The Second Assassin

by Paul Christopher

  She glanced at the movie posters. Another one of Howie’s little passions, what he talked about most often when they talked at all. Most of the posters were from a few years back, nothing really recent. Dawn Patrol with Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn, The Invisible Ray with Boris Karloff, Last of the Mohicans and Trade Winds. Jane had seen them all except Trade Winds, which appeared to be a romance-on-an-ocean-liner story with Fredric March and Joan Bennett.

  The kitchen was next, narrow and old. Yellow linoleum on the counter, a chipped GE monitor-top refrigerator with a clattering compressor and a tall, rust-rimmed hot-water heater standing beside the small gas stove. Against the side wall there was a small breakfast table with a blue oilcloth cover and three white kitchen chairs. Jane checked the refrigerator: two bottles of Coca-Cola, three cans of Pabst, eggs, butter, a piece of cheese and two or three small parcels wrapped in butcher’s paper. A half-empty tin of Dole Pineapple Gems – no telling clues there. Canned soup, Tender Leaf Tea and Ovaltine in the cupboards. A bottle of Teachers and another of Fleischmann’s Gin under the sink. Howard Raines was beginning to shape up as a fairly normal bachelor.

  The bathroom was a little more informative but not by much. Howie Raines the grown-up used Vaseline Hair Tonic for dandruff, Ipana to brush his teeth and Odo- Ro-No for his armpits. He also had packets of Sal Hepatica and Saraka, both of them partially used, which meant he was constipated a lot. He lathered up with Colgate and shaved with Gem blades. Jane smiled. Every inch the lawyer on his way up – tight-assed, sweet-smelling and smooth-cheeked. Except he wasn’t on his way up any more. He was on his way to the morgue.

  The small bedroom was at the rear of the apartment and sported another pair of glass block windows that probably looked out onto a back alley. A bed, bedside table, a desk and a bureau were crammed into the room. The bed was covered with a dark green spread, the bedside table was wicker and the bureau was older than Jane, its shellac gone piss yellow with time. The desk was from the same era and held a green blotter, a Stork Club ashtray just like Jane’s, a gooseneck lamp and a telephone. The number on the dial was Circle 6-7350.

  Jane checked the desk drawer first. Old bills, a few new ones, some Fallon and McGee letterhead and envelopes, paper clips, a few stamps, three or four Mongol Number 2s and a sharpener, a bottle of Waterman’s blue ink, an old, dried-out tortoiseshell Sheaffer fountain pen that looked as though it might have belonged to Howard’s father and a crumpled pack of Skeets with two very stale cigarettes inside. No address book, which was a little odd.

  The narrow closet revealed three pairs of brown shoes, one blue suit and a dark brown one that was the twin of what Howie had been wearing when someone blew his brains out. A striped Arrow tie was looped over each of the suit hangers. There were a half dozen paper-wrapped parcels with laundry tags on the low shelf – most likely white shirts like the one he’d been wearing. Jane didn’t bother opening one to look. She did check the pockets of the two suits and came up empty. Not even lint. There was a small Hartmann overnight case on the floor of the closet but there was dust all over it – the luggage hadn’t been used for quite a while.

  There was nothing in the drawer of the bedside table and nothing on top except a lamp and an alarm clock that had run down. She finally struck pay dirt, such as it was, in the second drawer of the bureau under a pile of underpants: a full deck of nudie playing cards and a yellow quarter-dozen tin of Caravan prophylactics with one missing. To Jane’s knowledge pansies didn’t like looking at naked women and she didn’t think they used cocksafes either. The queer-boy story was starting to come unstuck and it was beginning to look as though the Ariston baths claim check and the bar receipt from Gloria’s had been planted on Howie Raines like a bad smell.

  By whom and for what reason? Jane put the cards and the tin back in the drawer, closed it and sat herself down on the end of the bed. She was reasonably sure she knew why the damning evidence had been planted – to make it look as though the poor schmuck had been involved in some romantic falling out between perverts. The papers didn’t take much interest in running that kind of story and the cops wouldn’t put much effort into solving the murder. Without some other kind of angle it would all just fade away and by appearances someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make that very thing happen.

