The Big Bang Page 12

  "Billy's a good kid."

  "Very," she agreed, "and the doctor really took him under his wing, I understand. But there's no substituting for flesh and blood, is there? David, Jr.—Davy—was an outstanding young man. A very good student, I understand, excelled at athletics—and practically the image of his father."

  "I thought you only saw him a few times."

  "True, but Davy Harrin was pretty much a local institution ... especially among the girls. He dated one who used to work after school at the shop, for us. She was forever showing clippings from the Weekly Home News about her great love."

  "Weekly Home News?" I asked her. I hadn't even heard of it. "What's that, a supermarket rag?"

  Shirley smiled and shook her head in mock disgust. "You down-towners forget that Manhattan Island is more than Times Square and Central Park. The News is a twelve-page tabloid of local news only. No comics, but an easy crossword puzzle." She smiled in open amusement. "Would you like a subscription? I can get half off mine, if I get a friend to sign up."

  "No thanks. But if you have Girl Scout cookies for sale, I'll think about it."

  The waiter was heading over to see if we had a dessert order.

  "End of interrogation, Mike?"

  "Almost. Tell me about your manager."

  We decided to share crème brûlée, and then returned to the topic.

  "Mr. Elmain?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  Shirley propped her chin on her hands and looked at me across the table. "You saw him as we exited the shop. A nice gentleman in his late fifties, widowed at an early age, remarried and has two chubby teenage daughters. His father had a porcelain business in Holland, and Mr. Elmain took up ceramics over here. He used to have a place in Brooklyn that made only inexpensive restaurant pieces. He sold that and set up the Village Ceramics Shoppe."

  "How is business?"

  She beamed. "Absolutely terrific. You'd be surprised how many bored people there are looking to express themselves in an art form. It's within their capabilities, doesn't cost much, and they always have something concrete to show off or give away."

  "What you sell," I said, "is generated by students in classes?"

  "Some of it. And we produce the more professional items ourselves. Four of us on staff are trained in the craft, the art."

  "I see."

  "Most of our income is the street trade of people, tourists mostly, looking for interesting gift objects. There aren't too many ceramics shops in the city, so we get the trade from all over, including mail orders."

  "And Elmain?"

  Her smile was warm. "As for Mr. Elmain, I'd say he was very well off, a conservative fussbudget, and as innocuous as they come. I like him. We all do."

  The dessert came, with coffee, and we set the dish between us and went after it with our spoons—an intimate arrangement for a first date.

  I asked, "How did the boss get along with Frazer?"

  "Russell did his job," she said, and licked creamy stuff off her lips. "That was all Mr. Elmain ever asked of him."

  "Susie Moore told me Frazer had some odd friends that drove black limos."

  She smirked at the thought. "I think Russell was more talk than action."

  "I told you—you should see his Playboy pad."

  "I'd rather see yours," she said impishly.

  My eyes swept the place deliberately and there was a caustic note in my voice when I said, "I'm not convinced I'm your type, Shirley."

  "Still waters may run deep," she said, "but a rough current is a lot more fun to surf in." She had that funny smile going again. "Please don't typecast me, Mike."

  Like she wasn't me?

  "Okay," I said, and put my spoon down. "Let's get back to Frazer. He ever give you a hard time at all? Too sexually frisky, maybe, or argumentative or ... anything?"

  She thought a moment and shook her head. "I can't come up with anything, Mike."

  "Let's put it this way—has there ever been any trouble at the shop?"

  This time the response was instant: "Well, we had the front window smashed by some drunk one time ... then about six months later, somebody broke in the back door, smashed up some greenware, and pried open the files. But we never keep any money on hand, and nothing was missing."

  "What about the cash register?"

  "The drawer is always left open and empty at night. Mr. Elmain makes a night deposit right after we close up, and takes home enough to open the register with the next day. Apparently the burglars thought the cash was in the files and forced them open. We had to buy all new drawers the next day."

  "That's the extent of it? No other trouble?"

