The Law Fought Me - Ch. 5

The paramedics carried two covered stretchers down the front steps of Fates & Bodily Criminal Defense Attorneys, and I stood there in a rage, wondering why I had to be there. Carbone motioned for them to pause, and peeled back the sheet for me.

Bodily’s face was contorted in pain, permanently. A chunk in the side of her head was pushed back into her hair, which had come unpinned and tousled at the top. Someone had closed her eyes. It made me wonder why I had bothered to call the police at all.

“No, I don’t know her. Or recognize her.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Carbone tossed the sheet over her face and walked to the other stretcher and threw it back. We stared at a pair of well-shined shoes.

“Wait,” I said. “Something’s familiar. Something about those wing tips is striking me.”

One of the paramedics laughed. Carbone flipped the other side with his lips turned inward. Fates looked less aggrieved, but still dead. “It’s Fates.” I turned on my heel and wandered to the curb, where I stood hands in pockets, watching the traffic go. Most of the cars slowed to check out the action under the streetlights. I made threatening faces at a few and they sped on. The medics were loading Bodily in the wagon. By the sound of rattling metal and grunts, they were loading Fates.

Carbone barked my name and I obeyed his violent wave from the doorway. When I followed him in, there was a cop standing by the elevators, and one around the corner where the stairs must be. Carbone took us up the stairs I had drunkenly run down when I feared the crime might tie to me. And here I was, returning to the same outer lobby area with the two black chairs, a cop sitting in one with a sandwich in his lap. The office looked different at night, with the lights on and all the accessories that come with a crime scene.

Carbone pushed inside, where Schok and O’Grady milled around collecting samples with gloved hands while a bald guy took pictures and another dusted the open private office door for prints. I was amazed they could all fit in there. “No weapons, Lieutenant,” called O’Grady, holding an evidence bag. Schok gazed at the papers scattered around the floor as the bald man took another photograph, then wandered out of doorframe. Me, I stood outside the office next to the cop with the sandwich, who looked a bit familiar.

“What were the causes of death?” Carbone asked. “Preliminary guesses.”

“The woman got a projectile bullet,” said Schok, “From the hole in the glass of the door she was leanin’ against. Man got skewered like a kabob. Right through the side of the abdomen into the chair.” He scratched his eyebrow. “Long knife.”

“We think it might have been Bianchi,” said O’Grady.

“No kidding?” said Schok, from the inner office.

Carbone advanced into the private office. “What was taken?”

Schok stepped over something into sight behind the desk. “All this is strictly confidential damning papers on everything but Bianchi. So far.”

“What was in the safe?”

“Dunno yet. Whatever was ain’t here, but it was worth killing over.”

“And you know what that means,” said O’Grady, squatting beside the poor guy dusting the lower door. “The Bemboooos.”

“Sounds like a bad case of the flu,” said Schok. He squinted at me, and his frown tightened. “Why’s the secretary here?”

“He knows the place,” Carbone said in an upbeat manner. He turned from the waist. “You know what Fates might have kept in the safe?”

“I never saw him open it.”

Carbone stepped over the puddle of blood in the doorway, looking at me full in the face even as O’Grady stumbled, getting out of his way. “Do you know where his secretary kept the appointment book?”

“I’ve never seen a secretary, but you might try that desk.”

“Never seen his secretary,” repeated O’Grady, plucking a purse from a waiting chair. “Identification says Janice Bodily. Lawyer, looks like.”

Carbone went behind the gate of the desk and thumbed through the papers under a wide desk lamp. He suddenly tensed. “Jerome Verazzo. The name he used to escape prison. Appointment at 4:30.” He hit the desk with his fist. “Damn! The name signed in with him in the hospital logbook was Brandon Fates.” His head snapped to me, and he said, “Without the ‘G’ it isn’t Italia–aaugh!” He grabbed the side of his neck, rubbing it.

O’Grady shuffled over, minding the blood splatter. “You okay Lieutenant?”

“Yeap. Sprain…” He glanced up at me. “You ever spell ‘Jerome’ with a ‘J’?”

“I never had to spell ‘Jerome.’ No.”

“Sounds Italian, though, doesn’t it?” I was wise not to answer. Carbone hung his head over the appointment book. “After Jerome Verrazzo there’s a line drawn at 5pm. Could mean end-of-day.” He flipped pages. Papers rustled in the inner office. O’Grady said he was going out to question the neighbors, and that a math expert should be in soon to calculate the trajectory of the bullet. I stepped aside for him. Carbone said nothing to him as he left. In fact, O’Grady’s steps faded down the staircase before he even moved.

