Black Sand

by William Caunitz

  Vassos moved inside and over to an empty stool at the end of the bar near the entrance, ignoring the inquisitive looks coming his way. Several men stood at the bar drinking and talking in lowered tones. The bartender, a grungy man with a day’s growth of beard, came over to Vassos. “What’ll it be, pal?”

  Putting on a heavy Greek accent, Vassos ordered a beer, the same brand he’d consumed earlier that day at the precinct. He leaned forward, resting his arms on the bar, looking straight ahead, minding his own business. An open door at the end of the bar led into a kitchen. Vassos could see black pans hanging on the wall and part of a large commercial stove. A wide aisle separated the bar from the tables.

  The bartender put down a beer and moved off.

  From the corner of his eye, Vassos recognized a face from the mug shots he’d seen at police headquarters. Denny McKay, the head of the Purple Gang, was sitting in the last booth. Four other men were crowded into the booth with him. Although McKay was sitting, he looked much bigger than he did in his police photographs. Half-glasses were perched on his nose and wisps of gray hair fell untidily over the collar of his shirt. The pocket of his short-sleeved shirt was stuffed with pens; he wore white socks and sandals.

  Brawny men kept coming into the salon, each of them stopping to pay respects to McKay. Some of these men walked past McKay into the back room, stayed several minutes, came out, and left.

  Vassos saw the bartender make eye contact with McKay. The man behind the bar picked up a towel and began to wipe his way over to the policeman. “You from around here, pal?”

  “I am from Greece,” Vassos announced in an accent.

  “You, er, live in Greece or over here, in the States?”

  “I live in Kaloni, a small village on Kriti,” he said, using the Greek work for the island of Crete.

  “What brings you to the States?”

  Vassos saw McKay watching, chewing on his cigarette’s filter. “A woman. She was beautiful, the kind of woman you want to do it to the moment you see her. And she was a virgin.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened?” Vassos echoed with a philosophical shrug of shoulders. “I wanted to fuck her so I became engaged to marry her, and after I did it to her for a month, I got bored with her and broke the engagement. Her brothers are hunting me, and I must stay out of Greece until my family makes things right.”

  The bartender made the universal money sign with his fingers. “It’s gonna cost you.”

  Vassos nodded.

  The bartender moved off, looked over at McKay. Vassos saw the bartender’s head tilt and McKay’s facial expression relax.

  Vassos slid off his stool and, making his way along the bar, asked the bartender, “The toilet?”

  “Straight ahead,” the man behind the stick said, drawing a draft beer.

  Moving past the entrance to the kitchen with his non-threatening eyes cast downward, Vassos entered the back room. There was a shuffleboard in the center of it and groups of men sitting in booths. Conversation stopped. Tough, hostile-looking men studied the policeman. There were two doors on his left. Vassos opened the first one and discovered a large closet with a skeletonized staircase leading upward. The banister, risers, and stringers were intact, but the treads, the steps one normally stood on, had been removed.

  “What the fuck you looking at, pally?”

  Vassos turned. Two ugly men were staring him down. “I need the toilet, please.”

  “Next door, pal,” the uglier of the two barked.

  The tiny, ill-lit bathroom reeked of urine. Vomit splattered the wall and sink, and soggy cigarette butts clogged the urinal. Vassos stepped up to the trough and urinated. He zipped up and meekly pushed past them out into the saloon. The dank bar was a welcome relief after the stench of the toilet.

  He finished his beer standing up, left two dollars on the bar and walked out into the sunlight. He turned left, passed a group of men and the open-front pizzeria, and walked three blocks north before turning east.

  The Buick came to a stop alongside some parked cars. Lucas leaned across the seat and pushed open the door. “Well?” he asked as Vassos slid inside.

  Vassos gave him a brief report and told him about the closet with the staircase without stairs.

  “That’s an old trick used by narcotics dealers,” Lucas said. “They removed the treads so that any cops who visit them will have to grip the banister with both hands and climb up on the risers or the stringers that support the banister. The bad guys wait on top.” He glanced at the man in the passenger seat. “I’d say McKay’s got something going on up there that he doesn’t want the good guys to know about. Well, we’re just going to have to make it our business to find out what.”

