Night-Bloom

by Herbert Lieberman

  4

  By 9:00 A.M. Mooney, along with a detachment of forensic specialists, was standing on the spot above the alleyway where John Ransom had the sad misfortune of strolling the night before. From where he stood, Mooney gazed straight down eight stories into a narrow alleyway, a simple gash between two buildings, at the bottom of which he could see a kidney-shaped silhouette scrawled in chalk by the crime unit on the littered pavement to designate the exact spot where the victim lay after he’d been struck.

  Dozens of buildings had been crammed cheek by jowl into that tiny half block above which they now stood. They adjoined and backed up to each other forming a vertiginous grid of fire escapes, catwalks, parapets and ramps. Sooty windows and rooftops looked down onto the street. The backs of the theater buildings were like a maze and the fire escapes permitted one to climb from one building to the next. More perplexing even were the steel doors in the yards and alleyways that anyone would have assumed would have been locked but, nevertheless, were open because vandals had ravaged the hinges. Not only did the phantom Bombardier appear to know every doorway, ramp and rusted railing, but he was able to clamber round from roof to roof in the dark, carrying his concrete bombs.

  Clattering down the fire escape just below the ledge, they threaded their way across a rickety catwalk and entered one of those many disconcerting steel doors, opening onto a dark, rank, trash-littered stairway. A cat squealed and scurried out as they proceeded to descend several flights through the thick, murky, dark reeking of urine.

  At the bottom they entered another door and found themselves beneath the proscenium of a theater swathed in silence. An eerie half-light filtered downward from some point above. Looking about they saw steel ladders, walls lined with complex electrical cable and circuit boxes, heavy guy lines ascending upward through to the wings and serving, no doubt, to raise and lower the curtain. There was a dumbwaiter that went up through an open shaft to a trap door, Mooney judged, just below the orchestra pit and stage. They were at the very bottom of the theater.

  Musty old period costumes had been stored there in toppling piles; parts of dismantled stage sets stood about like ghostly wreckage—a pair of wooden carousel swans drowsed in the shadows, an Edwardian gasolier, and a mural of pinkish mermaids from above a nautical bar. A dozen or so faceless mannequins made of muslin stood about on steel pipe-stands with a curious air of expectation—as if awaiting assignations in the thick, gray silence.

  When they came up again they had a call to go over to a building on Fiftieth Street. Something had been found on a rooftop there.

  The building backed up directly to the one on Forty-ninth Street, where the cinder block had been dropped. It was a seedy, five-story office building with an air about it of something faintly louche. Its residents were largely small-time theatrical managers and booking agents, plus a handful of film and record companies of the most dubious accreditation.

  The elevator, a narrow, cagelike box, swayed creakingly upward to the fifth floor and lurched to a halt. From there they got out and walked up the remaining three flights to the roof. It was nearly noon now and the sun was high. Mooney, sweating and panting behind three others, climbed up through a partially open steel door and out onto the littered tar rooftop.

  Two patrolmen and a plainclothes detective were waiting there for them. They were standing about beneath one of those large, pyramidal, peaked water towers that were a benchmark of all New York commercial architecture during the twenties and thirties.

  Mooney’s breath whistled as he came up to them. “Whatcha got?”

  One of the patrolmen stood aside and spoke. “We found this.”

  At first sight it looked like some kind of undifferentiated mess—a kid’s joke. Oil cloths, canvas and an old shower curtain tacked to the tower pylons to keep out wind and rain. Inside, cardboard cartons and old magazines had been rigged up to serve as a mattress. There were cups and water bottles, knives and forks. An empty can of corn had been discarded there along with other rubbish.

  “Any idea who it was?” Mooney asked.

  “Nope,” said the plainclothesman, whose name was Aiello. “Thought you should see it, anyway.”

  “Did you talk to the building superintendent?”

  “He knows nothing about it,” Aiello replied.

  “You can get in and out of this rattrap through half a dozen different exits,” the other patrolman offered. “Place is wide-open twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Looks like whoever it was ain’t been around for a while.” Aiello knelt down to inspect the curious debris. “The litter is old. Cutlery is rusty.”

