by Peter Quinn
Pully appeared at the door. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“I was reading about the future. Looks better than I thought.”
“Never turns out as good or bad as people think. Best advice? Stick with the present. At least you know what you’ve got.” He sat next to Dunne. “I didn’t think you’d look so good.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I checked at the hotel when you didn’t return my message. They told me you were here. Crow filled me in on what happened. I warned you to be careful.”
“I was.”
“Not enough, it seems.” He handed Dunne a manila envelope. “I shared the preliminary report on Nan Renard with you on the phone. I told the investigators at ISC to keep digging. The full version was slow in coming. It arrived on my desk the day I tried to reach you. I’ve made you a copy. Give it a read. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
When he got back to the hotel, he opened the envelope and glanced over the contents. The few words underlined or marked with an exclamation point were all he needed. Daughter. Mother. Father. A trinity that he’d never guessed. He tossed the file in the wastepaper basket.
She’d played her several parts with the seasoned professionalism of an actress twice her age, ingénue, career girl, seductress. How could he have missed it, he asked himself. Other questions, as well:
Q. That face across the table in the Coral, so lovely, sincere, what was it made of?
A. Insincerity. Mask of wax. Molded to fit the moment.
Q. What was behind the mask?
A. Countenance of marble, heart of stone, like her father’s.
Q. What had she really felt? Contempt? Amusement? Fear?
A. Unknown. Unknowable. What did it matter?
She must have grown more and more confident as time went on, right up to the last act, the lamb going willingly, happily to the slaughter, bleating with pleasure as the butcher’s blade stroked his throat. That’s all right, Fin, come, come, go ahead and come.
He winced at the memory.
He ate dinner in his room. It was after nine when, on the third try, he reached Bud Mulholland. “No problem,” Mulholland said when Dunne proposed they meet at the Iron Horse the next day at three o’clock. It was as if he had been waiting for the call.
Mulholland didn’t turn around but followed Dunne’s approach in the mirror behind the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”
Dunne mounted the stool next to him. “Club soda. Plenty of ice.”
The bartender refilled Mulholland’s glass, served Dunne’s drink and walked away. One other patron was at the far end of the bar.
Mulholland directed his question to the mirror, reflected hand gesturing toward the bandage on Dunne’s reflected throat. “What happened?”
“Cut myself shaving.”
“Looks like you shaved everywhere. You should be more careful.”
“Now you tell me.”
“I warned you about vanity, remember?”
“But not about murder.”
“I suppose you want some answers.”
“Got the answers, Bud.”
“All of them?”
“All I need.”
“About Nan?”
“Everything.”
“I didn’t put her up to it, you should know that.”
“Didn’t exactly discourage her, either.”
“She’s not susceptible to discouragement.”
“Not even from her father?”
“I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
“How did you want it to happen?”
“You really interested in hearing?”
“Try me.”
Mulholland peered in the mirror: real eyes into reflected ones; he lit a cigarette, dragged, exhaled, blew a trio of O’s toward the reflection. “From the beginning?”
“From the beginning.”
A speakeasy on 52nd Street, just before closing time, winter thirty years ago. Recovered from the shoot-out with Rothstein’s boys, back at work only a few days, having a nightcap when she walked in.
—The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and funny and easy to talk to. It’s as if she doesn’t know or care how gorgeous she is. And when I ask her out, she laughs and says, “You don’t even know my name, you silly ape!”
He knew it soon enough: Mary Claire Resnick (Richfield is the name she uses), a Bronx girl now living in a rented room in midtown, professional dancer, last girl on the left in the chorus line, little roles, big hopes. One date turned into three.
—Never been with anyone like her. Wasn’t only outside beauty she had—though she had that in spades—but inside too.
He never thought about marriage before. Now that’s all he thought about. Settle down, buy a little place on Long Island by the water, with a fireplace and a front porch. Except she wasn’t ready. Bigger parts were coming her way; directors taking notice.
