The Hour of the Cat

by Peter Quinn

  “Very well.” The Professor tapped his glass to Corrigan’s. “Though only half the present company is participating, the good cheer is shared by all:“See, the conquering hero comes!

  Sound the trumpet, bang the drums!”

  “The inmates were all hopelessly feeble-minded. They couldn’t save themselves. The whole area was blanketed with the stench of their burnt flesh. It was horrific.” Taylor leaned away from the table. “There’s nothing to celebrate.”

  “What kind of war correspondent recoils at the sights and smells of death?” The Professor tipped the glass on his lower lip and swallowed its contents.

  “Maybe you’re one of ’em be happier on the society beat,” Corrigan said.

  “I was up there all night after I rushed that skeleton copy to the paper last evening. The old place was a tinderbox. A huge amount of rubbing alcohol and medical supplies was beneath the stairs. The firemen think that one of the staff ducked in there for a smoke and set the whole thing off. The building became a virtual crematorium. Just because I’m not jumping up and down with joy doesn’t mean I didn’t do my job.”

  “You submitted a fine story. Good writing done under a tight deadline,” the Professor said. “The mark of a true reporter.”

  “Lord have mercy on those morons and idiots.” Corrigan consumed the whiskey he’d taken from Taylor. “And especially doctor what’s-his-name.”

  “Sparks,” Taylor said.

  “You sure he was inside?” Dunne asked.

  Taylor gave him a quizzical look. “Of course I’m sure. You can read the full story in the copy I filed for today’s paper. Sparks arrived just as the fire was breaking out. He ran upstairs to help evacuate the patients and was almost instantly trapped.”

  “Destiny put you in the vicinity,” the Professor said.

  “Duty not destiny. I was covering a bank robbery on Tremont Avenue. I didn’t get on the scene till the worst had already happened.”

  “You were close enough to get the scoop. Destiny saw to that, and it’s destiny that separates the great reporters from the good, and puts them where they need to be.”

  “I was lucky, that’s all.”

  “Luck is merely a demotic appellation for destiny.”

  “If nobody survived, how do you know Sparks died that way?” Dunne said.

  “There was a witness. That’s how I know. His chauffeur was waiting outside in the car. They’d just stopped off on their way back from Long Island. Dr. Sparks was a remarkable man. Built a swank East Side practice, but also operated this place out of his own pocket. He was constantly traveling up there to take care of them.”

  “A true physician and, apparently, a fellow classicist. He used the name of Hermes for his institute, the Greek god whom the Romans called Mercury, he of winged foot who carried the caduceus, the entwined snakes, the symbol of the physician.” The Professor raised one of the refills that McGloin had just delivered. “He deserves a special toast.”

  “Christ, it’s not even noon,” Corrigan said. “It’s too early for a lecture.”

  “What happened to the chauffeur?”

  The Professor put down his glass without taking a sip. “My, my, Dunne, you sound as though you’re still a cop.”

  “Curious, that’s all.”

  “It’s okay,” Taylor said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. When the chauffeur saw the fire, he tried to get inside, but the flames beat him back.”

  “Where’s he now?” Dunne asked.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Didn’t get his address?”

  “The cops did. That’s their job. And the fire marshals’.”

  “What about Miss Loben and Mr. Waldruff?”

  “Who?”

  “She worked there. He was a visitor.”

  “How’d you get so well acquainted with the sanatorium?” Taylor seemed impressed rather than bothered.

  “I get around. That’s my job.”

  “Remarkable,” the Professor said. “No quarter of Gotham seems immune from your fossorial expeditions.”

  “I’d appreciate your telling me anything you know about it,” Taylor said. “The police are still trying to identify exactly who and how many were in there at the time of the fire. Dr. Sparks’s secretary gave them the files from his East Side office, but she said the only fully up-to-date and complete records were kept in the sanatorium.”

  “What about next-of-kin?” Dunne said.

  “None has come forward yet.”

