The Secret Life of Damian Spinelli

by Carolyn Hennesy

  “He’ll be fine,” the captain said. “A little sunstroke, that’s all. Could have been dicey at his age, but he’s in terrific shape. You did fine out there, son. You should be proud of yourself.”

  “Just my job, skipper,” I said. “Just my job.”

  But even as they closed the infirmary doors, Eddie’s last words were still ringin’ in my ears. It was Port Charles in a single sentence:

  “. . . everything kills everything else in some way.”

  Chapter 4

  Damian Spinelli

  and the Case of the Un-Tracy-able Underworld

  Lulu Spencer is a cute kid.

  Really cute.

  She fell hard for me when I first arrived in Port Charlie, and I had thought about givin’ her a go for a bit (about the time it takes a shot of whiskey to find my ulcer). But Lulu’s a peppermint ice cream cone and I’m a four-minute egg. She’s a wand of cotton candy and I’m the rind on a three-week-old wedge of room temperature Parmesan. She’s a . . .

  “Spinelli!” I said.

  “Whaa . . . ?” he gasped. “Oh. Forgive me, Brusque Lady. Was my epicurean compare-and-contrast becoming too much?”

  “I just don’t have the time to see where it eventually ends up,” I answered. “ ‘She’s a spoonful of Nutella and I’m the crusty end of a date nut loaf.’ ”

  “Oh, that’s good!”

  “Keep it moving.”

  . . . We’re different, the kid and I. Didn’t stop her from lovin’ me, but I had to let her down. I made it easy on her . . . because she’s cute.

  Really cute.

  “I got it . . . She’s cute. Now I’m gonna let you down, if you understand my meaning, and it won’t be easy. Move it along!”

  When her call came in that night, I thought about ignorin’ it; I wasn’t in the mood for a Lulu Spencer sob fest, her verbal crawl across the floor. Because, if I’m tellin’ it square, she was comin’ real close to wearing me down. But it was late, maybe eleven or so; she usually calls to beg me to take her back before I’ve had my morning coffee . . . Something was up. I picked up the phone.

  “Spinelli?”

  “Doll-face . . . you changin’ to the night shift? It’s not five in the AM. You’re gonna get me all confused.”

  “I know, I’m sorry, but I need you!”

  “Look, doll . . .”

  “It’s not for me this time. I swear. I know I can’t have you. I’m trying to make peace with that. I think the therapy is helping. It’s my father. I think something has happened to him.”

  “Somethin’, huh? Like what, doll? Like he’s not keepin’ three sets of books like he used to? He’s off the hooch? He’s not a rat anymore?”

  I’d lost five hundred clams at Luke’s joint, the Haunted Star, the night before; my pal Luke had been winkin’ so hard when he told me to play red-22, I thought he was havin’ a stroke. If Senor Spencer was floatin’ in the harbor now, it was no skin off my back.

  “He told me he was leaving town,” Lulu said. “That was three days ago . . . but I don’t think he’s gone anywhere.”

  Her voice was all Shirley Temple . . . the drink . . . with a couple of extra cherries.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because he didn’t say good-bye to me in his usual way.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A ten-thousand-dollar check and a package of Pez,” she said.

  “Your old man gives you ten thousand dollars every time he cuts out of town?” I coughed.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I needed to take a better look at Kid Spencer.

  “Why Pez?”

  “It used to be Valium, but Dad realized that’s a gateway drug. He doesn’t mind if I get hooked on Pez.”

  Using the twisted logic of Luke Spencer, this made perfect sense.

  “I went to the Quartermaine mansion to talk to Tracy about it,” Lulu went on, “but she just laughed in my face. Said she had no idea where he could be. I didn’t want to tell her why I think he’s not really gone. She’d probably say any money he gives me is really hers . . .”

  Lulu knew her Quartermaines.

  “. . . But as I was leaving, I noticed something weird.”

  “What was that, doll?”

  “There was a black enamel chopstick lying about halfway up the stairs and Alice was scrubbing the floors in the foyer . . . There were shoe prints in a red dust.”

  Suddenly the case got interesting.

