New York Nocturne

by Walter Satterthwait

  “Mrs. Parker,” said Miss Lizzie, “perhaps your dog would be happier somewhere else.”

  “That’s okay,” said Robert, and he grinned as he scratched at the dog’s ear.

  Mrs. Parker said, “Woodrow,” and the terrier looked at her, looked up regretfully at Robert, then jumped from his lap, bounced across the floor, and bounded up into Mrs. Parker’s lap. Once again she kissed him on the nose.

  Once again, Miss Lizzie blinked.

  Mr. Lipkind sat back down. “I sent Robert over to the Dakota to get the kid’s stuff.”

  “Amanda’s,” said Miss Lizzie.

  “Right.” He turned to the chauffeur. “Any problem?”

  “No,” said Robert. “As soon as he saw the papers from the judge, the superintendent let me into the apartment.”

  I glanced at Mrs. Parker. She was studying him while she absently stroked the dog’s back.

  “Terrific,” said Mr. Lipkind, and he turned back to Miss Lizzie. “’Kay. You want to know where we go?”

  “Indeed,” she said.

  “Time being,” he said, “we’re copasetic. The cops’ll lay off the kid”—he held up his hand—“Amanda. They’ll lay off Amanda for a while. But if they can’t finger someone else, pretty soon they’ll get back to her. What we got to do is start nosing around on our own, find out who else looks good for this. I know a guy, Carl Liebowitz, a very good snooper, done a lot of work for me. You want, I can put him onto this.”

  “Can he be here tomorrow morning?” Miss Lizzie asked him.

  “What time?”

  “Nine.”

  “I’ll call him. Meanwhile”—he turned to Robert—“you know one of the dancers at the Cotton Club, right?”

  The corner of his mouth edged upward in a half smile. “Pardon me?”

  Mr. Lipkind told him about my visit there. “Sounds like Amanda’s uncle knew Owney Madden. Maybe that’s important, maybe it’s not. You ask around, could be you dig up something.”

  Robert nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Terrific,” said Mr. Lipkind. He stood. Off to the side, Robert stood as well. “’Kay,” Mr. Lipkind said to Miss Lizzie. “That’s it for now, I think. You need me, give me a jingle.”

  “I will, yes,” she said. “And again, I thank you very much for your help today.”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, all part of the job.”

  Mrs. Parker set down the dog and stood. “It’s time for me to go, too,” she said to Miss Lizzie. She turned to me. “Great to meet you, Amanda.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You, too. And thank you very much for the sandwich. And the Coke.”

  “My pleasure,” said Mrs. Parker. She looked at Miss Lizzie. “Would it be all right if I sat in tomorrow morning? While you talked to the”—she smiled—“to the snooper?”

  “Of course, dear,” said Miss Lizzie. “I’m in your debt.”

  “No, no, not at all. But that’s swell. Thanks. I’ll see you at nine, then.” She turned to Mr. Lipkind and Robert. “I’ll share the elevator. I live one floor down.”

  After the three of them left the suite accompanied by the prancing Boston terrier, Miss Lizzie turned to me.

  “Now,” she said, “truly. How are you, Amanda?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Honestly. But I’m really glad I got out of there. That cell at police headquarters—it was awful.”

  “I’m sure it was. But tell me, dear. What have you been doing for the past three years?” She smiled. “Are you still working with the cards?”

  I beamed at her. “Want to see my Mystic Seven?”

  “I’d like that very much. But are you sure you wouldn’t rather get some rest? The room next door is yours.”

  “No, no,” I said. “Really. I’m fine. Want to see it?”

  Smiling, her hands on the knob of her walking stick, she leaned slightly toward me. “More than anything in the world.”

  Three years ago, before the murder, when Miss Lizzie had been my next-door neighbor, she had taught me how to manipulate cards. Since then, practicing a few times a week, sometimes more often, I had become fairly proficient. But I would never be as accomplished as she. Over the years, I have seen the best in the business—Dai Vernon, Al Baker, Leslie Guest, Theo Annemann, John Scarne—and Miss Lizzie was at least as good as any of them.

  Back then, I had decided that she became so adept because she had studied and used the cards to fill up the hollows in what had probably been a very lonely life. For me, every trick she performed was, by its very expertise, invisibly bracketed by a framework of sadness. Sometimes I wonder whether this isn’t true of all magicians, even the ones who work with words or paint rather than with playing cards.

  I went over to the suitcase and opened it. Everything seemed to be there. All the clothes, including my underwear, had been carefully folded and neatly arranged. I thought of handsome Robert—sitting gracefully on my bed, perhaps, or standing gracefully beside it—meticulously packing the case, one frilly pair of panties after another, one filmy pair of hose after another. I blushed—the sort of furious all-over blush that makes you fear you might implode. My back was turned to her, so Miss Lizzie did not see.

  The deck was in one of the pockets of the divider. I slipped it out and carried it back.

  She asked me, “Have you heard from your parents?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “You know they’re in Tibet, right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Slocum told me.”

  “It takes a while for mail to get here from over there.” I set the deck on the coffee table, walked over to the chair in which Robert had been sitting, and moved it, less gracefully than he had, over to the table. I sat down, picked up the cardboard box, slid the deck from it, and started shuffling.

