Night Work (25 page)

“Okay.”

“I don't like to talk about it.”

“No.”

“With some things, talking about it doesn't tell you anything. It's blah, blah. Either you know it, or you don't. If you don't, talking won't get you close.”

“Men.” She said it affectionately, with a small smile. Other women had said the same word to him with different inflections, but they all meant the same thing—you think you hide your secrets from us, you tell us stories about who you are, but we see.

“They don't pay you much, do they, the cops?”

“No. Not much.”

“Is that why you live down here, because the rents are cheap?”

“No. I like it here. I grew up on the Upper East Side, but this suits me better. And I own the apartment.”

“You do?” Surprised.

“I bought it with money my mother left me when she died.”

She snuggled close and hugged his arm. “Oooh, an heir. Better and better.” She laughed to show she was kidding. “You know what Billie Holiday said, I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better. Well, I've done half of that. I've been poor, and I've seen how the rich live, and Billie knew what she was talking about.”

A ten-year-old Ford panel van came north on Hudson Street, blinked its lights once, and turned west on 11th and parked twenty feet down from the corner. Someone had painted it with gray house paint, and through the paint you could dimly see its past as a van for Joe's Fish. The lights went out. The engine turned off, and the metal of the hood pinged and ticked as it cooled. After a while the doors opened and two men got out and walked back toward Hudson. Jimmy Greef flicked his cigarette away and left the shadow of the phone booth to meet them, the money satchel heavy in his left hand. He recognized them both, Junior Carelli and Tommy Longo. They were thick, powerful men in their thirties. They were muscle guys with day jobs running longshoremen shape-ups on the docks, leg breakers, men who were sent to settle disputes with whatever was at hand, bricks, two by fours, a lead pipe, or fists. They both wore cheap double-breasted suits and fedoras, and they walked with the heavy, implacable confidence of men who knew others would clear their path, men used to being feared.

“How you doing, Jimmy?” Carelli's voice was like gravel in a can. He'd been hit in the throat in a melee on the docks when he was starting out, and something broke inside.

“Okay.”

“They still inside?”

“Yeah, the right-hand end of the bar. She's the one with the black-haired guy.”

The man had his back to them, but the woman was turned in profile to talk to him.

“You sure it's her?”

“I'm sure. Hair's different. A little thinner, maybe. Look at them tits. Those sure as hell are the same.”

“Okay. So we wait. We take her when they come out.”

“What about the guy?” Jimmy asked.

“What about the guy?” Carelli said. “We ask him nicely, do you mind if we borrow your broad? He says, no, go ahead, take her.”

Longo, who had said nothing, snorted.

“What if he doesn't? What if he beefs?”

“What if? There are three of us, one of him. He beefs, we drop him.”

“Clip him?”

“Up to him how hard he pushes it, how hard we come back. Up to him, not up to us.”

Longo offered a pack of Camels. Greef took one, but Carelli waved it away. “Those fucking things are too strong for me. I think they put some camel shit in there with the tobacco.” He looked into the bar. “I could use a drink myself.”

Greef bent to the match Longo held. “Thanks.”

“What are they offering for the broad? Three grand?” Carelli asked.

“Five,” Greef said. “Five grand.”

“I could use that dough.”

“Who couldn't? That's a brand-new Caddy Eldorado convertible I've got my eye on.”

“I figured I was going to find her.”

“How'd you figure that?”

“I don't know. I just figured, why not me? You finding her, it's like you're taking money out of my pocket. Maybe you ought to give me some of what they give you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I'm just saying, since it should've been mine. A couple of grand.”

“Go fuck yourself again. What are you, anyway, thinking like that? When was the last time you gave anybody anything?”

“I gave your mother just about everything she could handle only this morning.”

“Hey, hey. You keep your fucking mouth off my mother.”

“Too late.”

“I'm going to…”

“Shut the fuck up, both of youse. They're coming out,” Longo said.

