The James Deans (4 page)

House rules! Who was she kidding? This wasn’t exactly the Lonesome Piper Country Club. For a fistful of fifties and a nice smile, you could get anything you wanted in a place like this.

While I figured out what to say next, I took a careful look at Domino. She had been pretty once, maybe very pretty. At close quarters, however, the wear and tear showed. She was on the wrong side of thirty-five, and the fluorescent light wasn’t doing her any favors. I was on that same side of thirty-five myself, but I wasn’t trading on my boyish good looks for room and board and who knows what else. The whites of her eyes weren’t. Yellow was more like it. She had a touch of drippy junkie nose, or maybe she’d done a few lines too many. She’d get older faster than I, much faster if she didn’t get clean. Women like Domino can have short, violent careers, and when things start to go, they go quickly. There’s no safety net to catch you and no ladder back up.

“Look, I need to talk to John Heaton,” I admitted, unwilling to spin too much of a tale. “I know he works here and it’s pretty obvious he’s a hard man to see.” I gave her my card. “Just tell him it’s about his daughter, all right?”

She didn’t answer, but took the card. Her eyes got big as she looked past me. Before I could turn around, a powerful hand clamped down on my left shoulder.

“This asshole bothering you, darlin'?” a gravelly voice wanted to know.

“It’s okay, Rocky. He’s just a fan,” she said to the man standing behind me, then refocused on my face. “Thanks for the compliment, mister. Come back again soon.”

I bowed slightly. “You’re welcome.”

She walked past me, her sandals clickity-clacking on the stairs. The vise loosened its grip on my shoulder, and I turned around to have a look at Rocky. So this was the extra muscle. He was definitely an ex-pug. Gee, a boxer named Rocky, what a concept. Though a light heavyweight now, he’d probably fought as a middleweight. By the look of his face, he’d no doubt been a world-class bleeder. His brow and the bridge of his flattened nose were thick with scar tissue. That and the fleshy reminders of a thousand unblocked left jabs made him look like he was wearing a pair of skin-tone goggles.

“You’re a real fuckin’ pest, chief,” he growled. “Everybody from the doorman to the girls behind the bar say you been givin’ ‘em a hard time.”

I considered arguing the point, but I wasn’t willing to risk even a playful tap from this guy. He may well have been a bleeder, but the thing about bleeders is they’re usually big punchers. It’s how they survive. I’m sure more than a few of his opponents left the ring in a lot worse shape than he. It’s better to stand and bleed than lie glassy-eyed on the mat. I showed him my badge.

“What precinct you from?” he asked.

“Not this one. Listen, I’ll get outta your hair in a minute. I just want a word with John Heaton and I’m gone.”

Rocky gave it some thought. “He ain’t in today.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Rocky, okay?”

“I swear, he ain’t in today.”

I pulled a pen out of my pocket and wrote “Moe” plus a seven-digit number on the wall.

“Tell him to call me when he does get in. I want to talk to him about Moira.”

“All right,” Rocky said, “I’ll pass word along.”

I shook his hand and left. After an hour in Glitters, the air on Eighth Avenue seemed almost fresh. Darkness should have been in full bloom, but all the gaudy neon and street lighting fooled the eye. I headed back to the outdoor lot on Tenth and Forty-fourth where I’d stashed my car. The crowds had thinned by the time I got to Ninth, and here the artificial lighting at least gave the fallen night a fighting chance. As I stepped down off the curb onto the crumbled blacktop of Ninth Avenue, I noticed the footfalls of a man walking right up behind me.

“He won’t talk to you, you know.”

I turned. “Are you talking to me?”

“I am indeed, Mr. Prager.”

His short, slight stature was unimposing if not exactly unthreatening. He was impeccably dressed in a gold-buttoned blue blazer, khaki pants, a white oxford shirt, a superbly knotted red silk tie, and loafers. He was an older man, in his mid-sixties, but his gray-blue eyes beneath stylish tortoiseshell glasses were still very young and fiery. His head was tan and bald, and his chin was adorned with a rich gray goatee.

“Who won’t speak to me?
You
seem perfectly willing to chat.”

“I do, don’t I? But it’s John Heaton to whom I refer. He won’t speak to you.”

“I won’t even get into how you seem to know so much about my business. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately. So, how do you know John Heaton won’t talk to me?”

“That’s easy, Mr. Prager.” My new acquaintance showed me an expensive white smile. “I’m paying him not to.”

“That’s a switch. Most of the people who don’t speak to me do it for free. Maybe I should give them your number. No sense letting their animosity go to waste if they can make a few bucks on the deal.”

