WHEN CASSIDY AWOKE AT FOUR o’clock that afternoon, the inside of his mouth needed a shave and his bad leg was as stiff as W. C. Fields on Saturday night. He lay in bed for several minutes trying to sort out the dreams from the reality of what had happened at the shore. The dreams couldn’t compare. Then he hobbled into the bathroom, turned on the shower, brushed his teeth eight or nine times with the last of the Ipana, chugged a bottle of Listerine, and stood under the hottest water he could deal with. Pretty soon he sat down on the little three-legged wooden stool in the glass shower stall and coaxed himself back to life. Sen-Sen. He needed a mouthful of Sen-Sen more than anything in the world.
Marquardt Cookson’s half-exploded head loomed at him when he shut his eyes. He smelled the stench of the blackened, oil-soaked mound of blubber on the beach. Then Terry was toppling through space, his hat drifting away into the water, then Bennie was catching him …
Bennie hadn’t recognized the corpse. The two corpses. It was easy to forget the prettyboy, a kind of lady-in-waiting. Bennie had been far too busy grabbing Terry to register the identity of the fat man. But Terry had gotten a good look at poor sweaty old Markie and had fainted dead away. He’d come to while Bennie was carrying him away from the bodies. He’d insisted he could walk, so Bennie had put him down gently as if he might shatter. Terry wobbled a bit, then pulled himself together and grinned at Cassidy, running a finger along his moustache as if it might have fallen off while he was out. “One look at a stiff,” he said, “and old Leary passes out.” He shook his head. “I can’t afford that kind of talk.” He frowned. “Keep it to yourselves, gents.”
Cindy Squires was sitting on the Chrysler’s running board staring at her nails. It was better than looking at the parking lot which was splattered with dead gangsters. The Lincoln Continental was burning, a grace note Harry Madrid hadn’t been able to resist. A column of black smoke twisted away in the mist. Flames crackled, tongues of orange fire poking up through the frame of the rag top, like pictures coming back from the desert war in North Africa.
Nobody had much to say on the ride back to the city. They were all sealed in their own little compartments of shock and weariness, but Cassidy was thinking too hard to grab a nap. There were too many angles to pull together but what struck him as important was the certainty that recognizing Markie’s face was what had caused Terry to faint. Had it been just the surprise coupled with his general physical weakness? Looking at dead merchant seamen, you didn’t expect to see your everyday dead aesthete. Maybe it was because you didn’t expect to see a friend.
Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the envelope on the bar, all that money … Markie wouldn’t be paying the piper anymore.
The connection between the two men had always puzzled Cassidy but the envelope on the bar looked like a lot of explanation. Markie, however, still remained an enigma. What had he and his boyfriend done to get washed up with the sailors?
And what had Harry Madrid been doing out there, anyway?
And if Max Bauman wasn’t really sick, then he and Rocco must have gotten together somewhere else … and the trip to the shore had been an elaborate piece of misdirection. Which made him wonder if anybody had known what the hell was going on last night … Maybe everybody had been bitten in the ass by the unexpected. Hell, maybe Max had staged the rub-out. But no. Harry Madrid didn’t do Max’s killing for him …
Finally he figured he was as clean as he was going to get. He dried off, primped for a while, gave that up as too little too late, got dressed, and ventured out of his room, wondering what was coming next and knowing it would grab him by surprise.
Terry had already gone out. Cassidy made fresh coffee and sat in the breakfast nook staring at the attaché case he’d kept in his room while he’d slept. A battered leather case, scuffed and scraped, with brass fittings. A single lock. He sighed, gave in to curiosity, and got a screwdriver from the catchall drawer in the kitchen. He stuck the business end in under the hinged brass flaps and pried until it popped open.
He looked at the contents, paced around the kitchen, and turned on the portable radio next to the breadbox on the counter. He went back to the case and stared.
There was no point in counting it. Stacks of twenties, crisp and new, looking like the ink was still wet. Twenty, twenty-five stacks in paper wrappers, forty or fifty of them to a bundle. Maybe $25,000. Snappy as Dick’s hatband, as the old codgers used to say.
Somebody down in Florida had a printing press.
