“Back home. In bed. And not talking to anybody.”
“Nailed down. You want my advice, now’s the time to try a bluff. Figure that even if she isn’t using anything, she’s moving it. Get her eyeball to eyeball and tell her you know about the deal Kirwan has with her, you just want her to come clean about it. Tell her you even have a lawyer lined up who’ll get her off without a scratch. Watch her reaction when you say it. That can be the giveaway.”
“Uh-uh. She’ll just stonewall, Johnny. I know her and you don’t. She’ll stonewall, and then first chance she gets she’ll head right out of town somewhere. Then it’ll be Mama’s turn for the emergency room. And why do you keep saying Kirwan? Just because there’s nobody else you can point at?”
“Want to order?” Milano said. “How about a drink?”
“No. I want to hear about Kirwan. You said you met him. What about him?”
“Well, I think he could be a user. Maybe a mainliner. Far gone.”
“Him?” Chris’s astonishment was genuine.
“Him. He looks like it, he sounds like it. Got just enough grip on himself yet to come on shrewd, but the holes keep showing.”
“That’s what you think. Not what you know.”
“Jesus,” Milano said, “what are you, witness for the defense? You were the one who told me he rated zero in your book. What did you do, change your mind about that?”
“No, not about him being a cheap, chiseling landlord. Or the way he plays good old plantation boss with Mama. But I told you he had his plus side. Maybe it don’t mean anything to you, but in college he was one of those who did all right by minority kids. Always stood up for them. And when I put in for Performing Arts Mama got me a very heavy recommendation from him. Know how hard it is to get into Performing Arts?”
“Now I do,” Milano said. “Tell me something. When you lived at home you shared that bedroom with Lorena, didn’t you?”
Chris looked puzzled. “What about it?”
“Because Kirwan sure knew exactly what he was recommending. He does keep a pair of binoculars handy for any opportunity that’s offered.”
“I never saw him try anything like that.”
“No but circumstantial evidence is usually what hangs people. One more thing. How would you rate Kirwan financially? You can make it rich, medium, or poor. What about it?”
“How would I know? And what difference—?”
“Just give it your best shot.”
Chris squinted at a wall decoration. She finally said, “Rich. Maybe between rich and medium.”
“Furniture rich. He’s got stuff in that house worth plenty, but it is not for sale. Nohow. For the rest, that apartment house is a dead loss, taxes way overdue. And there’s no cash. Fact. He is on a day to day basis right now. And one way you can get down to that is by having a habit that costs you all the cash you keep scraping together. I started off by figuring Lorena was delivering something from him to the kids at school. Didn’t add up though, not after the surveillance reports on her. But switch it around, say she’s delivering something to him, and it does add up. That’s why I say it’s time to bear down on the kid. Better you than some narc looking for an easy kill.”
Chris picked up a spoon and abstractedly traced a spiral on the tablecloth, starting from its center, carefully working outward in tight loops. “Trouble,” she said at last.
“I’ll split it down the middle with you,” Milano said. He though wistfully of the apartment, the refrigerator humming away, the music box waiting, then said, “I mean that. We can run over to Brooklyn right now, try to get the kid unscrambled before she has a total breakdown.”
Chris studied him. “You do mean it, don’t you?”
“And about the lawyer too. My sister. Used to be with Legal Aid – one of their best – now in business for herself. Knows every angle. And no charge.”
“I’m not looking for any handout, Johnny.” No resentment there, Milano took notice. It was the gentlest of reproofs. “Anyhow, it’s too dicey that way.”
“Only in your mind.” He had to wonder why he was pushing it like this when it looked like the evening could be salvaged after all. John A. Milano, obviously built to self-destruct.
But virtue, once or twice in a lifetime, may be its own reward. Chris put aside the spoon and rested her hand on his. She said, “I can’t help it, Johnny. I hate to think what could happen if it doesn’t turn out the way you think. Like, I’d have to live with it afterward. You wouldn’t.”
