Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  Madrid was still wearing his suit coat when he answered the knock. The hat was on the bed. The telephone was off the hook. He looked at Cassidy through the smoke from his King Edward, squinting, eyes small and shining, piggish. “You,” he growled, “I wanna see.” He turned back to the telephone, said something, slammed the receiver down. “How’d you know I was here? Nobody knows I’m here.”

  “Just wanted to stop by, tell you how sorry I was about Bert. Do they know who did it?”

  “Don’t kid a kidder, Lew. Bert was just one more fart in a very big windstorm. A popgun in the big war. The hell with him.”

  “Softie.”

  Madrid ground out his cigar and tugged a pipe from his pocket, then a yellow oilskin pouch. “Bauman’s cigars ruin all these other things for you.” He fingered tobacco into the bowl; the first puff filled the room with the cloying cherry smell.

  “Too bad about Markie Cookson, too.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” Madrid said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “Heard he’s gone missing … he’ll turn up. His kind always turn up.”

  “Not this time, Harry. When you and Bert kill ’em, the bastards stay dead. Like Rocco’s boys down on the shore. You’ve been up to mischief, Harry. I want to know when and where it’s gonna stop … you and me being partners with old Tom and Mr. Lucky. I get worried the way you’re killing people, setting up your own little operation here. All of a sudden I’m getting all faint and girlish at the thought of you free-lancing from a posh place like this … I’m wondering if maybe I’d better remember who my friends are—maybe I’d better go tell Max and Terry what this looks like to me. Dog’s breakfast, Harry. Feel like I’m stepping in it …”

  “Your mouth,” Harry Madrid said, “it’s running overtime. You could talk yourself into an early grave—”

  “That’s my Harry.”

  “You knew I was here. You get the idea somewhere Cookson’s croaked … you’re beatin’ your gums about Rocco’s hoods … You come here and throw a spitter like Bert at me, think I’ll go for it. So Bert shot off his yap to you before you and Terry killed him—hell, it’s a sorry old world, Lew. Football players should stick to being heroes. Take an expert’s word for it. Siddown, Lew.”

  A warm breeze fluttered the curtains ten stories above 42nd. He sat in the ancient Morris chair while Harry Madrid poured Old Crow shots into a couple of glasses.

  “It’s too late,” Cassidy said. “I’m not a hero anymore. The heroes are all gone now, busy elsewhere; hadn’t you heard?” The bourbon didn’t sit so well with the hot dog.

  “Nobody left but us villains, is that it?”

  “I think Bert’s death was an accident,” Cassidy said.

  Madrid chuckled through the smoke. It circled around his broad fatherly face. A cop of the old school. A flatfoot, Terry used to call him. “Why not? Shot himself three, four times and keeled over. Sounds reasonable. I guess Markie’s death was an accident, too. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Markie’s dead …”

  “Let’s,” Cassidy said. “That must have been quite a scene in Markie’s bedroom, Harry. The blue lights, the mirror over the bed, the movie camera, the handcuffs on the big pecker—did you think to film it? Big round bed, all his doodads. So you got fed up with him, maybe you couldn’t break him, so you rammed him up against the wall and blew his head off, very messy; you should have cleaned off the wall. You dumped him off the Jersey shore.”

  “Lemme tell you about Markie, Lew. For the sake of argument, y’know. You got a minute?”

  “For you? Sure.”

  “I been watching Terry for a long time. Watching and thinking about the way your pal Terry lives, how he operates. Then Luciano starts going on about him … now Terry’s playing this big part in my life. And I want him out of it altogether, see. But I can’t quite catch him at the bad stuff. When I get him, I gotta get him good. He’s a cop on the take but half the cops in this town have a Max Bauman somewhere. I hadda do better than a gangster with a fat roll for payoffs … well, Terry never shoulda hooked up with the fat man. I could see him playing ball with Max, but with a pansy like Cookson? Unnatural. Then that kid plugs Terry and I smoke my pipe and keep thinkin’. If this little bumboy Derek Boyce had really killed Sylvester Aubrey Bean, Herrin might have hated Terry for screwing up the course of true love, but he wouldn’t of shot him like that. So I get to thinkin’ maybe Herrin knew Boyce was innocent, the fall guy that Terry set up to spare the real killer the aggravation of going to the chair. I investigate a little on my own time like and it turns out Markie was not only screwing around with this Boyce character … but Markie was also the main purveyor of dope to the queers—how ’bout that! sez I to myself. It hits me that Markie was tight with all these guys, particularly with the very rich Mr. Bean. But old Terry’s investigation skips all that, settles right on Boyce. But there were all sorts of links between the fat man and Bean … turns out Bean’s place was full of Markie’s fingerprints, even some mash notes he’d written Bean … and there were some pictures of a fat man in a mask whipping the shit out of Bean while Derek Boyce watched like a retard. Well, it don’t take Holmes and Watson to figure out that Bean was the victim of what would you like to call it? An excess of enthusiasm, boyish high spirits? They were all hooked on dope, on this creepy witch stuff, all boys together—following me, Lew?”

