by Ann Aptaker
• • •
Either Marv and the linebacker sitting next to me are stupid, or it doesn’t matter if I see where we’re going. They didn’t blindfold me, didn’t put a bag over my head, so I guess they figure they’re taking me on that good old one-way ride. For the time being, at least until we get to wherever the hell we’re going, and despite the linebacker’s gun in my ribs, I’m more or less a tourist taking in the nighttime glow of tugboat and freighter traffic on the East River as we make our way uptown.
I have kinship with the crews of tugs and freighters. Like them, I do a lot of business on the river in the dead of night. They’re even helpful in letting their boats hide me in their shadows. Some of their captains know it, some of them don’t, and even if they do, they’d never talk. The waterfront doesn’t belong to the Law. It wouldn’t be as profitable or as much fun.
At a Hundred-Twentieth Street we pull away from the river and head up First Avenue to the Willis Avenue Bridge connecting Manhattan to the Bronx. The bridge is an old iron truss job that swings open for passing marine traffic on the Harlem River.
When we’re across, Marv drives us through residential neighborhoods whose rowhouses try their best to keep their scruffy dignity. At this hour, the area’s hardworking inhabitants are all tucked up and asleep.
The Pontiac keeps going. Rowhouses with the pride of well-swept stoops give way to the big brick warehouses and industrial behemoths of Hunts Point, dark now for the night.
Marv drives into an alley behind a small two-story factory— the High Style Tie & Handkerchief Company, the painted sign says— on East Bay Avenue. It’s the kind of seedy joint that pays their employees pennies for piece-goods work. I make a note never to buy anything made by the High Style Tie & Handkerchief Company.
A single light glows through a dirty window on the second floor.
Marv parks the Pontiac by the back door.
The linebacker with the gun in my ribs says, “Get out slow, Gold. Don’t try to run, don’t try anything funny or you’ll have bullets in your kneecaps.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, and get out of the car.
Marv takes a key from his pocket and unlocks the back door of the factory. Inside, he turns a light on in a dingy hallway, the air scratchy with dust. The big steel sliding doors to our left probably open to the factory floor.
Since we’re not here to make ties or handkerchiefs, Marv leads the way up the stairs. The linebacker with the gun follows behind me.
Upstairs, the second-floor hallway is dark except for a line of light seeping under one of the doors. Marv gives the door a knock. A guy’s voice answers, “Yeah?”
Marv says, “We got her. We got Gold.”
The guy inside says, “Bring her in.”
Marv opens the door, hauls me inside, and closes the door behind him. We’re in an office cluttered with stacks of ties, fabric samples, order books and other paperwork strewn on a gray metal desk and shelves lining the walls. Seated behind the desk, smoking a cigarette and reading a girlie magazine, is the answer to my prayers.
“Well,” I say, “this saves me the trouble of trying to find you, Tap. And by the way, when did you go into the tie and hankie business?”
He puts the magazine down, says, “It’s my cousin’s place. And I didn’t bring you here for your benefit, Gold.” Tenzi has what you might call a sweet-talk voice, smooth as a middle-of-the-night saxophone. The voice is completely at odds with the thrust of his square jaw in his pockmarked face, and the gray eyes that lack all warmth, humor, or any sign of brains. “I brought you here to put the fear of god into you,” he says. “So sit down.”
Marv and the linebacker push me down into a lumpy, green vinyl-covered chair facing the desk. Before I get the chance to thank them for their assistance, they use a couple of ugly neckties to secure my wrists to the chair’s wooden armrests. When I’m all trussed up, the two goons stand at my sides like lazy soldiers.
Tenzi gets up from behind the desk. His eyes stay on me as he takes off his suit jacket— a gray double-breasted number that didn’t come from a Fifth Avenue tailor— and places it on the back of his chair. His pinky ring, a showy thing with a bunch of little rhinestones pretending to be diamonds, flashes light as he rolls up the sleeves of his white shirt and loosens his tie, a red one with gray chevrons. I wonder if he stole it from his cousin’s factory.