  Which meant that for some reason Howard Raines was important and that led inexorably back to Fallon and McGee. Both Jimmy Fallon and Eugene McGee had been dead for years but the firm carried on in the same tradition, representing anyone who was anyone in the underworld and in the realm of unsavoury city politics. There was even a rumour going around that the firm had been the ones who hired Lloyd Paul Stryker to represent Jimmy Hines, the Tammany leader, earlier in the year.

  She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Howie the way he’d been, in his stupid glee-club jacket, trying to get out of it and getting caught in the sleeves, with Jane all the while on her back with her prom dress up around her waist and her panties already off, feeling like a dozen kinds of fool in the back seat of his father’s car, waiting for the magic moment and finding out in the end it was more moment than magic. Innocent as sheep, both of them – no wolf, Howie – but it had been something special. If nothing else he’d been so grateful and so sweet, even if he was faster than lightning and not too well endowed.

  Jane sat on the bed with her eyes closed and allowed herself what she wouldn’t allow in front of Hennessy. She wept, for Howie and that long-ago moment in the car, for the past they shared and for the future Howie’d never have. Dying in a ditch. The poor bastard didn’t deserve that.

  She gave herself a few minutes then found a single white glove from her darkroom in the bottom of her bag, wiped her eyes with it and pulled herself together. She lit a cigarette and thought about things – the hard, cold reality of it. Howie was dead. Whatever he’d been to her once wasn’t important now. Finding out who’d killed him was the thing. The story. At least she could tell herself that, make the image of the boy she’d known go back into tones of grey where it belonged, just like the pictures she’d taken.

  Dan Hennessy was a good cop and he smelled a rat. When Danny boy smelled a rat, Jane smelled a story and a story meant money. But the scent was fading fast. The connection between poor old Howard and the law firm he worked for was a dead end. No one at Fallon and McGee was going to tell her anything about Howard Raines, what he had been up to or who his clients were. Jane chewed on her lip and looked around the small room. She hated like hell to give it up so early in the game but she didn’t see any other way to go. Sometimes when she went to visit her sister she thought she could see fleeting instants of recognition, like lightning flashes in the dark that said I’m in here. You just can’t see me. That was what she was feeling now, except from Howie. I’m dead and gone but I was here. I existed. I deserve a better epitaph than I’m going to get so tell my story for me.

  Jane leaned back on her splayed hands and closed her eyes, trying to imagine what Hennessy would do. She visualised the apartment again, going through it room by room, wondering if she’d missed something important, but there was nothing – nothing out of place, nothing strange except the lack of an address book, nothing pointing to a motive for murder.

  She got up from the bed and went back down the hall to the front door. She put her hand on the doorknob and then paused. Just for the hell of it she turned to the hat rack and went through the pockets of the topcoat. It hadn’t rained since Thursday, which was probably the last time Howie had worn it.

  She felt something in one of the pockets and pulled it out. It was a pack of smokes with a book of matches tucked in under the cellophane. The matches were from Pan American Airways and when Jane pulled the book out she saw that the cigarettes were a brand she’d never heard of – ALAS. She flipped over the pack and looked at the bottom. Hecho in Habana. It figured. If she remembered right, alas was Spanish for wings and that was the stylised motif on the red, white and blue wrapper.

  She tapped a cigaret
te out of the pack, held it up to her ear then rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. It didn’t crackle too much and no tobacco fell out. She lit it and dragged in a lungful of smoke. A bit on the strong side for her tastes but not harsh and burning. The smokes were fresh. It looked like Howard had been on vacation.

  ‘Well now, Howie, maybe we’ve got ourselves a story after all.’

  Jane tucked the pack into her shoulder bag and went back into the bedroom. She sat down at the desk, picked up the telephone and dialled the operator. A few seconds later she was connected to the Pan American Airways office on East Forty-second. The main office was closed but after a few questions the Sunday duty operator transferred her to the Marine Terminal office in Port Washington, Long Island.

  ‘Pan American Airways Marine Terminal. My name is Doris. How may I be of assistance?’ She said the words as though she’d learned them from a script, which was probably the case.

  Jane closed her eyes and went into her own act. ‘Hi there, Doris. My name’s Sara Wackerman. I’m the bookkeeper for Fallon and McGee. The lawyers?’

