The Hour of the Cat (26 page)

McNevin stopped to talk with a short, bulky plug whose squashed, sideways nose looked as though it had been run over by a bus. “This is Toby Butts,” McNevin said. “Just who I hoped to find.”

Dunne put out his hand. Butts held it in a tight grip. He shuffled his feet, shifting his weight and bobbing his head back and forth. “You smell like a cop,” he said.

“Must be the aftershave.”

Butts increased the pressure on Dunne's hand. “Cops don't smell like aftershave. They stink like dead fish been lyin' around in the sun.”

McNevin put his arm around Butts. “Toby's the best fighter Holy Cross parish ever produced. ‘The Manhattan Mauler' was what they called him. Got on the wrong side of the law and was sent to Sing Sing. Isn't that right, Toby?”

“A frame-up deluxe, Father. Cops railroaded me for a heist I'd nothin' to do with. Seven years in the can for nothin'. My best fightin' years.”

“I'm a private eye, not a cop.” Dunne winced from the pain of his squeezed fingers.

“Fintan Dunne is an old friend, Toby, a buddy from the war.” Butts released his grip, put his fists up, and threw a short jab that stopped an inch shy of Dunne's jaw. “Wish they'd stick me in the ring with a different cop every day, wouldn't stop till I'd smashed up the lot of 'em.”

“Toby lives down by the river, in Hoover Flats,” McNevin said.

“Beats the Bowery or the flops on Tenth. Less chance of gettin' your throat slit.”

“Dunne here is trying to find a pal of his he thinks might be living down there. Lynch is the name.”

“Pat Lynch?” Butts asked.

“Always knew him by Lynch. Didn't use any other moniker,” Dunne said.

“Gotta be Pat. Gettin' a word outta him was like wringin' water from a rock.”

“Still there?”

“Cops showed up one day and took him in. For what, I don't know. Pat wouldn't say. They banged him around. Then he skedaddled. No forwardin' address.”

“Where'd he go?”

“Maine, California, somewhere in between. That's his business, not mine.” Butts tipped his cap to McNevin and said he had to be going. He threw another practice jab at Dunne. “Wasn't for Father McNevin, I'd swear you was a cop.”

McNevin exchanged small talk with a few more of the men. On the way back to Holy Cross, he stopped at the 18th Precinct House, on West Forty-seventh Street, “I'll ask about Pat Lynch while I'm here,” he said. Dunne waited in the vestibule. A sporadic influx of patrolmen went by without noticing him, their attention focused on the hoodlums they had in tow, mostly punks who'd dropped out of school to practice the neighborhood arts of rolling drunks, pilfering from the docks or staging nickel-and-dime holdups, the small timers who'd spend their lives keeping the cops busy and causing them to hate their jobs.

“I talked to the captain,” McNevin said when he returned. “He never heard of Pat Lynch. He said it was probably the boys from Headquarters brought him in.”

“Headquarters usually lets the local captain know when they operate in his territory.”

“I don't think he'd lie to me. I hear his confession every Saturday.”

“Didn't say it was a lie, just that it's odd they'd go around him like that.”

“That's why he's a captain. He knows how to play the game, especially when to keep his trap shut.” McNevin put on his hat and gave it a gentle tap. “It's same as in the church. Best parishes go to the best politicians.”

 

 

The housekeeper greeted Dunne with undisguised displeasure. Learning he'd been invited to stay to dinner, displeasure gave way to distress. She disappeared into the kitchen, grumbling to herself. McNevin took Dunne into the back parlor and made highballs. He did most of the talking, the bulk of it about their time in France, and seemed to appreciate Dunne's company. The heavy meal of potatoes and lamb chops, served by the silently hostile housekeeper, left Dunne drowsy. McNevin had a cigar and a glass of port, which Dunne declined. Afterwards, he took his leave. The tropical wetness on Forty-second Street did nothing to revive him.

He followed the street west, toward the river. An attractive blonde in a low-cut red dress smoked a cigarette in the entrance of a taxi-dance hall on the corner of Ninth. She smiled at Dunne, an inviting, suggestive smile, the smile of all the girls in the red dresses in the taxi-dance halls around Times Square, the too many halls and too many girls. Oversupply, too many goods, not enough demand, that's what the papers said drove the country into such a long Depression: the more people out of work, the lower the demand; the lower the demand, the more people out of work. The girls in the red dresses knew all about it. They got only a nickel on every dime ticket, often less, some places as little as two or three cents. Too many girls in red dresses meant she'd be working all night.

