by David Wind
I reached the entrance and I looked at the window. There were twenty-five pictures taped against the glass. None was over the age of eighteen and several hadn’t yet hit double-digit numbers.
I shrugged off the weight that always settled around my shoulders when I looked at the pictures, and went inside. The storefront office was stark: White walls with photographs, bulletin boards and serviceable furniture. One person sat at the desk, reading over a file. She looked like she’d been crying.
“Miss Collins,” I called.
Samantha Collins looked up. She was a pleasant looking fifty-something year old woman with short grey streaked light brown hair and a regal carriage. Her red-rimmed brown eyes were blank for a moment before her mind registered my presence. “Mr. Storm—Gabriel,” she whispered. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say right now. I wanted to stop by and make sure things were okay.”
She sighed; the sound was like a down pillow being squeezed. “Nothing is okay today.” After another moment she stood. “What happened to him? The news said it was a robbery.”
“That’s what everyone says. I don’t know what happened. But as soon as I do, I’ll make sure you know.”
“The funeral?”
“Right now it looks like Thursday. I’ll be in touch with the information. I have a question about one of your kids.” Turning, I pointed to the picture wall. “The third row, second picture.”
We walked to the wall, where I tapped on ‘Sugar’s’ photo. “I may have seen her yesterday.”
She turned to me, her eyes wide. “Where? What was she doing?”
“If it was her, I saw her getting into a car on Forty-sixth and Eighth.”
Samantha Collins studied me for a moment. “She’s hooking?”
“It looked like it. Is there a file on her?”
Her hair bounced with the nod. Rising, she led me to the five-drawer file cabinet behind her desk. Opening the second drawer, she pushed through a dozen files before extracting a thin manila file. “Margaret Ann McNickles, Windsor, New York: She went missing twenty-three months ago. She had just turned thirteen at the time of her disappearance. The FBI believes it was an Internet predator.”
I glanced through the file. There were copies of police reports and the FBI sheet as well. There were two more pictures of Margaret Ann. Both showed a sweet smiling and innocent little doe-eyed girl. “Can I get a copy of everything?”
“I’ll send it to your office.”
<><><>
The mood over dinner, in the mauve dining room, was somber. I sat across from Chris and Amanda’s seven-year-old daughter, Anna. She was old enough to grasp the concept of death, and old enough too, to understand why Uncle Scotty would not be coming over any more. She didn’t eat very much.
Amanda had told us earlier that Anna had spent the afternoon in her room, dealing with the loss. During dinner, all conversation had been steered away from anything Scotty. The meal had been wonderful: Amanda was a Cordon Bleu chef: not by career, but by heritage. Before he had retired, her father had been the head chef at one of the city’s rare three star Michelin rated restaurants. Amanda had grown up in her father’s footsteps, but had chosen a different path. She was a clinical psychologist specializing in children. She was very good.
Dinner had been swordfish with a sauce that had made everything melt in my mouth with taste long past description. The wine had been Sancerre, equally as wonderful as the fish. Amanda looked like Ingrid Bergman: she had a self-contained beauty, a combination of confidence, vulnerability and grace. I loved her like a sister, considering there was no choice, given she was Chris’s wife.
Anna was a miniature version of her mother, but with Chris’s jet-black hair and deep sapphire eyes. I wondered if she would become a chef, a shrink or a cop—all were strong possibilities.
As I took in my extended family, Anna and Amanda cleared the table. Anna said goodnight a few minutes later and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry about Uncle Scotty… I miss him already.” She hugged me and then went over to Chris, who folded her into his arms and took her to her room.
Amanda returned as they left. “She’s doing well,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat created by little Anna’s words.
“She’s holding it in, but she’ll be fine. He’s the first person she’s been close to who’s died. Why don’t you go into Chris’s office? I know you and Chris need to talk. Coffee will be ready in a minute.” On the last word, Amanda followed Chris and Anna into the bedroom.
