Seven Ways to Die

by William Diehl

  A classic conundrum.

  The only other person who knew was Raymond Handley and Handley most certainly wasn’t talking and he laughed at that thought. Not a humorous laugh, a laugh of vexation. What was it his grandmother used to say? If two people know something, it’s a secret. If three people know, it’s a headline.

  The only headline the third person in this case could be assured of was when the details of his lurid death became known to the media.

  And so Bergman’s lissome brain turned back to Handley. His detailed journal might still contain a secret; some address, some name, some hypocorism that may have eluded him when he was poring over the black book. Perhaps a phone number scribbled sideways on one of its pages. Anything.

  He had decided on a simple method to reduce the overwhelming contents of the book to a workable monograph. He would narrow his focus to the previous two months and use ratiocination, string logic, to connect names, dates, possible codes, even scribblings, in search of any clue that might reveal the identity of the woman in red and hopefully lead to Handley’s killer.

  But his tenacity was encumbered. He checked his watch. Six fifty-seven. He had not eaten all day and lack of food had drained his energy and was giving him a headache. And so, as he drove south on Bowery, his thoughts turned from homicide to sapid delights; to fettuccini Crosetti, a big bowl of minestrone, a rich Italian salad, perhaps even a glass of red wine—to La Venezia Ristorante, which was right on his way and a few blocks from the Loft—the perfect place to parse Handley’s black book while satisfying his hunger.

  He turned right onto Hester Street, drove a block and turned into a parking lot. He called the Loft from the car, and told Simon, who was working the desk, where he was, then headed for the entrance.

  The Venezia was near the intersection of Mott and Hester, the bustling tourist tract where Little Italy morphed into Chinatown. It had occupied the same one-story building since the mid-fifties when Tony Crosetti and his brother Bernardo, whose father had left them a modest inheritance, had pooled their resources, bought the building and started the restaurant, with their mother as the grand chef. Their first menu was hand-written from the recipes in her head. Dishes she had been cooking for them all their lives. Tony, who was twenty-five and had a head for numbers, would handle the business while Bernie, who was twenty-seven and had a stomach for cooking, would learn cuisine at his mother’s elbow.

  It was the neighborhood trattoria where locals—especially cops and hangers-on of the law—gathered to drink, eat, trade lies, argue, and celebrate first communions, birthdays, and other treasured family moments. It was no secret that Lo Zio, Uncle Tony, loved cops, knew the regulars by name—most of who worked the 1.2 square miles of the Fifth Precinct or were members of the TAZ—and treated them as family.

  As Bergman entered Venezia through the Mott Street entrance his senses were overwhelmed by the tantalizing aroma and the noise: thirty tables crowded with Friday night revelers, their conversation and laughter virtually drowning out the music playing in the background; real people joyously welcoming the weekend. It had been a long time, Cal wishfully thought, but quickly brushed off the idea. He had work to do.

  The dining room was to the right of the entrance, its walls adorned with photographs of Venice, Naples, Rome and Lake Como; of family and friends; and a framed copy of a piece about La Venezia from City Gourmet Magazine entitled “The Ritual Prince of Mott Street.” The bar to the left was also crowded with revelers, among them two older gents playing dollar poker.

  Uncle Tony was a man of tradition, disciplined and habitual. A small, joyful fellow, barely five-six and weighing at best 140 pounds, he dressed impeccably, always a dark blue suit, white shirt and a carnation in his lapel. He looked up from the maître d’s desk as Bergman entered. “Sergeant Bergman,” he said. His creased face lit up.

  Bergman towered over the little man who rushed over and hugged him around the waist. Bergman laughed. “Not yet, Zio Tony,” he said. “Still just detective.”

  “Well, you should be,” Tony said firmly.

  “I’m working on it,” Bergman answered. He held up Handley’s book. “Thought I’d grab a bite to eat while I’m doing some homework. I forgot it was Friday night. I should have called first.”

  Tony waved off the suggestion. He looked at his reservation book, glanced around the room, and snapped his fingers at a passing waiter. “Kenny,” he said. “Table nineteen for our friend. Clean it off quickly.”

