Sometimes the church would be locked, no one around, and Keisman and Jason would have to go back two or three times before they could find someone to question. They worked eight-hour days and met after five o’clock to have a couple of beers with Harold Gerber. They never told him what they were doing, and he always asked complainingly, “When are you guys going to arrest me?”
“Soon, Harold,” they’d tell him. “Soon.”
They kept at it for four days, and were beginning to think they were drilling a dry hole. But then the Spoiler got a break. He was talking to a man who worked in an elegant little church on 11th Street off Fifth Avenue. The old man seemed to be a kind of handyman who polished pews and made sure the electric candles were working—jobs like that.
He examined Keisman’s ID, then stared at the photo of Harold Gerber.
“What’s he wanted for?” he asked in a creaky voice.
“He’s not wanted for anything,” the Spoiler lied smoothly. “We’re just trying to find him. He’s in the Missing Persons file. His parents are anxious. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” the gaffer said, still staring at Gerber’s photo. “I’ve got a son of my own; I know how they’d feel. What does this kid do?”
“Do?”
“His job. What does he work at?”
“I don’t think he works at anything. He’s on disability. A Vietnam vet. A little mixed up in the head.”
“That I can understand. A Vietnam veteran you say?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And he’s a Catlick?”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” the handyman said, sighing. “I’ll tell you. There’s a priest—well, he’s not really a priest. I don’t mean he’s unfrocked or anything like that. But he’s kind of wild, and he’s got no parish of his own. They more or less let him do his thing, if you catch my drift.”
Keisman nodded, waiting patiently.
“Well, this priest,” the janitor went on, enjoying his long story more than the Spoiler was, “Father Gautier, or Grollier, some name like that—he opened a home for Vietnam vets. Gives them a sandwich, a place to flop, or just come in out of the cold. I’m not knocking him, y’understand; he’s doing good. But he’s running a kind of scruffy joint. It’s not a regular church.”
“Where does he get the money?” the detective asked. “For the sandwiches, the beds, or whatever? The Church finance him?”
“You kidding? He does it all on his own. He gets donations from here, there, everywhere. Somehow he keeps going.”
“That’s interesting,” Keisman said. “Where’s his place located?”
“I don’t know,” the old guy said. “Somewhere south of Houston Street, I think. But I don’t know the address.”
“Thank you very much,” the Spoiler said.
He told Jason about the priest, and they agreed it was the best lead—the only lead—they had uncovered so far. So they started making phone calls.
They phoned the Archdiocese of New York, the Catholic Press Association, Catholic Charities, the American Legion, asking if anyone knew the address of a Catholic priest who was running a shelter for Vietnam vets somewhere around Houston Street in Manhattan. No one could help them.
Then they called the Catholic War Veterans and got it: Father Frank Gautier, in a storefront church on Mott Street, a block south of Houston.
“Little Italy,” Jason said. “I used to pound a beat down there.”
“Wherever,” Keisman said. “Let’s go.”
They found the place after asking four residents of the neighborhood. It looked like a Mafia social club, the plate-glass window painted an opaque green, and no name or signs showing. The door was unlocked and they pushed in. There was a big front room that looked like it might have been a butcher shop at one time: tiled walls, a stained plank floor, tin ceiling.
But it was warm enough. Almost too warm. There were about a dozen guys, maybe half of them blacks, sitting around on rickety chairs, reading paperbacks, playing cards, dozing, or just counting the walls. They all looked like derelicts, with unlaced boots, worn jeans, ragged jackets. One was in drag, with a blond wig and a feathered boa.
No one looked up when the two officers came in. Keisman stood close to a man holding a month-old copy of The Wall Street Journal.
“Father Gautier around?” he asked pleasantly.
The man looked up, slowly examined both of them, then turned to a back room.
“Hey, pop!” he roared. “Two new fish for you!”
The man who came waddling out of the back room was shaped like a ripe pear. He was wearing a long-sleeved black blouse with a white, somewhat soiled clerical collar. His blue Levi’s were cinched with a cowboy belt and ornate silver buckle. He was bearded and had a thick mop of pepper-and-salt hair.
“Father Gautier?” Jason asked.
“Guilty,” the priest said in a hoarse voice. “Who you?”
They showed him their IDs.
“Oh, God,” he said, sighing, “now what? Who did what to whom?”
“No one we know of,” Keisman said. He held out the photo of Harold Gerber. “You know this man?”
Gautier looked at the photograph, then raised his eyes to the officers. “You got any money?” he demanded.
They were startled.
“Money!” the priest repeated impatiently. “Dough. Bucks. You want information? No pay, no say. Believe me, it’s for a good cause. You’ll get your reward in heaven—or wherever.”
Sheepishly Jason and Keisman pulled out their wallets. They each proffered a five. Gautier grabbed the bills eagerly.
“You, Izzy!” he yelled at one of the lounging blacks. “Take this to Vic’s and get us a ham. Tell him it’s for us, and if it has as much fat on it as the last one, we’ll come over there and trash his place. Bone in.”
