s the owner. The back room of the saloon is his general headquarters.
When I walk in, the bartender gives me the once-over while the half-dozen tough customers smoking and drinking at the bar put their whiskey glasses down and slide their hands inside their coats to the bulge of their guns. One of those tough customers is Screwy Sweeney, who stops looking at the boxing pictures in the sports pages of the paper, reminiscing, maybe, about the days when he was beaten silly by smarter fighters. He puts the paper down, pushes his hat back as he gives me a dopey snicker, and says, “Hey, boys, look who’s here. It’s the pree-vert Cantor Gold. Ain’t you in the wrong place, Gold? This ain’t no pree-vert bar.”
The twisted faces of the murderers’ row at the bar is a pretty good hint of their twisted brains, which tempts me to say, I’m not so sure about that, but there’s more of them than there are of me, so all I say instead is, “I’m here to see Jimmy.”
“He ain’t seein’ nobody,” Screwy says. “He’s busy.” Screwy’s buffoonish self-importance is laughable, but I’m not in a laughing mood, and except for the snickering Screwy, who’d laugh at a flat tire, neither is anyone else, the air in the room thick with smoke and malice. The boys at the bar stare at me like I’m their guns’ next meal. Screwy ambles toward me through the smoke, gives me a sweaty sneer, and looks down at me from the roughly four inches he’s got on my height. “Get outta here,” he says.
But Screwy and the boys make the mistake of looking at all of me instead of certain parts of me, like the part of me that’s imperceptibly bending just enough at the knees, the move hidden by my overcoat, and when my head is just below Screwy’s chin I lurch up fast, ram my head into his throat, pull my .38 at the same time, and spin around and aim it at the thugs, who aren’t happy about suddenly being useless.
Screwy, gagging and tumbling backward, falls against a bar stool, knocking it over with a loud crash.
The noise brings Jimmy through the door from the back room and into the bar, shouting, “What the hell—?” in that high wind-through-an alley voice that makes my teeth grit. He’s still wearing the same cheap gray suit and rumpled white shirt he wore this morning when he ordered Screwy to rouse me from bed. Only difference now, his tie and collar are open, exposing his ropey neck.
And he could use a shave, and probably a shower, though no amount of soap could wash away the savagery that festers in his every pore.
Jimmy’s slit eyes rake me over, finally settle on the gun in my hand. Looking at me but talking to Screwy, he says, “For chrissake, Screwy, get up off the floor and take Gold’s gun.”
“Nobody’s taking my gun,” I say. “I’ll shoot Screwy’s fat hand off if he tries it. And boys,” I say to the thugs at the bar, “go back to your drinking. In fact, barkeep, pour the boys another round, on me.”
Nobody moves. Screwy stays sprawled on the floor. The bartender stands stock-still. My gun’s still aimed at Jimmy’s thugs, who keep staring at me.
Jimmy’s the only one smiling, giving me a knifelike grin that could add more cuts to my face. “Glad you could drop by, Gold,” he says. “I wanna talk to you. C’mon back to my office.” Before he goes, he nods to the bartender, says, “Go ahead, Sammy, pour the boys a drink. Only don’t take Gold’s money. What sorta host would I be if I let a dame pay for a round?”
I follow him to the back room, my gun still out, still aimed at the boys at the bar. Before going through the door, I say, “Screwy, you heard your boss. Get the hell off the floor.” Then I spit a small but highly satisfying laugh and walk into the back room, closing the door behind me.
Jimmy’s office is nearly bare except for a long wooden table with a strongbox on it, a couple of dirty ashtrays, a few chairs, a shelf with a few whiskey bottles and a half-dozen glasses. In the glare of the single overhead bulb hanging from a cord, the room feels less like a place of business and more like a slow night at the morgue, the air waiting for the next death.
Jimmy reaches for two glasses from the shelf, pushes the strongbox away, and puts the glasses on the table. The day’s take must be in the box, money clawed from the shippers and longshoremen, the loan sharks and hookers, and all the bandits like me along the waterfront. “Scotch. That’s your drink, right?” Jimmy says in his whiny wheeze. He pours two glasses, pushes one toward me and lifts the other. “Bottoms up,” he says.