Criminal Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  “You like that car,” I say.

  “That’s quite a house pet. I’d sure like to get to know its master. That kind of cash and taste, my troubles would be over.”

  It never fails: beautiful women rip your good sense to shreds. Celeste’s life may be in danger, but that doesn’t stop her from looking for any profitable angle. My good sense tells me to get what I need to know from this woman of dubious intentions and slick charms, then send her packing to fend for herself.

  Fat chance. Her big brown eyes and the temptations that live inside them have shredded my good sense to a pulp.

  I don’t tell her the Buick is mine, or that I’m thinking about trading it in for a newer, even more expensive model. There’s no sense in letting Celeste’s hooks bite deeper into me than they already have. All I say is, “Let’s go.”

  We walk out the back door into the zigzag of alleys behind the garage. The bellow of ships’ horns and the clang of buoy bells drift over from the docks. To an outsider, the sounds of the docks are nothing but noise from the rough side of town, where these dark alleyways seem impenetrable and threatening. To me, the dockside noises are the music of my life, and these alleys are a cozy path to my private Eden.

  Chapter Ten

  I’m taking the one risk I swore I’d never take: letting an outsider into my smuggler’s lair. Bringing Celeste to my office is a dangerous risk to my business, but I can’t guarantee her safety anywhere else, not even at Sophie’s apartment. And I can’t bring Celeste to Sophie’s apartment anyway. The place has too many memories. Memories of nights with Sophie and memories of crazy nights without her, nights I’d pace around the living room drowning in a bottle of scotch, trying to figure out what the hell happened to her, not knowing if she’s alive or dead.

  There’s no place for Celeste in those memories.

  So there’s no other choice. I have to risk Celeste stumbling across the basement door to my vault of treasures, or the more likely possibility that she’ll blab my secret some night to the next danger boy who promises her the high life. At least she’ll be alive to blab.

  Judson’s on the phone at his desk when we walk in. From the snatch of conversation I hear, I figure he’s talking to his pal the sound expert. “Right, just that watery sound and that grinding metal…Look, I know it’s secondhand from a cab radio through a phone but it’s all I got…Yeah, uh-huh…Okay, get back to me when you know something.” He hangs up and dials another number as Celeste and I walk by and into my private office, leaving Judson to his finaglings. He’s got his hands full, keeping tabs on Gregory Ortine and pulling every string in town to find out where Loreale’s stashed Rosie.

  But it’s Celeste who’s got me by the pants leg right now, and she won’t let go until she gets what she wants: safe passage out of town and the sweet taste of a scorned woman’s vengeance against Pep Green. I’m her best bet to get both, but it won’t come for free. She’ll have to give if she wants to get, and my price is the truth about Opal Shaw’s murder.

  I turn my desk lamp on. Light and shadow settle on Celeste as beautifully as a moonlit night settles on the river, and with the same mystery. I look her over as I take my coat and cap off and toss them over the back of the big green club chair. I search Celeste’s eyes, shadowed behind her hat veil, but I’m not just admiring the pretty picture. I’m trying to get the goods on what’s inside this woman’s soul, get an answer to my question, “Can I trust you?”

  “Isn’t it me who’s supposed to do the trusting?” she answers back.

  “Listen, you can’t tell anyone you’ve been here, Celeste, understand? Not even the movie stars lounging at that pool three thousand miles away in California. You’re safe here because no one on the outside knows about this place. Not Pep. Not even Loreale. And you’re going to keep it that way.” My tough-sounding finish with its implied threat gets through to her, and after staring at me for a minute, she just nods her head. I give her a nod back and say, “Okay, make yourself comfortable. I’ll pour us a drink.” I pour two glasses of scotch, then turn around to see Celeste seated on the couch, looking at me. She lingers over my dark green suit and the blue handkerchief in the breast pocket before her eyes travel down the rest of me all the way to my brown oxfords. I realize this is the first time all evening she’s seen me without my overcoat. She’s assessing my full regalia.

