by Parnell Hall
It was a photo I.D. bank card made out to Martin Albrect. It seemed to me Albrect looked a little nervous in the photograph, but I might have been projecting. After all, I knew Albrect was dead, I knew he’d hidden it, and I knew one other thing. The card was for a Miami bank.
8.
MY WIFE’S FACE WAS A PICTURE of despair as I rang for the elevator. “You’re really going out tonight?” she said.
“We need the money and I had another slow day.”
“How slow?”
“A signup in Brooklyn. Ocean Parkway.”
That was a half-truth. I’d gotten the assignment all right, but I hadn’t done it. By the time I’d finished with Albrect’s apartment it’d been too late to go out there, and I’d called and changed the appointment to tomorrow morning.
“What do you have to do tonight?”
“I got two summonses in Brooklyn and a signed statement in Queens.”
“Can’t you do them during the day?”
“I’ve tried. People aren’t home during the day.”
“I know. I just hate you going out at night. It’s bad enough you going into those neighborhoods during the day.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” I lied to her. “No one’s ever bothered me.”
No one had ever bothered me, but a couple of junkies had once assured me if I went into a particular building I would be mugged, and I would not have had to look much farther than them to find the potential muggers. I’d wound up calling the client on the phone and having him come downstairs, broken leg and all.
“I know,” she said, “but there’s always a first time. I worry about you.”
She does, and I’m sure it’s her constant worrying about me that helps fuel my own paranoia. It’s bad enough going into those neighborhoods without always being reminded how scary they are.
“Look, I gotta run,” I said. “My appointment with the witness is at eight.”
“Just be careful,” she said.
The elevator arrived and I stepped in and heaved a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me. Jerry, the young elevator man, proceeded to regale me with how well the Mets were doing, and how poorly the Red Sox were doing, all the way down to the first floor, but I barely listened. I had an eight o’clock appointment, all right, but it wasn’t with a witness in Queens. It was with Michael Murphy, alias Dumbo, of Fabri-Tec Inc., who was taking me out for an evening at an illegal casino.
Since I’d told Murphy I’d meet him in front of the Sheraton, where I was presumably staying, it would have been easier for me just to take the Broadway IRT downtown, but I was afraid Alice might take Tommie out for pizza and notice my car still parked on our block. I got in the car and drove up to the Chemical Bank at 113th Street, which has a cash machine. I’d never been to an illegal casino but, smart detective that I am, I figured money might come in handy.
The line at the machine wasn’t that long. I double-parked, hopped out, pulled out my Chem Card, and five minutes later the machine spewed out 200 dollars in nice crisp twenties, the maximum withdrawal you were allowed in any one day. I noticed on the receipt that my bank balance had dropped from $329.15 to $129.15.
The nice thing about the cash machine was that my wife wouldn’t know I’d used it until the statement came at the end of the month. Just so long as she didn’t write too many checks and discover she was overdrawn.
I drove down into the eighties, which I figured was safe enough, found a parking spot on West 87th Street, and left the car. I caught the IRT at Broadway and 86th Street, rode down to 50th Street, walked to the Sheraton, and was standing right outside when Murphy drew up front in a cab at 8:05.
“Hop in,” he said. “Next stop, Playland.”
I got in and the cab headed downtown. Murphy and I exchanged a little small talk, but I could see something was on his mind.
“I’ve been thinking about your proposition,” he said finally.
I’d been afraid of that. It was one thing to spew out a bullshit line of goods to try to get something out of somebody, but it was something else to keep up the facade after they’d had time to think it over.
“Oh yeah,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s gotta be a way to check the references.”
“There is,” I told him. “Just hop on the big bird to F-L-A.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, and I was extremely grateful. “I mean without doing that. There must be some way I can check you out from here. Some way you can assure me of payment.”
“No problem,” I told him. “I’ll just win 50 G’s tonight at the table, and we’ll use that as collateral.”
