The Devil’s Daughter, page 20
“We’re still not sure about the third guy,” Bernie says, putting his casebook back into his breast pocket. “He didn’t have any identification on him, and he didn’t look the part.”
“Meaning what?”
“That he was a little too elegant for your run-of-the-mill hood.”
“And he’s the one who took a bullet to the back of the head?”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t do it, who did?”
“Lucy Garrett,” I say because if I don’t, Bernie’s going to think I did the killing no matter what I tell him.
“Explain that,” he says, and I try my best.
I tell him about Lucy showing up at Minton’s and luring me outside the club. I tell him that a couple of guys jumped me, guys who must have been Healey and O’Bannon. I tell Bernie they coldcocked me and shoved me into a panel van, then they must have taken me to that warehouse on Eleventh. After tying me up, they went to fetch the third guy, leaving me behind with Lucy. I convince her that her father doesn’t care what happens to her and that he’ll make sure she takes the fall if the cops begin to look at him, so she cuts me loose. Finally, I tell Bernie that the shoot-out couldn’t have lasted very long, a couple of minutes tops, but that I really don’t remember anything after I got hit.
“So, when the shooting stops, Lucy Garrett calmly walks up to the snappy dresser and blows his brains out? Is that your story?”
“If that’s how he was done, yeah.”
Lucy must have been furious when she realized that I was right, that the shooters were gunning for her as well as me. It had to be rage that gave her the stomach to put one of them down execution-style, that or she was proving a point to her daddy.
“She shouldn’t have bothered. The guy’s femoral artery was nicked when he got shot, so he would have bled out anyway. Finishing him off like that took nerve though. She must have been plenty pissed off.”
Of course, Bernie wants to know where Lucy is now, and I tell him I don’t know. She’s in the wind again, as unpredictable as ever. Not only that, but now she’s armed. Bernie takes all this in, then tells me to be where he can find me after they let me out of the hospital, and I promise him I will.
But when they release me from St. Vincent’s, V drives me up to West Stockbridge without letting Bernie know. This is fine with me. I’m tired and as weak as a kitten, and the idea of V mothering me sounds better than good.
She got a couple of local high school kids to move our bed out onto the screened-in porch. It’s cooler out there, the only place in the house to escape the summer heat, and V loves nothing more than to be lulled to sleep by the night birds calling to each other. She stopped by Perry Street before we left, grabbed a few of my favorite albums and the Victrola I picked up in Paris.
I spend the next few days flat on my back in the country, listening to music and sleeping. V bustles around, looking after me, making me tea and toast for breakfast, the clear chicken broth the doctor recommended for lunch, and something light for dinner. We listen to the radio in the evenings. We don’t have a TV up here, which is hardly a sacrifice considering there are only two local stations and the reception is lousy. I’m in no condition to make love, as much as I might want to, so V and I snuggle and smooch before going to sleep. And each day, V dresses my wound. She’s not squeamish about such things. In fact, she’s fascinated, examining my stitches, making sure the wound is clean and free of infection, and gently, but expertly, changing my bandages. Life is idyllic and we’re as happy as clams until the phone rings one afternoon.
“I thought I told you to be where I could find you,” Bernie Rothstein says when I pick it up.
“You just did, Bernie. What’s up?”
“What’s up is I think we got an ID on the third guy, but I need you to come down to the morgue and see if you recognize him.”
“When do you want me to do that?”
“How about right now?”
CHAPTER 38
Burton the butler is lying on a stainless-steel table in the city morgue with the back of his head blown off and an exit wound in the middle of his forehead. He also has a through-and-through to his right thigh, which I guess is my handiwork.
“Know him?” Bernie asks me.
“Yeah. He works for Garrett. He used to anyway.”
V and I waited twenty-four hours before driving back down to the city. I didn’t feel up to going any sooner, and I didn’t like the idea of being summoned, forced to drive a couple hundred miles because Bernie Rothstein commanded it.
