Investigation

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “Do you remember the name of Kitty’s friend, the man who checked out the nursing home for you?”

  “Who remembers? Kitty is a wonderful girl. People, you know, they see her, all the time going, running, going out, dressed so nice. So they say things.” She studied me shrewdly. “You know what kind of things I mean. Because she knows a lot of men. They’re jealous because she’s young and beautiful and so ... so alive. They don’t know her, my Kitty. But I know her. She is beautiful not just on the outside.” She tapped her chest. “In here, where it counts, my Kitty is beautiful.”

  She seemed to have gotten stronger with the need to tell me about Kitty Keeler.

  “She works hard, that girl, so hard. Like little movie stars she dresses her children. The best clothes, not just for herself, but for them too. And for George. Beautiful suede jackets she got for him, and suits. At discount, from friends she has. When she was a girl, ah ...” Mrs. Silverberg moved her hands, turned them palms up. “She was so poor. All her childhood, only wearing school uniforms and hand-me-downs. Now she works so hard for good things. Nothing cheap, no junk. She has such good taste, my Kitty.”

  I remembered the closet filled with all kinds of clothing: the obsessively arranged colors.

  “Mrs. Silverberg, what about George? George Keeler?”

  She sighed, then carefully studied me. “You’re thinking in your head, why did she marry George? He is so much older, like a father he is to her. And that’s part of it, yes. Kitty never really had a father. So young she lost her father. And for most of her life, she has known George. No man in the whole world could be as good to Kitty like George is. And she, she is good for him, too. Don’t listen to the little gossips around the neighborhood. What they don’t know, they make up. Kitty is a loving, loving girl.” She pressed her trembling hand over her pale thin lips for a moment, then said in a thick voice, “She is my daughter. To me, Kitty is my daughter!”

  The shaggy, bloody-eyed young doctor looked in and blinked at me a few times. I had been planning to leave anyway, but I let him think it was his idea. I reached out and held the bony, gnarled hand lightly on the flat surface of the bed; applied a gentle, light pressure.

  “Mrs. Silverberg, do you think you could try to remember the name of the man that Kitty had check out the nursing home for you?”

  She shrugged. “One of the men from her place where she works, I think. I don’t know. A lot of men Kitty knows. A rough-looking man with dark hair.” She frowned, straining to recall. “With a face, it was so mean it would scare you on the television. But he was so nice, so kind, so good. He said, ‘No mother of mine would go to a place like that.’ That’s what he said. A good man, you can’t judge a book by its cover. He can’t help he has a mean-looking face. My daughters’ husbands, smart, handsome professional men, they dress like the magazine pictures, with the fancy haircuts—they go to ‘stylists,’ if you please, for a haircut and they go to Europe and Mexico and Hawaii for vacations, but when it comes to caring,” she moved her shoulders, “forget it. Forget it.” She blew her nose and pressed the tissue into a wet ball in her hand. “For caring, thank God, thank God, I have my Kitty.”

  CHAPTER 8

  WHEN I CHECKED WITH my office, Neary told me that the Porsche was cleared and had been released to the Keelers. Patti MacDougal’s boyfriend and a few other people had confirmed that she had spent the evening with them, but still no corrob on her having gone to the Keeler’s apartment at 2:30 A.M.

  “It would really be nice if someone remembers seeing the Scotch girl in the parking lot.”

  “Scots girl,” I told Tim. “Scotch is something you drink.”

  “Screw you, Joe. Listen, I sent that son-of-a-bitch Catalano over to Keeler’s place in Sunnyside to check George out. Meet him over there, Joe. See if you can get a line on George. Then send the s.o.b. for statements from everybody who was at Keeler’s Wednesday night. That oughtta keep him busy.”