—“What’s the rush?” she says. “We got all our lives for that.”
And then she got pregnant. Seemed certain she’d get rid of it. Easy enough to do in those days. But she decides to go through with it. Delivers a baby girl in ’26. Anna.
—But there’s no way a cop and a chorine are going to raise a kid the proper way. Her brother and his wife, who ran a grocery store, agreed to keep Anna until we had the time and money to take on the responsibility. But we went up to the Bronx every Sunday to be with her. Mary Claire insisted on that. And when the day came when we could afford it, Anna was going to have everything her parents didn’t—toys, nursemaids, vacations in the country, trips to Europe, tutors, the best schools.
Back at work, she picked up where she’d left off. More notices. Bigger parts. Mary Claire Richfield was becoming an attraction. Tried out for starring role in “The Cuddles & Cuties Revue,” the new Schumann brothers’ production. Got the part.
—“Oh, by the way,” she’s told, “on one condition. That lawyer who’s been at the tryouts, the one who sent the roses? Well, along with being politically connected, he’s a real friend to the organization, a valuable ally in helping navigate the endless lawsuits and legal squabbles that are the bane of the theatre business. A devoted admirer of yours, Mary Claire, he asks one small favor.”
Not small to her. She knew how the game was played, but got where she was without playing it. Until now. To say no was to turn her back on her dream, all she’d worked for, on being able to choose the roles she wanted, offers from Hollywood, on wealth, stardom, beautiful home, wonderful life for her daughter.
—“Come now, Mary Claire,” they said, “don’t act the shy virgin. Maybe you’ve succeeded in hiding the birth of that child from the newspapers, but not from us. You know how things work around here. There are a dozen girls dying to step into that part. All of them eager and willing to do what’s necessary to get it.”
She got the part. Audiences and critics loved her. Newspapers hailed her as “The Venus of Broadway.” Advertisers started clamoring for her to endorse their products. But away from the flashbulbs and spotlights, she was sad. Depressed.
—I didn’t know what she’d had to do. She kept it a secret because she was afraid how I’d react. All I knew she was distant, didn’t want any part of making love. Figured she was having trouble handling success.
He waited for her in bed after a night on the town when she seemed her old self again. He didn’t notice her slip his gun out of its holster. Had no idea what had happened when he heard the explosion in the bathroom. Had to break the door open. Saw her sprawled there, red stain spreading across her chest. His first thought was: I’m in the middle of a nightmare. Turned out it was a nightmare, but not the kind that morning and daylight could deliver him from.
—I should have picked up the gun right there and ended it.
But didn’t. Why?
—I’d like to say it was because of our baby, because of Anna, but I’d be lying. She never entered my mind. What I wanted was to know why this gorgeous woman with
so much to live for, at the moment when her dreams were coming true, would do such a thing to herself—and to me.
Didn’t find out at first. The girls who knew—livelihoods precarious enough as it was—kept it to themselves. But when Merry Lane, Mary Claire’s best friend, came to him he learned the truth. She’d become the next target of the lawyer’s unwanted attention, and she was desperate something be done right away to scare him off.
Yet it couldn’t be done right away, not if it were going to be done correctly—especially after the lowlife was elevated to the bench—in a way that extracted revenge and meted out justice but didn’t lead directly to the electric chair.
—And it was done correctly. Not perfectly—there’s no such thing as a perfect crime. It’s a little like war. The winners make blunders. But the losers make more. I made blunders. Going to see Mrs. Crater, for instance. But the police made more. Gradually, interest faded, and Crater went from celebrated case to curiosity.
The hole inside him, however, was too big to be filled by a single act of revenge. He threw himself into being a cop, the toughest, most fearless detective on the force. Took every opportunity he could to put his life at risk, shoot it out with gangsters and robbers to the point where the worst and hardest of them did their best to steer clear. He wished he could say that he’d also taken charge of their daughter’s life and made a home for Anna. He sent money, that was it. Didn’t see her. Couldn’t stand being reminded of her mother.
