Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  They went to see all the new movies and some days they even stood in line. They saw Noel Coward in In Which We Serve and Ronald Colman and Greer Garson in Random Harvest and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year and Walter Pidgeon and Garson again in Mrs. Miniver.

  Terry was still ruminating about what he was going to do when he left the Force. Paul Cassidy kept calling Lew offering him jobs which he knew, even as he procrastinated, he should have taken. Make movies, his father said, win the war on a Culver City back lot and chow down at Musso & Frank’s or the Brown Derby. Help with the war bond tours. Take your mind off things, there was plenty to try to forget,…

  August was brutal, the dog days. They killed a lot of time at Yankee Stadium. They’d keep score and eat hot dogs and soak up the sun and lose themselves in the flow of the games.

  In the middle of August there was a doubleheader with the Senators, what they called a War Chest Benefit. It was hot, the kind of day you just had to wear seersucker slacks and your shirt stuck to your back and you found your old straw boater and wore it at a jaunty angle over your eye. Karin had bought Cassidy’s for him but he tried not to think about that. He was trying to discipline himself. Two and a half months had passed since Cologne had been reduced to rubble. He hadn’t seen Karin in nearly three years. He told himself he’d never see her again. He told himself he had to get on with life.

  There were seventy thousand people at the stadium that afternoon. It wasn’t just the doubleheader. It wasn’t just the War Chest and the patriotic fever, though people were feeling a little better about things. The battles of the Coral Sea and Midway were victories that began the summer, and Doolittle’s incredible raid on Tokyo had perked people up as far back as April. A week before they went out to the stadium for the doubleheader with the Senators, some German saboteurs who’d been landed on Long Island from U-boats were sent to the chair. By God, don’t fuck with us, the Americans seemed to be saying.

  Still, the fans weren’t coming out just because the news was good. There was something special that day. Between games Walter Johnson, now fifty-four but with a name that was still magic, the greatest fireballer of them all, was going to try to throw a lamb chop, as the sportswriters were saying, past a wolf named Babe Ruth. The Babe was forty-seven and had last been to bat in 1935. Johnson had retired in ’27, that greatest of all years when Lindy flew the Atlantic and the Babe hit sixty. Big Train Johnson and the Babe, again, after all these years. The whole thing sent shivers up your spine.

  The Babe looked pretty much the same. The belly was a little bigger but the legs were still spindly, the bat still an extra heavy the size of a tree. Johnson looked to be in good shape, too. The papers said they’d both gotten into their old uniforms and, what the hell, maybe they had.

  The crowd was going nuts when old Walter wound it up and started throwing. The Babe hammered the fifth pitch deep into the right-field seats and Johnson stood frowning at him from the mound. Pandemonium. Then there were twelve inconclusive pitches, two of which were swinging strikes triggering all the old-time oohs and aahs. On the eighteenth pitch he did it again. The battered baseball made a tiny hole in the sky, soaring high and far, back into the seats in right again, and this time he trotted in that pigeon-toed way around the bases with his elbows tucked back like a man doing an impression of a duck.

  That was it. They walked off the field together and Terry threw his hat in the air and it bounced from hand to hand out onto the emerald grass. Seventy thousand people had seen the Babe hit a couple off Walter Johnson and life was simple and wonderful again. The war was far away. But only for a moment.

  It was beginning to dawn on everybody that summer of ’42 that things were changing forever, that the world of the Babe and Walter Johnson was receding into the shadows, that there would be no going back to the world they’d grown up with, not even when the damn war was won … It was a brief good-bye to the past that afternoon; it needed about as much time as it took to throw eighteen pitches and circle the bases for the last time.

  They wound up that hot sticky night in the lobby of the Algonquin where the fans struggled against the muggy heat. A big old cat checked them out while they drank Tom Collinses. Munched on peanuts. Bob Benchley was holding forth in a corner looking just like he did in the movies. Cassidy was watching him, and Terry was tapping his arm with a finger salty from peanuts.

  “I said I’m going into the private-eye business. Whattaya think of that?”

  “It sounds like a movie. Are you serious?”

  “Hell yes, I’m serious.”

  “Can you make any money at it?”

