Manhattan Noir

by Lawrence Block

  Maybe everything else would have been different if she’d left her father as peaceful as she was leaving James John O’Rourke. But had that ever been an option? Could she have done it, really?

  Probably not.

  She let herself out of the apartment, drew the door shut, and made sure it locked behind her. The building was a walk-up, four apartments to the floor, and she walked down three flights and out the door without encountering anyone.

  Time to think about moving.

  Not that she’d established a pattern. The man last week, in the posh loft near the Javits Center, she had smothered to death. He’d been huge, and built like a wrestler, but the drug rendered him helpless, and all she’d had to do was hold the pillow over his face. He didn’t come close enough to consciousness to struggle. And the man before that, the advertising executive, had shown her why he’d feel safe in any neighborhood, gentrification or no. He kept a loaded handgun in the drawer of the bedside table, and if any burglar was unlucky enough to drop into his place, well—

  When she was through with him, she’d retrieved the gun, wrapped his hand around it, put the barrel in his mouth, and squeezed off a shot. They could call it a suicide, just as they could call the wrestler a heart attack, if they didn’t look too closely. Or they could call all three of them murders, without ever suspecting they were all the work of the same person.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt her to move. Find another place to live before people started to notice her on the streets and in the bars. She liked it here, in Clinton, or Hell’s Kitchen, whatever you wanted to call it. It was a nice place to live, whatever it may have been in years past. But, as she and Jim had agreed, the whole of Manhattan was a nice place to live. There weren’t any bad neighborhoods left, not really.

  Wherever she went, she was pretty sure she’d feel safe.

  RAIN

  BY THOMAS H. COOK

  Battery Park

  Aburst of light releases the million eyes of the rain, glimpsing the Gothic towers in dark mist, falling in glittering streams of briefly reflected light, moving inland, toward the blunt point of the island, an outbound ferry as it loads for the midnight run.

  So like I said before, it ain’t like she has long, you know?

  Yeah, mon. She just hangin’ on now.

  Rain streaks down the ferry’s windows where the night riders sit in yellow haze––Toby McBride only one among them, single, forty-two, the bowling alley in trouble, thinking of his invalid mother on Staten Island, money leaching away, watching her Jamaican nurse, such big black hands, how easy it would be.

  I figure you could use twenty grand, right?

  Twenty, huh?

  The rain falls on intrigue and conspiracy, trap doors, underground escape routes, the crude implements of quick getaways. It collects the daily grime from the face of the Custom House and sends it swirling into the vast underground drains that empty into the sea. Along the sweep of Battery Park it smashes against crumpled cigarette packets, soaks a broken shoelace, flows into a half-used tube of lipstick, drives a young woman beneath a tattered awning, blond hair, shoulder-length, with a stuck umbrella, struggling to open it, a man behind her, sunk in the shadows, his voice a tremble in the air.

  You live in this building?

  Long, dark fingers still the umbrella, curl around its mahogany handle.

  Name’s Rebecca, right?

  The rain sees the fickle web of chance meetings, the grid of untimely intersections, lethal fortuities from which there will be no escape. A million tiny flashing screens reflect stilettos and box cutters, switchblades and ice picks, the snub-nosed barrel that stares out from its nest of long dark fingers.

  Don’t say a word.

  Off West Street the rain falls on the deserted pit of the ghostly towers, and moves on, cascading down the skeletal girders of the new construction, then further north, to Duane Street, thudding against the roof of an old green van.

  So, when you get here, Sammy?

  Don’t worry. I’ll be there.

  Eddie squeezes the cell phone, glances back toward the rear of the van, speakers, four DVD players, two car radios, a cashmere overcoat, a shoebox of CDs, some jewelry that might be real, the bleak fruit of the hustle.

  I need you here now, man.

  You that hyped?

  Now, man.

