“I got nothing to trade. I’ll buy, though, right?”
“Did Sid Meyer know Diana Wood?”
“You think she’s part of Sid’s killing?”
“What do you think?”
“Hell, all I know is I see her around Le Cerf Agile.”
“Who’s the man in the black car?”
“I’ve been wondering. You see him, Fortune?”
Smooth, he answered everything with another question.
“Lawrence Dunlap, maybe?” I said.
“Her boss? You think that’s it?” He appeared to think.
“You do any importing?” I asked. “Some ties with Israel?”
“Me? I’m an American. One hundred percent. You think Sid was maybe killed by Arabs?” He didn’t smile.
“Diana Wood had a box when she got in that black car,” I said. “A Captain Levi Stern tried to break my arm. He’s El Al, a pilot, and maybe something else. Sid Meyer tried to meet a friend of Stern’s who runs a shop that imports native crafts from all over Africa and the Far East. A woman—Mia Morgan.”
Kezar chewed his cigar, watched me.
“Maybe a smuggling setup?” I said. “Mia Morgan deals in Turkey, Asia. Drugs? Heroin?”
Kezar smoked. “Mia Morgan, you say? Heroin? Well, maybe there’s a connection.” He laughed. “Get it? A connection?”
He laughed harder. With the ping-pong games going on behind him, he laughed at me. A real laugh, tears in his eyes. Something very funny. A joke at my expense.
“Should I tell Captain Gazzo to check Sid Meyer out for a drug angle?” I said.
He went on laughing for a time, shook his head. His eyes no longer laughed with his mouth. Contemptuous eyes.
“You and Gazzo,” he said. “I saw. Looks to me like you’re the Captain’s pet. That’s good to know, I’ll file that. But don’t count on Gazzo, Fortune.”
Another warning?
“Why?” I said.
“You don’t know nothing.”
Shaking his head, he got up and walked out. I started after him, and stopped. In the lobby someone else got up and seemed to follow Kezar out of the club. A medium-sized young man in a neat brown suit and hat. I could be wrong, and the man looked like any young lawyer or accountant. But was there a faint bulge under his left arm?
After lunch, Diana Wood’s desk was still untouched. I complained that I’d had an appointment. The receptionist was sorry, Mrs. Wood had called in sick, and, no, Mr. Dunlap never came in on Tuesdays. On my way out I bumped a man coming in. He grabbed for my left arm, nearly fell when there wasn’t any left arm to grab. I caught him. It was Harold Wood, duffel coat and all.
“Sorry,” he said. He blinked at my empty sleeve, went on in.
I went down to the lobby. My watch read only 2 P.M. Too early for Wood to be off work. A late lunch hour? I got my answer soon. Harold Wood came down, looked around, then went out and across the street. He stood there among the passing people in the snow and cold for the next three hours.
Diana Wood didn’t show. At five-fifteen, Harold Wood walked south. I wasn’t far behind. The traffic was back to normal, the clean snow already slush out in the streets, but we walked the same route down to St. Marks Place. He went up, I went to the Ukrainian bar. I had a beer. The lights in 4-B didn’t go on. I drank, watched and waited. The apartment in 145 remained dark. A back way out? Spotted my tailing, and slipped away?
I crossed the street. The inside vestibule door was open. I stepped lightly up the bare tile stairs to 4-B. There was no sound inside the apartment, but there was behind me. Harold Wood had spotted me tailing all right, but he hadn’t slipped away. He stood and stared at my missing arm. It made me easy to remember.
“Who are you?” His voice was soft, but not weak. A direct voice not used to suspicion. More puzzled than wary. I was caught. It was as good a time as any to talk to him.
“Why don’t we talk inside?” I said.
He had serious eyes without much humor. The kind of eyes you see on kids who are going to write the great American novel not for fame or reward but for truth, for us all. Intense.
“Okay,” he said, unlocked his door.
We went into a kitchen. A cheap apartment, but not bohemian. Middle-class—a box partitioned into four boxes: kitchen, living room, two bedrooms. The living room and one bedroom were in front over the street, the second bedroom was an artist’s studio. In the studio he dropped his duffel coat on a cot. There were two easels, racks of canvases, and two battered tables piled with tubes of paint, rags, palettes, knives and cans.
