The Law Fought Me - Ch. 8

I wasn’t doing enough. First, Schok throws chairs around questioning Vaness in her own home, then Johnny tries schmoozing her or whatever, thinking he can win her back only because the lawyer that arranged the restraining order, Fates, suffered a fatal stabbing, and his pull was now nil.

Too many loose ends. Who framed Rocco Bianchi for the Bembo killing and was forcing Vaness to be associated with him, and who the hell killed Mrs. Bembo and robbed her blind?–or I should say, robbed her to death–though that isn’t as catchy.

Where could I go for information on Bianchi and his associates, someone who might know a lick about him and his enemies, but Viazzo’s, that seedy club of cross-dressing performers and terrific mood lighting. It was time to speak with a fellow veteran.

I called ahead to make sure he wasn’t–or she wasn’t–going to be occupied that night working. I’d hate to cut into a working girl’s schedule.

So I arrived about eleven. I didn’t care about the time anymore, what with my evenings freed up for the foreseeable future with Vaness likely suffering from the experience of the interrogation and wondering whether Johnny would stick in jail or if I were still angry–at her or him–it would have made any contact now rather awkward. Better to get my hands on this case right now and deal with that mess when I had my head straighter.

The lights under the bar footrest were purple, a string of little beaded lights, tinted bulbs. The place was well patroned tonight. A cat in a tailcoat and top hat was dancing around with a kind of lindy-hop sensibility for dance, that is, jumping around and dropping on a dime before rising up with the mic stand like a rod, supported by three women, all blondes, none of them what I’d consider beautiful but their hair done in that trending way, though not what I’d consider good hairstyles. As communicated over the line, Tony sat at a table in the middle of the joint, a lit candle illuminating his rapt expression of the performance, a finger to his cheekbone with hair expertly gelled and combed in a black suit.

I took the chair to his left.

“Gartner,” he mumbled, “Hello, how are you.”

I’d thought he’d get up and make some bow or handshake, but I guess he didn’t want to be noticed tonight. He wasn’t in a performing mood.

“Hard day?”

“It’s the women, they look dreary.”

“You want to talk here?”

“Yes, the boys are away.”

I looked to the bar behind me, where several men were drinking and joking, rather tough-looking individuals with a sort of criminal muscular structure.

“You mean the gentlemen who might turn me into jerky if I–”

“Yes, those.”

“You seem bored.”

He turned to me with a flick of the dark lock over his forehead. The effect was alarming because I know he couldn’t have thought so, but it struck me as similar to Carbone’s own messed hair last I saw him, both seeming unaware of their hair flopping around on their head in such a movie-like manner. I almost thought he might have been flirting with me, but the tired expression said he was simply tired. “It does get that way after so many shows, yes. What do you want to say? Do I have another cousin in my bedroom? No, there is no one else but me living in my home. Satisfied? Would you like to go up there and check? Are you going to impound my dresses? ” He flicked his hand. “Go ahead, kick in the door, the room’s that way.”

When I only sat there, he offered his wrists. “I believe the crime is something you’d rather point to than read aloud, but here I am, cooperative and willing to be led away. So go on, let your policemen friends in and wreck the place, rend it top to bottom. I won’t resist.”

I clapped my hands in front of him. “Pull yourself together, Spadaro, who pissed in your tea this morning?”

Tony put his head of silky black gelled hair in his hands. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?”

He raised his head slightly. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“So be depressed. On the night Bianchi was shot, or Rocco, if you prefer–”

“Rocco, Rocco, Rocco, that’s all anyone cares to talk about.”

A waiter came by and Tony waved for a menu, which he tossed to me without a glance and ordered a creme and lemon vodka immediately. 

Aha, I thought, I’m getting somewhere.

“Why don’t you like Rocco?”

Tony smirked. “He’s an alright fellow, when he doesn’t steal your friends.”

“Friends. I see.”