“Yassa, massa,” the black said, touching a finger to his forehead.
“You two come with me,” the Father said, and led the way into the back room. He took them into a cluttered office hardly larger than a walk-in closet. He closed the door, turned to face them.
“Yeah, I know him,” he said. “Harold Gerber. What’s he done?”
“Nothing we know for sure,” the Spoiler said. “We’re just trying to establish his whereabouts on a certain Friday night.”
“He was here,” Gautier said promptly.
“Hey,” Jason said, “wait a minute. We haven’t told you which Friday night.”
The priest shook his head. “Doesn’t make any difference. Harold is here every Friday night. Has been for more than a year now.”
The two officers looked at each other, then back to the priest.
“Why Friday nights?” Keisman asked.
Gautier stared at him fixedly. “Because I hear confessions on Friday nights.”
“You trying to tell us,” Jason said, “that Gerber has been confessing to you every Friday night for more than a year?”
“I’m not trying to tell you, I am telling you. Every Friday night. Take it or leave it. If you don’t believe me, I’ll put on a damned cassock, go into a court of law, and swear by Almighty God I’m telling the truth.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Father,” Keisman said. “What time does he usually get here?”
“Around nine o’clock. I hear confessions from eight to ten. Then he usually sits around awhile, bullshitting with the boys. If he can spare it, he leaves a couple of bucks.”
“No disrespect to you, Father,” Jason said, “but the guy was going to a psychiatrist.”
“I know he was. I’m the one who convinced him to get professional help.”
“So if he was going to a shrink, what did he need you for?”
“He was brought up a Catholic,” Frank Gautier said. “You don’t shake it easily.”
“You think he was making progress?” the Spoiler asked.
The priest got angry. “Are you making progress? Am I making progress? What’s th
is making progress shit? We’re all just trying to survive, aren’t we?”
“I guess we are at that,” Jason said softly. “Thank you for your time, Father. I think we got what we came for.”
At the door, Keisman turned back. “Who does the cooking around here?” he asked.
“I do,” the priest said. “Why do you think I’m so fat? I sample.”
Jason Two smiled and raised a pink palm. “Peace be unto you, brother,” he said.
“And peace be unto you,” Gautier said seriously. “Thanks for the ham. You saved us from another night of peanut butter sandwiches.”
Outside, walking back to the car, Jason Two said, “Nice guy. You think he’s lying? Protecting one of his boys?”
“I doubt he can lie,” Keisman said. “I think that Gerber is doing exactly what Gautier said—confessing his sins every Friday night.”
“Crazy world,” Jason said.
“And getting crazier every day. Will you do the report for Delaney?”
“Sure. Tonight. What do you want to do right now?”
“Let’s go back and have a beer or two with Gerber. That poor slob.”
Detective Benjamin Calazo sat lumpishly in the rancid lobby of the fleabag hotel on West 23rd Street, waiting for Betty Lee, the Chinese hooker, to return from her daily visit to her mother. Mama-san lived down on Pell Street and looked to be a hundred years old at least.
Calazo had been tailing Betty for four days and thought he had her time-habit pattern down pat. Left the hotel around 9:00 A.M., had coffee and a buttered bagel at a local deli, then cabbed down to Chinatown. Spent the morning with Mama, sometimes bringing her flowers or a Peking duck. A good daughter.
Then back to the hotel by noon. The first john would arrive soon after—probably a guy on his lunch hour. Then there would be a steady parade until three or four o’clock, when business would slack off and Betty would go out to dinner. Things picked up again after five o’clock and continued good until two in the morning.
Betty wasn’t pounding the pavements as far as Calazo could tell. She had a regular clientele, mostly older guys with potbellies and cigars. There were also a few furtive young kids who rushed in and out, looking around nervously like they expected to get busted at any minute.
Betty Lee herself was far from what Benny Calazo envisioned as the ideal whore. She was dumpy and looked like she bought her clothes in a thrift shop. But she must have had something on the ball to attract all those johns. Maybe, Calazo mused idly, she did cute things with chopsticks—it was possible.
She came into the hotel lobby. Benny folded his Post, heaved himself to his feet, and followed her into the cage elevator. They started up. He knew her room was 8-D.
“Good morning,” he said to her pleasantly.
She gave him a faint smile but said nothing.
When she got off on the eighth floor, he followed her down the hall to her door. She whirled and confronted him.
“Get lost,” she said sharply.
He showed her his shield and ID.
“Oh, shit,” she said wearily. “Again? Okay. How much?”
“I don’t want any grease, Betty.”
“A nice blowjob?” she said hopefully.
He laughed. “Just a few minutes of your time.”
“I got a client in fifteen minutes.”
“Let him wait. We going to discuss your business in the hall or are you going to invite me in?”
Her little apartment was surprisingly neat, clean, tidy. Everything dusted, everything polished. There was a small refrigerator, waist-high, and a framed photograph of John F. Kennedy over the bed. Calazo couldn’t figure that.
“You like a beer?” she asked him.
“That would be fine,” he said gratefully. “Thank you.”
