Father's Day (10 page)

“Yep. When I went in, I asked for that girl you’re trying to talk to, Jennifer Finnelli. She missed work today but the manager must have thought she sent me, because he offered me a job. I’m going to be a waitress.”

“Like hell you are.”

“I could really use the extra money. And if I’m going to be staying with you, I’ll need to come up with rent.”

“Who said anything about staying with me. This arrangement is temporary.”

“Like everything else in your life?”

“Let’s not get started with that.”

“Okay, but I did learn something that might help our investigation.”

“So now it’s
our
investigation?”

“There’s a banquet room upstairs, for private parties. Some of the girls work them and some of them don’t. You can make as much in one night upstairs as you can all week downstairs.”

“Who told you that?”

“Some of the girls were having lunch and I sat down with them. They asked me if I’d be working upstairs or downstairs. I said both, just for the hell of it. You know how girls talk. They told me about the money and the “high rollers,” as they put it, that come to the parties. I guess the boss picks the prettiest girls to work upstairs and that’s where the big tips are.”

“It sounds like the job might involve more than just waitressing.”

Maggie’s face went blank for a moment, allowing her father’s words to register.

“What do you mean?”

“High rollers, as you put it, aren’t always satisfied with a bowl of spaghetti and a bottle of wine. I’m talking gambling, prostitution, drugs.”

“Anything else?”

“Kidnapping and murder.”

He told her to wait in the car and went into Vincenzo’s.

The front door was heavy smoked glass. The air inside was warm with the aroma of freshly baked bread and boiling oil. The lights were dim, as if it was a perpetual dusk at Vincenzo’s.
The tables were set for dinner. A crew was preparing in the kitchen behind a set of swinging double doors.

The bar was a glass-topped oval in the middle of the room. Bottles of liquor were stacked in a circle on glass shelves under a huge crystal chandelier. It hung low over the center of the room, reflecting shards of light onto the ceiling. The whole thing resembled a mountain of glass.

Lou sat back on a very well-padded barstool. He ordered Jameson on the rocks from a heavyset, middle-aged man with jet black hair combed down flat over his massive round head. The thick carpet was burgundy, the color of wine, the color of blood. The drapes were matching velvet, heavy and opaque, hanging from the ceiling to the floor. The tablecloths were white but the napkins were red. Red was the predominant motif at Vincenzo’s.

The fat bartender brought Lou the whiskey with too much crushed ice and set it down carefully on a napkin in front of him. He avoided eye contact, kept his face averted. He went back to drying bar glasses with a clean white towel and stacking them under the bar. Lou reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, dropped a twenty on the bar, and asked to see the owner.

“He’s not in at the moment. What can I do for you?”

The fat man braced his own weight against the oak bar. His white shirt was buttoned to the collar and his face and neck poured over it like dough rising in a pan. His eyes were embedded deep inside a head the size and shape of a bowling ball. He was breathing heavily. He cleared his congested throat. He was a massive man with a windpipe the size of a plastic straw, a man who could choke to death on a teaspoon full of saliva. He leaned his weight onto the bar and spoke in deep, guttural tones with an artificial hospitality bordering on condescension. His breath smelled of garlic and wine.

“I guess that depends on you. Doesn’t it?”

“If you’re selling something, I’m afraid we’re not interested.”

“I’m not selling anything. I’ve got money to spend.”

“Then why don’t you just get to the point of your visit.”

“I’m having a couple of business associates up from Baltimore. I promised to throw them a little party. These guys are accountants by trade but a couple of days away from their wives and they turn into a pack of wolves.”

“And you’re the leader of this pack, no doubt.” The dry glass squeaked in his hand. He continued to rub it with the towel.

“Let’s just say that I feel responsible for their entertainment while they’re in my company. I’d like to show them a good time and their tastes tend to run toward the exotic, if you know what I mean. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction. . . . Relying on your discretion, of course.” Lou pulled a gold money clip from his breast pocket and peeled a one-hundred-dollar bill off the top with an exaggerated snap of the fingers and a crackle of fresh currency. He slid the bill slowly across the smooth surface of the table but kept old Mr. Franklin’s head covered with his right palm. This was the first and only time they made eye contact.

