Kiss Her Goodbye Page 8

"Then there's still something that bothers me."

  "Street muggers and B-and-E guys are two different animals."

  "Right on," he said. "The only time a mugger breaks and enters is when he's smashing a window in an abandoned building to flop for the night."

  I was nodding. "That girl got off a shift after the supper hour on a pay night. It was something she had been doing for a long time. If some creep spotted her routine, saw an easy mark, and followed her just for the cash she had on her, that would be one thing."

  "Only she's mugged well away from where she lived and worked," Pat said. "What was she doing there, in that combat zone?"

  "That's the question."

  "Still could be two people," Pat said. "A mugger is hired to grab her bag, and somebody else is hired to toss her apartment."

  "That's three people—including whoever hired both of them. Unless it's somebody who did this all himself."

  "Or herself."

  "You can kid yourself and say Doolan is a suicide, Pat, but this is a murder."

  "Of course it's murder..."

  "Not a mugging murder—a murder that needs solving. Are you going to help?"

  He raised his hands in surrender. "I'm simply going to make sure you get your fill of this before the system gets it sorted out the old-fashioned way."

  I gestured around the sad little apartment. "Really? Then how come the captain of Homicide is messing with a chintzy kill like this?"

  "Humoring an old friend. Ready to go over and see Ginnie Mathes's mother?"

  I felt my eyebrows go up. "You've been doing your homework, little boy."

  "Plain old-fashioned cop stuff, friend. Lots of manpower and the right questions."

  Six blocks away, we made a call on Mrs. Lily Mathes, whose dead husband had left her an entire four-story brownstone. Three floors were rentals, so you might think she was well-off; but rent control meant it took Social Security, too, for her to manage a modest living.

  Mrs. Mathes was a plump sixty-something in a dark blue dress that may have been as close to black as she had handy. Her white hair was mixed with remnants of the blonde that, along with her attractive face, she'd passed along to her late daughter.

  That face wore no makeup at the moment—perhaps it never did or maybe she just was saving herself the trouble of having it run and smear. Her eyes were red, but dry.

  She seemed almost glad to see us—maybe it was a relief just to have someone to talk to.

  There wasn't much she could add to the picture. Her daughter had been living alone for over two years. During that time, Ginnie had several jobs as a waitress, moving on only when a place closed. No, her daughter had never been in trouble. As far as the mother knew, Ginnie dated once in a while, but lately whenever she had time off, she spent it taking dancing lessons someplace across town.

  Pat said, "Did she ever dance professionally?"

  "Oh, no," the seated woman told us. "She was too shy for that."

  Pat glanced at me, but didn't mention anything about the cabaret license on her daughter. Some things were better left unsaid.

  While Pat was getting background, I made a casual circuit of the room. Like most women her age, Lily had her family photos on display. Her late husband was in several with her, a few were of mother, father, and daughter growing up, and one was six snapshots of teenaged Ginnie in a homemade montage—Ginnie and a stocky, blonde-headed guy in two, and with a skinny, shorter guy in the other four.

  Lily Mathes smiled when she saw me looking at them. "Those were taken right after Ginnie got out of high school."

  "Boyfriends?"

  "Oh, you know how girls are."

  "Ginnie still see either of these boys?"

  She waved a hand dismissively. "That blonde one, he's married and lives in Jersey now. Joseph Fidello, the other one? He's been gone a long time. I think he became a seaman."

  When I put the picture back, she said, "I'm afraid you gentlemen are wasting your time. Nobody... nobody who knew Ginnie ... would ever... ever want to ... to hurt her."

  A tissue-filled hand covered her eyes and she let her head droop. She went on: "It was just this ... this terrible city ... these awful muggings ... they happen all the time. It's like ... like living in hell."

  I wasn't the best guy to give her an argument.

  Pat bent over and took her hand gently. "Just one more thing. Did your daughter always walk home?"

  "Yes. On nice nights. If it rained, she took a cab."