  In the gutters, the rushing rain washes cigarette butts and candy wrappers, a note with the number 484 in watery ink, a hat shop receipt, a prescription label for Demerol. It washes down grimy windshields and as it washes, sees the pop-eyed and the drowsy, the hazy and the alert, Eddie scratching his skinny arms, Detective Boyle in the unmarked car a block away, playing back the tape, grinning at his partner as he listens to the voices on the ferry.

  We got McBride dead to rights, Frank.

  A laugh.

  That fucking Jamaican. Jeez, does he know how to work a wire.

  At Police Plaza, the wind shifts, driving eastward, battering the building’s small square windows, a thudding rumble that briefly draws Max Feldman from the photographs on his desk, Lynn Abercrombie sprawled across the floor of her Tribeca apartment, shot once with a snub-nosed .38, no real clues, save the fact that she lay on her back, with a strand of long blond hair over the right eye, maybe by a fan of Veronica Lake, some sick aficionado of the noir.

  The rain falls upon the tangle of steel and concrete, predator and prey. It slaps the baseball cap of Jerry Brice, as he waits for Hattie Jones, knowing it was payday at the all- night laundry, her purse full of cash. It mars Sammy Kaminsky’s view of Dolly Baron’s bedroom window, and foils the late-night entertainment of a thousand midnight peepers.

  On Houston Street, it falls on people drawn together by the midnight storm, huddled beneath shelters, Herman Devane crowded into a bus refuge, drunk college girls all around him, that little brunette in the red beret, her body naked beneath her clothes, so naked and so close, the touch so quick, so easy, to brush against her then step back, blame it on the rain.

  Lightning, then thunder rolling northward, over Bleecker Street, past clubs and taverns, faces bathed in neon light, nodding to the beat of piano, bass, drums, the late-night riff of jazz trios.

  Ernie Gorsh taps his foot lightly beneath the table.

  Not a bad piano.

  Jack Plato, fidgeting, toying with the napkin beneath his drink, a lot on his mind, time like a blade swinging over his head.

  Fuck the piano. You hear me, Ern? 484 Duane. A little jewelry store. Easy. I cased it this afternoon.

  Ernie Gosch listens to the piano.

  Jack Plato, slick black hair, sipping whiskey, cocksure about the plans, the schedule, where the cameras are.

  Paulie Cerrello’s backing the operation. A safe man is all we need. Christ, it’s a sure thing, Ern.

  Ernie Gorsh, gray hair peeping from beneath his gray felt hat, just out of the slammer, not ready to go back.

  Nothing’s ever sure, Jack.

  It is if you got the balls.

  It is if you don’t got the brains.

  Plato, offended, squirming, a deal going south, Paulie will be pissed. No choice now but play the bluff.

  Take it or leave it, old man.

  Ernie, thinking of his garden, the seeds he’s already bought for spring, seeds in packets, nestled in his jacket pocket, thinking of the slammer, too, how weird it is now, gangs, Aryans, Muslims, fag cons raping kids in the shower, deciding not to go back.

  Sorry, Jack. Rising. I got a bus to catch.

  The eyes of the rain see the value of experience, the final stop of crooked roads. It falls on weariness and dread, the iron bars of circumstance, the way out that looks easy, comes with folded money, glassine bags of weed, tinfoil cylinders stuffed with white powder, floor plans of small jewelry stores, with x’s where the cameras are.

  At 8th Street and Sixth Avenue, Tracey Olson leaves a cardboard box on the steps of Jefferson Market. Angelo and Luis watch her rush away from inside a red BMW boosted on Avenue A, the
rain thudding hard on its roof.

  You see that?

  Wha?

  That fucking girl.

  What about her?

  She left a box on the steps there.

  What about it?

  That all you can say, whataboutitwhataboutit?

  Luis steps out into the rain, toward the box, the tiny cries he hears now.

  Jesus. Jesus Christ.

  On 23rd, the rain slams against the windows of pizza parlors and Mexican restaurants, Chinese joints open all night.

  Sal and Frankie. Sweet and sour pork. Moo goo gai pan.

  So, the guy, what’d he do?

  What they always do.

  He ask how old?

