New York Nocturne (7 page)

“I don't think I could do that.”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “It's hard. Hurting people is hard. But if you don't do it, you're the one gonna get hurt.”

Now, as Ramona came closer, I remembered Harry Boyle.

I had never in my life hit a human being, had never hit even an animal.

But I had been through a difficult day. And now this big, sullen, dangerous person wanted to hurt me.

She took another step. “Hey,” she said. “You ain't goin' nowhere, pretty. You're mine now.”

I said, “What about her?” And with my left hand I pointed over Ramona's shoulder.

It had been, of course, a schoolyard trick since antiquity. But perhaps Ramona had never been on a schoolyard. Or perhaps she simply did not expect a trick of any sort from someone so clearly helpless as I. She turned.

I believe that she realized, even before she reached the apex of her turn, that it had been a mistake. She was reversing herself, swiftly, but I had cocked back my arm already, and then, just as she faced me again, I swung my fist forward and slammed it as hard as I could, with every single ounce of my bodyweight behind it, smack into her broad, round stomach.

Chapter Seven

With a great
whoosh
of air, arms flying to her belly, Ramona folded forward.

After this promising beginning, however, I am afraid that I rather let Harry Boyle down.

I did in fact grab Ramona's hair and run her toward the cinder block wall—she was limp and unresisting—but at the last moment, I hesitated. I abruptly saw myself as though from above, looking down upon the two of us, seeing what I was doing to another human being.

Self-consciousness is not always a good thing. (I speak not morally here but tactically.)

Yet I had established so much momentum that I could not stop my rush. Ramona's head did indeed hit the wall but not with the force that Mr. Boyle had (very wisely) recommended. Still, it produced a kind of sickening
smack
, and, as I released her, she bounced away from the wall and collapsed to the floor onto her back. Her arms flapped against the concrete.

I was horrified.

On the floor, Ramona moaned unhappily and then her hand reached up to touch her head. She gasped, almost a cough. When her hand came away, it was dripping red.

She blinked again, looked left and right, then blinked some more. Tentatively, she touched her stomach. She exhaled dramatically.

Then, ever so slowly, she rolled over.

Many years later, someone suggested to me that it was exactly at this moment that I should have sprinted forward and kicked Ramona with as much enthusiasm as possible, directly in the face.

This I failed to do.

Slowly, slowly, she raised herself onto hands and knees. She shook her head, and I was reminded of a dog shaking off water. She looked around the cell again, and this time she saw me. Her small eyes narrowed. “
Kill
you,” she said.

She pushed herself to her feet. Blood was trickling from behind her bangs and down along the right side of her face. She wiped it away. She wavered slightly. With visible effort, wincing, she forced herself upright. “
Kill
you, bitch,” she said.

I readied myself.

For what, precisely, I did not know. I did know that I would not be permitted any more tricks. Not that I possessed any; my bag was empty.

Just as she made a lumbering move toward me, hurried footsteps came clattering down the corridor.

“
Disgraceful
,” I heard a male voice say. “
Outrageous!
”

Then, through the bars, I saw him: a short and balding middle-aged man in a gray wool suit who held a derby hat in his left hand and, surprisingly, my purse in his right. Mrs. Hadley stood beside him, looking more cowed than I would have believed possible. She was fumbling with her keys.

“
Open it up!
” said the man. “
Right now
, madam, or I'll slap a suit against the city so fast your nose will bleed.” He was splendidly splenetic—his wide eyes were glaring, his face was bright red against the white of his handlebar mustache.

Mrs. Hadley slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and pulled the door open. She stepped back, looking down.

The man rushed in and leaned toward me. “You all right, kiddo?” Lightly, he tapped the crown of his derby against my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

He turned to Ramona. She had backed up against the wall, and now she was wiping more blood from her face. He said, “What happened to you?”

