The Ledger

by Dorothy Uhnak

  “Yes. Of course.” Automatic response, totally meaningless. Yes. Of course. What matters are kept confidential? For what “all concerned”?

  Christie swung her legs around so that she was sitting on the edge of the chair. “What can you tell me about Elena’s son?”

  “Not much. That the child was born sometime in September of 1962 and ...”

  “Where was he born, Reverend Mother?”

  The nun’s voice was tighter, warier, possibly in response to her own sharpening sense of the change in Christie’s voice. “Didn’t Elena tell you?”

  “No. Actually, Elena told me she had an abortion. I learned ... from other sources, that Elena had a child. It is very important that I find out as much as I possibly can about this.”

  “Well, the child was born in the Wingate Shelter for Unwed Mothers, in Westchester County. At the end of three weeks—which is the routine time in such cases—the child was given up for adoption.”

  Professionally, smoothly, Christie held down any exclamation of surprise. “And after that time, she went to Puerto Rico for a while?”

  “Yes. She went directly from the Shelter to the Island. She stayed with some relative for a few months. And then,” the voice was weary, resigned, “she returned to New York City. And began her life with Mr. Enzo Giardino.”

  “Did Elena ever see her baby again?” Christie didn’t really expect an answer, it was a throwaway question; but then, she didn’t expect the long, heavy silence. “Reverend Mother?”

  “I heard you, Detective Opara. I am trying to see where all this is leading. Trying to see the relevance this has.”

  Carefully, Christie said, “I’m not too sure myself, but I think that possibly a child’s life might be involved. In a very real sense.”

  There was a sigh, a clearing of a throat, then, “About two years after her child was born, Elena sent a pregnant friend of hers to Wingate Shelter. I’m afraid that through inexcusable carelessness, and through totally misplaced loyalty, the girl was able to look at Elena’s file. And thought she was doing a favor to inform her of the name of the adoptive family.”

  There was a long, hard cough and then the voice went low with an almost tough sound. “Detective Opara, Elena came to see me shortly after this incident. It was the last time I saw her. I believed what she told me then, and I believe it now. I will repeat it to you as accurately as I remember her telling it to me.”

  “About seeing her child?”

  “Yes. She drove to the address her friend had given her. She saw the house, rode around, saw the school, the community where he would be raised, then sat in her car, across from the house. A car pulled up, a young woman got out and began unloading grocery bags. Elena saw a small boy—her son—beside the woman. He staggered with a heavy bag he had selected for himself and stumbled. The food went all over the place and the boy started to cry. Elena watched the young woman kneel down, wipe the child’s face, help him gather things together. Then, she made up a smaller bundle which he could manage easily. The last sight she had of her son was as the child, carrying his package with one arm, trailing his mother into the house, his free hand clutching her skirt.

  “Elena came to tell me not just this little vignette, but to tell me something far more important. Because she knew her friend’s indiscretion had been discovered, Elena came to reassure me that she would never go near her child again, nor interfere in his life in any way. That what she had seen she would carry with her always. And as I said before, I believe her.”

  Christie asked cautiously, “Reverend Mother, would you give me the name of the adoptive family? With my assurance that they will know absolutely nothing about Elena.”

  “You should know better than to have asked that. Our records are carefully protected now, Detective Opara, and nothing contained in them can possibly be made available to you. I’ve had a long and somewhat tedious day and three more of the same are coming up. Is there anything further?”

  “No. No, thank you very much for calling.”

  Christie sat staring at the phone for a moment before replacing it on the table. Mickey came into the living room in his pajamas. The smell of hot water and soap surrounded him, moved about the room with him. His dark hair clung wetly to his neck and his face was red and glowing.

  “Hey, Mom, I don’t know how it happened, but about half of the water from the tub got onto the bathroom floor. It must have been a tidal wave.”

  Christie gestured toward the kitchen. “Go get the mop, Mickey. I’ll be upstairs in a minute. And put your slippers on.”

  Mickey’s singing, high and treble, trailed along the stairway, then reverberated against the tiled bathroom walls. Christie stopped halfway to the second floor and leaned against the banister.