Tony scoffed. “I don’t need your whatever-that-is. Those fellows at the bar, yes, they just adore me, but what do you hear when you’re trying to have a decent meal in the place of your residence, or anywhere really, where you’re trying to have a nice time talking of something, anything worth discussing, it’s ‘Rocco, where do you think Rocco is? Where’s he holed up? Me, I ain’t talkin’, I ain’t tellin’ the pigs which leg I put through my pants first this morning.’ Please, let me have something that isn’t repetitious loops of where Rocco is, how many cops Rocco has surely killed by now, given the slip, fooled, conned, how many women he’s balled, kissed, fooled, convinced, coerced. God–I could vanish in my own cigarette smoke ne’er to return, and they could kiss my pretty ass though they wouldn’t know where to find it.”

It clicked like this: Rocco–jealousy.

“So Rocco had no enemies, no one who’d frame him?”

“Frame him, who said anyone framed him? He was perfectly capable of getting into silly little entanglements all on his own.”

“No enemies whatsoever? Not an ex that–you think he did the murder and robbery?”

Tony swirled some ash and poked it around in his ashtray. “Sure, I’ll believe it.”

“Who was his accomplice then?”

“How should I know? I don’t know everything about him, other than he’s a whore.”

“He whored someone away from you, I take it. The name signed on the back of that photo still of yours on the vanity in your apartment.”

Tony sat straighter and sneered at me, but his drink arrived and he had to sip that instead of going on leering. Priorities.

I tapped my other hand. “You felt about this bad the last time the guy in the rear bedroom left, enough to set Bianchi on a guy who was wise to him, and got only mostly lucky when a nearby cop shot him full of holes. Only you weren’t lucky enough, so you had to set up his demise some other way. The electric chair for a murder robbery with some woman you may know, if you don’t know Brock Lumsden, which, if you had, all the boys back there would be talking him up, but they aren’t, so what’s her name? Who is she?”

Tony downed the glass and stood up, pulling his shiny black jacket straight. The suit fit him fashionably. A knockout dreamboat.

“Not someone you’d date,” I added.

“If you know all the answers, why don’t you tell me who she is?” He drew the errant lock back with his hand contemptuously. “Better yet, ask Rocco. If I know someone who’d stoop so low as to kill a dog, why, I’d know her from Rocco. Had I known a dog would be killed, why, if I had set up such a thing, I certainly wouldn’t in that case.” His lip wrung like he might cry. “My corgi, Mr. Hubbles, is ill. If you must drag me by the heels to jail, so be it, but as long as it isn’t a crime, I’ll be looking after him.”

I got up. “I didn’t mean to get you upset. Can I pay for your drink, or a second one?” Though it was obvious, I’d end up paying for the abandoned glass anyway.

Tony sat down with a tight lip. “Go on. What do you want now?”

I dragged in my chair, thinking, I can see I’ve caught you at an emotional time. “Every time I’ve spoken to you has been on friendly terms. If I offended you somehow, I apologize.”

The words worked; Tony sank in his seat, looking subdued. “Yes, you’re right. I’ve been upset lately. It’s nothing you did. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you…”

“I’ve had trouble with Vaness lately.”

“Oh, not her! She’s such a lovely girl, too.” He squinted one eye, leaning over the table. “It’s another man, isn’t it? It has to be. She’s too sweet for her own good. No, it’s the job, she can’t stand being apart from you, and–” He shrugged and took a drag.

“Yes,” I allowed. “It’s all going to Hell in a tube of lipstick. It’s all because of this Bianchi business. Because they’re looking at Vaness as the accomplice.”

Tony glanced wildly, almost knocking the cigarette out of his lips. When he finally controlled his fingers and took the cigarette away, he said, full of indignation, “No!”

“Yes. So if you know that woman’s godforsaken name and place of residence, for God’s sake, tell me. And I’ll keep the fact that you know her… unknown.”