  A couple of years ago, Sunnyside had been mostly Italians, Irish and Jews, in that order. It was a small, tight Queens community that had formed its identity around a couple of churches, an orthodox and a reform synagogue and a collection of Irish bars, Italian bakeries and restaurants, kosher butchers and delis. It was also the home of Sunnyside Garden, scene of less than notable boxing and wrestling matches. The neighborhood was still hanging on, but changes were taking place, slowly and surely. The corner pharmacy now had a small sign in the window announcing that Spanish was spoken here; there were a couple more bodegas than a year or so ago, to cater not so much to a sprinkling of Puerto Ricans as to a growing number of Cubans who were buying the comfortable attached one-family homes on the side streets. There were several Greek food and specialty shops, apparently run by a huge family: all the muscular dark-haired young guys looked related. Some of the nonethnic grocery and chain stores carried what was called “Caribbean specialties” to lure the illegal immigrants from the islands, an uncertain number of phantoms who creeped out at dawn to factory jobs and came back late at night to sleep in a crowded subdivided apartment for which they paid a greedy landlord an exorbitant rate.

  George Keeler owned the two-story building where his bar, Keelers Korner, was located. The building also housed, at street level, a somewhat dirty-looking French-Italian bakery, a small lamp store, a Hebrew printing company. Upstairs, on the second floor, George had his apartment and two small offices which were rented out, one to a lawyer and one to a C.P.A. Both of those tenants used the offices primarily as a mail drop.

  The building had been erected in 1906 in what was probably considered at the time to be a highly handsome style. The gray stone facade was heavily ornamented along the top edge with what appeared to be a bunch of fat cherubs dancing with a bunch of mythical fat animals. Here and there were masklike faces of what looked like grinning devils: probably thinking dirty things about the cherubs and the animals.

  Keeler’s Korner was exactly that: a tavern with the doorway set into the corner of the building. Keeler had bought the entire building in late 1968 and had refurbished what had been a seedy neighborhood tavern into his idea of an Irish pub. He had installed heavy leaded-glass windows, surrounded by simulated old beams of wood in a crisscross pattern. Here and there were some diamond-shaped inserts of glass scenes depicting what looked like Crusaders on horses. Over the entrance was a gable, apparently supported by the same type of simulated beams to give an old, authentic, real-Irish-village-pub effect. Surrounded by bright-green metal shamrocks was a sign, directly over the doorway, KEELER’S KORNER. The entire facing had been stuccoed over and painted a dull beige to fit in with the wooden-beam décor.

  Sam Catalano was leaning comfortably at the bar, talking with two new good friends. He introduced me to them with the warmth reserved for members of a secret society.

  The barman, a big chunky guy with a round soft pinkish face that went right back to his balding skull, was Danny Fitzmartin. His grip was bone-crushing and at odds with his nice soft sweet Irish voice and easy smile.

  The waitress, Lucille something, had a wet limp handshake. Even in the dim light, it was obvious that Lucille had known better days. She was so thin she was almost transparent, and the great bubble of bright-red hair overwhelmed her sharp narrow face. Her makeup was vivid and the mascara ended in little lumps at the ends of her false eyelashes. She and Sam had already established a certain understanding. When he sat down again on the bar stool next to hers, their knees touched.

  “Nice place,” I told Fitzmartin. “Bigger than it looks from outside.”

  “It’s a real family place. The old-timers still come round steady from the neighborhood. And we’ve been gettin’ a lot of younger people, some from as far away as the Bronx. To hear them folk singers we got, three times a week, ya know.”

  “Yeah, I hear they’re pretty good. Except for a show of temperament now and then.”

  The barman shrugged and grinned. “Crazy Irishmen, what can ya expect?”

  “You were both h
ere Wednesday night?” They both nodded and their faces became serious. “And George Keeler was here, all night, Wednesday into Thursday morning?”

  “Oh, George was here,” Lucille answered. “Poor George, them poor little kids, poor George.”

  She didn’t say “Poor Kitty.”

  “George was here until about two and a little after, maybe ten or fifteen after two,” Fitzmartin said.

  “And did you see George, all during that time? Was he absent for any length of time at all?”

