His words were tight, bit off, with an undercurrent of indignant hysteria. "Haven't you heard, Hammer? You can't legislate morality. Look at how eager the mayor and every politician in this town were to rub shoulders with celebrities at Club 52. No one cares about drugs. No one cares about anything anymore."
I wasn't here to talk philosophy or social mores. "You were supposed to get that gemstone handed off to you by Ginnie Mathes. That out-of-the-way location was chosen because it was close to where you'd be that evening, and yet was an area no one would associate with you. Only you didn't get to her in time—her sailor boy Joe Fidello mugged his own girlfriend for it, and when she saw it was him, he panicked and killed her."
"He killed her, Hammer. Not me."
"But Fidello missed the stone. He got her purse, but she'd tucked the little beauty away in her sleeve, and it fell out onto the street where, as fate would have it, I ran across the thing. Ain't kismet a bitch?"
"Hammer, that stone is immensely valuable. If you deliver it to me, and forget any of this happened, then—"
"You mean forget you tried to run me down with a stolen car? Forget that a young woman named Dulcie Thorpe got splashed on the pavement because you weren't up to the job? What I'm wondering is, why such a big payoff? You're just a local politician. But then I thought about it—you're young, good-looking, personable, with TV experience. Your roving reporter background gives you contacts here and in Canada. You're a natural conduit to get cash to other bent politicos, plus down the road, you'll make an ideal candidate for governor or maybe U.S. senator. Who was it that said someday the Mafia will own the man in the White House, and he won't even know it? That's almost right. You'd know it."
He was shaking his head, desperation in his tone. "All right. All right. I admit I panicked and I stole that car and ... but you weren't killed, you were barely injured." Hope leapt into his eyes. "So we can still do business."
"Dulcie Thorpe can't do business anymore."
That remark astounded him. "A hooker? A filthy little street tramp, and you pretend to care? I made a mistake, Hammer, and now you can take advantage of it, and me. You can go back to Florida and retire out of the New York rat race with an ongoing pension the likes of which you never dreamed."
"Okay, Alex. Let's shrug off Dulcie Thorpe's life and death. In her game, her life expectancy was a big question mark anyway, right? But how do you justify Bill Doolan? Your mentor! A man who valued you and your friendship, encouraged you, but who you only got close to for your own aggrandizement, and to keep an eye on the enemy. No wonder the Bonetti family tried to hit you in those drive-bys! You helped run them out of the neighborhood at the very same time you were partnered with Little Tony Tret!"
He had been shaking his head ever since I mentioned Doolan, and now he got a word in: "I cop to the hooker, but not Doolan. I didn't kill him, I would never kill him, I loved that old guy!"
"Maybe. I don't think so, but maybe. I know for sure you killed Tony Tret. I can sell it to Captain Chambers, too. I saw your name in the Enfilade book—you were there yesterday in the late afternoon, picking up a rifle from your locker. The little guy on the door, Gerald, saw you leave with a zippered carrying bag. And he saw you bring it back this morning. Ballistics will take about five minutes to make a match with the shell casings from that office window. You left a kind of funny signature—you have a rep at the Enfilade for not being much of a shot. And it took you three tries to nail Tony."
Jaynor was smiling now. Still nervous, but smiling. "All right, Hammer. Am I supposed to believe you take any offense at me getting rid of a mob lowlife like Anthony Tretriano? There are some people saying that what happened at the Y and S Club yesterday wasn't two warring mob factions—that it was just you, a one-man army, who did it all. You're a murderer yourself, Hammer. Where the hell do you get your moral indignation? Your sickening self-righteous attitude?"
"I like to think of myself as the guy who puts those extra little weights on the scale ... to make things balance out. But maybe I'm as evil a shit as you. I don't think so, though. Because there's still Doolan, isn't there? There's still Doolan."
"I told you, I had nothing to do with that!" Jaynor pointed at the chair. "He sat right there and thought about the protracted death sentence he was facing and took the easy way out. He was an old man, and you can't blame him."
