by Tom Bradby
‘Easy, Mr Di Leonardo.’
They lapsed into silence. Quinn watched her catch her reflection in the mirror. Martha flushed. She hated to display a trace of vanity. ‘Please put on the wireless,’ she said.
Quinn reached behind him and flicked the switch. It was tuned to WABC and the sound of a concert band filled the room. He nudged down the volume.
Martha closed the newspaper and dropped it on the table. She looked at the headline. ‘You should buy on the dip. That’s what everyone’s saying.’
Quinn thought of the fear on Aidan’s face as his dreams of impressing her dissolved. ‘I wouldn’t sink a dime on Wall Street.’ He sat down. ‘You want to tell me about Charlie Matsell?’
‘No.’
She tried to get past him, but he gripped her arm. ‘You sure about that?’
‘I wrote you a letter.’
‘I don’t want a letter.’
‘I’ll send it to you. It’s better that way.’
‘For whom?’
‘Joe …’ She shook herself free.
‘You ever hear of a guy called Mr Scher?’
‘No.’
‘He didn’t call your office?’
‘No, he did not.’
‘Who was the man who came in to see Charlie just before he died?’
She looked as if she might deny any such visit. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘Had he been in before?’
‘Maybe. Mr Matsell was secretive about his appointments.’
‘What did this guy look like?’
‘He wore a suit.’
‘Was he tall or short, fat or thin?’
‘Tall.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Oh, hell, I don’t know … He was kind of heavy-set. He had baggy cheeks, like a bloodhound.’
Quinn leant forward. ‘Say that again.’
She hesitated. ‘What?’
‘He had cheeks like a bloodhound, right? That was what you said.’
Martha turned away from him so that he couldn’t see her face. ‘Well … yes. I mean—’
‘He was tall, slightly stooped?’
‘I – I’m not sure. Why?’
‘I was thinking about someone who expressed a sudden interest in the case tonight. You know who I mean by Spencer Duncan?’
‘He’s the mayor’s aide. He’s in the newspapers.’
‘You figure it could have been him?’
‘No.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘No.’
‘Do you know what he looks like?’
‘Yes. I mean, no, not exactly.’
‘You figure Charlie Matsell could have been connected to the mayor’s office?’
‘Of course not.’ Martha stirred the stew again, making sure her back was to him.
‘Did Charlie Luciano ever pay a visit?’ he asked.
‘No – I mean, I have no idea. Mr Matsell kept his cards real close to his chest. I told you already, he didn’t want me to discuss his business.’
Quinn watched her. ‘How did you get mixed up with these guys, Martha? What was it they wanted from you?’
‘They didn’t want anything.’
‘You figure this performance is going to convince me? Is that it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, I think you do. And sometimes it’s hard to figure you out.’
She spun around. ‘How could you possibly be expected to do that?’
‘I know what you’ve been through.’
‘Do you? I doubt it. Your idea of hardship is a father who won’t stroke your ego now you’ve made it to the big-time.’
‘Cruel.’
‘True.’
Her eyes bored into his. The tempo of the concert band changed and Martha reached forward and twirled the volume button. She came across the room and took his hand. ‘Come on, I’ll pretend you’re Ronald Colman.’
‘You’re not fooling anyone, Martha.’
‘Just dance.’
She guided him around the tiny room and the wooden floorboards creaked beneath their feet. There was a thump on the ceiling below and Martha stamped hard in return. She leant her head back and pretended she was Gloria Swanson. It was a longstanding joke, but neither of them laughed.
They twirled faster and, as they danced past the coal fire, beads of sweat crept onto his brow. Her warm body pressed close to his. The tempo slowed. He closed his eyes and tried to shut his mind to the scent of her. His fingertips tingled and he could feel her breath on his cheek.
They turned and turned again.
They moved slower still.
There was a tap on his shoulder. ‘Mind if I step in?’
Aidan’s smile was thin. Their father stood behind him in the doorway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MARTHA SWITCHED OFF THE WIRELESS. GERRY TOOK OFF HIS OVERcoat and placed it carefully on the hat-stand. He smoothed down a few strands of hair and sat at the far end of the dinner table. Quinn took his seat opposite Aidan. There was a lamp on the wall behind them, but Martha lit a candle. She took down some bowls and filled them with stew, then placed a glass of ale in front of each man. She busied herself tidying up.
‘Sit down, woman,’ Quinn’s father said.
Aidan loosened his tie and sipped his ale.
The room was silent save for the sound of cutlery scraping against china. Gerry wiped his mouth. ‘Aidan’s trying to sell me his new model: the Dry Lakes Roadster! He says refined folk upgrade their automobile every two years. Should I believe him?’
Nobody answered.
‘You see, Ade? We ain’t convinced. Or maybe we’re just not refined.’
Martha sat down. She kept her eyes firmly on the table.
‘I figured Schneider and the boss might kill each other today,’ Quinn said. ‘Mae says that now Schneider’s wrapped up Vice with Fogelman in the chair he wants to hound Ed McCredie off the main detective floor.’
Everyone else stared at their food.
