Kiss Her Goodbye Read online

  "Yeah, there's a couple of things. Maybe you should get out your pad and pencil."

  "And in the meantime, what will you be running down?"

  "Hunches, Pat. That's where I excel, remember?"

  "As I recall, killing people and banging dames is where you excel, and sometimes there's some blurring between the lines."

  I shook my head sadly. "'Dames' is such an old term. You date yourself, kiddo." I looked at my watch. It was later than I thought. "Okay, here's a couple other leads you can run down..."

  "Gee," Pat said. "Thanks."

  But he had his pad and pencil ready.

  Chapter 7

  NIGHTTIME. New York. A charcoal sky rumbles and mutes the neon. The taxis have thinned out and those remaining are cruising slower now. More women drivers than I remember. A lot of small, foreign-looking guys behind the wheel. A year ago a lot of hippies hanging out, not so many now. The bar action is slow, almost quiet. Sometimes it gets like that in the city, as if everyone was waiting for a funeral procession to roll by.

  An older, heavy-set uniformed cop on the corner looks at me a few seconds, nods sagely, and winks. I wink back. It has been a year since I've seen him. He's still on the same beat.

  Up ahead, Forty-second Street is bathing itself in garish advertising, even the gray overhead can't diminish the commercial glow. The night people are in constant motion. Nobody seems to look at anybody else. If they do, they turn quickly away as if somebody might steal their anonymity.

  It starts to rain. Not hard. Just a steady New York rain that doesn't seem to give a damn whether it happens or not. It's no downpour to bother rushing out of, only the kind of insistent drizzle that will make you uncomfortable if you stay in it too long.

  You could think, though, on a night like this. You could wander and wonder and reason and begin to get a feel for things, like knowing that the aroma of good cooking will lead to restaurant windows where even on a slow night the tables will be filled with those taking refuge from the rain.

  But Doolan's death doesn't provide a nice smell at all. There isn't a logical reason in the world to doubt he knocked himself off. While he was still reasonably functional, he'd kept doing the things he knew best, making productive use of his knowledge and his contacts. He chased a skirt or two. Maybe he even bedded down a couple. Then, before the Big Pain could claw his guts out, he sat down, put his favorite music on, and blew his heart apart. It seemed logical enough, it followed a pattern others had laid down, and I could almost believe it myself.

  Almost.

  I go back to the Commodore, consider digging out enough medication to address aches and pains the rain has stirred up, and to beat back thoughts that might keep sleep from coming. I decide against it and go to bed, where the thoughts I pursue like uncooperative suspects seem worth the chase, and when sleep finally comes, it's deep but not dreamless, a surreal mix of faces old and new and distinct and vague on streets where the neon is even more vivid, the rain slashing, the odors pungent, and I am at home again in Manhattan, awake or asleep.

  Goddamnit.

  I am home.

  ***

  At five-thirty A.M., I was down on the street in sweats, setting out in an easy jog. I had decided to take a pass on Bing's today, and instead take advantage of the cool, sunny morning.

  I didn't have to estimate the distance. Twenty blocks to the mile, and I went forty north, crossed the avenue, and did forty back. There were enough other runners out that I didn't feel alone, and I got back as the early workers were starting to show.

  Cooling down slowly was a must, then a hot shower took the ache out of that spot that still bore the bullet track. I don't buy that macho crap about a final cold shower, so I dried off. I shaved and, for better or worse, I could recognize the guy in the mirror again.

  "Shit," I told him.

  Then I got into shirt and tie and shoulder sling and slacks and sport jacket and put the hat on.

  God got melodramatic and let some thunder rip just as I was snugging the porkpie in place. I went to the nearest window. That early-morning sun I'd enjoyed was gone—it was raining again. A little harder than last night. Good thing I'd thought to pack the trench coat.

  I had sicced Pat on tracking down various notions I had about the two dead girls—he and his little elves could be useful at times. But Pat didn't buy that Doolan had been murdered, so that angle of the investigation was all mine. And so far I had precious little.