“Very good. Very good. Can I buy you a scotch?”

“Not back at that dump,” I said. “I’ve had my fill of tawdry for the year.”

“Oh my, no, Mr. Prager. I was thinking more along the lines of the Yale Club.”

THE YALE CLUB was just west of Grand Central Station, a block or two north of Forty-second. It was a charming old building that was only slightly less difficult to get into than Skull and Bones. There wasn’t a hint of ivy anywhere. No one sang “Boola Boola,” and, much to my chagrin, none of the staff wore plaid golf pants.

My host’s name was Yancy Whittle Fenn, but I was to call him Wit. Everyone called him Wit, so I was told. Though I hadn’t recognized his tanned and bearded face, I immediately recognized his name when he was finally gracious enough to share it with me on the ride over. Y. W. Fenn was one of the most famous journalists around. He wrote for everyone from
Esquire
to
Playboy
, from
GQ
to
The New Yorker.
His forte was the celebrity exposé. Not just any old celebrity would do, however. No, Wit’s subjects, or more accurately, targets, tended to be from among the ranks of the rich and the powerful, particularly those who had landed in the chilly womb of the criminal justice system.

“You know, Wit,” I said as the waiter slid my chair under me, “I don’t see John Heaton as the typical subject of one of your pieces.”

“How very perceptive,” he mocked.

“How are you this evening, Mr. Wit, sir?” asked the nimble, gray-haired black man who had attended to my chair.

“Very good, Willie. Good. And yourself?”

“Same as always, sir. Same as always. What can I get for you and your guest this fine evening?”

“The usual for me, Willie. My guest will have …”

“Dewar’s rocks.”

“Very good, gentlemen. One Dewar’s rocks and one Wild Turkey heavy on the wild.”

Wit and Willie had a good laugh at that. Man, they really got wacky at the Yale Club. Wit waited for Willie to leave before speaking to me.

“Of course I’m not interested in John Heaton as anything more than a source. Actually, he’s a bit of a drunken bore.”

“He’s got his reasons.”

“So have we all, Mr. Prager. My grandson was himself kidnapped and murdered several years ago in New Mexico.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, ‘sorry’ is a particularly empty word to me these days. But I digress. I suspect you have a good idea of whom my piece will focus on. He’s your client, if I may be so bold.”

“I can’t dis—”

“—cuss my clients. Blah, blah, blah. Please, Mr. Prager. Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you can’t drink whilst on duty.”

“Nah, I’m pretty confident the word ‘whilst’ doesn’t appear once in the ethics code.”

Willie brought the drinks, placing them atop blue-and-white napkins embossed with a block Y.

“Enjoy your drinks, gentlemen.”

Wit and I clinked glasses. He took all of his in a gulp, got Willie’s attention, and pointed at his urgently empty glass. When Willie looked my way, I shook my head no.

“Well then, for argument’s sake, let us say your client happens to be a certain New York state senator whose biggest backer is a rather wealthy man from that part of Long Island once known as the Gold Coast. Let us further say that said senator had quite a bright—excuse me—a
promising
future until one of his interns went poof!”

“You’re buying.” I took another sip of my scotch. “It’s only fair that I play along.”

“And now I hear that this certain senator feels he’s spent enough time in the doghouse for circumstances completely out of his control and that the moment has come to begin resurrecting that once promising career.”

Willie brought Fenn’s second drink. Both men dispensed with the pretense and chatter this time. Wit guzzled the bourbon right in front of the waiter and held up three fingers to indicate a third round would be in order. Willie gave me a glance, saw my drink was still half full, and left.

“As I was saying, resurrection is upon us, praise the Lord. But I’m as yet unwilling to let go of Moira Heaton’s disappearance. No resurrection without resolution.”

“So you’re paying off John Heaton for his exclusive story. At least that’s what you’re telling him, right?” I said. “What you’re really doing is trying to stall until you can dig up some dirt on this hypothetical client of mine.”

“Maybe. You know what fascinates me, Mr. Prager?”

“Other than bourbon, no.”

“Good. That was good. I’m curious why you went to Heaton first. It’s not the logical place to start an investigation into the girl’s disappearance.”

“You’re right. It isn’t,” I conceded. “But all the logic got squeezed out of this case a long time ago by the cops and by the private investigators. I wanted to get a feel for who Moira Heaton was. That’s important to me. It’s the way I work.”

“You’re a pretty sharp fellow.”

“For an ex-cop, you mean.”

