Down the block from Grimaldi’s Pizza and in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, I found a bar. I was so happy, I nearly got religion. It didn’t last. Just as I parked the car and reached to open my door, there was a bang and my car lurched forward.
Fuck!
I got out of my car ready to take a swing at the idiot who’d just rear-ended me. Much easier to take a swing when you have a gun on you… just in case. I don’t know, I guess maybe I was a little more frustrated at not making immediate headway in finding Sashi. It had begun to sink in while I was parked outside Martyr’s building that I was further behind than I imagined, that three weeks in a missing child case was an eternity and that if I ever did catch up, it would be far too late. My fists were clenched when I turned around and saw her standing there.
“Oh, my god. I’m so sorry. I don’t think I did any damage to your car,” she said, her voice raspy and on the deep side. She pronounced car and god like a New Englander.
She wasn’t beautiful, but not by much. Forty, give or take, she possessed that deadly combination of dark blue eyes and black hair. Forty! Christ, I remember when I thought forty was old. I remember when I thought it was ancient. Now I felt ancient and forty seemed as far past me as fifteen. Her hair was bob cut and had some gray filtering through it. She had a plush mouth, nice cheekbones, and was impeccably madeup, but not so you couldn’t see the lines at the corners of her lips and eyes. I liked that. She had lived a little and wasn’t trying to hide it. She wore a black leather coat, black stockings, and heels. The heels were high without being ridiculous. I found myself staring at her ringless left hand. I don’t know if she caught me staring.
“I’m so sorry. It doesn’t look like there’s any damage,” she repeated. “Come look.”
I did and she was right. There was no damage. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. If the car’s scratched, I’ll just throw it out and buy a new one.”
“You’re funny.”
“Sometimes.”
“I’m new to the city and it’s been kind of hard getting adjusted. Now this… not my day, not my month.”
“Really, don’t worry about it…”
“Mary, Mary Lambert.”
“Moe Prager.” We shook hands. “No offense, Mary, but if I don’t get to a restroom soon…”
“Go on. I’ll wait for you in case you decide you want to exchange information.”
“Fine.”
When I came out of the bar, she was still there.
“It’s nice that you waited, but I think we’re okay.”
“Well, Moe, here’s my business card anyway.”
I put it in my wallet, but didn’t offer her one of mine.
“So, Mary Lambert, can I ask you what had you so preoccupied that you missed the fact that my car was sitting right there in front of you?”
She blushed. “I got lost and I was pulling to the curb to try and get my bearings. I had an appointment on Court Street and when I left I got all turned around.” She looked at her watch. “And I have to get back to my sublet in Greenpoint in about a half hour.”
“You’re okay. You’ve got plenty of time and you’re not that lost. I’ll show you the way, but if you’re going to do a lot of driving in this town, invest in a GPS. Manhattan is easy to get around in because it’s laid out on a grid, but the other boroughs, not so much. You could ride around forever and never find your way to or from your destination.”
“I know, but I’m just a stubborn Bostonian. We figure if you can navigate those streets, you can find your way around anywhere.”
“Boston, huh?”
“Oh, Christ, don’t tell me you’re a Yankees fan.”
“Mets fan,” I said. “We’re united in our loathing of the Yanks.”
“There was ‘86, but I’ll overlook that.”
“I appreciate it.”
“So what kind of appointment did you have on Court Street? I used to have an office at 4 °Court.”
“You’re joshing me! That’s where I had my appointment,” she said. “I’m an IT consultant to law firms. My company moved me here for a few months because we’ve landed several contracts with big firms throughout the area. Don’t tell me you’re a lawyer.”
“God, no. I’m a retired cop and I was a partner in a security and investigations firm-4 °Court is where we had our offices.”
“A PI?”
“That was years ago, Mary, and it’s a lot less exciting than you’d think.”
She looked at her watch again and frowned. “Moe, I’m sorry, but I have to get back to my place and do a conference call with the home office.”
Shit! “ That’s okay. I’ll get you back onto the BQE.”
When I approached her to point the way, I noticed that she smelled as fine as she looked. Her perfume was grassy with grace notes of musk and honey. I pointed out how she should turn around, go left under the Brooklyn Bridge, and follow the signs to the BQE East. “Get off at McGuinness-Humboldt and you should be okay from there.”
“Thank you, Moe Prager. You’re a gentleman.”
I held my hand out to her. She took it, but held on to it a little longer than I would have expected. “Listen, Moe, I still feel like an idiot for hitting your car. Let me take you to dinner. My treat. I could use a friend in this city. Us New Englanders, we like to think of ourselves as a hardy bunch, but this city will test you.”
“How could I say no to that offer? And we can all use another friend.”
She smiled and it lit up the afternoon. “Tonight?”
“I can’t,” I said, “not tonight.”
“Then call me. You’ve got my numbers.”
“I will. I promise.”
