West 47th (27 page)

Sal listened level-eyed and expressionless. Then came a moment of decision, a silent, paragraphic moment during which he cocked his head and looked off to his left as though a prompt would be forthcoming from that direction.

He held his cigar upright. “Okay,” he said, “there was a gimmie. At least there was supposed to be. Why the fuck not? Gimmies are good for the economy. The people make out; I get, my swifts get, whoever buys gets, the street gets. The only one out is the insurance company and they already got so fucking much they don't deserve. Know what I mean? Circulation, good for the economy.”

Mitch had to admit to himself there was some validity to Crosetti's reasoning. Long ago he'd arrived at a similar philosophy. Of course, that the insurance companies lost appealed to him.

Crosetti continued:

“This kid what's-his-name and me made an arrangement. I had it scheduled in my head for Friday night. That was the Friday before last. But my best swift's wife is having a baby, the Lamaze way, you know, and he's got to be there, and another got punched out pretty bad Thursday afternoon and he's a mess. I'm shorthanded. So, I reschedule it in my head for sometime the following week and with nothing happening take off for A.C. I'm back on Monday and I drive over to Far Hills to take a look at the job. The place is all tied up with crime scene ribbon and there's all kinds of law all over it. Needless to say, I don't even stop.”

Mitch looked at Hurley to see if he was buying it. Hurley did a
could be
shrug.

“You're saying the thing never came off, somebody got to the place ahead of you?”

“That's it,” Crosetti said. “You're blaming me for something I would have done but it got done before I could do it.
Capish
?”

Mitch and Hurley didn't let it go at that. Crosetti glanced from one to the other for reaction, but they gamed him, just sat there silent and blank. Which pulled the story out of Crosetti again.

He repeated it in part or entirely three times more. Each time he omitted something or added another detail, but, basically, he stuck to the same version and each time both Mitch and Hurley found the gimmie that never happened more acceptable.

“Sure, Sal, but let me ask, personally, in your professional opinion, who do you think did the Kalali thing?”

“I got no fucking idea. Honest. Nobody has put even initials in my ear. I do know the street wants the goods bad. I know that for sure because of the way I've been pressed. This past weekend I got pressed hard by certain people and they got pissed at me, but what the fuck, I can't come up with goods I ain't got.”

All the while Crosetti kept time and jabbed for emphasis with his unlighted cigar. As though he was in front of the New York Philharmonic.

“Anyway,” he went on, “why is everybody making such a big fucking deal out of these particular goods? They show up, they show up. They don't, they don't. It ain't like there's never going to be more.”

Mitch watched Crosetti go.

He felt somewhat drained. That made him realize to what measure he'd been counting on the recovery, actually the six hundred thousand. Unconsciously maybe but nonetheless counting. Having big money of his own wasn't really all that important, he fibbed to himself.

A resigned sigh. “Well,” he said, “back to the starting blocks.”

“Yeah, false start,” Hurley said.

They stood up to leave.

“By the way,” Hurley said, “I forgot to mention, I have to go out of town for a few days.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. I'm going to Maryland.”

“To look over some properties, I suppose,” Mitch said wryly.

“Don't I wish. I have to testify on a case in Baltimore. I gave a deposition but they want me on the stand.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I'll be back Thursday. Friday, the latest. Anything turns up give me a call at the Chesapeake Motel.”

Chapter 21

Lois Mae Dayton, more frequently known as Peaches, had dire needs again.

Like a place to go back to. She had been sharing a fourth-floor, one-and-a-half-room walk-up on Cebra Avenue in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. With a girl about her own age named Debbie something. During the past week, while Peaches was hanging out with Floyd and others in Brooklyn, Debbie had taken off, and that same day the walk-up had been rented to someone else.

Debbie had taken everything with her. Along with her own stuff every stitch and shoe and possession of Peaches.

