Black Sand

by William Caunitz

“Terrorists were not responsible,” Hughes said, dabbing his napkin at the corner of his lip.

  “Really. Who was?”

  “Two Americans. They were hired in New York City to murder two Greek policemen.”

  “Incredible. How do you know this?”

  “I read the intelligence reports that are sent to the ambassador. And our FBI liaison has good sources within the Hellenic Police. The terrorists thing was a cover story that the government let out.”

  “I see.”

  “Cuttler and Simmons were their names.”

  “Whose names, Trevor?”

  “The killers.”

  A crash of dishes caused people to look up from their plates.

  “Simmons was killed at the scene trying to escape.” Hughes broke off a piece of roll and buttered it. “Cuttler was taken alive.”

  A muscle at the corner of the other man’s jaw began to twitch. “I imagine that the Greek police must have some unique interrogative techniques.” He lifted his wineglass to his mouth and drank.

  “Actually not. They’re concerned about civil rights and that sort of stuff.”

  “I’m glad to hear that they’re so enlightened.”

  “Cuttler died in the hospital.” Hughes cut his pan-blackened swordfish steak. “But not before he talked.”

  Maneuvering lettuce onto his fork, the host asked, “Did this Cuttler say who hired them?”

  “He didn’t live long enough.”

  “Pity.”

  “They’re sending someone.”

  “Who is sending someone?”

  “The Greek police. One of their men is coming here to try and find the people who hired Simmons and Cuttler and to find out why these people wanted the two policemen killed. He’ll be working with someone from the NYPD.” Hughes’s face set in a disapproving scowl.

  “Why the look, Trevor?”

  “Orhan Iskur was murdered the same day as the massacre.”

  “Orhan probably had his spoon stuck in somebody else’s pudding.”

  “You’re more than likely right,” Hughes said, cutting more fish. “On the other hand, Simmons and Cuttler would have needed a contact in Greece, to help move things along.”

  “Yes, I suppose they would.”

  “Orhan would have made the perfect point man. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes, I suppose he would have.”

  “But then, our Orhan would never have been persuaded to undertake such a task without explicit orders from you, would he?”

  Both men sipped wine, their inquiring eyes peering over the rims. Silence grew between them.

  Hughes lowered his glass. “I’m planning on retiring next year. I’ve bought a chalet outside of Bern.”

  The host smiled. “Sounds idyllic.”

  “I’ve enjoyed our occasional entrepreneurial adventures.”

  “Yes, they have been mutually rewarding.”

  Hughes blurted, “I’m leaving Nancy.”

  The man with the golden ring was surprised. “You’ve been married for over thirty years.”

  His guest looked somewhat sheepish as he explained, “I’m in love. For the first time in my life, I’m really in love.” The host looked at his guest with a weary expression. Hughes added nervously, “She’s younger, of course. She’s twenty-four.”

  “Trevor! You’re fifty-seven years old. What in the name of–”

  Hughes angrily pointed his knife at his host. “I don’t want to hear any of that. I’m trim and in excellent shape. She loves me and she excites me.”

  The man sitting on the other side of the table shrugged in indifference, raised his wineglass to salute his guest, and said, “I wish you the best of luck and happiness.”

  “Thank you. My new situation does, however, present me with certain problems. Problems that I had hoped you might help me solve.” He relaxed, slowly twirling the stem of his wineglass.

  A nasty undercurrent infiltrated the host’s voice. “And what problem is that, Trevor?”

  “As you well know, Nancy has all the money. Oil and railroads and real estate, mostly. I was always the charming poor boy from Harvard. I’ll have my pension, of course, and I’ve managed to put the money from our private enterprises to work.”

  “Well then, you should be able to live in relative comfort.”

  “But you see, old friend, I’ve become accustomed to a certain life-style; without Nancy’s wealth behind me, well. I’ll be hard-pressed to live the way I want to. What I need is a cushion.”

  The host’s eyes narrowed into a hard look. “Naturally.”

  “I’ve been thinking of starting a private newsletter.”

