“Wanting privacy isn’t all that weird.”
“Yeah, but you don’t see Jamesie writing in no little book. Or me. We used to kid him he was writing love notes to the mystery girl.”
“Oh, yeah, McDoul mentioned that too. You ever meet her?”
“Matter of fact, I did once. I was going into this club uptown, and he came waltzing out with this blonde. A killer fox. Very white.”
“Who was she?”
“Well, we was not formally introduced. I said hi and he said hi and then he hustled her past me into the cab I just came out of. She gave me a nice smile, though.”
“Any reason why he should be so secretive?” Karp asked.
“Well, there has been a lot of speculation over that. The rumor is, she’s married to a big shot, and they wanted to keep it cool. Which doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, follow? I mean, a nigger that’s six-ten and has his picture on TV and the papers every other day, plus cereal boxes, who’s tramping around the clubs with a white lady, is not something you can hide under a Dixie cup. If there’s a husband, either he’s deaf, dumb and blind, or else doesn’t give a rat’s ass his old lady’s into chocolate syrup.”
“So why?”
“Since you asked, the mom is why. Mrs. Simmons don’t approve of catting around, one, and two, especially not with white trash. Oh, yeah, that was another weird thing about Marion. His family. Like their shit didn’t stink.”
Wallace thought for a moment, then chuckled. “Like the motherfucker business. OK, a lot of black guys use the word without thinking too much about what it means—motherfucker this, motherfucker that. Like ‘oh, shit!’ you know?
“OK, we’re playing Portland, and Marion goes up for a rebound and the Portland center, Beale, goes up too and he gets an elbow in the face. The whistle goes, Portland gets the foul, but Beale ain’t half satisfied. Marion’s walking off the paint and Beale yells out, ‘Hey, motherfucker …’ and some other shit. Marion just hits the pivot, takes one big step and cold-cocks the guy. Bang! He goes down like a tree.”
“Basketball and family, huh? Sounds like my kind of guy.”
Wallace hooted. “What! Tell me basketball is your life too.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I will say it’s something that I don’t get anywhere else. When everything clicks, when I’m inside the game. What, you don’t?”
Wallace was shaking his head. “Hey, man, my daddy humped crates for Allied his whole life and I hump baskets. Same difference, but I make a shitload more money. Only thing clicks for me is when I write big checks for nice stuff. That’s the part I like.”
“But you were saying …” prompted Karp.
“Yeah, right, the family. Him and me had words on the issue.”
“You insulted his mom?” Karp asked, startled.
Wallace laughed out loud. “Shit, no! His sister. Pretty little thing. He brought her to a party once, and needless to say, the Doob threw a couple of moves on her. Nothing heavy, but Marion didn’t like it. It was like, I could marry her and then after a year, if it worked out, I could kiss her a time or two.”
“They were close, him and his sister?”
“I guess. He used to let her use his Caddy. When we played home, she used to pick him up at the stadium. Shit, I love my own sister, but I wouldn’t let her drive my wheels, so I guess they were close.”
Karp felt a familiar stirring, the presentiment of a revelation. “So,” he began with studied casualness, “she always picked him up after home games?”
Wallace shrugged. “I guess, most times.” Then he gave Karp a sharp glance. “Why you so interested?”
“Well, if she picked him up the night he got killed, it could be important.”
“Uh-oh, the D.A. strikes,” said Wallace in mock horror. “You searching for clues, man?”
“Force of habit,” said Karp. “I presume you told the cops about this.”
“Shit, nobody asked me and I didn’t volunteer. What happened on the night of, though, is Marion did a fast break all on his own. I figure he was the first one left the locker after the game. It was the San Antonio game—we whipped their ass, so we were feeling pretty good. Marion had a nice triple double, so there was press all over the fucking place, wanting to talk to the star. And nobody could find him, man.”
“He must have had someplace to go.”
“Yeah, to basketball heaven,” said Wallace lightly and then, more gravely, “Shit, when I heard, the next day—I couldn’t fucking believe it. It blew me away.”
“You were surprised about the dope?”