  ‘Yes, Miss… Wackerman?’

  ‘Well, you see, the thing of it is, Doris, I’m sitting here with Howie’s expense vouchers and there’s no dates or times or anything and I was wondering if you could clear a few things up for me.’ She paused and put her best smile into her voice. ‘Think you could help me out here, Doris?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Miss Wackerman. You said Howie?’

  ‘Howard Raines. I’ve got him down here for a flight from New York to Havana.’

  ‘When was this?’

  Jane thought about the topcoat and took a stab at it. ‘Thursday, I think. The big rainstorm.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ Doris went away and Jane tapped her ash into the Stork Club ashtray. A few moments later Doris came back on the line. ‘Miss Wackerman?’

  ‘Still here.’

  ‘We show Mr Raines on the passenger manifest for our Miami overnight on Thursday the thirteenth, connecting with our Havana flight at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.’

  ‘And the return?’

  ‘His ticket included a voucher for the three p.m. return flight from Havana to Miami.’

  ‘And back to New York?’

  ‘He had a ticket but he turned it in.’ Doris sounded a little disappointed.

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘Um, under Refund it says “decided to take train.”’

  ‘Well, that pretty much explains things, Doris.’ Jane thought for a second. ‘One more thing, Doris, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all, Miss Wackerman.’ Doris was starting to sound a little put upon.

  ‘How did Mr Raines pay for his tickets?’ Jane screwed the butt of her cigarette out.

  There was another short pause and then Doris spoke. ‘They were on account.’

  ‘Who authorised them?’

  Doris sounded hesitant. ‘I’m not sure I should say, Miss Wackerman.’

  ‘It’s the Fallon and McGee account, Doris, and I’m the Fallon and McGee bookkeeper.’

  ‘But the tickets weren’t put on that account. That’s the problem.’

  Now that was interesting. Jane pushed a little. ‘Come on now, Doris. You’ve got to know I’m on the up and up here. I’d like to be outside enjoying this nice Sunday afternoon along with the rest of New York but I’m stuck here trying to make sense of Howie’s travel vouchers.’ She breathed a long-suffering sigh into the mouthpiece. ‘Obviously what’s happened is that Mr Raines was doing business for a client and had the travel authorised by the client instead of the firm and now that’s got me all confused.’

  Doris sighed back at her. ‘Me too.’

  ‘So if I know who the client is I can clear the whole thing up.’

  ‘Shalleck,’ said Doris after a moment. ‘The account is with Mr Joseph Shalleck.’

  Who the hell was that? ‘You’re a peach, Doris. Thanks a million.’ Jane hung up the telephone. She waited for the line to clear, then picked up again and dialled, this time to Billy Tinker, one of Winchell’s researchers down at the Mirror. The skinny, pock-faced kid wasn’t much on looks or personality but he had a photographic memory and a noggin like an encyclopedia. As usual, when he wasn’t at the Mirror building next door to the abattoirs on East Forty-fifth, he was at home with his three sisters in Brooklyn. One of the sisters answered the phone, and when Jane asked for Billy, she yelled for him. A long minute later he came on the line. The voice had the rusty, self-conscious tones of someone who spent more time reading than talking.

  ‘Tinker.’

  ‘Jane Todd, Billy. Two bucks says you can’t tell me who Joseph Shalleck is.’

  ‘You lose.’

  ‘Impress me,’ said Jane. She opened the drawer of the desk and took out a sheet of Fallon and McGee stationery and a sharpened pencil.

  ‘How do I collect?’

  ‘Name your pleasure.’

  ‘Lunch. That little Greek place on West Twenty-fifth.’

  ‘The Spartacus Club,’ said Jane, remembering. A greasy little dive between Seventh and Eighth.

  ‘That’s the one,’ said Tinker. ‘Where they pour booze on the goat cheese and set fire to it.’

  ‘You’re on,’ Jane agreed. ‘Now what about this Shalleck guy?’

  ‘You want the short story or the novel?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Short of it is, he’s a Mob shyster from a long way back. Pol connections too.’

  ‘Tammany?’

  ‘Once upon a time maybe but for the last twenty years he’s been a back-room boy with the local Democrats.’

  ‘Okay, now give me the details.’

