“Pretty good story, though.” A ploy to distract. “If I could write it. I need to track down this Concierge.”
The ploy failed. She let go of his arm. Sounding disappointed, she said, “You aren’t taking me seriously. You get this way when you really want a story and it’s not happening. You get crazy obsessive.”
“What do you want me to do? Two good people dead. The cops aren’t getting anywhere. Both cases getting colder by the day. Which means the stories are getting even colder. This is what I do. There wasn’t time to get you or anyone else near there.”
“You can’t die. I love you. I … I can’t—”
“No plans for that.”
“This is my bottom line. You call me. So someone knows what hole you’re going down.”
“I’ll call.”
“Promise?”
“If you promise not to argue with me. Or try to come along if that won’t work.”
“All that to get a phone call?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Agreed.” She thought for minute. “You know, this Jimmy the Cryptkeeper’s another example. Who tries to interview a drug dealer out on the street?”
“In a cemetery, actually. I have. A bunch of times. You know that. You’re with me today. I’m covered. I promised last year not to do stakeouts on my own. I’m mending my ways.”
If I ignore the days I spent watching Jerome McGill alone. How can I keep my promise? We both have jobs. I have to move when I can.
“You got kidnapped last year doing the same thing.”
“You rescued me.”
“Only because I had the sense to keep an eye on you.”
“Every other time, I’ve managed to talk my way out of trouble.”
She dropped into an unhappy silence. This was an ongoing stress in their relationship, had been for more than a year. Samantha wanted to control the risks he needed to take. She usually fell back on what she’d have done as a cop. Like he’d said, he didn’t work like a cop. Couldn’t. He had to find a way to make her happy, though. If this strain stayed between them, he might lose her. That was a risk he could not take.
At first, Taylor wasn’t sure how to find Abigail Gibson’s dealer. Mt. Olivet Cemetery was big enough by itself. It was one of five running east to west in eastern Queens. Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery was across the street, while on the other side of the Queens Midtown Expressway and the BQE were Mt. Zion, Cavalry, and First Cavalry. What if Jimmy switched among them?
From a distance, the tombstones of Mt. Olivet bristled out of the ground, appearing too close together, one on top of the other, as if even in their dying, New Yorkers couldn’t escape the crowd.
After waiting forty minutes, Taylor saw the solution to his problem, as individuals who looked nothing like mourners headed into the Mt. Olivet gate across from where they stood. Taylor and Samantha watched a couple more, then followed a Hispanic-looking teen. He took a right and walked up a hill to a large mausoleum with pillars like the Parthenon. The teen disappeared around the back. He returned quickly, was startled by the sight of them, and trotted down the path past an open grave awaiting the arrival of a coffin and mourners.
Taylor signaled. Samantha pulled out her pistol and went around the other side.
Jimmy the Cryptkeeper—a tiny, caramel-colored man with a big, floppy Afro—sat on the edge of the mausoleum. He was pulling hard on a joint. He turned warily when Taylor came into his field of vision.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“A reporter. I have a couple questions for you.”
“No one comes up here that I haven’t cleared. I don’t answer questions from anyone. Fuck reporters.”
“I could let the cops know about the unconventional location you’re using.”
A stiletto knife appeared in his hand and the blade popped out.
“I could get you ready for one of these graves and go use one of the other monuments in this lovely resting place.”
“Uh-uh.” Samantha was at the corner with the gun aimed at Jimmy’s head. “Put the knife away, and I’ll put this away.”
Jimmy saw the sense in that. “A reporter with a redheaded lady who packs? This some kind of TV show?”
“No, just life, Jimmy. Do you remember a customer named Abigail Gibson?”
“I got lots of customers. Why should I remember one for you?”
“Abigail’s sister was murdered. Could be drug-related. Abigail’s boyfriend, a hitman named Jerome McGill. He knocked you around. Took some merchandise he didn’t pay for.”
“I did hear that McGill’s not breathing anymore.”
“That make you happy?”
