The Midnight Band of Mercy

by Michael Blaine

  “Let me ask the barkeep something.”

  “C’mon, don’t waste my time.”

  But before Stout could restrain him, Max picked his way through the tables and pressed up to the bar. “Listen, you know the other bartender’s name? Where he lives?”

  The new barkeep shrugged. “MacNamara. I’m fillin in.”

  “What about his first name?”

  “Joe. Joseph MacNamara. I come in, he’s gone. I ain’t seen zip. He goes on boats, they says. The whatchacallit…”

  “Merchant marine?”

  The scrawny man leaned down to tap a keg. “Yeah. They say he’s seen ‘em all. Dotheads. Hottentots. Maybe he shipped out to Japland.”

  “Or the South Pole?”

  “Sure. Maybe.”

  The morgue squatted on grounds adjacent to the great municipal hospital. A caretaker in a brown denim suit led them to a ledger in which the deceased’s height, weight, hair and eye colors, type of clothes, and valuables were recorded. For some reason, few of the departed shuffled off to the netherworld with anything of value.

  Three bodies had been delivered in the last two hours. One of the recent arrival’s descriptions matched Mourtone’s to some extent, so the attendant led them to the chest-high shelf drawers that ran along two facing walls.

  “Damn rollers need grease,” the attendant complained, struggling and cursing over the heavy sliding compartment.

  The chicken-necked man who slid out in the drawer bore no resemblance to Martin Mourtone whatsoever. Max caught a quick glance at a shattered eye socket and turned away. “Nah.”

  “You sure?” Stout pressed him. “’Cause if you’re sure, you’ve got one witness who I can tell you right now is nowhere near the fucking city of Baltimore, and you got another one who’s dancin’ in Little Africa as we speak.”

  “I’ll bet my life he’s not cake-walking, wherever he is.”

  A leaky smile spread out on Stout’s face. “And as I’m sure you know, it’s against the law to perpetrate a hoax, especially if you’re planning to put it into your so-called newspaper.” The detective’s face tightened. “I remember you from the World. The Brian Gallagher case.”

  Max’s stomach sank. In an unsigned article, he had raised questions as to why police Lieutenant Gallagher, after slitting the throat of a barber on Worth Street, had never been charged. He had suggested this with great care, indirectly, by posing certain questions to the deceased’s family, but he hadn’t fooled a soul, particularly the higher-up buttons.

  He didn’t have a byline, so he thought he’d be safe, but some sonofabitch had ratted him out to the bigwigs in management, and a month later his space work mysteriously dried up.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “You know so what. If some bleeding-heart judge listened to you, Gallagher would be wasting his life in the Tombs.”

  “Whoever it was, it wasn’t me.” His ritual denial. Who could really nail the author of an unsigned piece? “Why would I want to kill all my sources? Ask Morris over at the 19th about me.”

  “You make up shit, there’s laws against it.”

  “Don’t go down that road. Bennett’s lawyers will be crawling all over you.” He had no idea if his publisher, who spent most of his time in Paris, would take the slightest interest in this dispute, but threats were all he had.

  Suddenly, Stout smiled and punched him in the shoulder. “Hey, don’t get so itchy. It’s just a litde joke.”

  Max didn’t think it was a joke, but maybe he’d been too quick to lose his temper. “What do you expect? Look at this lousy coat you boys gave me.”

  “You mean that job ain’t yours?”

  Suddenly, an immense weariness spread through him. His limbs felt heavy, swollen. “You mean Sloan didn’t tell you….”

  He was going to explain how he’d been rolled, how he’d been left facedown on the sidewalk, how he’d been rescued by a man wearing a tower of hats, but it all seemed too difficult. “How about a ride home, Stout?”

  Without witnesses, without a corpse, he had no story. There was no point in going back to the office.

  As they rocked along in silence, he wondered whether to tell Gretta about Martin. Should he sit through dinner masticating stringy beef, making excruciating small talk, and then take her into the parlor? Should he knock on her door directly? Was there a decent way to announce such terrible news? Did words exist that would soften the blow? Or should he hide it from her for a few days and wait for Martin’s body to turn up? Wouldn’t she hold that against him? The more he planned, the more muddled his thoughts became.

