“But there cannot be as many drug users, surely, as there are drinkers.”
“Don’t matter, don’t matter. What’s it’s all about, see, like Rothstein says, is your margins. Your profit margins. With drugs, they’re a hundred times higher.”
“But to whom will the drugs be sold?”
“Anybody. Everybody. Way Rothstein puts it, people always want a little something makes ’em happy. Takes their mind off shit, you know? Heroin—you get some of that inside you and for a few hours everything is jake. Everything is peaches and cream.”
Mr. Cutter said, “That the way it works for you, Joe?”
“Fu—” He cut himself off. He looked down then looked up. “Okay, yeah. I got a habit. I know that. But I dumped it before, and I can dump it again. All I need is a head start.”
Mr. Cutter said nothing.
Miss Lizzie said, “I’ve read that other countries—Germany, France—will soon be changing their narcotic laws.”
“Right,” said Walters. “Right. Exactly. That’s the beauty part. Because Rothstein, see, he’s thinkin’ ahead, like always. He’s setting up things in China, so the raw stuff, the opium, gets shipped directly out. They got tons of opium in China—little fuckers over there, they don’t know what to do with it. And Rothstein’s got those Wops of his—Luciano and Gambino—and they’re setting up places in Italy—factories, like—where they make it up into heroin. Presto chango, you got your product.”
I remembered that John had been in China last year.
“Okay,” said Walters. He looked out the back window then looked again at Miss Lizzie. “What else? You wanna know about Rothstein’s frail? He’s got a wife, but he got himself a sweet little piece of meat on the side also.”
“I don’t believe so, no,” said Miss Lizzie.
“So what else you want?”
“The reason for John Burton’s death.”
“Like I tol’ you, lady. I ain’t got no idea. Yesterday I heard about it, and I said to myself, now what did that stuck-up prick do to get Rothstein so pissed off at him?”
“You’re convinced that Mr. Rothstein was responsible.”
“Hey. Don’t you get it? He was Rothstein’s guy. And no one’s gonna hit Rothstein’s guy without Rothstein sayin’ it’s okay. But if Rothstein wants someone dead, that person is dead.”
Miss Lizzie glanced at me. I looked down.
Walters said, “What’s the deal with Burton anyways? How come you wanna know so much about Burton?”
“Curiosity,” said Miss Lizzie.
“Yeah, well. You know what curiosity did to the fuckin’ cat, right?”
“I recall, yes.” She opened her purse again, slipped out her wallet, and removed some more money. “Here you are. Thank you.”
Walters seized the money and shoved it into his pocket with the rest. “One thing. You didn’t hear none of this from me.”
“No,” she said.
“If I find out you talked . . .”
Mr. Cutter said, “You’ll do what, Joe?”
Walters frowned, shook his head, and looked at Miss Lizzie. “Rothstein hears about this, and you’re gutted, lady. You and the kid both. I mean that sincerely.”
“Fine, Joe,” said Mr. Cutter. “You take off now.”
Walters turned. “I gotta walk?”
“Find a taxi.”
Walters scowled again. “Yeah, a taxi, right.” He grabbed at the door handle and turned back to Miss Lizzie. “You never heard it from me.”
“No,” she said.
He opened the door, stepped out, slammed it shut. The stink of him fluttered like an evil bat around the interior of the car.
Mr. Cutter said, “Where to?”
“The Plaza, please,” Miss Lizzie said.
He turned around, started the car, and eased it out into the street.
I said to Miss Lizzie, “Is that what heroin does to people?”
“No. That is what Mr. Walters has done to himself.”
“He’s an addict, though, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but at the turn of the century, Amanda, half the patent medicines in the United States contained heroin: cough syrup, stomach tonics, pain pills. I imagine that many people became addicted to their cough syrup. But there was never an epidemic of . . . creatures like Mr. Walters.”
“But what happened to him?”
“He has been deliberately destroying himself for some time, I expect. I don’t know why. Guilt, perhaps. Self-loathing, perhaps.”
“But the heroin helps.”
“I imagine it does, yes.”
“And John was helping Mr. Rothstein bring heroin to America.”
“Yes,” she said. “So it seems.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Narcotics?” said Mr. Liebowitz.
“Yes,” said Miss Lizzie. “John was apparently assisting Mr. Rothstein in arranging their importation. Morphine and heroin from Europe, opium from China.”
He ran his hand over his slick white scalp and turned to me. His small, neat body seemed to have shrunk. “I’m sorry, Amanda.”
The concern made my chest tighten. I inhaled, trying to loosen it. “I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
“It must have been a shock for you—”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Really.”
“What did you learn at John’s office?” Miss Lizzie asked him.
It was six thirty, and we were in her new suite at the Plaza. My own room was, once again, next door. The living room here was more luxurious than the one at the Algonquin: plush carpets, heavily padded furniture, framed landscapes on the wainscoted walls. Miss Lizzie and I sat on one of the two sofas, Mr. Liebowitz in one of the leather club chairs.
