“Would either of you know where she is now?”
Ginger shrugged and said, “I don’t have any idea, and I doubt that Fallon does, either. Like I said, nobody got to know her too well outside the institute.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I’d better let you get ready.”
She walked me to the door and said, “Come around again, when I’ve got more time.”
“I’ll do that,” I said. She had started to close the door behind me when I said, “Hey, one more thing.”
“What?” she asked, holding the door open halfway and leaning on it. She made quite a sight early in the morning, all that solid, young flesh combined with the innocent, freckled face. I found myself wondering just how far the freckles went. . . .
“Why didn’t Fallon and Melanie get along?”
She frowned as if she couldn’t understand it herself and said, “They had the same taste in men . . . strange.”
“Any man in particular?”
Ginger shrugged and said, “Not that I know of. Fallon just made a comment one day.”
“What kind of comment?”
“She said that Melanie better stay away from her man.”
“Did Fallon say who the man was?”
“No,” Ginger said, but then her face took on a coy look and she added, “but even if she did, I don’t think I should be telling you . . . not just for coffee and doughnuts, anyway.”
I studied her face for any sign of suspicion, but aside from contriving to look coy, she appeared completely guileless.
“How about just telling me if it could have been Greg Foster?” I asked. “If it wasn’t, you don’t have to tell me who it was.”
She put a fingernail in her mouth while she considered by suggestion, and then said, “I don’t think it would be Greg. Fallon wasn’t serious about him.”
“Was he serious about her?”
“Greg is only serious about karate.”
I smiled at her then and said, “Next time instead of coffee and doughnuts, Ginger, we’ll make it dinner and. . . .”
She grinned, her face looking totally innocent again and said, “Ooh, it’s the ‘and’ part that interests me.”
My next stop was Knock Wood Lee’s apartment on Mott and Hester streets, where Little Italy and Chinatown meet. Wood owned the building, which was a block from Umberto’s Clam House, as well as the restaurant underneath his apartment—an Italian restaurant.
Wood had purchased the building, assumed the lease on the restaurant, and then broken down the walls of the three apartments above to form one large apartment for himself and Tiger Lee.
I was dropping in on Lee unexpectedly, but I didn’t think she’d mind. In fact, I knew damn well she wouldn’t.
She was an early riser, a holdover from her Brooklyn days, when you had to get out early to make a buck.
She answered the door wearing a poncho with Oriental characters on it, over a pair of jeans.
“Jack.”
“Not too early, I hope.”
“Not at all,” she said, backing up to allow me to enter. “Come on in.”
She closed the door and then padded barefoot ahead of me into the living room.
She looked as serenely lovely as ever, but I knew her and could see the strain on her face.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, it’s just . . . running things. I never realized what a . . . chore it would be. Wood has to be a juggler to keep everything going . . . and I’m no juggler.”
I moved closer to her and the tension in her face, beneath the expertly applied makeup, was even more evident.
“Have you been sleeping?”
She smiled grimly and admitted, “Not much.”
I took her by the shoulders gently and said, “If I can help, Lee . . .”
She backed up, breaking the contact just as gently, and said, “You already are, Jack. Coffee?”
“If it’s made.”
“It’s made. I’ll bring it in.”
I dropped my hands to my sides and watched her leave the room. Lee was a smart lady who had worked her way out of the Brooklyn gutters with her brain as well as her body. I’d always liked her, but I’d always stayed at arm’s distance because of my friendship with Wood. She was his lady, and had been for some time. That didn’t appear to be in danger of imminent change, but there were times when I wondered what would happen if it did.
Hell, my luck with women was too bad to think about. Julie Jacoby, my sister-in-law, was gone and not yet forgotten—not for want of trying, either—Tracy Dean was in Hollywood, trying to get into movies that were not one color—blue—and Erica Steinway had gone back to Europe “to look for some space.” I had two women who were friends, Missy and Tiger Lee, and didn’t want to risk either friendship by turning it into something it wasn’t meant to be.
“Coffee,” Tiger Lee said, walking in with a tray, “black, right?”
“Right.”
When she set the tray down on a small table we sat on separate chairs with it between us, and I could see that her cup also held coffee.
“What, no tea?”
“So solly,” she said, and grinned. “I can’t stand the taste of tea, Chinese or otherwise.”
“Have you got anything for me?”
“Not much,” she said. “Cross was into a few other bookies, but their markers didn’t even add up to what he owed Wood.”
“Which was how much?” I asked. “I don’t think we ever established that.”
“Close to a hundred grand.”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t understand how Wood could let the man get in that deep.”
“He’d always paid off before, Jack,” she said. “Wood likes to keep his regulars happy.”
“Sure, now all we’ve got to do is get the cops to believe that.”
“Can we, Jack?” she asked, anxiously. “Can we do that?”
“We’re giving it our best shot, Lee,” I said, finishing my coffee. “I need a list of names, honey.”
