Criminal Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  “Nope. Zigzagged through Times Square, used a trick Rosie taught me to get through the Bow Tie. If there was anybody on my tail, they’re still stuck in the cabbie traffic in front of the Hotel Astor. And, oh yeah, thanks for not getting my car seat all wet. What’d you do? Get caught in the wake of Drogan’s tug?”

  “Didn’t the radio spielers fill you in?”

  Judson turns the radio down low, says, “I roamed the dial for any bulletins. Ortine’s name never came up. Neither did yours. Just quickie cut-ins about Sig Loreale’s lady taking a dive—oh no, for cryin’ out loud, Cantor. Please tell me you’re not tangled up in that.”

  “That’s what I’m tangled up in. The lady crashed right down on my boat. Nearly killed me.”

  “And the emerald?”

  “At the bottom of the river. Along with my boat. Let me have one of your smokes.”

  Judson unzips his lumber jacket, the brown leather whispering in its lifelike way, and reaches into his shirt pocket for his pack of Luckies. He hands me the pack as I press the cigarette lighter on the dashboard of the Chevy. With one of Judson’s Luckies between my lips, I say, “You reached Rosie?”

  “Yeah. She’s hauling a fare from the Copa to Seventy-Third and Park, but she’ll meet us at the office after. Cantor, what the hell are you getting into?”

  The dashboard lighter pops out with a click. I grab it and bring it to the end of the cigarette, my nerves overdue for a deep, calming drag. The lighter’s hot coil glows bright red, the same color as the swirling light on the coroner’s meat wagon. I see Opal Shaw all over again.

  Chapter Three

  Every muscle and bone in my body needs a stiff drink and a hot shower by the time Judson pulls into the alleys behind a row of small warehouses and factory buildings along Twelfth Avenue. A tumbler of Chivas is my usual medicine of choice for what ails me, but tonight I doubt any amount of booze will kill the bitter taste of losing my small boat and that big emerald. That’s a lot of money at the bottom the East River. And even if I guzzle the juice ’til I’m blotto, I doubt I’ll ever get rid of the memory of Opal Shaw all twisted and busted up. Nobody deserves to die like that, broken and tossed away like useless goods.

  But a scotch and a shower will at least warm the ache out of my muscles and smooth the goose bumps off my flesh. Relief from those irritations is very near now, inside the one-story brick job I own at the end of one of the alleys.

  It’s a perfect setup for my racket: a nondescript building at the corner of Twelfth Avenue with the Hudson River’s passenger ship piers across the street and the protective shadow of the West Side Highway overhead. By night, unless a liner’s coming in, the streets around here are as empty as an old lady’s handbag. The cheap luncheonettes where dockworkers grab a sandwich and a cuppa coffee are closed. The worn-out souls who eke out a living doing piecework in the neighborhood’s small-time factories have gone home to their shabby apartments.

  By day, though, it’s a different story. The neighborhood’s a horn-honking tangle of delivery trucks, handcarts, and taxi cabs that can tie up any cop car that’s trying to get to me before I can stash whatever needs stashing—that is, if the cops even knew I own the place. My lawyer buried the title so deep, in so many layers of paperwork, you’d need a pickax to get to the bottom and you’d still never find my name.

  And chances are you won’t see many cops around here anyway. Like all the piers in the Port of New York, those docks across the street are Mob turf, sewn up tight through the pistol local of the longshoremen’s union, where union votes are tallied with bullets, squealers wind up dead, and cops are paid to stay clear. So if he knows what’s good for him, the only reason for a cop to show up around here is to have a friendly drink with one of the boys and pick up an envelope stuffed with cash, some of it mine.

  As for any other Joes and Janes who might be innocently wandering around outside, their attention is nicely diverted by some of the more glamorous activity that goes on across the street along the twelve-block stretch of piers called Luxury Liner Row. The most famous ocean liners in the world dock over there, so why pay attention to my scruffy hideaway when you can ogle the sleek lines of the Queen Mary or the Ile de France and their first-class passengers? Who knows? You might even see the Duke and Duchess of Windsor coming down the gangplank, or better yet, a movie star, maybe that cute Betty Grable showing off those million-dollar legs.

