The brass rainbow df-2

by Michael Collins

  “Shoot a hundred,” he said in a smooth, cool voice that had taken on a faint British accent. He rolled a four.

  “Four the point,” the stickman droned. Hard point or easy, winner or loser, they were all suckers to the stickman.

  “Another hundred rides on Little Joe,” Walter said. Except he barked it like an officer ordering a bayonet charge.

  He was a man at war. A soldier for glory and victory. A man like his ancestors battling heavy seas and steaming jungles. He thrilled to the battle, and it was the game that mattered, not the result. Maybe Deirdre Fallon could bring him out. Maybe no one had ever helped him to find anything worth fighting for.

  Deirdre Fallon was watching me. “You look disapproving.”

  “A man has to get his kicks,” I said. “I guess Walters One, Two and Three were gamblers, too.”

  “You don’t like the suggestion of aristocracy in the numbers?”

  “I’m not much impressed by family. My grandfather would have been. He was arrogant about being a Fortunowski of Poland.”

  She smiled a nice, open smile. “I would have liked your grandfather. Family is important in a chaotic world.”

  “If the family has values.”

  “The Radfords have many values. Mostly good ones. Walter simply hasn’t found the right values for himself yet.”

  “And you mean to help him find them?”

  She smiled again. “Perhaps reshaping men is a disease of women, but Walter loves me, and I’m going to like being a Radford.”

  Before I could answer that one, Walter crapped out. I saw him deflate as the pot was raked away and the dice passed. His eyes were deep pools of loss. It wasn’t the pot he stared at, it was the dice in another man’s hands.

  Deirdre Fallon took his arm. “We can have a drink and talk.”

  His sorrowful eyes looked at her. It was as naked a look as I had ever seen. His whole face said that the dice were gone and there was nothing left in the universe for him but Deirdre Fallon. What more could a woman ask? Especially when wealth, position, and maybe even power went with it?

  I followed them into one of the lounge rooms. Deirdre Fallon ordered for all of us: martinis for them, an Irish for me.

  “You wanted to know about Paul Baron, Mr. Fortune?” she said.

  “I wondered how Walter lost so much to him.”

  “By playing bad poker over quite a few months,” Walter said. He had changed again. He was more open, direct, a pleasant young man. He was something of a chamelon, changeable. “Paul was always very nice about accepting my markers.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “When my uncle closed Costa, I was shut off everywhere in Westchester. They were all afraid of Jonathan. So I moved into New York and met Baron at a party about seven months ago.”

  “Sammy Weiss, too?”

  “I met Weiss twice. He hung around some bigger games Baron took me to. I usually played in small games at Paul’s East Sixteenth Street apartment. I told him I’d pay the $25,000 in installments. I thought he had agreed. I told him that Jonathan wouldn’t pay.”

  “You didn’t know he was sending Weiss to collect?”

  “No. I’d never have let him.”

  “Did your uncle know Weiss was only a messenger?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t tell Jonathan about the money this time. Paul must have contacted him directly.”

  “How did you plan to pay even in installments? From what I hear, you don’t have any money like $25,000.”

  Deirdre Fallon said, “I don’t see how that matters.”

  “I don’t know what does matter yet,” I said.

  “I hoped to float small loans,” Walter said. “I’m twenty-nine; there was less than a year before I got all my father’s money anyway. People will lend on that even with my record. Baron just wouldn’t wait! He had to send Weiss, and Weiss killed my uncle!”

  Deirdre Fallon said, “I’m sorry for your friend Weiss. I’m sure he didn’t mean to kill Jonathan, but he did.”

  “He’s no friend, and he’s a cheap hustler, but I can’t see him as a killer. Was Jonathan involved in anything shady?”

  Walter laughed. “Not Jonathan.”

  Deirdre Fallon didn’t answer me. She was watching something behind me. I turned. Two men in dinner jackets stood over us. The taller of them had an easy smile aimed at Miss Fallon.

  “Mr. Costa,” she said.

  Carmine Costa bowed. “Miss Fallon, Mr. Radford, nice to have you back. Gives the place class.”