“A commercial artist who paints,” I said. “The old story.”
“A painter who does commercial art,” he said. “An older story. Who the hell are you, mister?”
“Dan Fortune. You know where your wife is, Mr. Wood?”
“Fortune?” His voice and eyes were a question, as if he’d expected someone, but I wasn’t what he had expected. He lit a cigarette. “I know where my wife is. Why?”
“You’re sure?”
“You’re some kind of pervert? Following me? My wife—”
“I’m a private detective.” I showed him my license.
“Detective?” Alarmed or confused, which? “What for?”
“I was hired to investigate your wife.”
“Diana? You’re crazy! Who hired you to investigate Diana?”
“A girl named Mia Morgan.”
His blank stare was real. “I never heard of any Mia Morgan!”
“Levi Stern? An El Al pilot?”
“No!”
“Sid Meyer?” I slipped Meyer in with the same tone of voice.
“No!”
“Irving Kezar?”
His denials had been quick, sure. Now he hesitated. It made his denials seem more honest. He frowned.
“Kezar? I don’t know, maybe. Just a name I’ve maybe heard.”
“Lawrence Dunlap?”
“Sure, he’s Diana’s boss. She’s at a meeting in Philly with him now. Business.”
It was possible. The big, black car had had New Jersey plates the same as Dunlap’s Cadillac. But pick-up at Le Cerf Agile?
“You’re sure of where she is, Wood?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
“Then why were you watching her office building?”
“I wasn’t watching, just waiting in case she got back today.”
“At two P.M.? And why not wait upstairs?”
“I don’t like to hang around,” he said, but he wasn’t used to evading. I saw it on his face. He put out his cigarette. “Look, Diana’s pretty, Dunlap uses her for decoration at his meetings. It happens. Diana’s not tough, men make passes. So I meet her.”
“You trust her, but—?”
He lit another cigarette, picked up a paintbrush, stepped to an unfinished painting on one easel. It was an abstract with a lot of black like Kline or De Kooning. Strong, yet without a center as if he were still working for individuality.
“You’ve been a painter long?” I asked.
“Since Korea.” He went on studying his canvas. “It takes time. I’ve had a lot of jobs.”
“Korea?” Older than he looked, forty. “There long?”
“A year at the end. The hard part.”
“All your jobs in commercial art?”
“Only the last. It’s not good for a painter.”
“Where did you work? Importing? Airlines?”
For the first time he became really wary. He put down his brush. “Odd jobs, mostly. Small-time.”
“Is your wife involved in anything illegal, Wood? If she is, you better tell me. She could be mixed up in a murder.”
He stared at me. “You get out of here!”
He picked up a palette knife. Not much of a weapon, but he had two arms and a wild look, and he wasn’t going to tell me any more tonight. I got out of there.
Did Wood know something, or suspect something? Or just afraid of something? I’d only met each of the Woods once, but as
I walked out into the dark street where the slush had begun to freeze, I recognized the seeds of conflict. A not-so-young man trying to be a pure artist, and a woman-turned-thirty who wanted what the world had to offer. The marriage could be a heavy load on both of them, each might grab at any short cut to what they needed—separately or together. With her looks …
There were people on the early night street, but that didn’t bother the two men who stepped from the narrow alley between two tenements. One took my arm, the other had a long gun. They walked me back to a fence in the dark alley. People passed out on the street, but the two men acted as if we were alone, remote. We were. The two men looked behind them.
A third man stood near the mouth of the alley. Short, he was dapper in a tight black overcoat, pale gray hat, and yellow gloves. I didn’t recognize him, it was too far to see his face, but I saw the gloves. He moved his right hand, a flick, like a man bidding at an auction. The one without the gun hit me in the stomach. I sat down. A silent yellow glove pointed at me from the distance. The one with the gun aimed it at my head. Yellow-gloves flicked another finger.
