Madman's Thirst

by Lawrence de Maria

  Scarne emerged from the room 45 minutes later sweating and smelling musty but feeling human again. Back in his apartment he poured himself coffee and checked in with Evelyn at his office while he made bacon and eggs. Then, after a long shower, he called the two people named Gadomski that Evelyn had turned up on Staten Island.

  He first tried Paulina Godomski, who lived in Castleton Corners. The result was a fractured greeting from an old woman obviously unsure of how to use the device. He thought about leaving a message asking if she had a son who was a hit man, but thought better of it and just left his cell number.

  The other listing was for a Dr. Jack Gadomski, a vascular surgeon in Great Kills. His office said he was making hospital rounds. When would the good doctor be back? Sometime in the afternoon but he was fully booked. His next free appointment was in two weeks. Was the problem serious? Scarne said he had weakness in his left side, his right eye was twitching and he kept drooling on his tie. The receptionist suggested that he go to the nearest emergency room. Scarne thanked her, slurring his words for effect and hung up. He hoped the woman wouldn’t recognize his voice when he showed up unannounced.

  He then opened his laptop and did a quick search for “Gadomski’s Bakery” on Staten Island. He was almost immediately redirected to a website called Staten Island’s Halcyon Days, which broke down the borough by townships and featured scores of now-defunct attractions, restaurants, churches, schools, lighthouses, hotels, movie theaters and other businesses. Each had one or two lines of copy describing its place in the borough’s history. Some were accompanied by grainy black-and-white photos. There was no photo of Gadomski’s, only a street address on Victory Boulevard in Travis, and the notation that the bakery, “a family-owned local favorite that opened in 1919” closed in 1970.

  Scarne decided to head to Staten Island again to check out the neighborhood where Gadomski’s Bakery had once been. With round-trip bridge tolls to the borough now in the $14 range, he was considering just moving there to save money.

  An hour later he found the store that had once housed the bakery. It was now a salon called “Essence of Nails.” Inside, six women were sitting with their feet in tubs of water, being tended to by three Vietnamese women. Another Vietnamese, presumably the owner, came over to him and asked if he wanted a “mani-pedi.” When he declined she said, “More men are coming in all the time, you should try. We have special, $35 for both.”

  When he explained the reason for his visit, she looked disappointed but politely answered his questions. She had never heard of Gadomski’s Bakery. She bought the shop from the previous owner, who ran a small toy store. Before that, she believed, it was a candy store. She turned to her clientele and said, “Any you ladies remember a Gabonski baker?”

  “You mean Gadomski,” a woman in the middle seat said.

  “That’s right,” Scarne said, walking over to her.

  She was old, verging on ancient, and he tried not to look at her wrinkled and blue-blotched feet. A worker was gently massaging the gnarled toes on one of them.

  “You’re a detective,” she said.

  “Yes, I am, ma’am. Private. How did you know?”

  “I can tell. My husband and son were on the force. Both my grandkids, too. Brooklyn and Queens. Girl and boy. Both sergeants.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Scarne said. “So, you remember the Gadomski’s?”

  “Yes, nice people. We’re Italian and got most of our baked goods from Alfonso’s, but for rolls and donuts on Sunday morning you couldn’t beat old man Gadomski. Do private detectives make good money?”

  “Sometimes,” Scarne said, thinking about the tolls.

  “Where’s your office, Staten Island?”

  “No, Manhattan.”

  “Good money,” the lady in the next seat chimed in.

  “Maybe when my grandkids retire, they can go private,” the old woman said. “You got a card?”

  Scarne gave her one.

  “Rockefeller Center,” she said to the other ladies, holding the card up. “Real good money.”

  “Who’s he?” It was one of the other women down the line. “A private eye,” another one answered. “What’s going on,” a third said.

  Scarne knew things would shortly get out of hand, or foot, as the case might be.

  “Do you know if any of the family is still around?”

  “Old man Gadomski and his wife passed some time ago,” the old lady said.

  “Do you happen to know what the wife’s maiden name was?’