  Miss Lizzie sat there, her gray eyes watchful behind the pince-nez.

  “Okay,” I said, handing her the deck. “Divide it up into seven piles. You don’t have to deal them out. Just cut them.”

  She knew all this, probably better than I ever would, but she said nothing. Smiling faintly, she did as I had directed, leaning forward and positioning the piles along the coffee table with her right hand.

  “Okay,” I said. “Pick a pile and look at the top card.”

  She did, lifting back a corner of the top card on the leftmost pile, peering at it for a moment through her pince-nez, and then lightly snapping the card back into place.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just to show that there’s no trickery involved”—Miss Lizzie smiled, for whenever you hear this from a card handler, you know that the trickery is already well advanced—“I’ll put three of these piles on top of that pile.” I did this. “And three on the bottom.” I shuffled the deck and then handed it to her.

  “Cut,” I said.

  She set the deck on the table and cut it once. I lifted it and then, one by one, faceup, I dealt the cards out along the table in four vertical rows.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m going to turn around. You pick up your card and keep it and push all the others to the side.” I turned away, shielding my face with my hand so I couldn’t see what she was doing.

  “Ready,” she said.

  I turned back to her. “Okay. Put the card facedown on the table and cover it with both of your hands. And concentrate on the card.”

  Miss Lizzie laid the card down, leaned forward, put her hands atop it, and then suddenly she sat back, laughing, and clapped her hands together.

  “That was wonderful,” she said. “Really wonderful. You did an excellent slight, dear, and a really lovely false shuffle. If I hadn’t known, I should never have seen them.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. The key card was the four of clubs.”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, smiling broadly. “Wonderful, Amanda.”

  It was not an esp
ecially elaborate trick—it’s quite simple, really—but I was immensely gratified by her reaction to it.

  Neither of us bothered to turn over the isolated card that lay facedown on the table, the card that Miss Lizzie had selected. Both of us knew that it was the king of spades.

  We spent a few more hours talking and manipulating the cards. She showed me some variations on the Mystic Seven and then a few rather intricate card-spelling tricks. As deft as ever, she performed slights that were totally undetectable, despite my knowing that they were coming, despite my intense study of her hands.

  It was sometime after one o’clock in the morning when I carted my suitcase into the adjoining suite. I brushed my teeth, climbed into my nightgown, and then climbed into bed. I turned off the light, waited a moment for the streetlight seeping around the curtains to become visible, and then finally—it seemed for the first time in years—I relaxed.

  I thought that I might have a difficult time falling asleep, that visions of my uncle would flash out at me from the darkness, but I was unconscious almost immediately.

  Chapter Ten

  At five minutes to nine the next morning, Miss Lizzie and I were back in the living room of her suite. We had finished the room-service breakfast—bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, buttered toast with jam—and we were both sipping our tea.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  “I’ll get it,” I told her and set my cup in its saucer.

  The man who stood outside the door was extraordinary. He was quite short, about five foot two or three. He was wearing a beautifully tailored gray silk suit, a white shirt, a gray tie, and small black patent-leather shoes. In his left hand, he held a gray fedora. He was good-looking in an almost classical way—large, brown oval eyes; a strong, sculpted nose; a square jaw.

  What made him extraordinary was that he was virtually without hair—none on his chin, none on his upper lip, none on his eyebrows or eyelids, none at all on his shiny white scalp.

  I was staring at his scalp, contemplating it, and he smiled. “No,” he said, “none anywhere.”

  I blushed superlatively but tried to pretend my way out. “Excuse me?”

  “Alopecia universalis,” he said. “From the Greek. Alopékia. Hairlessness. It happened when I was twelve. An attack of scarlet fever.”

  He seemed so comfortable with it, spoke of it so matter-of-factly, that I said, “All at once?”

  “Overnight.” He smiled again, showing two rows of white even teeth.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I’m Carl Liebowitz. May I come in?”

  “Oh, sure, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said and stepped into the room. “Amanda?”

  “Yes,” I said, pushing the door shut.

  He held out a small perfect hand. “Delighted.”

  I shook it. “And this is Miss Borden,” I told him.

  After the introductions, we organized ourselves. Mr. Liebowitz sat down in the same chair in which Mr. Lipkind had sat last night, and he placed his small fedora on his lap. I came around and sat once again at the end of the sofa, opposite Miss Lizzie.

  She said, “Mr. Lipkind has explained the situation to you?”

  “Yes.” He turned to me, his face serious. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Miss Lizzie asked him, “How do you think we should proceed?”

  Sitting upright, his elbows on the arms of the chair, his fingers tented above the fedora, he said, “Morrie believes that in the circumstances, it’s imperative that we discover who actually killed Mr. Burton.” His speech was slow and precise, almost pedantic. “If the real killer goes undetected, the police will continue to perceive Amanda as a suspect—even knowing that she had nothing to do with it.”

  She frowned. “Why on earth should they do that?”

  “From what Morrie told me,” he said, “Mr. Burton had at least a passing acquaintance with Owney Madden and Larry Fay. These are important men in New York City. Criminals, but important. They’re among the people who make large clandestine payoffs to the police and the politicians. Morrie told you about the payoffs?”

