Kiss Her Goodbye Page 15

  "So the drugs your bartenders peddle, and the coke I saw those orgy girls and boys using in the balcony—local law enforcement looks the other way?"

  "These are hedonistic times, Mike. It's not criminal activity, it's a lifestyle! My God, an individual like you surely can't object. You've laid more pipe than all the plumbers in the Bronx! You killed more people than Audie fuckin' Murphy."

  "Not as many at one time."

  Little Tony shook his head; the Roman curls stayed put. "You are a pisser. You always have been a pisser." He got up from behind his desk, clearly ready to walk me out.

  So I got up. At the door, he stuck his hand out and I shook it. He was my host. But, my God, his palm felt greasy.

  "You are always welcome at 52, Mike. You are on the list."

  He was on mine.

  I said, "Like Doolan?"

  "You said it earlier—he had all access. He could go anywhere in my world."

  "Like, where can't I go in the club, without that pass?"

  This seemed to amuse him. He opened the door and the young boxer in the 52 blazer perked up like a puppy who heard the rustle of a candy wrapper.

  "Louis," Tony said, "show Mr. Hammer to the V.I.P. room."

  "You mean the lounge, Mr. Tretriano?"

  "No—the room."

  The kid from Bing's led me down the stairs into the balcony and below to the main floor, then to a door near the stage that was guarded by a pair of blazers. We went down creaky wooden steps into the basement. A path cut between chained-linked supply areas, decorative crap on one side, boxes of liquor and beer on the other. Then I followed my escort down a drywall corridor to a guarded metal-grillwork door through which could be seen another, smaller party.

  Like the upstairs, the lighting was dim though no flashing lights or laser lances were cutting through the darkness. The illumination came from the yellow and orange of an old Wurlitzer jukebox, an Elton John pinball machine, some funky vintage neon signs, lava lamps, and glowing fiber optics sprays. The limited lighting provided mood, sure, but it also concealed a multitude of sins. And not just those that might be committed by the guests.

  As that grating door yawned open for me, and I stepped inside, I realized Little Tony Tret really was a hell of an entrepreneur. After all, he had transformed a dank, nothing basement into a celebrity lounge that the likes of Mick Jagger, Cary Grant, and Liz Taylor were dying to get into.

  I'm not saying Mick, Cary, and Liz were present in this rec room for degenerates, but you would recognize just about every face. The furnishings were strictly thrift shop, mostly '50s atomic-age junk but also comfy easy chairs and couches and even plastic lawn furniture. A wet bar had a single bare-chested bartender, but there was a corner for pot smokers, too. A few of the famous faces were just standing around, chatting cocktail party—style. There was a bathroom marked His & HERS off to one side with an OCCUPIED card hanging on the knob.

  But the main attraction was a massive glass-top coffee table with a mirror the size of an LP cover that was heaped with cocaine—a staggering pile of the stuff, like an ungainly pyramid of powdered sugar. Celebrities of every stripe were on the edge of couches and sofas, worshiping at this white altar, leaning in to cut lines with razor blades and sniff through rolled-up C-notes, lolling back laughing with white stuff on their noses, like kids who'd stuck their faces in the snow. And hadn't they?

  I moved around the room nodding at people. I'd met some of them before. A lot of them recognized me—I did have the porkpie on—and sometimes laughed and pointed and occasionally patted me on the back as I passed. To them I was a cartoon character come to life out walking among them.

  I spotted a big platinum blonde at the bar getting herself a glass of champagne. She had on a pink minidress with shoulder straps, lots of well-tanned flesh on display, and an ass that could make a man sit up and beg. I asked for a beer and was given a bottle of Michelob. The big blonde turned to me and it was Chrome.

  Not a tan, then—she was natural bronze, if not natural blonde. That shade of platinum on a brown-eyed doll took help. And I liked the Asian look of her eyes.

  "You were in the balcony," she said, with a musical accent, faint but there. Brazilian?

  "I thought I imagined it."

  A dark, well-shaped eyebrow arched. "Imagined what?"