  I told him eighteen.

  Sal and Frankie giggling about the suits from the suburbs, straight guys who dole out cash for their sweet asses then take the PATH home to their pretty little wives.

  Where was he from?

  Who cares? He’s a dead man now.

  That plum sauce, you eatin’ that?

  At Broadway and 34th, the million eyes of the rain smash against the dusty windows of the rag trade, Lennie Mack at his desk, ledgers open, refiguring the numbers, wiping his moist brow with the rolled sleeves of his shirt, wondering how Old Man Siegelman got suspicious, threatening to call in outside auditors, what he has to do before that call is made … do for Rachel, and the two kids in college, do because it was just a little at the beginning. Jesus, two-hundred fifty thousand now. Too much to hide. He closes the ledger, sits back in his squeaky chair, thinks it through again … what he has to do.

  From Times Square, the gusts drive northward, slanting lines of rain falling like bullets, exploding against the black pavement, the cars and buses still on Midtown streets, Jaime Rourke on the uptown 104, worrying about Tracy, what she might do with the baby, seated next to an old guy in a gray felt hat fingering packets of garden seed.

  So I guess you got a garden.

  My building has little plots. A smile. My daughter thinks I should plant a garden.

  Eddie Gorsh sits back, relaxed, content in his decision, grateful to his daughter, how, because of her, there’ll be no more sure things.

  Daughters are like that, you know. They make you have a little sense.

  Near 59th and Fifth, a gust lifts the awning of the San Domenico. Dim light in the bar. Bartender in a black bolero jacket.

  Amanda Graham. Martini, very dry, four olives. Black dress, sleeveless, Mikimoto pearls. Deidre across the small marble table. Manhattan. Straight up.

  Paulie’s going to find out, Mandy.

  Amanda sips her drink. How?

  He has ways.

  A dismissive wave. He’s not Nostradamus.

  Close enough. And for what? Some nobody.

  He’s not a nobody. He plays piano. A nice gig. On Bleecker Street.

  My point exactly.

  Amanda nibbles the first olive. What do you really think Paulie would do?

  Deidre sips her drink.

  Kill you.

  Amanda’s olive drops into the crystal glass, ripples the vodka and vermouth. The smooth riffs of Bleecker Street grow dissonant and fearful.

  You really think he would?

  Over the nightbound city, the rain falls upon uncertainty and fear, the nervous tick of unsettled outcomes, things in the air, motions not yet completed. At 72nd and Broadway, it sweeps along windows coiled in neon, decorated with bottles of ale and pasted with green shamrocks.

  Captain Beals. Single malt scotch. Glenfiddich. Detective Burke with Johnny Walker Black. A stack of photographs on the bar between them. Fat man. Bald. 3849382092.

  This the last one?

  Yeah. Feldman thinks it’s a long shot, but the guy lives in Tribeca, and it seems pretty clear the killer lives there too.

  A quick nod.

  His name is Harry Devane. Lives in Windsor Apartments. Just a couple buildings down from Lynn Abercrombie. Four blocks from Tiana Matthews. Been out four years.

  What’s his story?

  He works his way up to it by flashing, or maybe just rubbing against a girl. You know, in the subway, elevator, crap like that.

  Then what?

  Then he … gets violent.

  How violent?

  So far, assault. But pretty bad ones. The last time, the girl nearly died. He got seven years.

  Ever used a gun?

  No.

  A sip of Glenfiddich.

  Then he’s not our man.

  At 93rd and Amsterdam, the rain sweeps in waves down the tavern window, Paulie Cerrello watching Jack Plato step out of the cab, taking a sip from his glass as Plato comes through the door, slapping water from his leather jacket.

  Fucking storm. Jesus.

  So? Gorsh?

  I showed him everything. The whole deal.

  And?

  He ain’t in, Paulie. He’s scared of the slammer.

  Paulie knocks back the drink, unhappy with the scheme of things, some old geezer scared of the slammer, the whole deal a bust.

