She said nothing for a while, but in a few minutes placed a hand on my sleeve. “Do you know Arthur?”
“I met him once.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her we’d found his body, not yet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zizi open her mouth, then think better of it. I’m not proud of what I did: I held back the bad news, not out of compassion, but out of fear Flossie would collapse and wouldn’t be able to talk.
“They came looking for him, two men.”
“Did you recognize them?”
She canted her eyes to the left, and I knew whatever she was going to say would be a lie, or at least a tangled distortion of what she thought was the truth.
“Real thugs. Trashed the apartment. Took me. Shoved me into a car, drove a long ways, dumped me into that place over there.” She threw a hand out at the building.
I followed her gesture and saw evidence techs swarming in and out through the open door of a red-bricked three-story job. NightSun spots suspended from a huge boom turned dark into light and cast their eerie beams, illuminating the area.
“The room was full of empty cans, can you believe? Threw me in there without a by your leave. One whispered, ‘Bye, bye, little lady,’ like I was supposed to die or something. I don’t know what would have happened to me if that blonde woman over there hadn’t come along.”
“Where was Arthur when these men arrived to take you?”
Flossie was facing the east, her bruised face lit by a few rays of the rising sun. She blinked up at me, so I repeated my question.
“Gone to a friend’s house. We needed rent money, two hundred dollars, just a small loan for a couple of weeks, he told me. Arthur was owed, you see. He kept saying, ‘Our ship’s coming in, Floss, I can see it through the binocs.’ That’s what he kept telling me, that and, ‘We’re going to paint the town, babe.’ And I knew his luck would change one day soon.”
“So that’s why you stayed with him, even though he beat you?”
Denny shoved his hands into his pockets, looking at the ground.
Flossie closed her eyes and swayed a little before catching her breath. “You don’t get it, do you? I love the guy. In the beginning, I used him something fierce and now I’m nothing without him.”
Love a man and this is where it gets you? I thought of Mom’s mistake, loving Dad, the rat who left us, and how his leaving was the beginning of the end for her. I looked over at Denny, whose face was as gentle and full of understanding as Lorraine’s, even in the harsh light sideswiping him.
“Besides, it wasn’t Arthur’s fault. It was the booze talking, I knew that, I don’t need to hear him tell me, but that’s what he says in the morning when he’s almost sober. He knows the drink is his downfall. Doesn’t mean all the bad stuff. Arthur has plans, big ones, and I’d ruined one of them—me and my lies—I stopped him from marrying the love of his life. But I believe in him. You would too, if you knew him. One day his boat will dock, that’s what he says, that and, ‘One of these days, babe, one of these days …’ You see what I mean about him? He never stops trying. I love him so much.”
I had to tell her. “Arthur’s dead. We found his body today. I’m so sorry, Flossie.”
She tossed her hair, long worried locks full of dust from Arthur’s storage. “No, you don’t get it. He disappears, sometimes for a couple of months. I don’t blame him.”
I folded my arms. What could I say?
“You think all this is Arthur’s fault, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“I tricked him. I told him I carried his child. Don’t you see what that did to him? He made me an honest woman, that’s what he did. Wanted Whiskey Parnell, his one love. I knew that, but I played my cards and won. Poor Arthur. So he goes off once in a while. I don’t blame him. He’ll come back, I know he will, he always does. You don’t know Arthur like I do.”
One of the paramedics started prepping Flossie for the ride to Brooklyn General. “In a day or two she’ll be well enough to question.”
I didn’t have a day or two. I explained that to the EMS guys. Whiskey Parnell had been missing for almost forty-eight hours and time was slipping away.
Flossie wrapped desperate hands around the paramedic’s forearm. “Don’t send her away. She knows Arthur. I like her, and besides, I need to talk to her. She’s helping me.”
He patted her shoulder and told her to lie down.
She tossed her curls. “I need to be bright and perky when Arthur comes back. That’s what he likes to see—no tears, just bright and perky.”
“Think hard, Flossie. Can you describe the men who came to see Arthur the other night?”
Another paramedic started wheeling her toward the ambulance.
“The men who took me away?”
I nodded.
“Wanted money. I told them he’d gone for the money.”
“Had you ever seen them before?”
She furrowed her brow.
“Get back, miss.”
As they were about to shove the gurney into the ambulance, Flossie’s arms now pinned, she raised her head. “Wore something over their faces, but one might have been Huey, yeah, the scum. ‘Hi, Huey,’ I says, but he didn’t say nothing. Sometimes Huey’s friendly, sometimes it’s like he doesn’t know me. The worst of the worst of the worst, Huey. He’s not really Arthur’s friend. Berringer’s Arthur’s friend. I think Huey is his little brother.”
I knew it. “And the other men?”
“Mean bastards. Shoved me into the car. But I need to find Arthur, he’s all I’ve got. He’s not perfect, I know, but he’s my Arthur.”
The first paramedic stuck another needle into Flossie. “She’ll stop shaking in a few minutes.”
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“An analgesic.”
So I knew I didn’t have much time before Flossie would be vegging out. “These men who came for you, Huey and that other guy, can you describe them?”
