Dash was rapidly absorbing the information as he pulled on his trousers and white shirt. Mother Müller had intimated last night that Karl had been arrested in a raid. The urgency, the late-night visits, it’s just like when Karl . . . And that raid costed Walter his career.
Joe said, “I wonder who called in the tip?”
Finn shrugged. “Maybe it was young Karl, trying to get back at his older brother. If my sibling made his money by prosecuting my kind, I’d do the same thing.”
Dash shook his head as he put on a royal blue tie around his neck. “Karl wasn’t spiteful. I can’t see him doing that.” A thought worked its way into his brain as he finished the knot. “But I think I know who might be . . .”
Dash swung by Paul Avery’s building at Waverly and Christopher. The Averys didn’t answer their buzzer, and Marjorie Norton swore she hadn’t seen them that morning, though she did hear them last night.
Good, they haven’t fled the city yet.
Since by now, it was almost 2:00, it seemed pointless to open the tailor shop, which was fine by Dash. He needed to find a suit for Nicholas Fife. The gangster had to have known that Dash was not skilled in this regard, yet he still demanded a new suit anyway.
Power, Dash thought. It’s all about power with him. He’ll enjoy watching me run around the city trying to find a solution.
Sadly, Dash’s search that day was unsuccessful. Many of the other tailors he approached with his odd request of selling him a suit for alterations looked at him bewildered. Why, they wondered, would he want to essentially plagiarize his work? Didn’t he have a reputation to protect?
By 5:00, he declared defeat.
He returned to Paul Avery’s apartment on Waverly and Christopher. Still no answer to the buzzer. Dammit.
Dash stepped back and counted the windows to the front right corner, the one he guessed to be the Avery’s apartment based on its interior location when he and Joe “returned” Mrs. Avery’s keys. The lights were out and the curtains drawn.
He positioned himself in the doorway of another building next door. He watched for two hours to see if his quarry would stumble home like Marjorie said they often did. So far, he saw nothing out of the ordinary on the sunset streets of Christopher. Couples walking briskly. Several dog walkers letting their mutts out for a folic. Men hailing cabs to head uptown.
As night descended upon the city, the walkers turned into staggerers, the cheap alcohol working fast and swaying men about. One man sang opera at the top of his lungs, his verve much greater than his talent. Surveillance, or “stakeouts,” as the pulps called them, required the virtue Finn claimed Dash lacked, and his friend was right. Dash felt simultaneously bored and itchy with energy. It was when he paced the opposite sidewalk for a bit to stretch his legs that he noticed a narrow alleyway, not more than three feet wide at the opening, running beside Paul Avery’s building.
A memory sparked.
Marjorie Norton, Miss Eavesdropper Extraordinaire, had said she’d spoken to Paul’s wife while she was smoking cigarettes on the fire escape. He looked around to see if anyone was paying him any attention. Everyone was moving too fast to care. He slowly stepped into the alleyway. Night had painted deep shadows into every corner and crevice.
On the sides, the building had black iron fire escapes laddering up to the top floor. Dash flicked his lighter to provide some light in the dusky darkness and scanned the ground. Sure enough, on the gravel below were hundreds of cigarette butts. The city cleaning service, which gave cursory glances to the main streets themselves on a good day, flat-out ignored the alleyways. It was one of the (many) reasons summer smelled so awful.
Dash kneeled on the ground examining the butts, holding them up to his flame. More than a few were rimmed with red or pink lipstick. He closed the lighter and glanced upwards. The building was designed with four windows on this wall for each floor. The first window from the front of the building caught his eye. On the ledge of the fire escape was an ashtray.
“Gotcha,” Dash muttered.
