Black Shadows

by Simon Swift

  That's when it hit me. The grinning bartender who liked to talk. "Diamonds is what I heard." George Ferriby, the cad, the woman beater, the would be ferry Captain. He was into dodgy dealings and the rumour was diamonds. I filled Hermeez in on the necessary.

  "Okay, so we got Coward at the top of the pile. Alongside him we got Audrey Daniels, known hoodlum and cheap punk, plus an unknown dandy, plus Marlow and diamond dealer George Ferriby. What about the Cortenes? You say Claudia is not involved and I believe you but what about Stan? Is there not the faintest possibility that his knocking you over was a set up? Is there not even a possibility and here's a spanner in the works so to speak, that it was not Coward that pinched you but someone else. That someone else being the very man that picked you up?"

  I thought about it. It was a possibility that I had not considered. After all, I had not real evidence that my kidnapping was anything to do with the Coward. The only significant event was the presence of Marlow, but I had no idea of who she really was. It was possible.

  "I don't know. Sure, it's possible. But I think that if Stan Cortene is involved he would surely have shown his hand. What I do know is that the Coward is going to come looking for me. He wants the diamond and he thinks I've got it."

  "So we've got to either get rid of him or find it."

  I nodded. "Whatever else happens, we deal with when we have to. Right now, let’s concentrate on the immediate. We find the diamond and we get the Coward with Marlow into the bargain. When this is all over we will also have Dyke Spanner's killer and we can all go back to being small time no good sons of bitches."

  We agreed to work alone on separate parts of the case. Hermeez would track down Liam Tighe, last seen heading for South America with a whole stack of illegal money. He would pull in all his contacts and try to find out what he had been doing for the last five years. Meanwhile I would trace George Ferriby. Whether he was a part of this through choice or not he was certainly an important piece of the puzzle. He not only linked Claudia and Marlow to me, but was a rumored diamond dealer. That alone was enough to get my interest up.

  Hermeez suggested that we close the office for renovations for the next week. Neither of us were comfortable with Ava being there alone most of the day when there was a good chance that Audrey Daniels and the Coward would soon be back looking for me. We couldn't afford to keep Mike and Terence there indefinitely and anyway the longer they patrolled with no action the sloppier they would get. Ava would take our calls at home and do whatever work over the telephone. That's what she did best anyway.

  She could start by doing a little historical digging on the Blue Tavernier Diamond. There was sure to be something on it amongst the millions of pages in the Central Manhattan Library and while she was there, she could make discreet inquiries about former employee Claudia Cortene. I did not want to believe that she could be in any way involved in this but I had to look into it.

  The only subject we did not resolve was the role of Weeny Jung Ping. Hermeez knew Weeny just as well as I did and could not believe that he had betrayed me. But neither could he tell me where the hell he was and in particular why he had not come to my aid, as planned. All the shit about him being printed in the press only made things more complicated.

  As the evening progressed, the case was left far behind. Hermeez was simply carrying on his comic-strip lifestyle as normal. Me, I needed a break. Never one to take things too seriously, he wouldn't let the small matter of Mafia, murder and constant danger of premature death get in his way. It was all comfortably taken in his stride. It was a bit like the old days in a way. We were down at Joe's Diner being drunk and raucous without a care in the world. The only difference being that in the old days there really was nothing of any importance to care or worry about, they were all tin pot cases that you could solve in half an hour over the telephone. This was, of course, very different. But what the hell, we acted the same.

  Our last, but possibly most important agreement was that we would both ring in at Joe's private telephone line every twenty-four hours. If we didn't both call in every single day then the other would go to Timmy Matthews with the whole deal.

  Chapter Eighteen – Private Eye

  I awoke the next morning not knowing where the hell I was. When I saw the empty bottle of brandy, my memory kicked in and it all came back. I took a deep breath and sat up prepared for the hammer blow to my head. It never came. I felt better about that. The hangovers were getting milder, but I was still dehydrated, so I took a walk down the hall and drank a liter of ice-cold water. It helped, so I drank another, then showered and shaved.

  Feeling human again, I dressed in another set of borrowed clothes and made myself some coffee. Joe had kindly put me up for the night despite my drunkenness. His one request was that I didn't wake him until at least midday. It was eight thirty now so I drank my coffee and headed to a diner for breakfast.

  I walked down the road and planned my day. The heat was mild but I was sweating from last night's alcohol. I stopped at the nearest diner, ordered bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and two racks of toast. Half an hour and three more cups of coffee later I felt ready and headed to the East Village.

  This time there were no freshly cut flowers neatly arranged in vases making the place look pretty. There were no flowers at all. Or vases. And the place didn't look pretty at all. I had managed to force a window open and slipped through without breaking anything. It was only when I was inside that I realized there was nothing left to break.

  There was a ‘To Let’ sign outside the front door but even that had not prepared me for this. There was nothing left at all. Not only had all the furniture gone; every sign of human inhabitation had gone with it. I suppose all the bits and pieces are easily moveable but the carpets had been lifted, the walls stripped and the light bulbs removed.