  “Yes. ‘Contributions,’ he said.”

  “And he told you about Lieutenant Becker?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to me. “And you told Morrie that Vandervalk sat in on your interrogation?”

  “Um. Yes.” I was still dazzled by his gleaming bald head.

  He turned it toward Miss Lizzie. “With Becker and Vandervalk involved, it’s likely that the police are trying to steer the investigation away from Madden and Fay. If Mr. Burton was in any way complicit with those two, the police will want to wrap up the case as soon as they can. And Amanda, unfortunately, makes a convenient scapegoat.”

  “He wasn’t a criminal,” I said. “My uncle.”

  He turned to me and flashed that brilliant white smile. “I’m sure he wasn’t,” he said. “But in my experience, the most successful way to operate is to begin with no assumptions at all, including that one.”

  “Begin,” said Miss Lizzie, “in what manner, precisely?”

  “With what we know,” he said, “and with whom we know.”

  He reached into his inner coat pocket and slid out a small notebook. He opened it, flipped through a few pages, and looked up at Miss Lizzie. “Albert Cooper. Daphne Dale. Mr. Burton’s business colleagues. And then Fay and Madden.”

  “Who is Albert Cooper?” Miss Lizzie asked.

  “Albert,” I said. “He works—he worked for my uncle.” I realized that I had barely thought of the man since Friday. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “We need to start at Mr. Burton’s apartment,” Mr. Liebowitz said to Miss Lizzie. “Morrie could obtain legal papers to get me entrance, but it would be faster by far, and more convenient”—he turned to me—“if you could come along, Amanda. You have a legal right to be there and to bring anyone you’d like with you. Would you be willing to do that? Are you up to it?”

  An image of John flashed across my mind. I saw him as I had last seen him, sitting there battered beyond recognition in the library. All that blood. Blood everywhere. . . .

  I swallowed. “Yes,” I said.

  Miss Lizzie said, “Are you quite sure, Amanda?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Very well, then,” she said and reached for the Malacca cane, propped up against the sofa’s arm. “We’re off.”

  Mr. Liebowitz coughed politely into his balled fist. “Um,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Miss Lizzie.

  “Miss Borden, I think that given your, um—I think that in the circumstances, it might be better if you remained here.” It was the first time he had seemed even slightly uncertain about anything.

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Lizzie. “I am not going to have young Amanda wandering around New York City on her own.”

  “She won’t be on her own,” said Mr. Liebowitz. “She’ll be with me.”

  “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

  “Juvenal,” said Mr. Liebowitz. “Who will guard the guards themselves?”

  Miss Lizzie gave him a small measured nod, like an approving schoolteacher, and then put both her hands in her lap, one primly atop the other. She said, “I’m quite certain, Mr. Liebowitz, that you are an entirely honorable man. But if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it is that the perception of reality is at least as important as the reality itself. In some cases, it can actually become the reality. I will, therefore, accompany the two of you.”

  Looking down, Mr. Liebowitz ran his small hand back along his slick, shiny scalp. He looked up and smiled again. “A chaperone.”

  “For want of a better word.”

  “But Miss Borden, when people hear your name—”

  “They won’t,”
she said, raising her head. “I shall assume a nom de guerre.”

  “Miss Borden—”

  “My aunt,” I said. “You could be my aunt.”

  Mr. Liebowitz looked over at me, frowning. He probably felt like we were ganging up on him. We probably were.

  “Excellent,” said Miss Lizzie. “Yes, Aunt Elizabeth.” She smiled at me. “Lovely. I haven’t been an aunt before.”

  She turned back to Mr. Liebowitz. “Very few people in New York know me. Only Mrs. Parker, downstairs, and a few others. And no one in this city has seen a recent photograph of me. None exists.” With something that might have been pride, she added, “I have seen to that.”

  “Where is Mrs. Parker?” I asked. I looked at my watch. “It’s almost nine thirty. She was supposed to be here.”

  Miss Lizzie said, “We’ll check with her on our way out.”

  Mr. Liebowitz smiled wearily. “Is she coming, too?”

  “If she so wishes,” said Miss Lizzie.

  As it happened, Mrs. Parker did not so wish.

  The three of us stood outside her apartment on the second floor as Miss Lizzie knocked at the door. Nothing happened. Miss Lizzie knocked again.

  There was some rattling behind the door, chains being unlatched, and then, slowly, the door crept open, and a corner of Mrs. Parker’s head poked around it. Her hair was disheveled, and her face was pale. “Oh,” she said. “Jesus wept. I went out last night, and I believe I caught pneumonia. I tend to catch it a lot. I’m extremely susceptible.”

  Miss Lizzie smiled. “Perhaps some aspirin will help.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Parker, “or an undertaker. I really am sorry.”

  “There’s no need. This is Mr. Liebowitz.”

  Mrs. Parker’s gaze fell from Miss Lizzie and found Mr. Liebowitz. She blinked, and then her eyes moved up and down his short, slim form, from shiny black shoes to shiny white scalp. “Hello,” she said.