  "That we made eye contact."

  We left the little bar for the next customer, finding a two-seater sofa we could plop down in. She crossed her legs and unleashed her very white smile on me.

  "Your hat, I like it."

  "So do I."

  "You are some kind of cowboy?"

  "Close. Private eye."

  She nodded and laughed. "You are that Mike Hammer person. You are not so well known in my country, but here at 52? They whisper about you being here tonight. Much excitement."

  "I make friends everywhere I go." I patted her hand. "You sing good. I hate disco, but I like you."

  She shrugged. "I did not start with the disco music. I like the jazz. Jobim? I was one of the first to record his songs, you know."

  "I didn't know."

  She bobbed her head; the feathered platinum locks bounced off her shoulders—I'd thought that might be a wig, but it was real.

  "The records," she was saying, "they were never released in your country. I have six gold records in Latin America. But I have the American contract now. My boys and I, we will do a big tour."

  "Of the new Club 52s that Little Tony's opening?"

  She smiled. "Little Tony, you say. He hate to be called that."

  "Yeah, I know. He prefers Anthony. But I knew him when."

  "When?"

  "When he was a little punk in his old man's crime crew. They pulled heists and pushed dope."

  She smiled a little, but no teeth—it was a pursed kiss of a smile. "The drugs, do they offend you?"

  I was looking toward that coffee table with its jet-set worshipers. "It's poison."

  "I myself do not use them. I do drink. And that is a drug, too, they say."

  "Maybe."

  "You are a funny one."

  "Yeah, I'm the life of the party."

  "I would guess you could be ... if you were in the mood."

  I grinned at her and it shook her.

  "Ooooh ... that is a nasty smile you have there, Mike. And your eyes—they are very strange."

  "Watch this."

  I got up and went over to the central coffee table where the rich and famous were tooting it up. I said excuse me a couple of times, and then I edged in close.

  An actress I used to know looked up at me and said, "Not you, Mike! Indulging? Oh how the mighty have fallen...."

  "Think so?"

  I leaned over and picked up the mirror with its pile of coke, and with surprised yelps of protest at my back, I carried it like a busboy with a tray of empty glasses over to the His & HERS. Ignoring the OCCUPIED notice, I yanked the door open and found a guy in the middle of a perfectly good blow job, and from a female, too.

  "Hate to interrupt, but would you excuse me?"

  The guy, who acted on a cop show, hopped up off the lid of the toilet with his pants around his ankles and almost stabbed the girl in the eye. A redhead with her top down, she quickly got to her feet and plastered herself to the wall in the close quarters.

  I lifted the toilet lid, seat and all, and dumped all of the white stuff into the crapper.

  People were yelling, even screaming behind me, crowding around, but nobody touched me.

  It didn't all go down in a single flush, which meant I had to wait a little while for the toilet water to fill back up again.

  Just making conversation, I said to the actor, "Give me a call if you ever have research questions," and he just smiled over his shoulder at me nervously, while the little actress, who was on a top ten sitcom and had lots of Orphan Annie curls, gave me a wide-eyed look and was shaking. Like I was a maniac or something.

  After the second flush had done its work, I said to the actor and
actress, "As you were," and shut them back in there. I had a hunch they may have lost their momentum. Pity.

  I went back to the coffee table and flipped the mirror onto the glass. It skidded a little through the remaining white lines.

  An Academy Award—winning tough guy got in my face. Either he thought he had plenty of backup or the coke had made him foolish and brave.

  "What the fuck's the idea, you goddamn Neanderthal?"

  I pushed him away, gently, then said to the startled, outraged bunch, who were all on their feet now, "I hate to be the turd in the punch bowl, kids. But that stuff is illegal, and I don't want to risk going down for it."

  This elicited lots of comment, running mostly to "Oh, Jesus!" and "Do you believe this asshole?"

  I said, "I mean, not on a night when there are rumors of a police raid."

  The place emptied out faster than that theater when King Kong broke loose.

  And then it was just me and Chrome in the wet cellar that posed as a V.I.P. room.

