In the Shadow of Gotham (14 page)

Despite some trepidation about parking his new Ford Model B in a tough neighborhood, Alistair drove us downtown. The Bowery in lower Manhattan could be a rough area, especially inside the entertainment halls and saloons of the sort we planned to visit. During the last reform administration, Mayor Seth Low had closed the saloons in hopes of improving the neighborhood. But as soon as the Tammany-endorsed McClellan administration claimed office, they reopened, and the Bowery filled once more with opportunists anxious to relieve the too drunk and the too naïve of their wallets and more. To be fair, one could find several more or less respectable saloons in the Bowery. But a man doing a job like mine was less familiar with them.

Our first stop this evening was the Fortune Club on Pell
Street, where the Bowery adjoined Chinatown. I had chosen it because I knew the manager—assuming he still worked there. When we entered, a young man was earnestly straining to master the high tenor of “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” Although the effect was slightly ludicrous, I made no sign that I thought so. I knew Nick Scarpetta was trying to emulate Mike Saulter’s Pelham Club and John Kenny’s Chatham Club, where singing waiters were the latest innovation in entertainment. Big Nick hoped one of his waiters would manage to attract as devoted a following as a young singer named Baline had done at Saulter’s. But I had trouble thinking of the place as anything other than a gambling joint—which, admittedly, was all it ever pretended to be. Unlike surrounding saloons where additional vices like prostitution and opium could be found in back rooms and on upper floors, Nick Scarpetta stuck with what he knew best: cards.

“Does Nicky still manage the place?” I caught the ear of the first waiter who came by. The fellow nodded and gestured toward the back room, where a raucous poker game was in progress.

Alistair, completely out of his element, simply followed as I made my way to a black door at the far left of the room. Inside, Nicky Scarpetta was seated at a large table, cigar in mouth, a pile of chips stacked high to his left. Clearly, he was having a good night.

He looked up and recognized me instantly. “Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Simon Ziele. How’re things going, old boy?” He got up and lumbered over to clap me on the back, careful to avoid my weak right arm. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. What brings you back to the neighborhood? You here on official business, or just for old time’s sake?”

There was a searching concern in his drooped, baggy eyes
that he would never overtly acknowledge. I had not spoken with him personally since my loss, but of course he would have heard about the deaths—so close together—of both my mother and Hannah.

“Good to see you, Nicky,” I said warmly. He was a large man with a gruff demeanor, but it obscured a kind heart. Nicky always took good care of his friends, and I was lucky to count myself among them. I’d known him for as long as I could remember. Though he frequented the same gambling circles as my father, he possessed two qualities my father had forever lacked: a talent for cards and a sense of his own limitations. On countless occasions, he had visited my mother after a night at the tables with my father and pressed an envelope into her hand with a few brusque words. Waving away her tearful thanks, he always left muttering, “A man with young children’s got no business betting two weeks’ salary on a pair of aces.”

Still, I never forgot for a moment that Nicky had another side—one more commonly reserved for those who crossed him—that was dangerous and unforgiving.

“I’m here on business,” I answered him, “but not department business. I’m not with the precinct here anymore. Instead, I’m investigating a murder that happened north of the city; this is Alistair Sinclair, who is assisting in the investigation.” I nodded toward Alistair, whom Nicky acknowledged with a grunt.

“Hey—Moe,” Nicky called to a man lurking at the back of the room by the liquor cabinet. “Fill in for me and finish the game, will ya?”

“Sure, Nick,” the man said, and took the vacant place at the table.

Meanwhile, Nicky led us to his office, where we could talk in private.

“So what do you need to know?” he asked, as he lowered his large frame into an oversized leather chair and offered us his cigar box. We declined, and settled ourselves into the two chairs opposite him. Alistair pulled out his photograph of Michael Fromley.

“We’re wondering,” he asked, “if you’ve ever seen this man?”

Nicky grabbed the photograph and lifted it to the light, turning it first one way and then another, studying it intently. “What’s his name?”

“Michael Fromley,” I responded.

“I’ve seen him around,” Nicky said. “He’s played the back room, but not in a long time. Maybe six, nine months ago? Couldn’t hold his drink, and started trouble at the table—accused one of my guys of stacking the deck. Never let him in the game again after that. And I spread the word.”

That meant Nicky had blackballed Michael Fromley among the Bowery’s other gambling hells, as they were called. With good reason, I might add, for when caught in the game, many men were tempted to sell their very soul to the devil. But while New York was filled with places catering to poker, stuss, or faro, it was far more expensive to get in a game anywhere outside the Bowery.

Nicky took a final draw from his cigar before grinding its stub into an ashtray. “Still, you’d see him come in on occasion to the bar, usually with some dame who fancied herself an actress. What d’ya want him for?”

“He’s the main suspect in our murder case,” I said. “We’re trying to find him for questioning, but it’s tough going—he disappeared a good two, three weeks back. Think anyone here would have seen him?”

Nicky got up and went over to open the door; his steps were
heavy on the worn wooden plank floor, causing it to creak loudly. His voice thundered out, “Hey, can someone tell Izzy I need him in here?”

No one ever kept Nicky waiting, so almost before he was seated again, a heavyset middle-aged man with large eyes and drooping jowls had joined us. From the white towel hanging from his waist, I assumed he was one of the bartenders at the Fortune Club.

“What can I do you for, boss?” he asked, his voice deep, soft, and accented in the unique style of a native New Yorker.

“You seen this guy in here lately?” Nicky thrust the photograph of Fromley into the bartender’s hands. “A friend of mine needs to know.”

It was an implicit authorization to talk. Otherwise, I had no doubt Izzy would have passed the photograph back to us with a flat denial and opaque expression.