  The host stroked the back of his ring with his thumb. “A newsletter?”

  “The Greek policeman will be working with the NYPD under the authority of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Reports will be required topside, the ambassador will have to be informed of the current standing of the case, prevent any embarrassment to Washington, that sort of thing. I’ll have access to all of these reports.”

  The host smoothed down his end of the tablecloth. “How many subscribers do you envisage?”

  “Oh, it would be a restricted membership. There’d be no annual or monthly dues. Only one lifetime subscription fee.”

  “You’ve become quite the businessman, Trevor.”

  “I’ve had some excellent teachers.”

  “Yes, I suppose you have.” His eyes narrowed. “How much?”

  “A half million U.S. should do nicely, I think.”

  The snow leopard basked in the afternoon sun while her cubs frolicked among the rocks. Peering through the thick glass, Denny McKay watched the spotted cat, wondering if he’d be able to take it out in a one-on-one fight. He imagined himself making like Tarzan, armed only with a knife, and the cat, crouched up on a Ninth Avenue fire escape, baring its fangs, ready to pounce. I’d take her fucking eyes out, he thought, turning away from the viewing glass and pushing his way out of the crowded grotto.

  Five minutes later Denny McKay tossed away his cigarette and entered the Bronx Zoo’s World of Darkness. Day was suddenly night. This is a scary fucking place, he thought, watching hundreds of bats streaking around their glass cave. He took in the outlines of people moving about the display of nocturnal animals. He had picked a strange place to meet, he reflected while he looked for the rendezvous point. He made his way over to the display of sugar gliders. He felt queasy standing so close to them. He saw an owl eyeing him and looked away.

  A low voice startled him. “Hello, Denny.”

  “Where are you?” McKay whispered, an edge of desperation in his voice.

  “Behind you.”

  McKay turned and saw the outline of a man standing in the corner. “Why’d you pick this spooky place to meet?”

  “Because it’s safe.”

  “What’s so important?” McKay asked, watching the kit foxes.

  “Cuttler talked before he died.” The man pushed away from the wall and moved along the darkened passage, examining the displays.

  McKay moved with him, anxious to see the light of day. They exited from the World of Darkness and McKay lit up a cigarette. They moved along the path leading to the house of the giant panda.

  “Cuttler told the Greek police why they were sent there,” the man with the golden ring said. “Fortunately, he did not live long enough to tell them who had sent them.”

  “George Cuttler was a standup guy; he wouldn’t talk.”

  The man walking next to McKay smiled. “The vernacular of the lower classes never ceases to amaze me. Standup, I believe, applies to a person who is willing to go to jail, even die, rather than betray his friends.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Well, Denny, let me enlighten you. Your Mr. Cuttler was not standup. Most people aren’t.”

  McKay bit down hard on his cigarette’s filter. “What did he tell them?”

  The man recounted the high points of his lunch with Trevor
Hughes.

  Denny McKay was concerned. “A stranger showed up at The Den the other day. A Greek. He checked out okay, I’m sure it was a coincidence. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Then why mention it? If he returns, kill him.”

  “There ain’t no way that they could be onto us. Cuttler and Simmons didn’t know a thing.”

  “You’re wrong, Denny. They knew that you hired them.”

  “But you just said that they didn’t tell that to the cops.”

  “Correct. But then, the police might be keeping that bit of information to themselves, mightn’t they?”

  McKay shrugged and moved off to buy cotton candy. He returned with a stick of the puffy pink sugar. “Want some?”

  The man with the ring looked disdainfully at the fibrous candy. “No, thank you.” They walked along the path. “You’re sublimely unconcerned over the possibility that the Greek police might know about you.”

  “I’ve been on the wrong side of the law most of my life. And I know that if they don’t catch you with the gun in your hand, they don’t got shit. As for a job going down in Greece? Forget about it. Ain’t nothing to worry about.” He took a big bite of the candy. “What about our next shipment? Do we send it?”

  “Yes. Go ahead as though nothing had happened.”

  “What about Orhan’s replacement? How we going to work it without him there?”

