Death of the Too-Cute Prostitute [= Man Alone]

Chapter One

I came out of the cellarway to the street corner and stood there while the rain bit into my face. It was cold and wind-whipped, but it was good. It had a fresh, clean smell, and the rivulets that ran down into my collar had a living feel about them.

Behind me the little guy in the substreet doorway said, “See you,” and threw a friendly wave.

I winked at him. “Thanks, Mutt.”

“Sure, anytime,” he said, and slipped the door shut.

Across the street a cab disgorged a passenger, and when I whistled the driver fingered an okay sign, swept around in a screaming U turn, opened the door for me and took off again in a seemingly single operation.

The crowd was coming out of the Criminal Courts Building now, the photogs in front holding their cameras under their coats while they yelled and waved to the press cars at the curb to look awake. Behind them were the vultures who made the spectator’s seats home, and from their outraged clacking you could sense that they were annoyed at not having something to feed on.

The cabbie looked forward to take it all in, then half turned his head to ask over his shoulder, “You been at the trial, Mac?”

I leaned back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling. “I was there,” I said.

“He gonna sit in it?”

“Not this time.” I cranked the window all the way down to smell the fresh air again. “Take me to Sixth and Forty-ninth.”

Ahead the cabbie seemed to stretch up to meet my eyes in his rear-view mirror and when he spoke his voice was almost out of control.

“What!”

“Sixth and Forty-ninth,” I repeated.

Unbelievingly, the driver shook his head. “No... I mean about the trial. What’d you say?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, but what’d he do... cop a plea? Or did they knock it down to second degree?”

“Nothing like that at all, friend.”

The cabbie stretched again, trying to make contact with my eyes, but it was too dark and the mirror too small. He fidgeted, then: “Well, come on, Mac, what gives? All you’ve been hearing this last week is that trial. Papers. Radio. TV. Everybody I pick up hashes it over. So what happens. He escape or something?”

I waited a second before I said quietly, “You might call it that.”

“Brother!” There was a degree of awe in his voice.

I said, “The jury turned in a not guilty verdict.”

This time he whistled between his teeth and said, “Brother,” half under his voice.

“You don’t like it?”

With a typical New Yorker’s contempt for what was already past news, he shrugged and shoved a cigarette in his mouth. “Hell, who cares? Me... I just can’t see how they figger, that’s all.”

“No?” I waited a second, then added, “Why?”

A one-sided shrug almost explained it. “Look,” he said, “the guy’s a cop who’s supposed to run down a big fish, only when he catches him he takes a pay-off instead. Then when he gets tagged with the loot in his pocket he’s suspended from the department and while he sweats out an investigation he makes big noises about getting the fish who fingered him.”

“So.”

“So he makes the noises stick when he shoots up the guy he started out to get legally. He sure picked a big one to burn down.”

“He did?”

“Listen, that Leo Marcus was a real front-marching big wheel. Brother, six slugs in the puss he gets and all head on. No face yet.”

The cab careened around a truck, knifed to a pole position at a red light and waited impatiently. The driver reached up to readjust the mirror so he could see me a little better and sucked on his butt until the cab was blue with smoke.

“Sure can’t figger it out though,” he repeated. “It was open and shut all the way around.”

My voice was real cold now. “It was?”

“Why, sure. They catch him on the spot, his gun, his belly full of booze, witnesses to the beef and no two-bit witnesses either. How’d he get out of it?”

“The jury said not guilty.”

“Man, man! I bet that judge did take the hide off’n them jurors. Would I sure like to have heard that”

“He tore them up.”

Up front the driver began to laugh a little. “Their angle I can see now. The jury, I mean. Sure, I can even understand ’em. And you know, I don’t mind a bit. That Marcus took plenty of my loot when he was running the old cab protection racket. Yep, I can sure see their angle now.” He grinned into the mirror. “You too?”

I leaned into the corner, away from the eyes. “You tell me.”