  She doesn’t say whether or not she likes what she sees. She just keeps looking at me as she puts her handbag down beside her, then removes her gloves and the mink, but leaves the veil down on her hat. Maybe the veil is her shield against what she decides is unsavory or otherwise iffy about me, but I doubt it when she crosses her legs, the hem of her skirt brushing just below her knee as she leans back against the couch, graceful as a feral animal. The woman knows what she’s doing, and she’s doing it all over me.

  “I hope you like Chivas,” I say, handing her a glass.

  “What’s not to like?”

  There’s nothing not to like. The whiskey is smooth, the woman sharing it with me is gorgeous, and the way the light from the desk lamp slides along her leg is picturesque. I wouldn’t mind taking my own ride along Celeste’s shapely calves. Best I can do is let my imagination make the trip, so after I take the scenic route along her leg and continue up the rest of her, I finally arrive at her face, where on the other side of that hat veil her eyes accuse me of doing exactly what I am doing: undressing her mentally and having my way with her. I feel a little guilty about my peep-show imaginings as Celeste uncrosses her legs, until she crosses them again in the opposite direction, showing off the other half of the matched set.

  Judson’s knock at the door interrupts whatever’s jelling between me and Celeste. I grab a badly needed swallow of scotch before I tell him to come in.

  Judson starts to say something as he walks into my office, but after a glance at Celeste he changes his mind and says instead, “Uh, Cantor, I need to see you a minute.”

  I excuse myself to Celeste and follow Judson to the outer office. He closes the door.

  He gives me back the key to Louie’s garage, then says, “I got another line on Ortine. He’s got people looking all over town for you, asking questions. A few of his thugs are even shadowing your apartment building. You’d better stay clear of your place tonight.”

  “All right. I don’t know when I’ll get back there anyway. Look, stay on Ortine. Find out if he starts calling in too many favors, especially police favors. Between Opal crashing on my boat and the Ortine business, I don’t want cops squeezing me from both sides. Keep me informed.”

  I turn to go back into my office but Judson grabs my arm. Behind his wire rims his eyes are wide with accusation. He says, “You brought her here. You trust this Copley dame?”

  I don’t have an answer, only a shrug and an uneasy smile.

  Judson lets go of my arm but hangs on to my attention. “It’s just a feeling,” he says, “but—look, whatever chased her to a dump in Hell’s Kitchen, well, stuff like that usually comes with trouble. Did she tell you what caused the nosedive?”

  “A broken heart resulting in an abrupt loss of income.”

  “Oh, it’s like that,” he says, laughing.

  “Yeah, it’s like that.” I’m not laughing. If Judson knew Celeste was cashed out by the guy she’s now accusing of murdering Loreale’s ladylove, a guy who may have played her for the murder—and made her the target of the two deadliest killers in New York—he wouldn’t be laughing, either. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything about Celeste Copley except what his senses tell him, and his senses don’t like what they’re telling him.

  He says, “She’s not Sophie,” ambushing me with her name.

  “What?” Judson’s put himself between me and my door, blocking me from going back into my office, back to Celeste.

  “Listen to me, Cantor,” he says, “I remember the hell you went through looking for Sophie, okay? I remember all those lousy tips that sent you scraping your knees along all those blin
d alleys, and I remember cleaning you up after you beat the crap outta that doorman for information you thought he was holding out on you. So I know why you’re doing this, why you’re risking your neck for this Copley dame.”

  “Get out of my way. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No? I know you look at every woman now like you don’t dare lose track of them. You’re scared they’ll be stolen off the street the way Sophie was stolen, the way Loreale stole Rosie. And now you want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to this Copley, but you’re doing it scared, and working scared opens you up to making mistakes. You’d better make sure Celeste Copley isn’t a big mistake, Cantor. You’d better make sure for Rosie’s sake.” Having said his piece, Judson steps away from the door. But behind his glasses he gives me a no-nonsense look, a potent mix of worry and warning.

  I go back into my office. Celeste is standing at my desk, looking things over. Her head snaps up when she sees me. She flashes a smile as sincere as a shyster lawyer’s and sits back down on the couch.

  “Been looking around?” I say, wondering if Judson is right, if the risk of bringing Celeste here is a mistake that will sink me after all.

  “Well, I…I was just stretching my legs.”

  “See anything interesting in your travels?”