Hunkered down in between the metal trash cans, Dash ignored the flies buzzing around his head and the stench offending his nostrils. He itched for a cigarette but resisted the impulse. Instead, he settled in, knowing it could potentially be a long night. It reminded him of the hide-and-seek games he’d play with his older brother Max. Max and Dash, what a pair. Dash would find the most improbable hiding spaces: kitchen cabinets, bottom desk drawers, once even the dumbwaiter. He could barely contain the excitement tickling his chest, and it took everything he had not to pop out of his hiding space. The memories were trapped in amber, a warm glow always surrounding them. They were the last memories of his brother playing with him. Sometime later, Max decided he was too old to play such childish games. When they were both young men, Max still remained aloof. Perhaps he always knew Dash’s secret and the disruption it would cause. Better to be distant than to endure substantial heartbreak. It was certainly a lesson Dash learned later.
An hour into his vigil, he heard the crunch of gravel underfoot. His senses heightened. This was unexpected. He anticipated the lights of the Avery apartment coming on once they entered in the usual way, and Dash would simply wait by the front door when they left. Now someone was coming down the alleyway. He willed his breathing still. More gravel crunching. Then a darkened figure entered Dash’s line of sight. The features were hidden in shadow. A man, judging by the suit. Or could it be Pru?
The figure’s gaze went right over Dash. It turned and leapt upwards and grasped the fire escape ladder. It climbed upwards to the second floor and then walked to the window of 2A. Dash heard, rather than saw, the figure slide the window upwards and step into the apartment.
Dash waited. What should he do now? Was this one of the Averys, as he suspected? A random burglar? Or someone else involved in the Müller melodrama?
He stayed put, tuning his ears and concentrating on what was happening nearby rather than the ambient noise of the city at night. Through the opened window of 2A, he thought he heard the clattering of shoes on the floorboards, doors and drawers being opened and shut, and the rustling of someone rushing about. Whomever was in there was moving fast.
The slide of the window again and shoes on the fire escape. There was a click and a loud clang! The fire escape ladder had been released and dropped to the ground. The figure muttered, “Damn!”
A pause.
Then the tink tink tink of someone climbing down.
Gravel crunched again, but instead of footsteps moving off, there was silence.
Have I been seen?
Dash held his breath again. The silence stretched for so long, Dash wondered if the figure was still even there. He fought the impulse to peek around the garbage cans.
A snick of a lighter. Cigarette smoke soon floated into Dash’s line of vision. Ah, the person had paused for a smoke.
Now is our chance.
Dash abruptly stood up, startling the darkened figure, who said, “Shit!” Her cigarette fell out of her hand, the glowing orange end smoldering on the ground.
The figure was less than three feet away from him. A woman. Dash flicked his own lighter so he could get a better view. His quarry was dressed in a sleeveless dress that was olive in color, silk in nature. A matching stole decorated her right shoulder, and a butterfly beret was clipped to her short, black hair. She was stunning. She was also frightened.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Dash said. “But I’m afraid we need to talk, Mrs. Avery.” He stepped closer. “Or should I say, Mr. Paul Avery?”
24
A sharp intake of breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman replied, the voice pitched high.
Dash had exhausted all of his patience waiting for her. He closed his lighter, extinguishing the flame. “Yes, you do. We don’t have time for this. Walter Müller is hot on your trail and it’s only a matter of time before he finds you.”
“The man’s a brute but thick as a post. He won’t find u
s.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate him, Paul.”
“I prefer Paula, if it’s all the same to you.” A curious look. “How’d you figure out there was only one Avery, not two?”
“Marjorie’s eyesight isn’t that sharp. I figured you talked in two different voices. In the absent of a clear picture, her ears filled in the rest.”
“Hmm, clever.”
Paula then rummaged around in her bag. Dash panicked, wondering if she was reaching for the gun she had at the Shelton. Instead, she came up with a brass tin, extracting a cigarette from it, and a brass lighter. She hastily lit another cigarette, a line of smoke escaping her lips as she sighed.
“Well,” she said. “What happens now?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me. What’s going on, Paula? Pru’s being all cagey, and you’ve been impossible to get a hold of. What are the two of you afraid of?”
“The same thing you’re afraid of. Walter-fucking-Müller.”
“Why? What is the case you and Pru are working on?”
“How do you know it’s about a case?”