“They figure he did a public service. So big that they let a fractured killer cop out for an airing. So now let him shoot the rest of ’em up.”

I closed the window up against the rain, leaned forward and handed a bill across the back of the seat. “I’ll get out here.”

“But you wanted...”

“This is fine.”

The cabbie’s fingers felt the bill as he eased over toward the curb, batted the flag and clicked a quarter change out of the box on the dash. He stopped, then turned to pass the change over. It took a second, then something happened to his face that made it tighten around the mouth and he had trouble getting enough breath to say, “You’re... Regan.”

I nodded. “That’s right. The killer cop.”

“Hell, Mac...”

“Forget it. Keep the change.”

I walked three blocks north, leaning into the sharp sting of the rain, and on 49th turned east until I reached Donninger’s. It wasn’t much of a place; a few food specialties and the drinks were good, but what made it tick was its place on the grapevine and the dial phone at every wall table.

It was still too early for the supper crowd, but the day bunch from the tabloids were lined up at the bar swearing at editors and policy makers over the one for the road. It was tomorrow’s news that was important, not today’s. Today’s had been shot down and buried in ink, then folded into neat paper caskets to be handed over to the procession that would follow it avidly. Only the unborn news-child of tomorrow was important.

I walked behind them, flipping the water from my hat brim, squinting until my eyes could adjust to the cool darkness of the place. Jerry Nolan was in the far booth, crouched over a plate of spaghetti, a late paper in his hand. I looked for his partner, Al Argenio, but didn’t see him.

I said, “Hi, Jerry.”

He didn’t even look up. “You’re poison, Regan.”

“Personal or departmental?”

A frown wrinkled the corners of his eyes, then he sat back and glanced up at me, the mark of his trade plain on his face. Sgt. Nolan, detective division. The law. And nothing was really important except the law. He pointed the paper at the chair opposite him. “Sit down, Regan.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not being friendly. We just have to square some things away.”

“That’s going to take doing.”

“Yeah.” His eyes got narrow. “I don’t see how, but it’ll get done.”

I started to grin at him. It had been a long time coming, but at least I could still find some funny things left

“Don’t clown around about it, Regan. It’s no joke.”

The tight, stiff feeling I had had so long seemed to ooze out of me, a painful, swollen abscess of emotion finally gently bursting, still leaving the toxin, but obtaining relief.

I said, “That’s not right, Jerry. It is a joke. A damn big joke at that. Here the department didn’t bother to press an investigation on the graft charge because the brass figured me for a gone goose. I was a dead man to them.” My grin got bigger. “Now a charge will look ridiculous. They’ll have to say I took money that led to my committing a murder that never happened. The papers will really go for that one.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you think of it, Jerry? You think the jury loused it up?”

I knew what he wanted to say but he had too much cop in him; too much respect for the “due processes” to spell it out. The paper tapped against the edge of the table with a monotonous rhythm. “I have no quarrel with the jury. You know that.”

“Or the judge’s blast at them either?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you think the jury did a bum job?”

“That’s right.”

I leaned on my arms and watched him across the table. “Why do you think the jury turned in that verdict?”

The frown came back across his face again. “I don’t know.”

“Then guess.”

His eyes crawled up my arm until they were searching mine. “You had a good lawyer, Regan. He pulled out all the stops. Despite every piece of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, the jury couldn’t figure you as gunning down Marcus. They chose to disbelieve four sober, blue ribbon eyewitnesses, a ballistics expert, a fingerprint expert, a lab report on the extent of your sobriety and a few other facts like a paraffin test and a cab driver’s sworn statement that he took you roaring drunk from a bar to Marcus’ house sounding off that you were going to kill the guy for getting you booted off the force. Just great, isn’t it?”

“You forgot something, Jerry,” I told him.

“Like what?”

“Like maybe they believed my side was the right one.”