"I don't blame him. I blame you. I'm guessing you spent the evening with him, and drugged his coffee or his beer—there'd be no toxicology screen on a gunshot suicide victim. I figure you had a key to the place, to lock up after—you and Doolan were that tight. Just like you were tight enough to know about his secret stash of handguns in the desk. You selected one, and when he fell asleep in that chair, you pressed one of his prize guns in his hand and helped the unconscious old man pull the trigger. And burst his heart. At least he slept through it. Had he been awake, you'd have broken it before you exploded it."
"I had no reason to do that."
"Sure you did. I think Doolan finally told you about Velda and the work he and she did, investigating Little Tony and 52, and how she'd been in Colombia for months gathering intel that would be shared with the feds. You knew that Doolan was getting close—that he'd be onto you very soon. I'm guessing you figured you would find documents in his desk, not knowing he kept his work-related files with Peter Cummings, the P.I. he sometimes worked for. Even then, even before the handoff of Basil's pebble was botched, you were in damage-control mode. And you have been in that mode ever since, panicking. Killing Doolan. Trying to kill me. Shooting Tret. An amateur, just floundering around, trying to save his ass."
He grabbed the nearest of the guns, one of the matched German P38s. He pointed it at me and it clicked and clicked.
"If you really knew anything about guns," I said, "you'd have noticed the weight was off. I unloaded all of those. You can keep trying if you like."
He looked down aghast at the other weapons on the blotter that were just useless hunks of metal without their little messengers.
I didn't fool around, since he might have another rod on him, one that did have ammunition, and whipped the .45 out and squeezed off a round, hitting him right in the heart.
It rocked him back a little, against the desk—the .45 had considerable recoil. He winced. It hurt. He braced himself on the lip of the desk with the heels of his hands.
"That's where you shot Doolan," I said, gesturing with the .45 at his chest. "Of course, he wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest."
"You ... you made your point, Hammer. Call your friend Chambers. I want a lawyer. We'll see ... see how much evidence you really have."
"That's a good one," I said with a chuckle, and shot him in the stomach. "Like I give a shit about evidence."
He was bent over clutching his belly, his mouth open, the air knocked out of him. The next shot was in the sternum and I heard the splintering crack of bone. He made a gargling sound and went down, hard, across the chalk outline of where the chair had been, where Doolan had been found.
"It's like getting punched by Joe Frazier, huh?"
I put one in his rib cage and he squirmed like a bug on its back. "I could unload a dozen clips into you, and this standard army cap-and-ball ammo would never penetrate that vest of yours. These are just nice soft lead slugs that will tenderize your muscle tissue and puree your organs and break every goddamn bone in their path. Hard to say how long it will take you to die, Alex, but you should have time to work up a good speech for Saint Peter. Kind of think you're heading south, though, no matter how glib you are."
I had four more in the clip and I spread them around evenly, two for Dulcie Thorpe, two more for Doolan, and a free pass on Tony Tret, and he just took them, shuddering under the impact, not even screaming because the soupy insides of him couldn't make it happen, all he could summon was bloody bubbly froth.
"I have another clip here," I said conversationally, "but now I think I have made my point. When I leave, the door will be open. Maybe you can crawl ou
t of here. Maybe you can get help."
He was crying, but when a sob came, it hurt too much and he forced it back.
"There's one last touch I think you'll enjoy," I said. "Smart guy like you, you might savor the irony."
I bent over and showed him the .45.
"This is Doolan's gun," I said. "When the cops check out these shell casings, that's where it will lead them. Same gun was used at the Y and S shoot-out, which will tie you to a mob hit. Anyway, my point is—in a way, it's like Doolan himself killed you."
I holstered the gun. He was on the floor, crawling. He hadn't made much progress when I exited the room, but I left the door open for him. He probably couldn't make it down to the street alive, but I liked the idea that he'd die trying.