He ignored that, and Willie’s reemergence couldn’t have been better timed.

“Bring me the chit, Willie,” Y. W. Fenn ordered, the false chumminess completely gone from his voice.

“Very good, sir.”

“So I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I get you didn’t bring me here to buy me a drink. You want something, Wit, something from me.”

“Everybody wants something from somebody. It’s Newton’s unwritten law of thermodynamics. It’s really what makes the world spin about. I think we might be able to do one another some good and get to the truth while we’re at it. It’s that simple, Mr. Prager.”

“I didn’t know horse trading was a course offered up at New Haven.”

“Oh, indeed it is, or it was, once,” he said, this time sipping on his bourbon. “I majored in it. I’ll let you review all my notes and research and, if it’s that crucial to you, talk to John Heaton.”

“And in return …”

“Whisper in my ear so that no one else can hear. That’s all.”

I got the odd sense that our setting impressed Wit far more than it impressed me, and the liquor wasn’t helping his perspective any. Did he think I was just going to roll over on my client because he had Ivy League connections? Or maybe, just maybe, he was playing me. I didn’t like either scenario.

I stood to go. As I did, I leaned over and whispered in his ear: “Thanks for the drink and go fuck yourself.”

But if I thought this was going to get some angry rise out of him, I was dead wrong.

“We’re going to do quite well together, you and I. Quite well.” I didn’t hang around for an explanation.

I WAS USUALLY fairly forthcoming with Katy about my work, but not this go-round. She knew I was on a case, and this time that seemed to be enough for her. Neither one of us, it seemed, was willing to risk another setback. I think her falling apart at Connie’s wedding had pissed her off. That Sunday, the day after the wedding when I went to talk to Pete Parson, Katy’s demeanor had changed. Enough was enough. So I was a bit surprised to find her up and pacing the living-room floor when I got back from the city. I was even more surprised at the smell of cigarette smoke and to see the half-empty bottle of Bushmills out on the coffee table.

“What’s the matter? Is Sarah—”

“She’s fine. She’s fine,” Katy reassured me. “I just wanted to talk to you, Moe.”

“You never needed a drink or a cigarette to talk to me before.”

“I never needed any courage to talk to you before.”

I moved to hold her, but she turned away.

“No, no, I need to get through this. I need to say the words.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. Nausea rolled over me in waves and I literally lost my balance so that I had to prop myself up against the back of the couch. You hear stories about it, but you never think it’s going to happen to you. Your doctor’s never going to utter the words “inoperable tumor,” and the wife you love more than your own soul is never going to say “I’m leaving.” But the moment was here. Never was now.

“Say it, Katy.” I forced the words out of my mouth.

“Okay, here goes.” She drew a deep breath and turned back to face me, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. “I just wanted to say I can’t go through this again, Moe. I know you wanted more kids, but … I just can’t …”

I was filled with such a profound sense of relief that I was struck dumb.

Katy misinterpreted my silence. “You hate me now, don’t you?”

“Hate you! Are you nuts? I couldn’t hate you. Maybe I could dislike you a little bit,” I teased, “get a little annoyed with you every so often, but I could never hate you.”

She folded herself into me in that way she had so that I knew our world was right again. Suddenly, without warning, my thoughts drifted to John Heaton, alone and drunk somewhere. And in that same moment I knew I wouldn’t need to make deals with self-impressed little lizards like Y. W. Fenn. No, if John Heaton thought there was a chance of locating his plain-faced girl, he’d find a way to talk to me, payoffs be damned.

“So it’s okay with you?” she whispered, her wet cheek pressed against my chest.

“When I’m done with this case, I’ll make sure we won’t have to go through this again.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I’ve got everything I ever wanted, right now. As long as Sarah and I are enough for—”

“Shhh,” she said, pressing her finger across my lips. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Are you sure?”

“The only thing I’ve ever been more sure of is when I said ‘I do.’”

Who was I to argue?

THE PHONE RANG, but it wasn’t John Heaton. That would have been too much to ask. It was Thomas Geary’s increasingly familiar if unwelcome voice that greeted me. He did have the good form to keep it short and sweet. The meeting with Senator Brightman had been arranged for later in the day out at Geary’s house in Crocus Valley. Before I could protest, Geary assured me that I could have all the time alone with Brightman I wanted.

Katy was gone, her side of the bed still creased and warm from where she’d slept. I stayed behind for a little while to enjoy the scent of her that still lingered in the air. I felt light enough to float. They say you never really miss things until they’re taken away. We would continue to wonder about what could have been and to quietly mourn our lost child. They also say you don’t know how much you miss something until you get it back. I put my hand in Katy’s vacant space, running a finger across the creases in the sheet. I knew I had missed her, but not quite how much until now.

