Willow Pond

by Carol Tibaldi

  While he’d been in the hospital recuperating from his injuries, Erich had decided to do something to find Todd. Something more substantial than reporting on the latest developments.

  Since his initial interview with Laura and Phillip, he’d wondered if bootleggers might be responsible for the kidnapping. He hadn’t said a word to Laura about his suspicions. He hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up before he’d even begun to investigate. His first and only idea was to infiltrate the gang of bootleggers operating on the East End of Long Island. It took him weeks to come up with an idea and figure out the details. He knew it would be dangerous.

  “The last guy they got suspicious of got three bullets in the head.” Peter slammed the door behind him. “Dan, get him to stop. Tell him you’ll fire him if he goes ahead with it.”

  “No. I told him I’d help him out this time, and I will.” Dan turned to Erich. “But just this one time. If your work suffers one iota because of this, you’re out on your rear. Understand?”

  “Such gentle, caring friends. If I don’t come in on Monday you’ll know I’m a lousy actor.”

  “You’re a fucking jackass,” Peter snapped. “I asked around like you wanted. My brother-in-law and a neighbor are interested. They’ll take a few bottles off your hands, but I won’t have all the cash until next week.”

  “As long as you’re sure they’ll come through.”

  Daniel stood up. “Listen, Muller, be careful. Those guys don’t fool around. If you even begin to suspect they don’t believe you, get away from them.”

  ***

  The drive to Montauk took four hours. It was ten o’clock when Erich pulled his rental truck into the parking lot and entered the main office of the Malibu Motel.

  “Just one night?” The woman curled her lip. “Most people stay longer than that.”

  “I’m here on business.” He looked out the window. “It is beautiful out here, though. I’ll be back.”

  She handed him a key. “Don’t wait to make reservations. At this time of year we get booked up fast. You got lucky tonight.”

  He left the motel and walked toward the beach, which was dotted by boats. The bootleggers called the Long Island coastline ‘Rum Row’, and William McCoy, the man he was meeting, was the most notorious and successful rumrunner of all. Instead of selling watered-down liquor, he sold quality stuff at fair prices. Erich hoped he’d be straight with him, too. He watched the schooner ease to shore. The man he assumed was McCoy stood on deck, leaning against the mast with one hand.

  “You must be the new guy,” McCoy said. “Where did you say you were from?”

  “Connecticut. Guilford, Connecticut, along the coast.” He hoped he sounded convincing.

  McCoy jumped off the boat. “Never heard of it.”

  “No? Well, you will. Lots of people up there want booze and don’t want anyone to tell them they can’t have it.”

  McCoy laughed. “Amen to that. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Kohl. Hans Kohl.”

  McCoy pointed to two small boxes. “The goods are over there. Gotta unload them by yourself. My guys don’t like to waste time on the small stuff.”

  Erich picked up both boxes. “If business goes the way I expect it to, I’ll need more the next time.”

  “You small time bootleggers are no match for guys like Schultz. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take you for a one-way ride.”

  “I heard some guys plan to lay low for a while because the cops are too damn noisy for their own good.”

  McCoy looked him up and down. “Whoever you heard that from was telling you a story.”

  Erich laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Virginia had grown weary of all the revelry at Bacchanal. She slipped out and headed toward the couch in her office so she could take a nap. About an hour later someone opened the door to deposit the mail onto her desk. She woke up when the door opened but didn’t open her eyes in time to see the visitor. She was glad whoever it was hadn’t spoken, because he wouldn’t have liked her response. It could have been Harry, and she really didn’t want to see him. He’d already voiced his concern about her bad mood and the fact that she never wanted to join in on the fun anymore. He was right, and she knew it was bad for business, but she was too angry with Rudy to care about Bacchanal.

  Unable to sleep, she sat at her desk, pushed the mail aside and stared at the front page of the New York Daily News. After a few moments she took a good look at the headline, Police Find Few Clues in Double Homicide. The photo of the victims was front and center, and Virginia stared in shock. The black and white faces of Kevin Butler and his daughter stared back at her. She turned to page three and started to read the article, gasping when she learned the murders had taken place on the same day she’d been to the Butler apartment.

  The only conclusion she could think of was that Rudy had been hiding somewhere and heard everything they’d said. After she’d left he’d shot them to death. But then why hadn’t Kevin given her some kind of sign to let her know something was wrong? Maybe Rudy hadn’t been there. Maybe he had just seen her leave the building and guessed why she was there, then shot them.

  Had Todd suffered the same fate as the Butlers? No. She couldn’t let herself think that way. She had to find Rudy, but it wasn’t going to be easy. She needed all the help she could get. For the rest of the evening she made a list of all the friends Rudy had told her about, then studied the list, hoping one of the names could give her a clue as to where he might be.

  He’d mentioned Dan Molloy to her in passing. When she’d pressed him, he’d explained that Molloy was in Sing Sing serving a ten to fifteen year sentence for armed robbery.