He comes around to the front of the desk, takes the cigarette from his lips, drops it to the floor, and stubs it out with his foot. “Now,” he says, “you’re gonna tell me things. But first I’m gonna give you a reason to talk to me.” His reason arrives with the back of his hand and a wallop across my face, his pinkie ring tearing the flesh at the corner of my mouth.
I don’t know which annoys me more, the sting on my face or the blood dripping onto my pale green pullover. “Any more reasons like that, Tap, and you’ll break my jaw. I won’t be able to tell you a thing. So why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”
He twists a fist into the palm of his hand and says, “On my mind? All right, I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. Gettin’ rid of you, that’s what’s on my mind. You’re sick, Gold, sick and twisted. You’ve brought your sickness into my life twice now, and that’s two times too many.”
He wallops me again because I’m smiling. I’m smiling because I’ve heard this song before, heard it from men who want to punish me because some woman they’ve had their eye on turned out to be more interested in me then them, heard it from restaurant owners and maître d’s who’ve refused to serve me, from cops who’d sooner beat me up over a parking ticket than protect me from attack by irate straight-backs. I’ve heard this song before and laughed at it before, and the only thing that’s stopping me from laughing now is Tenzi’s next wallop across my face.
“So tell me, Tap,” I say, able to at least smile through the wallop’s sting and more drips of blood, “is all this about Lorraine Quinn or about Alice?”
Taunting him about Alice, riling him up even more, is probably not a good idea if I want to avoid more wallops, but I enjoy it anyway.
“Sure, go ahead, joke all you want,” he says, then bends to me and grabs the lapels of my coat. “You do understand you’re not gettin’ outta here alive.”
“Y’know, Tap, when they were handing out brains you must’ve been in the wrong line, the one where they were handing out toilet paper. Why would I tell you anything if you’re going to kill me anyway?”
He lets go of my coat, stands up, gives me a wide, toothy grin that crinkles the pockmarks on his face into squiggling worms, which pretty much sums up his personality. “Boys,” he says to Marv and the linebacker, “this pervert wants to know why she’s gonna tell me stuff. Whaddya think, Eddie?” he says to the linebacker. “Should we tell her? Or are we gonna let her figure it out for herself?”
Eddie says, “She don’t look too smart to me. Smart people don’t get dragged to the Bronx in the middle of the night.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, “I get it. I can either go out fast and easy, or hard and screaming. So let’s just get on with it, Tap. What the hell is this all about?”
He walks back around the desk, sits down and lights another cigarette, the rhinestone pinky ring flashing its cheap sparkle. “It’s about you, Gold. It’s about you snoopin’ around. Why are you snoopin’ around about who killed the Quinn woman?”
“Because she was murdered on my doorstep this morning— well, I guess by now it was really yesterday— that’s why. I don’t like blood and bodies on my doorstep ruining a sunny Tuesday morning. And I don’t like the cops that blood and bodies attract.”
“Then you shouldn’t be fooling around with weasels like Quinn.” The grin Tenzi gives me oozes disgust. “You’re revolting, Gold. And that Quinn woman was revolting. Y’know, it’s funny how it tied up. If I hadn’t followed her to that club and saw her come out with you and then go home with you, I’d never have figured she even knew you. If I’d known she was a pervert like you
. . . hah . . .”
“You could’ve used it against her? Threatened to expose her if she didn’t turn over the pictures of you with some sweetie so Alice wouldn’t have grounds to divorce you or couldn’t take you to the cleaners if she did? You wouldn’t have had to kill Quinn if you had those goods on her? That’s what I mean about you getting in the wrong line for brains, Tap. Killing Quinn would bring cops, sure, but killing her in front of my place would bring the kind of cops who already have me in their hunting sights. Didn’t you think I’d do everything I could to keep their hungry eyes off me and point them someplace else? Like finding the real killer of Lorraine Quinn?”
Tenzi’s not exactly squirming in his chair, but he’s not at ease in it either. So I keep pressing, try to find the spot that changes his mind about killing me. I know it’s a long shot, but with my wrists tied to the chair and two bruisers on either side of me, it’s my only shot.