  “Probably a squatter.” Mooney gazed round distastefully. “Probably lit out when the weather got warm. Take some pictures and send the cup and silverware down for analysis.”

  While some others took notes and gathered articles for analysis, Mooney, unimpressed, strolled across the roof to the ledge and stared out west over Forty-ninth Street. It had the look of a playground jungle gym—all chaos and entanglement. Steel-girded superstructures surmounted by marquees and gray, unlit neon lights—giant letters that hung like gauzy tracery painted against the gunmetal city sky.

  Down below thousands swarmed into office buildings, scurrying along from every direction. Mooney stared down at the scene impassively. He had a sudden image of himself hoisting forty pounds of cement above his head, holding it out above the ledge—then letting go. Just letting go. Looking down on all that avid, lurching bug life, he could understand that. He well knew the feeling of contempt. He could see why.

  5

  “… and at the post in starting position number five, Honor Bound. In six, Dynaflow. At seven, Alternative, ridden by Velasquez, out of Darbyshire. Eight, Dogdays …”

  Standing amid the excited press at the rail, Frank Mooney ran the stump of his pencil up and down the columns of the Racing Form. Periodically he’d glance up at the tote board to check odds against the PP’s of horses he’d been following. As usual, he’d had no compunction whatever about using his shield to get himself down directly on the field with the press and the big spenders.

  As racing days went this one was perfect—bright, clear skies, and though it was cool, in the mid-fifties, Mooney was already sweating profusely. The Sunday capacity crowds at Aqueduct had turned the stands behind him into a crazy quilt of undulating color. Gaudy pennants on the roof of the stands snapped briskly in the gusty breeze and the jockeys and horses in the post parade caparisoned in their flashing silks made the heart leap with excitement.

  Mooney had been there since early morning. He’d come out around 10:00 a.m. to walk through the paddocks, talk to the grooms and watch the workouts. More than anything, he loved the morning prowls before the race—the big bays and chestnuts browsing in the spanking white paddocks, the grooms and trainers moving through the stables, the profoundly satisfying smell of sawdust, leather and manure.

  Well into the fourth race now, Mooney had made no score. Moreover, he had dropped several hundred dollars and had also missed by a hair the quinella, paying $52.40. The winning horse he’d picked, Piston, performed precisely as he’d expected. His second choice, a filly, Ball Point, a 3-to-l odds-on favorite to finish in the money, had been brilliant for ninety-five percent of the run, then limped across in fifth position, as if she simply could not bear being that good.

  If Mooney was sweating in fifty-degree weather, he had good reason to. He’d already dropped three hundred dollars. The fifth race was a $3500 maiden claiming race, full of horses so bad and so cheap their trainers were not afraid to lose them. Scouring the past performance charts in the Form, Mooney’s eye had fastened on a three-year-old gelding called Indicator. Superficially, his record was dismal. Always a bad sign, he’d been running route races on a regular basis, and his last six times out he’d not run any better than fifth while competing with the dogs of horsedom. His trainer, however, was E. Y. Caldecott, who’d had an estimable record with maiden horses, and Indicator’s last two times out h
e had done something completely out of character. He had broken slowly and rallied strongly, passing six horses and making up nine lengths in the last quarter mile. This was over six furlongs and that appeared to be Indicator’s optimum distance. He would expire going an inch farther.

  Indicator’s recent running lines indicated that Caldecott was transforming the gelding into a strong stretch runner, particularly at six furlongs. The fifth race happened to be posted at six furlongs and the fact that the horse was blinkered and wearing mud caulks spoke tellingly of the trainer’s game plan.

  Mooney knew this track to be plaster hard, particularly during April when the ground was not yet entirely thawed, therefore, heavily biased toward stretch runners and outside post positions.

  The bandages on Indicator’s forelegs, however, gave Mooney pause. Bandaged forelegs on a hard track had negative implications, such as injury. Also the fact that Indicator, looking like a solid $6500 animal, was now slumming in a $3500 claiming race served to heighten Mooney’s uneasiness. With a dropdown of $3000 something had to be wrong with the horse, for neither trainer, nor any other businessman, gives away $6500 merchandise for $3500.

