When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

Chapter 25

That was Monday night. I don't remember exactly when I talked to Jack Diebold, but it must have been Tuesday or Wednesday. I tried him at the squad room and wound up reaching him at home. We sparred a bit, and then I said, "You know, I thought of a way he could have done it."

"Where have you been? We got one dead and one confessed to it, it's history now."

"I know," I said, "but listen to this." And I explained, just as an exercise in applied logic, how TommyTillary could have murdered his wife. I had to go over it a couple of times before he got a handle on it, and even then he wasn't crazy about it.

"I don't know," he said. "It sounds pretty complicated. You've got her stuck there in the attic for what, eight, ten hours? That's a long time with no one keeping an eye on her. Suppose she comes to, worksherself free? Then he's got his ass in the crack, doesn't he?"

"Not for murder. She can press charges for tying her up, but when's the last time a husband went to jail for that?"

"Yeah, he's not really at risk until he kills her, and by then she's dead. I see what you mean. Even so, Matt, it's pretty farfetched, don't you think?"

"Well, I was just thinking of a way it could have happened."

"They never happen that way in real life."

"I guess not."

"And if they did you couldn't goanywheres with it. Look what you went through explaining it to me, and I'm in the business. You want to try it on a jury, with some prick lawyer interrupting every thirty seconds with an objection? What a jury likes, a jury likes somebody with greasy hair and olive skin and a knife in one hand and blood on his shirt, that's what a jury likes."

"Yeah."

"And anyhow, the whole thing's history.You know what I got now? I got that family inBoroughPark. You read about it?"

"The Orthodox Jews?"

"Three Orthodox Jews, mother father son, the father's got the beard, the kid's got theearlocks, all sitting at the dinner table, all shot in the back of the head. That's what I got. Far as TommyTillary, I don't care right now if he killed Cock Robin and bothKennedys."

"Well, it was just an idea," I said.

"And it's a cute one, I'll grant you that. But it's not very realistic, and even if it was, who's got time for it? You know?"

I figured it was time for a drunk. My two cases were closed, albeit unsatisfactorily. My sons were on their way to camp. My rent was paid, my bar tabs were all settled, and I had a few dollars in the bank. I had, it seemed to me, every reason in the world to check out for a week or so and stay drunk.

But my body seemed to know there was more to come, and while I did not by any means stay sober, neither did I find myself launched upon the bender to which I felt roundly entitled. And, a day or two later, I was nursing a cup of bourbon-flavored coffee at my table in Armstrong's when SkipDevoe came in.

He gave me a nod from the doorway. Then he went to the bar and had a quick drink, knocking it back while he stood there. And then he came back to my table and pulled out a chair and dropped down into it.

"Here," he said, and put a brown manila envelope on the table between us. A small envelope, the kind they give you in banks.

I said, "What's this?"

"For you."

I opened it. It was full of money. I took out a sheaf of bills and fanned them.

"For Christ's sake," he said, "don't do that, you want everybody following you home? Put it in yourpocket, count it when you get home."

"What is it?"

"Your share. Put it away, will you?"

"My share of what?"

He sighed, impatient with me. He had a cigarette going and he dragged angrily on it, turning his head to avoid blowing the smoke in my face. "Your share of ten grand," he said. "You get half. Half of ten grand is five grand, and five grand is what's in the envelope, and whyntcha do us both a favor and put it the hell away?"

"What's this my share of, Skip?"

"The reward."

"What reward?"

His eyes challenged me. "Well, I could get something back, couldn't I? No way I owed those cocksuckers anything. Right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Atwood and Cutler," he said. "I turned 'em in to Tim Pat Morrissey. For the reward."

I looked at him.

"I couldn't go to them, ask for the money back. I couldn't get a dime from fuckin ' Ruslander, he already paid it all out. I went over and sat down with Tim Pat, asked him did he and his brothers still want to pay out that reward. His eyes lit up like fucking stars. I gave him names and addresses and I thought he was gonna kiss me."

I put the brown envelope on the table between us. I pushed it toward him and he pushed it back. I said, "This doesn't belong to me, Skip."

"Yes it does. I already told Tim Pat half of it was yours, that you did all the work. Take it."

"I don't want it. I already got paid for what I did. The information was yours. You bought it. If you sold it to Tim Pat, you get the reward."

He drew on his cigarette. "I already gave half of it to Kasabian. The five grand I owed him. He didn't want to take it either. I told him, listen, you take this and we're square. He took it. And this here is yours."

"I don't want it."

"It's money. What the hell's the matter with it?"

I didn't say anything.

"Look," he said, "just take it, will you? You don't want to keep it, don't keep it. Burn it, throw it out, give it away, I don't give a shit what you do with it.Because I cannot keep it. I can't. You understand?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, shit," he said. "Oh, fucking shit. I don't know why I did it."

"What are you talking about?"

"And I'd do it again. That's what's crazy. It's eating me up, but if I had to do it all over again, I'd fucking do it."

"Do what?"

He looked at me. "I gave Tim Pat three names," he said, "and three addresses."