“All right, then how about just getting her to give up that cataloguing job for Kirwan. Or alleged cataloguing job. Help keep her clear of him that way. You’ve got a handy excuse. No reason for her to hold down a job after school when she’s not feeling well.”
“I don’t know. I guess I could get Mama to try that.”
“Good. Now how about you trying some dinner? And a drink.”
Chris still had her hand resting on his. Very pleasant. She squeezed his hand, then released it. Even more pleasant, that brief pressure. She said, “You did arrange it about Grace MacFadden tonight, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then I’d rather not do any eating or drinking at all right now. Stomach is real jumpy about it.”
“Runs in the family?” asked Milano, the interest transparently false.
“Cheap shot. No, that’s just how I am. Casting calls, tryouts, same thing. What do I say to her anyhow?”
“To Gracie? Whatever you feel like saying. As I remember it, you were going to tell her you don’t sing, you don’t dance, you don’t play maids in Art Deco revivals. Why not start with that and see what happens?”
Chris raised her eyebrows. “Maybe I will.”
And, thought Milano, maybe she would. It would depend on which part of her tilted the balance when the moment came, the black part or the actress part. He had a feeling she wasn’t too sure about it herself right now.
A waitress – pretty enough to make that floor-length Victorian maid’s gown and ruffled mobcap highly decorative – was hovering over the table. “Would you care to order now?”
Milano glanced at his watch, then looked up at the girl. “I’m terribly sorry, dear. It seems that the idiot who invited us here has forgotten all about it. We’ll be leaving now.”
The waitress looked sympathetic. “Well, there is a phone over—”
“No, dear. He will have to do the phoning.”
He made up for the idiot’s amnesia with a profligate tip, and Chris waited until they were out on the avenue before saying, “Don’t shake this off because I mean it. You could have told her I was the one. I mean, taking up her table, and then no order. But you didn’t.”
“Why should I?”
“Men do. They like to do it. That’s all.” She made a gesture indicating that the subject was now closed. “When do we meet your lady friend?”
“About eight. It’s near Columbus Circle, so if you want to head there now and freshen up at my place first—”
“No, I’d just as soon do some walking around. Getting hefty in the tail sitting on the job most of the time. And the park’s right over there. I never do get to it somehow.”
A long walk in the park, Milano realized as darkness set in and street lamps went on, had its advantages, especially when it was Central Park where the lamps didn’t do much to warn of uncertain footing on untended pathways. And his partner’s high heels made the going that much trickier. After her first stumble she slipped her arm through his and hung on tight in bumpy terrain. Tall and free-striding, she imposed no burden on him this way. And when his imprisoned arm occasionally made contact with that swell of flagrantly unharnessed breast, she didn’t shy away from it.
Definitely prom night again, Milano thought, marveling at his restored innocence.
But, he found, the innocence was fragile stuff. It took just two jolts to fragment it, one little, one big. The little one came when, as they walked into a patch of almost total darkness, Chris slowed thei
r progress and, features barely distinguishable, showed him her teeth set in a broad smile. “Just to let you know I’m still here,” she said.
It rattled him. “What call is there for a gag like that?”
“Hey, man, it’s a good old Harlem joke.”
“Also a good old Bath Beach joke. Only I’ve heard a lot better.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t fired up, he saw, just seemed to be interested. “Bath Beach your turf?”
“Was.”
“Glad you made it out of there, Mr. Milano.”
Happy ending. It almost made that small jolt worthwhile. The big one came after they reached the Bethesda Fountain and parked themselves on a bench there. The area was almost deserted, and, allowing for the sounds of jet traffic overhead, a kind of quiet prevailed.
Peace.
Not for long. A couple of kids drifted over. About seventeen or eighteen, Milano calculated, one black, one white, both street stuff. Equal Opportunity assholes. Moving close, they gave off a fragrance of piss and fried potato grease.
Milano glanced at Chris and saw that she wasn’t liking this. He detached his arm from hers and leaned back lazily against the bench thus giving himself leg room for a proper heel to the groin. Traitor to his class or not, he thought, he was grateful that when white stopped in front of him, black pulled up a step behind. With Chris as observer, it meant at least that it wouldn’t be the ethnic minority who got that heel planted on him.
