Scarlet Night (6 page)

He locked up and ran down the tenement steps, holding his breath all the way. The halls were perfumed with cabbage and mice and mortality. On the street he took a deep breath and headed toward the river. In spite of what trouble might lie ahead, or perhaps because of it, he felt exhilarated. There were great clouds in the sky and the smell of the river in the air which his mother used to say reminded her of Dilce. She had grown up in the bogs of Mayo, not far from the sea, a place where, to this day when he visited, the cottagers came out to welcome her son as though he were himself coming home.

On Eleventh Avenue he got his battered red Volkswagen from a lot behind a diner where he parked it for next to nothing. It was about as distinguished looking as a tinker’s donkey, but it had a sunnier disposition and a vent in the roof.

He parked a few doors from the Maude Sloan Gallery and sat in the car, watching and thinking. He was deciding on which of the nearby galleries to query first when he saw the metal door open and the child come out.

O’Grady got out of the car and took a rag to it. It wasn’t long before the girl came over to watch. He ignored her.

Before he could get too far with the job, she said: “Give me fifty cents, mister, and I’ll do the whole car.”

“Fifty cents.” He folded his arms and looked down at her. “It’s not worth it.”

She shrugged and turned away, the little witch.

“Hold on now if you’re wanting fifty cents and I’ll tell you what I’m waiting here for. I’m waiting for somebody to come by and tell if they saw my friend, Ralph Abel, take his paintings out of the gallery there. Did you by any chance see that?”

She turned back, weighed the matter, and nodded her head.

She was not going to be easily primed, and she might be a little off in the head, having too wise a look for one her size. Of one thing he was sure: One false note and she’d be off and running. “Did he take them away by himself? There’s a dollar in it for you if you can tell me where he went with them.” He took the dollar from his pocket and stuck it under the windshield wiper. He didn’t have many of them to give away.

“In a station wagon,” the child said.

“All by himself?”

“Mr. Goldman’s brother helped him.”

“Ah-ha. And who is Mr. Goldman?”

“He runs a deli on Church Street.”

“Could you point it out to me if we took the car?”

“Sure.” She reached for the dollar.

“Take it,” he said to mollify himself. She already had it.

She went around the car. He settled in and reached across to open the door for her.

“I’ll tell you something else for fifty cents,” she said.

“Get in and we’ll negotiate.”

But from somewhere nearby someone shrieked: “Sylvia!” and the youngster took to her heels.

O’Grady did too, so to speak, for he realized he’d come within inches of laying himself open to God knows what charges for coaxing a young person into his car.

There were not many delicatessens on Church Street. He found one called Benny’s and sharing the ground floor of the building was a carpentry shop operated by Sam Goldman. O’Grady could not find a place to park until he had driven halfway around the block and discovered a devastation of rubble—urban renewal without the renewal. Far into the lot—it would be at the back of the deli and the carpenter shop—a station wagon was parked. O’Grady maneuvered the Volkswagen over its tracks and parked beside it. An acrid smell tainted the air which reminded him of when he was a kid and they burned old railway ties in the Pennsylvania Yards on Thirty-fourth Street. He went around to the front of the shops. It was high noon and Benny had a good custom.

O’Grady opened the door to the carpentry shop and stepped in. A bell announced his presence, but no one came. He moved toward the rear and called out: “Is there anyone in?”

Not a sound. But there ahead of him, glittering among the lumber and sawhorses and half-built cabinets, was a stack of picture frames. Empty and bearing a terrible resemblance to those he had shepherded into the country surrounding the works of Ralph Abel. He tried to call out again, but his voice was a croak; through the open but barred window the smell he had noticed hanging over the rubble floated in, and he wondered, sickly, if it wasn’t burned canvas and paint. It did not take much looking around to find the plywood with which most of the backs of Abel’s pictures had been reinforced, and to certify the catastrophe, the custom stamps were plain to see. O’Grady stared at the frames, his legs watery. Then he counted them. Thirteen. Out of fourteen. He counted them again to be sure and had the strength after that to go next door.

Both the Goldman brothers were working the noon-hour rush, a line of customers reached halfway to the door. Near the end of the line was Sylvia. “Beatcha,” she said.

When it came her turn she ordered two corned beefs on rye with mustard and pickles to go. She was a familiar customer. She also told one of the Goldman brothers, “Somebody’s looking for Ralph.”

