When the Sacred Ginmill Closes Read online

Page 10

 

  "That you can do. "

  "Cmon then," he said, "before fucking Ruslander gives the whole store away. "

  EVERY time I went into Armstrongs I wondered if Id run into Carolyn, and each time I was more relieved than disappointed when I didnt. I could have called her, but I sensed that it was perfectly appropriate not to. Friday night had been just what each of us had evidently wanted, and it looked as though it had been complete in itself for both of us, and I was glad of that. As a fringe benefit, I was over whatever had had me bugged about Fran, and it was beginning to look as though it had been nothing much more complicated than old-fashioned horniness. I suppose a half-hour with one of the streetwalkers would have served me as well, if less pleasurably.

  I didnt run into Tommy, either, and that, too, was a relief, and in no sense disappointing.

  Then Monday morning I picked up the News and read that theyd pulled in a pair of young Hispanics from Sunset Park for the Tillary burglary and homicide. The paper ran the usual photo- two skinny youths, their hair unruly, one of them trying to hide his face from the camera, the other smirking defiantly, and each of them handcuffed to a broad-shouldered grimfaced Irishman in a suit. There was a caption to tell you which ones were the good guys, but you didnt really need it.

  I was in Armstrongs that afternoon when the phone rang. Dennis put down the glass he was wiping and answered it. "He was here a minute ago," he said. "Ill see if he stepped out. " He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked quizzically at me. "Are you still here?" he asked. "Or did you slip away while my attention was somehow diverted?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "Tommy Tillary. "

  You never know what a woman will decide to tell a man, or how a man will react to it. I didnt much want to find out, but I was better off learning over the phone than face-to-face. I nodded and Dennis passed the phone across the bar.

  I said, "Matt Scudder, Tommy. I was sorry to hear about your wife. "

  "Thanks, Matt. Jesus, it feels like it happened a year ago. It was what, a little over a week?"

  "At least they got the bastards. "

  There was a pause. Then he said, "Jesus. You havent seen a paper, huh?"

  "Sure I did. Two Spanish kids, had their pictures. "

  "I guess you read this mornings News. "

  "I generally do. Why?"

  "But not this afternoons Post. "

  "No. Why, what happened? They turn out to be clean?"

  "Clean," he said, and snorted. Then he said, "I figured youd know. The cops came by early this morning, before I saw the story in the News, so I didnt even know about the arrest. Shit. Be easier if you already knew this. "

  "Im not following you, Tommy. "

  "The two Latin lovers. Clean? Shit, the mens room in the Times Square subway station, thats how clean they are. The cops hit their place and found stuff from my house everywhere they looked. Jewelry they had descriptions of, a stereo that I gave them the serial number, everything. Monogrammed shit. I mean thats how clean they were, for Christs sake. "

  "So?"

  "So they admitted the burglary but not the murder. "

  "Crooks do that all the time, Tommy. "

  "Lemme finish, huh? They admitted the burglary, but according to them it wasnt really a burglary. I was giving them all that stuff. "

  "And they just came to pick it up in the middle of the night. "

  "Yeah, right. No, their story was they were supposed to make it look like a burglary so I could collect from my insurance. I could claim a loss on top of what they were actually taking, and that way everybodys to the good. "

  "What did the actual loss amount to?"

  "Shit, I dont know. There were twice as many things turned up at their place as I ever listed when I made out a report. Theres things I missed a few days after I filled out the report and other stuff I didnt know was gone until the cops found them. And they took things werent covered. There was a fur of Pegs, we were gonna get a floater on it and we never did. And some of her jewelry, same story. I got a standard homeowners policy, it didnt cover anywheres near everything they took. They got a set of sterling, it came down to us from her aunt, I swear I forgot we owned the stuff. And it wasnt covered, either. "

  "It hardly sounds like an insurance setup. "

  "No, of course not. How the hell could it be? Anyway, the important thing is according to them the house was empty when they hit it. Peg wasnt home. "

  "And?"

  "And I set them up is their story. They hit the place, they carted everything away, and then I came home with Peg and stabbed her six, eight times, whatever it was, and left her there so it looked like it happened during a burglary. "

  "How could the burglars testify that you stabbed your wife?"

  "They couldnt. All they said was they didnt and she wasnt home when they were there and I had it arranged with them to do the burglary. The cops pieced the rest of it together. "

  "What did they do, arrest you?"

  "No. They came over to the hotel where Im staying, it was early, I was just out of the shower. Now this was the first I knew that the spics were arrested, let alone that they were trying to do a job on me. They just wanted to talk, the cops, and at first I talked to them, and then I started to get the drift of what they were trying to put on me. So I said I wasnt saying anything more without my lawyer present, and I called him, and he left half his breakfast on the table and came over in a hurry, and he wouldnt let me say a word. "

  "And they didnt take you in or book you?"

  "No. "

  "But they didnt entirely buy your story either?"