  Virginia slumped at her desk, already feeling defeated. If a chest cold hadn’t sent him to a sickbed, Tony would have been at Bacchanal with her like he was on most nights, and she missed the attention he lavished on her. His phone must have rung a dozen times before he answered it.

  “Were you sleeping, Tony?”

  “Dead to the world. What’s on your mind, beautiful?”

  “I need information about an inmate at Sing Sing by the name of Dan Molloy.”

  “I’ll get one of my men on it and get back to you.”

  “I’m on my way home now. Call me when you find out anything, no matter what time it is.”

  At 5:15 a.m. she picked up the phone in her bedroom suite.

  “Molloy’s served four years of a fifteen years sentence and is a model prisoner. A guy named Rudy Strauss fingered him. The cops knew Strauss was in on it too, but he testified for the prosecution and was given a suspended sentence. A crook and a snitch all rolled into one.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “The robbery? February 1926. Why are you so interested in this, Virginia?”

  “It wouldn’t interest you,” she said and hung up.

  As soon as she got off the phone, Virginia decided to visit Molloy in jail. The next morning she drove to Ossining. After about an hour in Sing Sing’s waiting room, Virginia followed a guard to another room and was ordered to strip. She was shocked. Did they think she’d be dumb enough to hide a weapon on her body?

  When the body search was done, she was taken back to the waiting room. Another hour passed before the same guard escorted her into the visitor’s area and told her to sit behind a screen. A few minutes later the prisoner arrived, shackled and in handcuffs. It seemed excessive for a model prisoner who was in for grand larceny.

  “Who the hell is she?” He looked at the guard. “Are you sure she’s here to see me?”

  The guard shrugged.

  Virginia leaned forward. “You don’t know me, Mr. Molloy, but there’s someone we both … Well, let’s say the information I need could benefit both of us.”

  She couldn’t tell him why she had to find Rudy, but he deserved some sort of explanation. She just wasn’t sure what that would be.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Don’t know anybody. In here you got t
o watch your back every second.”

  This wasn’t going to be easy. “I can imagine. The man I’m looking for is a friend of yours from the outside.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, then set cold, gray eyes on her face. She wondered if she could trust him. He’d been Rudy’s friend, and Rudy was a talented liar. She had no idea if Molloy was as well, but she had no choice but to follow through with her plan.

  “Think about it, Mr. Molloy.”

  He turned to the guard. “How about a smoke?”

  The guard lit a cigarette and put it between his fingers.

  Molloy inhaled, long and deep, then blew the smoke straight up. “I got so much time to think I’m damn sick of it. I don’t want to think and I don’t want to play games. What do you want?”

  “What makes you think I want anything from you? Maybe I’m here to help you,” she said, trying to sound convincing, though even she didn’t believe that.

  “Who are you, Santa Claus? Stop wasting my time. I got a beautiful woman waiting for me back in my cell.”

  “Rudy Strauss.”

  Molloy’s lips tightened into a thin line and his eyes darkened. “That bastard. When I get out of here his good times will end.”

  “He was the trigger man, but you took the rap for him, didn’t you?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “He’d be dead if that was true.”

  “You’re lying to me.” She smiled. “I also know he’s been looking for the big touch and not long ago he found it.”

  “Did he send you?”

  “No one sends me anywhere. I came here to tell you Strauss is going to pay, and he’s going to pay big time. I’ll see to that.” She looked him in the eye. “I hope that makes you happy.”

  “There’s no such thing in here.”

  “I need to know if he’s been in touch with you.”

  “What’s in it for me besides happiness?”

  “I have some influential friends. Just try to be patient.”

  Molloy tapped his fingers on the table, thinking, then he took another drag of his cigarette. “A friend of his wrote me with some bad news.” He snickered. “Then again, maybe it’s good news. One of Capone’s thugs shot Strauss.”

  It couldn’t be. If this were true, how would she find Todd?

  Molloy continued. “Strauss had planned to go to Detroit to join the Purple Gang in their poker game. Guess he never made it.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “It’s a sad story, ain’t it?’

  Fear slithered down her spine. “It could turn out to be a lot sadder than you could imagine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The card game had been going on for seven hours. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling and two bottles of whiskey, one empty and one half full sat on the round, wooden table. Virginia thought it looked like a gangster movie set. She concentrated on not laughing.

  The man to her right turned to her. “You in?”

  “I’m up four hundred dollars. What do you think?” She looked at the cards in her hand and decided to stay in the game, even though she had nothing. Money meant nothing to her, and information about Rudy was worth whatever she lost.

  She placed her hand facedown on the table and studied each man, wondering if any of them would tell her the truth. It was becoming clear that in the circles Rudy traveled, it would be difficult to find anyone to trust.

  “I heard someone won big here last week,” said Virginia.

  “What rat you been talking to?” asked a guy the others called Rossi.

  She sniffed with disdain. “I make it my business not to talk to rats. They carry all kinds of diseases.” By the look on his face, she knew he hadn’t understood a word she’d said. Virginia glared at him. “I know what I heard. Last week a new guy sat in on the game and lost thousands.”