A heady Italian accent came from his lips in a low whisper. “Verrazzo.”

Schok leaned into view. “I found the bullet casing.” He wrote something on a piece of paper and picked it off the floor, slipping it in a little bag.

“Schok.”

The detective paused at the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Does ‘Verazzo’ sound like anything to you?”

He shrugged his hands and let them hit his sides.

Carbone straightened and grabbed his hat from the desk. “Gartner, what do you think Verrazzo sounds like?”

“Viazzo’s?”

He pointed his hat with a smirk and a professor-ly nod–not that I’d ever seen one. “That’s right. I’ve known Verrazzano, but never Verazzo.”

Schok’s bony face took on a knowing leer. “Ah, I see. So the goon who made it up doesn’t know gravy from sauce.” He made a perfunctory glance at me but locked on Carbone. “Maybe he heard of Viazzo’s but changed it to cover his tracks. Made it up on the spot.”

“Yes, when he realized Bianchi would need an Italian name to make the visitor’s pass believable.”

The cop near me balled up the paper from his sandwich.

“Fates obviously isn’t Italian,” I said.

“How’re you so sure?” said the cop with the wrapper. He got up with a grunt and deposited the wrapper in a trash can.

“They let Fates in with his imaginary friend?” said Schok. “Tell us another one. I could laugh.” He put his hands on his hips. “That woman didn’t pass as Jerome Verazzo. He didn’t grab some loser off the street either. Somebody with the know-how and a sleight of hand. It stinks. I’ll have to bust somebody at that prison over the head.”

“Fates didn’t have a motive to free Bianchi,” said Carbone, leaning his fists on either side of the appointment book. “He wanted him further in prison, not out. Especially since the first thing Bianchi did was to bump him off.”

I took a deep whiff of the iron on the floor and listened to them mutter. “For trying to push him to confess,” I added.

“For what was in the safe,” murmured Carbone. “The Bembo jewelry.” He put his hat on and opened the gate of the desk. “I know what you’ll think: so wasn’t the woman involved? Do I think Fates was a part of the theft and murder?” He raised his eyebrows at me at the door. “You were his client. Or should I say, your girlfriend was. So you tell me, you think Fates could have something to do with the crime? Or could he have been keeping the jewels safe for his client Brock Lumsden, until he let him off the hook by fingering Bianchi?” He inclined his head forward. “Or was Bianchi involved, too?”

“I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” which wasn’t lie or truth, I didn’t care, “But he wasn’t afraid to play dirty. He was ruthless in court, in a polite way. It was a restraining order case, and he managed to keep the guy scared off after he got the order, if you get me.”

“Who knew about Viazzo’s that ain’t Italian,” said Schok, “Besides us?”

“I’ll let you and O’Grady work on that one,” said Carbone, “I’m going to find Bianchi.”

“Can I get a ride home?” I asked as he passed. “Never mind. I’ll walk.”

Schok leaned out of the office when I hit the elevator button. Carbone was down the stairs. “Hey! Don’t forget to keep up with the secretary work. We got other cases on our hands.”

I cast him a salute and leaned on the elevator wall. The doors slid shut.

It was a good thing I didn’t spell my middle name out on my job application.

A cab deposited me in front of Vaness’ place. The dining area windows were lit, and Vaness sat on the ledge with her back to the street, arms and legs crossed. It seemed like she might have been talking to someone, or was in a bad mood. I didn’t call, but, trying my luck…

The front apartment door was unlocked. I went up the stairs and knocked on the third-floor door. I called out my name. Vaness answered, surprised. “Why are you here?”

I gave the usual line about being in the area and could I come in unless she was busy.

“Might as well.” She opened up the door. “It’s like somebody said there was a party at my place, but didn’t tell me.”

Before I could ask, my eyes snapped to the dining set, occupied by several women, around my age or thereabouts. Stepping farther in, I saw sitting on the window ledge overlooking the street a dark brunette with long shiny curls falling over green padded shoulders of a glittery jumpsuit and glossy nude heels pointing from the flowing bottoms. Emerald Norval flicked a metal lighter with fake wood printing and lit the stick at the end of her black and gold cigarette holder. A woman at the head of the table turned around in her chair. “Can I get a puff?”

“Re-lax, Wanda, it isn’t that kind of tea party.” She stuck the heavy lighter in her chainmail purse, with a kind of rug pattern printed on it, and hesitated when she saw me.

