New York Nocturne

by Walter Satterthwait

  “Perhaps. Keys are rather like virtue, aren’t they? They are notoriously easy to lose.”

  Mrs. Parker smiled. “Yeah,” she said, “and notoriously difficult to find again.”

  Our taxicab arrived at the Broadmore Hotel a little before three. Miss Lizzie led the way across the sidewalk, her handbag dangling like a large padlock from her left arm, the rubber tip of her walking stick tapping quietly at the pavement. Mrs. Parker and I followed behind.

  The hotel was a smallish brick building between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, five stories tall. No doorman stood outside, and when we entered the small, stuffy lobby, we discovered that no one stood behind the desk at the moment.

  We walked over to the single gray elevator.

  Miss Lizzie pressed the UP button. The door bumbled open, we stepped in, Miss Lizzie pushed the button for the fifth floor, and the door bumbled shut.

  On the fifth floor, we followed Miss Lizzie as she stepped out into the hallway and turned to the right.

  The carpet runner beneath us, vaguely Persian, was frayed and worn, red patterns scuffed down to pink. When we came to room 505, Miss Lizzie knocked on the door.

  Nothing.

  Miss Lizzie knocked again.

  Still nothing.

  She switched the walking stick to her left hand and took out her watch. “Three o’clock. She promised me she’d be here.” She had telephoned the woman from John’s apartment.

  She knocked again, harder this time.

  Nothing.

  “How aggravating,” she said.

  Mrs. Parker leaned forward and turned the doorknob. When she pushed the door, it swung silently inward. Inside, the room was quite dark.

  Mrs. Parker cleared her throat. “That can’t be a good thing,” she said.

  Miss Lizzie took the cane into her right hand, stepped into the room, moved her left hand off to the side, found a light switch, and flicked it on.

  We followed her in.

  It was a small room, floral wallpaper all around, cheap pine furniture—a dresser, a writing desk, a pair of upholstered chairs. The place was very neat, everything carefully ordered. The bed was made.

  But the bedspread was soaked in blood, so dark it was almost black, and lying limply in the midst of it, like a rag doll flung there, was a pale, young, dark-haired woman in a filmy black gown. Her throat had been cut, flesh and muscle sliced down to the pink windpipe, and the horrible red wound gaped up at us, a tortured, lunatic mouth.

  For a moment, I tottered. My lungs would not work.

  I heard Mrs. Parker suck in her breath. “I think,” she said, “we should get out of here.”

  “One moment,” said Miss Lizzie. She turned to me. “Amanda?”

  “I’m okay,” I said reflexively.

  “Why don’t you wait in the hall, dear. I’ll be right out.”

  I could smell it now, the same dense, coppery smell that had hung in the air of the library when I found John. “Why . . .” I said. I did not know then, I do not know now, what I was about to ask.

  “Hey,” said Mrs. Parker softly. She touched my arm. “Come on.”

  I shuffled alongside her out into the hallway, and a moment later, Miss Lizzie joined us, a white handkerchief in her hand. She used it to pull the door shut and carefully wipe down the knob, and then she tucked it into her purse.

  “We’ll go down the stairway, I think,” she said. She turned to me. “Can you manage that?”

  “Yes.”

  We took the dimly lit stairway all the way down, the three of us hushed, the soles of our heels clicking softly against the steps. When we reached the lobby, it was still deserted.

  “You two go on,” said Miss Lizzie, and Mrs. Parker and I walked toward the door.

  I turned back. Miss Lizzie limped around to the side of the front desk, looked down, adjusted her pince-nez, and frowned. She took a very large breath, her shoulders rising with it, and then came limping after us.

  Outside, on Forty-Fourth Street, she said, “Keep walking.” Her voice was tight.

  “What is it?” said Mrs. Parker.

  “The desk clerk. Behind the counter. His throat was cut.”

  “Shit,” said Mrs. Parker. She opened her purse and took out her flask.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “How long did you stay in Cartwright’s room?” Mr. Lipkind asked.

  “No more than a minute,” said Miss Lizzie.

