Sometimes at Night

by Ben Sanders

  Quiet for a beat. Maybe she’d heard something in his tone, or maybe she had some additional context. She said, ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do this on the phone. Ray’s dead. He was shot last night.’

  Silence for a few seconds. Then she said quietly, ‘I don’t think I got your name.’

  ‘Marshall Grade. I was a colleague of Ray’s at NYPD.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘In your old building. The super gave me your number.’

  She said, ‘I work at the Junior High up the block. I’ll meet you on the corner of Eightieth and Thirty-fifth in twenty minutes.’

  He got there early. Not exactly a vibrant scene on a cold morning. Brick apartment buildings in all directions, tan and brutal and studded with AC units, sidewalk trees leafless and skeletal coming into winter. A 114th precinct car slowed as it came abreast of him, the two cops up front giving him a good long stare before driving on.

  Jordan Mora showed up after exactly twenty minutes. She was in her late thirties probably, shortish and trim, looking pretty stylish by most Junior High standards, Marshall figured. Jeans and a knit sweater and a tan coat that were all pretty flattering to his eye. He’d imagined some approximate replica of Ray Vialoux. Mid-fifties, male, ex-homicide, running on nicotine and statins and warfarin.

  A few people were standing at the corner waiting to cross, but she picked out Marshall with no trouble, walked up to him and said he looked like an ex-cop. Marshall smiled at that and shook the hand she’d extended. Obviously her preconceptions had been more useful than his own.

  She said, ‘I heard all about you. You worked with Vialoux at Manhattan North, right? With Jeff Lewis?’

  Testing him.

  Marshall shook his head. ‘No, Brooklyn South. With Alan Moretti and Angela Luciano in those days.’

  She made no reaction to that. She stood looking at him, hands in her coat pockets, a leather bag slung on one shoulder. She said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were at a restaurant last night, someone shot him through the window.’

  She took that in with a deep breath and then looked away, cupped one hand to her mouth, as if trying to keep her reaction contained. He saw her eyes fill, but she blinked it away. Breathed carefully through her lower teeth.

  ‘Do they know who or a why, yet?’

  Marshall said, ‘Still working on it.’

  Jordan Mora looked back the way she’d come, wind laying her hair across her face. She said, ‘I think we better sit down.’

  NINE

  She hadn’t moved far. She had an apartment on Thirty-fifth Street, in a brick building more or less identical to the one Marshall had just visited. It was only half a block away, visible from the corner with Eightieth. He felt awkward, walking along next to her in silence, but he didn’t want to come on too heavy with the Vialoux stuff. He asked if she was still a P.I.

  It took her a moment to respond, probably trying to drag her thoughts out of murder. ‘No. In fact, I never was, technically. My husband had the license. We ran the business together. He was CID with the state police, up in Massachusetts. Drugs detective. He got out early, we moved down here eight years ago. I actually started out as a cop, too. Plan was we were going to work together …’

  The story went on hold while she sorted through her keys and let them into her building. She led the way through the lobby and then up the stairs, telling him that they’d named the business after her, Jordan Mora Investigations, because it sounded better than Henry Mora Investigations. Better ring to it, somehow. She had an accent he couldn’t quite place: flattish, maybe a slight drawl, neutralized somewhat by New York exposure. He asked how long she’d known Vialoux.

  ‘Since we moved down from Boston. So, seven or eight years, I guess. I met him through Henry. We’re separated now, actually. We closed the business, but there’re obviously a few cards still floating around. Sorry, it’s a climb …’

  Her apartment was on level four. It was a small space, but Marshall liked the style. The floor had been stripped back to the original wood, and one wall in the living room was exposed brick. Scorch marks and cracks and daubs of paint all over it. He wasn’t sure if it was genuine wear and tear, or the result of that trend to make things look distressed. These days, half the places he bought coffee seemed decorated to imply imminent collapse.