  “If I do it right. Corporate clients, missing persons, rich missing persons only need apply. Maybe a big divorce. Maybe a little security work. Bodyguarding the rich and famous.”

  “You’re gonna have your hands full.”

  “I’m staffing up with some former cops. It’ll work, Lew. Only I need a partner. I’ve been thinking about that.” He was grinning wolfishly, popping peanuts into his mouth.

  “Sounds like a fella could get hurt.”

  “Don’t worry about the boss.”

  “All the same …”

  “But I’ll need a steadying hand. A partner I respect, a guy I’ll listen to. Somebody who can back me up when I need it. That make sense to you, compadre?”

  Cassidy nodded.

  “Well, there’s this guy I know. I want him. I wondered what your reaction would be—”

  “Who is it?”

  “Only man I can trust. Only man I’d trust my life with. You, Lew. I want you to come in as my partner.”

  Terry was beaming, feeling good, figuring it all out. The Babe had put a couple in the seats and the war in the Pacific was looking up. He’d had his own personal sneak attack the day after Pearl Harbor and he’d survived. Now he was ready to get out there on his own and start fresh.

  He was going to be Humphrey Bogart.

  He was going to be Spade of Spade & Archer.

  He wanted Cassidy to be Archer.

  Only Archer had gotten killed. Miles Archer got shot down by Bridget O’Shaughnessy on a foggy San Francisco night. Everybody knew that. Never trust a woman.

  Terry was smiling, smug and happy, waiting for Lew to say something.

  “I need another drink,” Cassidy murmured.

  Cassidy was still having a bad time of it and he felt like he was dragging Terry down. The depression that had flowered with Karin’s death wouldn’t relent. Neither would his desire to see Cindy Squires, who had herself, with Max, retreated into a kind of abstract lunar distance. Bennie came around occasionally and he’d drop news of Max and Cindy but they were always out of town, always out of reach. But Cassidy’s state of mind wasn’t bothering Terry, who was optimistic and excited and planning the opening of his detective agency. He was a blur of fast talking and high hopes. He resigned from the NYPD, a fact the columnists duly noted in the papers, and had begun following up on his connections with lawyers who could provide clients. He leased space in the Dalmane Building on Madison at 43rd, just a nine iron from Grand Central Station, which he kept calling “the crossroads of a million private lives.” He seemed to think that augured well for the detective business.

  He hired a couple of old pals he’d served with on the Force. He got the telephones put in, hired a secretary/receptionist, had the name painted on the door. The Dependable Detective Agency. The legend beneath the big letters read: Discretion Our Watchword. The letterhead was delivered, very simple, elegant, no little magnifying glass, no deerstalker, no open eye, nothing cute. All very uptown. He was patient, waited for Cassidy to give him an answer about the partnership.

  One night in late September Cassidy told him he was moving back downtown to his own place in the Village. He told him he had to get pulled back together on his own time, not on Terry’s. And finally he told him he didn’t have a detective somewhere inside himself crying to get out.

  “I think you’re wrong about that, ol
d sport,” Terry said, hooking his thumbs behind suspenders decorated with a pattern of chubby naked ladies. “You’ll come ’round later. I’ll bet you a dollar you do. But sure, you need some time to yourself. I understand that. Just remember, whenever you need me, or want me around, I’m ready. Dependable, that’s me.” He grinned, all Irish charm. “And the day’ll come when your name gets painted on the door, right next to mine. Trust Terry, sport.”

  He went behind the bar and brought out a long thin package, wrapped in gift paper covered with little blue and pink babies. He handed it to Cassidy.

  “Shower gift?”

  “Only paper I could find. Sort of sweet, really. Go on, open it.”

  Cassidy stripped the paper away, feeling something hard and knobby. He sat on the couch staring at it.

  He was holding a long, heavy, gleaming blackthorn walking stick. It was polished, smooth yet brutal, lethal. Elegant. It was topped by a leaded brass knob that fit firmly into the palm of his hand. There was a gold band which had been engraved. Lew Cassidy. 1942. Below the name in small lettering he had to squint to see. The Best of the Backup Men.

