Kiss Me Twice

by Thomas Gifford

  “Nearly noon,” Cassidy said. He stood in his pajamas, stretching before the window. The Packard sat before him, rain beaded on the highly polished paintwork. It looked like the old Ford might be retired to stud. He wished that he had someone to share the cars with … a wife, touring the countryside, all that stuff. He turned to Not Me and clapped his hands. “Time to face the world. We are the quick, it’s the others who are dead. Arise.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Not Me threw his legs over the edges of the sofa and sat up, his head in his hands. He peeled the sleep mask from his eyes, moaned. “Did I have a bloody nightmare, old fish, or was it raining bodies on Park Avenue last night?”

  “One body by actual count.” Somebody had killed Rolf Moller. The thought surfaced for the first time since waking.

  “Ah. It was real, then. I was afraid of that. I must say, this track you’re running on, Lewis, is a bit fast, a bit tricky for the likes of this old cod. That fella really was dead, quite definitely dead, whoever the hell killed him. … You know, I’d have called it a suicide while whatever-it-is, while the balance of his mind was unsettled, or disturbed, you know the mumbo-jumbo. I mean, no evidence of anyone calling on him full of bloody intent.” He yawned and coughed and took his cigarette case from the coffee table and stuck the Craven A into his holder. He flicked a tiny gold lighter, lit it, inhaled, gasped, and broke into a radiant smile. “Nothing,” he coughed, “like the first gasper of the day.”

  “He didn’t kill himself,” Cassidy said.

  “Well, whatever you say, Cassers, I’m sure. You know me, always looking on the bright side. Comparatively speaking, of course. Why don’t you go perform the morning ablutions, old top, while I sit here and compose myself for the day. Never an easy task.”

  An hour later, showered and dressed, they sat down to coffee and a great deal of toast. Cassidy had spent some time on the telephone while Not Me had cleaned up. Then he had made the coffee and started the toast.

  Not Me came in looking like a million pounds, all from the little overnight case he’d reclaimed from the Heliotrope checkroom the night before. He sat down, covered a piece of toast with strawberry jam, and dipped it in his coffee. “Learned this from my old dad. Used to make my sainted mother want to throw up. Actually I think that’s why dad did it.”

  “I can appreciate your mother’s point of view.”

  “Judging from what I’ve seen of your life in the past few hours, you can’t afford to be overly squeamish, my son.” He chewed meditatively, making little sucking sounds that involved little bits of decomposing toast.

  “You ever get married, Not Me?”

  “You mean, speaking of squeamish? No, not me. Who would have me? A wastrel. A varlet. Undependable. Given to public tipsiness.”

  “You’re rich. And the rest of it is pretty much an act.”

  “Ah, would that it were so, vicar.”

  “You’re well educated. Cute in a puckish way.”

  “After all these years, you’re telling me I’m your type? You little jackanapes, you’ve hidden it under a bushel—afraid of being spurned, I daresay.”

  “I was thinking about that Balliol education—”

  “Ah, the years the locusts ate.”

  “What’s a minotaur, Not Me?”

  “Say again?”

  “Minotaur.”

  “Yes, the Minotaur. Well, a mythical beast. You know, the same old story, head of a bull, body of a regular chappie. It’s all Greek to me, as the man said. You’ve heard of Daedalus, of course.”

  “Not lately. Refresh my memory. Just for the record.”

  “Yes, well, let me see. Daedalus built the well-known Labyrinth to house the Minotaur. But I get ahead of myself. I used to know a bit about Greek mythology, actually, before my mind began to go. Poseidon it was, sent a snow-white bull to Minos, head man on Crete at the time in question. This bull was for sacrificial purposes, as I recall. But Minos liked the bull and kept it alive, sacrificed some other bull. … There are those who say the story is all bull, ha-ha, my little joke. Poseidon was displeased by Minos’s perfidy—I mean, he’d probably gone to a good bit of trouble to send Minos the bull. Anyway, Poseidon punished Minos by making Minos’s wife Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull. Well, take that, Minos! There was as it turned out an offspring of this peculiar union between Pasiphaë and the white bull. … Yes, this is where the monstrous Minotaur makes his very first appearance. And Daedalus built the Labyrinth where the Minotaur was sequestered.”

  “Oh, those Greeks,” Cassidy murmured.