  A boy of maybe twelve or thirteen was seated at the kitchen table with a pad of paper and a couple of textbooks. Jordan took off her coat and hung it on the chair beside him. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘Yeah. Sort of.’

  Jordan went to the TV in the corner and slid her hand behind it. ‘Nice try. It’s still warm.’ She nodded at a door. ‘Hang out in your room for a minute. I have a meeting.’

  The kid slumped, jutted his head forward with a slack face. ‘Can’t I just sit here?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to argue. Put your music on, treat it as a math holiday. Go on.’

  ‘Jeez, honestly …’ But he managed to drag himself away from the table. His bedroom door closed firmer than was strictly necessary.

  Jordan said, ‘Music, please.’

  Nothing for a moment. Then a stereo began playing. Jimi Hendrix, ‘Voodoo Chile’.

  ‘He told me he needed a day off school. I don’t think homework was in the plan, somehow. Have a seat.’

  They sat facing each other at the table, errant pages of algebra between them. Jordan tamped them together and slid them aside with the textbooks.

  ‘So you saw it. You were with him.’

  ‘Yeah. I was with him …’

  He hadn’t been sure how much to tell her, but it didn’t feel right, holding back. So far, the burden of trust was on her. She sat watching him as she listened, pensive and a little deflated now as she took in the details of his story. The shooting, the man at Hannah’s window the same night. The surveillance house with the old woman dead upstairs.

  ‘Oh, God. This was today?’

  ‘Yeah. Couple hours ago.’

  He told her about Mrs Lopez’ description of the little guy with the smile.

  Jordan shook her head, looked away. ‘A mob-run betting ring.’ Putting weight behind each word, like trying to drag it out of its own absurdity. ‘What the hell was he thinking?’

  ‘Did he ever mention to you that he was in trouble?’

  She hesitated. Her eyes cut across to him, and he saw with sudden clarity what he was doing.

  ‘Look, sorry …’ He took Nevins’ business card from his pocket, slid it toward her. ‘I didn’t mean to come in here and grill you. That’s the guy looking into it, Floyd Nevins. Give him a call if you like. I’ve spoken with him a few times.’

  ‘No, don’t worry …’ Faint smile. ‘You don’t seem too crazy.’

  She slid the card back across the table. ‘I hadn’t actually seen Ray for … well. Probably a year, I guess.’

  That made him pause. He said, ‘Hannah was under the impression you were still working cases with him.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It’s been at least a year. I wouldn’t have had the time, anyway. The school job’s a full-time role. I’m on their admin team.’

  He wondered if Hannah had simply been mistaken, or if Vialoux had seen a need for a small mistruth. Claiming he was out on cases while he was doing something else. Through the wall, Jimi was still going. He’d moved on to ‘All Along the Watchtower’.

  Jordan said, ‘They wouldn’t kill him over a debt. They’d want him alive so he can pay. Surely.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, too. But he’s definitely dead.’

  He regretted that as soon as he said it, and Jordan didn’t seem to know where to go from there. She stood up from the table and took a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of a drawer in the kitchen. She offered him the pack, one tan filter protruding.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I’m trying to quit. I’m down to one every twenty-four hours. I think I’m allowed two today, t
hough. All things considered …’

  She went to the kitchen window and lifted the sash a few inches, sat on the sill as she lit up. The building was in a U-shape, built around a rear courtyard. He could see a metal swing set and a slide down there.

  ‘You said you met Ray through your husband?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She seemed to hesitate, and then she said, ‘They were in AA together.’

  Obviously Ray had fallen off the wagon pretty hard.

  She said, ‘Ray was one of those people, he always seemed to be walking uphill. Drinking problem, and I think maybe a purpose problem, eventually. I think he loved police work so much, and then, you know: going through paperwork on insurance fraud cases wasn’t really the same. Didn’t really cut it.’

  ‘Hannah said something similar. How many cases did you work with him?’

  ‘Not many. Five? Six? Henry worked with him quite a bit over the years. I think they just liked hanging out. You know … stake out some guy cheating on his wife, pretend they’re on a murder case or something.’

