The Big Brush-off

by Michael Murphy

  Maybe it was better to get things out in the open.

  I took Laura’s hand then kissed it. I downed a sip of wine and described the meeting with Mildred. I sugarcoated the impact on my future but mentioned my editor’s belief that I’d lost touch with my gumshoe roots.

  Gino pointed at me with the cigar. “See, I know when something’s wrong. So you got canned. It’s a sign of the times.”

  I shook my head. “Not canned…not exactly.”

  Laura sipped her wine. “Mildred just wants him to start his latest novel over.”

  I found myself defending my editor. “She thinks I’ve lost connection with Blackie Doyle. She suggested I get away and make a fresh start.”

  “Get away?” Gino stuffed the cigar in his pocket. “You just got back.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” For a few more days. I didn’t want to mention Hanover and have to explain about Mary’s visit.

  Gino signaled the waiter and asked for his best bourbon and three glasses.

  Laura held up one hand. “Not for me, thanks.”

  Gino shrugged. “Okay, then I can drink with two hands.”

  The waiter delivered the booze and the glasses.

  “You know what I think?” Gino filled a glass for me and one for himself. “You two have the world by the tail. You should sit back and enjoy life, Jake. Laura must be making a bundle.”

  “What kind of talk is that from this guy?” Stella playfully smacked her husband’s arm. “Gino never takes a day off. He’s dressed and out the door before I get up, ordering fresh seafood at the docks and tomatoes and basil at the market. Sometimes he doesn’t come home till after Vinnie and me go to bed. He’s supposed to take Sundays off but, more times than not, he figures an excuse to come down here.”

  “It ain’t easy running a restaurant, dollface. I told you that. Besides, we see each other often enough.” Gino winked at Stella.

  Stella blushed. “Ah, Gino, not in front of Jake and Laura.”

  Gino grinned. “I cleared the rest of the week. Tomorrow I’ll take Jake and Laura to Coney Island.”

  “Coney Island?” Laura chuckled.

  “Come on. You and Jake and I used to cut class and go there once a week.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Stella glanced down and rubbed her belly. “Guess Coney Island and our new baby wouldn’t be a good match.”

  Laura patted her hand. “Next time we’re in town.”

  Gino downed his bourbon and refilled the glass. “Then the next day, I thought we could catch a Yankee game.”

  I knew spending time with Gino would take my mind off my writing troubles. “Looking forward to it.”

  Gino sipped his drink. “And forget about your novel while you’re in town. Sounds to me like you need a break from writing, a couple of years, then see if you have something worth writing about. It’s not like you need the bread. Laura makes plenty of dough.”

  “Gino.” Stella tugged on his arm. “It ain’t polite to talk finances.”

  “What?” Gino held out both hands. “We’re friends here.”

  Instincts told me to go back to writing first thing in the morning, but maybe Gino was right.

  Stella struggled to her feet. “I gotta use the can.”

  “I’ll join you.” Laura rose, along with Gino and me. She accompanied Stella to the ladies’ room.

  Gino pulled the cigar from his suit coat pocket. “Let’s go outside and I’ll take a few quick puffs.”

  He led me to the front door. Outside, he set one foot on a bench beside the front door and pointed toward the neon Gino’s sign. “Making a restaurant succeed is different than running a speakeasy. I don’t have to give drunks the bum’s rush every night. Ma loves it. So does Stella. It ain’t no Yankee Club, but it’s growing on me.”

  “Maybe it’s married life that’s growing on you.”

  Gino lit the cigar and took a puff. “I didn’t bring you outside to talk about me. Forget what I said inside. You gotta keep writing, no matter what.”

  “What?”

  Gino grinned. “You’re a smart guy, Jake. If you quit writing, you won’t have a career.”

  Gino was my best friend. He gave me advice growing up, especially about girls. Now he was a big shot in Queens. I’d be crazy not to listen to him.

  He took another puff and the smoke curled into the night air. “You remember Milt Watson?”

