Redemption Street (24 page)

“Anytime you want a job as a reporter, you let me know,” she said. “Even your timing is right. And, to answer your question, the postmarks are from all over the place.”

“That figures,” I said. “Thanks for your help, and thank Maurice for me.”

“I was serious about that job offer,” she wanted me to know. “How’d you hurt the wrist?”

“Sticking it where some people thought it didn’t belong.”

R. B. Carter wasn’t an easy man to see. He might have been impossible to see if he had wanted it so. Men like Carter didn’t see the neighborhood Fuller Brush man when he stopped by the old office tower to show his wares. Men like Carter had layers of security between them and the world they perceived as hungry for their attention. There were little blue men with square badges on their chests, ex-cops and ex-jocks in blue blazers, men in fancy suits with fancy titles and odd gun bulges. There were secretaries, assistants, vice presidents, unlisted phone numbers, seven different offices in New York City alone, and schedules to keep. Yet, in spite of it all, I was confident he’d eventually make room to see me.

It took more than a few phone calls. I got put on hold more times than the plan to build a bridge across Long Island Sound, but no one hung up on me. With every message, I left my phone number at the store and a cryptic message about my love of anonymous poetry. More than one person asked me to repeat the message. I’d tell them not to worry about it, that Mr. Carter would understand.

Waiting for the message to filter through to Carter, I reclaimed a part of my life I’d abandoned for Arthur Rosen. On Columbus Avenue, two blocks north of the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, sat Irving Prager and Sons, Inc. We’d named the corporation in honor of our father, who knew less about wine than a tree stump did and hadn’t lived to see our success. The shop itself was called City on the Vine. Aaron let me have the honor of naming it, but we both understood I could have called it Armpit. In Manhattan, names are important only for restaurants, bars, and designer boutiques. I can’t remember the last time I went to see a play because of the theater in which it was being staged. It’s not the way things work.

For about the first five weeks we were in business, we stubbornly made a show of answering the phone with a chipper: “Good day, City on the Vine.” We finally surrendered and went with the generic but succinct “Wine shop.” Reality has a way of reshaping even a stubborn man’s most modest dreams.

My guts were twisting themselves into unpleasant shapes as I put my hand on the door handle. I both dreaded and basked in the notion of my return. The wine business paid better and was decidedly better for a man’s connective tissue and kidneys than ghost hunting, but even as I drew my first breath of the familiar dusty air inside the shop, I could feel a little of the life drain out of me. By any measure of my police career, I hadn’t been much of a cop. With the exception of saving Marina Conseco’s life, a recounting of my career read like a recipe for hot water. Nothing to it. But I guess I was as much a cop as any man who’d ever put on his blues. The shame of it was, it took a bum knee and other people’s suffering to wake me up to the facts.

No one was at the front register. No surprise in that. We were doing well, but not so well we could afford to pay someone just to ring sales. We all had to do a little bit of everything. We all stocked the aisles, helped customers, suggested choices, unloaded orders, and made deliveries. I cleared my throat loudly enough to be heard in the dry cleaners’ down the street.

“Be with you in a second,” Klaus called from the sparkling-wine aisle. His chipperness quotient was always low. From the sound of his voice, it was in negative numbers today.

“Get your ass up here!” I ranted.

Klaus appeared in a getup that made me long for his Dead Kennedys tee shirt. He had makeup on his face that David Bowie wouldn’t’ve worn on a bet. His hair had been bleached blond and was coiffed so that it looked like a wave crashing on the beach. He had on a chalk-striped charcoal suit with a ridiculously ruffled white shirt and frilly sleeves. And yet his face lit up in spite of himself. When Klaus dressed like this, it meant he and Aaron were at war. Aaron and I were yin and yang. When I was out, Aaron’s overly anal tendencies came to the fore, which had the effect of alienating our more creative employees.

“Boss! You look awful, but wonderful.”

“You should talk,” I chided, pointing at his do with my bandaged wrist. “I know several poodles who committed suicide after getting coiffed like that.”