‘I thought McCredie was a legend as chief of detectives, so how come Schneider’s got in there? Why doesn’t the boss just tell him to go back to counting paper-clips?’ Quinn persevered.
‘Nobody wants to talk about this at table,’ Gerry said.
‘I just figured—’
‘Nobody wants to talk about it!’
Quinn stared at his father. ‘I saw Moe tonight.’
Gerry continued to eat. He did not meet his son’s eye.
‘He had three five-hundred-pound gorillas on the door; said you should do the same.’
‘Has he just got out of the asylum?’
‘He was rattled.’
‘He has plenty to be rattled by.’
‘I figure Charlie Matsell’s murder must have got to him.’
‘He wasn’t murdered.’
‘Can you two quit the shop-talk?’ Aidan said. ‘Martha’s had a hell of a day.’
‘Did you hear about the report on the chloroform?’ Quinn asked his father.
‘C’mon, Joe …’ Aidan said.
‘I can speak for myself, Aidan,’ Martha replied.
‘What chloroform?’ Gerry asked.
‘Somebody put cotton wool soaked in chloroform in the guy’s mouth after he fell.’
Gerry frowned.
‘That make any sense to you?’
‘No.’
Quinn looked at each member of his family in turn. No one would meet his eye. He finished his stew. ‘I figured, Dad, that you might be able to give me a few tips here. You worked for McCredie. You knew Schneider. You were the number-one detective. Everyone says so, even the mayor. Some of the old-timers like Yan asked to be remembered to you.’
‘I don’t want to talk about Yan.’
Quinn had lost count of the number of times he’d tried to talk to his father about Centre Street. ‘I know it was a long time ago, Dad, but there’s a bunch of guys still there you’d kn
ow.’
His father’s face was stony. ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Okay …’ Quinn agreed. ‘But I’ve worked for this chance, so I guessed you might want to—’
‘That’s your concern.’
‘What is?’
‘It’s your affair.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Joe, the place is so bent they shit crooked.’
They were silent again. Then, ‘Dad, I slogged my guts out to get there, so is there any chance you could at least offer a little advice?’
‘You wanted a shot at the big-time.’ Gerry sighed. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t see through it. If you want to hang out with a piece of trash like Moe Diamond and listen to his scheming, malevolent nonsense, then that’s your business, but don’t bring it to this table.’ He put his spoon down and scooped up the rest of the stew with a hunk of bread.
Aidan and Martha still avoided Quinn’s eye. ‘Oh, I get it.’ He pushed his chair back. ‘You know, just once in your life, it wouldn’t have killed you to offer a few words of encouragement,’ he told his father, then retreated to his room, closed the door and lay on his bed.
The apartment fell silent. Laughter echoed in the stairwell. He closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he heard the door go and listened to their footsteps on the stairs. His father and Aidan would be in McSorley’s now until gone midnight.
Quinn picked up the dime novel he’d taken from Matsell’s room at the Plaza and leafed through it. He lost interest and listened to Martha doing the dishes. He moved to the doorway.
‘I’m not going to take your side,’ she said.
‘I’d never ask you to. But it wouldn’t have killed him to wish me luck.’
‘Maybe he’s right.’
‘About what?’
‘Headquarters.’
‘Times change, but he doesn’t.’
‘He’s been a cop thirty years, Joe. He knows a thing or two. Maybe he expected you to ask his advice before you applied.’
‘When has he ever been interested?’
Martha shot him a sideways glance. It was true that whatever support and encouragement had been available was directed at her: the finest clothes, a handsome allowance, trips to New Haven and Washington …
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘It’s just a fact.’
‘You do care. And you don’t see the way he talks about you when you’re not around. If you did, you’d never say such a thing.’
Quinn stepped forward. He picked up a dish-towel.
‘Leave them,’ she said.
‘I’ll give you a hand.’
She took a plate from him. ‘I don’t want help.’ She finished stacking the dishes and turned to Aidan’s collars, took them down from a peg and pulled out a bottle of Lintel’s starch.
‘I’ll turn in,’ he said.
‘Goodnight.’
Quinn washed his face and brushed his teeth at the sink in the corner, which, with the bath, was screened from the main room by a curtain. He walked down to the men’s room on the floor below, then went back to his room, switched off the lamp and lay down.
Moonlight illuminated the wall above him, which was covered with scenes his father had painted from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. In the first, Jim, the runaway slave, helmed the raft down the Mississippi while Huck sat trailing his feet in the water. Then there were the two grifters, the ‘lost dauphin’ and the ‘English duke’, being tarred and feathered by the townsfolk after their dismal performance of the Royal Nonesuch. And, finally, Jim’s attempted rescue, complete with Tom Sawyer’s bleeding leg …
Quinn closed his eyes. He and Aidan had lain there half dead as their father painted these scenes and their mother sat reading the story in a voice shaking with emotion. It was 1918, the year New York had succumbed to an epidemic of Spanish flu, with all the fear and hysteria that can only be engendered by the sight of corpses piling up in the streets. The diagnosis of a school doctor one afternoon in December had been considered a death sentence. He and Aidan had been taken to a special sanatorium created in the assembly hall, convinced they would see neither parent again.
