Criminal Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  Celeste covers her face with her hands again, instinctively protecting herself from the memory of Opal’s blood rushing at her. She must’ve caught blood by the bucket load, her face, her black wool coat, soaked in Opal’s blood.

  No wonder she was freshly showered and her hair washed when I showed up at her apartment.

  I say, “Where’s the black coat and the brooch now? The brooch wasn’t in Opal’s neck when they fished her out of the river.”

  “I ditched the coat when I ditched Opal’s car. I pushed the coat into the sewer with the license plates and registration. I don’t know about the brooch, though. I wasn’t on the bridge when Pep—when he pushed Opal over.”

  Pep wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep the brooch as a souvenir. Either he buried it, threw it into the river, or more likely left it in Opal’s neck to sink with her, but it must’ve slipped out and sank to the bottom of the river on its own. I wonder if it settled anywhere near the other piece of treacherous jewelry that’s bookending my night and Opal Shaw’s death: the empress’s emerald and silver brooch that sent me on the river in the first place.

  Celeste is crying again, and I don’t like the effect those sobs are having on me, pounding against my heart like a homeless beggar desperate for sanctuary. Before I know what I’m doing, I take Celeste in my arms. Her tears quiet down a little as she puts her face against my shoulder. Her softening sobs make a kind of muffled drumming, its rhythm suddenly pierced by that bone-cracking creak of the stairs and by Pep Green laughing, “She’s snookering you, Gold! If you believe her story you’re even more of a sucker for a beautiful dame than I am.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pep’s holding a .45 automatic, a big chunk of steel with a five-inch barrel. It’s pointed right at my belly. At this range, a .45 slug can rip right through me and take my guts and spine with it out the other side. Even scarier than the gun is Pep himself. His black fedora is pushed to the back of his head, and with his wide schmoozy grin and his pomaded red hair almost orange in the yellow glare of the overhead bulb, he looks like a Halloween pumpkin on a death march.

  But the spookiest thing about Pep Green, aside from his enjoyment of killing, is that sales-pitch style yammer of his, especially when he’s yammering about murder. “Cantor,” he says, sliding my name slowly through his grin, “you make it too easy. This habit you got of following a nice set of legs around gets you into trouble, could even get you killed. Say, whaddya know? You are gonna get killed. You and this pair of legs who’s been leading you around by the, uh, nose.” He slides his eyes and his grin to Celeste. She lowers her hat veil back into place in a useless effort to shield herself from Pep.

  He says, “Hello, my sweet. Been playing me a double cross?” No matter what comes out of Pep’s mouth, whether he’s ordering dinner or ordering a murder, it sounds like Can I interest you in a nice low-mileage number that just came on the lot?

  “You’re one to talk,” Celeste answers back. “You double-crossed me out of ten grand. You promised—”

  “So what if I promised? I lied. I can be a good liar, you know that. One liar to another, that’s us. Only forget about getting away with your crazy lie that you killed Opal by accident. Yeah, yeah, I heard you try and sell that bedtime story to Cantor. Well, Opal’s death was no accident, honey. You just wanted it to look like one.”

  “Says you.”

  “Right, says me. By the way, you look real nice in Opal’s mink. Real nice.” He hisses it, like a snake crawling up Celeste’s leg.

  It makes my skin itch. It makes Celeste’s skin itch, too, judging by the way she’s fidgeting inside the mink. She looks away from Pep, tries to escape her humiliation, but she can’t escape it and she starts to remove the coat. Then she changes her mind, gives Pep a look that tells him to drop dead, and wraps herself more deeply into the coat.

  It’s a ghoulish performance, flaunting a dead woman’s coat. Makes me want to gag. But Celeste’s defiance of Pep sure is gutsy. Makes me want to take her to bed.

  She’s annoying Pep, though, and it’s not a good idea to annoy a homicidal nut job who’s holding a gun.

  I have only one play to keep Pep from pulling the trigger: keep him talking, stretch things out while I keep an eye on that big .45 and try to figure how to get us away from this charnel house alive. “How long you been on to us, Pep?”