She got him a cold Bud, one of the tall ones. He sat there in his overcoat and old fedora, so worn that there was a hole in the front at the triangular crease.
“Betty,” he said, “you got a nice thing going here. You take care of the locals?”
“Of course,” she said, astonished that he would ask such a question. “And the prick behind the lobby desk. And the alkie manager. How else could I operate?”
“Yeah,” he said, “it figures. I’ve been checking you the last three or four days. Regulars mostly, aren’t they?”
“Mostly. Some walk-in trade. Friends of friends.”
“Sure, I understand. You got a regular named Ronald Bellsey?”
“I don’t ask last names.”
“All right, let’s concentrate on Ronald. Comes in two afternoons a week. A chunky guy, an ex-pug.”
“Maybe,” she said cautiously.
“What kind of a guy is he?”
“He’s a pig!” she burst out.
“Sure he is,” Calazo said cheerfully. “Likes to hurt you, doesn’t he?”
“How did you know that?”
“That’s the kind of guy he is. I want to take him, Betty. With your help.”
“Take him? You mean arrest him?”
“No.”
“Kill him?”
“No. Just teach him to straighten up and fly right.”
“You want to do that here?”
“That’s right.”
“He’ll kill me,” she said. “You take him here and you don’t kill him, he’ll come back and kill me.”
“I don’t think so,” Detective Calazo said. “I think that after I get through with him, he’ll stay as far away from you as he can get. So you’ll lose one customer—big deal.”
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Betty, I don’t see where you have any choice. I don’t want to close you down, I really don’t, though I could do it. All I want to do is punish this scumbag. If he does come back, you can always tell him the cops made you do it.”
She thought about it a long time. She went to the small refrigerator and poured herself a glass of sweet wine. Calazo waited patiently.
“If he gets too heavy,” Betty Lee said finally, “I could always go to Baltimore for a while. I got a sister down there. She’s in the game, too.”
“Sure you could,” the detective said, “but believe me, he’s not going to come on heavy. Not after I get through with him.”
She took a deep breath. “How do you want to handle it?” she asked him.
He told her. She listened carefully.
“It should work,” she said. “Give it to him good.”
Detectives Venable and Estrella walked in on Mrs. Gladys Ferguson without calling first. They didn’t want her phoning Mrs. Yesell and saying something like: “Blanche, two police officers are coming to ask me about you and our bridge club. What on earth is going on?”
Mrs. Ferguson turned out to be a tall, dignified lady who had to be pushing eighty. She walked with a cane, and one of her shoes had a built-up sole, about three inches thick. She was polite enough to the two cops after they identified themselves, but cool and aloof.
“Ma’am,” Estrella started, “we’d like to ask you a few questions in connection with a criminal investigation we’re conducting. Your answers could be very important. I’m sure you’ll want to cooperate.”
“What kind of a criminal investigation?” she asked. “Into what? I’ve had nothing to do with any crime.”
“I’m sure you haven’t,” Detective Estrella said. “This involves the whereabouts of witnesses on a night a crime was committed.”
She stared at him. “And that’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Will I be called to testify?” she said sharply. “At a trial?”
“Oh, no,” Detective Helen Venable said hastily. “It’s really not a sworn statement we want from you or anything like that. Just information.”
“Very well then. What is it you wish to know?”
“Mrs. Ferguson,” Estrella said, “are you a member of a bridge club that meets on Friday nights?”
Her composure was tri
ed, but it held. “What on earth,” she said in magisterial tones, “does my bridge club have to do with any criminal activity?”
“Ma’am,” Helen said, beginning to get teed off, “if you keep asking us questions, we’re going to be here all day. It’ll be a lot easier for all of us if you just answer our questions. Are you a member of a bridge club that meets on Friday nights?”
“I am.”
Estrella: “Every Friday night?”
“That is correct.”
Venable: “How long has this club been meeting?”
“Almost five years now. We started with two tables. But members died or moved away. Now we’re down to one.”
Estrella: “And you’ve never missed a single Friday night in those five years?”
“Never. We’re very proud of that.”
Venable: “Have all the current members of the club been together for five years?”
“No. There have been several changes. But the four of us have been playing together for—oh, I’d say about two years.”
Estrella: “I presume you rotate as hostesses. The game is held at a different home each Friday?”
“That is correct. I wish you would tell me exactly what you’re trying to get at.”
Estrella: “Do you recall a Friday night early in November this year? There was a tremendous rainstorm—one of the worst we’ve ever had.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory, young man. I remember that night very well.”
Venable: “In spite of the dreadful weather, your bridge club met?”
“You’re not listening to me, young lady. I told you we have not missed a single Friday night in almost five years.”
Estrella: “And at whose home was the game that particular night?”
“Right here. That is one of the reasons I remember it so clearly. It was supposed to be held at the home of another member. But the weather was so miserable, I called the others and asked if they’d mind coming to me.” She tapped her built-up shoe with her cane. “Because of this, I don’t navigate too well in foul weather. The other members kindly agreed to come here. It wasn’t a great imposition; they all live within two blocks.”
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