The frog-faced man made a flourish. A laugh traveled about the table. The beautiful woman shared a smile with her dinner guests, both of whom responded eagerly. The good-looking men at the other table were still looking at her. Rosemary picked up her drink, tipping it ever so slightly in their direction, and allowed them the tiniest of smiles. Men. She thought about what was waiting for her back at the apartment. Her best-kept secret. She had to laugh. The lucky bastard would never have it so good again, that was for sure. He was probably not the future for too much longer, though that wasn’t important right now. Right now he was still there-that was the point-willing to cater to her whims. The power of a woman can be almost frightening. Rosemary never tired of marveling at it. She knew she’d have to start putting distance between the two of them. She’d waited way too long already. But for Christ’s sake, her husband was behind bars. What was she supposed to do, shave her head and find a convent? Rosemary anticipated some trouble when the time came for her to lay down the law. There’d be a scene; he’d already surprised her with his ability to make scenes. She realized she’d better start devising her plan of action now, just to be on the safe side.
The menus arrived. Yet another waiter. Rosemary held the single sheet down near her cutlery and looked over the options. The waiter was reeling off a list of specials, each one more elaborate and yummy-sounding than the next. There was an appetizer special of oysters. Rosemary envisioned the ugly little things. Floating in their own milky swill. Presented in those gnarly misshapen shells. The things people chose to consider special. The emperor’s new oysters. She thought they tasted disgusting. Squishy slime. Like swallowing someone’s mucus.
“I’ll have those,” Rosemary said. “The oysters.” A giddy thought came to her mind. No. Yes. Must be the martini. She reached out both arms, graceful and swanlike, and placed her fingers on Alan’s and Gloria’s hands, eliciting a smile from each of them. She looked back up at the waiter.
“And please. Offer a serving to every table here, could you? I’d like to do that for everybody.”
35
I NOTED THAT the faint scar running along Jigs Dugan’s jaw was picking up the blue from the neon Canadian beer sign in the window behind him. The man who had given Jigs that scar some fifteen years back had lived just long enough to regret it. Jigs shocked not a few people by attending the man’s viewing, at Campbell’s funeral home on the Upper East Side. His face half hidden in a sloppy bandage, Jigs had pulled out his knife while bowing his head at the casket and quietly run the blade along the polished mahogany. Gave it a three-inch cut. Just like his scar. Tit for tat, if you don’t take into account what Jigs had already done to the man.
Jigs was wearing a gray Irish sweater under a herringbone jacket. His cheeks were clean-shaven, and a comb seemed to have found a way into his hair. Argyle socks and black shoes that picked up the light. He handed me a slip of paper with an address jotted down on it.
“Our boy’s name is John Michael Pratt. He’s a painter, though not of the Rembrandt school. Mainly houses and apartments. That is, when he’s not enjoying the largesse of the state.”
“Largesse of the state. This would mean prison time?”
Jigs smiled across the table at me. “Maybe one day I’ll marry you, you’re such a smart fellow. Exactly. Our John Michael likes to steal things that don’t belong to him. Sometimes people try to stop him and he knocks them down. The last time he did this, he used an iron pipe. Two darling girls have a halfwit daddy as a result of that little maneuver.”
The address was on Nineteenth Street, near the FDR Drive. Jigs and I were at a bar on Twenty-first.
“I took a quick look,” Jigs said. “Door’s got a bit of a rattle. I wouldn’t want to be stashing the Hope Diamond or anything in there, if you see what I mean.”
I folded the piece of paper and put it in my shirt pocket. “You were fast on this.”
“I was. I gave you the full-court press. Belated Christmas gift.”
“I thank you.”
Jigs gave a two-fingered salute. “As the lady said to Bogie, if there’s anything else, just whistle.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Be sure you do. You’re not up to your hundred percent, that’s clear.”
“You’re looking sporty,” I said.
“It’s Saturday night, lad. Maybe you can’t remember anymore, it’s still the night for peacocks.”
“So what are your plans for the evening?”