  “I want to hire you, Jackal,” Lulu said. “I can’t pay you much right now; I don’t have my ten thousand . . . but when I get it, I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I’ll keep a tab . . . and I’m gonna add the five hundred samolians your daddy took off me the other night. Go get some sleep. I’m on it.”

  “Can I still call you tomorrow morning?” she asked.

  “Give it a coupla days, doll,” I said. “I don’t know where I’ll be.”

  If I asked Tracy Quartermaine about her better half, I knew she wouldn’t talk to me; she might throw a plate and scream a few things, but it wouldn’t be anything I could use. But Alice might know something, havin’ cleaned up the red dust, and that chopstick made me think of the night I saw Tracy Q all done up in those crazy orange pajamas.

  I headed out to the Qs’, but as I steered my car up the drive, I realized I might be spotted from the window of the den. That’s where they always were . . . all of them. In fact, I didn’t think they used any other room in the house.

  I ditched my car about halfway down the drive behind a tree and hoofed it the rest of the way. I stuck to the shadows and the bushes, which was a smart move ’cause Tracy came poundin’ out the front door just as I stepped onto the brick porch. I threw myself behind a Cornus stolonifera . . .

  “Stop!” I said. “What’s with the Latin?”

  “It’s a tree,” Spinelli said.

  “Then call it by a tree name . . . no Latin. Jesus!”

  . . . a red osier dogwood . . .

  “Criminey . . . that’s just as bad. Tough guys don’t usually know these things, Mr. Grasshopper.”

  “My fields of study extend far and wide, Ms. Miller. If I am able to discern a dogwood from an elderberry, I think that should be taken into consider . . .”

  At that moment, Spinelli jumped in his seat, then from a pants pocket he fished out his cell phone, which was on vibrate . . . high. He looked at the number, then mumbled a few words, of which I only caught “. . . if I do not recognize your number, then you do not exist . . . villain!” He put the phone away and looked at me once more.

  “. . . as I was saying, Lady of the Law, I don’t feel that I must come under censorship and scrutiny simply because my arboricultural acumen spans . . .”

  “Sorry, Spinelli,” I said. “Yes . . . yes. You’re right. It’s your story. I’m just trying to keep you from getting beat up by the other kids on the playground. Please, go on.”

  . . . uh . . . a tree. Tracy had on a different outfit this time: tight-fittin’ dark blue Chinese dress, two jade bracelets, and five-inch silver stiletto heels. She got behind the wheel of her mint-condition 1967 green Jaguar and hit the gas.

  If I didn’t hurry, she’d be out of sight fast. I was leanin’ heavy on the pedal of my Toyota Echo when I saw the Jag’s taillights turn left onto the main road back into town. I had a good quarter of a mile to make up, and if I lost her, I’d never find her . . . and I’d never learn why she was lookin’ like a Hong Kong travel brochure.

  Turns out my luck was runnin’ hot that night: the Jag had a missing taillight. Bad Tracy.

  Good Tracy.

  She flew through several stop signs and a couple of red lights on her way into downtown. I couldn’t figure what she was doin’. She blew by the ELQ offices, blew by other buildings with Quartermaine interests, and shot out of the high-rise section like she was a cannonball.

  Suddenly, I realized where she was going:

  Chinatown.

  On either coa
st, every port city, big or small, has a Chinatown. Usually, they’re tourist attractions; sometimes they’re the place to get the best dim sum, if you know where to go . . . or a nice mah-jongg set. But mostly they’re reminders of another time in this great country when some folks didn’t treat other folks with an ounce of respect.

  Port Charlie was no exception.

  About a hundred years ago, we got a whole passel of Chinese who’d had it with New York City’s special type of discrimination and headed north, only to find that upstate manners were just as bad.

  They’d banded together, making their solitary way, and had established some fine, legit businesses. But outsiders were not welcome. You could eat some roast pork and buy a fake Ming vase, but it wasn’t wise to be on the streets of Chinatown after dark unless you wanted to see the inside of a rice-cooker firsthand.

  Most of the shops were dark; a few ugly fluorescents pocked the darkness of a second floor or a backroom.

