“Ah, she’s just pining for her golden son, she’ll live. A few months ago she had you married off with a dozen grandbabies on the way, and now,” Abraham Lawrence shrugged good naturedly.
“She’s still upset with Adina?”
“Adina has lost a little of her shine as far as your mother is concerned, I’m afraid, but she’ll come around eventually.” He looked at Jacob, a question in his eyes. “You know your mother just wants you to be happy. Every time she sees your photo in the paper she throws her hands in the air and laments that you work too hard, or you’re getting too thin or too tired, or anything else she can think of to wail about. Poor Michael is copping twice the dinner and affection in your absence, the boy will be as round as a pig if you don’t stop by and put her mind at rest soon.”
“I’ve missed him.” Jacob smiled. His brother was younger by twelve years, and now in his second year of law school. They were as close as brothers could be and Jacob was protective of the younger man, whose cleverness was often understated by his exceedingly shy nature. “Will you tell him I’ll call home tomorrow night? If he’ll be around.”
“He’ll be happy to hear it.”
“Is he well?”
“Same as always, head in a stack of books. Smile on his face. The most agreeable creature on the face of the planet, that one.”
“As always.”
Abraham looked up and down the busy street, adjusting his hat.
“What do you say? Can you spare half an hour for lunch with your old man?”
Jacob’s heart sank, remembering the insurmountable casework ahead of him. He opened his mouth, prepared to decline, but then thought better of it.
“You know what?” Jacob said. “I can.”
Seated in the corner of a bustling diner a few minutes later, Jacob could not remember a time he felt so relieved to be shirking his duties. “It’s a complete shande, Aba,” he said, as they waited for their lunch to arrive. “All these darned interviews are keeping me from the case, but it seems there’s no way out of them. Armond and Hendry are happy to offer me up like a lamb to the slaughter as long as it keeps the press happy, but I’m not sure how much longer I can stave them off.”
“The people know you now,” Abraham said. “It’s the price of being such a good cop. You made some big arrests. The spotlight will stay firmly stuck in your eyes until the next big thing takes it away.”
“Well, it’s a pain in the tuches,” Jacob said, and his father laughed into his coffee. “Sorry, I just – I’m so close to tracking down this serial killer, I know I am and every second day I’m facing the cameras or dealing with the paperwork of Pinzolo’s case. It’s hopeless.” Jacob tried to keep his voice light, but his father knew him too well.
“You’re frustrated,” Abraham said. “I know what’s it like. I didn’t become Commissioner myself by sitting on my own tuches. But the red tape gets stickier the higher up the food chain you go. You’re responsible for so much more now. I know that most days it seems like there aren’t enough hours to get it done. Even now I’m retired I still have so many things I want to do and not enough time. But I know you, Jacob. No matter how hard it gets, you’ll just – you’ll make it work.”
“It’s not just that, Pop. It’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Adina?”
Jacob looked up, his face inscrutable. “I’m not sure. It’s not the same with her yet, I know that. I do love her though. Once this business with Pinzolo is over then maybe we can put it all behind us. I think, it’s more that I’m unsettled. I used to get so much more out of this job, it gave me a sense of purpose, you know. I was always searching for a way to bring the bad guys to justice. To right the wrongs.”
Abraham was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentle, and he chose his words very carefully.
“You were searching for a way to bring certain bad guys to justice. To right a specific wrong.” He gave his son a knowing look. “And I think you’ve done that now. I know who your friend Suzie Polletti was related to, Jacob.” At the sound of her name, Jacob couldn’t help the stiffness in his shoulders, the flush in his cheeks. “You forget I was part of that investigation, so many years ago,” his father said. “Her father, Roy, was Pinzolo’s cousin and there was some shady business there we could never pin him down on. But I knew there must be a connection when Roy got hit. We figured it was one of the other mobs after Roy, who lit the house, and Suzie got caught in the crossfire.” Abraham Lawrence frowned, dusty memories playing out behind his eyes. “It was a terrible day. Especially for you. I know how much she meant to you, Jacob.”