  I nodded. Watson was a distinguished businessman who used to work at the bank in our neighborhood. “What ever happened to him?”

  “He quit the bank when things were good, for some high-paying job in finance. When the stock market crashed, he lost it all. Like a lot of folks, he dropped out of sight, owing people money, yours truly included. Anyway, he came by last week, wearing clothes that didn’t fit. He needed a shave and smelled like a boxcar. He told me about riding the rails. I gave him a meal and slipped him some dough.”

  “He owed you money.”

  Gino shrugged and took another puff. “What’s a guy gonna do?”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “ ’Cause I don’t want you to put all your eggs in Laura’s basket. More important than that, a man has to be a man. You gave up one career you loved and were good at to…to write books, and that’s okay, but you can’t keep giving up careers when things get tough.”

  “But inside you said—”

  He interrupted with a wave of the cigar. “I only said that for Laura’s benefit. I’m not just giving you tips on your writing. I’m giving you advice about your future. Without your writing, what are you going to do, clip coupons, hang out on movie sets making sure Laura has fresh hankies? How long do you think Laura would be happy with such an arrangement?”

  Gino had a point.

  “Stella’s right about Hollywood marriages. It ain’t easy being married to a rich dame.”

  “Laura hasn’t changed.”

  “No, you have.” He blew a puff of smoke into the air.

  He shook hands with an elderly couple, who complimented him on the meal. When they left he took another puff. “I read all your books, you know.”

  He took his foot off the bench when two well-dressed men approached. A bulge in one of the men’s suit coat pockets could only be a piece. The other one, in his early thirties, grinned at Gino. “What’s the matter, Gino, your ma demote you to doorman?”

  Gino laughed like the guy was Jack Benny. “Good one, Dutch.”

  The man looked familiar, like I’d seen him in the newspaper. Then it hit me, Dutch Schultz, the prominent gangster whose feuds with the Feds and other mobsters, particularly Legs Diamond, had been chronicled in the papers.

  Dutch and his pal gave me a suspicious look until Gino introduced me to the men as a former school chum. I was glad Gino didn’t mention my former gumshoe days.

  Dutch set a hand on Gino’s shoulder. “Your wife have her kid yet?”

  Gino grinned. “Any day now.”

  The gangster pulled a picture of Benjamin Franklin from his wallet and slapped the hundred dollar bill into Gino’s hand. “Buy the kid something nice.”

  Gino stared at the bill. “Dutch, the kid don’t need that much.”

  Dutch laughed. “Then buy Stella something nice, like a lock on the bedroom door, so you don’t have to keep doing this every year.”

  Gino smiled and stuck the bill inside his suit coat pocket. “Thanks, Dutch.” When they went inside, he took another puff. “What were we talking about?”

  “You’re pals with Dutch Schultz? Don’t you read the papers?”

  Gino held out both palms. “In my business, you got to be friends with everyone.”

  “Don’t let him do you any favors. That’s how mobsters hook you. Accepting a hundred is bad enough.”

  “Not accepting the dough would have been worse.” Gino watched the smoke curl from the cigar. “We were talking about your books. I caught up on my reading when my kid was born. Your first two had plenty of excitement—car chases,
great-looking dames, despicable villains, a damn fine mystery with a twist at the end I didn’t see coming. Your last book—sure, there was a car chase and Whitney, a swell-looking tomato with a great caboose, but it wasn’t as interesting as your others.”

  Why did he think that? “What’s your explanation?”

  Gino nodded with the stogie. “What do I know?”

  “You know a good book when you read one.”

  Gino stared at his cigar a moment as if choosing his words carefully. “I’m thinking if Blackie doesn’t give a damn, the reader doesn’t either.”

  He made good sense, just like Mildred had.

  “Maybe your editor’s right about you losing touch with your gumshoe past. If you’re giving up on writing, why don’t you open a detective agency in Tinseltown? You know, detective to the stars, or something like that.”

  “I haven’t given up on writing.”

