The Con Man's Daughter

by Ed Dee

  It was late afternoon when he got to the two co-op apartments owned by Borodenko. Fatigue and melancholy had already set in when a middle-aged woman in a paisley housedress opened the door to the first apartment. Eddie felt his eyes well up as he tried to play the game and couldn't.

  "My daughter was kidnapped," he blurted out. He told her the Gypsy's story about the lesbian and the burned man. Before he finished, she pulled him inside. She poured a glass of tea and handed it to him while he apologized.

  "Shush, shush," she said. "This is your baby. Of course you must look everywhere."

  Eddie tried to leave, but she wouldn't hear of it. She took him by the hand and showed him through her home. In closets, under the beds, behind the shower curtain. She promised she would call all of her friends and tell them of Kate's plight. When he left, she shoved a handful of gingerbread cookies wrapped in a cloth napkin into his pocket. Then she kissed his hand.

  The second apartment seemed vaguely familiar. He knew he'd been in the building before, working a case or doing something for Lukin. When he arrived at the door, the tenant, a waitress, was just leaving for work.

  "I forgot you lived here," Eddie said.

  "Oh, you forgot," Ludmilla said. "I thought you came here to apologize. I thought it was sweet you should do that. But you forgot I lived here."

  "I've got a lot on my mind right now."

  "Where is your friend the FBI agent? When will he arrest me?"

  "No one is going to arrest you, Ludmilla. Listen, why don't we get out of the hallway?"

  "You worry because I'm talking, but you talked too loud in the Samovar. Everyone I work with thinks that I'm a thief. My manager, the customers, they all know. The bait-and-switch queen. Where does that leave me now?"

  "I overdid it, Ludmilla."

  "Tell me why am I working in the Samovar if I'm making so much money selling fake jewels? For fun? You think I do this for fun?"

  "No, I don't."

  "You always remembered where I lived when you were too drunk to go home to your wife. Ludmilla was special to you then."

  "That was a long time ago."

  "I'm not even a memory to you. I'm a thief to you now."

  "That's not true."

  "What kind of man are you? You forget making love in this apartment, but you remember fake jewelry, when I was just a young girl."

  "I'm a man who's looking for his daughter, Ludmilla."

  "So now you think I kidnap your daughter. Okay, okay," she said. Her hands shaking, she fumbled with her keys and opened the door. She flung it wide-open. "Go ahead, look," she said. "Look, look, look."

  Eddie went in and looked-carefully.

  Eddie barely remembered the ride home. He kept the windows down, the radio volume up. One minute he was singing to the joggers along the FDR in Manhattan, the next he was in the Bronx and he could smell anise from cookies baking in the Stella D'Oro plant. When he got out of the car, his legs ached from the stiffness. His right hand was badly swollen.

  Grace filled him in on their day while he ate leftover macaroni and cheese casserole Babsie had fixed. They'd signed up for soccer, gone food shopping, picked up a movie, and still had had time to make five o'clock Mass at Sacred Heart.

  "Granpop, I taught Babsie how to play chicken foot."

  "I wasn't very good," Babsie said.

  "Yes you were," Grace said. "For your first time playing dominoes."

  The second hand on the electric clock above the sink swept past the three white chickens near the rusted plow.

  Eddie tried to calculate the hours since his daughter's disappearance.

  "Babsie wants to know why Mommy has that pogo stick in her room," Grace said. "I told her you gave it to her."

  "It was hers when she was a kid," Eddie said. "I found it in the garage and gave it to her for her birthday… as a joke."

  "Tell her the funny part, Granpop."

  Eddie told her the story about Kate. When she was about Grace's age, he'd bought her a spring-driven pogo stick. Kate jumped endlessly in their driveway. Ka-ching, ka-ching for hours and hours. Eddie said he was working late tours and he heard that noise in his sleep all summer. All the neighborhood boys came over and tried to outdo her. They didn't have a prayer. The first week, Kate set her first goal at one hundred jumps without falling, then two hundred, then a thousand. She wore out the pogo stick's rubber tips by the dozen. "Call the Guinness Book" she'd yell up to the house. Ka-ching, ka-ching all day long.