  He tossed the ragged topcoat into an ash can, but now he was down to his shirtsleeves. Climbing the simple stone steps to Mrs. DeVogt’s house, he hoped more than anything to slip into his room and wash up. He could envision his second clean shirt and his second suit hanging, newly pressed, in his closet. He yearned for fresh linen against his skin, the smell of laundry soap, he craved obliterating sleep. In his hand, the brass doorknob felt like soft skin. He turned it.

  chapter eight

  He had barely slipped through the foyer when Mrs. DeVogt accosted him. “Mr. Greengrass, what happened to you?”

  “Sorry. I had an accident.” He began to edge past her, but she pursued him.

  “But your face. Look at you!” She waved a finger in disapproval.

  Max gazed into the gilded convex mirror at the foot of the staircase. High on his forehead, an abrasion was forming a crusty scab. His left eye looked swollen and purple. A wet skullcap, his hair stuck to his scalp. In the distorted glass, his bruised face seemed to be streaming away from him.

  Ignoring Mrs. DeVogt’s prying, he said, “Yes. Will Gretta be with us for dinner tonight?”

  “Dr. Condon’s office is just around the corner.”

  “Will Gretta—”

  “Why are you talking about Gretta in your condition? No, she’s with her mother. She’s caught the catarrh again.”

  “Will she be back tomorrow?”

  “She said she has to take Miss Goelet’s picture.”

  “I’ll just go and patch myself up, then.”

  He managed to pour some water from the jug and splash his face before toppling onto the bed. Then he plunged into a paralyzing sleep. In the distance, he heard Mrs. DeVogt tapping at his door, and he tried to swim back to consciousness, but he hadn’t the strength. When he woke a dozen hours later, he found himself curled in a fetal position on the bed, wearing his borrowed boots.

  Clean clothes improved his appearance considerably, but he still looked as if he’d been in a barroom brawl. His entire left side felt stiff and bruised.

  His mind was racing. Should he tell Parnell about the murder? Where was Gretta? How might he break the terrible news to her, yet still probe for information?

  He wondered how deeply she had cared for Mourtone. The more intimate they had been, the more likely she was to know why Martin wanted to meet him at Stephenson’s. Yet, the more distant their relationship had been, the happier Max would be. He prayed she knew everything, and he prayed she knew nothing at all.

  At the breakfast table, where he consumed three eggs, ham, several hot rolls, and two cups of coffee, he fended off the other boarders’ questions.

  “What wall’d you walk into?” Danny teased.

  He forced a laugh. “Hazards of the trade.”

  “You may want to try another profession, Mr. Greengrass,” Mrs. DeVogt said.

  “Who else will have me?”

  “See a doctor or we’ll punish you,” Belle said. Despite her light tone, her eyes shone with real concern.

  Outside, Swarms looked him over too. “Now you’ve got Belle mooning all over you. She’s a nice little package. I ought to get rolled too.”

  “Nothing like that, Danny. A bunch of street arabs.”

  Swarms looked skeptical. “I’d get those scrapes cleaned out chop-chop. You don’t want to croak and leave me alone with all that gash.”

  Max couldn’t help
feeling testy when Danny talked like that. Gash. Birds. Hot numbers. Now that the actor was squiring his sister around, Max felt damned uncomfortable about Danny’s wisecracks. At the same time, he was pissed at Faye. He couldn’t have an ordinary conversation with his closest pal any more. Somehow his sister had shimmied in between them. Who could he let his hair down with now? “What about the love of your life? Don’t I know her?”

  Danny grabbed his chest in a heart-rending gesture. “Hey, just kidding. When I’m at the table, I’ve got blinders on. I couldn’t tell you how either of them’s built.”

  Max’s irritation dissolved. “My ass. You may be human … I suppose.”

  An evil grin crept onto Danny’s thin lips. “Faye’s got a little surprise cookin’.”

  “Crap.” He looked heavenward. “ Just strike me dead now. One big bolt.”