  "Oh, we get occasional shoplifting, but that's usually around the holidays."

  "What was in the files?"

  "Invoices, receipts, correspondence from customers and suppliers. The usual sort of thing."

  I nodded. "What kind of a locking device did the file cabinets have?"

  She fished in her handbag, took out a ring of keys, and handed me two simple flat steel jobs about two inches long. "One for each file of four drawers each," she said.

  "Hell, any amateur could handle that kind of deal without even busting the drawers."

  "A screwdriver is just as easy," she admitted. "I had to do it once myself, when I lost my keys."

  I handed the ring back and snubbed out my cigarette. "How about letting me take a look at those files?"

  Her tongue wet her lips down and they slipped into a pretty smile. "Okay, but there are more interesting things you could examine."

  "Women's Lib is ruining this country," I said. "Don't you know it's the male of the species who's supposed to be the aggressor?"

  She rolled her pretty brown eyes. "Not with all the competition around these days, brother. Hey, a woman needs every advantage she can grab."

  "What makes you think I'm up for grabs?"

  Her smile got even more provocative. "Up for ... or up to?"

  "Don't make my working hours so hard, baby."

  "Maybe I like the idea."

  "Of what?"

  "Of making it hard for you."

  I let out a little laugh and waved the waiter over to bring me the check. I put it all on my credit card, like shelling out this way for food was an everyday occurrence, and reminding myself never to come back here again. I folded the receipt into my wallet and took Shirley Vought outside to a cab.

  The way she held on to me, I might get my money's worth yet.

  The files in the back room were simple gray steel affairs, powdered lightly with ceramic dust. Two oversize figurines and a collection of painted chess pieces were stacked on their tops beside a box of color charts.

  Each drawer held alphabetically filed folders with the exception being the lower left-hand one, where a bag of hair curlers, a can of spray, and a comb and brush were tucked away. Most of the filing related to domestic business, but two drawers were given over to the foreign accounts, suppliers of certain paints and European-oriented molds.

  I asked her, "Would any of this stuff be of value to competitors?"

  "I can't see how," she said, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. "Everybody has access to those firms. It's an open market—it isn't as if the business had any great financial or social significance."

  Just to be sure, I riffled through the files one more time, picked out the one labeled SAXONY HOSPITAL, and looked over the purchase orders signed by Dr. Harrin. Practically all of them were for novelty items from ashtrays to toy banks along with paint, stains, and equipment to decorate them.

  Before I could ask her, Shirley said, "The hospital has a kiln in the basement that a wealthy patient donated. They bake their own pieces."

  I put the folder back and slid the door shut with disgust. I said, "Damnit," and Shirley shrugged.

  "I told you there was nothing to look at."

  "Maybe I should have taken you up on your first offer," I said.

  She came into my arms, her face tilted up toward mine. She might have
been just a little tipsy from several glasses of wine. Lifting herself on her toes, hands behind my head pulling me closer, she ran her tongue like a little firebrand across my lips.

  "It still isn't too late," she said.

  "I should just take you home," I told her.

  But I didn't count on the little alcove dressing room with the soft pink light and the big overstuffed chair. She was out of the designer dress as quick as a jump cut in a movie, and although I was trying to swear off those wild oats Velda had said to get sown, I was human—that curvy body with the dramatic tan lines and the puffy, hard-tipped areolas against stark white flesh and the dark pubic triangle against that same startling white was mine for the asking, without asking, and she began by falling to her knees to worship the part of me that seemed to be in charge. Soon I was lost in sweet-smelling flesh and hair and caught up with the incredible agility of a woman who loved the unusual, whose curious sounds of total enjoyment were like thunderous applause.

  A long time later she said, "Thank you. You're nice. Now you can take me home."

  Chapter Eight

  TO EVERYTHING THERE is a season, and in every season there is rain. Spring downpours that hit hard, then leave the sky blue and sunny and rainbow-streaked. Light summer showers you can walk in with your best girl, and fall storms that drone steady and turn the leaves soggy. The winter kind that can turn on you, raindrops freezing to pellets, or switching to snow with thunder and lightning making a crazy mix.