She glanced at Mrs. Hadley, looked back at the man, and lifted her chin. Her defiance was as flimsy as mine had been with Becker and Vandervalk, and I actually felt a sputter of sympathy. She said, “I slipped.”

The man looked at Mrs. Hadley, looked at Ramona, then looked at me. The redness drained from his face. He grinned at me. “Okay. I'm Morrie Lipkind. You're Amanda Burton. We're leaving.” He looked down at my feet. “You got shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Terrific. Put 'em on.”

I sat down on the bed and picked up a shoe. As I slipped it on, he turned back to Mrs. Hadley.

He said, “This is low. This is about as goddamn low as it gets.”

Mrs. Hadley said, “It wasn't my—”

“Save it. You tell that little pig Vandervalk that he'll hear from me in the morning.”

I stood up.

Mr. Lipkind said, “Ready?”

“Yes.”

He handed me the purse. “They got anything else of yours?”

“My watch,” I said.

He turned to Mrs. Hadley, whose hand was already fumbling in the pocket of her uniform.

I noticed, with surprise, that her face was a vivid scarlet, and I felt a kind of horrible gloating satisfaction, one that I had never felt before, and one that I did not much care for.

Mr. Lipkind stepped over, snatched away the watch, stepped back, handed it to me, and placed his arm around my shoulder. “Let's go. You can put it on in the car.”

I glanced at the time.

Nine thirty. That seemed impossible. I had been certain that it was two or three in the morning.

Mr. Lipkind looked at Ramona then looked back at me. “What about her?” He nodded toward the girl.

She frowned and glanced away, blinking very quickly.

It was the blinking that did it.

I turned to Mr. Lipkind. “Can you get her out?”

“I can do anything,” he said. Then he turned to Ramona. “You want out?”

Her eyes darted back and forth as she looked from Mr. Lipkind to me to Mrs. Hadley. She looked back up at Mr. Lipkind. “Uh huh.”

“Outside the front door,” he told her. “No farther.”

She nodded. “Uh huh.”

Mrs. Hadley's voice was querulous. “You can't do that, your papers say—”

“Madam,” said Mr. Lipkind, “please shut it.”

As soon as we stepped outside into the summer night, through a small door onto Centre Street, Ramona started running. Without a glance back, her boots clomping on the asphalt, she sprinted across the street.

“You're welcome,” Mr. Lipkind muttered. He stroked his hand down his handlebar mustache.

She slipped like a ghost into an alleyway.

I did see her once again, some ten years later, on a cruise ship heading for Havana. She was sailing in first class, and I was working undercover, traveling in steerage. By then we were both professionals, and we each let the other do her job.

Mr. Lipkind's car was a glossy black Cadillac that came with its own livery driver, a large black man named Robert. As Mr. Lipkind and I settled down on the leather backseat, he introduced me to the man.

In the glow of the car's overhead light I could see Robert nod his big handsome head. “Miss,” he said. Deep and resonant, his voice reminded me of Paul Robeson's.

Mr. Lipkind pulled the door shut, and the light went out. “Okay,” he said to me. “Tell me about it.”

The car moved forward.

I said, “My uncle, you mean?”

“You can tell me that part later. Tell me about the cops. When did they turn up?”

And so, as the big car purred through the nighttime city, streamers of bright lights flickering by on either side of us, red and white and green, I told him.

Now and then he interrupted with a question.

“So when did Becker make an entrance?” “They feed you?” “That Ramona babe. She hurt you?”

When I told him what Becker and Vandervalk had wanted me to say—that my uncle had in some way interfered with me—he shook his head. “Bottom of the barrel stuff. They're desperate. They got no one else for this.”

When, finally, I finished, he shook his head again. “Cossacks,” he said. “Filthy Cossacks. Putting the frame on a kid. You want to, Amanda, we can sue 'em blind. Personally, tell the truth, I'd love to shiv that Vandervalk.”

“But how did you know where I was?” I asked him.