  I lit my Zippo and stood in silence for several minutes, taking stock of the situation. As soon as Claudia had left there must have been a big clean up operation. I came here looking for any trace of Ferriby and there was not a hint that the house had been inhabited by anyone in the last ten years. If I hadn't have stayed here with Claudia that night that Ferriby attacked her I would not have believed that she ever lived here.

  I ambled up the wooden stairway and through to the bedroom. The room where she had straddled me whilst wearing only that skimpy little nightie and tended to my meager wounds. That too was empty; no bed, no dresser, no cuddly toys. I tried to picture us that night but my mind kept conjuring up images of Marlow with a knife and a wicked grin. I shook my head and began a thorough search of the whole house.

  Every room was the same. There was absolutely nothing of any interest left at all. I would have checked the telephone to see if it had been disconnected but that wasn't left either. The cable had been snipped and was dangling limply half way up the wall. I sat down on the bare wood floor and smoked a cigarette.

  Half an hour later, I woke up with a dry mouth and a cricked neck. I rubbed my eyes, yawned, stretched and got up. There was nothing for me here. Before I left I took a piss and flushed the toilet. It was only when I was half way down the stairs that a thought struck me. I had seen it in an old film before the war. I remember thinking at the time that it was the last place that you would think of looking. Although as the years went on and my love of books took me to new places every day I found that it was not such an original idea after all. Still, it was a long shot, but worth the look.

  I ran back up the stairs and re-entered the bathroom. The toilet was still making a hell of a noise from being flushed a moment ago and the cistern was slowly filling up. I rolled up my sleeves and lifted the heavy porcelain lid off the cistern. It was high on the wall and there was nothing to stand on, so I had to stretch out my arm and blindly plunge it into the rising water. Splashing around with my fast numbing fingers I was soon disappointed. I would have preferred to get a stepladder and a flashlight and take a proper look but the result would have been the same. There was nothing there.

>   I dried off my arm on my jacket and replaced the cistern lid. For the second time I headed down the stairs and for the second time I had a thought that stopped me in my tracks. There was a second bathroom. Claudia had mentioned it in passing on the night we spent together. It was located at the rear of the house and was not obvious as it was an outside bathroom that was not directly linked to the main house.

  I soon found the second bathroom and had to kick in the door as it was locked. The back of the house was fairly secluded so I felt safe that I would not be heard although I didn't want to hang about to find out. The toilet smelled rank and was dried up. It had not been cleaned and didn't look like it had been used for years. Nevertheless, I did the same trick with the cistern and this time got lucky.

  Taped to the side I found three keys on a small key ring. I didn't feel them at first as they were covered with a several layers of thick, industrial tape but my vigilance paid off. A little lower down was a small bag of cocaine. I pocketed the keys and the drugs and left the East Village.

  The ferry people had not seen Ferriby for weeks. Apparently, he had only been doing some casual work and had proved unreliable, until one day he just didn't show. They hadn't seen him since. The recruitment officer told me there was few, if anybody, there who knew more than Ferriby's name. He had been a loner and kept himself firmly to himself. He told me to call by a bar in the Lower East Side, The Museum after dark. It was the only place he could recall Ferriby mentioning. I thanked him and put a folded five-spot in his pocket.

  My next destination was the small diner in the Financial District. I was hoping the same bartender would be on duty and was disappointed when I entered the small room and found a tall, thin pleasant faced young man. I asked about the other bartender and he simply shrugged and asked what I wanted to drink. I sipped at the drink and asked him about George Ferriby. His face could not have been any blanker so I finished my beer and ordered a pastrami sandwich.

  Two hours and several blank looks later I was on my way to Brooklyn Heights. The traffic was light and I made good progress, even taking into account the fact that I had double backed and swapped cars several times. I satisfied myself that I was not being followed but still parked two blocks away and did the final leg on foot.

  This time I didn't have to break in.

  But somebody else had. Nothing was damaged and the place was largely as the last time I saw it, but there were subtle differences. Every drawer, every shelf and every ornament was still there but in a slightly different place. Even the two abstract pictures hanging on the crimson walls were a touch askew. It wouldn't have alerted the police or even a casual visitor but I noticed it straight away. My mind was tuned into noticing such things. It was the same with my place the morning I returned home and Hermeez was there drinking coffee in my kitchen.

  I shrugged it off for the moment and got on with doing my own thorough search of the apartment. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. Was I expecting to find a clue regarding George Ferriby, Marlow and the Blue Tavernier diamond? Or was I simply taking an opportunity to snoop? Right then I couldn't have been sure but the simple fact that the first key fit the lock to the front door was enough.

  I moved quickly and steadfastly checking every drawer, shelf and cupboard. Every item of clothing was a possible hiding place and I felt, probed and scrutinized for anything that was suspicious. When I had gone through the obvious, I stripped the bed, I rolled up the rugs and I moved the furniture.

  Nothing.