With that, Mary Lambert let go of my hand and got back into her car. I watched it disappear under the Brooklyn Bridge and I suddenly felt very lonely. I wasn’t a monk by any stretch. I’d dated a lot since Carmella and I split, but the walls I’d built around myself were thick. Closeness was no longer part of the equation for me, which meant my relationships with women had a very limited shelf life. I only felt the loneliness when I met someone like Mary, someone with whom I felt immediately comfortable. It reminded me of what I no longer had and would probably never have again.
TEN
Jimmy Palumbo was happy for the extra work, even if this wasn’t exactly what either of us had in mind when we spoke at the museum. I met him in front of the same bar where I’d met Mary Lambert. It was easy enough to find and convenient to where we were going. The ex-jock came into the bar as quietly as possible, but it’s kind of difficult to fly under the radar when you’re six foot six, 270 pounds. People are just going to notice you. I was familiar with the phenomenon from walking the streets with my old running buddy, Preacher “the Creature” Simmons. Preacher was a former New York All-City basketball player who got caught up in a college gambling scheme and wound up throwing away his basketball career. He landed on his feet, running the security detail for several large housing projects in Queens. Believe me, when he walked in a room, everyone stared. Preacher was now retired and spending his time playing golf in Myrtle Beach.
Jimmy and I sat down at the end of the bar. I halfheartedly sipped a beer while he went with Diet Coke.
“Alcohol and me…” His voice drifted off. “My impulse control is for shit when I’ve had a few. My wife used that against me in court to take the kids.”
“Fine. So you understand what I’ve got in mind?”
“I got it.”
“If you’re having second thoughts, now’s the time to tell me.”
“No, I’m cool. Let’s get to it.”
We took my car over to the converted factory building and frankly, I wasn’t encouraged at our prospects for success. My plan, such as it was, involved lighting a diversionary fire in the Dumpster at the rear of Nathan Martyr’s building and getting the doorman-whoever was on duty-to vacate his post while Jimmy and I dashed up to the sixth floor. There was only one way it could’ve worked and ten ways it
could’ve gone wrong, a few of them involving felony charges. This kind of stuff wasn’t one of my strengths. Carmella, now she could always come up with a way to get a guy out in the open and it was almost always a simple plan. It was never simple for me.
Then, just as we turned onto Martyr’s block, I caught sight of him coming out the maw of the old building. Planning might not have been one of my strong points, but at least I’d had the good sense to have found pictures of him on the internet so I wouldn’t get the wrong man. My original scheme was flimsy enough without us strong-arming the wrong person. But seeing him there under the streetlight only confirmed my initial thoughts about the guy. He was drug sick. He was skinny to the point of hollow, sweating so that his face fairly shined, and walking like he had chains around his ankles. He kept wiping his nose with the back of his coat sleeve and bending over in pain. It didn’t take a rocket scientist or even an ex-cop to figure out where he was headed.
“That’s our boy,” I said.
“You’re kiddin’ me.”
“No, Jimmy, that’s him. The stork couldn’t have done a better job of delivering him. Now all I’ve gotta figure out is whether it’s better to take him before or after.”
“Before or after what?”
“He makes his connection. He’s going to score drugs.”
“How do you know that?”
“Never mind how I know it. I just do.”
I followed well behind him for a few blocks and decided it was better to take him before he scored than after. Before allowed me to use Martyr’s own sickness to pressure him. Jimmy wouldn’t even have to do a thing except keep him in the car while I questioned him. If we took him afterwards, things could get a little more complicated. Once he bought the skag, it was the prospect of getting caught carrying narcotics by two nasty-dispositioned cops-hey, I wasn’t going to tell him otherwise-and the prospect of jail time that would work the bad magic on him. But sometimes, if the connection and the user were cozy enough, the junkie would shoot up in the dealer’s place. No, before was better.
Then, just as I put my foot down on the accelerator to catch up to Martyr, he stopped, turned, walked down the steps of a non-descript two-family house and disappeared through the basement apartment door. So much for taking too much time for deliberate thought. Now we only had one option open to us and that was to wait until he came back out. I wasn’t about to bust into the basement and play Cops and Robbers: The Drug Bust Edition. Dealers had a lot to protect, including their lives, their stashes, and their money. That meant they usually had security in the form of hired help or guns or dogs: sometimes all three, but at least one or two. And as the minutes went by, I knew he was doing his business in the dealer’s apartment.
About a half hour later, Nathan Martyr floated up the stairs and back onto the street. While he didn’t look the picture of health, it was clear he’d gotten healthy. His zombie walk was now airy and free, the shackles off his ankles. I waited until he turned the corner and passed by an old church and an adjacent schoolyard. We were on him before he knew what was happening and we dragged him into the back of the dark playground.
I stuck my badge in his face and Jimmy shoved him to the ground. “Nathan Martyr, you’re under arrest.” I put my old cuffs tightly around his wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?”
The asshole actually started humming “Singing In The Rain.”
I patted him down and sure enough, he had an ounce, maybe two, of powder packaged in a knotted red balloon in his right front pocket.
“That’s a lot of weight, Nathan,” I said, cocky as could be.
He stopped humming long enough to tell me to go fuck myself.
