Nightbird (17 page)

“We’ve been announced,” Gregory said. “Buster himself is coming to greet us.” Ryan figured the token seller at the front desk
had buzzed the back room.

Buster Scorza came out from behind a mirrored door in a mirrored wall, protected by a raised desk and manned by an immense
black man who hawked tokens and ousted ball breakers. Gregory reached for his ID, but it wasn’t necessary. The Mob guy knew.

“Gentlemen,” Buster Scorza said.

It had been several years since Ryan and Gregory were last in the Pussycat Palace. A homicide then. A Marielito who’d sliced
up his partner in their live sex act. He had a tattoo of a dagger inside his lower lip; she had a daughter in the Bronx named
Jennifer. On cue, Ryan and Gregory could recite all the details for every murder they’d handled for three decades.

“Can we talk in private?” Ryan said, raising his voice above the pulsing disco beat.

“Out here is good for me,” Scorza said.

He wore shapeless black pants and orthopedic shoes laced tongue to toe. His white short-sleeved shirt hung outside his pants,
the material so thin you could see the straps of his T-shirt. Pleats ran down the front of the shirt, in the casual chic favored
by Panamanian dictators.

“You sure about that?” Ryan said. “All these booths, everybody listening to your business.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Buster said. “They all got their hands full.”

The Taj Mahal of commercial porn had invested heavily in high-tech gadgetry. But the smell of ammonia was still eye-wateringly
strong.

“How about Trey Winters?” Ryan said. “He have his hands full?”

The question caught Scorza by surprise. He’d expected any one of the numerous illegal areas to which he was vulnerable. He
decided it might be less noisy to talk in the office. Two steps up, behind the raised counter. Through the looking glass.

“My business with Trey Winters is just that, business,” Scorza said, tossing his keys on the desk. The office had been well
soundproofed. The carpet was a gaudy red, but the pile was plush. A lime green fake leather sofa served as Buster’s casting
couch.

“We’re not going to play games with you, Buster,” Gregory said. “You and Trey Winters don’t add up. Something stinks, besides
this office. And we’re going to come up with it. Now’s the time to get on board. First guy on board gets the best deal.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“This offer leaves with us,” Ryan said. “If Winters spills his guts first, his story is the one we go with. You want your
freedom riding on an actor?”

Ryan could understand why Scorza didn’t want them in his office. The wall held a bank of TV screens that focused on his little
kingdom of lust from every crack and cranny.

“This is bizarre,” Scorza said. “What in hell are you talking about?”

“What kind of business do you have with Winters?” Ryan asked.

“Show business,” he said, shrugging.

The bulk of the Pussycat’s cameras were focused on hallways. Men milled about, peeking into booths, reading descriptions of
movies, generally avoiding eye contact with each other.

“So what’s your role—producer, director, lead actor?” Gregory said.

“Mr. Winters had some questions regarding the stagehands union. I told him I no longer had any affiliation with the local.
That’s it.”

“Did you laugh when you said that?” Gregory said. “Because it is funny.”

“It might be funny to you, but I severed all my union ties five years ago.”

“Obeying the court’s order,” Ryan said. “Like the solid citizen you are.”

“The word of the supreme court of this state is good enough for me,” Scorza said.

Four cameras covered the basement, where the live nude peep show ran all day and night. On a bare round stage surrounded by
booths, an ever-changing parade of beaten women with ghetto faces rubbed themselves against small windows of the tiny cubicles
inhabited by a circle of jerks.

“Winters has been in this business a long time,” Ryan said. “He knew you were thrown out of the union.”

“I might argue with the ‘thrown out’ part,” Scorza said. “But, you’re right. I’ve known Trey Winters for many years, and he
did know I left the union. He was asking for advice on what he can expect from the new leaders. Concerning his new show.”

“Why didn’t he just go to the new union people himself?” Gregory said.

“You’ll have to ask him that question.”

“How did you meet Trey Winters?” Ryan said.

“Through Paul Klass,” Scorza said. “The director. Paul and I had many dealings when I was still with the union. Charming man,
fascinating. His death was a blow to the theater.”

On the second floor, the seminaked girls in the one-on-one booths lured men into their lairs for a friendly strip and talk.
Each side of the glass-separated booths was equipped with phones.