He took his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, stared at it. "I never want to see you do this," he said, and dropped the butt into my cup of coffee. Then he said, "Oh, Jesus, what am I doing? You had half a cup of coffee left there. I was thinking it was my cup and I didn't even have a cup. What's the matter with me? I'm sorry, I'll get you another cup of coffee."

"Forget the coffee."

"It was just reflex, I wasn't thinking, I-"

"Skip, forget the coffee. Sit down."

"You sure you don't want-"

"Forget the coffee."

"Yeah, right," he said. He took out another cigarette and tapped it against the back of his wrist.

I said, "You gave Tim Pat three names."

"Yeah."

"Atwood and Cutler and-"

"And Bobby," he said. "I sold him Bobby Ruslander."

He put the cigarette in his mouth, took out his lighter and lit it. His eyes half-lidded against the smoke, he said, "I ratted him out, Matt. My best friend, except it turns out he's not my friend, and now I went and ratted him out. I told Tim Pat how Bobby was the inside man, he set it up." He looked at me. "You think I'm a bastard?"

"I don't think anything."

"It was something I had to do."

"All right."

"But you can see I can't keep the money."

"Yeah, I guess I can see that."

"He could get out from under, you know. He's pretty good at squirming off the hook. The other night, Christ, he walked outta the office at my joint like he owned the place. The Actor, let's see him act his wayoutta this, huh?"

I didn't say anything.

"It could happen. He could pull it off."

"Could be."

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I loved the man," he said. "I thought, I thought he loved me." He took a deep breath, let it out. "From here on in," he said, "I don't love nobody." He stood up. "I figure he's got a sporting chance, anyway. Maybe he'll get out of it."

"Maybe."

BUT he didn't. None of them did. By the weekend they had all turned up in the newspapers, Gary Michael Atwood, Lee David Cutler, Robert Joel Ruslander, all three found in different parts of the city, their heads covered with black hoods, their hands secured with wire behind their backs, each shot once in the back of the head with a. 25-caliber automatic. Rita Donegian was found with Cutler, similarly hooded and wired and shot. I guess she got in the way.

When I read about it I still had the money in the brown bank envelope. I still hadn't decided what to do with it. I don't know that I ever quite came to a conscious decision, but the following day I tithed five hundred dollars to the poor box at Saint Paul 's. I had, after all, a lot of candles to light. And some of the money went to Anita, and some went in the bank, and somewhere along the line it stopped being blood money and became, well, just money.

I figured that was the end of it. But I kept figuring that, and I kept being wrong.

THE call came in the middle of the night. I'd been asleep for a couple of hours but the phone woke me and I groped for it. It took me a minute to recognize the voice on the other end.

It was Carolyn Cheatham.

"I had to call you," she said, "on account of you're a bourbon drinker and a gentleman. I owed it to you to call you."

"What's the matter?"

"Our mutual friend ditched me," she said, "and he got me fired out of Tannahill amp; Co. so he won't have to look at me around the office. Once he didn't need me he just went and cut the string, and do you know he did it over the phone?"

"Carolyn-"

"It's all in the note," she said. "I'm leaving a note."

"Look, don't do anything yet," I said. I was out of bed, fumbling for my clothes. "I'll be right over. We'll sit down and talk about it."

"You can't stop me, Matthew."

"I won't try to stop you. We'll talk a little, and then you can do whatever you want to do."

The phone clicked in my ear.

I threw my clothes on, rushed over there, hoping it would be pills, something that took its time. I broke a small pane of glass in the downstairs door and let myself in, then used an old credit card to slip the bolt of her spring lock. If she had engaged the dead-bolt lock, I would have had to kick it in, but she hadn't, and that made it easier.

I smelled the cordite before I had the door open. Inside, the room reeked of it. She was sprawled on the couch, her head hanging to one side. The gun was still in her hand, limp at her side, and there was a black-rimmed hole in her temple.

There was a note, too, one page torn from a spiral notebook and anchored to the coffee table with an empty bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon. There was an empty glass next to the empty bottle. The booze showed in her handwriting, and in the sullen phrasing of the suicide note.

I read the note. I stood there for a few minutes, not for very long, and then I got a dish towel from the kitchen and wiped the bottle and the glass. I took another matching glass, rinsed it out and wiped it, and put it in the dish strainer on the counter.

I stuffed the note in my pocket. I took the little gun from her fingers, checked routinely for a pulse,then wrapped a sofa pillow around the gun to muffle its report.

I fired one round into the soft tissue below the rib cage, another into her open mouth.

I dropped the gun into a pocket and got out of there.

THEY found the gun in Tommy Tillary's house on Colonial Road, stuffed between the cushions of the living-room sofa. The outside of the gun had been wiped clean of prints, but they found an identifiable print inside, on the clip, and it turned out to be Tommy's.

Ballistics got a perfect match. Bullets can shatter when they hit bone, but the shot into her abdomen didn't hit any bones and it was recovered intact.