  “How long did you think it would take me to puzzle out what Loreale wants you to do? Y’know, I’m not his top guy for nothin’. I can usually figure him. And like I said, you made it easy, Gold. It didn’t take much to figure that sooner or later you’d find your way to Celeste, and once you found Celeste, I knew you’d find your way here. And see? Here you are!”

  “Then you know you’re a dead man,” I say.

  “And who’s gonna kill me? You? Or this cheap date you were snuggling with when I came in?”

  I’d kill him just for being so smug. “As Sig’s top guy,” I say, “the guy who says he can usually figure his boss, you should know Sig will put it together that you and Celeste were in cahoots to get Opal and her mother out of the picture, even if it meant you’d have to kill Opal to do it. Too bad Celeste spoiled your fun and did your killing for you, Pep.”

  “Me? Kill Opal? Are you kidding? That dame was money in a dress. She was gonna be my meal ticket. Cash every month, regular as the Bank of New York. Hey, what’s wrong with you, Gold? You look like you don’t understand a word I’m saying, like I’ve started blabbing a foreign lingo.”

  I understand the lingo, all right. I’ve heard it lots of times before. Every word has two X’s and its grammar is based on endless combinations of the double cross. One of its most fluent speakers is standing next to me, motionless behind the veil of her hat, too terrified to say anything in any lingo at all.

  She has plenty to be terrified about. And if she expects me to keep sticking my neck out for her, she has plenty of explaining to do, too, if Pep will let her, if he doesn’t just take care of his business and go ahead and kill us. There’s only one way I can find out. “Let’s hear it, Celeste. You know what Pep’s talking about?”

  “She knows.” Pep doesn’t even give her a chance to open her mouth before he answers for her. “She knows most of it anyway. Jealous little bitch.”

  The word jealous floats around Celeste like smelly fumes. Maybe that’s why she catches her breath. People can choke on their own jealousy.

  Pep says, “Okay, you two, I’m tired of looking at your faces. Especially yours, Celeste. I got tired of your face a long time ago. Turn around.” He’ll put a bullet in the back of our heads.

  So I don’t turn around, and I practically have to hold Celeste up to keep her from collapsing from fear. “Wait a minute, Pep,” I say, making a fast play for more time to save our skins. “I’m the only one in the room who’s not up-to-date. So c’mon, give it over. You’ve got all night to kill us. You can spare a few minutes to tell me why I’ll be a corpse. Consider it my last request instead of a cigarette.”

  He thinks that’s funny, gives me a quick laugh. Fine. It’s better than shooting me.

  Celeste tugs at my sleeve. “Cantor, you don’t seriously believe he’ll tell you the truth?”

  I don’t seriously believe either one of them knows how to tell the truth, but I shut up about it. I’ve got to keep Pep calm if I want him to talk to me instead of kill me. So I say, “Why shouldn’t he tell the truth? He’s on the winning end of it.”

  “You bet I am,” he says, taking the bait. “There’s only one truth that’s worth anything anyway—money. That’s what this is all about. Money. Money that should’ve been mine in the first place, money that was gonna come outta my pocket.”

  “You’re talking about the percentage Sig was planning to skim for Esther Sheinbaum,” I say.

  “You know about that? Yeah, well, I found a way to get it back, and then some. A nice little scam fell right into my lap. And you know who tossed me that scam?”

  “No, but I’m all ears, Pep
.” The more conversation that passes between us, the more time I have to watch him, watch his eyes, the twitch of his hands, look for the tiniest break I can sneak into, and jump him.

  Pep fires back with a laugh, the short, smug kind that’s meant to put me in my place because he knows something and I don’t. “Hah! It was the Queen of Diamonds herself, Opal Sheinbaum Shaw, that’s who, and she didn’t even know it. Let me tell you, Cantor, leave it to a dame to forget what’s good for her. You know as well as I do that even the smartest of ’em have no brains.”

  This happens sometimes, a guy will talk to me like we share the same locker room. I don’t usually bother to correct him. I pick up a lot of useful information that way, even when what comes out of the guy’s mouth makes me want to smash his teeth. “Maybe you meet the wrong women, Pep,” is all I say.

  “They’re all wrong, but we can’t live without ’em, eh, Gold? And they know it! It’s how they pry the cash from our pockets. Well, I saw my chance to turn the tables on Miss Opal Shaw. Know what the dizzy dame did?”