  But if anyone ever does notice my squat little building, they’d never guess that the blacked-out front door opens on nothing but a wall, that the real access is through the maze of alleyways in the back, or that my building’s ramshackle exterior camouflages a big-money business with a false wall in the basement that conceals a room-size vault. Inside that vault are treasures that curators and collectors would kill for. Do kill for. Collectors like Gregory Ortine, who right now is probably thinking about killing me.

  That idea nips at my heels as I get out of the car.

  Judson unlocks the sliding steel door at the back of the building and walks inside, making sure the steel shutters are bolted before he turns a light on at his desk. But I don’t wait for the light. I want that shower and I need that drink and I don’t need light to find my way to my private office. This place and its secrets are as much home to me as my apartment.

  I’m out of my wet clothes by the time I turn my desk lamp on. The lamplight settling around the room makes me feel cozier already, right at home among the grade A furnishings I’ve brought in, all of it earned by the sweat of my brow and my finger in the Law’s eye. The lamplight brings out the patina of my walnut desk, deepens the color of the oxblood sofa, and throws soft shadows across a pale green club chair whose leather is so smooth and supple that sitting in it is like being embraced by a mistress who’s worth every dime she costs you.

  I even sleep here sometimes, on the couch, if I need to babysit a treasure before delivery or if I have to lie low until certain situations cool off. Tonight may be one of those situations, depending on who’s in a more murderous mood: mobster Sig Loreale or clip-joint racketeer Gregory Ortine. But I’ll be okay if I have to stick here tonight. There’s food in the icebox, plenty of coffee, and I always make sure there are two virgin bottles of Chivas backing up the bottle that’s already working.

  A glass of scotch comes with me into the shower. The hot water soothes my scars and massages my knotted muscles, but it’s the whiskey that oozes life and heat into my gut, opens me up for the luxury of that first warm, moist breath after I turn the shower off. The steamy air rolls through me, cleans out the poison of Sergeant Feek’s dirty mind and stinking breath. But the death of Opal Shaw still haunts me, and with the memory of Miss Shaw’s death comes the problem of Sig Loreale and what he wants of me.

  I’ll know soon enough, and I’d better be sharp when I meet with Mister Big Shot. He can spot weakness a mile away.

  I take out a dark green silk suit and a light blue cashmere pullover from the closet across from the washroom. With each piece of clothing I put on—the trousers, the cashmere, a pair of powder-blue silk socks, brown oxfords, and an alligator-band wristwatch—I’m restored to my favorite mood: brazen. Even my hair is brazen, an intractable brown mop that no barber can tame. Some women like it, some don’t. The ones who don’t are usually too tame of spirit for me anyhow.

  The last bits of my outfit are in the safe behind my desk. I grab a set of spare keys from the top shelf: car keys, office keys, the keys to my apartment. But my fingers wrap tight around a specific key, the key to Sophie’s apartment on East Sixty-Third Street where I’d spent the night from time to time after she went missing. I figured I’d protect the place, keep an eye on her furniture, her clothing, all the little personal things Sophie used to pick up and put down.

  There’s a framed photo in the safe, too. I took it from Sophie’s apartment. It’s a picture of me and Sophie, an enlargement of one of those Times Square twenty-five-cent photo booth snaps taken when we went out for breakfast after the first night we
made love. We’re grinning at each other like love-struck teenagers with a secret, a secret as exciting as it was dangerous, a secret that could get us locked up or beat up, but that morning we didn’t care. We’d found paradise in each other and together we’d face whatever danger the world’s hatred would throw at us. I kept the photo on my desk for a while but finally had to stow it in the safe. Seeing it every day was driving me over the edge again.

  I don’t go to Sophie’s place much these days. Like I said, I’m free of that madness now. I keep the rent up to date, though, in case Sophie finds her way home.

  I stash my key ring in my trouser pocket, take a spare billfold, a backup driver’s license, and a hundred cash in small bills from a strongbox that also contains Ortine’s down payment of ten G’s. Nice wad. He’ll want it back. I don’t want to give it to him.