“Come on, Paula, give me some credit! I know you, Tyler Smith, Karl Müller, and Prudence Meyers all met at the Hot Cha. You talked earnestly, according to my source.”
“Where did you hear that bunk?”
“Zora Mae. The Baroness of Business herself. She’s the one who gave me your address.”
Paula eyed Dash uneasily. “Did she now?”
“The Baroness was very observant. She said that Pru, a lawyer, let’s not forget, convinced Tyler to do something the night before Walter showed up at my club and made his mark on my face. Next thing we know, Karl’s dead and so is Tyler.”
“A series of unfortunate events. Just like what happened to your face.” She gestured towards him with her cigarette. “Did you know Walter Müller before he did that to you?”
“No.”
“See? You randomly got caught up in his orbit but there’s no previous connection. Karl just happened to be Walter’s brother. Tyler just happened to be a former lover. Tyler just happened to be friends with Pru and I. They had nothing to do with what we were working on. End of story.”
“I don’t believe you.”
A bark of laughter. “Well, dearie, then I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“You can tell me why you and Pru and Karl were waiting for Tyler that night in my club. You were the one in the blue and gold dress, were you not?”
Paula considered denying it but thought better of it. “It’s a stunning little number, isn’t it? Certainly caught your eye.”
She thought while she inhaled another puff.
Her smoke-filled reply was, “We were going to wish Tyler bon voyage. He was moving to Paris.”
That matched what Emmett had read in the news reports of Tyler’s murder. But it didn’t match what Dash already confirmed with Pru.
He said as much to Paula, who said, “Jesus, what don’t you know?”
“The story with Walter. That’s the piece I’m missing.”
They stared at one another for a moment.
Paula took another drag of her cigarette. “You won’t stop until you find out, will you?”
Dash shook his head.
An exasperated, smoke-filled sigh. “Alright. A few months ago, Karl confessed something to Tyler and Tyler came to me. At first, I thought he was joking. Then I thought he was drunk. But he managed to convince me.”
“Convinced you of what?”
Paula paused to squash out the finished cigarette and light a new one. As she went through the ritual again, she said, cigarette bobbing in her mouth, “Do you know how Walter makes his money?”
“I know it’s not from the Committee of Fourteen.”
A smirk. The snick of the lighter and the inhale of smoke. “You have been busy. Good, we can go straight to the good stuff. Walter is a professional blackmailer.”
Dash stared at her. “You mean, Walter was extorting money from other people?”
“He blackmailed you. Why wouldn’t he do the same for others?”
“But who?”
She gestured with the lit cigarette in hand. “Us, dearie. Pansies. Bulldaggers. And everyone in between.”
Dash paused. The pieces started to fit together. Karl saw what was going on, and Dash could only imagine the pain it caused. Even though Walter rejected Karl’s true self, there’s still something unnecessarily cruel about one’s own brother persecuting men and women like him.
Cruelty is in our nature more than kindness, I’m afraid, Karl had said that night at the Oyster House.
“No wonder he wanted to leave,” Dash said, then rubbed his forehead. “Poor Karl.”
“Poor Karl? Poor Karl?” Paula’s voice turned mean and vicious. “How do you think Walter found the people to blackmail in the first place?! He’d have Karl go to an underground club, get to know a few targets. Rich targets. Then Walter would have the club raided and everyone arrested. After the raid, he’d send a letter, demanding money or else.”
Dash watched Paula. “Is that the truth?”
She relished ruining Dash’s memory of Karl. “Oh yes. Everyone thought Karl was such an innocent. So kind-hearted, so naive. Ha! The boy was a spider, just like his bluenose brother. Worming his way into Tyler’s life like he did. It was clear as day he just wanted Tyler’s money and influence. You saw that wristwatch Karl just had to show off? A gift from Tyler, the fool, who had it engraved with that, that spider’s initials.” She shook her head. “The fool. In love with a traitor.”
Dash tired of Paula’s character assassination of Karl. He said, “And this is the case Pru is working on? Walter’s blackmail?”
