And then I was the one who was gasping.
Binky was standing tall in the bedroom doorway with his left forearm clenched like a vise around Abby’s neck, and the fingers of his right hand wrapped so tight around the handle of the kitchen butcher knife that his knuckles were white. He was holding the knife up high, within slashing distance of Abby’s throat, and the expression on his face was so psychotic it made my blood run cold.
“You fucking, lying, scheming bitch!” he yelled at me. “How did you get into my apartment? I have to kill you now, you know! And your sexy little girlfriend, too!” He jerked his arm even tighter around Abby’s neck and stepped backward, cutting off her air supply and dragging her with him into the living room. Abby’s eyes popped wide in panic as she struggled in vain to pull his arm away from her wind-pipe.
“Wait, Binky! Stop!” I cried, dropping Gray’s shirt and boots on the floor and hurtling myself through the bedroom door after them. I wanted to kick him in the stomach and knee him in the groin and yank his arm away from Abby’s neck, but I didn’t dare try. The knife was too close to Abby’s throat. One wrong move and—
“Hold it right there!” Binky roared. “If you come any closer I’m going to slice your friend wide open. That’s what the slut deserves! Isn’t that right, baby?” he said to Abby, turning his head and biting her on the cheek. Hard. “You were a bad, bad girl in Sardi’s last night. Rubbing your leg up against mine and pretending to be somebody you’re not. I’ll have to punish you for that.”
Binky’s threats were both horrifying and offensive, but they actually served a worthy purpose. They distracted him for a few brief but essential seconds, causing him to loosen his clutch on Abby’s neck. Not by much, but enough for her to start breathing again.
“But you should punish me instead of her!” I blustered, hoping to distract Binky further—a whole lot further. “I’m the one who got her into this mess! I talked her into going to Sardi’s with me, and I sent her to your table to spy on you.”
Binky looked as though he might explode. “You’re gonna pay for that, you whore!” he seethed. “I can’t believe I trusted you. You said you wanted to be an actress, but all you really wanted to do was wreck my career. And I know why! It’s because I’ve got talent! And you can’t handle it, can you? You’re just like all the other Studio shitheads—James Dean, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Gray Gordon! You’re all so fucking selfish and jealous and resentful you just can’t stand to see a fellow acting student succeed!”
Every cell in my body was screaming, but I kept my speaking voice down to a soothing purr. “You’ve got me all wrong, Binky,” I said, giving him the sweetest smile my trembling lips could form. “I think you’re a wonderful actor who deserves to be a big, big star. I watched you audition for Elia Kazan, remember, and I thought you were fabulous in the Hot Tin Roof role. Much better than Ben Gazzara or Gray Gordon ever dreamed of being.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, wild eyes gleaming. “If Kazan had half a brain he would’ve given me the understudy role in the first place! I’ve got more talent in the wart on my little toe than Gray had in his whole stupid body. The only reason Gray got the job instead of me was because he was so goddamn handsome. Kazan figured his sexy good looks would make him a hit with the broads in the audience—which is pretty goddamn funny since Gray was as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
“Really?” I said, putting on a big show of surprise. “I didn’t think Gray was gay!” I wasn’t trying to squelch any rumors or change any minds, I just wanted to keep Binky talking, no matter what the subject happened to be (as long as it wasn’t murder). “In fact, I thought he had a steady girlfriend,” I stumbled on. “Somebody he really cared about. He bragged about her a lot, and he always called her Cupcake.”
Binky gave me a crooked grin. “Ha! If that pansy had a fucking girlfriend, she must have been a fairy!” Delighted by his own ugly joke, he threw his head back and laughed out loud.
And that was when I made my move.
Shooting Abby a quick wink of warning, I leapt forward and grabbed hold of Binky’s right arm with both hands, pulling it and the knife outward (i.e., away from Abby’s throat) with all my might. But all my might wasn’t enough. I was able to hold onto Binky’s arm for no more than two seconds before he shook me off, pushed me away, and—with a single squeeze of his powerful biceps—snapped the knife back into slashing position.
There was only one problem—for Binky, I mean: Abby’s throat was no longer in position! Somehow, during the course of the two seconds I’d spent wrestling with Binky’s arm, Abby had worked herself free from his other arm and propelled herself—coughing and wheezing—out of slashing range. Hallelujah! God was in his heaven and all was right with the world!
But not for long.
Enraged beyond endurance, Binky jerked the butcher knife up over his head and lunged toward me, swiping the blade downward in a blinding flash. Missed me, slit open the side of the couch. I tried to move away from him, but the apartment was so small there was no place to move to. Binky grabbed me by the arm and reined me in, pulling me up hard against his chest in a sadistic lover’s embrace. Then, grunting like a pig and glaring down at me with his demon eyes, he yanked the blade of the knife up to a point just under my chin and—
“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” bellowed a taut male voice behind me. “Drop the knife on the floor and reach for the ceiling!”
