Blood Wine

by John Moss

  Miranda’s cab pulled in to the Best Western on 38th Street near the exit to the Henry Hudson Tunnel. It was cheap, clean, and so narrow that its walls seemed formed by the adjoining buildings, as if it had none of its own. She had stayed there before and recommended it to friends. She would rather spend money on restaurants or shows, although she abhorred musicals. The room was merely a place to unpack, to wash up in, to sleep.

  She assumed Morgan would spend the day in the office so she waited to use the hotel phone to call him.

  “Morgan!” she said ebulliently, “I’m here, New York, New York, and you’re not. Did you get my address —”

  “The ex-boyfriend’s? Yes, and —”

  “What’s his address? What’s his name?”

  “Unlikely as it sounds, Ivan Muritori. He lives on West 58th, just over from the Inn on the Park —”

  “Good, good, what number? It’ll be one of those brownstones, won’t it? Very, very expensive.”

  “Miranda.”

  “Yes.”

  “Catch your breath. Let me talk. At the present moment there is a crime in progress at Ivan Muritori’s condominium, a hostage situation.”

  “Oh my God! You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Now! Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  “He’s holding her hostage! My God, I thought he was an accountant.”

  “He is an accountant. Listen. It’s her, Elke, she’s holding him.”

  “Get real!”

  Morgan said nothing. The line hummed. She could hear herself breathing, she could hear the background sounds of Police Headquarters in Toronto.

  “Morgan, Morgan, you still there? Seriously, what’s happening?”

  “Listen,” he repeated. “He tried to turn her in. NYPD wanted her for questioning. When they came for her, she put a gun to his head.”

  “But she hasn’t killed him, you said hostage.”

  “Yeah, it’s a standoff.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Call me,” he said. “Let me know how it works out.”

  “For sure. Why did the New York police want her?”

  “For us. I don’t know how he knew.”

  “I’ll call.”

  Miranda’s cab wheeled up to the police cordon blocking off the street. The cabbie asked her if she was sure this is where she wanted to be. “Absolutely,” she responded, leaving him a big tip.

  She got through the first barrier with no problem, simply by flashing her police identification.

  The command centre was behind a phalanx of cars directly across from the ex-boyfriend’s brownstone. She walked up to the man in charge and showed him her ID.

  “You’re out of your jurisdiction, lady,” he snapped. “Stand back.”

  “I know the woman in there, and you’re out of your depth. Boy, I —”

  “Around here you don’t call a black man ‘boy,’” he snarled.

  “Where I come from, you don’t call a cop ‘lady.’”

  He glowered.

  “And,” she continued, “where I come from, ‘boy’ is an immature man.”

  He grimaced. Both of them recognized they had let primal sensitivities obscure the crisis at hand. He shrugged.

  “Yeah,” he said. “How’re you gonna help us?”

  “I know her. Let me talk to her.”

  “Like, you’re friends?”

  “I know her.”

  He begrudgingly handed Miranda the cellphone, as if he could not think of an alternative course of action.

  “She’s all yours.”

  “You’re telling me she’s on the line right now.”

  “What line? Lady, she’s there,” said the commanding officer, making the sign of a phone by waggling his hand, thumb and baby finger extended, then added, “Detective.”

  “Quin.”

  “Yeah. Clancy.”

  “Clancy?”

  “Yeah, don’t you know all cops in Manhattan are Irish?” He smiled broadly.

  Denzel Washington, she thought. Damn, that’s essentializing, but damn, he’s good-looking.

  “Are you listening, Elke?” She had wanted Elke Sturmberg to overhear, to warm to the familiar voice. “It’s Miranda. I’ve come down from Toronto to see you. Morgan couldn’t come with me. He’s working.”

  “Are you working?” said Elke, sounding like she was talking from a great distance away.

  “Me, no, are you kidding? You know I’m not on the job.” She lowered her voice, but Clancy could hear. “You know I’m on leave, like, you know what for. Yours is alive, remember. Let’s keep him that way. Do you want me to come in?”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “Sure.”

  “No guns.”

  “No guns, I’m Canadian.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I don’t carry a gun these days, you remember?”

  “Yes, I’m glad you’re here.”

  Miranda walked slowly up the steps of the brownstone and through the massive front door. Whispers moved through the crowd of police behind her as explanations were passed around about who she was. A relative, a professional negotiator, a cop from Toronto? Miranda opened the apartment door enough for a wedge of light to fall through into the hall.

  “Elke? It’s me.”

  There was no answer. She pushed the door so that it swung all the way open. Elke was sitting on the floor in the shadows. Her hostage was on a chair in the bright afternoon light streaming aslant from the west through the south-facing front windows. Sharpshooters across the street could see him but not her. The curtains were open wide so that outside, the observers felt exposed. She seemed to know what she was doing.

  “Elke, are you all right?”

  “What about me?” said Ivan Muritori.

  “Shut up,” said Miranda.

  The ex-boyfriend hostage looked startled but acceded to what he assumed was police strategy.