Chapter 14
MIDAFTERNOON, VELDA and I sat in a booth at Cohen's Deli. I had my namesake corned beef and pastrami sandwich, having worked up an appetite, and my secretary behaved herself with a little bowl of chicken soup. What a beautiful woman puts up with to stay that way.
I dabbed my mouth with a paper napkin, then reached over and dug in the left-hand pocket of my trench coat, which was wadded up next to me.
I held the marble-size stone up to the light. It didn't look like much of anything. Basil had died for this and other stones, and they had funded new lives for inhuman beasts and franchised human weakness into even more wealth.
"That," she said, "might make a nice engagement ring."
"Here's what we're going to do with it," I said, and handed it to her. "You're going to take it to David Gross at the diamond exchange."
"I am?"
"Yeah. I have my own last errand to run. But I want you to get copies made of every photograph you have of those south-of-the-border Nazi bastards, and all the evidence that you've gathered with the feds in mind."
"Okay. What for?"
"You give the stone to David, and the packet of evidence and photos. You tell him to quietly sell the diamond, and to keep a finder's fee according to his own conscience. But the proceeds—like the packet—are to go to some people he knows."
"What kind of...? Oh. Nazi hunters?"
"Yeah."
"To bring these monsters to trial?"
"No."
Took her half a second to process that, then she just sat there staring at the innocent pebble in her palm. Finally she said, "Fine. What's your errand?"
"Some things you're better off not knowing about."
"In case I'm questioned? Or because it involves a beautiful woman?"
I grinned at her. "Right. We'll meet back at my room at the Commodore."
"The Honeymoon Suite, you mean."
"Yup. Then we'll paint the town red."
"Haven't you done enough of that already?"
That made me laugh. "Well, I am back in a New York state of mind. But tomorrow, we'll catch a plane down to Florida. I'll teach you how to catch snook."
"Do I want to know how to catch snook?"
"It's not optional."
"Are we moving there? If we're going to retire while we're still young, maybe we should hang on to half of what this diamond's worth."
"No, it's a vacation. I got a car down there. We'll drive it home."
"Home?"
"Yeah. I'm not kidding anybody."
I glanced out the window at a street where people were moving, staying out of each other's way without acknowledging each other's existence. A gray sky loomed, threatening rain but not doing anything about it. The buildings had a terrible interchangeable blankness. Cabs were honking at cars whose drivers were screaming at the cabbies. A Puerto Rican hooker in a miniskirt and black mesh stockings and a cheap blonde wig was watching out for potential johns with one eye and the beat cop with the other. A leg-less beggar on a wheeled board was having success with the occasional tourist and nobody else.
I shrugged. "This is where I live."
The towering apartment building on Park Avenue had been there forever, exuding a quiet splendor that passersby were welcome to glimpse but only the wealthy could afford. The intimidating doorman in gold-braided blue moved to cut off my entry, then recognized me.
"Mr. Hammer," he said, and nodded.
We'd never met. He just read the papers.
"You happen to know if Miss Chrome is in?" I grinned at him, shoved the hat back on my head. "Hey, I know that sounds dumb—I never got her last name."
"She's never shared it with us, either," he said, in a good-natured growl. "But, yeah, I believe she's in. Guy in the lobby will call up for you. That's a lot of woman, Mr. Hammer."
"I met women before."
He laughed, tipped his braided hat. "That's what I hear."
Getting past the lobby was easy. The guy there confirmed "Miss Chrome" was in, and called up to see if she'd receive me, and she would.
So when I knocked on the door in a gold-scrolled marble vestibule about the size of your average SoHo flat, I half expected a butler to respond. But all I got was the platinum blonde disco doll her own self, in a fluid silver silken dressing gown with a rope belt. White open-toed shoes revealed red nails against tan flesh. The contrast between the stark white hair and the very brown flesh was ever startling.
The hand she extended for me to take was similarly scarlet nailed.
"So nice, Mike, that you accept my invitation," she said, the Latin accent a sensual purr. Nothing showed of last night's sorrow, not even in her eyes, which were bereft of spidery red.
