“Sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”
27
Leah and her stepmother, Megan Cassidy, got out of a taxi at Lexington and 44th Street. They walked through Grand Central Station oblivious to the commuters hurrying toward the trains, oblivious to the giant Kodak color photo above the east balcony that showed spring in Yosemite Valley, oblivious to the mural of the stars on the domed ceiling. Leah carried a small overnight bag that held an old flannel nightgown, slippers, her makeup, a hairbrush and comb, a package of Kotex, a pint of brandy, and a small bottle of codeine tablets her husband had been given after he broke his arm playing touch football in the park. They went out onto 42nd Street.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.” Leah’s jaw was set.
“What will you tell Mark if there are any”—she hesitated—“problems?”
“That I’m having female troubles. He won’t want to know any more.”
They entered the Commodore Hotel and went purposefully through the lobby to the elevators. Megan had booked a room on the sixth floor, and she had the key in her hand, but that was not where they were going. It was a precaution, a small price paid for legitimacy in case anyone asked them where they were going. The guilty flee where no one pursues.
They rode up past six without speaking and got off at the eleventh floor and walked down the corridor to room 1109.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
A gray-haired woman with a severe, pinched face answered the door and led them down the short corridor to the bedroom. She wore a black dress with a white lace collar and looked like a small-town librarian who would not tolerate talking in the reading room. The doctor was a short, pudgy man in his midforties who had tried to add seriousness to a cherub’s face by growing a thick mustache. He had red-rimmed eyes like a rabbit. He had removed his suit jacket and had rolled up the sleeves to his white dress shirt. He nodded to Megan and Leah, unsure which was his client.
“I’m Leah—”
He interrupted. “No, no, please, I don’t need to know your name. It’s better that way.”
There was a large empty suitcase on the luggage rack near the window. The bed had been stripped, and the covers and spread were folded on a chair. The mattress had been covered with a plastic sheet and an old cotton blanket from the suitcase. The doctor’s instruments were laid out on a towel on the bureau top: dilators, curettes, speculum. A box of large gauze pads was open on a table near the bed next to a bottle of disinfectant.
Leah looked at the plastic-covered bed and then at the cold metal lined up on the towel. She looked at Megan with wide eyes and a face drained and white. Megan nodded toward the door, but Leah shook her head and turned to the doctor. “All right.”
“Mrs. Grant will help you prepare.”
The woman in the black dress led Leah to the bathroom.
“Do you have the money?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.” Megan removed an envelope from her purse and handed it to him. He opened it and counted the money carefully, nodded, and put the envelope in a pocket of his jacket that hung near the door.
“Will you be with her afterward?”
“Yes.”
“Is she allergic to penicillin?”
“No.”
He handed her a small bottle of pills. “She should take two a day until all the pills are gone. A precaution against infection. One in the morning and one in the evening until they’re gone. That’s important.”
“All right.”
“She can expect some bleeding, some cramps. This is normal. If the bleeding is excessive, if she bleeds through a pad an hour, take her to a hospital. Tell them about the procedure. Do not try to conceal it. If she is bleeding excessively, it’s important they know she recently underwent a D and C. Do not call me.”
“All right.”
“Just in case, that’s all. Just in case. I was … I am a good doctor.”
Leah came out of the bathroom wearing her old flannel nightgown. Her hair was tied back severely and her face was pale and stiff. She walked to the bed and lay down on her back, and the plastic crackled under her. A few moments later Mrs. Grant came out of the bathroom.
“If you’d like, you may wait in the bathroom,” the doctor told Megan.
“No. I’ll stay here.” She moved to the bed and took Leah’s hand.
* * *
“Vandalism, pure and simple. I can’t believe anyone thought he was going to make a buck doing this. Just the urge to destroy.” Jerry Kulin’s voice was thick with outrage, and it echoed in the marble hall of the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue.
