“Ah, hell. I told him.”
“Told him what?”
“I told him don’t go on that run. That was Owney Madden’s run, and he was a cheap mick. Back then we’d pick up the booze coming over from Canada in these little towns on the lake, Lake Erie, put it in trucks and run it down to the city. You ever been up there? Beautiful country. Farms and forests. A lot of streams, wilderness, I don’t know what. Pretty much all the roads run down around Syracuse, so we had a deal with the Syracuse cops. Never had a problem. Owney thinks maybe he can run a few loads through without paying. But everybody up there, the guys who unload the boats, the guys who load the trucks, the cops, they’re all related, so the cops know the booze is coming, and they hit ’em. Your father’s riding lead truck, and they got him. I sent a guy up there who knew his way around and got him out, but I guess it stayed on the record.”
“I never knew this. I never knew he worked that side.” What else didn’t he know? His father rarely talked about his past. All he cared about was today and the future.
“Why would he tell you? That’s his business. Anyway, that’s where he got the money to get into the theater business, from the booze business. He got out early. He knew what he wanted, and when he had the dough to do it, he quit. A means to an end, like they say.”
“Terrific.”
“What? I’ve got to tell you how the world works? It was something he did for a while, and then he stopped. Look at him now, a successful guy, rich, completely legit.” His voice full of admiration.
“Can you help with this thing?”
“It’s immigration, so that’s a little different, but I’ve got a guy. He’ll talk to some people, find out who’s the judge. If it’s a judge we know, we’ll be okay, we’ll get him out on bail. We’ll see. It depends on how hard they’re going after him. It could be we might need some leverage. First we get him out. One thing at a time.”
Cassidy felt a surge of relief. “Thanks, Frank.”
“Hey, come on.” Costello brushed the gratitude away. “You want another drink?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got to go.”
“Before you do, let’s talk about something else.” Costello’s manner changed. He was harder, cooler. “You were in one of our places over on Third Avenue the other day asking about a guy named Ingram, Alex Ingram.”
“That’s right.” It did not surprise him that the information got back to Costello.
“Someone popped him, is what I hear.”
“What’s your interest?”
Costello ignored the question. “You were first on the scene.”
“There was a uniform there before me.”
“Yeah, yeah, Scalabrine. He doesn’t know nothing. What do you know?”
“Not much. He was tortured. He was dead.” Cassidy was wary. Where was this going?
“Yeah, that’s what I heard. You think they got what they were after?”
“I don’t know. What’s it to you?”
Costello considered his answer. “I met him.”
“You met him? Why?”
“He had something he wanted to sell. He hung around some of the places we own, and he seemed to know what’s what. He put out the word. I had a guy go talk to him, check him out. He wouldn’t show the guy much, but it looked like it might be legit, so I set up a meeting.”
“What was he selling?” He watched Costello calculate how much he should tell.
“Photographs.”
“Blackmail?”
“Leverage.”
That word again. “Leverage to do what? Who was the leverage going to move?”
“You don’t have to know that.”
“Photographs. Did he take them?”
“Did he take them? I don’t know. I just know he had them.”
“How many?”
“He said five. He only showed one.”
“What’s in the photographs?”
“Uh-uh. If you find them, you’ll know right away you’ve got the right ones. If you don’t find them, it’s best you don’t know. I want you on this. Find them. My guys are good at some things, but you’ve got to point them at it. I need someone who thinks. You’re going to do this thing for me, Michael, and I’m going to do this thing for you. Right?” No mention of old friendships. Just the deal. Costello watched him, waiting for his response.
“Why didn’t you buy them right then?”
“I would’ve, but he was being cagey. He had other buyers. He was looking for the best deal. Who could blame him? You take what the market gives you.”
“Who were the other buyers?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many were there?”
“I don’t know that either. I got the feeling there were a couple more out there, but he didn’t say. So are we going to do this?”
“Okay.” As neutral as he could make it.
Costello nodded, apparently satisfied.
Cassidy got up and left as Harry Belafonte came back on and sang about “man smart, woman smarter,” a thought that made men in the audience laugh and women smile secretly.
Cassidy stopped outside the club to light a cigarette. A big Packard limousine pulled to the curb. The chauffeur jumped out and hurried to open the passenger door. The first man out was Joe McCarthy. He stumbled as he exited, and the chauffeur was quick to hand him upright. Roy Cohn followed and stood deferentially near the open door. A tall man got out, and Cassidy recognized him from newspaper pictures as Clyde Tolson, number-two man at the Bureau. Cohn reached back in to offer a hand to J. Edgar Hoover, but Hoover ignored it. Hoover was short and broad with the face of a bulldog. He wore a pinstriped suit designed to minimize his bulk, and Cassidy could see that it was custom tailored. McCarthy led them toward the club entrance, turning to talk to Hoover as they went. Tolson walked at Hoover’s shoulder. Cohn, looking for an opening, darted around the group like a terrier and settled for clapping Tolson on the back as the doorman opened the big door to the club. People on the sidewalk recognized Hoover and applauded. Hoover acknowledged the applause with a modest wave and led his party into the club.