I DIDN’T SEE it until I got behind the wheel. There was something stuck between my windshield and wiper blade: a business card. That’s what you get, I thought, for being too lazy to pull into the garage. As I got back out of the car, I tried to guess what life-altering product or program this card was promoting. Was I going to make extra money working out of my home? Was I going to lose forty pounds safely and naturally, or was I going to learn how to buy real estate with no money down? I plucked the card. It was, oddly enough, one of mine. There was something written on the back.

It was unsigned. A pity, considering Shakespeare, Blake, and Eliot were now all shaking in their shoes at the prospect of being dethroned. I crumpled up the card and flicked it at the sewer grate. My aim had been better when I was a kid. I hesitated and went to pick the card back up. Unballing it, I smoothed the card out as best I could and slipped it into my wallet.

The ride to the Brooklyn store went by in a flash, the words of the limerick repeating over and over again in my head. I ran through the list of possible candidates for its authorship. Whoever was responsible had gone to a lot of trouble to leave it for me to see. I hope he took the time to see the sights of scenic Sheepshead Bay. Maybe take in the late show at Pips Comedy Club or guzzle down a dozen littlenecks at Joe’s Clam Bar.

Klaus seemed surprised to see me, but I let him know I was there only to pick up messages and do some work in the office. As far as the wine business went, he was to either handle it himself or refer it to Aaron.

“There’s one message on your desk from a Larry McDonald, E-I-E-I-O, and one from someone who called himself Wit,” Klaus remarked with a smirk. “You know Wittgenstein? My boss, the closet philosopher.”

“Yancy Whittle Fenn,” I said in my defense. “All his best friends call him Wit.”

“Y. W. Fenn! Now I am impressed.”

“Good thing one of us is.”

I’d picked the Brooklyn store because it had an empty room next to the office. It was the perfect space to lay out the contents of the Spivack and Associates file. While what I’d told Wit was true, that I didn’t always work in a conventional manner, I wasn’t exactly a psychic reader, either. Straightforward police work had its moments. I skimmed through the thick file, copying down certain facts and data that I might be able to put to use between now and my appointment with Brightman. I wrote down the street address of Brightman’s community office, the place where Moira Heaton was last seen, and the name and number of the NYPD detective who’d handled the case. That done, I retreated to the office to make some calls.

“Hey, Larry, it’s Moe.”

“Like I don’t know your voice, schmuck.”

“So?”

“Remember the Hound’s Tooth?”

“Now who’s being a schmuck?” I chided. “I’m retired, not senile.”

“Nine o’clock?”

“Ten’s better.”

“We’ll split the difference. Okay, Moe?”

“See you there.”

Actually, I felt kind of stupid now for having had Larry go through the trouble of getting me the files. What I hadn’t known at the time I asked the favor was that I’d be the recipient of Joe Spivack’s largesse. It was too late now. I doubted there was anything in the official police record that wouldn’t be in the Spivack file. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the police record was substantially less comprehensive. Cops can afford to follow up on only so many leads. They’re limited by time, caseload, and funding. On the other hand, private investigations are limited only by the depth of the client’s pockets.

I dialed another seven-digit number.

“Who the hell is this? It’s … The sun is still out, for heaven sakes.” Wit was sounding a wee bit hungover.

“You like limericks, Wit?”

“My head’s killing me. Who is—”

“It’s Moe Prager, your potential horse-trading partner. So, do you like limericks?”

“There once was a man from Nantucket … You mean that sort of tripe?”

“Exactly. You wanna hear one?”

He didn’t answer. I took that as a yes. I read off the back of my card.

“Such atrocious grammar,” he critiqued, sounding more like himself. “Is that supposed to have some significance to me?”

“I don’t know, I just thought I’d run it by you. Basically, I’m returning your call.”

“Have you given my proposition any further consideration?”

“I gave you my answer last night.”

“That,” he sniggered, “was
an
answer. You still have time to go back and change it.”

“Nah, I always heard it was better to go with your first answer when you’re being tested. Besides, too much erasing makes it hard to score.”

“Don’t lose my number, Mr. Prager. We’re still only in the first hour of the exam.”

I had to give the guy credit. He didn’t back down easy. I’d have to watch him closely. His type could sneak right up and bite you in the ass.