  “Oh, Lord. I used to. Something Italian. I’m Irish, so they all sound alike to me. It was a common Italian name though. Started with an ‘M’ I think.”

  That narrowed it down to about a thousand families on Staten Island, Scarne knew.

  “Any children?”

  “They had a son. Crazy kid. Used to hang around with my boy. Both were always getting into trouble. Not that my Mario was an angel mind you. But he straightened out once he went on the force.”

  “What about the Gadomski boy,” Scarne said, his hopes rising. “What happened to him?’

  “He used to work in the bakery, you know, after school. But he wanted no part of taking over the business. Too tough. Old man Gadomski was up at 3 A.M. in the morning. Got to give it to the Polacks. Hard workers. That’s when the kid came in sometimes. I know his father was disappointed. There were no other children. I guess that’s why he had to sell the business. Too bad. Nice man. Always sent us nice cakes for the holidays, because our boys were pals, you know.”

  “I don’t suppose you know where the son is now.” Scarne said.

  “Oh, sure.” Scarne couldn’t believe his luck. “Jack straightened out, too. Went to medical school and became a doctor. Got an office in Great Kills. Does very well, I hear.”

  Five minutes later Scarne, deflated and now carrying $30 worth of hand lotions that he hoped Evelyn could use, managed to extricate himself from the salon. On his way to his car, he cell phone chimed. It was Paulina Gadomski. No, she said, she didn’t know the baking Gadomskis. Her husband worked at Proctor & Gamble in Port Ivory for 40 years before his heart attack.

  “Just as well we not related to the other Gadomskis. Frank is on a low-cholesterol diet.”

  Wonderful, Scarne thought after hanging up. It looked like the jelly donut clue wasn’t going anywhere. He considered skipping his visit with Dr. Gadomski, whose only victims probably sued for malpractice. But since he was on Staten Island anyway….

  First, something to eat. He drove up Victory Boulevard looking for an old-time diner he remembered near Jewett Avenue. Not surprisingly, it was gone. He had passed a newer Greek diner and turned around in resignation. He pulled into a parking lot that separated the diner and a large office building next door. The grilled meat smells emanating from the diner had all but eliminated his resignation and he was about to walk in when the Verizon sign on the other building jarred his memory. He temporarily shelved his thoughts of soulvlaki.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  The pretty young woman at the reception desk had the bright-eyed look and chirpy voice of someone in their first job.

  “This was the old New York Telephone Company building,” Scarne said.

  “I believe so,” she said. “I mean, we used to be New York Telephone. Then Nynex, Then Bell Atlantic. Now Verizon.”

  “Did you take telephone history in school?”

  She laughed.

  “No. But we learn all about the company in the Verizon training course.”

  “First job?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Wild guess. But listen, since you know so much about the company, would you happen to know where there might be some old telephone directories stored? Going back, say, to the 1960’s.”

  “Sure, in the museum.”

  “Museum?”

  “Well, that’s what we call it. Actually, it’s just a kind of library or reference room of sorts. Most of our files and stuff are all
on computer now, but some people still want their phone books, although I don’t know how long that will last. We don’t keep a lot of books here, of course, just enough for walk-ins. I’m sure they have a lot more in a warehouse somewhere. There’s a couple of hundred books here, most of them from recent years. But they keep at least one or two copies of every book that comes out, for historic value, I think. I know that the public relations people sometimes bring some of the real old books to show kids at schools and things. Only Staten Island editions, though. There’s probably other books in other boroughs.”

  “Is the room open to the public?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

  Scarne took out his wallet and opened it to his investigator’s license.

  “Do you think it might be opened for a good-looking private eye working a homicide case?”

  Her eyes widened as she read it. This was turning out to be an exciting job. Scarne didn’t want to tell her that it was probably all downhill corporately from here. She picked up her phone, presumably to call a higher up for permission. Instead, she surprised him.

  “Su Su, can you cover for me for a while. I have a V.I.P. to bring back.”

  A moment later an young Asian woman walked over from a back office and took the desk.