“Do you?” Jacob asked, his eyes saying more than he dared to speak.
“Course I do.”
The waitress arrived to deliver sandwiches and Abraham sat back in his chair, complimenting her. As soon as she was gone, he leant forward again, serious.
“I worked for months trying to find out which gang set that blaze, son. Pinzolo’s books were squeaky clean. I grilled him many times. There was nothing left of the house. No body. No evidence. No one would talk. People were scared of Roy Polletti, even after he was dead.” Abraham shook his head. “In the end, we had no one to pin the blame on. That killed me, because I needed a perp, for you. Because I knew you needed justice. And I couldn’t get that for you.”
“It wasn’t your fault –”
“But it’s been fueling you all these years,” Abraham continued, waving him off. “That focus in your work, the high test scores, the accolades. It’s like the obstacles didn’t even matter, because you really just wanted to get where you were going. To get justice for Suzie.”
Abraham sat back, considering his son.
Jacob didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself to.
“But now you’ve done it,” his father said, quietly. “You’ve done what you always wanted, no, needed, to do. You brought Pinzolo down, his whole organization. You did what I couldn’t do. And you’re still working, bringing in the bad guys, caught up in finding this serial killer, with ten tons of paperwork on your desk and the world at your feet and you’re wondering – now what?”
Jacob sat there, tears in his eyes, and the empty feeling in his heart beginning to make sense. It didn’t even matter that Suzie, Betty, had survived that terrible day and that his father didn’t know the whole truth. He was right, regardless. Jacob’s obsession had been realized. Pinzolo was in jail. Justice had been served. And still, there was no happily ever after on the other side.
“So,” Abraham said gently, “you get to decide the next part for yourself. No more chasing ghosts, son. Take some time, think about what you really want. Maybe it’s Adina? Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s something you’ve never thought of before.” Abraham leant forward and put his hand on Jacob’s. His eyes crinkled. Intense, but kind, the mirror of his son’s. “Now what? Say it to yourself until you come up with an answer, neshama sheli.” He sat back again, smiling. “Now what?”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The front door swung open, and little Georgie’s face peered out. His eyes looked puffy and red, as if he’d been recently crying, but when he saw who his visitor was, he beamed.
“Sergeant Jake!”
“Hey there, Georgie. How was school?”
The six-year-old shrugged his shoulders, then turned and darted back up the hallway calling out for his mother, leaving Jacob stranded on the doorstep. Jacob let himself in, hanging his overcoat and hat on the stand near the door, then closing the front door softly behind him. Betty’s head appeared around the corner of the kitchen doorway.
“Let yourself in, Jake, darling. I’m up to my elbows in pickles here.” She disappeared again.
Jacob walked up to the kitchen, and was greeted again by Georgie, who bobbed around the linoleum on alternate feet, as if he were playing hopscotch on invisible squares. Despite the game, Georgie’s usual boyish effervescence seemed dulled. Jacob raised an eyebrow at
Betty who did indeed, have her hands in a large pot of pickling cucumbers.
“George left yesterday for Pine Camp,” she explained. “This one’s been a little downcast ever since.”
“I see.” Jacob stepped over and tousled the boy’s hair. “You know, I think your Pop is mighty brave going off to training like that, Georgie. I bet he’d be glad to have a letter from you.”
“I did promise I’d write every day,” Georgie said. “But Nancy shut her bedroom door and won’t let me in to use the sharpener.” He pulled a rather pathetic-looking pencil stub from his trouser pocket and held it up. “She told me to get lost.”
“Did she now?” Betty muttered, looking thunderous.
“Well it just so happens I have a fine, sharp pencil right here,” Jacob said, pulling one from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “There was a brand-new box of them on the front desk at the station this morning, so that there, is an official policeman’s pencil. Would you like it?”
“Wow, for keeps?”
“It’s all yours.”
