“Don’t you find it strange,” he asked, trying to cover his gaffe—whatever it was—by changing the subject, “that there is no evidence a woman ever came here?”
“Not really,” I said, still thinking of what he’d said. “The lady next door said his girlfriends were both jealous types. Maybe he didn’t want to ruin a good thing by leaving someone’s phone number lying around. Jealousy will make you rip up the floorboards to find that one hidden something that’ll break your heart. It’s that ache, that paradoxical desire to dig deeper and deeper until you finally uncover the thing that destroys your happiness. Compelling.”
“You talk like you understand jealousy,” he said.
“Not really. I understand broken hearts.”
Downstairs, I stood in the lobby, staring out the door while McKeever pulled on his overcoat. The streetlamp on the corner of Eighty-Seventh and Amsterdam swayed in the cold breeze, tossing its light from side to side. A crumpled newspaper tumbled across the street and wedged itself beneath a mailbox in front of a cocktail bar: the Crystal Lounge.
“Have you checked his mail?” I asked, watching as the newspaper freed itself, pirouetted into the avenue, and was flattened by a speeding taxi.
McKeever’s eyes grew.
“He must have a mailbox here,” I said. “Have you checked it?”
The black mailboxes hung in a row on the vestibule wall to my left. An open slot in each door let you know if you had mail. Ercolano did.
The locks on most mailboxes are no great shakes. If someone wants your mail, he’ll get it, Postal Service–approved lock or no. And so, we pried open the box with little trouble.
McKeever and I shuffled Ercolano’s mail back and forth between us in the foyer. A phone bill, some throw-away mail addressed to Occupant, the latest issues of TV Guide and Esquire, a yellow postal return slip for an undelivered package, and a perfumed letter, addressed by a woman’s hand.
While McKeever read the letter from the woman, I opened the phone bill, expecting a pack of hefty calls to Italy. Instead, I found a bill for $3.14. Local calls and little else.
“Take a look at this,” said the cop, handing me the letter.
Carissimo mio, January 23, 1960
How I miss you! Since our beautiful night together Wednesday and horrible argument Thursday morning, I have done nothing but think of you. I’ve waited for your call. This loneliness is unbearable! You are my drug, my love, my poison. It’s no use; I can never stay angry with you for long. When you asked me to stay away from your place, I hated you. I swore never to let you near me again. But I’ve learned to accept you on your terms, because even though I never know when you’ll call, I don’t ever want to be sure that you won’t. Come to me as soon as you receive this letter. I love you and miss you so.
Tua angela
I flipped the envelope looking for the return address but found none. The postmark was Saturday afternoon, mailed from Varick Street in the West Village.
“You know any Angelas?” asked McKeever.
“No,” I said. “Well, actually, the woman who lives next door to my father is named Angela. Angela Farber. But it can’t be her. Too much of a coincidence.”
“What do you think? The younger one or the older one?”
“Older. Sounds like she has her own place.”
McKeever nodded agreement.
“What about that?” I asked, motioning to the yellow paper in his hand. “Does Ercolano have a package waiting for him somewhere?”
“No,” said the cop, handing it to me for my inspection. “It’s from the Planetarium Branch on West Eighty-Third. A package he sent to Princeton, New Jersey, on Monday morning is still in New York: insufficient postage.”
“Monday?” I asked. “Ercolano was dead on Saturday night.”
McKeever gulped. “Well, maybe he mailed it Saturday. The post office is known to be slow.”
I shook my head, staring at the little sheet of paper. “I doubt it. I’ll bet Ercolano didn’t mail this package.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It doesn’t add up,” I said. “A letter with insufficient postage is one thing. But a package? When I send a package, I take it down to the post office and have it weighed. Then the clerk puts on the necessary postage.”
McKeever nodded. “Yes, that’s right. So, there should have been enough stamps on Ercolano’s parcel.”
“Unless he was in a rush and thought he had enough postage,” I said. “But then it’s got to be small enough to fit into a mailbox. Otherwise he would have had to go to the post office anyway. He would have weighed it. I’m curious to see this package. Do you think they’d let us have a look at the post office tomorrow?”