  He unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth. “We’d better get back before my old ball and chain sends the cops out after us.”

  We went inside and Laura and Stella had returned to the table.

  Stella sniffed and curled her lip. “Cigar smoke. You been smoking, Gino.”

  “Naah, it was Jake. He got smoke on me when I was showing him how the place looked from the outside. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  “Traitor.”

  As we sat, Stella shook her head at Laura. “Gino’s such a liar, but I love him.”

  Laura laughed, but her eyes told me she knew something was wrong.

  Stella patted Gino’s hand. “Where were we—oh, yeah, I was saying Gino never takes time away from work. Why didn’t you go fishing in the Catskills with Danny Kowalski?”

  Gino rolled his eyes. “I don’t fish. I pay people to fish for me. Only way I’ll get near ’em is with a knife and fork.”

  Stella held up both hands. “You gotta do something besides work all day.”

  “I’m taking the next two days off to spend with Jake and Laura, ain’t I?”

  While they argued, Laura squeezed my hand. From her expression, I could tell she knew Gino and I had talked about my present and our future.

  I’d grown tired of talking about my troubles. We hadn’t spent time with Gino and Stella for two years. I signaled a passing waitress. “Champagne, a bottle, your best.”

  Gino shook his head and grinned. “Go easy, goombah. You’re unemployed.”

  I rose and offered my hand to Laura. “Would you care to dance?”

  She took my hand and we made our way to the dance floor. For the next few hours, we danced and drank champagne. For the evening, my worries were a thing of the past.

  Chapter 5

  Our First Big Fight

  I woke up with a choked groan; the dream about Katie Caldwell’s death again.

  Beside me, illuminated by the early morning glow through the hotel room window, Laura slept soundly. Her black hair rested on the soft white pillow, her skin as smooth as moonlight.

  I sat up and wiped sweat from my brow with the corner of the sheet. I stared at the New York City skyline lights through the bedroom window. After returning home from Gino’s, I spent a restless night capped by a recurring dream I hadn’t visited in years.

  I slipped into my robe draped over a chair beside the bed and entered the main room of the suite, closing the bedroom door softly behind me.

  Ignoring the tributes to Laura, I stepped into the early morning darkness of the balcony. I dropped into one of two wicker chairs, trying to make sense of the past twenty-four hours. Yesterday, two women, Mary Caldwell and Mildred, reminded me of two careers I enjoyed and excelled at. Had I squandered both? Who was I, and where was life taking me?

  Six months earlier, I’d married my high-school sweetheart, now a successful movie star. The country struggled while Laura and I enjoyed the good life. So why did I feel like such a failure? I couldn’t blame Laura for my neglect of my writing. Shakespeare explained it a long time ago when he wrote the fault was not in the stars but in ourselves.

  I rose, grabbed the balcony railing, and gazed across the city.

  Blackie was tough but fair. He loved dogs and avoided kids. He drank too much, but dames liked him and often invited him into their beds, though he never stayed until morning. His idea of commitment to a woman was a three-day weekend in a hotel.

  He had an instinct about criminals and crimes and, like me, his insights did little for his personal life. His part-time secretary, Lola Rawlings, was in love with him, and he didn’t have a clue about her feelings.

  In spite of his flaws, Blackie was the heart of my successful mystery series. He was a street-smart, determined, sometimes reckless private detective. In spite of his cynicism, he wanted to make a difference. He made tough decisions, even if they weren’t always in his best interest.

  I was like that once, back in the day when I used to stay up all night worrying about how I could crack a case…a case like Katie Caldwell.

  “There you are.” Laura stepped onto the balcony, wearing a white hotel robe. Obviously still tired from the long evening at Gino’s and the hours working before that, she nevertheless looked as glamorous as any of her movie roles. She dropped into the chair beside me. “What’s bothering you?”

  Laura would understand. She always did. “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “That’s a sentence a wife never wants to hear.”

  “Did I ever tell you about Katie Caldwell?”