  ‘What sort of work did you do with him?’

  ‘This and that. Fraud, surveillance. To be honest, when Henry and I split, I was going to close everything down. Like I say, he was the one with the license, so I couldn’t really keep it going above-board. But then I didn’t have anything permanent at the time – other work, I mean – so Ray said I could do some cases with him. But it just got to the point, it wasn’t worth it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shook her head, tapped ash out the gap in the window. He could see why cigarettes used to sell so well. Make a commercial with someone who looked like Jordan Mora smoking, people would buy them by the crate.

  She said, ‘There was some funny thing with Hannah. I think … well, I’m not actually sure. Ray said he was worried about telling her he was working with me. I don’t really know what the situation was, but, yeah. For whatever reason, he was pretending Henry was still on the scene.’

  He took a second with that, looking out the window, down at the courtyard. ‘She definitely told me you’re a Mr Mora.’

  ‘Right, well there you go. There was some kind of odd dynamic. At first I kind of thought, whatever: not my problem. But then I had other work coming in, I was part-time at the school, I could do without anything complicated.’ She shrugged. ‘I stopped taking on jobs with him.’

  ‘So you don’t know what he had on the books recently?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Hannah said he didn’t like talking shop at home—’

  ‘Yeah, that sounds like Ray—’

  ‘But she said he’d been hired by an art dealer or something? You hear anything about that?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah. I did, actually. He said it was two brothers who owned the place, and one thought the other was using the business to tidy up cartel money. I think he said he got about a week into it, and then the guy’s daughter called and told him her father was delusional, more or less. Apparently he’d been reading a book about drug money, started seeing laundering schemes everywhere. Kind of thing that can happen I suppose, when you’re old. Guy was about eighty-five, I think.’

  ‘Something to look forward to.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The only other one Hannah remembered from recently was a divorce job. Some billionaire executive. Plethora, I think she said.’

  ‘Oh, OK. That one was horrible. I helped Ray out with it. Don Madden, the guy’s name was. His wife was the client. She thought Madden was having an affair, and I think Madden had said he didn’t even know the woman involved. That’s what he’d apparently told the wife. Ray and I followed him around for ten days, and got a bunch of photos of him and this woman he’d supposedly never met.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Yeah. Good initially. Happy client. Well, vindicated client. Problem was, Madden then went and hanged himself.’ She looked away. ‘So that was … yeah. Sometimes they’re a lot harder than they should be. I still think about him. But that was … it must’ve been three or four years, I guess.’ She shook her head. ‘Not sure why she’d think it was recent. Same with the art dealer job. It’d be eighteen months ago that he mentioned it.’

  Marshall considered that, but he didn’t answer. He looked out the window. The swings were swaying gently in the breeze, as if ghost kids were playing on them. Man, he was thinking about ghosts all the time. He watched a blackbird descend in jagged frenzy on the crossbar of the swing frame. It ruffled for a second and then stood motionless in silhouette, as if ink-stamped on thin air.

  He said, ‘You ever know him to hang out with mob guys?’

  ‘Mob guys … I’m not sure. He was always around … well, characters. Just the nature of the work, he’d deal with people who owed something, or wanted something, or said they witnessed something.’ She shook her head. ‘So often you see them, you think: what angle are you playing? You know. Pretty obvious there’s some kind of calculation going on …’ She shrugged. ‘But yeah. Possibly he knew mob guys. But I couldn’t tell you any in particular.’

  ‘Frank Cifaretti? You ever hear that name?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘What about D’Anton Lewis?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, D’Anton. I’ve met him. Why?’

  ‘Ray said it was D’Anton who got him into this gambling scene.’

  ‘That’d be right. Ray’s done a few jobs for him.’

  ‘And how did you meet him?’

  ‘I went with Ray for a prelim on a job D’Anton wanted. Twenty-seventeen, I think it was. Good money, but in the end I thought I’d keep my distance. I remember Ray saying D’Anton had made money in commodities, but he might’ve had something extra on side.’