  Then there's a New York rain, a rain that is apart from seasons. It settles like a big gray blanket over the city and grumbles a while and just when you figure the threat is an empty one, the stuff sheets down, slicking the streets, fogging the windows, and promising nothing but a slate-gray sky when it's done.

  I managed to beat both the rain and Velda to the office—the latter a rare feat. She arrived four minutes after me, with her hooded black raincoat dripping, and she shook it out in the hall before she hung it in the closet—no coat tree in these modern digs.

  I was seated at her desk, with coffee in plastic cups waiting, plus an unfrosted doughnut for calorie-counting her and two frosted ones for who-gives-a-shit me.

  She frowned, immediately suspicious. "Who did you kill this time?"

  Close, I thought, but no cigar.

  "Can't a guy just be nice?" I asked innocently.

  She shook her head. A little water had gotten on the dark tresses despite her best efforts, and droplets flicked me in the face.

  I got out of her chair and she took it. She started in on the coffee and doughnut, and I sat on the edge of her desk, munching my second frosted. The sky rumbled and the blinds rattled.

  "I tried to call you last night," she said. "You must have got home late."

  "I was working," I said.

  "At what?"

  "Talking to this Shirley Vought, who works at the Village Ceramics Shoppe."

  Her eyes narrowed. She swallowed a bite of doughnut politely, then impolitely asked, "What color is her hair, how old is she, and how much does she weigh?"

  "You think I had the chance to weigh her?"

  "Did you just develop a speech impediment?"

  I shrugged it off, casual. "She's blonde. Mid-twenties. You know I prefer brunettes, kitten."

  Thunder rattled the windows and she said, "Any port in a storm."

  I slid off the desk, took my coffee and the Daily News with me—the doughnuts were gone—and said, "You're impossible before you've had your first cup of coffee."

  "This is my second."

  "Fine. Take your time drinking it, then bring your pad in, when you're in the mood to work."

  I was halfway through the funnies when she came in with her pad and no attitude, and took the client's chair. "You want me to check up on her?"

  I put the paper aside. "The Vought girl?"

  She nodded.

  "That's a good idea," I said. "She claims to be a rich kid, but it doesn't hurt to be sure. Says she works in that ceramics shop for therapy. And based on the French restaurant she made me take her to—and the looks she got from everybody from the doorman on up—she may well have a Park Avenue pedigree."

  Velda was jotting that down. "Anything else?"

  "Yeah, she mentioned a little neighborhood tabloid, the Weekly Home News —familiar with it?"

  She nodded again. "Just what you'd think—local squibs, lots of want ads and personals. Kind of like the Village Voice without the sex ads and politics. Why?"

  "I want you to go over there, after this weather clears up, and see if they have a morgue or maybe microfilm files. I want you to go back several years, checking for stories about Davy Harrin."

  "You mean Dr. David Harrin?"

  "No—his kid. David, Jr. Davy."

  Her mouth made an O. "The one who died? Young and tragic, the athlete?"

  "Right. Miss Vought says that tabloid covers the area high school scene. Anything that strikes you as interesting, either make notes or if it's one of those microfilm machines that print copies out, do that."

  She frowned. "Okay, Mike ... but why the interest in the doctor's dead son?"

  "Not sure. Call it a hunch."

  The frown became a smile. "All right. I can't claim that your hunches don't occasionally pay off. That it?"

  "No. Pull in Bud Tiller again, or somebody else at another agency that we can trust." She arched an eyebrow at me and I added: "It's part of the same hunch. Both Junior Evello and Jay Wren, the Snowbird himself, wound up at Saxony Hospital under Doc Harrin's care."

  "Is that suspicious?"

  "It's got me thinking. Both were minor automobile accident victims—one got clipped by a lady driver, the other by a truck. Two big-shot crooks involved in the dope trade, and each winds up in the hospital under similar circumstances? That doesn't pass the smell test."