From the looks of it, Rocco was doing a nice business in twenties. And Cassidy had walked away with the sample case. Was Max Bauman in the market for twenties?
He closed the case and took it back to his room. One more loose end.
When Terry got back, his dark blond hair was freshly trimmed, slicked straight back, and his thin moustache had survived another trip to the Terminal Barber Shop. His pallor had also had a sun treatment. Cassidy came into the kitchen and saw him sitting in the breakfast nook smoking a cigarette, looking out the window into the air shaft. Cassidy poured himself coffee and slid in across the table from him.
“Got any answers, sport?”
Terry looked up. “How the hell should I know? It’s all Greek to me.”
“Has it occurred to you that neither Markie nor his chum was a member of our Merchant Marine?”
“It’s a dumping ground out there, Lew,” he said impatiently. “People who kill people take the stiffs out there and drop ’em off. Sometimes they get a cement necktie, sometimes they just let ’em wash up on the shore. That’s if they want to send a message to somebody.”
“But why take the bodies out there?”
“Lew, Lew, what is this, a test? Maybe they saw it in the movies. Maybe it’s a grand old tradition. A union rule. I never asked. They just do it. Thing is, if this is a message, it’s going to take awhile to get it delivered. It’s all pretty confusing out there, all those bodies.” He unplugged the percolator and filled his cup again. He started ladling sugar into the cup.
“What kind of message?”
Terry shook his head. “That’s what I’m thinking about. Who’s supposed to get scared when word gets out? Or when Markie doesn’t show up for his regular whipping?”
“What kind of enemies would he have?”
“Guys like Markie could have dozens. Fairies fight all the time. Jealous little pricks.” He was thinking aloud.
“You going to report it?”
He looked at Cassidy from the corner of his eye. “Oh, I don’t think so. They got their hands full without worrying about the Jersey shore. Let’s just wait and see what happens.” He inspected his nails, bit at one. He never did things like that. He was strictly a weekly manicure man. “Listen, Lew. Let me be frank. I’m getting one helluva message. Me. Personally. Maybe the message was for old Terry …”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t ask me to explain. Just listen. If it was meant for me, I sure wasn’t supposed to get it so soon. Just dumb luck I was there. But it means I’ve got an edge. And that’s all I need.” His eyes were shining, almost bubbling with excitement. It was his element and he was in it up to his ears. It seemed as if he knew the message was for him and now the abyss of danger beckoned irresistibly and he was feeling alive again.
“Why kill Markie to send you a message? I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it, Lew. Just take my word for it.” He looked across the steaming coffee. “I can handle this, I can beat this game, any game in town. All I need to lock it up is a little edge. No contest. They’re coming after me now, Lew, I know it … you ever have a feeling? You know something? Somebody’s out there breathin’ hard, watching me … Well, now it’s starting … I’d like your help, sport.”
Cassidy shifted, poured coffee so he wouldn’t have to look at Terry and show the confusion he felt. Dewey, Luciano, Madrid, they wanted his help. Cindy Squires wanted his help. Now Terry. And Terry had the oldest claim, the strongest. It was like the old days. But helping Terry wasn’t as simple as it once had been. There were too damn many angles.
Terry kept talking. “There’s something I gotta do. Tonight.” He batted his eyes at Cassidy. “I’d like a backup man. Somebody to ride shotgun.”
“So what’s the deal?”
“Come on, Lew. Friends don’t ask. They just start bailing.”
“Sure, Terry. Don’t worry. I’m your man.”
“Tonight we ride, amigo.”
It was raining again by nightfall. The Yankees had managed to squeeze their game in during the afternoon. They’d beaten Connie Mack’s Athletics, 11–2, and Cassidy had been looking forward to going out to the stadium the next day but the radio had said New York was in for several days of rain and cold. Well, it was a long season and he was reading War and Peace, which couldn’t get rained out. He was enjoying General Kutuzov immensely, making all the connections between Hitler and Napoleon that were on everybody’s minds in those days. He felt as if he’d once played for Kutuzov himself and the old bastard had never heard of the forward pass. Coach Kutuzov had believed you let the enemy keep coming at you in little chunks of yardage because it was a very long field and sooner or later they’d fumble the damn ball. Reading the novel, then reading the daily papers, you got the feeling it was all happening again in Russia.