Cassidy smiled when he heard one of the men on the sidewalk say, “Greatest living American. They should make him president. I’d vote for him in a minute. Only honest man in Washington.” Cops knew different. Cops knew the FBI Office of Public Affairs worked overtime to puff and polish the reputation of the director and the associate director. According to planted news reports, Hoover and Tolson were always on duty. They never took a vacation, never rested in their efforts to keep America from harm. They were in California together in the spring to inspect the San Diego office, and it was only coincidence that the racing season opened at the Del Mar track during those weeks. They inspected the Miami office when, by chance, Hialeah opened, and it was coincidence again that they were often in New York on FBI business when there was a big-time fight at the Polo Grounds, a home series at Yankee Stadium, or the running of the Belmont Stakes.
They stayed at the best hotels, and management learned not to present a bill. They did not pick up restaurant checks. They did not pay for tickets. Puffed up with their own self-regard, they sailed along, sure that the myths they had created were the reality.
* * *
Cassidy knocked on Dylan’s door, but there was no answer. Disappointed, he went upstairs and made a sandwich and got a beer from the icebox and ate at the table in front of the window looking out at the lights of the nighttime river traffic moving upstream with the tide, and the lighted buildings across the New Jersey shore. He washed his dishes and left them in the drying rack by the sink. He poured bourbon over ice and put an old Brunswick label seventy-eight recording of Red Nichols and His Five Pennies on the big RCA combination record player–radio and reminded himself to look into the new “hi-fi” equipment Tommy, the clerk at Liberty Music, had been raving about. Tommy swore that stereo was the coming thing.
He settled into the chair at the window with his feet on the sill and drank
the whiskey and listened to the music. Jimmy Dorsey on alto sax and clarinet. Small-band Dixieland, improvisation, and tight group playing. Very progressive thirty years ago but considered old hat now by people who had to be on the cutting edge. Cassidy still loved it.
He flipped the record when he got up to make himself another drink. The bourbon dulled him and let him drift. Alexander Ingram, a Broadway gypsy tortured to death in a crappy apartment furnished with stuff he shouldn’t have been able to afford. Why did the FBI care about the case? Who was the guy who cut Cassidy? And now Costello. Leverage, Costello said. Everyone was after something Ingram had. Photographs. Photographs of who or what? Who did the leverage move? Was it enough to get his father out of immigration jail? What was the cost and who would pay it?
Cassidy finished the drink and went to bed. He lay in the dark and listened for footsteps on the stairs but fell asleep before he heard them.
He did not dream.
When he woke in the morning, Dylan was asleep next to him.
* * *
“I have to go.”
Cassidy turned from the window. Dylan was at the counter finishing a cup of coffee. She was dressed in jeans and a work shirt, and a canvas bag of tools was on a stool next to her.
“What time is it?”
“A little after eight. I have to go over to Brooklyn and buy some supplies.”
“I’ve got to go too.” He finished the coffee in his mug and carried it to the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?”
“What?”
“You haven’t said three words since you got up. You’ve been staring out the window for fifteen minutes. Something’s wrong. I’ve got time if you want to talk about it.”
“Nothing. It’s okay.”
“Come on, Michael. Don’t shut me out.”
“I’m sorry. Sure. You’re right.” He told her about his father’s arrest, about Cohn and New Year’s Eve, about Frank Costello.
“That’s why Cohn was such a shit at Ribera’s that night.”
“Yes. He must have already known about my father’s arrest up in Saratoga. They’d already done the research. He was just waiting to spring it on me.”
“Just because you were rude to him.”
“What’s the point of having power if you can’t use it to kick someone in the balls?”
“What are the photographs? What do they show?”
“I don’t know. Somebody doing something he shouldn’t to somebody. Costello saw one, but he wouldn’t tell me what was in it.”
“And Costello said Ingram had them, but you didn’t find any, did you, when you searched his apartment?”
“No.”
She stared out the window for a while with a troubled look on her face.
“What’s bothering you?”
For a moment she looked startled, as if he had caught her at something. “Nothing.” Her face cleared, and she smiled. “I was just thinking what a strange job you have. What are you going to do about your father?”
“I’m going to get him out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I find the photographs I’ll have some leverage. He’s in there because of me. He’s my father. I have to do something.”
She kissed him and held his face so she could look at him. “You’re a good man.”
14
“What can you tell me about Roy Cohn?” Cassidy asked.
“Hi, Rhonda. How are you? Gee, you look great. Did you do something to your hair? It looks wonderful.”
They were leaning on a wall looking down into the Rockefeller Center skating rink where a few diehards circled on ice turning mushy in the springtime sun.
“You do. You look great. Your hair looks wonderful, but I don’t think it’s that. Something else? Have you lost weight?”
“Nice try, but too late.”
“I’m not trying. I’m telling the truth.”
“Nice try again.”
He offered her a cigarette to cover the moment, but she waved the pack away. He lit one for himself, shielding the Zippo from the wind that gusted from the river to the west. Rhonda tracked an elderly couple dancing on the ice to the music from the tinny loudspeakers. The dance ended with a twirl, and then he kissed her on the cheek.
