by Michael Mayo
There were a lot of lights and screens mounted on metal stands facing the hand, and a wheeled platform with a tripod that looked like it was meant for a camera. Four fake tree trunks with leafy branches were behind the hand and there was a canvas flat painted to look like a jungle behind the tree trunks.
The fake stone columns that Nola Revere had been tied to were on their sides against one wall. I could see that they were made of canvas and plywood tacked to two-by-fours. The little table and a section of the wall in the diner scene were on the other side of the jungle flat. The white shower stall was in a corner.
At the end of the workbench was a mirror with lights around it and a lot of cosmetics.
I walked around, looking at all of it, and I realized that Bobby must have shot the whole picture right there. The backgrounds and props for all the photographs I’d seen in the book were in that room. Except for the one he took on top of the Empire State Building. How did that figure in?
You see, the one thing Bobby told me the night before that I didn’t believe was that he made his movies in a Chinatown loft. I believed he was telling the truth when he said that the book was a come-on to get guys worked up over his next picture, just like the real movie guys did. But if he shot moving pictures of those scenes, how could he do it in one place? That seemed impossible to me. Now I knew, and I felt like a dope.
I tore a page from my notebook, went over to the makeup mirror, and wrote him a note.
Bobby,
Nice place. Hope to see one of your pictures real soon.
—J
I turned the mirror lights on so he’d notice the note and slid it between the mirror and the frame. Give him something to think about next time he came by. I was patting myself on the back for being such a clever son of a bitch when I noticed the dress.
It was a filmy thing crumpled up on the stool in front of the mirror. Light blue with a gold braided rope at the waist. Like the rest of the stuff, it was something I’d seen in the book, in the last picture. Nola Revere was wearing it when she was tied to the pillars and the guy in the gorilla suit was threatening her. The dress had been ripped open at the sleeves and from the neck almost to the hem. When I held it up, I saw that the material in the middle was stuck together in a rusty red knot.
What the hell did that mean? It gave me a nasty, greasy feeling, but at the same time, I knew that everything in that loft was part of an act, a trick to make me think that the phony thing I was seeing was real.
But that didn’t make my stomach feel any better. I took one more look around the place and left.
Back on the landing, the old man charged me another five to relock the door. Maybe I didn’t need to do it but, hell, a little breaking and entering between old friends is one thing. Not locking up after yourself is impolite.
Getting out of the place was easier than getting in. We went back through the alley and the open-air market, and from there it was only a couple of blocks to streets I knew. Going back uptown on the El, I thought over the stuff I’d seen in the loft and everything Bobby said the night before. I could see how most of it was part of the same story.
Bobby went off to Hollywood to learn how to make movies. He came back here as Oscar Apollinaire and impressed his fellow art lover Peter Wilcox to bankroll top-drawer stag films that he copied from popular Hollywood pictures. Somewhere the ex-vice cop Trodache was involved. Maybe he blackmailed women into performing. Then he and Bobby parted company on bad terms. But he still knew about Bobby’s version of Kong, and he got his hands on a copy of the promotional book. When he found out that Miss Wray was going to be in town for the premiere, he used the book to pry six Gs from the RKO guys. But who was the guy in the Fifth Avenue mansion and what did he want? Maybe he was somebody who worked for Wilcox. Or maybe he used to work for Wilcox. Maybe he and Trodache got canned together and were getting back at their old bosses.
I was still working on that when I got off the train and walked back to the speak. I wasn’t dressed for work, but I thought I’d check in before I cleaned up. I was just about to cross Ninth Avenue when I saw the kid, Trodache’s dim-witted partner, on the sidewalk across from my front door. He was wearing an overcoat with the collar turned up, and he had his cap pulled down low over his eyes. Given what I’d done to Trodache the night before, it figured the kid wasn’t there to give me a Good Citizenship award. But, hell, he could wait.
I turned at the corner and went to the alley that runs behind the speak. I let myself in through the back gate and the back door. The crowd was light for a Saturday afternoon. Connie was behind the bar. I went around to the business side where we could talk in private.
