The Yankee Club

by Michael Murphy

  “Never seen him before, but I’d recognize the face. He’s got a thin mustache like Ronald Colman, a gap in his front teeth. He dressed like he had plenty of dough, a fancy watch, expensive shoes. I’m a hooker. I have a knack for such things.”

  I laughed.

  “Anyways, that night, just when I thought Paul and I had reached a deal regarding my services, his friend shows up carrying a suitcase.”

  I could guess the contents of the case: a tommy gun.

  She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “They climbed into the car and drove off. I went inside the hotel but didn’t find much action. I looked outside. You and your friend stood talking across the street, and Frankie sat on a bench smoking outside the hotel. The sedan was parked around the corner with two men inside. I went to say something to Frankie, ’cause I had this bad feeling, you know.”

  I nodded.

  “By the time I reach the front door, the car turns the corner and the shooting starts. I slip out the back into the alley and make my way home. I toss a few things in a bag and climb down the fire escape. Been living at the Grand ever since.”

  “Where can I find Paul Cummings?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know where he lives, but I hear he hangs out with a gang that calls themselves Blackshirts.”

  “Blackshirts? Like the thugs who helped Mussolini come to power?”

  “Who’s Mussolini?” Belle grabbed her bag. “Buy me some smokes?”

  “Sure.” I bought her a pack of cigarettes from a shop down the street and hailed a cab. We headed for the Carlyle.

  I lowered my voice so the cabbie couldn’t hear. “You shouldn’t register under Belle Starr. What’s your original name?”

  “Gloria.” She hesitated a moment. “Gloria Rosenberg.”

  “German.”

  She nodded. “And Jewish.”

  At the front desk, she registered under Rosenberg. When I asked the desk clerk to bill the room to me, he raised an eyebrow.

  Belle saw the man’s look. She took the key from the clerk and smiled. “Thanks, Cousin Jake.”

  I stuffed fifty bucks into his hand. “Is this enough to keep you from remembering who’s taking care of her tab?”

  He stuffed the money into his vest pocket. “Who’s tab?”

  I made sure she got to her room, a floor below mine, then took the elevator to my suite. Inside, I flipped on the light. I plopped down at the table and emptied the contents of the cane.

  In spite of my fatigue, I reread each of the articles, trying to get an angle on the focus of Mickey’s investigation.

  I awoke hunched over the table with my face resting on the newspaper articles. An insistent knock sounded at the door. My watch read two a.m. Who could this be? I peeled an article from my cheek and limped toward the door. Stifling a yawn, I yanked open the door.

  “I remembered something important.” Belle Starr stood in the doorway wearing a plain cotton blouse and skirt, hair damp as if she’d recently taken a bath and washed her hair. “You going to invite me in?”

  I stepped back and glanced through the open door toward the bedroom.

  Belle entered and followed my gaze. “What’s the matter, you never had a hooker in your hotel room before?” She gazed around the room and let out a low whistle. “And I thought my room was swell. I’ve seen my share of hotel rooms, but nothing like the Carlyle.”

  “What did you remember?”

  She stepped closer, stared at my face, and chuckled. “For a minute I thought you had a tattoo of Roosevelt on your face.” She took a hankie from her pocket, wiped my cheek, and showed me the ink on the cloth.

  “Thanks.”

  She sat at the table and glanced at the articles. “I thought maybe you clipped coupons.”

  I gathered the articles and stuffed them in my suit coat pocket. I should’ve put them away before answering the door.

  From a pocket in her skirt she pulled a flask with an engraved script B on the front. “You want a drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  Belle took a swallow from the flask. “I couldn’t sleep so I took a bubble bath.” She held her wrist toward my nose.

  I sniffed. “Very … elegant.”

  “Yeah. Anyways, I remembered something about the driver that night. Paul Cummings mentioned he and his Blackshirt friends hang out in a pool hall.”

  “Did he mention the name?”

  “Sorry, but I figured you could ask around. I also did some thinking about how I should go spill my guts to the cops. I can’t live like this. I mean a girl’s gotta work, you know?”

  “Don’t go to the cops on my account.”