“How about a dance, handsome?” The white lights on the marquee shone on her pale skin. She had the complexion of a farm girl raised on milk and cream in one of those cold, northern places where the kids were bundled up most of the time, till they grew up and moved away to find their fortunes in the big city, their uncovered flesh as clear and unspotted as snow. Didn't take too long before the city turned it to slush.

“Some other time.”

“I'll be waiting for you.” She licked the tip of her cigarette.

The cobblestones on Twelfth Avenue were slippery wet. The hum of the highway overhead flowed like an electric current down the iron supports into the street. Behind a frayed, corroded wire fence was a huddle of tarpaper shacks; beyond, on the mist-shrouded river, the gigantic bulk of a passenger liner glided slowly toward the harbor's mouth. The sudden, explosive blare of its horn momentarily drowned out the heckle of horns, whistles, bells, the argument of the New York waterfront.

Dunne was through the fence when a hand took hold of his shoulders with the force of an iceman's forceps, twirled him around, and tossed him against the wall of a darkened shack, his right arm twisted upward into the hollow between his shoulder blades. He tried to turn and look behind, but his arm was jerked higher. He yelped with pain. “Keep your trap shut,” a voice whispered in his ear. The sugary, chemical smell of cheap wine blew into his face. Another pair of hands patted him down from armpits to ankles and lifted his wallet from his back pocket. Suddenly, his arm was let go and a flashlight shone directly into his face.

“This is private property, no trespassers allowed.”

“I'm looking up a friend.” Dunne could make out two forms behind the light.

“Who'd that be?”

“Toby Butts.”

“Toby Butts ain't no friend of yours.” The flashlight turned upright, its beam giving Toby Butts's lumpy, boiled-potato face a weird glow. “Figured you'd show here sooner instead of later. Ol' Toby knows the way cops think. Rats with cheese. Once they get a smell, can't stay away.”

“Already told you, Toby. I'm not a cop.”

“Then you was or maybe is plannin' to be. Save your breath denyin' it 'cause ol' Toby ain't gonna be convinced otherwise.”

“Forty bucks in his wallet,” said a voice from behind Toby.

“Here, gimme that.” Toby put the flashlight beneath his arm, held the wallet in front of him and removed four five-dollar bills. “A fine of twenty bucks for trespassin' and wastin' my precious time.” He handed Dunne back his wallet. “Now get lost before Jimmy here applies the battin' style got him three seasons with the Cleveland Indians.”

“Four seasons, Toby.
Four
.” Vaguely illuminated by the nearby beam of Toby's flashlight, Jimmy crouched in a hitting stance and swung a nail-studded bat. “My best season, I hit .289.”

Dunne took the remaining twenty out of the wallet and held it out. “Tell me what you know about Pat Lynch and you can have this too.”

Butts chuckled. “Could have it anyways, without tellin' you nothin', if I wanted.”

“I'm trying to help somebody been framed, probably with the help of some cops, so if you're really interested in sticking it to 'em, tell me what you know.”

The beam left Jimmy and encircled a small patch of ground strewn with bottle caps and cigarette butts. “Hell, you was a cop, you'd never come alone. Cops are like nuns. Always travel in pairs.” Butts turned off the flashlight. “All right, follow me.”

Butts led Dunne into the camp, with Jimmy in the rear. At the end of a ramshackle lane of tarpapered shacks was a campfire, bean cans suspended above it from an iron spit. The men sitting around looked up but didn't say anything. Toby stopped in front of a shack. He pulled back the blanket that served as a door. “Go on in,” he said.

Dunne choked back the urge to gag at the warm, repellent scent of grease, sweat, cheap wine processed into piss. Butts lit a kerosene lamp and sat on a small stool. He pulled up a stool for Dunne. Jimmy sat on the floor.

“Now let's see Handy Andy's happy face,” Butts said.

