by Michael Mayo
I wasn’t sure how much to tell, so I just started where we left off. “After I called your precinct, Trodache called back and asked for the money. We had a little back and forth and agreed that Abramson and I would take the six Gs to an address up on Fifth Avenue—900 Fifth.”
Ellis opened his eyes and sat up. He knew that wasn’t a neighborhood where extortion payoffs were the order of the day.
“Turned out to be one of those mansions that takes up the best part of the block. Looked pretty good inside, too, but the funny thing was, the place was almost empty. And you know what else is funny? Peter Wilcox lives there. Yeah, the banker. I didn’t see him there. Radio and newspapers say he’s down in Washington for the inauguration, so maybe he let some friends stay the night. Anyway, Trodache was there along with a weird younger guy who acted like he was in charge. He took the money, promised that he’d get rid of the pictures, and that was that. Actually, there was a little more to it, but when I told the lawyers and Miss Wray what happened, they were happy.”
Ellis just stared at me for a long time, and said, “Peter Wilcox. The Ashton-Wilcox Peter Wilcox? You’re sure about that? Christ, if somebody like that is involved in this, you’ve got to get the hell away from it right now. I sure as hell am. It’s not worth my career, and that’s what we’re talking about.” He took a jolt of gin.
“And there’s something else,” I said. “You know the Wilcox Foundation for Wayward Girls?”
“Oh, Christ, don’t tell me that’s part of this.”
“I think so. You see, that book of dirty pictures of the girl who looks like Miss Wray? Well, it looks like the book was printed up to promote a stag movie. And there was this goat—”
“Oh, hell, don’t say that. Don’t say anything else about Peter Wilcox or stag movies.” He got up and pointed at me. “Dirty pictures are one thing, but movies, that’s something else to Captain Boatwright. With pictures, he’s happy enough to look the other way, but not movies. Not with him and the monsignor.”
Yeah, I knew that. Boatwright was asshole buddies with Monsignor McCaffrey. He was the department chaplain, and he was also the biggest and loudest “antivice” crusader in the damn city. Nothing set him off like racy magazines and moving pictures. Everybody knew he hated them more than hookers. He’d really bust a gasket over a stag movie.
Ellis said, “Lemme tell you how this works. The actress gets her tit in a wringer when she takes a gander at the pictures, so she calls some executive at RKO. The executive calls some assistant commissioner he knows at the department, hell, maybe Commissioner Mulrooney himself for all I know. Yeah, he tells Mulrooney to do something about it without the press getting wind of it. Since this is happening in Manhattan, it comes down to Captain Boatwright because they all know that Boatwright will give it to me, and whatever it turns out to be, I will make sure that the department is not embarrassed. And now you’re trying to drag Peter Wilcox and dirty movies into it. Shit, shit, shit.”
He muttered something I couldn’t understand to himself and said, “But the RKO lawyers were happy with what you told them last night, you said that. And the actress, she was happy too, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No ‘yeah, but.’ Stop right there. Forget about Wilcox and a stag picture. Can I go back to Boatwright and tell the son of a bitch that this situation has been taken care of to everyone’s satisfaction? The next word out of your mouth better be ‘yes.’”
“Yes, but—”
“What the hell did I just say? No ‘yes, but,’ just ‘yes.’ Know when to shut up, Quinn. Look, remember the other night when you were bitching about the Fire Department inspector who wanted fifty bucks just to show up? Well, if I can tell this inspector that you were involved in doing a personal favor for the commissioner, he might, might, lower his price, and the same goes for the dozen other guys whose palms are going to be crossed with silver if you expect to go legit with this place. You following me on this?”
I nodded.
“So can I tell Captain Boatwright that this matter has been taken care of? And the next time the commissioner is hobnobbing with these guys from RKO, they are going to shake his hand and thank him for handling it so discreetly? Can I tell him that?”
Knowing that somehow I was doing the wrong thing, I said, “Yes.”
Ellis’s smile widened, and he poured himself more gin.
Things stayed quiet for the rest of Saturday night. By then, everybody had had their fill of the inauguration news, so somebody found a station on the radio that was playing dance music. They moved the tables off the little dance floor, and a few people actually danced. That didn’t happen often.
Sometime after midnight I got Bobby’s picture book out of the safe and went down to the cellar to find Arch Malloy. He was still working through The Story of Philosophy. I told him to find a couple of clean glasses and the dark Bacardi’s we’d opened the night before. He said something about this being the best job a man could ever have and hopped to it.
As he poured, he said, “I’m afraid I’ve not learned much in my research. Peter Wilcox, as everyone knows, has been a moving force in municipal affairs for several years. He has been part of every good government group that has attempted to right the most egregious wrongs that this metropolis produces with such proficiency. Some say he’s trying to make up for his father who never gave a banker’s damn for anything except money and the pleasures of the flesh.”
Arch produced a handful of paper from his coat pocket and sorted through pages from a notebook, pencil-scrawled scraps of napkins, and newspaper clippings. “Since Peter Wilcox took over the bank, he has endowed libraries, hospitals, universities, and the like. He gives money to other rich people, and all of them feel better about it.”