“Do you think Garrett was behind the warehouse shootings? I mean, if this guy worked for him—”
“Probably, but Burton could have been freelancing. I don’t think loyalty was his strong suit. But it does fit.”
I’d had an inkling that he wasn’t playing straight with his employer when I saw Burton with his feet up on Garrett’s desk, smoking one of his cigars. It didn’t exactly make for the image of a loyal family retainer, but it doesn’t mean he turned on his boss either. More importantly, I tell Bernie about Garrett’s movies. They not only implicate Garrett in sex trafficking and the abuse of minors but probably expose any number of other local bigwigs as well. And I tell him that Lucy is in possession of those movies and will use them against Garrett if she has to. Maybe even if she doesn’t.
“This kid plans on blackmailing her own father?”
“If it suits her, sure.”
“Are you two lovebirds enjoying yourselves?” The second Jimmy Mullen steps into the room, the tension gets very thick. “I heard you got plugged, Coffey, but lived to tell the tale. Can’t have everything, I guess.”
Bernie tells Mullen to give it a rest, but Jimmy isn’t in the mood to play nice.
“Working the case with this scum now, are you, partner?” He hits the last word hard, so Rothstein doesn’t miss his meaning. “It’s a big mistake. I mean, a really big mistake.”
Bernie isn’t intimidated. He stands his ground, letting his coat fall open so Mullen can get a load of his service revolver.
“Just doing the job, Jimmy,” he says with a smile, and I get the feeling these two are about to go for their guns, catching me in the cross fire.
I say, “Why don’t you guys relax before somebody does something stupid?”
It takes a couple of fraught seconds, but they back off. Mullen then shoves his hands into his pockets and casually ambles over to where Burton is laid out.
“Who’s this guy?” he asks as if he doesn’t know. Jimmy’s playing dumb on purpose.
But Bernie’s on to him. Instead of answering his question, he slides past Mullen, pulls the sheet back over Burton’s face, and asks, “Where’s the girl, Jimmy?”
Mullen doesn’t break character. “What girl?”
If I let this pantomime go on too much longer, somebody is going to end up on the slab next to Burton, so I take Bernie by the arm and whisper, “C’mon, let’s take a walk.” Like I said, Bernie isn’t the type to back down, and I can see a vein throbbing in his neck, but ever so reluctantly he lets me ease him out the door.
“Don’t ever do that to me again!” he snaps, wrenching his arm free when we hit the street. He’s angry at me for dragging him out of the morgue, but he’ll get over it.
Dealing with Mullen is a different story. I see now that Bernie is determined to take his partner down, but Jimmy isn’t going without a fight. I have a rooting interest in seeing Bernie going a couple of rounds with Mullen, but to be honest, I’d just as soon he help me deal with Garrett before taking on his partner.
“Your timing is for shit, Jack—which, no offense, is pretty typical of you.”
I’m having a late dinner with Carmine at Umbertos Clam House. He’s inhaling a plate of the fettuccine carbonara, a napkin tucked under his chin so the sauce doesn’t splash on his silk suit. I’m having the linguine because it’s the Clam House’s specialty.
“I thought you were through with that kid and her old man.”
“I should be, but I’m not. I still got an issue with that fuck getting away with murder. It offends my sense of decorum.”
“That issue put you in the hospital, didn’t it?”
“How do you know about that?”
Carmine looks at me like I should know better, that there’s nothing that goes on in the city he doesn’t know about. Still, I fill him in on a few of the details in case he missed any. He hasn’t.
“You iced a couple of guys, right? Healey and O’Bannon.”
“Yeah. It was them or me, in case your bosses are annoyed.”
“Nah. No big loss. Hughie Mulligan was done with those idiots anyway.” After wiping his mouth with his napkin, he says, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jack. There’s a woman we know, calls herself Madam Alexa. She runs a house for us that caters to Wall Street types. Those guys get up to all sorts of stuff, not necessarily kids, but not just whips and chains either. Anyway, a lot of pillow talk goes on over there. I’ll have Alexa find out if anybody knows anything about those movies or where to find the Garrett kid and let you know.”
