Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  “I’ll never tango again. Those quick turns …” He shrugged helplessly.

  “You will learn to live without the tango.”

  “Never. Tango is my life!”

  “The injury has affected your brain. You’ve never tangoed in your life.”

  “So? Now I never will. It’s the kind of news that hits a guy pretty hard. But you’re making it easier to take. If you could drop by every day, who knows? A miracle recovery, anything’s possible.”

  “You’re a flirt, Mr. Cassidy. I thought that was Terry’s department.”

  “It is, it is. I’m only a fallen warrior, carted away on his shield, looking for a little sympathy.”

  “Flirt.”

  “Come back,” he said. “Visit me again. Your reward will come in heaven.” Suddenly he felt like there was nothing more important than seeing her again. There hadn’t been any woman since Karin, none he’d given a second thought. But the Battling Blonde—it sounded like one of his father’s pictures—was a horse of another color. He simply wanted to watch her, hear her voice. “You could treat it like volunteer work, Miss Squires. A good deed. You could read to me …”

  “Mmmm,” she nodded. She glanced quickly at the door behind her. There was something childlike about her eyes. Quick, darting, as if she were afraid she might be caught doing something forbidden. He wondered how old she was. Twenty? Twenty-five? He couldn’t tell. Her eyes were immense beneath eyebrows that were straight, then dropped sharply down at the outside edges, fitting congruently with the bone structure. “Max is coming,” she said, backing away from the cast. “He stopped to talk to some doctor he knows. That was awful yesterday …”

  “Apparently they attacked without any warning, caught us on a sleepy Sunday morning—”

  “No, no, I meant watching what happened to you …” She shrugged, pearls swaying across the turtleneck, beneath the mink. “Max was so upset … you got the flowers—”

  “Very thoughtful of you.”

  “Oh, that was Max’s idea. And Bennie, of course. He’s so fond of you. I never remember to send flowers … Look, Terry says you’re trustworthy. Is he right about that?”

  “I don’t know.” He wasn’t getting the point. She seemed to have something on her mind but she couldn’t quite get it out. She looked back at the door and Max came in.

  “Lew,” he said, standing there shaking his head. “Lew, what a shame! A hell of a thing. Cindy. Look at this man’s leg. You’re going to have a limp, you know that. No more football. You know that?”

  “We’ll see. Thanks for the flowers, Max.”

  “Cindy’s idea. That’s the way she is, reminds me of things.”

  She was looking out the window. She might have blushed at Max’s compliment but Cassidy couldn’t tell. She turned away and went back to Max, hooked her arm through his. Her profile was all straight lines. She reminded him of Karin for a moment and he didn’t want her to. Watching her made him nervous.

  “We’ll take care of you, Lew. You know what I mean?”

  “I appreciate that, Max. But I’ll be all right.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, you’ll be all right. First, we’ll have to get you up and walking, then we’ll see.”

  “I’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be fine, Max.”

  “You hear this guy, Cindy?”

  “I hear him, Max.”

  “Take a good look at him. He’s one of the great ones, give him the ball, he does the job. A real pro.”

  “Max,” Cassidy said, “for Christ’s sake. You sound like I’m dead.”

  “I’ll have Bennie stop in every day, see to your needs. You name it, Bennie’ll get it.” Max started shaking his head again, looking at the cast.

  “Just give in,” Cindy said solemnly. “Max is going to have it his own way so don’t fight it.”

  “You’re a swell guy, Max.”

  “I’m only being fair, Lew. You gave it all you had. I like that. You’re a gentleman and—”

  “A scholar, right, Max?” She pulled at his arm. “Come on, Max, you’re embarrassing Mr. Cassidy. He gets your drift, so to speak.”

  Max nodded. Cassidy tried to catch Cindy Squires’s eye but couldn’t. Pretty soon they left and Cassidy felt unaccountably exhausted. There had been way too much tension in the room and he wondered where it had come from. But he didn’t wonder long. The fact was, he’d produced it himself. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Once she was gone he could still see her blond hair falling across the collar of the mink. He could still hear her husky voice. Terry says you’re trustworthy. Is he right about that? What the hell kind of question was that?