  Still, the trainer and the running lines had just about swayed Mooney. And besides, the competition appeared weak. Carrerito was a turf horse. Dark Encounter was a sprinter with no guts much beyond the halfway. Zero Hour’s figure in his last 5’/2-length victory was atrocious. And now the tote board beside Indicator’s name was blinking 23-1.

  Mooney rummaged deep within his jacket pocket and shredded the losing voucher tickets residing there. Four defeats had finally deprived him of his early-morning exhilaration.

  It was several minutes before post time. He glanced once again at the tote board, still flashing 23-1, a mystic beacon that seemed pointed directly at him. In the next moment he turned, walked directly to the $50 window and bet his last $200 to win.

  The gates opened with a roar. Indicator broke quickly and was running second when the field reached the first turn. Then he started dropping back. And back. And back. By the time the pack thundered past where Mooney stood stonyfaced, chewing the corner of his lip, the horse was in ignominy, running ninth. As they pounded past, Mooney felt the blast of heat from their exertions. As Indicator crossed before him he tried to peer directly into the gelding’s eye, and from there into its great throbbing heart, willing the creature to win.

  After three-quarters of a mile, Indicator was fourteen lengths out. Mooney watched the great clots of powder flung from the gelding’s hooves, splatter dismally onto the track. With resignation, he lowered his binoculars.

  But even as Mooney conceded defeat, Indicator had begun to gain ground on the final turn, running so wide that his jockey had to lean left in the saddle to keep him from going to the outside fence, Coming into the stretch he was still an impossible nine lengths behind the leader, Saddle Sore. The gelding continued to gather momentum through the stretch and suddenly he was in fifth position, coming up hard on fourth. If Mooney heard the wild roar of mankind gone mad in the stands behind him, he showed no outward sign. Encapsulated in a cold, cryptlike silence, he watched deadpan the blur of gray motion on the far track. He would permit nothing to break the line of communication between his own fierce will and that of the horse.

  With only a sixteenth of a mile to run and in third position, Indicator still did not appear to have much of a chance. In those final yards, however, Saddle Sore began to tire perceptibly, and suddenly the gelding had pounded up abreast of him. The finish was too close to call.

  During the agonizing moments while the photo was being developed, Mooney chewed his lower lip and consoled himself that even if the horse lost, he had not been disgraced. His own judgment was vindicated, even if it had cost him his last two hundred dollars.

  On the board above the track the number 6 flashed—Saddle Sore, the winner by a nose. But a second later a red sign that said OBJECTION went up. It was a steward’s inquiry against the winner. Moments later, the track announcer reported that Indicator’s jockey, Angel Guzman, had also claimed foul against the winner.

  Mooney sat numb beside the tote board where the numbers six and three, Indicator’s number, were flashing, while the stewards pondered their decision. A man beside him was holding a $2 ticket on Saddle Sore. He looked grim. “Forget it,” he said forlornly. “They’ll bust him.” And he was right. They did. Saddle Sore was disqualified for crowding Indicator on the first turn, forcing Guzman to check his horse sharply so he wouldn’t collide with Saddle Sore. The result was now official and the tote board flashed 3. Indicator was the winner and paid $43.20 to win. Mooney had won slightly more than four thousand dollars.

  6

  He had found her in a bar on Forty-ninth Street, the Spanish girl who disrobed for him, then took off his clothing, washed him, sat on his lap and dangled her breasts in his face. Laughing, she darted her tongue in and out of his ear, and squeezed him. Mooney lay back, accepting these attentions with an odd, almost gloomy reserve.

  She was no more than eighteen or nineteen. Sweet and quite affectionate. Sympathetic to his size, and quickly grasping his problem, she knew how to make it all easy for him. Setting atop his pelvis, graceful and pert like a sparrow primping in a birdbath, she aroused him with her hands and mouth.

  The embarrassment she sensed he felt, gross and naked before her made her doubly solicitous. She called him “Poppy” and kissed him over and over again, as if she truly meant it. Determined to please him, she was still young enough in the trade not to have had the last ounce of human tenderness flayed out of her.