We laughed about that, and while it didn’t satisfy him, it put off the conversation until the taxi drew up in front of an old factory building on Crosby Street. I got out and stood on the sidewalk while Murphy paid off the cab. If there was a casino in the area, I wouldn’t have known it. The place looked dead.
“Right this way,” Murphy said, taking my arm and heading for the front of the factory building, which had to be one of the darkest buildings on the block, which was saying something. Next to the door was an old rusted bell button which looked as if it had been years since it had been connected to anything. Murphy pressed it. Nothing happened. No ring from deep within the building. No light flashing on. I had a faint flash of paranoia, wondering if somehow Murphy had figured out who I was, if this was somehow his idea of a bad joke, or worse, if he was somehow more deeply involved in this than I thought he was and had been given instructions to “take care of me.”
Before I had too long to dwell on this, there came a clanking sound from overhead. I looked up, and saw an old-fashioned, open-sided freight elevator slowly descending from the 4th floor. There was a guy in it, operating it, and while he wasn’t pulling a rope hand-over-hand to make it move, the actual mechanism couldn’t have been much more sophisticated than that. The elevator clanked to a stop and the guy opened the door.
“Hi, Jack,” Murphy said. Then, indicating me, “He’s with me.”
We stepped inside and Jack closed the iron gate. He pulled the lever and the platform lurched slowly upward.
The elevator squeaked to a stop on the 4th floor. Jack opened the iron gate on the opposite side from where we got in and we all stepped off into a small, dimly lit alcove. Jack pressed against the far wall, which proved to be a door, and let us into another small, dimly lit alcove. Jack closed the door behind us, made sure it was tightly latched, and then opened a similar door on the far wall.
I was immediately assaulted by noise and light. I don’t know what kind of soundproofing they were using in the building, but it must have been fantastic. The din coming out of the casino was incredible. Rock music only served to underscore the sound of voices, whir of wheels, click of balls.
The place was mobbed. I just stood there a moment, staring. Then Murphy put his hand on my shoulder and guided me through the crunch of people into the room.
“What’s your pleasure?” he shouted in my ear.
“Roulette,” I shouted back.
I was glad Murphy had asked. To tell the truth, not only had I never been in an illegal gambling joint before, I had never been in a legal one, either. My entire gambling experience consisted of poker. I did know, though, that in roulette you bet on the numbers, on red or black, or odd or even, or something like that, and I figured I could fake my way through it, whereas, if Murphy got me at the crap table, I’d be lost.
With some relief, then, I followed Murphy over to one of the roulette tables, and we elbowed our way into positions by the board and watched as the ball revolved around the wheel and settled in number five.
“Five, black, low and odd,” said the croupier, or something to that effect. I know five is low and odd, but whether it’s red or black I don’t remember. At any rate, whichever it is, he said it, and then raked in over three-quarters of the outstanding bets.
Murphy pulled out a wad of money and I followed suit, peeling five twenties of
f my roll and trying to look as if this was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of a sizable bankroll. Murphy bought ten-dollar chips, so I did too, though my heart longed for fives. We began placing bets around the table and, to my great relief, in the beginning I won a little. Nothing much, of course—I’d miss on the number but hit red or black, or odd or even, and I did it often enough that my bankroll began to grow a little. As soon as it did, I began exhibiting the poor gambler’s signs of nervousness, cashing in chips, leaving myself short and having to buy new ones, pulling money out of different pockets, counting it, putting it back. This is bad form, I know. In the song “The Gambler,” Kenny Rogers says, “Never count your money while you’re sittin’ at the table,” but I think that’s bullshit. I’ve found from playing poker that the best procedure is to count your money all the time, over and over again, keeping up a running patter about how poorly you’re doing and how much you’re losing. I’ve found that by doing this, no one ever has the faintest idea how well I’m actually doing and, even in games where I’ve been the only winner at the table, I’ve been able to cash in and leave with everyone thinking I was over a hundred dollars down. I don’t mean to give the impression that I usually win at poker—I don’t, I usually lose. All I’m saying is, the few times I have won, I’ve found this procedure to be fundamentally sound.