Silence fell on the room like a bomb. Binky stopped grunting. Abby stopped wheezing. I stopped whimpering. Staring, openmouthed, at the person who was standing behind me, Binky released me from his crushing hold, let the knife fall to the floor, and raised his hands in the air without a word (or grunt) of protest.
I spun around on my heels and gazed at the man who had materialized—as if by magic—just in time to save my life. The dark-haired man with the gun in his hand. The tall, lean man dressed head to toe in dark clothing. The sly, sneaky, illusive man whose identity I had been unable to confirm until now. It was Blackie.
Chapter 36
IT WASN’T UNTIL BLACKIE PULLED A pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket and slapped them on Binky’s wrists that I began to realize what was going on. Blackie was friend, not foe. Protector, not stalker. Cop, not killer. And any doubts I may have had on this score were quickly eliminated when, just a few seconds later, four uniformed policemen rushed into the small apartment, crowding the narrow living room beyond capacity.
“Step over here, please, Mrs. Turner,” Blackie said, maneuvering me toward the bedroom doorway, out of the way of the other cops who, in spite of the strict space limitations, immediately launched into their prescribed police routine. One officer began patting Binky down, one started searching the apartment, one got to work bagging and labeling the knife, and one escorted Abby to the rear corner of the room for safe-keeping. (Abby was feeling just fine, you should know. I could tell by the way she was flirting with her handsome young caretaker.)
“That was a close call,” Blackie said, tucking his gun in his belt and scowling at me. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No, I’m okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t. My nerves were jangling, my teeth were rattling, and my knees were shaking out of control. In the interest of appearing cool, however, I chose to withhold that information. “Thanks for saving my life,” I said instead.
“Glad to be of service,” he replied, still scowling but extending his hand for a shake. “I’m Detective John Dash. NYPD. You may have seen me around. I’ve been following you for the past four days.”
“Yes, I believe I did catch a glimpse of you here and there.”
His frown deepened. “Guess I got a little careless.”
“I thought you were the killer,” I confessed, “looking for a good opportunity to kill me.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just doing my job.”
“Speaking of jobs,” I said, “what happened to your busboy position at Stewart�
��s Cafeteria? Did you quit or get fired?”
He smiled. (At least I think that little upward twitch of his lips was a smile.) “I was on assignment at Stewart’s,” he explained, “working undercover. I was put there to spy on the Village homos—find out everything I could about the chicken run.”
Ugh. I wished I hadn’t asked.
“But after you got involved in the Gordon murder,” he went on, “they took me off busboy duty and sent me to spy on you.”
“Why? Did they actually think I was the killer?”
“Can’t answer that,” he said, scraping his fingers through his wavy hair and giving me a tired look. “And I’m supposed to be asking the questions here, not you. So, whaddaya say you quit grilling me and start telling me what went on here today? Keep it short and sweet. Detective Flannagan will get all the details later.”
I gave him a quick rundown of the afternoon’s events, then led him into the bedroom where Gray’s shirt and boots were scattered on the floor. Blackie—oops, I mean Detective Dash—picked up the boots, wrapped them up in the shirt, and then gave them to one of the other cops to bag. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, taking the gun out of his belt and sticking it into the slim holster hidden under the leg of his long black pants. “Let’s round up the horses and head for the stable.”
THERE WERE TWO SQUAD CARS PARKED at the curb. Binky was ushered outside and deposited in one of them, accompanied by the three officers who had attended to him inside. Sullen, silent, and still in handcuffs, he sat with his shoulders hunched and his head hanging low until the car pulled out and sped away, disappearing in the shadows beneath the doomed elevated train track.
Barnabas Kapinsky had taken his final bow. There were no bravos; no standing ovation.
After an argument between Abby and Blackie about Fabrizio’s bicycle (she wanted to ride it back to the Village, he wanted her to ride in the car and come back for the bike later), Abby and I were chauffeured to the Sixth Precinct station, with Fabrizio’s Schwinn Jaguar Deluxe strapped to the trunk of the car. It was a fast trip and a quiet one. Even Abby didn’t feel much like talking.
Once we were taken upstairs to Homicide, however, and seated in the hard wooden chairs across the desk from Flannagan, we both had plenty to say.
“I told you Willy Sinclair wasn’t the murderer,” I said to Flannagan the second Blackie finished briefing him on the afternoon’s events. I lit up an L&M and spewed the smoke out in an extra loud whoosh. “If you had listened to me, you could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”
“Yeah!” Abby said. “A whole lot of trouble. We nearly had our throats slashed, you know!”
Flannagan glared at us and let out a gruff harrumph. “You can’t blame that on me. If you had kept your snotty little noses out of the case to begin with, none of this ever would have happened.”
“Right!” I cried. “And instead of having the real murderer in police custody, you’d have poor Willy behind bars—set to go on trial and maybe even receive the death sentence—for a murder he didn’t commit!” (I don’t often break society’s strict gender rules and speak so boldly to men in authority—no matter how stupid they happen to be. But in this case, I simply couldn’t help myself. I was mad.)
