Win

Chapter 9

Back on the plane, I start reading through the FBI file. I call it a file, but in fact it is a three-inches-thick binder with photocopied pages. I take out my Montblanc and jot down the names of the Jane Street Six:

I stare at the names for a moment. When I do, when I think of these six and the fact that only one (now two, if you include Ry Strauss) has been seen or heard from in forty years, it becomes apparent that PT is probably right about their fate.

Odds are strong that at least some of them, if not all, are dead.

Then again, perhaps not. Hadn’t Ry Strauss managed to survive all these years before he was brutally murdered? If Strauss could hide in the center of the largest city in the country, why couldn’t the others stay underground?

Oddly enough, I am not buying my own rationale.

One could stay hidden. Two perhaps. But four?

Unlikely.

I start with the timeline and write down the following question:

Day One, Two, and Three post-attack there were no credible sightings of any of the Jane Street Six. Pretty remarkable when you think of the manhunt. On Day Four, there was finally a break. The FBI received an anonymous tip that Arlo Sugarman was holed up in a brownstone in the Bronx. Alas, we know how that turned out — Special Agent Patrick O’Malley ends up being shot and killed on the stoop. I jot this incident down next to Sugarman’s name because it is his first known sighting. The second sighting, according to what I just learned from Lake Davies, places Arlo Sugarman in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a student at Oral Roberts University in 1975. I mark that down too.

That’s it on Sugarman. No third sighting.

I move on to Billy Rowan. According to the FBI file, Rowan was spotted only once since the attack — two weeks later — by Vanessa Hogan, the mother of one of the victims, Frederick Hogan, a seventeen-year-old from Great Neck, New York. Vanessa Hogan, a devoutly religious woman, had gone on television almost immediately after her son’s death to say she had forgiven those who harmed young Frederick.

“God must have wanted my Frederick for a higher purpose,” she said at the press conference.

I hate this sort of justification. I hate it even more when it’s reversed, if you will — when a survivor of a tragedy claims something to the effect that “God spared me because I’m special to Him,” the subtle implication being that God didn’t give a damn about those who perished. In this case, however, Vanessa Hogan was a young widow who had just lost her only child, so perhaps I should cut her some slack.

I digress.

According to the FBI report, two weeks after Vanessa Hogan’s press conference, when the intensity of the search had waned just enough, Billy Rowan, who had also been raised in a devoutly religious home, knocked on Hogan’s back door at approximately nine p.m. Vanessa Hogan was home alone in her kitchen at the time. Billy Rowan had purportedly seen her on TV and wanted to apologize in person before he went fully underground.

Okay, fine. I note this next to Rowan’s name. First and only sighting.

I move on to the rest. Edie Parker, no sightings. Lionel Underwood, no sightings. And of course, when I was handed the file: Ry Strauss, no sightings.

I tap my lip with my Montblanc and mull it over. Let’s suppose that they had all successfully stayed underground for all these years. Do I really believe that they never, not once, reached out to family members?

I do not.

I scan through the file and jot down the names of close relatives I could potentially question. Ry Strauss had a quasi-famous brother, Saul, a progressive attorney who represents the downtrodden. He’s a television talking head, but then again who isn’t nowadays? Did Ry never contact his brother Saul, even though they lived in the same city for perhaps forty years? It’s worth an ask. Saul Strauss, I know, has been on Hester Crimstein’s news program, ridiculously named Crimstein on Crime. Perhaps Hester could offer an introduction.

The Strauss parents are deceased. In fact, of the Jane Street Six’s potential twelve parents, only two are still alive — Billy Rowan’s father, Edie Parker’s mother. I write their names down. Next I go through surviving siblings besides Saul Strauss. That adds another nine people, though two of those belong to Lake Davies, so I won’t need them. I add those names to my list. If I have more time or help, I might spread my family tree out — uncles, aunts, cousins — but I doubt that I will.

There are a lot of names here. I will need help.

My thoughts naturally gravitate to Myron.

He is down in Florida, taking care of his parents and helping his wife settle into a new job. I don’t want to take him away from that. Those who know us well would note that I always came through when Myron would engage in similar quixotic quests and ask for my help — that in fact, after all the times I marched into battle for him without question or pause, Myron “owes” me.

Those folks would be wrong.