  The Jag was like a homing pigeon; Tracy wasn’t takin’ one wrong turn. Maybe she was lookin’ for a rug. Maybe it was a nice paper lantern. Maybe she was in the mood for late night mu shu. Whatever it was didn’t matter; Tracy Quartermaine had been here before.

  I hung back as far as I could until she started windin’ through a few back alleys. I thought for a moment she’d made me, but there was no speedin’ up or doublin’ back. She took a final left and then she slowed in front of an herb shop. She slipped into a curbside parking space like she was slippin’ into a booth at Jake’s: real easy. I drove across the intersection nice and slow, then found a spot of my own. I cut the engine and headed back, stickin’ my peepers around the corner.

  It looked like Tracy was standin’ in front of a door, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Then I saw her knock. She waited, then knocked again. Someone must have answered, ’cause Tracy began yammerin’ in Chinese . . . fluent Mandarin. The dame had traveled. So had I . . . just not that far; I was pickin’ up every fourth or fifth word, but it wasn’t enough.

  Then . . . Tracy was gone.

  I crept around the corner, huggin’ tight to the walls. I hit the herb shop. Right next to it was a travel agency with posters of Shanghai, the Yangtze River, and, of course, Hong Kong. But both of these places were darker than my morning coffee and closed up tight.

  Then a street lamp popped across the street, and I saw a little flash in the empty space where one shop ended and the other began. Lookin’ real close, I just made out a thin black door in the side of a black wall. It was painted to look like black brick . . . even the handle. But a little black paint had been rubbed off and the metal underneath had caught the flash.

  There was no way I could knock . . . I didn’t know exactly what Tracy had said, and if word got to her that someone was snoopin’ around, she’d probably take off out the back. I looked up high . . . nothin’.

  No . . . wait . . .

  There was some kind of lettering . . . a sign maybe . . . up high. It was a dark bronze, but it wasn’t black, and even though my Chinese was as sketchy as a Picasso notebook, I stared at it long enough to finally make it out.

  THE PALACE OF THE FIVE TIGERS.

  A tiny bell went off in my head . . . Where had I seen that before?

  I paced off steps back to the corner, then crept around to the alley that ran in back of the block. I backtracked down the alley the same number of paces. No door. For twenty feet on either side of where a back door should have been . . . nothin’.

  Then I flashed on the lettering again. I’d seen it, I knew I had. The same sign. But where? The question was bangin’ around my noggin and I knew if I didn’t figure it out, I’d never get another night’s sleep. It would haunt me till I cracked up but good, started doing crazy things, and some judge would lock me up . . .

  Judge?

  Judge!

  That was it!

  I ran to the car. As I was hittin’ the gas, I looked up . . . and there it was. Exactly what I needed to see: the Port Charlie Courthouse.

  I gunned the car outta Chinatown and headed back toward downtown. Then I started thinkin’.

  A long time ago, the Chinese had their spot on the little hill where the courthouse now stood. They were hard-working folks, bent on makin’ a better life for their families. But the upright natives didn’t quite take to the idea. They didn’t force the Chinese out, but they didn’t want to even see them on the street. Story goes, it was that way all over the country. Oh sure, America, you bet. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . .”

  “You’re sermonizing,” I said.

  “A thousand apologies,” Spinelli said. “It’s just that I get so angry thinking about it.”

  “You’re also preaching to the choir, Mr. Grasshopper,” I replied. “It was a raw deal. But it’s history . . . shameful . . . but history. Go on.”

  The entire Chinese population was forced to vamoose when the wiseacre city planners decided that the view of the harbor from that particular hill was as pretty as a Ziegfeld girl and just right for the hall of justice. But the construction crews had a big surprise waitin’ for them. They kept findin’ tunnels and secret rooms as far down as a hundred feet. That’s how everyone had been gettin’ around from home to work and back again without riskin’ bein’ seen. And these tunnels went everywhere. Some led right underneath the fancy homes of Port Charles’s finest, including the mayor’s mansion; some led down toward the harbor . . . perfect for smugglin’ . . . and one even led off underneath the train depot.

