Brass Rainbow (3 page)

Maybe Sammy Weiss had killed and stolen $25,000, but he hadn't acted last night like a man with $25,000. He had been really scared, I knew that much, and it wasn't like him not to flash that money at me if he wanted help. On top of that, how did Weiss get owed $25,000 in the first place?

At the corner I decided to look closer into what Sammy had been doing lately. I started crosstown for the subway. I got two steps.

A car pulled up beside me and two men got out—one from each side of the car.

4

I
DIDN'T TRY
to run. There was no point. They had me boxed, and I waited in the snow for them to come up to me. They came on both sides, wary.

Then I saw the buggy-whip aerial on the car, and I saw the way they walked. Not exactly with arrogance, but with the cool assurance that comes from the massive power of law, right, and privilege that rests on them—cops.

“Fortune?” one of them said when he reached me.

“Would it help to say no?”

“Are you Daniel Fortune?” the second one asked without a smile.

“I'm Daniel Fortune,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Come on,” the first one said.

They conducted me to the car. I didn't know either of them, which probably meant they were from the local precinct. The man in the back of the car wasn't from the local precinct, and I knew him: Captain Gazzo from Homicide down at Centre Street.

“Hello, Dan,” Gazzo said.

“Captain,” I said.

I've known Gazzo all my life, since the days when he was a young cop and a friend of my mother's after my father faded out, but he's “Captain” when there are other cops around. It's a big city, New York, and Gazzo is the law. He was the law now. He didn't ask me to get in the car with him. I leaned in at the rear window, snow melting on my neck. That seemed to be where he wanted me. Interrogation is an art.

“Where's Sammy Weiss, Dan?”

“I don't know. I saw him early last night, not since.”

“He hired you to work for him?”

“No.”

“What did he tell you last night?”

“That he hit a man named Jonathan Radford. That Freedman was after him, and that he's scared of Freedman.”

“Hit?” Gazzo said.

“That's what he told me.”

Gazzo seemed to be trying to decide just how stupid I was this time. While I waited for him to decide, I thought about George Ames. It was obvious now that Ames had let me look at the study so he could make a call to the police and report me.

Gazzo decided. “George Ames called Chief of Detectives McGuire, Dan. He doesn't like you around. McGuire called me. I was up here on the case, so I came around to give you the word.”

“Ames goes high,” I said.

“Men like George Ames call a chief of detectives the way you and I call a messenger. He wouldn't even think about anyone lower. He knows McGuire personally, Dan. You have any real reason for thinking Weiss isn't guilty? Any facts?”

“No,” I admitted. My neck was getting very wet.

Gazzo didn't care about my neck. “Radford was an important man. There's a stink already—hoodlums running loose; crime in the streets; no one safe in his home: the usual. We want Weiss.”

“It wasn't a random crime, Captain. Weiss was invited in.”

Gazzo ignored me. “Facts, and experience, tell us that Weiss made the mistake he's been ready to make all his life. Everything points to it, nothing points away from it. You have nothing, Dan. You don't even have a legitimate client. Up top they don't want you muddying the waters and maybe helping Weiss without meaning to.”

“Maybe the waters need muddying.”

“You want me to tell the Chief that?”

I leaned in the window. “Look, Captain, I haven't been nosing around long enough to even have a hunch. Weiss came to me, and I've been sort of automatically following up. Maybe it's reflex, or maybe it's a subconscious feeling that Sammy needs help from someone, but I want to find out more.”

“You're saying we won't find out all there is to know?”

I took a deep breath. “I'm not sure you'll try. When you have a prime suspect, you don't go around fishing for new suspects in the shadows. No police force could, Gazzo. Until you rule out Weiss, you won't look for anyone else.”

“You're saying we won't find out if he's innocent?”

“I'm saying you won't think about anyone else while you have Weiss. You've got too much crime and too few men. You can miss things. Remember that kid in Brooklyn who sat in jail for ten months with everything pointing to him until one of your men, on a hunch and his own time, proved the kid was innocent? Maybe no one will get a hunch about Weiss. Maybe you'll take too long, and facts will disappear. Maybe Weiss is so scared he'll panic and get gunned down. Even if he's guilty, Captain, I might turn up some mitigating circumstances.”