“Perhaps we can do business. Try a place called the Comfort Zone, Sixty-fourth and Pine, not far from here at all. There is a parking lot in the rear. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Now if you will excuse me.”

Lou nodded approvingly and released the bill into the big man’s sticky fingers. He put down another mouthful of whiskey and was out the door. He hadn’t been in there that long but dusk had already settled. There were still long lines of parked cars in the lot. Streetlights flickered on. The old men had already driven their wives home, and were replaced by gangs of roving teenagers. They occupied the same wooden benches, walked around the same circular path. Maggie beeped the horn and waved.

“Any luck?” Maggie asked as he started the car.

“Not really.”

“I begin work tomorrow night.”

“I’m taking you back to my place tonight and you’re going home to your mother tomorrow.”

“Don’t count on it,” she mumbled under her breadth.

Lou pretended not to hear. He couldn’t blame her for the attitude. Respect was one of the many virtues she’d never learned at home. She was an only child, a girl who witnessed her parents fight like imbeciles, dragging their poison out into the open where everyone could see it, where their daughter could weigh it against her own guilt. Her options were limited. She withdrew at first, blaming herself for a situation that was entirely beyond her control. Then, she fought back, striving to hang on to the few good memories she had left, ghosts of a lost childhood. She hung on until her fingers bled.

“If you’re looking for a job, I could probably get Heshy to give you a few shifts at the deli. He’s only got Judy over there and I’m sure he could use you. Maybe he’d let you work lunches. The pay’s not as good. But the hours are better.”

“If that’s my only choice.”

“It’s a compromise, Maggie.”

“Hey, Dad, can I get a tattoo?”

He turned and looked at her, looked past her, thinking how she had reminded him of what a mess his life had become.

“Wrong question, honey.”

“Does that mean no?”

“I don’t know what that means right now. I’m just not sure what the right answer is. Let me think about it.”

“It’s a yes-or-no question.”

“If I said yes, honey, I couldn’t live with myself.”

She was about to say something and he cut her off.

“I know, don’t say it. I can’t live with myself now and apparently no one else can either. But if I came right out and said
no, you’d ask why. If I told you I didn’t care one way or the other, you’d still want to know why and that’s a question I’m just not prepared to answer right now.”

Lou wanted his answer to satisfy her but knew it wouldn’t. Talking to his daughter was like doing a puzzle where the pieces kept changing shape. The best he could hope for was to complete the borders. He dropped her off at the house and told her to lock up, that he’d be home late. He watched her get in, waited to see a light in the window, and left.

He started for the Comfort Zone. He wanted to get there just before closing, see who stayed and who went, check the place out. He wanted to get inside and do a little snooping, get a look at the files, at employee and client information that could help him connect a murder and a missing girl. If anyone asked, he had an aching back.

Lou’s experience told him that “massage parlor” was often synonymous with “whorehouse.” He’d been on a couple of stings involving Asian businessmen who imported underage girls to work as prostitutes. The girls were virtual slaves, set up in a massage parlor, where they lived and worked for months. They were usually shipped around, from one location to another—they were never in one place too long, never long enough to figure a way out. Everyone knew what was going on but the payoffs were heavy and the places were boarded up before the heat boiled over. Just the kind of racket Vincent Trafficante would have his hands in. The money couldn’t be traced and bigshots rarely got busted. The best you could hope for was catching the high school football coach trying to get a little on the side and having to pay for it.

He parked about a block away in the Commerce Bank lot. His car was in the last spot and he prayed that it would still be there when he got back. He approached the Comfort Zone from
the rear to avoid the flashing neon sign in the front. He despised flashing neon. It disturbed his sense of order and equilibrium. It reminded him of the dive bars on Sixty-ninth Street and the tattoo parlors on Race Street, where the prostitutes hit on commuters waiting for the train. The dull, electric buzz radiated a blue hum similar to a bug zapper.

