“I’ve been making money drops for a bookie I know, okay? He gives me a thou in cash for an hour’s work. I have to eat, don’t I?”
“You’re breaking the law, Richie.”
“He runs a sports book. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me. I won’t associate with that kind of life.”
Meanwhile, Jocko Conlon was being cuffed by one of the cops in uniform who’d been stationed downstairs. Jocko’s bluster had gone out of him. I stood before him, studying him intently. My right eye had started twitching, I realized.
“What do you want now?” he asked me in a defeated voice.
“Just the answer to one more question. Where are the two copies of Tulsa that you snatched from Tommy O’Brien?”
“Tucked in Mel’s office safe.”
“Was Mel the only one who knew the combination?”
“Nah, the receptionist, Roseanne Leto, knows it.”
“Good.”
He gazed at me curiously. “Why are you asking me about that? What difference does it make now?”
“Tommy spent the last two years of his life on it. He was proud of it and I want to make sure it gets published, even if his name isn’t on it. I owe him that much.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Jocko grumbled, shaking his head.
“That’s okay. I didn’t expect you would.”
Chapter Ten
When America’s richest, most famous living author shoots his beautiful young wife right between the eyes in front of a roomful of people, it tends to become front-page news. So the next morning’s Times, Post, and News were chock-full of the lurid details of Yvette James’s murder, not to mention its connection to the murders of Addison James’s daughter, Sylvia, his research assistant, Tommy O’Brien, and Yvette’s personal attorney, Melvin Klein of Babylon, Long Island. The newspaper stories were still a bit sketchy on the details about the arrest of Jocko Conlon, a private detective formerly of the NYPD and Nassau County Sheriff’s Office. Also about Nassau County Sheriff’s Detective Peter Meade being placed on administrative leave pending an Internal Affairs investigation into his involvement. But by the time I was up making my morning coffee in Merilee’s schmancy espresso machine, CNN was already saying that “unnamed sources close to the investigation” believed that it was Jocko and Mel together who were responsible for the deaths of Tommy and Sylvia and that Jocko had then shot Mel to death in the basement garage of his Amityville condo complex in order to silence him.
Reporters soon started to dig up story upon story about the “troubled” childhood and criminal past of Phyllis Yvette Rittenaur, aka Yvette James. Her ex-partner, Mick the Quick Rafferty, who’d gallantly taken the rap for that failed jewelry store robbery in Nyack way back when, was now serving twenty years in Rahway for a botched bank heist in Newark. He was only too happy to talk about her. He had nothing better to do.
A cool breeze had blown in during the night, bringing a hint of early fall in with it. After I’d fed Lulu and downed my orange juice and espresso I threw on an old chambray work shirt, jeans and my Chippewas. Rode the elevator down to the lobby, waved good morning to Patrick the doorman and took Lulu for a walk in Central Park, savoring deep breaths of the freshening air while she ambled alongside the path with me, sniffing here, there and everywhere. As we walked, a bicycle caught up with us from behind and eased up next to us, its rider pushing his way along with his feet on the pavement.
It was Romaine Very, his jaw working on a piece of bubble gum. He had a somber expression on his face but didn’t look nearly as drained by the events of last night as I felt. Very never seems to get as disheartened as I do by the reality of what people are capable of doing to one another. I guess he can’t allow himself to in his line of work. Not if he wants to keep doing it.
Lulu let out a low whoop to greet him. He whooped back at her. “Your doorman said I’d find you here.”
“I sure do like the sound of those two words.”
“Which two?”
“Your doorman. What’s going on, Lieutenant?”
“Just wanted to tell you I was sorry about your friend Tommy. What with all of the bodies dropping here, there and everywhere I don’t think I ever got a chance to say the words out loud.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“I also wanted you to know that we did find those two copies of Tulsa in Mel’s safe. You had that figured right all along.”
“Glad to hear it. Where do things stand with Jocko?”