Tony blinked, recovering from the shock, eyebrows compressed in concern, lip upturned, and carefully replaced the cigarette. As he dipped his head in thought, the tip glowing, his black hair fell all over his face, shielding his eyes so that I could only see his nose and lips. The hair had turned purple in the lights from the stage. The drag went on longer than necessary. I wondered if he was breathing.

A long trail of smoke plumed from his nose, obscuring his face, and I heard his voice low and unaffected say:

“Eileen Hennessey.”

His head raised a serious face of straight brows, and narrowed eyelids, sucking in the cigarette. He tipped his head back to exhale another cloud above us, his neck moving in the purple-blue light as he swallowed, then he tamped out the cigarette, removed a black leather wallet from his inside pocket, and slid a card across the table. He placed enough money to cover the drink, I supposed, and rose from his seat, straightening his tie.

“Enjoy the show,” he said casually, and walked around the table, past the bar, and down the hall to his apartment. Where Mr. Hubbles was now recuperating, I assumed.

I put my hand on the card, to make sure it was there, I guess, and brought it closer to me across the table.

Madame Massage

746 W. Kraven Dr. New York City

I put my other hand to my lips and studied the little black stamped logo of hands like doves with a floating swirl between them. I took out my own wallet and placed the card inside. I spied the waiter, who noticed me and stopped at the table.

“Are you ready to order, sir?”

“Yes. I think I need a drink.” Then I got nervous and almost said no, debating if I was supposed to leave immediately. “I’ll have what the gentleman had.”

“Ah. Tony’s a nice guy, isn’t he? He’s got good taste.”

“Yeah, mind if I pay now? I’m going to drink it fast. Actually, give me a shot of tequila with that.” I threw down a bill.

The waiter, a young guy, was smiling genuinely. “Tony want anything else?”

“No, I’ve been spurned. That’s all.” He turned away. “Uh–can I get two shots?”

The waiter became solemn and nodded as he scribbled it down on a notepad. I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have made that joke, in case it got around.

I walked all that liquor out the door–in my liver.

The buses were late and ran slowly. By the time I approached the street, it was dark. But only New York dark. I strolled down the cobblestone street alone. The light of the massage parlor was still on. I stood looking at the sign, the dark doorway. Looked closed.

I peered down a ramp beside the building running down to the basement delivery area. It turned to the left, a corner. I strolled down it. There were two metal cans in the shadows. The more I looked, the more it looked like somebody was hunched behind them. That disturbed me, so I slowly backed my heels up the ramp.

The shadow between the cans made a sound. I paused. Nothing else happened, so my heels backed some more.

“Polka dots!” it said distinctly.

My left foot staggered back. I removed my hands slowly to my sides. “Pin-stripes,” I drawled.

Silence.

The shadow shrugged out for a better look. “Get down here.”

Behind the cans, Bianchi hunched in his raincoat with disheveled hair, a prickly-looking stubble, and a can of beans. One hand loosely held a gun, the other, a spoon.

“This. Is your hideout.”

“Hey, beats the Tombs.” He scooped some beans. “How’s she?”

“Who?”

“My girl. She left a note at your place. You were supposed to get the callsign. ‘Polka dots!’”

I could have been dumb and said, “I didn’t get any note.” That, however, would have forced my hand in revealing his fink, Spadaro. How Bianchi found out this Madame Massage was the accomplice, I don’t know, but I suppose he had two street-smart women looking out for him the last I checked. I leaned against the bricks. “She’s fine. There’s a lot of women you could’ve meant. No care for how they’re doing, I presume.”

He looked like a cornered rat, scruffy and odious. “They dumped me. After they helped me find the place, they dumped me. You gonna help or not?”

“What do you need me for?”

He swallowed and waved the spoon. “Up there. I ain’t goin’ alone. This is the only place I could hide ‘til it got dark. Nobody gonna let me in outta the goodness of their hearts.”

“So you want a bodyguard? I haven’t got a gun.”

“You stupid–You joking?” He frowned like he was considering his next play.

“You failed to hint that in the letter.”

He expelled air. “Okay.” He offered me his gun. “She’ll search me probably. Better you pop out when I need you. Better if you stay hidden.”

