The Caffe Reggio on MacDougal Street in the Village was in business a good twenty years before I was. Some said neither one of us had changed much since. And my porkpie fedora and trenchcoat were pretty much the same, even if personally I was considerably more weathered.
As for the Caffe Reggio, it still boasted the same sagging ceiling, elaborately framed paintings, old clocks on wall pedestals, dim lighting, folk music, and green walls as ever. Like the lines in my face, the cracks in those walls lent what they call character. Same was true of the ceiling fan that could have been a prop out of Casablanca, and was, or the espresso machine dating to the turn of the century that cost the original owner of the café a cool grand in 1927, back when that was real money.
Half of a wide, ornately carved wooden booth, with two small round marble-topped tables facing it, was where Velda and I and three young women with whom Senator Jamie Winters had enjoyed carnal relations were currently in conference. We fit in fine with the mix of aging hippies, over-the-hill bohemians, tourists, and grad-school wait staff.
Of the three young women seated across from us—Velda and I each had a little table to ourselves—I had previously met only Nora Kent, the “blonde” singer from Rose’s Turn who’d turned out really to have black, pixie-cut hair under her big frizzy wig. Right now she was wigless, in a blue-and-green plaid shirt and jeans (all three girls were in jeans) that went well with the Reggio’s earth tones.
Velda introduced me to the other two—Helen Wayne, who wore a loose dark-green sweater, her hair short and brown and permed; and Judy McGuire, in a jeans jacket over a black t-shirt, her hair long and brown and brushing her shoulders.
I had assigned Velda the task of rounding up the three women for this meeting, and had chosen this spot for a meet because the Village was where they lived and worked. By the time I got there—it was early evening now—all three of the senator’s former paramours were present, and so was Velda. The young women, seated in a row like that, were peas in a pod, short but not petite, curvy but not voluptuous, cute more than pretty, none wearing anything but the lightest make-up.
Velda had caught up with all of them by phone at their jobs— the singer at Rose’s Turn was also a waitress there—and told each it was vital to come see her, because the blackmail matter with the senator had really heated up.
She did not mention that two others like them would be present, too. Or, for that matter, that murders had been committed. Today.
Now they sat, each nursing espresso cups, eyeing each other nervously, sometimes exchanging twitchy little smiles, but not engaging in conversation. I had told Velda not to tell them what they had in common, but to let them figure it out. They had to know they were of a similar type.
The senator’s type.
“Let them squirm a little,” I’d told Velda.
And squirming they were, when I’d arrived and settled in my chair.
I nodded to them, said hello, ordered myself a coffee with cream and sugar, then thanked the women for accepting our invitation.
“I’m guessing,” I said, “you’ve figured out what you three have in common.”
Helen Wayne blushed. Judy McGuire frowned. And Nora Kent smirked. A sort of human female variation on see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil.
“Ladies,” I said quietly, “I don’t mean to alarm you, but another member of your society was a hit-and-run victim today. A fatality. Very likely a murder.”
All three looked at me now with identical wide-eyed expressions of alarm. It might have been comical, under other circumstances.
I continued: “Lisa Long, who until her demise a few hours ago was Senator Winters’ current secretary, now resides in the city morgue. And as you’ve no doubt surmised, the Long woman was having an affair with the senator. The blackmailer has a recording of them together. Doing what, I believe, can be left to your imagination.”
The alarm was gone and various shades of shame, irritation, and regret passed across the similarly cute faces as I continued.
“Two of the parties involved in the blackmail scheme,” I said, “were murdered today in Brooklyn.”
Alarm returned and, as I spoke, evolved into fear. Not one of the women had as yet asked a question or made a remark.
I said, “Erin Dunn was on the nighttime cleaning staff at the Flatiron Building and is the source of the tape recording. Her live-in boyfriend, Anthony Licata, was part of the scheme. Both were shot and killed in Dunn’s apartment late this morning.”
That froze them.
Then Judy McGuire became the first to speak up. “This hit-and-run… it’s not a coincidence, is it?”
“Not very damn likely,” I said. “Judging by the eyewitness accounts, the car was aimed at her like a bullet. A big car going very fast. That makes three murders in one day.”
“What’s going on?” Helen Wayne asked, her voice quavering. Her eyes looked wet.