  “Oh, that’s only half the story. It has all miraculously come back to me. We jump ahead a bit and we find some Athenians all in a snit killing Minos’s son Androgeos. Minos had his hellish revenge, however. He required the Athenians to send him seven lads and seven maidens every ninth year—or each year, depending on who’s putting you in the picture. He would then feed these young folks to the Minotaur, who was, we must assume, a carnivore. The third time the Athenians handed over the fourteen kids to be sacrificed, the Athenian Theseus volunteered—he was a sort of hero by trade, as I recall. Theseus joined forces with Minos’s daughter Ariadne and together they killed the Minotaur. End of story. Did Theseus dance off into the sunset with Ariadne? I do not recall. But that is the tale of the Minotaur. Please, no applause.”

  Later, breakfast cleared away, Not Me took his leave.

  “I really must get back to my own labyrinth, Lewis,” he said. “I do hope you get through your present difficulties, find the bad ’uns, and get whatever you want from Karin. I’ll drop it now because anything I could say would be even more fatuous than is my customary standard. But I do care, old chum of mine.”

  “I know. Where are you off to?”

  “Up to the Metropolitan to take a peek at a Rembrandt which just may be the teeniest bit fake. Then it’s back to Washington, make a report to men behind desks on this art-commission fiddle in Europe … A few things seem to have gone astray. Then … well, my dance card remains to be filled in.” He smiled roundly. “Peace has broken out and Not Me must think of something to do with myself.”

  “It’s been good to see you,” Cassidy said. “Sorry I got you into last night’s mess—”

  “Poor blighter. Ah well, in the midst of life and whatnot.” He turned at the door. “This,” he said, “is Nicholson leaving.”

  Cassidy called Terry Leary. Karin was still asleep; MacMurdo had gone off on some business of his own.

  “Nursie still there?”

  “Nursie’s on the job.”

  “You busy?”

  “Not me, as our friend Nicholson would say. I was toying with the idea of stopping by our office—you remember Dependable Detective? Thought I might reintroduce myself to Olive … but then I thought it might put a crimp in my nap schedule—”

  “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  Terry Leary was waiting on the sidewalk, not far from the spot where Rolf Moller had landed. A maintenance man was on his knees scrubbing the stain off the sidewalk. A photographer from one of the papers was taking his picture, cracking wise.

  When he saw the gunmetal gray Packard he did a double take.

  “Lewis,” he said, admiring the grace and elegance, the high vertical grille, “this is you. Today, my son, you are a man! Look at you, chalk-stripe on charcoal, new trench coat, a Borsalino at a jaunty angle.”

  “Celebrating not being in the Maine woods,” Cassidy said. “You’re all spiffed up yourself.”

  “There comes a time when you’re just about whipped, you’re hanging on the ropes. We bottomed out last night, amigo, finding Rolf splattered all over the sidewalk. Karin cracking up, MacMurdo generally pissed off, you looking at Karin with that sorry lost expression … and you just have to do something, get the edge back. You dress up, get a shine on your shoes, pull your socks up … and here comes Cassidy trying hard to look like Gary Cooper, super duper, with a Packard, and you know what? We’re coming off the canvas, amigo, we’re making
a comeback.”

  Walter Winchell’s thinning white hair was sticking out, a shambles he’d tried to comb with his fingers. His face was even pinker than usual. He was wearing a paisley silk dressing gown over a pair of dark blue pajamas. His feet were bare and pink with neatly trimmed toenails. He opened the door himself and led the way energetically across the carpeted foyer. There were a couple of huge Chinese vases in the corners, a houseboy in the kitchen making coffee, and, as it turned out, a blonde in the bedroom.

  Cassidy had called Winchell on his private, personal, bedroom number while Not Me had been bathing. Winchell had listened carefully, knowing the number would never have been used frivolously. When Cassidy had finished talking Winchell had looked at the sleeping girl by his side and said to give him a couple of hours.

  Now he was standing in the middle of the living room making what were for him early-in-the-day jokes. When he slowed down, he said: “I got the whole story for you, kid. You’re gonna love it. Just fucking love it.”

  “Wal-ter … Oh, Wal-ter, hon-eee …” The girl’s voice came from down the hall, right on cue, as if he’d wanted them to know what was in the bedroom. He grinned devilishly.

  The girl came padding barefoot down to the living room, stood leaning against a glass-fronted highboy. She was short and very dark with long bleached blond hair that managed to look just fine and nicely tousled. She wore a man’s pajama top, nothing else. Her thighs looked very firm. She had dimpled knees. She was licking her thumb, as if she were just about to start sucking it.