The gunman swung his gun, shot out a light fifty feet away above a rear door. A good shot, the sound of the silenced gun no more than a sharp spit. The gun pointed back at my head. All in silence, the crowded city passing on the street unaware. The dapper man snapped his fingers. The two gunmen turned, and all three walked out of the alley. Yellow-gloves looked back at me, nodded once, and was gone.
A clear message—stop. Whatever I was doing—stop.
CHAPTER 6
My belly sore, I came out of that alley as cold as I’d ever been. Stop. Sure, but stop what? Asking about Sid Meyer, or something else? Until I knew, I could stop and still make some fatal mistake—walk on the wrong street, talk to the wrong person. Now I had to know what Mia Morgan really wanted.
I took a taxi up to Morgan Crafts. The shop was open, but the apartment above it was dark. In the shop, the same middle-aged lady clerk greeted me. She didn’t know where Mrs. Morgan could be. Captain Levi Stern had called from Kennedy International asking for her, too. I got another taxi.
Across Queens the snow still lay deep and white off the parkway, the lighted windows of the houses sparkling in endless rows. The farther we drove from Manhattan, the cleaner the snow became, and the vast, busy complex of Kennedy glowed bright in the night like some enormous Christmas tree.
At the El Al desk they directed me to the crew lounge. Stern wasn’t there. An older pilot thought Stern was in the hangar. He gave me a pass, told me the way. There are still some innocent people in the world.
The hangar was dark, only, workbench lamps casting small pools of light. I stepped carefully among the giant jets, and saw Stern under a bench lamp. He had a suitcase, and looked at his watch. A very tall, thin specter like some silent hawk. When he heard me, his gaunt-ugly face looked up as if he expected someone. The deep-set blue eyes had not expected me.
“Waiting for someone?” I asked. “Mrs. Morgan?”
“She comes sometimes to meet me,” he said.
“You let her go around alone? All the men after her?”
“For that I am sorry.” His thin mouth was apologetic. “Mia was difficult, evasive, would tell me nothing about you. I have a temper, sometimes I lose control. I apologize, yes?”
As calm now as he had been violent earlier. A hair trigger inside. Too much pain in Germany, struggle in Israel.
I leaned on the bench. “She didn’t say why she hired me?”
“Only that it was a private matter.”
“If it was business, she’d have told you? Partners?”
“Partners?” He shook his head. “Sometimes I bring her some small craft object, but I have little interest in such merchandise. A pastime for bored nations.”
“Maybe you’re interested in other merchandise?”
When I said it, I sensed the dark hangar all around me. He only frowned, implying that he didn’t follow my reasoning.
“You’re a pilot, Mrs. Morgan travels,” I said. “Turkey, the Far East. She’s young to own a shop. There’s a lot of money in—”
“Drugs! You suggest that I—!”
That trigger tripped inside him. I saw the tattooed numbers on his arm as he reached toward me. This time I was ready. I grabbed a long steel rod from the workbench. His eyes flickered at the rod. He stopped, took a breath.
“You think I would deal in such filth? We, in Israel? After such pain to survive? All we have endured?”
“Mia Morgan’s not an Israeli.”
“She would never touch such dirt! That I know!”
“You’re sure? How?”
“I know, that is all!”
His words denied, but his voice shook, and his eyes darted for an opening to attack. Habit? Or was I a real threat, and how long could I hold him in check?
“What’s Diana Wood to you, Stern?” I said.
“Who?” He blinked, shook his head, refused to be distracted. Denying that he knew any Diana Wood, or cared to know about her.
I backed away slowly.
“Okay,” I said, “give Mrs. Morgan a message. Tell her, I was warned off by men with guns and muscles. Tell her I want to know exactly why she hired me, or I’m going to walk away.”
Stern was a man trained in danger, and he knew how to hide his reactions. He showed little now, but there was a change. His eyes stopped moving, and his hands dropped to his sides.
“Men?” he said.
“Three men. One with yellow gloves. Tell her to call me.”
I backed some more, but he remained unmoving at the bench. I turned and walked out. I tried hard not to run until I was outside. Then I ran. Fifty yards to the next hangar, and looked back. He wasn’t after me. I settled to watch. One way or another, for some reason, I’d shaken Stern.