Twenty-four hours before, they’d all been on the way to the Jersey shore and the impending fireworks and Cindy Squires had told him about the rainbows of the Normandie and now everything had changed. Cassidy felt as if someone had been tinkering with all the dials and he was hearing a bunch of stations he hadn’t known were there. He kept hearing Cindy Squires’s self-hatred, going on about how she was a whore and wanted to make a business deal with him and had to get away from Max … and he heard himself telling her he’d fallen in love with her … and now he wondered what the hell had been going on out there. And Harry Madrid with a Thompson sub wasting a battalion of Rocco’s foot soldiers … and the fat body sprawled on the sand … Too much had happened. He was having trouble getting it all straight. And there was a bag full of counterfeit twenties and where were the gasoline rationing stamps Dewey’d been so hot about? And what had Cindy Squires done to warrant so much of her own hatred? And what had she really offered him? Was she serious, would she remember? Did he love her, for God’s sake?
Then Terry said it was time to go.
At the first drop of rain all the cabbies had remembered pressing engagements elsewhere so it took forever to flag one down. He was headed home to Brooklyn and consented to drop them on First Avenue at 51st rather than turning up into Sutton Place. Cassidy swung his bad leg out, stood in the rain, and tipped him a dime.
It was raining hard. Rivers gurgled in the gutters. The traffic lights reflected in the wet streets. Very pretty. They crossed the street, collars of their macs turned up, hat brims low, and headed into Sutton Place where the door knockers were polished lion’s heads and the old money lived happily ever after.
The late Marquardt Cookson had lived on the east side of the street. The building exemplified the High Moroccan period which hadn’t lasted long but had left its mark all over the East Side. There were three arched entryways with thick oak doors crisscrossed with black iron straps, carved confessional windows like the old speakeasies, and wrought-iron hinges not much larger than Aunt Fanny’s picnic hams. Terry picked the lock.
The lobby was dim and quiet, resting. Wrought-iron sconces on the swirled stucco walls held electric bulbs that flickered like torches. Heavy beams overhead made you want to stoop when you didn’t have to. Moorish designs winked like harem girls from the designs on the walls. Long mirrors shot through with veins of gold looked like a bad accident at Tiffany’s. In just a minute the Sheik of Araby was going to flounce out from behind a potted palm and start having a go with his assegai. There were some chest-high pots at the end of the hallway by the elevator cages. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves maybe? Terry dropped his cigar into one of the pots. Cassidy waited for the scream but the elevator came first.
Markie Cookson had enjoyed his money. Aside from the fact that he probably had to be greased down to get in and out of the elevator, he had his own elegant little fiefdom looking down on the East River. The rooms weren’t big but there were a lot of them. And a balcony with the tugs and harbor patrol boats cruising along like toys far below. Queens and Brooklyn and the bridges were speckled with only a handful of lights. They’d never been so dark before. There was a war on.
Terry put on gloves. He went to a desk that would have just fit in Delaware and began going through the drawers. Cassidy watched, wondering what he was looking for. He was beginning to prefer it that way. He wasn’t sure how many laws they’d broken already but he figured they were nowhere near done.
The main room was fitted out with chairs like thrones, heavy beams with wrought-iron chandeliers at just the right height to bean you if you weren’t paying attention. Real candles. There was a pair of very large paintings devoted to devils and goblins crawling out of people’s heads and mouths, like the crab emerging from the hole in the middle of Markie’s dead face. Gilt frames. The fireplace could have housed a family of four. A big black statue of an Egyptian cat goddess. Cassidy recognized her from a Boris Karloff movie.
While Terry rummaged through Markie’s papers, Cassidy headed down the dark hallway and switched on a light in the bedroom. Immediately he wished he hadn’t. A huge round bed encircled by a heavy beaded curtain squatted in the center of the room. The requisite round mirror hung from heavy chains over the bed. What it had seen didn’t bear much contemplation. An immense photograph of the bullet-domed master of the occult, Aleister Crowley, dominated one wall. There was a kind of altar in front of it. Goblets, candelabra, a variety of doodads, all looking sort of tacky and sad. An old-fashioned movie camera on a tripod was trained on the bed. Cassidy prayed he’d never have to sit through that double feature.