Dunne handed him the twenty. Butts kissed General Jackson's engraving. “This don't change what I said. Pat Lynch left here without a word where he was headed.”

“Say why?”

Butts picked at his scalp with a cracked, blackened fingernail. “He didn't have to. We all seen him get pinched on his way up to Holy Cross for a bowl of soup. Two squad cars. Woulda' thought they was liftin' Charlie Luciano instead poor ol' Pat. Anyways, he didn't come back till the next day, and it was obvious what the bulls done to him.”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “He was missin' a few more teeth.”

“You wouldn't have a cigarette?” Butts asked.

Dunne found an unopened pack in his pocket that he'd forgotten was there. He tossed it to Butts. “Say why they'd brought him in?”

“Nope.” Butts opened the pack, put a cigarette in his mouth, leaned over the lamp and lit it. “He didn't say, we didn't ask.” Butts tossed the pack to his companion. “That's the way it works around here. Right, Jimmy?”

“Right, Toby.” Jimmy lit his cigarette in the lamp, same as Butts.

“We don't stick our snouts in each other's doin's. Pat got knocked around by the cops. One time or another, happened to every man here. Then he came back, packed up and left without a word. We all done that, too. Could be I'll run into him some day maybe up north or out west. It's a big country. Most likely, I won't.”

“Did he mention a sister?”

“Never mentioned nobody.”

“Ever go off to visit somebody?”

“Funny you say that 'cause that was somethin' special about Pat.” Jimmy squatted next to Butts, beside the lamp. Dunne got his first full view of him. Except for a raw diagonal scar that crossed his nose and split his eyebrow, he had the square, handsome, athletic face seen in ads for cereal or cigarettes. “When he was flat broke and shakin' so bad you'd think he was about to come apart, he'd disappear for a spell. Day or so later, when he comes back, he's on his feet, and here's the part what's special, he spread what he got, stood us all to drinks, smokes, whatever.”

“Pat was an old-school hobo, from the days when 'boes was 'boes,” Butts said. “Mighta' been down on his luck but he weren't no bum runnin' Sterno through a sock to squeeze out the grain alcohol or, worse, hoardin' the good stuff for his own use. No, with Pat it was share and share alike, which ain't the way with the trash inhabits this place. Nowadays, it's every man for hisself.”

“Say where he got it?”

“Look, pal, I already told you, he didn't say nothin'.” Butts threw his cigarette on the dirt floor and stomped on it with his lace-less shoe. He pulled a dented metal flask from his pocket, twisted off the cap, and took a long swig. He handed it to Jimmy.

“What'd he take with him?”

“For somebody who ain't a cop, you got a habit of sounding like one.” Butts took the flask back and had another long swig. He wiped the dribble off his chin with his sleeve. “Pat took what he had. What we all have. A gunnysack filled with clothes, a blanket, maybe an extra pair of shoes.”

“Burned stuff, too,” Jimmy said. “Stuff he didn't take, which was kinda' peculiar. Insisted on lightin' a fire right in the middle of this warm day and throwin' paper on it. Poked 'em with a stick till they was nothin' but ash.”

“Any idea what they were?”

“Never seen 'em before till he took 'em out to be burned.”

“Nothin' left to show.” Butts had another significant swallow from the flask.

“Well, there's one thing.” Jimmy went over to a corner of the shack and searched beneath a wooden crate. He came back with a square, cream-colored folder that he handed to Dunne.

Butts had the flask to his mouth again. “Hey, Toby,” Jimmy piped. “Share and share alike, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Toby put the cap on the flask and gave it to Jimmy.

Dunne opened the folder and held it beneath the lamp. Inside was a picture of a man in a sailor's hat banging a plump, large-breasted woman. Underneath were more pictures of the same couple copulating in various poses.

“This belong to Pat?” Dunne asked.

“The pictures is Toby's. Was the folder that was Pat's.” Jimmy had a prolonged gulp from the flask.

Butts grabbed the pictures from the folder with such force that he almost fell off his stool. “How'd they get there?”

“Put 'em there for safekeeping,” Jimmy said. “I found the folder in Pat's place after he went, when we was scourin' for anythin' useful he mighta' left. Was stuck between a bench and the wall. Weren't nothin' in it. Whatever was musta got burned with the other stuff.”