  She was laughing and applauding, saying, "Mike! I think maybe you are a cowboy."

  Chrome came over and took my hand and led me to a big comfy leather chair near the ruined fun of the coffee table. I sat down and she nestled onto my lap, slipped her arms around my neck, like I was Santa and she had a wish. She was a big woman, and not light, but I didn't mind. Her lips found mine and they were moist and hot. I glanced over at the guard on the other side of the grating door. His back was to us.

  "Listen," I said. "I want to talk to you...."

  She was nuzzling my ear. "I want to talk to you, too, Mike. We will talk later...."

  "Did you know Bill Doolan?"

  Her head reared back and the big brown almond eyes locked on to me. "Yes. I did. Not well. So sad that he die. He was very nice."

  "How nice?"

  "What do you mean, Mike?"

  "Nice, like ... this?"

  And I put my hands on her breasts and just squeezed gently, like I was checking the freshness of fruit at a market. They were ripe and firm, all right.

  "No," she said. She kissed me again, warm, sticky with lipstick, full of promise. Then her tongue was flicking and licking at my ear, darting like a snake's, as she whispered, "He was just a nice old man. He come stand and watch. Never dance. Just watch."

  "Some people like to watch...."

  "Some do not."

  She slipped off my lap and onto the floor where a shag carpet was waiting for her knees and her hand found my zipper and tugged it down. She had me out and in her grasp and her mouth was about to descend when I held her back, the heel of a hand at a shoulder.

  "I don't like sex in public places," I said.

  "There is no one here but us."

  I nodded toward the guard beyond the grating.

  She shrugged. "Like I said ... there is no one here, Mike."

  "I thought you were Little Tony's girl."

  "I'm nobody's girl."

  Her head bobbed down, but I pulled her up.

  "No," I said. "Not now. Not like this."

  Her full lips teased me with a smile. "And here I think they say that you are the wild man."

  "Wild, yes. Not kinky."

  She rose, sat on the arm of the easy chair, slipped an arm around my shoulder; her other hand still grasped me and gently, gently stroked. "We could go to your place."

  "I don't have a place."

  "We could go to mine."

  "We could. But not tonight. Not now. This place ... your precious 52 ... Chrome, doll, this is not my scene."

  The aftermath was expectedly awkward. My fly got zipped, her makeup got unsmeared, and so on. But she gave me her address written in mascara on a Club 52 cocktail napkin.

  "Where do you live?" I asked her.

  "Rio de Janeiro. Why?"

  "This is a Park Avenue address. You staying with somebody?"

  "No. I have a Manhattan apartment now. I will be spending much time here. Much time in America. You see, Mike ... you have not escaped me. You will never escape me."

  "Is that a promise? In the meantime, where's the nearest exit? I got a feeling after Little Tony hears about this, he may take me off the list."

  Chapter 9

  BY TEN THE NEXT morning—after an early swim in the Commodore pool, another Bing's workout, and a deli breakfast—I settled in for a day of the kind of detective work that doesn't make it onto the TV shows.

  I had to delve into those ancient filing cabinets in that ancient corner building where two old men had shared an office but kept their secrets to themselves. Pete Cummings, on his job in Philly, had left me a tidy desktop and a comfortable swivel chair and an icebox full of Miller. He was my idea of a good host.

  But I was glad I'd got limbered up with a swim and a workout, because you have to have good knees to go through every drawer of two five-drawer files. And with an information pack rat like Doolan, those drawers contained plenty of chaff to go through trying to find a few kernels of wheat.

  I paid special attention to any clippings that dated within the last year. Doolan put together a fat file of the press he and Alex had got for cleaning up the neighborhood, but I couldn't find anything that wasn't laudatory fluff— RETIRED POLICE OFFICER LEADS NEIGHBORHOOD REFORM. Nothing with specifics about the criminal element he'd helped run out. No other names at all except some of the merchants I'd met when I canvassed the neighborhood.