  Dunne excused himself to go to the bathroom. He passed McGloin, who was on his way back with another tray of refills, and left without returning to the booth. He rode the uptown IRT to Sparks’s office. It was closed. Outside, photographers and reporters attempted to interview anyone leaving or entering about the saintly but unobtrusive, ever elusive, now deceased Doctor Sparks.

  The doorman winked and raised two fingers to the visor of his cap when Dunne arrived at Roberta’s building, testament to the legacy of good will a generous tipper can create. He shrugged when asked if she were home. “She went out the day before yesterday without sayin’ goodbye. Next thing you know, the movers come to put her stuff in storage. Landlord’s already got the place for rent. Take a look if you want. The door’s open.”

  The doorknob turned at Dunne’s touch. The empty hallway and room beyond looked smaller than he remembered. The apartment had been swept clean. On the wall above where the couch had been was the faint outline of the picture that had hung there, sea at night, moon glow, angry waves working themselves into a rage.

  The doorman stopped Dunne on his way out. “I hate to lose a tenant the likes of Miss Dee,” he said. “If you see her, tell her Frank Morello sends his regards.”

  Flatbush Avenue was hot and fume-choked. Dunne stopped in a bar. A knot of patrons was gathered around a radio at the far end. The Dodger game was on. The bartender served Dunne a beer. “I can’t listen to anymore of that,” the bartender said. “The Bums are in a depression of their own.” He went on about how this hot shot McPhail thought he could save them from the National League cellar with gimmicks like having Babe Ruth coaching at first. “Too bad the Babe ain’t ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter, but when you’re past your prime, you’re past your prime. Ain’t nothin’ can be done about it.” The game ended with the Dodgers losing to the Cardinals. A news report followed on the worsening crisis over Czechoslovakia and an emergency meeting of the British cabinet. “To hell with the limeys and the frogs and the krauts. They deserve each other.” He snapped the radio off.

  Dunne studied the patrons in the mirror behind the bar. He didn’t recognize any faces, but he knew the type. Unraveled from around the radio and perched on the row of stools, they hunched over their drinks like birds too tired to fly, heads tucked inside their exhausted wings. Men past their prime, their dreams KO’d so long ago they had to be drunk to remember them, they rented furnished rooms by the Navy Yard or in Park Slope, taking whatever work came their way as part-time token clerks or movie-ticket sellers. Though they scavenged their daily newspapers out of trashcans and dined on baked beans five times a week at the Automat in order to have money for drink, they hadn’t fallen as low as the residents of the Hoover Flats. Yet, if and when the boom times came back, it’d be too late for them. From now on, they’d do the only thing they knew how to do, get by.

  The mirror was adorned with a dust-covered set of Christmas lights and three green, wilted cardboard shamrocks, reminders of holidays past, omens of ones to come, moments not worth remembering or looking forward to. Dunne stared silently at their reflections, backward images that couldn’t distort the straightforward question in eyes as impassive as those of drowned men lolling in the weightless embrace of the waves: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the loneliest of us all?

  From outside, through the open door, the rumble-bumble of Brooklyn flowed with the steady rush of a fast-moving river. Dunne pulled himself off the stool and left a full glass of beer on the bar. He
joined the current of people and vehicles moving downtown; tributary streets and avenues pouring in more all the time, the roaring, hustling, honking stream pulling him along, carrying him to the bridge and over, and depositing him sometime later on the doorstep of Cassidy’s Bar & Grill.

  Cassidy served drinks to the transit workers who couldn’t fit into the back room, where Red Doyle’s agitated brogue regaled the crowd with a non-stop denunciation of the shift bosses and the bus-line owners. Without a word to his customers, Cassidy raised the hinged service board and stepped out from behind the bar. A howl of protest went up.

  “Workers of the world,” he shouted, “be patient!”

  He came over to Dunne and led him to the corner by the phone booth. “In trouble again, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Was I ever out of it?”

  “Brannigan was in here last night askin’ if I knew where you was.” Cassidy produced a slip of paper from the pocket of his apron. “And this woman’s called for you several times, always with the same message ’bout how important it is she reaches you. Last time wasn’t more than twenty minutes ago. Said she needs to get in touch right away.” He handed Dunne the slip. “Wants you to call her at this number if you come in anytime soon, which you have.”