“Not a great deal,” he said. “John Burton was well liked. He was respected. He did his job, in a manner of speaking.”
“In what manner of speaking?”
“He didn’t do it very often. He wasn’t there, at the office, very often. He seems to have come and gone very much as he pleased.”
“His trips to Europe, you mean.”
“I mean in general. Throughout the year, throughout the week. He wandered in and out whenever he liked.”
“How did he manage to remain employed?”
“For one thing, he brought in clients. He made the firm money. That’s not difficult right now, of course, with the market climbing the way it is. But even so, it counts.”
“‘For one thing,’ you said.”
“Yes. For another, I got the impression that his employers had been encouraged to give him a certain amount of latitude.”
“Encouraged.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mr. Rothstein, perhaps?”
“It’s an old, established firm, Miss Borden. Not the kind of place, one would think, where a man like Rothstein would have any influence.”
“I no longer know what to think, not when it comes to Mr. Rothstein and his influence.”
“So far as I was able to determine, there’s no link between the firm and Arnold Rothstein.”
She nodded. “You were going to speak with John’s lawyer.”
“James McCready, yes. I did.” He turned to me. “He wants to talk to your legal representative.”
“Mine?”
“Yes. I told him that Morrie Lipkind would be in touch.”
“But why?”
“He wouldn’t say. But I’d guess that you’ve been named as one of John’s beneficiaries.”
“I don’t want anything from John.”
“It’s only a guess, Amanda,” he said.
“I don’t want anything.”
“Well, let’s see what Morrie learns.”
He turned to Miss Lizzie. “So, what do we do next?”
“I should think it obvious.”
He smiled. “Obvious?”
“Yes. I shall have to speak with Arnold Rothstein.”
His smile vanished. “You can’t do that, Miss Borden.”
“Indeed I can,” she said.
They continued arguing. It was not dangerous, Miss Lizzie insisted. She would speak with Mr. Rothstein at Lindy’s, a delicatessen, a public place where they would be surrounded by witnesses. He would not dare to harm her there.
Mr. Liebowitz pointed out that once Mr. Rothstein knew about her, about her interest in him, her life would be in jeopardy. Miss Lizzie pointed out, as she had to Mr. Cutter, that Mr. Rothstein almost certainly knew about her already.
“But what do you hope to gain?” he said.
“I hope to gain a confession,” she said, “to the murder of John Burton.” She smiled wryly. “But I admit that I am not entirely sanguine about my prospects.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“The point is that no one, not Mr. Rothstein, no one, can be allowed to kill another human being without being compelled, at the very least, to confront what he’s already done.”
He looked at her for a moment. Perhaps he was remembering that Miss Lizzie had herself been arrested and put on trial for the murder of her parents.
“That’s a nice sentiment,” he said, “but—”
“It is my sentiment, and I will not change it.”
“You don’t know that Rothstein killed him.”
“I suspect that he didn’t. Not with his own hands. From what we’ve heard, I suspect that he arranged for someone else to do it.”
“He’ll never admit that.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Definitely not.”
“It still seems to me imperative that he be confronted.”
“It’s crazy.”
“Perhaps.” She smiled again. “But who knows? He may suffer an attack of whimsy and reveal everything.”
“Yes, and then turn himself over to the police.”
“Perhaps not that.”
“I’m coming,” I said.
“No,” said Mr. Liebowitz.
“No,” said Miss Lizzie, “you are not.”
“If it’s safe for you,” I told her, “then it’s safe for me.”
She said, “Amanda—”
“Miss Lizzie,” I said, “it was my uncle who got killed. I’m the one who found him. If Mr. Rothstein did it, then I want to meet him, face-to-face. Maybe John was a gangster and a drug dealer and whatever else. But he was still my uncle, and if Mr. Rothstein killed him, then I want to hear what he says.”
“As I said, I don’t believe that he actually—”
“Or had him killed,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It is absolutely out of the question.”
“If I can’t go with you, then I’ll go on my own. I know where he’ll be. He’ll be at Lindy’s, that delicatessen on Broadway. Seven nights a week, Miss Dale said. You can’t stop me, not unless you tie me up and lock me in a room. And even if you do, I swear I’ll get loose. I’ll—”
“I have no intention,” she said, “of tying you up and locking you in a room.”
“Then I’m going.”
“Miss Borden,” began Mr. Liebowitz, leaning forward.
She held up her hand, quickly, imperiously. He sat back, frowning.
She looked at me, her gray eyes unblinking behind the pince-nez. She folded her hands together on her lap. “Amanda,” she said, “you are a spoiled and willful child. I am quite certain that if you ever succeed in growing up, which seems increasingly less likely with every passing day, you will become a spoiled and willful woman.”
“I’m going,” I said.
She nodded. “On one condition.”
“Miss Borden,” said Mr. Liebowitz.
“What condition?” I asked her.
“That no matter what Mr. Rothstein says, no matter what, we will leave New York tomorrow morning, you and I. We will take the first train to Boston.”