  “I’ll sleep on it.” She let out a sigh and headed for the door.

  I held the door open as she stood in the corridor and lit a cigarette. She held out the flask.

  I took a sip. “What’s with you and Frankie?”

  “We go way back.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” I handed the flask back.

  “It’s okay. Frankie and me shared a flat for a few months, but he wanted me to quit the business, like my immigrant parents who always told me America was the land of opportunity. They wasn’t kiddin’. I like fancy clothes and other things the dough buys. One night, Frankie and me had it out, and he took off. A year later he moved in with a telephone operator. A real straight arrow. You meet Edith?”

  “No.”

  “She’s okay. Doesn’t like me much, but most dames don’t.”

  Belle took a step toward the stairs. Before I could close the door, she patted my face and shook her head. “She shouldn’t have let you get away.”

  She? Who was Belle talking about? Laura?

  “Sweetie, I don’t know who she was, but I know men. I know when they’re carrying a torch for a dame, and you got it bad.”

  The next morning I bolted upright in bed, awakened by another round of pounding on my hotel room door. I slipped into my robe, grabbed my cane, and opened the door. My day wasn’t off to a blazing start. “Detective Hawkins. Inspector Stone.”

  Both men pushed past me into the room.

  “Won’t you come in?”

  “Get dressed.” Hawkins gave an order, not a request, then barged into the bedroom.

  “Mind if we look around?” Stone opened a drawer beneath the empty table where I’d displayed the articles.

  “Be my guest.” Angry and frustrated at once again being treated like a suspect instead of a victim, I held my tongue and went into the bedroom to get dressed. While Hawkins searched the room, I changed into a suit. I straightened my tie and grabbed my hat. “What are you after?”

  The detective ignored the question and led me to the door.

  “The silent treatment. That works for me.”

  Five minutes later I rode in the backseat of their sedan headed who knows where. While Hawkins drove, Stone glanced at me over the front seat. “You musta been in quite a hurry to get out of the hospital.”

  “I’m a quick healer.”

  Hawkins gazed at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I left a message for you yesterday,” I told him.

  “That’s funny. I called you, too, only you weren’t in. What did you want?”

  “To tell you you’re wasting your time searching for Jimmy Vales.”

  Hawkins glanced at his partner. We rode the rest of the way in silence. The two men were hiding a secret I felt certain I’d learn when we arrived at our destination.

  We parked in front of the hotel across the street from Mickey’s office. Hawkins flashed his badge to a uniformed cop and the three of us entered the alley. Two more cops waited beside a trash can. One, just a kid, appeared queasy while the other acted like he encountered dead bodies once a week. Maybe he did.

  I kicked aside a rotten head of cabbage. A sour smell engulfed me from garbage spilled out of overstuffed trash cans. Two feet stuck out from behind the trash can. A man in a brown suit lay facedown on the pavement. I knew the body was Jimmy Vales before I saw his fa
ce.

  Stone didn’t try to hide a smirk. “Someone plugged Jimmy last night.”

  “I’m not the someone.”

  A cat skittered from the corner, ran past me, and disappeared beneath a stack of wooden crates. Using a pencil, Stone picked up a revolver. “A Colt. Mickey used to keep a couple of these around the office.”

  Hawkins gave me a sneer. “We showed your book-cover photo to some people in the hotel. They said you and Frankie Malzone were snooping around yesterday looking for a hooker named Belle Starr. Someone spotted you in a soup kitchen last night with a dame. Guess you know how to show a girl a good time.”

  I didn’t like being the subject of a baseless police investigation. I nodded toward the body. “Gentlemen, I had nothing to do with this.”

  Hawkins flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “I understand Jimmy paid you a visit at The Diamond House yesterday. The manager told us Jimmy threatened you with a shard from a mirror he shattered.”

  “He hardly threatened me. The man didn’t like to be accused of murder when he didn’t commit one.” I nodded toward the dead man. “I know the feeling.”