There was a black Lincoln parked against the back wall and two motorcycles next to it. He placed his hand flat on the hood of the Lincoln. It was cold to the touch. A variety of vehicles were parked on both sides of the building. Two professional types in pinstriped suit jackets and paisley ties leaned against a dark green Suburban. They didn’t look in any hurry to get out of there, didn’t seem to care who saw them. If they were worried about their suppers growing cold, they didn’t show it.

They never noticed him, never gave him a second look. The taller of the two pointed a remote control at a gold sedan, three spaces ahead. The lights blinked once and it began to idle quietly. It looked like an Infinity Lou had repossessed just three weeks earlier, working for a sleazy car repo business out of Jersey. Repo jobs were a way for him to make some extra money. It was easy work and a flat fee. He’d only taken them when he needed the money. He’d serve a summons if he was sure it wouldn’t get ugly. He even did a little work at Ardmore Bail Bonds, but the guys in the office liked to refer to themselves as bounty hunters and he couldn’t deal with that.

The three cars parked against the opposite wall belonged in the scrap yard on McDade Boulevard, where they would be crushed like tin cans—a dented assortment of Fords and Chevys, American metal slowly turning to rust.

Without warning, a crash bar clicked and the gray steel back door sprung open. A tall blonde in faded blue jeans and a Penn State sweatshirt stepped out and looked ready to light a cigarette.
She noticed him fumbling absentmindedly in his pockets, first in his jacket and then in his pants.

“Excuse me, miss. I think I forgot my wallet in there. Would it be possible . . .”

Before he finished the sentence, she motioned him through the door, down the paneled hallway, and through another door into the main office. She told him to wait and someone would come out to help. He waited for her to leave and helped himself.

The office was small and sparsely furnished. A wide Formica counter split the room in half. A fake palm tree in a large clay pot gathered dust in the corner, a growing mound of cigarette butts and ash at the bottom. The carpet was that thin green plastic turf for covering front porches and decks. The whole scene reminded him of a snackbar on the boardwalk. There was a stale smell that lingered in the air, mildew maybe, something that’d been hanging around for a long time. A small torn couch, a short end table, and a lamp with a tarnished shade completed the picture. The furniture looked like it was bought at a garage sale. The Comfort Zone advertised luxury, but seedy was what you got.

A gray metal filing cabinet sat wedged inconspicuously in the back corner of the room. Lou slid behind the counter and tried the drawers one by one. They were all locked. He snatched a paper clip off a cluttered desk and bent it into a long U, curling the edges back into the shape of a double-sided key. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, testing the tension, and inserted it into the lock. He slowly released and turned it. The bolt shot open with a thud.

The next thud he heard was something hard and heavy hammering at the back of his head. The world seemed to disappear above him. He spiraled toward the ground as though he were being sucked down a drain. The floor was like a big green
mattress. His bruised and bleeding head bounced once and it all went black.

Lou awoke, sprawled out on the office couch with a damp cloth across his forehead and a splitting headache. The couch’s coarse material felt like steel wool against the back of his neck and his toes were numb. The same unsuspecting blonde who first lured him into the batting cage was playing nursemaid. She sat at his side, turning over the damp cloth, soaking it with fresh cold water. She wasn’t doing a bad job of it, either.

The warmth of her body and the smell of her perfume was enough incentive for him to sit up. She patted his cold hand. Her sympathy alone couldn’t cure him but it did improve the way he felt. Jennifer Finnelli was certainly a massage therapist with a stimulating bedside manner, he thought. Lou assumed Miss Blackwell, if she was around, would be much the same.

“The way Tommy hit you, I thought you weren’t ever gonna wake up.”

Her words rung in his ears. If he were dreaming, he thought, she never would have uttered a word.

“Was that your prognosis?”

“Sorry, I was just trying to help.”

“I’m sorry, too. Thanks for trying. Where is Tommy, anyway?”

“He’s around. Vince is around, too. Vince owns this place. I call him Vince the Prince because he owns practically everything around here—car lots, restaurants, bars, beauty salons, a supermarket.”