“Nothing is ever easy,” Ryan said. “You’re forcing us to do this the hard way.”

“Do what the hard way?” Scorza said.

Ryan pointed to a camera labeled number three. It was the second-floor one-on-one booths.

“Clear that up for me,” he said. “What the hell is going on there?”

“That’s one of our touching booths,” Scorza said. “Perfectly legal. I have copies of the court decision if you’d like to read
it.”

“I hope it doesn’t say it’s legal for her to have her hand down his pants.”

Scorza looked at the screen. Then he opened the mirrored door to his office.

“Lonny,” he said to the huge man at the raised counter, “go upstairs and tell Gypsy she’s fired. Have payroll close her out
and tell her I want her ass out of here permanently.”

“She with a customer?” Lonny inquired.

“Give the customer his money back and escort him to the street. Tell him he’s barred.”

Over the loudspeaker came a warning that the lesbian special live show would begin in ten minutes, and don’t forget Miss Rhonda
Rockies in all her abundance would be on the main stage at noon, three, and six
P.M.
Seating limited.

“Sorry, Officers,” Scorza said, closing the door. “That’s why we have these cameras here.”

“Now, see,” Gregory said, “there’s my suspicious mind at work. I would have thought Gypsy would know she’s on camera. My thinking
was that these cameras were here to make sure nobody holds money out on you.”

“Lawyers cost money,” Scorza said. “If she brings Public Morals down on us, I’m out real money. Besides, I don’t want that
shit going on in this place.”

“What makes you think we won’t lock her up now?” Ryan said.

“Be my guest,” Scorza said. “I’ll even testify as a witness for you.”

“What a great citizen,” Gregory said.

“I can certainly promise you, or a judge, she’ll never set foot in here again.”

“You
are
an actor,” Gregory said. “You missed your calling. I was almost convinced by that performance. Weren’t you, pally?”

“Almost,” Ryan said. “But you have other problems, Buster. Last week a customer had his pocket picked in here. And believe
it or not, he reported it.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Scorza said. “Imagine that, a pickpocket here in our city.”

“We’re going to help Mid-Town South on this case,” Ryan said. “Canvass some of your customers. Maybe locate a potential witness.”

“I told you the truth about Trey Winters. You have no cause to harass me.”

“Still acting,” Gregory said. “The man inhabits his role.”

“No one is harassing you,” Ryan said. “All we want is the truth about your business with Trey Winters. And while we’re waiting
for you to remember the truth, we’ll try to solve this pickpocket case.”

“Suit yourself.”

“You’re not giving us any choice, Buster.”

“You’re going to do whatever you want anyway,” Scorza said. “No matter what I say.”

As Ryan came down the stairs from Scorza’s office, big Lonny, fresh from his fake firing assignment, waddled down the hallway
of locked booths. Ryan walked to the end of the line and banged on the metal door to the first booth. He yelled, “Police!”
loudly enough to alert all three floors. Gregory took the left side, did his own yelling. They walked down the line, banging
on doors and yelling. Lonny came hustling to the rescue.

“Here comes your protection,” Ryan said, turning back to Scorza.

“The First Amendment is my protection,” Scorza answered, and waved the big man away. “Come up here, Lonny.”

But Lonny’s progress slowed drastically. He had to fight his way back to his perch behind the desk because the crowd came
sudden and intense. The halls were filled with men heading for the sunlight, buckling belts, zipping, snapping. It was a pervert’s
fire drill.

“Nobody seems to want to talk,” Ryan said. “We may have to come back later, maybe tomorrow, too.”

“Come back every hour if you want,” Scorza said. “In the meantime I’ll call my lawyer.”

Scorza went back inside his office as Lonny shook his head at the mass exodus of men in Armani suits or army fatigues. All
manner of clothing in disarray.

At the end of the hallway they split up. Gregory went downstairs, Ryan took the one-on-one booths on the second floor. No
one volunteered to speak to them; all were too busy seeking an exit. A sanitation man tripped on his green pants and tumbled
down a full flight of stairs. His arm, unfortunately, looked broken. Ryan wondered how that accident report would be written
up.

They left through the gift shop, thoughtfully situated on the side street. Convenient enough for the harried and horny commuter
to duck in and pick up a movie, a magazine, or a battery-powered love muscle for the little woman waiting in Westchester.