“It’s quite extensive. His list of victims I would daresay is over a mile long.”
Dash leveled his gaze at Paula. “Were you one of them?”
She scoffed.
“What about Tyler?”
“That’s a ridiculous question.”
“Did you kill Karl?” Dash demanded again. “You obviously loathed the kid. He took away your best friend, he betrayed your kind. Seems like a perfect motive to me.”
A satisfied smirk. “It’s a good theory, except I was with Prudence Meyers all evening. After we left your club because of Walter’s sudden appearance. You can ask her, if you like.”
“Oh, I will.” Dash looked off to the side. He didn’t like this development, and Paula knew it. “Did you call the Committee of Fourteen and report that their finance maestro had a homosexual brother?”
“Why on earth would I do that?”
Dash just looked at Paula.
She smirked. “Sure, I did it. Why not? The man had it coming.”
“Was that before or after Tyler came to you with Walter’s blackmail scheme?”
Paula didn’t answer.
Dash answered for him. “It was before, wasn’t it?”
“How do you figure?”
“Because Walter’s blackmail scheme was his new way of income. You effectively ruined his career. New York’s a small town at its core, so word would have gotten around about his brother.” Dash paused. “In effect, one could say it was you who caused the blackmails. Without your little stunt—which, let’s both be honest, was to get back at Karl, not Walter, who would certainly punish his brother—Walter never would’ve come up with such an idea.”
“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Blaming me? For what the goddamn Müllers did? Ha! That’s rich as all get out.” Paula adjusted her handbag over her shoulder. “Now. You have wasted enough of my time, and I am quite late to an engagement.”
She started to turn away.
Dash asked, “How did you lose your keys?”
She stopped. “My what?”
“Your keys,” Dash said. “Marjorie said the night Karl died, you didn’t have your keys and she had to let you in.”
Paula replied with gnashed teeth, “Why that little busybody—”
“Where are they, P
aula?”
“Oh, for goodness sakes. I lost my keys running out of your club when Walter Müller came barging in.”
Dash watched her face. “Is that the truth?”
“Why are you looking at me? I’m not the dangerous one.” Her voice turned shrewd. “You want to know who’s dangerous? I’d look to the Baroness. Miss Zora Mae? Don’t you find it strange she knew us so well? Even to the point of my address?”
The question was so obvious, Dash was startled by it. “Yes. At the time, it didn’t seem odd but . . .”
He didn’t finish the thought, which was I was so desperate to get out from under Walter I took it at face value.
Paula seemed to read Dash’s mind and smirked once again. “She knew us because we spoke with her. You see, she was a victim too. Or rather her little moll, Sonya Sanders. She was arrested in one of Walter’s little raids. Imagine what a woman like Zora Mae would do once she found out the little boy who was handing out her rent party cards got her girlfriend locked behind bars.”
Dash returned to Pinstripes, pulse racing. Zora Mae was more than just a passing observer of the Müller drama. She was a key player. He thought back to how she had toyed with him, teased him, and ultimately extracted a promise from him. Expertly done. He never considered she was involved.
When there was a break in the crowd, Dash told Joe and Finn about the Müller’s blackmail scheme.
Finn gasped. “That is despicable. Utterly vile.”
“Aye,” Joe said, “we knew Walter was bad. But Karl?” He looked at Dash. “I’m sorry, lassie. I know ya took a likin’ to him.”
Dash shook his head. “I’m not so sure he was a willing accomplice. Look at us. We’re doing Walter’s bidding, to a point, and we’re not in cahoots with him. I got the sense Paula was trying too hard to make Karl the villain. I think in actuality Karl was forced into it.”
“Explains why he wanted to leave,” muttered Finn.
“Exactly. And why he wanted a new name. He wanted to get out of that hell, to start over, to get clean of it, to begin anew. Only . . .” Dash sighed, surprised at the sudden pain that pierced his chest. “. . . only he never got the chance.”
The Double Vice: The 1st Hidden Gotham Novel Page 22