Jigs ran a finger along his chin. “It’s the city that never sleeps. I suppose I’ll stay up and keep it company. Don’t you worry on my account. I can always put together a dance card.”
GETTING INTO Pratt’s building was a simple matter of leaning against the vestibule door and giving it a sharp shove. A sour smell greeted me in the hallway. A buzzing fluorescent tube sent a harsh white light down from the flaky ceiling. I took the stairs in front of me to the top floor. The sour smell was less pungent here than it was downstairs. The hallway was dimly lit by a half-dozen sad wall sconces that gave off a dull buttery glow.
I pulled my gun.
Pratt’s apartment was at the end of the hallway: 5C. A television was on in one of the apartments across the way. Chatter. Laughter. More chatter. More laughter. A nontelevised male voice called out something, and a woman’s voice answered, but I couldn’t make out what was being said.
I had a plastic bag with me. I set it down and put my ear to Pratt’s door. I heard nothing. I kept my ear there a full minute, picking up vibrations from the building, a few hums, a sound like distant ice breaking. Nothing else.
I tried the doorknob. It turned partway, but the door didn’t open. After another minute, I knocked on the door and called out, “John!”
No answer. I tried the doorknob again and pumped the door. It rattled. Just like Jigs had said. “John!”
I put away my gun and picked up the bag and took from it a hard rubber mallet Jigs had been kind enough to bring along when we met at the bar. Taking aim at the dead-bolt keyhole, I swung the mallet, using all the single-pointed focus I could muster, which proved sufficient. The doorjamb splintered, and the lock went askew under the mallet. When I turned the doorknob this time, the door swung easily open.
The man’s perversity was in his bedroom. Photographs and clippings-hundreds of them, all over the walls. Asian girls and women. Hardly a bare square inch to be found. Many of the pictures had been ripped from skin magazines and featured naked and semi-naked women rising up on their knees, bent over spread-eagle, cavorting on a bed wearing high heels, arching their backs on lounge chairs, peering dead-eyed from a hammock, on and on. Just as many had been pulled from regular magazines. Fashion models. Movie actresses. Asian teens dressed in retro American schoolgirl outfits. The pictures were taped onto all four walls of the small room. Many of them had been outlined in thick red Magic Marker. On some of them, the marker had been held on the picture to bleed splotches on the breasts or the crotches of the women. There were also Magic Marker phalluses drawn all over the place, disembodied torpedoes prodding at the images.
Moving farther into the room, I felt the eyes of the hundreds of girls and women on me, tracking me as I stepped over to the bed. Stacks of ravaged magazines and Asian-language newspapers were piled next to the bed. What interested me was a cluster of pictures taped together on the closet door just to the left of the bed. They were all the same picture. I counted seventeen of them. It was a color photograph that had been cut from the pages of a glossy magazine, maybe People or Us, from the look of it. One of those types. The photograph featured two women. One of them was wearing a pair of sunglasses and walking down a sidewalk with her head lowered, in evident distress. She was clearly trying to avoid having her picture taken. Next to her was a young Asian woman in calf-high leather boots and a short pink winter coat, her hair pulled back and tied with a bright yellow scarf. I noticed a scarf identical to the one in the picture knotted around Pratt’s closet doorknob. The Asian woman’s arm was
around the other woman, and she was consoling her. In all seventeen of the pictures, the Asian woman had been outlined in thick red Magic Marker. The phalluses appeared on a few of the pictures.
The woman in the sunglasses was Robin Burrell.
The other woman was Michelle Poole.
I went back into the front room and closed the apartment door. I pulled a roll of duct tape from the bag and did what I could to tape the dead bolt on and the splintered door back into place. No one was going to be fooled; I just wanted to get things so that I could engage the lock again, even though a simple push would open the door. A very iffy alarm system.