  A shoulder holster and the spare .38 I keep at the office finish up my dressing routine. I load the gun’s chambers, snap the barrel back, and slip the gun into the rig. No doubt I’ll have to hand it over to one of Loreale’s thugs before I’m ushered into the boss’s presence, but odds are good I’ll get it back afterward, and with Ortine and his thugs on the prowl I’m not about to hit the street naked.

  After I grab extra rounds and put them into my trouser pocket, I close the safe, slip my suit jacket on, and top it off with a blue silk pocket handkerchief. The deep green of my suit shimmers in the lamplight. I like silk suits. I like the way silk feels and I like the way silk shines.

  Okay, I’m ready to face the big bad boogeyman named Sig Loreale.

  There’s a quick tap on my office door, followed by a breathy “Cantor?” It’s Rosie.

  “C’mon in.” The door opens, Rosie steps inside. Judson follows her. Rosie must’ve driven here straight from her last cab fare. She’s still wearing her driver’s duds and cap.

  The glow from the desk lamp sits even better on Rosie than it does on my silk threads or my fine furniture. Light always sits well on Rosie, settles naturally on her peaches-and-cream complexion, turns her blond hair the color of mist. But don’t let the dainty-damsel details fool you. Rosie Bliss handles an automobile better than any wheelman in town. She can slice through clogged New York City traffic with the daring of a race-car driver and the precision of a brain surgeon.

  She also has a way of sitting down that never fails to attract my attention, an effortless, subtle sashay that flows naturally from her most luscious parts. I watch with pleasure as she unzips her jacket and sits down in the club chair with a gently rolling motion that carves curves in the air around her. Her blue work shirt doesn’t do justice to her breasts, full and luscious as a Classical Venus. But that’s all right. I know what’s there. I’ve gotten lost in them often enough.

  Rosie pulls out a pack of smokes from her jacket pocket and lights one up. Through an exhale of smoke that curls around her face as seductively as a belly dancer’s veil, she says, “I was hoping to go home and get all dressed up before we go out. Plans changed?”

  “Sorry, Rosie. Yeah, plans changed. An appointment suddenly came up, but I don’t want my car spotted there. And I have things I want Judson to do here, so I need a ride in the cab.”

  “Where we goin’?”

  “Sig Loreale’s place.”

  Judson sits down on the couch with a thump I didn’t think possible from a kid with such a skinny build. He’s looking straight at me, eyes wide behind his glasses, an expression on his face like he’s figuring the arrangements and cost of my funeral.

  Rosie says, “Yeah, it’s been in the papers all week about Loreale gettin’ out tonight. What’s it got to do with you?”

  “You hear what happened to his lady, to Opal Shaw?”

  “Nope. Didn’t have the news on in the cab.”

  “Opal took a dive off the Brooklyn Bridge, landed on my boat.” I give Rosie and Judson the whole story, from pushing off under the bridge to make a dash for Red Drogan’s tug, all the way through to the guy with the gun at my back while he delivered Loreale’s post-prison social invitation. “And listen, Rosie, I’ll keep you out of this as much as I can, but I don’t want my Buick on the street at Loreale’s place. It’s better if I leave it in my spot in Louie’s garage in case the cops have an eye out for it, now that they’ve fished me out of the river. They don’t need to know I’ve got business with Loreale.”

  “Sure, I’ll carry you,” she says. She takes a deep drag of her smoke, looks at me in a way I like. There’s nothing tame of spirit about my beautiful soldier. She handles trouble with a wink and a kiss. It’s even how she handles me. Rosie knows that sharing sex and crime with me doesn’t mean sharing my heart, at least not all of it, and that my bed entertains other women. If she wants more of me, she hasn’t said so. Rosie’s too smart to corner me.

  Speaking soft and low, giving every word an erotic promise she knows I go for, she says, “Working with you is a lot more fun than hauling cab fares. And the side benefits aren’t bad, either.” Rosie’s smile comes at me sideways but with perfect aim, hitting me in the juiciest of places. I give her a smile back, let it pass the message that after I take care of Loreale’s business, we’ll make time for those side benefits before sunrise.

  Judson says, “And what about Gregory Ortine? That vicious son of a bitch is almost as dangerous as Loreale.”

