The Letter Writer (16 page)

CAIN AWOKE TUESDAY MORNING
to the realities of a rearranged life. He was a dad again. A dad with a lover, no less, unless Olivia's arrival had scared Beryl away for good. He hoped not, but for the moment he was still a bit bewildered by the events of the night before.

Everything with Beryl had moved so fast, almost headlong compared to what he was accustomed to in his dealings with women. He had enjoyed the seeming recklessness of it—how fine to again experience abandon, and with no one looking over his shoulder in disapproval. Now, with the light coming through the blinds and his daughter asleep, it all felt like a mirage, or maybe a deception. Yes, he was still a father, and happy to be one. But in coming to the city Olivia seemed to have brought Clovis right into the apartment with her.

He thought of Beryl, back in her own bed, the one person with whom he might be able to talk about some of these feelings. But would she really want to hear them? Only one way to find out.

He went to the phone, lifted the receiver, dialed her number. Some other tenant answered, her voice echoing in the apartment house hallway. He asked for Beryl. The receiver went down with a thud and he heard footsteps, followed by a shout. Then Olivia appeared in the doorway, barefoot and yawning. She had her mother's eyes, wide and watchful.

“I'm hungry, Daddy.”

He put the phone back in its cradle just as someone was answering.

“Then let's fix breakfast. We've got a lot to do today.”

“Can I have scrambled eggs?”

“Sure can. Bacon and toast?”

She nodded.

“Is that the newspaper?”

“Yep. Not much good news today.”

She scanned the headlines. Before she only used to read the comics.

“Where's Corregidor?” she asked, pronouncing it slowly but getting it right.

“It's part of the Philippines, in the Pacific. Our army's having a rough time there.”

“What about Leningrad?”

“Russia. It's where the Germans are. Hand me that.”

No sense filling her head with thoughts of the war on her first morning, especially when almost all of the news was bad. Cain glanced at the front page. The new premier of occupied France had thrown in his lot with the Nazis. Hitler had celebrated his fifty-third birthday on the eastern front, while in New Jersey FBI agents raided sixty-two locations to see if any of the local celebrants were up to no good. The Navy's inquiry into the burning of the
Normandie
had concluded that the fire was the result of “gross carelessness and utter violation of rules and common sense.” Citing slow production, the Navy had also seized control of four aircraft factories, while also noting that in some parts of the plant every employee was an enemy alien. Cain wondered how Harris Euston would view that development: A blow against unionism, or undue government interference? Hidden little battlefronts, wherever you looked.

Hoping to find something cheerier for Olivia, he turned to the sports pages, where the results were mixed. Dodgers win. Giants lose. Yanks idle.

Cain had already called the station house to say he'd be late due to a family emergency, and after breakfast he and Olivia ventured into the streets on a few errands. Now he was the seasoned New Yorker with a novice to instruct, and he found himself hastily imparting lessons that suddenly felt like matters of life or death. Stay on the sidewalk. Don't talk to strangers. Memorize our address. Get to know the doormen. Pee before you leave the house. Don't stare on the subway. And so on, all the way to a secondhand furniture store on 14th Street, where he bought a fold-up bed and a thin mattress.

Olivia seemed overwhelmed, and who could blame her? Block after block, she kept her head down and held his hand tightly. Maybe he shouldn't have been so emphatic in his warnings about strangers. Just north of 20th she let go of his hand, and Cain took another two steps before he realized she wasn't keeping pace. He turned in a panic and saw her standing on the grating of an air shaft to the subway, looking straight down while crowds parted to either side of her.

“Sweetie, what is it?”

He saw that she was gazing at hundreds of discarded cigarette butts which had accumulated on a grimy ledge a few feet below.

“Look at that,” she said. “You think anybody will ever pick them up?”

“I doubt anybody can reach them, sweetie.”

“Then why does everybody keep throwing 'em down there?”

“I don't know.”

She looked up. “This place is a mess.”

“Big cities aren't easy to keep clean.”

“Then this one must be
really
big.”

Cain was on the verge of a smile when he felt a cold spot in the middle of his back. He was immediately on his guard, sensing someone's eyes were on him. He wheeled around, and rapidly scanned one face after another, half expecting to see Maloney, or Linwood Archer from the commissioner's office. No one was familiar. Everyone seemed intent on his own business. Only a grocer stared from a doorway, probably drawn by Cain's pose of alertness. Yet the spot on his back still tingled, like a button that had been pressed to sound the alarm.

“What's wrong, Daddy?”

“Nothing, sweetie. Hold my hand.”

It hit him anew that his girl was here in New York for the long haul—meaning double the responsibility, triple the stakes. Maybe that's what gave him the sudden case of the heebie-jeebies, but to make sure he took a last glance over his shoulder, and couldn't help but shudder slightly even though he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What are you looking for?”

