Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  “How do you know I didn’t use a silencer?”

  “You can’t put one on a revolver.”

  Masaryk almost laughed. “So what? Rigging Bixby’s death to look like suicide—the gun by his hand, the photograph with Nina’s face circled—that was easy. I had some practice in that sort of thing years ago in Latin America. Know why I killed Bixby?” Opening his silver case, he lit another cigarillo. “Because of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Because you wouldn’t accept Nina’s death as an accident. Her aunt and mother—who cares what a couple of spics think? But you kept after Bixby. Maybe you believed he killed Nina, or maybe you just went through the motions to get into Lucila Melendez’s pants, but you kept after him. So I gave you all what you wanted—a conscience-stricken Bixby blowing his brains out.”

  Could Masaryk have known that too—that Rosen had already blamed himself for the teacher’s death? He wanted to get up. His throat was dry. He wanted to get up and walk away. Just walk away and keep walking.

  “It was a happy ending for all concerned,” Masaryk said.

  “Except Bixby.”

  “Like I said, your fault.”

  “That’s right. You had to kill him . . .”

  The other man nodded.

  “. . . to protect your boss, Byron Ellsworth.”

  Masaryk smoked his cigarillo, his eyes locked on Rosen’s. “See what I mean? You don’t give up.”

  “What happened? Did Ellsworth like sleeping with Esther Melendez so much, he wanted to try Nina too?”

  “Careful.”

  “He ordered a necklace for her, just like the one he bought Esther. He met her in the park that Friday night, brought her the necklace and flowers. Then what—he got too rough, they struggled, and she fell over? Or did she threaten to tell her mother, and he killed her? You’re right, I have seen Esther’s eyes. The thought of her finding out must’ve terrified Ellsworth. So after killing the girl, he went to you, and you took care of everything. You’ve made a living out of taking care of Ellsworth and his family, haven’t you?”

  “We all have our weaknesses. Byron happens to like women. That’s hardly a vice.”

  “My God, Nina was just a girl.”

  Masaryk cocked his head slightly. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “You know, in some cultures there’s no such thing as girls. They’re babies, then women. I’ve seen it in Vietnam, El Salvador, Guatemala. Running after you in the street, like little birds with broken wings. They hop and shake and flutter, and once you get them upstairs, they fuck your brains out for the change in your pocket. So if a man like Byron Ellsworth wants to have a little fun—”

  “No,” Rosen said, his jaw tightening, “he’s not getting away with it. Neither are you.”

  As if watching a willful child, Masaryk shook his head sadly. “What’re you going to do? Tell the police that, in the lobby of the Palmer House, I admitted murdering Martin Bixby? Where’s the evidence?”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “See what I mean—the patience of a jackal.”

  “Suppose I tell Esther that Ellsworth killed her daughter?”

  “You won’t. You know about the accident?”

  Rosen nodded. “The rear-end collision involving Hermes’ kids. So now you’re threatening me with—”

  “Not that accident. The one involving your girlfriend. Her dented bumper—you know about that?”

  Again Rosen nodded, but more slowly.

  “Did she tell you how she got it?”

  “She didn’t know.”

  Masaryk puffed contentedly; he seemed to enjoy making Rosen wait. Finally he said, “Yesterday morning about noon, a house painter reported to the Chicago police that an old brown station wagon, while speeding south down Sheridan Road, hit his parked car. Suppose somebody suggested that the Chicago cops ask Lt. McCarthy to match the chipped paint from both the painter’s and Lucila’s cars?”

  Rosen leaned back in his chair, trying to appear casual. “So you paid someone to lie. Even if his testimony stands, it’s circumstantial.”

  “You know it’s more than that. Suppose an eyewitness, a realtor working the neighborhood, happened to see Lucila coming down the back stairs of Bixby’s apartment ten minutes to noon?”

  “A realtor who has dealings with Ellsworth-Leary?”