There were some African tribal statues with very large dicks. Markie had puckishly draped several Sulka ties over the mammoth erections. Also a pair of handcuffs among the silks. The lighting was all blue and dim and indirect. There were fat jars of Vaseline and various other lubricants and unguents on a nightstand. On one shelf someone had left a plate with the crusted remains of a liverwurst sandwich, some gherkins, a crumpled napkin, used toothpicks. Whatever you did, you had to eat.
Painted on the floor, with the circular bed at its center, with the points stretching away into the corners of the room, was a huge pentangle.
Cassidy was backing out of the room when he saw something else. He felt the hair on his arms sitting up and yelling for help.
There was something funny smeared all over one wall. He went closer. There were pieces of stuff stuck to the wall. And it was sort of hairy. It had dripped down the wall in a few places.
He went back down the hallway. He smelled something sweetish and sickening. Maybe it was old incense clinging to the walls. Markie was just the type.
Then he smelled dope.
Terry was sitting behind the desk dragging on a reefer. He pushed a cigarette box with a top of inlaid pearl dragons cavorting in a devil-may-care fashion at Cassidy. “Markie’s private supply. Not bad stuff.”
“Let’s get on with this—”
“Keep your shirt on. You look funny—”
“I think I just found the rest of Markie’s head.”
Terry sat straight up. “What?”
“It’s stuck to the bedroom wall.”
“For chrissakes!” He got out from behind the desk and went down the hall. Cassidy picked out a throne and sat. In a while Terry came back, nodding. “That’s what you found all right, amigo. They killed him here. But dumped him way the hell and gone out there.” He looked at the trees on the balcony swaying in the wind. “I think maybe Markie wasn’t supposed to be found at all. Same message gets sent but there’s no body, no evidence, no slugs. Except for this one.” He flipped Cassidy a mangled nub of lead. “Dug it out of the wall.”
“Somebody had a sandwich while they worked him over,” Cassidy said. “Jesus. Did you find what you’re after?”
“No such luck. But he had something I need. Got to get it, amigo.”
He went through the rest of the apartment. Cassidy sat in the living room leafing through Markie’s prized copy of the Necronomicon. The sweetish smell wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t the reefer. It was something else. He paced the room looking at the renderings of devils and goblins. The only sound was the tapping of his cane.
Who killed Markie?
What did Markie have that Terry needed?
And what was that goddamned smell?
“Okay, Lew, let’s get out of here. Only one other place to look. Come on.”
“What is it, Terry? What are you looking for?”
Terry just smiled.
The hand-lettered sign said Pendragon: Rare Books, First Editions, & Incunabula. The shop nestled between a couple of very tony art galleries on East 57th in a sliver of freshly tuck-pointed red brick four stories high. It was Marquardt Cookson’s place of business. Terry used a key to get in. Closing the door behind him he said, “The money’s in the incunabula, if you know what I mean.”
The light from the street filtered through the rain-streaked windows, cast jittery shadows. Tables were neatly arranged with piles of books. Gilt edges, morocco bindings. The walls were lined with dark wooden shelves and there were Tiffany lamps on low tables. A bronze bust of Dante was catching some shut-eye on a fluted pedestal. There was a gold-tooled escritoire at the back for the rude business of commerce. Framed Aubrey Beardsley prints. Bright clouds of flowers in large vases and copper pots.
Terry pulled the chain on one of the Tiffany lamps, sat down at the escritoire, began shuffling through the contents of the drawers. There wasn’t much. A petty-cash drawer, bundles of receipts, book orders, bills, catalogs. He looked up, frowning. “Upstairs. He keeps all the serious stuff on the second floor. For his special clients and friends.”