  Max knew that Gretta’s studio occupied a street-level storefront at the corner of West 25th Street opposite Madison Square Park. The great stores were opening by the time he began the brief hike uptown. In the window of B. Airman’s on Sixth Avenue and West 19th, a mechanical butterfly dipped and soared around a draped, headless dummy. Revolving electric stars cast their rays on a mauve silk gown, the material glittering with pinpoints of light.

  Along the Ladies’ Mile, shopgirls in their French heels and tin collars ogled the latest in silver and jewelry. Knots of well-dressed men seemed to have no other occupation than gazing at young women whose felt hats were adorned with ostrich plumes and snowy egret feathers. Women in alpaca capes fluttered across the sidewalk. A flash of plum-colored silk always drew hoots and applause from sports draped over the windowsills of their exclusive clubs.

  As he walked north, then east, his intoxication with the city was more than a distraction; its rhythms matched his own internal, jittery beat. The women, the goods, the noise of the delivery wagons, the cursing, shouting drivers, the sumptuous architecture brought on a nervous excitement he loved for itself alone. Faceless in the infernal uproar, he felt some unnameable thrill, a release into nothingness.

  The thought of his mission, so close now, suddenly filled him with dread. His message was truly terrible, he felt its weight more completely now, and yet he had to deliver it. At first he hung back in Madison Square Park, letting his eye run over the stores across the broad confluence of Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Auction rooms, china houses, millinery and dry-goods establishments filled the block. In the center a canvas awning displayed the legend ST. REGIS PORTRAIT STUDIO.

  A soft bell tinkled when he pushed open the door. The interior was draped in rich damask. On the walls, three Japanese woodblock prints hung in a cluster. A fringed divan upholstered in an Ottoman pattern gave the waiting room a harem-like air. Behind a low desk, a woman with kohl-smeared eyelids presided.

  “I’m looking for Gretta,” he said softly. The decor seemed to demand whispering.

  “You must be Martin,” the woman replied, smirking.

  “No, no. I’m Max Greengrass, another friend.”

  “Ah.” She looked at his battered face more carefully, considering whether to announce him.

  “We’re both at Mrs. DeVogt’s.”

  “I see … I’ll get her.”

  Bickering voices drifted out. Finally, Gretta appeared, an annoyed expression on her face. When she noticed his scrapes and bruises, her features softened.

  “Mr. Greengrass. Your head. Your eye. Did you bump into something?”

  “This? No. Something bumped into me. Is there somewhere more private?”

  “What is it? Can’t it wait ‘til dinner? We have a client waiting.”

  Her brusque tone snapped him out of his reverie. “Sorry. This can’t wait.”

  “Oh. Violet, would you excuse us, please?” She rolled her eyes in the receptionist’s direction.

  Finally, he was able to speak directly. Yet he couldn’t quite pull it off. “There’s been a very bad accident. I need to reach … Martin’s parents.”

  Her color drained away, and she grasped his hand. Her scent, her hair, the proximity of her luxuriant body made his heart race at exactly the wrong time. “How bad is he?”

  Stepping away, yet still caught in her tense grip, he said, “It’s very bad. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to say….”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he? Was he run over? Oh, God, I have to set the lights for Gertrude. Mrs. Swanson will be here in ten minutes.”

  He had assumed she would introduce him to the Mourtones and help him get an interview with the father. At the very least, the family would confirm that Martin was missing. “Can’t you leave for the day?”

  “Oh, my God. Is he actually dead? You have to tell me.” She dug her fingernails into his skin.

  “Please, come with me. It’s too complicated to talk about here.”

  “I can’t, I can’t! I’ll lose my job if I walk out now! I have to go back in a minute.” Her desperation confirmed his suspicions: she couldn’t live without her weekly wage. What about the genteel Staten Island country club, the tennis and bicycle expeditions? He sensed her panic, her fear of losing a single dollar, and his heart sank. What could he do about it?

  “You’re not giving me a choice.”

  “No, I’m certainly not! Just tell me.” She pushed him away and smoothed her skirt.

  “I went to meet him at a bar called Stephenson’s. About the note you gave me? When I got there he’d been shot.” He withheld the phrase “in the head” just before it passed his lips.