Let me clue you in on the advice Myron’s father, one of the wisest men I know, gave his son and his son’s best man — that would be yours truly — on Myron’s wedding day: “Relationships are never fifty-fifty. Sometimes they are sixty-forty, sometimes eighty-twenty. You’ll be the eighty sometimes, you’ll be the twenty others. The key is to accept and be okay with that.”

I believe this simple wisdom is true for all great relationships, not just marriages, so if you add it up, how my friendship with Myron has improved and enhanced my life, no, Myron owes me nothing.

My phone pings a reminder that I have not yet responded to my rendezvous app. I doubt there will be time tonight, but it would be rude to not reply. When I click the notification and scan the request, my eyes widen. I quickly change my mind and set up a meet for eight p.m. tonight.

Let me explain why.

The rendezvous app has a rather unusual “bio” page. No, it’s not like the dating apps where you spew out exaggerated nonsense about how you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. This page starts about akin to ratings one might give an Uber, but because most members use the app on rare occasions (unlike yours truly), the developers have supplemented personal ratings with what could crudely be called an appearance ranking. It’s a far more complicated algorithm than that, scoring in many specific physical fields and on many levels. One of the app rules states that if you ask another client about your ranking — or if that client tells you — you are both immediately forced to relinquish your membership. I, for example, do not know what my rankings are.

I am confident that they are high. No need for false modesty, is there?

To give you an idea, Bitsy Cabot’s aggregate ranking was an accurate 7.8 out of ten. The lowest I would go for is a 6.5. Well, okay, once I went with a 6.0, but nothing else was available. The app’s scoring is very tough. A six on this app would be considered at least an eight anywhere else.

The highest ranking I’ve seen on the app? I was once with a 9.1. She’d been a renowned supermodel before she married a famous rock star. You know her name. That was the only woman above a nine I’d ever seen.

The woman who had currently pinged me for a rendezvous?

Her ranking was a 9.85.

There is no way I was passing that up.

PT calls me. “How did it go with Lake Davies?”

I start with the obvious: “She lied about Strauss being dead.” I then fill him in on the rest of our conversation.

“So what’s your next step?”

“Go to Malachy’s Pub.”

“Forty years later?”

“Yes.”

“Long shot.”

“Is there any other kind?” I counter.

“What else?”

“I have compiled a list of people I may want to interrogate. I need your people to get me current addresses.”

“Email me the list.”

I know how PT works. He gets the information before he gives the information. Now that I’ve done my part, I prompt him: “Anything new on your end?”

“We got week-old CCTV footage from the Beresford. We think it’s from the day of the murder but...”

I wait.

“We don’t know how helpful it will be,” he says.

“Is the killer on it?”

“Likely, yeah. But we can’t really see much.”

“I’d like to view it.”

“I can email you a link in an hour.”

I mull this over for a moment. “I’d rather stop by the Beresford and have one of the doormen show it to me.”

“I’ll set it up.”

“I will go to Malachy’s first.”

“One more thing, Win.”

I wait.

“We can’t keep the ID quiet any longer. Tomorrow morning, the Director is going to announce the body belongs to Ry Strauss.”

“Ain’t you a good-looking fella?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

Kathleen, the longtime barmaid at Malachy’s, cackles a half laugh, half cigarette-cough at that one. She has a rye (I mean that in two ways) smile and yellow (as opposed to blonde) hair. Kathleen is comfortably north of sixty years old, but she wears it with confidence and an old-world sultry appeal that some might describe as burlesque. She is buxom and curvy and soft. I like Kathleen immediately, but I recognize that it is her occupation to be liked.

“If I was a little younger...” Kathleen begins.

“Or if I were a little luckier,” I counter.

“Oh, stop.”

I arch an eyebrow. It’s one of my trademark moves. “Don’t sell yourself short, Kathleen. The night is young.”

“You’re being fresh.” She playfully slaps me with a dishrag last laundered during the Eisenhower administration. “Charming. Good-looking as hell. But fresh.”

On the stool to my right, Frankie Boy, who is closer to eighty, wears a tweed flat cap. Thick tufts of hair jut out of his ears like Troll dolls turned on their side. His nose couldn’t be more bulbous without cosmetic surgery. I have been to Malachy’s perhaps five times prior to tonight. Frankie Boy is always at this stool.