“He’s being arraigned later this morning on a charge of first-degree murder for shooting Mel, not to mention being an accessory to the murders of Tommy and Sylvia as well as a colorful array of other felonies like carjacking that Ford Explorer in Scarsdale, setting up the snatch of Tulsa and illegally tapping your phone. The big fat slob isn’t bothering to deny a thing. Regrets nothing. Just thinks of himself as a pro doing a pro’s job, and assumes his lawyer will figure out a way for him to skate.”
“And what’s the latest on Addison?”
“He’s being held at Bellevue for psychiatric evaluation. My sense is that there isn’t a huge appetite on the part of the DA to prosecute him in criminal court for shooting Yvette, considering that he’s elderly and senile and happens to be a beloved American literary figure. Besides, Yvette’s hands weren’t exactly clean.”
“Yvette’s hands weren’t even remotely close to clean.”
“My guess? He’ll live out his remaining years in a cushy mental hospital somewhere.”
“As long as he can do his Royal Canadian Air Force exercises and watch reruns of Perry Mason, he’ll be a happy camper.”
A pair of slender, beautiful young blondes—fashion models, by the look of them—went jogging past us, chattering gaily. I felt a sudden pang in my chest, missing Merilee.
“Incidentally, that attorney of his, Kaplan, logged face time with the DA this morning and the old guy was speaking the real. He’s leaving everything he owns to the Veterans Administration for the rehabilitation of wounded veterans. Pretty admirable thing to do. I mean, considering he’s a nut job and all.”
We walked along in silence for a while, Very easing his bike along next to me, Lulu continuing to sniff and snort. Quite a few people were out enjoying the fresher, cooler air in the park that morning. They were moving a bit faster than they had been in previous days, and stood a bit straighter.
“Are you going to call Norma, Lieutenant? She’s perfect for you. She’s brainy. Works twenty hours a day. Never sleeps. You should call her.”
“Already did. We’re having dinner Saturday night. Dude, can you recommend a place that a classy, literary sort of woman would like? I want it to be someplace quiet where we can hear each other talk.”
“The Blue Mill on Commerce Street. Order the calves’ liver.”
“I hate calves’ liver.”
“You used to. You won’t anymore. Just make sure you get both the sautéed onions and the bacon. And plenty of mashed potatoes.”
“Will do, thanks. And thanks large for your help on this case. Couldn’t have broken it without you.”
Someone let out a low cough at our feet.
“Either one of you,” Very hastened to add.
“It was Lulu who found the Tiparillo in the gutter,” I pointed out. “And kept us from getting lost in Stuyvesant Town. If it weren’t for her we’d still be wandering around there looking for Oval No. 11. Possibly even sitting on a bench somewhere, sobbing. She also warned us that Richie Filosi was no good and that Kathleen ought to show him the door.”
“Red or white?”
“Excuse me?”
“With the calves’ liver. Red or white wine?”
“Red. I’d go with a Côtes du Rhône. Any other questions?”
“Yeah. Norma’s boyfriend was just murdered. How patient should I . . . ?”
“Take it slow. Very.”
He frowned at me. “Yeah, dude?”
�
�Take it very slow.”
“Gotcha.”
“In that case, I think my work here is done.”
AS THE NEXT few days unfolded word trickled out that Guilford House would be publishing Tulsa by the great Addison James on schedule next summer. Also that the president of Guilford House had decided that the late Tommy O’Brien’s name would go on the cover as coauthor and that his widow, Kathleen, would receive the one-third share of the royalties that Sylvia had promised him but reneged on. The Silver Fox, who’s as cynical as they come, labeled it a public relations stunt intended to blunt any ill will that readers might be harboring toward Addison for murdering his wife. Ill will that might translate into diminished book sales. She also told me that Guilford House was searching for a new editor in chief to replace Sylvia, and that the top name being bandied about town was none other than Sylvia’s former assistant, Norma Fives.