  We were back in her suite at the Algonquin—Miss Lizzie, Mrs. Parker, and I—where Mr. Lipkind and the diminutive Mr. Liebowitz joined us. It was now six thirty. Earlier today, before leaving John’s apartment, Miss Lizzie had made arrangements to meet the private detective here at six, and shortly before we arrived back at the hotel, she had telephoned the lawyer from a pay phone and asked him to come over.

  We were also joined by Mrs. Parker’s Boston terrier. She had picked him up from her apartment, and now he sat on her lap, his small rectangular head turreting left and right as we talked. With her left hand, Mrs. Parker stroked his neck; in her right, she held a cigarette. On the table beside her, next to the ashtray, sat a glass of Scotch and water.

  “Why stay that long?” Mr. Lipkind asked Miss Lizzie. Under his gray sport coat, he was wearing a colorful print shirt, the broad collar points lolling out across the coat’s lapels.

  “I wished,” she said, “to determine when she might have died.”

  “You’re not a medical doctor.”

  “I am not a doctor of any kind. But I can tell the difference between fresh blood and dried blood.”

  “And hers was which?”

  “No longer fresh.”

  Mr. Lipkind was stroking his handlebar mustache. “So a couple of hours,” he said.

  Mr. Liebowitz ran his hand back over his shiny skull. “And you telephoned her at twelve.” He had been there, of course, at John’s apartment, when she made the call. “Obviously, then, she died not long afterward.”

  Exhaling smoke, Mrs. Parker asked, “But who would’ve wanted her dead?” The dog looked up at her, panting happily.

  “Someone, possibly, who didn’t want her to talk to you,” said Mr. Liebowitz to Miss Lizzie. “Who knew you were going to Miss Cartwright’s room?”

  “Albert Cooper,” she said.

  “But if Albert didn’t want her to talk to us, he could’ve just kept her name to himself,” I replied.

  “That is quite true,” agreed Miss Lizzie. “And we’ve no idea to whom she might have spoken. She could have telephoned anyone. And anyone to whom she spoke could have decided to silence her.”

  “Damn,” said Mr. Lipkind.

  Mr. Liebowitz turned to him. “I’ll talk to the desk clerk. At the Broadmore. He might remember her outgoing calls.”

  “I am afraid,” said Miss Lizzie, “that that will not be possible.”

  “Why not?” asked Mr. Lipkind.

  “You’re going to love this,” said Mrs. Parker flatly. She took a sip of her drink.

  Looking at Miss Lizzie, Mr. Liebowitz said, “He’s dead.”

  Miss Lizzie nodded. “He was behind the counter, on the floor. His throat had been cut.”

  Mr. Lipkind said, “Wait a minute. This guy snuffed the desk clerk, too? This was in broad daylight?”

  “Yes,” said Miss Lizzie.

  “See?” said Mrs. Parker and inhaled on her cigarette.

  “Presumably,” said Mr. Liebowitz, “because the clerk did know the identity of whomever Miss Cartwright telephoned. Or he saw whomever it was that visited her.”

  “Terrific,” said Mr. Lipkind. “That’s just terrific. He walks into a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, in broad daylight, half a million people walking by, and he aces two people. Cuts their throats, zip, zip. One of them right in the lobby. And then he just walks away.”

  “I t
old you,” said Mrs. Parker, exhaling smoke.

  Mr. Liebowitz again turned to Miss Lizzie. “You didn’t leave any fingerprints at the scene?”

  “I wiped them away. From the doorknob, from the light switch.”

  “You probably wiped away the killer’s, too,” said Mr. Lipkind.

  “In the circumstances, I felt that I had no choice. And it seemed likely to me that he had already wiped them away himself. None were left, you will recall, at John Burton’s apartment.”

  “Same guy, you figure?” said Mr. Lipkind.

  “I expect so, yes.”

  “Did anyone,” asked Mr. Liebowitz, “see you enter or leave the hotel?”

  “No. I don’t believe so.”

  He turned to Mrs. Parker. “There was no one around?”

  “No one who paid us any attention,” she said, exhaling smoke. She ran her hand along the dog’s back. The dog preened. “But we’re used to that,” said Mrs. Parker. “Aren’t we, Woodrow?”

  “Amanda?” said Liebowitz.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” I told him.