Nora Kent said, in a flip way that sounded a little forced, “Sounds like a blackmailer whose plans went blooie is cleaning up after himself. Is that how you see it, Mr. Hammer?”
I nodded. “I believe I know who’s doing this, or I should say who is paying to have it done. The Brooklyn murders and the vehicular homicide occurred too close together to’ve been the work of one individual. Besides which, a man around my size was responsible for the Dunn and Licata killings, while the driver of the hit-and-run car was a teenage kid.”
Frowning somewhat suspiciously, Judy asked, “How do you know a man your size killed those people in Brooklyn?”
“I saw him,” I said. I pushed back my hat and pointed to the purple splotch alongside my skull. “He gave me this.”
Now the women were exchanging glances, suddenly realizing they were, as I’d put it, part of the same society.
Very business-like, Velda said, “We would like each of you to pack a bag with enough clothes and personal items to last you a few days. We’d like you to call in sick to work. We want to keep you under our protection until this business is cleared up.”
Again, the young women exchanged glances, thrown by this suggestion, even confused.
Frowning, Nora said, “For how long? Couldn’t an investigation of something like this take months?”
“I move faster than the police,” I said. “And with a whole lot less red tape. Since I already have an idea who’s responsible, this could just mean a single night out of your lives. If you don’t cooperate, however, you might not have any nights left. Or days.”
Nora again: “I don’t see why we’re in any danger. None of us is currently involved with Jamie, are we?”
The other two shook their heads.
Nora picked back up: “And—to our knowledge anyway— there’s nothing like that tape you mentioned to tie any of us to Jamie in that way.” She looked at the other two. “Is there?”
Again, they shook their heads.
Velda said, “You need to consider the possibility that the senator himself, or his wife, or both of them are responsible. If that’s the case, you’re all very much on the firing line.”
Nora was frowning. “I thought you were working for the senator and his wife.”
“I am,” I said. “But if my clients are lying to me, and using me as a stalking horse to clean house… let’s just say I won’t take it kindly.”
“Also,” Velda said, “remember that a political figure like the senator has many backers who might take it upon themselves to, as Mike puts it, ‘clean house’ for their candidate. These are powerful people Mike and I have never even met, let alone know!”
“Which could mean a very long investigation,” Nora said.
“Look,” I said. “Ladies… things may settle down soon, and as I say, I think I know who the responsible party likely is. And I’ll deal with that individual tonight. So, like I said, what we’re talking about here might mean one night away from your lives. But we… for now, for right now… need to get you out of harm’s way. Four murders were committed today. So this is no time to be taking chances.”
The three women exchanged unhappy looks.
Velda said, “We have a safe house arranged.”
Frowning, Helen asked, “What’s a safe house?”
I said, “A secure location, to hide witnesses or other people under threat of violence. We work with a security firm that keeps half a dozen such places available at all times. We’ve already arranged one.”
Velda said, “We can’t force this on you. But we urge you to cooperate with us.”
I said, “Either Ms. Sterling here or I or both of us will be with you at the safe house at all times. Velda is a licensed private investigator and ex-policewoman. She will be armed and ready. I’ve been a licensed private investigator since before you were born, and I’m an ex-cop myself. So. What say?”
With a little hesitation, and glancing at each other like they were old friends by now, each in turn either nodded or said “yes” out loud.
“Good,” I said. “Now, my car is parked nearby. We’ll go as a group. I will take each of you to your own apartment, where Velda will go up with you. I’ll stay down on the street with the other two. You’ll pack a bag quickly. Call work and leave word, and then we’ll move on to the next girl’s apartment. Within an hour and a half or so, we should have all of you snugly installed at the safe house.”
And that’s what we did.
It went smoothly. The safe house was a five-room furnished apartment over a pizza parlor on a cross street near the Garment District. I parked illegally and went up alone to check the place out, finding it empty and clean and ready for us, thanks to the security service. Velda and the three women and their overnight bags went through the door by the pizza place and on up the stairs. I watched the lights go on. After perhaps two minutes, a shade raised and Velda was framed in the window giving me a smile and a thumbs up.
I left the black Ford in a parking ramp a block down, then walked back to the pizza parlor, where I ordered a couple of large pies, making one of them a veggie, since a lot of young women were vegetarians these days. I got one with pepperoni and sausage for Velda and me. I paid and told the clerk I’d be back for them.
