Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery (15 page)

“Jack LeVine,” I told him.

“Great to meet you, Jack.” Lansky just stared at Power, without asking him to sit, so the movie star got a little jittery and started backing off. “See you later in the casino, Meyer?”

“Me?” Lansky said with a sour laugh. “I don’t gamble.” Power chuckled and walked backward for about three yards before having the nerve to turn and walk away.

Lansky shrugged. “I think he’s a fag, but he doesn’t know it yet.”

“Really.”

“It’s his business. Nice kid, though. Dresses the place up, having him around.” Lansky rubbed his nose. “You asked me something.”

“About your involvement with Toscanini.”

“Involvement,” Lansky said. “That’s a good word, ‘involvement.’ Not too specific.” He sipped some more
aqua.
“I’m an interested observer. You buy that?”

“Maybe. What’s it going to cost?”

“That might be negotiable.” He smiled, but it was strictly a ten-watt smile—his mouth twitched, but his eyes didn’t play along. “We both like to banter, am I right? I can see between us a whole lot of witty fucking banter.”

“That’s very likely. You live down here now?”

Lansky shrugged. “I live here, I live in Miami, I live in New York. I’m semi-retired, in a fashion.”

“How semi?”

“Semi-semi. Sometimes I work, sometimes I sleep late. It’s too much strain to work all the time, and what’s the point, really? Monetary gain?” He shook his head. “Hardly worth it anymore. Taxes have taken all the fun out of it, am I right, Jack?”

“I was never in your tax bracket. Doesn’t affect me all that much.”

“Taxes go against everything that made America great—enterprise, intelligence, business savvy. The politicians have turned all those virtues into shit.” Now his eyes shifted and he looked past me, over my shoulder toward the entrance to the bar.

“Here she is,” he said quietly, almost to himself. Then he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. “Sweetheart!” he called out.

I turned around and you could have knocked me over with a bubble of
aqua mineral.

Standing at the entrance to the bar, looking quizzically around the room, was Barbara Stern.

I turned back to Lansky, my mouth dry. There was no little merriment on his features. “You know this girl, am I right?”

I arose and watched as she slowly crossed the room, fully aware that everyone in the joint was staring at her, not only because she was approaching the great man’s table, but because she was wearing a flowered chiffon dress cut just below her knees that clung to every perfect bend in the road. As she neared the table, Barbara looked at me with a serene and bemused expression that said,
Surprised to see me
?

I was not only surprised, I was numb. My legs felt like concrete posts.

“Hello, Miss Stern,” I said in as firm a voice as I could muster.

“Jack.” She held out her hand and I shook it. “Meyer.”

Lansky patted the banquette.

“Sit by me, darling,” he said.

Barbara smiled at me cryptically and sat down beside Lansky. He pecked her on the cheek; she responded by patting his arm, still keeping her eyes on me. If she had kissed Lansky full on the lips, there’s a strong chance I would have broken down and cried, which is something I rarely do in hotel bars.

“When did you get here?” I asked casually, Señor Composure himself.

“Late last night.” Our waiter came trotting up to Barbara Sterns side. One thing you had to say for Lansky, the guy commanded some fabulous service. Speaking fluent Spanish, Barbara ordered herself a local beer and requested some limes on a dish.

“The lime peps up this local beer,” she explained to me.

“You’ve been here before,” I said.

“Oh yes. A couple of times.”

“So you came down last night,” I repeated. I felt like I was speaking to her in code.

“Yes. There’s a flight that gets in around nine.”

“She was smart enough to let me know,” Lansky interjected. “No cabs for this little girl.” He put an arm around her and gave her neck a little squeeze.

“And you, Jack?”

“Just got in a few hours ago.” I sucked on a pistachio, trying to feel my way. “How’s your mother doing, and your sister?”

Barbara shrugged. “About the same. I told Mom I’d be away for a day or two. She was okay about it. She understood.”

“She did.”

“Sure.”

Her beer arrived at the speed of light, and the accompanying slices of lime. The waiter placed another bowl of nuts on the table, this one large enough to feed a family of squirrels for the winter. Lansky happily grabbed another handful.

“I probably shouldn’t be eating these,” he said. “I don’t think they’re so healthy. But I never could lay off them.”

“Oh, Meyer. Enjoy yourself.” Barbara spoke to him like he was her uncle. Lansky smiled at her and I sat sipping my Cuban seltzer, trying to get a fix on their relationship. I had no doubt that they had been lovers at some point—no way Lansky was going to restrain himself from
shtupping
someone who looked like Barbara Stern—and maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part, but what I saw passing between them now indicated that the heavy breathing was most likely a thing of the past. What remained was just the good-natured affection of a beautiful Cornell undergraduate for a murdering sonofabitch.

Lansky beamed in my direction.

“He’s trying to figure this out, our friend Mr. LeVine. Am I right?”

“Oh, Meyer, don’t play games,” Barbara said. “It gets tedious.”

“‘Tedious,’” he repeated. “The mouth on this kid. The problem is, she’s overeducated. That’s one thing nobody ever accused me of.”

I was starting to tire of all the chitchat, Lansky or no Lansky. I guzzled my
aqua,
cleared my throat.

“I’m not trying to figure you and Barbara out,” I lied. “Not at the moment. All I want to know is where Toscanini is stashed, what, if anything, you know about it, and why you wanted to talk to me. Not necessarily in that order.” I looked to Barbara. “Am I correct in assuming that your father got involved in this business because of you?”

Barbara looked daggers at me. “And therefore I’m responsible for his death?”

“Watch it,” said Lansky, his eyes turning as lifeless as a pair of ball bearings.

“I didn’t say you were responsible for his death.”