“The other books?”
I nodded.
She frowned and said, “They won’t know where you got their names? Wood’s name would be mud if they find out, Jack.”
“I know that, Lee, but it’s the only way. I’ve got to check them out.”
“I wouldn’t give this to anyone else,” she said, rising and walking to her small writing table against one wall. Wood’s much larger kidney-shaped desk was in another room.
She wrote three names on a three-by-five index card and handed it to me.
“I don’t have to tell you where to find them, do I?”
I looked at the names and recognized all three.
“No,” I said, standing up. “I’ll be able to find them, all right.”
Before tucking the card away I noticed that she had also written down the amounts that Cross had owed each man. The total came to about thirty grand, which made Alan Cross’s aggregate debt almost one hundred thirty thousand dollars.
“How did a copywriter for an advertising firm get that kind of credit?” I wondered aloud.
“He’s a gambler,” Lee said.
“That’s not a good enough answer, Lee. You’ve got to have some big money to start with to get that kind of credit from bookies. Did he ever score big off Wood?”
“Not that big.”
“Then the question stands,” I said. “If I find out where Cross was getting the money to command that much credit, then I might have something to hang my hat on.”
“What else can I do?”
She walked me to the door and I said, “You’re doing enough right now, Lee. I’ll poke around some more and keep in touch.” At the door I said, “If the load gets to be too much, give me a call, okay?”
“All right,” she said. There was an awkward moment between us and then she moved forward hesitantly and planted a gentle kiss on the corner of my mouth, as if she had been undecided about whether to kiss my cheek or my mouth. “Thank you, Jack.”
It became awkward again, and I simply touched her face and left.
Eleven
I went to Packy’s for lunch, since I hadn’t been there in some time.
“Jack!” Packy shouted as I entered.
“’Lo, Packy,” I said, seating myself at the bar.
“We don’t see you around here much, anymore,” Packy said, complaining.
Packy was an old pug, something he says I was too smart to become. I got out, he said, before the label fit, and he never did. Still, he had no regrets, and his favorite fight story was how he stood in the ring with Marciano, and would have beaten him if somebody had thrown him a crowbar.
He was a mountain of a man who looked like the prime choice to play the lead in the Primo Carnera story, but inside he was a pussycat, which was probably the main reason he had never made it big in the ring.
“Don’t see you around much anymore, Jack,” Packy repeated.
I frowned and said, “Well, I guess I’ve just been kind of busy, Packy.”
“Sure,” he said, “since you moved uptown.”
“Chelsea’s not exactly what I’d call ‘uptown,’ Packy.”
“If you spent all your time down here, you would. What can I get you?”
“One of your sandwiches, and a light beer.”
“Comin’ up.”
While waiting I took out the list of bookies Lee had given me: Arnie Court, Mort Snow, and Leo Piper. I knew Snow personally, and the other two by name. None of them would be very willing to talk to me, and I couldn’t use Wood’s name to open them up. I was going to have to come up with something else.
When Packy came back with the sandwich and beer I showed him the list and asked, “Do you know any of these guys?”
He frowned at the list, as if he had a hard time reading it, then said, “Sure, I know Arnie Court. We go back a long way. Why?”
“How well do you know him?”
“Real well.”
“Will he do you a favor?”
“I think so. He made a few bucks on me years ago. He took bets from the suckers who thought I had a shot with Marciano.”
A dubious reason for a bookie to do an ex-fighter a favor, but maybe Packy had more going for him than that with Arnie Court.
“You need a favor?” Packy asked.
I nodded.
“I’m going to need some information from him that he may not want to give me. Think you could give him a call and pave the way a little?”
“I can try. Eat your sandwich.”
Packy often kept a roast beef going in the back for regular customers—or old friends—and he’d given me a thick sandwich with the slices rare, just the way I liked them, on French bread. I was halfway finished when he came back.
“Arnie says for you to come on over, Jack,” he said. “He’ll listen to what you have to say, and see if it’s worth a favor to me. That good enough?”
“It’ll have to be. Thanks, Packy.”
“Sure, but now you owe me.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Just come around more.”
“You got it.”
I gave my large friend a critical once-over and asked, “Are you losing weight?”
“Some.”
“You look too thin.”
“I’m not even down to my fighting weight,” he said. “You’re just used to seeing me with more meat on my bones.”
“You’re not thinking of making a comeback, are you?” The thought struck me as frightening.
“It’s tempting, what with all that money floating around out there,” he said. “A white hope could make himself a real bundle, you know?”
“I know.” Purses had gone up considerably just in the time since I’d retired, and Packy had been retired ten times as long.
“Does that mean—”
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t.”
“Good.” I wiped my fingers on a napkin and washed down the last of the sandwich with the last of my beer. “You and me, Pack, we’re out for good.”
“Yeah,” he said as I climbed off the barstool.
