Ladyfingers

by Shepard Rifkin

  He knew I didn't. I said no.

  "No warrant. Hmm."

  He looked at me with a faint smile. He made me feel as if my fly were open and I wasn't aware of it.

  "I could ask you to leave, you know."

  "No, you couldn't. You invited me in. But it is true I can't look around."

  "Ah. If you'd like to look around, far be it from me, a law-abiding citizen, to stop you."

  I got up. That clinched it. There was nothing there. But on the hope that he might have slipped up, I pulled out drawers. I was looking for the same kind of paper and string and boxes he had used. I was looking for the scalpel missing from the Lively Lady. I was looking for anything that might indicate he had her locked up somewhere. Nothing.

  He followed me around, pointing out little drawers I had missed in end tables.

  I opened them all. There might be letters from her which would implicate him enough for me to hold him as a material witness.

  Cigarettes. Matches. Paper clips. No letters. Nothing. And why should there be? This man was brilliant. He probably had an IQ much higher than mine.

  Nothing in the closets. I felt my face getting pink at his attentive, polite, amused look. No Dr. Lyons huddled up in a laundry bag. No dresses which could be hers. And it wouldn't mean anything if I were to find any. After all, she had shacked up with him often enough.

  I came back to the living room. I stood by the hunt table. I ran my hand over it. I got a sensual pleasure from it. It felt cool and smooth and silky. The way the Duchess's thighs would feel.

  "It is a beautiful thing, isn't it?"

  He stood a little to one side and in back of me. His voice was calm and relaxed, completely at ease. I looked down at the mirror finish. I could see his face in it. He was looking at my back and was completely unaware that I could see his face.

  I don't think I have ever seen such naked hatred in my life, and I've seen some good haters. But what impressed me was the contrast between the relaxed tone of his voice and the savagery on his face. This guy was unbelievable. No one else could have had the muscular control to give the necessary orders to his vocal cords and throat muscles to be that casual, and at the same time to let his killer instinct show that clearly on his face.

  A man who could do that could send the PC a finger a day. He could tattoo a snake on a woman's ring finger. He could perform fake operations. He could do anything.

  As soon as I realized he was only two feet from me I felt a distinctly uncomfortable sensation in my left kidney. Would he stick a scalpel in there? He probably knew a much better place. Or he could get a mugging grip around my throat with his powerful left forearm, which was about twice as big around as mine, and he would stand a very good chance of getting my gun with his right.

  It wouldn't be a sensible thing for him to do. Not now. I had nothing on him and he knew it. Still, that split between his voice and his face made me very careful. I stepped away with my arm a little up, ready to let him have a right cross if he moved in.

  But he didn't.

  "Beautiful flowers," I said.

  "Tiger lilies."

  "They keep well?"

  "Not especially. I get some every couple days."

  "Maybe I'll get some myself. They expensive?"

  "Pretty cheap, considering the neighborhood. If you do get some, be sure to use a copper bowl. Lilies go well with that reddish hue."

  Here we were exchanging decorating ideas like a pair of fairy decorators after I had those nasty ideas about him.

  "Thanks for the tip."

  "Anything else I can do?"

  Yes. You can tell me where you're keeping Dr. Lyons, you cool bastard.

  "No, that will be all for now."

  Keep him nervous. Keep him rattled. He might do something stupid. Act as if you knew more than he did. A good way to work with people in the 65-115 I.Q. range.

  But my problem, Inspector Hanrahan, is that this guy's I.Q. is probably around 190.

  I knew Hanrahan by now. I could write the script of the conversation we'd have if I were dumb enough to stop at a phone booth and call him at home. It would go pretty much like this: "Inspector, sir, I would like a couple of men to stake out Henley." "You would?" "Yes, sir." "Why?" "Because I think he can lead us to her." "You sure?" "No, sir, I'm not sure." "It's just a hunch?" "Yes, sir. A hunch." "You want me to run the Department on hunches?" "No, sir, but I think in this case-" "You want me to pull off a couple of good men from where they're needed and give 'em to you because of a hunch?" "Yes, sir, but-" "You want me to pull 'em off something important so a frantic Sherlock can fake some activity when He's up the old creek?" No answer from me. Then he would chuckle and say quietly, "The answer is no."