  “Uhh,” she gasped, hunching over as if she’d been struck in the stomach. “Oh my God, it’s not … it can’t be … uhh … he’s definitely… . There’s no question?”

  “No, no question as to that. I’m sorry to be the one … telling, saying this … unspeakable thing.”

  “M’mm.” She nodded slowly. Her long fingers stroked her shirtwaist buttons. “Well, we have a client coming… .” Instead of leaving, she sank onto the ottoman. “I have to prepare the plates. May I have some water?”

  He found the receptionist, who directed him to a sink in the back. She drank thirstily. “Thanks. So nice of you.” Her smile, a polite tic, lit her face, her beauty disembodied, dreadful. To his amazement, she gathered herself and stood.

  “You ought to come with me, Gretta.”

  “Where? What difference does it make now?” Her eyes vacant, she twined her hair around her finger.

  As she turned away and headed back to the studio, her movements took on a mechanical quality. Max went to her, certain she was in shock. He touched her elbow and she turned around, staring at him as if were a stranger. “Will you be all right?”

  She offered a weak smile. “It’s impossible.”

  “You should go home. I’ll take you.”

  Still she shook her head, apparently intent on returning to the studio. Now, the practical side of his nature got the upper hand. “Would you write the Mourtones’ address down, please?”

  Like an automaton, she drifted over to the desk and scratched out the numbers. She handed the note to him and offered a peculiar smile.

  “I’ll see you later?”

  She nodded, but gestured for him to leave. For a moment longer he waited, hoping she would change her mind, but she turned and went back to the darkroom, her straight back disappearing behind the curtains.

  He had no choice but to plunge back into the streets. He took a horsecar up Fifth Avenue to 42nd Street, then got out and walked along the reservoir’s massive walls, gathering his thoughts. Spattered blood on a wall. Mourtone flung back at that vertiginous angle. His rubber mask of a face. The cawing, chattering street arabs. Were they still creeping up behind him? Were they crouching behind that shiny Victoria? In that sliver of an alleyway? Ridiculous. He shook his head, as if he could drive the wraiths from his mind.

  One step followed another. How much to tell Martin’s parents? Should he even present himself as a reporter? No, let them talk first, and then find the right moment? Was that possible?

&n
bsp; Horsecars and carriages thundered over the paving stones, but once he took a few steps off the main thoroughfare a voluptuous quiet took hold. Block after block of fine brownstones stretched out before him, and hardly a soul on the street. The glass roof of a conservatory peeked out from behind a fence. An immaculate brougham stood waiting beneath a porte-cochere. Ornamental ironwork, freshly painted and jet-black, ran up stone stairs to doors with highly polished brass fittings. The sumptuous peace was what he relished most of all.

  Finally, he came to the Mourtones’ address, its entrance a street-level Ionic colonnade. The brownstone building, actually three older structures joined into one, possessed an intimate quality despite its grandeur. A dense growth of ivy curled a story above the front door’s awning. In between the second and third floors an iron balcony supported a row of potted trees. Even though he knew they were well-off, he hadn’t imagined the Mourtones living on such a scale. Their standing intimidated him, he hated to admit it, but he focused his mind on his terrible task.

  After he explained his mission, a manservant led him past a grand marble staircase, through a drawing room decorated with Watteau-style paintings set into wooden panels, and finally to the library, its carefully arranged bookcases filled to the brim with fine bindings. A painted frieze, garlands of roses, ran under the cornice. The richly colored rugs, the brocade curtains, the Second Empire furniture, the electric lighting all conspired to create a mood of splendor and contemplation. He couldn’t help resenting Martin for having been born into such a velvet cocoon.

  In a few moments Martin’s father, a thin man with a drooping white moustache, closed the door quietly behind him. He looked far more the aesthete than the insurance baron.

  “You say you know where Martin is?” Sagging blue pouches swelled beneath his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Mourtone. I did see your son last night. …”

  “Where is he? His mother is frantic. We contacted the police when he didn’t come home, but they’re in a fog as usual.”

  “I was supposed to … I did meet him at a bar on Bleecker Street.”

  “Bleecker Street?” The man was clearly dazed, and exhausted as well.