Cassidy could see that someone had wrecked a dozen of the brass-and-glass post office box doors in the bank of thousands that pierced the marble wall. Box 1289, the box to which Ingram’s driver’s license had been sent, was one of them. Its door hung by one hinge.
“I mean, what the hell did he think he’d find, an envelope full of money? A postcard from Grandma’s more likely. Someone’s Social Security check if he’s real lucky, and how’s he going to cash that?” Kulin was a post office supervisor, and he took the destruction personally.
“Did anyone see anything?”
“Yeah. A guy with a big hammer. Bang, bang, bang, bang. He whacked a whole bunch of boxes, then went back and grabbed what was inside.”
“What did he look like?”
“Six different people gave me six different descriptions.”
Cassidy thought of the hammers in Ribera’s studio. “Big? Maybe a beard?”
“Not big. No. No one said big. No one said a beard. Medium height. He wore a hat.”
“Could it have been a woman?”
“A woman? You ever seen a woman strong enough to do that?”
“Yes.” Had he said anything to Dylan about Ingram’s mailbox? That night in Bickford’s when the drunk kid was singing to his date. Did he? He couldn’t remember. If what Crofoot told him was true, she was involved. In what? In whatever led to Ingram’s death and what came afterward. So everything she told him was a lie. No. Not everything. Some things were true. Weren’t they? No. Everything was a lie.
* * *
Bud Franklin came out of the squad room toilet buttoning his fly. The phone on his desk rang, and he limped to it and caught it on the fourth ring. “Franklin, Vice.” He leaned his butt against the desk and massaged his left leg with his free hand. He knew it was the bone that hurt, not the muscle, but he kneaded it anyway hoping for relief that would not come without pills.
“Bud, it’s Willa. I’ve got something for you. It could be good.”
He met her at O’Hara’s. It was early and the joint was nearly empty. He picked up a beer and a shot and carried it back to the table where Willa Grant chewed the cherry from a double Manhattan. She still wore the black dress with a white lace collar that made her look like a small-town librarian.
“Still limping,” she said.
“Yeah. So what?”
“I’m just saying.”
“I’m always going to be limping. You fall out a three-story window, you end up limping.”
“Fall? Thrown is what I heard.”
“You could get yourself a smack in the mouth without working too much harder, Willa. What’ve you got?”
“The doc did a procedure up at the Commodore today. You told me to let you know when I saw anything good, so here I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Not a hooker, not a college girl, none of the usual. This one was classy. You could tell when she came in. A rich bitch. You said, keep your eye out for a real score. This could be one. I figured you might get some leverage on her, an abortion and all, so I went into her purse when she was in the next room. I copied down her name and address. Park Avenue.” She pushed a piece of paper across the table.
Franklin read it. “‘Mrs. Mark C. Buckman. Seven forty Park.’ Okay. Could be her husband doesn’t know. Could be she doesn’t want him to know. I�
�ll check her out.” He put the paper in his pocket and shoved a bill at Willa.
“Ten bucks? That’s it?”
“If it pans out, you’ll get more. First I’ve got to find out who she is.”
28
It took Cassidy half an hour to search Dylan’s apartment, and what he did not find worried him as much as what he did. He did not find any letters, photographs, or mementos of a past. He did find a blue steel automatic in her bedside table. There was a shell in the chamber, and the safety was off. He racked the shell out and ejected the clip. The top round had a hole drilled in the point of the slug. It was a hollow point, designed to expand quickly when it hit flesh, to tear a terrible hole, to make a mortal wound. A comfort to have close by on a dark night. He put it back where he found it and went out into the day.
* * *
Orso was playing slapsies with Benny the Dip outside of John’s Pizzeria on Bleecker Street. Orso was proud of his quick hands, but Benny was the best pickpocket in the boroughs, a man who once dipped the wallets of the three parole board members after they believed his solemn pledges of reform and put him back on the street. His hands were quick enough to snatch flies out of the air. They rested palms down on Orso’s hands. The game was simple. If Orso could slap the back of one of Benny’s hands, he remained the slapper. If he missed, they reversed positions and Benny became the slapper until he missed.