“I am,” O’Grady said, “but I’ll wait till you’re not so busy.” He’d have bought a sandwich himself if he could have afforded it.

Sylvia got her order. “Seeya,” she said and departed.

One of the brothers soon came from behind the counter and removed his apron. “I’m Sam Goldman,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Sean O’Grady.” They shook hands. “I helped Ralph Abel settle in the Maude Sloan Gallery. What happened?”

“He wasn’t so settled. They fell out. Come next door where we can talk. You want some coffee?”

“That’d be grand.”

They sat on boxes, the coffee containers on a nail keg between them.

“I came in here first,” O’Grady said.

“I saw you.”

O’Grady looked around where Goldman indicated: a mirror hung on a bracket just outside the window. “I noticed the empty frames.”

Goldman nodded. “He’s given up on being the big
artiste.”

“And destroyed his pictures, if I’m not mistaken.”

The older man grunted. It might have been a laugh by the little twist to his mouth. “He tried, but they wouldn’t let him do a decent job of it. The police gave him a summons for polluting the atmosphere.”

“The poor bastard.”

“What am I going to do with the frames? I gave him a good price for them to help him out. It wasn’t me he was friends with but my brother, Ben. He’s the intellectual in our family. I don’t care much for the SoHo crowd myself.”

“Nor do I. I’m a working man.”

“The whole experience isn’t going to hurt the boy, only his pride for a while. His father was a tailor. Did you know that?”

“He did tell me that.”

“Benny’s and mine was too. We gave Ralph the old man’s silver thimble for luck.”

“Then he’s gone home…Where was it he came from?”

“Keokuk, Iowa.”

O’Grady repeated the name of the place. “Don’t they have damnedest names for places in this country?”

Goldman shrugged. “Kiev: that’s where my family came from.”

“Well, when I stop to think about it, my mother came from a town called Ballina. It’s what your ear is tuned to.
Did
he go home?”

“With that thimble in his pocket, he’ll go home. You’ll see. We knew what we were doing.”

O’Grady finished the coffee and set the container back on the keg. “He did sell one of the pictures. What happened to it?”

“Don’t worry. She came and got it before he cleared the place out.”

“You’re sure of that, Mr. Goldman?”

“I’m sure. I saw him put it in the taxi with her.”

“She looked as though she could afford it,” O’Grady said. “The good-looking blond girl?”

Goldman nodded.

“I’m glad to know that anyway. It’s something.”

A few minutes later O’Grady called Rubinoff from the nearest phone booth.

“H
ERE NAME IS HAYES,”
Rubinoff said. “I pay particular attention to names. Mrs. Hayes…I wonder if she signed the gallery book at the door.”

“She didn’t. I was watching.”

“It’s a common name, isn’t it?”

“There’d be a few of them in the phone book,” O’Grady said.

“We’d better have a look and see how many. Meanwhile, get on the phone and try to contact Abel himself.”

“It doesn’t make sense for me to do it, Rubin. It’s you that’s supposed to want the picture.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” he said after a moment, the arrogance down a peg or two. “Actually, it’s Maude’s responsibility, but it’s too dangerous to press her in the matter. She’s not a stupid woman.”

“What could she do?”

“I don’t know, but my instinct tells me not to go that route. I suspect that she already feels she’s been taken. By Abel. Perhaps by Ginni, and I dare say not for the first time. For me to now demand that she deliver the canvas calls attention to all the circumstances…No, no, no. It’s all wrong.”

“Aye, but what’s right?”

“I simply don’t know at the moment. I assumed he would want to continue painting bad pictures and eventually find another gallery. I suppose if I were able to reach him by phone I could try flattery. But if it didn’t work—if he were to say, ‘Go ahead, Rubinoff, sue me,’ then where would we be? I’m afraid we must find the Hayes woman and persuade her that she has something which doesn’t belong to her. I’m looking in the phone book, Johnny. There are not so many Hayeses…Assuming, of course, she’s in Manhattan.”

“She must be. She travels by taxi.”

“And eliminating those in the poorer neighborhoods. After all, five hundred dollars…You’d recognize her if you saw her again, wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you, Rubin?”

“Yes, but she would also recognize me. It would seem too much of a coincidence.”

“It happens all the time,” O’Grady said.

“I want to know something about her before I confront her. Our last meeting was unfortunate.”

“Wasn’t it now?” O’Grady said with heavy sarcasm.

