Seven Ways to Die (25 page)

“What’s that?”

“I’ll bet you ten bucks Crosetti didn’t freeze to death.”

28

Frank Rizzo was leaning on the wall of a five-story building on the opposite side of the alley. He was facing the Venezia’s back exit, scoping out the adjoining area with his camera. Cody walked the forty or so feet to join him, unconsciously setting his pace with the sound of the camera—c
lick, whrrrr, click, whrrrr—
and remembering Rizzo’s initial disdain for the idea of learning to use a camera until he realized he had a natural eye for capturing details. Now the crew had to practically pry it out of his hands when he got started.

“See anything interesting?”

“Actually, it’s what you can’t see from here that’s interesting. Look around. There are no lights on this side of the alley. If you stood right here at, say, midnight nobody could see you. It’s black as a coal mine. But when Ricky comes out for a smoke, Androg can look into the kitchen and see the freezer. Step five feet to his right, he can see through the window, see the kitchen, see through the double doors into the bar, see Tony’s office door.

“Day or two later he drops into the bar for a quick drink, goes back to the men’s room, takes a leak, comes out and he can grab a look into the kitchen. Now he’s got the whole place scoped out.

“Now what does he know? He knows the help is out by eleven. He knows Tony goes down to the ATM and maybe stops off for a cup a tea and is back by one. He knows Ricky steps outside for a quick smoke, goes back inside while Tony’s gone and polishes the floor in his office. He knows Ricky takes about fifteen minutes to get that done. And Androg can hear the polishing machine so he goes over, enters the back door, spikes the glass of wine and the bottle, and vanishes around the corner into the ladies room. He’s inside and safe in a minute or two.

“Then he just waits for Ricky to shutter the kitchen windows and leave. The door’s locked. All the ambient light from the kitchen is blocked so nobody will see him when he finishes at, what? Two, two-thirty. The snake can take all the time he wants killing the rabbit.”

He was right, Cody agreed. The alley behind Venezia was like a boxed canyon; blocked at one end by a tall building, at the other by an unlit parking lot; tall structures crouched around it like sentinels. In the dark, even residual light from Hester Street would fade by the time it got to the alley. From their vantage point, Cody studied who might have caught a glimpse of the killer. Perhaps someone leaving the parking lot? Customers in the restaurants and shops to their right on the opposite side of Hester? Were any of them even open at two-thirty in the morning? Once again their wily nemesis had left little room for mistakes.

“I’ve set up some help from the Fifth,” Rizzo said. “I got three detectives and five uniforms to Q and A the joints over on Hester. One of them talks Chinese which’ll help, a lotta of the old guys don’t parlay English. But, y’know, let’s face it, there ain’t a lot of action around here that time a day. I’m figuring Androg parked in the lot, maybe down by that warehouse so he wouldn’t be too obvious. Maybe we can cop a description, something about the car, a tag number…” He paused, looked around, looked at upstairs windows in buildings. “…something.”

They needed a break. A little luck. The one thing they could never count on, Cody thought. His frustration was getting palpable.

“A major sicko, freezing the old fella like that,” said Rizzo.

“Yeah,” Cody growled. “This one’s too cute for our own good.”

He walked to the mouth of the alley, looked up and down the street. There was a small warehouse on the Elizabeth Street end of the lot. The lot was divided into four long rows with two cars parked bumper to bumper in each and a drive-out between each one. He estimated it would accommodate at least a hundred and twenty or thirty cars. But at two or three a.m., probably just a handful in the whole lot. From the other side of Hester it would have been too dark to see much of anything.

“I think maybe the lot’s our best bet,” Cody said. “If we got a bet at all.”

“I agree. We’ll zero in on it. And the restaurants. Maybe one or two of ‘em were still open at that hour.”

“Anything will help. Anything! Is Androg short, tall, skinny, fat, male, female?”

“Pigeon-toed, knock kneed?”

“Bow-legged?”

Rizzo chuckled. “There’s a thought. Maybe he’s a cowboy.”

Cody, too, started laughing off the tension. “That’s it. The ghost of John Wayne.”

“Or Randolph Scott.”

They both started to chuckle.