  “Enlighten me, Pep. I’m still listening.”

  “Yeah, and you’re gonna be surprised at what you hear. She made a play for me, that’s what she did. Can you believe it? Her man’s in Sing Sing and the tramp doesn’t have the decency to wait it out.” His eyes narrow into slits that have no light in them, just hate. “If Sig heard about it, he’d put a contract on her just for breakin’ his heart,” he says, enjoying it. “End of wedding. End of money flyin’ outta my pocket for old lady Sheinbaum. But then I get smart, see? I ask myself, why settle for just the same old cash when I could milk the cow for a lifetime?”

  Blackmail is nothing but murder done slow. Right up Pep’s alley. “You cornered her into a shakedown,” I say, sure that I sound as disgusted as I feel. If it annoys Pep and he kills me, well, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  He’s annoyed, but not at me. “She had it coming, if you ask me. So I tell her, sure, come on over to my place and we’ll have us a time. We set a date for the next night, then I go out and buy two of those wire recorders. I camouflaged ’em on a shelf in my living room, behind some big books. Rigged ’em up so all I’d have to do is flip a switch before I open the door.”

  The idea of Pep having books, of being curled up on a couch reading anything but the Daily Racing Form surprises me. Maybe the books are weapons manuals. They have pictures.

  He’s warming to his story, though, happy to crow about his prowess with women. I bet he’d strut like a peacock if it wasn’t for the nuisance of keeping that gun pointed at my belly. I keep watch on that gun from the corner of my eye while he regales us with the saga of his conquest. “So Opal comes over to my place,” he says, “shows up right on time and looking damn fine in a slinky black number that fits like skin. I keep my mouth shut mostly, let Opal do the talking so it’s real clear on the wire recordings that this rendezvous is all her doing, and that maybe I don’t think it’s such a good idea, me being loyal to Sig, you understand. After I have enough on her, a lotta Come on, baby and I’ve always had a thing for you and stuff like that, I give her a kiss so I can smear her lipstick, send her off to the bathroom to fix her face while I turn off the wire recorders. Sweet deal, huh?”

  Sweet as sewer water. “And of course you were gentlemanly enough to send her home once you had the goods on her.”

  “And pass up a pair of the juiciest thighs in New York? Would you, Gold? And boy, oh boy, Opal was quite an athlete in—”

  “When did you start soaking her for cash?” I can live without an image of Opal and Pep between the sheets, and I really don’t want it lurking in my mind’s eye the next time—or anytime—I talk to Sig, assuming, of course, I get out of this slaughterhouse alive.

  Pep talks through his high-pitched giggle. “What’s the matter, Cantor? You turning into a bluenose biddy? All right, all right, I’ll spare you the sordid details.” He calms down from his giggling, then resumes his I’m-letting-you-in-on-the-inside-dope style of patter. “Okay, here it is. A week or so before Sig gets outta the joint, I take one of the wire recordings and the machine and go visit Opal in the penthouse. She’s all set up in the living room like she owns the place, spread out on the couch reading a magazine. I play her the wire, see, tell her I have a spare hidden offshore so she can’t play it cute and think she can pay me off all at once and that’s that. I tell her I want five G’s up front and a grand every month afterward, otherwise I take the recording to Sig. Well, I gotta say the woman showed backbone. No brains but plenty of backbone.”

  “And that surprises you? Did you think Sig would go for a dame who crumbles like stale bread? Uh-uh, I figure a guy like him wants a woman with real spirit, the type to put up a fight where it counts, if you know what I mean.” I even toss in a knowing wink.

  He gives me that high giggle again, only now it sounds even crueler. “Yeah, I know what you mean, Gold! So you know what she does when I play her the wire? She lifts her snooty nose and tells me to get lost, says her mother has connections high up and she’ll have that other recording traced and found in no time. The dame played it dangerous. I have to hand it to her. Bold as brass.” The compliment comes with a sneer.

  “You surprise me, Pep,” I say. “Seems like you’d just knock her off after she called your bluff. It gets the wedding off the table and your percentage back in your pocket. Why go through all the fancy planning to lure Opal out here?” I’m walking that dangerous edge between annoying him and flattering him. Annoy him, and he’ll pull the trigger. Flatter him, keep him crowing about how clever he is, and I stand a better chance of finding my moment to sink him.