—After a while, if you want to know the truth, I hardly gave her any thought.
Anna Resnick was seventeen when the woman she thought was her mother died. Going through her things, Anna discovered an envelope tucked in a drawer. In it were newspaper clippings that chronicled Mary Claire Richfield’s rise on Broadway and her suicide in a cop’s apartment. Beneath was a birth certificate for Anna; mother listed as Mary Claire Resnick, father: unknown. There was also a death certificate for Mary Claire Richfield (AKA Resnick). Cause of death: gunshot (self-inflicted).
Stunned, she confronted who she thought was her father—Mary Claire’s brother—and he told her the truth. The war was on, and her father was already serving with the OSS. She wrote him. He didn’t answer. She kept writing. Finally, he wrote her back, and they struck up a correspondence.
—First time I saw her was in ’46. Like seeing Mary Claire again. Anna was beautiful, smart and ambitious, just like her mother. We got close. She was trying to make sense of her mother’s suicide, and eventually I told her everything. Didn’t hold anything back. She said she was glad I did what I did. Took it upon herself to visit Merry Lane on the West Coast. Merry wasn’t thrilled at the idea, but they hit it off and became friends.
Pretty soon I was away again in a new job, one I’m sure Louis Pohl filled you in on that night at the Golden Gloves. I didn’t go back into clandestine work because I’m some super patriot on a crusade against the Reds. God knows, the Agency’s got no shortage of zealots. Me, I’ve never given a shit about politics. What the Agency did was offer me the only kind of work I’ve ever been good at. After a while, I got sent back to New York, embedded in the Wilkes’s outfit.
The irony is, I knew Wilkes’s old man. Had a real eye for females. At one point, the old goat offered Mary Claire a hefty sum to model for a mural he wanted painted on his bedroom wall, scene from Greek or Roman mythology. She had me come along to make sure it was on the up and up. It was. The old man couldn’t perform anymore but still liked to look. Told us all about his career. He was a titan. His son is a pygmy, and a pompous ass to boot.
I didn’t pull Anna into Wilkes’s business. It was her idea. Asked for my help, the first and only time she ever had. How could I say no? Wilkes had no notion she was my daughter. But he liked her, and she went up the ranks fast—on her own merits, not my pull. He made her the project manager for a new venture he was planning.
Not long after came the frantic call from Merry Lane. Somebody had come to where she worked and asked for her, like he knew something. Sounded like he was from New York. She had his name written down. Fintan Dunne.
He knew a Fintan Dunne. Knew him well. Former cop. Served together in the OSS. Had his own agency. What the hell was he doing in L.A. trying to find Merry Lane? Hadn’t talked to Dunne in a while, but asked around and didn’t like what he heard. He’d hooked up with ISC. If he was doing a job for them, it could be something big. Anna raised the possibility that some newspaper or broadcast company might be trying to make a splash with the upcoming anniversary of the Crater case.
—I didn’t think so, but to be on the safe side, I ordered a tail. And what do you know? Dunne flies off to Havana and books himself into the same hotel where I always stay.
You don’t need to be in my job very long before you get a little paranoid. Helps keep you alive, long as you keep it under control. I started losing control. Couldn’t get it to add up. I ask myself, Is Dunne interested in the Crater case because Anna’s right and he’s been hired by some press hound? Or has Louie Pohl brought him into ISC so he can enlist him in his one-man crusade against the Agency?
I’ll admit it. I did something stupid. Called my contacts in Havana and ordered a hit. After a couple of hours I came to my senses. Decided to just wait and see. But Anna thought that was a terrible idea.
“Look,” she said, “you can’t simply sit and wait. It might be too late when you decide to do something. Sooner or later, the odds are that some editor or publisher is going to order a new look into the Crater case. If they don’t hire Dunne, they’ll hire somebody else; and if they do hire Dunne—and if he’s as good and as lucky as you say—isn’t there a chance he’ll stumble his way to an answer?”