It’s late, and V’s already in bed by the time I get home from dinner with Carmine. She still rents an apartment in Dick Avedon’s building but spends about as much time there as she did at Beekman Place. She switches on the light when I walk into the bedroom.
“You look terrible,” she says, which I’m sure is true because it’s the way I feel. I’m still reeling from being shot, and when I take off my jacket, blood is seeping through my shirt.
“Take that off too, so I can get a look,” V tells me. I perch on the edge of the bed and slip out of my shirt. My bandage is soaked through.
V peels it back so she can see just how bad the damage is. “You busted open your stitches,” she says, then gets out of bed and disappears into the bathroom to fetch gauze pads and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. When she comes back, she cleans and rebandages the wound, then helps me into bed. I don’t really need the help, but I’m enjoying being pampered.
“Does it hurt much?”
“Only when I laugh.”
V groans and shakes her head. “How did I ever get myself involved with a doofus like you?” she asks, then climbs into bed next to me and turns out the light. I wrap my arm around her, and she rests her cheek against my chest.
“You’re going to bust open those stitches again, you know?” V warns, but I don’t care, and we make love for the first time in weeks.
CHAPTER 39
A couple of days later, I hear back from Carmine. He says Madam Alexa might have a line on Lucy and it’s okay if I go talk to her, but there are ground rules.
“Like I told you,” Carmine says on the phone, “her joint caters to corporate hotshots and Hollywood types, so if you recognize anybody, you didn’t. You get me? And it’s gonna cost you, Jack. Nobody gets a freebie from Alexa no matter who you are.”
When I ask how much, Carmine says a G at least.
A G at least is a lot of money to me, so it had better buy me some decent information or I’m liable to get irritated. “Listen, if this woman makes me for a mark and tries to con me, she’s not going to like it when I make a stink in front of her customers.”
“Fair enough,” Carmine says, “but we got a guy who looks after the place for us. Frankie Guzzetta. I’ll give him a heads-up so he knows you’re coming, and if she tries to run a game, let Frankie know.” I figure Guzzetta not only for a made guy, but for one of Carmine’s shtarkers, so I go along with the plan. He gives me the address, a town house in the financial district. He also tells me that Alexa doesn’t get in until after midnight so there’s no point in showing up any earlier.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
I’m standing in front of the bedroom mirror tying my tie when V asks me this. I’ve got my houndstooth on, which is my go-to jacket whenever I’m out on a job, along with slacks and a pair of brogans that could use a shine.
“Why? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
Instead of answering me, V goes to the closet and retrieves the only suit I own.
“I know the kind of men who go to places like Alexa’s,” she says, “and if the idea is to be inconspicuous, wear the suit.” When it comes to these things, V knows what she’s talking about, so I slip out of the houndstooth and into my three-piece Brioni.
From the outside, Alexa’s three-story town house is nondescript, one of a row of them left over from the Gilded Age. I ring the bell, expecting a beefy guy to throw open a slat in the door and ask me for the password.
Instead, a pretty blond not much older than twenty ushers me in with a smile and a wave of her hand. I try to introduce myself, but she says, “I know who you are, Mr. Coffey. Madam Alexa is expecting you,” and she leads me into a high-ceilinged Victorian-style parlor.
The furniture is plush, the drapes thick and heavy, and the art on the walls frankly pornographic. Young women, most of them stark naked, are draped over men in business suits, some of them twice the girls’ ages. There’s nothing particularly untoward going on, though. That must be reserved for the rooms upstairs.
I recognize a couple of the guys, not because they’re famous, but because I’ve done work for them. Conrad Taylor, a minor member of the Whitney family, calls out, “Jack Coffey! As I live and breathe!” like he’s shouting to me over the crowd noise at the Polo Grounds. This does not make me happy. I try to ignore him, but Taylor claps me on the back and says, “I’m surprised to see you here, fella,” in his finest Locust Valley lockjaw. “I didn’t think you people went in for this sort of thing.”