  "No way. I didnt really tell em a story because Kaplan wouldnt let me say anything. They didnt drag me in because they dont have a case yet, but according to Kaplan theyre going to be building one if they can. They told me not to leave town. You believe it? My wifes dead, the Post headline says Quiz Husband in Burglary Murder, and what the hell do they think Im gonna do? Am I going fishing for fucking trout in Montana? Dont leave town. You see this shit on television, you think nobody in real life talks like that. Maybe televisions where they get it from. "

  I waited for him to tell me what he wanted from me. I didnt have long to wait.

  "Why I called," he said, "is Kaplan thinks we ought to hire a detective. He figures maybe these guys talked around the neighborhood, maybe they bragged to their friends, maybe theres a way to prove they did the killing. He says the cops wont concentrate on that end if theyre too busy trying to nail the lid shut on me. "

  I explained that I didnt have any official standing, that I had no license and filed no reports.

  "Thats okay," he insisted. "I told Kaplan what I want is somebody I can trust, somebodyll do a job for me. I dont think theyre gonna have any kind of a case at all, Matt, because I can account for my time and I couldnta been where I woulda hadda be to do what they said I did. But the longer this shit drags on the worse it is for me. I want it cleared up, I want it in the papers that these Spanish assholes did it all and I had nothing to do with anything. I want that for me and for the people I do business with and for my relatives and Pegs relatives and all the wonderful people who voted for me. You remember the old Amateur Hour? I want to thank mom and dad and Aunt Edith and my piano teacher Mrs. Pelton and all the wonderful people who voted for me. Listen, youll meet me and Kaplan in his office, hear what the man has to say, do me a hell of a big favor, and pick up a couple of bucks for yourself. What do you say, Matt?"

  He wanted somebody he could trust. Had Carolyn from the Caroline told him how trustworthy I was?

  What did I say? I said yes.

  Chapter 7

  I took a train one stop into Brooklyn and met Tommy Tillary in Drew Kaplans office on Court Street a few blocks from Brooklyn s Borough Hall. There was a Lebanese restaurant next door. At the corner a grocery store specializing in Middle Eastern imports stood next to an antique shop overflowing with stripped oak furniture and brass lamps and b
edsteads. In front of Kaplans building, a legless black man reposed on a platform with wheels. An open cigar box on one side of him held a couple of singles and a lot of coins. He was wearing horn-rimmed sunglasses, and a hand-lettered sign on the pavement in front of him said, "Dont Be Fooled by the Sunglasses. Not Blind Just No Legs. "

  Kaplans office ran to wood paneling and leather chairs and oak file cabinets that might have come from the place on the corner. His name and the names of two partners were painted on the frosted glass of the hall door in old-fashioned gold and black lettering. Framed diplomas on the wall of his personal office showed hed earned his B. A. at Adelphi, his LL. B. at Brooklyn Law. A lucite cube on top of a Victorian oak desk held photographs of his wife and young children. A bronzed railway spike served as a desktop paperweight. On the wall alongside the desk, a pendulum clock ticked away the afternoon.

  Kaplan himself looked conservatively up-to-date in a tropical-weight gray pinstripe suit and a yellow pin-dot tie. He looked to be in his early thirties, which would fit the dates on the diplomas. He was shorter than I and of course much shorter than Tommy, trimly built, clean-shaven, with dark hair and eyes and a slightly lopsided smile. His handshake was medium-firm, his gaze direct but measuring, calculating.

  Tommy wore his burgundy blazer over gray flannel trousers and white loafers. Strain showed at the corners of his blue eyes and around his mouth. His complexion was off, too, as if anxiety had caused the blood to draw inward, leaving the skin sallow.

  "All we want you to do," Drew Kaplan said, "is find a key in one of their pants pockets, Herreras or Cruzs, and trace it to a locker in Penn Station, and in the locker theres a foot-long knife with both their prints and her blood on it. "

  "Is that what its going to take?"

  He smiled. "Lets just say it wouldnt hurt. No, actually were not in such bad shape. What theyve got is some shaky testimony from a pair of Latins whove been in and out of trouble since they got weaned onto Tropicana. And theyve got what looks to them like a good motive on Tommys part. "

  "Which is?"

  I was looking at Tommy when I asked. His eyes slipped away from mine. Kaplan said, "A marital triangle, a case of the shorts, and a strong money motive. Margaret Tillary came into some money this past spring upon the death of an aunt. The estates not through probate yet but the values somewhere in excess of half a million dollars. "

  "Be less than that when they get done hackin away at it," Tommy said. "A whole lot less. "

  "Plus theres insurance. Tommy and his wife had a pair of straight-life policies, each naming the other as beneficiary, both with double-indemnity clauses and a face amount of"- he consulted a slip on his desk- "a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which doubled for accidental death is three hundred thousand. At this point weve got what begins to look like seven, eight hundred thousand motives for murder. "

  "My lawyer talkin," Tommy said.

  "Same time, Tommy heres hurting a little for cash. Hes having a bad year gambling, hes into the bookies and maybe theyre starting to press him a little. "