  “Suppose the police find a gang banger in Logan Square who admits selling your girlfriend the murder weapon? Suppose . . . well, I could go on, but you get the idea. Nina Melendez was killed by Bixby, and Bixby committed suicide in remorse. If you don’t like that, then your girlfriend’s arrested for murder. Stay away from Byron Ellsworth.”

  Rosen’s arms felt heavy, as if pinned to his sides. The same feeling as in Highwood, when one man had held him down while two others attacked Lucila. But then Rosen could struggle against somebody—could strike his fist against flesh and bone.

  Now he could only swing at the shadows Masaryk threw across his eyes. One, two, three . . . how many were there? As many as it would take to keep him silent.

  “You know,” Masaryk said, stubbing out his second cigarillo, “Joseph Stalin once wanted to take over a certain city on the Baltic coast. When he couldn’t, he simply included it on all Soviet maps as Russian. Two generations of his people grew up believing that city was theirs. You’re a lawyer—I shouldn’t have to tell you that a lie’s as easy to believe as the truth. Sometimes easier.”

  Picking up the copy of Newsweek, Masaryk began flipping through the pages as if Rosen weren’t there. And, of course, he wasn’t.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Cab, sir?”

  Rosen stood outside the hotel. Couples in their evening clothes strolled past him, their laughter sounding strangled in his ears. Above the glare of streetlights stretched the deep black night, where stars flickered like the yahrtzeit candles he lit each year to remember his mother and grandparents. As a little boy, he’d imagined the stars as candles lit by God to commemorate each new death. Scanning the sky, he wondered which two stars flickered for Nina and Bixby.

  “Cab, sir?” the doorman repeated.

  “What time . . .” No, he didn’t have to ask anymore. He stared at his watch as if it were a scar, a scar of a fight he’d not only lost but in which he’d been humiliated. Was Masaryk’s man standing behind the doorway, still grinning as he had in the bathroom mirror?

  “Yes,” Rosen said a little too loudly. “A cab.”

  He blurted Lucila’s address to the driver and settled back while the cab angled its way northwest toward Logan Square. Why Lucila? To warn her about the frame? Or was it because Masaryk, who knew everything else, knew that too? How much Rosen wanted her and, being able to do nothing else, would take her to bed.

  Like Masaryk had said, “. . . a happy ending for all concerned.”

  Rosen rubbed the skin under his watch. It felt raw.

  It was only when the cab arrived at Mercado Jimenez that he wondered whether Lucila would be home. A light shone from her second-story studio, and her car was parked in the small lot beside the staircase. Climbing up the wooden stairs, he knocked loudly several times. He was about to give up when the door opened.

  Lucila’s eyes grew wide. “Nate?”

  Her sweatshirt and jeans were splattered with paint, as was the plastic shower cap under which her hair was bunched.

  “I should’ve called.”

  “No, I finished working a few hours ago. Actually I nodded off. Come in.”

  He followed her through the narrow hallway into her studio.

  She turned to face him. “I’m glad you came by.” Noticing him staring at the shower cap, she blushed. “You don’t know how hard it is to get paint out of your hair.”

  Pulling off the cap, she shook her head, and her hair splashed around her shoulders. For a moment, the room filled with the heady fragrance of her shampoo. She’d blushed because, despite their having made love, they weren’t much more than strangers. His heartb
eat quickened.

  “Working on a new painting?”

  “Uh huh. With things finally cleared up about Nina’s death, I feel like working again. I painted most of the day. Quit when it started getting dark. I don’t like mixing natural and artificial light. Colors aren’t the same.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Over there in the corner.”

  But he never made it to the corner. Directly across from the couch, Flowers of Madness leaned against the wall. He stared into the mad eyes of the woman holding the blood-red roses.

  “I brought it home from the gallery,” she said.

  He couldn’t tear himself away from those eyes. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, I just . . .” He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Nate. Come sit with me on the couch.”

  She was pulling him, and when he did follow her, Rosen saw she was blushing again. On the old captain’s chest lay Nina’s diary. He picked it up and thumbed through the pages.