“How’re you doing, Cassidy?” Benny asked. Orso took advantage of the distraction, but when he slapped, Benny’s hand was gone, and all he got was his own palm.
Benny put his hands out palms up and smiled. “My turn.”
“Shit.” Orso put his hands on Benny’s, and as they came to rest, Benny struck right over left, hitting the back of Orso’s hand with a crack that made Cassidy wince. “Hey, I wasn’t ready,” Orso complained.
“Are you ready now?”
“Yeah.”
Crack. The same right over left, and the back of Orso’s hand reddened. Orso tried watching Benny’s eyes and then tried watching Benny’s hands, but neither strategy worked. Slap, crack, slap, slap, crack, one hand over to the other, both hands up and over to slap both of Orso’s, until both of Orso’s hands were red. Orso would not quit. A schoolyard game played with grown-up stubbornness.
“Okay, Benny. I need him in one piece.”
“Sure.” Benny let his hands fall. Orso faked a punch at him, and Benny flinched. Orso smiled, an inch of honor regained.
“Benny, stay off the Stem for a while. You dipped a deputy mayor outside the Winter Garden the other night. He wants us to bring some heat.”
“Sure, Cassidy. I got other places I can work.”
“Why don’t you take a break for a week or so?”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve got two kids. Do you know what it costs to buy shoes these days? They’re out of them a couple of months later. Do you know what it costs to feed boys? Take a break, my ass. I wish there were two of me.”
Orso and Cassidy went into John’s so Orso could get a slice. John Sasso did not sell slices to the general public, but Orso was special. The slice turned into two slices. He folded the first lengthwise and held it away so the oil wouldn’t get on his jacket and took half of it in one bite. Cassidy smoked a cigarette and watched the people passing the plate-glass window.
Orso wiped his mouth and fingers on bunched napkins. “Fast, man. He is fast.”
“When was the last time you beat him?”
“Fifth grade.”
“Give it up.”
“I can beat him. I’ve just got to think on it a bit.”
“I need you to do something for me. A tail job. You’re going to need a couple of extra people. I don’t want him to know it’s happening.” He told him about Ribera and the studio in the building on Prince Street.
“What’s up with him?”
“He’s tied to Ingram, but I don’t know how.” A half-truth. Ribera was tied to Dylan, and he wanted to know what that meant. And he didn’t want to tell Orso that he’d been played for a sucker. Pride. Anger.
“I’ll check it out. Hey, by the way, that broad Rhonda you were banging last year, works for the Post, she called the squad room. Said she needed to talk to you.”
Cassidy shut himself into a phone booth on the corner of Seventh Avenue, dropped a dime, and dialed the Post’s switchboard. A series of clicks and then, “Rhonda Raskin.”
“It’s Michael, Rhonda. You called.”
“General Wilson Caldwell.”
“Who?”
“Don’t do that, Mike. General Wilson Caldwell lived on the sixth floor of that apartment house you wanted me to case. It’s the name I mentioned when the Feds interrupted our drink at the Plaza. What’s your interest? What’d he do?”
“I have no interest in General Caldwell.” This lie would be a small weight in the balance sending him to hell.
“Uh-uh. It’s too great a coincidence. Give.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What coincidence?”
“It came in over the wire an hour ago. Caldwell shot himself. So give.”
“I’m still working the case. I don’t know where he connects. I don’t know why he did it. When I have the story, you’ll have the story.”
“Pinkie swear, Cassidy. Pinkie swear.”
“I know. I know.”