  “At a safe distance,” Cassidy said.

  “Terry figured the fat man was too good to waste on the ’lectric chair, doncha see? So he gave ’em a nutsy little fairy like Boyce and kept Markie out of it. Let’s say the fat man was no ingrate.” Harry Madrid tamped the hot ash down into the bowl with a thickly callused fingertip. “Now, Lew, you gotta admit that sending Boyce to the lion’s den was a bad thing to do … I had a damn good case, hypothetical I know, on Cookson, and Terry was right in the middle of it … so I kept gnawing on it, like this bull terrier I got when he gets after a juicy soupbone, and whattaya know, I’m only part of the way home … Terry’s Max Bauman’s boy. And what’s Max’s big crop? Dope. Reefers, coke, heroin … and the fat man was the supplier to the queers. Which makes Terry the middleman taking a helluva cut from Markie’s cost. Now I know for damn sure that Terry wants Markie out of jail … and there’s a chance that Markie has kept a record of his payoffs to Terry so he can bargain with the coppers the day everybody comes knockin’ at his door. Everybody’s ass-deep in this and Markie’s got his own little insurance policy against the rainy day.” Harry Madrid smiled comfortably like a man who has seen the light after a long time in the darkness with everybody else. “Terry’s a bad man,” he said, puffing. “Now, if I can figure out Markie’s having an insurance policy, then so can Terry … but why did Terry decide to pick up that insurance policy now? You got me there—”

  “A sixth sense,” Cassidy said.

  “Terry must of found all the records of the payoffs because I sure as hell didn’t. And I figure Terry killed Bert because Bert was there following my orders—to bring me the stuff that would incriminate Terry. Don’t tell me a shitload of lies, okay? Life’s too short. So Terry’s got the evidence and I’m back where I started … it’s a game for chrissakes, Lew, don’t look at me like that. You know about games. Look at your leg, that was a game. Well, this is our game, Terry’s and mine, and Terry’s losin’. He may not think so, but he’s losin’ and the other guys have got the ball. You’d do well to remember that, Lew. I want Terry. Lucky wants Terry. He’s a dead man … and you’re the only guy with any chance, any chance, of getting him out alive. Want me to be honest with you? I don’t think you can do it, kid. Now, what the hell do you want? You didn’t tell me how you got here.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on,” Cassidy said. “I have to hear everybody’s lies. What was that number you pulled with Rocco’s boys—”

  “Don’t look at me. Gangland massacre. I’m clean.”

  “You, Harry? Clean?” Cassidy shook his head.

  Madrid stood up, kn
ocked his pipe out on the windowsill. The wind whipped the ashes out into space. “Everybody’s dirty so far as I can see. You’re not getting any cleaner yourself, Lew.” He grinned. “Forget Rocco’s boys. Look at it this way, the world’s a better place without them. Whoever killed them, he oughtta get a medal.” The grin turned into a small laugh.

  “I saw you kill ’em,” Cassidy said.

  “Did you at that? Well, you know what I think? I think it was a vision, Lew. Or the DTs maybe.”

  “You came in a motor launch, you came up out of the dunes to the parking lot and opened up on ’em. I saw it happen.”

  “No kidding? Anybody else see me do this?”

  Cassidy stared into the hard little eyes.