  He kept rereading one of the passages: “After rehearsal he picked me up on his way home. We went to the park overlooking the beach.” There was something wrong, something he couldn’t quite understand.

  “. . . don’t think Esther wants the diary,” Lucila was saying, “but I couldn’t just throw it away. All so sad, so horrible—Bixby killing Nina and then himself.”

  Rosen returned the diary to the captain’s chest. “Why did you bring the painting home?”

  “I . . . uh . . . I’m working on something with a similar color scheme, so I brought it home as a point of reference.”

  “Is Flowers of Madness going to be in your show?”

  “There’s only so much space and so many canvases allowed. I’m not sure yet.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

  Hands tightening into fists, she stared into the eyes of the painting.

  Rosen asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about Esther? She’s killed before, hasn’t she? She killed her husband—that’s what you’d started to tell me once.”

  “Yes.” The word crackled through the air like lightning. “But it was so long ago.”

  “It was her temper.”

  Lucila continued staring into those eyes. “Back in the Dominican Republic. My brother was cheating on her—he was always cheating on her. She found out, they got into an argument, and he started beating her up. She grabbed a knife. I don’t even think she knew what she was doing.”

  Rosen shook her arm until she turned away from the painting. He said, “That’s not the only time she’s acted like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You must’ve seen it before, to have painted the eyes on that canvas. That’s why you brought the painting home. You were afraid other people would see the madness in her eyes. Don’t look at it; look at me! I’ve seen it too, when she talked about Bixby.”

  “No, she didn’t kill him!”

  For a moment, Lucila’s eyes flashed hot as Esther’s, then they shimmered in the welling tears.

  “I know.”

  At first she didn’t seem to understand. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “What?”

  “I just came from Masaryk. He admitted murdering Bixby.”

  “What do you mean? He just came out and said it?”

  “Yes,” and Rosen repeated what Masaryk had told him about killing the teacher.

  “But why?”

  “I think he killed Bixby to protect his boss, Byron Ellsworth. I think Ellsworth’s the one who killed Nina.”

  “Ellsworth. Why would . . . oh, my God!”

  “Yeah, because the mother wasn’t enough for him.”

  The hot tears rolled down Lucila’s cheeks, as her fists pounded against the captain’s chest. “The bastard! The Goddamn fucking bastard!”

  Rosen grabbed her, letting her fists flail against him. She kept screaming obscenities against Ellsworth until her voice grew hoarse and the breath shuddered in her lungs. She turned away from him, staring out the window into the darkness.

  “You knew about Ellsworth and your sister-in-law?”

  Lucila nodded. “Do you know what she’ll do to him?”

  “You can’t tell her. Masaryk’s fixed it, so that—”

  “I won’t try to stop her. No, I won’t try to stop her. I’ll help.”

  “You can’t.” He shook her until she looked at him. “Listen to me. Masaryk’s fixed it so that if we try getting close to Ellsworth, you’ll be framed for Bixby’s murder.”

  He repeated what Masaryk had said about Lucila’s car and the so-called witnesses. After he’d finished, they sat quietly for several minutes.

  Finally she said, “It’s the same everywhere. Masaryk might as well be back home, wearing a general’s uniform. That’s what the dictator Trujillo used to do—play with people as if they were toys. Wind them up and watch them do anything, even walk over cliffs. Oh, Nina.” Again tears ran down her face.

  “No,” Rosen said, “not here, not in this country. There are laws, laws that even Ellsworth and Masaryk have to obey.”

  “You make beautiful speeches like all lawyers do. Lawyers—they’re good at making excuses for men like Ellsworth. He must have an army of lawyers. They’re all whores; they just use their mouths instead of their cunts.” Suddenly she rubbed her eyes hard. “He’s not getting away with it.”

  Lucila walked to the corner beside the kitchen, which served as her bedroom. A drawer opened, then slammed shut. She returned holding a small automatic.

  Rosen asked, “Where did you get that?”