She thought a moment. “Big guys. They pounded on the door, stomped into the room like they were bulldozers, didn’t even say hello, slapped me when I got in the way.” Flossie rolled up her sleeve and showed me a bruised arm. “See what they did?”
Her speech was becoming slurred. “Apartment’s a mess. Arthur’s going to be so angry when he sees how I’ve left it.”
I swallowed. “When was the first time you saw Huey and the other guy?”
She shook her head. “Dunno. Three, four months ago. I know it was warm because they brought an air conditioner with them and a case of beer. That was the first time I saw them. Used to come to the house after that, regular like. Arthur called them his business partners—Huey and his brother, Berringer. Only I hadn’t seen them around in a while. Arthur and Berringer go way back. He was okay, Berringer, but like I say, I haven’t seen him in a long time. But Huey, he’s a thug—like I say, the worst of the worst of the worst. And the other guy, good looking, not like the type Huey and Arthur hang out with.”
“Where is Whiskey Parnell?” I asked.
Flossie misunderstood my question. “’Course I do. Everyone knows Whiskey. She’s sweet. She’s Arthur’s one love, and I stole all his chances with her. They were looking for her, too.”
“The men who came for you?”
But she looked at me through half-closed lids. For a brief time, she’d be in Flossie Heaven.
I told Denny I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t explain it in words except to tell him about Star Newcomb and what I’d seen and felt.
“But he gave you a tour of his studio and you didn’t see her,” he said.
“I didn’t search hard enough. I heard noises, I know I did.”
“What kind of noises?”
“Scratching. Sounded like rodents.”
Denny hunched his shoulders, but he was listening.
“Star told me the exterminators were on their way and I bought it. I’ve got to talk to him again.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“But we can’t tell Jane. She’ll send a great force over there. It will freak him out if a bunch of police show up at his door. He’s an old man.”
“Who’s an old man? He made a pass at you.”
“Not Star Newcomb.” I could tell Denny was confused, but I didn’t have time to explain. Something, a part of Lorraine and her loving understanding, spread over him. Denny half-smiled while we started sprinting in the direction of Jay Street.
“He’s been through a lot, but he knows something about Star, and he’s choosing not to tell me. Maybe he doesn’t even know it himself.”
Denny ran a hand through his hair. “Who?”
I nodded. No time now for words.
Watching the Silence
I could feel Denny’s reluctance give way to acquiescence as we past Jane, who was busy on her radio barking orders to the CSU super. At some point soon, I’d have to tell her about Finn Trueblood’s notebook, but now was not the time.
I thought we’d gotten away until I felt her tugging my jacket. “You and Trisha Liam found an interesting notebook in Finn Trueblood’s office. Where is it?”
I felt the elevator rise to my throat. Trisha Liam must have conversed with the chief.
I stared into her face and downplayed and double-talked. “Not as interesting as your discovery of Flossie in Arthur’s storage. I still don’t know how your team found her so fast.”
“I’d stop with the mouth if I were you. It makes your butt look horsey.”
“No, honest,” I said. “In Finn Trueblood’s office, all we found were some scratches in the back of a book, could be anything. Trisha Liam is a little worried about the significance, Finn Trueblood being a named partner and all. Actually, I think she’s reading too much into what we found. Right now I can hardly keep my eyes open, but I’ll swing by your office later and drop it off. Maybe you can figure it out. You and Willoughby.”
“I don’t know what took me so long,” I said as Denny sprinted by my side. I imagined Whiskey holding on as long as she could before sliding into unconsciousness, taking her last breath, dying because I wasn’t fast enough.
We galloped the remaining blocks while I explained, between sharp intakes of air, how I’d met a piano man in Star Newcomb’s building, and how he knew more about the painter than he let on.
Dawn light flashed on the windows as we opened the door to the loft building. The metallic sound of the elevator echoed through the shaft as Denny padded the bulge on his leg. “Just in case.”
“Probably won’t be there at this hour,” he said.
But I felt the piano man’s presence gentling the bones of the building. “His wife’s dead. His world is in his studio. He’ll be there.” I wiped my forehead and leaned against the lobby wall, gasping for air while Denny stood there not even breathing hard.
As we clanked to a stop on the top floor, I heard the crashing chords of some highbrow music. “Told you.”
We walked down the hall and the music got louder, if anything, more compelling, drawing us in.
“Brahms,” Denny said.
“How do you know?”
“Mom loves it. She listens to WQXR. Dad hates it.”
Why was I not surprised?
The old man didn’t seem to hear our knock, and I wondered if what we were listening to was a recording, a clever security ploy.
I banged some more. “Shlomo!”
In a while the music stopped, and I heard the shuffling of feet. The door cracked open revealing one wide eye, a beret and a goatee.
“I knew you’d come for me sooner or later,” he said. He looked down at his shoes.
“Not you, what you know about Star Newcomb but haven’t told me.”
“After what I’ve seen, the innuendoes, the pointing of fingers, my family dragged away in the middle of the night because someone told the authorities about us, and you expect me to tell you what I know, or think I know, about a young man in the prime of his life? Who am I?”
I took another tack. “I understand. But I was telling my boyfriend about your studio and he loves music and wanted to meet you and listen with me.”