  Costa was big, dark and handsome. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist; clean hands and thick dark hair and snapping black eyes. He seemed to paw the ground like a stallion as he looked at Deirdre Fallon.

  “Nothing could do that,” she said with contempt in her voice, “but at least you don’t cheat, or do you?”

  “For you I’d cheat myself.”

  “You’re a pig, Mister Costa,” she said.

  He put his hand on her shoulder and moved it up to her neck. “A boar, Miss Fallon. A wild old boar.”

  She looked up into his face, and then reached up with both hands and gripped his wrist as if to pull the hand away. For a second or two she just held the wrist. Walter Radford moved.

  “Get your hands off her!” Walter said, and swung at Costa’s face.

  The other man with Costa moved like a snake. His hand caught Walter’s wrist before it had gone four inches. Costa barked:

  “Strega!”

  The man, Strega, dropped Walter’s wrist and stepped back as if he had never moved. I had never seen anyone move so fast. Strega was not as tall as Costa, not as broad, seemed quieter in his dinner jacket, and yet there was no question which of the two was the stronger man. Strega was blond and smooth and there were no marks on his Nordic face, but he seemed to exude pure power. The muscleman, the bodyguard.

  Costa bowed. “My mistake, no offense to the lady. Strega, apologize to Mr. Radford.”

  Strega inclined his head. “Mr. Radford.”

  “Sure,” Walter Radford said. “Okay, Deirdre?”

  She nodded. “Mr. Costa can’t help his bad manners. He probably intended a compliment. But we better leave, Walter.”

  I watched her lead Walter out. Costa watched her, too.

  “There’s a woman,” Costa said. “Right, Strega?”

  “Some woman, Sarge,” Strega said.

  Costa became aware of me. “You want something?”

  “A little talk,” I said, “about Jonathan Radford.”

  Costa eyed me. “Sure, why not? Come in the office.”

  I followed him toward a curtained doorway.

  Strega followed me.

  8

  Costa’s office was modest and had no windows. Air-conditioning hummed, the safe was a vault only an army could crack, the chairs were leather, and the desk was steel and small.

  “Sit down,” Costa said.

  I started for a chair. Strega’s hands frisked me from behind with a delicate touch and no wasted motion. Costa sat behind his desk and waited.

  “Okay,” Strega said.

  I sat. The bodyguard walked away to a corner. He made no noise as he walked. Strega was the new-style bodyguard, what they call now a “show-guard.” He could go anywhere and blend in-a society party, a political dinner, a ladies’ tea.

  “No iron?” Costa said. “That’s smart. Guns win battles, brains win wars, right?”

  “Lawyers win wars,” I said. “Our kind of wars.”

  “You got a point. Who are you?”

  “Dan Fortune. A private detective.”

  Costa closed his eyes, leaned back. “Fortune? Yeh, wait now… wait

  … Danny the Pirate, sure. Chelsea. I was East New York.” He opened his eyes. “You’re small beans, baby.”

  “Real small,” I agreed. “You’re East New York? Profaci’s family, or the Gallo boys?”

  “To hell with that. I do business, sure, but that’s all.”

  Profaci was th
e former Mafia leader of Brooklyn. He had been a tough leader-so tough he had died of natural causes. The Gallos were Profaci’s enemies. What Costa was saying was that he was an independent, not Mafia. He looked as if it meant something to him. His dark eyes considered my missing arm.

  “The war?” he asked.

  “I never made it.”

  “Too bad. I was master sergeant. In the Big Red One. We made the landings, baby. We pushed the Krauts back on their cans. Real war, real soldiers. When you got that behind you, you don’t cozy up to punks like the Mafia. There ain’t one of them wouldn’t have fainted in a real war, and that goes for Charley Lucky, too. Without guns they couldn’t handle an old ladies’ bridge club, and with the guns they can’t hit the Queen Mary at fifty feet. They got to use choppers to hit a parked car. They shoot guys in the head ’cause they got to get that close or miss. The bosses can’t walk into a bar without six punks casing it first.”

  “You don’t need a bodyguard?”