I inspected the gun. Black M1911, .45 caliber. The murder weapon. Bianchi jerked it toward me. “C’mon. Take it.”

I reached into my front pocket and yanked out my white handkerchief.

He scoffed. “If you’re gonna be a pansy about it.”

I ignored him and tried to find a good way to grip it. “She the accomplice? Madame Massage?”

“Remember what ya read in the papers? Victim brutally tortured with kitchenware, looks on as her pooch bites it, then gets her throat squeezed for her trouble? Stay long in this business and you get to know people. I’ve seen her work.”

Bianchi’s hospital tag brushed the can as he shoveled beans. “Don’t let me rush you,” I said.

Bianchi waved a spoon at the beaten delivery door. “I picked the lock. Should lead up to the apartment.” The spoon scraped the last mush from the hollow of the can. He smacked his lips, pocketed the spoon, and tossed it in the bigger can. He used it to get on his feet and staggered up the ramp. “Step lively.”

I watched him go, then checked the magazine. One bullet unaccounted for. The street remained quiet, the only sound the magazine clicking into the M1911. I don’t know what I expected. He didn’t turn back. I held the gun tighter in both hands and slowly raised my arms until the barrel pointed straight between the shoulder blades of his beige trench coat. He staggered unbeautifully, like an old man at the end of his life shuffling toward a cliff’s edge. It would be too easy. Bianchi turned to hobble up the steps to the massage parlor, using the concrete rail for assistance, and I eased into the shadows, deciding I’d had my moral exercise. I used the handkerchief to open the service door. From then on, the gun returned to my hands.

It smelled like oil. I didn’t want to turn on a light, so I stepped carefully over cartons of glasses. There were old chairs and racks of some kind of beauty product, or maybe the fat they slapped on backs to make them easier to knead.

Pushing this horrible image away, I foxtrotted over cast-off objects of little worth and lightly trekked a set of black wooden steps. The door at the top opened in my hand.

Bianchi shuffled by under after-hours lighting, followed by a tall, tall woman shaped like a bell with legs. He hooked his arm on a wall partition and massaged his leg. The woman hooked his arm and dragged him on. Her voice was measured and unemotional. “My apartment’s in back.”

I emerged from an arched white door after they passed. Cubicles with curtains and slabs surrounded me on all sides, all done in white. The empty business was dim, auxiliary lights off, and dark corners. A table of folded towels ahead. I paused inside a booth. Large heat lamps and a bare slab to lay the meat on, where she oiled them up before wrapping them in white towels to be rung up at the counter. It all looked minimalistically diabolical.

At the end of the hall was a door into the front room of a furnished apartment, in which I could see a big rug and a desk with two chairs near a bookcase built into the wall. Bianchi leaned heavily on it until the woman took a seat near a desk, and only then did he sit, effectively leaving the door open. I crept into another booth, slowly approaching the doorway.

I listened beside the door hinges and watched through the crack between them.

“You wanted to speak to me. Get it over with. The police may be behind you.”

“I think we can do business,” said Bianchi, “You know well as I do where the other half of the jewels are. C’mon… I know you pulled the Bembo job with Brock Lumsden.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You walk into my parlor hoping to bluff me?”

Bianchi picked up the newspaper on the desk and proudly displayed the headline:

LAWYER STABBED IN DOWNTOWN OFFICE

The woman didn’t speak, merely reached for the paper and glanced at it herself, as if it could mean anything other than what it was.

“Oh, he was a bad man. Very bad man.” She tossed the paper lazily onto the coffee table between them. “Better off he croaked.” She rolled up the paper pretty tightly. “He shouldn’t have told you that about me.”

Bianchi propped his legs out across the carpet. “Yeah? So you want ‘em back? Or you like to reminisce about your broker instead? Don’t believe I got ‘em? Ruby pendant, clasp broken. You were in a real hurry.”

She had more patience than I had under duress. Or in general.

