“It would have pissed you off. Just like the radio thing.” He smirked. “Let her down easy, champ. Vinny’s, right?”
“It’s not a date,” I repeated. “And yes.”
“Well, get a nice bottle on me, will ya?” He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and slapped it on Sinclair’s desk. “You need the buzz. You’ve been under quite some stress.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because you only stay away from the station when you’re stressed. Same thing when you smoke — only when you’re nervous.”
I picked up the cash. “How much is in here?”
“You gave me a literal ton of gold. I sort of owe you.”
I chuckled and pocketed the money, along with the pen and notepad. “I can’t have too much. I’m nursing a fresh wound.”
“Just enjoy yourself, okay? I miss the Elias who could have a pint after work. Loosen up.”
“Is that an order?”
He laughed and walked back to his office, leaving me alone.
I supposed it was.
Vincenzo’s, or Vinny’s, was the one decent restaurant in the Lower City. It sported an open bar that everyone patronized: cops, crooks, and common people looking for a buzz. Sure, the Upper City complained, but they’d have had to wade through hell itself to shut it down. The servers were professional and quick, the food immaculate, and the owner one hell of a character.
Adamo was a classic mobster from back in the day. He’d used the money he made bootlegging to open the restaurant. The Mafia had been pissed when it first opened, since it sat at the corner of Kenmare Street and Bowery, the four-way point of the Mangano, Gagliano, Profaci, and Adonis territories. But after the four bosses sat down, had a parley, shared a bottle of wine, and sampled the Italian cuisine, they made it hallowed ground. There were very few agreements in the Lower City between the remaining cartels, but even the Iron Hands followed the statute cemented by the Five Families: don’t fuck with Vinny’s.
Adamo had knocked down the walls between three or four storefronts to create one massive entity. Two stories were needed to accommodate the volume of people they hosted on a daily basis. Mob money had helped to furnish a second level after they’d sold out the ground floor day in and day out in the ’20s. Even this deep into the Depression, this place had only one quiet day — Thursdays — and that was only because Adamo needed a break now and then, lest he keel over from a heart attack. Two sets of spiral stairs connected the floors, and each held scores of tables. Candlelit ambience, live bands playing, and drinks in droves. Here, it was as if the previous decade had never ended.
As I walked in through the canopied double doors, a well-dressed woman with grey hair and reading glasses looked up at me. She smiled as soon as she saw my face and came out from behind her stand.
“Elias, it has been too long!”
“Good to see you, Maria.” I kissed her on both cheeks, and she reciprocated.
“What’s kept you from us? You know you always have a table.”
“Business, unfortunately.” I smiled. “I’m meeting someone for a late lunch and an interview. I’ll need some wine.” I handed her the wad Robins had given me, and she slipped it between her fingers. “I’ll pay the difference. Get me something classic.”
“Of course. Head on over, Adamo will be right with you. And who might you be having an interview with?”
“A woman. You’ll recognize her when you see her.”
“Hmm, an interview, ah?” She smiled and sauntered away.
“It’s not a date,” I said to myself, walking to my seat.
The booth — my booth — was on the second floor facing the street, in the centre of a small walkway with a line of booths on one side, and a railing looking down on the rest of the restaurant on the other. I slid in and looked out the window, watching the snow whip by, leaving crystals on the glass. The ambience was welcome: heat, laughter, and the band playing loud enough to drown out my pumping heart as my wound nagged at me.
The band was down on the ground floor, in a corner of the restaurant dedicated to various live performances. The ten or so restaurant tables that ordinarily went in that corner were replaced by small circular bar tables filled with people drinking and watching the band. The music was strange: blueswing, a grating electronic version of swing music. The lead singer had some pipes on her, though. The strange thing was seeing the Blue-eyes behind her playing electrical and mechanical instruments. The devices were either held in the machines’ hands or built into their bodies, mimicking the sounds of trumpets and drums, but with a synthetic, flanging aftersound that was hard to ignore. It wasn’t my preferred kind of music, but the people below were loving it, and even I found the beat quite catchy.
My attention on the band, I was somewhat taken by surprise when I heard clacking heels behind me. I turned my head as far as I could without threatening the integrity of my new stitches.
Simone was mere inches from the booth. She smiled, looking down at me, one hand on the cushion I was leaning against. She wore a green dress whose long hem hid her feet, though her arms were exposed, and she carried a small purse. Her blond hair was curled and pinned up off her shoulders and neck to show her earrings. The pattern on the dress seemed familiar. It took a moment to decipher; it was an ornate art deco rendition of the Empire Building, but upside down.
I realized then how underdressed I was. I must have looked like a jackass next to her.
“Detective Elias Roche, I thank you for this opportunity.” She slid into the booth opposite me, placing her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “What a moment, seeing the Nightcaller in his natural habitat.”
“Please don’t call me that.” It was already starting.
“Fine. For now, away from the public eye, I suppose we can stick with names, not monikers, Elias.” She smirked at me. I didn’t reciprocate. “Nice place. Very nice place. Very busy for the afternoon.”