  "See, she never gives up," Babsie said.

  "My mom never gives up," Grace said.

  Later, Eddie fell asleep in the chair as Grace read The Polar Express to him. She laughed because Eddie called her Kate. At nine o'clock, he went to bed while Babsie and Grace watched a movie.

  When you've been awake far too long, the first moment of falling asleep is like dropping off a cliff. It's a fall so sudden, so quick and violent, it jolts you awake, your body shivering while drops of sweat bead on your forehead. Eddie didn't know the scientific explanation, but he knew the rest of the night never got much better, as your sleep-deprived brain spliced your fears and dreams and ran them endlessly like a cheap rock video. All you could do was grab on and try to save yourself.

  "Eddie, Eddie," he heard Babsie whisper. "You're setting the world's record for nightmares."

  She knelt down next to the bed. He knew time had passed, for Babsie was in her nightgown and the house was dark and quiet.

  "What time is it?" he asked.

  "A little after three."

  "I wake everyone up?"

  "She's still sleeping, but you were getting loud."

  "Sorry."

  "Jesus, you're freezing," she said. "Scooch over."

  Babsie slid in bed next to him. She rolled on her left side and put her arm across his chest. He could feel her against him, her warmth.

  "You have to stop thinking, Eddie. Just for a few minutes."

  Babsie buried her head in his shoulder. Her hair smelled clean, but not one of those fruity shampoos. He was sure that Babsie's experiment with red hair in high school was the last time she'd ever colored her hair. Gray, shoulder-length, it suited her. Everything was real about Babsie. She didn't know any other way.

  "You want me to leave, just say so," she said.

  "No… please."

  "I don't know if I should, you know. You stood me up once. After graduation, you called me. You said we'd go to a movie, then to Frank and Joe's to grab a pizza, but you never showed up."

  "I stopped in the North End for a beer," he said. "I never got out of the place."

  "I'm surprised you remember."

  "Kevin said it was the biggest mistake of my life."

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  "I always wanted to do that," she said.

  Her breasts felt plump and firm. He rolled over and faced her. She held him with a strength he'd never known in a woman. Her lips were plush, fuller than Eileen's. She reached down and felt him.

  "Don't think about anything," she said as she rose to her knees and pulled the nightgown over her head. Her nipples were erect, her stomach not flat, but firm. She straddled his legs and guided him into her. In the yellowish haze of light filtering through the blinds, he watched her outline, the curves, the square shoulders. Babsie was not a fragile girl. He held her hips as she moved, her body wanting to gallop. "Slowly," he whispered. "Slowly." He wanted to savor each second, each subtle movement of her body. Holding herself up with her hands, she leaned down until her mouth was on his, her breasts grazing his chest. And they moved in rhythm, together, as if they'd been there before.

  Chapter 26

  Sunday, April 12

  8:00 A.M.

  Ka-ching, ka-ching. Eddie's eyes snapped open at the sound. It came from the driveway, someone on the pogo stick. Three steps to the window, but he couldn't see anyone. He dug his underwear out of the sheets and ran to the kitchen window. Babsie was dressed and on the phone. She stood at the window watching Grace, her
hair still wet from the shower. Bacon sizzled.

  "That thing is rusty, Eddie," Babsie said, hanging up the phone while writing notes on a pad.

  "What thing?"

  "The pogo stick," she said, a wide grin starting. 'The pogo stick needs oil. What the hell did you think I meant?"

  Grace bounded across the driveway, tilting left and right. Five jumps and down. But she got back up, holding on to Babsie's car.

  "Kids are amazing," Babsie said. "They deal with stuff."

  The clothes dryer buzzed; she'd been up long enough to do laundry. Eddie went over and put his arms around her. Maybe it was so easy because they'd known each other all their lives.

  "Your husband was a bus driver, wasn't he?" Eddie said.

  "Yeah, Philly drove the number seven. He left me for a bus driver groupie from the Hollow."

  "There are really bus driver groupies?"