I took my hat off—I'd left the trench coat with Velda. "I know I should have called. Forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," she said, gesturing me inside. "The invitation, it was open. I was in a bad place last night. I am embarrassed for you to see me so."
"You lost somebody dear to you."
I had figured on brilliant splashes of primary color in the pad, the fiesta rainbow cliché gringos always expect. This was more like old Hollywood, a snowstorm of a living room with the kind of modern white furnishings and carpet you might expect from Jean Harlow or Marilyn Monroe, with walls and ceiling to match. Still, many tones were on display—ivory, cream, off-white, interrupted by a handful of large black-and-white glamour photographs of herself. Well, she knew what she liked.
The blizzard was relieved by a big picture window with a view all the way to Central Park, a postcard-worthy vista. The sun had finally cut through the clouds and smog, and the sky over the geometric shapes of the city wore the bright blues and whites of a perfect spring afternoon.
Strangely, her first move was to go to that window and close the cream-color curtain, blotting out that lovely view, as if Act One was over and this was intermission.
"Too bright for a night person," she said, with a little laugh. The only light now came from a single lamp on a white-lacquer end table. "Something to drink?"
"Maybe later. I want to talk first."
"Then we will talk. Suddenly you sound so serious, Mike. Is it about Tony's death? Are you investigating it? You are a detective."
She settled in an overstuffed white leather club chair, tan arms slipping from loose silk sleeves to rest regally along the chair's elevated sides as she crossed her long, lush legs.
I sat opposite her on a low-slung couch assembled from intersecting rectangles, as hard and uncomfortable as a doctor's examination table and about the same color. Between us squatted a glass-and-metal coffee table, not unlike the one at Club 52 with the coke mirror. I tossed my hat there.
"I've been working on something complicated," I said. "But I couldn't get anywhere, because I was operating from a faulty premise."
She frowned, as if my English was too dense for her to wade through, though she didn't ask for clarification.
"I was looking at four murders—Bill Doolan, Ginnie Mathes, Dulcie Thorpe, and Joseph Fidello—and then last night, a fifth, Anthony Tretriano. This is further complicated by the Mathes girl's murder rising out of a mugging, which involved the theft of a valuable gemstone."
The widening of
her eyes was almost imperceptible. Her chin went up a little, too.
"Wrongly, I assumed one killer was behind it all," I said. "I didn't stop to think that in a criminal enterprise, motives for murder are cheap, and motivations among those involved often run counter."
She cocked her head and one side of her hair fell like a silver curtain. "You are saying ... there were two murderers?"
"Three." I sat forward. "Alex Jaynor, the politician, staged the suicide of Bill Doolan. He also tried to run me down in a car, which makes the death of Dulcie Thorpe a homicide, too. And the police are running ballistics on Jaynor's rifle, which should tie him to the sniper shooting of Anthony Tretriano."
"They will arrest him?"
"No. Jaynor was found dead about an hour ago on the sidewalk outside the old apartment building where Doolan lived."
She frowned. "How did he die?"
"Slow and painfully. That bother you? He did kill your friend Anthony."
"He was more than a friend—my Anthony." She swallowed. Rose slowly, a queen from her throne, those legs seemingly endless, only one hidden by the glistening silver fabric. "I would like a drink. May I serve you?"
"Sure. Rye and ginger. Rocks."
Chrome moved to the padded white leather bar off to the right. She got behind it and poured herself a martini from an already made pitcher.
I leaned against the other side of the bar as she built my drink.
"If you're wondering why I'm here," I said, "it's as a sort of courtesy."
"I had hoped you were here, Mike, because there was a ... spark? A spark between us, that first night at 52?"
"You're a handsome woman. And you've done nothing to cause me harm that I'm aware of. So I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."
With the bar still between us, I could see my reflection in the mirrors over the row of bottles.
Her expression was quizzical. "Benefit of the doubt, Mike—the benefit of the doubt for what?"
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