“Just people.”

“Well, there's plenty of them.”

He smiled. “That's for sure. Let's go home.”

When they arrived back on 25th Street, a frumpy woman in her forties was waiting just inside the entrance, seated on a folding chair provided by Tom, the day doorman. She rose uncertainly while Tom provided the explanation.

“Mr. Cain, this is Eileen. She was sent by Mr. Euston to work for you.”

He handed over a folded piece of paper, a typewritten message from Euston on Willett & Reed stationery. Cain read it while Eileen nodded and blinked nervously:

Woodrow,

This is to introduce Eileen O'Casey, at your service. She comes highly recommended and ready for flexible hours, so I trust she is suitable. I would appreciate a visit from Olivia at your earliest convenience, although perhaps it would be better to have Eileen arrange it.

Let it never be said that I am not a man of my word, or that I am a shirker of obligations. I hope the same will be true of you.

Harris

Cain folded the letter and put it in his pocket. He cleared his throat, trying to bury his anger beneath his gratitude before addressing the woman who, from now on, would probably be spending more time with Olivia than he would. He wondered how Euston had even known Olivia had arrived. Tom, maybe, or the night doorman. A hazard of letting your father-in-law decide your living arrangements.

“I'm Woodrow Cain, Miss O'Casey. Pleasure to meet you. And this is my daughter, Olivia.”

Eileen nodded, her lips sealed primly, although they broke into a smile as she turned her gaze to Olivia, who didn't shrink from it but didn't step forward, either. And why should she? She'd now been passed from Aunt Sue to Dad to Eileen in the space of a dozen hours.

“Mr. Euston said he'd be handling my salary, so you're not to worry yourself on my account,” Eileen said.

So, then. Another spy in his midst, although he had to admit she was a godsend.

“Welcome,” he said. Then, turning again to his daughter, “Olivia, you're to treat Miss Eileen with the same politeness and respect that you'd show to me.” He hoped he was handling this correctly. He'd crossed onto foreign soil, and was desperately in need of a map, a translator. “Okay, sweetie?”

Olivia nodded solemnly. You could see in her eyes that, for her, the day had just taken a turn for the worse, and it stabbed him deeply. Fresh in town, and already left to the mercy of strangers. He knew the feeling.

“So, does that mean Aunt Sue ain't coming back?”

“Isn't, sweetie. Not ain't. And, no. I'm sure she's on the train to Raleigh by now.”

Cain escorted them upstairs, no one saying a word as they climbed the steps single file. Once they were safely behind the closed door, he knotted his tie, grabbed his notebook, and prepared to depart for the precinct house. Then the telephone rang. Beryl, perhaps? Had she heard his voice on the earlier call?

It was Captain Mulhearn.

“I hear you're arranging your own shift changes now, Citizen Cain, completely on your say-so. If true, that's some brass balls, but it don't mean I still can't bust 'em.”

“My daughter arrived late last night, sir. I've been making arrangements for her, but I was just leaving. Be there in half an hour, and I can double up tomorrow.”

“Not so fast. I've got a detail for you to take care of on the way in, especially since you can't seem to get enough of punishment duty. Good thing you never enlisted or you'd be spending the whole time peeling potatoes and digging latrines. Now, you got that bogus notebook of yours handy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got five names for you. I want you to run them down at the Bureau of Criminal Identification, right up the block from headquarters. We'll need their prints and their criminal index files. Those people down there can be a royal pain in the ass, so I figure you're just the man to deal with them. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Mulhearn spelled out the five names while Cain wrote them down. This would kill the bulk of the afternoon, when what he'd hoped to do was to link up again with Danziger, preferably on the old man's turf, well beyond Mulhearn's reach. Although he brightened a bit when the fifth name turned out to be that of con man Albert Kannerman, who, true to Danziger's tip, had been rounded up by the overnight shift at the very address Cain had provided, which meant he'd at least get some credit for the collar.

“Got all that?” Mulhearn asked.

“Got it, sir.”

He was about to hang up when Mulhearn said, “Oh, and speaking of headquarters, some pencil pusher named Archer was calling here looking for you. Said he had some payroll questions, but that you had his number. No rush, unless you actually expect to get paid for your brand of slack-ass policing.” Mulhearn slammed the receiver in mid-laugh.

So Linwood Archer was after him. Did Mulhearn really believe Archer was from payroll, or would he now know that Cain was up to some sort of dirty work for the commissioner? Either way, it was unwelcome news. Probably Archer's way of expressing his disapproval of Cain's lack of progress. It made him think back to the moment on the street when he'd been so certain he was being watched. Archer, maybe? Or one of his goons? He had better find a way into the 95 Room as soon as possible.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

“Do you think it would be all right if Miss Eileen took me to a park?”