  “Give her name?”

  “Good barman never asks. But I got an idea you know who it is.”

  The crowd clamored for Cassidy to return. “Better get back,” he said. He returned to his post at the dignified pace of a priest ascending to the altar, he retied the cincture on his apron and draped a towel over his forearm, like a priest’s maniple. “Now, gentlemen,” he intoned with mock solemnity, “who’s first?”

  The patrons congregated on the other side of the rail answered in chorus, “Me!”

  Dunne dialed the number on the slip. It had a West Side prefix. Between the noise outside the booth and the hushed tone of the person who answered, he barely heard the indistinct “Hello.”

  “Who’s this?” Dunne said.

  The same murmurously low voice said, “Who you want?”

  “Roberta Dee.”

  There was a wordless pause. Dunne sensed the phone being handed to someone else. “Fin?” The new voice was as understated as the last, but he knew immediately from one syllable, as personal and identifiable as any fingerprint, it was Roberta’s.

  “Where are you?” He couldn’t make out the answer. “Speak up,” he said.

  She spoke just loudly enough for him to catch an address on the Upper West Side. A muffled background conversation indicated she was talking to the person who had picked up. With clear urgency, she said, “Come right away.” Then she hung up.

  The address turned out to be off Riverside Drive, a turn-of-the-century limestone mansion discolored by soot and pigeon droppings and cut up into a dozen apartments. Dunne peered through iron latticework that guarded the glass in the front door. The vestibule and hallway were dimly lit. A shadow stirred at the end of the hallway and moved along the wall, furtively. The door opened. Roberta held the inner door ajar with her foot as she let him in.

  She pressed her forefinger to her lips. Radio music came from upstairs. Hugging the shadows, they went silently to a room in the back. A single red-fringed lamp made it brighter than the hallway, but not much. A lone red chair, covered in the same red plush as the bed, was beside a shuttered window.

  “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He blocked the door. “Wait a minute.” Dunne didn’t bother asking where they were. The stale odor of nicotine mingled with the wet, thick residue of a thousand-odd couplings: Whatever name they stuck on it—cathouse, notch spot, joy palace—didn’t take a veteran of the vice squad to figure it out. “What brought you here?”

  “I’m not working here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I had no idea where you’d gone, that’s all.”

  “Once the feds let me go, I knew I’d soon have a visit from Brannigan. I had no choice other than to make a fast, clean break and drop out of sight. It also made it easier to look for Lina Linnet.”

  “Who?”

  “That night at Ben Marden’s, you asked who’d put Wilfredo in touch with me. Soon as I said Lina Linnet, it occurred to me Wilfredo had been a regular of hers and maybe they’d still been in touch at the time of the murder. A wild card, but I figured there was nothing to lose by playing it. Turned out, she was at the same address.”

  “She’s here now?”

  “She’s scared, Fin. Very scared. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Dunne helped himself to a cigarette from the pack on the table next to the bed. He almost knocked over a butt-filled ashtray but caught it in time. There was a knock. Roberta entered with a black-haired, buxom woman in a tight black dress who took a heavy drag on a cigarette and drawled out a smoky, insubstantial veil that hung across her heavily made-up face. “Roberta says you’re a friend and that you’ll help me get away from here,” she said. “Right up front, so there’s no mistake, I’ll tell you what I told her. I’ll give you what I know. Use it any way you want. But I don’t intend to end up in the river. No way am I testifyin’ about anythin’ whatsoever.”

  “Tell me what you know, and I’ll do what I can to get you away from here.”

  “Far away, where they can’t find me?”

  “Far away, I promise.”

  “Tell him who runs this place,” Roberta said.

  “Well, Sally Hoffritz is the madam. Roberta and me both worked for her sometime back. That’s when we got friendly.”

  “Tell him who really runs it.”

  “Head of the local precinct, Captain Jim Morris, he takes a large cut. That’s why this place is still runnin’ when so many others been shut. Hardly a cop in the precinct don’t got dibs on a girl.”