  And then there were a few that led east . . . just east. Maybe a mile, if you were shootin’ straight. Of course, no one found out just how far they went until a few construction patsies went explorin’ and came back missin’ an eye, or an ear, or a head, and tellin’ tales of arrows shootin’ outta walls, floors that just dropped out from under ’em, and walls that closed in and would crush a guy down to the size of a Ritz cracker box.

  Turns out that these particular tunnels led out underneath a few shacks in the middle of a field that, in the past, nobody had paid much attention to. That’s because nobody knew what they were hidin’ . . . Port Charles’s own little vacation spots.

  Secret opium dens.

  And now these leisure lounges were right underneath . . . the new Chinatown. Instead of leaving a cash business to be discovered by someone else, Port Charlie’s most enterprisin’ citizens moved right on top of it.

  I’d heard rumors of what it was like, back in the day. The tunnels were crawlin’ with coppers (including the chief), snot-nosed lawyers, senators up from D.C. with wads of payola, local brass, and crooked judges, all of ’em knowin’ the traps and all lookin’ for a little time in dreamland. And sometimes, from what I heard tell, if the bright lights and rubber hoses weren’t workin’ and a perp just wouldn’t talk, the cops would take the guy through the tunnels into the Palace of the Five Tigers and get him real . . . happy.

  Story goes that a whole lot of canaries sang after a few hours of just breathin’ in deep.

  As I was drivin’, I realized I was one lucky son of a bootlegger. It was only because of my mandatory presence a couple of years ago during the trial of my right-hand man, Jason Morgan, for the murder of Lorenzo Alcazar, that I had been in the courthouse so much. One morning, when the DA du jour, Ric Lansing, was makin’ his opening wisecracks, I needed to see a man about a horse. I was walkin’ the hallway from the courtroom to the waterloo when I suddenly noticed a door with a padlock on the handle. And that was it . . . no sign, nothin’. Until I looked a little closer. Up over the arch, there were faint outlines of Chinese letters etched into the marble. Someone had pried them off and had even tried to cover these up with black paint. But I could just make out the words . . . on a door right in the middle of the PC courthouse corridor!

  THE PALACE OF THE FIVE TIGERS.

  I guess subtlety wasn’t high on the to-do list, back in the day. It couldn’t have been more obvious if they’d painted an arrow.

  I didn’t think mu
ch of it at the time. But now . . . it was my way in.

  I screeched to a halt at the bottom of the courthouse steps and hopped out. There was no one around . . . The streets were as empty as Monica Quartermaine’s martini glass.

  Getting into the courthouse was like takin’ candy from a baby . . . especially a Spencer-Webber baby . . . those kids practically throw their jujubes at you. Cameron’s been known to lob an ice cream cone at perfect strangers . . .

  “You’re digressing,” I said.

  “Apologies,” Spinelli said. “But I have the Rocky Road stains to prove it. That little boy, that pint-sized picture of perfection, ruined my best Megadeth vintage tee.”

  “Keep going.”

  I used my skeleton key and whammo, I was in. I headed down the corridor, past the night watchman who was glued to SoapNet on a portable black and white, catchin’ up on his serials. He had his headphones on . . . I coulda been the 4:19 outta Rochester and he still wouldn’ta made me.

  I found the door and tried the lock. It was old . . . I didn’t think my key would work and I was right. I tried a standard pick . . . no dice. I ran my hand through my hair; I was in a spot, all right. I then felt one of Maxie’s hairpins at the back of my neck . . .

  Spinelli stopped and stared at me for a moment.

  “I’m not even going to ask,” I said.

  I had nothin’ to lose. I tried the hairpin in the lock and she sprung open like a Texas debutante on a New York weekend. The door creaked inward. Right off, I was covered in dust and cobwebs. And it was dark . . . really dark. I got about five feet and realized I was never gonna make it. I thought about turnin’ around and tryin’ to find a way in from Chinatown; then I remembered something I had on my utility belt.

  “Stop it now!” I yelled. “Utility belt?!”

  “May all the gods on Olympus strike me dead if I lie, Brusque Lady,” Spinelli said. He opened his coat to reveal a bungee cord around his waist replete with various pouches, one handcuff case, and one Hello Kitty cosmetic bag.