Cold cynicism was in the set of his mouth. “Sure. Like they really believed you didn’t know a thing from the middle of your big drunk until you woke up in a cell a day and a half later. Sorry, Regan, but there’s no logic in it. I think the jury decided the thing on the obtuse moral factors. Marcus was a big time hood. He had several previous convictions, had been tried and acquitted twice on murder charges, had been accused of being important in the drug traffic and at the time of his death was about to appear in court on tax evasion charges. Somehow, using that line of reasoning, twelve supposedly intelligent persons decided you were really a white knight after all and that the dragon really needed killing and you were sent back to the round table with a clean bill of health.”

“Okay, Jerry, think it out any way you like. Only tell me this. Do you really think I knocked him off?”

“I think this, Regan. You could have. You’re capable of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if you did. Not even a little bit.”

“All right, one more question. Do you think I took a bundle from Marcus to suppress evidence?”

The scowl left his face all at once. “If I did I wouldn’t be talking to you now.” He rapped the table with the flat of his hand. “But you’re still poison until after the investigation.”

“Investigation my neck! They going to call Marcus back as a witness? All they had was his complaint and five lousy grand your partner said he found in my room.”

Nolan said quietly, “He found it there.”

“Who cares. It was a plant. You know what I’m going to do, Jerry? I’m going to claim that bundle. If they can’t prove it was Marcus’ dough and I grafted it they’re going to hand it back on a platter. One way or another I’m going to shove something up somebody.”

Jerry fingered a pack of butts from his pocket and tapped one out on his hand. “You come all the way here to tell me this?”

“Not exactly.” I held out a match to his cigarette. “I was framed somehow. Real neat job. I don’t know why or how, but I was framed.”

“So’s every con in Sing.”

“But they’re not outside to prove it.”

“Go on.”

“I’m going into this one, kiddo. Somebody’s going to wind up big and dead.”

“You’re not a cop now, Regan.”

“You are.”

“And right now I’m not shooting anybody. You’re crazy man. You’re all gone. Four months in detention and you’re all gone. What kind of notion have you got in your head that you’re going out and shoot up somebody? That’s hop talk, guy.”

I grinned at him. “Jer... somebody’s dead already. Marcus. Somebody framed me for the kill and a murderer is running around loose.”

“The department will take care of that.”

“Uh-uh. They just tab me for a lucky killer, that’s all. They won’t be looking too far for somebody else.”

“What do you want from me, Regan?”

“A little information, that’s all. The details of the bit never came through the walls of my cell.”

“Like what?”

“Later I’ll think of things. Did the hack company replace the cabbie who drove me to Marcus’ place?”

His mind clicked back, fastened on it, and he said, “Guy Rivera? No, he still works the stand outside the Climax where you got tanked up.”

I looked at him, grinned a little bigger and stood up.

Nolan said puzzledly, “That all?”

“For now. Tell Argenio I said hello.”

Jerry glanced past me and a heavy voice with a snarl in it said, “Don’t bother. Just keep walking.”

I kept some of the grin on for Al, a nice toothy grin, and said, “Hi, slob.”

The muscles along his jaws and neck jumped, but that was all. “You want me to move you on out, Regan?”

I was feeling too damn good and it showed. I said, “Remember the last time you tried it?”

His neck twitched again and he didn’t say anything, but I knew he remembered all right. I waited long enough so he could have time to try once more if he felt like it, and when he didn’t I said so-long to Jerry and walked out.

I got off the Seventh Avenue subway at Sheridan Square and went up into the rain again. The cleanness was gone now and the thick drizzle seemed to hold in all the wild smells of a city that had run hard all day. The streets had a greasy appearance, barely able to reflect the few lights still flashing along the Village at this hour. I turned my collar up, then cut across the street and headed down toward the Climax.

In its day it had been a flash spot and the histories of two great trumpets and the world’s hottest sax had begun right here. But now all were dead, and on the relics the tourists had built legends and a purpose in keeping a gaudy gin mill operating.