  “I wasn’t really looking. Like I said, I was just stretching my legs.”

  “Uh-huh. It doesn’t matter, anyway. There’s nothing in my desk drawers you could hock for rent money.”

  “You’re a suspicious sort of alley cat.”

  “You can’t be too careful these days. The papers say the crime rate is up.”

  “Afraid of being robbed?”

  “You see anything around here worth stealing?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I have a feeling you’ve got more than you’re showing me.”

  “You’ve seen enough.” I sit down in the club chair opposite the couch, finish my Chivas, and think about what Celeste would do if she knew she’s sitting above a roomful of treasures, any one of which—say, the 2,800-year-old Greek vase with the scene of a Trojan War hero’s funeral—could pay for a hundred swimming pools in sunny California. I tell myself to wise up and pay attention to Judson’s queasy feelings about Celeste. His senses about these things are usually right on the money. But those flickers of fear and sadness in Celeste’s naughty eyes keep getting in my way.

  I say, “I made you a promise to keep you safe and I don’t welch on my promises. So now it’s your turn to make good on your end of the bargain. Let’s have it. Tell me all you know about what happened to Opal Shaw.”

  “You don’t waste any time,” she says.

  “I don’t have it to waste.”

  “I didn’t know Loreale kept his people on a time clock. When does he let you punch out?”

  “You think I’m an employee?”

  “Aren’t you? Then why—? Oh, I see.”

  I don’t know what Celeste sees, but whatever it is shows up as a sly smile behind that hat veil.

  She settles herself more deeply into the couch and takes a long, lingering look around the room. Finally finished with her assessment of the place, she says, “What kind of office is this, anyway? What kind of business do you do here?”

  Damn her. “The kind of business, Celeste, where I don’t waste time with unnecessary questions. The kind of business where I know how to keep secrets and how to keep you safe. Enough questions. Now you’ll give me answers.”

  I may as well be talking to a pampered pet kitten who only pays attention if she feels like getting around to it. She closes her eyes, takes a leisurely swallow of scotch and purrs, “Mmmmm, I like your whiskey. Smooth, the way whiskey should be. The way life should be.”

  “And if you want it that way again,” I say, leaning forward, taking her chin in my hand and giving it a shake to open her eyes, “you’ll tell me what I want to know. You hold out on me”—I take her glass of scotch away—“there’ll be no more smooth scotch, no smooth ride out of town, no chance to get back that smooth life Pep took away from you. You understand?”

  She curls toward me with that feral grace of hers, takes back the glass of scotch, knocks back a deep swallow, then leans back again, triumphant. She’s not a kitten now, she’s a lioness, confident that her claws are lethal.

  Anyone who says that females are the weaker sex hasn’t felt the power of Celeste Copley simply sitting on a couch, smiling a teasing smile. That smile’s trained to conquer.

  So it comes across all wrong when her smile slowly withers, her power crumbling like old bones. “I was tricked,” she says, almost choking on it. “You have to believe me, Cantor, I was tricked. Opal is—was—my best friend.”

  “What do you mean, tricked? Who tricked you? Pep?”

  “Yeah, that bastard. He tricked me, promised he’d give me ten grand just to get Opal away from Loreale’s penthouse, keep her away so Loreale would think she’d skipped out on the wedding. Pep told me how Loreale hates to be crossed, that he’d never forgive her. The way he said it, I was scared that Loreale would even kill Opal himself.”

  “Must’ve been a helluva trick to get Opal away from the penthouse on her wedding night.”

  “Yeah, some trick,” she says. “As rotten as the trick Pep played on me about the ten grand. But getting Opal to take a ride with me really wasn’t hard. She’d already had a few drinks and was feeling pretty jazzed up. And besides, we’d been friends for some time. We’d met at a party, hit it off, ran around together. Shopping, nightclubs, men. You name it, we did it, and laughed about it, too. After a while I knew Opal inside out, I knew what kind of girl she was. And what she was was a real good-time cutie, if you know what I mean. She liked her men expensive and her thrills cheap.”

  “You saying she wasn’t in love with Loreale?”

