Magic Hour

by Susan Isaacs

  "You're right," Robby told him. "No deals. You know why? Because your client is dead meat—and all of us know it."

  Oh, right. Vietnam vet with Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Big, brave cop with brass balls so big they clang. Except when the cars lined up in front of Bonnie's house like a cortege—Bonnie and Gideon in Gideon's BMW 735i, Robby and Thighs in Robby's silver Olds Cutlass, which was actually gray, and me—to take Bonnie to Headquarters for a blood test. I couldn't force myself to go along for the ride; I didn't have the guts to watch Bonnie being driven to her own fu­neral. As soon as we passed the two-block-long run of stores that was downtown Bridgehampton, I cut north off the main street and tore along the back roads until I got to the highway. Then I floored it. A hundred and ten.

  Big stud in a Jaguar. When I got to Headquarters, way ahead of them, I couldn't even make myself go into Homicide. I went into a stall in the men's room and sat down on the can.

  I was afraid to face Bonnie.

  No, I was afraid to face what I had done. I sat there, heart hammering, realizing I was the butt of some Almighty joke: This woman who somehow had come to mean a lot—no, everything—to me, this woman who I couldn't imagine living without, was, due to my sharp investigatory skills, my crafty persua­siveness, my flawless logic, going to go to jail and would come out an old lady. I would never see this woman, this enchantress, again.

  Whatever the hell her magic was, this woman was able to do what no one else had ever done before: bring me to life. But before I could solve the mystery of what her power was, I solved the mystery of Sy Spencer's murder. Oh, I was one shrewd dude. I'd broken her spell.

  So now I was totally, wholly and entirely without her, without any hope of touching her or talking to her, for the rest of what will be, at best, thirty or forty years of my lifeless life. I would move through mar­riage, kids, more homicides, grandchildren, retire­ment, as though moving through a thick and dirty fog.

  There I was, a real man. A homicide detective, sit­ting on a toilet because I was afraid to face some killer with a shining braid who makes good coffee and has a wonderful dog.

  But I got myself under control, except for one or two trembling breaths. Still, I couldn't leave for an­other five minutes because some guy from Sex Crimes or Robbery could come in to take a leak and when I passed him, I might suddenly get the shakes, or even burst into tears. He would realize then that, somehow, I was not the tough guy he and I and ev­erybody else were so convinced I was.

  So I just hid out in the toilet until I could become a man again.

  Bonnie and Gideon, while not true locals, had proba­bly lived on the South Fork long enough to know how to get to the Long Island Expressway without having to wait in the summer traffic caused by Yorkers, who, while normally the world's pushiest people, were totally feeble when it came to driving: sitting passively in their overheating cars, moving at the speed of a slug, on their way to buy a bottle of balsamic vinegar for thirty dollars. Their city brains could not comprehend the concept of turning off main roads. Naturally, all this would change the sec­ond New York magazine published an "Insiders Tell Their Secret Hamptons Shortcuts" article.

  But Bonnie and Gideon wouldn't take a shortcut. What was waiting for them that would make them want to rush over to Headquarters? And Robby and Thighs weren't going to push them; they knew just enough about the South Fork of Suffolk to know that a road on a map did not necessarily mean a road in reality. Why risk a wrong turn, wind up in the middle of a field of cauliflower and have Gideon reconsider and decide to spend a few days fighting the blood test, litigating the unlitigable? So they'd creep along with all the other cars. They could be another thirty, forty minutes. An hour even.