  I took a cab to Doolan's address. I still had the key, and there was something up there I wanted to pick up. I did so, but mostly I was here not for his pad, but for his neighborhood, to ask around.

  Turned out old Doolan had been a nice guy and he had nice friends who said nice things about him, only "nice" was the kind of well-meaning sweet talk you hear right before and after the funeral, and not the sharp, pointed facts I needed.

  And the only facts I was getting were basic—Doolan shopped locally, paid his bills, had a good credit rating, and was a pretty visible guy in the neighborhood, having helped run the druggies out. By the time I had covered all the local businesses, I'd come to a standstill.

  It was almost noon and I was damn sick of all the nice things I had been hearing. I looked up and down the street, knowing something was missing. Then it came to me: there was no drugstore in sight. Somewhere a guy Doolan's age, with his medical problems, could get his prescriptions filled. And he would likely go to the nearest place at hand.

  The Yellow Pages gave up three walking-distance possibilities just outside the neighborhood, and I checked the closest one first, hitting immediate pay dirt.

  The store was small, in the middle of the block, had only a handful of customers, one shopping, two at the soda fountain, and none at all at the back prescription counter. Just inside, I shook the rain off my hat and coat, and headed back there.

  "I don't talk about my patients," the druggist said, with the strong implication that he recognized the name William Doolan.

  He was a small, sour, flat-faced type who didn't seem to want to talk about anything, except maybe what you owed him at the register.

  I considered slapping him. His patients? He was a fucking pharmacist, not a damn doctor.

  But that kind of thing didn't go over so good anymore, and I just got out the card Pat had given me and handed it across to him.

  "Why don't you call that number," I said, "and see if I'm square."

  Finally his curiosity overcame his suspicions, and he dialed it. He spoke briefly, then handed me the phone. "Captain Chambers wants to hear your voice."

  I stuck the phone to my ear. "Pat, could you okay me to this guy?"

  "What's it about, Mike?"

  "Just checking up on Doolan."

  "Come on, man, that's a dead end."

  "Maybe, but at least I'm not asking you to handle it."

  "Good point. Put him back on."

  When I handed the phone back, there was another brief exchange and the druggist cradled the receiver on its hook on his counter. "I guess it's permissible to talk."

  "Good," I said. "Anyway, I'm not interested in Mr. Doolan's medical history—what I'm trying to pick up are any stray details about his personal life."

  "I was just his pharmacist...."

  I managed not to say, Oh, not his doctor?

  Instead I said, "I know, but he had lots of meds to fill, and regularly, and maybe you two talked a little."

  "I'm not that talkative."

  "Well, anything you can share would be appreciated."

  "Like what?"

  "Any little thing. You ever pass the time with him?"

  He bobbed his head. "Now and then. We'd sit over there and have coffee."

  That was a nice surprise. "So what did you fellas talk about?"

  "Bill was an old cop. I guess you must know that." The druggist shrugged. "He'd tell me his old war stories—close scrapes and busting bad guys and that. What else has an old cop got to talk about?"

  "Nothing about what
he was up to lately?"

  "Well—he went uptown a lot. He sat in Central Park, he said, and people watched. Sometimes he would dress funny."

  "Funny how?"

  "One time I told him he looked like a Bowery bum and he said I was making a good guess."

  Christ—so he'd been staking somebody out. Who at this point in his life would Doolan be watching, undercover?

  "Funny thing, though."

  "Yeah?"

  "A couple of times he looked pretty damned sharp."

  "Sharp."

  "Yeah. Nice suit. Like he really had dough. Mostly he was dressed like, well, any old bird his age. I asked where he was going all duded up, and you will not believe what he said."

  "Try me."

  "I say, 'Where are you going tonight, Bill? Club 52?' And you know what he says?"

  "What?"

  "'You must be psychic, Fred. That's exactly where I'm headin'.' Right. An old coot like that, going to Club 52. I gave him the horse laugh, but then a week later, he came in all duded up again, and I say, 'Expectin' another wild night at Club 52, are ya, Bill?' He says sure, and says if I don't believe him, have a gander at this ... and he shows me a plastic card, signed by that guy Anthony Tret-something, who owns the joint."