“You’ve never been here? Never heard of it?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of it. I try to stay away from public places, but I’ve heard all about who comes here and why. It’s much nicer than I thought it would be for a Mafia-run establishment. And serving alcohol here without repercussions? There’s got to be a story there.”
“There is.”
“One that involves you?”
I scratched my head. “No, it happened before my tenure. As a cop, I did come here quite often with the precinct on Saturdays. Those were better times. Simpler times.”
“And times are complicated now because of people, politics? I’ve heard you really get around.”
“How so?”
“Your partner, Allen, said that you’ve met with Maranzano personally.” Goddamn it, Allen. “I’ve tried to get him in public for years, and nothing. You must be pretty important to be in his good graces.”
“Ha! Not his good graces. I know people who can get me in to see him, but if he could get rid of me, he would.”
“And why can’t he?”
I coughed, trying to think how to change the subject, but thankfully Adamo did that for me. He came barrelling in, louder than an ox, carrying a tray with a bottle of wine on it. He put it down, pulled me out of my seat, and wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug. Please, God, don’t let me bleed out from this.
“Elias, il mio scemo, it has been too long!” He was tall, built like a truck, with a bald head and hairy arms. I couldn’t help but smile. He let me sit down again. “You’ve lost weight! We need to fatten you up. Maria!” he screamed across the restaurant. No one batted an eye at us. “Get them cooking in there! Piccolino is hungry!”
“I’m not that hungry, Adamo. We’ll be fine.”
“And who is this?” He extended his hand to Simone, and she shook it, both of them smiling at each other. “Ah, il mio scemo, she is a thing of beauty! No wonder you wanted wine. I got some of our good stuff out, for old times’ sake. Calabrese, from the old country.”
I shrugged and l
et him show it off before running off to speak to some other customers. For the life of me, I couldn’t get the smile off my face, and Simone noticed.
“I wish I had a camera,” she remarked. “A good friend of yours, I guess?”
“Italians stick together.” I sat back down “My parents were friends of his for years, and after they went to the Upper City, it was just me down here to keep him and Maria company. They’re like my godparents, and in the old country, that basically means they’re my parents.”
“Funny,” she said, pulling out a cigarette, “Roche isn’t a very Italian-sounding name.”
“Curious, ain’t it?” I pulled out my lighter and helped her out, catching sight of the engraved eye before putting it back.
“Adds to the mystery. Nothing about you seems to add up,” she began. “A cop for almost a decade who quit to become a vigilante? That’s not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Or maybe it depends on the circumstances.”
My brow went back to furrowing. “Yeah, best we leave the past alone.”
“But people want to know! We can only peddle pulp characters for so long before the audience needs the backstory. Where did he come from? Who is he really? Does he have anyone to care for, or to care for him? People are on the edge of their seats, waiting for the next installment of the drama. What harrowing adventures or dastardly escapades will the Nightcaller get himself into next?”
“Why?” I slumped back in my seat. “Why any of it? Why are my adventures such a big deal?”
She smiled. With the hand holding her cigarette, she tapped the wine bottle. I poured some for her and a little for myself. She’d be more willing to let loose information if she were liquored up.
“Tell me, do you follow any radio programs, Elias?”
“No.”
“Watch TV?”
“No.”
“Read?”
“I don’t have much time, but here and there.”
“And why do you read?”
“What do you mean?”
She sipped the red wine, making sure not to stain her lips. Her eyes never left me, and it made me feel stripped of my defences. I hated it.
“The people out there working for a few cents an hour and holed up in apartments they can barely afford to feed kids whose circumstances they can’t improve — they read and listen and watch for an escape. They’ve been under the boot of these Mafias since the ’20s, and while before it might have been a good thing, now the Mob is a stain, more likely to leave you a corpse than to pay you your share. Hearing the stories of the Nightcaller gives these people a semblance of hope that not everything in this country turned to shit after ’29. It’s their escape from their own personal hell, because beauty is a luxury they cannot afford.”
I’d been wrong. It wasn’t just me and my friends’ lives that were shit, it was everyone in the city’s. I was so caught up in my own world, I’d forgotten that the real one existed. I’d been depriving myself of sleep, compromising my health, and for what? The Eye? Pretending that I was doing the right thing? I doubted anyone would have considered what I’d just pulled at the Angel’s Share a public service. Maybe I shouldn’t be getting more sleep after all; being this aware of everything around me just made me depressed.
Our appetizers came, and the conversation continued.
“So, Elias, where did it all start?” Her cigarette had run out, but her glass was only half-empty.
“After the War ended in ’17, I took a year off to work in the navy for a spell. I started in law enforcement after that, in 1919.”
“No, before all that. I know from public information that you were born in 1898. Now you’re thirty-five and you’ve been toting a gun since ’16, when the U.S. officially joined the War. Fill me in.”
“And how much of this will be on the air?”
“Only what you’re comfortable with. Swear on my life.”
Careful what you say, Morane.
“I grew up in Manhattan. My parents owned an apartment up on 44th. When I was sixteen, I earned a scholarship to Cornell.”
“For what?”
“Chemistry.”