  “Yes sir.” The waiter rushed off.

  “So, you are working something, eh?” the little man said, nodding at the journal.

  Bergman smiled. “We’re always working something, Uncle Tony.”

  “Perhaps a drink? Soothe the nerves.”

  “I’m on the job.”

  “Who’s to know?” Tony said with a wink. “A little vino. Stir the appetite.”

  “Okay. Maybe a Chianti, please.”

  “Excellent.”

  The waiter returned to tell them the table was ready.

  “Bring Chianti for the detective,” Tony said as he grabbed a menu and led Bergman through the room toward a small corner table for two. As they passed a hallway to the private dining room, Tony cocked his head toward the room which was particularly noisy.

  “Magpies,” he said, “cheep, cheep, cheep. Rich ladies. A charity thing tonight. They come once a year before their annual shindig. So…” he waved his hand slightly, “they get a little buzzed, laugh a lot, tip the waiters big. They can cheep all they want, right?”

  “Right,” Bergman agreed.

  They reached the table and Tony held the chair as Bergman sat down.

  “Take your time. Do your homework. It’s my honor to have you.” He leaned over and added, “Try the special, bistecca Maria, my mother’s favorite. A little filet mignon, wild mushrooms soaked in brandy and Gorgonzola sauce, wrapped up a nice fluffy pastry.” He kissed his fingertips and flared out his hand.

  “Grazie, Zio,” Bergman answered.

  Tony patted him on the shoulder and left.

  Bergman put Handley’s black book on the table in front of him but the waiter arrived with the glass of wine so he set the book aside and turned his attention to the menu.

  The ladies started heading out for the shindig, one in a red dress offering him a whiff of her exotic perfume as she passed his table.

  Δ

  At about the same time, Cody and Amelie Cluett were parking near an intimate Thai restaurant on 66th Street. They both had agreed on Thai food and Tiger Thai, one of her favorites, was a few blocks from the Wildlife Center. Before they left the car, Cody called The Loft.

  “Hi, Captain, it’s Si.”

  “Hue off?”

  “Taking a nap in the back. He’s on recon later tonight.”

  “Heard from Bergman yet?”

  “Yes sir, he’s eating at Uncle Tony’s. He needs to talk to you.”

  “Did he score something with Nevins?”

  ”No, but he needs to give you his report. He doesn’t want to put it on tape.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “I’m at Tiger Thai on 66th. When Cal calls back, tell him it can wait until morning, he’s been at it since dawn. I don’t want him walking around in his sleep.”

  “Right.”

  “You working anything?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Tomorrow maybe. Trying to get a fix on Linda Stembler’s whereabouts so we can talk to her.”

  Cody knew better than to push Larry Simon. He didn’t like to talk about his works in progress.

  “Okay. If anything important comes up call me on the cell. It’s on the hummer so it won’t annoy everybody in the restaurant.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Later.”

  He rang off and entered the restaurant with Amelie which, while crowded, was less boisterous than La Venezia. They found a quiet table in the back.

  “How about a drink?” he asked when the waiter arri
ved.

  “I’ll have a Thai beer,” she said.

  “Good. I’ll have Thai tea, iced.”

  The waiter nodded and left.

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I don’t have to…”

  “Hey,” he said with a smile, “I have absolutely nothing against it. I just never got around to it.”

  She started to laugh and smothered it with two fingers pressed against her lips. “Never got around to it. That’s funny.”

  “Funny stupid or funny-to-the-point?”

  “Oh, succinct. I can’t imagine you saying anything stupid.”

  “Oh. Well, I can be stupid, believe me.”

  She thought a moment and said, “Dave says you’re a prophet. I always think of prophets as being profound. And you have visions. Are you psychic?”

  “Well, not exactly. The visions are very brief and…uh …metaphoric.”

  She laughed and said, “So you’re, let’s see…” she thought a moment and said, “Profoundly psychimetaphoric.”

  They both laughed.

  He shook his head. “I’m only profound on Halxpaawit.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. I wouldn’t even try to pronounce that.” More laughter.