  ‘Illegal.’

  ‘Yeah. I asked him what he’d meant, all he said was he thought D’Anton might be a businessman.’ Raising her fingers to make inverted commas. The cigarette left a smoke-trace of the motion. ‘I told him if the guy’s that dubious, you shouldn’t take on the work. I’m not sure whether he did or not.’ She shrugged. ‘Might’ve just not told me. You remember that investment banker who got arrested on sex trafficking? Couple years ago, now?’

  ‘I read about it at the time. Jerry Erskine.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. Anyway, D’Anton bought his house. Over in Manhattan, Upper East Side.’ She came over to the table, faint perfume and smoke coming with her. She took her phone from her coat pocket and went back to the windowsill while she typed. ‘Yeah, here you go. East Seventy-third Street. Nice old place.’

  She turned the screen so he could see it. A street-shot of a three-story white town house.

  She said, ‘Looks like you’d need to be in commodities or trafficking to afford it, anyway.’ She put the phone beside her on the sill. ‘It was funny, these guys – Ray and Henry, I mean – they liked to think they were still police, still part of the law, which in theory put them on a different team from D’Anton. But guys like that …’ She thought about it for a second. ‘I don’t know. People seem to get in their orbit, can’t help but do a few loops.’

  That was a good way to put it. Marshall said, ‘I was undercover with the mob for a while. I know the feeling.’

  It was out of his mouth before he’d even really thought about it.

  Jordan’s eyebrows went up, mid-drag on the cigarette. ‘Oh, really? Here in New York?’

  Marshall nodded. ‘They had me with the Asaro family for a while. All those guys, yeah, like you say: they were just a bug light for people who liked power.’ He heard the implication of the line and said, ‘Even decent guys, you know. There’s a certain temptation to see what things look like on the other side of the wall.’

  She nodded, still looking at him as she drew on her cigarette. He could tell he’d piqued her interest with the UC mention. He thought she was going to ask him something else, but in the end she looked away.

  Marshall said, ‘You were a cop, too?’


  She nodded. ‘Police in New Zealand. Took a year out when I was twenty-four, came here on a Green Card thinking it was going to be a short-term thing. But then I met Henry.’

  ‘It’s not all sheep and hobbits, then?’

  ‘No. They definitely need cops. What do you do now? You a P.I., too?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I went cold turkey.’

  ‘So this is all unofficial, then?’

  He almost told her something about how he was here because of his friendship with Vialoux, and that had nothing to do with what was official or unofficial. But he said, ‘I just want to find out what happened.’

  The music went quiet for a second, and then Eric Clapton started playing ‘Layla’. The boy had good taste in music.

  Marshall said, ‘Do you know if your husband was still in touch with Ray at all?’

  ‘I don’t know. He lives in Cleveland now, so I can’t imagine they’ve seen each other for a while. You ever watched that show Capische? About the gangster?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The woman who wrote it, she brought in Henry as a consultant. And … well. They got on just terrific, put it that way.’

  That little smile again. He liked it. As if she was in on how the world worked, and it didn’t bother her too much.

  She said, ‘He moved to Ohio to be with her. That’d be three years ago, now.’

  The music volume spiked as the kid’s bedroom door opened. Clapton tearing into that famous riff before the chorus. He said, ‘You’re not meant to be smoking.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. This can be tomorrow’s one.’

  An interesting exchange, Marshall thought. Like they’d swapped roles for a moment. Filial parentage.

  The boy said, ‘Is the meeting still going?’

  Marshall stood up from the table. He said to Jordan, ‘Thanks for your help. Sorry to show up with such bad news.’

  ‘No, not at all …’ For a second it sounded like the news wasn’t bad, not that she didn’t blame him. She sent more cigarette ash out into the breeze, watched it disappear. ‘Nice to meet one of Ray’s fabled colleagues. Marshall, this is Jake.’