We sat on an old stool and listened to a lullaby while I pressed my lips together, thinking how near and yet how far we were to finding Whiskey Parnell.
As Shlomo Morgenthau played, I thought of the best approach, how much time I should give the piano man to give me the truth, while Denny, I could tell, was feeling the music. I remembered my gran telling me if I didn’t know what to say, I should listen to the silence. So I did, listening to the silence in between the notes, watching the silence in the piano man’s face.
“The woman I asked you about the other night? She hasn’t come home.”
He kept playing, not looking at me.
“She has an eight-year-old daughter.”
He stopped for a moment before starting another piece, even sadder than the last.
“Her daughter is very bright,” I said. “She keeps saying her mother will return. She makes elaborate bets with the neighbors. But we don’t know what’s going to happen to her if her mother doesn’t come home, or worse. She has an uncle, and she’ll probably have to live with him and his girlfriend. She doesn’t like them. Her life will be shattered.”
I stopped talking.
The piano man stopped playing, his head bowed.
“Would you like to see her mother’s picture again?”
“I suppose if I must tell you, then I must.”
But he didn’t say anything for a while, and it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut.
I shot Denny a look.
He hadn’t moved, just sat there with his hands folded, his face full of peace. “Beautiful Brahms,” he muttered.
Shlomo Morgenthau nodded. “There is everything in Brahms. Joy, sorrow, the kitchen sink, even. I come very early to the studio most days, sometimes, two, three o’clock when I can’t sleep. That’s most of the time lately.”
His fingers caressed the keys and he couldn’t help himself, he started playing that lullaby thing again, but softly. “On the night you came to visit, early that morning, very early, I got out of the elevator and heard noises coming up the stairs. Footsteps. A woman’s voice. She was angry. She was frightened. I didn’t hear the words, but I know fear.”
He played something slow and draggy as he talked. “I kept walking. I didn’t try to help her. I could have, you know. I knew she was there against her will. She was captured like I was, like my wife was, so many years ago. I feel so ashamed. I am such a coward. Frightened, too. The memory of that awful time so long ago comes back to me.”
Shlomo rested his hands in his lap, as if his fingers were too soiled to touch the keys.
“Star Newcomb’s quite the ladies’ man, I hear,” Denny said. “It could have been anyone with him. Did you happen to get a glimpse of her?”
“Not completely, but I knew when your friend here showed me her picture. I didn’t have the courage to tell her. Who am I to give Star Newcomb a bad name? And for what?”
“Star Newcomb gave himself a bad name.” I showed him Whiskey’s photo again.
I thought I saw water pooling on his lower lids. He nodded slowly, studying the picture. “This is the woman. Well, I can’t say for sure, of course, but it looks like her.”
He gazed at the photo, shaking his head.
“Star Newcomb, a poor excuse for a painter, I might add. Oh, he has talent, all right, but talent isn’t everything. He thinks about the money too much. Success. So what good is a painting without character? The woman with him, the woman being dragged up the stairs, she had brown curls, just like the woman in your picture. Yes, I’d say I saw her with Star Newcomb.” He stared at the image again. “I can say for certain it was the woman. A lawyer, the kind Star Newcomb would hire, he’d dispute my ability to identify her. Never mind that. I saw her and hid it from you. So what will you do, lock me up?”
“You had a lapse of memory. Understandable,” I said, nodding to the piano man a
nd motioning to Denny. “It can all be rectified if you give me the key to his studio.”
“But I don’t have—” He stopped mid-sentence. “There I go again with the ready lie. And you will ask yourself why I didn’t rescue her, why I hadn’t called the police.”
I held my palm out to him and waited.
He obliged. “He has my key, too, in case of a fire or if my children can’t find me, you know what I mean.”
We left, thanking him, promising not to use the key unless we had to.
Splintering Light
We ran down the hall, sliding into the turn, Denny talking to Jane on his cell.
“We can’t wait for her. We’ve got to rescue Whiskey now. She’s been here all this time.”
“You sure?”
I didn’t reply.
“But why Star Newcomb?”
“Later,” I said, not knowing how to answer him. That is, I knew why Star Newcomb took Whiskey Parnell—or I thought I did—but I didn’t have time to explain.
Denny pounded on the door. “Open up!”
Not a sound. My heart was hammering, my curls kinking, water dripping down my neck. I put my ear to the metal door and squeezed my eyes shut as if by doing so, I could will Star Newcomb to appear.
“He won’t be here now,” Denny said. “Give me the key.”
I handed it to him, asking him not to use it yet. I looked at my phone’s screen. It was six thirty-seven.
“If he’s holding her in his studio, he’ll be here—too afraid to leave her alone. If he doesn’t answer in two minutes, we’ll use the key.”
The thick metal door tore at my knuckles. I stopped pounding long enough to blow on my hands, which did nothing except give me another chance to catch my breath.
“I hear something,” Denny said, his ear to the door.
“My breathing, maybe.”
We waited.
“Jane should be here any minute,” he whispered. Dust swam in a shaft of light from the window in back of us.
“What good will she do?”
Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3) Page 25
