New York Nocturne

by Walter Satterthwait

  “Good evening,” said Miss Lizzie. “Thank you, Robert.”

  “Hi, Robert,” I said.

  Miss Lizzie stepped into the car first and then, using the walking stick to help her, she shifted over to the far side of the seat. I got in and Robert shut the door. He strode around the car again, slid inside, and pulled the door shut.

  He looked up into his rearview mirror. “El Fay, Miss Borden?”

  “Yes, please,” said Miss Lizzie. “Mr. Lipkind has explained our situation?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He said you might need my help for a few days.”

  “We won’t be imposing on you?”

  “No, ma’am.” He turned his broad shoulders and smiled back at her. “Be an interesting change.”

  “You do realize,” she said, “that it could be dangerous?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled again. “But I’ve been dodging New York City traffic for four years now. Anything else will be easy.”

  “I do hope so.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You comfortable back there?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Miss Amanda? Comfortable?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Robert.”

  “Then here we go,” he said and turned to face the front.

  Earlier, after a bit more arguing with Mr. Liebowitz, Miss Lizzie and I had made our plans. She wanted to retrace the route that John and I had taken on Friday night. Except for the appearance of Daphne Dale, to whom we had already spoken, nothing of note had happened at Chumley’s, where John and I had eaten dinner. Miss Lizzie, therefore, felt that we should begin at El Fay, the big dance club on West Forty-Fifth Street. Mr. Liebowitz would join us there at ten o’clock.

  Mrs. Parker wanted to be there as well. (“If Robert’s coming, I figure we’ll be safe. He packs a rod, you know.”) She asked whether she, too, could join us at ten, after she met some people for dinner. Miss Lizzie told her that she would be most welcome.

  El Fay was only one block north of the hotel. We could easily have walked the distance, but Mr. Lipkind and Mr. Liebowitz had both insisted that Robert drive us for the entire evening.

  “Robert?” said Miss Lizzie as we eased away from the Algonquin’s awning.

  “Yes?”

  “You mentioned that you had a friend at the Cotton Club?”

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  “Have the two of you spoken?”

  “Not yet, ma’am. I’ll try again tonight. We’ll be going up there afterward, Mr. Lipkind said. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “If there’s time. When you see your friend, I wonder if you could find out something for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Mr. Lipkind said that Mr. Madden, the owner, was in prison until last year. From the sound of it, the Cotton Club would be an expensive proposition, both to purchase and to provision. I’d like to know where Mr. Madden obtained the money.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll ask about that.”

  Within minutes, we were at El Fay. As he steered the big car toward the curb in front of it, Robert tilted his head slightly back and to the side. Over his shoulder he said, “You understand, Miss Borden, that I won’t be going inside?”

  The car stopped.

  “Yes,” she said. “We understand.”

  He turned around. “Mr. Lipkind said to tell you he’s got someone in there.”

  “Mr. Cutter?” I said. Naturally, I was curious about the man.

  “That’s right, miss.”

  “So we’ll be meeting him?”

  “Only if he wants you to.”

  “Why is that?”

  He smiled. “If you meet him, miss, you’ll find out.”

  Mr. Cutter was sounding increasingly more mysterious.

  Robert got out of the car and came around to open the passenger door. I stepped out; Miss Lizzie followed. After he shut the door, Robert said to her, “I’ll be around, Miss Borden. When you come back out, just look for me.”

  “Thank you, Robert.”

  Mr. Lipkind had made reservations for us, and the hostess, a tall blond woman in a red satin dress, led us to a table for five. We were obviously between shows; the house lights were up, and beneath the sallow haze of cigarette smoke, the crowd was murmuring complacently to itself.

  Mr. Liebowitz was already at the table, wearing a black two-piece suit. I confess, seeing him out in public like this, I was once again shocked by the glistening scalp and shiny brows. His small, round face seemed naked, unprotected, stripped as it was of the standard defenses with which most faces came supplied.