“What the hell is going on here?” I looked around at all the femmes. Dark makeup, smart outfits, and well-done hair, a lot of them restless, or drinking margaritas. The effect was intimidating. I was beginning to see a type, intensely and fashionably good-looking women. Some more than others. The blonde named Wanda saw me and put a hand over her mouth with a gasp.

“I’m not surprised,” said a lighter-haired brunette at the other end, and knocked back a stiff shot.

Before I could wonder where she got it, she unscrewed a flask from inside a bullet bra and poured another.

“Go ahead,” nodded a spiteful triangular-faced blonde beside her. “Stare. Alcoholics are people too.” The woman across from her, another dark brunette, looked at me shyly or maybe in fear.

I turned and bumped into another pointy woman, who slapped me across the face. “Fresh.”

A hand traced my spine, and I jumped about a foot to the left.

A slim dark woman in a lacy gold fishtail dress and long black gloves pursed her red lips. “Aw,” she cooed. “Did I scare you, handsome?”

“If he’s here, he’s not looking for women,” said the alcoholic brunette.

I looked for Vaness, and she was beside me. She firmly hooked her arm around mine. “Amscray! If you want a refill.”

Wanda gasped. The slim dark woman smirked and gracefully reclaimed her chair, raising her glass. The curvy redhead who’d slapped me leaned against the wall, frowning. Emerald Norval continued to stare, hand in purse. “How did you know we were here?” she demanded. “Did your girl tell you?” The way she strangled the word it sounded like she’d needed to swallow the spit in her mouth.

“I came unannounced to see my woman,” I said, “Not all these women.”

“Yeah, well, next time, I might spray them with something so they don’t get in.” Vaness paused the hostile expression and politely extended her arm to the woman standing against the kitchenette counter near a pink pitcher of blended margarita. “Oh, let me introduce you Gartner. This is my roommate, Billie.”

She waved with an awkward smile. Tall, high pinned curls, modest patterned blouse, and black skirt. Light makeup. She seemed a different type, sane, unlike most of the crowd.

“You all knew Bianchi?” I asked.

That caused a roar between the more outspoken of the women. Another Italian-looking brunette, besides the slim one stood and cast her arms out. “Wait! I’ll explain.” She stepped out and faced me. “I heard Bianchi escaped, so Miss Norval came to me and said, let’s find all the women he slept with and see who’s hidin’ him now.”

The women started cutting in again.

Vaness lunged at her. “Maybe you got in bed with him, but he wasn’t even good at kissing,” Vaness shouted. “Ten women? You give him too much credit.”

“It is what I said,” said Emerald, taking a drag.

“Just cause you can’t get over that sad sack doesn’t mean you make my kitchen a command post for the romantically bereaved.”

“Clam up. It’s almost time for roll call.” A vicious leer flashed in Emerald’s eyes that led me to believe she was drunk. “There were many more than ten.”

I didn’t see ten women. “How many are coming?”

“The ten living in New York.” Emerald crossed a sparkly leg. “Two died: one fell down the stairs, and the other was hit by a car. The rest moved away or were one-night stands or were from Elsewhere.” She put her cigarette in her mouth and closed her bag. “And one of them.” She took the holder out of her teeth. “Is going to need a lot of convincing before she elopes with him to South America.”

By her tone, I knew she was referring to his current unknown girlfriend.

“You’re trying to draw him out, huh? Jealous?”

Emerald Norval fluffed her hair. “I have no need to be jealous. Have you seen me, darling?”

“Vaness, if you don’t mind, can I use your bathroom?”

She pointed the way down the hall. I wanted to give her a squeeze or a wink but there were too many women watching. The idea felt wrong.

When I got to the open door with the light on, I thought it was empty, but when I turned the corner I was startled to find a woman with a cigarette in her mouth holding her dress up to fill the bowl. A made-up face snapped toward me.

“Jesus! Sorry!”

I waited outside for Antoinetta to come out. He arrived at the door with poise and a spiteful expression.

“Private dicks. When will you abate?” said Spadaro. “Do you always follow your quarries straight into the john?”

“Let me ask the obvious.”

Spadaro lifted his painted nails. “Please, me first.” He checked them in the light. “No, I was never Bianchi’s girlfriend.” He waved his hand. “I’ve told you he’s not my type. Still, Emerald dragged me to this meeting. Said that all Bianchi’s ex-girls needed to meet. Everyone who was on the list.”

“How did she get the list?”

