“And Ennis and Riley.”
She gathered the cards together and set them aside.
“So, the reason for the visit?” she said.
“I’m working a case. Privately. Looking for a prostitute who feels abused enough to commit murder.”
“And you came here?”
“Just to develop a few leads. Hoping you might help.”
She looked down at the deck of cards and then back at me.
“My job is to protect these girls. And we do that by promising them confidentiality. Besides, you’re not going to get anywhere with them. Hookers lie.”
“So you’re saying …?”
She picked up the deck, fanned it out on the desktop, and examined it closely.
“It’s not in the cards.”
10
The Majestic Hotel was a relic of a time when the Bowery was the last stop on the train ride to perdition. Four stories of misery for folks who dove into the bottle and never came out.
I could have been one of them. For years I had been riding Johnny Black’s one-trick pony, until it occurred to me it was better to change mounts.
A small group of the curious and just plain bored clustered behind yellow police tape watching the action. I gave a uniform my name and told him Luce Guidry was expecting me. He disappeared into the hotel. A few minutes later he reappeared and waved me in.
Luce, along with a bunch of cops and techs trying to look useful, was in what passed for the lobby—a small, dingy space sporting a counter with a Plexiglas partition, ceiling-high gates, and no chairs for the weary. It had the pungent smell of puke and body odor.
“What’ve you got?” I said.
Luce wrinkled her nose and looked around.
“How do they live like this?” she said.
“Not too many options.”
“Cubicles so small they would cramp an elf. Mangy cots filled with mangier people. And vermin for bedmates.”
She gave a despairing shake of her head.
“Sometimes, Jackson, the human condition just gets me down. Anyway, I got something you might be interested in.”
“And that would be?”
“Another stiff,” she said. “Want a peek?”
I followed her through an opening in the gate and into a rear office. The lower drawer of the room’s lone filing cabinet—about five feet wide and three drawers high—was pulled out. Its original contents had been scattered on the floor and replaced by a body. He looked to be middle-aged. Except for a tonsure of black hair going to gray, he was bald. Large freckles dotted his scalp.
On the linoleum just under the drawer lay an amoeba-shaped pool of blood.
“Hell of a filing system,” I said. “Meticulous to a fault.”
“Even managed to file him under the M’s.”
“And why would this gentleman be of interest to me?”
“Could be one of yours.”
“You’re being very elliptical here.”
“Another stabbing victim. Especially, down low. Seeing a heap of that lately.”
“And you’re going to have the ME do a tox screen to see if there are roofies in his blood.”
“As soon as they get here and cart him off. Seems this is a busy day at the morgue. Shooting up in Harlem. A couple of domestics where things really got out of hand. And an old guy lost control of his car and took out a flea market in SoHo. Bodies were flying like Frisbees.”
“The day goes faster when you’re busy. Have you had a chance to look at the tapes from the hotel’s security cameras?”
“You’re kidding, right? When you get seven, eight bucks a night, and for guests you got zombies with first-run showings of DTs playing in their heads, are you gonna put your money into videotape?”
Fair point.
“Any witnesses?”
“Yeah. Three monkeys. Hear no evil, speak no evil, and the ever popular see no evil.”
“How about the guy who runs the counter? The manager. Did he notice anyone come in with the vic?”
“He is the vic.”
“Fancy that.”
“Name’s Cady. Walter Cady.”
“The clues just keep on coming.”
“And we have something else,” Luce said. “His computer. Which has already been bagged and tagged, and is on the way to Forensics. Never know what those curious little data miners may dig up.”
“And, of course, you’ll keep me posted.”
“It’s what I live for, Jackson. By the way, how’s Dee Dee?”
“Got a boyfriend. Justin Hapner.”
“The beginning of a lifetime of complications.”
A cop appeared at the door. He was maybe eighteen, and had the acne to prove it.
“Detective Guidry?” he said. “Hate to bother you. The body baggers are here.”
“Much as I’d like to spend the rest of the day chitchatting with you, Jackson, unlike you I’ve got work to do. Oh, I almost forgot. We found another one that could be yours.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Found him in a room in that grubby little hotel on the West Side that’s kinda shaped like a rhombus. Stabbed. In that special place.”
“Did you get his name off the hotel registry?”
“Yeah. Millard Fillmore.”
“Any witnesses?”
“In a hot bed joint? Please! But we’ll run his prints and see what turns up.”
The murders were tumbling into each other. Not much space between them. It was as if the killer was working herself into a frenzy. And having a hard time keeping it together.
Luce and I parted company in the street. The crowd outside the flophouse had thinned to just a few people waiting for the final act before they got on with their day. One of them, an old, disheveled guy with a faded tattoo creeping up his neck, disengaged himself from the small knot of people and walked up to me.
“Got a buck for an old-timer who’s seen it all?” he said.
