A lot of the people from those days were dead. And today one of the dead ones had turned up alive and that was what he should be thinking about now, not a dead English singer. He was enjoying the cigar and the Rob Roy and Cindy wasn’t up there anymore when he took another look. Will Eldridge and His Band were playing “Georgia on My Mind” and “Cabin in the Sky” and “Dancing in the Dark.” It was a good black band and Will himself, who must have been seventy and was the son of slaves, could do more than front. He could step up there with his clarinet and still give Artie Shaw a run for his money if he were in the mood. Almost every man in the room was wearing a tuxedo, except for the guys in uniform still and there were a lot of those. The women were splendid in sleek low-cut dresses, lots of diamonds and pearls and ivory shoulders and satin-smooth backs, as they swayed and clung to the music.
Terry Leary had always looked a little too slick to be a cop, even when he’d been Gotham’s darling, the most highly publicized homicide dick. Even then he’d looked more like one of the robbers than a cop. On the other hand he was perfectly cast as a nightclub owner. George Raft liked to hang out at Heliotrope and he was always trying to con Terry Leary into revealing the name of the tailor who did his evening clothes. Terry Leary would just stand there flipping a quarter until Raft couldn’t keep a straight face. Sometimes Terry Leary said his tailor only ran up threads for real tough guys, not movie stiffs, and sometimes Raft’s face went a little white and his smile got pretty tight. Leary’s dark blond hair was slicked back and shone like the handle on your hairbrush. His tan was as even and creamy as your favorite starlet’s. He was nursing his drink that he could make last all evening and enjoying his Havana and listening while Cassidy told him what had happened that afternoon with Sam MacMurdo and Rolf Moller and Karin. While he listened his eyes ceaselessly roved across his domain, registering who was in the night’s catch, who was with whom, what was going on in his joint and what it meant especially if it meant trouble. Every so often he’d catch Cassidy’s eye and grin. There was a secret language between them, some kind of sixth sense they had for each other. They went back a long way, the football hero and the cop, and they’d very nearly died for one another more than once.
The third man at the table, drinking the Dickens martini, looked vaguely uncomfortable in his tuxedo, as if he’d considered it objectively and concluded that deep down in his soul it was a betrayal of his code. It was also a little snug across the thighs and shoulders. He was by many years the oldest of the three, maybe sixty. His face was heavy and impassive, his eyes were shiny and alive and cold, like anthracite, long vertical lines that might have been carved deep in stone framed his mouth, and his dewlaps looked heavy as concrete. Somebody once said he looked like he was halfway to being a statue already and he’d replied, just loud enough to be heard, that the first bird who shit on him had better move fast. He wore a wing collar and a pale gray carnation that just about matched his hair, which was cut short and combed flat with water and sometimes Wave Set and a couple of stray strands stuck up in back no matter how much Wave Set he used. He’d once been a New York cop who thought Terry Leary was too crooked to live. But times changed and so had his mind. He came to revise his opinion the night Terry Leary put enough slugs into Max Bauman to render him unfit for a dog’s breakfast. That night had been a kind of crucible of blood, with Max and Bennie the Brute and Cookie Candioli and Frank Erickson all going down for the last time. Out of that crucible Cassidy and Leary and he had come bonded together in a way that maybe only killing the bad guys can do. They hadn’t made it to the war but by God they’d laid some very bad men in their graves.
He looked like everybody’s Dutch uncle and sometimes people called him “Dutch.” Under the table, when you ran out of trouser leg, you’d see that he still wore heavy black lace-up ankle-highs and white socks because there were some things a man just couldn’t change. His name was Harry Madrid and a long time ago he’d learned a thing or two from Bat Masterson. He ran Dependable Detective for Leary and Cassidy as a full partner. Terry Leary had also made Cassidy a partner in Heliotrope but hardly anyone knew that. Walter Winchell had once written in his column that they were three rogues who could only have gotten together in New York, in the lights of Broadway.
“Did you see anything in her face?” Leary had known Karin, had helped arrange Goebbels’s flowers at the church up in Lake Placid. “Did she know you? At all?”
Cassidy shook his head, explained the amnesia.