“Johnny, it will give you something to do: why don’t you copy a few of the addresses out of the phone book? Stake them out, one at a time. See how it goes and we’ll confer again tomorrow.”

“Holy God,” O’Grady said, looking at the receiver when he heard the click on the other end. He slammed it onto the hook.

He went home and had a bowl of soup out of a can. After that he copied the names and addresses of a dozen Hayeses out of the phone book. His first approach, midafternoon, was to a doorman in the East Sixties. “The Mrs. Hayes in your building—I wonder—does she drive a car?”

“That old lady? You must be kidding.”

“Ah, then I have the wrong address.”

One down and a legion to go. By suppertime he had eliminated two more, a real-estate agent and a black Mrs. Hayes. It was a hell of a tedious job and he felt in his soul it would come to naught. He’d be better off putting in his time on a novena to St. Anthony, who was great at turning up things you’d lost. He decided to do a bit more copying from the phone book after supper and let that suffice for the day. He returned the Volkswagen to the lot and stopped on his way home for a beer at McGowan’s.

McGowan’s was a cheerful place where the beer wasn’t perishing cold and where O’Grady had more than a modest fame. Many’s the time he had seen the old man give a jerk of his head in his direction and lean over the bar to confide in a customer that there was a fella down there who once ran guns for the I.R.A. They didn’t hold it against him in McGowan’s that he had lost a shipment. In fact, they very nearly put it down to his credit, for such a misfortune could only occur through the treachery of an informer, and at McGowan’s they were dead nuts on informers.

“Billy…Sssst, Mr. McGowan?”

O’Grady looked around to where the woman stood in the doorway, a large, amiable presence, with the gray hair straggling out from under an enormous hat and a dog at her feet you could scrape your shoes on. McGowan came partway down the bar.

“Can I bring Fritzie in? He’ll sit at my feet and nobody’ll know he’s there.”

“Since when are you asking me, Mary? It’s against the law. Come in and shut up.”

“Thank you, Billy.” She headed for the nearest empty stool, which was next to O’Grady, and in hoisting herself up, gave his shoulder a push with one bosom, then a shove with the other. “Mr. O’Grady! Isn’t that interesting? I was telling a friend of mine about you only yesterday.”

The dog yanked his leash out of her hand. The woman rocked on the stool like a staggered top trying to see where the animal was. “Is he all right, can you see?”

“He’s fine.” Fritzie had curled up like an eel under her stool.

“I’ll have a lager when you get the time, Billy.” She took off her hat and crowded it onto her lap. “That’s better. I can’t do a thing with my hair when I’ve washed it. I have a friend who used to do it for me, but she’s gone out of the business and the prices they charge today…Drink up and let me buy you another.”

“Thanks, but I’ve work to do,” O’Grady said.

“Come on. I’m old enough to be your mother.”

O’Grady grinned and downed his beer. He rarely had to buy his second at McGowan’s. Or his third, although he tried: he’d say that for himself.

“Are you going to do another of your readings soon? I’d love to bring my young friend Julie, if she’d come. She’s very fond of the Irish. You may have noticed her shop on Forty-fourth Street—Friend Julie, Reader and Advisor? I was with her the day she bought the cards and a crystal ball. It was all a lark, but she’s very good, I’m told…”

For just an instant O’Grady wondered about a look in the crystal ball.

“And one for Mr. O’Grady, Billy.”

“Johnny,” O’Grady said.

She waited until his refill arrived and then lifted her glass. “Cheers!”

“Slainte,”
O’Grady said. Gaelic.

“I was thinking after I saw her—you might know her father. He was an Irish diplomat, no less. But he did a queer thing: he took off before the child was born and had the marriage annulled. You’d wonder how he could do it, the Church being what it is in Ireland. Ach, I dare say you can do what you like when you get into his category.”

O’Grady was thinking of his own father with his comings and goings. The last person he wanted to meet was another orphan like himself, and one who told fortunes at that. He attracted the damnedest people when you came down to it, widows and spinsters and a redheaded whore who sang hymns on Eighth Avenue…and the boys now and then. Ah, but there was Ginni with her green eyes and auburn hair, the one girl in his life who had made a man of him. A Dago Red, he called her, and she throwing back her head and laughing. What in the name of God was he doing here with this windy old bag and her string of a dog, and the treasure lost that would bind him to the fair Gianina?