“Listen,” I said to her, “tell Fat Joe there’s a kid outside, the same kid who was in here the other night with that guy, you remember, the ones who gave you the willies. Yeah, well, the kid’s hanging around across the street. Tell Fat Joe to keep an eye on him.”
“What if he wants to come in?”
“Not now, maybe later. Anything else?”
“Yes.” She gave me a big phony smile. “Your friend Daphne is waiting in your office.”
Chapter Twenty
Daphne had helped herself to a shot of the absinthe-laced rum. She was sitting on my divan in a tight silvery gray dress that showed off a lot of leg and cleavage. Her hair was done up more than it had been at her place on Gay Street. But she wasn’t giving me the full treatment that had made her so popular when she was at Polly’s. I took off my hat and coat and sat behind my desk and enjoyed the view.
Daphne knocked back half the rum. “She’s in trouble, isn’t she? Nola. What the hell’s going on, really going on?”
“Why don’t you have a drink, Daphne? Oh, I see you already got one. I told you what’s going on. Nola posed for some dirty pictures. Some people wanted to know more about them and they hired me to look into it. I did.”
“No, there’s more to it than that. I talked to Cynthia at Polly’s. She says the pictures have something to do with that moving picture everybody’s talking about, the jungle movie. What gives?”
She wasn’t slurring her words, but I thought she probably wasn’t used to anything as strong as the rum, and she was taking it neat. Most of the times I’d seen Daphne drinking, she had wine, and most of that was at Polly’s, so it was probably apple juice.
I said, “It’s hard to explain. Let me show you,” and opened the safe. I took out the book and sat next to her on the divan as she looked through it. She flipped through the pages fast, her eyes wide, and when she finished, she tossed it onto the table like it was burning her fingers. “I’ll be screwed, blued, and tattooed, the son of bitch Apollinaire got her to do it.”
“Yeah, that’s what it looks like. A couple of guys had the idea that she looked so much like the actress in the big movie that they could threaten the studio with bad publicity if these pictures ever got out.”
Daphne snorted. “That’s ridiculous. She doesn’t look anything like Fay Wray. I do, but she doesn’t, that’s why he wanted me first.”
“Sure it is. The guy behind it is an ex-vice cop named Trodache. Know him?”
“Only by reputation. The cocksucker got canned two or three years ago. Does he have anything to do with Nola?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. I got the idea he doesn’t know who she is. He really believes the girl in the book is Fay Wray, from the real movie. Do you know where Nola is?”
“No, that’s why I came here, to find out what you know.”
Daphne said that after I left her place, she started worrying about Nola. She hadn’t really thought about her since she moved to Gay Street, but after what I said, she got guilty about it. She and Nola had been close. Even if Nola left the city, she’d let Daphne know about it. But Daphne moved out of Polly’s about the same time Nola left, so maybe the girl didn’t know how to get in touch. But when Daphne talked to Cynthia, she learned that nobody had heard anything from Nola. Then Cynthia told Daphne she’d figured out that the dirty pict
ures I showed her had something to do with King Kong, and Daphne got more worried.
“Now, after looking at the book, I’m really scared. What if Oscar didn’t tell her about screwing the nigger until it was too late? What would he do to her?” She looked and sounded like she really was concerned for Nola. Until then, I’d figured she was trying to play an angle I didn’t understand, but that wasn’t it.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I said, “not all of it anyway, but maybe I can help you. You said this Oscar Apollinaire took you to see his ‘silent partner’ in the Grand Central Building. Tell me everything you can remember about that day, the guy, the meeting, everything. First, was he a young guy or was he older?”
“Older. He didn’t say much, but his voice was deep and he was . . . assured and confident. Whoever he is, he’s used to giving orders and getting what he wants.”
“There’s a younger guy involved, too, who’s sort of like the guy you described, at least with the round glasses. Looks like Trodache is doing what this fella tells him to do. That mean anything to you?”
She thought and shook her head.