We could hear faint music from the radio and the scuff of feet moving and the floor squeaking above us. It sounded like people having a good time.
“What about Mary Wilcox?” I asked.
“She was Mary Ashton, daughter of Richard Ashton, Learned Wilcox’s partner. It’s been said, and there is certainly some truth to it, that Learned pressed for Mary and Peter to marry when he learned that Ashton was dying. It was certainly a wise financial move, more a marriage of convenience than anything else. They lived separate lives, and she was never as socially active as her husband.”
“Is that so? Last night, Saxon Dunbar told me that she was a real party girl. Scandalized high society by screwing around until her husband put a stop to it.”
Arch was dubious. “He may have better sources than I do, but that’s not the way I heard it. From what I’ve found, she was a shy, sickly child. Even after she was married, she wasn’t one to be seen in public. Constantly under the care of doctors and specialists, even Dr. Freud’s minions.”
“She died a few months ago, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Not much was made of it because she’d been in the hospital for more than a year. There were whispers of suicide, but I was more interested in her husband. Do you want me to do more?”
“No. What about a brother?”
“There is none. Peter and Mary had a son, Peter Jr. He attends Yale like all the Wilcox men. Only sixteen, too. Must be a bright lad.”
I wondered if that could’ve been the guy I saw the day before.
“Okay, last night, I was up at this big pile of bricks on Fifth Avenue. Cabbie said it belonged to Peter Wilcox. Do you know if he lives there?”
“No. It’s his house, or his father’s house, I suppose. Peter Wilcox grew up there, but as soon as he took over at the bank, he built an estate out on Long Island and now the entire family lives there. He’s also got a summer house on the Hudson and places in London and Paris. Perhaps if you could tell me why you’re interested in Mr. Wilcox and his wife and this theoretical brother, I might be more useful.”
“Looks like he’s financing stag movies on the side. You see, I ran into this guy I used to know, and he says he makes the best dirty movies in the world, and he’s got
a silent partner who finances him. This guy offered a girl a part in one of these movies, and she describes somebody who sounds a lot like Peter Wilcox as the guy who had to say yes before she got the job.”
Arch got a lot more interested when I mentioned stag movies. He took a sip of rum and said, “And does that explain the presence of the dazzling blonde who waited for you in your office and then had a tête-à-tête with Miss Nix?”
“In a nutshell, yeah.”
Arch volunteered to look much more deeply into the subject. I told him that could wait and asked if he’d found anything about sacrificing goats.
He said, “It’s common as dirt in the Old Testament. God and his magnificent angels are forever ordering some poor sod to sacrifice a goat and seven ewes to have a sin forgiven or to please the just and merciful deity, or as a reward for not killing a son as the same deity had previously demanded. And since you bring up stag movies, goats also bring to mind the mythical satyr, a creature who was said to be half man, half goat.”
“You mean those guys with the hairy legs and little horns and the funny pipes.”
“Exactly. They were said to be sexually insatiable, hence the term ‘satyriasis.’”
“Horny as a billy goat?”
“Indeed.”
“But those were back in Bible times. What about now?”
“I’m sure that heathen Hindoos and Mohammedans might still employ such barbaric rituals. And the Haitian voodoo cults hold similar beliefs, though their gods prefer chickens, I believe.”
He didn’t say anything else for a moment. Then, “I must ask what these lines of inquiry have to do with each other, because I have to believe they are related.”
“Yeah, they are.” I gave him another knock of rum and tried to explain, starting with Miss Wray coming in Thursday evening, but leaving out the parts about Miss Wray’s marriage, my business with Lansky, and the like. I gave him the book to show him what I was talking about. He made a study of it, and his eyes widened when he got to the last page with Nola on the giant hand.
He handed the book back and said, “That young woman has certainly been blessed. I think we should take another knock in her honor.” We did.
I said, “I could walk away from this if it wasn’t for the damn goat.”
“Let’s leave that aside for the moment. Given everything else that you’ve seen, we can conclude or surmise that the premiere of Mr. Apollinaire’s film will take place sometime after Peter Wilcox returns from Washington. We can further suppose that Apollinaire wants his star to make an appearance at that time, just like the RKO fellows wanted Miss Wray to be here. Agreed?”
I said yes.
“But since he asked if you knew her whereabouts, he has lost contact with her, and that might interfere with his plans for the film. And it seems likely that this young man who may be Peter Wilcox Jr. means to do his father harm. Since he managed to lay hands on a copy of the book, he probably knows about the film and he might be planning to do something at the premiere.”
We were working on that when the sound of dancing upstairs stopped. Then we heard loud voices, yelling, and furniture hitting the floor. By the time we got upstairs, Frenchy had broken up the fight. Fat Joe was tossing both guys outside. The girl they were fighting over had taken one in the kisser and wasn’t too happy about it. That killed the mood for the night, so we closed down pretty soon.
Connie was quiet as we cleaned up, and when we walked back to the Chelsea, I tried one more time to figure out what was wrong. “I don’t understand why you’re acting like this.”