  Laura raised an eyebrow. “If she is one of the dames you seduced in Florida after we split up, I don’t want to hear about her.”

  A white-speckled pigeon landed on the wall between our balcony and the one next door. It stared at me as if waiting for my story to begin.

  I mentioned the unsolved murder of Katie Caldwell.

  She cocked her head. “Why does this old case seem so important? You must’ve had plenty of unsolved cases.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She let out a ragged sigh. Something was eating at her, and it wasn’t just the long hours of location shooting or the champagne she consumed the previous evening. “Well?”

  “It was my last case as a Pinkerton.” I scooted the chair closer to my wife. “Katie Caldwell was a sixteen-year-old girl found murdered, killed by a blow to the back of her head in her upstairs bedroom in Hanover, Pennsylvania, in nineteen twenty-five.”

  I rose and began to pace the narrow balcony. “There were plenty of suspects, but the cops gave up after a few months. I came into the picture months after the fact. I thought I was getting close but then Booth Memorial Hospital called. My father’s stroke.”

  “I remember.” Her look softened. “He was more of a father to me than my old man.”

  I pictured the photographs Mary had shared of her daughter and tried not to think of the crime scene photos. “Katie was like plenty of teenage girls growing up in the mid-twenties. She was a tomboy in her younger days, but as she grew into a young woman, she became mischievous and fun-loving, but innocent too. I let her mother down when I left with the investigation unsolved. I let Katie down.”

  “If the killer hasn’t been found after all these years, I don’t understand why she thinks you can solve the case now.”

  I solved plenty of cases cops gave up on. “Mary always thought the police didn’t want to find the person responsible. Six months after the murder, just after Christmas, she came to the Pinkerton office looking for help. I agreed to drive to Hanover and take a look. She was so grateful, so full of hope.”

  A hint of dawn swept over the balcony. “A fresh dusting of snow covered the town when I arrived. Hanover looked like a picture postcard: clean, peaceful, the kind of place we always talked about getting away to and never did. The people were friendly and called one another by first names. It’s a peaceful place with a town square where folks gather for picnics on Sunday afternoons. The inn I stayed in had a me
adow and small pond and deer came out in the morning from the tree line, a lot like our neighborhood in Queens.”

  The only deer I ever saw in Queens was a mounted head above a bar at a neighborhood tavern, The Sherwood Forrest.

  “Katie’s killer not being found isn’t your fault,” Laura stated in a matter-of-fact way. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t shake the guilt of seeing the disappointment on Mary Caldwell’s face the day before.

  The pigeon flew off as Laura let out a sigh. “Jake, I know you. You have a soft spot for hard-luck stories. Please tell me you didn’t agree to reopen the case. You have a novel to work on.” She sounded like Mildred.

  If she’d seen the sadness on Mary’s face when I turned her down, Laura might not have said that. “It wasn’t easy,” I told her, “but I made it clear I have to focus on starting over on my novel.”

  Laura let out a sigh of relief. “Then you’d better start writing. I’ll order a pot of coffee and get your Underwood.”

  As Laura rose, I grabbed her hand. It would be a waste of time starting on my novel when I hadn’t yet focused on Blackie. “Gino’s taking off work to spend time with us.”

  Laura shook off my grip. “Jake, you’re doing it again!”

  “Doing what?”

  “Placing more importance on someone else. When are you going to start placing a priority on yourself and your career?”

  On the balcony next to us a man stepped out with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. He stared at Laura and his mouth dropped open. “Holy crap! Laura Wilson.”

  Laura gave him the evil eye. She turned on her heel and went inside.

  I followed her into the suite and closed the door to the balcony.

  Laura’s hands covered her mouth as she stared at the table covered with bouquets and cards from well-wishers. She gazed around the room as if seeing the flowers for the first time. “Oh, I get it. That’s why you were on the balcony. You can’t stand being in a room that reminds you of my success. It’s not your career that’s bothering you, it’s mine.”