* * *
Cassidy found Skinner in his morgue office with his feet on the desk. He was reading a Parke-Bernet auction catalog. “Hey, Cassidy, how are you doing? Jesus, I wish I were rich. You know what they want for a seventeenth-century desk over there at Parke-Bernet? Forty thousand dollars. For a piece of furniture. I had the money, I’d buy it in a minute. Beautiful.” He reluctantly put the catalog aside. “What are you here to bust my chops about?”
“General Wilson Caldwell. One thirty-three East Sixty-fourth.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Cause of death?”
“Lost half his brain matter out the back of his head.”
“Suicide?”
“Absolutely. Gun in the mouth. Hand on the gun. Locked apartment.”
* * *
There were two squad cars in front of 133. Cassidy recognized the patrolman leaning against the fender of one of them. “Hackmayer, right?”
“Yeah. How you doing, Detective?”
Cassidy nodded at the building. “General Caldwell?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s catching?”
“The Pig and The Nig … Sorry … Detectives Bonner and Newly, and some suit from the FBI. You going up?”
“No.” He’d be as welcome as a nun at a bachelor party. He walked toward Park Avenue. Caldwell dead with his gun in his mouth. Did he do that to him? Was he the push that sent him over the edge?
29
A uniformed doorman with the bearing of an admiral opened 740 Park Avenue’s brass-bound door and said, “Good morning, Mrs. Buckman.”
“Good morning, Patrick,” Leah said, and went out into the sunshine. She walked east on 71st Street, unaware that Bud Franklin limped behind her cursing her fast pace. She went to her dressmaker’s shop on 75th between Second and First Avenues and spent an hour choosing fabrics and cuts for two dresses and two suits for the fall. Franklin watched from the other side of the street. When he realized she would be awhile, he took a stool at the end of the counter in a coffee shop and nursed two cups of coffee and a Danish.
Leah left the dress shop and stopped at the fruit stand on the corner of First Avenue. She bought a bag of plums and a bag of peaches and bit into one of the plums as she stepped back out into the sunshine. A fat man in a rumpled tan cotton suit was leaning on a car at the curb. He pushed away from it and limped toward her. “Mrs. Buckman? I need to talk to you for a minute.” He showed her a leather case with a badge and ID.
“Has something happened to my brother?”
“Not that I know of.”
“He’s a cop too. Are you a friend of his?”
“We know each
other.”
“What do you want to talk to me about?”
“Mrs. Buckman, you had an operation last week, right?”
Leah said nothing, but she could feel her face tighten and her heart surge.
“An illegal abortion, right?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. The Commodore Hotel. Room eleven oh nine. You came with some other broad. She carried the money. Shall I tell you what you wore? How much it cost?”
“What do you want?”
He put a hand on her elbow to steer her up the block. “Let’s take a little walk, and we’ll discuss it.”
* * *
“Cassidy?”
“Yes.” He cradled the phone against his shoulder while he lit a cigarette.
“Al Skinner here. What are you, these days, Typhoid Mary? Half the stiffs I get in connect to you. We’ve got a guy on a slab here who’s got your business card in his pocket. I thought you might want to come take a look. They pulled him out of Potter’s.”
“That’s me you hear coming down the hall.”
Near the lower end of Manhattan, the East River makes a sharp bend between the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges. On an ebb tide an eddy in the bend picks up anything loose coming downriver afloat or submerged and sweeps it into a stretch of backwater on the Brooklyn side. The backwater is called Wallabout Bay on the charts but is known as Potter’s Field to the cops who pick up the drowned bodies there. People who drown in the winter often stay down until spring raises the water temperature and the gases form and the bodies rise. The first month that happens is usually April, and so, as punishment for their transgressions, members of the New York Police Department who have fucked up in small ways are sent once a week to check Potter’s Field. On that particular day, the three men who drew the duty were lucky. The body they found bumping against the bank in the oily water amid the garbage and bits of wood, soaked paper, soggy boxes, and orange peels was not a gas-filled floater-bloater up from the depths but a fresh corpse that had been in the water for only a couple of days.
Night Life Page 23