I reached in my pocket for a quarter.
“Oh, it’s not your money I want,” he said.
“What do you want?”
“I’d like your opinion.”
“On what?”
There was a crack of lightning and the air was soon heavy and moist. Then the first drops of a fine spring rain fell.
“You see before you a beggar man,” he said, rainwater streaking his lined and yellowing face. “Please, young sir, look into my cup and tell me, do you see the beggar’s cup half-empty, or half-full?”
I gave him the quarter I held, and a five-dollar bill besides. “Sorry, old man. I’ve got nothing I can tell you but God bless.”
Then I climbed into the back of a yellow cab and rode through the thundery light. The cheap flashing of Times Square shone outside my spattered window. For a few moments in the private darkness of a taxi, I mourned old lost men.
Ruby was asleep in my bed.
Out in the parlor, she had set out a plate for me: a doughnut, two aspirins and a glass of warming milk. There was also a spray of daisies in a glass of water.
I took a towel from the bathroom and dried my head and face from the rain while I sat in the green chair. I dialed information and asked for the number of the Seashore Hotel.
After nine rings, a voice from Brooklyn rasped, “Seashoa.”
“Charlie Furman’s room, please.”
“Who?”
“Picasso.”
“What’s this, some kind of a gag?”
“No—don’t hang up.”
There was a pause. “Who the hell is this calling anyways?”
“Detective Neil Hockaday, New York Police. I’m looking for a guest there by the name of Charles Furman, alias Picasso.”
“If you mean that old carny painter, you’re way too late, mister. He ain’t been here for all of a year.”
That was about what I expected.
The voice from Brooklyn added, “We had to put him out after he wouldn’t pay his rent no more.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“You kidding? People here don’t leave no forwarding addresses. Besides which, we looked all over Coney for the bastard since he burnt up his room before he went. I like to burnt him up if I ever catch him!”
“All right, thanks anyway,” I said. I decided for the time being to keep the surveillance detail on the Seashore.
That final bit of the day’s business completed, I undressed and climbed into bed with Ruby. Which seemed as right and natural as if my nights had been thus complete for many years. She awoke, only just slightly startled by the new surroundings; she nestled against me and said thickly, “I’m glad you’re finally home, Hock. Let’s hear all about it tomorrow.”
So warm she was beside me, making her soft slumbering sounds. I touched her bare shoulder and it occurred to me that even Picasso had once in his life known such goodness, and that maybe I was merely a luckier man than he. I draped an arm over Ruby’s slender waist and lay restless for an hour, waiting for my cop dreams to come. The visions of the day’s blood faded, and I felt myself drifting finally into the safe harbor of sleep in my own house.
Then I fell.
And that night, Picasso and the beggar man and a card in a hatband creeped my dreams.
We occupied the last booth of the window side of the spoon across the way, Pete Pitsikoulis’ All-Night Eats & World’s Best Coffee. Pete himself was in the kitchen cooking our breakfast.
Wanda the waitress had brought black coffee for me, which truthfully was not the world’s best, and herbal tea for Ruby, along with ice water and good, fresh country-style orange juice for two—the kind of honest orange juice that has been muscled clean out of America’s countryside by the Tropicana cartel. Spread across our formica-top table were the late morning finals of the Post and Daily News. I had not bothered picking up Newsday or the Times, which in their different ways are practically out-of-town papers. There was also the notebook I had finally remembered to begin.
We sipped, and read for a while. I, the Daily News and Ruby the Post.
When Ruby finished, she said, “Now, isn’t this very instructive for me? An actor will sit up at Sardi’s after the big show waiting for reviews of the play, whereas a cop hangs out in a Greek coffee shop to study how tabloids play the big murder case.”
I suggested, “It’s theatre all the same, isn’t it? A good reporter knows that New York crime has what it takes to charm an audience: comedy, drama and tragedy—all without rehearsals.”
“And the play’s the thing?”
“Sure, so long as the terrible story up on the stage has no real effect on the storyteller.”
“How cynical,” Ruby said.