  So what now, Paulie? You want I should get another guy?

  A shake of the head.

  No, I got another problem.

  He nods for one more shot.

  You know my wife, right?

  The rain sees no way out, no right decision, nothing that can slow the encroaching vise. It falls on bad judgment and poor choice and the clenched fist of things half thought through. At Park and 104th, it slaps against a closing window, water on the ledge dripping down onto the bare floor.

  Shit.

  Charlie Landrew tosses his soggy hat onto the small wooden table that is his office and dining room. Misses. The hat now on the frayed rug beneath the table.

  Shit.

  Leaves it.

  Phone.

  Yeah?

  Charlie, it’s me. Lennie.

  This fucking storm flooded my goddamn apartment. Water all over the fucking floor.

  Listen, Charlie. I need to borrow some cash. You know, from the guy you … from him.

  A hard laugh.

  You barely got away with your thumbs last time, Lennie.

  But I made good, that’s all that matters, right?

  How much?

  Twenty-five.

  Charlie thinks. Old accounts. Too many of them. Past due. Lots of heavy leaning ahead. And if the leaning doesn’t work, and somebody skips? His neck in a noose already.

  So what about it, Charlie?

  Not a hard decision.

  No.

  The rain sees last options, called bluffs, final scores, silenced bells, snuffed candles, books abruptly closed. At Broadway and 110th, the windshield wipers screech as they toss it from the glass.

  Listen to that, will ya?

  Yeah, what a piece of shit.

  A fucking BMW, and shit wipers like that.

  Might as well be a goddamn Saturn.

  The box shifts slightly on Luis’s lap.

  I think it’s taking a crap, Angelo.

  So?

  So? What if it craps through the box?

  It won’t crap through the box.

  Okay, so it don’t. What we gonna do?

  I’m thinking.

  You been thinking since we left the Village.

  So what’s your idea, Luis? And don’t say cops, because we ain’t showing up at no cop-house with a fucking stolen car and a baby we don’t know whose it is.

  A leftward glance, toward a looming spire.

  A church. Maybe a church.

  The rain falls on quick solutions, available means, a way out that relieves the burden. It falls on homeless shelters and SROs and into the creaky, precariously hanging drains of old cathedrals.

  At 112th and Broadway, a blast of wind hits as the bus’ hydraulic doors open.

  Eddie Gorsh rises.

  Good luck with the garden.

  A smile back at the kid.

  Thanks.

  I got a daughter, too.

  Then take care of her, and maybe s
he’ll take care of you.

  Out onto the rain-pelted sidewalk, head down, toward the building, Edna waiting for him there, relieved to have him back, the years they have left, a road he’s determined to keep straight. This, he knows, will make Rebecca happy, and that is all he’s after now.

  The rain moves on, northward, toward the Bronx, leaving behind new beginnings, things learned, lessons applied. At 116th and Broadway, Jamie Rourke steps out into the million, million drops, thinking of Tracey and his daughter, how he shouldn’t have said what he said, made her mad, determined to call her now, tell her how everything is going to be okay, how it’s going to be the three of them against the world, a family.

  The rain falls on lost hopes and futile resolutions, redemptions grasped too late, fanciful solutions. At 116th and Broadway, it falls on Barney Siegelman as he steps out of a taxi, convinced now that his son-in-law is a crook, news he has to break to his wife, his daughter, the whole sorry scheme of things unmasked. He rushes toward the front of his building, feels his feet slosh through an unexpected stream of water. He stops beneath the awning of his building and follows the rushing tide up the sidewalk to Our Lady of Silence, where a cardboard box lays beneath a ruptured drain, a torrent gushing from its cracked mouth, filling the box with water, then over its sodden sides and down the concrete stairs, flooding the sidewalk with the stream that splashes around Siegelman’s newly polished shoes. He shakes his head. Tomorrow he’ll have to have them shined all over again. He peers toward the church, the stairs, the shattered drain pipe, the overflowing box beneath it. Disgusting, he thinks, the way people leave their trash.