Lost in New York: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 5)

by J. J. Henderson

  She looked at him, trying to let the rush of her immediate feelings—oh yes I will yes yes—subside a little, to make room for the big picture. The one with Harold out of town half the time, and her not knowing where he was. The one with him falling off the wagon and getting fucked up on vodka. The one where she didn't live alone, couldn't come and go when she wanted, couldn't do what she wanted whenever the notion struck her. "Jesus, Harold, I gotta think about this. I—"

  "Fine, fine," he said, climbing back onto the seat. "I don't want to pressure you, I want to marry you. I know there are—"

  "There are a lot of questions, Harry," she said.

  "Yeah, I guess so. But look at it this way, hon: who else would you want to marry?"

  "There's nobody, Harry. But—" That doesn't mean I want to marry you, she said to herself, looking at him. He was watching her, and she swore, the way his eyes fell, that he read her mind at that moment.

  "Sixth and A," the cabbie said. Lucy fished out the fare, paid him, and they climbed out. Her heart whirled so fast her eyes hardly worked.

  "There's the place," Harry said, pointing. She followed him across Sixth Street. Leningrad Prospect had windows full of Russian peasant blouses and skirts, and what looked like reindeer-skin boots. They went inside. Another beautiful girl, this one dark-haired, Asiatic-eyed. She told them she came from Mongolia. She smoked Camel cigarettes. The smoky interior was done up like a nomad harem tent, all billowing, richly patterned and painted fabric, sabers and knives crossed on the walls, and ornate hanging lanterns. Cossack chic. More icons. The clothes were vintage Dr. Zhivago. The place had an authentic feeling of pre-revolutionary Russian style, and the slides would be rich. Lucy explained herself and captured twenty images inside and out.

  Night had fallen, and Harold looked sad as they walked across Tompkins Square. Siberia was way the hell east, on 9th Street. "Harry, what's wrong?" Lucy said, clutching her camera bag tightly as they made their way through the milling throngs, the new East Village blend of old-fashioned punks, old school immigrants, and bankers with loosened ties. A far cry from the days of dope, homeless mobs, and danger. Lucy felt nostalgic.

  "Wrong? Nothing's wrong," he said, but his tone said otherwise. "It's just—I—my God, Lucy, I agonized over asking—over what we talked about—so much, and now I feel like it was—'' he gently took her arm, and they stopped—"a mistake. A huge fucking mistake. That's what it was, wasn't it?"

  "I don't know. I told you, I have to think about it. Please. Harry, I love being with you, and—look, can't we just enjoy the evening? Can't we talk later?"

  "Yeah, sure, Luce. I'm sorry." They went on. She was thinking, he's right, it was a mistake, because it cast our relationship into the light of this truth: I don't want to marry him or have a baby with him. But I do love him. Does that mean I won't ever want to marry anybody, or have any babies? Damn, do I have to figure this out right now?

  The back room at Siberia, wherein they found Rosa and Danny Horn, was called Lubyanka, after the infamous KGB prison in Moscow. The decor consisted of morbid, Soviet-gothic artifacts—stuffed rats in glass cases, grimy notebooks full of written, signed confessions elicited by suspects under torture, chains, grey uniforms, cheap metal dishes and implements Gulag prisoners utilized, and old Soviet-made telephones and typewriters. A page out of 1984. The sound system played tapes of Stalin speeches and Soviet marching songs interspersed with the hipper sounds of the Bulgarian Women's Choir, that unexpected dance club hit group of the late 80s. The front room was no big deal, basically a dark, moody bar festooned with Soviet flags of various sorts, but the Lubyanka room was creepily effective. After quick hellos Harry sat with Rosa and Danny while Lucy captured her images. She wanted to get it over with because, in addition to being rattled by her conversation with Harold, she was nervous: even enhanced by digital wonderworking these pictures looked dicey in the room’s low light levels. She did her best, then sat down at the pile of concrete blocks which served as a Lubyanka table.

  "Hi again," said Lucy. "Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way."

  "No problem, Luce," said Rosa. "Danny was just saying how difficult it would be to get good images in here."

  "Yeah, it's really dark," she said.