  So I was on my own. All the way. No stake-out.

  I went down in the elevator.

  "Good afternoon," I said to the doorman. He repeated it, adding "sir." Some day he might even say it to people who didn't carry badges.

  I took a twenty-five-minute walk. I visited every flower shop in an eight-block radius. There were nine of them. None of them sold, had ever sold, or would sell tiger lilies.

  "Why?" I asked the last florist.

  "Why? There ain't no demand, that's why."

  "Seems a shame. It's a pretty flower."

  "Yeah, buddy. I think they're great. To be frank witcha, I think they're better lookin' than orchids. But they grow wild all around the northeast, and what grows wild around people's houses, that they won't buy. Like people in the Amazon River won't buy orchids. Same thing."

  Food for thought, food for thought. I would nibble at it on my way to the nightclub where Henley and Dr. Lyons once had a public falling out.

  25

  I DROVE SLOWLY PAST BRUNO'S. MOST PEOPLE living in Manhattan don't have any idea about these suburban night clubs. They think they're cheap and shabby with corny entertainers and fifth-rate piano players. Not Bruno's.

  He had a big parking lot which was pretty full. At one end stood a little booth for the parking attendant with a polite little sign which asked you to please let the attendant park your car. I could see why. He had orders to save space, and the cars were jammed up tight.

  I drove on around the block. It's an old habit of mine. I case the front, sides, and rear of any place where I or someone else might have to do some sudden sprinting. When you have to burst out fast it's too late for a geography lesson.

  The back door was open. I looked into the kitchen. The walls were painted a bright white enamel and the tile floor had a couple of drains and it looked clean and the kitchen staff was wearing clean white uniforms. I decided I could trust the food. I drove into the lot and the attendant cheerfully told me he would park the car. I started to take out my wallet to slip him a buck. This move was a carry-over from my undercover days when I did nothing to attract attention. The hell with it this time. I was on a job and I didn't care if he found out I was a cop. And that buck would come out of my pocket. I put the wallet back in.

  His smile vanished. I showed him the shield. His smile got even more distant. "Police business," I said. "Put it in front where I can get out fast."

  "The faster the better," he muttered as he slid behind the wheel.

  "I'm afraid I missed that."

  "Yes, sir. Right in front."

  Inside, the place had a red velvet rope looped across two carefully polished brass stanchions, a headwaiter with very good manners, and a big, busty hatcheck girl who wore a very low-cut, very tight blue silk dress. Her saucer had two fifty-cent pieces for bait. I gave her my hat and took a look. She thought I was trying to climb down to see if they were real. She leaned forward and rested on her elbows to help me along. I appreciated her thoughtfulness, but what I was doing, for my own amusement, was checking out to see if there was a locked box under the counter.

  There was. It was there. The box they put all the tips in. All. Else they get their arms broken. I also saw she was wearing very comfortable red carpet slippers.

  "You don't r
eally need a check, mister. I'll remember you."

  "Things must be rough."

  "Well, you know. The middle of the week. They're cryin' the blues. I ain't never seen you before."

  "I'm new in the neighborhood."

  "If you get lonely you can always send me a drink from the bar, mister, right?"

  I didn't pick that one up. She saw me looking at the slippers. "You ever stand seven hours in high heels?" she demanded. I said no.

  "I got no bunions," she said. "I'm sensible. Look!" She took a foot out from the slipper and wiggled her toes. No bunions. Very nice ankle.

  "I used to have a feller here," she said. "He was a bartender. Once he put pink champagne in my belly button. And drank it!"

  "How?" I asked.

  "How what?"

  "How could he drink it?"

  "He drank it, that's all."

  "But how? Did he lift you up like a glass and drink? Did he use a straw?"

  The smile on her face froze. "He just drank it," she said wearily. "Look, mister, maybe you better take a check." She held it out. I took it.