  "On a nice night—would she go walking farther afield? Or take a cab somewhere, maybe to go to a restaurant or club, or see a boyfriend, and then walk by herself...?"

  She shook her head vigorously. "Where they found her, Ginnie wasn't anywhere near her apartment. She wasn't near to her work."

  "Yes, we know...."

  "She would never, never go down a street like where they found her. They tell me it was all torn up and not a safe place at all. I knew my daughter. She'd never go down such an unsafe street."

  We didn't have to go any further. We said a gentle goodbye and left.

  Once outside, Pat said, "So what do you make of it?"

  "Three possibilities," I said with a shrug. "Ginnie was going to meet somebody, she was trying to elude somebody, or somebody was chasing her."

  "All for thirty-five bucks and tips?"

  "For something," I said.

  Chapter 5

  FOR A WHOLE YEAR I had taken the ordered medication, capsules at regulated times, that were gradually being reduced in frequency and intensity as the physical damage repaired itself. The pain was gone, but so were my dreams. It took two months before I noticed it, and a direct inquiry pinned it down: my unconsciousness was being medicated as well as my body, but since there were no apparent side effects, I let it pass. Missing those surrealistic meanderings was no great loss, unless there were some lovely dolls involved.

  But I had forgotten the meds on this night, and for the first time in a year, dreams came through. The first one was a jumble of guns blasting and orange flame chewing the night and exploding skulls and bursts of scarlet and white and gray, and then Velda, and me getting shot, and Velda, crying now, and me, dying now.

  This faded into a new dream that wasn't scrambled at all. There was a continuity to it with an aim and a direction, but the light was fuzzy and I couldn't quite make it out. I was back on that war zone of a street looking down at the sand covering the awful puddle of blood on the sidewalk, feeling sand sift through my fingers.

  Then it stopped being a dream and I realized I was half awake and thinking.

  I kicked the sheet back and hung my legs over the bed. The pain was back again, a big hand feeling for a good grip. I got up, found my pants, and got the vial out of the side pocket. I flipped the cap off, shook one out, and swallowed it, then stuck the vial back.

  That was when my fingers found the pebble, the souvenir of a lousy, dirty kill on the sidewalks of New York. It was an irregular oval, the size of a kid's marble, oddly colored with a frosted surface, and there was a distorted picture in my memory of something flashing near the short-sleeve cuff of the dead girl's dress.

  Under my fingertip was a flat spot on the stone, and when I turned it over I knew what it was. What it meant. Slowly turning it to just the right place, I held my souvenir under the nightstand light and looked into a window that opened onto the pure brilliance hidden in that scruffy little stone.

  What I had in my fingers was an uncut diamond with one hell of a carat weight, and somebody had ground a spot on it for absolute proof of what it was.

  Ginnie Mathes's death had just taken on a new dimension.

  There was a legal probability that I was withholding evidence, but not being an expert in the determination of precious stones, my accountability was limited. Which was nice phrasing, but probably a load of crap. What the hell, I hadn't mentioned to Pat the little arsenal squirreled away in Doolan's desk either.

  What was the use of being a private cop if you had to go publi
c with everything? Anyway, Captain Chambers had all sorts of murders on his desk to attend to. I had two. "Balls!" cried the queen.

  Off Sixth Avenue on Forty-seventh Street is a curbside exchange in the most literal sense, where fortunes in diamonds and cash are traded daily, carried in the pockets of worn coats, wrapped in tissue-paper coverings, and displayed openly to proper customers ... and the only security is that custom, and the New York police.

  It's one of the damndest things you've ever seen, if you are lucky enough to see it at all. A million might change hands when all you thought you saw was two humble Jewish merchants passing the time. It's an ethnic area where all the divisions of the international jewelry trade are busy at it, extending into the buildings on either side. Despite the wealth concentrated in that one block, it is as unpretentious today as it was fifty years ago.