“Where are they?”

“In a locker in a subway station.” He coughed into his hand. “CannIgetta handkerchief or sumthin’? My lungs are falling out.”

“Sure, Rocco.” The woman rose with the ineffectual look of a board. “I think you and me would have been better partners than Mr. Lumsden. Here I am, with you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he coughed loudly. “But cannIgetta handkerchief?”

The woman walked out of the room, and Bianchi waved wildly for me to enter. He pointed to his left at a closet set in the far wall. I stepped past the hallway, the woman’s back was turned as she walked farther in, and I soundlessly twisted the knob and stood inside.

The woman, Eileen Hennesey, returned with a handkerchief and sat behind him. “So where are they?”

“In a locker in a subway station.” He heaved himself out of the chair and nearly collapsed on a settee against the wall. “We’ll go in the morning, I need ta rest.”

“Suuuure.” With her big hands, she started to massage his shoulders. “Relax, you must be tense.” She seemed to be doing a good job. “Fat women come in here to relax. Tell me their troubles.” She moved up to his neck, and I tried my hardest to soundlessly twist the knob and nudge the closet door open. “All their jewelry gives them pain. Such a pain to wear those heavy stones, wondering if your friends think they’re fake, or if some punk might stick you up…” Her hands seized on his throat, and I pushed my way out, slowly stepping across the carpet.

“Give me the jewels, Rocco.”

“Heh, you think I have them on me? That would be stupid, wouldn’it?”

Hennessey relaxed her meaty grip and slapped her flanks. My foot slipped a little on the carpet, so I squeezed my eyes shut, thinking, Oh Christ, way to blow my cover falling drunk across the floor after he weaseled his way out of strangulation himself.

I wrenched my eyes open, still pointing the pistol at the back of Eileen Hennessey’s triangular hairdo. A kind of gross parody of the style of a middle-aged woman like that. Over six foot with the muscular arms of a steelworker.

Biting my lip, I forced my heels one at a time backward into the closet. They chatted away, thinking they were so movie-ready.

“I’ll get you the jewels if you get me that ticket. That’s the deal.”

“Alright, Rocco. You rest.”

I dragged the paper-light door closed with pinched fingers and tensed shoulders, dreading a breath too loud and alarming.

The woman creaked off the settee with almost as much noise and drew her hand across Bianchi’s head. “I’ll get you some blankets.”

Like that, like she was his dispossessed aunty. And then she walked right up to the linen closet and opened the door.

Her stern expression didn’t alter much in spite of the M1911 aimed between her collarbones.

“Oh. You have a friend…”

I felt a chill and decided not to speak, in case that shattered my illusion of a threat.

All Bianchi could say after he cleared his throat was, “Yeah… yeah… Us and you are gonna get those jewels and you’re gonna get me outta the country. Can we agree on something 'simple as that?”

Bianchi rambled on about his “terms,” trying to sound tough, but Hennessey watched me, listening with one ear, to her inner diabolical voice with the other.

“Sure, Rocco.” She turned to pat him on the shoulder, talking like someone’s granny. “Sure, that’s fine.”

“Only I can’t go now. I haveta rest.” He looked to me, ashen. “I haveta rest, Andy.” That was me. “We gotta rest til dawn.”

I raised an eyebrow at Hennessey.

She smacked her lips complacently. “Fine. We’ll wait until morning.” She rose slowly. She was, with the heels, as tall as I was. “I’m going to ready for bed. You can follow me if you don’t trust me.”

So I did. She glanced back with something like a shrug. My liver had taken about all the damage it was going to take, so I didn’t think she’d taken notice of my altered state. I walked carefully with great focus, so as not to show any chemical weakness. Unfortunately, I needed to use the facilities, but having my fly down was another weakness I couldn’t afford in this situation. And what the hell did Bianchi mean, DAWN?