“Buy you a drink?” I say to him.

“Okay,” Frankie slurs, “but just for the record, I don’t think you’re that good-looking.”

“Sure, you do,” I say.

“Yeah, maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna have sex with you.”

I sigh. “Dreams die hard in here.”

He likes that.

As I said before, Malachy’s is a legit dive bar — poor lighting, stained (and I mean that in two ways) wood paneling, dead flies in the light fixtures, patrons so regular that it’s sometimes hard to see where the stool ends and their butts begin. A sign above the bar reads, LIFE IS GOOD. SO IS BEER. Wisdom. Regulars blend well with the newcomers, and pretty much anything goes but pretension. There are two televisions, one set up at either end of the bar. The New York Yankees are losing on one, the New York Rangers are losing on the other. No one in Malachy’s seems to be too invested in either.

The menu is standard pub fare. Frankie Boy insists I order the chicken wings. Out comes a plate of grease with a smattering of bone. I slide it to him. We chat. Frankie tells me that he is on his fourth wife.

“I love her so much,” Frankie Boy tells me.

“Congrats.”

“’Course, I loved the other three so much too. Still do.” A tear comes to his eye. “That’s my problem. I fall hard. Then I come in here to forget. Do you know what I’m saying?”

I don’t, but I tell him that I do. The song “True” by Spandau Ballet comes drifting out of the speakers. Frankie Boy starts singing along: “This is the sound of my soul, this is the sound...” He stops and turns to me. “You ever been married, Win?”

“No.”

“Smart. Wait. You gay?”

“No.”

“Not that I care. Be honest, I like a lot of the gays in here. Less competition for the ladies, you know what I’m saying?”

I ask him how long he’s been coming to Malachy’s.

“First time was January 12, 1966.”

“Specific,” I say.

“Biggest day of my life.”

“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious.

Frankie Boy holds up three stubby fingers. “Three reasons.”

“Go on.”

He drops the ring finger. “One, that’s the first day I found this place.”

“Makes sense.”

“Two” — Frankie Boy drops his middle finger — “I married my first wife, Esmeralda.”

“You went to Malachy’s for the first time on your wedding day?”

“I was getting married,” he says, emphasis on the “married.” “Who’d blame a man for needing a stiff drink or two beforehand?”

“Not I.”

“My Esmeralda was so beautiful. Big as a barn. She wore a bright yellow wedding dress. In our wedding pictures, I look like a tiny planet orbiting a giant sun. But beautiful.”

“And what’s Reason Three?” I ask.

“You may be too young, but did you ever see the TV show Batman?”

“Oh yes.” This, I think to myself, is kismet. Myron and I have watched every episode at least a million times. I nod. “Adam West, Burt Ward—”

“Exactly. The Riddler, the Penguin, oh, and don’t even get me started on Julie Newmar as the Catwoman. I would have ripped off Esmeralda’s right arm and slapped myself silly with it, just to sniff Julie Newmar’s hair. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“And nowadays, we have all these” — finger quotes — “‘method’ actors losing a hundred pounds or whatever to play the Joker, but back then? Cesar Romero didn’t even bother shaving his mustache. Just threw white makeup over it. That, my friend, was acting.”

I see no reason to disagree. “And Reason Three?”

He scoffed. “I thought you were a fan.”

“I am.”

“So what villain appeared in the very first episode?”

“The Riddler,” I say, “played by Frank Gorshin.”

“Correct answer — and when did it first air?” Frankie Boy smiles and nods. “January 12, 1966.”

I want to kiss this man.

“So to summarize,” I say, “on your wedding day, you went for drinks at Malachy’s, and then you watched Batman debut on TV.”

Frankie Boy nods solemnly and stares down at his drink. “Fifty years later, Malachy’s is still in my life. Fifty years later, I can still watch Batman on my old VCR.” Big shrug. “But Esmeralda? She’s long gone.”

We drink in silence for a moment. I need to get to the point of my visit, but I’m really enjoying this conversation. Eventually, I work my way to asking Frankie Boy whether he remembers a waitress or barmaid named Sheila or Shelly or something like that — I hope that perhaps Lake Davies slipped up and gave me the real name — and he scratches his head.

“Kathleen?” he shouts.

“What?”

“You remember a Sheila who worked here a long time ago?”