“On me it’s—”

“—fashion. Yeah, I’ve heard that line before. Where’s my brother?”

“The Führer’s making a big delivery. Splash in the Pan Caterers is doing a big corporate Christmas party. I think the company rented one of the Circle Line ships. Aaron’s at the pier.”

“Klaus,” I said coldly, “you know I like you a lot and I put up with your shit because you’re a good employee, but don’t ever let me hear you refer to my brother that way again. Understood?”

I could see in his face that he was about to make a joke. My eyes screamed for him not to. He didn’t. Klaus was a flake, but a smart flake, with a strong instinct for self-preservation.

“Sorry, boss.”

“It’s forgotten.”

Without having to ask, Klaus went into full detail about what I’d missed. Business had been unbelievably good. Kosta was a real pro, and he and Klaus were getting along famously. It was that music-connection thing. Kosta would be in in a few hours. Aaron, a born worrier, was driving everyone nuts. I told Klaus that I wasn’t in to work today, but that I’d be back in just a few days. I promised him a bonus if he could put up with Aaron until then. Klaus liked the word “bonus.” He had visions of all the tasteless clothing a little extra money could buy.

“I’ll be in the office waiting for a phone call.”

I didn’t have to wait very long. I thought I recognized Blue Suit’s voice on the other end of the line. We didn’t have a conversation. I got polite instructions that weren’t up for negotiation.

“Please be out in front of your store in five minutes.”

In Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, limos meant one of two things: a wedding or a funeral. It’s not that uncomplicated in Manhattan. Limos are more conspicuous than you can imagine. In Manhattan, limos are not about function. They make a statement. They call attention. Hence the streets can be so full of them that no one notices: the Big Apple Paradox. It used to be that showing up outside the hottest club in a limo would guarantee you an in. But New Yorkers catch on to gimmicks fast. These days, showing up in a limo guarantees you nothing but a big bill. I know a Chinese restaurant on the East Side that uses an old limo for takeout deliveries.

Today I was lucky. There weren’t more than three or four limos on Columbus when I stepped outside the shop. A pity, I thought, I was in the mood for hot-and-sour soup. Gus, the old guy from the dry cleaners’, gave me a careless wave. He’d sat behind that counter so long his body was probably shaped like a chair. I don’t think I ever saw him stand up. When I turned back around from waving at Gus, Carter’s limo was waiting.

Blue Suit was Gray Suit today. Again, his clothing fit him with that unnerving perfection. He was smiling at me, of course, as he pulled open the door and gestured for me to climb in. I thought about tipping him a buck just to see his reaction, but the door was closed behind me so quickly I didn’t have a chance. Carter was there, waiting in the light. We weren’t going to play shadow games today. Nor, apparently, were we going to shake hands. Just as well. We pulled away from the curb.

“Where is she, Mr. Carter?”

He did not answer, holding a tense right hand over his mouth, obscuring his expression. What I could see of his face looked troubled. I couldn’t blame him. If he loved his sister, he had plenty to be troubled about.

I tried another approach. “Arthur Rosen thought she was alive, but didn’t trust himself enough or have the wherewithal to find her. I know she’s alive, but I can’t prove it, not yet. You, I suspect, know for a fact. You’ve had contact with her.”

Again, he was silent. His hand began to tremble slightly; the trouble on his face became more pronounced.

“It bothered me that you tried to pay me off not to take the case,” I continued the monologue. “But I didn’t lose any sleep over it, because your story was reasonable enough. As soon as I read the poem, that all changed. Look, Carter, I think both of us have a pretty good idea who started that fire sixteen years ago. You’re a smart man. There’s no statute of limitation on murder, and even if there was, there’s no moral limitation.”

That got a rise out of him, but not the one I was hoping for. He took his hand away from his face and reached into his suit-jacket pocket. He produced a Mont Blanc pen and that fancy leather checkbook. The first time he tried to buy me off, it was his idea. This time, I could see how he thought I was trying to shake him down.

“Put that away. I still don’t want your money. This isn’t extortion, for Chrissakes! I want your help.”