  He didn’t want to keep thinking about her. He literally couldn’t recall the last time he’d thought about any woman but Karin. He didn’t want to start thinking about Cindy Squires because … because it would be a rotten idea. But he wondered if she’d come back to visit him. Hell, Bennie every day. Wonderful.

  Terry. He wanted to talk to Terry. He could talk to Terry about Karin. Her memory would come alive and he wouldn’t think about Cindy Squires anymore. That was the ticket. He wanted to find out who was after Terry and why and how close were they …

  But Terry didn’t come back that night.

  Somebody shot him.

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS A LITTLE PAST ten that night when his nurse, Sylvia of the Bedpans, came tiptoeing in with sleeping pills on a little tray and told him that his friend, Detective Leary, had just been delivered to the emergency room in a meat wagon.

  “There was quite a lot of blood,” she whispered, pouring a glass of water, “but I heard him talking. He was alive is what I mean to say. He’d been shot … he’s an officer of the law, I guess things happen sometimes, but it seems a shame. He’s in surgery now. I thought you’d want to know, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “Is he going to be all right? You can’t just leave me hanging.”

  “Detective Leary is just hanging, Mr. Cassidy,” she said with the customary officiousness of nurses. “I can’t very well tell you what I don’t know, can I? He went into surgery about fifteen minutes ago. Now take your pills.”

  “Will you find out what you can?” The news had hit him like a tackler’s helmet driving into his belly. Terry with a bullet in him … There was a red rage of frustration building behind his eyes. Frustration about Karin, about the goddamn war, about the stupid mess he’d made of his leg, and now about old Terry dripping blood with a slug in him … If anything happened to Terry, he’d find a way to do something about it. Maybe he couldn’t get to Germany and pry Karin away from the Nazis, but this was New York. Cassidy knew New York and he could find the rat that put a slug in Terry …

  “Of course,” she said primly. “I’ll come back later.”

  He was groggy from the pills and his leg felt like Dumbo had been dancing on it when she came back at one o’clock. She shook his shoulder. “He just came out of surgery. He’s not dead yet.” She had a certain turn of phrase about her. “They got one of the bullets out of his lung. I understand there’s a second near his spine but they’re going to see if he makes it through the night. They didn’t want to keep him under any longer. He lost so much blood …”

  Cassidy wanted to stay awake but the pills were winning the battle. His mind was wandering. How much blood could you lose and make it anyway … Listen, pal, I may be needing your help one day soon … But he hadn’t been there when Terry needed him. He’d let Terry down. He yawned reflexively, his fading vision turning the street lamp outside into a blur, a melting snowball of light at the window. Terry had always been there when Cassidy needed him … Shit. Maybe it’s a joke … a false alarm. Well, it hadn’t been a joke. Not with Terry shot up, a slug in his lung and another one they didn’t dig out.

  The two voices he’d heard from under the anesthetic floated in and out of his sagging consciousness. Hadda wait till Leary was on duty, he’s been hangin’ around here all the off-duty time … Couldn’t have Terry ha
ngin’ around … Gotta talk to Cassidy ’fore Leary gets to him, ’fore old Terry gets it figured out …

  Whoever had been after Terry sure as hell had gotten him.

  The next day two detectives came by the hospital and told Cassidy what they knew about the shooting of Terry Leary. Cassidy had met Harry Madrid somewhere in the past with Terry. Bert Reagan was a stranger who said he was a football fan and it was a crying shame about the leg. Madrid said the Leary thing was all coming together because of the other guy. A punk called Mark Herrin.

  “Terry’s a pretty good shot, y’know, Cassidy? Puts in his time at the range.” Harry Madrid wore a slate-gray double-breasted suit and brown shoes, cheap clothes that went with the cheap zircon ring that left a greenish smudge on his finger. He’d been a cop twenty-five years. He was pushing fifty. His salary was about as high as a detective’s could get but he was still pushing fifty and his brown shoes weren’t quite the latest thing. “Well, this Herrin character was waiting for Terry at 72nd and Park. Block from Terry’s place. Terry came home, put his car in the garage underneath, shot the breeze with the attendant for a couple minutes, walked up the driveway to the street. Why he didn’t take the elevator from the garage—who knows?” Harry Madrid pronounced it garridge. “So he’s walking down 72nd toward Park, it’s a nice night, he stops to light one of them stogies he smokes, decides to take a stroll. Why a stroll? Don’t ask me, people do things.”