After the story made the papers, I picked up the phone and called Drew Kaplan. "I don't understand it," I said. "He was free and clear, why the hell did he go and kill the girl?"

"Ask him yourself," Kaplan said. He did not sound happy. "You want my opinion, he's a lunatic. I honestly didn't think he was. I figured maybe he killed his wife, maybe he didn't, not my job to try him, right? But I didn't figure the son of a bitch for a homicidal maniac."

"There's no question he killed the girl?"

"No question that I can see. The gun's pretty strong evidence. Talk about finding somebody with the smoking pistol in his hand, here it was in Tommy's couch. The idiot."

"Funny he kept it."

"Maybe he had other people he wanted to shoot. Go figure a crazy man. No, the gun's damning evidence, and there was a phone tip, some man called in the shooting, reported a man running out of the building and gave a description that fitted Tommy better than his clothes. In fact his clothes were in the description. Had him wearing that red blazer of his, tacky thing makes him look like an usher at the old Brooklyn Paramount."

"It sounds tough to square."

"Well, somebody else'll have to try to do it," Kaplan said. "I told him it wouldn't be appropriate for me to defend him this time. What it amounts to, I wash my hands of him."

I thought of all this when I read that Angel Herrera got out just the other day. He did all ten years of a five-to-ten because he was at least as good at getting into trouble inside the walls as he had been outside.

Somebody killed Tommy Tillary with a homemade knife after he'd served two years and three months of a manslaughter stretch. I wondered at the time if that was Herrera getting even, and I don't suppose I'll ever know. Maybe the checks stopped going to Santurce and Herrera took it the wrong way. Or maybe Tommy made the wrong remark to some other hard case, and did it face-to-face instead of over the phone.

So many things have changed, so many people are gone.

Antares amp; Spiro's, the Greek bar on the corner, is gone. It's a Korean fruit store now. Polly's Cage is now Cafe 57, changed from sleazy to chic, with the red flocked wallpaper and the neon parrot long gone. The Red Flame is gone, and the Blue Jay. There's a steak house called Desmond's where McGovern's used to be. Miss Kitty's closed about a year and a half after they bought their books back. John and Skip sold the lease and got out. The new owners opened a gay club called Kid Gloves, and two years later it was out and something else was in.

The gym where I watched Skip do lat-machine pull downs went out of business within the year. A modern-dance studio took over the premises, and then a couple of years ago the whole building came down and a new one went up. Of the two side-by-side French restaurants, the one where I had dinner with Fran is gone, and the latest tenant is a fancy Indian restaurant. The other French place is still there, and I still haven't eaten there.

So many changes.

Jack Diebold is dead. A heart attack. He was dead six months before I even heard about it, but then we didn't have much contact after the Tillary incident.

John Kasabian left the city after he and Skip sold Miss Kitty's. He opened up a similar joint out in the Hamptons, and I heard he got married.

Morrissey's closed late in '77. Tim Pat skipped bail on a federal gunrunning charge and his brothers disappeared. The ground-floor theater is still running, oddly enough.

Skip is dead. He sort of hung around after Miss Kitty's closed, spending more and more of his time by himself in his apartment. Then one day he got an attack of acutepancreatitis and died on the table atRoosevelt.

Billie Keegan left Armstrong's in early '76, if I remember it right. Left Armstrong's and left New York, too. The last I heard he was off the drink entirely, living north of San Francisco and making candles or silk flowers or something equally unlikely. And I ran into Dennis a month or so ago in a bookstore on lower Fifth Avenue, full of odd volumes on yoga and spiritualism and holistic healing.

Eddie Koehler retired from the NYPD a couple of years back. I got cards from him the first two Christmases, mailed from a little fishing village in the Florida panhandle, I didn't hear from him last year, which probably only means that he's dropped me from his list, which is what happens to people who don't send cards in return.

Jesus, where did ten years go? I've got one son in college now, and another in the service. I couldn't tell you the last time we went to a ball game together, let alone a museum.

Anita's remarried. She still lives in Syosset, but I don't send money there anymore.

So many changes, eating away at the world like water dripping on a rock. For God's sake, last summer the sacredginmill closed, if you want to call it that. The lease on Armstrong's came up for renewal and Jimmy walked away from it, and now there's yet another goddamned Chinese restaurant where the old joint used to be. He reopened a block farther west, at the corner of Fifty-seventh and Tenth, but that's a little out of my way these days.

In more ways than one. Because I don't drink anymore, one day at a time, and thus have no business inginmills, be they sacred or profane. I spend less of my time lighting candles and more in church basements, drinking my coffee without bourbon, and out of Styrofoam cups.

So when I look ten years into the past I can say that I would very likely have handled things differently now, but everything is different now. Everything. All changed, changed utterly. I live in the same hotel, I walk the same streets, I go to a fight or a ball game the same as ever, but ten years ago I was always drinking and now I don't drink at all. I don't regret a single one of the drinks I took, and I hope to God I never take another.

Because that, you see, is the less-traveled road on which I find myself these days, and it has made all the difference. Oh, yes. All the difference.