  If Elena’s child had been adopted, then who the hell is Raphael?

  13

  THE SQUAD ROOM HAD a special quality, an electric tempo that was apparent the moment she walked in. It was only eight-thirty, and Christie had arrived early to type her notes, but there was nothing early-morning about any of the men. They were deep into their work, and a collection of stained coffee cups and cardboard containers lined the long gray table across the front of the room.

  Detective Pat O’Hanlon put his coat on and, with a smooth turn, caught Christie’s coat and placed it on his hanger.

  “Still raining out there, Christie?”

  “On and off. What’s doing, Pat?”

  O’Hanlon shrugged, noncommittal. “Things might start moving pretty soon. Have to see a man about a ship. See you, Christie.”

  Tom Dell, neatly tailored and carefully groomed, came to check the coat rack. He rearranged a few hangers. “I don’t want any wet coats leaning against mine. No offense, Christie.”

  “The boss in, Tom?”

  “Since five A.M.” He turned back to his copy of the Daily News.

  Christie reached for the telephone, caught it before the second ring. “D.A.’s Squad, Detective Opara. Hold it a minute, Marty. Hey, Tom, is Stoney around?”

  “With the boss. Is that Ginsburg? I’ll get Stoney.”

  Marty was speaking to someone at the other end of the connection. Christie looked around the office. Bill Ferranti was pecking away at the typewriter and Sam Farrell squinted over his notes. Christie could see it wasn’t a final report. They looked very transient themselves, ready to grab their coats and disappear into mysterious directions on secret assignments. Christie began to feel slightly annoyed. She listened carefully, then heard Marty whistling in her ear.

  “Hey, Marty, what’s doing anyway?”

  Stoner Martin barely nodded at her as he took the receiver from her hand. “Yeah, Marty. Right. Are you with Dudley now? Good. Mr. Reardon said to stick with him. You checked out homicide already? Okay. Yeah, Pat brought the pictures in from the lab. No, he left already, I think.” Stoner raised his brows at Christie, and she confirmed what he had said. “Yeah, O’Hanlon left. No, I won’t be down there. I gotta meet in an hour with a guy. Right, kid, stick with it.”

  Christie had to move quickly to catch up with Stoner Martin. “Hey, Stoney, would you tell Mr. Reardon I want to see him? It’s very important.”

  He turned and regarded her blankly. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face looked drawn. “Not now, Christie, okay?”

  Sam Farrell stood at the coat rack and dug into the pockets of a black coat, looked surprised when his hand came up empty. Carefully, he examined the label. “Gee, these dark coats all look alike. I could have sworn this was mine.”

  “Hey, Sam, what’s doing? What’s all the action this morning?”

  Farrell located his own coat, dug into a pocket with his injured left hand, winced and carefully extracted the notes he sought. “Damn thing still hurts,” he said quietly. Oh, Christie. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. This narcotics case is moving. There were three homicides last night. That’s how come we’re all in action around here.”

  Bill Ferranti handed her a copy of their interim report and
told her, “Two informants were found shot this morning at about 3 A.M. One of Marty’s and one of Pat’s.”

  Quickly, she scanned the report. It contained the brief facts relating to the discovery of bodies. Cause of death in both cases: one .38 bullet at the base of the neck of each victim, fired at close range. Each body had been found slumped over the steering wheel of a late-model, high-priced automobile. One victim had been found in Queens, two blocks from the middle-class, attached brick house where he lived. The other had been found with legs dangling from the partially opened door of his automobile which had been parked on the service road of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.

  The rest of the report was a check list of what the detectives would do in continuing their investigation: obtain yellow sheets on each victim from the Bureau of Criminal Identification; record of employment; associates, business and personal; last-known activities; union affiliations, if any; social club memberships, if any. Routine check out.

  Christie handed the report to Ferranti. “Sam said three homicides. Who was the third?”

  Ferranti shook his head, removed his spotless eyeglasses and rubbed at them with a fresh linen handkerchief. “That was a rough one, Christie. A girl. Rough.”

