The Hour of the Cat

by Peter Quinn

  Besides the rap sheet, the file held two separate fingerprint cards, dated 1920 and 1926. Mug shots were glued tenuously to them. In both, Roberta had the same lean, girlish face, glum in the way most faces in mug shots are. But downcast mouth and hostile gaze didn’t hide how pretty she was. Her face had matured since the mug shots were taken, lost the gauntness that was undoubtedly exaggerated by the harsh lighting of the police photographer. Despite that, there was an unchanging, ageless quality to her face, defiance as well as beauty. It flickered in her eyes, something that couldn’t be extinguished by cops or johns or the makers of mug shots.

  Dunne wrote down some dates. They jibed with the picture he’d formed of Roberta Dee, the lines that connected the dots, like the lines drawn across the sky on the ceiling of Grand Central. Star light, start bright. Staring at you all the time, Fin. Tommy Hines reappeared in front of Rostoff’s. As Dunne went out the door, Hines passed without a word, went straight to the table in the back and found his file, right where he’d forgotten it.

  Searching in his pocket, Dunne found several of the slugs that Hubert had given him. He ducked in a phone booth and called the Shack. He took the lack of an answer as a convincing clue that the Professor was off enjoying some afternoon refreshment. He rode the subway downtown.

  Tending a patronless bar, the newspaper spread out before him, McGloin grunted a hello and jabbed the paper with a forefinger stained pale gold by nicotine.

  “Look here,” he said. “Numbers don’t lie. The stock market is comin’ back. All those Reds and Commies screamin’ about an end to capitalism was wrong. Jacks like myself who held on through the crash in ’29 and again in ’37, them that didn’t panic and sell, our reward is on its way. Just like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘All things come to him who waits!’”

  A voice from a high-backed booth in the corner, whose occupants Dunne couldn’t see, yelled, “Longfellow, my dear man, not Jesus!”

  “Whoever it was,” McGloin shouted back, “he knew what he was talkin’ about!”

  Dunne sidled to the middle of the room to get a view of the booth. The Professor was sitting between Corrigan and a young man Dunne didn’t recognize. The instant he saw Dunne, the Professor directed the young man to move over and make room. He called to McGloin for another round of beer and whiskey.

  “I’m not used to drinking this early,” the young man said. Dunne put his bag in his lap and slid in beside him.

  “It’s not early at all,” the Professor said.

  “It’s four twenty-five.” The young man extended his wrist-watch.

  “I speak poetically, my dear boy. We’re at the end of an age.” The Professor put an arm around Corrigan. “Look at us. A classical duo. The Herodotus and Thucydides of Gotham’s homicides, chroniclers who together have spent three quarters of a century recording the murderous misdeeds of those who prey on the citizenry of our great polis. While in you, Mr. John Mayhew Taylor, we have the avatar of the new.”

  Taylor looked around with a half-silly, half-sick grin. He reached over and shook Dunne’s hand with a soft, uncertain grip.

  “Mr. Taylor,” the Professor said, “is a graduate of Rutgers University and was editor of the student newspaper. For the past six months he’s been working as a copy boy at the Standard. Now he’s been dispatched to ‘assist’ me. Isn’t that so, Mr. Taylor?”

  “What the hell is a ‘student newspaper’?” Corrigan said.

  Taylor looked at them, unsure whose question to answer first.

  The Professor didn’t wait for him to answer. “Some would rejoice in the opportunity to work under such tutelage. Mr. Taylor, however, regards it as a ‘detour.’”

  “I didn’t mean it to sound like that. Just that, like I said, I was hoping to be assigned to Europe and cover what’s unfolding there. Be the story of the century.”

  Corrigan plunked his glass down. “The public never gave a hoot about foreign stuff, and thanks to the last war, it gives less of a hoot than ever. Maybe it’s a headline at Rutabaga University, or wherever the hell you went, but take my word for it, the people in Canarsie don’t give a rat’s ass.”

  “Well, they will. Sooner or later the whole world is going to be dragged in, America included.”