  “Take your time,” she said as Scarne and the girl walked away.

  “V.I.P.?”

  The girl laughed. They were walking briskly down a long hall.

  “Well, you are to me Mr. Scarne. And more cute than good-looking, by the way.”

  Now he was “cute” to girls of a certain age, Scarne thought. But he was impressed that she’d taken the time to remember his name from his license. And hadn’t called some vice president. He suspected that perhaps she wasn’t destined for permanent reception desk duty or the corporate treadmill.

  “I feel I should know your name.”

  “Chelsea,” she said as they reached a door, which she opened and ushered him in. “Chelsea Hinton. Here we are.”

  It was more or less a large, windowless conference room with a long table flanked by metal bookshelves containing telephone books. In one corner was a small desk with a laptop. Framed covers of vintage telephone books were scattered around the room wherever there was an open space along a wall. The shelved books were arranged in chronological order, with the older ones easy to spot: there were fewer of each year and they were a lot thinner. Scarne stopped at the oldest section and gingerly picked up a weathered volume under a nameplate that said “NYTELCO-1929.”

  “This is as far back as the collection goes? I would have thought it went back to 1900 or earlier.”

  “Staten Island only got its own book in 1929,” Chelsea said. “Before that the numbers were part of a citywide book. And before dial phones, most people just asked the operators to find people.”

  “We’ve come full circle,” Scarne said. “I can speak a name into my cell phone and it will connect me.”

  “What year are you looking for,” Chelsea said. “Or who? You never said.”

  “The who is anyone named Gadomski.” He spelled it out. “And the years, just to be safe, are from 1950 to 1980.”

  “Is that who was murdered?”

  “No. But I’m hoping he can help me out, if he’s still alive. It’s a very long shot.”

  Scarne sat at the conference table and the girl brought over books in batches of five. The editions from the 50’s and 60’s had numbers that began with letters. She went over to the computer desk, opened a drawer and brought back a small pad and a pencil.

  “What do these letters stand for,” he said, pointing at several numbers that began with YU and GI. “I can guess that the other letters represent townships, like SA means Saint George and DO means Dongan Hills.”

  “Yukon and Gibraltar,” Chelsea said. “Probably left over from the citywide books. “I think they’re cool.”

  “You must have gotten a Master’s Degree at telephone school,” he said.

  It took Scarne only a few minutes to go through the 31 books. There were very few Gadomskis other than the bakery ones, who shared the same address as their business. Scarne wondered what it must be like to live over a bakery. Can one ever get tired of the smell of fresh-baked bread? When he was finished, he had only five names, numbers and addresses on his pad.

  “I’d have thought there would be more,” Chelsea said. “Must be an uncommon name. You’re lucky it’s not Gallagher or Gallo. Did you see how many of those there were?”

  “Small favors,” Scarne said. “I’m not familiar with some of these street names. Do you know what communities they are?”

  “No, but we can check.”

  Chelsea brought Scarne’s list over to the computer and called up a borough map on the Internet. None of the addresses were anywhere near St. Stan’s in New Brighton. All appeared to be in parishes many miles away. And none of the names, other than the old woman he’d already checked and the doctor he was going to visit, were listed in books past 1965. If they were related to the baking Gadomskis, they had probably moved or died before the bakery closed in 1970.

  “Chelsea, you’ve been a peach,” Scarne said as they walked back to her reception desk. “Have you eaten? Can I buy you lunch?”

  “Oh, no. Thank you. I brought a salad. I’m getting married in two months and want to fit into my dress.”

  “Congratulations. He’s a lucky guy. I bet he’s very cute.”

  She laughed at his teasing.

  “He’s very good-looking.”

  After a lunch that was better than he expected, Scarne headed to Great Kills to see Dr. Jack Gadomski.

  “You don’t have an appointment,” the receptionist said. She was a formidable-looking older woman wearing a brown pants suit and a lot of jade jewelry. She looked at him suspiciously, her eyes traveling to the small souvlaki stain on his shirt. Was he the drooler? “Did you call earlier?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Scarne said. “I’d like to see Dr. Gadomski on a business matter.”