  "Yeah?"

  "It's a plastic card with Club 52 on it and it says ALL ACCESS. You believe that?"

  "Did you ever ask Doolan why a guy his age would be going to Club 52?"

  "Sure I did. Get this—he says to me, 'Don't be a stick in the mud, Fred—don't you dig disco?' Dig disco? Was he kidding?"

  This was the Doolan who died listening to recordings of the great symphonies, a lover of all the fine classics—and in his final days, he dug disco?

  "When did you see him last?"

  "Couple days before he killed himself."

  "So did he seem really sick? Was he depressed, or in pain...?"

  "Not really, but then he was taking strong painkillers before he died, and wouldn't be feeling it much if at all. Who knows—maybe there at the end, he was having one last fling. Hell, twice, he bought some rubbers from me."

  "Maybe he didn't want to be a daddy at his age."

  "Nuts. Didn't want to catch a dose, I'd say."

  Either way, it was an interesting purchase for an octogenarian.

  There wasn't much else Fred the druggist could tell me, so I said thanks and left. He'd warmed up—I was glad I hadn't slapped him. For a nontalkative guy, he and Doolan had gabbed plenty.

  But all I had was one more screwy bit about my old friend that didn't make any sense at all—he had not only been to Club 52, he'd been a regular, or enough of one to rate a signed entry card from Little Tony himself.

  I was going back in time now.

  Down at the end of the street would be an old barroom with scarred furniture and artifacts dating to Prohibition days. Some of the customers would look like they had been there that long themselves, and the old sportswriters would be gathered at one end arguing about something that never happened anyway.

  I would meet Velda at the back booth where the phone was right on the wall and she would have a cold beer and a meatball sandwich already ordered for me and we would compare notes of what had happened in the world of sports that day, with Ernie and Vern constantly butting in.

  The taste in my mouth was sour and I spit it out. This time there would be no Velda and I shut her out of my mind. Vern had died the way a sportswriter should, of a heart attack after filing a story about a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium last year.

  Two old-timers looked at me, surprised, then grinned. Somebody said hello from a booth and I waved in that direction while I moved through the modest crowd.

  There in back was Ernie—a dark little balding mustached guy with a stubby pencil behind one ear, rolled up sleeves, a loose necktie, and baggy trousers, looking like he was trying out for a revival of The Front Page. Vern had been sports, but Ernie was police beat.

  Right now he had the phone stuck to his ear, his waving hand describing something that couldn't be seen on the other end of the line. Not unless the rewrite man was psychic.

  When I sat down in the booth nearby, he gaped at me, then hung the phone up without saying goodbye.

  "How you doing, Ernie?"

  "Man..." He shook his head, whether in disgust or amazement, I couldn't quite tell. "You are the fuck alive. I hardly believe it. Somebody said you were at Doolan's funeral, but I said they were either lying or hallucinating."

  "I was there, all right. One of the youngest."

  "That's not much to brag about," he said with a snort of a laugh. He slid in the side where his half-drunk beer was already waiting. "Where the hell have you been, Mike?"

  "Away."

  "Oh, so it's twenty questions? You think I don't ask enough questions in a given day, that you have to play cute?"

  "I was living in Florida." That was the first time I'd used the past tense for that.

  "No shit? I thought you died. Everybody thought you were dead. When the Bonetti kid popped you, and you just disappeared, everybody figured you'd bought it. Either crawled off to bleed out someplace on your own, or got followed there and put out of your misery." He shrugged. "Mike Hammer's dead, there goes New York, I said."

  "Sure you did, Ernie."

  "But here you are back again, right?"

  "Right."

  "And you don't even look like some old shot-up piece of shit."

  "Thanks a bunch."

  "You look fit in fact. Packing heat?"

  "I'm warm enough."

  "That old glow in your eyes is there and everything. Somebody gonna die?"

  "Somebody might."

  He shifted in the booth. "So something big's going down, right?"

  "Right."