Sound or not, it was irritating Murphy, even more so because he happened to be losing.
“What’re you cashing in for?” he groused. “You only have to keep buying new ones.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m a lousy gambler. But I really love the game, you know.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean,” he said.
The croupier swept away all of Murphy’s bets and paid off two out of three of mine, even and the first twelve numbers. I’d lost on red.
A tall, thin man with razor-cut black hair, a soap opera star plastic profile, and a six hundred dollar suit with white shirt open at the neck displaying a bunch of gold chains, threaded his way through the crowd to Murphy’s side.
“Hey, Murphy,” he said, clapping him on the back. “How’s it going?”
“Bad, Tony,” Murphy said. “Can’t get a nibble.”
"Your luck will change,” Tony told him. “Who’s your friend?”
“Tony, this is Nathan Armstrong, a business acquaintance from Miami. Nathan, this is Tony Arroyo. This is his little club.”
“Ah, Bambi,” I thought to myself as I smiled and shook his hand.
“Armstrong’s a business acquaintance of Marty Albrect’s,” Murphy added by way of explanation.
It seemed to me Tony’s eyelids flicked before he smiled and said, “Oh yeah? How come you didn’t bring Albrect along with you?”
Murphy looked at him. “Oh. You haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Jeez, Tony, I hate to tell you this. Albrect’s dead.”
“What? Dead? You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. He was killed. Just last night. Shot to death in a parking lot.”
“Oh, my God,” Tony said, shaking his head. “Well, it figures. I used to warn him. He was never careful, you know. Always flashing a wad when he was flush. Always talking too much. I knew he was going to get rolled one of those nights. It had to happen. You can’t say I didn’t warn him.”
“Sure, Tony,” Murphy said. “I heard you say it.”
Listening to the conversation convinced me of two things. First, if Tony was involved in Albrect’s death, Murphy didn’t know it, and second, Tony’s involvement was a given. I’d have bet my life on it. Tony did a pretty good job of being surprised at the news, but he didn’t quite pull it off. He wasn’t that good an actor. I ought to know, because I used to be an actor myself when I first got out of college, and I wasn’t that good an actor either. If I had been, I would have made a living at it, and I never would have become a writer, and if I’d never become a writer, I never would have become a private detective, and if I’d never become a private detective, I never would have found myself in the position of standing around an illegal gambling casino talking to the guy who ran the place, who—I was damn well sure—also happened to be at the very least an accessory to murder.
“Well,” Tony said, turning his attention back to me. “You say you’re from Miami?”
“Yeah.”
“You up here on business with Albrect?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s a kick in the face, ain’t it? So, how’s this affect you? You gonna be in town long?”
“Not any more,” I said. “I’m going back tomorrow morning.”
“You driving down?” Tony asked casually.
My stomach suddenly felt hollow. This was it. All I had to do was say, “yes,” and things would start happening. I knew it. Albrect had been driving pickups from Miami. Albrect was dead. They needed someone else to do it. Bambi was looking for someone, putting out feelers. He’d asked me the question. All I had to do was say “Yes.”
“Gosh, no,” I said. “Take forever. I’m flying, of course.”
“Of course,” Tony said. He patted Murphy on the back, nodded to me, nodded to the croupier, and left.
From that point on I lost. I couldn’t swear that Tony’s nod to the croupier had anything to do with it, but it had to figure. I was there for one night. There was no reason to let me win so they would get me hooked and take me for a fortune later. And I wasn’t going to develop into the driver they needed for the Miami run. From the casino’s standpoint, there was no reason to let me win at all, and from then on I didn’t even come close.
Due to my creative bankrolling, I still had 150 dollars of my stake money tucked in my side pocket when I was able to shove my last chip on the table and declare I was broke.