“Might come back, might not.” Leary frowned. “That’s mighty helpful. So,” he let out a lengthy sigh, “how do you read this MacMurdo?”
“He’s used to giving orders.”
“Ha! Big deal! Does anybody pay attention?”
“I’d say so—”
Harry Madrid said, “You mean he ain’t asking us to risk life and effing limb to find Manfred Moller and his fancy thingamajig?”
“He expects us to help,” Cassidy said.
“He knows how to construct an argument,” Leary said. “He starts with twenty grand. I respect this man.”
Cassidy said, “He’s smart. He’s put a whole lot of pieces together to get this far. And he can’t stand the idea of this guy getting away. He’s got the guts of a burglar, he had to be damn cool to go into Berlin like he did—”
“Even cooler to get out.” That was Madrid.
“He seems to know everybody from Truman,” Cassidy said, “to Wild Bill Donovan. And I figure he’s lucky. Lucky to be alive, lucky to find out about this Göring escape route, lucky to recognize Karin, lucky to connect her with us … lucky and smart.”
Leary nodded. “I’m not so sure he’s all that smart. Looks to me like he’s invested twenty grand in a lot of empty blue sky. Unless he knows Manfred Moller is alive— What do you say, Harry?”
“Sounds to me like he’s too big for his britches. He’s only got the one angle to play with us. The woman.”
“And the money,” Leary said.
“Money’s not an angle. It’s a given. The woman’s the angle, the sharp edge of the wedge.” Madrid cocked an eye at Cassidy. He’d never met Karin. “She is the woman you married? She’s not a ringer?”
“Jesus, Harry, what a question,” Cassidy said.
“Look, son, no disrespect intended. But I’ve lived a long time and seen a lot of shit come down—and you haven’t seen her in six years. Long time. She doesn’t remember you, she doesn’t recognize you. … Is she the same woman? It’s an innocent question, sonny. And more important than anything but breathing. We don’t know these people.” Harry Madrid finished the martini and fixed Cassidy with a baleful stare.
“She’s the same woman.” He sounded surer than he felt. “I mean, she’s changed in some ways, sure, she’s been bombed to pieces, damn near killed, had a brain operation, lost her memory, got married to a man she’s worried as hell about—yes, she’s changed. She was the Queen of the May once; she isn’t anymore. But it’s Karin.”
“Of course it is.” Leary looked over at Harry. “He’d know in his gut, Harry. Don’t be so cynical.”
“Just asking, son. Just a thought. Somebody’s got to be a real pro in this half-baked operation. When you’re my age you sometimes aren’t as trusting as you once were.” He flicked a finger at Charlie, who nodded. “Dickens,” Madrid said.
“He’s got another angle,” Cassidy said. “But you’re not going to be impressed. He says he’s giving us the chance to get a piece of World War Two. We can be patriots, we can do our bit.”
Harry Madrid blinked his heavy-lidded, glittering eyes. They were always expressionless, as if they were Harry Madrid’s antennae, uninvolved and feeling out the situation, getting word back to Harry. “You’re right, son. I’m not impressed.” Charlie arrived with another martini. Madrid might as well have been pouring them in his shoe for all the difference they made.
“What do you think, Lew?” Leary was smiling.
“I guess I’ll see what I can turn up. Give it a lit
tle time.”
“We can’t let this lad loose on his own, Harry.”
“True. He might do himself an injury.”
“Well, then,” Leary said. “What’s our opening gambit, Lew?”
“I figure if I want to know about Nazis, Walter’s the guy to go to.”
Harry Madrid grunted in agreement. He slid his chair back and went through the arch under the exit sign. He was heading for the John.
“How was it, seeing her again?”
“Just about lost my lunch. So damned nervous. And they were feeding me all this information and all I wanted to do was look at her, think about her. You know.”
“Do you want her back?”
The question lay between them like a ticking bomb because in the end it was all that mattered. The layers of meaning were waiting to be peeled away. The point was, they weren’t in it yet. They could give the money back, take a hike. Cassidy could tell MacMurdo that the woman was no longer his Karin, that he figured he’d leave her to her new life. Cassidy could say that it was just none of his business, not anymore. They could say to hell with this phantom Nazi, they could tell MacMurdo to get lost.