  “I’ve already seen to that.” He slid his ring down his linen lapel. “Denny, we’re going to have to build a moat around ourselves and fill it with hungry piranha.”

  McKay’s questioning eyes fell on the man with the golden ring. “You mean what I think you mean?”

  “Exactly. Take out Trevor Hughes. Do you have any problems with that?”

  “Of course not. Come on, let’s go see the giraffes.”

  Lucas and Vassos pushed their way through the press of people engaged in conversation in the crowded bar area. The cuckoo sprang out of its tree house behind the bar and chirped seven times. Dirndl-clad waitresses rushed about inside the restaurant. Heidi’s was decorated with Victorian bric-a-brac, antique clocks, and stained-glass windows.

  The restaurant’s location, on the northwest corner of Second Avenue and Fifty-third Street, made it a perfect watering hole for the detectives of the Sixteenth Squad. Far enough east to be away from the midtown limelight, yet close enough to the station house for a detective to rush back if any 10:2’s – forthwiths – were telephoned to the cop phone Heidi had installed behind the bar.

  “Over here, Lou,” Big Jay shouted, his big hands waving over the heads of people at the bar.

  John Leone, Ulanov, Gregory, and Big Jay pushed back to make room. Slipping in next to the detectives, Lucas gestured to the bartender for a round of drinks. The ferret-faced man working the stick began to set down six weiss beers on the bar.

  Lucas saw that the Second Whip was among the missing. “Where’s Roosevelt?”

  Big Jay’s eyes drifted down to the forest of tall tulip glasses with slices of lemon bobbing inside of them. “Sergeant Grimes had a moonlighting job to go to, a wedding, I think.”

  “You got watering holes in Greece, Major?” Leone asked.

  Vassos’s brows furrowed. “Watering holes?”

  Sipping beer, Lucas explained.

  “Ah, yes, we have them,” Vassos said. “Some of the larger police districts have their own clubs.”

  A waitress squeezed past the detectives holding a tray of drinks out in front of her. Leone made an obscene squeal, looked at Gregory, and said, “I met this broad last week and still haven’t been able to score her. She’s harder to get into than Fort Knox.”

  Lucas wiped beer suds from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Maybe you’re not making the right deposit.”

  Vassos shivered from the air-conditioning.

  Ulanov inched up close to the Whip. “Gregory and I checked out the Metrazzo family this morning.”

  Lucas threw back his head, draining the glass. “And?”

  “We came up with a cousin,” Ulanov said, sticking a slip of paper into Lucas’s shirt pocket.

  “How do you know they’re related?”

  Ulanov shrugged. “I called and asked.”

  “Any word from your Russian friend across the street?” Lucas asked.

  “Not yet,” Ulanov said, watching a towering, square-faced woman push her way through the crowd. Her massive bosom rose and and fell under an extra-large man’s shirt.

  She rushed up to the detectives and bear-hugged Lucas up off the floor. “Teddy, mein Liebling,” she bellowed.

  “Heidi, you’re breaking my ribs,” Lucas gasped.

  “You are so handsome that you make me go wild,” she said, kissing him repeatedly on his face. “One day we will do it, ja?”

  “What about Hildegard?” Big Jay said, a big grin sparkling across his black face.

  “We will not tell her,” Heidi said, releasing Lucas. “I will cheat, like all men do.” She brushed back her mannishly styled hair.

  “Andreas, this is the famous Heidi. Heidi, this is Major Andreas Vassos. He’s a Greek policeman,” Lucas said.

  She tipped her head back, looking directly at Vassos. “You are from Greece?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Heidi turned serious. “Is it true that Greek men all want to do it in the behind?”

  Vassos smiled self-consciously. “Some do, yes. But it is the same here, no?”

  “Once, many years ago when I still did it with men, I let a man do it to me there. I hurt!”

  Jonn Leone looked at her with his dreamy eyes, licked his mustache, slid his arm around her waist, pulled her close, and said, “I’d be gentle.”