  At last, when it came time to culminate his pleasure, she sat astride him, then proceeded to move up and down, rotating her hips as she went. Eyes closed, Mooney lay dazed and panting in the overheated room that reeked of perspiration and cheap incense.

  Slowly the motion continued, gathering momentum, peaking finally for Mooney with a long rush of release. The girl, sighing and moaning, might have been merely simulating passion, making him feel as though he’d given her more pleasure than she’d ever known. He may have half-suspected this was the case. In any event, when he left there somewhere in the early part of Sunday evening, several thousand dollars bulging in his pockets, he was, for the moment at least, at peace.

  Mooney had little in the way of religious feelings. Spiritual intimations were not his strong suit. Only in the presence of the evening sky did he feel some vague, troublesome notion of things stirring outside himself. Call it wonder. If it was, he did not perceive it as such. He did not consciously go out on evenings to encounter deities. All he knew was that on rare occasions when he found himself gazing upward at the starry vault of heaven, he experienced a sharp anger in the face of stubborn puzzles intimating things that, in more guarded moments, he brusquely discounted. And of course it is axiomatic that detectives loathe insoluble puzzles.

  Still, wonder notwithstanding, he watched the stars, knew the evening sky and could read it like his own newspaper. On the rooftop, where he stood now, leaning on the brick parapet, he watched Virgo recumbent in the southeastern sky; Draco looped and coiled above his head with Bootes, the Plowman, just to the left, and Arcturus glowing like a beacon in its tail. Mooney patted the bulge of dollars swelling in the pocket above his breast, leaned far out over the edge, and peered down into the teeming nighttime life swarming below him.

  It was nearly 11:00 P.M. Theaters were just beginning to let out, disgorging their audiences onto the street. Horns blared, taxis streamed crosstown and up Eighth Avenue. The marquees were still lit, setting the sky above the theater district ablaze. Even at the seven-story elevation, Mooney could feel the bustle and heat of mortal nervous energy emanating from below. From where he stood, he reasoned another man had stood six nights ago, at the same time and in that precise spot. No doubt, that man had stood at the ledge, just as Mooney did now, and peered down into the swarming dizzy tide of life below.

  What occupied the detective’s attention was a shallow pit in t
he outside wall just below him, where a slab of concrete had either fallen of its own accord or was chiseled out of the brick facade. Mooney leaned way over, hanging head down from the waist, as if nailed inverted to the wall and probed the damaged area with his stubby fingers.

  The forensic unit that had examined the spot two days before had determined that the slab had come dislodged of its own accord. Indeed, he could see no sign of any tool that may have been used to pry the section loose. Had a chisel been used, it would certainly have left a cleaner, more uniform, defacement than the big ragged scar that gaped there now. Also, his fingers probing the area had encountered a good deal of moisture within the open fissure—moisture from rotting, leaky gutters that had no doubt over the years undermined the laths and joists below.

  Grunting, red-faced, Mooney hauled himself upright and stood panting in the shadows. Shortly, he stopped and scooped up several bits of stone and pebble off the tarred rooftop. Back at the ledge he stood rolling the pebbles in his palm with the icy intensity of a crap-shooter.

  Standing alone amid the transoms and chimney pots, antennas and sheets hung on laundry lines flapping ghostly in the light breeze, Mooney made an effort to re-create in his own mind the scene of the murder. Initially, the man he saw was young, Hispanic—although he couldn’t say why, except that the hallway and staircase leading to the roof had been liberally scored with graffiti clearly of Spanish origin. PUMO 134, GAETANO 108, HONCHO 128, indicating that the roof was heavily trafficked; used for assignations. In his mind he suddenly saw two young Spanish males. They’d been drinking up there on the roof. From a vision of two, he was able to posit a third. Possibly a girl. Sixteen or seventeen years old. All of them potheads, soaked in grass. One of them had found the slab of cinder block, or inadvertently found the damaged area, and was able to pry it out of the mortar below. Mooney visualized one of the youths—hypothetically, he called him Pumo, because of the graffiti on the stairway wall—eighteen, full of junk; swaggering in black leather studded with cheap chrome points; possibly a tattoo or so— skulls, swastikas, whatever. The typical nickel-dime Halloween costume of gang cultures.