  Sergeant Roosevelt Grimes, the Second Whip of the Sixteenth Squad, had a steel plate in his head compliments of an overzealous white cop who had enjoyed cracking black heads with his nightstick during the Columbia riots. Before the black undercover officer could utter the code word that would have identified him as a member of the force, the uniformed cop beat him unconscious.

  It ain’t easy being a black undercover in Nueva York.

  Grimes was sitting behind his cluttered desk massaging his forehead when Lucas came in and flopped into a chair.

  “You got pain, Roosevelt?”

  “It’s the heat, Lou.”

  “And in the winter it’s the cold. Why the hell don’t you throw in your papers and sail off into the sunset? No more fives, no pressure.”

  “I got two more kids to put through college.” He opened the side drawer, took out a bottle of orange pills, popped two into his mouth, swallowed, and asked, “What’s up, Lou?”

  Lucas, lifting up out of his seat, handed his Second Whip a slip of paper. “I want you to get me a copy of Denny McKay’s army record and have a couple of our guys try and locate any relatives of a guy named Paolo Matrazzo. He went DOA on a Greek island that the Greeks call Thíra, but the rest of the world calls Santorini.”

  “When did this Matrazzo guy pack it in?”

  “Nineteen thirty-nine.”

  Grimes looked at the paper and then up at the Whip. “This caper connected to the CI you’re doing for the C of D?”

  “Yes it is, but I can’t fill you in on it yet.”

  “You want a list of McKay’s duty stations too?”

  “I want everything.”

  “You got it,” Grimes said, sliding the paper into the border of his desk blotter.

  Detective John Leone, a handsome man with black hair, dreamy eyes, and a bushy mustache he referred to as his carpet sweeper, had a partner named Jack Owens who stood a hair over six feet and whose chest and shoulders flowed smoothly into a broad expanse that resembled a minor league dam. Owens was a black man who the guys in the Squad called Big Jay. When Lucas came out into the squad room ten minutes later, he found Leone pontificating to Vassos, Ulanov, Gregory, and Big Jay.

  “You guys ever wonder how women piss in them little cups?” Leone asked. “I mean, they got nothing to aim with. I’ve been thinking about that ever since I took my physical last week.”

  “How do you figure they do it?” asked Big Jay.

  “Well,” Leone began, “they must hold the cup under their pussy and sort of get the range, maybe spritz a few drops, and then, when they’re on the target, they give it a good squirt.”

  Ulanov turned back to the typewriter. “This place is funnier than Mad magazine.”

  Big Jay placed a gentle hand on Ulanov’s shoulder. “Don’t you find yourself always thinking about women? How you’re going to score the next one, how she’s going to open her legs for you?”

  Ulanov looked up into the smiling black face. “Naw,” he said seriously, “pussy makes me sneeze.”

  Lucas motioned Vassos into his office. The Whip flipped open the case folder and saw that Grimes had inserted a copy of the complaint report marked: Confidential Investigation/FOA. He thought about his Second Whip and wondered what it must be like to have
children to worry about, to work so hard to help them get a start in life. He decided that it must be wonderful. He jotted reminder notes on the inside flap: 1. Russian info re: M and I; 2. McKay’s army record; 3. Old 61’s on Purple Gang; 4. PM’s relatives.

  When Vassos came into the office, Lucas said, “I want to do some research on the casket-copy. I’m going to the public library. Want to come with me?”

  “I would like to, Teddy, but I must report to my embassy. They want to see me to make sure that I am alive and well.” His finger traced the figure eight on the edge of the desk. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight? The night clerk at my hotel is a Greek and he had told me of this restaurant in Astoria.”

  Lucas checked his watch. “What time would you want to go?”

  “Late. Around ten.”

  “I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty,” Lucas said, moving out from behind his desk.