  “I mean, hell, Lew. Uncorroborated testimony …” Madrid shrugged. “People, they’re seein’ things all the time, things that never happened … it’s just one of those things.” His hand was on the doorknob. A sepia picture hung on the flowered paper beside the door. A frontiersman was standing up in a canoe while an Indian paddled. At least he had a paddle. “I’ll be in touch. We’re still counting on you, Lew. Give us Terry and Max, we might throw Terry back.” He held his pipe in his hand,” chuckling as he closed the door.

  Waiting for the elevator, Cassidy wondered just where the interview had gone wrong. Sometimes you had the feeling that you were the only one who ever got surprised. He was glad to get through the musty lobby. But he was standing in front of the pawnshop, staring at a team photograph of the ’07 Yale footballers without really seeing it, when he felt a very large paw on his shoulder.

  Bennie the Brute said, “Lew.”

  “Well”—Cassidy looked at the polka-dot bow tie—“I don’t know why I should be surprised. How are you, Bennie?” He felt like something caught in a powerful vortex he could only partly control. He could beat his tiny fists on the windowpanes, make a noise, pretend it made a difference, and then a hand as big as his head would drop on his shoulder. Nothing surprised him anymore. Except the belief that he still had some control.

  “Don’t be alarmed, Lew.”

  “All right, Bennie. I won’t.”

  “You looked alarmed for a second there, Lew. Mr. Bauman would like to see you.” He nodded back along the curb where the Chrysler sat like a huge cream puff. He gently touched Cassidy’s elbow, the slightest pressure. “We been following you, Lew. You shouldn’t hang around with guys like Mr. Madrid.”

  “That’s good, Bennie, really good. Harry thinks his Danbury office is a secret.”

  “Looks like Harry’s wrong again. He’s all wet about a lot of things.” He opened the rear door and Cassidy got in beside Max Bauman. Bennie waited patiently until Cassidy’s leg was tucked in, then closed the door with a heavy solid click.

  They were slowly heading uptown after Bennie had made a left. Horns were honking and children were holding balloons and the pretty girls were out in their summer dresses.

  Max Bauman shook Cassidy’s hand, leaned back, and looked out at the crowds of girls on their lunch hour and soldiers and sailors wandering through the city most of them had never seen before. They were only at the beginning. They were going to see a lot of things they’d never seen before and die in places they’d never dreamed of and maybe some of them would even get back to New York someday and try to remember the young men they’d been so long ago.

  “I’m a direct man,” Bauman said, “when it comes to business. But let me ask you a question before we get down to cases. What business do you have with a rascal like Harry Madrid?”

  Cassidy was waiting for an elaboration on the question. None came. “Condolences about Bert Reagan. That was my business with him.”

  “Strong feelings to inspire you to go to his little undercover headquarters. He’s working with the FBI now. Isn’t that amazing, Lew?”

  “Amazing.”

  “How did you know where to find him, Lew?”

  “Bert mentioned it once, I think. Look, what the hell is this, Max?”

  “Take my advice, Lew. Wash your hands of this man, this Harry Madrid. He has a bad history.”

  “I don’t get the point of this—”

  “Harry Madrid is tampering in my business, Lew. He is trying to upset what I like to think of as the natural order of things. I will not stand for it. I refer, of course, to the coldblooded murders of my associates from Florida. Terry tells me you personally saw him … after the shooting was over. A massacre—”

  “Harry said I was having a vision—”

  “He knows you saw what happened?”

  Cassidy nodded.

  “And how did he come by that information?”

  “I just told him.”

  “You told him. Now, that is amazing.” Max stared out the window. He didn’t sound amazed. “In a way, it would be possible to make a case for Harry Madrid believing he was only doing his job. Perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Do you think I should give Harry Madrid the benefit of the doubt?”

  “I don’t feel all that warmly toward Harry.”

  “I am sincerely glad to hear this from your own lips, Lew. Because I have no intention of giving Harry Madrid anything but possibly a cement necktie. So you wonder why don’t I do it? It would be child’s play. I know about his hotel office, I know about his connection with Mr. Hoover’s bureau, I know about his friendship with certain criminal elements … You may not believe this, Lew, but Harry Madrid was a bagman—yes, as God is my witness—a bagman for a fellow I’ve known a long time, a man who has grown twisted and evil with the years … Lucky Luciano! Yes, Harry Madrid would do anything for Lucky. Until Lucky ran into some bad luck …” He leaned forward, tapped Bennie’s shoulder. “Through the park, Bennie. Lovely day. Trees leafing out.” He reached across and tapped Cassidy’s knee. “That’s the kind of man Harry Madrid is. When he murdered my associates from Florida, the thought crossed my mind—he is doing this terrible thing for Lucky Luciano. Luciano torments me from his prison cell!”