“Not at all. It’s the way the newspaper business has of encouraging exceptional reporters to quit scribbling facts and eventually move on to the truth of fiction.”
We traded papers.
The Daily News account of New York City’s latest multiple murder spree had been suitably punchy and mostly accurate, so far as it went. But as usual, the paper founded in 1801 by the aristocrat Alexander Hamilton had gone over the top.
Inky block lettering and a grainy photograph packed with gore and misery covered the front page of the Post like a fat man’s body splattered face down on Thirty-fourth Street after a long tumble down the Empire State Building. “Maniac in Manhattan” was the pithy title riding over a picture of poor bloody Benito being transported by stretcher from his bodega to a morgue truck, with the sobbing Carolena huddled in a cop’s arms and wide-eyed Luis pointing to where the victim’s shop window had been weirdly defiled. The bottom of the page promised all the ghastly details inside: “Horror by Day & Night, Full Coverage and More Pix, Pages 2-3.”
I opened the paper in a hurry.
There was an old newswire photo of Celia Furman, and a new picture of Angelo’s Ebb Tide taken from the street. The caption under these read, “Woman Gambler from Detroit Is First Victim, Gunned Down in Hell’s Kitchen Bar.” A Bachrach portrait of Dr. Reiser appeared alongside a Post file photo of Bellevue Hospital, with an airbrushed arrow indicating the rooftop where Reiser died: “Top Psychiatrist Knifed to Death by Crazed Intruder.” An enlarged close-up section of the cover photo zeroed in on Picasso’s grotesque drawing of the throatless man, which begged the question, “Brand of a Killer?” I supposed the question mark was published on the advice and counsel of the newspaper’s lawyer. There was also a two-column cut of a now-grinning Luis—“Witness Describes Prime Police Suspect for Post Artist”—with an accompanying sketch of Picasso that I thought was an excellent likeness. I wondered what Picasso thought, and where he might be reading his press notices that morning.
The story’s bulky headlines were a stream of black, spread over two full pages. Nobody plays crime better than the New York Post, and nobody writes about it with more comprehensive flair than my friend Slats:
Major Manhunt Is On—Serial Killer Slays 3
Cops Search for Street Artist Called “Picasso”
By William T. Slattery
The murderous rampage of a brutal serial killer began in broad daylight, with a shooting in a Ninth Avenue bar. Two days later, in the dead of night, the killer struck down two more victims, first evading Bellevue Hospital security staffers to plunge a butcher knife into the back of a prominent psychiatrist, then calmly walking into a Hell’s Kitchen bodega where he slashed open the neck of a hard-working shopkeeper with a box-cutter blade.
Sources tell the Post that homicide detectives are engaged in a desperate manhunt for a homeless artist known only as Picasso. Officially, the police would only say that Picasso is wanted for “simple questioning.” But the Post has learned that Picasso may have a history of violence and mental illness, and that he has direct personal links with at least two of the three recent murder victims. Those victims, in order of their deaths, are:
• Celia Furman, 59, of Detroit. Gunned down in a noisy crowd at Angelo’s Ebb Tide bar on Nin
th Avenue at West 44th Street at about 5 P.M. Monday by an unknown assailant dubbed by some in the media as the “Happy Hour Shooter.” The unrecovered weapon used was a small-caliber pistol, according to police, who believe the killer fired at close range as Ms. Furman sat on a barstool, then left without notice. The owner of the bar, Angelo Cifelli, said in a brief telephone interview: “She was an old pal from Motown and I’m upset, okay? This is a friendly neighborhood-type place. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard shots, and that’s all I got to say.” A Detroit newspaper, which supplied the Post with an exclusive photo of Ms. Furman, reports that she had an extensive criminal record for gambling violations in that city.