  He stood up as we approached, greeted us, and then sat down when we did.

  “Would you like dinner menus?” asked the hostess.

  “No, thank you,” said Miss Lizzie. We had eaten in the Algonquin’s dining room. “Unless, Amanda, you’d like something?”

  “No. Thanks.” I had not been able to eat much, only a few sips of soup. The dead Miss Cartwright had been sitting invisibly beside me, and she was still hovering nearby now.

  “Mr. Liebowitz?” said Miss Lizzie.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ll send a waiter over for your drink order,” the hostess said.

  Miss Lizzie thanked her.

  As she walked away, Mr. Liebowitz said to Miss Lizzie, “Your friend Mrs. Parker hasn’t arrived yet.”

  “It is early yet. She will be here. I am sure of it.”

  “If she can manage to find the place.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Well, Miss Borden, you do have to admit that this afternoon she’d already had a fair amount to drink.”

  She frowned. “Mr. Liebowitz, earlier in the day, she had walked into a room that held a woman whose throat had been cut. It seems to me that Mrs. Parker can be forgiven for having a drink or two.”

  He smiled faintly. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said, “that Mrs. Parker actually requires a dead woman.”

  Miss Lizzie nodded. “You do not drink yourself, do you, Mr. Liebowitz?”

  I noticed then that the glass in front of him held only a clear liquid, probably water.

  “No,” he said. “It doesn’t agree with me.”

  “And neither, I am afraid, do I. If Mrs. Parker drinks perhaps a bit too much, she may very well have good reason for doing so.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say, Miss Borden.”

  She nodded once and then smiled. “Thank you so much for humoring me.”

  He grinned. “My pleasure.”

  The waiter arrived then, an overweight young man in black slacks, a ruffled white shirt, a black bow tie, and an elastic black garter snugged around his upper left sleeve. He asked Miss Lizzie if she would like anything to drink.

  “I should very much like,” she said, slowly, deliberately, “a Ramos gin fizz.” She said it without looking at Mr. Liebowitz. I looked at him, and I saw that he was watching her, another smile on his lips.

  When the waiter asked me, I said that I wanted nothing. Mr. Liebowitz told him the same.

  As the waiter tucked his order book into his garter, Miss Lizzie said, “Excuse me.”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Is Mr. Fay in the club at the moment?”

  “And who’s asking, ma’am?” he said.

  “I am.”

  He smiled uneasily. “Yes, but—”

  “You may tell him,” she said, “that a relative of John Burton wishes to speak with him.”

  “John Burton,” he said. He nodded easily. And then, all at once, his face tightened. “Okay. I’ll see if he’s here.”

  “Thank you.”

  After he walked away, Mr. Liebowitz said, “He knows the name.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Lizzie. “But we already knew that John was a regula
r customer here.”

  After ten minutes or so, the waiter returned with Miss Lizzie’s drink balanced on a round metal tray. He set the tall glass in front of her. It was filled with what looked like a vanilla milk shake, a red paper straw speared through its white froth. He stood back and said to her, “Mr. Fay is busy right now, but he’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Bending forward, she took the straw between her fingers and deftly tucked the end of it into her mouth.

  It took half an hour—and Mrs. Parker still had not arrived—but at last the waiter returned. The band was playing a slow tune, and couples were swaying across the polished wooden floor, each of them tightly knotted together. The waiter leaned toward Miss Lizzie and said, “Mr. Fay will see you now.”

  “Thank you,” she said and stood up. So did Mr. Liebowitz and I.

  The waiter looked around the table. “All of you?” he said.

  Miss Lizzie nodded toward me. “She is the relative. I am her guardian. This gentleman is my friend and consultant.”

  “Well,” said the waiter, “I don’t know. . . . I thought it was just gonna be one of you.”

  Miss Lizzie smiled. “Perhaps Mr. Fay should decide.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. Follow me.”