“And another thing,” I say. “Quinn’s murder annoyed Sig Loreale. It attracted attention, which Sig doesn’t like. And he knows Quinn was tailing you for Otis Hollander. Oh yeah, he knows. So Sig, being a smart guy, puts two and two together, figures maybe you’re good for the Quinn killing because he knows what a vindictive, hair-trigger son of a bitch you are. In Sig’s eyes, the Quinn murder makes trouble and makes you a loose end, which means whatever deal you’d hoped to make with him went right down the toilet. And now he’s on your tail, Tap. And he’ll find you.”
I don’t need to finish that scenario. Tenzi’s clenched fists and the tight line of his lips say he gets the picture. Whatever torture he has in mind for me couldn’t come close to what Sig’s people could do to him. “So whaddya want, Gold?”
“Besides getting out of here alive? I want you to leave Alice alone.”
“And just how does that help me get out from under Loreale?”
“It doesn’t,” I say with a shrug. The action pulls the ties around my wrists but doesn’t loosen them, just digs them deeper into my skin. “Leaving Alice alone gets me off your back, though, Tap. That’s one less hunter coming after you.”
He thinks that’s funny. “You can’t come after me if you’re dead.”
“Sure, yeah, I see your point,” I say. “But a bunch of people will miss me, people who know I’ve been looking for you. Maybe they’ll figure I found you, or you found me first, but either way you knocked me off. You don’t want to annoy those people, Tap. One of those people will be Sig. You’ll never see the others.”
When Marv and Eddie first dragged me in here, Tap Tenzi was just a man on the run. Now he’s a desperate man on the run. He parks his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, fidgets with his ring, squints through the cigarette smoke lapping at his eyes, killing his play to stare me down. He gives up and takes the cigarette from his mouth, waves away the smoke and quickly gets back to his tough guy attitude. But this time there are cracks in it. Maybe I can sneak through the cracks and get the hell out of here.
“I tell you what, Tap,” I say. “Let’s make a deal. I’ve got a question for you. If you give me an answer I like, I won’t come after you if you let me go. And I’ll sweeten the deal by not telling Sig I saw you, or that your cousin owns this place. He won’t be able to sweat your cousin for information on your whereabouts if he doesn’t know about him. But you’ll have to leave Alice alone. If you come after her, I’ll make sure Sig finds you. If I were you, I’d think about leaving town. They say Tasmania’s nice this time of year.”
He chews on that idea like he’s chewing gum, his mouth and jaw working things over. Then he says, “What’s your question?”
“What do you know about the Eve Garraway killing?”
“Who the hell is Eve Garraway? Wait a minute. Isn’t she that politician’s kid I read about in the afternoon paper?”
“That’s the one.” The expression on Tenzi’s face is suddenly as innocent as a curious baby’s, just uglier. But it tells me he had nothing to do with the Garraway killing. The idea that Quinn’s killer and Garraway’s killer are the same person and that they’re out to frame me is a dead end. Eve’s killer is still out there.
Maybe I’m an inch closer to Tenzi letting me go, but maybe not. My wrists are still tied to the chair. Marv and Eddie are still at my sides. They have their guns. Marv has my gun. All I have is my wits. I search for another avenue of escape, come up with flattery, betting that Tenzi’s the type who falls for it. “By the way, Tap, smart move to shiv Quinn instead of shooting her. Quieter, neater that way, less likely to attract attention until you’re gone from the street. You probably had a car waiting at the curb, too.”
“Yeah, well, y’know, I’m a professional,” he says with sleazy pride. “Bullets are evidence. I don’t like to leave evidence. After I shivved Quinn, I just pulled the evidence out and had Marv drive me away. Neat and—”
Tap’s boast is drowned out by the smash of the door and a gravelly, “Hello, Tenzi,” from Lieutenant Huber. His gun’s out. So are the guns of the two blue boys with him.
If anyone had told me I’d ever be grateful to see a cop, especially Huber, I’d have made a reservation for them in the nuthouse. Instead, I say, “Well, congratulations, Lieutenant. That entrance was worthy of a smash hit on Broadway. Perfect timing, too. How the hell did you find this place? Not that I’m not glad to see you. Have one of your boys untie me, will you?”