“I—hold on, we're here.” He leaned toward the driver. “Robert, let us off across the street, okay? Then, you don't mind, you could zip over to the apartment and grab the stuff. 'Kay?”

“Okay,” came the deep bass voice.

We were in Midtown, somewhere in the Forties. The Cadillac swung over to the right and came to a smooth stop. Mr. Lipkind opened the door, stepped out onto the curb, and held the door for me. After I clambered out of the car, he slammed the door shut.

We walked around the Cadillac. He looked left and right, waited for a few cars to pass, then said, “Okay, kiddo.”

We were heading across the asphalt toward an expensive-looking hotel called the Algonquin. I followed him through the big brass-and-glass door into the carpeted lobby, and then across it, between elegant pillars of polished wood. Mr. Lipkind waved his derby at a man behind the front desk and the man nodded. When we arrived at a pair of elevators, Mr. Lipkind pushed the
UP
button.

“You were going to tell me,” I said, “how you knew about me.”

One of the elevator doors smoothly rumbled open.

He grinned at me. “Tell you in a minute. In you go.”

It was all very mysterious, but the man had arrived in my life as a wonderful deus ex machina. He had plucked me away from that frightful little cell, plucked me away from Mrs. Hadley and Lieutenant Becker and Mr. Vandervalk. I stepped into the elevator. It smelled of perfume, a huge improvement over the various bouquets available at police headquarters.

The elevator rose three floors and then stopped. The door opened, and Mr. Lipkind held it back with his hand while I stepped into the corridor. He followed me out and the door rumbled shut behind him.

“This way,” he said.

We padded along the thick red runner of the hallway floor until we came to room 311. He knocked on the door.

After a moment, it was opened by an attractive woman in her early thirties. She was tiny—not quite five feet tall. Her shiny, short black hair was parted on the right, and she wore a smart green dress that showed off her excellent legs and her black patent leather pumps. I could smell her perfume, laced with the woodsy fragrance of chypre.

She looked from Mr. Lipkind to me and then back at Mr. Lipkind. She smiled. “Hail the conquering hero.” Her voice was soft, and she spoke with the expensive drawl taught in East Coast finishing schools. When she turned to me, the smile widened into something dazzling. “Hey, Amanda. Get your ass in here.”

I blinked. No adult had ever used that word in front of me before.

She stood aside. With his derby, Mr. Lipkind gestured for me to proceed.

I went in. A miniature black-and-white Boston terrier capered around me on the carpet, panting elaborately, its stubby tail frantically twitching.

I was in the living room of a brightly lighted expensive suite furnished with overstuffed chairs and a big overstuffed sofa. The long drapes at the window were drawn together. A large upright radio was softly playing Chopin. And opposite me, beyond a coffee table, pushing herself up from the sofa with a black Malacca walking stick, its crook held in both hands, was a woman I had not seen in three years. Wearing a long, black silk dress identical to the dresses I remembered her wearing back then, back when all those appalling things had happened at the shore, back when my stepmother had been murdered, was my good friend Miss Lizzie Borden.

BOOK TWO

Chapter Eight

As we embraced, I inhaled the sweet scent of cinnamon and oranges and cloves that, all at once, I remembered with astonishing clarity. It was as though no time, not a single second of it, had passed since I had seen her last.

“Amanda,” she said. “How are you?”

I stepped back. “I'm okay. I'm fine, Miss Lizzie. How are you?”

In truth, looking at her more closely, I could see that the three years had changed her. Her hair was still silver-white, and it was still drawn back behind her small ears, but she was thinner now, and her face seemed strained. The gold pince-nez that had once looked like an afterthought, an ornament to set off her large, luminous gray eyes, now looked like what they were: an optical device.

And back then, she had never used a walking stick.

But the three years had changed me, as well. I was now a full head taller than she.

The Boston terrier was still at my feet, sniffing frantically at my shoes—intoxicated, possibly, by the police headquarters bouquet.