  “Human nature,” Bert Reagan said. He was leaning against the wall, hat in hand, chewing a toothpick while his head made a grease spot on the wall. “You never know.” He laughed softly. “He doesn’t take a walk, he lives forever.”

  “But he takes this walk,” Harry Madrid said, “and a little fairy shoots him. Fate, Cassidy. Bert’s right. You never know what’s out there waiting for you.”

  Harry Madrid shook his head, dug a Kaywoodie out of his pocket, and packed it with tobacco. He lit a match on his thumbnail like tough old guys in the movies. He puffed the pipe. It smelled like cherry cough syrup. It made Cassidy gag. Harry sat down, crossed his ankle on his knee. He wore high-topped brown shoes that laced up to his ankles. Then there was a band of pale leg and the gray BVD longjohns began. Terry once told the story of how he saw Harry Madrid break a hophead’s arm like snapping an Eberhard Faber No. 2. Harry took a couple of puffs, probed a huge finger into an ear bristling with gray hair.

  “Fate,” he said again. “It’s enough to turn a man all philosophical. Terry’s standing there at the corner, workin’ on his stogie, and all of a sudden this little fairy prances out from behind a mailbox and starts blazing away.” Puff, puff. “He hits Terry once from in front, then as Terry turns away he hits him again in the back. Terry goes down like a side of beef and our Mr. Herrin goes over to the gutter, looks down at Terry, biggest mistake of his crummy little life.” He smiled reflectively, sucking the pipe.

  “What happened?”

  “Hell, he’s lookin’ down at Terry in the gutter there, gonna pump another slug or two into him. Imagine his surprise when the guy in the gutter raises up on his elbow and shoots him. Shit, I wish I’d seen that, old Terry bleedin’ all over his million-dollar overcoat, two-thirds dead already, he squeezes off a bull’s-eye … blew most of this asshole’s face all over the windshield of a passing Lincoln, wham, bang, dead meat.” He sighed contentedly, puffing.

  “So how’s Terry?”

  “You know hospitals and doctors. All we hear is, he’s still alive but nobody’s takin’ bets one way or the other. They want to go after that second slug but it’s right up there against his spine and they’d just as soon not leave him paralyzed. Hell of a thing, ain’t it?” He tapped Cassidy’s cast with the stem of his pipe. “You two, quite a pair.” He chuckled like a man who’d never found anything but death and dire straits really amusing.

  “You can say that again,” Bert Reagan said, still busy holding up the wall. “Cassidy and Leary, two peas in a pod.” He laughed a thin, high laugh that didn’t go with his build. He and Madrid made you think of a couple of trained elephants, all gray, big feet. “Quite a pair.”

  It struck Cassidy that he’d heard them talking before. The same two voices, the same thin laugh.

  Couldn’t have Terry hangin’ around, could I?

  You think he’ll go along with it?

  He’s gotta, if he knows what’s good for him. They’re pals …

  Two peas in a pod.

  Damn. Cassidy looked from one to the other, the two big men grinning down at him. All bad breath and gaudy tobacco and greasy hair. A couple of cops who had been talking in his sleep. He grinned back, waiting for them to make their play, but what was the hurry? Maybe Terry wouldn’t make it … No hurry, they seemed to say. We can wait.

  But why the hell would the cops be after Terry? It didn’t add up. But then, nothing much had since the kickoff on Sunday. Forty-eight hours ago.

  The gunning down of Detective Terry Leary went back to—and was doubtless the last act of—the Sylvester Aubrey Bean drama.

  Mark Herrin, it turned out, held Terry Leary responsible for the whole sad mess. He didn’t subscribe to the view that the homosexual community owed Terry any thanks for keeping the lid on. It was a complicated story but Harry Madrid, sometimes alone and other times with Bert Reagan, kept dropping in on Cassidy that week, filling in the details. Harry Madrid never brought up whatever he and Reagan had been talking about while he’d been floating around under the last of the anesthetic, but Cassidy knew it was only a matter of time until Harry came back to it.