The band was playing Gershwin and the customers were dancing and Lew Cassidy was looking past them into the clouds of memory, trying to sort through his emotions, trying to locate the moments in the past that had become indistinct, like blurred outlines on an old treasure map. Where was the damned treasure buried? Where was Karin’s memory? Could he ever find it again? He looked back at Terry Leary.
“I’m damned if I know,” Cassidy said at last.
Leary nodded.
The three of them came out of Heliotrope just as dawn was coming up over the Atlantic, over Long Island, the first fingers of sunlight reflected in the wet streets. The rain had stopped and the puddles glistened like fool’s gold. The awnings still dripped and the doormen were long gone. The morning was crisp and clear. Steam drifted up from the manholes and somewhere trashcans were clattering and banging as haulers emptied them. From the Onyx down the street you could hear somebody still blowing a saxophone as if in mourning for the night just past. The doors of the clubs stood open and old black men were whistling while they swept the sidewalks.
Harry Madrid carefully placed his black snapbrim squarely on his big head. He yawned. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, breathing deeply, “I’m going to ring a friend of mine up Portland way. Old cop. Ask a question or two about any mysterious aeroplanes. Got to start somewhere, unless they changed the rules while Harry Madrid was out for a piss.” He frowned grumpily. “I’m too old for these long nights. Still, not a shot was fired, for which we must always be thankful.” An old cop’s benediction.
“Sleep tight, Harry,” Cassidy said.
“Night, Harry.” Leary clapped Harry Madrid’s shoulder.
They watched him go, a bulky, dignified old gent with a rolling, listing walk, heading for home. As he went he touched the brim of his hat to a cop on the beat near the corner of Fifth Avenue.
Terry Leary stroked a knuckle along his thin mustache. “I wonder where Manfred Moller slept tonight, Moller and his minotaur and his bag of money … Does he dream of the good old days in Berlin with Göring and the boys? Does he think about the escape route Göring’s never going to use? Or does he dream of Karin—and wonder where she is? Is he afraid he’ll never see her again?”
Lew Cassidy was watching a garbage truck coming down the street like a tank.
“Hell,” he said, “he’s dead as a doornail. You know that as well as I do.”
“Well, in that case,” Leary said, “we’ll go through the motions, take a look around, spend some of MacMurdo’s money.” He shrugged. “A fool and his money, after all. But listen to me, amigo. This thing isn’t about Manfred Moller. It’s about you and Karin. MacMurdo’s pissing in the wind. He’s the world’s biggest Boy Scout and he just doesn’t want his war to end. Guys like MacMurdo, they’re lost without a war. … No, whatever this is about for Sam MacMurdo, for you—for the three of us—it’s really all about you and Karin.”
As he often did after long nights at Heliotrope, no matter how tired he was and he’d never been a hell of a lot tireder, Cassidy turned right and walked all the way down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square where he lived. It gave him a long time to think.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN SHERMAN BILLINGSLEY MET HIM just inside the door at the Stork Club, Cassidy was immediately reminded of Terry Leary’s observation that while Billingsley might be New York’s most famous club owner he still looked like an undercooked bowl of day-old oatmeal and had a personality to match. Sherm shook Cassidy’s hand with no great enthusiasm and mumbled something in his customary word-swallowing manner. “How’s that, Sherm?” Cassidy inquired. Outside, the night’s eleven o’clock crowd of would-be Stork Clubbers waited. Very few of them would ever gain entrance to the hallowed halls on Fifty-second Street off Fifth where, as Leary remarked on another occasion, “the world’s most boring man is treated as if he’s fascinating.” Cassidy didn’t think Sherm was all that bad. Just dull. Terry liked to plug the rivalry because he figured it was good for business. A feud.
Billingsley repeated himself from the corner of his mouth and Cassidy figured the hell with it.
“I said Walter’s expecting you,” Billingsley finally said sufficiently distinctly. “You know the way. How’s your smartass partner?”
“Why, he’s all right, Sherm. I’ll tell him you asked.” There was a lot of rhumba music going on, which reminded Cassidy of the night Walter, who was a damn fine dancer dating all the way back to his days in vaudeville, had tried and failed to teach him that particular step. Cassidy wasn’t much on the dance floor, particularly since the Giants had torn his leg up that long-ago afternoon at the Polo Grounds. Walter had contended that his failure to learn was no fault of the teacher’s, which was basically true.