Samantha eased her way around toward Taylor, her eyes on Jimmy the whole time.
“Didn’t like what he did to me. I didn’t off him.”
“How about Abigail? Maybe you went after her and ended up shooting her sister by mistake. Or sent someone to do the job.”
“Look around you, man. You know why I work up here. I want no fucking trouble from no fucking body. I want to move my stuff without getting robbed, or grabbed by the cops, or grabbed and robbed by the cops. I want things nice and quiet and easy. That’s why the only dead I like are the ones who already are.”
“You own a gun?”
“No. Don’t do guns.”
“You did follow Abigail home once.”
Jimmy’s head dropped. “Look, man, I check out all my customers first time. Another thing keeps me safe from the cops.”
“You have an alibi for March eighth?”
“What is this, Perry Mason?”
“If it was, he’d say you already have motive.”
“You going to put the cops on me?”
“The way it works is I write a story with everything I can find out. If that story has information in it the detectives find interesting, they’ll come calling. If you have an alibi, you aren’t part of my story.”
“I’ll jog my brains. I’ll ask my old lady. I don’t deserve to be in that story. McGill might have been rough with me, but if I started shooting every time somebody was rough, I’d be on the FBI’s most-wanted.”
“I’m checking back with you in a couple of days. Be here and give me something if you don’t want to be news.”
Taylor and Samantha caught the bus down Cross Bay Boulevard, named because it crossed Jamaica Bay via a bridge and an island to get to the Rockaway Peninsula. They got off in the neighborhood of Rockaway Park with the bay on the right and the Atlantic Ocean on the left. From the ocean beach to the bayside, the neighborhood was four blocks wide at this point. Beyond the neighborhood was Jacob Riis National Park and Breezy Point, the end of the peninsula.
The two of them walked to Joe Mulligan’s house at Newport Avenue and Beach 130th Street. Air that had been hot and sticky in the middle of Queens was cooled by a sea breeze.
Mulligan bent over the hood of a black Town Car, polishing. He spied them through the windows of the car.
“Welcome to the Irish Riviera.” He wore plaid Bermuda shorts, rubber thongs, and a golf shirt of an entirely different plaid. Though he’d previously used an approximation of the formal-sounding diction of his late boss, now he spoke like a man of Queens—with the harsh vowels of the Rockaways.
Taylor introduced Samantha.
“Callahan, now there’s a good name.” He set the polishing cloth on the front bumper. “Taylor, I’m not so sure of.” He laughed a little at this, but was far more restrained than on their drive upstate.
He led them around to an emerald-green side yard set with aluminum folding chairs, the seats and backs made of woven red-and-white-plastic strips. Mulligan insisted he get them something, jogged into the house, came out with three bottles of Guinness beer, a yellow-plastic bowl of potato chips and a smaller one containing French onion dip.
“My granddad taught me to drink this. Makes me an oddball in this neighborhood of Murphys and,” nodding to Samantha, “Callahans. They all like their Piels and Budweiser. Gotta reme
mber the home place. One for sir.” He lifted the bottle in salute.
Taylor sipped his Guinness. Sharp, heavy, the taste of chocolate gone bad. He’d never liked the stuff.
“How’s the family doing?” Taylor asked.
“Pretty, pretty bad. Mrs. DeVries is still in her bed. The police had to interview her from there. Audrey, poor thing. Mother’s no help. She’s overcome. A good person, kind like her dad.”
“Charlie?”
Fred lifted the bottle again. “Charlie’s drinking his way through his grief.”
“I was with him last night. He appears to be gambling and whoring his way through it, too.”
“He’s one of those kids … handed all the opportunity in the world and got more and more confused about what to do with it.”
“That’s a kind assessment.”
“It’s what sir would say.”
“You were close to him.”
The hint of a smile left his face. “Best I ever worked for.”
“A lot of riding around. With him. The rest of the family. You ever hear anything that made you think someone was coming after him? Or anything that was off?”