Upstairs, each girl had a bedroom to herself in the nondescript but pleasant apartment, quarters that compared favorably to a decent motel. No phones. Radios in each room. The bedrooms fed a living room with a sleeper sofa and a TV, where Velda and I would camp out. The kitchen was small but serviceable. With the girls getting settled in, in their respective quarters, I sat on the sofa next to Velda.
“The Security Services boys did good,” I said.
Velda nodded. “Even the sheets are clean. Fridge is full, too. Milk’s nice and fresh. Even some Miller Lite for you.”
She put a hand on my arm, glancing toward the bedroom doors, all of which were shut at the moment, as our tenants made themselves at home. “Mike—did it ever occur to you that you may have let a fox in the henhouse?”
I shrugged. “I think all these little hens are pretty foxy.”
Velda elbowed me. “You know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean. What if one of our pretty little gals was in on the extortion scheme? Or even behind it? A jealous former lover turned bitter blackmailer? That’s why you have to stay alert here at this sorority. You’re the house mother, after all.”
She was frowning. “What if you really are a stalking horse in this thing, Mike? We may have handed two of these three over to a murderer.”
Nodding, I said, “Maybe I should search those girls. Yeah, I think a strip search is in order.”
She grinned at me and put a fist under my chin. “You think you’re pretty cute, don’t you?”
I kissed her fist. “No. I just think I know who’s behind this thing, and baby, it makes me sick. Sick to my stomach.”
Her features grew serious. Damn near grave. “You think our ex-governor is the man behind the curtain, don’t you?”
I nodded. “And I hate the thought. He wasn’t strictly my political flavor, but I always took him for honest—for a politician anyway. My idea of a rare straight-shooter in that racket.”
She sighed and shrugged elaborately. “Hughes had to swim in New York waters, Mike, to get where he got. And you know what kind of waters those are. Full of empty bottles and used condoms and bloated bodies and…”
“You do have a rare line of sweet talk, my love,” I said. “But you’re right about those waters. Our ex-governor had union backing, going way back, which includes some mobbed-up boys. Our ex-guv could easily have reached out for a hitman or two, untraceable to himself.”
“So that’s where you’re off to, then? To confront the governor?”
“You bet. To the top of the Waldorf. Not their famous Starlight Roof, but an upper floor, all right.”
Her dark eyes were zeroed in on me. “But I don’t see you trying one of your tricky plays with the likes of him. Harrison Hughes is not going to pull a ‘rod’ on Mike Hammer and get himself shot in self-defense. And even at his age, Hughes is a tough old bird, ex-army colonel that he is. You won’t slap him around into a confession, like the good old days.”
I nodded. “No, but I can make it clear that the game is up. That all my resources and those of my friends at the NYPD are going to be lined up against him. And that if one hair gets harmed on the pretty heads in those bedrooms nearby, he will be exposed for the monster he is. That he’s become.”
“You seem sure of it.”
I shook my head. “No. But I can see it. I can see it. In a way, I hope to God he can show me the error of my thinking, and that his explanation isn’t wrapped up in a bribe or a threat. That I am wrong about him. That he is the good man I always took him to be.”
Before I left, I went down and got the pizzas. Soon we were sitting at a table in the little kitchen, one big happy family. The girls were smiling and getting along, and Velda was interacting with them just fine. Like I said, the house mother. And only one of the girls—Helen—was a vegetarian.
Velda dug into the meaty pizza, but I only put away a single slice.
I’d kind of lost my appetite.
* * *
A cab dropped me at the Waldorf Astoria, the celebrated and luxurious hotel between 49th and 50th Streets and Park and Lexington Avenues. I’d told Velda where the Ford was parked in the ramp near the safe house and left her the keys, should she need to move our charges or something else unexpected came up.
The Waldorf’s mosaic-floored lobby was a mile long, furnished in eighteenth-century English and Early American, and rivaled any cemetery in marble, bronze and stone, and most museums in paintings by famed artists. The hotel’s top eighteen stories, of fifty, were twin towers with their own elevator bank. The thirty-fifth floor was where ex-Governor Hughes’ residential suite could be found, just down from the Presidential Suite where President Bush and his wife Barbara stayed on Manhattan visits.
The president wasn’t on this floor right now, but a uniformed cop was stationed outside the Hughes suite, hands clasped behind him. I didn’t figure this was standard security for the ex-governor. Hadn’t been this morning.