  I checked behind the blinds, on the window sills and in the bottom of the coffee, sugar and tea jars. There were two wine glasses and a couple of plates draining on the board. I looked closely but they had been well washed. The rest of the kitchen took a good hour to search thoroughly.

  Nothing.

  After replacing everything back to exactly where it was before I entered and finding nothing of interest I made myself a coffee. I was feeling hot and tired and needed a burst of caffeine to awaken my brain cells. The coffee did the trick and ten minutes later I was once again playing private eye, this time trying to fit the remaining keys into any available slots. They didn't fit any of the windows, the doors or the jewelry box on the dresser, which was empty anyway. They didn't fit anything in fact so I put them back in my pocket and picked up the waste paper basket.

  I found a roll of trash can liners in a cupboard, and laid a couple out on the kitchen floor. Careful not to spill anywhere but on the liner I emptied both the kitchen and bedroom waste paper baskets on top. Donning my thin medical gloves I perused the contents of the rubbish, finding a couple of Metro receipts, an old shopping list, several empty bottles and old newspapers and a variety of kitchen and cosmetic waste. I carefully scanned the newspapers for signs of interest but nothing was cut out or underlined. The shopping list too seemed innocent. I folded it up and put it in my pocket regardless.

  It was only when I was putting the trash back in the bin that I found the one suspicious piece of paper. It had been screwed up and found its way into an empty tin of caviar. All that was written on the piece of paper were a series of numbers. The numbers resembled a timetable, the two-hour intervals and corresponding depart and arrival times immediately stood out. I put the piece of paper in my pocket also and then got on with making the apartment exactly as it had been prior to my entrance.

  I found the second piece of the jigsaw a few minutes later. When I had left the apartment, I had noticed a car idling on the roadside. The driver was recognizable as the occupant of the apartment next to Marlow's. I had seen her there the other day and decided it was worth a few questions.

  The usual Black charm fell flat on its face and the lady blanked most of my questions. This was after she had spent the best part of ten minutes closely studying my identification. She refused to even confirm that she lived next door to Marlow and after several attempts to dig out information I gave up.

  When she drove towards a block of high class garages at the end of the cul-de-sac however, I was following every step of the way. I even managed to sneak past her unseen as the electric door was closing and made my way into the garage block. There was nobody else around so I started checking the keys in the cars that were parked there. There were six in total and the key fit the second one I tried. It was a red Studebaker.

  It had Marlow written all over it. The upholstery was black leather, there was a spare pair of underwear in the glove compartment and her shade of lip-gloss was smeared all over the cigarette buts in the ashtray. But there was nothing that linked it to Ferriby.

  I checked under the hood, I crawled underneath the body and I searched the interior with a fine tooth comb. The other item of interest was a parking ticket that had the district marked on it. It was not very much but it was all I had to go on.

  Ten minutes later, I was once again on my way to the Financial District. I stopped at a call box on the way and telephoned Ava.

  "Sweetheart it's me… Yes I'm fine honey. Listen I need you to do me a favour..."

  I gave her the list of numbers and told her to check train, boat, plane and coach timetables. It was a long shot but I asked her to first check for Buenos Aires. If that didn't work it would be a long day but she was happy to do it. She told me she had an appointment with a Professor at the University later in the day. She had had no luck in the library. There was absolutely nothing on any cutting taken from the Blue Tavernier Diamond. It was not totally unexpected but she sounded a little downhearted. I cheered her up a little and she promised to keep looking. I said I would call her later in the evening and hung up.

  For the second time that day I was out of luck in the Financial District. No friendly bartender and nobody with any information worth a dime. I listened to tale after tale that bored the socks off me and that made me feel tired. It was while I was drifting off listening to an old wino recount tales of drunken introspection that I had an idea. I patted the old guy on the shoulder, put a five spot in his top pocket and left the diner.

&n
bsp; I found the place where the parking ticket was purchased and looked around me. It would be long and tiring work but I needed the walk to wake me from the rut I found myself in.

  I started a couple of blocks East and worked my way through every bar, restaurant, shop, bench and passing person that was in my path. I described the people I was interested in, I threw names at people, and sometimes I just talked. There were plenty of people who were happy just to talk to me. The hands went round the clock four full circles before I gave it up and I still didn't have any information worth a dime.

  I stopped at a twenty-four hour joint for a porterhouse steak and a bottle of red wine before trying my luck at The Museum. It was a small, low-ceilinged joint with a bar that ran along the whole of one side of the room. A tired looking bartender was wiping glasses at the far end of the room. He looked up and dredged up a smile for my benefit.

  "What'll it be, fella?" he asked in a friendly but wary voice.

  "Beer, thanks," I said and dropped a five spot on the bar, looking around the near empty joint. There was a Juke-box playing soft rock tunes in the background, a couple of down on their luck drinkers staring into their half empty glasses and a young couple with only eyes for each other canoodling in the corner.

  He brought the beer over and I dropped another bill. "And a little information."

  "Are you heat?"

  I flashed him my badge and he relaxed.

  "You look like the kind of guy that hears things."

  He looked from side to side and pulled himself a beer. "Go on."