I walked past it to the cab stand at the corner where three hacks edged the curb patiently and nudged the driver in the first one awake. He came to with a sleepy grin and started to reach back to open the door.

“Thanks anyway,” I said, “but I’m looking for Guy Rivera. He here?”

He sat up and pawed at his eyes. “Guy? Oh... yeah.” He waggled his thumb over his shoulder. “The last one down. Little feller.”

I slipped a buck in his hand. “Here, go back to sleep.” He grinned back and tucked the bill in his shirt pocket.

Guy Rivera had his head down reading the pink edition of a tabloid by the map light under the dash. I said, “Rivera...” and his head jerked up. He squinted, trying to see my face. “Yeah?”

I moved into the light and when he saw me little concentric arcs grew at the corners of his mouth. “Listen, Mr. Regan...”

“Don’t get nervous, Guy. I’m not on your back. Mind if I sit in the cab?”

He shook his head, but his mouth stayed tight. I opened the door, climbed in and leaned back against the seat. I said, “You know why I’m here?”

His tongue wet his lips down and he coughed into his hand. “Look, you know what I said at the trial. So I said it and that’s it. What’d I do?”

“You were on the stand no more than ten minutes, Rivera. You made a statement of fact that you picked me up here, drove me to Marcus’ place and all the while I rambled on about killing somebody. You weren’t even cross-examined.”

Rivera coughed again and nodded jerkily. “And it’s the truth. What’d you think I could say. Hell, Mr. Regan, why’re you picking on me, now. You got off. You...”

“I said I wasn’t on your back.”

“Then whatta you want from me?”

“A couple of minor things that never came out at the trial. Let’s ask them now.”

“Sure.”

“You remember everything that happened?”

“How you expect me to forget? Here I drive you out so you can...”

“Drop it. Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you when I got in the cab?”

“In the front spot. Chick and Dooley were right behind me.”

“And I came out and got in the cab?”

“Yeah.”

“I was supposed to have been pretty drunk.”

He fidgeted in his seat and tugged at the shift lever. “Well, you got in. The place was closing up. You weren’t the only rum dum coming out.”

“Think hard, Guy. Who put me in the cab?”

“How do I know! Hell, you know how it is. Drunks all over the place. Somebody gives them an arm in. All the time it happens.”

“I never get that soused, friend. Who was doing the favors?”

He shoved the lever away from him and twisted around. Worry and fright were stark things that drew thin lines down the lean cheeks and a fine bead of sweat wet his forehead. “I don’t want to make trouble, Mr. Regan.”

“You won’t.”

“Well... they didn’t let me say much at the trial. Just asked a few questions. But when... that... happened I kept thinking about it, me being so close to it. Hell, I could even have stopped it if I knowed. You come out of there with a bunch of people, but some broad stuffed you in the cab.”

“Broad?”

“Yeah. Now I didn’t see her face good because I wasn’t looking, see? But she was a redhead. Looked real. Only thing I remember is her pocketbook. I thought it was binoculars first, then she opens it and drags out a pack of smokes so I knows it’s her pocketbook. Big letter B in gold on one side. While you’re getting in she asks you if you still want to see-some-rat-and-what-was-his-name. That’s when you started mumbling about Leo Marcus and how you’d kill ’im. She asks where he lived and you told me. Top of High Street, you said. Big brick house. She made you pay in advance with a fin so I took you there, all the time talking about this Marcus.”

“How come you didn’t refuse the fare, Guy?”

“Ah, it was drunk talk, Mr. Regan. You know how it is. Guys talking to themselves. Sometimes it’s worse if you refuse. Then there’s real trouble. Anyway, I took you there.”

“Right to the door?”

Rivera made a face. “Naw. To the curb. You got out and just stood there. That’s when I drove away.”

“I was in pretty bad shape?”

“I’ve seen worse. Not often, though.”