  The headwaiter was standing next to a podium that held a big impressive-looking volume bound in red leather. He was waiting for red meat. He made me think of a well-bred but hungry lion at suppertime. As I came closer he was putting me, my clothes, my expression, my way of walking through the computer every good head-waiter uses. I obviously didn't come out too well. Over the podium was a curved light that shone on the book with a subdued light. He asked me if I had a reservation. There were plenty of empty tables. No, I said. No reservation.

  He tapped his pencil against his teeth doubtfully. Here's where a person of the upper classes would slip a five into his palm. Not being a member of the upper classes I didn't make a move towards the wallet. He said, "Hmmm." He opened the reservation book, frowned, shook his head, and closed it again. "Hmmm," he said again. He had some sort of a foreign accent I couldn't place. It was an upper-class accent.

  "No seats, huh?" I asked.

  "We require reservations, sir." He looked up at the chandelier. He really hated to talk to a slob like me.

  I took the book and opened it before he could stop me. Under the night's bookings he had exactly two names, both for after midnight.

  "That book, sir, is private!"

  "Scads of apologies," I said. "Table, please."

  He gave up. "This way, sir." He made the "sir" sound as if he had said "son of a bitch." He led the way to a small table right next to the swinging doors of the kitchen. I was being punished.

  I chose one halfway there. A pretty girl was sitting alone at the next table to where I sat down, which was why I had picked it. When I sat down I realized she must have been there with someone else who had temporarily left.

  The headwaiter discovered I had defected. He headed back to me. He was burning.

  He said the table was reserved. I told him all I wanted was to grab a quick hamburger and leave. He began to raise his voice. The staff was beginning to drift closer in case there was to be any trouble.

  Suddenly a voice in back of me said, "What's the trouble here?"

  "Mr. Bruno, this gentleman had no reservation. But I showed him-"

  Mr. Bruno was not Mr. Bruno. He was Vincent Salvaggio, a gentleman from 114th Street and First Avenue. He was Mafia. I had arrested him four years before for possession of heroin with intent to sell, carrying a gun without a permit, and assault. When he went for the gun, I dove at him and smashed his right arm against the wall. The assault was when he kicked me in the groin, but I still had enough control left to take his ankle and tip him backwards. He banged his head against the floor and passed out. He had a very good lawyer and a friendly judge. The assistant D.A. who tried the case was just out of NYU Law School. He got off.

  "Mr. Sanchez! Any table you want, you get. Any time Mr. Sanchez comes in you give him the best in the house. The best. And I pick up the tab! Right, Mr. Sanchez?"

  The pretty girl at the next table had been fascinated with all this. She had full breasts and I was looking at her and she was smiling up at me. She had red hair and I am a pushover for red hair. Also for black and brown, come to think of it. But any thought of going on further with my new neighbor ended when her escort came out of the men's room and joined her.

  "How you doing, Vinnie?" I asked.

  "Mr. Sanchez, please call me Bruno. That's my name here. As a personal favor."

  All right. "How you doin', Bruno?"

  "Fine, fine! I'm clean. No junk. I run this place straight. Waiter!"

  The waiter came over at top speed. I ordered a filet mignon, medium rare, baked potato, and a salad.

  "Is that all?" Bruno asked, disappointed. "We got a great soup. They call it potage mongol. Like it's from Mongolia. You sure you don't wanna try it? I got a chef straight from Paris, France. He used to be a chef for some French duke. Once he cooked for the Prince of Wales. This joint got class. The chef cost me thirty thousand a year. He's very temperamental." He chuckled. "He breaks dishes when he gets mad. This place is famous. I don't even let my old friends in, that's how clean I run it."

  I looked sceptical.

  "I mean," Bruno went on, "some college kids come in, they been smokin' pot in the car, the kid who parks the cars smells it, he phones me. They don't get in. Even if their old man is top judge of Nassau County. Can a guy be cleaner than that?"

  No one could be cleaner than that, I told Bruno.

  "I don't let people in if they look stoned. People come in, they look high, I don't smell liquor on them, I tell them nice we got no reservations open. That way they don't go away mad. I go down to the West Side markets at one, two in the morning, I shop for the best vegetables. I go over to the Fulton Fish Market at two, three in the morning, I buy nothin' but the best. I got a straight high-class operation goin'! Straight! Me!"