  For the first time, a flicker of sympathy crossed the detective’s face. “The bum threatened you at The Yankee Club and again at The Diamond House. If you plugged him last night, it would be self-defense—”

  “Self-defense? The bullet entered the back of his head.” With my leg protesting, I eased down and inspected the body. “No powder around the entry wound, so the shooter stood several feet behind him.”

  Stone nudged his partner. “Look at this guy, a regular Dick Tracy.”

  I lifted Jimmy’s arm with my cane. It flopped down on the pavement. “Rigor mortis hasn’t set in, so he’s been dead less than three hours.” I checked my watch. “Of course, you’re the experts, but that would probably put the shooting around four or five this morning, a time when I was fast asleep at the Carlyle.”

  The two beat cops looked convinced, but Hawkins and Stone appeared unimpressed.

  Stone’s brow furrowed. “So?”

  “So … I stopped by the neighborhood last night, but I returned to the Carlyle around midnight. You can check with the doorman.”

  Hawkins glanced at the notebook. “We already did. Your alibi doesn’t hold water.”

  “Alibi.” I struggled to my feet, words sputtering. “It’s not an alibi. I’m telling you where I was last night and this morning when someone shot Jimmy.”

  “Someone with a motive,” Stone said.

  Jimmy had plenty of enemies, and both men knew it. “Someone who wanted you to think I did it.”

  Stone bent down for a closer look at the shot to the back of Jimmy’s head. “You coulda left the Carlyle, plugged Jimmy, and got back without anyone seeing you.”

  I pointed to the scuff marks on the toes of the dead man’s shoes. “Whoever shot him dragged Jimmy to the trash can so people passing by might not notice him right away.” I followed a trail of two faint marks on the pavement. “He was shot … there.” I gestured toward a smear of blood near the door to the hotel kitchen.

  Stone’s knees cracked as he rose. “So you shot him there and dragged the body behind the trash can so you could get away, ’cause you don’t move so fast anymore.”

  I lost all patience with the two geniuses. “How much do you think Jimmy weighed? Two fifty? I can see both of you are in fighting trim shape, but I spend most of my days in front of a typewriter. Even if I hadn’t been shot three days ago, I’d have struggled to drag the body.”

  Hawkins shrugged. “Maybe Frankie helped you move Jimmy to the trash can.”

  “I haven’t seen Frankie since around six last night when he dropped me off at the Carlyle. He went home to his … girlfriend, Edith.” I hoped.

  Hawkins’s eyes followed the trail of scuff marks. “You and the dame at the soup kitchen could have dragged the body.”

  “Now you’re just making things up.” I stepped closer to Stone trying to control my temper. “You were Mickey’s friend. He deserves better than this kind of Keystone Cops investigation.”

  Hawkins grabbed my arm and yanked me away from his partner. “You can’t talk to us like that.”

  Doubt flickered across Stone’s face. “Who’s the dame in the soup kitchen?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Hawkins thumped a finger against my chest. “Maybe you’ll come clean downtown.”

  “I’m as clean as a new bar of soap.”

  The two uniformed cops chuckled.

  Hawkins aimed his finger at me. “Who’s the dame!”

  “A client.”

  Stone snorted with laughter. “A writer client?”

  “A detective client. I still have my license.”

  Hawkins stepped so close the bacon he’d had for breakfast made me remember I hadn’t had breakfast. “I warned you about interfering with a homicide investigation, Donovan.”

  “You targeted Jimmy Vales. I’m taking another angle. I’ve got fifty bucks says I find Mickey’s killer before you.” I turned to the two cops guarding the crime scene. “You want in on this action?” When they shook their heads, I laughed. “Even your cop pals won’t put money on you.”

  “Wise guy.” Hawkins spit a wad of saliva beside my feet.

  I’d had just about enough. “I’m doing your job by finding who really killed Mickey. Who killed Jimmy Vales? You’ll have to solve that one.”

  Hawkins stuffed the notebook in his suit coat pocket. “We’ll talk to Frankie Malzone, but we got plenty more questions for you down at the station house. I hope you don’t have any plans today.”

  “The theater this evening.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. Let’s go.”

  “Some pretty important people will be disappointed if I don’t show, but that’s your call.” The two men led me back up the alley toward their car. I wasn’t optimistic about attending the final performance of Laura’s play.