He turned off the lamp and they went up the narrow dark wooden stairway, found themselves in the second of the two rooms over the main shop. The larger room overlooking the street was shadowy and dim and the rain beat on the mullioned windows. The smaller room contained another desk, this one a plain schoolteacher’s number for use not show, two filing cabinets, a drinks table, a couple of cracked-leather armchairs. One of them was dribbling horsehair stuffing.
It didn’t take long. What he wanted was in the lower drawer. The first item was a leather-bound volume with the words Cash Ledger stamped on its cover. The other was a desk diary. He leafed through the diary nodding to himself, whistling occasionally under his breath. He put it aside and opened the cash book, ran his fingers down a few pages while he moved his lips. Cassidy picked up a book from the stack on the floor at his feet. Photographs of men having sex with adolescent boys, girls, and the odd collie. One picture was much like another. On the whole, Markie may have gotten more or less what he deserved. He put it down and wanted to get the hell out of there.
The old floorboards were creaking, the kind of sound you don’t pay much attention to in such buildings. Terry closed the books. “Well, it’s all here, Lew. Meticulous record keeper, our Markie.” He spoke affectionately.
Cassidy knew what was in the ledger and diary by then. A record of the payoffs. Markie Cookson with a cop on his team. Terry’s manner of living was a mystery no more. When you had Max Bauman and Markie Cookson donating to the cause, you were the only Park Avenue homicide dick in town.
There was the sound of a footfall in the darkened front room, and in the instant, Cassidy put it together—what he’d noticed at the Sutton Place residence.
A sweet, sickish smell. A plate full of gnawed toothpicks.
Harry Madrid’s cherry-scented tobacco and …
Bert Reagan was standing in the doorway with a toothpick in the corner of his flat miser’s mouth and a Smith & Wesson Police Positive in his hand. His wet trench coat looked like he’d picked it out of a trash can and he was dripping, standing in a puddle. His wet Dobbs snap-brim was straight on his bony forehead and he needed a shave. His brown wing tips still bore caked sand, a souvenir of the Jersey Shore.
“Where’s your keeper, Bert?” Cassidy said. “Lost in a good book?”
Reagan didn’t take his eyes off Terry when he spoke. “Stay the fuck out of this, cowboy. You’re not part of this. But you,” he said, shaking the gun barrel at Terry like a teacher’s admonishing finger, “you’re something else again.”
“Shop’s not open, Bert,” Terry said, leaning back in the squeaky swivel chair. “Come back tomorrow.” He smiled. “Hell, Markie’ll give you credit. You don’t need the heater.”
“Funny,” Reagan said. He wasn’t laughing and he didn’t look happy. “What are you doin’ here? How did you know …” He caught himself and the toothpick hotfooted it from one side of his mouth to the other.
“How did I know what? That you and Harry iced Markie Cookson over on Sutton Place yesterday?”
The color drained away leaving two pink spots on Reagan’s face, as if he’d scraped his cheekbones. The toothpick made it halfway back and his Adam’s apple bobbed like something going down for the third time.
Terry began to laugh. “Honest to God, you and Harry, the Keystone Kops. You oughtta be in pitchas!” He wiped his eyes. “What are you doing here, Bert, old pal?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about Cookson. Fat hophead, whatever happened to him wouldn’t surprise me—”
“A fine moral tone,” Cassidy said. He was beginning to worry about Reagan growing too talkative. About Tom Dewey and Lucky Luciano and Lew Cassidy looking like a snitch. The atmosphere in the tight little office didn’t seem to be right for explanations.
“I’m warning you, Cassidy—”
“Bert, give it a rest. You sound like a George Raft movie. Where’s Harry?”
“Harry asked me to come by, check a coupla things—”
“Like these?” Terry nodded at the two volumes on the desk.
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Reagan said sourly.
“I hear you and Harry been out to the shore, Bert. Shooting up some of Rocco’s boys. Was that smart?”
Reagan scowled. He was a man who didn’t know his lines, not any of them. He was on one page, the whole damn team on another.
“Bert doesn’t have much to say, amigo. Maybe you should shove off, whattaya say, Bert?”
“I think I better take you guys to see Harry. Yeah, let’s all shove off. This is Harry’s game. You shouldn’t of been here, you guys …”
“Where is Harry?”
