“Thanks just the same,” I said.
The elevator came and we got aboard and pushed the ground-floor button. The doors slid shut, cutting off my view of Lydon’s bewildered and flustered face.
As we rode down, Kerrigan said, “I suppose he was lying about Rita.”
“I should think so,” I said.
“She made a pass at everybody in sight,” he said. “There’s no reason to skip Joe Lydon.”
I said, “I suppose he’s lying now because he took her up on it when she approached him.”
“You think he’s our man?”
“I have no idea. There’s no reason to suppose she did anything but turn him down. Embarrassment and humiliation would make him tell the same lie now as if he were guilty of murder.”
“He’s still the best shot so far,” Kerrigan insisted.
“Possibly,” I said. I saw no point in adding that he himself seemed a much more likely object for Rita Castle’s illicit passion than did Joseph Lydon.
Besides, my main attention at the moment wasn’t directly on Lydon or the problem of Rita Castle at all, but was on myself. I was noticing, with some sardonic amusement, how I was beginning to behave like the old fire horse who’s heard the alarm bell. Despite myself my interest in this job was growing, and I was becoming impatient to see the rest of the actors, to hear their voices, read their faces and their houses, sniff of their private lives.
And that note; I wanted to see once more that note from Rita Castle.
fifteen
THERE WAS ONE INTERVIEW left tonight, with an airline executive named Paul Einhorn, and for that we headed back to Manhattan in yet another cab, bucketing westward along the Long Island Expressway.
During the trip, as usual, Kerrigan filled me in on the man we were to see. Einhorn, like Lydon, was a second-generation associate, a man whose father had been directly involved in the rackets, while the son’s involvement was much more indirect. The significant differences between Einhorn and Lydon were that Einhorn was single, that Einhorn’s mobster father and two mobster uncles were all still alive, and that Einhorn had made the break into legitimate business himself, rather than riding along with his father as Lydon had done.
“Paul is what you might call a slummer,” Kerrigan said. “He’s strictly in a square business, works for one of the big airlines companies, but through his father and his uncles he’s got this in and he gets a kick out of being around real gangsters.” A touch of sarcasm twisted the last few words of the sentence.
I said, “There’s no mutual back-scratching? With Lydon there is.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Kerrigan. “Wait till you see him, you’ll see why.”
“Would I know about his father?”
“I don’t know. Mike Einhorn, he used to operate in the city here years ago, him and his two brothers.”
“Where are they now?”
“Florida.”
“Still in the corporation?”
Kerrigan grinned. “Still in.”
“But the son isn’t.”
“Like I say, wait till you see him.”
I said, “It seems as though the more people I see, the further I get away from the mob. Doesn’t Rembek have any professional friends?”
Kerrigan shrugged and said, “Well, there’s me. And Eustace Canfield. And that accountant you met, Pietrojetti. There were others on the list Ernie made up, too, but they’ve all got alibis.”
“What a coincidence.”
“Not so much,” he said. “A man in the corporation, he has a natural tendency to keep himself covered, just in case. He lives his life as though tomorrow he’ll have to explain it all in court.”
“You mean the alibis might be faked?”
“No, I mean people who get harassment from the cops after a while learn to know where they were at such and such a time, and be able to prove it.”
I almost made an angry automatic response, to deny police harassment of anyone, but stopped myself in time. In the first place, what Kerrigan said was true, there was harassment of known professional criminals because sometimes it paid off. And in the second place, what difference did it make what Kerrigan said or whether or not I defended the Department?
Paul Einhorn lived in Greenwich Village, an area of the city in which everything has changed in the last generation but the name. The artists and writers and bohemians who made that name famous are mostly gone now, and in their places are the young middle-class white-collar workers whose lives are enriched by a Greenwich Village address. Modern apartment buildings—exactly like those in, say, the Jamaica section of Queens—have been built on the old landmarks to house these people, and in one of them we found Paul Einhorn.
He was very drunk. He met us at the door with that foolish grin to be found on the faces of people who get drunk in order to have an excuse for their offensive behavior. “Couldn’t wait,” he announced. “Had to go on ahead. Come on in and catch up.”
He staggered away from the door, leaving it open, slopping his drink on the parquet floor as he went. Kerrigan and I entered, shut the door, and followed him into an underfurnished modern living room with a view of Sheridan Square.
Einhorn was at a portable bar, his back to us. He was wearing black trousers, white shirt, black bow tie, white dinner jacket, but neither socks nor shoes. He was about twenty-five, with fine sandy hair already showing a tendency to thin. He was tall and very slender, with a good-looking but somewhat lax face, on which a little Errol Flynn mustache looked like an appeal for pity.
Over his shoulder, as he stood unsteadily at the bar, he called, “What’s your pleasure, gents?”
I said to Kerrigan, “Put some steel in him.”
Kerrigan grinned at me and nodded and went across the room to where Einhorn was clattering glasses and bottles together, weaving as he stood at the bar, his head sunk forward onto his chest. Kerrigan put an arm across Einhorn’s shoulders and leaned his head close and began to murmur to Einhorn, who stopped moving his hands among the glasses and bottles and who appeared either to be listening intently or to have gone to sleep.