We’d have to take shifts. I thought this over as Hennessey gathered some clothes from the bedroom, and I gestured them to be dropped on the bed, where I rooted through them with my free hand in case there was a shiv hidden in them. Then I went into the adjoining bathroom with the lumps of clothes. I made a brief search and didn’t find a gun or anything major like that, so I stepped out and waited.

“ROCCO!” I shouted. “Get over here.”

After a painstaking minute, he limped into the doorway. I went over to him and muttered, “We’ll have to switch shifts every few hours. Why the hell did you say dawn?”

“Andy, I’m tired. I been shot four-five times an’ I been–”

“Shhh–! Shut up.” I checked my watch. “It’s almost one. Dawn is… what, five or six? We’ll trade off every two hours. I need to be at operating capacity. Why the hell do you need me, really? Do you want me to shoot her through the door? Sorry, but you’ll have to cover that yourself, buddy.”

“Better, I’m placing a phone call. We’ll split once we get her at the station. This solves all our problems. Soon as she’s ina stir, the heat’s off my girl. And yours.”

“Yeah, thanks. I never thought of that.”

The door opened. Hennessey stood in heels, wearing a robe with a collar sticking up from underneath. I’d be more afraid if there wasn’t a collar underneath.

“Congratulations,” said Bianchi, “We decided not to plug you.”

She scoffed. “You’re not dumb, Rocco. It was smart of you to get insurance.”

“Enough ham,” I said. I groaned. Now I was doing it.

I pulled out the chair by the vanity and sat, holding the gun meanwhile. “Okay, get some sleep.” As if that were possible.

Bianchi limped out of the room–for the couch, where else? Hennessey made a witch-like smile, some fillings in the rear–not that I believe a person’s teeth reflect her character, necessarily. The little teeth in that pasty lumpen face threatened me. I would not win in a wrestling match, I would gag first before getting in the ring. Those arms straightened out the most twisted muscles and had snapped a dog’s neck and strangled a man to death, and so on.

So I watched that woman put out the lights of the twin glass-shaded lamps like twin iridescent seashells and curl up under the covers like something human. The two hours sitting there in the dark gave me a new perspective:

What in hell was I doing there? Flee, I said to myself, Flee.

Instead, when my two hours were up, and Bianchi failed to come into the room, I waited another ten minutes, in case Eileen Hennessey had been faking her sleep, then snuck out and jabbed Bianchi under the ribs, where I knew he was sensitive.

He flinched, looking vulnerable and alarmed, and even made a scared little yelp.

“You’ll never make it in this industry if that’s how you get up in the morning.”

I handed him the gun.

“Get in there before she leaps out from under the bed. It’s my turn.”

He begrudgingly rose and shambled out of the room. The sheets were warm, which at first repulsed me, thinking of that trash can he’d been hiding behind, but then, despite my misgivings, I passed out tangled in the blankets with my shoes on and my hat over my face quite immediately.

Almost immediately, the hat had slid down my nose, and over the brim of my hat, the light of morning was disturbed by the hulking shape of Eileen Hennessey, sporting two guns as accessories at the end of each wrist. I guess I should have been more surprised not to wake up to a pair of big clammy hands around my neck.

Her voice was calm and almost polite. “Morning.” She was fully dressed in a fur-lined dark coat and a small pinned leopard hat. When she’d given me a moment to feel shocked, afraid, and outwitted, she said, “It’s not to show off. I wanted you to know that I have my own gun.”

I took the hat off my face. “Where’s Bianchi, dead?”

“No, he’s in the kitchen, making bagels like a good boy. You can see for yourself.” She made a little gesture with the gun for me to get up.

I should have known not to trust Bianchi with keeping his eyes open for two hours. He’s a weakling with those bullet wounds. I had let my selfish need for sleep get in the way. This was all my reaping. I sighed and got up, flapping my fedora idly against my leg.

The six-two heavyweight of a woman, ruthless Russian terrier murderer and massager of fat-rich women led me at dual gunpoint to the kitchen, where wanted fugitive Rocco Bianchi was spreading cream cheese on bagels, under threat of death, for our breakfast.