•Dr. Ronald I. Reiser, 48, of Manhattan, an innovative psychiatrist well respected by his Bellevue Hospital colleagues. Stabbed to death yesterday by the so-called “Bellevue Slasher” sometime during early evening hours while tending an open-air garden he maintained on the roof of the hospital’s psychiatric ward. The killer left an eight-inch household butcher knife buried in the doctor’s back. Bellevue’s public relations office would issue only this statement: “A person or persons unknown apparently gained access to Dr. Reiser’s unauthorized roof garden, then assaulted the doctor with a knife, resulting in his tragic death. Hospital security officers are cooperating with the police department in a thorough investigation of this matter.” Others on the Bellevue staff, who asked to remain anonymous, said Dr. Reiser was a “selfless humanitarian” who had been treating Picasso unofficially for several years—up until eight months ago when Picasso physically attacked him, for reasons Reiser did not discuss. Picasso was at that time restrained by orderlies and then evicted from the hospital, according to these sources. It is believed that Picasso had not recently seen Dr. Reiser for his usual treatments, described by the sources as “psychiatric counseling in connection with habitual and potentially violent hallucinogenic episodes.”
•Benito Molevo Reyes, 40, of Manhattan, owner of the B&C Superette, Tenth Avenue near West Forty-fifth Street. Knifed in the throat last night as he tended his store alone, between the hours of 11:00 and 11:30. The killer, unnoticed by neighborhood residents upon entry or exit from Reyes’ bodega, left behind a blood-soaked box-cutter knife. Police said there were no signs of struggle and that Reyes’ widow, Carolena, discovered the body after failing to get an answer from her husband when she called him from a back room of the shop. About an hour prior to the murder, Picasso allegedly used white paint to draw the figure of a man dying from a knife wound in the neck on the window of Reyes’ bodega. According to Luis Riestra, 16, who lives with his mother in an apartment directly over the bodega, Picasso was informally employed by Reyes to paint advertisements on the shop window. But Riestra told the Post last night, “It was strange, because Picasso usually painted in the daytime. Last night I was on the corner with my friends and I saw Picasso come by and go into Benito’s place, then Benito came outside and they talked and Benito went back inside.” The two men did not argue, Riestra said. “Then I noticed Picasso was painting the window real fast, then he took off. I didn’t notice anybody else go in the store after that, but somebody sure did.”
Riestra added that a police officer of his acquaintance who lives in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood—Detective Neil Hockaday of the Street Crimes Unit, Manhattan—had arrived at the bodega in a large black car minutes before Reyes’ body was discovered. He said Detective Hockaday, whom he referred to as Hock, got out from the back of the car and spoke to someone else in the backseat for a while before the car drove off.
“Then when the black car left, Benito’s wife started screaming,” Riestra said. “Me and my friends ran to the store and Hock was at the door with a gun and he said to call 911, which my mother did and also one of my friends. Then there were cops all over the place.”
Riestra also said that Detective Hockaday questioned him about Picasso. “I didn’t bring up Picasso, Hock did,” Riestra said. “He asked me a whole lot of questions about Picasso, like where he lived and how long he’s been around the neighborhood. But nobody knows about Picasso, except he’s a very strange dude.”
Detective Hockaday was seen by reporters at the scene of last night’s bodega murder, but he declined to speak about the case. He did, however, present Riestra to reporters by saying, “This young man has your story.”
Other officers on scene at the Tenth Avenue slaying, including commanders from the Midtown North station house, were also unusually reluctant to answer questions. At Post press time, the only official statement came from the Public Information Office of police headquarters: “The department has taken special steps to ensure the expeditious apprehension of a perpetrator in what may be a series of related homicides. Inspector Tomassino Neglio has temporarily reassigned Detective Neil Hockaday of Street Crimes Unit, Manhattan to lead a team from the Central Homicide Squad in the investigation of the deaths of Celia Furman, Dr. Ronald Reiser and Benito Molevo Reyes.”
Meanwhile, a number of New York political leaders joined the mayor in issuing a statement from City Hall expressing their anger.…
There was not much more to Slattery’s story, but I stopped there because I could see that breakfast was coming and there is no sense in spoiling good food with mealy quotations from New York political leaders. Wanda was carrying our plates in her ample arms and Pete trotted after her in his white chef’s clothes with black hairs curling out from his collar and cuffs.