  I left the men's room and dragged myself into Homicide. Since we work on shifts, two or three guys share a desk. Hugo the Sour Kraut was at mine. I waved at him to stay put and sat down at Robby's. Two minutes later, Ray Carbone stuck his head into the room. He was wearing his congenial expression, like he wanted to talk about the exit wound in Sy's skull, or the Jungian theory of personality, so I picked up the phone, dialed the number for time and made a show of holding on, expectant, like I was waiting to speak to some Ultimate Witness. "Eastern Daylight Time, ten-fourteen ... and twenty seconds," the computer voice said. Carbone saluted goodbye and left. I was too exhausted to even hang up the phone, so I just sat there, listening to time passing. "Eastern Daylight Time, ten-sixteen ... and thirty seconds." I opened Robby's drawer, searching for a pen so I could look like I was taking notes. No pens, but there were a couple of nearempty bottles of breath fresh­ener drops, a business card from Mikey LoTriglio's lawyer and, toward the back, Robby's file on Mikey. I took it out: Michael Francis LoTriglio, aka Mikey LoTriglio, aka Fat Mikey, aka Mickey Lopkowitz, aka Mr. Piggy, aka Michael Trillingham. Faxed forms and com­puter printouts from NYPD and the FBI showing his arrest record: extortion, loan-sharking, conspiracy to sell stolen securities, tax evasion. And homicide, twice. Richie Garmendia of the Retail Butchers Union had been found floating under a West Side pier with his skull battered in. And Al Jacobson, an accountant for a carting company, was missing and presumed dead, death reportedly caused by being dropped in a cement mixer and thereby becoming part of Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. With all his arrests, Mikey had been brought to trial only once, on tax evasion. Well, twice. Two hung juries, and the government had severed him from their case.

  "Eastern Daylight Time, ten-eighteen ... and ten seconds." I closed my eyes and pictured Bonnie as I'd last seen her; she had changed clothes to come to Headquarters. I'd watched her walk downstairs in a black cotton sweater tucked into a straight white skirt, and black-and-white high heels. She must have put on some makeup, because her eyelids had turned bronze and her lips looked like she'd been eating raspberries. It wasn't Bonnie; it was a tall and very tasteful tragic figure. She wore long gold earrings and looked heartsick.

  I opened my eyes but couldn't shake the vision of her, so I made myself look down at the file again. Robby had made lots of notes in his rounded fourth-grade penmanship: about Mikey's mob associations, including known hit men, about his use of his fam­ily's business as a front for Family business, about his friendship with Sy and his investment in Starry Night. Detailed notes, pages and pages. I could see how he'd prepared for Monday's Homicide meeting, for making his case that Mikey was our guy.

  But at the meeting I'd convinced him our guy was Bonnie. And starting after the meeting, the pages had become paragraphs, the paragraphs, phrases. "8/22. 4:10." That was about a half hour after Mikey and his lawyer had been in, not that Robby or I had cared all that much. We both knew by then who'd killed Sy. "Spoke to Nancy Hales, bookkeeper for Starry Night Productions, Inc.," he'd written. "Finally admitted Mikey tried bribe for info re movie $$."

  I turned to the next page, but it wasn't there. I hung up on "Daylight..." Something wasn't sitting right. No more notes? Even if Robby had a videotape of Bonnie pulling the trigger, he should have asked some more questions. Like what did "Finally admit­ted" mean? Like how much was the bribe? Like how had it been offered to the bookkeeper? On the phone? In person? Like had this bookkeeper known what a bad guy Mikey was? How had she said no? Or hadn't she? I put the file back in the drawer, leaned back and closed my eyes. Relax. Not my problem.

  But then I opened my eyes, leaned forward and called Nancy Hales in the Starry Night production office at a film studio in Astoria, Queens. I gave her a song and dance about Robby being assigned to an­other case; I was just checking up on his notes.

  "How many times did you speak with Detective Kurz?" I asked casually.

  "That once in person."

  "In your office?"

  "Yes. And two times on the phone." Her voice was husky and overly slow. She was dull-witted or south­ern, or maybe she was into phone sex. "Tell me about Mikey LoTriglio."

  "I told—"

  "I know, but I want to hear it in your own words, not rely on his notes." Then I added: "Believe me, it'll be be
tter for you."

  "He said..." She was nervous. "The detective said I wouldn't be in any trouble if I cooperated."

  "You won't be. Now tell me what happened."

  "Mr. LoTriglio came up to the office one day look­ing for Mr. Spencer, but I think he knew Mr. Spencer wouldn't be there. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Yeah."

  "He asked for the bookkeeper, and someone brought him over to my desk. He pulled over a chair and asked if anything funny was going on. I said, 'Funny?' "

  "What did he say?"

  "He said, 'Don't shit me.' So I told him I couldn't discuss business with him and he told me he was a major investor and I said I knew that but he'd still have to get Mr. Spencer's okay." She paused. "He was ... I kind of knew he was a gangster. Not like Scarface, but still, I was scared. That's why I did it."

  "Took his money?" I asked.

  "Uh-huh."

  "How did he give it to you?"

  "He sort of slipped it under my telephone."