“No, nothing. I mean, Charlie complained and whined and got more money. Same as the other families I worked for before my dad retired. If that was cause for murder, Park Avenue would be a warzone.”
“He was going to get less with the changes DeVries planned. I mean, had to be.”
“Sir was going to provide him with an income. Charlie was going to have to cut back on that lifestyle of his. Grow up and be the adult that matched his age.”
“Yes, his lifestyle. I was at an after-hours club with him this morning. Drugs, gambling, prostitutes, God knows what else. A real criminal operation. Maybe he ran up a big debt. Or pissed someone off. They took it out on his father.”
“Story land to me. Nothing I know anything about.”
“You heard of someone called the Concierge?”
“Yeah.” Mulligan shifted in his chair. Finished half the bottle of Guinness.
“What do you know?”
“Only a little, and that’s probably too much. He’s a guy who gets Park Avenue people what they need. Legal, illegal. Whenever fast is a priority. Former boss used him. Ordered drugs. I made a few pick-ups. Quit that job. I wasn’t getting busted for his habit. Concierge makes deliveries now, so that problem’s solved. Charlie’s received ’em. Never talked about the Concierge with me. You’re not supposed to. One of the Concierge’s rules. Which is why I don’t know any more than that.”
“Who was your former boss?”
“I like my job. I like my life.”
Taylor asked him about the conversation Martha had overheard in the sitting room. Mulligan had already listened to Taylor recount it to DeVries on their drive back from Amenia. He’d kept his mouth shut then, probably because he was expected to.
“I was worried when you told him that. Sir thought he could solve every problem in the family. Couldn’t tell you who the mystery man was who did all the talking. I’m rarely upstairs. There is one thing I haven’t been able to get out of my head.”
“What’s that?”
“It can’t be no accident. Sir was killed after he said he’d handle that conversation. He walked into some kind of buzz saw.”
“Did you talk to Martha Gibson much?” Samantha said.
“To say hello. Like I said, not upstairs much.”
“Did you tell anyone about the conversation Martha heard?”
“No! I never repeat anything I hear in the car. I am now because sir’s dead. I want the sons of bitches caught.”
Taylor drank more of the beer. He was almost getting used to it. Or maybe a light summer buzz improved anything. “What do you know about Denny Connell?”
“He was in the car a whole bunch. He and sir went to meetings together. A lot. They were always going over numbers. Connell was some fast talker. I don’t know numbers and couldn’t tell you what he was going on about, but sir often made him go back. Repeat things. I’d grab a look in the rearview, and sir had this look like he wasn’t getting it.”
“Connell was confusing DeVries?”
“Looked like it.”
“On purpose.”
“I didn’t know his play then. That’s what I saw happening. Like I said, don’t know numbers. I picked Connell up at his office a bunch of times. Either got him first or went with the boss. Except for the one time I drove him alone. He came down from the DeVries apartment and gave me an address downtown. The boss hadn’t given me instructions so I started to ask, and Connell ordered me to get moving in pretty spicy language. I figured it must be okay. The only person in that car more than sir himself was Connell. The destination was a strange place for a meeting—a warehouse in the Gansevoort Market. On Ninth Avenue.”
“The meatpacking district?” Samantha said, surprised.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?” Taylor said.
“Remember all my runs.”
“The address? When?”
“I can check my log book for specifics and call you.”
“I could use that information. If you think of anything else ….”
“Sure, anything to help the family.”
Taylor and Samantha walked back toward the bus, but Taylor veered hard left. In three blocks, they were on the beach carrying their shoes. Samantha strolled at the edge of the surf while Taylor stayed just out of reach of the waves.
“The water feels so good,” Samantha said.
“Like the sand, where it’s hard, wet, and cool. Where you leave a print.”
“This makes up for coming all this way, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, this trip was well worth it. Mulligan confirmed the Concierge exists. Now I can go after the story without breaking my word to Charlie about Our Little Chapel.”
“He won’t be happy.”