Barbara was no longer listening to me. Her eyes puddled up with tears.

“No, he did not get killed because of me, nor did he get involved in this because of me. He never knew about Meyer and me. But when my mother called me Tuesday night and told me what had happened, my first instinct was to call Meyer. That was the order of events. I called him from Ithaca right after I heard.”

“Which you neglected to tell me.”

“I hardly
knew
you. Christ. What did you think, the first thing I’m going to say when we’re introduced is, ‘By the way, I used to date Meyer Lansky’?”

Lansky watched all of this with great amusement. “You can’t browbeat this girl, LeVine, believe me.”

“I’m not trying to browbeat anyone,” I told him with a little heat, then turned back to Barbara “So your parents never knew that you and Lansky had been involved.”

“No. And they never will. I mean,” she took a breath, “my mother never will.”

Lansky stroked her hair with the back of his hand, threw me a rueful smile. “She’s ashamed of me.”

Barbara shook her beautiful head. “It’s not that. She just wouldn’t understand.” No kidding. Hilde Stern would be as enthused if Barbara had started dating Goebbels. I wasn’t too keen on it myself. The thought of Barbara Stern’s long slender legs wrapped around Lansky’s naked little body was, to say the least, dispiriting.

“Okay,” I forged ahead. “So you find out about your father and place a call to Havana.” I turned to Lansky. “That was the first you’d heard of it?”

“Of what?”

“The snatch. Not the killing.”

Lansky shook his head. “No.”

“You knew about the snatch.”

“I’d heard rumors to that effect.”

“What effect?”

“I’d heard there were parties who had taken Toscanini and were apparently looking for a major score. I wasn’t sure about the numbers involved, but I understood they were sizable.”

“Three million bucks,” I told Lansky.

He smiled. “Then I understood right.” Now the little gangster snapped his bony fingers, prompting the waiter to practically fly back to our table. “More Cuban seltzer,
por favor,
” Lansky told him.

“Que
?” asked the waiter.

“
Aqua mineral
,” Lansky repeated. “
Por todos
.”

The waiter nodded furiously—”
Si
’,
si! Por todos
”—and disappeared again.

“This fucking place is starting to get on my nerves,” Lansky grumbled.

“He’s been saying that forever,” Barbara said to me, squeezing Lansky’s arm affectionately.

“All right,” I said. I was losing my patience. “You’d heard about the snatch. Any idea who’s involved?”

Lansky shook his head. “No.”

“You have no idea.”

“You’re talking facts or guesswork?”

“For openers, let’s say guesswork.”

“That’s a waste of time.” Lansky rummaged through the nuts as if looking for a missing diamond. Barbara took a long swig of her beer.

“Then what are we doing here?” I was starting to feel like a participant in the world’s worst scavenger hunt. “You sent me a note, you want to see me. Fine, I’m here. Now, do you want to help me out or just play these little verbal games, because if it’s the second, I’m getting way too old for it.”

Lansky gave me an empty stare, as if I were a stranger who had just stopped by to ask directions.

“I want to help you, and I want to help the girl.” Lansky patted Barbara’s hand and leaned forward. “What happened to her father was a terrible thing—for a civilian to get hit like that, particularly a person of culture and breeding, an artist. The whole thing is so unnecessary.”

“So you’re a bystander here, that’s your role,” I said to Lansky.

“Basically.”

“‘Basically.’ Meaning if there’s some sort of payoff and Toscanini gets delivered in one piece, you’d like a taste of it.”

“I don’t think that’s what he’s saying,” Barbara interjected.

“No?” I asked.

Lansky shrugged in a rabbinical manner. “I would just want some consideration.”

“That would be up to NBC,” I told him.

Lansky blinked innocently. “I completely understand.”

“Good. So let me ask you, is Toscanini down here or not?”

“He might be,” Lansky said. “I’m not certain.”

“The ransom note was written on Nacional stationery.” I told him.

He scratched his nose. “Doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Someone could just have taken the stationery,” Barbara said.

“I understand that,” I said. “But do you have any reason to believe that he’s either here now or was here?”

“Yes I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting your time, Jack. I can call you Jack?”

“You can call me Rosemary Clooney; I’m just desperate for information here. What’s your reason for thinking that the Maestro was or still is in Havana?”

The waiter returned with a tray full of the green bottles of
aqua mineral.
If I drank much more, I might as well sleep in the bathtub tonight.

Lansky waited for the waiter to leave. “I’ve come to believe that my friend Charlie Lucky may have wanted him here, for his safety.”

“Luciano?”

Lansky nodded. “Yeah.”

“When you say Luciano wanted him here for his safety,” I continued, “you’re referring to Toscanini’s safety? Or Lucky’s?”

“Toscanini’s,” said Lansky.

“And you base that on what?” I asked him.

Lansky smiled. “I base it on knowledge, let’s leave it at that. Not
facts,
okay? I’m not saying I know facts.” The little man leaned forward. “I have some knowledge of possibilities.”

“Okay,” I plowed ahead. “Next question: Is Lucky still around here?”

“In Havana?” Lansky looked surprised. “No. Not for years.”

“He’s in Italy,” Barbara said reflexively, and threw a sort of
oops
look at Lansky, who just shook his head like a forgiving parent.

“He’s in Italy, yes.”

This made no sense to me. Why the hell would Lucky Luciano be protecting Toscanini—and from whom?

“So if Toscanini is being snatched for his protection,” I said, speaking as quietly as was possible in the increasingly crowded and noisy bar, “I don’t figure the ransom, except to throw people off the scent.”

“That would make sense,” Barbara said. “It sells the kidnapping.”

“He’s missing for a while, right?” said Lansky.