But their father had ignored the instructions on quarantine procedures – he certainly didn’t take orders from anyone but himself. That night, as Quinn and his brother had fallen prey for the first time to the sweats, Gerry had stormed in, scooped them up onto his broad shoulders and carried them home through the cold, gloomy streets.
For four days they had remained locked in this room while both parents fought to keep them alive. At night, when he was conscious, Quinn would watch his parents sleeping on the floor beside him. Sometimes, when he had the strength, he would reach down and touch his father’s hand.
He rolled over now to face the wall.
On the fourth day, the sweats had broken and his parents’ careworn, exhausted faces had been transformed by joy and relief. The Christmas that followed had seen an explosion of happiness: the four locked inside, staging mock battles with Gerry’s army of lead soldiers, drinking and eating, laughing, Gerry belting out songs on his accordion as their mother stood on the table to sing …
Quinn opened his eyes again. It was the time before his father had left Centre Street and his mother had got sick.
It was the time before Martha had come.
He listened to her moving about next door. She was starching the shirts. Then he heard her filling the bath.
She slipped into the tub and lay still, scooping handfuls of water over her body.
A dog barked. There was an altercation on the street outside, discordant voices rising to a crescendo, then falling swiftly away.
He heard her stand to soap her body. He placed a pillow over his head, closed his eyes again and tried to think about something else.
He sat up, lit a candle, reached for his jacket and pulled out the photograph. Martha’s lithe body appeared arched, her breasts high and proud.
His hand would not steady so he sat up and placed the picture on the bed. He tried to look past the supple limbs and luminous skin. The edge of a briefcase was visible, perched on a mahogany chair, and a pile of rumpled sheets. It looked like the chair he’d seen in Matsell’s suite at the Plaza, but it was hard to be sure. In one corner he made out the tip of a man’s shoe and the turn-up on his pants.
He closed his eyes briefly, then looked again. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. There had been at least two men in that room.
He put the photograph on the floor and lit another candle. He looked in the dark corners and made out something else: the tips of a pair of fingers on the far side of the bed.
Three men …
His gaze returned to the centre of the frame. Her eyes were closed, lips parted. A sheen of sweat glistened between her breasts. The jersey suit spilled onto the floor. A buckle hung loose on her garter belt. He heard Moe’s voice: ‘None of you’ll ever turn her into the Virgin Mary.’
Quinn put the photograph face down on the chair beside him.
He stood and moved to the door, then slipped quietly into the main room.
She was kneeling in the bath, visible through a slit in the curtains. She rinsed her shoulders, half in profile, her hair matted and damp, the curve of a breast glowing in the candlelight.
She turned slowly. Her hand fell from her shoulder as her eyes met his.
Neither moved.
There was a shout from the stairs, distant, but enough to shatter the spell. Quinn snapped around and walked away. He shut his bedroom door and lay on the bed again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS NOT A WARM NIGHT, BUT THE AIR WAS CLOSE. HE HEARD Martha drain the bath and tidy the apartment before she retired to the small bedroom next to his. Once or twice a soft footfall strayed close to his door. He imagined her lying only a few feet from him, on the other side of the wall.
He got up and tugged back the curtain. A man smoked a cigar and stared up at the clear night sky from the outside stairwell of the buildi
ng opposite. Quinn drew up his own window and climbed up to the roof. A gust of wind tugged at a line of washing. Sheets flapped. He sensed movement. ‘Sarah!’ He caught the girl as she tried to bolt out of the rear of her makeshift shelter alongside the skylight. She didn’t have the grace to look ashamed. ‘I thought we had a deal.’
Defensive brown eyes beneath a thick mop of hair gazed up at him. ‘I don’t like Mrs Brackenridge.’ Mrs Brackenridge was the large class teacher who liked to stroke her breast while reading Hiawatha.
‘Martha will kill us both,’ Quinn said. The deal had been that Sarah went to school during the day and stayed at the orphanage on week nights so that they could officially sign her out at weekends. ‘Why didn’t you go?’
‘I did.’
‘Then why didn’t you stay?’
‘I don’t like her.’
‘We’ve had this conversation.’ At least a dozen times, Quinn thought.
Sarah didn’t answer and Quinn met her blank stare with barely concealed irritation. Martha had found Sarah trying to sell herself on the Bowery. After three months at the refuge, she had registered with an orphanage from which she constantly ran away. So, unless she was stealing roasted potatoes – mickies – from the Irish boys along Seventh, or following Martha around town like a shadow, she was mostly to be found in the shelter she had built for herself up on the roof.
‘What are you going to do tonight?’ he asked.
‘I’ll stay here.’
‘You can’t. It’s sure to rain again.’ Quinn grabbed her tattered sweater. It was soaked. ‘Martha will go crazy. I’ll have to take you back to the orphanage.’
‘No!’
‘Sarah, it’s been raining all day. It’s wet as hell up here.’
‘I’ll go to school tomorrow.’
‘You’ve broken that promise a million times.’
‘I’ll keep it this time.’
‘You didn’t this morning.’
‘I will so!’
Quinn sighed.
‘Maybe we could go out to Coney Island tomorrow,’ she said.