Carelli moved closer to the front of the White Horse. Longo went with him. Greef dropped the cigarette and ground it out under his shoe. He switched the money bag to his left hand and opened his jacket and touched the gun butt under his shoulder. Show a citizen a gun, and usually that was enough, and if more was needed, well, like Carelli said, it was up to the guy how hard he pushed.

Cassidy held open the front door of the White Horse so that Alice could go first. As they stepped outside, he saw the three men on the sidewalk. The two big ones stood almost shoulder to shoulder, their faces shadowed by their hat brims. The third one stepped away from them and moved to the side. He carried a satchel in his left hand, and his jacket was unbuttoned. Something wasn't right here. He could feel the tension coming off them. Alice tried to take his arm, but he avoided that and turned so she was on his hip and a little behind him. The thin man with the satchel kept moving to flank him. Cassidy unbuttoned his jacket to clear his holster. One of the men moved a step in front of the others. Then he said, “How're you doing, Detective Cassidy?” Did he emphasize
detective
? The big one near him shifted and some of the tension went out of him. The third man took a step south and was almost out of Cassidy's sight unless he turned his head.

“Tommy Longo, right? How's your uncle?” Cassidy asked. The one carrying the satchel took another step. His hand drifted toward his open jacket.

“They moved him up to Attica.”

He looked at the other big man. “Carelli, right?” Cassidy recognized the two as muscle for the Gambino crime family. What were they doing uptown outside their usual orbit of Little Italy and the docks? Nothing good.

“Yeah.” He stepped out of the shadows and into the light that came through the bar's window.

“Who's this guy? Hey, you, stop moving. You're making me nervous. You don't want to make me nervous.” Greef glanced at Tommy Longo and stopped. “What's your name?”

“Jimmy Greef.”

“You're carrying the bag tonight, Jimmy Greef. Somebody must like you.”

“My laundry.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked back at Longo. “What's up, Tommy? You guys are a little out of your territory.”

“We was coming into the White Horse for a drink. We heard it was okay.”

“It is. No better than some of the places down on Grand Street, but what the hell, a change of scene's good.”

“Okay. So we'll go in.”

“Anything else?”

“Else? Nah. What, a guy can't come uptown and have a drink? Free country, right?”

“So they tell me.” Cassidy took Alice's arm and stepped forward, and Longo and Carelli made room, and he led Alice across 11th Street and north on Hudson. He did not look back.

“Who were they?” Alice asked.

“Hoods. Enforcers down on the docks.”

“What was all that about?” Alice asked.

“I don't know. My guess is they were about to do something they shouldn't do, and they ran into a cop so they didn't do it.”

“Do you think they were going to rob the bar?”

“Maybe. Stickups aren't what they usually do, but maybe. Not something you'd think they'd do with the bagman.”

“The bagman? What was in the bag?”

“Money.”

“From what?”

“Payoffs. Every Friday a guy goes around with the bag collecting what the bars owe. Some pay for protection. Some are owned by mob guys who skim from the take every week before the tax man gets told how much they made. Some are fairy bars. The mobsters own them too, and they pay off the cops to let the fairies dance together in the back rooms. The money comes out of the till on Friday.”

“It's illegal for them to dance?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wow. Why? They're just dancing. They're just having fun.” She wrapped his arm tight. “Let's go back to your place, and I'll show you some dancing that's definitely illegal.”

“Uh-oh. I may have to use the handcuffs.”

“Promises, promises.” And she laughed.

Her laughter drifted back to the three men outside the White Horse. “Why didn't we take her?” Greef asked.

“The guy's a cop, or weren't you listening?” Longo said.

“Yeah? So he's a cop, so what? The river's three blocks over. Any luck, he don't show for months. People want that broad. They're paying big money for her so they want her bad. What's one cop?”

“Yeah, well, this particular cop is Frank Costello's godson.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So let me make a call, see what people want to do.” Longo stepped into the phone booth and dialed.

“Hey, I didn't know,” Greef said to Carelli. “Costello and all. That makes a difference.”