Izzy studied the photograph a full minute before handing it back. “Yeah, he was in here about two weeks ago. It was a Saturday night. He came in with one of those actress types. You know, I think it was Clara Murphy.”

Nicky grunted. “You don’t say.”

“She’s a regular?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Izzy said. “Fancies herself a Broadway chorus girl, but probably generates her rent doing private shows.”

Izzy’s euphemism implied Clara Murphy was a prostitute rather than an actress—although there were some, I knew, who would maintain there was little difference between the two in the first place.

“Did either of them talk with you?” I asked. In a neighborhood such as this, a bartender like Izzy was often a confidant to customers, especially the regulars.

Izzy shuffled his weight from one foot to another, and replied slowly, “Well, I talked with Clara when her fellow left her alone for a minute. She asked me if I knew whether the rumors were true about him.”

“The rumors?” I shook my head. I’d heard any number of unsavory facts about Michael Fromley, but it was unclear which of them Izzy had in mind. From the look on his face, Alistair was also unsure.

“Yeah,” Izzy said, “lots of rumors fly around about that guy. He always has a wad of cash and can show ’em a good time, so the ladies don’t want to believe the rumors, see? I always tell ’em to stay away, that he is bad news. But mostly they listen to the money, not to me.”

“So what did you tell Clara when she asked?”

“I said steer clear and find yourself another fellow—that this one’d got a reputation for getting rough with the ladies.” He cleared his throat and continued in an even quieter voice. “Some people said he roughed ’em up real bad, using . . . well, stuff that ain’t fit for polite conversation.” He eyed Alistair suspiciously as if uncertain how much detail to give. When he spoke again, he merely said, “She left the bar with him not long after that, so I’m guessing she did like most of ’em and listened to the money.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“Naw, she ain’t come in since.”

“And no news about Fromley?”

He just shook his head.

“Do you happen to know where Clara lives?”

“Think Clara’s got a place up on West Twenty-eighth Street. It’s a building where a lot of singers and actresses live, a block over from Tin Pan Alley proper. You might check there.”

It was more substantive information than we’d gotten from our last couple of interviews, and with only a few more inquiries, we found the specific address of her flat. I thanked Nicky for helping us out. “Anytime,” he had said, and his gravel-toned voice managed to sound soft as he added, “Your mother was a fine woman, Ziele. A damn fine woman.” And with another clap on my shoulder, he returned to his game.

Alistair was some moments ahead of me leaving the Fortune Club. When I caught up with him, he was strangely preoccupied, staring at a nondescript building across the street.

“Everything okay?” I asked, wondering if anything had happened to the Ford, since he was not cranking his engine as expected.

“Just fine.” He smiled reassuringly and walked toward the front engine crank. “I thought I saw—” But he stopped himself. “Never mind. I’m sure I’m mistaken.”

But as the engine revved to a start, I looked over to that nondescript building. I caught a glimpse of a tall man who glanced around furtively before entering. Maybe it was detective’s intuition—or mere idle curiosity—but I kept watching as an array of gambling toughs cycled in and out of the building.

Alistair climbed up into the driver’s seat, and I called him on it.

“It’s not a gambling den itself,” I said, pointing. “But it’s related to the business. It may be a place where owners keep and manage their money. Or where a bookie or a loan shark operates. But it’s not a legitimate business. Are you sure”—I eyed him carefully—“that you didn’t see Fromley entering?”

“I’m sure,” he said, though a troubled look crossed his face.

I waited, making clear I expected him to say more.

“I was mistaken,” he said. “A man I saw going in resembled Horace enough to make me look twice.”

“Your research assistant?” My tone was skeptical. I believed I had just seen the same man as Alistair, and he in no way resembled Horace.

Alistair nodded. “A trick of the mind inspired by our visit to the Fortune Club, I’m sure—and because Horace developed a slight gambling problem this past year. I’ve had to loan him money on occasion. But Horace’s weakness is for low-stakes card games at houses farther uptown that cater to students.” He was firm as he added, “Not a place like this.”

I accepted him at his word and knew he was right. If a man like Horace were to gamble, it was unlikely to be here. And if he needed money to pay some debts, obviously Alistair was willing to provide. But I resolved to speak with Alistair about it later, because he was wrong on one count: There is no such thing as a
slight
gambling problem. That lesson was one my own father had taught me well. Time and again I had seen him break down in tears, promising my mother he would never gamble another cent. But he never kept his promises. And he never won a single game. It had been a blessing when he finally left.

We made our way back uptown to Clara Murphy’s building. We had no trouble locating Clara’s on the fourth floor of a building that obviously catered to musical and theatrical types—not surprising, for its location on Twenty-eighth Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues was by the heart of the music-publishing district known as Tin Pan Alley. When we knocked on her door, however, there was no answer. We asked several people in the lobby, and they not only recognized Michael Fromley’s
ley’s picture, but they had also seen Clara often in his company. What was troubling, however, was that no one could recall seeing Clara herself within the past week or two.

We were stalemated once again.

Some fifteen minutes later, after Alistair whisked us twelve blocks south, we found ourselves at Luchow’s, overlooking Fourteenth Street from a small table by the window. I had objected, but Alistair insisted. “You’ve got to eat something, old boy,” he had said.

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

I glanced toward the bar, where the beer selection was sketched out on a long chalkboard hung underneath an impressive collection of beer steins. The choices were overwhelming. “Whatever you recommend,” I said absently as I perused a menu of sauerbraten and wild game.

The strains of a Strauss string quartet sounded over the general din of restaurant noise. The musicians performed in the back of the restaurant, and we could not see them from our vantage point. Apparently the practice of offering live music to diners had caught on, even this far north of the Bowery. I was not a fan of it at the Fortune Club, but here the classical tones calmed my frayed nerves