“No problem,” he said. “I know a guy over at the Planetarium.”
The squad car was waiting outside Ercolano’s building to take us home. McKeever dropped me off in the Village at twelve forty, promising to pick me up at nine o’clock the following morning to visit the Planetarium Branch.
“Good night, Jim,” I said. I think I surprised him with the familiarity because he blushed.
“Good night,” he answered, then paused. “Ellie.”
Ben, another of the elevator operators, took me up to the fifteenth floor.
“Last night some people came up to my father’s apartment.” I said. “You always ring to say who’s coming, don’t you?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Always?” I asked. “What about Mrs. Farber’s gentleman?”
Ben frowned. “I don’t mind nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t talk about who visits who in this place. Excuse me for saying so, Miss Stone.”
“I’m asking because the three people who visited me last night weren’t announced by Raul. When I asked him why, he said he had thought one of them was Mrs. Farber’s gentleman friend, so he let them in, no questions asked.”
“That’s right. Some tenants tell us to let certain people in at any time, no need to call up.”
“Have you seen Mr. Walter since my father was attacked?”
He shook his head. “No, miss. But I’m not on duty all the time. Why don’t you just ask Mrs. Farber about it? It’s really not my place.”
The elevator lurched to a stop on the fifteenth floor, and Ben pulled the door open. He was no Raul when it came to jabbering about the tenants.
“Good night, miss,” he said firmly.
I fumbled for my keys in front of my father’s door and dropped them onto the thick brush doormat. As I bent down to pick them up, the clicking of a latch startled me.
“Oh, Ellie, it’s you.”
“Hello, Mrs. Farber,” I said, jingling the keys in my hands. “You’re up late tonight.”
“I can’t sleep these days,” she said, letting the door open more fully.
“Would you like to talk about it?” I asked.
Angela Farber led me to her parlor, a warm, womb-like cloister with salmon-colored walls and some white Chinese silk rugs. Chiffon drapes hung in front of drawn curtains, lending a soft, shrouded intimacy to the room. A mezza-coda Steinway anchored the far wall, some Schumann romances on the music stand.
She was wearing a black-and-gold kimono that reached the floor. She’d drawn her black hair back in a simple braid, and I suddenly thought of my brother. I could see how she would have inspired lusty fantasies in the heart of a young boy.
“A drink, Elijah?” she asked, wheeling to look at me, right arm cocked as if to ask a question. Then she shook her head and laughed. “Sorry, I mean Ellie!”
I stated my preference and took a seat on the sofa, while she poured me some Scotch over ice.
“Why the trouble sleeping?” I asked once she’d handed me the tumbler. “Worried about intruders?”
She sat on the other end of the couch and sipped some sherry.
“It isn’t that,” she said. “I’m lonely. I spend all my days cooped up in here. And my nights, too.”
“What about your friend?” I asked. “
Your gentleman caller. Don’t you see him anymore?”
“He doesn’t call,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in three weeks. Only spoke to him once or twice in all that time.”
“I thought you were expecting him the night my father was attacked.”
She shrugged. “I was expecting him, but he stood me up. He called to cancel at the last minute.”
“Have you tried to contact him?”
“I’ve phoned, written. I even went to his apartment building, but he wasn’t in.”
“Why don’t you try to get out a little?” I said. “The next thing you know, he’ll start to wonder why you don’t call. You’ll be busy, shopping, going to shows, meeting new people, and he’ll pull a muscle trying to kick himself in the seat of the pants for ever having let you get away.”
She smiled. “You’re sweet, Ellie. You got a fella?”
I downed another mouthful of Scotch and shook my head, thinking of Gigi Lucchesi. “I haven’t met Mr. Right yet.”
“Then play the field, Ellie. And don’t waste your time with the working stiffs. Go for the rich guys. I did that for a few years after my husband, Garth, went away,” she said, the naughty blush of nostalgia glowing behind her glassy eyes. “I was living in Miami Beach, having a grand old time. I had lots of boyfriends.”