“Oh, he’s in his—what’s he call it—his operations room, that’s it. He’s playing with the big boys now. Hotel room, down at the Danbury in Times Square there—”
“Operations room? Beautiful—he’s got a little game on his own. Everybody’s got an angle—”
“He’s gonna nail you, Leary!” Reagan’s temper snapped. He bit through the toothpick. “He’s gonna have your balls. You can kiss it all goody-bye, Park Avenue, the broads, he’s gonna bury you—”
“Bert, you’re nothing but a dumb errand boy. Fuck you. You’re too goddamn pitiful to deal with.” Terry stood up. “I oughtta make you use your piece … would you like that? Think you’ve got the guts? Are you fast enough to squeeze one off ’fore I got you?”
Reagan decided not to wait.
The gun cracked like a bullwhip and the slug burrowed into the desktop an inch or two from Terry’s hand. Terry didn’t move. Splinters sprayed across his sleeve. While the sound died away Terry worked at producing a smile. Cassidy contemplated hitting Reagan from the side, wondered how fast the cop’s reactions might be. Thought better of it.
“Real jumpy, Bert,” Terry said.
“You get under my skin, Terry, smart-mouthing me like that.”
“Well, you’ve had a long day. Killing Markie, staying up all night, probably getting seasick, hauling those bodies around in the dark, an amphibious landing in the fog, shooting up all those gunsels … you look like you could use forty winks.”
“After we go see Harry,” Reagan said.
“One-track mind,” Cassidy said.
“Harry’s not going to like this, Bert. I’ll have to tell him you spilled the beans about Markie—”
“You son of a bitch, I didn’t spill nothin’.”
“Well, maybe Harry’s feeling forgiving—don’t worry about it.”
“I ain’t the one who’s worried. Now up, both of you, we’ll go see Harry. Right now! Gimme your piece, Terry, or so help me God I’ll drill you where you stand.”
Terry handed the books to Cassidy, then slowly took his revolver from his shoulder holster, gave it butt-first to Reagan.
“Okay, gents,” Reagan said, “let’s go.”
Cassidy went down the stairs first, leaning on his stick. Terry followed, then Bert. Cassidy had to negotiate the descent in the dark with painstaking care.
“Move it, Lew,” Reagan said. “We ain’t got all night.”
Terry said, “Be nice, Bert.”
“Shut up!”
Halfway down the stairs where it was darkest, where you couldn’t see anything, Cassidy leaned to one side, steadied himself. “My leg,” he said. “It’s still weak …” He couldn’t see Terry but sensed him inches away.
“Come on, come on!” Reagan was all impatience.
Cassidy sucked in a deep breath and pitched the two books of Markie’s records back at Reagan. He couldn’t tell where they hit him but he heard a cry of surprise, heard Reagan lose his footing. There was a hell of a noise and a muzzle flash and plaster falling from above. Terry made a move. Reagan grunted again in the dark. Somebody moaned in pain. Both of them came crashing against Cassidy, one hurtled past, the other grabbed at the railing and it came out of the wall in his hand.
Cassidy sat down hard, bouncing on the edge of the steps. Pain exploded in his leg. Gritting his teeth he tried to straighten it out with both hands. The stick had rolled away.
Someone at the bottom of the steps was struggling to get up. There was a lot of heavy breathing going on.
There was another muzzle flash from above.
The shape jerked backward. There were three more shots. Cassidy squeezed his hands against his ears. The shape was driven to its knees, then hammered into the floor like a spike with each shot.
The noise kept blasting in Cassidy’s head. The smell of gunpowder filled the tight stairway. He was choking on it.
He tried to get down the stairs, had to get to him.
“Terry! For Christ’s sake, Terry!”
When he reached the body, he got his hands sticky with warm blood.
He looked back up the stairway where slow footsteps were coming toward him. He was yelling and he couldn’t see a damn thing. He was trying to stand up and the leg wouldn’t hold.
“You’d better kill me, too, you bastard!”
The footsteps stopped near the bottom of the steps.
Cassidy looked up at the void and waited for the slug.
“Now, why the hell would I do that, amigo?”
It was Terry.