  "I've heard you say it," she said, head cocked. "Coincidences do happen."

  "Yeah. But so do fake insurance claims. Do I have to tell you that there are guys out there who know how to walk in front of a car or a truck, and get hurt just bad enough to make a claim?"

  She was ahead of me. "Just like there are guys who can drive a car or a truck, and are expert at making non-fatal accidents happen for the same purpose."

  Nodding, I said, "Bud does lots of insurance-claim work. He might know who we should be talking to."

  She was taking that down as she asked, "We're obviously not talking about insurance scams here. We're talking about somebody hiring drivers to put somebody else in the hospital, non-fatally ... but out of commission for a while."

  "Roger that."

  She sat forward, the lovely face taut with thought. "But, Mike—why would somebody take Evello and Wren out of the action, temporarily?"

  "Maybe somebody new on the stage. Somebody trying to cut into the Lower Manhattan drug scene, or possibly bigger, with citywide ambitions. Hell, the Evello mob is a conduit for the whole damn country."

  The dark eyes stared unblinkingly at me. "Somebody out there's trying to take over from Wren and Evello? Who?"

  I waved her off. "No, sugar, it's too crazy to share. Some hunches you don't take out and show around like something you're proud of. Some hunches you have to let play out."

  She didn't press me. But she did say, "Well, maybe I have another piece of the puzzle for you. A little piece of information came in yesterday afternoon—that's why I was trying to get ahold of you last night."

  "Yeah?"

  "Remember Edwin Brooke? The guy who supposedly came along and took advantage of you incapacitating Russell Frazer ... and conveniently mugged and killed him? Pat called to say those two did know each other—in fact, they were booked on mugging charges on three occasions. Four or five years ago, when they were kids, but—"

  "Booked on mugging charges," I said, blinking at her. "Together?"

  "Yeah." She shrugged. "They were a team."

  This was the kind of rainy day where you don't bother getting your car out of the building's
parking garage. This was a day for taking cabs, and I slid in the back seat of one and asked the driver to take me to Bellevue.

  He grinned at me in the mirror, a wiseass with a Brooklyn accent: "The mental ward?"

  "Yeah, I'm fighting my urge to strangle cabbies."

  That took the funny out of him, and I sat looking out at cars whooshing by with their lights on in the daytime and rain coming down so damn straight, you had to admire God's aim if not His sense of humor.

  Bellevue is the oldest hospital in New York, maybe in the country. It's a free hospital and the city won't let anybody be turned away, which is probably why the cops often stick their sick or wounded suspects there. Anyway, that's where the county morgue is, so sometimes it saves a trip.

  I could remember when old Bellevue was a nest of mid-Victorian buildings as gray as this rainy day. It had a nasty reputation, too, but that was a long time ago. The brick-and-stone buildings were put up in the late '30s and still seemed modern.

  Norman Brix really rated. He had a private room and a uniformed cop seated outside. If you break the law in New York and get hurt doing it, try to get almost killed if you want the best in medical attention.

  The young cop recognized me, scrambling to his feet and saying, "Morning, Mr. Hammer," and his little metal nametag allowed me to say, "Morning, Officer Wilson," as if I knew who the hell he was, too.

  I nodded toward the closed door. "I need to pay the patient a visit."

  He had dark hair, blue eyes, and a boyish look, like he'd gone right from the Cub Scouts to the NYPD. "I can't let you do that, Mr. Hammer. There's no visitors."

  "It's official business, son. You can check with Captain Chambers."

  "Well, I can't leave my post...."

  "Damn." I put on disappointment, not irritation. "That means I wasted a trip. And I know Captain Chambers wanted me to see what I could get out of this clown. He is awake, isn't he?"

  "Oh, he's awake, all right. He isn't very talkative, though."

  I figured I could change that. "How about it, son?"

  Officer Wilson looked right and looked left, like he was checking to see if maybe the police commissioner was among the doctors, nurses, and patients walking the corridor. "I guess ... I guess it would be all right, Mr. Hammer."