  Rossi tossed his cards onto the table. “Game’s over.”

  He motioned toward Virginia and she followed him into an adjoining room where a large man stood up and pointed a gun at her. Rossi dismissed the fat man with a casual wave of his hand.

  “Bigboy would do anything for me, Virginia. Even kill someone. Now. It’s time you tell me what you’re up to.”

  “It’s a shame I don’t have a killing machine of my own.” She smiled. “I need information about the guy who played here last week.”

  “There was no game last week.”

  She sighed. “Bullshit. This is a running poker game, four nights a week, and even if one of you dropped dead the others would play. You had another player last week and I want to know what he said and did.”

  “Why are you so interested in a boring poker game?”

  “It couldn’t have been boring to whoever won this guy’s money.”

  “Can’t help you.”

  “No? You know I’m going to find him, with or without your help. Remember, I never forget a favor.”

  She watched the thought sink in and decided it was time to let him know how important it was to her.

  “He may know something about my nephew’s kidnapping.”

  “That punk.”

  “Is your memory improving?”

  “He was going to Houston to see about a horse. That’s all I know.”

  She took the gun out of her handbag and aimed it at his chest. “You sure?”

  “Jesus, Virginia. Put that thing away. You can ask the other guys and they’ll tell you the same thing. He said he was going to Texas to bet on a horse he knew. Claimed it was a sure thing.”

  Rudy hadn’t changed. A million dollars or ten million dollars, he’d never have enough.

  ***

  The temperature in Houston, Texas was about a hundred and ten degrees, with a humidity that settled like a layer of wet towels. By the time she got to the racetrack, Virginia felt like she might pass out. The man in the front office brought her a glass of iced water and told her to sit down. Manhattan was hot, but Texas felt like hell.

  Virginia drank the water and asked for another glass. “I called last week,” she said.

  “Mike’s at the stables taking care of his new foal.”

  She finished the glass of water and stood up. “Thanks. That helped.”

  He took a sun hat from a hook by the door. “Here. This will help, too.”

  The man she’d come to see was feeding oats to a chestnut foal whose spindly legs looked as wobbly as she felt. She could tell by the way he was looking at the horse that he loved animals. Personally, she thought the thing stank.

  “Beautiful thing, a newborn foal,” he said.

  “I’m not much for animals, but I can see what you mean.”

  And she accused other people of lying.

  He took a brush and stroked the foal’s mane. “Are you here about Strauss?”

  “So you know him?”

  Mike had lived in New Jersey until a few years earlier. He and Rudy had been good friends, even though Rudy was always borrowing money from him. Then one day Mike hit it big at the racetrack and bought a ranch in Texas.

  “How do you know Strauss?” he asked.

  “He did some work for me.”

  “Good thing you put that in the past tense. You’re better off without him.”

  “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know. Is he still around here?”

  He laughed. “No way. He got roughed up pretty bad.”

  “Roughed up? Someone told me he was dead.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me. He showed up here with some money. Don’t know how he got a hold of so much, but he had it and wanted to show off, I guess. Paid me back some I’d pretty much forgotten he owed me. But a couple of guys who weren’t as forgetful as I was followed him here from Detroit to collect what he owed them. With interest.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “I’m not sure if he made it. He should have gone to the hospital, but he refused. Couldn’t understand that.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday. I’m on my way
to see him now. Do you want to come with me?”

  She couldn’t believe her luck. But her anticipation was held back by one thought: why hadn’t Mike mentioned a child?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Virginia followed Mike out of the stables and down a dirt path to his brand new Lincoln. He opened the door for her and she climbed in, winding her window all the way down. The people they passed seemed happy and had a spring in their steps, giving Virginia the impression Houston was an exciting place. If only it weren’t so damn hot.

  Mike made a right turn onto 27th Street and a left onto Avenue N and drove a mile until stopping in front of the Charles Adams House. He parked and they both stared up at the building.

  “Pretty ritzy, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “That bum sure has come up in the world.” She stepped out of the car and moved toward the door. “Come on. I’m kind of anxious to see him.”

  “So am I. And I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees you.” Mike chuckled as he opened the hotel door for her. “This should be interesting.”

  They approached the front desk and the clerk smiled. “Good day,” he said.

  “Hello. I hope you can help us. A friend of ours is staying in Suite 221, and I think he needs help. He wasn’t feeling well yesterday,” Virginia said, flashing her biggest doe eyes. “If you’ll just give us a key to his room …”

  The clerk frowned. “Why don’t I call him and tell him you’re here?”

  “I tried calling him before I left my house and there was no answer,” Virginia said. “We’re both worried about him.”

  Mike took her arm and they walked toward the elevator. The clerk followed, rattling a key. When they arrived, he stuck the key in the lock of Suite 221 and turned it, but just before the door opened Virginia took a deep breath. This was a big moment. Not only was she about to confront Rudy, she was also about to learn what had happened to Todd. In a short time the little boy might be in her arms again. A swell of emotion went through her and she shivered. Mike looked at her but didn’t say anything.