  "Strange little women," Babsie said. "But Philly was a magnet for strange. He was a guy who actually believed that they had special erasers that could erase the clothes off women in photographs. I'd always catch him with the center section of the Daily News, trying to rub the bikini off some Australian babe."

  In the driveway, Grace climbed back on the pogo stick. Six jumps and down she went again. Eddie regretted the story about how persistent Kate had been. He didn't want Grace to get hurt trying to set a record.

  "I'll find something to lubricate that pogo stick," Eddie said.

  "Put your pants on first. Then sit down and eat. I have some news about the case."

  Babsie had filled a metal serving bowl with scrambled eggs. She put three slices of bacon on a plate, then poured a glass of orange juice for him. Eddie knew she'd brought the bacon with her. Kate wouldn't allow it in the house.

  "When you called me yesterday," Babsie said, "you said that Parrot told you this Zina and a Freddie lived near the boardwalk in Coney Island. I looked up Borodenko properties in the area."

  "Right."

  "Then I thought I'd take a different angle," she said. "You told me Parrot said that Freddie was the guy who got burned in the Rolls-Royce. I knew the cops'd checked the city hospitals but never pursued it further because they didn't have a victim or a complainant. So I called Edie Porach at St. John's and asked her how I could check on all burn cases that were reported since last Monday in a hundred-mile radius of New York City. I gave her the name Freddie. She called around and got back to me just now. The Burn Center at Stony Brook out in Suffolk County treated this guy the evening of Monday the sixth, a few hours after the Rolls blew up. He claimed he'd had an accident with a barbecue grill."

  Babsie turned her notebook around for Eddie to read. The name she'd circled was Fredek Dolgev.

  "It was cold that day," Eddie said.

  "Forty-two degrees was the high. Not exactly barbecuing weather for me, but a lot of people do it. The nurse said this guy was a little on the slow side. A young butch-looking woman brought him in. No insurance-she used a credit card to pay. Her name was Zina Rabinovich. Now check out his home address."

  "West Nineteenth Street, Brooklyn. Coney Island."

  "They drove a long way in an emergency, didn't they?"

  "They wanted a hospital out of the city," Eddie said. "This home address is right at the boardwalk."

  "I know. What the hell else do you need?"

  "Jesus, you are amazing," Eddie said.

  "Yeah, I hear that all the time," she said.

  Eddie didn't shower or shave; plenty of time for that after Kate was safe. He dressed in ten minutes. Martha was sitting on the front step, watching Grace. Babsie pulled the YPD car to the back door. Eddie knew he couldn't get away without her, but he did talk her into taking his Olds. He noticed that she was wearing a dressy blouse, which was made of a shiny black material. And blush, a faint touch of blush on her cheeks.

  "Watch the road, Romeo," she said.

  Forty minutes later, they made the Cropsey Avenue exit off the Belt Parkway. They parked on West Twentieth, on the ocean block, a block west of the two-story building that housed Coney Custards. Coney Custards faced the boardwalk. On the second floor were two small apartments. The entrance faced the side street.

  "I don't know how the hell you made that commute every day," Babsie said. "All that traffic every night would make me nuts."

  "I didn't come home every night."

  "That explains a lot."

  Eddie and Babsie had a direct sight line across an open lot and a blacktopped parking area to the apartment entrance. The building's outside walls were covered with mismatched strips of aluminum siding, some painted with a redbrick-colored primer. The entire place looked ripe for flattening by the winds of the next nor'easter or the big bad wolf.

  "Trash bag at the curb," Eddie said. "Somebody is living there. Is this entrance the only way in or out?"

  "Gotta be a fire escape on the back side."

  "I'm going to check it out."

  "Don't do anything stupid, Eddie. We need a warrant."

  "First I'll get my daughter; then I'll worry about the Supreme Court."

  "I'll call Boland," she said. "Have him meet us here with a warrant. If someone comes out before then, we'll move on him."

  "We don't have enough for a warrant," he said, then added, "Okay, tell him I said Parrot told me he'd seen a woman who looked like my daughter being dragged into this building."

  "What's his real name? We can't call him Parrot."