What about the crazy house Nelda had mentioned? And why was Angela Farber telling me this anyhow?
“I used to haunt all the hot clubs in Miami Beach: the Fontainebleau, Sans Souci, the Latin Quarter . . . Rich men with shady connections. And always married. But I didn’t care. For the first time in my life I was wanted, really wanted by someone. Sure, they were louses, after one thing, but they showed me a good time getting there. One fellow, Tony, took me to Cuba. My, the Tropicana was something else, and the backstreet clubs. They put on some pretty racy shows, I can tell you. But that was before those damned Communists took over.” Her enthusiasm waned, and she assumed a matter-of-fact demeanor to finish her tale. “But that’s how it is, you know. Once a gentleman finds out you’re divorced, his designs on you change, at least when you’re my age. Used goods. A good time, but not for marrying, you know.”
I gulped. Jesus, was I going to end up like Angela Farber?
“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe we should change the subject.”
“That’s all right,” I said, examining the amber-colored mixture of Scotch and melting ice in my glass. “Maybe you can help me figure something out. You said you hadn’t seen your gentleman friend in three weeks.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“What about last night?”
“What about it? You saw me last night in the hallway. I was alone.”
“But weren’t you expecting him?”
“I was expecting to see him Friday, when he called to break our date, but it’s been three weeks since I’ve seen him. I called Raul last night, but only because I thought Walter might show up. Tuesday used to be one of our regular nights.”
“You didn’t know that man in the hallway last night? Professor Chalmers?”
She leaned toward me, and her kimono opened to expose part of a milky-white breast. I tried to look away. “I’ve seen him at lectures at your father’s Italian Department, but I’ve never exchanged a word with him. I doubt he knows my name, and he’s certainly not my Walter.”
I nodded, putting the elevator incident to rest. “Why the sudden interest in Italian?” I asked.
She shrugged. “My mother was Italian, from Naples. I used to speak a little Italian. Dialect, you know, at home. Not the fancy way your father speaks it. And he’s not even Italian!”
“He always wanted me to learn it,” I said. “I spent a summer in Italy with him a long time ago, but I’m not very good at it. What about you?”
“Well, one day last September, I was feeling nostalgic for the sound of the language, so I asked your father if they had any social events that might interest me. He knew I liked poetry, music, and the arts, so he suggested a few lectures. That’s where I saw that Professor Chalmers.”
“Do you still attend lectures?”
She shook her head. “Dry stuff, most of it. They take all the beauty out of the poetry, those professors, reducing it to some abstract intellectual exercise. In the end, they don’t really care for the poetry. I find most academics boring. No offense, Ellie.”
“None taken,” I smiled.
“So, I gave it up. I found a more enjoyable pastime.”
“What’s he like?” I asked. “Your Walter, I mean.”
A devilish smile stretched across Angela Farber’s face, pulling at the character lines around her blue eyes.
“He’s fiercely handsome,” she said. “He’s not muscular, but he’s very virile. That comes from the Latin word for man. He taught me that part about Latin. He teaches me so much: books, art . . . We complement each other, you know. He teaches me about art and literature, and I teach him about music.” She paused a moment. “At least, we used to.”
Then she turned suddenly sad, her mien darkening and her eyes glazing over. It was as if she’d suddenly forgotten I was there. She just held her glass absently, and I could see her grip loosening. I gently pulled the glass from her hand and placed it on the table before her. She sat back on the cushion and drew a heavy sigh, still no more aware of my presence.
I put my own drink down and rose to leave. I’d never seen anyone check out so quickly.
“Good night, Mrs. Farber,” I said, but she didn’t answer.
The phone was ringing as I let myself into my father’s apartment. I dropped my coat onto the bench in the foyer and crossed the parlor to answer.
“Hello, Ellie,” said a playful voice from the other end. “Do you want to come over?”