  "How come?"

  "I get somethin' wrong with my right leg and they right away take it off." He rapped it with his fist. "It's aluminum. I walk all right. But I don't go nowhere at high speed except right into the can. So I stop it all right there and I tell my people the score. So they say all right. An' they spread the word. So I don't pay off to nobody. No protection. Nobody gets rolled here. No liquor to minors. I serve big drinks an' I go easy on the ice cubes."

  "Congratulations."

  "I know you never had a big hand out. You never could be bought, Mr. Sanchez. So when you come in I figure, oh Jesus Christ, someone's been pushin' H in here without me knowin' it, an' I begin to sweat."

  It sounded good. But I wasn't buying it yet. And I couldn't care less what he was doing out there in Queens. But it's always a good idea to look wise and keep your mouth shut. A lot of strange and interesting fish swim into your net.

  "It's natural for you to sweat, Bruno."

  "Mind if I sit down?"

  "It's your chair."

  "Now don't take it that way. I mean, if you got no objections?"

  I had no objections. He sat down. I couldn't figure out why he was so nervous if he was running such a straight joint.

  "How come you in this part of Queens?" He tried to sound casual.

  "On a case. Jesus, Bruno, relax. It's got nothing to do with narcotics. I'm in the neighborhood, I didn't know you owned this place, and please do me a favor and stop twitching."

  He didn't believe a word of it. I told him I was checking out a fight that had happened there between a man and woman doctor a few months ago. What did he know about it?

  "Me, nothin'. But I'll ask Luigi. Luigi!"

  The headwaiter came over. "He's a real duke," Bruno said proudly. "His ancestors had a castle in Tuscany. Can you beat it? My pop, a poor paisano from Catania, an' here's me, givin' orders to a real Italian duke! This is some country. I still feel funny callin' him by his first name. But he wants me to. Luigi, Mr. Sanchez here would be happy if you could answer a couple questions."

  "Of course, sir."

  Luigi fixed his stare on the second button of my jac
ket. I looked too. The thread had worked loose and hung out an inch.

  "Any time you're ready, Luigi," I said.

  Bruno didn't like that. He was shocked. "Lissen, Mr. Sanchez," he whispered in my ear, "this guy's a dook!"

  He should only have known what I'd said to a duchess only a few hours before.

  "Luigi," I began politely, "a few months ago a lady and a gentleman had a falling out here. He is a big, handsome man about forty, close-cropped gray hair, a surgeon at Greer General. The lady is a doctor, mid-thirties, not very attractive. She's also at Greer General. What did they talk about?"

  Luigi was examining my fingernails. I used to cut the nails with paper scissors when they got too long and I never had a manicure in my life. But I did scrape out the dirt under the nails pretty frequently. The untrimmed cuticle must have made him want to vomit.

  "Who are you?" he asked. Bruno closed his eyes. I showed Luigi my coat of arms. He was not impressed.

  "Luigi," Bruno said nervously.

  "No," said Luigi. "No recollection."

  "None?"

  "None."

  "It came to blows," I said. "Harsh words were passed."

  "No, sir. I don't remember that at all."

  "Perhaps one of your waiters?"

  "No, I'm afraid not."

  "How would you know that unless you asked them?"

  Luigi was a lousy liar. Any headwaiter would know of a brawl involving blows. Word gets around.

  "Mr. Bruno," Luigi said.

  "Yeah?"

  "Am I under legal obligation to answer any of these questions?"

  Bruno looked at me. He was in agony.

  "Why, no," I said. "I suppose I could go get a subpoena, but that would cause me trouble and time and red tape. Then you'd have to go to Manhattan and then you'd either lie or tell the truth. Then I'd talk to all the waiters and busboys and I'd find out just what happened anyway. We'd just go around and around the mulberry bush. It's just that this little talk we're having right now saves us all the trouble of filling in forms, not to mention traveling back and forth to Manhattan."

  I said it all nice and friendly, although I wanted to give him a kick in the ass. The friendly approach is a mistake to take with many titled persons. They take it as a sign of weakness and deference before those designated by God to rule over us, except for various historical accidents called revolutions.