“What you don't know could fill a book,” Carelli said in his gravel voice.

“Hey, fuck you again, okay? You don't know everything.” Greef carried the money satchel away from Carelli and set it down between his feet and lit a cigarette. He watched the people in the bar through the window. Three Con Ed men were arguing about something. Two couples in scrubs from the hospital on 12th were eating at a round wooden table near the window, and two old men in alpaca sweaters were playing chess at a table nearby.
Fucking Carelli. Fucking guy. I was just asking. Thinks he's such a hot shit.
The euphoria of being the bagman, of finding Alice, had vanished, turned to dust.
Shit, fucking guy.

“Hey,” Longo stepped out of the phone booth. “Okay, they say let it be for the moment. Cassidy's got a place over on Bank Street, so that's where they're headed. Junior and me are going to go hang out there, make sure she don't leave. They'll send a couple of other guys after a while. She comes out alone in the morning, they'll take her. Jimmy, Carmine's waiting for the bag.”

Longo and Carelli got back into the gray panel truck and went west on 11th.

Jimmy Greef headed south toward Little Italy. After a couple of blocks he began to feel better. Hey, he was the bagman, and he found the broad, and people knew that. Screw those guys. Things were looking up.

*   *   *

Nobody took Alice in the morning. The word came down from on high, don't mess with her. Follow her and find out where she lives. Now that they knew she was with Costello's godson, people had to talk it over, make sure the next move was the right move.

Shadowing her got easy, because two days later Alice moved in with Cassidy.

 

14

The day started sunny and then turned back toward winter. A cold, misty rain fell from a gray sky. The tops of the tallest buildings disappeared in the mist. Car tires sang on the wet streets, and people walked with their heads down and shoulders hunched against the weather.

Cassidy and Orso left the station house late in the afternoon as the rain began to let up.

“Taxi?” Orso suggested.

“It's going to stop. Let's walk. I need the air.”

Church's shoe store was on Madison Avenue at 62nd Street. The manager of the store was a tall, thin, impeccably dressed man who looked like a roadshow English duke. His name was Caldwell. He noted Orso's lightweight double-breasted suit and polished shoes and welcomed him with polite warmth. He managed to suppress most of his sneer at the scuffed desert boots Cassidy was wearing. His face tightened when Cassidy showed him his badge, but he did not lose his composure. “Gentlemen, how may I help you?” He had the clipped speech and round vowels of someone who had been to a lot of Ronald Coleman movies.

Cassidy gave him the list of people who were having renovation work done on their apartments and asked if he recognized any of the names. Mr. Caldwell picked gold-rimmed glasses from his breast pocket, put them on the end of his nose, and held the list out while he read it.

“I believe we have more than one customer from this list. If you'll wait a tick we can make absolutely sure.” His records showed that three names on the list were customers of the store, Grayson, Hopkins, and Milliken.

“Is Mr. Leighton back from vacation?” Orso asked.

“Yes, he is,” Caldwell said.

“I want to show him a photograph.”

“I believe he's just finishing his break.” He came back moments later leading a short cheerful man with a sunburned face.

Orso showed him the photograph of the dead man. Leighton examined it from different angles, and then nodded. “Sure. A pair of the Casual Oxfords in a size eleven D, and pair of dark brown wingtips in eleven E. The wingtips run a little narrower than the Oxfords.”

“Did he pay by check or cash?” Cassidy asked. A check would give them his name.

“Oh, he didn't pay. Mrs. Hopkins paid.”

“Mrs. Robert Hopkins?” Cassidy asked.

“That's right. She's a good customer. She buys shoes for her husband a couple of times a year.”

“This was her husband?”

“Oh, no. No, no. Lord, no. Mr. Hopkins is a very elegant man. This gentleman, well, let's just say that his socks were not up to par. If a man truly cares about his shoes, his socks reflect it. If I might speak out of school, I would say that this gentleman was not accustomed to a store of this quality.”

“Did you get his name?”

“She called him Casey.”