  She slid out of the bed and padded into the bathroom. The warm golden glow of a summer evening slipped through the blinds and threw bars of light on her naked body. Lucas watched her lissome form move gracefully over the carpet. Long legs, well-developed figure, creamy skin, auburn hair. Her first name was Joan. Her last was Karsten. Six months ago Lucas had been in the supermarket reaching for a jar of peanut butter. She had been reaching for grape jelly. He did not want involvements; she wanted a weekly matinee. It had seemed like a perfect arrangement at the time.

  He raised himself up on his elbows and watched her come back to the bed. He liked her goose pimply nipples and her delicate brown pubic hair. She stepped silently into her underpants and hooked on her bra. Her glum expression told him that something was on her mind. She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and caressed his face.

  “Teddy,” she began, “you’re a nice man, and you’ve been up front with me from the beginning, so please, please don’t misunderstand what I’m going to say.”

  He fluffed the pillow up under his head, sat up higher, and waited.

  Her eyes fell on the sheets. “I think that from now on we should use condoms. I have no way of knowing how many others you are seeing or who they are seeing, and, well, it just gets so complicated …”

  Looking into her anxious eyes, Lucas thought: we’ve fucked up our criminal justice system; we’ve fucked up our ozone layer; we’ve fucked up our ecological balance; and now, we’re fucking up sex. Only man could be such an asshole. He brushed a strand of hair from her brow. “Do you make your husband use a condom?”

  She laughed. “Mr. Wonderful? No need to worry about him. Mr. Wonderful’s interests, in descending order, are: making money, football, basketball, baseball, and expensive cigars. Once every month or so he’ll roll on top of me, grunt, and roll off.”

  “Why don’t you leave him?”

  “Because I’m forty-seven years old and scared. And because all the Prince Charmings have been taken, except you.” She reached out and gave his penis a playful squeeze. “You wouldn’t by any chance be interested in a more meaningful relationship?”

  “I hate that word.”

  “Which one, meaningful or relationship?”

  “Both of them,” he said, reaching over the side of the bed, groping for his underwear.

  “Will I see you next week?” she asked, a concerned edge to her voice.

  Sitting up and heaving his feet onto the floor, he answered, “Yes.”

  “Teddy, may I ask you a personal question?”

  Unsure eyes darted to her. “What?”

  “Why me? You’re a handsome man. You’re a gentleman. Why get yourself involved in a dead-end relationship? There are a lot of available women out there looking for a man like you.”

  Joan was not the first woman who had asked Teddy Lucas that question. His stock answer was that his wife had left him because she felt that marriage was stifling her. He didn’t think he’d ever tell anyone the truth; it was still too painful. Before he could give her his standard reply, Joan fell on her knees between his legs and hugged him around his waist. “I look forward to our weekly rendezvous.”

  “Me too,” he said, pressing her head to his stomach. “Are you pressed for time?”

  She looked up at him and smiled knowingly. “I have a few minutes,” she said, pushing him back down on the bed.

  After Joan left, he spread the sheet out over the bed, went into the bathroom, and showered. He dried himself off and telephoned the Forty-second Street branch of the public library. It was open until 8:45 that evening. He picked up the phone and dialed the C of D’s direct number at One Police Plaza.

  Edgeworth’s gruff voice came on the line. Lucas brought him up to date on the conduct of the investigation.

  “What’s your feel for the case?” Edgeworth asked.

  “I’m still not sure if I’m investigating a flight of fancy or if there is a real case to be made. But I’ll tell you this much, Chief, we’re a long way off from handing anyone up for extradition to Greece.”

  “What kind of a guy is Vassos?”

  “He’s a good guy. Seems to know his stuff.”

  “Well, be sure to keep me informed.”

  “Ten-four, boss,” Lucas said, using the affirmative police code signal.

  “Yes, sir,” C of D Edgeworth said into the telephone. “That is correct. Lieutenant Lucas just reported in to me, and he was not very optimistic about the course of the investigation … Yes, Mr. Hayden, I most certainly will keep you posted.”