  “But Morris isn’t alone. Biggest share goes to the person who supplies the place with girls and makes sure the vice squad steers clear. Right, Lina?”

  Cigarette held between her lips, Lina used her hands to adjust her too-tight dress. “Yeah.”

  “Go ahead,” Roberta said, “give him the name.”

  Lina looked down at her shoes. “I never ratted on nobody before.”

  “The real rats are the ones that keep you and the others terrified,” Roberta said.

  “You want to stay here?” Dunne rubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

  One arm crossed on the flat of her stomach, Lina rested the other elbow on it and removed the cigarette from her lips. She shook her head.

  As Roberta prodded her, Lina became more reticent. “Tell him about Walter Grillo,” she said. “About that night.”

  “Walter Grillo had been comin’ round for years. First time, I was workin’ in Gertie Bohan’s place on 68th Street. That’s when he asked me if I ever knew Rosalinda Dorsch and I told him about Roberta. Anyways, he stayed a customer when I came here. Lotta’ times he was tipsy but this once he was the other side of loaded and after we was done, there was no wakin’ him up. I tried everythin’, believe me.

  “Finally, I go to tell Sally Hoffritz, who hates hearin’ this ’cause she’s always tellin’ us that if a john is really hooched either don’t take him or do it standin’ up. Easier said than done. Anyways, I go to tell Sally, who’s in the upstairs parlor havin’ a drink with one of Brannigan’s boys.”

  “Which one?” Dunne asked.

  “Matt Terry. Know him?”

  “Sorry to say, I do.”

  “Sorry is right. He’s a regular here and thinks this whole thing with Grillo is hilarious till Sally tells him to go down and carry him outta’ the room. He says he’s no whorehouse porter, so Sally says she’ll call Brannigan, who’s the one really in charge here. Terry stops laughin’ and does what he’s told.”

  “What time was that?”

  “’Bout seven-thirty.” Lina took another cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it with the one she was finishing. “Anyways, I help Terry carry him out, and we leave him in the b
ack parlor. Grillo was still there when I finish with the next john, but next time I come through, after nine, he’s gone.”

  “You sure about the time?”

  “It couldn’t have been much later than nine. Business was the slowest we ever had ’cause there was a murder that same night a block or so away. Cops flooded the neighborhood. Nothin’ scares the johns away like that.”

  “Where was Matt Terry?”

  “I didn’t see him again till the next evenin’. I was all excited ’bout havin’ spotted Grillo’s picture in the papers. I figured when I tell him the guy in the picture is the same one he helped carry outta my room, he’s gonna get flustered ’cause they pinched the wrong guy. He don’t even look at the picture. ’Stead, he gives my cheek a pat and says, ‘Keep to your business, Lina, and we’ll keep to ours. We got who we want.’

  “I went to Sally Hoffritz and told her ’bout Grillo. Said it didn’t seem right to let a man get fried for a crime that was committed while he was here. She mentioned it to Brannigan. He told her I was mistaken. Then he came to my room. Stayed the night. Didn’t say anythin’ about Grillo. He didn’t have to. I got the message.”

  There was a sharp rap on the door. Before anyone could react, Matt Terry lurched in; swaying unsteadily, he squinted in the dimness and gaped directly at Roberta. “Hello, gorgeous, where they been hidin’ you?”

  “Hello, Matt.” Dunne advanced toward the light.

  As Terry groped clumsily for his sidearm, Roberta swept her hand out of the pocket of her linen jacket and pressed a compact, silver-plated, snub-nosed pistol to his temple, the trigger already cocked.

  “What the hell’s goin’ on here, Lina?” The pink, boisterous coloration of alcohol drained from Terry’s face.

  “You’re the cop. Figure it out for yourself.”

  Dunne took Terry’s gun. “Have a seat.”

  Terry sank on the bed. Roberta uncocked her gun and dropped it to her side. Dunne guessed from the expert way she wielded it that this wasn’t the first time she’d pointed a gun at someone’s head. That detective who’d tried to seduce Elba, for example, and then “disappeared.” It could be she’d also used it.