  He nodded. “How are you holding up?” he asked me.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Three murders in three days. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “I’m all right, too,” said Mrs. Parker and took a sip of her drink. She smiled wryly. “Thanks for asking.”

  He smiled at her bleakly. “I’m glad to hear it, of course, Mrs. Parker.” He turned back to Miss Lizzie. “Have you reported Miss Cartwright’s death?”

  “I thought it best to speak with you first. But having done so, I really should report it. The woman will have friends, relatives. They must be told.”

  “By now,” said Mr. Lipkind, “someone’s stumbled onto the desk clerk.”

  “No doubt,” she said. “But possibly no one has found Miss Cartwright.”

  “I’ll call it in to the cops,” said Mr. Lipkind. “Anonymously. When I leave.”

  Mr. Liebowitz turned back to Miss Lizzie. “You said earlier that you gave your room number to Daphne Dale. Was that wise? Suppose she phones here and asks for Miss Cabot?”

  Miss Lizzie nodded. “Before we left the Brevoort, I telephoned here myself and spoke with the manager. He’ll arrange to send up any calls for a Miss Cabot and for any messages to be taken. He understands the need for discretion.”

  “Have there been any messages? Did you check?”

  “I checked, yes. There were none.”

  He nodded. “And you think Miss Dale was lying about her argument with Mr. Burton on Friday night.”

  “I suspect she was, yes, but I’ve no proof.”

  “Well,” he said, “I believe there’s one thing we can safely assume about her.”

  “Yes. That Miss Dale does not know whatever it was that Miss Cartwright knew. Or that someone believes she doesn’t.”

  “Right,” said Mrs. Parker. “She’s still alive.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “This is getting extremely creepy.”

  “It is possible, of course,” said Miss Lizzie to Mr. Liebowitz, “that whoever killed Miss Cartwright is unaware of Miss Dale. It’s also possible that Miss Cartwright’s death has nothing to do with John Burton’s.”

  “A hatchet,” said Mr. Lipkind. “A knife. A knife twice. Sounds like the same guy to me.” He shook his head. “Extremely creepy is right. This is turning into a first-class rat’s nest.”

  Miss Lizzie turned to him, a bit stiffly. “If you would rather,” she said coolly, “I will make arrangements to employ another lawyer.”

  “Hey,” he said and raised his hand. “I was handing in an opinion. Not a resignation. Don’t worry. I’m here for the long haul.”

  “Very good,” she said. “You said something the other day about talking to the police commissioner?”

  “Vandervalk. Yeah. Talked to him this morning. Read him the riot act. I’m pretty sure the cops’ll leave us alone for a while.”

  “Excellent. Thank you.” She turned to the private detective. “What about you, Mr. Liebowitz? Did you learn anything from your search of the Burton apartment?”

  “Nothing useful,” he said. “But I did find this.” He reached into his inner coat pocket. “It was in the top drawer of his dresser, in the bedroom.”

  He took out a worn passport and handed it to Miss Lizzie.

  As she leafed through it, he said, “Since the war, he’s been all over the world.”

  “Indeed he has,” she said. “Germany. England. France. My goodness—China. Last year. For a month. And then, more recently, Europe again. He was in Germany in February, and he returned to the states on . . .”—she peered through her pince-nez—“. . . the fifteenth of March.”

  “Maybe,” said Mrs. Parker to Mr. Liebowitz, “it was business travel. Can’t you ask at his office?” She finished off her drink and put the glass on the table.

  “I can,” said Mr. Liebowitz, “and tomorrow morning, I will.”

  “And what shall we do in the meantime?” Miss Lizzie asked.

  “‘We,’ Miss Borden?”

  “We, Mr. Liebowitz. Although that would depend upon Amanda, naturally.”

  “What would?” I said.

  She turned to me. “I believe it very likely that the person who killed your uncle is the same person who killed Miss Cartwright and that poor man in the hotel. And I believe that he killed Miss Cartwright because she might have revealed something to us. If I’m right, she mentioned my telephone call to someone else. One way or another, I believe, this led to her death.”

  “We don’t know that,” said Mr. Liebowitz, “to be a certainty.”