  “Julian, who owns the store downstairs, gave it to me. Said anyone living in this neighborhood should have one.”

  “And what’re you planning to do?”

  “What my father or brother would do if they were alive. I’m going to kill that bastard for what he did to my niece.”

  “You can’t.”

  “What else would a lawyer say.”

  She grabbed her jacket from the kitchen counter, and when she turned, Rosen stood in front of her.

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Listen to me. You can’t go after Ellsworth. I’m not absolutely sure he did it.”

  “More lawyer talk.”

  When she tried pushing past him, he grabbed her arm.

  “We’ve got to be sure. We’ve got to have evidence. And then we turn Ellsworth over to the police.”

  “The police! Men like Ellsworth own the police.”

  “The one loose end is the landscaper, Hector Alvarez. He was in the park the night Nina was murdered, and I think he knows something. He must feel pretty safe with Masaryk protecting him. I don’t think he’d expect me to pay him another visit.”

  She bit her lower lip. “All right, we’ll go see Alvarez.”

  Rosen looked at the gun in her hand. “I don’t think you’d better come along this time.”

  “How are you going to make him say anything?”

  “Then give me the gun.”

  “No. I’m coming with. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot him—unless I have to.”

  They stared at each other and, at last, she couldn’t help smiling. And, as her lips opened, he couldn’t help kissing them. His hands tangled in her hair, kissing her again, her arms around his shoulders and she kissing him back. Her breasts hard against his chest, and she murmuring something he couldn’t quite hear because of the blood pounding in his ears.

  “We’d better go,” she whispered against his cheek. Yet she didn’t pull away, as if waiting for him to make the decision.

  Hesitating to inhale once more the fragrance of her hair, he nodded and stepped back.

  “Here.” He helped her on with her jacket. “It’s a little chilly outside.”

  She put the gun in her purse while avoiding his eyes. He picked up Nina’s diary from the captain’s chest.

  “There’s still something bothering me about the diary. I’d like to look it over one more time.”

  As they reached the door, he stopped her. “W
hat if Masaryk’s having your place watched?”

  “You don’t think—”

  “He knows everything we’ve been doing. Is there another car in the neighborhood you could borrow?”

  She thought for a moment. “I’ve got a friend one street over.”

  “Good. If someone’s watching your apartment, he’s probably doing it from across the street.”

  “Okay. Just follow me.”

  They hugged the wall of the building as Lucila led him downstairs, through the small parking lot and into a back alley that led to a street one block west. He followed her along the dimly lit pavement until they reached an old frame house in the middle of the block. He waited outside the back door, while she talked to her friend in Spanish. Five minutes later, a key chain jingled in her hand.

  “I’ll drive,” she said. “I know the neighborhood better.”

  It was an old green Chevette, its motor sounding like a marimba band as the car wove its way through the side streets of Logan Square. Every few minutes, Rosen glanced over his shoulder.

  Lucila turned another corner. “I’ll zigzag up to Irving Park, then catch the expressway. Don’t worry. Anybody trying to follow us is already lost.”

  Settling back in the passenger seat, Rosen thumbed through the pages of Nina’s diary, reading as best he could under the flickering street lights. Again he paused at the passage— “After rehearsal, he picked me up on his way home. We went to the park overlooking the beach.”

  He rubbed his eyes. Something was wrong.

  “You shouldn’t try reading without a light,” Lucila said.

  “My mother used to say the same thing when I was a little boy.”

  “Your mother was right.” After pausing a moment, she added, “I wonder what kind of a little boy you were.”

  “I was a juvenile delinquent.”

  “No you weren’t. You were probably the nicest little boy in the neighborhood. I bet you carried your mother’s groceries for her, and gave up your seat on the bus to little old ladies, and ate all your spinach without having to be told to.”

  “What’re you making me out to be?”

  She glanced at him. “A nice guy. One nice guy in a world of Ellsworths, Masaryks, Bixbys, and Alvarezes.”