“I'm quite well, thank you,” Miss Lizzie said. “It's very good to see you, dear. You look lovely. And, goodness, you must have grown at least a foot taller.”

“It's great to see
you
, Miss Lizzie. But how did you get here? How did—”

“All in good time,” she said. “First, the introductions. You've already met Mr. Lipkind. This is Mrs. Parker, a friend. I met her last year, here at the hotel.”

Mrs. Parker stepped forward and held out her delicate white hand, as casually as a man might. I shook it. “A pleasure,” she said and then smiled as she released me.

The terrier romped around the room, paws pattering at the carpet, its eager head swiveling back and forth.

Miss Lizzie glanced down at the dog, smiled vaguely, and then looked back at me. “It was Mrs. Parker,” she said, “who suggested that I engage Mr. Lipkind.”

“The best damned shyster in the city,” said Mrs. Parker, in that languorous drawl.

“The country,” said Mr. Lipkind.

“But how—” I started to say to Miss Lizzie.

“Have a seat, dear,” she said and glanced around the room. “Let's all sit, shall we?”

She lowered herself, right hand on the arm of the sofa, left hand using the walking stick to help her. I came around the coffee table and sat at the other end of the sofa. Mr. Lipkind and Mrs. Parker each took one of the chairs. On the small end table beside Mrs. Parker's chair was an ashtray in which a cigarette burned, pale white smoke slowly spiraling toward the ceiling.

As soon as Mrs. Parker sat down, the dog scampered across the carpet and leaped onto her lap. Mrs. Parker bent forward, wrapped her tiny hands around its tiny head, and kissed it on the nose.

Watching this, Miss Lizzie blinked. Then she turned to me. “Are you hungry, dear? Mrs. Parker brought a sandwich. It's there on the end table.”

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.” I turned to Mrs. Parker. “Thank you.”

She smiled. “It was Lizbeth's idea.”

I had thought of my friend for so long as “Miss Lizzie,” hearing her real name came almost as a jolt.

I ignored it, however. I was ravenous. On the table to my left were two paper napkins, a bottle of Coca-Cola, and a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. I put the napkins on my lap and then laid the sandwich atop them.

“Here,” said Mr. Lipkind. He stood up, reached into his pocket, pulled out a Churchkey opener, stepped across the carpet, lifted the bottle of cola, opened it, and set it back down. “There you go.”

“Thank you.”

“You bet.” Slipping the opener back into his pocket, he went back to his chair.

I unfolded the aluminum foil. Inside was a fat sandwich of roast beef on dark rye bread. I raised it to my mouth and took a demure bite—I was in public. The meat was rare and tender, spread with pungent mustard; the bread was dense and chewy. Apart from a fresh swordfish steak that I shared, many years later, with my second husband on the island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya, this was the best meal I ever ate in all of my life.

Miss Lizzie waited for me to swallow and then said, “It was very clever of you to call your brother.”

That had been the other telephone call I made this morning, after I spoke with the police.

“I couldn't think of anyone else. But I thought that if William could talk to Mr. Slocum, then Mr. Slocum might be able to help,” I explained.

Darryl Slocum was the lawyer who had represented Miss Lizzie and me during the investigation of my stepmother's death. Except for Mr. Lipkind, tonight, Mr. Slocum was the only lawyer I had ever met. I think I had some notion that if my brother got in touch with him, Mr. Slocum would swirl on a cape and come dashing to my rescue. Back then, during the investigation, I had had a terrible crush on the man—one from which, perhaps, I had not yet fully recovered.

“And he
was
able to help,” said Miss Lizzie. “He's very busy just now, and he knows no one here in New York, but he knows that I do.”

“How did he know that?” I asked. “Have you seen him since . . . that time at the shore?” I took another bite of the sandwich. My stomach gurgled. I wondered if everyone had heard.