“Hey, you see the picture of Luis in the paper, eh, Hock?” Pete said, as he reached our table. Wanda set down the plates with her customary groans, then she waddled off to another booth. “My own busboy—his picture in the newspaper! Oh, he got something on his ball! Like you, Hock, when you was a boy around here, remember? Hey, maybe Luis got so much on his ball he buy me out some day.” “You without a coffee shop?” I said. “Where would you spend all your time, Pete?”
“I give up this city with the criminals! I leave all to you. Old Pete retire in nice sunny Florida.”
Not having the heart to tell him about nice sunny Florida these days, I asked, “Where is our bright young man of the hour this morning?”
“Luis? He work late today. Night shift.”
It finally occurred to me by the way Pete was talking to me while he was mostly looking at Ruby that maybe I was not the main reason he had come by. I took a bite of my eggs on a slice of toast. Pete stared at Ruby and smiled. I said, “Pete, I’d like you to meet Ruby Flagg.”
Pete took her hand and kissed it and said, “I don’t like I see Hock alone by himself so much.”
“Neither do I,” Ruby said.
Pete said to me, “She is such a pretty plum. You don’t do nothing to make her run away, you hear?”
Ruby said, “Don’t worry, Pete, he’s still got a lot on his ball.”
“This one I like her okay, Hock,” Pete said, beaming at me and then Ruby. “But she don’t eat so good like you. Bring your Ruby here, I feed your jewel right.”
“I will,” I said.
Pete slapped my shoulder with one of his big hammer hands. “You are lucky man!” he said. Then he returned to his kitchen, trailing behind him the aromatic wake of fried onions.
“I’m glad he approves,” Ruby said.
“So am I. He’s important to me. I’ve known Pete just about forever,” I said. “Sooner or later, he’ll tell you my biggest secret, which he’s already told everybody else in the neighborhood.”
“And, the secret is?”
“Pete claims I’m his long-lost son. From the days he was a young cook in the Greek navy, and he jumped ship at Dublin one fateful day, then took up with a colleen who only broke his heart by stealing away to America with his baby boy. Which brought him here, of course, in search of myself.”
Ruby laughed, and so did I. Then she spooned up a small bit of her peach-colored melon. I watched it slide between her lips. And for a wonderful second or two, I shared Pete’s myth of carefree days in the sun, Ruby and I, somewhere far beyond New York.
“No wonder you eventually came home to Hell’s Kitchen,” Ruby said. “Your heart always lived here, didn’t it? The wonder is you ever left.”
Yes, that was true. Then why had I never uttered, even to myself, this obvious truth of me? And how had I lived so many faithful years with the likes of Judy McKelvey, with whom I could never share a proper shame for our common childhood streets, no matter how I tried?
“I remember the first time I was ever in this very place,” I said.
“Tell me.”
“My mother took me to the doctor that day. It wasn’t pleasant, but I was brave. Afterward she brought me here to Pete’s, for a reward—a Coca-Cola and an egg-salad sandwich. And that was the finest meal I’ve ever had. Thinking about it now, I can still taste it.”
“Some day I want to hear all about your mother and the two of you living here. And your father, too …”
Ruby struck my hollow place.
“… I mean your real father, Hock. The handsome soldier in the picture frame, who looks so much like you. What about him?”
My mother’s words were ever the same—repeated exactly so—when I was brave enough to ask about a man she would never mention; whenever I would simply ask, “What about Papa?”
“Your papa went off in a mist, that’s all there is to it; it hurts too much to speak of him as if he was ever flesh and blood and bone to me. “That much, and little more, until her boy’s bravery faded. She died when I was a full-grown man, in my first week of being a cop. Among other things, my mother left me the picture of a young soldier never returned from his war, and my own hollow place.
I told Ruby all of this while she stared quietly at me.
Then she said, “I’m sorry, Hock, but shame on your mother.”
Had I not said this same secret thing to myself?
“Your father should never have been allowed to die that way, with nobody to give you his memory,” she said. “Nobody survives without memories.”
Dark Maze Page 14