  The Bean thing had been pretty ugly, the kind of story people would have had a field day with had it all come out. Sylvester Aubrey Bean was one of the perfect aesthetes of the twenties, all silk scarves and velvet smoking jackets and brocade dressing gowns and ornate furniture and purple draperies and an art collection and more mascara than you could wink an eye at. He had aged gracefully, turning from a Beardsley drawing into a middle-aged Queen who trailed a little cloud of dusting powder, untouched by the Depression. The Bean money was very old. His family tree had been planted by the Dutchmen who settled New York back when it was New Amsterdam.

  There were always rumors about Bean and his circle but most folks snickered behind their opera gloves, tolerated him as a naughty boy, a dear, dear eccentric. When it came to Bean stories, there were plenty to satisfy any taste. There were always the standard drug orgy stories spiced with a hint of necrophilia. And the inevitable Satanic ritual and Black Mass tales. Sadism, whips and chains, bondage masks, sexual tortures. The works. But in the end Bean paid his taxes and contributed to all the right charities and museums and the opera and always enjoyed dressing up in his top hat, white tie, and tails for a good cause. His catamites seemed to be having a good time and didn’t show any scars from rough treatment. Terry always contended that Bean and his ilk were necessary to New York. “Local color,” he’d say. “Without the nut cases like Bean this city’s nothing but an overgrown Dubuque.”

  Then one day it all came to what some figured was the inevitable conclusion. At least for Bean. One day, as the poet said, the kissing had to stop.

  It all began to unravel when Bean didn’t show up for a fancy dress ball down in the Village. His friends missed him right away because he’d told them he was coming as Marie Antoinette. For a while they just missed him and then they cut out the bitchy repartee and began worrying about him. But mainly it was his mother and father. They came down from their castle on the Hudson and had their driver use a crowbar to break into their son’s Fifth Avenue penthouse. His father, a red-faced coupon clipper and pillar of the Methodist community, took one look and had a stroke on the spot. He went into a coma and died a week later. As it happened, he had managed to outlive his son by a full ten days. Sylvester’s mother was made of sterner stuff but the scene before them didn’t do her any good either.

  No wonder old Hiram Bean’s pump went haywire.

  Sylvester Aubrey Bean lay naked on the parquet floor of his game room, h
is Marie Antoinette costume flung across a chairback. Beyond the windows a heat haze hung over the treetops of Central Park. The room was stifling. Sylvester Aubrey Bean had puffed up and burst. The carcass lay faceup, blackened and alive with bacteria and maggots. It lay at the center of a pentangle drawn in his own blood. At least one Satanic drug ritual hadn’t been a rumor. His hands and feet had been fixed to the floor with spikes. The sledgehammer lay nearby.

  Half the cops who arrived on the scene promptly added to the mess by throwing up.

  Not Terry Leary, though, and not Harry Madrid. Harry looked around and fanned the air in front of his nose. “Ripe,” he said, regarding the remains. “Let’s call Ellery Queen.”

  Terry was in charge of the investigation. He set the tone and Harry Madrid did what he was told. They went about their business with dispatch. Terry made sure the details of the case were kept under wraps and far from the reporters, who were drawn like flies to the murder of such a bizarre figure. Harry Madrid wasn’t shy about letting Terry know he didn’t go for hushing things up to smooth the way for a bunch of queers and Terry told him he surely was entitled to his own opinion so long as he did it Terry’s way. Harry Madrid had been around for a long time. He knew how things worked and he knew when to bide his time.

  Terry’s way worked out just fine. They pinned the murder on Sylvester Aubrey Bean’s valet-cum-lover, a stooge by the name of Derek Boyce, who made it a lot easier by having for years proclaimed himself a witch. It didn’t hurt matters that he’d once been a high school teacher dismissed for casually grabbing the football captain’s dick in the locker room. Half the team had seen him do it and Boyce said he just didn’t know what had come over him. Derek Boyce’s prints were all over the sledgehammer. After two days of what the papers called “intensive interrogation” conducted by Harry Madrid and Bert Reagan, Derek Boyce had been reduced to one very worn-out witch. They said he confessed. All that mattered was that he signed the confession and there didn’t have to be a trial to drag it all out.