  “Strega? He’s my friend, baby. He was infantry, too, in Korea. We’re a team, only I can handle myself. I hit the bull six out of seven with an automatic at fifty yards. I can take any man with my hands, short of a bigger professional and Strega. With me and Strega it’s a draw. Right, Strega?”

  Strega leaned in the corner, his eyes blank. “I’ll take you sixty-forty, Sarge. With an automatic, you got the edge.”

  Costa laughed. Strega was serious. The quick brains were probably with Costa, he was the boss, but I’d rather have met him in an alley than Strega. Beyond that they were two of a kind: self-contained and self-sufficient. Proud. They bowed to no man. It was almost refreshing in our organization world.

  Costa said, “What do you want to know about Radford?”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “You want to know if I knocked him off? Because he closed me down over in North Chester?”

  “It’s a reason,” I said.

  “No it isn’t, baby. It’s all in the game. I shut the nephew off cold and opened here. No sweat.” He leaned back again, fixed those dark eyes on me. “We don’t kill people anymore, not outside the club. Sure, inside the boys still hit each other sometimes, but not outside. Too much pressure now. Anastasia gets it, the cops cheer. Knock off a citizen, and you got trouble. If the citizen was a big wheel, the trouble is so bad no fix works, and that’s bad for business.”

  “And Radford was important?”

  “You know it. Talk about Mafia, but, baby, they’re nothing compared to a guy like Jonathan Radford. He was real power. The connections, the influence, the real muscle. If he looks sideways at the cops, no fix could stick. He calls the Governor, he gets troopers and maybe the national guard. Congress listens to him. The President talks to him. He was a corporation, baby, with a reach went everywhere. I did what he didn’t like. He made a phone call and I was out of business. No threats, no guns, no muscle. That’s power, baby. He closed me to show he wanted the kid shut off. I shut the kid off. He let me open here.”

  “Sometimes a man gets squeezed so hard he just has to stand up and fight no matter how bad the odds,” I said.

  Costa scowled now. “Listen, baby. He wanted me out of North Chester, and I got out. He didn’t even talk to me. Guys like him think guys like me and you ain’t even human. If they need us, they use us like they’d use a dog. If they don’t need us, they don’t even see us as long as we keep out of their way. I stay open, baby, only because guys like Radford are too busy to worry about me, and the good citizens don’t care.”

  “Probably true and logical,” I said, “but you don’t strike me as a man who’s always logical.”

  He grinned. “Anyway, baby, I’ve got me an alibi. Soon as I heard, I knew the cops’d be around. They came. I told them what I’m telling you: me and Strega was in the city early Monday, sure, but we was back here by one o’clock. We got proof. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Did you hear about Jonathan being mixed up in anything?”

  “No, but what would I hear about what he did?”

  “Do you know a man named Paul Baron?”

  “I heard of him, but I never met the man. We work different streets. He’s a con artist, a sharpie. I’m a businessman. Him and his women work badger games; play the ships, the resorts. His kind’ll try to take a casino as fast as any private mark. I’d throw him out.”

  “Walter Radford lost $25,000 to Baron at poker.”

  Costa whistled. “Walter can’t play, but Baron probably cold-decked him, too. Only $25,000 is damned high for a loner like Baron to let the tab go.”

  “I was thinking that myself,” I agreed. “Maybe Baron sort of knew Walter was going to be rich soon. I notice Walter isn’t shut off here anymore.”

  “The old man’s dead. No worries now,” Costa said. “Walter’s loaded, if the Fallon doesn’t queer the deal when she marries him. Except I don’t give that two years before she wants out, or maybe he does. She’s got too much class for him.”

  “You like her?”

  “There’s something in her, baby. Only you saw she won’t give me the time of day. Not now. Maybe later.”

  “Keep hoping,” I said, and stood up.

  “I will, baby.”

  I left Costa with a faraway look in his black eyes. Strega still leaned in his corner, a statue. But just as I reached the door, the blond man’s gray eyes turned to look at me. Intense gray eyes, as if Strega wanted to be sure to remember my face.