A stereo phonograph was playing slow jazz. I went over to the window and looked out at Sheridan Square, which is always surprisingly dark, much darker than an intersection that large and busy should be. Traffic thudded south on Seventh Avenue, a Volkswagen turned very slowly into Christopher Street, a cab picked up a young couple in front of Jack Delaney’s restaurant. Out of the subway exit by the all-night newsstand came a young girl—under twenty, I mean—carrying something that looked like a violin case, only bigger. Maybe a cello case. She crossed Seventh Avenue when the light changed, lugging the cello case, and disappeared into Grove Street.
Kerrigan said, “Mister Tobin.”
I turned and saw Einhorn over by the telephone, slowly dialing, giving the project all his concentration. Kerrigan, in the middle of the room, said to me, “Paul’s calling down to the deli for coffee. Care for anything?”
His expression told me we were humoring Einhorn, so I said, “Thanks. A coffee regular would be good.”
Einhorn had finished dialing by now. Kerrigan went over and helped him give the order. Whatever he’d said to the boy earlier must have been impressive; Einhorn looked very nearly sober, and wide-eyed with apprehension.
When the order was successfully given, Kerrigan said, “Paul, why don’t you go wash your face while we wait? Make you feel a lot better.”
“Good idea,” said Einhorn unsteadily. “Very good idea.” Nodding slowly and carefully and interminably, he moved at a careful pace from the room.
Kerrigan came over to me and said, “He’ll be all right. Better wait till the coffee comes before you try to talk to him.”
“All right.”
“I told him if he didn’t straighten up, Ernie’d have to tell his father he wasn’t co-operating, and then the old man would make him come live with him in Florida again.”
“He has trouble with his father?”
; “They’re different breeds.” Kerrigan grinned and said, “Personally, I’ve always figured he was the milkman’s boy. Anyway, you see why the corporation doesn’t do business with him.”
“This is frequent?”
“If frequent means all the time, the answer’s yes.”
On the phonograph, the record came to a quiet end. We listened to the clicks of machinery, and then an album of jazz guitar began. I turned back to the view again and watched things happen on Sheridan Square, seeing the elderly delivery boy coming across the street in his apron with a green paper bag containing our order.
He arrived before Einhorn came back from washing up. Kerrigan paid, showed the delivery boy out, and said to me, “I’ll get Paul.”
“All right.”
I stood by the window, watching the street and listening to the music, and I found myself playing the game called Might Have Been. It is a game played by people who are having trouble ignoring how intolerable their lives have become. Night scenes and guitar music are two powerful stimulants of the game.
What was I doing here, in this sad room, looking at that sad street, listening to that sad music, involving myself in all these sad lives? How came I here?
I was trying to open the window when Kerrigan came back into the room, running, crying, “He’s gone!”
“I know,” I said, still struggling with the window. “He just went out, he’s down—”
There he was, shoes on now, trotting diagonally across the Square. Before I could get the damn window open he’d flagged a cab. In it, he disappeared down Seventh Avenue.
sixteen
I SAID TO ERNIE REMBEK, “I hope we’re not disturbing your wife.”
“She isn’t here,” he said impatiently. “She’s away. Come on in, tell me about it.”
We’d already told him about it, or at least Kerrigan had, over the phone from Einhorn’s place. But Rembek had insisted we come directly over to his apartment to give him the complete story. Because there were things I wanted to see Rembek for myself, I’d agreed.
Now we were here, having been let in by the same formally dressed football player as the first time. This time, however, we hadn’t been delivered to the office, but instead were ushered to a sort of den or library, a very masculine and even stuffy place that looked most like some organization’s clubroom rather than like a room in a private home. Black leather chairs and sofas, dark wood built-in bookcases floor to ceiling, long dark draperies over the windows; all it lacked was two or three elderly members sleeping in the chairs.
Rembek was, with some impatience, insisting on playing host, and I agreed to a Scotch and water, which the football player went away to get, along with Kerrigan’s Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Rembek already had a brandy and a cigar going.
Now, all three of us sitting around like new members of the club, Rembek asked me again to tell him all about it.
“You already know all about it,” I said. “We told you the whole thing on the phone.”
“Tell me again.”
“He was drunk when we got there. Kerrigan used some slight pressure to get him to straighten up. He phoned a delicatessen for coffee, and then went off to wash his face. At Kerrigan’s suggestion.”
Rembek looked hard at Kerrigan. “Why?” he demanded.
I said, “It was the right thing to suggest. If Kerrigan hadn’t done it, I would have. Einhorn needed cold water on his face, among other things. At any rate, the coffee was delivered, and then Kerrigan went to get Einhorn and he was gone. I was looking out the living-room window, and just as Kerrigan came back with the news I saw Einhorn leave the building and get into a cab.”
“Which way did the cab go?”
“That doesn’t matter. Seventh Avenue is one-way south, so the cab went south. He could have been heading anywhere.”