Busy as she was, Norma did find time to read “The Eighty-Yard Run” by Irwin Shaw and leave me a brief phone message at Merilee’s apartment: “Hi, it’s Norma, and I’m a big fat idiot.”
As for me, I wasn’t sleeping too well despite all of the posh comforts of life on Central Park West. In fact, I was wide-awake when the phone rang at three A.M. and it was Merilee calling from Budapest. The connection was scratchy, but I could hear her plenty fine.
“So sorry to call you at this ungodly hour, darling, but I just saw the story about the Addison James mess in the International Herald Tribune and I needed to hear your voice. Are you okay? I’ll catch the first plane home if you’re not.”
“I’m fine, Merilee. Haven’t got a scratch on me.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“I’m a bit shell-shocked, but I’ll be okay. Although my apartment’s going to feel haunted for a while.”
“Then it’s a good thing that you don’t have to stay there.”
“A mighty good thing. We’ve been extremely comfortable here.”
Lulu snuggled up close to the phone, whimpering. Somehow she always knows when it’s her mommy on the other end of the line.
“Is that sweetness whom I hear?”
“None other.”
“I miss you both terribly and . . . I’ve been thinking about the night I left.”
“So have I,” I said, remembering the way she’d unsnapped her denim shirt and flung it across the hallway floor.
“I rather enjoyed it.”
“So did I.”
“I wouldn’t mind a repeat performance.”
“Nor would I.”
“Perhaps we should have a serious talk when I get back.”
“Feel free to delete the word perhaps.”
“I’ll let you get back to sleep now, darling.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“And do take care of yourself. I feel as if I’ve found you again. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Boil me in oil and fry me in lye.”
“Good gravy, I used to love that expression! Haven’t heard it since I was a little girl. Don’t be surprised if I steal it and say it in the movie.”
“I won’t be.”
“Good night, darling.” She rang off.
Lulu returned to her own acre of bed and stretched back out, grumbling and grousing. I lay there with the dead receiver in my lap for a moment before I returned it to its cradle. Then I went back to doing what I’d been doing in lieu of sleeping—spinning my wheels. I thought about Tommy, the authentic shoe-leather beat reporter from Jackson Heights who’d gotten in over his head with the wrong crowd and would never live to see his dream of becoming the next Jimmy Breslin or Pete Hamill come true. I thought about Sylvia and wondered what sort of person she’d have become if she hadn’t had such a cruel bastard for a father. I thought about her cruel bastard of a father, who’d married Phyllis Yvette Rittenaur despite knowing exactly who and what she was—and when it came time to make her pay for what she’d done, how he hadn’t hesitated to dispense justice himself. I thought about Mel, a lonely South Shore schnook who’d killed two people because Yvette had plopped her bare foot in his lap at the bar of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor and sent him on an all-expenses-paid trip to cuckoo town. I replayed the events of the past couple of days and nights over and over again. Kept asking myself if there was anything—any one small thing—I could have done differently that would have changed the outcome. I couldn’t think of a single thing. I did try awfully hard to convince myself that justice had been served in the end, but I couldn’t talk myself into believing that. Not with Tommy’s death weighing on me. No, this one was never going to sit right with me and I knew that. I’d just have to deal with it.
And so as the dawn’s sky over Central Park began to turn purple, I got out of bed and dealt with it the only way I knew how to. Made the espresso. Fed Lulu her morning ration of 9Lives mackerel for cats and very weird basset hounds. Carried my cup of fresh hot espresso down the hall to the office and parked myself in front of my Olympia. Rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the machine. Cranked up the Ramones on my turntable. Took a deep breath, let it out slowly and went back to work on The Sweet Season of Madness.
I wrote. That’s how I dealt with it.