  "And if I ask what it is, you're going to tell me to shove it up my ass, right?"

  "Right."

  "Shit." He threw the rest of the beer down, then waved until the waitress saw him, and he held up two fingers. "So where's Velda?"

  "I don't know, Ernie."

  "Was she in Florida with you?"

  "No."

  Everything seemed to stop in midair, then he frowned.

  I said, "It's over."

  That got another snort of a laugh out of him. "In a pig's ass it's over," he said. "You don't just drop a broad like that. George Washington don't drop Martha. Tarzan don't dump Jane."

  "Maybe Jane dumped Tarzan. Anyway, I hear she's got somebody else. And she's not in the city anymore." I managed a shrug. "These things happen."

  "Jesus, Mike—this is like when the Yankees dropped Babe Ruth."

  "Yet somehow the Yankees survived. Now forget it."

  A young waitress came up and set down two foaming steins of beer in front of us.

  "Want some pretzels, fellas?" she asked.

  We both nodded.

  "I'll bring 'em," she told us.

  Ernie was smiling at me.

  "What?" I said.

  "That kid doesn't even know you. Maybe you gone out of fashion."

  I was in no mood. "I need some information, Ernie." A frown started and I added, "Not asking you to share anything off the record, if you're not so inclined."

  He wiped foam off his mustache. "Hey, if it's news, Mike, everything's on microfilm and you can look it up."

  "You're quicker, pal." I took a pull of the beer. It was icy cold and tasted good. "This disco, Club 52—what goes on there?"

  "It's popular and expensive and harder than hell to get into. It's where that dance, the hustle, got famous. You see everybody from movie stars to the big politicians inside."

  "Even though they do coke in back?"

  He frowned. "I've never been in there, Mike. I don't know where they do the coke."

  "But they do it."

  "Probably. Sure. Everybody in the upper register seems to."

  "And nobody cares?"

  "Hell, no."

  "Because the 52's mobbed up? Little Tony Tret's running it, right?"
>
  Ernie's head shake said no, but his mouth said, "Yes." Then he amended it: "Only, Mike, it's not a mob thing. Tony divorced himself from his family a long, long time ago. He was just a young entrepreneur who had the right idea at the right time. This cocaine kick, it's no big deal. It's just social. They keep it discreet, and nobody complains. It's not like there's piles of stuff on tables and everybody's bending over and snorting it."

  "The clientele is the young and the beautiful, right?"

  "Sure, and the old and the rich. Now and then tourists get in, if they know somebody or throw a hell of a tip at the doorman. But it's a hard ticket, man."

  "Yeah? I know a guy who had an all-access pass."

  "Like for backstage at rock concerts? Well, it makes sense. It's called a disco, but they do live music, too."

  "That right?"

  "Big sensation now is that Chrome broad from Spain or Mexico or somewhere—she was on Johnny Carson, you know, and got signed to a major record label. Gonna tour at these franchise clubs Tony Tret is opening all around the country." He chugged his beer, thumped the stein down, and cocked his head at me. "Who the hell would a middle-aged type like you know that would rate that kind of backstage pass?"

  "You knew him, too—Bill Doolan."

  "Aw, balls."

  Said the queen.

  "Oh, he had that kind of pass," I insisted.

  He was shaking his head, not buying it. "Come on, Mike, you knew Doolan better than that."

  "I thought I did. Story is, he was taking pictures for some newspaper guy out in L.A. Which is funny, since I don't remember Doolan being any kind of photographer."

  Ernie made a farting sound with his lips. "Doolan was a photographer like all you dicks are photographers—point it at a naked broad through a motel window, and shoot. Hey, if he was doing pro-level photographic work, I'd have known."

  "Didn't he feed you tips in recent years?"

  "Sure he did—old Doolan came onto stuff, usually when he was working for his pal Cummings, who's a real P.I. Unlike you, Mike, who just pretend to be one so you can find excuses to shoot people, and not with a camera."

  "If it's not likely Doolan was shooting photos for an L.A.-based reporter, then what was he doing?"