I tried to compose myself before answering. “I don’t even know where you live (inhale), (exhale) Gigi.”
“253 Charles,” he whispered into the receiver. “Apartment 5-S. Or shall I come to your place?”
I thought a moment. I wanted to get away from my father’s house, away from Angela Farber’s miserable love life, and my own future.
“I’ll come there,” I said and put the receiver back into its cradle.
Before leaving to give in to my weakness for Gigi Lucchesi’s virile beauty—damn it, virile was the word Angela Farber had used—I summoned enough presence of mind to phone Saint Vincent’s ICU. Nurse Riley Tielman answered.
“Is there any news on my father’s condition?” I asked after identifying myself.
“None, Miss Stone. Your father’s resting comfortably, but there’s no change.”
“What about the police? Have they posted a man there?”
“Yes. An officer has been sitting next to his bed since this afternoon. He’s a big, strapping, young cop. Good looking, too,” and she giggled.
“Just remember why he’s there,” I said. “And don’t let him leave my father alone, not even for a minute. If he has to eat or use the men’s room, I want someone to sit by the bed till he gets back.”
“Yes, Miss Stone.”
“I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning. And that handsome young cop of yours better have his eyes on my father, not you!”
She giggled again. “Oh, Miss Stone. You must understand how it is when a handsome man crooks his finger . . .”
Manhattan’s geometry is fairly uniform. Miles and miles of rectangular blocks, drawn by the parallel streets and their perpendicular avenues, line up north to south and east to west, spanning different neighborhoods and crossing ethnic boundaries. The symmetrical routine might become tiresome if it didn’t constitute the ribs of the world’s greatest city. There is, however, a section of Manhattan where the grid has been shaken out of line. A map shows the streets like uprooted strata of a tectonic plate, stood on end by some geological spasm. East of Seventh Avenue, from Fourteenth to Canal Street, Manhattan is unnavigable to the stranger. Jones, Barrow, Christopher, Charles, Tenth, Perry, Eleventh, and Bank Streets slope one way; B
leecker, Greenwich, and West Fourth another. It’s one of the rare sections of Manhattan with triangular blocks, some no larger than wedges of cheese. This charming neighborhood is the West Village. I enjoyed walking its streets as much as any in New York, but on this cold January night, I hiked up my collar, pulled my gloves on tight, and slipped a pint of Scotch into my coat pocket; I doubted Gigi kept a stocked bar and I’d rather be prepared than dry. Once outside, I made a beeline for Charles Street and Gigi Lucchesi, walking like a jittery horse with blinders.
“Hey, you again?” came a voice from behind me on the stairs. “I told you to stay away from here.”
I reeled around to see a middle-aged man in a T-shirt in a doorway on the fourth floor landing.
“Excuse me?” I said.
Then the door opened, and Gigi grabbed my arm. “It’s OK, Mike,” he said to the man. “She’s a friend.”
“What was that about?” I asked once we were inside.
“That’s just the super,” he said. “I had a persistent admirer a while back. She caused some trouble, broke a window. Don’t worry about him. Come in and relax.”
Gigi’s apartment was a medium-sized, cozy studio on the top floor of a five-flight walk-up. The two windows on the west side of his room looked out on the side of another building, but to the south you saw a streetlamp, a handsome brick Federalist row house across Charles, and a good swath of night sky.
I turned my attention to Gigi, putting the super, Angela Farber, and Nurse Tielman’s handsome cop out of mind. In his own surroundings, Gigi was casual. Instead of the collared shirts and navy cashmere pullovers I’d seen him wear at the department, he now had on a loose-fitting cotton turtleneck and denim jeans. He may have just finished beating a rug, for all I knew, but he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.
“Let me pour you a drink,” he said.
“I’ll have this,” I said, placing my bottle on the table. Then I noticed he already had an unopened fifth of White Label in his hand, and I felt like a boor. This wonderful man, who did not drink spirits, had made a point of stocking my favorite! Backing into the bathroom, I said, “I’ll just be minute.”
Styx & Stone Page 12