I flipped over one of the cushions of the ratty couch and sat down to wait for him. Rats always return to their holes. I could practically feel the presence of all those hundreds of girls and women crowded onto the walls. They say everyone should have a hobby, but I was somewhat less than impressed by Pratt’s. No wonder Michelle Poole had felt creeped out. People don’t necessarily have to see someone to know that they’re being watched. The hair on the back of the neck. The unexplained fear that wants to become a panic. Lord only knows how many other women besides Michelle had sensed a pair of unwelcome eyes consuming them as they moved about the city. I thought of Pratt’s face. Ratface. Scurrying around the city like a oneman infestation, then coming home and going into his tiny room to encourage his infection. My hand tightened around the rubber mallet in my lap. My pistol sat right next to it. The pulsing in my temples wasn’t too bad, considering. Didn’t really matter, in fact. I welcomed it.
I WAS ASLEEP when he came in.
I had dozed off. It was only my so-called alarm that alerted me. The sound of the door rattling woke me.
“What the-?”
The door swung open as I struggled to get up from the low couch. My gun fell to the floor. Pratt stepped into the room. I stood there with the rubber mallet in my grip. I was the intruder, but I had the mallet. Pratt took a step forward, then I saw his eyes noticing the gun at my feet. He turned and took off, racing back out of the apartment. I heard his feet pounding down the hallway, then I heard a grunt and the sound of something hitting the floor. This was followed by a low murmuring. Then silence.
I bent down and retrieved my gun. I checked my watch: 2:10 in the morning. I’d slept like a baby. No dreams that I could remember. I checked to see that nothing had fallen out of my pockets and slipped behind the cushions. All clear. I stood a moment, waiting for my heartbeat to come back to normal, then I left the apartment and made my way up to the roof.
He was on the ground. Jigs had him by the shoulders and was dragging him along the gravelly surface as I emerged from the stairwell.
“Nice of you to join us, sweetheart. You want to lend a hand, or are you just here to watch?”
Pratt’s hands were tied behind his back. The pervert’s face was a mess. Jigs is a kicker. Pratt’s nose and mouth were nearly indistinguishable. A single splotch of red and gristle. He was moaning very softly.
“He can breathe, can’t he? I don’t want him choking on his own teeth.”
“Your kindness always touches me, Fritzy,” Jigs said. He followed this with a hard kick to Pratt’s throat. He leaned down. “Are we breathing, John Michael? Anything we can do to clear your passages?” He grabbed Pratt by the shoulders again. “Help me here.”
I stepped over and grabbed the man’s rubbery legs, and together Jigs and I carried him to the edge of the roof. Jigs positioned Pratt so that his bloodied head was dangling over the side of the roof, five flights above the sidewalk. He kicked the man’s legs apart and settled himself between them, grabbing hold of Pratt’s belt.
“Row row row your boat.” Jigs inched his way forward on his tail, letting gravity assist as Pratt’s torso began making its way over the edge of the roof. Jigs continued wiggling forward until Pratt was halfway over the roof. Jigs had his heels dug in hard, keeping a good grip on the belt, leaning back as far as he could as a counterweight.
“Tickle me, Fritz. Go ahead.”
From below the roofline, Pratt let out a holler. He sounded something like a moose in labor. Even in the pale moonlight, I could see Jigs’s face gone red with the effort of holding on.
“I’d like to see if he’ll bounce, Fritz. Just give me the word.”
I stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. There was no one on the sidewalk below us. No one was watching. The mallet was still in my hand. I closed my eyes and saw seventeen pictures of Robin and Michelle taped on a closet door. Jigs was speaking in his low, seductive voice.
“He stabbed you, isn’t that so? This man tried to kill you. He put you in the river. The Good Lord only knows what else he did. I don’t think we need a man like this on this good earth, I really don’t.”
I opened my eyes. Jigs was tilted so far back his head was nearly touching the graveled roof. His eyes were wide and white in the moonlight.
“Well?”
I shook my head. “Reel him in.” I dropped the mallet and grabbed hold of Pratt’s belt and jerked him back onto the roof. He was blubbering, snot and blood in equal measure. I got hold of the lapels of his coat and jerked him onto his knees. I got right into his face, disgusting as it was.
“What do you want to tell me about Robin Burrell?” I jerked on his lapels. “What do you want to tell me, Pratt? You can either tell me or you can tell my friend here. Are you clear on this? It’s your choice.”