  The waiter came with their drinks and Cody told him they weren’t ready to order yet. Then Micah stared at her and said, “Halxpaawit is like Sunday, if you’re a Christian. Or Saturday, if you’re a Jew. It’s Nimi’uuputimptki, the language of the Nimiipu—the Nez Perce. So, on Halxpaawit, the Nimiipu meet in a large communal house and practice walabsat, which is the Religion of the Seven Drums as told by the miyooxat, who are spiritual leaders, and interpreted by the weyekin, who are, as you put it, profoundly psychimetaphoric. Oh, and my mother was a Catholic. How about you?”

  He started to laugh and she joined him and said, “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “Very succinct,” he said and raised his glass of tea to her. “You’ve eaten here before, what’s your recommendation?”

  Δ

  Jonée Ansa offered to drive Kate Winters over to the Hospital. He was running recon in South Manhattan and, as he said, “As long as you’re going south of 42nd Street anyplace is on my way.”

  Munching from a bag of chips, he drove up to 14th Street and headed east.

  “You picked quite a day to start,” Ansa said.

  “And how,” Kate answered. “Is it always like this?”

  “Nah. Sometimes we’ll go a couple weeks working with the precinct guys, then we’ll catch one. But it’s never dull. Think you’re gonna like it?”

  “I do already,” she said, fingering the whistle under her blouse. “I couldn’t believe it when he gave me the whistle.”

  “Yeah, he’s full of surprises. Let me tell you, they come in handy. Me and Rizzo caught a double homicide report one day monitoring 911. It was over on Avenue D. We get there, we can see a dead guy in the hallway. His brains are all over the place. The door’s locked so I go around to the side of the house, jump a little fence, and just before I get to the back door I am looking at the biggest fu…friggin …Doberman I ever saw. Waist high and all teeth and just itchin’ to have me for lunch. So I grab my whistle and blow as hard as I can and that dog’s ears damn near fly off his head and he starts yipping like I kicked him in the nuts and he disappears. I think he went under the house or something. Anyway, it turned out to be a guy who popped his wife and then ate the gun. We had to call animal rescue to come find the dog.”

  Kate laughed. “I’ll remember that.” She paused a moment then asked, “Does Cody ever lose his temper?”

  ”I heard him raise his voice once, coupla years ago. But you can tell when he’s angry. Those eyes of his’ll burn a hole right through the wall. But then it’s over, just like that. He smiles and gets on with business. Right now he’s getting edgy. I mean, so far we ain’t got a clue. That dame in the red dress is it. This one’s really clean. Not a print, no DNA. Nothin’. Just Handley—deader than Honest Abe.”

  He turned left on First Avenue and headed north.

  “Your companion’s a nurse, huh?”

  “She’s a doctor. ER Chief of Staff. Right now she’s squiring a new group of interns through their first year.”

  “That sounds like a pain. What’s her name?”

  “Song.”

  “What’s her first name?”

  “That’s it. Dr. Song Wiley. Her parents were hippies back in the late sixties, hanging in Haight-Ashbury. She was born in a one room flat. Five people living together. Says she was ten before she realized that some people smoked real cigarettes.”

  Ansa chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “Been there.”

  They drove past Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village with the East River reflecting the full moon in the background.

  “Where did you meet?” Ansa asked.

  “It was really strange. We both answered an ad for an apartment at the same time. There we were, the two of us, seniors in college, and a real estate gal who didn’t know what to do. So Song looks at me and I look at her and then she says, ‘Why don’t we go to dinner and work it out.’ We ended up sharing the apartment. Been together ever since. Fourteen years.”

  “Terrific. There’s Bellevue. Where to?”

  “Emergency entrance will be fine.”

  “Hell, that’s not much of a leap, is it?”

  “Well, not really when you think about it.”

  “At least she’ll understand the crazy hours.”

  He pulled up at the ambulance entrance. “Gimme a call on the cell when you’re ready to leave, I’ll run you home.”

  “That’s way off your beat, Jonée. I live up on 94th Street.”