  "I mean, in what denominations?"

  "Fifties."

  "How many fifties?"

  "Didn't the other detective tell you how much it was?"

  "I thought you were cooperating," I said.

  "Ten fifties."

  "And what did he get for his five hundred dollars?"

  "The Lindsay Keefe business."

  "Do me a favor, Nancy. I'm making my own notes. Let's start fresh. Spell out the Lindsay business for me."

  "That the extra location scout and the two extra trailers and Teamster drivers and Nicholas Monteleone's bonus on signing and four interior sets we built ... well, all that didn't exist. Sy just had me put in some invoices and ... kind of move some money around."

  "Move some money to Lindsay?"

  "Yes."

  "How much did it come to?"

  She whispered: "Half."

  "Half a million?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Why did Lindsay Keefe get an extra half million?"

  Her whisper became even softer. "I don't know. I guess she was threatening to quit."

  I didn't get it. Sy had wanted to get rid of her. "When was this?"

  "Three days before the start of principal photogra­phy."

  I took a deep breath. "Nancy, why would he give her a half million more? She had a contract, didn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "So?"

  "So he was crazy about her. I mean crazy. Like he would have done anything to keep her happy."

  Or, at that point, to keep her in his bed. No big deal. He was Sy Spencer. He could get creative with the budget, and when Starry Night made ninety mil, who'd miss a few hundred thousand? And so, for a million plus another half million, Sy had bought him­self a truly superior lay—and a lemon of an actress who was killing his movie. That must have been some kick in his arrogant ass. "Did you get the sense that Mikey LoTriglio had heard any of the negative talk about Lindsay's acting that was going around?"

  "I think ... There were a lot of rumors. I'm pretty sure he heard about them."

  "How?"

  "Probably by paying off someone in the crew."

  "Like who?"

  "I don't know."

  "And then he found out from you that Sy had did­dled the books to give Lindsay a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus."

  "Yes."

  "And how did Mikey react?" Silence. "Didn't Detective Kurz talk to you about this?"

  "No. I would have told him, but he didn't ask."

  "And you didn't volunteer."

  "No. I was scared."

  "Tell me what Mr. LoTriglio said."

  "He said ... when he heard the exact figure on what Lindsay had gotten, he said, 'My friend Sy is goin' to get his nuts chopped for this.' And then he walked out."

  *12*

  What the hell was wrong with Robby? Jesus, if I'd been the one assigned to Mikey LoTriglio, I'd have been kicking chairs, screaming at the cop who kept insisting the perpetrator was the ex-wife. So what if Bonnie slept with Sy, I'd yell. There's a law against that? She humped him, kissed him goodbye, told him to call when he got back from L.A., and then went home. Period. Oh, your she-can-shoot theory? Is that your problem, jerk? Well, what about Mikey—or one of his boys? And what about that Lindsay? Turn on your VCR and watch her toting a rifle, in living color.

  And even if the ex-wife had, in fact, slept with a .22 between her legs all the years when she was a kid in Utah, could she still bag Sy? Could such a nice, warm lady plan such a mean, cold killing? This is life we're talking about here, not goddamn Agatha Christie, where Lord Smedley-Bedley's black-sheep cousin gets murdered after crumpets with the vicar on a rainy afternoon.

  And listen, jerk, I'd bellow, and maybe jab my pen toward him, like it was a dart, listen! What about the criminal personality? Who is more likely to shoot when betrayed? A kissed-off screenwriter who's slept with every other guy on the South Fork, who's so used to hearing guys tell her goodbye that she could write their rejection speeches for them? Or a Known Bad Guy who's just discovered his alleged good friend is screwing him out of half a million bucks?

  If I were Robby I'd have fought. I'd have built up a terrific case against Fat Mikey. Against Lindsay, come to think of it. She was a movie star, a professional egomaniac, and Sy was about to blow her out of the water.

  So what the hell was wrong? When I'd sat at the meeting, stacking up the cards against Bonnie, why hadn't Robby knocked down a few of them? It would have been so easy.

  I had a fast thought: Oh, Jesus, could I have de­stroyed an innocent life?