The bridge of his nose was flattened. And his eyes were hooded under two thick plates of old scar tissue that sat on what used to be his eyebrows.
I reached into my pocket and handed him a five.
“What’s your name, my friend?” I said.
“They call me Sailor.”
“So, what have you seen, Sailor?” I said.
“Things that get into your head and don’t let go.”
“I’m familiar with the experience.”
He grinned. “Most folks are, but don’t admit it.”
I jerked my chin at the Majestic.
“You live there?” I said.
He rubbed the five-dollar bill between his thumb and forefinger. “Reckon I will tonight. Once the commotion dies down.”
“Where did you fight?”
With the pads of his fingers he gently stroked the scar tissue jutting out above his right eye.
“Wherever there was a payday,” he said. “Don’t recollect much about it. Think I was good, though.” He looked at my face, and then took my hand and studied my oversized, battered knuckles. “Looks like you worked the canvas some.”
“Amateurs.”
“Counts,” he said, releasing my hand. “Hurts as much whether they pay you or not.”
I was developing an affection for Sailor.
I pulled out a card and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
“Hold on to that. If you get jammed up, I’m someone to call.”
He nodded.
“You knew Walter Cady?” I said.
“Never knew Walter had a last name. Much less one that was so highfalutin’.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Kept to himself mostly. Invisible. Like everyone else who lives on the skids.”
“Any family?”
“If he had, he never talked about them.”
“Friends? Anyone close?”
“Ain’t no one’s your friend down here. Take the coins off a dead man’s eyes and buy a shot.”
“Cady li
ke to hit the bottle every now and again? Maybe do a little blow?”
Sailor rubbed his chin and thought on it a bit.
“Don’t rightly know. He wasn’t the kind of guy who gave much away.”
“Big with the ladies?”
He smiled as if replaying a memory.
“Not fittin’ to speak ill of the dead,” he said.
He jammed his fists in his pockets and turned to walk away.
“Where’re you off to now, Sailor?”
“Don’t rightly know. But I know where I’m hopin’ to wind up.”
“Where’s that?”
“Big Rock Candy Mountain,” he said. “Sure to find old Walt waitin’ for me.”
11
I hopped a B train and rode it to Times Square. From there I walked over to Feeney’s.
On my way, I passed Benny Kim’s store. He wasn’t at his usual spot stripping rose petals. Strange. I went into the store and found Mrs. Kim behind the cash register. Her face was lined with worry.
“Everything all right, Mrs. Kim?”
“No.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Go away!”
“Where’s Benny?”
“In back. In office. Leave him alone. He don’t want to see anyone.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Just go.”
I went into the back. The smell of rotting vegetables hung in the air like a miasma.
Benny sat at his desk poring over receipts. His right eye was blackened, and a lump the size of a peach poked out of his forehead.
“Talk to me, Benny,” I said.
“Go away.”
“Who did this to you?”
“Karma.”
“Karma?”
“Sins in other lives jump up and bite me in the ass.”
“We’ve all got a lot to atone for, my friend. But it wasn’t karma who did the actual punching.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Actually, I do.”
After some gentle prodding he told me.
Feeney’s didn’t do much of a late afternoon business. The serious drinking started early in the morning and tapered off until the sun went down. Then it picked up again after dinner, with a vengeance.
When I arrived, the Closed sign was on the door. But I could make out the action through the window.
A heavyset guy with black sideburns and blood streaming down his face was on all fours. Nick, gripping a folding chair above his head, loomed over him. He brought the chair down on the poor bastard’s back with enough force to flatten a bull elephant.
I slammed the flat of my hand against the plate glass of the door.
It got Nick’s attention.
He dropped the chair, strolled to the door, and unlocked it.
“What in hell are you doing?” I said.
“Doc said I needed some exercise,” Nick said.
“Who is this guy?”
“Used to be one of my workers until he figured he could short me and get away with it.”
“How about just firing him?”
“Object lesson. Guinea works the Brooklyn docks. Longshoreman. A liquor shipment came in a few days ago. Scotch. Brandy. High-priced shit.”
“Not the stuff you sell here.”
“Not even close. Headed for that la-di-dah liquor store on Fifth. I was supposed to get five cases. Wound up with four.”
“Your workout ends here.”
Nick’s voice was low and his eyes had a psycho sparkle. “I don’t tell you how to handle your business, and you don’t tell me how to handle mine.”
“This time I do,” I said.
Nick walked up to me so close I could count the bits of gray stubble on his cheeks.
“Don’t fuck with me, Steeg. Not in the mood.”
I didn’t move.
“Makes two of us,” I said.
After a few seconds of mulling things over and weighing the odds, Nick backed away.
I helped the guy to his feet and told him to make tracks. He mumbled his thanks and wobbled out the door.