“Swell!” Georgie turned on his heel and ran out of the room. “Thanks, Sergeant Jake!”
“You’re welcome,” Jacob called after him. “May I?” he inclined his head to the kitchen table.
“Of course.”
Jacob pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down.
Betty stirred the pot one last time, then rinsed her hands under the kitchen tap. She wrung them dry on a dish towel, looking annoyed.
“I tell you, Nancy is giving me no end of headaches, lately. She’s the most headstrong, stubborn little goat –” Jacob blurted out a laugh. Betty raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then.”
“Well – !” Betty tried to hold her look of offense and indignity, but within moments her mouth twisted into a sly smile. “Yes, well, in me it’s charming,” she winked. “In a thirteen-year-old girl it’s a right pain in the neck.”
“Why don’t you just teach her to fight? That’s what she wants isn’t it? George isn’t here to see you do it and you could send Georgie off to play in the street. Maybe it will settle Nancy down a little. Give her something to focus on –”
“Stop it, Jake. You sound altogether too wise for your own good. And for what it’s worth, George knows now – about everything.” She looked away, distracted. Strangely embarrassed.
“Everything?”
Betty shrugged and took a deep breath. “I had no choice. He remembered it all – the fighting, the knives, even my real name. I had no choice but to admit it.”
“Your real name?” For so long, that had been the one thing Jacob had had all to himself, Betty saw him color a little.
“Yes. He knows who I really am now. What I really am. And what I’ve done.”
Jacob sat, stunned. His fingertips absently traced the floral embroidery of the tablecloth underneath them. A moment later –
“And?” There was a tinge of hopefulness in his voice, almost as if, despite the clear indication in Betty’s home that all was still perfectly well, that her husband may have been overcome by the new reality of his murderous wife and ended their marriage on the spot.
“And, he’s not thrilled,” Betty said. “But he accepted it. Rather well, in the end.” She offered Jacob a kind smile. “So that’s that.”
“So, that’s that,” he repeated. His eyes found the lace curtains at the window and stayed there too long.
“So now,” Betty continued, “I just have to sort out Nancy, find the serial killer, and get those bothersome FBI agents off my tail, and all will be back to normal.”
Jacob looked up. “Ha! Normal. That’s being rather optimistic, isn’t it?”
“I’m always optimistic, darling.” Betty winked. “Say, I have a grand idea. Why don’t you spend some time with Nancy? Get to know her a little, take her mind of this ridiculous rebellious streak she’s throwing my way.”
Jacob paled. “That may not be the best idea.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m having a hard-enough time getting my head around the fact that, well, you know,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “that I’m her real father –” Jacob gave Betty a significant look. “I mean, of course I want to know Nancy better, but what if it pops into my mind and she reads my thoughts? You said she hasn’t got the control you do yet to keep out of people’s heads. You don’t know how hard it is for me to keep not thinking about it when she’s near. It’s exhausting. Are you ready for that conversation with her, with George away and all?”
“That’s a very good point. Again.” Betty frowned and took the kettle from the stove, filled it with water and returned it, lighting the burner. “Please stop saying clever things, you know I like to be right all the time.”
Jacob smirked. “Let’s talk about something a little lighter, then.”
“The serial killer?”
“Sure.”
Betty busied herself making cups of tea as Jacob recounted the latest in his investigations. “So, all in all, not much progress,” he finished, dejectedly. “I’ve been putting out fires all week, most of them literal. There was a blaze in Greenpoint which took down a tailor’s and the barber shop next door as well.”
“Michalski’s Tailors?”
“That’s the one. Molotov cocktails through the front window. I got word Marcel Michalski was one of the Polish Syndicate –”
“Oh yes, he is –”
“– and a rival gang sent him a warning. Probably the Dusters on Hudson Street. There’ve been fights breaking out between the Puño Cartel and the Gophers over in Hell’s Kitchen. Then there was a blaze at the docks that took out a body armor factory, probably thanks to the Rats and some other River Pirates coming to heads. There’s trouble everywhere I turn. The Bowery’s about to come to blows – I can feel that one in my bones.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Betty agreed.