  “Oh, she loved him, all right, in her way. She knew she had Loreale wrapped around her little finger. If she wanted diamonds, he’d buy her a mine. If she wanted furs, he’d empty a jungle. But that didn’t stop her from having a good time. So tonight I promised her a good time. One last fling before tying the knot.” Uh-huh, good ol’ Celeste Copely, the naughty bridesmaid. “But Opal knew she’d have to be a good girl after Loreale came home from prison and married her, so a final blowout suited her just fine. I promised we’d get back in plenty of time for the wedding.”

  So much for my fantasy of the classy dame in the society columns.

  After another slug of the scotch, Celeste says, “And Pep knew I was the only one who could pull it off. I was the only person Opal would run with. That’s why he called me. How do ya like that sonuvabitch? He tosses me into the gutter, then calls me up tonight and makes a lot of sweet talk about money and needing me. I knew I should’ve just hung up and not listened to him, but I was a sucker for his line about…needing me.” Her knuckles have gone white around the glass of scotch. She’s holding the glass so tight I’m afraid she’ll break it.

  “Yeah, you should’ve hung up,” I say. “That was a rotten gag to play on a friend. Did you really think that by selling Opal out you’d win Pep back?” And why would she want Pep back after he’d treated her like an old suitcase? But I leave that alone. Love can twist anybody up.

  “I hoped…” she says, struggling to finish it. “Why should Opal have everything and all I have is heartbreak?! Why should Opal always get the sweet deal?” What flows out of Celeste is so bitter I expect her throat to pinch tight and her tongue turn black. “The fancy boarding school, the money, the penthouse? For a lousy ten G’s I’d have some dough of my own for a change instead of always living off the sugar daddies who take the sugar away if they’re tired of the way you stir their coffee.” She turns away from me when she starts to cry, soft sobs she tries to conceal, almost like she’s hiding from me, maybe afraid I’ll judge her.

  Judge her? First I’d have to get past the other phony affections being thrown around tonight: first from Mom Sheinbaum, now from Celeste, whose affect
ion and loyalty to Opal Shaw were no better than a scam.

  Celeste takes a small white handkerchief from her handbag, slides the hankie under the net veil of her hat, and dabs the tears from her eyes. She has plenty to cry about. Could be her betrayal of Opal is eating her alive. Could be she has a conscience after all.

  I slide next to her on the couch, take her glass of scotch and put it down on a side table, then take the handkerchief from her hand and wipe the smudged mascara from under her eyes. “Listen, you can’t bring Opal back but you can square it. Tell me what happened. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Nobody is ever safe from Loreale,” she insists. “Or from Pep, either. I knew Opal wasn’t going to be safe when I saw Pep in that basement in Brooklyn where he had me take her. We drove out in Opal’s car. When I saw Pep, when I saw his eyes, I knew he’d lied to me. And I knew I’d been a fool for him again. A stupid fool! I should have known he’d had something worse in mind than just making Opal miss her wedding. Cantor, you should have seen his eyes!”

  “What place in Brooklyn? What’s the address?”

  “I don’t know the address. Pep gave me directions to an alley behind a poultry butcher’s joint in Brownsville, near where Pep grew up. Oh God—and then I saw Opal’s eyes. I couldn’t bear to see Opal’s eyes once she knew, once she’d figured it out…”

  “Celeste, did you see Pep kill Opal? Was she already dead when she went off the bridge? Did Pep toss her over after he stabbed her neck?”

  “I didn’t see what he did on the bridge. I wasn’t on the bridge. He told me to get lost once I got Opal to Brooklyn.” Her bitterness is so strong it almost eats through my skin. “The bastard nearly broke my arm when he ordered me to drive Opal’s car as far away as I could and ditch it, then go home and wait for his pal to bring me the ten thousand. Only there was never going to be any pal. And now Pep will come after me to shut me up as soon as he can slip some time from Loreale. Cantor, I have to get away!”

  Dammit, it’s not enough. It’s only half a story, and it’s told by the woman who was ready to sell Opal’s wedded bliss and wound up selling Opal’s life. If I go to Sig with this ragged tale, he may or may not believe that his right-hand guy killed his bride-to-be, but it’s a sure thing he’ll take vengeance on the woman who lured Opal to her death.