I approached the uniform, who I didn’t recognize—he was a pale young guy with rosy cheeks—and said, “Is there a problem here, officer?”
He raised a palm, like he was working traffic. “This is a crime scene. You’ll need to move along, sir.”
“What kind of crime scene?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
I got out the leather fold and showed him the badge and my P.I. ticket. “Son, I’m an officer of the court and Governor Hughes is a client. Who’s in charge here?”
The door opened and Pat Chambers filled the space. He didn’t even seem surprised to see me. You might even call that thing on his face a smile.
“Thank you, Doherty,” he told the young uniformed man. “Mr. Hammer is a friend of mine…. Mike, would you step in here please?”
Within seconds we were sitting on opposing two-seater leather couches facing each other over a low-slung glass coffee table next to the fireplace with its mantel of awards and framed photos of the governor and his family and with a few celebrities. From down at the end of the room, where the double doors onto the dining room stood open, the scurry of technicians and photographers, their flashes strobing, could be heard, but didn’t quite tell the story.
But they sure as hell hinted at it.
I said, “Governor Hughes?”
Pat nodded, an ankle resting on a knee, his folded hands on his stomach like Judge Hardy getting ready to give son Andy the facts of life.
With that barely-a-line of a smile riding his lips, he said, “You want to tell me about how the governor fits in with what you’ve been up to?”
“Is he in the other room?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you a look when things settle down. The boys have some work to do.”
“Murdered?”
“Apparent suicide.”
I thought about that. Shook my head. “No way. Not the kind.”
“According to his suicide note, he is.”
“Handwritten?”
“Typed.”
“Signed?”
He nodded again. “With a scrawl that could be his signature. We’ll see what the handwriting expert says about it.” The smile grew a little. “Tell me about you and the governor, Mike. You’re not quite old enough to retire yet. You might still like to hang onto that license of yours.”
I flipped a hand. “Velda has a license. All you need in a little agency like ours is one.”
“Tell me, Mike.” The same words but with a lot more edge.
So I told him.
Told him how our esteemed ex-governor, against his best instincts and better angels, had stooped to blackmail when he got access to information that could sink the presidential hopes of Senator Jamie Winters. I did not say that the “information” was a tape, but a detective with much lesser skills than those of Captain Patrick Chambers could figure the dead cleaning woman and her live-in boyfriend had got something on the senator in that office she regularly cleaned.
“The senator is your client,” he said.
“The governor was my client, too.”
“Well, aren’t you getting political in your old age. Sounds like a conflict of interest to me.”
“It’s complicated.”
He gave me a scowl the likes of which I’d rarely seen from him. “Do you really think you can hide behind that client confidentiality crap on a murder case?”
“I thought it was a suicide.”
He talked through his teeth. “Those three dead in Brooklyn didn’t kill themselves.”
I smiled with mine. “That isn’t your case, is it? Don’t you work Manhattan?”
He closed his eyes. He left them that way for what seemed like a long time, but was probably fifteen seconds at most. The techs and photogs talking and moving around in the dining room provided background noise. Finally he opened his eyes.
I said, “Aren’t those short naps refreshing.”
He said, “We believe the Long woman was murdered.”
“You’re getting good at this, Pat. Live to be a hundred and you’ll make inspector. You can skip the ‘and-run’ and make it just ‘hit.’”
“You see hit men in this.”
“I did. Not so sure now.”
The eyes closed again, but reopened in a few seconds. “Let’s hear it.”
And I told my long-suffering friend that I had strongly suspected the governor of hiring contract kills on the Brooklyn duo and Lisa Long as well. Such a thing seemed out of character for a man of Harrison Hughes’ long public service, and of course he’d been a brave soldier who rose to colonel. But so was blackmail, and he’d gone there, hadn’t he?
“So, figuring in his possible mob ties,” I said, wrapping up, “with the union backing he got over the years, I figured he was the most likely mastermind here. Cleaning up after himself.”
“Now you’re not so sure, suicide note or not.”
“Now I’m not so sure, yeah.”
Pat had a single eyebrow up. “What about your other clients?”
“I’m mulling that.”
The captain of Homicide’s irritation with me had faded. He got up, gave me a look and a raised finger—not a middle one, either—to tell me to stay put. I obeyed while he walked over and entered the dining room.