“Once or twice,” she said. “He's helped me with a few minor things.” She fluttered her fingers to show how minor they were. “In any event, he telephoned me. I told him that I'd take care of it. I telephoned Mrs. Parker and then went to the station and purchased a ticket for the first available train.”

I pushed aside the thought that Mr. Slocum had been too busy to purchase a ticket for the first available train, and I swallowed some more roast beef.

“Meanwhile,” said Mrs. Parker, inhaling her cigarette, then exhaling smoke with her words, “back at the ranch, I was going through my list of ambulance chasers. Clarence Darrow was busy, so I called Lipkind here.” Lightly, with her left hand, she stroked the dog, which was now lying across her thighs.

“Darrow's a piker,” said Mr. Lipkind, and he stroked his luxuriant mustache.

I took a sip of Coca-Cola. It was warm but absolutely delicious.

“Mr. Lipkind, Mrs. Parker, and I,” continued Miss Lizzie, “met at the Plaza Hotel for . . . well, I suppose you could call it a council of war. Mr. Lipkind has friends in the police department—”

“
Friends
is putting it kind of strong,” said Mr. Lipkind.

“Lawyers don't have friends,” Mrs. Parker explained to me, stubbing out her cigarette. “They have torts.” She turned to Mr. Lipkind. “Or is that tarts?”

Miss Lizzie smiled brightly at them both. “May I finish, please?”

I had once seen her lose her temper, and she had been terrifying. Even now, with only that bright, controlled smile, she was formidable.

“Sorry about that,” said Mrs. Parker. “Sometimes I get carried away.” She smiled wryly. “Sometimes I think I should be.”

Miss Lizzie looked at Mr. Lipkind.

“Absolutely,” he said. “You got it.”

She turned back to me. “Mr. Lipkind's
acquaintances
,” she said, “were able to determine where you were being held. Mr. Lipkind knew of a judge who was able to provide the papers necessary to secure your release. Once he had them, Mr. Lipkind proceeded to police headquarters. He has done, I think, an excellent job.” She turned to him. “For which I sincerely thank him.”

“Hey,” said Mr. Lipkind. “It's what I do.”

I swallowed the last bite of sandwich and asked Miss Lizzie, “Why didn't you come down there yourself?”

“Mrs. Parker suggested that, all things considered, it might be best for me to remain in the background. I believe she was right.”

I looked at Mrs. Parker, who was bending forward, whispering to the dog. She looked up at me and again she smiled that dazzling smile.

Miss Lizzie said to me, “Knowing something of how the police operate, I imagine that you've explained several thousand times what happened today. But perhaps, if you're able, you could explain it one more time, for us.”

“Okay.” I dabbed at my mouth with a paper napkin, took another sip of the Coca-Cola.

Slowly, I explained it one more time.

Now and then Mr. Lipkind asked questions.

“Daphne Dale?” he said. “The writer?”

Mrs. Parker's dog was following all this closely, his small, square head turning from one speaker to the next.

“That's what John told me,” I said. “He said she put him in her book.”

“Really?” said Mrs. Parker. “
The Flesh Seekers
? He was Jerry Brandon? Well, of course he was. John Burton, Jerry Brandon.” She turned to Miss Lizzie. “She calls herself Sophie Hill in the book. Daphne doesn't go very far for her names.” She smiled. “Just over the hill and down the dale.”

“I wouldn't know,” I said. “I haven't read the book.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” she said. “But if you want a copy, I can lend you mine. It's propping up a bookcase in my apartment.”

“Okay,” said Mr. Lipkind. “What next?”

I continued on to El Fay.

“Larry Fay,” said Mr. Lipkind. “And your uncle went off with him?”

“Yes. For about fifteen minutes.”

“Interesting.”

“In what way?” Miss Lizzie asked him.

“He's a hoodlum. A rumrunner.” He turned back to me. “How is it your uncle knew him? Did he say?”

“No.”

Still stroking the dog, Mrs. Parker asked me, “Did you get to see George Raft?”