I’m not entirely sure what he means by “you people.” It could be a class thing or more likely because I’m a half-Jew. In other circumstances a crack like that would earn Taylor the back of my hand, but tonight I let it slide.
“You’re right, Conrad,” I say. “I don’t go in for this sort of thing.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Mr. Coffey is here on business,” says Madam Alexa. She appears from out of nowhere and slips her arm through mine. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Jack and I have things to discuss,” she says, leading me away.
I follow Alexa up three flights of stairs and into what once must have been the attic. She has converted it into an office. It’s tidy and businesslike: a solid oak desk with paperwork neatly piled on top of it, a telephone with flashing buttons, filing cabinets, and a chintz couch for visitors like myself.
Alexa takes a seat behind the desk. “I understand you’re interested in purchasing information.”
I’m trying to judge her age, but it isn’t easy. She looks to be about forty but could be a decade older. She’s attractive and I suspect was once an expensive pro herself.
“You’re looking for Lucy Garrett,” she says. “I’ve known her father for years, you know?”
“Do you know where Lucy is?”
“Shall we settle my fee first?”
Like any experienced professional, Alexa wants her money up front, and I oblige her. I pull a wad of cash out of my pocket and peel off a thousand dollars in crisp tens and twenties. She carefully counts it and slips the cash into the top drawer of her desk. “I want to show you something,” Alexa says and leads me down a flight of stairs into a dark room.
Stag films. Grainy black-and-white 16 mm movies of three people having sex. I’ve seen these things before, and they’re chilling and depressing. Judging by the vacant look in their eyes, the two girls are either junkies earning their next fix or street waifs desperate for cash. The guy is middle-aged, fat, balding, and covered in body hair. The flickering images are explicit and revolting, but they aren’t the reason Madam Alexa has brought me in here. I know this because she switches on the lights to the groans of a half-dozen guys sprawled on chaises with their hands down their pants.
Alexa shoos them all out of the room, then hands another reel of film over to the girl working the projector. She tells me to take a seat, something I’m a little reluctant to do considering what the previous occupants have been up to, but I take my chances.
“I don’t see what this has to do with Lucy Garrett,” I say.
“You will.” And Alexa turns out the lights.
It takes a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust, and at first I don’t see the difference between this movie and the stag film that preceded it until I spot Louis Garrett. A young girl in a baby-doll dress with her hair in pigtails is sitting in his lap, sucking on a lollipop. The tableau is so clichéd and comical that I almost burst out laughing—that is, until Garrett forces the girl to her knees and unzips his fly. Mercifully, the film is a snippet and ends before he does something truly disgusting.
When Alexa turns the lights back on, I ask, “Where did you get it?”
She says that it was delivered to her by courier the week before, but that she’s fairly certain it came from Lucy. “I’m sure she hopes I’ll show it to her father,” Alexa says, fitting an unfiltered Chesterfield into a black enamel cigarette holder.
“Have you?” I ask.
“Shown it to Garrett? No, not yet.” Alexa lights her cigarette and exhales a stream of smoke through her nostrils. “But I will if he pays my price.”
“How much is that?”
“A great deal more than I’m charging you, Jack,” she says and smiles.
That Louis Garrett frequents Madam Alexa’s whorehouse is hardly shocking. That Lucy knows he does isn’t a shock either, but using Alexa against her father is a novel ploy. Alexa is the soul of self-interest and sure to use the snippet to extort money from Garrett. It’s a dangerous game, but she’s no novice. She’ll calmly threaten to expose him unless he pays up and use the mob in the guise of Frankie Guzzetta as protection if he tries to move against her. Lucy must have had the snippet delivered because it lets her old man know that whatever he pays Alexa to keep quiet, she still has more and could drop a dime on him at any time. If she does, Garrett’s ruined and on his way to jail for statutory rape and possibly murder. I don’t say any of this to Alexa, but I tell her to be careful. Garrett is capable of almost anything, but I suspect she already knows that.