  ‘For two simoleons you want details?’

  ‘I’ll buy you a beer with your shish kebab.’

  ‘Shalleck started off apprenticing for Jimmy Fallon just after the war. Wound up representing everyone from Arnold Rothstein to Frank Costello and Eddie Moretti. Owney Madden in the old days, Lepke Buchalter, Dutch Schultz – you name it. He also represents Dandy Phil.’

  ‘Kastel?’

  ‘The same,’ said Billy. Dandy Phil Kastel was the brains behind half a dozen bucket-shop fraud operations flogging non-existent penny stocks on Wall Street. Everybody was predicting big things for him in the Mob.

  ‘What’s the connection to the Democrats like these days?’

  ‘He was Jimmy Hines’s lawyer of record and you can’t get any more connected than that. Until Dewey came along and broke up the party, Hines had the D.A.’s office in his pocket, not to mention the fact that he was a bagman for Farley. Some people say Shalleck even has FDR’s ear, knows where some bodies are buried.’ Billy fell silent.

  ‘That’s it?’ Jane asked.

  ‘You want more it’s coffee and dessert.’

  ‘Pass,’ Jane said, grinning into the phone, ‘for the moment.’

  ‘I really do want the lunch,’ Billy warned.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get it,’ Jane promised.

  ‘I’d better,’ said Billy. There was a click as he hung up.

  Jane looked down at the notes she’d made on the Fallon and McGee stationery. A junior shyster who works for a Mob law firm winds up going to Cuba on business for another, even bigger Mob lawyer and then winds up getting bumped off and thrown in a ditch in New Jersey for his efforts. She drum-tapped the Mongol on the blotter, trying to see Howie’s last day as a series of photographs, black-and-white strips of time hanging on a clothespin over the sink, starting with him arriving back in New York after the breakneck visit to Havana.

  The lawyer doesn’t take a suitcase but he goes on business so that means he’s carrying a briefcase when he climbs up out of Penn Station. Probably he gets a taxi out front since Shalleck is paying the tab, then rides home. Comes in, hangs up his topcoat, puts down the briefcase. Not much time goes by because he doesn’t even take the fancy smokes out of his coat before someone comes calling, that quick because they’re probably watching the place, waiting. Not Shalleck himself
because he wouldn’t involve himself directly. One of his Mob pals and someone Howard knows because there’s no sign of a struggle, no mess. Raines takes the briefcase with him because it’s business but he leaves the topcoat behind because it’s sunny now.

  Jane lit another one of the Cuban cigarettes and sat back in the chair. Raines would have taken a sleeper, probably on the Seaboard Silver Meteor, which meant there’d be a record of it somewhere, and she might even find the hack who took Raines from Penn Station home, but what was the point? None of it would tell her much more than she already knew, and when you got right down to it, she didn’t know much except that it was likely Shalleck had ordered the young lawyer murdered immediately upon his return from Cuba. To go any farther with the story Jane was going to have to find out why Shalleck sent Howard Raines to Havana in the first place.

  She looked at her watch. She’d spent the better part of an hour in the apartment and it was getting late. She tidied up the desk, put her notes into her pocket and took out the Leica. It was loaded with DuPont Superior and she had the lens wide open. She spent the next ten minutes going through the place, room by room, taking pictures, not so much because she wanted a record but mostly because she knew Hennessy would want to see them. When she was finished she put the Leica back in her pocket and let herself out, locking the door behind her.

  It took her two buses and a streetcar to go uptown and crosstown into Yorkville and Germantown. By the time she reached Cherokee Place and the ferry slip at the foot of Seventy-eighth Street, it was four thirty. Dusk was already settling over the litter of old grey buildings, brooding in exile on the flat, low island in the middle of the East River’s dark, uncoiling ribbon. Jane showed the ferryman her permanent visitor’s pass for the hospital, then paid her nickel and was handed her punched ticket.

  She sat down on the front thwart of the flat-bottomed scow and a few seconds later the boat’s engine coughed into life and they chattered out into the river. As she did every time she took the bleak ride, Jane thought about Edmond Dantes in chains as he rode across to the ghastly prison of the Chateau d’lf in The Count of Monte Cristo, wondering if he would ever return to the mainland and to freedom.