  “Are you coming back to bed, Walter?” Her voice was thick with sleep. Cassidy wondered it she’d reached her eighteenth birthday yet.

  “Not now, puss. You can go back to sleep. Or whatever. You want to go shopping?”

  She shook her head sulkily, edging her thumb into her mouth.

  “Well, do whatever you want. Just don’t bother us. You get my drift? Get lost—”

  “Sleep over again tonight?”

  “Sure, sure. Why don’t you take in a moom pitcha? Would you like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, just stay the fuck away from me for a while.” He turned to Cassidy and Leary once the girl had disappeared down the hall. “Costello—and I don’t mean Lou, heh, heh—sent her to me with the highest recommendation.”

  There was a radio somewhere, a low babble of voices, and the houseboy was talking to himself in the kitchen. Winchell went to the French doors that gave on to the terrace overlooking Central Park. The moist breeze fluttered the curtains. A striped green-and-white canvas awning hung out over the flagstones and the fringe flapped lightheartedly. The mist hung in soft vaporous clouds over the park, the changing colors of the leaves blurred behind them, everything softening into a kind of abstract beauty.

  Winchell led the way outside, took a deep breath, and beat his chest. “So this is what morning looks like,” he said.

  “No, it’s what three o’clock in the afternoon looks like.”

  “Seems earlier. What about the Series?”

  “The houseboy appeared in the doorway pushing a rolling cart. “Raining in Chicago,” he said. “Looks like they’ll wait till tomorrow.” He was about forty and had a flat, pugnacious face. Cassidy recognized him, one of those funny flashes. Jersey Allie Morris, welterweight, never a contender but in the mid-thirties and even before that a durable puncher who took four or five to give one honey. Somehow he seemed to have come out of it with his senses more or less intact. He gave the cart a onceover. “Anything else, Mr. Winchell?”

  “No, kid, that’s great. I’ll ring if we need more coffee. You might look after Miss Congeniality in the bedroom.”

  “You bet, boss.” He rolled the cart out onto the terrace and left.

  It was nice under the awning, the mist occasionally blowing lightly in their faces. Winchell sat down on one of the wrought-iron chairs and pulled it up to the matching green table. “Siddown, siddown, Lew, Terry, I got a story for you guys. It’s a real story, make a helluva book. Or a movie. Cagney, Jimmy Cagney, it’s tailor-made for him. Think about Cagney, keep him in your mind. This is tough-guy stuff.” He poured coffee and took the lid off a serving dish full of scrambled eggs covered with strips of bacon. Another bowl, under a heavy linen napkin, held warm Danish. “Come on, eat, eat. I haven’t had a breakfast like this, out here on my terrace, nice misty morning—hell, in ages. Eat for chrissakes!”

  Terry Leary spooned out a plateful of eggs and took a Danish. He poured coffee while Winchell clucked like a Jewish mother.

  “I just ate, Winch,” Cassidy said. “I want to hear the story. In your own words, Winch.”

  “In my own words,” Winchell said, nibbling a bit of bacon. “Jeez, Lew. That’s good. In my own words.” He sipped coffee, tugged his robe tighter. “My story is about a guy by the name of Brian Sheehan. … But it all goes back to a man called Casement. Roger Casement. You remember him, right?” But Winchell went on to explain.

  Roger Casement had been an Irishman, born in Kingstown, County Dublin, who served the Crown with great distinction until 1912, when ill health forced him into retirement, back to Ireland. He was forty-eight. By then he was Sir Roger. His great service, which had brought him worldwide fame, had come while he was a British consul out in Portuguese East Africa, Angola, the Congo Free State, and finally in Brazil. He believed very deeply in the minimal human rights, that a man—any man, whatever the color of his skin—deserved to be treated like a human being. He saw the way white traders hideously exploited native labor in the Congo and he raised a hell of a row. He brought the spotlight of world attention to the atrocities the traders were committing daily. In 1904 his Congo report was published, resulting in an extensive retooling of Belgian rule in the Congo four years later. In 1912 his report on similar crimes against humanity in the Putumayo River region of Peru got him his knighthood.