The dog looked up at her, its tiny tongue lolling.

“Yes,” I said. “He was amazing.”

She smiled. “Amazing in a way that makes you wonder how amazing he might be in other ways.”

“Yes,” said Miss Lizzie. “All right, Amanda. What happened next?”

“We went to the Cotton Club,” I said. “In Harlem.” I mentioned the man in the white dinner jacket.

“Good-looking guy?” Mr. Lipkind asked me. “English accent?”

“He was good-looking, yes. But I don't know about the accent. I didn't talk to him.”

“Black hair, brown eyes, smokes cigarettes? Stands real straight?”

“That's him, yes.”

“Owney Madden.”

“And who might he be?” Miss Lizzie asked.

“He owns the place. Also a couple of breweries. Another hood. A Brit. Got sent up for killing a guy about seven years ago. He got sprung last year. Smooth as silk these days, but very definitely a hood.”

Miss Lizzie turned to me. “Your uncle, it seems, knew some rather colorful characters.”

“But he was a stockbroker,” I said. “Maybe they had investments.”

“Guys like Owney and Larry,” said Mr. Lipkind, “they don't need investments. They
are
investments.”

“You're on a first-name basis?” Mrs. Parker asked him.

“I get around.” He shrugged. “Part of the job.”

“Go ahead, Amanda,” said Miss Lizzie. “What happened next?”

I told them about coming home, going to sleep, and finding John's body.

“Yes, dear,” said Miss Lizzie—wishing, I believe, to hurry me past that horror. “I know it must have been dreadful. So you called the police?”

I continued with the story. When I came to Lieutenant Becker, Miss Lizzie turned to Mr. Lipkind and asked him, “Who is he, this Becker person?”

“A big deal at headquarters. Got a lot of juice.”

“By ‘juice' you mean power? Influence?”

“Right. Word is, he's the bagman between the mob and the cops.”

“Bagman?”

“According to the grapevine, Becker's the guy who carries cash from your criminal element—folks like Madden and Fay and Arnold Rothstein—to the department. Down at headquarters, it's divvied up among the troops.”

“Arnold Rothstein?”

“Big gambler. Runs the richest floating crap game in the city.”

“The name is familiar. Isn't he somehow connected to the sports world?”

Mr. Lipkind smiled. “Kind of. He's the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919.”

She nodded. “We are talking, then, about bribes.”

“Contributions, the police like to call them.”

“And the police can get away with this?”

Mr. Lipkind shrugged. “New York City. They can get away with whatever they want.”

“The New York City cops,” said Mrs. Parker, “are notorious assholes.”

The word, coming out of that tiny frame, spoken in that elegant accent, startled me. I glanced at Miss Lizzie. If she were startled, she didn't show it. She simply nodded and then turned to Mr. Lipkind.

“But if Mr. Becker is such a powerful figure,” she asked, “why should he involve himself in this particular investigation?”

“Good question,” said Mr. Lipkind. He shrugged. “I dunno. Unless maybe the cops want to keep Madden and Fay out of it.”

“But Mr. Becker couldn't have known, before he arrived at John Burton's, what Amanda's testimony might be. He couldn't have known that she'd mention Mr. Madden and Mr. Fay.”

“Maybe Madden or Fay heard that Burton got nailed, and they decided to be included out. All it would take is a call to Becker.”

“Why should they care?”

“Dunno. Something we've got to find out, I guess.”

She turned to me. “All right, Amanda. Mr. Becker brought you down to police headquarters. What then?”

I told them about Vandervalk and Becker.

Once again Miss Lizzie turned to Mr. Lipkind. “They can't really believe that Amanda's uncle tried to . . . harm her?”

“Nah. Like I told the kid—”

“Amanda,” corrected Miss Lizzie.

“Right. Like I told her, they're up against it. They got no one else. She's handy, right? An out-of-towner. No family, no friends, no connections. They tie the can to her; they can close out the case.”