Gazzo just sat there. “The Chief doesn't want you in this, Dan. I told him you've got a good record, so he won't make it official, but stay out of our way, and co-operate. Plain enough?”

“I'll do the best I can.”

He didn't push the message any farther. He signaled the driver, and the car pulled away, leaving me alone in the snow. I felt very alone. The power of the police over me, like most power in our society, was mainly economic. But I have an edge. I don't have to be a detective or work in New York. No one depends on my success. I have no status to keep and no investment to tie me down. I had to give up a lot of comforts and trinkets to get that edge. In a money society you can be independent with money, or independent of money. Anywhere in between you're under the thumb.

That is true enough, but I didn't kid myself. The police have other powers not so legitimate. A private detective can bend a lot of laws, and a chief of detectives can turn a bend into a break. That power is harder to use in a city the size of New York, but it was there. I would have to be careful.

I would have liked to ask Gazzo about what he knew, about why the police were so sure Weiss was their man, about the circumstances and the alibis of others, but you don't ask those things when you're being told that the higher powers don't want you around. I would have to dig myself—especially into that $25,000 Weiss said he had won from Walter Radford.

Cellars Johnson sat alone at the green table in the cellar on Houston Street where he holds his steady game. He was dealing poker hands to himself.

“Take a hand,” Cellars said.

Cellars squeezed his cards as if it were 4:00
A.M.
in his regular game and all the night's winnings were in the pot. His black face sweated, but his eyes were a blank wall. In a real game even his sweat glands would have been under control, and there is nothing that happens around the Village that Cellars doesn't know.

“Have you seen Sammy Weiss?” I asked.

Cellars studied his cards. I had jacks over fives.

“Bet fifty,” Cellars said. “I saw him maybe two
A.M.
last night.”

“Raise fifty,” I said. It's easy to gamble big in the mind, for fun. “Did he play last night?”

“He couldn't show the cash.”

“How much cash do you ask now?”

“A hundred to sit down,” Cellars said. “Gimme two cards.”

I took one card myself. I still had jacks and fives.

“Bet the pot,” Cellars said.

“Raise the pot,” I said. The big plunger. “I heard Weiss won $25,000 from a kid named Walter Radford.”

Cellars didn't seem to hear me. He tossed in his cards. “Let's see what you raised a pot bet on.”

I showed him my two pair. It was just a game for laughs. Cellars didn't laugh.

“You don't even see a pot bet by a two-card draw with a lousy two pair,” Cellars instructed. “I folded three queens.”

He was telling me that in a real game I might get away with that kind of playing once, maybe twice, but in the end I'd be begging cab fare. Cellars can't play bad poker even for fun.

I said, “You know anything about this Walter Radford?”

Cellars gathered the cards. “You for or against Weiss?”

“For, I think.”

He began to shuffle. He needs the cards in his hands. “A party named Radford had Costa's place up in North Chester closed down ten months ago.”

“Who's Costa?”

“Carmine Costa. Independent operator. No book or numbers. A casino operation with some private games.”

“Why was he closed?”

“Who knows? You know Westchester, Dan. Costa opened up in the next town.” Cellars began to deal solitaire. “Weiss ain't such a bad guy. I hear the heat's on him big. Freedman been around twice.” He looked up at me. “Paul Baron, too.”

“Paul Baron?” I said. The name rang a faint bell, but I couldn't place it.

“Alias The Baron, Baron Paul Ragotzy, some other names,” Cellars said. “A con artist; the badger games. He handles the cards, too.”

“He was looking for Weiss?”

“Once last night, and once today.”

“What did he want?”

“Just Weiss.”

“How about a woman? A redhead, tall, probably a showgirl or stripper in some club.”

Cellars shook his head. “No, just Freedman and Baron. Only one of Baron's women is a tall redhead. Misty Dawn. She works the Fifth Street Club.”

I stood up. “Thanks, Cellars.”

Cellars nodded, but he was thinking. I waited. He seemed to be making some decision.