  Sam Farrell extracted a copy of the report, folded it into a wad and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “Yeah, that was a mess, from what we hear. Stabbed.” His bandaged index finger pointed at his chest and throat. “Gee, maybe forty, forty-five times. Hell of a way to go. Marty’s down on that now.”

  Christie stiffened. Marty was with Dudley. Dudley the Dude. “What girl?”

  “Name of Sondra or ... Celia. Yeah. She was one of Bill Dudley’s sources. Hey, yeah, that’s right, you met her, didn’t you, Christie?”

  Christie nodded, then, impulsively she reached out and caught Farrell’s arm. “My God, Sam, why? Why were they all murdered?”

  Farrell’s eyebrows shifted up his forehead. “Well, they can’t have it both ways, I guess. These two guys who were giving bits and pieces of information to Pat and Marty, for instance. Played it too cozy for their own health, I guess. They told the fellas that the market in narcotics has tightened up lately. Very, very tight.” Farrell disregarded the dead informants. The only thing important about them was the information they had relayed. “We checked with the Narcotics Bureau, local, state and federal. We all been getting the same word: the market’s been deliberately dried up, so that when the stuff arrives, it will cost, but plenty. This isn’t any penny-ante stuff, Christie. This will run into millions and millions. The feds have been getting word from the West Coast too, like Frisco and L.A. and San Diego. Even from Seattle. Plus what we’ve been getting here and from Jersey and a couple of southern ports.” He blinked, noticed the expression on her face. “And, well, these guys who’ve been feeding the information, I guess they must have got too careless. But anyway, from all we’ve learned, the information has been pretty accurate. Stands up so far.”

  “But the girl, this Celia. She was just ... a very sad girl. She didn’t tell us anything about the narcotics operation. She was just very pathetic.”

  “Well, she’s just very dead now.”

  Bill Ferranti frowned. “Christie, we’re going in the field now. Want me to send some tea up from the luncheonette?”

  “No. Thanks, Bill. It just doesn’t make sense. All the killing. The girl, particularly.”

  Detective Bill Ferranti was a kind and a sensitive man. He nodded his agreement. “None of it makes any sense when you get right down to it. All this killing, all this violence. Sometimes, this job makes me sick.”

  The office seemed unnaturally quiet after the men left. The phones didn’t ring; Tom Dell sat quietly laboring over the gas and mileage report he was required to submit each day relative to the use of Reardon’s car. Christie walked to the window, looked down at the wet gray streets. Rain was coming down again in uneven, windblown slashes.

  “Hey, Tom, when do you think I might get in to see Mr. Reardon?”

  Dell rubbed his chin, made a clicking sound deep in his throat. “I’d advise you to wait, Christie. Things are getting pretty tight.”

  Christie scanned the morning newspaper. The murder of the two men was reported briefly and described as typical gangland killings. The girl’s death was sensationalized and covered in carefully lurid detail. The picture of Celia Kendall was obviously several years old and bore little resemblance to the girl Christie had met. It could have been the picture of any of a hundred girls with aspirations for a glamorous career: the tall, buxom body was vulgarly displayed by a too-small bikini; the face, featureless, turned archly, chin resting on a raised shoulder. The caption read: “Former starlet brutally stabbed.” Starlet. She had probably reached Hollywood, gotten inside of one studio. Christie tossed the newspaper on the desk and walked quickly down the corridor to Casey Reardon’s office. She tapped twice and entered without waiting for a response.

  “Mr. Reardon, could I see you for a minute? I have something that might be important.”

  Reardon and Stoner Martin turned from the windowsill. There was a collection of papers along the sill and Stoner was jotting down notes on a lined legal pad.

  “Not just now, Christie. We’re up to our ears.” He turned back, his finger stabbed a line of print. “I want this guy checked out. You got Treadwell in the field or what?”

  “He’s over in Narcotics.”

  “Yeah. Well, let’s get some additional people. We’re too damn shorthanded around here. Get the precinct detectives in on this. Call Captain Morrison and tell him—” Reardon turned abruptly. “Christie, what do you want? Can’t it wait?”