“Huh?” Kathleen is smiling, but I detect something awry in her body language. Perhaps it is the smile that suddenly seems forced. Perhaps it is the way her grip tightens on the beer tap. “Who wants to know?”

“Our good-looking friend Win here,” Frankie Boy says, slapping my back.

Kathleen heads back toward us. She has the dishrag over her shoulder. “Sheila what?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

She shakes her head. “Don’t remember a Sheila. How about you, Frankie?”

He shakes his head too, and jumps down from the stool. “Gotta take a massive wiz,” he tells us.

“With your prostate?” Kathleen counters.

“Let a man dream, will ya?”

Frankie Boy hobbles off. Kathleen turns back to me. She has the kind of expression that tells you she has seen it all at least twice. Google “world weary” and her photograph pops up.

“When would this Sheila have been here?”

“1975 or thereabouts,” I say.

“Seriously? That’s like, what, more than forty years ago.”

I wait.

“Anyway, I didn’t start working here until three years later. Summer of 1978.”

“I see,” I say. “Anyone still here from those days?”

“Let me think.” Kathleen glances up at the ceiling to make a show of thinking this over. “Old Moses in the kitchen would have been here, but he retired for Florida last year. Other than that, well, I’m the most senior employee, I guess.” With that subject dismissed, she points to my empty glass and says, “Get you another, hon?”

There is a time for the subtle. There is a time for the blunt. I confess that I am far better with the blunt. With that in mind, I ask: “So what about the famous fugitives who hid in the basement?”

Kathleen rears her head back and blinks. “Huh?”

“Have you ever heard of the Jane Street Six?”

“The what?”

“How about Ry Strauss?”

Her eyes narrow. “That name rings a bell, I think. But I don’t see—”

“Ry Strauss and his girlfriend Lake Davies were wanted for murder. They hid in Malachy’s basement in 1975.”

She doesn’t reply for a few moments. Then she says, “I’ve heard a lot of legends about this place, but that’s a new one.”

But her voice is softer now. Kathleen, I’ve observed, usually plays for the entire bar, even in one-on-one conversations, as though the bar is a stage and she wants as big an audience as possible for every encounter.

Now suddenly she wants an audience of only one.

“It’s the truth,” I say.

“How do you know?”

“Lake Davies told me.”

“One of the fugitives?”

“She was caught and served her time.”

“And she told you she hid in this bar?”

“In the basement, yes. She told me a kind barmaid named Sheila looked after them. She said the kind barmaid saved her.”

We stare at one another for a moment.

“Doubt it,” Kathleen says.

“Why?”

“Ever been in our basement? I don’t think anything outside the mold family could survive down there.”

She cackles again, but it is far less organic now. As if on cue, a burly man on the far end of the stools slaps his hand down on the bar and gleefully shouts, “Got it!”

Kathleen yells, “What, Fred?”

“A cockroach as big as one of those park pigeons.”

Kathleen smiles at me as if to say, See what I mean?

“I don’t think Lake Davies made it up,” I say.

Her reply starts with a shrug. “Well, if she’s like those other crazy radicals from back then, maybe she dropped too much acid and imagined it.”

“Funny,” I say.

“What?”

“I never mentioned that she was a radical.”

Kathleen smiles and leans a little closer. I get the cigarette smell again, though it’s not entirely unpleasant. “You said the Jane Something Six or whatever, and then I remembered they bombed something and killed people. Why you asking about that anyway?”

“Because Ry Strauss has never been caught.”

“And you’re looking for him?”

“I am.”

“Almost fifty years after the fact?”

“Yes,” I say. “Can you help?”

“Wish I could.” She is trying too hard to act disinterested. “Be good to see a killer like that get what’s coming to him.”

“You think so?”

“Damn straight. You a cop?”

I arch an eyebrow. “In this suit?”

She gives another tobacco-laced laugh as Frankie Boy hops back on his stool. “Fun talking to you,” Kathleen says. Then, tilting her head, she adds, “I got customers.”

She saunters away.

“Man,” Frankie Boy says, watching her with awe, “I could watch that caboose all day. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“You a private eye, Win?”

“No.”

“Like Sam Spade or Magnum, P.I.?”

“No.”

“But you’re cool like them, am I right?”

“As rain,” I agree, watching Kathleen work the tap. “As rain.”