I said, “Rivera... there’s a steep flight of stone steps going up to Marcus’ front door. You think I could have made it?”

He squinched up his face again and hunched uncomfortably. “Maybe you weren’t so bad off, after all. Sometimes...”

“I didn’t ask that.”

For a few seconds he didn’t say anything, then quietly, “No.” He swiveled around in his seat and gave me a searching look. “You know what’s got me, Mr. Regan?”

“What?”

“I’d say you were so stiff you couldn’t see to you-know-what. How you could pump six slugs into a guy’s head is beyond me.”

“It’s beyond me too.”

“Whatcha going to do now, Mr. Regan?”

“Find the girl.”

“I’m gonna tell you something.”

“What?”

“I ain’t never seen her again.”

“You said you didn’t see her face.”

“I know, but all the redheads I seen so far around the joint I know. This one I didn’t know. See?”

“You’ll keep looking?”

“Sure. So long as there’s no trouble.”

“You won’t get bothered.” I reached for a bill in my pocket and he waved it off.

“This is for friends, Mr. Regan.”

“Okay. If you want me leave a call at Donninger’s. You know where it is?”

“I know.”

“And thanks, Rivera.”

“Anytime.”

The bartender at the Climax wore a stitched nameplate that read “RALPH” in red caps on his white mess jacket, a busy little guy with all the touches of a long time pro. He didn’t see me come in, but rather felt my presence behind him and turned with a “What’ll you have?” smile.

It lasted only a second, then it was gone and he nodded coolly and said, “Evening, Mr. Regan.”

“Hello, Ralph.” He waited for my order. “Tall ginger,” I told him.

He set it up, his eyes wary, and when he took my change started to turn away.

“Come here, buddy.”

He turned around, frowning. “I got nothing to say to you, pal. Nothing. Just keep off me, or I’ll call in for a prowl car.”

I looked at him for a long time. Too long for him. He almost dropped a glass he was wiping. “That could be a mistake, buddy.”

He worked his mouth, then muttered softly, “Okay, whatta ya want?”

“Talk.”

“You already heard everything I got to say.”

“Somebody else was asking the questions.”

“Well I got nothing else...”

I cut him off. “Let’s say I want an opinion, huh?”

Ralph glanced around nervously, but nobody else was at the bar. “Like what?”

“You remember everything that night I was here?”

He shrugged and scowled. “I remember you getting stoned.”

“Not quite.”

“Whatta ya mean! I see you...”

“You saw me stoned, not getting stoned. There’s a difference. You remember what you served me at the bar here?”

“Sure. You had a couple rye and gingers. Hell, I knew who you were then from your pictures in the papers.”

“Two drinks didn’t stone me, friend. I came in here sober, remember?”

Ralph didn’t like what I was getting at a bit.

I said, “You testified I was drinking here for about three hours until the place closed up. But all you actually saw me have was two drinks.”

“Listen, Mr. Regan, I work drunks. When I see a drunk I know...”

“How’d I get so drunk, buddy?”

Suddenly his face got red and tight lines stood out in his neck. His breath came out in a hiss. “If you think I slipped you a mickey, pal, you’re crazy. Real crazy. You...”

“I went back to a table,” I said softly. “I was sitting with Stan The Pencil. I was asking questions and he was able to answer some. He took me to another table and introduced me to a couple of local characters...”

“You was with Popeye Lewis and Edna Rells. Artists. I can...”

“I know who they are, friend.” I paused, then: “Who waited on that table?”

“Spud. That’s his section. But don’t think he fed you anything, Mr. Regan. That old man has been here ten years and worked this neighborhood all his life. He’s square all the way.”

I grinned at his loyalty. It seemed out of place in a gin mill. “Just curious, Ralph. Just curious. You remember anything about a redhead who joined the table?”

He shrugged. “Who looks at redheads? Here they’re a dime a dozen.”

“One helped me into the cab. She was a stranger here.”