  "Who are you shooting for?" Danny, who'd been watching her rather intensely, finally spoke up. He was fortyish, with an ultra-short greying haircut and a four day beard. He wore a black cowboy shirt, a red string tie, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. There was something incongruous in the urban cowpoke garb on this slim, severe-looking man. Especially considering that each element in his outfit appeared to be extremely high-quality, meaning high-priced, and painstakingly selected.

  "SPACES, you know."

  "Yes, I've seen your work in there. Words and pictures. It's a good book."

  "Nina's fun to work for."

  "Yeah, I like her. You know, it's too bad the magazine—I mean, your work—your writing is good, Lucy, but it's too bad you can't really critique the projects you cover. It would make it a lot more interesting."

  He didn't waste any time, did he? "I know, Danny. Believe me, Nina's been gnawing that bone for years. But it's important to maintain good relationships with the architects and designers, so that—"

  "They will give you new projects to publish in the future. Yeah, yeah," he said. "I've heard it all over town. But if all the magazines would just stick to their guns and be critical when it was deserved, then that would take the leverage away from the architects. Besides, you know they're all dying to get published."

  "Well, if it was up to me I'd shred some of the projects I cover, but it's not, and I gotta make a living."

  "The hell with ethics, eh?"

  "Hey, man, lighten up," said Harold. "Who are you to be talking like that to her, anyways?"

  "It's OK, Harry," Lucy said. "Danny's earned the right. He's made his opinions known, beating up on half the buildings in town, and the designers. I just can't wait till you get something built, Danny boy. You are gonna be facing a firing squad of critics, you realize."

  "I guess so," he said. "But first I've got to find a client, don't I?" He laughed. "They all seem to have disappeared. At least the ones with money. Excuse me," he said, standing. "I've got to use the head." He walked that way, a little stiff in his crisp black boots.

  "God, what a snot," Harold said.

  "He's all right, Harry," Rosa said. "He's just opinionated."

  "Yeah, sure, but the real question is, how can he afford to be so self-righteous?" said Lucy. "That's what I'd like to know."

  "His wife's father is the toilet bowl king of New England," Rosa said. "They have two apartments in the city, a house in Bucks County, ten million bucks in trust, and a ton of stock in corporations whose buildings he analyzed into the ground in the 1980s. He's a total hypocrite, in other words." She grinned. "But he's not a hypocrite about one thing: me. He says he's not leaving his wife, but that sex with me is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him."

  "And you settle for that?" Lucy said.

  "Honey, after what happened in Santa Fe, I'd settle for Santa Claus, as long as he didn't propose."

  "Right," Lucy said. Rosa had barely avoided marriage with a man who'd ended up in prison, courtesy of Lucy's unraveling of an insurance fraud. Rosa had earned the right to cold feet, when it came to nuptials. Why are my feet cold, Lucy wondered.

  "So what do you think about this place, Lucy?" Danny Horn asked on returning to the table. "I assume you're going to write about it too. What will you say?" Lucy looked around.

  "I don't know, I'll figure something out. It's a pretty hostile environment, but it has its perverse charm, don't you think?"

  "I guess," he said. "Those guys at Kremlin are witty, I will say that."

  "By the way, what's the story on Parkistan and Vadim? Nina tells me you heard that Vadim did the design."

  "What I told her was what he told me, which is that Serge was trying to create a club with totally predicta
ble flash and glamor, you know, Starck meets the Catalonians in Moscow, the usual heavy metal nonsense, and Vadim just said, "Do Eastern Europe in here and it will be a big hit." So they did. And they've done Russia, Eastern Europe, and the USSR everywhere else since, including this place—and by doing so made a name for themselves. I guess you can't blame them. Coming from Russia, where they assume that everything over here is much better, how could they know Gulag style could be popular as a Western design theme?"

  "Good point," said Lucy.

  "What's interesting to me," Danny went on, enamored with the sound of his own voice, "is how these places are getting financed. I would be willing to bet this place is backed with Russian Mafia money."

  "Russian Mafia?" said Harold.