  Christie took the photographs from the envelope clutched in her hand and spread them across Reardon’s desk. “Mr. Reardon, I think we might have something here. Really something. Take a look at these.”

  Reardon whistled between his teeth, leaned forward and scowled at the photographs which were totally meaningless to him. “Well, what is it?”

  “Well, that’s supposed to be Elena and her son. But it isn’t really. That’s the part that’s important.”

  Casey Reardon drew his dark red eyebrows close together. He roughly massaged his eyes for a moment, then, eyes still closed, he told her, “Pull this together for me, Christie. Make it fast and to the point, okay?”

  “Right. Elena had a child. A boy. First she told me that she’d had an abortion, but I had a feeling that ...” Christie felt the pressure of the glazed amber eyes and she tried to pull the information tightly together. She waved her hand rapidly, dismissing the details of her investigation. “Anyway, Elena Vargas had a son. And the important thing is that Enzo Giardino thinks that these are pictures of her and her son. But they aren’t. That’s what Elena wanted him to think. Her son was adopted. This boy is some kid named Raphael. Probably one of her cousin’s children. In Puerto Rico.”

  She didn’t need Reardon’s expression to tell her she wasn’t making much sense. She took a long steadying breath, then said, “Enzo Giardino gave me those pictures yesterday. He said I was to give them to Elena and that it was a ‘friendly’ gesture on his part, but of course, the threat was implied. That’s obvious. But Elena is a lot smarter than Giardino gave her credit for and ...”

  Reardon covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head as though to clear it. Then, he held his hand up to her. “Hold it, right there. Say that again, because I’m not sure I heard you right the first time.”

  Stoner Martin turned from the window and both men stared at her. Finally, they were listening. Christie felt excitement race through her. She had latched on to something. Okay. The point is that Elena wanted Giardino to think that this boy,” she pointed, “the one in the picture, is really her son but ...”

  Reardon’s voice was clear and District-Attorney-sharp now. “No, skip all that. Who did you say gave you those pictures?”

  “Enzo Giardino. He said that it was a ‘friendly’ gesture, but ...”

  “Hold it a minute,
okay? Enzo Giardino gave you those pictures of Elena?”

  “Yes. Well, he’s out on bail isn’t he? I mean, I assumed he was out on bail.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. He’s out on bail. No, just wait and answer my questions. When did you see Enzo Giardino? And where?”

  Christie slowed down with difficulty and despite several interruptions, she told Reardon about Giardino and the pictures. She tried to tell him about her conversation with the Mother Superior and the fact that Elena’s son had been adopted, but Reardon seemed to tune out. He kept going back to Giardino and his car.

  “Was anybody else in the car with you. Besides Giardino?”

  Christie’s mouth pulled down. “Yes. Well, not in the car actually, but outside the car. Some little creep named Tonio. He’s a real Neanderthal type; terrible beady little eyes and ...”

  Reardon slumped into his chair. “Holy Christ,” he said.

  Stoner Martin lit a cigarette and didn’t realize he already had one going until he put the match into the ashtray on Reardon’s desk.

  “Well, can I tell you the rest of it now? You see, I think we might be on to something. If we can find out who Elena’s real child is, we can use that information to our advantage. I think she’d tell us anything we wanted to know, you know about Giardino’s operation and the ledger and all ...”

  “You know something, Christie?” Reardon said quietly. “You need a keeper. Jesus Christ. Stoney, did you ever hear of anything like this?” He turned back to Christie and his face was angry, his words ridiculing her. “What the hell is the matter with you? You got into a car with Enzo Giardino ...”

  “Well, I had my gun in my pocket. And I didn’t get into the car until that Tonio character was gone.” She bit the inside of her cheeks and matched his anger. “I felt we were evenly matched.”

  Reardon started to speak, stopped and gnawed on his thumb, then reached for one of Stoner’s fit cigarettes. He rarely smoked and didn’t seem aware of what he was doing. He spoke to Stoner. “She thought they were evenly matched.”