  Outside the casino in the cold I lighted a cigarette. The stars were clear and hard. It had been a day of the wild goose, and no help to Sammy Weiss. I decided to have one more go at finding Weiss, and maybe Paul Baron. The cops should have given up on Weiss’s room by now. Maybe I could find some lead they had missed.

  9

  St. Marks place is one of those streets that make New York what it is. It is in what was once called the Ghetto, where the great Yiddish culture flourished. The Jews still live in the area, but now the Poles are there, the Ukrainians, the Italians, and a host of other peoples. The bums are there because the Bowery is near. The artists are there because it is also the East Village, the present cheap Bohemia. The alienated are there, and the grotesque. Old and young; middle-class and far out; bearded hippie and bearded Chassidim; black, white, yellow and brown. All walk in relative peace.

  On any given block between Third Avenue and Avenue A there may be a Polish Hall, a Slovenian Roman Catholic Church, an Italian cafe, a Bodega-Carniceria, and a Jewish restaurant. There are lower-middle-class tenements, flophouse hotels, apartments with doormen, and some of the lowest rooming houses anywhere. There are spit-and-sawdust workmen’s bars, psychedelic coffee houses, and three places where you can buy marijuana over the counter.

  At the moment, St. Marks Place itself is a hippie heaven, a far-out Coney Island of the flower-children and the LSD-trippers. Every night is Mardi Gras on this year’s St. Marks Place. It will not always be this. It will change again with the city and life itself, and no one can say what it will be tomorrow.

  And underneath the surface carnival of today, the old Ghetto, Bowery, and melting pot still holds firm, offering a home to men like Sammy Weiss, who have never known peace and who love only the dollar made without work.

  Weiss’s room was on the third floor rear, and it was not locked. I went in with caution. The room was empty. With its nameless furniture, greasy stove, and sagging bed, it looked like it had always been empty. The single closet held one suit, one pair of slacks, and one worn pair of shoes. In the bureau there was underwear, socks, and a strange article that seemed to be an old male corset. There were two clean shirts with turned collars.

  All men, petty gambler or king, are much the same day to day. I could picture Weiss, of the fur collar and big bluff, alone in this room turning his shirt collars and hoping that a corset would make him slim and young again before he gave up and let his pot sag.

  I found nothing. Only the evidence of a small and empty life. There were only some twenty-se
ven miles between this room and North Chester, but it was hard to believe that the two places held members of the same species.

  I heard the door open. I looked up to see a man come in and lean against the door. A gray man, tall and slender.

  “Hello, Fortune.”

  He wore a gray cashmere overcoat, pale gray gloves, and his gray trousers draped perfectly to shined black shoes. He wore his gray Homburg at too much angle, and his handsome face had an edge of anxiety he would never completely hide. It added up to only one conclusion-a man who lived by wits and guile, and for whom clothes, pleasures and the best places were not by-products of life but ends in themselves. A con man.

  “What do you want to make waves for, Fortune?”

  “Looking for Weiss is making waves?” I said.

  “Big waves,” he said.

  “You’re Paul Baron?”

  He had an odd way of looking at some point on a far wall. He looked at a wall and nodded. “I’m Paul Baron. You’re getting in my way, Fortune.”

  “Enough to be pushed under a train?”

  Baron considered the ceiling. “That was a bad play. Spur-of-the-moment, you know how it is. It seemed like an idea at the time.”

  “What is it?” I said, and stepped toward Baron. “You want to silence Sammy before he can finger you for killing Radford?”

  I suppose I stepped toward him to show him that I wasn’t afraid of him. If I did, it worked fine, but not with exactly the result I had had in mind.

  Baron said, “Leo.”

  A second man appeared in the open doorway. A short, broad man with enormous, dangling hands, and massive shoulders like the hump of a bull buffalo. He shambled into the room on short, stiff legs that seemed to have no knees, and watched me with blank-faced concentration.

  Baron studied a stain on the far wall. “Now listen good, Danny boy, and then forget what you heard. A man owed me money. I’m an easy-going man, but I like to be paid. This man couldn’t pay me, but he had an uncle who could. I sent Sammy Weiss to collect my money. Weiss got my money, but I didn’t get it. I still don’t have my money. I want it.”