  Miss Lizzie and I picked up our purses and, with Mr. Liebowitz beside us, we followed the waiter around the dance floor, out into the entryway, and down a narrow, dimly lit corridor. Outside an expensive-looking mahogany door stood a man whose shoulders appeared to be three feet wide. Stuffed into a dark suit, he stood there immobile, his thick arms crossed over his thick chest. Running across his left cheek was a wide pink scar.

  The waiter told him, “They all wanna go in.”

  The other man studied us, one by one, and then jerked his head toward the door. “Ask ’im,” he told the waiter.

  The waiter knocked on the door, then opened it, stepped in, and pushed the door shut behind him.

  The man said nothing more, merely looked down at the floor, ignoring us, waiting. We waited with him.

  After a few moments, the door opened, and the waiter stepped out, pulling the door shut. “He says it’s okay.”

  “Right,” said the man. “Take off.”

  The waiter left, and the man let his arms fall from his chest and turned to look down at Mr. Liebowitz. “You packing, shorty?”

  Mr. Liebowitz reached into the left side of his coat, eased out a small semiautomatic pistol, and handed it over.

  The man bounced it twice on his broad palm then said to Mr. Liebowitz, “A twenty-five caliber. A sissy gun.”

  Mr. Liebowitz nodded. “I shoot a lot of sissies.”

  I giggled; I could not stop myself.

  The man glanced at me, his eyes hooded above that impressive scar. He looked back at Mr. Liebowitz. “Yeah,” he said. “Funny.” He slipped the pistol into his coat pocket and turned to Miss Lizzie.

  “I have only this,” she said, holding up the walking stick. “Without it, alas, I tend to be quite useless.”

  “The bag,” he said. “Open it.”

  Miss Lizzie’s face went pink, and she pressed her lips together. “Please,” she said.

  “Come again?” said the man.

  “Open the purse, please,” said Miss Lizzie.

  The man looked at Mr. Liebowitz, at me, and then back at Miss Lizzie. “Huh?”

  “Open the purse, please,” said Miss Lizzie.

  “Oh, right,” said the man. He grinned. “Right. Sure. Please.”

  She nodded, slipped the purse off her arm, opened it, and held it out for him to look inside.

  He peered down into it, nodded, and then turned to me. “Okay, kid. The bag.” He glanced at Miss Lizzie, looked back to me, and grinned again. “Please,” he said.

  I held open my purse, wishing, ridiculously, that my crumpled handkerchief were not lying there, as I knew it was, curled up in one corner like a dead mouse.

  He looked in, leaned back, crossed his arms, then jerked his head toward the door. “Go ahead.”

  Smiling, Mr. Liebowitz opened the door and waved his arm toward it, gesturing for Miss Lizzie to go ahead. She did, and I followed her, and Mr. Liebowitz followed me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was a big office, brightly lit, lavishly appointed, richly carpeted. Each of the walls held twenty or thirty framed photographs. Every one of them, as far as I could see, was a picture of Mr. Fay being chummy with someone presumably famous.

  Mr. Fay himself was leaning back in a swivel chair behind a huge wooden desk, the heels of his large black shoes perched on the dark green blotter. His face was still gray, but tonight he wore another black suit, this one double-breasted. The jacket was open, and beneath it he wore a dark blue shirt, a white tie, and a different stick pin, one that held a large blue star sapphire in a silver setting.

  A second man sat to the left of Mr. Fay’s desk. A short, very fat man in a gray suit. Gray-haired and as gray-faced as Mr. Fay, he was likely about fifty years old. His blunt elbows were propped against the chair’s arms, his plump hands locked together over his wide, soft stomach.

  Mr. Fay pointed a finger at me. “You, I know,” he said. “Sorry about your uncle. A real tragedy. Amanda, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at Mr. Liebowitz and Miss Lizzie then back at Mr. Liebowitz.