  Lucille poked at her hair and leaned a little closer to Sam. “Oh, Georgie was here the whole time, here and in and out of the kitchen. Like I already told Sam.” The last with a wink at Sam.

  “How about a little something to make the day go by?” Danny gestured to his entire stock. We settled for beer, and as an afterthought he drew one for Lucille and himself as well.

  Lucille sipped the beer with small, dainty little swallowing sounds, then licked her lips. “George works the bar right along with Danny and he even works the tables with me, if the part-timers don’t show. We got two part-timers; young kids. Ya never know if they’ll show or not, ya know how kids are.”

  The part-timers were all present Wednesday night; could vouch for George Keeler.

  “Jesus,” Danny said suddenly, his meaty shoulders hunching over his arms on the spotless bar. “Who’d do a thing like that to George’s kids? That guy’d give you the shirt offa his back you asked him. He’s one in a million, that guy. Everybody loves George.”

  “Yeah, everybody but Kitty,” Lucille said tightly.

  Danny turned to her. “All right, Lucille.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not all right. It’s true.” She added, softly, “That little bitch.”

  “Lucille, I understand you spoke to Kitty Keeler on the phone Wednesday night?”

  “We were just up to that when you came in, Joe.” Sam wanted me to know he was right on the ball.

  “That’s terrific, Sam. Lucille?”

  “Yeah, well, like I started to tell Sam, ya know, she called him at eleven-twenty, on the button.”

  She verified what George Keeler had told me: the Irish folk singers had gotten into an argument because one of them wanted to sing something for an old-timer and the others objected because it was eleven-twenty and they had a break until eleven-thirty.

  “What did Kitty say when you told her George couldn’t come to the phone?”

  “I just asked her that, Joe, when you came in,” Sam told me.

  No doubt about it; Sam was right on the ball.

  “Well, like I started to tell Sam,” she spoke directly to Catalano as though they were alone and sharing a confidence, “her ladyship tells me, ‘I don’t care about that he’s involved with those singers, you tell him to get his ass over to the phone, right now!’ ” One thin hand rested on a sharp hipbone and her face and voice were expressive as she imitated first Kitty, then herself. “So I tell her that George would get back to her as soon as he was free and she says again, ‘Get him on the phone right now!’ ” According to Lucille, Kitty’s voice had been high-pitched and screechy; Lucille’s had been warm and polite. “So, okay, I call George again, and poor George, he’s up to his eyebrows in trouble with them singers, so I just hold the phone up high so’s she can hear the noise and all and then I tell her, I says like this to her, ‘As you can hear for yourself, Kitty, George ain’t free to come to the phone at the moment.’ And I tell her, ‘He’ll get back to you as soon as he’s free.’ And then I hung up on her.” She nodded a righteous jut of her chin. “Before she could do me, ya know?”

  “She got a bad temper—Kitty?”

  “She’s just so useta George gotta jump when Kitty says jump is all.” Lucille made a clicking noise against her teeth. “Huh, too bad about her, Mrs. Keeler.”

  “How did she sound, Lucille, when she spoke to you? Any different from how she usually sounds on the phone? Upset? What?”

  “I was just gonna ask her that when you came in, Joe.”

  This time I ignored Sam.

  “To me, she always sounds bitchy,” Lucille admitted. “She sounded the same as always, only more so, if you take my meaning. Just mad as hell that George didn’t come to the phone right away.”

  “Did she sound worried? Upset? Hysterical?”

  Lucille bit on her lip in thought. “Naw. Just sore as hell. Boy, poor Georgie, he tried to call her back like in five minutes, but from then on, the phone was busy-busy. She musta took it off the hook for the resta the night. She’s some bitch, that Kitty.”

  “Okay, Lucille,” Danny said, not so softly, “you done your little number. Take care a that old couple in Booth Three. They look like they’re drying out.”

  He leaned on the counter and confided, “She just don’t like Kitty is all. Hell, I guess most women don’t like Kitty much. She’s a real beautiful girl.”