There was a stench of beer mixed in with the smell of blood. I had to turn my head to get a hit of fresh air. Jigs was on his feet, wiping gravel off the back of his pants. Pratt made a sound.
“What was that? I missed that.”
“Never. Touched her.”
“Never touched who? Never touched Robin? Or are you talking about Michelle now?”
“Nobody. Never touched nobody.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you? Is that it? Just take your word for it?” I rattled him again. He moved in my hands as if he were boneless. “You don’t have a healthy take on women, John. You’re aware of that, aren’t you? Did Robin Burrell excite you? Did she piss you off? What was it? Were you jealous because she was friends with Michelle? Did you want to be friends with Michelle? Was that it? Was Robin standing in your way?”
His eyes found a semblance of focus on my face, one eye more than the other. “You’re out of your mind.”
I jerked my hands and brought his head down hard on the roof. It bounced once, then fell back to the gravel. I stood up and went back down to Pratt’s apartment and fetched the roll of duct tape I’d used to rig up the dead bolt. I noticed a skylight in the kitchen. I went back into the bedroom and got a half-dozen T-shirts from the dresser. Back on the roof, I knotted the T-shirts together. I located the skylight over Pratt’s kitchen and kicked in some of the glass. Along with the duct tape and the knotted T-shirts, Jigs and I secured the man to the metal framing of the skylight. Jigs wanted to snap his knees and tape his legs up in a funny way, but I persuaded him to back off.
Before we left the roof, I taped one of the police sketches to Pratt’s back. I scribbled a note on it: SPECIAL DELIVERY. JOSEPH P. GALLO. Jigs and I made our way downstairs and called the police from an all-night diner on Twenty-third Street. We told the woman on the other end of the phone that there was a package for Joe Gallo and where to find it. I was famished and asked Jigs if he wanted something to eat. I planned on something with lots of carbs and lots of protein and lots of fat. Jigs demurred.
“I’ve got to see a man about a dog,” he said, producing a comb and moving it over his wavy black hair.
“What man?”
“Well, it’s not really a man,” he said. He gave me the smile so many mothers fear. “Not really a dog, either.”
36
THE ACTRESS Greer Garson was balanced on the branch of an apple tree, laughing that little-bells laugh of hers and jogging the branch in order to send a cascade of apples falling to the ground. That’s where I was, standing below her. Scores of war pl
anes darkened the sky overhead, but the lovely Miss Garson was oblivious. Look out belooow, she sang as the apples plummeted earthward. I’d just caught one of them and was about to bite into it when the ringing telephone fought its way into my consciousness. Greer Garson and her apples dissolved.
I dragged the phone onto the bed, hoping in my guilty haze that it wasn’t Margo. It wasn’t. It was Joe Gallo.
“Did I wake you?”
“You ask that with a smile in your voice.”
“I wanted to thank you for the package.”
“The…? Right. Anytime.”
“I’m not going to ask you how you were able to track down our friend so quickly.”
“I have elves.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
I threw the blankets off and brought my feet to the floor. I don’t use the word “rarified” too often, but that was how the light in my room felt. I cranked my eyes open. Snow was falling steadily outside the window.
“Your special delivery arrived pretty banged up,” Gallo said. “I guess he offered some resistance.”
I took the phone to the window. It was a beautiful snowfall. “Joe, it was so long ago.”
“So do you want to ask me the sixty-four-dollar question, or should I just tell you?”
I knew the answer already. “Pratt didn’t do it.”
“Is that a guess, or do you actually know something?”
“It’s a guess,” I said. “What I do know is that it’s probably a good one. This guy had a hard-on for Asian women. Robin Burrell was zilch to him. Not to mention Riddick.”
“He’s got an alibi for Robin. His parole officer.”
I shouldered the phone to crack the window. White sparks of snow leaped in under my fingers, along with a welcome blast of cold air. “That’s a good alibi. One of the best.”
“We’re filing attempted murder charges against Mr. Pratt. I hope that makes you happy.”
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