  Breaking away from him, Heidi said, “Men don’t know how.” She caught the attention of the man behind the stick and shouted something in German.

  The bartender came over and slipped six coasters onto the bar in front of the detectives. “Whenever you’re ready, Heidi would like to buy you a round.”

  Big Jay toasted the owner. “A rare treat!”

  Heidi quaffed her Kirschwasser and moved off to greet another couple of regulars. The detectives spent the next forty minutes drinking beer, asking Vassos about the Job in Greece, and taking turns going to the bathroom. Skating his glass through a lagoon of spilled booze, Lucas said to Vassos, “Once we start interviewing the book dealers the investigation will be out in the open.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Vassos said. “Perhaps it’s better that way. Let them know we’re searching for them. Fear is a policeman’s colleague.”

  “Did you know Katina was Greek?” Lucas asked.

  “Katina is a Greek name, but I was surprised when she said she was Professor Levi’s daughter.”

  “How’s your hotel?”

  Vassos shrugged indifference. “A place to sleep, and think.” He looked at the American lieutenant’s unsmiling face. “Hate and I have become friends these past months, Teddy. I know what it looks like, feels like. I saw it on your face when you told me about the Purple Gang and Denny McKay.”

  Lucas looked down into his tall glass and gave a single emphatic nod. “McKay killed a friend of mine.”

  A street lamp beam illuminated the deserted playground. Lucas looked out his living room window. The charcoal sky was full of bruised purple clouds. He turned abruptly and went into the bedroom, peeling off his clothes as he went, throwing himself onto the unmade bed. Linking his hands in back of his head, he stared up at the shadows, listening to the darkness. Vassos had made him think of Cormick McGovern and his hatred for McKay and his crew. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts slip back into the past.

  Patrolman Cormick McGovern had rosy cheeks, a thick neck, and a Derry brogue. When Probationary Patrolman Lucas was in recruit school, department policy required rookies to be sent out into the field for one weekend a month in order to acquire practical experience alongside a seasoned cop.

  Lucas’s first tour in the street was in the Six-
seven, a four to midnight. The rookies, in their starched gray uniforms, stood smartly at attention behind the outgoing shift, called a “platoon”; each one of them anxiously awaited assignment to a field training officer. They were eager to start their march to glory. A silver-haired desk lieutenant called the roll, assigned each member to their posts. He gave them ringing times to call the station house, meal hours, and announced special post conditions.

  After the roll had been called, the lieutenant assigned the rookies. “Probationary Patrolman Lucas.”

  “Here, sir,” snapped the recruit, his enthusiasm evident on his spanking young face.

  “Lucas, you’re assigned with Patrolman McGovern.”

  A ripple of laughter swept through the platoon. “Knock it off,” hissed the desk lieutenant.

  Assignments made, the lieutenant barked, “Sergeant, post the platoon.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, giving him a salute with his nightstick. He executed an about-face, called the platoon to attention, and marched it out of the station house. Once outside on the high stoop, the sergeant ordered, “Take your posts.”

  The platoon broke ranks. Members of the second platoon immediately appeared from doorways and rushed up the precinct steps to get at the sign-out book.

  Seeing all the policemen suddenly appear from nowhere, not waiting on their post relieving points as required, Lucas realized for the first time that the Job wasn’t the way they said it was in the Academy.

  “Lucas? Lucas?”

  He turned to face the humorless stare of Cormick McGovern. “Here, sir.”

  “Come with me, lad,” McGovern said, a mellow smile suddenly lighting up his large face.

  Lucas marched route step beside his field training officer. Up Snyder Avenue, left on Flatbush, past Albemarle Road, past Tilden Avenue, and directly into the grandiose lobby of the Loews Kings movie palace.

  Cormick McGovern strutted past the ticket taker with the regal arrogance of a knight, his subservient squire in tow. Lucas followed his leader up the darkened back staircase to the last row of the balcony.

  “Laddy, this is your post for the remainder of your tour. You’re to stay here and do nothing. I’ll be back to get you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lucas said, feeling his ardor sinking.