“Don’t bother,” Billingsley muttered and turned away to shake hands with Doug Fairbanks, who was wearing enough medals to sink a lesser man.
Cassidy went to the Cub Room. At table 50 in the left-hand corner was the great man himself. The fact was simply that Walter Winchell dominated both newspapers and radio as no one else ever had. His column was carried in a thousand newspapers and his weekly broadcast was always in the upper reaches of the Top Ten. His audience, according to the people who measured such things, was over fifty million. He was the highest-salaried man in America that year, maybe in the world; he made a million dollars a year. There were those who also said he was the most powerful single individual in the country and, when it came to molding public opinion, Cassidy supposed he was. He could be a league-leading shitheel, of course, but he also had some pretty good instincts. He’d have laid down his life for Franklin Roosevelt. Arnold Foster, who had been an important force behind the Anti-Defamation League, once said in a group where Cassidy found himself: “Winchell has done more to light up the dark corners of bigotry in the United States than any other individual. He is read, heard, and admired by millions. His readers and listeners believe him. If he says bigotry is wrong, then it is automatically wrong. He is Mr. America.” Arnold Foster was the kind of man who could say things like that quite unself-consciously and the speech was in Cassidy’s mind as he stood watching Winchell at table 50—holding court, hearing the inside stories, collecting bits of paper from his legmen, making eyes at a starlet, winking knowingly to a famous senator, scribbling bits of information and quotes on the back of a proof of the day’s column as was his habit. While Cassidy watched, Elliot Roosevelt loomed out of the crowd and slid in beside Winchell, leaned over and behind a cupped hand whispered something to him. Slowly a smile broke across Winchell’s features, like a dog getting his teeth well and truly into the postman’s ankle. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a white shirt, a white handkerchief in his breast pocket, and a latticework tie of blue and cream. He was drinking a glass of milk. He was just shy of fifty and his hair had been white for a long time. His cheeks were pi
nk. Like a lot of men who were good dancers, he was short and compact. You had to admit he kept his tan in good shape.
That was how he and Terry Leary had come to know each other, by getting their tans at the Terminal Barbershop. Winchell had later convinced Terry that the Dawn Patrol Barbershop was the place to go and Terry had switched allegiance from the Terminal and the Hotel Taft’s shop. Winchell had also been quick to pick up on Terry as the celebrity homicide dick, particularly at the time of the Sylvester Aubrey Bean case. He’d met Cassidy quite separately as the football hero who went to Germany and wound up marrying Hitler’s favorite ice skater. One column painted Cassidy as the man who stole Karin Richter from under the Führer’s nose, which was all a lot of malarkey but it made good copy, in a cheap kind of way. When Cassidy had been badly injured on December 7, 1941, in a football game at the Polo Grounds, Winchell had used the incident in his column in some vaguely symbolic way, along the lines of “the boys’ games are over, the Big Game is just beginning and with God and FDR on our side, we’ll see it through to the final victory.”
Friendship with Leary and Cassidy had not, however, lured Winchell away from the Stork’s Cub Room. He and Billingsley were chums, and besides, he had hated Max Bauman, the original owner of Heliotrope. Winchell figured Bauman for a bad actor and in the end had been right. When it came to robbers and cops, Winchell’s favorites were Frank Costello and J. Edgar Hoover. They made an interesting trio. Winchell and Costello had become friends primarily because they were neighbors, both living at the Majestic, 115 Central Park West. Winchell let Costello know that Hoover, the Director of the FBI, was a fanatical horse player. Frank Erickson, the nation’s most important bookie, reported directly to underworld boss Costello. As a favor to Winchell, Erickson would occasionally tip Costello to a sure winner at one track or another, New York to Florida, and Costello would pass the word to Winchell, who would then get on the phone to FBI headquarters and tell Hoover, who would get his bet down in the nick of time. It was one of many reasons why Hoover looked upon Winchell as the most effective way to communicate with the American public. Walter knew everyone and everyone listened to him.
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