  Eddie made up a name; then, while Babsie was on the phone, he put on his Yankees hat and sunglasses and took a stroll down the boardwalk. The interior floor of Coney Custards was raised so the counter crew in their orange-and-blue golf shirts looked down on the customers. Huge silver cylinders behind them spun out soft ice cream. Two old ladies sat on a bench, licking a peach-colored concoction from sugar cones. Eddie walked fifty yards past to see the opposite side. Fire escape-Babsie was right.

  On the way back, Eddie turned down the side street. The first door on the right opened into a very narrow hallway. One flight up was as far as you could go. Apartment A to the left, apartment B to the right Neither of the two mailboxes had names on them. He could hear the hum of a motor, probably coming from inside Coney Custards. Otherwise, quiet. He went back to the car.

  "Kick the door in yet?" Babsie asked.

  "Not yet, but it's too quiet in there."

  "Boland is on his way to Queens. He says he'll get someone working on the warrant, although he's not optimistic."

  "Call him back," Eddie said. "Tell him to make it for both apartments, A and B."

  "That's not gonna help our cause; we don't even know which apartment."

  "This isn't going to happen, is it, Babsie? The warrant, I mean."

  "The feds always find a sweetheart judge."

  "Not on Sunday," he said. "Okay. Make a note that you ordered me to wait for the warrant. If I'm not back in five minutes, come in and arrest me."

  "Yeah, right," she said.

  Babsie went around to the boardwalk side. She stood on an angle so she could watch both the fire escape and the front window of Coney Custards. They didn't know if there was an entrance from the apartments into the back room of Coney Custards. Eddie entered the claustrophobic hallway. The stairs were so narrow, two bulimics couldn't have squeezed past each other. He knocked on both doors. Nobody home in either place. So he went to the picks.

  Apartment A had a new French-made lock. Big bucks. He didn't even try. He could hear voices, but he couldn't tell if they were coming from Coney Custards. Apartment B had an older lock, the tumblers worn from use. They turned easily, one by one. In less than thirty seconds, he was inside.

  The apartment faced the ocean and boardwalk. It smelled musty, everything damp to the touch. The carpet was gritty with sand, but fresh tracks from a vacuum cleaner crisscrossed the floor. An attempt at cleaning had been made. The living room was sparsely furnished, but what was there seemed out of place. Too good for the venue. Dark-wood antiques and overstuffe
d chairs didn't fit the grimy apartment. In a corner was a straight-backed chair with a cane seat that belonged in the room about as much as a Steinway. Not a single picture of any kind hung on the wood-paneled walls.

  "I smell Lysol," Babsie said.

  "You shouldn't be in here."

  "Oh, like they invited you."

  The only windows looked out over the beach and the

  Atlantic. Yellowing water stains lined the window ledge. He went to the window and lifted the thin curtain. It felt moldy, as if rotted from the dampness. Only the antiques raised it above a flophouse rating. No frames, no flowers, no frills. Spartan, to say the least. He checked the closet-men's work clothes, two pairs of boots, no dress shoes or sneakers. The smell of mothballs.

  "At least it has location," Babsie said.

  "Try sleeping here in the summer. Ice-cream machine going day and night. All you hear is people yelling and fighting on the boardwalk."

  "Sounds like you've been here before."

  "Rooms like it," Eddie said.

  Babsie began looking through drawers in the kitchen. The old refrigerator smelled of leaking gas. The freezer was completely empty. The fridge held an open quart of whole milk and nine bottles of Guinness stout. She noted a phone number near the spot on the kitchen wall where the telephone should have been.

  "Someone did a half-assed cleaning job," Babsie said.

  "Nobody knew about this except us. Parrot," Eddie said. "Parrot might have sold me out."

  They could feel the floor vibrating beneath them when the custard machine ran. Babsie crawled on her hands and knees across the living room floor, looking under everything. Eddie went into the bedroom. A queen-size mattress sat directly on the floor. Eddie picked up the pillow and put it to his face.

  "Smell this pillow," he said.

  "Sour milk," she said. "From downstairs-all those ice-cream workers smell like sour milk at the end of the night. One of them slept here."