  Miranda walked slowly into the shadows until she was close to Elke and their eyes made contact. She squatted down in front of her, directly in the line of fire. Elke flicked off the safety. Miranda felt a cold shiver run up her spine. She lowered herself to the floor so that she was sitting, as if they were lounging at a sleepover before dimming the lights and telling each other secrets.

  “Miranda?” Elke broke the silence.

  “Yes.”

  “I remember.”

  “What?”

  “What happened on the way to your place.”

  “You tell me about it, but why don’t you put the gun down.”

  “No.”

  Miranda held out her hand passively, as if she were indicating she wanted the potato chip bowl or a refill of wine.

  Elke stiffened and flicked the gun in a menacing thrust at the air.

  Miranda shifted her gaze. “Why are you holding him? I thought it was over.”

  “It is over. I dumped him, he didn’t dump me.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I figured it’s the last place they’d look. Everyone knew it was over.”

  “They? Everyone?”

  “Whoever is trying to kill me.”

  “Elke, why not let him go. I’m here. You wanted that. We’ll talk, we don’t need him listening.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What?”

  “Let him go.”

  “Why?”

  Miranda shifted around so that she could see the ex-boyfriend was tied crudely to the chair with a belt and a couple of ties. There was something vaguely comical and incongruous about him. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt. He looked like he should be in jogging shorts or a grey flannel suit. He looked like he was sulking.

  “He’s an accountant,” said Miranda.

  “That’s what he says.”

  Miranda got up and walked over to him, glancing out the windows at the formidable array of police in flak jackets with rifles
at the ready. She wanted to establish a three-way rapport, to get Elke thinking of him again as a person, not a weapon or shield.

  “So, Ivan,” she said. “You’re an accountant.”

  He tilted his head back and looked her straight in the eye. “Yes,” he said in a confessional tone. “That’s what I do, I crunch numbers.”

  “Ask him who for,” said Elke from the shadows.

  “Who for,” said Miranda.

  “Confederate Union Insurance.”

  “They play both sides,” said Miranda.

  “What?”

  “Confederate. Union. Civil War. They play both sides.”

  The significance of the name had obviously never occurred to him.

  “Ask him who else he works for,” said Elke.

  “Who else do you work for?”

  “Nobody, she’s nuts.”

  “I wouldn’t call a distraught woman with a loaded gun pointed at my head nasty names.”

  “Sorry. Sorry, Elke.”

  “Scumball, scumbag. Creep,” said Elke, getting up and stepping momentarily into the light before realizing her tactical error and slipping back into the shadows.

  Miranda moved around the room until she was close to Elke again, but still in the light. “What is it, what’s he done? This isn’t because he turned you in?”

  “For a start, yes it is. I came to him for help.”

  “And I tried,” said Muritori.

  “What happened?” said Miranda.

  The ex-boyfriend started to talk, but Miranda squelched him.

  “I want to hear from Elke.”

  “I got here late Sunday. I took the bus from Toronto. I’m sorry I took off like that. I just knew I had to get away. I didn’t have any money. I telephoned Ivan, he sent me cash but Western Union wouldn’t turn it over, no ID, so I hustled enough on the street, not far from the hotel. I asked a couple of business travellers for a few bucks. Canadians are generous or dumb — actually, they were visiting Americans. What the hell, they said, she’s not a hooker. She just wants money. So they each gave me fifty bucks. I asked for a little more. They thought it was funny. They gave me enough for bus fare. I’ll pay them back. I told them I’d been dumped by my boyfriend, we’d come up from New York.”

  “What about the border?”

  “I wasn’t asked for ID at the border. I’m blond.”

  “Okay, so our friend Ivan knew you were coming.”

  “I did,” said Ivan over his shoulder. “The police came, they told me she was wanted for questioning.”

  “Shut up, Ivan,” said Miranda.

  “So when I got here,” Elke continued, “he didn’t tell me they were after me, that he was supposed to call them if I turned up.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He thought I was in the shower. Only I don’t trust Ivan. I was listening from the bedroom. When he called in the NYPD, I took his gun from the bedside table —”

  “He keeps a gun beside the bed?”

  “This is New York,” said Ivan, defensively.

  “So even accountants have guns,” said Miranda.

  “Especially accountants,” said Ivan, trying to make a joke.

  “Shut up, Ivan,” said Elke.

  “So when the police arrived, you had a gun to his head. What were you figuring, Elke? What’s your next move? You’re in a bit of a corner.”

  “Yes, so it seems. Any suggestions?”

  “For a start, you can let me go. You’ve got her.” He nodded in Miranda’s direction. “Hold her as your hostage.”

  “He’s got a point,” said Miranda. “Not very gallant, but he does have a point. Why don’t you let him go?”

  “Because he’s a crook.”

  “Elke, you can’t hold him because he’s a crooked accountant. Half the accountants and lawyers in the Western world would be held accountable at the end of a gun if that’s how it worked.”

  “He’s with the mob.”

  Miranda nearly choked. There was something so incongruously naïve about the blond woman’s declaration, Miranda had to suppress laughter.