“Help?” he finally said. “Help with what? What’s this nonsense about my sister? As far as my family and the rest of the world is concerned, Andrea died sixteen years ago. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Prager.”

I guess he had to try that routine. Maybe if he could raise some doubt in me he could get me to take his blood money and go away, or stall me for a little while, until he could relocate Andrea. On the whole, however, it was a pretty halfhearted try. He was probably exhausted by it all.

“Let me lay it out for you. Unless you plan to kill me right here, right now—and I don’t think you will—I’m gonna find Andrea. I’m not some certifiable loony with a dead sister and an ax to grind like Arthur Rosen. You can try to smear me, but it won’t work for long. I have friends. Some of whom can’t be bought off. Eventually, someone’ll listen to me, and then you’ll have the FBI, the State Police, and half the law-enforcement officials from Albany south on your ass. If you let me bring her in, I’ll keep your end out of it. If it had been my little sister, I’m not sure I wouldn’t’ve done the same thing. This way it’ll look like she’s turning herself in out of remorse. You can have the best lawyer on earth waiting and have a story prepared.”

“I don’t know where she is. I never have known, and I’m glad I don’t know.”

My first instinct was to laugh at him, but his body language, his intonation, his expression said he was telling the truth. I pushed him anyway, just to make sure.

“Come on, Carter. You expect me to believe that crock? I don’t appreciate it when people piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.”

“I don’t care what you believe. I don’t know where she is. She’s somewhere up there, I suppose, but she doesn’t want to be found. Do you think Arthur Rosen was the only party involved in this mess to hire detectives? Over the years, I’ve employed an army of detectives. None of them has come up with a thing that’s checked out. You’d think someone would have seen her, that she’d have gotten careless or would have to go to a doctor or something.” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Nothing.”

“What are the poems about?” I prodded. “And don’t tell me they’re published for nothing. What’s the message?”

“Money,” he answered without hesitation. “The day after the poems appear, there’s an ad in the personals column. ‘Dear Mike, You’ve been gone these 10 days. If you want me back, I’m at 1120 So-and-So Lane….’ Something to that effect. I multiply the number of days by a thousand and ship the cash to the address she supplies in the ad.”

“Why not just follow the—”

“Tried that, Prager,” he sneered. “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

“What happened?”

“No one showed up, and I received a letter from a third party.” Carter handed me a sheet of paper, unfolding it as he leaned forward. “Here, look for yourself.”

It was a brief, typewritten note that made things painfully clear to Carter:

Big Brother—

I know what your sister did. She’s under my protection, but if you try to follow the money again
,
her secret will be out. No second chances. Don’t look for us. You won’t like what you find
.

Regards
,

One of Seventeen

P.S. Remember the time your dad caught you playing doctor with your cousin Helen? Weren’t you a little old for that? You wouldn’t want to get caught with your pants down again
.

“What’s this last part about?” I asked.

“Only four people knew about me and Helen.”

“You, Helen, your dad, and—”

“—my sister. So, you see, there was little doubt Andrea was alive. She knew how embarrassed I was about that incident. She would never have shared that with anyone else.”

“You’ve been blackmailed all these years.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Pocket change. She’s safe. She’s alive. That’s what matters.”

Carter wasn’t even looking at me any longer. Instead, he stared sadly out the tinted window at the streets of the city. It wasn’t in me to berate him for what Aaron or I might have done given the same circumstances. Sometimes it’s not the morality of a thing, it’s a lack of resources. Who wouldn’t pay people off to protect a loved one if they could?

“Drop me back at my store, please.”

“Are you sure you won’t accept the money?” Carter wondered, still unable to look me in the eye.

“I can’t, sorry. But when I find Andrea, I’ll let you know where I’m bringing her. You can have a lawyer waiting.”

He had nothing to say to that. Five minutes later, we were pulling up to City on the Vine. I opened the door before Gray Suit could get out from behind the wheel. Carter grabbed my forearm.

“Thank you, I would appreciate that call,” he said, finally staring into my eyes. “Here is a number you can reach me at, regardless of the hour.”