  Although he was a Protestant, Casement’s sympathies had always lain with the anti-British Irish nationalists, who were for the most part Catholic. In retirement he threw himself into their cause. In 1913 he helped found the Irish National Volunteers. While he was in New York in 1914 on a fund-raising mission among the American Irish, war broke out in Europe. In his view it was Germany against the English: that was the part of the equation that mattered. By November of 1914 Casement had made his way to the high command in Berlin, making his pitch that the Germans would be well advised to aid the Irish independence movement as a sort of back-door attack against the English. It must have struck him as a perfectly sensible suggestion.

  Yet it came to nothing. The Germans couldn’t see their way clear to send an expeditionary force to Ireland. Even more disappointing was Casement’s discovery that the preponderance of Irishmen held prisoner would refuse to serve in a brigade he envisioned fighting against the English.

  But he didn’t give up. It was 1916. He was back in Germany, this time asking for the loan of German army officers to lead the Irish rising planned for Easter. Again the Germans turned him down.

  Suddenly desperate to get back and stop the planned revolt, he left for Ireland by German submarine. He made landfall near Tralee, County Kerry, where he was met by some of his Irish supporters. But he was also met by the Black and Tans, arrested, and taken to London where he was tried, convicted of treason on June 29, and sentenced to be hanged.

  There was a flurry of serious attempts by prominent Englishmen to save his life in light of his distinguished career, but they came to grief.

  Roger Casement was hanged on August 3, 1916.

  “So, who’s Brian Sheehan?” Cassidy had weakened and was nibbling a prune Danish and working on his third cup of coffee.

  “Brian Sheehan was a young Irishman, did some university at Christ’s, Dublin, got wind of Casement’s Irish National Volunteers, figured it sounded like an adventure. He met Casement in 1914 when he was nineteen or twenty. Casement took a shine to him. Now, let me add,” Winchell said, tweaking his nose with a forefinger, “it’
s said that Casement was queer as a three-dollar bill. Wouldn’t surprise me, frankly. But I’m not saying that Brian Sheehan was his bumboy. May have been, but fuck it, if you’ll pardon the expression, I can’t know every goddamned thing!”

  “Relax, Winch, it’s a helluva yarn.” Leary grinned at him. “Save your energy for your little thumb sucker. Does this story ever come to a point?”

  “Oh, does it have a point! Gimme a Danish there and perk up this coffee. You’re a mick, I’m teaching you some history.”

  “I learned about Roger Casement at my daddy’s knee,” Leary said. “But he never told me about Brian Sheehan.”

  “Because he didn’t know, Sunny Jim. He wasn’t Winchell!”

  “So?” Cassidy said. “Casement liked this kid.”

  “And he took him to New York on the money-raising mission. They were there when war broke out in Europe. Casement took him to Berlin with him and by the time they got turned down by the heinies the kid was starting to grow up. He had a heart murmur, or that’s the story I’ve heard, and he didn’t have to spend the war in the trenches. Instead he served as a kind of aide, maybe even a kind of go-fer, y’know, a dogsbody … to Sir Roger Casement. He was up to his ears in the planning for the Easter Rising and, when Casement went back to Germany, Brian Sheehan was on the committee to welcome him back. Casement came back empty and the welcome he got wasn’t quite what he’d expected. But you might say Sir Roger was the lucky one. Brian Sheehan was just a smartass little mick. Some of the interrogators had a field day with Brian and when they’d turned him into a bloody lump they dumped him by the roadside on the outskirts of Dublin. The Easter Rising was over and they figured the kid wasn’t gonna be much trouble to anyone anymore.

  “Brian Sheehan was a cripple by then. Helluva mess, by God. Somehow he got to the United States by 1920. He was always close to the cause of the Irish Nationalists, always working behind the scenes, everything from printing leaflets on a hidden press to running guns and raising money. In the United States he went to work on the money side of things, going from one Irish pub to another passing the hat, trading on the hatred of the English, workin’ the speakeasies. New York, Boston, Philly, Jersey. Decided to make some money once he got to know the bootleggers. They trusted him—hell, they were all micks. Brian was a good boy, he worked hard. By the time he was thirty, along about 1925, he was worth a few million and he met a girl … Enid Mallory, just a kid really, but beautiful, and people were noticing her. Brian was taking a vacation in California, that was when he met Enid. He’d never seen anything like California and he’d sure as hell never seen anything like Enid. … And he was something new for her, too. A cripple! But he had some kind of inner character, something that showed through the wreck of his body. … A cynical man would say it was the glow of his money showing through. … But in the end she turned him down and he went back to Boston, back to making money. He discovered he couldn’t get Enid Mallory out of his mind. And Brian was a very determined lad.