  “Ah, I’ll have Butch meet us at 42nd and take you from there. He’s running the north end. One of the perks, Kate. Makes up for the lousy hours. Welcome to the crew.”

  Kate walked through the swinging emergency doors and down a hallway to the night desk. As she approached it she saw Song, who was only five-two, a pretty woman with bright red hair and a pixie nose. Forty-four and looked thirty. She glanced up from her desk and grinned elfishly at Kate, her Asian eyes looking oddly comfortable in her freckled face.

  “You’re happy,” she said. “I can tell. You got it, didn’t you?”

  “I had it already, sweetheart. Cody just ran some of the rules by me and gave me this.”

  She pulled out the whistle and showed it to her mate who took it and held it in the palm of her hand.

  “Sterling silver.” Song admired the craftsmanship.

  “Tiffany’s. Cody gives one to every member of the crew.”

  “It’s already initialed.”

  “How about that?”

  “Pretty classy boss you got there.”

  The white-haired chief night nurse came down the hall and Song called her over. Her name was Myrza and she was an old pro.

  “Hey, Kate,” she said.

  “Hi, Myrza.”

  “Take the desk for thirty,” Song said. “We’re going over to the deli and get a sandwich.”

  “Don’t dally at the deli, girl, it’s Friday night,” Myrza yelled after them. “They’re already backing up in the holding room.”

  Song and Kate walked out the driveway toward First Avenue.

  “We’re already working a case,” Kate said excitedly. “They call it a show. Cody came back from doing the entry and told me I was the new ADA and introduced me around and I sat through an incredible briefing and then I got my first assignment. I went with Cody to tell some rich Wall Street snob his future son-in-law was murdered last night.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Song squeezed her hand and pulled Kate to a stop. “I can hear your adrenalin rushing.”

  “I know. I wish we were going home.”

  “Sorry, sweetie, I’m on a thirty-six-hour shift. But I’ll be home by seven.”

  “Oh, great. My partner is picking me up at six.”

  “Hey, I’ll be off for twenty-four h
ours. I’ll be there when you get home. Congratulations, darlin’.” Song stood on her tiptoes and they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed there under a street light in the middle of First Avenue.

  It was 8:53 p.m.

  Δ

  When Frank Rizzo got back to his small apartment after dinner with some of the old timers, he opened the cabinet in the kitchen, looked up at the unopened bottle of Jack Daniels on the top shelf, and said, “Hello, you son of a bitch. Eat your heart out.”

  It was a tough night for him. There were several–-holidays, anniversaries—but October 26 was always the one that hit his heart the hardest. Forty-three years ago he had his first date with Jessie. It was her nineteenth birthday and they had gone to the Tivoli Theater to see the movie “West Side Story,” which had opened ten days earlier, and she had cried all the way home. He was twenty, had been a cop for two months, and didn’t know what to do with the pretty, dark-haired teenager who had her face smothered in his handkerchief and was sobbing uncontrollably.

  When her father opened the door, he immediately assumed the worst.

  “What’d ya do with my little girl,” he roared, balling up his fist.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Rizzo pleaded. “It was the movie.”

  “Movie? What movie?”

  She rushed past her father into her mother’s arms. “Poor Maria,” she wailed. “They killed Tony and she was really in love with him.”

  Rizzo looked at her equally bewildered father and held his hands out at his sides.

  “What d’ya do?” he said helplessly.

  What he did was date her for six months and then marry her. They had weathered thirty-six years, a son and a daughter, three grandchildren, the long hours and often fear-filled nights of a cop’s life, and were thinking about Rizzo taking early retirement and moving to Florida.

  He got the call while interrogating a robbery suspect at the precinct station. She was dead by the time he got to Bellevue. She had collapsed in a super market two blocks from their apartment. No warning. No previous history. Her heart had just stopped, Snap! Like that, she was gone.

  Rizzo was alone for the first time in thirty-six years. His son lived in Denver. His daughter was a flight attendant stationed in Atlanta. The members of the Manhattan South Precinct were his real family.