A few minutes later the photographers were dispatched by Pat to take shots of the other rooms in the suite, and I heard him send the three techs along as well, to dust the rest of the rooms and their contents for prints.
Then he stepped out from the dining room, curled his finger at me. I got up and followed him into the supposed suicide scene.
The governor, in yellow pajamas and brown slippers, was seated at the dining room table where earlier today he had taken his breakfast. He was slumped over a portable typewriter, head thrust to his right, with a scorched bullet hole in his left temple, flesh stippled with gunpowder. The weapon that killed him had been held close.
That apparent weapon, a nine millimeter Browning, was on the floor with the fingers of the hand at the end of his left arm all but pointing to it. On the wall, on the other side of where he was sitting, was a splash-like bloodstain. On the floor, where they had slid, were chunks of gore in a puddle of grue.
Otherwise the room—the high-end, possibly antique furniture like the china cabinet—were as they’d been this morning.
On the table near his right hand—that arm was flung there— was a typewritten sheet. It said:
“To my friends, colleagues and children—
I have endeavored to be a good man and a responsible public servant. I served my country with distinction. But I have failed of late.
I attempted to bring a good man down. Extortion is a sin that I cannot live with.
Forgive me.”
Below was HJH, his initials, in ink—as Pat had reported it, a scrawl—apparently from a ballpoint pen nearby on the table.
I said, “Horseshit.”
“I didn’t like the smell, either,” he said. “What’s your take?”
I gave him some of it. “He would never say that he served ‘with distinction.’ You don’t brag in a fucking suicide note.”
“Not generally, no. What else?”
What I really didn’t like was the repetition of “good man,” but I didn’t say so.
“Was he left-handed?” I asked Pat.
“No. But a right-hander shooting himself with a gun in his left isn’t unknown. Somewhat suspicious is all.”
“Okay, but who dresses for bed,” I said, “and commits suicide? Maybe somebody taking pills, but nobody else. He was a dignified guy, proud. He would’ve dressed in a suit and tie like he was going somewhere special. Which he was.”
“Go on.”
I shrugged. “I never trust typewritten suicide notes. There’s a possibility the note had already been typed elsewhere, on the same brand of typewriter.”
“That sounds far-fetched, even for you.”
I knew what had really happened, but figured to keep it to myself. For now, sending Pat down the wrong path would let me get there first. I’d be helpful but not too helpful….
“The governor lived alone,” I said. “Somebody came to the door and he answered it. That somebody either was known to the governor, or just forced his way in. The killer could have held a gun on Hughes and then dictated the note. Made him type it.”
Pat thought out loud: “Or the note could have been typed after the kill. Just move the machine away from the corpse, type the thing, put the machine back and the note in place.”
“Sure.”
Wrong.
But I threw him a bone. “Do you really think a man this formal, this proud, would sign his initials to something so important? Hell no. He’d sign his full signature. To me, that alone makes those initials a forgery even before the expert chimes in.”
He was nodding slowly.
“And not address his children by name?” I said. “No, Pat, you were right the first time—it smells.”
“Of murder.”
“Of murder. Have the neighbors next door been talked to? And across the hall?”
He gestured in that general direction. “The whole floor’s been canvassed. Nobody saw or heard anything.”
“A nine-millimeter gunshot and nobody heard it?”
He shrugged. “These are high-end suites, Mike. Probably close to sound-proofed. I wouldn’t make anything out of that.”
He wouldn’t. I would.
“Seen enough?” he asked.
“More than,” I said.
We wandered back into the living room. Pat paused to holler in to the techs that they could have the dining room back any time they chose. He, too, had seen enough.
I was at the door but Pat was right there by me.
“What now, Mike?” he said.
“What do you mean? It’s your case.”
Now he grinned big. “Right! I forgot. So I don’t need to give you the speech about letting me and my people do our jobs.”
“Naw. Knock yourself out, Pat.”
Those gray-blue eyes bore into me suspiciously. “You walked in here thinking that fine gentleman in there took his own life, drowning in a sea of shame.”
“Poetic. But if he drowned in anything, it was his own blood. But me, I’m swimming in that shame sea, my friend. I allowed myself to be snookered into believing our ex-governor was the kind of man who would have others killed to save his own skin, his own reputation. I shouldn’t have bought it.”
I went out. Nodded to the young cop and headed for the elevator.
No, I shouldn’t have bought it.
But somebody was going to buy it tonight.