“Got any love potion number nine?” Gregory asked.

Both detectives squinted in the bright sun.

“That went well,” Gregory said.

“We didn’t hurt him,” Ryan said. “He lost a couple of bucks, that’s all.”

“He knows we can’t hurt him, pally. His customers will be back no matter what we do. We need a different angle. All we’re
doing is trying to get even with him because he’s stonewalling us. Sometimes getting even ain’t the way to go.”

They turned the corner onto Eighth Avenue, and Ryan noticed it first. A parking ticket on the window of the Buick. Under the
windshield wiper and directly over their official plate with the seal of the NYPD.

“Remember what I just said about getting even being a bad thing?” Gregory said. “That was all bullshit.”

O
n Sunday morning Anthony Ryan sat in the grass of Oakland Cemetery with a penknife, digging deep narrow holes over the grave
of his son, pushing little pieces of his life down into the soft turf. First a button off his uniform, then a shamrock tie
tack, a tiny NYPD detective’s badge, a subway token.

Oakland Cemetery is situated on a hillside in Yonkers, New York, facing the defunct Alexander Smith Carpet Shops, which once
wove carpet for the coronation of a Russian czar. Anthony’s father, Kieran Ryan, had told him that czar story when he took
him through the factory over fifty years ago. He’d wanted him to see it before it was gone. The whir and clatter of the massive
looms had frightened the young boy, but he’d never admitted it.

Kieran Ryan, a retired bus driver now eighty-four and residing in Florida, had told his son a million old Yonkers stories.
Anthony Ryan couldn’t even remember if he’d passed the czar story down to his son, Rip.

Alexander Smith’s was built in the mid-1800s and grew into the largest rug mill in the world. Now “the shop” sat sliced into
myriad furniture and appliance warehouses and small woodworking firms. In the beginning Alexander Smith himself drove the
daily product into New York City by horse and wagon. Each day’s sales gave Smith the money to buy material for the next day.
Alexander Smith died on November 5, 1875, on the night he was elected to Congress. He was buried on this same hill, a bit
lower than the Ryan clan.

The fact that the Ryan family was above the Smiths pleased Kieran Ryan, who’d purchased twenty plots in the hillside graveyard
after he’d hit the number for $600, a small fortune in 1947. Thanks to the reckless lifestyles of Kieran’s Irish kin, only
five of the twenty plots remained. The deed to the plots was locked in a strongbox in the closet of Kieran Ryan’s Florida
condo. He’d given Anthony clear instructions that if he should die, neither Uncle Rocco, the brother of Kieran’s late wife
and Anthony’s mother, nor any of the Gagliardi family was to be allowed access to the remaining plots.

Last January, when Rocco’s wife, Ryan’s aunt Violetta, died, Kieran Ryan disappeared into the Florida Keys with the deed,
while his phone rang off the hook. Kieran had vowed that only one Gagliardi would ever be laid to rest in ground that he paid
for; and she was already there: his beloved Angela Gagliardi Ryan, Anthony’s mother. He’d rather see an Irish setter interred
next to him than the likes of Rocco Gagliardi.

Kieran Ryan was the family storyteller, and one of his favorite stories was the day he collected his $600 in the Hollow Athletic
Club on Walnut Street, a few blocks away. He took six-year-old Anthony, and they walked down the hill to the neighborhood
called the Hollow, because Kieran Ryan never owned a car until he moved to Florida at eighty years of age. Before they entered
the Hollow A.C., Kieran bent and told his boy, “Pay attention, son. These men are Polacks.” Inside the club, Anthony sat at
the bar and drank the best root beer of his life while a man called Singapore Charlie found a quarter behind his ear.

On the way home they stopped in another club. Before entering, Kieran Ryan again told his son to pay attention, “These are
your mother’s people. These are eye-talians.” Inside, he ate his first cannoli and women hugged him and talked about his blue
eyes as if he were a movie star. The lesson continued through other neighborhoods as Kieran sipped from a gallon of red wine
in an unlabeled jug. On the climb back up the hill Anthony saw a group of people on the steps of a church. Eager to please
his father and show his aptitude, he pointed at the group and in a loud voice said, “And they’re niggers, right, Dad?”