“Happy, unhappy. That’s not my worry. Long as I keep my commitment to a source. Who knows? That address Connell went to might be worth something, if only because it’s the first lead I’ve got on him aside from his abandoned office. The Gansevoort is a strange area for him to be going. There’s nothing in that neighborhood but dead cows, mob-run unions, and places mobsters like to hang out.”
Since it was the first day of the long July 4th weekend, they kept walking past houses, then several big apartment buildings, until they came to an old, weathered clam bar. Joe’s. Were all clam bars named Joe’s? They ate a dozen little necks raw and two-dozen top necks steamed, accompanied by bottles of the golden Piels Joe Mulligan so despised.
Chapter 24
On the Wednesday following the long July 4th weekend, Taylor walked into the office and found Novak bouncing like he was on a pogo stick.
“He’s calling in five.” Novak repeated the sentence as he bounced.
“Calm down. Who’s calling? About what?”
“He would only talk—”
“Stop jumping around or we’re not having a conversation.”
He stood still, though the energy seemed to vibrate inside him. Novak—with an open, smiling face and hair slicked back in the fifties style he refused to give up—wore a dark suit as he had since his days working on the business desk at the Messenger-Telegram. They said reporters ended up dressing like the people they covered. Certainly explained why sports writers looked like overgrown twelve-year-olds.
“I was here, and Cramly was on the phone taking a story from Templeton. I picked up the next call. Man asked for you. I said you weren’t in yet. He said he’d call back in a half hour. Could I give you a message? He said he has a Son of Sam letter. A new one. The third letter.”
The phone rang. Novak started pogoing again.
“This is Taylor.”
“You want the letter?” The voice was muffled, pitched high, like a strained falsetto.
“You are …?”
“Not important.”
“With the cops?”
“Someone who thin
ks the truth needs to get out. What’s in this letter is important.”
“What do you want from me?”
“A fair and accurate story. The kind you write.”
“Let’s meet.”
“There are complications.”
“There always are.”
“You want this or not?”
Taylor was instantly skeptical. He couldn’t believe a letter from the .44-caliber killer was about to drop into his lap. He was no Breslin. City News was no Daily News. Sure, he’d received his fair share of tips out of nowhere. Nothing like this. Maybe the guy had a letter. Or maybe he knew something worth hearing. Or most likely, he was a nut looking for attention. Best to play along. Part of the job was sorting out the nuts.
“Yeah, I want it.”
“All right, I’ll call to set up a meeting.”
“When?”
Click.
Novak stopped bouncing.
Raymond Associates’ office door was locked. Both Lew and Samantha had to be out on cases. He wrote a message on a sheet from his notebook letting Samantha know he was going down to the meatpacking district to check out the address Joe Mulligan had phoned in, the address where he’d dropped off Denny Connell. He hadn’t left notes every time he went out in the past, but she’d been so insistent Saturday, he’d decided this was better than a fight. Actually, anything was better than a fight. He’d been independent—alone—a long time, and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Lots of loneliness, the blues invading when he wasn’t busy with a story. He had no interest in being independent of Samantha. He saw the blues and a yawning blackness behind them when he thought of losing her. He’d take the same chances, but keep her informed and hope that was compromise enough.
He knew one thing. This story had a bad spin on it. He was going to have to cross some lines to get at it.
He rocked on a downtown 3 train. This was the kind of trip he made with little hope of a return. How much of a waste of time would it be? In his mind, anyone who embezzled $25 million would already be on one of those tropical islands pictured in the windows of travel agents. Gilligan’s Island, but with all the luxurious comforts. He took the steps up from the 14th Street station two at a time, walked west three long avenue blocks until he was in a neighborhood of industrial buildings. Slaughter houses, in the main. He found the address Mulligan had provided. The big garage doors used for loading were shut. A side door opened into a massive space, the concrete floor a collage of muted reds and less-than-reds, bloodstains of different ages.
Lights Out Summer Page 16