  "Yeah, you know, they've been smuggling opium and smack in from Iran, Georgia, and all those Stan states, ever since the Soviet Union fell apart. Plus running prostitutes all over Europe and Asia. They made, and are still making, tons of black money which they then move into legit products, like for example the entire oil industry in Russia. At this point in Russia the bad boys are pretty much running the money show. Over on this side of the pond I hear some of the top dogs are set up right out there in Brooklyn. Brighton Beach. Little Odessa and all that. They're practically coining money, and they've got to do something with it. Voila: Parkistan and all this Slavic style bullshit."

  "So you think it's just a front?" Lucy said.

  "Not a front. An investment," he replied. "They're just doing what all crooks eventually do—trying to move the money into legitimate businesses."

  "Well," said Harold, glancing at his watch. "We've got to run, Luce. Got that reservation."

  "Right," she said. She and Harold stood. "It was nice to meet you, Danny."

  "Be seeing you around, Rosa," Harold said.

  "Yeah. See you guys," Rosa said. Harold walked out.

  "Nice to meet you, Harold," Danny called after him.

  "Yeah, right," Harold hardly turned back to acknowledge him.

  "Bye, Lucy," Danny said. "Good luck with the Kremlin story."

  "Thanks." She ran after Harold, who had already hit the street and reached full stride headed west. "Hey, take it easy, man," she said, catching up to him. "What's your problem?"

  "Ah, fuck, that guy was just getting on my nerves is all. Thinks he knows everything. Dresses like a drugstore cowboy. Insults you. Talks about the Russian Mafia like he's privy to some inside info."

  "What he said about me was true, Harry," she said quietly. "The fact that he's married to a millionaire doesn't make it any less true."

  "Yeah, well, so he can afford to be self-righteous."

  "What about that Mafia stuff, Harry? Did what he said make sense to you?"

  "Sure, some of it. But so what? It's been in the newspapers, it’s all over the internet and television, it's not like some big secret."

  "I guess I never noticed, or thought about it much before. Hey, listen, can you do me a favor?" She asked, pulling out one of the copies of the Smithson head shot. "Take a look at this."

  He took the somewhat blurry photo-copy and stopped for a better look. "Hmmm, don't recognize either of them. Who is it?"

  "The woman's a famous model. The guy is Zane Smithson. Or whoever he is."

  "The guy Patty was with that night! Where'd you get this, Luce? Where's the original?"

  "In the hands of the NYPD." She brought him up to date as they continued west on 9th Street. They ended up at Veselka for dinner, eating large plates of good, cheap Eastern European food, and avoiding the larger topics for the evening. At the end of which Lucy, pleading weariness, left him and went home alone. She went up and got the dog and walked him, then went to bed and tossed through a restless night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ON THE TRAIL OF THE FOX

  Lucy woke to the same thoughts that had kept her up most of the night: a triple whammy of insomnia-producing agitation. One, Harry and his proposal, or was it proposition? Whatever it was, she couldn't do it. Harry was a great guy and a wonderful lover and a real friend, but she was not in love with him, not enough to marry him. And the thought of having a kid right now just threw her into a state of confusion. Was she selfish or just a fool, not wanting to give up her lonely life for a baby? Was she crazy? She pictured herself pushing one of those blue-gray armored strollers, working through the traffic on Broadway, fat, bleary-eyed, and broke, fetching a carton of milk, Harry off in Trinidad getting drunk, shot, or laid by an exotic Caribbean damsel in distress. Of course it didn't have to be that way, but for the moment, that's the way she saw it.

  Two, that hypocrite Danny Horn throwing journalistic ethics in her face like that, casually over a drink. There was enough truth in what he said to make it hurt. She didn't plan it this way; she'd intended to be a famous poet by now, declaiming feminist odes to free enslaved homemakers across America. Why not? Who knew? Things just happened the way they did. She stumbled into a career and it took directions she did not plan or control. Did this make her unethical, cheap, unrighteous? Along with her design hackwork and her travel hackwork she’d done a couple of decent if not exactly world-shaking books, and even a reality tv movie. At least she wasn't writing technical manuals for chemical manufacturers or nuclear warhead engineers. Or advertising copy for anybody. So fuck you Danny Horn!