  Her mouth turned down at the corners.

  “Just leave the samples with me, and your card. If the doctor is interested he’ll call. You must be new to the territory.”

  “I’m not a drug salesman, lady. This is a confidential matter.”

  “You still need an appointment.”

  Scarne could feel the disapproval of the four patients who were sitting in the waiting room reading out-of-date magazines. Nobody likes a line jumper. He thought about clutching his chest and falling to the ground, but instead took out his wallet and extracted a business card.

  “Just give this to the doc and tell him I have a few questions about a murder I’m investigating. I’ll wait out here and chat with his patients.”

  “Just a minute,” she said and walked quickly away. She was back almost immediately. “The doctor will see you now.”

  As Scarne walked through the door leading to the examination rooms he heard one of the waiting room patients say, “I’m going to try that some day.”

  The receptionist offered him a seat in a small office and Dr. Gadomski walked in a moment later holding the business card.

  “Mr. Scarne? What’s this about a murder?”

  Gadomski was a distinguished-looking man with a full head of white hair and powerful-looking hands. He radiated confidence and Scarne figured he probably had a low tolerance for bullshit.

  “I’m looking into a homicide and my only real lead is that the killer’s father may have owned a Polish bakery on Staten Island 40 odd years ago. The Gadomski name came up. You are what I would call a long shot, doctor. I don’t suppose you moonlight as a hit man?”

  “If my malpractice premiums go any higher,” Gadomski said, laughing, “I may have to. But who was murdered?”

  Scarne told him.

  “I read about that. Did you really think I had something to do with it.”

  “No. The guy I’m looking for is dying and moved from the borough 40 ye
ars ago. He’s also a Vietnam War veteran.”

  “What am I, chopped liver,” Gadomski said, hooking a thumb at a group of framed certificates on the wall behind him. “I was a goddamn grunt.”

  Scarne got up and looked at them. Most were diplomas and professional awards, but two of them in the center, in an obvious place of honor, were from the military. The top one was Corporal John G. Gadomski’s Honorable Discharge. Below it was a Bronze Star citation.

  “How did that happen?”

  “There was a draft back then, remember? Although I enlisted. Crazy, huh?”

  “I did, too.”

  “Army?”

  “Marines.”

  “Even crazier. I went in just to keep two of my buddies happy. They’d just gotten drafted.”

  “I suspect alcohol was involved.”

  “You’d better believe it. We were kind of wild. But we all came home.”

  “One of your pals named Mario?”

  “How the hell did you know that?”

  “I met his mom getting a pedicure in the nail salon where your dad’s bakery use to be. She said you and her son were a handful but turned out well.”

  Gadomski laughed and picked up a picture from his desk. It showed three young men in uniform fatigues with their arms around each other.

  “That’s me and Mario and Whitey at Fort Dix. We did our basic together. But we got split up after that. I went to the 25th Infantry, Mario became an MP in Saigon, which didn’t hurt when he went on the cops, and Whitey eventually went to Ranger school. I still see Mario occasionally. Whitey, we lost track of. He moved away after the service. Girl trouble, I think.”

  Gadomski was easy enough to pick out, despite the intervening years. More out of curiosity than anything else, and because he felt an affinity with a fellow vet, Scarne asked, “Which one is Mario?”

  “Big guy on the left,” Gadomski said, tapping the photo. “Whitey’s the short one. But he was tough, strong as an ox.”

  “You all have dark hair in the photo,” Scarne said. “How did Whitey get his name. I presume it’s a nickname.”

  “Yeah. Name was Wit. Wit Banaszak. His father used to help out my dad in the bakery, when he wasn’t shaping up on the docks. He was learning the business. That’s how I met Whitey. His old man and mine even talked about opening up another bakery in New Brighton, as partners. It had a big Polish community back then. But Mr. Banaszak got sick and nothing came of it. What’s the matter? What did I say?”