He came out of the hangar, paced in the dark and cold for almost an hour. Then a pale orange sports car drove up. Stern got in—with his suitcase. The car sat there, as if Stern and the driver were talking, before it ground gears and screeched away toward the roadway and New York.
It took me half an hour to get a taxi, and when I finally reached the city, I went to my office. I sat waiting for the call that didn’t come. I lay down on my couch, watched the phone.
Sun filtered down my air shaft when I jerked awake. The phone stood silent. I felt rotten. I need my waiting coffee, and there was no coffee in the cold office, so I had a cigarette.
I didn’t want to go out until Mia Morgan called. I didn’t want to walk the streets wondering what I’d been warned to stop. But I had to have coffee. So I got up, stiff in every bone, and the telephone rang. I grabbed it.
“You want to talk to me?” Mia Morgan’s voice said.
“I want to know why you’re after Diana Wood.”
“I’m not,” she said. “You can stop.”
“No,” I said. “Why was I warned? What did Sid Meyer—?”
“You’ve been paid.” She hung up.
I should have been angry, the determined detective. I was relieved. I liked Diana Wood. The police could solve Sid Meyer’s murder. I was fired. I hoped that yellow-gloves got the word.
I went down among the people on the sunny street. Even the slush looked good. But everyone seemed to be watching me, and I saw movement in hidden doorways. My nerves were jumping.
I had two eggs with my coffee, and began to feel peaceful. I had most of Mia Morgan’s thousand, maybe I’d take a vacation—after I told Gazzo about yellow-gloves. I left the diner, and my peace took a dive. Someone in a gray herringbone tweed coat jumped into a store when I appeared. Or was it just my nerves?
I walked past my office and on toward the river. There were too many people to be sure he was following me. If he was, he was only one. I walked to a pier, and out to the end. I looked at the black river with its ice floes, and across to the walls of New Jersey. I sensed him behind me, turned.
The gray herringbone coat had fooled me. Hands in his pock
ets, he walked toward me, and I recognized the boyish face: Harold Wood. At the end of the pier, he looked down at the river.
“Have you seen her?” he said. “Diana, I mean?”
“No,” I said.
“She hasn’t come home. Can I hire you?”
“To do what?”
“I lied to you last night. I’m not sure where she is, or what she’s doing.”
“She’s not in Philadelphia on business with Dunlap?”
“Maybe she is.” He sat on a low piling. “Dunlap likes his PR assistant with him, but we both know she’s decoration. We laugh about it. She’s done it before—meetings, parties, dinners. Tuesday and yesterday she called me from Philly, the conference was still going. She said she was in Philly, anyway. Maybe she is with Dunlap, and maybe it is just business.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“I guess I’ve known something was wrong for months.” His voice was miserable. “I’ve never done this before. Suspicious, a detective. I guess you see it happen all the time.”
Miserable over her, Diana, and over me. Sure he was right, and miserable over what she was doing to him. Sure he was wrong, and miserable for suspecting her.
“All the time,” I said, cynical. I softened it. “But I get all the bad side.”
“It must be discouraging for you.”
What do you say to that? In my trade you get used to the bums and shysters, the cheats and hustlers, the greedy and the cruel. But I never get used to the nice ones. They try to smile, and look around as if wondering what they’re doing talking to me. It can’t be happening, some mistake.
“I can pay, I think,” he said. “I just have to know.”
If Mia Morgan hadn’t fired me, I could have said I had a client. But maybe it was better for him to know. Knowledge is supposed to make you free. Sometimes I think it only makes you know that no one is free, part of a capricious, arbitrary world. Victims of the way the ball bounces, no one’s fault, like Marty and me. Then, maybe to know that, accept it, is freedom.
“I get twenty-five a day,” I said. So much for cynicism.
He nodded, not even aware of the cut rate. “It’s not so much her. I won’t stand in her way. It’s me, sort of my dream. My woman, you know? In Korea, behind the lines and scared of anything that even moved, I used to keep going by imagining coming home to a woman like Diana, built a whole life on that. I didn’t find her so easy. Most women use you, just like the big shots do.”
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