Nan Renard (Anna Resnick Mulholland) was clear with her father. They had to take control of the situation. Bring in Fintan Dunne, see if he got anywhere. If he didn’t, then the matter was essentially closed. Nobody would. Before long, all the witnesses would be dead. The public would forget.
In the unlikely event Dunne did get somewhere, well, he’d be performing a service, exposing all the traces that should be obliterated. Let him do the work, and when he was done, do what had to be done with him.
She came up with the plan. Told her father to take a back seat, stay out of it. She’d play the wide-eyed innocent with no other interest than to advance her own career. She sold Wilkes on the Crater story right away. It wasn’t hard. Despite appearances, he was drowning in debt, bad investments, uncontrolled expenses. He jumped on it.
—She was sure you’d agree, and you did, right away. At first, as expected, things went nowhere. She seemed confident you’d give up. She’d write a check, send you away, assure Wilkes she’d find another story. But suddenly, the remotest of possibilities became looming certainty, and the unavoidable question arose: What to do with Fintan Dunne?
It was when she told me Fred Kipps had to be eliminated that I realized Anna had become more my child than Mary Claire’s. Said it so matter of factly. Wasn’t hard to carry out. Slip in and out in the middle of the night. Pillow over the face. Still, I felt bad. I’d known Fred a long time. When I came back, she saw I was upset. All she said was “You should have done it years ago.”
Your success, Fin, guaranteed you were next. She asked me about the possibility of using poison, something that could be subtly administered and was quick acting. I didn’t try to stop her. Wish I could tell you otherwise, but I’d be lying. Got what she asked for, shampoo the Agency has used successfully on several occasions.
When I gave it to her, I explained how simple it was to use and how important to make sure it was directly and generously applied. I didn’t ask for any details about how she intended to do that, and she didn’t supply any.
As I watched her leave, I thought about the dreams Mary Claire and I had for our daughter and what that daughter had become. It made me feel old and tired, very tired, like I could lie down and sleep forever.
“No,” Dunne said when the bartender returned, “no more club soda. Make
it Scotch on the rocks.”
“Same,” Mulholland said. The bartender served their drinks and moved to the customer at the far end.
“Do what you got to do.” Mulholland addressed the mirror. “Anna left this morning for Mexico. All I ask is that you don’t drag her in.”
Dunne took a sip. Bitter on tongue. Sting in throat. No taste for Scotch today. Pushed the glass away, got off the stool. He almost put his hand on Mulholland’s round, drooping shoulder, almost said, You could have tried to talk to me as a friend, not a target, somebody you’ve known for thirty years, who’d been in the war with you, who you could risk trusting.
But Ambrose Mulholland could no more change who he was than he could think and act differently from his mirror image behind the bar. He’d spent the better part of a lifetime trying to undo what couldn’t be undone, to heal the hole in Mary Claire’s heart, put her back in his bed, make love on winter nights and summer afternoons, find peace with her in that cottage on Long Island, with the fireplace and front porch. Impotent and bereft, he’d raged against a world he couldn’t change. Crater paid the price, but he was only the first. The killing went on, as if revenge, endlessly extracted, could fill the void left by her vanished love, his banished hopes, exploded expectations: the anguish a single bullet can inflict.
“So long, Bud.”
“Take care, Fin.”
Dunne turned when he reached the door. Mulholland was watching in the mirror, his reflected eyes same as the real ones, neither happy nor sad. Empty.
“Bring Out Your Dead: West Side Remains Identified: No, They Don’t Belong to Judge Crater,” by Billy Sternberg, The Knickerbocker Journal: A Weekly Review of What’s New and Old in New York City, September 14, 1980.
Last week’s news that a fairly intact set of remains had been unearthed at a West Side construction site near the restaurant (demolished several years ago) where Judge Joseph F. Crater was last seen almost exactly fifty years ago generated a good deal of interest. Though the memory of the judge’s disappearance has faded in recent years, he continues to be an object of fascination to many New Yorkers.