He looked at her face, needful and glum, and for a moment the thought of her being out in the open on a swing set, or climbing some jungle gym, scared him out of his wits. Then he searched her eyes and saw restlessness and boredom. A energetic young girl on a fine April day, about to be cooped up with a matronly stranger who smelled vaguely of rosewater and lye soap.

“Sure. Just be careful.” He bent down, gave her a hug and kissed her forehead. Then he headed off to do his job.

THE BUREAU OF CRIMINAL IDENTIFICATION
was a shrine to archival zeal; a multi-story vault of arrest records, rap sheets, summons reports, fingerprint files, ballistics reports, modus operandi files, and photographs. With its musty smell and hallowed silence it felt like a library, cataloging crimes and criminals going back for decades.

In Horton, tracking down old information on lowlifes could take days, even weeks, and there was little or no cross-referencing between jurisdictions. Up here they'd amassed almost everything you'd want to know in one place, and each year the department spit out voluminous statistical reports with a seemingly endless array of totals on the city's criminal misbehavior. How many people between the ages of thirty-one and thirty-five had been arrested the year before for felonious assault with a knife? Two hundred eighty-two. How about people between the ages of sixteen and twenty, and arrests for larceny from intoxicated or sleeping persons? Six.

Best of all, like an all-night diner the Bureau of Criminal Identification never closed.

Impressive.

Yet, as with his trip to the Automat, Cain found himself mildly disquieted by such efficiency. Keep it up and eventually you'd be able to find out almost anything about anybody, and by barely lifting a finger.

“Whatcha need?” the counter clerk asked.

Cain showed his shield and presented the list of names.

“Fill out a form.” He handed one over. “Detective, huh, and from the third district?” He chuckled. “Mulhearn usually sends some rookie from radio patrol. You must really be in his doghouse.”

“Woof, woof,” Cain said glumly, drawing a smile.

“So, these five names and that's it?”

Cain was about to nod when an idea struck.

“One more,” he said. “Almost forgot.”

He added a sixth name. The clerk nodded and read it aloud. “Alexander Maximilian Dalitz. Got it. Should have everything within an hour or two. You gonna wait here or come back? Most guys like to step out for a bite to eat.” He leaned across the counter and lowered his voice. “Joint around the corner called Clancy's has an all-day happy hour for any member of New York's finest.”

“I'll wait here.”

“Suit yourself.”

An hour later, bored out of his mind, he headed out after all, opting for coffee instead of a drink. One nickel and one scalded palate later he was back, greeted by a stack of files on the counter with his request form sitting on top. The clerk was somewhere in the back.

He made a quick count. There were only five—one for each of the names Mulhearn wanted, and nothing for Dalitz. He sighed in relief, surprised at how good it made him feel. So maybe it was all a bunch of talk and legend, a couple of old guys spinning tales about their youth. Or maybe Danziger had been so good at his chosen line of misbehavior, whatever it might have been, that he'd never been caught. Whatever the case, Cain felt several pounds lighter than when he'd walked in. He began whistling as he signed the form to show he'd gotten what he asked for, and his tune brought the clerk through the door from the back.

“Thought that might be you,” he said. “Just so you didn't think I was shorting you, wanted to let you know it'll be a few days on that Dalitz file.”

Cain's smile faded. “There's a Dalitz file?”

“It's what you wanted, right?”

“Sure.”

“It's just, well, it's been in cold storage quite a while now, given his circumstances.”

“Circumstances?”

“He's deceased. Has been since twenty-eight. You knew that, right?”

“Sure.”

The remnants of all those good feelings bottomed out in his stomach, stewing with the burned coffee.

“They keep those closed files down in some rat hole over at the Hall of Records, and getting those slugs to jump when you want something, well, you know how that can go. How 'bout I give you a ring when the corpse surfaces, so to speak?”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Cain walked back into the sunlight. Dead since '28, the same year in which Danziger had last used a taxi, at least until this past weekend. To go to a funeral, he'd said. His own? The man
was
a bit of a sorcerer, and that would certainly be the ultimate trick. Or maybe the whole thing was the result of some clerical blunder, a bit of misplaced paperwork in a city that at times seemed built on the stuff, offering another form to sign everywhere you turned. Besides, it was one thing to fake your own death. It was quite another to then return to the same neighborhood without anyone noticing. Fourteen years of living a new life right around the corner from where the old one had supposedly ended? Even Danziger wasn't that good.

But now that Cain had the name—Dalitz—and the fact of the death, he intended to confront Danziger about both items. And he vowed to do it before the day was out, even if that meant asking Miss Eileen to work overtime on Olivia's first full day in New York. His daughter was right. This place was a mess.

Cain sighed, snugged up the files in his arms, and pushed back into the crowds.