  “Mr. Corrigan is correct,” the Professor said. “When it comes to extraterritorial events, one must never underestimate the pococurantism of the Republic’s hoi polloi.”

  Corrigan scratched above his ear. “Say again.”

  “The indifference of the common man, the forgotten man. Call him what you will, our dear reader has no interest in the opinions of the Roumanian foreign minister or the grievances of the Ruthenians. He is interested in events only so far as he perceives that they directly touch his life, or to the degree that our noble profession can convince him they do. Thus our enduring emphasis on crime and murder. The screaming headline tells him, THIS COULD HAVE BEEN YOU! Once his attention is focused, he reads on with a mixture of one part fear, My God, a fiend is on the loose! . . . and one part curiosity, Where will he strike next? . . . and one part relief, At least it wasn’t me. The more his imagination is fed with gruesome detail, the greater both his relief at being spared and his fear of being next.”

  “Excuse me, Professor,” Taylor said, “but when war comes, it’ll not only dwarf the last but we’ll inevitably be drawn in. Mr. and Mrs. Canarsie will have more curiosity and fear than they dreamed possible.”

  “Who cares what those dunces do to one another?” Corrigan turned and shouted for McGloin to hurry with the round the Professor ordered.

  “In his own vulgar style, my venerable colleague, Mr. Corrigan, has touched on the truth. In the case of the European situation, the element of fear is missing. Should the citizens of Bay Ridge wake one day to see a horde of plunderous Huns steaming through the narrows, their interest will be greatly piqued. Absent that, especially given the bad taste left from the last fracas, you’ll have a hard time selling your war to the populace.”

  Taylor shook his head. “Like it or not, the next war will be on a scale still hard to imagine. They’ll be nowhere to hide.”

  “Who’s payin’?” McGloin stood beside the table with a tray of drinks.

  The Professor and Corrigan stared at the checkered tablecloth with the concentrated gaze of chess players. Dunne threw a bill on the tray. McGloin put down the tray and made change from the pocket of his apron.

  “Hey, we better get back.” Taylor stood and swayed like a tree-top in a stiff breeze. “We’re on deadline, remember?”

  “Go ahead,” the Professor said, “make straight the way. I’ll follow shortly.”

  Taylor tacked an unsteady course across the barroom, using the backs of chairs for support. Finished with his own whiskey, the Professor took Taylor’s. “The boy has a lot to learn. Foremost, the world will rotate without him having to turn it.”

  Corrigan grabbed Taylor’s beer. “Once they go to college, they’re useless. Can’t teach ’em anythin’ because they think they know everythin’. College has been the downfall of many a promisin’ newsman.”

  “True enough. The company of coistrels is what I keep. A brood of varlets.” The Professor raised Taylor’s drink as if to make a toast. “But, by God, it’s a vast improvement over the faculty at Princeton.”

  “What’s the matter, Fin?” Corrigan pointed at the untouched drinks in front of Dunne. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned teetotaler.”

  “On a deadline of my own.”

  “Good God,” the Professor said, “you’re not still pursuing that dreadful matter of Señor What’s-his-name?”

  “Walter Grillo.”

  “The ‘West Side Ripper’?” Corrigan put the beer down without drinking it. “He’s gettin’ exactly what he deserves. May he rot in hell.”

  “Ever the bleeding heart, aren’t you?” the Professor said.

  Dunne groped in his bag, beneath the shoes and sweatshirt, till he came up with the folder he’d taken from Toby Butts. He
handed it to the Professor. “This label, SEKTIONEN 1-30.6.37/1-10. Any idea what it means?”

  “You know, Fin,” Corrigan said, “I’m the one pinned Grillo as ‘The West Side Ripper.’ I seen firsthand what he done. Wish I was the one to throw the switch.”

  The Professor put on his glasses, looked at the label, and opened the folder. “It’s empty.”

  “What’d you expect?” Corrigan said.

  “Well, in my pre-war days, my reportorial duties sometimes resulted in my attending autopsies at the old Lutheran hospital on Avenue A. German was still in use back then, and since ‘sektionen’ was how the Teutonic medicos referred to such dissections, I assume that’s the case here. The dating is done European style, day first, month second, so this would probably be for numbers one through ten, from June 1 through 30, 1937.”