  “We don’t, no. But I feel that our wisest course, just now, would be to act as though it were. If we’re wrong, nothing is lost. If we’re right, however, then Amanda is possibly in jeopardy.”

  “Me?” I said. “Why?”

  “Because of what you might know.”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  “The person who killed your uncle can’t be certain of that. You spent a week with John, the last week of his life. You were the last person to see him alive, apart from the murderer. And you were there, in the apartment, when he died.”

  “But if I’d known something, I would’ve told the police.”

  “Perhaps you know something without being aware of it. Perhaps you saw something, or heard something, that might reveal his identity. I’m not saying, Amanda, that you actually did. I am saying only that the killer may believe it to be true.”

  “So what should we do?” I asked her.

  “We have two alternatives,” she said. “We can go to Boston, the two of us. Once we are there, I can arrange for you to be protected.”

  “A good plan,” said Mrs. Parker. “Can I come along?” Using a gold lighter, she lit another cigarette.

  “Cops won’t like it,” said Mr. Lipkind. “Amanda scramming like that.”

  Miss Lizzie smiled. “I believe,” she said, “that I have sufficient resources in Massachusetts to deal with the New York City Police Department.”

  “If we leave,” I said, “the police probably won’t find out who killed John.”

  She nodded. “I am not sanguine about their prospects, no.”

  “They don’t have any,” said Mrs. Parker, exhaling smoke.

  “What’s the alternative?” I asked Miss Lizzie.

  “We continue to do what we’ve been doing. We attempt, on our own, to learn the identity of the murderer.”

  “A good plan,” said Mrs. Parker. “Can I still go to Boston?”

  “But Miss Borden,” said Mr. Liebowitz, “you said it yourself. If Amanda stays here, she may be in jeopardy.”

  “Yes. If we stay, we shall still need to see about some sort of protection.”

>   “Robert,” said Mr. Lipkind and stroked his big mustache.

  Mr. Liebowitz turned to him, frowning.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Miss Lizzie.

  “Robert. My chauffeur. You met him yesterday. He’s good. He’s smart, he’s tough, and he’s got a carry permit. He packs a rod.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” said Mrs. Parker.

  Mr. Lipkind turned to her.

  Innocently, she said, “I mean, you’d expect him to carry a gun, wouldn’t you?” She took the dog’s head in her left hand and spoke down to him. “Right, Woodrow?”

  “There are places in New York City,” said Mr. Liebowitz to Miss Lizzie, “that Robert won’t be able to go.”

  “Why not?” I asked him.

  “Because he’s a Negro,” he said.

  “I know a guy,” said Mr. Lipkind. “White guy. He can fill in when you need him.”

  Mr. Liebowitz frowned again. “You mean Cutter.”

  “He’s very good.”

  “He’s dangerous.”

  “Some situations, that’s very good.”

  “Does he pack a rod?” asked Mrs. Parker.

  “Yeah,” said Mr. Lipkind. “He does, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh good,” she said, stroking the dog.

  Mr. Liebowitz turned back to Miss Lizzie. “Miss Borden—”

  “It is not my decision to make,” she said. She turned to me. “Whoever he is, Amanda, this person is ruthless. He has probably murdered three people, all of them brutally. If we stay here, you may be in danger. Even if Mr. Lipkind can provide us with some level of protection, we’ll have no absolute guarantee of safety. I am perfectly happy to leave with you for Boston. Tonight, if you wish.”

  I looked around the room, at Mrs. Parker, Mr. Liebowitz, Mr. Lipkind. I looked back at Miss Lizzie.

  “It is,” she said, “entirely up to you.”

  I thought of John, sprawled in that library chair. Alone. Abandoned there like a piece of rubbish.

  “I want to stay,” I said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At twenty minutes to ten that night, Mr. Lipkind’s shiny black Cadillac drew up in front of the Algonquin, where Miss Lizzie and I stood waiting.

  Robert opened the driver’s door. Moving with his dancer’s grace, he stepped out, walked around the back of the car, took off his cap, opened the door to the passenger compartment, and held it open with one large brown hand. “Miss Borden,” he said, his deep bass voice rumbling. He smiled down at me. “Miss Amanda.”