“I wondered the same thing. As it turns out, one of the blondes over there, Wanda, got a call from Mrs. Bianchi, who simply gushed over how she was the only girl who was ever right for her Rocco, and oh, if only she were Italian they could have gotten married and had eleven children. ‘But what a mess you dodged, darling. I can’t tell you how many women he’s run down and I’m just glad you weren’t caught up in this mess.’ So she says, ‘How many girlfriends has Rocco had?’ And she lists all twenty-two of them. So she starts calling up these women, asking if they’re really friends of Bianchi, and oh, wasn’t it such a bullet missed not to be dating him at a time like this. Emerald’s one of the first called, and she and Wanda round up all ten of us still living in New York and ask us to meet here at Vanessa Baretto’s, because she’s the last one living here who’s dated him. The next three really didn’t count. We had to check if he was here.”

“What do you mean didn’t count?”

“Oh, those floozies didn’t last more than a night. Apparently, whoever he went steady with, he kept a good secret from even his mama.” He took a drag. “I tell you, whoever he’s seeing he’s been going steady with for over a year. Serious business. He cut off contact with a lot of his exes recently, around that time. Emerald as you know, she didn’t get over it.” We moved closer to the kitchenette, and he tapped some ashes in a nearby can.

“Nobody knows who she might be?”

He shook his head slowly. “Not even I. And I see him constantly in or out of our hang-out joint. All my friends love Viazzo’s. Why do you think I live there?”

“The privacy?”

“You kidder.”

“So why are you dressed up?”

He waved a diamond ring or something like one. “You like? Ah, they showed up ranting that I was one of Bianchi’s girls, so I said, ‘If it’s a girl you want, it’s a girl you get.’”

“Damn straight,” I said. “I’m going to use the bathroom now.”

“You do that, I’m going to get a fresh margarita.”

When I returned, Emerald balanced on the window ledge holding her cigarette holder up high beside her head. “It’s time to count heads.” In her other hand she held a list. “Helen?”

The triangular-faced blonde raised her hand.

“Glenda?”

The woman at the head of the table raised her flask.

“Celestina?”

The slim woman in the fishtail dress bowed smoothly.

“Wanda?”

“Are you going in chronological order?” she demanded. “Don’t you have any shame?”

“Hush,” said Emerald. “You came of your own will. You knew what you were getting into.” She proceeded through a few more names. “Antoinetta” earned a certain vicious look. “Me.” She tossed her hair. “Present. Lynn?” She scanned the room. “Lynn? Is she here?”

Helen checked the bathroom. “Nope!”

“That blonde bitch!” Emerald screamed, jumping to the floor. “She lied straight to my face that she hadn't seen him. Where does she live? I’ll twist her nose off!”

“She could be late,” said Helen.

Emerald grabbed the margarita pitcher and poured herself a long glass. “You could be Eleanor Roosevelt’s long-lost twin. But, honey, that you’re not.”

“Oh, maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Why don’t you stick your head in it?” she said, and gulped until she winced from the ice. I wandered to the discarded list on the hardwood floor. Lynn was the name immediately after Emerald Norval, and from the brackets, the timeline showed she lasted a lot longer. A lot longer. Then came Vaness Barretto. The few names after were crossed out and labeled “whores.” The list was over. Vaness had just made the cut, or else I would have had to stick Emerald’s head in the margarita pitcher for her.

Vaness came over as I slipped it into my pocket, but didn’t ask, though it looked like she wanted to. I went to Emerald Norval at the kitchenette.

“What do you plan to do with this information now that you got it?” I asked. She was too busy complaining to Vaness’ uncomfortable roommate about Lynn and her two-faced ways.

I tapped her on the shoulder, and she asked “What?” loudly. “So you found the rat. What are you gonna do about it? You can’t stay here.”

She threw my tie into my face. “I didn’t plan to.”

I clenched my fists. As she knocked back the margarita, I thought about wedging it over her head. She clacked it on the counter and used the back of her hand to lightly push me aside, but I resisted.

“What are you, a brick wall?” She put the back of her hand on my tie. “Move.”

I turned sideways against the counter and unclenched my hands into claws.

She picked her purse off the window ledge and swayed to the door. I spoke to no woman in particular, “Is anyone going to follow her?”

“I want no part of that scene,” said Glenda. “Pass that pitcher over here.”

I ignored the request and looked at Vaness, who looked worried. “I can’t go. This cocktail party is in my hands now.” She looked at them as if she was cradling the lives of the women themselves.

I squeezed one of her cupped hands. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

Vaness clutched mine and tucked my tie under my jacket. “Where did you get this beautiful tie?”