“Okay,” I said. “Anything more about Oscar Apollinaire? Did you ever see him with Nola?” I didn’t want to tell Daphne about the whole Bobby-becoming-Oscar business. That would only confuse things, and I can’t say that I really understood it myself.
“No, I’ve been thinking about that ever since I talked to Cynthia, and I never saw them together, but there were a lot of nights when I was out on call while Nola stayed in.”
“Did you tell Nola about Apollinaire’s offer?”
“Maybe, but just talking, you know. It happened about a year before I met her, maybe more. Hell, I don’t remember the dates.”
I remembered the date just fine, but again I didn’t say anything. “You said there was a guy who worked at a restaurant who was stuck on Nola and they might have taken off together.”
She leaned back on the divan and said, “That was the first thing I thought of. The place isn’t far from my apartment. I went there before I called Cynthia. The guy’s still there and now he’s moony over another girl. He said he hadn’t seen Nola since the last time we were in together. He even showed me a picture of his new sweetie and, wouldn’t you know it, she’s a ringer for Nola. Same smile, same tits.”
I got up, put the book back in the safe, and poured another tot of rum in Daphne’s glass. I asked her if she knew Peter Wilcox.
“The banker? No.”
“He wasn’t a customer of Polly’s?”
“I never heard her mention him, and when she lets down her hair, Polly can drop names with the best of them.”
“So what are you looking for?” I asked. I suspected the real reason she came uptown to my place was that her sugar daddy hadn’t called and she was lonely on a Saturday night. Hell, that was true for most of my customers, whether they had a sugar daddy or not.
“She’s my friend. I want to be sure she’s okay. When I talked to Cynthia, she said one of the other girls said she thought she saw Nola at Bergdorf’s a month ago. I hope that’s right, because it just makes me sick to think about what Oscar might have done to her. No, don’t give me that look. Nola’s like me. We may be hookers, but we’ve got standards. There’s lines you don’t cross.”
My look had nothing to do with what Nola did. I was thinking about that red stain on the dress. “And why are you coming to see me?”
Daphne smiled, stretched out her legs, and crossed them slow, with a hiss of silk as her stockings rubbed together. “Because you want to find her, too. You want a taste, I can tell. What man wouldn’t, after seeing those pictures?”
“I’m not a detective.”
“But you’re interested.”
I shrugged. “True enough. You gonna pay the freight?”
She squared her shoulders, thinking we were playing on her ground now. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
“One hundred up front,” I said, thinking of Miss Wray’s expenses.
That pissed her off, but she tried not to let it show. “Now, how can you act that way after all that we’ve—”
I laughed. “Don’t bother, Daphne. Come on, we both know the score.”
She started to say something but stopped and her expression changed. “It’s her, isn’t it? The barmaid. Yeah, that makes sense.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, “but here’s what I’ll do. Forget about the hundred. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen with this screwy business, but it ain’t over, I know that much. If I find out anything about Nola, I’ll tell you. If I see her, I’ll tell her to call, okay?”
She stood up and smoothed her tight dress over her hips and cocked her head at me. She wasn’t trying to be sexy. At least, I don’t think she was. She said, “Yeah, that sounds like a square deal.”
I walked to the door with her and said, “One other thing. There may be a kid out on the street. Wearing an overcoat, cap pulled down over his face. He’s working with that shithead Trodache. If he looks like he’s paying any attention to you when you leave, come back inside and . . . No, wait, here’s a better idea. Stick around for a few minutes. Have one on the house and let me take care of him.”
I went up the back stairs to the kitchen of the Cruzon Grill. The cooks were in the middle of their evening work, but one of them took time to slice open a long loaf of bread and load it up with some leftover ham and cheese and a lot of mustard. I had him cut it in half and saved the big end for myself. He wrapped the other part in butcher paper. I put it and a pint of milk in a paper bag and went out the front door of the restaurant.