“How about one of the Three Stooges?” Cody said, their chuckles escalating into nervous laughter.

“I think we both need to relax,” Rizzo said, putting his arm around Cody’s shoulder. He looked past his boss and nodded. “What’s with Charley?”

The dog was walking toward the parking lot, his head moving slowly back and forth, his nose working the ground. Cody walked up behind him and followed the dog’s slow progress.

“He’s on to something,” said Cody. He stopped and looked back at the rear entrance to the restaurant. ”Let’s see, after the work gang leaves, Ricky mops the floor to the back door. Then he steps outside for his smoke and goes back inside leaving the door cracked. Androg walks over and waits near the door in the dark and when he hears the polisher he goes in. Tony comes back from the bank drop, he and Ricky do their inspection. Ricky serves him dinner, closes the shutters and leaves. Androg does his dirty work and leaves. So the last person out was the killer. He turned the lights off and left.”

“You figure he’s got Androg’s scent?”

“Think about it, Frank. We have about five million scent receptors in our nose. Charley there has 220 million. He picked up Androg’s scent inside and he picked it up again when we came out. He can separate a scent easier than you can pick a daisy.”

 Charley stopped for a moment and looked back at Cody. “Keep going, son,” Cody said and they continued another fifty feet to the parking lot. The parking spaces were each marked with white oblong stripes. Charley stopped for a minute, sniffing the concrete, then walked several car lengths down, stopped again, and followed his nose about three-quarters of the length of the parking spot and stopped. He raised his head, sniffed the air, looked back at Cody and sat down.

“I’ll be damned,” Rizzo said.

“This is where the scents end,” said Cody. “This is where Androg got in the car. Mark it with yellow ribbons. Maybe somebody over on that strip of restaurants on Hester Street noticed the car. Maybe even saw Androg when he left.”

“Or when he got here which would have been, what? A little after twelve maybe?”

Cody nodded. “Get lucky, Frank. We can use a little help.”

29

Victoria Mansfield turned slowly in bed and pulled the silk sheet over her shoulder. The phone rang again and she groaned. Her sleeping mask had slipped sideways across her face and she angrily whipped it off and threw it across the room. Squinting her eyes to shut out the light sneaking through the blinds, she reached out a hand to find the phone, knocked an ashtray on the floor, and the phone receiver rattled as it fell off the carriage.

“Shit!” she muttered as her hand fluttered around the night table until she found it. She pulled the sheet up over her head.

“Uhnn?”

“Wake up, kiddo,” Hamilton’s voice ordered.

“Umm. Wha’ time’s it?”

“A little before nine. We’re halfway home. Should be there in an hour or so. It’s Saturday, no traffic coming into the city.”

She threw back the sheet, suddenly wide awake, and sat naked in the middle of the bed.

“Shit,” she cried, “I forgot the paper. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She jumped out of bed and ran naked from the bedroom, through the living room, to the alcove by the front door, peered through the peephole into an empty hallway, and unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the door. The newspapers were stacked in front of the door where Louie, the doorman, had left them. She snatched the neat pile inside, bumped the door shut with her naked behind, and ruffled through them until she got to The Post. Dropping the remaining papers on the floor, she ran back to the bedroom, jumped on the bed like a child, and grabbed the phone.

“Still there?”

“No, I’m on the planet Mars. Where do you think I am?”

“You sound a little surly,” she said, flipping through the newspaper to page six.

“You’d be surly, too, if you had to spend an evening with that bunch of dull assholes. Thank God for my ability for self-amusement.”

“Naughty, naughty. Be nice to your peers.”

“I do not consider them my peers.”

“I know darling,” she said condescendingly while reading the item. “You are a peer unto yourself.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” he said, superciliously.

She giggled gleefully to herself as she read the item then said to Hamilton, “I’ll be right back.”

“Where the hell’re you going? Victoria? Al…Damn it!” He clicked off the phone.

She went into the kitchen and retrieved a china cup from the cupboard. The automatic coffee maker had done its job and she poured herself a cup, threw a spoonful of sugar in it, stirred it briefly, tossed the spoon in the sink, and went back to the bedroom where she settled in comfortably before picking up the phone.