She seemed stunned. “Chemistry? I never imagined —”
“What? That I’m not just some dumb oaf with a piece?” She stayed silent, surely aware that she’d offended me. Finally, her confidence cracked. “Like you said, we joined the War in ’16,” I continued, “two years into my academic career. I was seventeen when I signed up for boot camp, along with most of the university. I don’t know what made me join, but I did it. The day I told my parents … oh boy.”
“Rough?”
“My mother hasn’t seen me the same way since. My father sort of understood, but he felt betrayed, seeing his son throw away an opportunity at a prestigious school. I shipped out, and that was that. Came back and, walking into Cornell, I felt so out of place that I left. So, I signed up with my old squad mates to do some work with the navy, and after that, we all joined the 5th Precinct.”
“But why didn’t you want to go back to your studies at Cornell?”
“I was nineteen when I got home. I had spent almost a year in foxholes, my hands covered in grease or shit or blood. The first time I killed someone … I remember it like I’m still there now. The smell, the feeling of the rifle, the rain. Could you do this job you’re doing every day, remembering the terrified, dying face of a man whose chest you just put a bullet in?”
Her expression faltered strangely. Was it sympathy? Empathy? Sadness?
I continued, “One look at a classroom and I felt trapped, like I was back in the trenches, surrounded by corpses. Before, I’d felt like I was part of a different world, a better world, at Cornell. But going to Europe and fighting, it pulled me down to a part of the human condition most people would rather not acknowledge.”
Simone nodded, her overbearing demeanour gone. She seemed to understand. Without the smarmy attitude, I could sense real empathy, a rare thing for me to see. I had a feeling I’d struck a chord.
“My father was in the War,” she finally said.
“I know, I served under him at Strasbourg.”
“My mother was from Verdun.” Goddamn … that wasn’t a good place to be back then. “She wanted to go back in ’14, said she missed the country and wanted to see some friends, had heard about brewing tensions. She went back, and then … everything started. My father was there, too, commanding forces against the Germans. He searched for her everywhere. I don’t even know if she has a gravestone, or if she’s lumped in with the rest of the faceless dead. He was never the same after that. Just a shell of his former self.”
“I can’t imagine what he went through.” My gut wrenched seeing her like this. “I lost friends, too, but not someone that close. My heart goes out to you, truly.”
“Do you know why I got into journalism? Because of my mother. Because where there once was her beauty, her love, her laughter, there’s now just bones and dirt. She was another body in a mass grave, another forgotten name. Maybe one day my father will forget her name and her face. And when he’s passed on, I’ll just be me. I’ll be the only person to have known her smile, her voice, her touch … It hurts to think about. All we have now are memories, and those fade far too quickly. At least as a journalist I can document and broadcast the lives of people whom otherwise no one would remember. Their names, their hopes and dreams, their struggles. And though I can’t record the story of every man, woman, and child, I can give them stories. Your story gives people hope, and if that’s all we can give, at least it’s something.”
That was moving. Beautiful, really. I only wished I had the same conviction for something, anything.
“You’re a man of violence, Roche, but you aren’t the kind of man to glorify it,” she continued. “I know what you do on the streets isn’t good, I know you kill. But I can’t imagine you’d ever want to go back to how you used to be. Can you?”
I could. Yesterday I’d had the blood of ten bodies on my hands. I was a mons
ter, a rabid animal meant to hunt and rip and tear. A wolf. I’d hidden it until ’28, but since then, it had been out and wreaking havoc. But I couldn’t be honest with her.
“No. I don’t think I can.”
“You kill because you have to, right?” she asked.
“Yes. Only if necessary.”
First Allen, now her. And last, myself. How many people would I lie to?
A silence arose during the main course and remained for some time. Halfway through, I looked up to see her smiling at me.
“You’re not as dark and brooding as I thought you’d be,” she said, her lighthearted attitude returning. It was good to see she’d pulled back from her earlier dejection.
“What makes you say that?”
“I was expecting you to be all sullen and sad, but hearing you talk, even casually — it’s refreshing. You’re not wrapped up in all the bad that’s happening around us.”
“Trust me, I am. I just hide it when I need to. And I need to be positive for those around me, to keep them from getting dragged down by all that terrible shit.”
“Then why were you all rude and distant whenever I wanted an interview?” Her confident smirk was back.
“I’m just an asshole,” I laughed. “I’d rather keep people at a distance. It’s easier to deal with them when they’re well out of arm’s reach.”
“Then why do you keep Detective Erzly so close?”
I froze. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Constable Erzly. And it doesn’t count,” I retorted.
“He’s a person, no?”
“It is a machine, nothing more. A good partner, but nothing close to human.”
“I see.”
Another silence, another pause. I had questions, but not the energy to ask them. Though there was one nagging query I had to put to rest.
“This radio show …”
“Oh? You’re interested now?” She smiled, resting her chin on her knuckles and looking at me matter-of-factly. “What about it?”
“When did it come to fruition? To me it came out of the blue.”
“RCA wanted to keep it under the radar until it was ready. The higher-ups thought it was a risky project, but they wanted something fresh, original, authentic. Overall, it was an experiment to try out a new style of radio show. I think it’s going splendidly.”
Midnight Page 14