“How much?”
“Forget it,” he said, but when I insisted on paying he said, “Pay me what it was worth.”
“Pal,” I said, putting a ten down on the bar, “I ain’t got that much money. See ya.”
Arnie Court turned out to be as little as Packy was big, and about ten years older. Actually, he could have passed for seventy-five instead of sixty-five if he wanted to, but that didn’t strike me as something he’d want to take advantage of.
“You and Packy friends?” the old man asked.
“Yeah, a few years now.”
Court wheezed for a few moments, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that he was laughing.
“Sonny, me and the Pack go back over thirty-five years, when he was just starting out.”
“So I understand.”
Arnie Court’s apartment was in a rundown building on the corner of Eight Avenue and Eleventh Street, over a laundry. The place was literally filled with stacks of newspapers, some of which were neatly tied, while others simply spilled over onto the floors. Court had an odd habit of walking around his small living room while he talked, touching things as if to assure himself that they were still there. He shuffled when he walked, which could have been the result of an injury or simply a by-product of his age.
“Packy said you had some questions you wanted to ask me,” he said.
“One or two.”
“Well,” he said, touching a stack of newspapers piled up on top of a small black and white television, “fire away and I’ll see if I feel like answerin’ them.” The newspapers fell over when he removed his hand, but he seemed unconcerned.
“I need some information on a man named Alan Cross.”
“He’s dead.”
“I know. I believe he was a customer of yours?”
“That the first question?”
“It is.”
He thought about it for a moment, then said, “Okay, yeah, he was a customer.”
“A good one?”
“Until lately, yeah,” he said, touching a lamp. His hands were black from dusk and ink, but he didn’t seem to mind. I hadn’t shaken hands with him when I arrived, and made a mental note not to do it when I left.
“What happened lately?”
“This the question we been leading up to?” he asked, closing his right eye and glaring at me with the watery left one.
“That’s the one, Mr. Court.”
“Call me Arnie,” he said, opening the right eye. He wiped at the left one with his thumb, leaving a smear of dirt on his face. “Knock Wood Lee is up for this rap, ain’t he?”
“He is.”
“You tryin’ to get him off?”
“I am.”
“Finding somebody else Cross was into heavy would help, wouldn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
“You’re honest about it, anyway,” Arnie said. “Packy said you’d be honest.”
“I’m not trying to pin anything on you, Arnie.”
“No, I guess you ain’t,” the old man said. “All right, yeah, Cross was into me for about seven grand. That ain’t enough for me to kill him. Hell, that ain’t even worth a phone call to me. He was always good for it in the past, I was willing to go with him for a while.”
“Seven thousand.”
Arnie Court looked closely at my face and said, “Not enough, huh? How much was he into Wood for? As much as I heard?”
“A lot.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation to him, it could have been any of us,” Arnie said. “Like I say, Cross was usually good for it. Guess he got in over his head this time.”
“In more ways than one.”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks for talking to me, Arnie,” I said, heading for the door.
“Hey, you know I seen you fight.”
“You did?”
He nodded.
“What was that?”
“You wasn’t mean enough. Packy, as big as he was, didn’t belong in the ring, especially not with Marciano.”
“He was given a pretty good chance, I heard.”
“Sure, his size fooled a lot of people for a lot of years,” Arnie said. “You were smart to get out when you did, son.”
“So I’ve been told before,” I said, “by Packy, too, as a matter of fact.”
“He should know.”
“I appreciate you talking to me, Arnie.”
“I did it as a favor to Packy.”
“Thanks, anyway.”
As I left his phone started ringing, and he was rummaging about among his old newspapers muttering, “Now where the fuck did I put that phone?”
Twelve
I spent the rest of the day trying to track down Mort Snow and Leo Piper. Bookies do not tend to sign long-term leases.
Snow I knew, but Leo Piper was sort of a new one on me. I’d been hearing his name around, but knew nothing about him. I had to assume that he didn’t know much about me, either, so I simply passed the word on the street that I wanted to talk to him and let it go at that for a while.
When I couldn’t locate either man I decided to stop by Greg Foster’s apartment, which was in the West Eighties, but he wasn’t there. I had the addresses of his two friends, J.C. Smith and Dan McCoy, but they were too far away to make the trips that evening. Smith lived on the East Side, and McCoy lived in Queens.
Winter was close enough to spit at and I was starting to feel the chill from being on the move all day. I decided to head back to Bogie’s for some French onion soup and maybe some veal.
When I got down to Twenty-sixth Street, Bogie’s was filling up for dinner, but Billy had kept my table open.
“The Gumshoe,” he said as I walked in. He’s started calling me that after he had me over to his apartment to watch a tape of a movie of the same name, and I’d loved it.
“Right now ‘Flatfoot’ would fit me better,” I said.
“Been pounding the pavement?”
“Working on two cases at once is a bitch.”
“How are they going?”
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