“Surprised ain’t the word. Hey, let me tell you something—off the record, right? No D.A. horseshit?”
“Sure. No problem,” said Karp, with all the sincerity he could muster.
“There’s plenty of dope around this team, like every team in the pros. Coke, speed, you name it—not to mention steroids and all the trainer shit. I’m not saying it’s a serious problem—like it’s not like we’re all junkies. It’s not even like pro football. But you want to get yourself keyed up for a game, you take a snort, take a pill, you dig? After the game, maybe you pop a downer, get you relaxed. Or if you’re wiped out and you want to party a little, there’s stuff around. Shit, we got money up the ass, it’s New York—maybe next year we’re not here, you know? Rip a ligament or some shit, and it’s bye-bye black boy. So it’s live while you can, you follow?
“OK, two guys on the team that I know are definitely totally straight. One’s Blanding—he’s a fucking deacon or something. The other was Marion. I mean, if he had bigger nostrils he would’ve snorted basketballs, but aside from that …”
“So you don’t believe he was involved with drugs.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said he never did any that I know of. It wasn’t his thing. Little Leona, on the other hand …” He waggled his fingers in the air.
“The sister.”
“The sister. Girl didn’t need to drive no Caddy. She could’ve flown anytime she’d’ve wanted, you know what I’m saying? OK, you want to know how I figure it? Marion’s pissed off little sister is doing skag, so he decides he’s gonna—I don’t know—scare off the bad guys. So she’s making a deal, or whatever, and Marion busts in. Bang, bang! End of story. And end of ride, we’re here.”
The team bus had pulled up into a driveway. Players were standing up and pulling their bags down from the racks. Karp wanted to talk with Wallace some more, but he felt he had learned enough for the present. Wallace’s theory was at least plausible. If you believed it, you also had to believe that Leona Simmons was at least an accessory after the fact. That was the weak part. On the other hand, she was a junkie. Maybe that was what was keeping her mouth shut, or maybe she might have talked had she been interrogated.
And another thing: Leona was a heroin addict. What was the industrial-grade cocaine doing in the car? As Karp walked off the bus, these and other puzzles surrendered their hold on his mind, as it began to adjust itself to the narrow focus required by first-class basketball. He’d feed all this to Marlene and let her wrestle with it. After the game.
Francine Del Fazio walked through the door of the loft, cried, “You’re pregnant!” and immediately collapsed in hysterics. Marlene spent forty minutes, two hefty shots of Johnnie Walker, and half a box of Kleenex getting Francine to the point of rational communication.
The first thing she said was “This can’t get out. Frankie’d kill me. I mean, seriously, he’d kill me.”
“What did you do, Frannie?”
Francine seemed surprised at the question. “Do? I didn’t do shit! They’re after me because they think I saw something. But I didn’t see nothing, I swear. Zero. I didn’t even look out the window. But they think I saw it.”
“Hold on, Frannie—you’re saying you’re a witness to a crime?”
“No, I’m not a witness!” shouted Francine, and the tears started again. “That’s the point! They think, but I’m not.”
She’s losin
g it again, thought Marlene, and laid a calming hand on the other woman’s arm. “Frannie, listen to me! Some people who committed some crime think you saw something and—what?—they’re harassing you? Following you?”
“Worse than that,” Francine mumbled.
“They assaulted you? OK, then we got enough to pick them up on. All you got to do is swear out a complaint.”
Francine started and shook her head vigorously. “I can’t do that.”
“You can’t? Why the hell not?”
“I just can’t.” She let out a long sigh and was silent for a few moments. Her fingers played aimlessly with the strap of her purse. When she spoke again, she seemed deflated, exhausted. “I can’t get involved, with the cops, with court. It’s too complicated to explain. I fucked up my life, Marlene, and it’s all landing on me.
“Come on, Francine! There’s got to be something we can do. What the hell did they think you saw? At least you could tell me that.”
“It was a murder.”
“A murder,” Marlene echoed, nodding, keeping herself calm. “Who got killed?”
Francine opened her mouth and then closed it to a grim line. “No. I’m not gonna get involved. I just want out of the whole stinking mess. Jesus, Marlene! What the hell happened to us? Who thought we would end up this way!”