  “Almost as dangerous. I’m putting him in your lap for a while, Judson. I want you to stay here and get hold of Red Drogan, find out what went on with Ortine after the louse up on the river. Then tap your other sources and get a current line on Ortine, find out where he is and what he’s up to. I’ll check in with you later.”

  I take a pack of Chesterfields, a book of matches, and a penknife from my desk drawer, then grab a brown tweed overcoat and green checkered cap from the closet. On my way through the office I run my finger along Rosie’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  Some people are born dangerous. I figured it out when I was just a ten-year-old kid in scruffy dungarees in Coney Island during the wild days of Prohibition and I’d see Solly Schwartz walking around. He was a short roly-poly guy with a monkey’s grin, but he could cut you in half with one swipe of his steel-gray eyes. Everybody in Coney Island—the soda and ice cream peddlers on the beach, candy butchers along the boardwalk, glad-handing thrill-ride operators, and singsong barkers who’d lure the suckers into the fun houses and arcades—they all knuckled under to Fat Solly, forced to pay kickbacks and protection money to Coney Island’s brutal boss of the underworld.

  But in the hard world of dangerous men, Solly and his gang of bruisers were no match for the sly genius of the young Sig Loreale when Loreale and his assassins started muscling in. Sig had three things Fat Solly didn’t: a strategy, the brains to carry it out, and a disciplined bunch of murderers to enforce it by killing not only those who got in Sig’s way, but also his rivals’ girlfriends, wives, their kids, even their household pets, as a warning to any potential interlopers. The outfit’s methods ran the gamut from a simple shooting to breaking a mark’s arms and legs and hurling him into oncoming traffic, or binding a guy in rope from his neck to his feet, then tying bricks to his ankles and tossing him into the Atlantic Ocean for the fish to nibble his eyes out. And those were only the ones we heard about, stories whispered in the clam bars, the bathhouses, my school yard. We knew there were plenty more we didn’t hear about.

  Sig’s businesslike ruthlessness was sleek and modern, never seen before by the clannish old-school Coney Island bosses. Solly and his crowd couldn’t muster a quick-footed defense against it, couldn’t stop Sig from grabbing the amusement ride and sideshow skim offs, the illicit whiskey operations, the gambling joints and sex trade, all the moneymaking fun of Coney Island.

  One hot and sticky August afternoon during a lull in Sig and Solly’s gang war, I was having a swell time at a Kewpie-doll concession, shooting BBs at a moving line of painted tin ducks, when a strong-arm thug grabbed me by the rope belt around my dungarees. The g
uy just about lifted me off the ground. The Kewpie-doll huckster looked the other way when the thug grabbed me. I flailed and yelped like a terrified pup, but the huckster didn’t lift a finger. He knew the price of interfering.

  The thug hauled me to a shabby room above Hobart’s Gypsy Danceland, a dime-a-dance joint near the Wonder Wheel ride. I’d have choked on the stifling air in the room, bristly with sand and dust, except I was too scared to breathe. It didn’t help that the Wonder Wheel’s hurdy-gurdy music was muffled by the closed window, made the music sound far away, and put my cozy world of childhood fun terrifyingly out of reach.

  A pale, skinny guy walked in and killed that childhood world altogether when he pulled the window shade down. He turned a light on, a naked overhead bulb whose glare made the room even uglier, colored the dusty air yellowish-green. He knocked on a door to another room. I don’t know if he knocked loud or lightly, but it sounded like a firing squad to me. I closed my eyes real tight, crinkled my face, a kid’s defense against being scared.

  But when I heard the door open, my eyes opened, too. I guess a kid’s curiosity is stronger than a kid’s fear. Coming through the door was a guy who was a lot older than me but a lot younger than my old man. His face was as flushed and fleshy as boiled meat but he was as well tailored as the Percival van This-and-Thats whose pictures advertised expensive cars in magazines. His thick brown hair was neatly combed and he wore a natty gray suit despite the suffocating heat. His stride was powerful, deliberate, with that no-nonsense air of authority that makes people obey. His only concession to the heat was the loosened knot of his floral-pattern tie and the open collar of his white shirt, the high-collared kind popular in those days. His gray eyes drooped like a cocker spaniel’s, but there was no doggy friendliness in that face. In the glare of the naked lightbulb the guy’s eyes were empty as a vacant lot.