Using one hand, Jimmy yanked Martyr up in the air by his wrists, and the asshole squealed in agony. Even at his junkie weight, getting lifted up that way must have felt like his arms were being ripped off his body. I shed no tears.
When Jimmy put him back down, I asked, “What did you say to me?”
“I said go fuck yourself, but what I should have said was good evening, Mr. Prager.”
Talk about stopping the show. I didn’t bother trying to plug ahead. He had me. I knelt down, uncuffed him, and helped stand him up. I held on to his heroin. It was the last card I had to play.
“The doorman, that asshole ex-cop, he showed you my picture,” I said.
“Not two minutes after you left, he buzzed me and told me to come to the lobby, that he had something I might want to take a look at. Thompson’s a dick, but he knows how to make tips and do his job.”
“Yeah, well, you got me, but I got this.” I held the balloon up and dangled it. He made a weak stab at snatching it away from me, but he was hopelessly slow. “Good thing you didn’t get it,” I said, “because then my only option would be to let my partner here have his way with your scrawny, pitiful ass and he’d make you hurt a lot more than you were hurting a half hour ago.”
As if on cue, Jimmy brought his big paw down on Martyr’s shoulder. He collapsed like a three-legged card table.
“Hey, man, there’s no need for that. Just tell me what you want and maybe we can come to some understanding,” he said, surprisingly little fear in his voice.
“I want your mailing list and I want all the data your webmaster has gathered about incoming emails, etc. I want-”
“Chill, Prager,” he said, rubbing his wrists. “That’s no way to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
“I want! I want! I want! Didn’t your mother teach you that saying I want won’t get you what you want? It’s pretty obvious what you want. You want to know which one of the people that visit my blog and site are sick enough to have abducted that little cunt Sashi Bluntstone.”
The next thing I knew, I was pulling Jimmy Palumbo’s fingers from around Martyr’s throat. Jimmy got up, but Martyr stayed down.
“That won’t get it done either, Prager,” he rasped. He sat up, resting on an arm outstretched behind him. “You don’t need to sort through all the shit you’d get from my webmaster. It’s already been over three weeks. Time’s running out on little Sashi. Tick… tick… tick…” He tapped his skull. “I have the names you want right here.”
“You motherfucker! I’m gonna-”
This time Jimmy grabbed me and held me back. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Listen to this prick and let’s get out of here.”
“I’m okay.” Jimmy let me go and I asked Martyr, “What do you want?”
“First thing I want is a gesture of good faith,” Martyr said, pointing at the balloon, which was lying on the ground near Jimmy Palumbo’s feet.
“I’ll think about it. What else?”
“I want her last painting.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said, standing up, brushing himself off. “I want the last painting she was working on.”
“Why?”
“Because the little bitch is probably dead and the last thing she worked on will be worth a fortune.”
I wanted to rip this guy’s head off. Jimmy did too. I think anyone would have, but I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood and continued as calmly as I could. “But you hate her and her work.”
“But I love money. I love it best of all. What, you think art is for art’s sake? Don’t be a rube, Prager. It’s a commodity like gold or oil or pork bellies. And just like those things, art has no inherent value. It’s about what the market will bear. You think when I kick that all the assholes who delight in pissing on my stuff now won’t be clamoring for a piece of it? Sure I hate that little twat and her awful smears and finger paintings, but I want one and I hope she’s-”
Jimmy Palumbo slapped Martyr so hard it split his lip. I thought the junkie’s body would snap in two. I couldn’t blame Jimmy, but I
didn’t want to have to answer for manslaughter charges either. I stepped between Jimmy and Martyr.
“That’s it! Stop. Enough. You, back off!” I pointed at Jimmy. “Here, toss me the balloon.” He did so, if not enthusiastically. “And you,” I said, picking Martyr up in pieces off the playground, “keep your fucking mouth shut for two minutes. I’m gonna give you your drugs back and I’ll get you that painting, but it’ll be a day or two at least. First, I want one name and an address as a sign of good faith.”
His right cheek was scraped and bleeding, his left swollen from where Jimmy’s hand had landed, but Nathan Martyr smiled and looked at me with an odd mixture of contempt and pity. “You want a name? All right, Prager, I’ll give you a name: Sonia Barrows-Willingham. Now give me my medicine.”
“Sonia Barrows-Willingham… I know that name from somewhere,” I said, still gripping the red balloon in my fist. “Does she visit your website?”
“No, Prager, but she’s the one with the most to gain if little missy winds up dead.”
“Who is-”
“She is the biggest collector of that little-of Sashi Bluntstone’s work.” He put finger quotes around the word work. “You want to know who had motive, look at her.”
I handed him the balloon as promised. Martyr shoved it back into his pocket.
“When you get me the painting, you know where to find me.”
“And when I bring you that painting, I want names I couldn’t have found on my own or so help me, I’ll stick my gun down your throat and blow that collection of pus you call a brain out the back of your skull.”
He tried not to look rattled and failed. Jimmy Palumbo and I watched him recede into the night with the rest of the rats and roaches.
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