The “us” startled Marlene, until she realized that Francine saw Marlene’s peculiar dwelling as a pathetic slum, evidence that Marlene had not, as expected, risen in the world. It was a small thing, but it added to her growing irritation with her old schoolmate. In a colder voice she said, “Look, Frannie, if you won’t tell me anything, I can’t help you. You won’t tell me who was murdered. Can you tell me where it happened? No? OK, the people bothering you, can you tell me anything about them?”
“There are two of them. In a car,” said Francine in a whispery croak. She was crying soundlessly, the tears falling in thick runnels down her cheeks onto her blouse.
“What do they look like?” Marlene pleaded. “Black? White? Young? Tall? Short?”
“Evil,” said Francine. And then she shuddered and heaved herself to her feet. “Marl—you got any cash? I’ll give you a check.”
“You’re going to run?”
“I got to, kid. It’s the only way. Poor Frankie, the slob! It’ll take him a week to realize I’m gone.”
A certain determination, a hardening of the eyes and chin, had crept into Francine’s face, and Marlene recognized the expression as one that her friend had often worn in childhood when thwarted or unjustly accused by one of the nuns. There was no arguing with it. Marlene got her bag and raided the various mad money stashes she had around the loft, coming up with $216.
“You won’t get far on that,” she said.
“Far enough. I can get more by wire from the bank,” Francine answered, scribbling out a check. “I’m sorry I bothered you,” she added, “but, you know, it just hit me that the last time I felt things were OK, like I had a life? It was in the seventh grade. Funny, hey? So I thought of you. Look, after a while, when I’m far away, I’ll write you, tell you the whole story. That’s fair, right?”
She hugged Marlene tightly for a moment, and was gone. Marlene collapsed on the red couch and sank quickly into a profound sleep. Karp called around ten and told her what he had learned from Wallace. Francine’s visit seemed like part of a dream, and she did not mention it. She made herself some cocoa, watched twenty minutes of Carson and went back to sleep.
From which she was awakened again by the ringing phone. The loft was pitch dark. Cursing and stumbling, she answered it.
“Get this,” said Ariadne Stupenagel without preamble, “the girl is a mule.”
“What the fuck, Stupenagel! It’s one in the morning. Who’s a what?”
“Hey, the press never sleeps, Ciampi. It’s the sister, Leona. She was picked up three weeks ago at Port Authority with five kilos of heroin. Arrested, charged, but—get this—never tried.”
Marlene was by now fully awake. “Holy shit, Stupe! They’re using her; she’s an informant. Christ! No wonder she’s terrified. How did you find this out?”
The reporter laughed. “Confidential sources. But the information’s good. I saw the actual sheets. So what’s the next move, counselor?”
“Obviously, to get the two of us alone with Leona Simmons.”
“Hmmm, that could be hard to arrange,” said Stupenagel. “She seems to have dropped out of sight. Her mom won’t talk to me. I went out to Forest Hills—shudder—and her little yellow car was still in the drive. Today I watched the house until the mom went out and then I pounded on the door, but nobody answered. The house felt empty. I stuck around until just a little while ago. She never came home.
“I figure either she’s cracked and is on the run, or the cops have her, or … shudder, shudder.”
“Yeah, there’s that. I got an interesting call from the hub tonight. He says one of the players told him that Leona could have been the last person to see Simmons alive. She was in the habit of picking him up after games. Also that he disappeared real fast from the stadium the night of the murder, like he had somewhere urgent to go.
“It turns out that our vic was a real straight-arrow and devoted to his family. The player thinks that Marion tried to get his sister away from her dealer, maybe stumbled into a drug deal, and that’s why he got killed. It’s a plausible idea, and what you just found out about her working as a mule tends to support it.
“Oh, another thing: Butch says that Simmons kept some kind of diary or journal. I checked the inventory sheet from the search of Simmons’s house that the cops did, and it’s not on it.”