“If she didn’t drink at the bar, then I don’t remember her.”

“Call Spud over.”

He shook his head, annoyed at the whole routine, but walked to the end of the bar, scanned the back room, then waved. A minute later a grey-haired waiter in a tired tux worn thin from too many pressings came in, smiled and waited patiently for a complaint or compliment. On a second studied look he recognized me and glanced to Ralph for an explanation. The bartender shrugged and pointed his thumb at me.

“You remember me, Spud?”

He nodded. “Yessir.”

“You remember the party that night?”

He made a small gesture with his shoulders. “I remember some. I had a party at every table that night.”

“But you’ve had reason to remember this party, Spud. With all the publicity and having it start right here I bet you’ve thought back on it plenty of times.”

When I stopped and waited he shuffled his feet and fidgeted. “I gave it some thought,” he finally admitted.

“Who was at the party?”

He stared at me blankly a moment, thinking. “Popeye, Edna, then Miles Henry came in with them two pictures of Popeye’s that the boss bought and then a lot of people came over to look at the paintings.”

“I remember the art work,” I said. “Seems to me that’s about the last I remember.”

The old man didn’t believe me at all. His eyes tightened at the corners and his face reflected the cynicism the years had built up.

I said, “Do you remember me being drunk or sober then?”

“Mister,” he said, “I wasn’t paying attention to anybody being either way. In this business nobody ever gets more sober with each drink, they only get more drunk. I watched it happen but I didn’t pay attention to it, otherwise when I see pictures of drunks smashing up people with their cars or shooting their kids in bed I’d maybe start drinking myself because it’s partly my fault. So for you, I don’t remember anything. Later on I noticed you all shook up because you were a quiet drunk and at that stage them’s the kind to watch out for because the fuse was lit and with another few you’d be roaring. I’ve had some of ’em go for me when they were like that and now I watch for it. Sure I remember you then, and later too because you were crocked like hell and couldn’t hardly walk and everybody was laughing at you.”

It was quite a speech. I ran over it in my mind before I asked him, “Who was everybody?”

Again I got that noncommittal shrug. “There was a crowd at the table then.”

“You know them?”

“Nope. Stan The Pencil had gone to make book in the other joints and Popeye and Edna stayed with the boss the rest of the night. You had a bunch of strangers with you. That’s the way it goes here. Parties. Always parties.”

“Who footed the bill?”

“You paid by rounds. Everybody had money on the table in front of them. You too.”

“Remember a redhead at the party? She carried a handbag that was shaped like a binocular case.”

“Sure,” he said.

I didn’t interrupt him. I let him reach for it himself. “A big beautiful job and she was all over you. She got you outa here when we closed up.”

Inside my chest I felt all tight and my mouth had a dry feel. Quietly, I said, “Who was she?”

Then the tightness turned into an inaudible curse. Because he gave me that shrug again and said, “I don’t know. Just some broad.”

I fished four bucks out of my pocket and split it between the two of them. “Thanks. If you see her around, give me a call. I’m in the book.”

Ralph just nodded. Spud looked thoughtful a moment, fingered the two bucks in. his hand, then looked at me purposefully. “Mr. Regan...”

“What?”

“I don’t think you could’ve bumped that guy.”

“Why not?”

“All my life I worked drunks. I know what they can do. You couldn’t see to bump anybody that night.”

“That’s what I tried to tell them, Spud.”

He had something else to say but didn’t quite know how to get it out. Finally he said, “I’ve known plenty of crooked cops, Mr. Regan. I hated their guts.”

“Go on.”

“Did you take a payoff from Marcus?”

“No. That was a framed job.”

The grin on Spud’s face was a friendly one.

“What did you expect me to say, anyway?”

“I could’ve told if you were lying, Mr. Regan, I’ll let you know if I see her again.”

You find friends in funny places, I thought. I watched him leave, then walked outside and down the subway where I caught a train for my apartment.