“Had to get a cup of coffee, the odor was driving me… Hello? Hello? Well, damn you.”

She punched in his number.

He let it ring a couple of times before answering. “What are you doing?” he snapped.

“Getting my coffee, do you mind?”

“Well, you keep running off in the middle of a sentence and…”

“Do you know what I’m wearing?”

“Of course I know what you’re wearing. Your skin, as usual.”

“And don’t you wish you were here to share it?” she purred. She leaned back against the padded headboard of the bed and started to run the fingernails of one hand across her flat stomach. “Guess what I’m doing?”

“Vic, are you going to read the article to me?”

“Say please.”

“God damn it…”

“Uh uh, be nice. You don’t want to make the pussycat sulk, do you?” She looked up at the mirrored ceiling and gently scratched the mouthpiece of the phone.

“You’re shameless.”

“Don’t you just love it?”

The thought of her, stretched out on the bed, toying with herself stirred him.

“Jesus, read the damn article before you run out of breath.”

She laughed heartily, sipped her coffee, and said, “Tell Dave to speed it up.”

“Screw the article.”

“No, screw me, darling. Oh, I know, I know, Dave can hear you and we can’t have any fun, right?”

“Very perceptive.”

“Okay, and did I hear
please?”

“Please, for Christ sake.”

“Ahh, that’s my boy. Want me to finish what I’m doing before I read it?”

“Victoria!”

“Ohhh-kay.” She sat and smoothed out the tabloid. “My God, they even have a picture.”

“They shot it before dinner. They can send photos from a laptop in two minutes these days.”

“The headline reads: ‘Has Literati Bad Boy Gone Soft?’ Are you soft, sweetheart?”

“Stop it, just read on. And it’s
literatus.
”

“Look at you, all dressed up in your little tux. Aren’t you cute.”

“Just read what it says, okay?”

“’kay. ‘Ward Lee Hamilton, best-selling author of enough books to fill a small library, who has never met a human being he didn’t insult, proved to be a tame tiger at the Philip Marlowe Award banquet in Philly last night as he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from a full house of his peers.

“’Hamilton, known for his condescending attitude, his whiplash tongue, and his flamboyant couture, was an absolute dear as he praised several fellow nominees whom he said, ‘deserved the honor’ adding ‘they should all be standing beside me here tonight.’

“’Hamilton was dressed in an elegant and conservative, black tuxedo, a rad departure from his usual attire. The only thing missing was gal pal, socialite Victoria Mansfield, who was at a charity affair here in the city. What a shame. She would have been proud of her usually boorish play toy.’”

“Play toy! That bitch!”

“Oh, calm down, sweetie, you know Sophie has to get her digs in. Maybe that cop will be a little friendlier if he thinks you’ve turned into Mister Nice Guy.”

“I’m on to something about him. I’ll jump on the computer when I get home and…”

“You even go near that office and pussycat is gonna close shop.”

“Blackmail?” he said, feigning shock.

“Listen you, when you walk in the door I’ll be wearing that eight hundred dollar peignoir I bought yesterday and I expect your full attention and appreciation. Understood?”

He chuckled. “A bit waspish, aren’t we?”

“
We?
I am going to turn this boudoir into a bordello, darling boy,” she said. “Single-handedly if need be. Have you forgotten?”

“I don’t forget anything.”

“Good,” she whispered, fondling the phone. “It’s Story Lady time.”

30

The corpse was floating sideways in a deep tub, still in a sitting position, hands still frozen in its lap, its eyes staring half open through melting ice crystals that floated by and then shrank and vanished into small veils of rising steam from the water, which was being maintained at exactly 98.6 degrees. Max Wolfsheim, who finally had checked his phone messages, had arranged for the large gray plastic container to be delivered before he even got to the lab. Annie had set up the thermostatic faucet which delivered the water to the tub so the temperature would stay consistent as the icy contents melted. It was beside the stainless steel slab on which the systematic dissembling of the body would take place.

“He was a classy, old fella,” Wolf said sadly and to nobody in particular.

Annie was at a long lab table nearby preparing a chemical analysis of the red wine in the bottle found beside the dead man. The rest of the crew was in the adjoining big room, preparing the briefing.