Flannagan’s boyish, clean-shaven face turned an unusual shade of purple. “How dare you speak to me that way!” he spluttered, banging his fist down on top of the desk. “I’m the homicide detective in charge of this case, and you’re just a two-bit pencil-pusher for a smutty crime magazine! You think you know everything about the way I’ve handled this investigation, and you don’t have a clue.”
“Oh, really?” I said, with a sniff. “Then perhaps you’d better tell me how you’ve handled it, Detective. A two-bit crime reporter can’t afford to be clueless.” (Okay, maybe my tone was a tad sarcastic, but not totally. I swear! I was truly curious to hear what Flannagan would have to say for himself—and I wanted to collect all the dirty details for my smutty story.)
But I was losing him and Abby knew it. “Oh, yes, Detective Flannagan, please tell!” she warbled, batting her lashes like crazy, striving to soothe his disgruntled male ego with an ooze of feminine charm.
It worked. Flannagan’s face turned from purple to pink. He smirked, loosened his tie, leaned way back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, filthy shoe soles facing me. “In the first place, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “I never even came close to arresting Willard Sinclair for the murder. We didn’t have enough proof for that. A matching blood type is strong, persuasive evidence, but it isn’t conclusive. So, however low your opinion of the NYPD may be, your precious faggot friend wasn’t in danger of going to prison or receiving an unjust death penalty. That’s not the way we do things around here.”
“Oh, no? Then why were you constantly harassing and abusing Willy—calling him a queer and a pervert and a psychopath, and insisting that he was the one who killed Gray? Is that just the way you get your kicks?” I took one last drag on my cigarette and angrily crushed it in the ashtray.
Flannagan jerked himself up straight and put his feet back on the floor. “You have no right to question my methods, Mrs. Turner,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth. “And you’re wishing on a goddamn star if you think I’m going to explain my investigative procedures to you.”
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. “But will you at least tell me why you put Black—I mean, Detective Dash on my tail?” I went on. “Did you really believe that I was the murderer? I know that the person who discovers the body often turns out to be the killer, but how could you possibly think—”
“I didn’t!” Flannagan interrupted, unaware that the hasty placement of his words made his response very funny (to me, at any rate). “I never for one moment thought you were the killer,” he grumbled. “I had you followed for different reasons entirely.”
“Oh?” I said, curiosity mounting. “And what would those reasons be?”
In spite of his vow not to explain himself, he did.
“I had a hunch you were going to snoop around on your own,” he began, obviously eager to reveal and extol his own skills of detection. “I had heard about the other murder cases you meddled in and wrote articles about, and I figured you would try to do the same stupid thing in this case—especially since you and your friend discovered the body.
“So I decided to have you followed,” he continued. “I called in Johnny Dash and told him to stick to you like gum, for two simple reasons—one, to see if you might turn up any good clues or actually track down the killer—and two, to protect you if you did. And considering the fact that Dash saved the lives of you and your friend today, I’d say my decision was a damn good one.”
He had a point.
A damn good one.
“I see,” I mumbled, staring down at the floor, ashamed that I’d been giving Detective Flannagan such a hard time when he’d been doing such a good job (or so it seemed). If it weren’t for Flannagan and Dash, I humbly admitted to myself, Abby and I would be on the way to the city morgue right now—or in transit to the Staten Island landfill. I was trying to find the right words to express my heartfelt apologies and gratitude when Abby jumped in and saved me the trouble.
“Hey, bobba ree bop!” she whooped, catapulting out of her chair and darting over to Johnny Dash, who was standing to one side of the desk, leaning against a wooden file cabinet. “You’re my hero!” she cried, flinging her arms around his neck and planting a huge (and I’d be willing to bet openmouthed) kiss on his unsuspecting lips. Then she hopped over to Flannagan, threw herself down on his lap, pulled his face down close to hers, and repeated the procedure.
Both men were shocked, but pleased. Breathless and blushing. And for several long minutes after Abby danced away and returned to her chair on the other side of the desk, their chests were so puffed up with pride I thought they’d pop.
I hated to put a damper on the friendly fireworks, but I was still curious about the case. “Was Detective Dash following me t
he night of the Fourth, when I went to the party at the Keller Hotel?” I asked. “The night I got hit on the head?”
“Yes, of course he was,” Flannagan answered. “Who do you think called us when you were assaulted? How do you think we got there so fast?”
“So Blackie . . . I mean, Detective Dash was the anonymous caller you told me about?”
“Right.”
“That settles it then,” I said. “The man who knocked me out was Aunt Doobie.”
“The one and only,” Flannagan said. “But his real name is Christopher Dubin. He’s a thirty-four-year-old lawyer with a wife and two kids. He’s also a covert homosexual who was so terrified you would find out who he really is and expose his sordid secret to the world and his wife, that he bashed you on the head with a rock and took off like a bat outta hell.”
Christopher Dubin. Married. Two kids. “How did you get all this information?” I sputtered, begging for more. “Did you find him at the Mayflower Hotel? Did he confess to hitting me? Did he admit that he was Gray’s lover?”
Murder on a Hot Tin Roof Page 29