“A bombshell. I think you know her.”

“Aww,” said somebody.

I almost glared but saw Vaness’ roommate Billie smiling at us, so I slipped around the dining table and headed for the door. I meant to say goodbye, but too late. I closed the door on the landing, attempting to picture what strange twitch might have crossed my face.

Emerald Norval turned the corner of the stairs below me, slowly sliding along the wall and the rail.

I caught up. “You’re too goofed to drive. Let me drive you home.”

“Amateurs.” She bounced through the front door and staggered down the cement steps. I offered my arm and she yanked hers away, almost collapsing over the last step. “Get off me.” She made it to a sleek dark green Pontiac Streamliner. I took her arm and walked her around the front of the car to the passenger side facing the curb. I got the door for her. “You can drive on your own tomorrow.” I went across the hood and hurried when I saw her scooting to the wheel through the windshield. I threw open the door and squeezed in against her. She grumbled. I pulled the door in. “Keys?” As she reached into her purse, I recoiled. “Augh, what is that smell?”

She looked up dully. “My tea sticks.”

I started the car and rolled my window.

Emerald opened the glove box and lit up a new one.

“Do you have to be so reckless?”

“I could drive instead, mister whosis-whatsis.”

“Gartner. Now where are we going?”

“A little dumb for a private detective.” She sucked in so long - I thought she might disappear. I had no illusion that she was going to let me drive her home. She’d find Lynn on her own time. I might as well be there with her. She glared and spoke without a breath at a fast ramble, “You got the place on the list, or don’t you?” She let out a long exhale through her nose and created a massive cloud of smoke.  I waved it toward the window and pulled away from the curb. “That’s it. I need wind.” I worked the paper out of my pocket and waved it at Emerald. “Read this.”

We rode on through Union Square. “What’s your plan when you get there and find Lynn necking with Rocco Bianchi?”

“Kill her.”

“NO. You are not doing that.”

She giggled. Oh Lord, the giggles had begun.

“You want to win Bianchi back? Or do you want to turn him in? Never mind. How do you expect to win him over?”

“By talking to him, dum-dum. I can do your job better than you. He’s obviously crazy from the holes and turned to the first floozy he could remember and wouldn’t mind getting thrown in jail. Me, he didn’t want involved.” She sucked in more of the stick and made another cloud. “He loves me, so he doesn’t want to hurt me. He planned to get in trouble for a long time. He doesn’t realize. I’m trouble.”

She was pretty. Pretty loaded.

“Good luck.”

“What are you anyway? If Bianchi’s family hired you to exonerate him, you’re doing a dirt poor job. Fact, you did so poorly that he had to exonerate himself.”

“Trust me, I helped him.”

We rumbled up to a brick apartment in a street of many, all Victorian, and I rolled up the window. Emerald stumbled onto the curb and attempted to sashay up the stairs, waving her undercarriage more than made any biological sense. She had perfectly average proportions, and the strange gait made it seem like her knees were broken. Trouble for her joints, maybe. She took a lock pick out of her purse and quickly got the door opened. Without pause, she crossed the rug and picked the next lock. Before I could grab her, she sashayed straight into the darkness. I slipped in after her, meaning to yank her straight out.

My hand cut through nothing, and I tried to make out shapes.

Emerald wandered to a dark large kitchen at the far right, with a window cut into the facing wall so you could see faint shapes of cupboards and a fridge. A man in a light trenchcoat stepped out from behind the corner post and hit her over the head, but she didn’t go down. Emerald Norval burned his cheek with the reefer in her lips, then knocked the weapon out of his hand. I ran halfway across the room and hesitated. She pulled her own gun from her chain bag–the one she had threatened me with during our first encounter. They wrestled over it. I came at him from an angle to swipe the gun, but he yanked the gun free right into my nose. I stumbled backward from the blow, and tripped over some carpet at the edge of a parlor and crashed into a woman behind me, who shouted as we fell.

I rolled off her, afraid of what would come next, and the lights flicked on. Rocco Bianchi stood in the kitchen, aiming both guns at us. One through the arch into the kitchen, and the other through the cut-off wall at Emerald, who had tried weaseling toward the open door.

“Put ‘em where I can see ‘em. Quit moving. Who are you?!”

There was a tense moment where Bianchi may have been waiting for an excuse to fire.

Emerald threw open her arms with a cracking voice that sounded betrayed. “Pumpkin, I love you!”

I clenched my teeth, waiting for the shots to go off.