  “Liebowitz, right?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You did that bank thing. The investigation. For Morrie Lipkind.”

  “That’s right.”

  His thin lips slid into a thin smile. “Don’t it slow you down some, being such a little guy? And bald and all? You kind of stick out in a crowd.”

  Mr. Liebowitz smiled. “I’m a master of disguise.”

  Mr. Fay turned to the fat man. “Snoopers. Ask a question, get a wiseass answer.”

  The fat man said nothing.

  Mr. Fay looked at Miss Lizzie. “And you?”

  “Elizabeth Cabot. I am Amanda’s aunt.”

  “Okay,” he said. He nodded toward the fat man. “This here is Mr. Greene. He’s what you call my legal adviser.”

  The fat man nodded, his glance moving easily from me to Miss Lizzie to Mr. Liebowitz.

  Miss Lizzie asked Mr. Fay, “May we sit down?”

  He waved a hand impatiently. “Yeah, yeah. Grab a pew.”

  Apparently, Mr. Fay used the room as a meeting place; arranged along the thick carpet in front of his desk were five chairs. We took three of them.

  “The chair all right?” said Mr. Fay to Miss Lizzie.

  “Splendid,” said Miss Lizzie.

  “Okay. What’s your beef? You got five minutes.”

  “Who killed John Burton?” she asked him.

  He turned to the fat man. “Right to the point. Direct.”

  “And perhaps,” said Miss Lizzie, “you could provide a direct answer?”

  He looked back at her. “Who says I got to provide anything?”

  “But why shouldn’t you?”

  “An old lady. A kid.” He looked at Mr. Liebowitz. “A billiard ball.” He turned back to Miss Lizzie. “Not a whole lot of leverage.”

  “I should’ve thought,” she said, “that you’d want to help us resolve the issue.”

  “Why?”

  “Simple civic duty.”

  He turned again, smiling, to the fat man.

  The fat man said nothing.

  “I’m sure,” said Miss Lizzie to Mr. Fay, “that you personally have nothing to hide.”

  He looked at her. “Nothin’.”

  “So. Do you have any idea who killed him?”

  “Not a one.”

  “You knew Mr. Burton.”

  “I knew him. A customer.”

  “You spent some fifteen or twen
ty minutes with him on Friday night.”

  He looked at me. “That would be you. You talked to the cops.”

  “I had to,” I said.

  He nodded, as though that were an answer he understood. He turned to Miss Lizzie. “We were talking investments, Burton and me. He gave me some advice.”

  “What advice?”

  “Come again?”

  “What advice did he give you?”

  “Commodities. Commodities are very good right now, he said.”

  “Which particular commodities?”

  He frowned. “What difference does it make?”

  “I’d simply like to know,” she said.

  “Peanuts,” he told her.

  “You spent fifteen minutes discussing peanuts?”

  “You know. The ins and outs.” He raised his left hand then glanced down at the gold watch on his wrist.

  “There’s a woman who works for you,” said Miss Lizzie. “A Miss Sybil Cartwright.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “Right there, see, you got what you call the wrong tense.”

  “How so?”

  “Sybil Cartwright, she don’t work here no more. She got herself killed today.”

  Blinking behind her pince-nez, Miss Lizzie put her hand to her breast. It was a better performance than Daphne Dale had given at the Hotel Brevoort this afternoon. “How horrible,” she said. “How on earth did it happen?”

  “Someone cut her throat,” said Mr. Fay.

  Miss Lizzie winced. “My goodness.”

  “Yeah. Nice kid, I hear.”

  “You hear? She was an employee of yours.”

  “I didn’t know her close. Dancers are a dime a dozen in this town.”

  “Do the police have a suspect?”

  “The police and me, generally, we’re incommunicado, know what I mean?”

  “Perfectly. But don’t you find it interesting?”

  “What? What’s interesting?”

  “You knew, of course, that John Burton and Miss Cartwright were seeing each other?”