  Bennie swung across 59th and glided into the park. The racket of the city faded. “Look at those squirrels, Lew. They planned ahead, they stored up nuts for the long winter, and they survived. They were vigilant. Survival is all. Goddammit!” His calm burst like a ruptured blood vessel. His face splotched with anger; saliva welled in the corners of his mouth. “Rocco, a man I’ve done business with for twenty years! Rocco thought I had his men murdered—me! It’s like one of the Bard’s bloody histories! Well, Lew, I convinced him it wasn’t me … he bought something from me, a first order of some of my goods, you might say, and he paid me a million dollars … well, I let him keep the goods and I gave him back the million! Just to show him I had nothing to do with the massacre—that we were still pals! Now,” he sighed, struggling to control himself, “you’d think that would be bad enough, wouldn’t you, Lew?”

  “Bad enough,” Cassidy agreed.

  “But the worst is yet to come.” He took a deep breath, a man going off the high dive. “Somebody told Madrid those men would be there … somebody told him I would be there! Harry Madrid could have killed me. And Rocco, for that matter. If we hadn’t changed our plans at the last minute. Listen to me, Lew.” Veins pulsed in the forehead and Cassidy looked away, found the bloodshot eyes. Not a great improvement. “I have been betrayed! The fucking serpent is at my boson, Lew.”

  Cassidy nodded. He didn’t want to ask the name of the serpent. The car seemed full of them.

  Bauman whispered, “Did Terry betray me, Lew?”

  “You must be joking—”

  “Do I strike you as a man who’s joking?”

  Cassidy shook his head.

  “I want to know if Terry is betraying me. I want you to find out … don’t spare my feelings, Lew. If a man has a cancer, he wants to know. The cancer must be cut out. And if Terry is true to me as ever, well, I’ll make it up to him. Lew, I’m at a loss … there was no one else I could come to.” His tongue flicked along dry, cracked lips. It was his lizard impression. “Yo
u’ve played ball for my team, you’ve given everything. I trust you, Lew.”

  “All right. I’ll see what I can do, Max.”

  “You don’t sound happy. But do your best. I’ll do something nice for you, Lew.”

  Cassidy got out of the car near the Metropolitan Museum. He said he wanted to do some walking, give his leg some exercise. Once he leaned down at the window.

  “Max, you’re forgetting someone else who could have set you up.”

  “Oh? Now, who would that be?”

  “Who benefited most?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Rocco himself. Gunsels are a dime a dozen. Kill expendable men of your own to prove your innocence.”

  Bauman’s face grew pinched and red again, as if he’d just swallowed something with hair on it.

  “Just a thought,” Cassidy said, stepped back from the car, watched it slip into the Fifth Avenue traffic. He didn’t know who had tipped Madrid. But there were a great many possibilities, Rocco being merely the one he thought Max would find most confusing.

  Jesus, he wished people would stop asking him to spy on Terry …

  “Here’s to you, amigo.” Terry lifted his glass. “You saved my life on that staircase. Reagan would have iced me without batting an eye.” Night had fallen on Park Avenue, the lights were shining in the windows, and you could smell summer coming. Terry was looking like a millionaire. He wore a maroon-and-blue-striped robe with padded shoulders from Sulka. Navy blue pajamas. He got Cassidy settled on the couch with his leg up on a hassock and brought him a hefty Scotch. There was something comforting about watching him play with the silver ice tongs and hearing the solid clicking of the cubes in the crystal. Everybody was after Terry but Terry didn’t know it. Ignorance was bliss. But he knew somebody was after him. Harry Madrid was always out there, barking, clawing. Which one of them, he wondered, watching Terry enjoying himself, was in the cage? Remembering Harry’s remarks, watching Terry, you began to realize how raw Terry must have rubbed the old copper.

  “You got me out of the soup, amigo,” Terry said again, tilting his glass at Cassidy once more.