Amanda’s choice of words was right on target—Chris and I needed to talk. I went to Chris’s office, which had been converted from the third bedroom. The apartment was roomy, as were most East End Avenue co-ops. This one was a sixty-five year old, thirty-story building on the corner of Seventy-seventh and East End with a great view of the East River, Roosevelt Island, and the Queens skyline.
The apartment had been a wedding gift from Chris’s father. No cop could afford a million dollar apartment, not even a captain. Money had never been an issue for Chris. He had always been oblivious to it: perhaps because he’d grown up with it. And there was a huge benefit for a cop who didn’t have to worry about paying bills. The need for money never encroached on his integrity—and it wasn’t his father’s money either. His grandparents, prior to their passing, had set up a trust fund for him: The amount was far from small.
In his office, I let the leather chair that had become my favorite envelope me. The room was painted a comfortable soft blue with light blue accents. Across from me was Chris’s trophy wall. Like the one in my office, it was loaded with photographs. There were pictures of Chris, Amanda, Anna, Chris’s parents, Scotty, a bunch of others with some very well-known people and me. To one side were several plaques for meritorious service. Set off to the side, and framed in black lacquered wood with a black velvet background, was a blue ribbon with a silver and gold star suspended from it. It was the department’s highest award. Chris had earned it when, as a sergeant, he’d saved a dozen hostages during one of the most vicious bank robberies in the city’s history.
Yeah, that was my friend, Chris Bolt.
“You okay?” Chris asked when he walked in and handed me a cup of coffee.
Taking it, I cradled it in my palms and nodded. “Anna?”
“She’s doing okay. She’s like her mother. Even though it doesn’t show on either of them, it hit hard.” He dropped into the chair next to me, took a sip of coffee and looked at me. His eyes were veiled. “Have you started the arrangements?”
“Thursday—Femalé said the ME is supposed to release the body tomorrow afternoon.”
“The ME is doing the autopsy tonight, himself.”
My eyebrows went up. “That’s unusual.”
“I told you they were backed up: I asked him to push it as a favor to me.”
“But you don’t expect anything.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I expect, just like you said, it will show Scotty was shot with a forty-four mag. Other than that, I don’t expect a thing!”
Truthfully, neither did I. “What about the interviews at the rehearsal hall?”
“Nothing. They all had alibis, which we are checking on, but I don’t think we’ll find much there. There’s one person there who we could view as a suspect.”
His eyes locked on mine when he’d spoken, the funny feeling I get in the pit of my stomach began to twist.
“Jonathan Mondale. He has the record to justify looking into him.”
“It wasn’t Tarz. He was a kid when he got sent up. He’s as straight as anyone else, straighter even. Don’t let them mess him up.”
“There’s no choice. We have to look at him. You know that.”
The bad part was Tarz’s criminal record for armed robbery. But that had been ten years earlier, when he’d been a kid. “Just be easy with him.”
“We will be.” He took another sip of coffee. “Your turn: what did you find at Scotty�
��s apartment, and what have you been doing all day?”
I took my time and another sip of coffee. It was good coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain. I knew the taste because my freezer held the remnants of the pound Chris had brought me the last time he’d been there. I set the cup down on the small table next to me, sat back and despite my still simmering anger, told him about my hunt through Scotty’s apartment. “Everything was there that was there a week ago,” I said, and then told him about the laptop and the rewrite.
“You’re basing everything on the fact it appears nothing was taken?”
“Come on Chris, every room was searched. There was no starting point and no ending point. It was a mess. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a robbery. And they did it in less than ten minutes and left a laptop worth an easy grand from a fence.”
“We couldn’t find his wallet or any money.”
“Fluff to make it look like a robbery ─”
“─ or maybe it was a robbery interrupted by the arrival of the cops.”
“Bull. Whoever did it, did it fast and split even faster. He knew the noise would bring something. And there was no forced entry. That says it wasn’t a stranger.”
“What else?” he asked.
“I have clients.”