Murphy was disappointed. “It’s only midnight,” he said. “This place doesn’t close till four. Let me loan you a little stake. We can straighten it out in the morning.”
“Nope,” I said. “When your luck’s bad, it’s bad. Believe me, tonight mine’s bad. And I want to get a little sleep before my flight, anyway. I can’t sleep on airplanes. Too nervous, I guess. Anyway, don’t let me spoil your fun. Thanks for the invite. I’ll give you a call from Miami when I get back.”
Murphy seemed glad to be off the hook. “You sure you can get uptown all right? It’s not easy to get a cab around here.”
I grinned. “If I’d won I’d be worried about it. You can’t mug a loser. I’ll be all right.”
“You got cabfare?”
“Always save cabfare. See you.”
Jack took me down in the freight elevator and spewed me out into the darkened street. Despite the bravado of my statement to Murphy, I wasn’t too keen about being out there at midnight. I stepped along briskly in the deserted street, and felt the old 718 surge of relief when a solitary cab with the light on came around a corner and picked me up.
I took the cab back uptown to get my car. I discovered I’d parked right in front of Murder Ink., the detective bookstore. How symbolic, I thought ironically. Yeah, sure, me and Phillip Marlowe.
I drove back downtown to 7th Street and Avenue B to check on Gutierrez’s girlfriend. I’d been there once already, right after I finished with Gutierrez’s apartment, but she’d been out. I parked on the corner across the street, and had just gotten out of my car, when a girl emerged from a doorway halfway down the block and began walking down the street away from me. From that angle, I couldn’t tell which door she’d come out of, but it seemed to be damn near the candy store. I quickly locked the car, neglecting for once to turn the code alarm on, and hurried down the block to the candy store. An old lady was sitting on the front steps. She didn’t look like a bag lady, but she didn’t look too many steps up the social ladder either.
“Is Rosa around?” I asked her.
I expected her to tell me to go to hell, or go see for myself, but she didn’t. “She just left,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the girl I had seen
coming out of the building. The girl had just-reached the end of the block and was starting to cross Avenue B.
I could have yelled her name and run after her. That certainly would have made more sense to the old lady than what I actually did do, which was turn around and walk as briskly as I could back to my car. But I didn’t really care what the old lady thought, and somehow the idea of shouting at and running after a young lady who’d never seen me before in her life, at one in the morning, didn’t strike me as the height of investigative technique. I pulled out from the curb and sped down Avenue B. I was about to make a right turn on 6th Street to follow the girl when I suddenly realized it was a one-way street in the opposite direction. There were no cars around at that time in the morning, and I probably could have made it down the block without incident, but somehow driving the wrong way down a one-way street didn’t seem the best way of being inconspicuous. Even if the girl were a stoned-out junkie, she couldn’t help but notice me. I looked down the street, saw that the girl was walking right along, and figured it was a safe bet she was headed for Avenue A. At any rate, I’d have to chance it. I sped on down to 5th Street, ran the light which had just turned red, hung a right on 5th, and gunned it over to Avenue A, where I turned right again, running another light, sped up Avenue A to the corner of 6th Street, pulled into the curb, and killed the lights and motor. I was close enough to the corner so that I could see about a quarter of the way down the block. The girl wasn’t in sight yet, but before I had time to start worrying about it, she came into view, stepping right along. She reached the corner and looked up and down Avenue A, obviously searching for a cab. There were none. She dug in her purse, fished out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. I might have driven up and offered her a ride, except for two things. One was I probably would have scared her to death. The other was the way she was dressed. She was right under a street light, and I could see her pretty well. She was wearing a very short skirt, fishnet stockings, and high heels. A bright red blouse, loose and clinging, showed off a pair of absolutely fantastic breasts, which were obviously unhampered by any undergarment. And her face was made up much more heavily and garishly than she could ever have possibly needed. Now I’m not the smartest, or most experienced, or astutest detective in the world, but I had a pretty good idea of where she was going and what she was doing, and I wanted to see if I was right.