  Edgeworth thoughtfully replaced the receiver. He stared at the instrument, then snapped it back to his ear and dialed the PC’s centrex number. “This is the chief of detectives. Is the boss still in the building?”

  Police Commissioner Franklin Vaughn’s ruddy complexion brightened when his C of D entered his office. He waved Edgeworth into one of the chairs arranged in front of his desk. “Your people did an outstanding job on that Rabbi Goldstein homicide, Timmy.”

  “A hanger, boss. Four local Jew haters got their loads on and went hunting. They left enough physical evidence behind for us to track them to Mars and back.”

  Vaughn reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and came up with a bottle of scotch. “Want a taste?”

  “No thanks,” Edgeworth said, watching the PC pour some into his coffee mug. A tingling sensation stung his lips and mouth. Maybe just one? No! He hadn’t picked up a drink in four years and he wasn’t going to today. He quickly checked the time: six-thirty. Shit! He’d miss the 7:00 P.M. meeting at St. Claire’s. Now he’d have to rush uptown.

  Vaughn drank, clutched the mug to his stomach. “You still on the wagon, Timmy?”

  “Yes. One day at a time.”

  Vaughn shook his head. “Ya gotta be able to control the hard stuff, Timmy. I can stop any time I want to stop. I only take a few short belts now and then to help me relax. I think better with a few under my belt.”

  “Right, boss.” He watched the PC take another swig.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “It bothers me that we have to report to this guy Hayden at the State Department on the conduct of one of our cases.”

  “The Greek thing?”

  “Yes.”

  Pouring more scotch, Vaughn said, “The white-shirt boys are interested in this one, Timmy. Big diplomatic hullabaloo.”

  “We could be jeopardizing the integrity of the case by reporting to them. They’re whores. We have no way of knowing what they’re doing with the information we’re feeding them.”

  “It’s their case, Tim ol’ boy.”

  “That’s my point. Why toss it to us when there are at least six federal agencies with jurisdiction? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Who knows? Who cares? Maybe they felt that we could handle it more expe … ex … faster.” The word was out in the Job: the PC was on the sauce. The sharks smelled blood and were circling, the sniping had started. Vaughn had been dubbed the King of Nowhere.

  The PC’s head shot up. “Keep me informed.”

  “Right, boss.” />
  Edgeworth started to stand. Vaughn said, “Wait a minute,” and passed him a slip of paper that he had taken from under his desk blotter. It contained the name, shield number, tax registry number, and present command of a female detective.

  “When you get the chance,” Vaughn said, “move her into the Bond and Forgery Squad.”

  “B and F is three over their quota now.”

  “The lady is Congressman Berns’s girlfriend.”

  Edgeworth frowned in an effort to keep his face from showing the disgust he felt. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Major General Philippos Tsimas, the head of Greece’s Central Information Service, had five agents-in-place in New York City. Their main duties were to gather economic and political information and to sow as much harmful disinformation about Turkey as was discreetly possible. The station chief in New York was a short, feisty, sixty-year-old woman with a throaty voice and an affinity for man-tailored clothes, gold bangle bracelets, and gaudy rings. Her name was Elisabeth Syros; she was Vassos’s control. Her cover was that of a secretary in the consul general’s office.

  “How do you like working with the American police, Major?”

  Vassos continued to stare down at the black statue in front of Rockefeller Center. “They are like us in many ways.”

  “Have you made any progress?”

  Vassos turned from the window and moved to the couch against the wall. “The investigation is just beginning. The lieutenant who has been assigned to help is competent and we work well together.”

  She lowered herself down next to him. “Your primary purpose is to return the casket-copy. I hope you understand that.”

  “And the people responsible for murdering my family?”

  “I think we have to be realistic about our chance of extraditing an American citizen back to Greece to stand trial for murder.”

  “You think it impossible?”

  “I think that any expectation of success is, at most, unrealistic.” She gently searched his face. “Andreas, why do you think you were chosen for this assignment?”

  He met her scrutiny without flinching. “Because of what happened to my family, and because I am a policeman.”