“We’ve doubled the night watch in all the usual places, but what we really need to do is catch this Boudoir Butcher. As long as the Tin Man is taking out gang leaders one by one, it’s giving them all itchy britches.”
“Which no doubt, is his aim.”
“Must be.” Jacob sighed and took a sip of his tea. Betty offered him a biscuit. For a moment all was quiet as they both considered their options.
A shrill ring broke the silence. Betty jumped up and walked into the sitting room.
“Betty Jones,” she answered cheerfully into the telephone receiver.
“Betty? That you, doll?” The voice that came back was strong and sour, with a rough, maternal tang to it. It could only belong to one woman.
“Trixie, darling! What a delight, I was hoping you’d call.” It was true, because, now that Tilly was safe in hiding at Kitty’s Kat House, there was only one reason that Madam Trixie would call her at home. She had good news.
“He telephoned, love,” Trixie said, “just now, the filthy bag of cat vomit that he is. If I didn’t know how much you wanted this call, I woulda’ burned his ear canals with every curse word under my girdle after what he did to poor Lucy.” Betty heard the woman take a long drag on a camel to calm her nerves.
“Slim Fred?”
Slim Fred was a pimp that hooked up streetwalkers in Harlem with customers even shadier than himself. He could usually be found doing business at The Walking Fox, his obese form crammed into a table in the corner of the basement jazz bar. His small, watery eyes were ever watchful for the knife in his back he knew one day was coming. It would be deserved.
Fred was the spiv that had sent Lucille Wright to turn tricks for a gangster somewhere near Trinity Church. They both paid the price, the gangster with his head, and Lucy in Greybone’s Lunatic Asylum for the Criminally Insane after she was convicted of cutting it off. Then there was Carla Jackson, the second lamb that Fred had sent to commit slaughter at the Tin Man’s request. Betty ha
d found her body at the docks in a pile of frozen fish, along with a couple of Bratva goons that had been hired by the Tin Man to shut her up. Betty had put them on ice.
It seemed Slim Fred was the only person Betty knew of, that had met the Tin Man himself, and still had his right mind afterward. Fred was an anomaly. A useless one, owing to the fact that he knew nothing of the Tin Man’s real identity or how to find him, but still. Betty had paid him a visit with a few threats and a little job to do. Slim Fred may yet prove worth his substantial weight in gold.
“He had a message for me?” Betty asked. Down the phone line, Trixie was taking another drag of her cigarette.
“Gawd only knows how you managed to get that slug to crawl out of ‘is slimy hole for you, Betty,” Trixie said, “but yeah, he had a message. He said to tell you that ‘the Tin Man wants a girl’. Does that mean something to you?”
“It certainly does. Did he say when?”
“Eleven o’clock tonight at some dive on South Street at the docks, hang on a minute –” Betty heard a paper rustling. ‘Dom Serdets’. Never heard of it.”
“I have.” After speaking to Slim Fred, Betty had spent two weeks stalking the dingy Russian bar in the hopes of catching the elusive Tin Man returning to his favorite haunt. It seemed the ghost was back. “I’ll drop by Kitty’s at ten o’clock, Trixie. I need to borrow another wiggle dress from your girls. I’m afraid the last one got a little torn.”
“Torn? What on earth did you do in it?”
“I plead the Fifth, darling.” Betty laughed. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She hung up.
So, the Tin Man is ready to send another butcher to bed, she thought. Only this time, he’ll get my knife, instead.
“You realize there is no way you’re going to meet him alone,” Jacob said, making Betty jump. She hadn’t noticed that he was standing behind her, no doubt listening in to the entire conversation. “Especially dressed like a two-bit hooker again.”
“Don’t be silly, Jake. You know I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
Lady Vigilante (Episodes 16 – 18) (Lady Vigilante Crime Compilations) Page 4