Sounding thoughtful, she said, “It’s not you. I think I’ve had the wrong idea about a lot of things and I’m trying to straighten them out.”
“Daphne help you with that?”
She gave me one of those quizzical looks and said, “You know, I think she did.”
We got to her room on the fifth floor, and I saw there was a folded card wedged between her door and the jamb. When she opened it, I saw blue lettering. It was one of Bobby’s AOS cards. Whatever he’d written on it made her smile.
She said good night and hurried inside.
I went downstairs to my room and found one of his cards there, too. It said: “Got your message. Come up to the workshop.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As I rapped on the door of 618 with my stick, I thought that Bobby might not be too happy about my visiting his studio. I was right. He was sore as a boil.
The first thing he said when I came in was, “What the fuck were you doing in my place?”
I held the stick in both hands, easy, light, not threatening. I don’t think he knew what I could do with it. “Don’t get so hot under the collar, I just wanted to see where you made your masterpiece, that’s all. I was in the neighborhood. Didn’t steal anything either.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like anybody getting in my business, you know. I didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with that shithead Trodache, so you got no reason to be in my place.”
He was pretty steamed all right, but I figured it was bluster. Bobby was a lover not a fighter. “Simmer down,” I said. “The business with Miss Wray is finished. Or I think it is. You see, there is one part that I still haven’t figured out and maybe you can set me straight.”
He calmed down and said “yeah” like he didn’t want to hear what I was going to say.
I took a seat in the rolling chair and kept the stick across my lap. I looked past Bobby at the shelves and noticed that the masks that had been stacked up there were gone. So were the boxes of books. “Last night you said you’ve got a rich guy who bankrolls your pictures. Tell me about him.”
He tried to laugh it off, but I could tell the idea scared him. “Why the hell would I tell you anything about him? You think I’m going to let you horn in on my action? This pigeon’s mine, forget about it.”
“I know who he is. I just want to be sure Trodache isn’t working for him.”
“You know who he is, my ass.” It didn’t come across as cocksure as Bobby was trying to sound.
“His name is Peter Wilcox—”
Bobby cursed at the name and rushed at me. I came up out of the chair and gave him a quick two-handed jab to the gut with the rubber tip of the stick. It stopped him cold, and took the wind out of him, but didn’t really hurt.
He staggered back a step, rubbed his gut, and glared.
“Come on, Bobby, there’s no need for this. As I was saying, his name is Peter Wilcox, and he used to live in a fancy place up on Fifth where I met Trodache and another guy last night and gave them the studio’s money.”
“Whaddayamean it’s Wilcox’s place,” he grunted, still trying to lie. “I don’t know nothing about that, and I don’t know no Wilcox.”
“The hell you don’t. What did Trodache do for you?”
“He said he had the goods on the best whores in the city and they’d do whatever he told them, but he couldn’t produce shit. Only work he did was stay on the roof to keep kids and guys away from the skylight when we were shooting—until I caught him taking money from the fucking Chinks to let ’em up there.”
“What about the kid with him.”
“That’s his nephew or cousin or something, I don’t know. He just hung around with Trodache. I never paid him.”
“What about the other guy, the one who says he’s Wilcox’s brother? He’s got a big Oldsmobile.”
That surprised him. “Yeah, Wilcox has an Olds town car, but he never uses it. It’s his wife’s.”
When he said that, I tried to remember the first night that Trodache and the kid showed up in the Olds. Was there a chauffeur driving? I’d been thinking that Trodache was behind the wheel, but there was plenty of room for three in the backseat.
“None of this shit has anything to do with me and the picture. I don’t know how those guys got a copy of the book, and I don’t have time to worry about that now,” he said, swaggering around and getting himself worked up again. “Like I said, I don’t like people
getting in my business. I’m serious, I’ve got a lot riding on the next twenty-four hours. Stay out of my way.”
Then he got a shifty look on his mug, like there was something he was holding back or trying to hide. It had to be Connie. He could probably read me well enough to see that I wasn’t buying it.
“I told you I got no interest in your business. If your pictures are as good as you say, I wouldn’t mind taking a look at one of ’em.”
His expression changed then. The Vandyke didn’t hide his smile, and he was thinking he had me where he wanted me. He said, “I don’t give away samples, but for you, for old time’s sake, I’ll make an exception. But not now. I’ve got too much to do. Talk to me in a week.”
I leaned back in the chair. “I’m not interested in handouts. Let’s trade. Come by my place, you and your little Honeybunch. Dinner at the Cruzon Grill and drinks at the speak. On the house.”
He laughed a nasty laugh and said, “Honeybunch, yeah, you can dress her up but you can’t take her out. She don’t know how to act around polite society. But she makes up for it, believe me, she makes up for it. You want a piece of that, you know where she is.”
I stood up and we walked to the door. “Look, I didn’t mean to give you a hard time by visiting your place in Chinatown. It was just that after you mentioned it, I had half an idea that I knew where it was, and since I promised Miss Wray that I’d try to find Nola Revere, I thought I’d take a look there. Speaking of that, do you still want to talk to her?”