White scratched his chest while sizing up the trade. “Man, you lookin’ for a good high?”
“Fuck off, sonny,” Milano said amiably.
“Oh, hey. Hey.” White was amused. Behind him, black was amused. “Dirty talk, man. Dirty. Right in front of that lady.”
“Sonny,” Milano said, “if you don’t know a cop when you are looking right at him, you are in the wrong business. This is now last call. Fuck off.”
They went. Slowly. Making it plain that if they didn’t want to they wouldn’t, but it just so happened that they were in a mood to.
Chris released a long breath and replaced her arm in Milano’s. “Cool, papa.”
“Anyhow convincing.”
“Seems so. Were you on the cops?”
“No, my agency partner used to be. That’s where I learned the subtle techniques.”
“Then how’d you get started in the business?”
“Oh, security for one of those fancy Fifth Avenue hotels. Did all right, so then it was free-lance detecting for a whole lot of fancy hotels. Did all right, so this retired cop I helped out on some cases asked me to go partners with him in an agency. His money, my brains. And here I am.”
“Still doing all right. Oh yeah, what was all that with Rammaert today? You weren’t telling him about the Boudins, were you? I thought that was supposed to wait until they show up.”
The end of innocence.
Bad.
Made all the worse, Milano realized, by the compulsion boiling up in him to pull out the plug right now. Tell her what was going on. More than that, give her the combination to John A. Milano. Make her know that along the way all these years he had never thought of offering that combination to anyone else. What is Johnny like inside? Listen—
Not yet.
As things shaped up, it was going to be done sooner or later, but not yet.
There had to be absolute assurance that those were the Boudins. And if they were, she had to be kept clear of the action until it was all over. For everybody’s good.
Now what was her question? Rammaert.
“No,” Milano said, “nothing to do with Boudin. I just asked him how much an original, handcrafted Raoul Barquin would cost, and he told me.”
“Sixty thousand,” said Chris wonderingly.
“Right. Then he really laid it on me about buying one. He was so damn convincing that I found myself coming back later to make some notes about the whys and why-nots.”
“Mostly why-nots from the way you sound,” said Chris.
“You think different?”
“Well,” said Chris, “Picasso and Braque dissolved the representational into its cubistic elements. Barquin is now isolating those elements again. Purifying them.”
Milano looked at her long and hard, and she laughed. “Rammaert. That’s what he told me when he saw me wondering about them.”
“And I was just starting to wonder about you. So that leaves one fascinating question. What kind of turkey would lay out sixty thousand for that Number Ten? Got an easy answer to that?”
“Sure. Some gallery in Zurich. Switzerland. Anyhow, that’s what the consignment order says. Hey, isn’t it time to get moving?”
It sure as hell could be, thought Milano. Switzerland. According to what Hy Greenwald had dug out of the files, home base of Gerard Ost and what’s-his-name Fountas, prime art hustlers now in jail there. And Ost was Wim Rammaert’s cousin. Along with a few other wheeling and dealing Osts operating out of Zurich and Basel. And Rammaert himself had an address in Basel.
So now it could only be Sullie’s phone call that might hold things up. Maybe assurance of a highly respectable Raoul Barquin, onetime political prisoner of Fidel. Maybe kudos from that dandy little Norton Gallery in Palm Beach or from the curator of the Miami U. collection. Troublesome evidence that those fourteen by seven rectangles could be red herrings. Or – even though the odds were a thousand to one against it – a thundering coincidence.
Useless and itchy speculation was cut short by a nudge in the ribs. Chris said, “It’s getting near Grace MacFadden time, Johnny. How about it?”
First things first.