  “Jesus, Terry …”

  “Here, gimme that thing.”

  Holding it so Cassidy could see what he was doing, he pointed at a tiny black button beneath the knob. He pressed it with his fingertip.

  Without a sound the heavy knob leaped into his grasp. In one swift motion he withdrew a thin gleaming blade.

  Cassidy damn near jumped out of his shoes.

  “Finest Sheffield steel,” Terry said.

  Terry lowered the blade first onto Cassidy’s right shoulder, then onto the left.

  “Go in peace, Lew,” he said. “But use your steel if you must.”

  Terry Leary winked at the best of the backup men.

  Chapter Ten

  THE TIP OF HIS BLACKTHORN stick made a reassuring sound as he walked across Washington Square toward the massive arch so reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe. The park was empty but for the occasional bum sleeping under a canopy of newspaper on a bench and the pigeons ignoring them. It was ten past six, a gray misty morning with the colored leaves littering the grass and the pathways, with the curtains still drawn in most of the windows facing the square. Cassidy stood by the arch, stamped his feet against the early morning chill. Fifty years earlier Henry James’s characters had peered at the park from behind heavy draperies, hearing the clip-clop of the horse-drawn milk wagons making their rounds. In the middle of World War II you could hear the clatter of the milk bottles being delivered and see the early risers out walking their dogs. William Powell and Myrna Loy and Asta were nowhere to be seen but, when he looked up empty Fifth Avenue, he saw the big man in the light topcoat coming toward him, past the hugely solid apartment buildings which gave the bottom of the avenue its status and weight. Harry Madrid fit right in, oddly enough, heavy and solid, one of the pillars on which the everyday order of the city rested. The last thing you’d have thought, watching him that morning, was that only one thing separated him from all the other homicidal maniacs in town. His badge.

  He crossed the street and cast casual glances right and left, stopping beside Cassidy.

  “Nice morning, Lew,” he said. He pulled a black pipe from his pocket, packed it as he spoke. “Does a man good to start the day at the start of the day. Where’s your place?”

  Cassidy nodded toward the west side of the square.

  “Nice, very nice. Feels good to be home, right?” He struck a match on the concrete arch, cupped his hands around the flame, and lit the tobacco.

  “What do you want, Harry?”

  “Why, I thought you liked to have me stay in touch. Say, Lew, I’m mighty sorry about your wife. Even if she was a Kraut.”

  Cassidy stared at him.

  Harry Madrid nodded, agreeing with himself. “So, you got anything for me, Lew? We figure you’ve had six months, better than that, but who’s counting? You haven’t come up with much, have you? So Tom Dewey asks me how we’re progressing on your friend Max, he wants to know what you’ve come up with … I hated like hell to disappoint him. Thing is he says Lucky’s pressing him for action. Thinkin’ about another winter or two in the big house makes Lucky sulk. Lucky wants Dewey to get moving, put Bauman away in a big show trial, and get old Tom on the road to Albany. You got any ideas what I could tell him?” He puffed reflectively on the cherry tobacco. “They’re breathin’ down my neck, pal.”

  “I got bad news for you, Harry. I figure Terry’s not a cop anymore so you can stop hating him for being a bad cop. What Terry’s being a bad cop makes you I hate to think—”

  “Watch it, Lew—”

  “So you can leave Terry to heaven, okay? And I gotta tell you, I’ve had an attack of conscience. I don’t think Terry needs my help to save his ass from Luciano and you. I think he can take care of himself because, frankly, Harry old stick, you’re kind of a stumblebum. You killed Markie and you fumbled the ball, you didn’t get your proof Markie was paying him off for services rendered. I don’t think you’re going to do anything to Terry … so I quit—”

  “You’re forgetting Lucky’s spot remover. Remember? You’re the spot—”

  “Forget it. Do your own dirty work. Am I getting through to you at all, Harry?”

  “You’re whistlin’ past the graveyard, Lew, and we both know it.” He laughed easily. The confidence was making Cassidy nervous. “But I’ll tell you how to fulfill your obligation, your promise, to Dewey and Luciano. Two guys it’d be bad to have pissed off at you, by the way. And I can keep you from getting yourself removed. You satisfy them and, what the hell, maybe everybody’ll forget about Terry.”