  “How do you figure Kitty and George?”

  Danny pulled back, stiffened. “None of my business, ya know. I’ve known George fifteen, sixteen years, and he’s the nicest guy I ever known in my life. Kitty? Well, Kitty’s George’s business, the way I figure. How they live ain’t none of my business.”

  Spoken like a true bartender. While Danny and I shot the breeze, Lucille took Catalano upstairs to check out George’s apartment. Homicide guys had already checked out George’s .32, for which he had a permit.

  “Jeez,” Danny said, “I unnerstan the older kid, Terry, was hit by a thirty-eight.” It overwhelmed him for a moment and he rubbed his water-reddened hand over his face. “Jeez. What an awful thing.”

  “Yeah. You think of anything, Dan, anything at all, give me a call, right?”

  He assured me that he would and I believed him. Lucille brought Catalano back through the door from the hallway which led to George’s apartment. She was playfully poking at her bubble of hair; Catalano leaned close and said something that sent her into high ripples of laughter. Then Sam pressed her hand and left her regretfully.

  “Anything?” I asked him when we hit the late-afternoon street.

  “Naw. Nice neat little place, though. Lucille told me that in all the years she’s known George, he’s never once played around. She says Kitty is enough for George, but that it don’t work both ways. She says she can’t figure how George, or any other man, would put up with the way Kitty plays around. Like she don’t make no secret, no excuses or anything.”

  “Well, that’s how some people are, Sam.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t put up with it if it was my wife.” Then Sam flexed his shoulders, settled his jacket and told me, “Ya know, I bet I coulda made out with her in another five minutes; if I wanted to.”

  “Lucille knows a good thing when she sees it.” That made him feel good; at least until I told him his next assignment.

  “But that don’t make any sense, Joe. Hell, we don’t need all those people to verify that George was at his place all night. Joe, I wanna talk to you about something been bothering me.”

  Sam Catalano was bothered by the fact that he was only a third-grade detective; that he rarely had an opportunity to prove that he was worthy of promotion to second grade, which would merely be a steppingstone to first grade, which was what he really deserved. For some reason he was beginning to sense that Captain Neary didn’t like him very much, and could I maybe put in a word with Tim on his behalf? But be subtle about it, like it was all my own idea. “After all, Joe, I was the one who caught the case, even if you are senior man. It isn’t even as if we was partners anymore, it’s just the way things worked out, ya know?”

  I promised I’d mention his name to Neary, but he didn’t seem too cheered up by that. “Hey, Sam, you know a guy named Steve Werner? Second-grade guy in Narcotics?”

  “Steve Werner?” Catalano was memorizing the name. “Hey, Joe, anything to do with the ... the ‘drug thing’?”

  I winked and patted Sam on the back. There was a new spring to his step as he headed for his car. The son-of-a-bitch was
in a hopeful mood again.

  Vito Geraldi’s beady little eyes were gleaming with excitement when I reported to Tim Neary’s office. Even Tim looked a little cheered up, but Tim keeps a tight rein on himself.

  Vito wrapped a heavy arm around my shoulders and escorted me across the room. “Pay dirt, Joey,” he told me. “We’re starting to hit pay dirt, kid.”

  “That’s terrific, Vito.” I eased myself from his grip and glanced at Tim.

  “Vincent Martucci, Joe. Familiar name?”

  Either they were going to tell me or they were going to make me guess. “Owner of the New World Health Spa; Kitty Keeler’s boss. Right?”

  “Minor mob figure, with a record going back some thirty years,” Tim said. “Owner of the New World Health Spa; Kitty Keeler’s boss; and Kitty Keeler’s lover.” Tim picked up his reading glasses. “He’s out in Phoenix, Joe; where Kitty was supposed to be going. On Wednesday night, April sixteenth, 1975, Kitty Keeler made a person-to-person call to Vincent Martucci, out at the spa in Phoenix.” He checked with a slip of paper, then said, “They talked from eleven-thirty P.M. until twelve-five midnight.”