  Chapter 6

  Poker and Chess

  During my gumshoe days, homicide detectives mostly fell into three categories: pros dedicated to solving crimes and arresting killers, ambitious men seeking to further their careers by racking up convictions, and burned-out detectives waiting to retire. A fourth category existed that no one talked much about—cops on the take.

  With my cane propped in the corner, I sat on an uncomfortable wooden chair in a drab olive-green interrogation room across the table from Detective Hawkins. He slid his chair back and paced the black-and-white checkered floor.

  His expensive herringbone suit, well-polished shoes, and dapper thin mustache placed Hawkins in the ambitious category. As the hours dragged by, however, his meticulous appearance deteriorated. In the first hour of questioning, he loosened his tie. An hour later, he draped his suit coat over a chair, and sweat stains showed on his white starched shirt.

  Hawkins referred to his notebook, asking the same questions in different ways. In spite of my frustration and growing dislike for the detective, I maintained my composure. As a Pinkerton, I’d been interrogated plenty by local cops who resented my presence. Their faces often held the same disdain now on Hawkins’s mug.

  He dropped into the chair again and flipped through his trusty notebook, mumbling to himself. He rapped on the table with the large ring on his right hand. I looked closer. NYU. Not many cops went to college.

  I checked my watch. Just after noon. “What’s for lunch?”

  With career advancement in his eyes, he again listed the evidence against me as if I should just confess and save everyone time. “Far as we know you were the last person to see Jimmy Vales alive at The Diamond House.”

  “Me and dozens of others who witnessed him run from the men’s room.”

  He flipped to another page. “We traced the weapon found at the crime scene. Five years ago, when you and Mickey O’Brien shared an office, he purchased the Colt used to kill Jimmy Vales.”

  Whoever broke into Mickey’s office and trashed the p
lace took his guns and shot Jimmy Vales, making it look like I was the shooter.

  One corner of Hawkins’s mouth twisted into the smug expression I’d become so fond of. “A cabdriver said he picked you up from the hospital and drove you to Mickey’s office. The next day we find the place ransacked and the three guns Mickey owned missing.”

  “I didn’t take Mickey’s guns.” Laura could confirm the handguns were missing by the time I arrived, but I refused to bring her into my problems. “I also didn’t drag Jimmy to the trash can and leave the incriminating weapon. Are we through yet?”

  Hawkins aimed his finger at me. “We’re finished when I say we’re finished.”

  “You’re picturing newspaper headlines over a story about you arresting Jake Donovan, a murder-mystery novelist, for a real murder. Your buddies, if you have buddies, will buy you drinks, and women might even invite you up for coffee. You’ll be having lunch with the captain instead of sharing hot dogs with Stone.”

  “Show some respect. You think Stone and I are a couple of beer-swilling, hot-dog-eating flatfoots.” He slammed his palms on the table. “What were you doing in Mickey O’Brien’s office?”

  I wasn’t about to tell Hawkins about the locker key or Oliver Greenwoody’s hotel phone number. “Packing up his personal effects.”

  A bubble of spit hung on his lip. “I could arrest you right now with what I have.”

  I knew a bluff when I saw one. He’d make a terrible poker player. “You’ll be walking a beat in Flatbush within a week after your lieutenant finds out someone broke into Mickey’s office and snatched the guns before I arrived. The hotel can confirm I was in my room when Jimmy’s murder took place.”

  Hawkins lunged across the table and grabbed my lapels. He let go as the door opened.

  Stone came in munching on a hot dog. I smoothed my suit coat as he tossed a dog wrapped in paper to Hawkins. “Ketchup, no mustard, like always.”

  “No thanks,” his partner barked back.

  “Suit yourself.” Stone slid the hot dog toward me.

  I hadn’t eaten all day. The dog smelled wonderful, but I’d never met a New Yorker who put ketchup on a hot dog.

  After unwrapping the paper, I wiped off as much of the tomato goo as I could with the wrapper. The first bite made me realize how much I missed New York food and the simple things of my previous life.