“Fine,” I said.
“But Miss Borden,” said Mr. Liebowitz.
She turned to him. “Do you want to tie her up?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Robert drove us.
He picked us up at nine thirty that night in front of the Plaza. Mr. Lipkind’s Cadillac looked as though nothing had ever happened to it; the driver’s side window had been replaced and the car had been washed and waxed. If there had been bullet holes in the metalwork—I had not thought, last night, to check—they were gone now.
Robert looked as he always had: tall and broad and handsome in his neatly tailored chauffeur’s uniform.
“Robert?” said Miss Lizzie after we got into the car.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said, his deep voice rumbling.
“You and Mr. Liebowitz were both splendid last night.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Like I told you, I’m glad I was there to help.”
I asked him, “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“In the army, miss. In the war. I was with General Pershing.”
“Was it bad, the war?” I realized, the moment that the words stumbled out of my mouth, how inane they were.
For a moment he said nothing, and I was beginning to believe that he had not, thank God, heard me. But then he said, “It was the worst thing that ever happened, miss. It changed everything. It changed everyone.”
No one spoke. The silence expanded to fill the car. And then Robert said, “How is Mrs. Parker, ma’am?”
“She’s well.”
Miss Lizzie had called her before we ate our dinner at the Plaza. Without mentioning where we were going tonight, she had told her that we would be leaving tomorrow morning. Mrs. Parker said that she would try to come over to the hotel to say goodbye.
“You know, Robert,” she said now. “You were something of a disappointment to Mrs. Parker.”
“Yes, ma’am, I know that. But it couldn’t be helped.”
“No, of course not. But you’ve been nothing like a disappointment to Amanda and me. I thank you, once again, for everything you’ve done.”
“Me, too,” I said.
We were telling him this, I suspect, because we still had an opportunity to do so. Despite Miss Lizzie’s assurances, to me and to Mr. Liebowitz, and possibly to herself, we really had no idea what would happen when we confronted Arnold Rothstein. Perhaps, afterward, there would be no time for gratitude, no time for anything.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” he said. “And you, too, miss.”
All along Broadway, lights glittered and glared—from theater marquees, from restaurants and nightclubs, from the beams of the endless cars that swept up and down the busy street, their sleek sides darkly glistening beneath the streetlamps.
Lindy’s Delicatessen was just south of Fiftieth. Above the wide window at the front was a long illuminated sign that read World Famous Cheesecake. Surely, with a sign like that outside, nothing unpleasant could happen inside.
Robert drove up to the curb, parked, stepped out, and came around to open the side door. I left the car, and then Miss Lizzie followed, using her walking stick to maneuver herself onto the sidewalk. People strode swiftly by, utterly indifferent to us—huddling couples, gawking families, predatory-looking young men, swaggering bands of well-dressed youths—all of them cocooned within their own dreams and debts and destinations.
“I’ll keep circling, ma’am,” Robert told her. “I’ll be nearby when you come out.”
“I know you will, Robert. Thank you.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, ma’am?”
We had not mentioned Mr. Rothstein to him. Robert had obviously heard something from
Mr. Lipkind, who had no doubt heard something from Mr. Liebowitz.
“I am quite sure, yes,” said Miss Lizzie.
“Mr. Lipkind told me to ask you if maybe you’d reconsider, ma’am.”
“I think not, Robert.”
He smiled sadly. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what he said you’d say. Good luck, ma’am. Miss Amanda.” He tipped a finger against his cap, nodded gravely, then walked around the car, opened the door, and eased himself back in. We watched as he drove away, the Cadillac’s red taillights smoothly swerving into that glistening, implacable river of traffic.
She turned to me. “Well,” she said, “are we ready?”
I glanced through the passing pedestrians at the restaurant’s window and peered inside. The place was packed: hundreds of customers and potential witnesses. Certainly, as Miss Lizzie had said, no one would dare harm us there.
I took a deep breath, inhaling that heady, urban nighttime air thick with automobile exhaust and frying food, laced with thin ribbons of perfume left lingering by the jostle of the crowd.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
We walked over to the entrance, slipping past the people walking by, and I opened the door and held it for her. We stepped into blue cigarette smoke, glaring lights, and the rumble and drone of chatter.
The crowd was as Miss Dale had described it. Theater people, most of them laughing loudly. Clusters of men, some in checkered suits, some large and bulky like prizefighters. Young couples. A few vivid young women with tired eyes and tired mouths. All the tables appeared to be full.
A harried waiter, a sheaf of menus wedged beneath his arm, a pencil slotted behind his ear, scuttled up and told us breathlessly that seats would be available in only a few seconds.
“We shan’t need them, thank you,” said Miss Lizzie. “We’re here to speak with Mr. Rothstein.”
“Um . . .” he said. He blinked at her, in surprise or confusion. “Ah,” he said.
“He’s in the back, I believe,” she said. “We’ll find him ourselves. Thank you so much.”
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