  Three, why had that cop Riles, unbidden, told her he couldn't access the federal computer files? She hadn't mentioned federal. Why did he? What did this mean? And why hadn't he or Sanderson called back last night?

  Was this more fun than life in the suburbs? She lay in bed running scenarios for a while, working herself into a frenzy of regret and anticipation, and then leaped up, unable to stand it any longer. Seven-thirty a.m. A long hot shower followed by a short cold one, to stimulate the immune system. Harry was gone again, three to five days this time, he'd said, vainly pleading for a place in her bed last night. He’d offered to help her with this and now he was cutting out for Belize, to run down a gun runner, he claimed. Get lost, Harry. She dressed and headed out to walk the dog, get coffee and a paper. She came home and called Rosa at nine o'clock. "Hey, wake up!" she said. "We have work to do."

  "What? What are you talking about?" Rosa said sleepily.

  "Is he still there?" Lucy asked.

  "Danny? No. We got in a fight last night. He didn't even come in."

  "What happened?"

  "What do you think? I told him he was rude to you, and he didn't want to hear it."

  "He was, but I figure that's part of his job, know what I mean?"

  "Fuck that, Lucy. He had no right. Not with ten million bucks in the bank."

  "Well, I got over it. Listen, I need you and your car this morning. Meet me at The Cupping Room in half an hour. I'll buy you a latte and a muffin."

  "But I was going to go riding, Lucy."

  "Forget riding. This'll be much more fun."

  "Big fun, Luce," Rosa said. They sat in her black Volvo station wagon across the street and down the block from Nova's building, in a downpour, watching nothing happen. They had been there for two hours. They had covered the territory twice, conversationally. They had read every word in all the dailies. They had drunk too much coffee, and now knew why cops were so bad-tempered. Lucy wasn't even sure why they were there. They watched, wipers on intermittent, radio on jazz from New Jersey, and the rain poured down.

  "Hey, it ain't so bad, hon," Lucy said. "You couldn't ride in this rain anyways."

  "No, but I could paint. I'm supposed to be an artist, remember? Hey look, someone's coming out," she said. Lucy peered through the rainy window.

  "It's Katya. The wife. The Russian." A cab pulled up and she ran for it, blonde hair flying out from under a fur hat. She wore a fur coat and carried a big pink umbrella. "Hey, you are an artist. Follow the cab. Don't lose her."

  "Well, I may be an artist to you and five other friends," Rosa said, zooming after the cab. "Looks like she's going downtown." She stuck close as the cab worked i
ts way over to the FDR and headed south. "But if nobody sees my work, and I don't make a nickel off of it, I find it hard to think of myself that way."

  "It's the process, honey. The work itself is what matters. Besides, you should be thankful you don't need to make a living at it." Rosa had a fat trust fund, like her friend Danny's wife. They rolled along, river on the left, city on the right, traffic moving in a mid-day groove in spite of the rain. Downtown, the cab swerved off at Grand Street, meandered past the projects and north into the East Village, and eventually stopped in front of an old five floor brick walk-up on one of those formerly bombed-out blocks on East Eighth Street that now housed a mix of waspy young bankers, old-time hipsters, and third generation Puerto Rican-Americans. Katya emerged under her umbrella, and ran into the building. "Looks like she's up to no good," Lucy said. The cab waited, and so did they. Five minutes later she came out, jumped back into the cab, and took off again.

  Rosa pulled up to the building and stopped. They looked at its scarred facade. Along with the scars, the building sported several apartments with new windows, many featuring chic-looking window treatments. Atop the stoop, a new front door with several serious locks signaled that money had moved in. This was the nouveau riche frontier. On the third floor, laundry hanging on a fire escape got washed in the rain. "This isn't very revealing, Lucy. You want to keep going?"

  "Yes. Let's go, don't lose her," Lucy said quickly. Rosa took off after the cab, turning a corner a block ahead. They were headed south again. "It may not be revealing, but it's not what you'd expect an uptown wife to be up to on a rainy day, is it?"

  "I guess not," Rosa said. Two minutes farther downtown, she picked up the thread of the other conversation. "So anyways, my dad might have set me up, but he also makes me feel like whatever it is I'm doing I need to make money at it or it doesn't count."