  But then I told myself: Asshole, look what she's done to you! Miss All-Natural is a brilliant con artist. First she looks up from the warrant, gives you that look of pain, then that disbelieving how-can-you-hurt-me? stare. And then the cold shoulder. She's got great ESP, that Bonnie. You thought you were so cool, but she's known all along you've had a major thing for her. So she sits and shivers by the fireplace on a hot day. Lets her mouth quiver. Swears she didn't do it. Why shouldn't she swear? She knows how the conned want so desperately to keep being conned. But then she sees she can't get to you ... Well then, okay, too bad; she gave it her best shot. So she goes upstairs and puts on a sexy skirt and gold ear­rings.

  But what if she's telling the truth?

  Then why did she lie so much?

  Well, what if she lied through her teeth ... but still didn't kill him?

  Didn't kill him? Take Bonnie Spencer, Mikey LoTriglio and Lindsay Keefe. Which one of the three is most likely—

  Robby came in just then and hurried over. He didn't like my feet up on his desk, near his pen set, but he was too excited to waste time in a protest. "Bonnie's in the lab!" Only his nervousness that the side of my shoe would smear the "Detective Robert Leo Kurz" brass plate kept him from positively gur­gling with delight. "She's down there now. With the lawyer." I didn't budge. "What's wrong? Don't you want to go?"

  "What about Mikey's payoff?" I asked him. He gave me a village idiot look that was so completely moronic I knew it was fake. "His payoff to the book­keeper at the Starry Night office."

  "Who cares?"

  "I care. We know Mikey's alibi sucks shit. So he had opportunity. And now, from what the book­keeper says, motive. Why the hell didn't you pursue that line of questioning and—"

  Robby held up his hand, swift, full-palm. Stop! Ag­gressive, angry, like one of the neo-Nazi cretins in the police academy who demonstrate how to direct traf­fic. "Wait just one second here, Steve." Huffy. Defi­nitely huffy. "We have our perpetrator, who we all agree is our perpetrator, over in the lab, as we speak." He did an about-face, marched out of Homi­cide, down toward the lab.

  I kept up with him. What a born dork Robby was, with his white Tums crust at the edges of his mouth. He radiated hairspray scent. His suit matched his pale-beige loafers. A fucking dork suit: the fabric was supposed to look luxurious, like nubby linen, but in­stead it looked as if it was cut from a bolt of cloth that was having an allergic reaction to its own
ugliness. You could see its unhealthy sheen; it was covered with minuscule bumps.

  "Hey, I want to talk to you for a second," I called out. He didn't stop.

  We got to the door of the lab just as Bonnie and Gideon were leaving. She was pressing a gauze pad against the bend in her arm where they'd drawn blood, so she didn't see me until I said "How'd it go?" She glanced up, startled, terrified, the nice girl in a horror movie who had just seen the monster.

  I might as well have been one. She tried to get away so fast that she wound up stepping on her own high-heel shoe and would have fallen if Gideon hadn't grabbed her arm. She slumped against him for just a second, until she regained her balance.

  For that one second, though, Bonnie's eyes were on my face. Finally, there it was: absolute fear. Eyes floating in the whites, unfocused, in terror of the monster who was stalking her. And then she was rushing away, down the hall. Her long, fast strides were restrained only by the knee-hobbling hem of her skirt, so Gideon was able to keep up.

  After they disappeared around a corner, Robby said: "I'll go over to court, get the arrest warrant." He started to go.

  I grabbed the sleeve of his repulsive suit. "Not yet."

  "What do you mean, not yet?"

  "I mean, we'd be making a mistake to push it."

  "No, we wouldn't!"

  "Yes, we would."

  "No!"

  "Robby, how many man-hours have you put in looking for that .22? Not enough. We've got to give it a better shot."

  His upper lip drew up, so he was almost snarling. His bared teeth were the same color as his beige suit and shoes. "What the hell's the matter with you?" he demanded. "You going soft? You going to risk letting her run?"

  "Where is she going to run to?"

  "Anyplace. Listen, I was in her closet. She has hik­ing boots! A backpack!"

  "For crissakes, she's a Jewish broad. What the hell is she going to do? Go to ground in the wetlands?" I didn't tell him that was precisely it: the waking night­mare that had stolen five hours off my sleep the night before. Bonnie could get away. I'd almost choked my­self with my sweaty, twisted rope of a sheet as I tossed around. She could disappear, live off the land, gradually make her way north, steal a boat, get off Long Island. "Or you think the fag lawyer's going to hide her in his wine cellar?"