“What’s wrong with me?” Rhonda watched the couple glide to the boards to rest.
“Nothing,” he said, but she was not listening to him, but to herself.
“I just want to be with someone. Is that wrong? Just to be with someone who likes you, someone you like?”
“No.”
“Why’s it so damn hard? What do I do? Why do they always run?” Her eyes were full of tears. He put his arm around her, and she turned into him and rested her forehead on his chest. He patted her back helplessly and looked out over her head to the skaters and smoked his cigarette until she pushed back. She turned her head away from him until she had gathered herself.
“Okay. Roy Cohn.” In a businesslike voice. “What do you want to know?”
“What’ve you got?”
“He’s smart as hell. He graduated from Columbia Law School at twenty. He had to wait till he was twenty-one before he was allowed to take the Bar. His old man is Judge Albert Cohn. The word is the old man pulled strings to get him a job with the U.S. attorney, Irv Saypol. They say Cohn’s good in court. He prosecuted the American Communist Party leadership under the Smith Act and sent them away. He was on the team that prosecuted the Rosenbergs and sent them to the electric chair at Sing Sing. If you want, I can get you a clip file on him from the paper.”
“Just tell me what you know.”
“He’s ambitious as hell and well connected. He’s very conservative politically. He has a lot of reporters in his address book. Walter Winchell thinks he sits on the right hand of God. Anything Cohn leaks to him goes right in the column without checking.”
“What’s not in the research book?”
“What’s this all about, Mike?”
“He’s the one who sicced McCarthy’s committee on my father. I want to know who I’m up against.”
She heard the half-truth, the minor evasion, examined him for a moment, and then decided to let it go. “They say Hoover recommended Cohn to McCarthy. I’d like to know that for sure, but I can’t get a confirmation.”
“What else?”
“He sucks up to the guys above him and steps on the ones below. He’s a vengeful shit. You don’t want to cross him.”
“Too late for that. What else?”
Rhonda hesitated.
“What?”
“It’s rumor.” She had a good reporter’s distaste for the unconfirmed story.
“Tell me anyway.”
“He and his pal David Schine took a junket through Europe last year. Did you read anything about that?”
“An inspection tour of the embassy libraries or something.”
“U.S. Information Agency libraries. They were going to make sure Karl Marx and Lenin weren’t on the shelves. They had thirty thousand books removed, almost as efficient as the Nazis in that department. Dashiell Hammett, W.E.B. Du Bois, who probably was a Commie, Steinbeck, Thoreau, Melville.”
“The white whale was a Red?”
“First-class hotels, the best food and wine, drunk every night, and all on the government checkbook.”
“So?”
“Adjoining rooms in the hotels. Easy access back and forth.”
“Come on. What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying anything. I’m just telling you.”
“Schine and Cohn?”
“Schine, I don’t know. People say no, but Cohn? Yes, maybe Cohn.”
“Really?”
“The word is there are some places down in Washington where he goes. You know those places, bars without too many women. Hell, you worked Vice.”
“Do you think Hoover knows? Do you think he knew when he sent him to McCarthy?”
“Hoover knows everything. A lot of people in Was
hington hate the man. A lot of people would like to see him go, but no one makes a move. Too many people have too much to hide, and he’s got it on the record. Even if he doesn’t have the files, it’s enough that everyone thinks he does. The power lies in the fear.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Thanks, Rhonda.”
“Sure.” She turned away, took a step and then turned. “If you ever tell anyone I went all girly on you, Michael Cassidy, I will have your guts for garters.”
15
“Cassidy, Orso, my office, please.” Tanner left the door open and went back to his desk.
Orso raised his eyebrows. Cassidy shrugged. They carried their coffee mugs with them and went in.
“Don’t bother to sit. This’ll be short. You’re off the Ingram case.”
“Why?” Cassidy asked.
“’Cause I got a call from a guy, who got a call from a guy, who got a call from a guy who said you’re off.”
“Who’s taking the case?”
“Bonner and Newly. That, too, is the word from on high.”
“The Pig and the Nig?” Orso protested. “They can’t carry our water.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that the Feds are telling us what to do?” Cassidy asked.
“A lot of things bother me. Traffic. My wife’s cooking. My daughter’s boyfriend, what the fucking mechanic’s charging to fix the Chevy, the crap my kid listens to, calls it music, but what the hell, I’ve got to live with it, so I live with it. Give everything you’ve got so far to Bonner and Newly. Now get out of here. Go fight crime.”
* * *
Alfie Bonner and Clive Newly, the Pig and the Nig, as they were known, though never to their faces. Try that one in front of Bonner, and you would lose teeth. He did not mind what you called him, but he tolerated no disrespect for his partner, and Cassidy liked him for that. Bonner was an old-fashioned street cop who had been working the Stem for more than twenty years. He knew every punk, grifter, con man, pickpocket, stickup artist who preyed on the people drawn to the bright lights of Broadway and Times Square. He believed in back alley blackjack justice, and more than one punk left the city nursing broken bones. Wops, chinks, hunkies, dagos, niggers, spics—his disdain was democratic, and nobody could figure out how Newly escaped it.
Night Life Page 15