  “Come on, Elke, I told you that’s ridiculous.” The ex-boyfriend had no compunction about expressing his contempt for the accusation. “That’s absolutely beyond possibility.”

  “No,” said Elke. “He is, he works for gangsters, he’s a bookkeeper for the Mafia.”

  “I’m not even Italian, I was adopted!” he shouted. Despite the pathos or wit, it crossed Miranda’s mind that there could be an element of truth in what Elke was saying.

  Miranda again stepped in front of the gun. “Whether he’s Al Capone or Al Pacino, you can’t hold him hostage forever. You’re not going to kill him.”

  Elke flourished the pistol and Miranda stood her ground.

  “What’s going on, here, Elke? Try to explain.”

  “I killed that man in Toronto.”

  “You what?” Ivan stifled a shriek.

  “That’s why they want me, dummy.”

  “You killed a man.”

  “Six bullets,” said Miranda to Muritori. “The NYPD didn’t tell you that?”

  “They said they wanted her for questioning, they said it was a serious matter, they said I’d be helping her by calling if she contacted me again, they said it would be better for her.”

  “They said, they said, didn’t you think, dummy?”

  “Don’t call me that, Elke.”

  “Dummy.”

  “Okay, you two,” said Miranda. “You’re beginning to sound like you’re in love.”

  “Did you really kill someone? With a gun, you shot him?”

  “With a gun, I shot him, yes.”

  “Enough!” Miranda snapped. “You’ve got an army out there, they want to shoot someone, too. We have a situation here. They’re not going to wait forever. The city needs them, and they’ll want to clean this mess up and move on. So. It’s time, Elke. Let him go.”

  To Miranda’s surprise, the blond woman emerged from the shadows and, standing fully illuminated within sight of the marksmen poised outside, she handed the gun to Miranda and proceeded to untie her hostage. Then she reached out for the gun again. Miranda backed away, gently. Elke could force a shooting and Miranda did not want that. Elke moved back onto a sofa and sat down, as if she were prepared to resume an interrupted conversation.

  Ivan Muritori stood up tentatively. He started to edge toward to door, brushing his hands over the front of his crotch, holding them poised furtively. Miranda noticed that he had wet himself.

  “Hey, champ,” she said. “Why don’t you change clothes before you go out to meet your public!”

  Heartened, he walked into the bedroom.

  Miranda picked up the cellphone. “Clancy?”

  “Yeah. You coming out?”

  “Give us a minute.”

  “You got it. You all right?”

  “Yeah —”

  A gunshot shattered the room. Miranda, gun in hand, dove toward Elke, covering her with her body as the sofa tipped over on its back. She assumed the shot had come from outside. No glass was broken. Another shot exploded from the bedroom doorway. She rolled away from Elke across the floor, firing in motion. A single shot. She squeezed out another, then her gun jammed. She lunged behind a chair. Nothing moved. She could hear Clancy’s voice. The cellphone lay out in the open.

  Two more shots shook the room. There was silence, then Ivan Muritori emerged from the bedroom, clutching the second gun he had retrieved from his arsenal. He stood still for a moment. He seemed to assume they were both dead. Miranda held her breath. She could hear her blood pounding. He walked into the hallway. He opened the massive front door, still brandishing his pistol.

  The entire scene fell absolutely quiet, as if someone had switched off the soundtrack in a movie. A single shot rang out, and for a split second there was silence. Then a riot of explosions filled the air as rifles and handguns rhymed off innumerable shots into the body of Ivan Muritori.

  As suddenly
as the lethal clattering started, it stopped. Again there was silence.

  Then it was broken inside the apartment by a voice on the cellphone.

  Miranda picked up the phone, simultaneously checking to see if Elke was alive.

  “Toronto! You okay?”

  “Yes,” said Miranda. “We’re both okay. Don’t come in.”

  “She still holding a gun on you?”

  “Don’t come in. Everything’s under control. Give us a few minutes. Have your army stand down. Danger’s over.”

  “Roger that. Well done.”

  Miranda had helped Elke to her feet while she was talking. They looked at each other like comrades at arms. Miranda’s leg was throbbing from her bullet wound that until now she had forgotten about, although it had ached on the plane coming down. Together they sank back against the closest wall, sliding onto the floor.

  “Your accountant had two guns!”

  “He’s a mobster.”

  “And only two bullets in one of them, or it jammed. A very strange ex-boyfriend.”

  “That’s why I broke it off.”

  “You nearly broke a lot more than that. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “That’s a subjective judgement.”

  “Well, yes it is, Elke. Being alive is subjective, that’s the way it goes. Now tell me about the man in Toronto. I want to know before the NYPD get to you.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Who? Ivan? Yes, I would imagine he is. Were you holding him to avoid talking to the police about the shooting?”

  “No. Once I remembered, I wanted to talk. To you, not them. I’m your problem, your jurisdiction. I figured you’d call my answering machine. I tried to leave a message. I knew they’d be watching my place.”

  “Exactly. So what happened. We’ve got a few minutes.”

  “He betrayed me. I wanted to hurt him. Thank you for coming.”

  “Pick it up from Bonnydoon, we haven’t got long.”

  10