  They were walking through the park, damp leaves clinging to their shoes. The squirrels were already up and gathering the winter’s stores. The city was just waking up and it was still quiet in the park. The blackthorn stick had lost the sound of reassurance. Now it sounded more like a blind man feeling his way across dangerous ground.

  “Lucky’ll be inside for a while, Dewey’s gonna see to that. And I guess I don’t give a shit what happens to Terry … but, believe me, Lew, you don’t want to give us any trouble on this. We’re giving you an easy way out. Don’t blow it.”

  “What’s this easy way out?” He didn’t want to listen but he remembered Luciano’s face, the sound of his voice telling him about the spot remover, Markie’s bloated body on the sand.

  “We’re back to the gas rationing stamps. It’s a huge operation, Lew, bigger than we’d thought. They’re all over the eastern seaboard, the Midwest, California, the Deep South. Counterfeits. Tens of millions, hell, it’s like printing money. But”—he puffed contentedly, led the way to a bench where they sat down—“but we haven’t been able to tie Max to any of it.” The sun was starting to glow, turning the clouds to a faint hint of blue sky.

  “Maybe he’s just plain not involved.”

  “Don’t make a damn bit of difference. He prolly is but we don’t give a shit, not anymore. Get it? We’re gonna get him on the stamps whether he’s involved or not. We’re gonna get him good.” He smiled at Terry and dug a finger into his bristly ear. He took his finger out, regarded the tip, flicked the wax away. “Hoover’s behind it, all the bright boys at the Bureau—you know what those buggers did? I’ll tell ya, in thirty years I never seen anything so beautiful. Hoover had ’em print up his own goddamn counterfeit stamps, floated a bunch of them around the marketplace! No shit …” He was chuckling to himself, his hard little eyes disappearing in the folds of flesh. “Hoover! I don’t give a damn if he is a pansy, he knows how to play this fuckin’ game!” His girth was shaking under the topcoat. “We’re gonna plant our counterfeits on Max! We’re gonna salt the fuckin’ mine shaft! Max ain’t gonna know what the hell’s going on and we’re gonna put him away … Hoover, Dewey, Madrid and Lew Cassidy!”

  “You don’t need me.”

  “Oh, hell yes! You’re the guy’s gonna plant ’em on Max.”

  “Oh, shit …” />
  “You’re doin’ the honors, Lew. Piece o’ cake.”

  “What about all these other sources of yours? All these sources close to Max? What about the guy tipped you to the Jersey shore?”

  “You’re my guy, Lew. You got the most to lose if you fuck it up.”

  Harry Madrid began laughing again.

  The summer was dying a peaceful death, a gentle good-bye full of tranquil beauty, shedding a slow, easy life for a more demanding, vigorous one. They were raking the leaves in Central Park.

  Cassidy had gone uptown with the intention of telling Terry the whole story. Madrid, Dewey, Luciano, Max, the threats and the phony twenties and the counterfeit gas stamps. Particularly those damn stamps! They sat now in sealed cartons in Cassidy’s hall closet. Harry Madrid and a silent man, one of Hoover’s hard-asses, had brought them down one night. “Plant ’em, any damn way you want to,” Madrid had said, puffing his pipe. “Hell, use Terry if you want. Just plant the bastards and tell us where they are and we’ll take it from there.” So they sat in the closet like a ticking bomb. He’d have to do something soon.

  But he’d gone uptown, had stood across the street from the familiar building on Park Avenue, and in the end he hadn’t been able to do it. Better to keep Terry out of it. Handle it yourself and Terry’s off easy and never had to know and … Max Bauman. He knew how to take care of himself. And he wasn’t exactly the Citizen of the Year. Cassidy had all sorts of reasons for turning around and walking away.

  He walked down Fifth Avenue, listening to the solid clicking of the new stick’s ferrule on the cement. He stopped for a moment to lean on the brick wall and look across the park at the nannies wheeling children in baby carriages and strollers. Dogs ran around rolling in piles of leaves and barking at the squirrels. The sun was still high but it was riding down the southern sky and the shadows were lengthening.