  So I went back and started at the beginning of the newspaper stuff—right around Doolan's retirement twenty years ago. It was a lot of loose, yellowed clippings—two full file drawers—and started with puff pieces about the brave officer stepping down, and included clips on any hood, thief, or rapist that Doolan had put away who'd got out and made the papers again.

  At first I thought I'd struck pay dirt, but virtually every series of clippings wound up with the bad guy returned to the slammer. Had Doolan's fine hand worked behind the scenes on any of these arrests? Did that mean a family member of some sorry incarcerated son of a bitch might have settled a grudge with the old warhorse?

  But that didn't cut it. Doolan hadn't been chopped down on the street in a drive-by shooting—it was a staged suicide in his own damn apartment. That required a kind of sophistication and access unlikely to be found in the loved ones of some recently re-jugged recidivist.

  I made a list of the names anyway, on a yellow pad. It was the kind of thing I could hand over to Pat if everything else was a dead end.

  One file drawer seemed to be nothing but crimes from all over the world that had, for whatever reason, piqued Doolan's interest. These went back many years, well before his retirement, some brittle with age, a number from true detective magazines. At times he would underline in pen some nice piece of detective work, sometimes deductive, other times forensic.

  I would walk a stack of file folders to Cummings's desk and sit and flip through the contents, and occasionally I'd get distracted by the interesting stories he'd clipped, everything from Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden to Kid Twist taking that flying leap out a six-story window at a Coney Island hotel (there'd only been six cops to keep track of him). So it sucker punched me when I found myself holding a crumbling clipping from an old Saga mag headed THE MARK OF BASIL.

  There, in details echoing what diamond merchant David Gross had told me, was the tale of the tsar's favorite stonecutter, with blurry photos and hand-drawn re-creations, winding up with the questions, "Whatever happened to the great Basil? And what became of his precious stones? Has a glittering trail of death continued on through the years?"

  My hands were trembling. It might have been a coincidence. After all, it wasn't like Doolan worked the Lizzie Borden case. These clippings seemed random, just material that got his juices going enough to honor them with a place in an already fat file folder of nothing special.

  But for the first time I had a connection between Bill Doolan and the pebble I'd absentmindedly plucked from a pile of bloody sawdust used to soak up the life that had spilled too soon from
young Ginnie Mathes.

  It was almost one P.M., so I had a beer and unwrapped the ham and cheese on rye my host had bequeathed me. The "Mark of Basil" clipping stared at me from the desk as I ate and drank, and dared me to make something out of it.

  Beyond its existence, I couldn't. It remained nothing but a glimmer of a place where three murders connected—Doolan's staged suicide, the fatal mugging of Ginnie Mathes, and the hit-and-run of Dulcie Thorpe—and it provided nothing more than the hope that maybe my efforts were worth the trouble.

  Nothing else presented itself in the folders of clippings, though I lost an hour plowing through a full drawer of mob material, with plenty on the Bonettis and a full file on the Tretriano family, right up to recent stories on Anthony and Club 52. Nothing underlined in these.

  I moved on to the drawers of photos. I skipped the folder on myself and went right to the folder stuffed with shots of beautiful women, sometimes with Doolan posing with them, often indifferently composed, indicating he'd elicited help from some bystander to snap these visual keepsakes. The final dozen or so were from Club 52, including the sexy onstage shots of Chrome that I'd seen before.

  This time I noticed another blonde, up by the stage, but her back was to the camera—tall, shapely, her sleek ash blonde hair curling under just before it hit her shoulders. Wearing tight jeans and a white blouse, she was in all of the performance shots. Never more than a sliver of her face was revealed, yet something about the way she stood jogged my mind....

  Laying the photos out like panels of a comic book, I got the overall picture—the blonde was running point for Doolan! Obviously she would carve herself a place out near the stage, and when Doolan was ready to snap his camera, she would move to one side, taking the patron or two next to her along for the ride, giving him a path for a clear shot.

  In addition, there were three photos of Doolan posing with Chrome, the singer's arm around him in one, another where she was kissing him on the cheek, and a final one where they were hugging, the old boy looking happy as hell. Couldn't blame him.