  “Weren’t you listening, Cantor? I said this is all about money. I wanted the whole gravy train, and I figured I’d have another shot at getting it by scaring Opal into accepting my deal. Bringing her out here to my own turf on her wedding night, getting her away from Sig’s other boys and the protection of the penthouse, I’d have control of her. I could scare the bejesus outta her. I can be pretty scary if I have to.” He says this so matter-of-factly it takes a minute to catch up with me and chill me through to the bone. “Just ask Celeste here,” he says to her. “Right, honey? Like the night I told you we’re through? Remember what I did when I told you to get the hell out?” His grin would make mothers grab their children from the playground and hide them indoors.

  Slowly, in a whisper so cold the air around her might splinter, Celeste says, “You lying sonuvabitch, you had that gun to Opal’s head. You were ready to kill her.”

  “If I had to, I guess,” Pep says, “if she wasn’t gonna play ball. But she was. You know she was. That snotty tramp was finally so scared she agreed to the whole setup.” Talking to me again, he says, “And you know what made her roll over, Cantor?”

  “Opal didn’t want her brains sticking to the chicken feathers all over the dirt floor?”

  “You don’t give her enough credit! Opal Sheinbaum Shaw was one gutsy dame, let me tell you. She held out on me when I said I’d blow her head off, but when I told her I’d go after her sweet old mother, Opal fell apart like a rickety chair.”

  So the bond between mother and daughter was tight after all.

  Pep slides his attention back to Celeste again. But his gun doesn’t waver. It’s still steady, his finger still on the trigger, my nerves still on edge. “Only that wasn’t enough for our Miss Copley here,” he says. “Oh no, she wanted Opal dead. She couldn’t stand it that her friend had eyes for me. You didn’t like that at all, did you, honey. You didn’t like me tasting your best friend’s dish.”

  Celeste’s face is hard, cold. Only the movement of her red-lipsticked mouth proves she’s made of flesh and not soulless stone. “Why should I like it? Why should I like any of it? You throw me out like garbage and then my so-called best friend goes after the guy I’m in love with. But I’m no killer.” She turns to me, tugs at my sleeve again, says, “Please, Cantor, listen to me,” but I keep my eyes on Pep, stay on every breath he take
s, the slightest sway of that gun, while Celeste pleads with me. “Don’t believe him, Cantor. He’s a murderer and always has been. Why would you take the word of a murderer?”

  “Because he was going to get what he wanted from Opal. He had no reason to kill her.”

  “Yes, he did. He didn’t tell you that part. He didn’t tell you that even after Opal gave in and said she’d pay him, she spit in his face. He hates that. He hates it when a woman insults him. He goes crazy. Opal spit in his face and that’s when his eyes lit up like fire!” Celeste’s rant is getting dangerous. If it pushes Pep too far, he’ll make that gun go bang, and it’s driving me crazy that there’s nothing I can do to stop her. If I make a move, yeah, Pep’s gun could go bang. “Remember I told you about his eyes?” she says with no letup. “Well, he went crazy. He put the gun to Opal’s head again. He was going to blow it off, money or no money. That’s when I tried to stop him. That’s when I fought him and tried to stab his hand with the pin on my brooch!”

  Pep’s laugh is so raw it’s not really a laugh, it’s a growl. “Nice try, honey! But that Ooo, I tried to save her life story won’t sell. Cantor, tell her she’s done for. Actually, you’re both done for. I’m done talking.”

  “But the bridge,” I say, throwing it out fast. I need more time to find a chink in his armor, any little sliver I can slip through and get a drop on him. “Why’d you toss her?”

  “Oh yeah.” He laughs. “You got stuck with the body, didn’t you.”

  “Uh-huh, and she sank my boat, too. I took a helluva beating tonight, lost a bundle of money on a deal when my boat went down. So come on, Pep, at least tell me how my rotten luck got started. Then you can kill me.”

  I don’t know where I got this knack for making Pep laugh, but I’ll do a Borscht Belt comedy routine if it buys me time.