He blinked at that. “Clients?”
“The Angels. They came to the office and hired me. They want this cleaned up fast so the show can go on.” I couldn’t keep the disgust from my voice.
“And you took them on?” His voice turned scratchy on the words.
I smiled, not one of my nice ones.
“Stop trying to look like Bogart, he was uglier than you. This isn’t the Maltese Falcon. Why?”
I couldn’t shake the smile, maybe because it was fueled by anger. “Why did I take them on as clients? Isn’t it obvious I would rather have them in front of me than behind? And because there was no reason for them to hire me if it was a robbery.”
“Why kill their golden goose? No, that makes no sense. Looking at Mondale does. And looking beyond anyone at the theatre—why are you closed to that?”
I shook my head. “Like I said, there’s no way Tarz had anything to do with this. He worshipped Scotty. He loved him for giving him a chance when no one else would. Not many Broadway producers would hire an ex-con with his record. And I’m not closed to anything. I just have a feeling about this.”
“Which brings us back to the same place—nowhere.”
“No, it tells us the shooter was after Scotty, not something in his apartment. And like you say, if it isn’t someone connected with the production, we need to reach out beyond Scotty’s theatre circle and see who had it in for him.”
“And just how do we do that, Mr. Shamus?”
How, was what I was trying to work out.
“What about the rewrite? Are you going to give it to them?”
“Eventually.”
“So we’re back to the same place. Where do you start?”
Now, wasn’t that indeed the question of the day?
Chapter 9
O’Brien’s is my favorite pub. Located on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fifty-third Street, it attracted every type of customer, depending on the time of day. Daytime, O’Brien’s was a business place where local exec’s came instead of the fancier restaurants to the East. In the late afternoon and early evening, it turned into a convenient pre-theatre spot for a good meal before the show.
At night, when midnight grew near, it turned into what it truly was ─ a neighborhood Irish Pub. In the last decade, it had also become an out of the way hideaway for the casts and crews getting rid of the pent up energy following a performance.
Softly lit but not dark enough to interfere with seeing everything happening inside, a long mahogany bar ran the full length of the pub, the rest was a traditional restaurant with earth tone brown and beige walls and evenly spaced wood tables set on a polished maple floor—everything about O’Brien’s spelled authenticity. Tonight, as most nights, Tim O’Brien worked the long bar of the pub he’d owned for the last twenty-five years. He still had his accent from the old country, which he had worked hard at not losing. The accent added an even more genuine feel to the place.
I sat at the end of the bar, a place that allowed me to see everything without having to work at it. I was on my second Martell’s XO, staring at the bottles lining the wall and at myself being reflected back in the mirror while working over Chris’s last question. ‘Where do you start?’
The sadness of losing Scotty had grown stronger and all I wanted to do was to give into my feelings. But I couldn’t, not yet.
I lifted the snifter, inhaled and took a sip. The expensive cognac rolled over my tongue, and someone slipped onto the stool next to me. Turning, I looked at the small man with a sharp featured face, large protruding brown eyes and ears too big for his head. “Hello, Rabbit.”
“Teach,” he nodded as Tim O’Brien came over. “Draft,” Rabbit ordered.
O’Brien placed the beer before Rabbit and moved a tactful distance down the bar. I gazed at the hare-like man whose appearance was more like a character out of Lewis Carroll’s book than an ex con, and waited until he took a long drink.
Putting the mug down, he said, “I axed around like youse wanted. I didn’t get much. Hoid one ting dough, but I don’ know how good da source is. Da word is dat Streeter is in wit some bad people.”
“Your old friends?”
Rabbit shook his head. “Don’ know. I couldn’t get notin’ else. Just low buzz dat he’s lots of trouble and to stay away. Da regulars on da street—dey don’t have notin’ a do wit him—Dey say he’s connected, big time.”
“How do I find him?”
He took a long pull on the beer. “Don’ know dat. You said to keep an eye out. I pushed a little but da only ting I know fer sure is dat Streeter is bad news. Ain’t no one on da street dat likes him.”