Grade’s housekeeper let them in. Gracie, prettily negligéed, hair freshly blued, and fingers aglitter with assorted sapphire and diamond, was in bed attended by both Macs, the Colonel Blimp Mac and the Argentinian polo-playing type Mac. When Milano made introductions, he observed that Gracie couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off this mystery guest. He had expected surprise when the moment came – probably pleased surprise, at the very least interested surprise – and it was disconcerting that Gracie, a great little poker player, now chose to put on that impossible-to-read poker-face.
And, naturally, there was Chris matching it in ebony.
Hell.
No chance to loosen things up either. Gracie waved an arm at the male contingent. “Out.”
“Oh, come on, baby,” said Milano, and that was as far as he got.
“Out,” said Gracie. “Girl talk. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
Outside the closed door, the Colonel Blimp said, “Difficult woman sometimes.”
“I suppose,” said Milano.
“Beautiful girl, that,” said the Colonel Blimp.
“That she is,” said Milano.
The Colonel Blimp went his way. The other Mac tuned in the TV to a soccer game, courtesy of some Mexican channel, and Milano stood watching. After awhile he sat down to watch. When the housekeeper came in to take orders for refreshment he realized he hadn’t eaten since around noon and still had no appetite. That was something the Old Testament left out, the part where Solomon took one look at the Queen of Sheba and developed anorexia nervosa. And instant madness. Instant total possessiveness. It was one thing to get hit that way by a Vermeer; you knew you couldn’t have it so you then suffered instant logic and went your way. But it was, without question, different with people. No need for consoling logic, so the condition spread through the system and into the brain like a dose of encephalitis.
Girl talk. She had a real way with words, did Gracie.
Milano ordered a vodka and tonic, extra large, please, and it was brought to him in a crystal container of not quite hogshead capacity. When he got it down he felt a little better. The vodka – it must have been hundred-proof – had just about reached all extremities, and the soccer game was on its way to half-time when Chris finally appeared. “Ready?” she asked Milano, and he heard a rumble of metaphoric thunder overhead.
Neither of them said anything as he led the way out
and along the corridor to the elevator. Since the elevator men knew Milano’s floor, nothing had to be said there. It continued this way to the apartment and through its door. The only good part of it, Milano thought, was that this mute and impassive being from outer space hadn’t questioned their destination. Getting into the elevator he had half expected her to say, “All the way down, please.” Or even omit the please.
She looked around the living room, spotted the bar and headed straight for it. She hoisted herself on a stool. “I’d like a drink.”
“You skipped supper,” Milano reminded her. “I thought that first—”
“I would like a drink, please.”
Milano went behind the bar. He said doubtfully, “There’s martinis all ready. Could be dangerous on an empty stomach.”
“Make it Jack Daniels. Straight. Water on the side.”
Milano obliged. He watched her down the J.D. chug-a-lug and ease the impact with half a glass of water. He leaned on the bar, everybody’s friendly bartender. “Well?” he said.
“You didn’t tell her about me, did you?” Chris said sweetly.
“Tell her what?”
“That I was black as the fucking ace of spades, did you?”
“Why the hell do you have to talk like that? If anyone else did it—”
“Never you mind anyone else. You did not tell her.”
It wasn’t exactly rage mounting in him, Milano knew, it was a kind of wild frustration that had no place to go. He said, “No, all I told her was you had talent and needed a break. But I will now tell you something. Half the big-name black performers between here and L.A. are always in and out of that place upstairs. They know her, they like her, they get along fine with her.”
“Well, good for them.”
“Because none of them are suffering from a galloping case of paranoia, that’s for sure.”
“None of them?” Chris looked at him, it could have been pityingly. “Man, do you know how stupid that sounds?”
“Do you know how freaked out on this race crap you sound?” He struggled to get control of himself. He had a feeling that what with the Stolichnaya now circulating through all capillaries and this awesome emotional case to contend with, his face must be bright red and his eyes popping like Wim Rammaert’s. This was not the image planned on while he was whipping up that crock of martinis and disarranging those cushions. He took a deep breath. “Chris. Look. If I thought for one second – one split second – that she’d turn you off like this, I wouldn’t have let you near her. You must know that.”
The Dark Fantastic Page 21