DETECTIVE ROB GLORIA was only too happy to meet me at what had once been State Senator Steven Brightman’s community affairs office. Fortyish, bright-eyed and barrel-chested, he looked a little sharper than what I’d expected. Well deserved or not, Missing Persons had the rep of being a dumping ground for the barely adequate and downright inept. And my one close encounter with Missing Persons during the search for Patrick had only served to reinforce its bad reputation. But there were studs and stinkers in every bureau of the NYPD.

The now vacant storefront was on a busy street squeezed between a Chinese takeout and a real estate office. It was not unfamiliar to me. I’d seen pictures of the place in the Spivack file. The only hints of its former tenant were a sun-bleached campaign poster Scotch-taped to the inside of the plate-glass window and, just beneath it, a sign listing the new office address and phone numbers for reaching Brightman.

“You wanna have a look-see?” Detective Gloria asked, jingling a ring of keys.

“Sure.”

He opened the door with the ease of a man who’d done this several times before. He hadn’t had to struggle, figuring out which keys went where. I liked that. He’d spent a lot of time here. This case meant something to him.

“Did you know John Heaton when he was on the job?” I wondered as Gloria pushed the door back for me.

“Nope.” He strode a few feet to his left. “This is approximately where Moira Heaton’s desk was. There were generally three or four other people working here, answering phones and such. She was the last one to leave that night, supposed to lock the doors at eight.”

“Supposed to?”

“No one was here to see her do it, and we only have an iffy witness or two who might or might not have been driving by that say they saw her leaving.”

“But the front door was locked?” I said, my eyes drifting to the gray steel back door.

He followed my gaze. “I’m way ahead of you. You’re figuring someone locked the front door from inside and dragged her out through the back. Didn’t happen that way. Produce delivery to the Chinks next door. There were people in and out of the alleyway for fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“A delivery at night?”

“Because of the holiday the next day. They didn’t wanna get caught short. It’s kosher. We checked ‘em out and the driver, too. Clean all around. Besides, both doors were locked, and the Heaton girl didn’t have keys to the back door. Nope, we figure whatever happened to her didn’t happen here.”

“What makes you think something happened to her and she didn’t just split?”

Detective Gloria looked at me like I had three heads. “Come on, you were on the job. You know.”

“I had to ask.”

“I guess.”

“Why’d this case get to you?”

There was an attempt at denial in his eyes, but it was a weak one. “I used to think it was because she was a cop’s kid, you know? Now I’m not so sure. It’s too fuckin’ clean. Even if she split on her own, it’s too clean. Nothing’s missing from her apartment. Her bank account and credit cards are untouched. There’s zero physical evidence, no witnesses. Look, you get conflicting evidence all the time so’s it can make you crazy. But here, there’s like negative evidence. You work cases long enough, you get a sense about these things. It’s like when you’re riding your patrol sector, you just know when something don’t feel right.”

I knew exactly how that was.

The siren scents of frying ginger and garlic came calling through walls. I asked Rob Gloria if he wanted to heed their call.

“Order me a number five with extra duck sauce on the side,” is what he said.

So we sat and ate, silently at first.

I broke the ice. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

“There’s a lot of things I’m not saying. You’re workin’ for Brightman, right? How come?”

“I guess I could say because he hired me, but the truth is I sort of got forced into taking the job. It’s a long story not worth repeating. Why he hired me is easy. I think he wants to run for higher office and needs to get any stink off him before he tries. I can’t tell you for sure, because I never met the man. What’s John Heaton like?”

“Typical hotheaded donkey. Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Somebody else’s been sniffin’ around, you know?” he said, shoveling a forkful of pork lo mein into his mouth.

“Y. W. Fenn?”

“You met the little prick, huh? Yeah, he’s a queer duck, that Wit. Just being in the same room as him makes me want to shower.”

“You think Brightman did the girl, don’t you?”

“What I think’s my business. What I can prove is something else.”

“Then maybe it’s a good thing Wit and I are around. Maybe we can shake a little dust out of your clean case.”

“I doubt it,” he said, throwing a five on the counter to cover his end. “I doubt it.”

I sat with my mostly untouched food in front of me, watching Detective Gloria’s unmarked Chrysler retreat. Of course, it’s what he didn’t say that intrigued me. His silent accusal of Brightman didn’t shock me, per se. That was the point of this whole exercise. It’s why Brightman needed someone like me. Brightman could jump through hoops of fire and have Jesus himself testify to his innocence, but without concrete evidence that he didn’t do it he was screwed. The public outside his district would treat him with the same silent suspicions as Rob Gloria.