The kid was still across the street, but he was keeping an eye on the front door of the speak. That was a couple of steps down from the sidewalk. The restaurant was seven steps up. He didn’t notice me until I was in front of him. It was pretty damn cold then, and he was shivering in the threadbare overcoat and cap.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I remembered how he’d eyed my cherry pie in the diner and figured it wouldn’t hurt to confuse him. And I’m embarrassed to say that it was right then that I realized I’d left the Banker’s Special in my coat back in the office. If the kid wanted to play rough, I’d have to beat him up with my stick and a milk bottle.
He flinched back a step when I held the bag out to him, just like he did when Trodache threatened him in the diner. “Go ahead, take it,” I said. “Just a sandwich and a bottle of milk. You look like you need it. I guess Trodache’s got you out here to keep an eye on me. It’s okay. Here, take it.”
The kid was cutting his eyes from side to side like he was trying to decide which way to run. I put the bag on the sidewalk between us and took a step back.
“What’s your name?”
He looked at the bag and back at me. I took another step back and leaned on my stick.
“I don’t know what Trodache told you about last night, but he and the boss got the money. Yeah, the moving picture guys came up with the six thousand.”
He had been eying the bag, but when I said that, his head snapped up.
“The pictures have been taken care of. We’re square, right? Or have you still got some beef with me?”
He snatched up the bag, stepped back, and peeked inside. When he got a whiff of the ham, his lips twitched and he drooled a little, but I could tell he was confused and probably wouldn’t do anything as long as I was there.
I said, “Look, I don’t mind your hanging around. It’s a free country. But the beat cops look out for me and one of the neighbors might complain about you loitering here, you never know. After all, it’s mopery with intent to gawk and they’ll lock you up for that. But that’s none of my business. Just don’t try to come inside. Fat Joe won’t let you in.”
He might have understood half of what I said. When I saw that he wasn’t going to answer, I turned to go, but I thought of something else and turned back.
“One more thing,” I said. “Do you know w
hat your boss did with that goat? Remember that? Yesterday afternoon?”
I stared at him long enough to see that he knew what I was talking about. Finally, he nodded.
“Ask your boss about that. Or go back and take a look for yourself.”
He hesitated some more, then snatched up the bag, and ran. I didn’t see him again that day.
Back inside, I found Daphne at a table with a glass of white wine in front of her. Connie was sitting next to her, and they were so involved in whatever they were talking about they hardly noticed me. I knew I was in trouble.
I went back up to the kitchen for my sandwich, ate in the office, and went back to the Chelsea to get ready for business. I thought a good shower might clear things up, but all I got from it was more questions, most of them about Peter Wilcox. And standing there with the water pelting down on my head, I asked myself why I was doing this. I mean, I already did what we agreed to. I got the money to the guys who wanted it. They said the pictures were gone. The End. But then I took Miss Wray’s expense money and agreed to use the rest of it looking for Nola Revere. But if I spent it, what did that leave me with? Empty pockets. Then there was that goddamn goat. What the hell did that mean? And now Daphne wanted to find Nola, and she was talking to Connie. Things were not looking good for yours truly.
Getting dressed, I went with a medium gray herringbone from Hickey Freeman with a light blue shirt and a black-and-gold-striped tie.
Daphne was gone and Detective Ellis was waiting at the bar when I got back to the speak around seven. It was a light crowd for a Saturday, and the Democrats weren’t as cocky and happy and free with their money as they had been recently. Frenchy chalked it up to the bank holiday. He said that most of the regulars were asking for credit. I said that was fine as long as everybody signed their tabs. Connie and Marie Therese made a point of not looking at me.
Ellis followed me up to the office. He went straight to my liquor and topped off his gin. I didn’t ask if he’d signed a tab. He collapsed onto the divan like he was never going to get up, closed his eyes, and said, “How’d it go last night? Sorry I had to take a powder on you like that, but Captain Boatwright decided that the goddamn bank holiday was a chance for him to show how prepared his men were to deal with emergencies. He assigned uniforms to spring to the defense of every post office, theater, and business that does business in cash, and he let it be known that we’d provide protection to anybody making a goddamn deposit. I had to stop by each one of them all night. Haven’t been home since Thursday, and he’s got me on tomorrow, too. What happened with you?”