The sound of quiet applause came from a booth in the back.
My brother was in the house.
“Nicely done, Jake,” he said. “The Righter of Wrongs has struck again.”
“Good to see you finally came out of the attic and rejoined the world.”
He slid out of the booth and walked up to me.
“It was my booze,” he said.
“Since when did beating someone to death become your spectator sport of choice, Dave? I remember when you did your own dirty work.”
His eyes went flat.
“What’s bothering you, Jake?”
“You and your kid.”
His eyes, still flat, squinted slightly at the corners.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said.
“I just had an interesting little chat with Benny Kim.”
“The slant fruit guy?”
“The Korean businessman.”
“Whatever.”
“Seems that there’s been a rash of car heists in the neighborhood lately.”
“So? What’s that got to do with me … or Anthony?”
“Anthony and the chimpanzee who works for him drive up to Bennie’s store in Bennie’s car. Anthony sits in the car while the monkey goes in and lays it out for Benny. He wants his car back, it’s gonna cost him. Benny tells him to fuck himself. The monkey takes umbrage and kicks the shit out of him.”
Dave stroked the pebbled patch on his cheek.
“Boys’ll be boys.”
“You set the rules a long time ago, Dave: Lay off the locals; you take care of them, they take care of you. Well, these guys are local. Live in the neighborhood.”
He smiled and patted me on the cheek.
“Your problem is you take things too seriously,” he said.
“Or maybe the direction your life has taken has screwed up your brain.”
“Don’t go there.”
“If not me, who?”
“He’s my son.”
“But he’s not you,” I said.
“That remains to be seen.”
12
The more I thought about it, the less I liked about Martine Toussaint’s story.
A twenty-buck-a-pop streetwalker climbs the greasy pole out of prostitution. Then, like Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus, she has an epiphany. And devotes her life to helping working girls go straight. Then she convinces a bunch of rich guys to come along for the ride. With nothing but good works on their minds, they front the money. Enough to pay for a brownstone and a lifestyle Martine could only dream of when she was selling her body at the tunnels.
What it had to do with Dave, I didn’t know. But it didn’t add up.
The clerk at the lower Broadway office of the Attorney General’s Charities Bureau was deep into a conversation on her cell phone. Something about a rat bastard named Tony who wasn’t going to get away with whatever the hell he had done … a second time.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She threw me a disgusted look and showed me her back.
About a minute later she swiveled her head around and, discovering I was still there, said into the phone, “I gotta go now.”
Then she turned to me.
“What?”
“I need some information about a charity,” I said.
“Which one?”
“Another Chance.”
“Secular or religious?”
“Does it make a difference?”
She sighed as if it were her lot in life to suffer fools and their equally stupid questions.
“Only secular charities are required to register with the attorney general,” she said.
I doubted whether Another Chance was an arm of the Church of the Holy Tarot.
“Let’s go with secular.”
“Another Chance,” she said, typing it into her computer.
She stared at the screen.
; “Nothing,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Try Martine Toussaint.” I spelled her name.
“Zip,” she said. “Are we done?”
“Yep. And you can tell Tony for me he really blew it. You’re a catch!”
The lobby of the apartment house directly across the street offered a perfect view of the comings and goings at Martine’s brownstone.
The snow was pounding, the wind was swirling, and the temperature was in the teens.
The doorman stood in the vestibule. He was a big man with a thatch of neatly combed white hair, wearing a Gilbert and Sullivan costume. The epaulets of his red greatcoat were trimmed in gold. He held the matching cap loosely in his fingers and away from his body, as if wearing it would be the ultimate insult. I made him for a retired cop picking up a few bucks working the door.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“Looking for some information,” I said.
He jerked his chin at the door. “Take a walk.”
I handed him my card.
His gaze moved from the card and back to me. “I used to know a Steeg. Detective. Midtown North.”
“Dominic. My father.”
“That’s the one,” he said. “How’s he doing?”
“Passed away. Two years ago.”
“Sorry to hear that. Good cop.”
Actually he wasn’t, but there was no point to opening that can of worms.
“That’s what they say.”
“Yeah. I heard one of his kids was on the force, and the other was a bad apple.”
“The cop would be me.”
He waggled the card in my face. “Not what it says here.”
“Things change.”
He nodded. “Know how that goes. Figured I would retire and live good on the pension. And now I’m dressed up like a fucking Russian general and opening doors for people who lost the ability to do it on their own.”
“Not the way you thought it would be.”
“Not the way it ought to be,” he said. “So, what can I do for Dominic’s kid?”
“That brownstone across the street. Another Chance. Know anything about it?”
“What’s your interest?”
“Working a case.”
He smiled. “You got my juices flowing.”
“So what can you tell me?”
“Popular place.”
“How so?”
“Double-parked limos. Guys in suits that cost more than my rent.”
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