“Weiss ain't such a bad guy,” Cellars said again.

I still waited. I knew that Cellars was deciding to tell me something. It was a hard decision for him.

“There was a game, about two months ago,” Cellars said. “I played. Baron was there. He brought a kid. Walter Radford IV. I remember that number part, you know?”

“Thanks again,” I said.

“Sure,” Cellars said. “Come back for the action.”

The snow had stopped, and the Fifth Street Club was open. I went down into the dim light of the deserted bar and ordered an Irish. It was just too early for the cocktail hour. In the main room one drunken group was trying to eat what had to be a very late lunch. The bartender had cunning eyes and a loose mouth.

“I'd like to buy Misty Dawn a drink,” I said.

“So would a lot of guys.”

I laid a five-dollar bill beside my whisky. In a club Like that one, the girls usually had orders to drink with any customer, but it was early. The five was to make the bartender eager to help me. He took the bill and vanished toward the small stage. In the main room the waiters leaned on the walls and yawned.

The bartender returned. He nodded. A minute or so later I sensed someone come out of the curtained doorway at stage left. She slid onto the stool beside me in a dead heat with a whisky sour from the bartender.

“Hello,” she said.

Her voice was deep and rough from shouting songs into noisy rooms. She wore her full work make-up, with mounds of orange-red hair piled on her head. Her body was trim and inviting in a black velvet leotard and net tights.

She smiled at me. “I'm Misty Dawn, Mr.…?”

“Fortune,” I said. “I'm looking for Sammy Weiss.”

She stood up. “Get lost.”

“I want to help Sammy.”

Her eyes were black in the dim light. They might have been brown, or green, or gray if I could have seen them.

“I don't know Sammy Weiss,” she said.

“How about a Radford? Jonathan or Walter.”

“How about the Mayor?” she said. “What are you, mister?”

“A friend of Sammy Weiss,” I said. “How about Paul Baron? He wants Weiss, too.”

“Okay, I know Paul Baron. That's one out of four.”

“Do you know what Baron wants with Weiss?”

“I don't even know if Paul knows the guy.”

“Yes you do,” I said. “I saw you with Weiss on Eighth Avenue last night.”

“No you didn't,” she said, and walked away.

I watched her go. She walked nicely in that leotard. I watched until she went through the door backstage. Then I paid and left.

5

T
HERE WERE PLENTY
of Radfords in the telephone book, and enough Walter Radfords, but only one Walter Radford IV. Those numerals seemed to mean a lot to the Radfords. The address was Gramercy Park.

I was in Mary's Italian Restaurant just off Seventh Avenue when I looked up Walter Radford, and I stopped for some
shrimp marinara.
When I went out into the street again to find a taxi, it was dark and quiet and ten degrees colder since the snow had stopped.

The taxi dropped me in front of a new and shiny building, all glass and red brick, that was not exactly on Gramercy Park although it had the address. The lobby was elegant but small, and there was no doorman. Walter Radford IV had apartment 12. I rode the stainless steel elevator to the third floor.

There was no answer to my ringing. I looked up and down the empty corridor. The door had an ordinary spring lock, with enough gap between door and frame. I took out the stiff plastic rectangle I carry, slipped it between door and frame and against the lock, and pressed hard. I worked the rectangle. The lock gave with a click and I skinned a knuckle.

Inside I switched on the light. The risk was worth not being taken for a burglar. It was a gaudy apartment of chrome, plastic and bad modern—designed without art and selected without taste. The main room was a mess, as if it was lived in by someone who was rebelling against his mother who had made him pick up his toys and dirty clothes when he was a boy. A poker table was strewn with cards, and a toy roulette wheel on the couch was surrounded by loose chips.

I went to work looking through the chests, bookcases, table drawers, and the one desk. For what? Something to connect Walter Radford to Paul Baron or anyone else except Weiss. I didn't find much: books about gambling; decks of cards; Playbills; dirty paper napkins with figures scrawled on them; letters that proved that the Radford-Ames family was large and that Walter had a lot of friends. From the way the letters read, the friends were from prep school and college and hadn't changed much.