  David Gross was an old friend. In 1954 he had retired and left his thriving business to his son. But retirement almost killed him, so he started another business; and in 1965 he retired again and left this one to his grandson. Still he couldn't take retirement, so he went back out on the street, where he had started as a young man, hassling with the diamond traders.

  Even among the common black rabbinical garb and the long gray beards, David was easy to spot. His beard had an uncommonly pure black streak on the right side that somehow marked him as the presiding patriarch in the business.

  "Well, David Gross," I said. "You never change."

  His head craned out and he peered at me through his thick, slightly magnifying glasses. It was hard to make out his smile through the nest of beard. "We have both changed, my friend, Michael. But we will pretend otherwise. How nice to see you again! And alive."

  We shook hands warmly. "Good to see you too, Mr. Gross. Not bad being alive either."

  "Since when to you am I mister?"

  "David, I'm just a goyim trying to be respectful."

  "No—a mensch." He shook his head and the smile became manifest, beard or not. "You have been gone a long time, Michael. Sometimes I would think about you and worry. I remember well what happened in that trouble you had." He paused, the smile gone, looking around uncertainly as if a sniper might be lurking, and said, "This is not an accidental meeting, is it?"

  "Not really."

  "Nor a social call."

  "There's an element of that, but—"

  "But there is something we have to talk about?"

  "Yes. You got a roof we can sit under, David?"

  The old man nodded, his eyes flicking to a building across the street. "My grandson, his office is there. Not that he is. Too much money for that boy, it overwhelms him. Oh, he worked for it, but now he wants to spend it all. Always vacations. He's getting fat. That tan—don't tell me you've been on vacation? You're not fat."

  "No. I've been sick."

  "You look good to me. The city, it's good for you. Follow me."

  "Sure. Do I have to keep my hat on in there?"

  He let out a guttural snort. "That thing you wear with that awful name—what is it?"

  "A porkpie. But I'm not asking you to eat a slice, David."

  "Better you should eat it than wear it."

  "Hey, it's brand-new."

  "Then at least do an old friend the courtesy of changing its name."

  I laughed. "Okay. Stetson makes it. We'll call it a Stetson."

  "Perfect. Michael Hammer, western gunslinger."

  "Eastern," I corrected.

  Ordinarily, the old man would have wanted to spend an hour over such kidding pleasantries, but his curiosity got the better of him—me coming to him on a business matter was a rarity. So as soon as we had sat down in wooden chairs on either side of a scarred old table, he poured us each a paper cup of wine.

  "Now, Michael, what is it you wish to see me about? A lawyer I'm not. Neither am I a ladies' man. Diamonds I know, but what would you..." He paused, looked at my face, and his expression grew curious. "Are you buying for that beautiful secretary of yours? You are finally coming to your senses?"

  I shook my head. "We split up while I was away."

  "A shame. Is there no hope?"

  "I don't believe so. Anyway, David, I'm not here buying."

  "Selling?" This time his tone was wary.

  "Not exactly."

  "So there's a third alternative?"

  I held out my hand and let him see the marble-size stone in my palm. He didn't reach for it, just looked at it, then I let it roll over so he could see the ground-in little window into its gleaming soul.

  This time he did reach for it, felt it, rolled it around in his fingers, then finally brought out a worn loupe, took off his glasses, twisted it into his eye, and examined the pebble carefully. Twice he changed the intensity of the light to be sure of his appraisal.

  I let him take his time, not even watching him. Several times his eyes left the stone to peer at me, a strangeness in the silent expression.

  I said nothing and waited until he was through. "It's for real?"

  "Oh, yes, Michael. It is very much 'for real.'" He paused, then handed the stone back to me. "Do you know how much that is worth?"

  I grinned at him. "That's what I'm here to find out."

  "Something is funny?"

  "How much the stone is worth is not the question you wanted to ask me, David."

  "Now you are a mind reader?"

  "Sure. When a guy like you has no expression just when he's gone into slow motion? Sure."

  "So what is it I am supposed to ask?"

  I grinned again and waited.