He doesn’t answer me, just nods to his blue boys to put the cuffs on Tenzi, Marv and Eddie, who all look as if they’ve just eaten rotten meat.
Huber’s cops march their snarling captives out, presumably to waiting cars or a paddy wagon outside. Huber and I are alone.
He pushes his hat back, smiles at me with far too much pleasure for my taste. “Now that’s how I like to see you, Gold. Tied up and helpless.”
“Who knew you have such gaudy fantasies, Lieutenant? Too bad I’m the wrong object to satisfy them, but I can set you up with—”
“Shut up, Gold. So you didn’t kill Quinn, but you’re still in the picture for Garraway as far as I’m concerned. Too bad Tenzi didn’t spill for that one, too.”
“You heard his confession?”
“What do you think I was waiting for? I’ve been outside that door hoping that either he or you would confess. I hate to say it, Gold, but you would’ve made a good cop, the way you made him spill.”
“You wouldn’t like who I’d arrest and who I wouldn’t. But how’d you know to come here?”
“I got a call. Some dame said she saw you pushed into a car with two thugs. She got the plate number but didn’t give me her name, just hung up.”
Rosie. She must’ve followed me back to my place.
Huber says, “After your little episode—” the word episode comes out through a smutty smile—”with Tenzi’s wife today I had a hunch he might have been back of grabbing you. So I put out an APB on the car’s plate after I got that phone tip, and whaddya know, here you are.”
“How long you been out there? You were awfully quiet,” I say.
“It’s because I’m a good cop, Gold. A patient cop.” He looks at me when he says it. I can’t miss the implication: he’s patient enough to wait until he can cuff me.
He should live so long. With any luck, he won’t.
Chapter Eleven
It’s dawn on Wednesday by the time I fall into my bed, nearly noon by the time I wake up. Not because I want to wake up but because the phone beside my bed rings itself right into my dreams.
After my groggy hello, I hear, “Cantor? It’s Vivienne. You sound like you’ve— well, never mind how you sound. Your life is your own business.”
“And good morning to you too, Vivienne. To what do I owe the pleasure of having your lovely voice rouse me from my bed?”
“You’re meeting me for cocktails at five-thirty this afternoon at my house.”
“I am?” Funny thing about the upper crust. Invitations are for people they consider their peers. They simply order everyone else around.
Viv
ienne says, “Well, if you want to meet Dierdre Atchley you’ll be there.”
“Then I guess I’ll be at your house for cocktails. Thanks for setting this up.”
“You’ll owe me, Cantor.”
“Don’t I always?”
• • •
After two cups of coffee and a bagel at Pete’s, where Doris approves of my brown silk suit but not the new gash at the corner of my mouth, I get to my office a little after two o’clock to check in with Judson and pick up a .38 to replace the one Marv took from me and that’s now and forever in the custody of the cops. No matter. I’ve got spares.
Judson’s grinning like a Cheshire cat when I walk in. His smile fades a little, but just a little, when he notices the damage at the corner of my mouth.
“What’s making you so happy?” I ask.
“You see the morning paper?”
“Not yet. Why?”
He hands me this morning’s Daily News, open to the page he wants me to see and the story that made him smile. The headline reads, GANGSTER TENZI NABBED FOR MURDER. It’s a swell story, all the better because there’s no mention of my association with Tap’s victim, identified as secretary Lorraine Quinn. Huber’s given all the glory as the arresting officer in a “middle of the night raid at a factory in the Bronx.” The story’s accompanied by a photo of Tap Tenzi in handcuffs, scowling. I bet he’s annoyed he didn’t make the front page.
Judson says, “Looks like you’re out from under the Quinn rap. But what’s with that nasty wound?”
“A gift from Tenzi before he was arrested.”
His eyes widening behind his wire-rims, Judson says, “You were there?”
“Uh-huh,” is all I say as I walk into my private office and close the door.
I open the safe behind my desk, pull out a spare .38 Smith & Wesson, then dial Sig’s number. The receiver’s cradled under my chin as I load the chambers of my gun.
One of his flunkies answers.