  “What’s this got to do with Grillo?” Corrigan said.

  “That, I suppose, is what Fin is trying to find out. Where’d you unearth this?”

  “In the Hoover Flats over by Twelfth Avenue.”

  “I was unaware that a German medical facility was among its amenities.”

  “Wasn’t exactly a ‘medical facility,’ German or otherwise, where I found it.”

  “Wanna know what I think the problem with the Germans is?” Corrigan downed his beer and wiped the foam from his lips.

  “No, though I gather we’re about to,” the Professor said.

  “Heinies think they’re better than everybody else. And it didn’t start with Hitler. Always been like that. Stick together like gum and asphalt, tighter than guineas.”

  “You micks are no slouch in that regard.”

  “Yeah, but only to keep an eye on one another so nobody gets too far ahead of anybody else.” Corrigan called for another round, and Dunne excused himself just as McGloin arrived with it. He rode the IRT uptown to Times Square and hiked the block to Danny Schwartz’s gym, where he rented a locker. He changed into the clothes he’d brought with him. After jumping rope and pummeling a punching bag, his calves and shoulders were warm and aching. He dripped with sweat.

  Finished showering, he exchanged a few pleasantries with the man shaving at the next sink and was struck by the similarity of their builds, same square shoulders, tight chest, roughly the same weight and height. Their lockers turned out to be adjacent. When the man went off for a massage, he inadvertently left his locker ajar. Sitting on a bench to put on his socks, Dunne extended his leg and toed it open. Inside was a handsome glen-plaid suit, clean white shirt, foulard tie, a pair of polished wing tips, and a soft gray hat. He recalled the words of Brother Flavian on the two types of temptation: those the sinner sought out and those he stumbled upon. “Premeditation,” he said, “is the difference between venial and mortal sin, when will and intellect are in unison.”

  “You two share everything?” Dunne said.

  “Everything but men.” Roberta Dee had arrived at the Hackett Building in Elba Corado’s car right at eight. She was a better driver than Elba. They went up the West Side Highway, across the George Washington Bridge, into New Jersey, then north. She pulled into the driveway of a large pillbox-shaped building. A valet drove the car into a parking area behind a high hedge.

  “Nice suit,” she said to Dunne. “New?”

  “Sort of.”

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

  She walked ahead. There was a slit up the left side of her black dress that he hadn’t noticed in the car. The red bolero jacket over it was fringed with black beads. She waited for him at the top of the steps and took his arm.

  “You look special yourself,” he said.

  Upstairs, in the gaming room, a sparse crowd was scattered among the different tables. The window at the far end ran the length of the room, framing a panoramic view of the bridge and, farther south, the Manhattan skyline.

  “Last time I was here,” Dunne said, “I blew my rent money.”

  “I’ll bring you luck.”

  Dunne purchased a stack of chips and went to the craps table. Roberta stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. He doubled his money in the space of a few minutes. He switched to roulette. Roberta put her hand in the same position. He kept winning, drawing a cluster of onlookers. When he moved to the blackjack table, Roberta walked away. He lost half of what he’d won at the other tables in the space of a few minutes. He cashed in the rest of his winnings, which were substantial, and found Roberta downstairs, sitting alone at the bar.

  “You took my luck away.” He counted out five tens. “Here’s your advance.”

  “I figured you’d stay till you broke the bank or, more likely, it broke you.” She put the money in her bag.

  “Figured wrong. I’ve always lived by the rule that the cats and dogs do okay, it’s the pigs who get slaughtered.” He showed her the roll of bills that he’d cashed in for his chips. “I’ll get us a table.”

  “Right this way, Mr. Dunne, your table is waiting.” The maître d’ hurriedly pocketed the hefty tip Dunne gave him. He seated them on the terrace, next to the dance floor. The evening was so mild and clear that the awning had been rolled back. Dunne let the maître d’ select a bottle of red wine for them.

  “Here’s to Lady Luck.” Dunne touched the rim of his glass to hers.