  He squirmed because I wasn't playing his game. "Okay, Michael, I will ask—where did you get it?"

  "I found it, which is the truth, but that's not what you want to know, is it? There's another overriding question, right?"

  "How can you do this to me?"

  "That's not the question."

  And then he put me right where I wanted to be in this ball game.

  "Where are the rest of them?"

  I raised a hand in a gentle "stop" gesture. "Right now, David, I really don't know. But what you have in your head is what I have to know."

  The excitement in his voice was the gentlest quiver that few would pick up on; he was under control again—almost. "Michael, do you think you can find them?"

  I shrugged. "Maybe. I'm guessing this little gem has a history."

  "It ... may have."

  "David, don't hedge with me. We're not bargaining yet."

  He shrugged. "With one stone, how can I be sure?"

  My eyes narrowed and, through a slit of a smile, I asked, "How did you know there were more?"

  He took a deep breath and sighed loudly. "I am too old to be doing this. Such excitement I do not need."

  "Bullshit. You thrive on excitement."

  "But I could be wrong."

  "Come on, David. I'm here because I trust your opinion as much as I trust you."

  He rubbed his eyes, then leaned forward, propping his chin on his fist. He tapped on the tabletop. "Put the stone there."

  I set it in front of him.

  "It looks like an ordinary pebble, yes?"

  "Sort of."

  "Do you notice on the surface anything peculiar?"

  "No. I'm not a jeweler."

  "It is like an erosion," he said. "But ... what has such hardness as to wear down a diamond?"

  "Another diamond."

  "Very good." He rolled the stone over gently. "Such an erosion as this ... no scratches, no chipping ... what does it tell you?" He watched me carefully again.

  But when I could only shrug, he said, "I could say it is likely that this precious pebble was carried in a pouch with many other stones for a very long time. Continuous rubbing together, over a period of years, would make the surface like so. They are not like that when they come from the earth."

  "David, you're looking at one stone and building a history out of it. Where is this going?"

  He was good at long pauses. When he had finished thumbi
ng through his thoughts like a Rolodex in his mind, he said, "Michael, you are my friend. You I can trust. When I look at this gemstone, I get a feeling only a true lover of fine jewels can possibly get. It is almost ... mystical."

  When he spoke, there was a dreamlike quality about the words. Even his tone of voice changed, giving them a hollow ring.

  "There is a story of a jewel cutter named Basil, a most mysterious man who came to Germany from Russia when the Communists took over the country. It was Basil himself to whom the tsar went for his jewelry. There have been tales of the fabulous stones Basil produced for the Tsar, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, fantastic baubles few outside the royal family ever got to see. After the revolution, these cut stones all disappeared, probably broken up and sold to make more revolution."

  "But Basil himself managed to escape..."

  "Yes. When the Communists killed the tsar, they searched for Basil, but never found him. Many thought he was dead, but every so often wonderfully cut stones would surface with the remarkable beauty that bore the mark of Basil himself. He became a legend in all of Europe. Whispers had him operating out of Germany, but even there he remained a man of mystery."

  "If Basil fled to Germany, how could the quality of his stones remain so high?"

  "It is believed he brought a quantity with him from Mother Russia, though it's possible he found some new source. Always of top quality, they were."

  "Why didn't he get into the open market?"

  For a second, David came out of his reverie. "And show himself?"

  I nodded.

  "Michael, he was a Jew. Let us say that, on his person, he carried the last of his treasured uncut stones. The Communists would declare them stolen from the state, thieves and mercenaries worldwide would make of him a target. Death could come from any side. Imagine, in a simple leather pouch, Basil carrying a multi-million-dollar value that in this day would be doubled and tripled a dozen times over."

  "So he took his time."

  "Yes, he was very clever, this Basil. He never showed himself, fashioning his works of art only if he needed the money. But he was a presence, a living legend, Basil and his pouch of huge stones. Just before Hitler came to power, he cut his last known diamond, a ninety-six-carat masterpiece that now graces an oil sheik's collection."