Rembek chewed angrily on his cigar. After a minute he said, “Well? Do you think that’s it?”
“Do I think that’s what?”
“Damn it! Do you think he’s the one? Did he kill Rita?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it looks like it, doesn’t it? He ran, didn’t he?”
“He was drunk,” I said. “I understand he’s afraid of his father.”
Kerrigan said to Rembek, “I told the kid you’d have to tell Mike he wasn’t co-operating if he didn’t straighten up, and then Mike might make him go live down there again.”
“Those morons,” Rembek said in disgust.
I said, “Who? Einhorn and his father?”
“No. Mike Einhorn and his brothers. It’s no wonder the son’s the way he is.”
“Why? Tell me about it.”
But impatience was too strong in Rembek. Loudly he said, “What difference does it make? They’re in Florida, for Christ’s sake, they didn’t kill Rita!”
“But maybe the son did,” I said. “So tell me about his home in Florida. Why should he be so afraid to go back to it?”
Rembek took a deep breath, trying for a firm grip on the reins of his impatience, holding himself in check. “There are three Einhorn brothers,” he said, “Mike and Sam and Alex. They live together and they think they’re lumberjacks, all three of them. Indian wrestling, you know the sort? They’ve got a swimming pool on the grounds, they’re constantly racing each other back and forth. Or they’ll bring up a whore from Miami, they’ll make bets which of them can put it to her the most times before six o’clock.”
“Very hairy-chested,” Kerrigan put in quietly. “Paul’s more delicate.”
“If there’s any such thing as a heterosexual faggot,” Rembek said, “Paul’s it.”
I said, “Where’s his mother?”
Rembek shrugged. “Who knows? She was some bimbo Mike married when he was too drunk to know better. She ran out when Paul was a baby.”
I said, “I’ve got his occupation listed as airline executive. What does that mean exactly?”
“It means he works for Transocean Airways. Public relations.”
“Did the corporation get him the job?”
“No. I suppose he talked his way into it at some cocktail party He’s one of your college-educated lushes, they’ve always got good desk jobs someplace, public relations or advertising or research-and-development or something like that. You know the kind I mean.”
“And his only connection with the corporation is through his father?”
“Right.”
“You don’t do any smuggling through him or anything like that.”
“You saw him,” Rembek said. “Would you trust him with anything important?”
“No,” I said.
Rembek shrugged. “Neither would we. He never made the offer and we never made the suggestion.”
Kerrigan said, “He made an offer to me one time.”
We both looked at him. Rembek said, “When was this?”
“Year or two ago, right after he got the job with the airline. He came up to me at a party and said, ‘Anything you want from the old country, buddy, you want me to slip anything through customs, just give me the word.’ He was stewed, so I said thanks, I’d let him know, and that’s all either of us ever said about it.”
Rembek said, “He never talked like that to me at all.”
I said, “His father and uncles, are they retired?”
“Who, them? Not on your life. They run some gambling operations down there. Florida’s a big state for bettors, you know.”
“But they don’t come up here at all?”
“Maybe once a year, not even that much.”
“They wouldn’t know Rita Castle.”
Rembek snorted. “Them? I wouldn’t introduce those crazy bastards to my cleaning woman.”
“All right. You’ll send some people to look for the son?”
“They’re already out,” Rembek said grimly.
“Frankly,” I said, “I doubt he’s our man. So he should be treated gently.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The boys I sent out aren�
�t supposed to do anything but find him.”
“Good.”
Rembek sipped at his brandy, put it aside, and said, “You get anything else done tonight?”
“I saw some people,” I said. “I don’t have anything to report yet.”
“I’ll have alibi reports on the six new ones by tomorrow morning,” he said. “You want them sent to the office?”
“Yes. There’ll be someone there after nine o’clock.”
“Right. I also spread the word around a little, about what you’re doing. If anybody knows anything or finds out anything, they’re supposed to get in touch with you at the office.”
“Good.” I set my drink down and said, “There were a couple of matters I wanted to go over with you tomorrow, but as long as I’m here I might as well take care of them now.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I told you about being contacted by two Homicide detectives. One of them suggested you might have hired me to help smoke-screen the fact that you killed Rita Castle yourself. I said I didn’t believe it, and I still don’t believe it. But it is possible. She ran out, you found her, you killed her and took back the money. Then you hired me to stir things up, muddy the waters a little.”
Rembek gave a crooked grin and said, “Does that sound like my style?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’d like to cover every possibility.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’d like your alibi for Wednesday night, too. Could I have it with the others tomorrow morning?”
“I can give it to you right now,” he said.
“I mean, verified,” I said.
He shook his head. “You aren’t going to get it verified. I spent Wednesday night here, all by himself. I can’t even have Eleanor—have my wife verify it. She wasn’t here.”
“Where was she?”
“Visiting friends,” he said shortly.
“The same place she is now?”
“She’s spending a couple of weeks,” he said.
“When did she leave?”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know, maybe none. When did she leave?”
Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death Page 9