  “We’re on the side of goodness and truth, remember?”

  “Ever know that to be the winning side?”

  “Elba thinks it is.”

  “Have you told her the truth?”

  She took a cigarette from the crystal cylinder on the table. “About what?”

  Dunne lit it for her. “About you, Wilfredo, everything. She’ll figure it out for herself sooner or later. She’s a smart girl, like her mother.”

  Roberta rested the cigarette in the ashtray. “Excuse me. I need a moment.” She removed a tissue from her purse and touched it to the corners of her eyes.

  “Take your time.” He sipped his wine.

  “You figured it out for yourself?”

  “Should have known from the start.”

  “Why didn’t you?” She put the tissue back in her purse.

  “Detectives and dimwits. You’re the one said they’re hard to tell apart.”

  “What clued you in?”

  He pointed upward. “The stars.”

  “What’d they tell you?”

  “A story about a girl who learns early how to make her way in the world and wants to spare her daughter all the bitter lessons she’s had to learn for herself.”

  “You’re not such a dimwit.”

  “I didn’t buy that bunk about ‘goodness and truth’ for a minute. There had to be another reason why you’d be so interested in Elba. In the end, I could only think of one.”

  “In the end there is only one.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Long or short version?” She put out her cigarette.

  “The truth, that’s all.”

  The maître d’ came to take their dinner order. Dunne said they needed more time. “If you wish,” he said, “I could bring you our special steak.” Dunne nodded. “Where were we?” he said.

  “Genesis, chapter one, verse one. My parents met in the needle trade. She was a country girl from Sicily. He was a Jewish tailor from Polish Silesia. He died when I was two, and my mother moved us from the Lower East Side to a flat in Brooklyn, in East New York. She thought I’d follow her into the trade, meet a hard-working stiff like my father and save our money in a jar above the sink. I thought I’d go to college, become a Fifth Avenue doctor, have a penthouse overlooking Central Park, a country home on the North Shore, and sail first-class to Europe every summer.

  “Neither of us got our way. I dropped out of high school after a year but there was no way I was going to schlep on the subway every day to Grand Street to sew dresses. I traveled with a fast crowd on Rockaway Avenue. Before long, some of them got arrested for possession of stolen property. They pinched the rest of us for vagrancy.

  “Mamma went to the parish pr
iest. He told her to pray harder. Then she went to see my father’s brother, Uncle Manny, who was in with all the politicians. He had a talk with the judge in the Magistrate’s Court, and I was sent to Cedar Knolls, the female part of the Jewish reformatory, up in Hawthorne. Far as I was concerned, might as well have been Alaska. ‘Not to worry,’ Uncle Manny told my mother. ‘They got a better class of delinquents than you’d find among the goyim.’

  “I made a lot of friends at Cedar Knolls. Two of the closest were from Allen Street, where all the brothels were, and they clued me in how working girls found a way to support themselves better than any seamstress or shop clerk could hope for. We escaped together from Cedar Knolls. I won’t bore you with the particulars since I’m sure you already made it your business to see my record, except the part that isn’t in there, when I got out of Cedar Knolls a second time.”

  She turned her wine glass slowly, breathed the aroma, and finished what was left. The maître d’ quickly refilled their glasses. “One night,” Roberta said, “some friends and I were at the Club Trocadero when this gorgeous Latin type sends over a bottle of champagne. He asked me to dance. He moved like no man I’d ever met.”

  “Enter Wilfredo.”

  “Yes.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen, but I looked twenty. I was an early bloomer. Elba got that from me.”

  “Wilfredo was at Columbia?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Elba told me that much.”

  “He didn’t do much studying. We ended up spending the next few months together. I told him I was an aspiring actress. He actually thought I was rehearsing for a part when I told him I was pregnant. He was shocked and horrified the way boys are when they get reminded of the connection between sex and babies. That’s when he told me he was scheduled to go home the next week. I asked for money for an abortion. He begged me not to. Said he’d pay all the expenses and arrange to have the baby adopted. His conscience bothered him enough to stick around a few extra months. But not enough to stay for Elba’s birth. I was alone for that.