“Maybe you could find out where he is…”
The beer hung three-quarters of the way to his mouth. Rabbit cocked his head on an impossible angle. “I cain’t make no promises.”
“Thanks Rabbit. Anything I can do for you?”
“Naw, everyting’s cool wit me. I been axing aroun ‘bout your frien’ too, tawked to a couple a guys but din’t get notin’ on dat neider.” He upped the beer and drained it. Standing, he raised one hand and left in his jerky hop step.
I turned back to the Martell and drained the amber liquid. The cognac turned bitter in my mouth. I threw a twenty on the bar. There were two items left on the agenda for tonight: call Tarz and warn him the cops were going to come down on him and for him to be cool and be straight; then, for me to get some sleep. The thought of sleep made me pause. Which nightmare would be tonight’s main feature…one, two, three or maybe even four?
Chapter 10
The alarm went off at eight-thirty; I’d already been up for a half hour. It had been nightmare number one again—reliving it two days in a row was not a good feeling. But I was used to the dreams now. Number one had first started the night I’d arrived at Sing-Sing. Number one was when I walked into the apartment and found Elaine. The others started a few weeks after I’d gotten out of Sing-Sing. They’d become a regular part of my sleep time repertoire and, except for rare occasions, I always got to relive adventures from my past—who could ask for more?
Number one wasn’t too bad now. When the dreams had first started, I’d come awake, soaked in sweat and screaming her name. These days I just wake up and let the dream work its way out. It isn’t pleasant, but it had happened, and I’ve been reliving it for a dozen years.
After I’d gotten out of Sing-Sing, I’d tried to step back into my old life with a job as the Assistant Director in Scotty’s upcoming play. My problem was, every time I stepped into the theatre I saw Elaine. Every place I walked, every place I sat I found her ghost was with me, her lips whispering things I couldn’t hear while her eyes watched everything I did until I knew I had to find a way to sta
rt over and chase the past from my present and make my life work. If it meant giving up the theatre I loved, then I would do just that. It hadn’t been easy, and I missed it every day of my life.
The answer, when it came, had been simpler than I’d expected. I’d enlisted in the Army. Near the end of my two-year hitch, I’d taken a chance with one of the Army shrinks. He hadn’t helped much, but something he had said at our last session stuck with me. “When you find someone to love again, I’m sure the dreams will stop.”
I had my doubts. Elaine had died because I hadn’t been there. My track record wasn’t good. How could I trust myself to be there for anyone else?
I sat up and wiped a hand across my eyes, not wanting to think about that night, nor about how her warm lips had felt against mine or the way her blood had soaked through my shirt or how, two months shy of my twenty-sixth birthday, I rode the prison van to Sing-Sing.
“Damn it all!” In three months, it would be the thirteenth anniversary of her death. And now the man who had helped keep me sane while I’d been imprisoned had been murdered.
I went to the bathroom, emptied my bladder, brushed my teeth and took a long hot shower. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, the dream had receded and I could get on with my day.
With the towel wrapped around my waist, I made a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast then went back to the bedroom and dressed. I chose a deep grey suit and pale blue shirt, skipped the tie, and secured my shoulder rig. Then, with my jacket on, I left for my ten-thirty with Paul Gottleib and worried on Rabbit’s words from last night about the pimp—it was easier than thinking about Scotty.
I took the subway, but by the time it reached the Fourteenth Street station, the train was crowded, smelled badly and I needed air. I escaped to the surface and hoofed it downtown on Broadway. It was a long walk, but the heat hadn’t kicked in yet, and the air felt good. It took twenty minutes to get to the courthouse, which left another half hour to kill.
Gottleib’s office was across from the courthouse, on the edge of the financial district. The hole in the skyline reminded me of when the city had two magnificent buildings anchoring the tip of Manhattan Island. Now there was a huge hole in the process of being rebuilt.