The sun came up. Lulu wandered in, climbed into the Morris chair and dozed as I wrote for hours and hours. For a reader, a novel, if it’s a good one, is an absorbing and enlightening experience. For me, it’s my refuge when real life becomes unbearable. I keep it together by transporting myself to a world of my own creation. A world where things turn out the way they’re supposed to. Because in the real world there are times, too damned many of them, when they truly don’t—no matter how hard I try to make them.
And this was one of those times.
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About the Author
Meet David Handler
DAVID HANDLER has written eleven novels about the witty and dapper celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag and his faithful, neurotic basset hound, Lulu, including the Edgar and American Mystery Award–winning The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald. His other series include the Berger and Mitry franchise and two novels featuring private eye Benji Golden. David was a member of the original writing staff that created the Emmy Award–winning sitcom Kate and Allie and has continued to write extensively for television and films on both coasts. He lives in a two-hundred-year-old carriage house in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
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About the Book
The Long Arm of the Law, Gen Next
When I first came up with the idea for Stewart Hoag way back in the mid-1980s, the crime-fiction world was in the midst of a major generational change. The Rex Stout–Agatha Christie era was over and out. And while terrifically talented writers such as Donald E. Westlake, Robert B. Parker and P. D. James were keeping the genre alive and well, hardly anyone who was writing crime in those days belonged to my age group—those of us who had come of age in the tumultuous sixties listening to rock ’n’ roll and smoking pot as the world around us roiled with assassinations, riots, Vietnam and Watergate.
In fact, when I attended my first mystery convention—Bouchercon in 1989—I was shocked to discover that practically everyone there was at least twenty years older than I was. I still remember wandering around the banquet halls like a lost teenage kid, even though I was in my midthirties and was there because my initial Hoagy novel, The Man Who Died Laughing, had been nominated for an Anthony Award.
When I created Hoagy I was determined that, while he’d give a respectful tip of his fedora to crime fiction’s past, it was vital for him to speak for me and fo
r my generation. New era. New hero. I quickly discovered that this would also have to be true of the homicide detectives that my ghostwriter sleuth and his faithful, neurotic basset hound, Lulu, encountered along the way. I did not want Hoagy trading barbs with rumpled, cigar-chomping, old-school flatfoots. I wanted homicide detectives who were young and, well, different.
The first such cop whom Hoagy encounters is Emil Lamp in The Man Who Died Laughing. Emil Lamp, the LAPD’s go-to celebrity homicide ace, is a freshly scrubbed, bright-eyed, eager little guy with neat blond hair and wholesome apple cheeks who doesn’t cuss, lives with his mom and bears an eerie resemblance to Howdy Doody. He has appeared in three Hoagy novels, most recently The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes, which marked Hoagy and Lulu’s return in 2017 after a twenty-year hiatus.
But the cop who has made the strongest impression in the series by far is the NYPD’s celebrity homicide ace, Romaine Very, who has a BA in astrophysics from Columbia. Very is a short, muscular hipster who chews gum with his mouth open and is easily mistaken for a bike messenger because he dresses like one. He is also a hyperactive bundle of neuroses who ricochets back and forth between admiring Hoagy and being driven absolutely crazy by him. I love writing the two of them. Love their rapport. One of the main reasons I set the The Man in the White Linen Suit in New York City was because I wanted to write Very again. This marks his fourth outing in a Hoagy novel, and the fifth novel of mine that he’s appeared in. After I ended the Hoagy series in 1997, I missed writing Very so much that in 2010 I figured out a way to work him into The Shimmering Blond Sister, the seventh novel in my Berger and Mitry series, which takes place in the historic Connecticut shoreline village of Dorset. Very’s NYPD mentor, who has retired to Dorset, is murdered. Very jumps on his motorcycle and rides out there to give Resident Trooper Des Mitry a hand—whether she wants one or not.
I can’t tell you how many readers through the years have written to urge me to give Romaine Very a series of his own. I considered the idea seriously but never had a feel for how to pull it off—so I figured what the hell and just went ahead and started writing Hoagy again. It’s much easier this way. Also way more fun.
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