“A journal? I didn’t know those guys could read, much less write. Mmmm, one wonders at the style: ‘January 12. Me eat. Me play game. Me fuck. Sleep. Ditto, ditto, ditto.’ ”
“Yeah, well, it’d be nice to find it anyway,” said Marlene abruptly. Ariadne’s humor in the wee hours was more wearing than it had been at school.
“OK, that’s the Leona part,” Marlene continued. “What about the blonde? Incidentally, Butch also says he has confirmation about Marion having a blonde girlfriend.”
Stupenagel said, “No problem. First of all, the woman at the funeral is definitely Julia Mackey, ex-Maccaluso. A buddy of mine who knows the social climbers in town ID’d her for me.”
“She’s a social climber?”
“Of the lower slopes of the Nouveau Range. She’s on a couple of charity ball committees, a couple of museum boards. That’s as far as former gangster molls are allowed to go. Their little girl is at Miss Finchley’s; she’ll go a little further. But Julia still entertains hopes.”
“How did you get in to see her?”
“We just spoke on the phone, actually. I told her I was doing a feature piece for WWD on the women behind the men who built New York.”
“And are you?”
Hysterical laughter. “Marlene! Bite your tongue! I graduated from doing puffs for floozies years ago. Do you chase ambulances?”
“You’re going to burn in Hell, Ariadne,” said Marlene, vaguely irritated for reasons she could not quite grasp. “She’s probably told all her friends already.”
“Hey, everybody’s got a sad story,” said Stupenagel briskly. “So. I’ll do the interview and we’ll take it from there. Anything else?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure that you understand that if Leona isn’t dead already, she will be if anybody who shouldn’t finds out what you learned. It’s not just her reputation that’ll suffer.”
Stupenagel answered testily, “Don’t teach your grandmother, Miss Priss. I was in Chile, remember? I know how to keep it buttoned up.”
“Sorry, Stupe, I’m just nervous about it. The guy we’re dealing with here makes General Pinochet look like Edmund Gwenn.”
“Who, the Jamaican, what’s-his-face?”
“John Doone,” said Marlene. “I’d give my left tit for five minutes with him where he had to talk to me.”
�
��Why don’t you call him up and make the offer, Marlene? That kind of guy, he might be interested.” Stupenagel gave a sharp, hoarse laugh and broke the connection.
Marlene hung up the phone, lay back, and attempted to re-enter the Land of Dreams. She had only indifferent success, dozing and waking through the long December night until, at seven-thirty, as crepuscular beams lit the upper edge of the huge eastern windows, the lift-hoist motor snarled into action, unbelted itself, and set off the clanging of the alarm.
With further sleep now doomed, Marlene hauled herself out of bed and, robed and slippered, descended the sleeping platform ladder to await the arrival of the metalworkers. They were unforgivably cheerful as they made their repairs, and Marlene was short with them.
She was in any case consumed with worry; her semi-sleepless night had granted neither surcease nor any morning wisdom. The situation of Leona Simmons had ended her peace. Marlene had imagined that she could arrange a meeting with the sister through Ariadne Stupenagel, and then convince the young woman to reveal what she knew about her late brother’s last evening. Marlene had a lot of confidence, bred in hundreds of post-rape interviews, about her ability to winkle information out of people, especially nervous, frightened women. She had been sure that, once comfortably settled with Leona Simmons, over coffee or a drink, the story would have flowed.
This possibility had vanished with Leona. And now, growing in Marlene’s mind was the necessity of pursuing an alternative course, one that was far more dangerous than an interview with a frightened girl. She tried to put it out of her mind, tried to read, to watch TV. Cursing her helplessness, she called Karp’s hotel in Atlanta and was told that the team’s flight had been delayed in Chicago. Suddenly the loft seemed unbearably confining. After throwing on a bulky outfit that made her look not quite like a pregnant bag lady, Marlene hit the street.
She walked east up Grand Street, moving from the early morning hustle of industrial SoHo to the relative quiet of Little Italy. Along the venerable street shopkeepers were taking deliveries, and Marlene waved to several that she knew, while dodging around gaping trucks, burly men with crates or sides of meat on their shoulders, and the open steel gates of basement storerooms.
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