Considering what little Peaches was left with—the dress she had on and whatever happened to be in her shoulder bag—she took the loss fairly well. She'd asked for it, she believed, as she had more or less times before. It was her fault for having trusted a size-seven roommate. No use wasting anger on Debbie. She was gone to somewhere.

Peaches was now on the Staten Island Ferry, returning to Manhattan. Out on the upper deck on the portside seated on one of the fixed benches. The ferry trip was a time-out. The next phase of her life and having to cope with it wouldn't begin until the ferry pulled in. In the meantime the vessel was growling and shuddering under her and she didn't have sunglasses to offset the late morning glare on the water.

She closed her eyes.

To sort of celebrate the beginning that lay ahead, she restricted her thoughts to things she would like. Foremost, a place of her own. Entirely hers, no roommate or guy staying over longer than a night or two and then moving in. A place on the Upper West Side not far from the park, or, even better, a loft in the TriBeCa area. She'd furnish it with truly new furniture, not a single broken thing retrieved from the street or lugged out of some second-, third-, fourth-hand store.

It wasn't unthinkable that she'd have a car. Sure, a convertible she'd go like hell and look outstanding in. A driver's license with her photo on it, a genuine Social Security number rather than just nine numbers she made up. A checking account? A credit card? There'd be lots of dinners out. She'd know all the best eating places.

As for clothes, she might go DKNY At the very least Calvin. The shoes she'd have!

She opened her eyes. Yawned. Her teeth needed brushing. The ferry still had quite a ways to go. The water didn't look like anything she'd care to swim in. Once she'd almost learned to swim.

She got up and went inside to the restroom. It smelled like what it was mainly for. She pulled off her panties and threw them into the trash basket. Tore open the packet of three she'd bought for a dollar off an outside table of a store on Orchard Street that morning. Put a fresh pair on and felt that much improved.

Her makeup needed repair.

She brushed her hair, and used her fingers to give it the desirable muss.

She dug into the very bottom of her bag for the loose change she'd thrown in at various times. Made sure she got every penny. Three dollars forty-three cents. She put the change into her small, inside purse, which then contained altogether sixteen dollars and some.

Also in that inside purse were the earrings.

She decided to put them on.

The light in that enclosed space was yellow and dim. It cost the diamonds nearly all their glitter. The rubies looked more black than red.

Peaches had had a falling out with Floyd over the earrings. After the robbery she wouldn't take them off, contended they were hers, her part of the swag.

That wasn't how Floyd saw it. He tried to sweet-talk and fondle them off her. Offered her a hundred for them. Finally he lost patience and set about to rip them off. They were made with locking French backs and held fast to her ears.

She managed to struggle free of Floyd, made a dash down to the street. He wasn't about to chase after her and cause a public fuss. Little kicking, honky ass bitch with bleeding earlobes: swag earrings with much more serious blood on them.

The ferry was bumping pilings, lining up with its slip.

Peaches returned the earrings to her inside purse and hurried out to the unloading ramp to be among the first off. Next was the subway. She believed it a significant positive sign that she was exactly on time to catch the Lexington Avenue express, and, after long stretches of unsteady, noisy speed and seven screeching stops, she came up out of the ground at 59th Street.

There were numerous jewelry stores in the area, including Tiffany and Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels. She decided against those imposing establishments, settled on a small shop on 60th because it felt comfortable to her.

She went in with one of the earrings in her fist and what she believed was her most winning expression. She made it immediately understood that she was a seller not a buyer.

The jeweler was an ordinary-looking man named Eli Phelps. He had pale, pampered hands. He examined the earring with a ten-power loupe and concealed his interest.

“Where's the other?” he asked.

“I lost it.”

“How unfortunate.”

“One ought to be worth something.”

“Not nearly as much as a pair.”

“So, what's one worth?”

Phelps counted the diamonds and rubies, realized their superb quality, estimated their size within a point or so. At the same time he took stock of Peaches, gauged her knowledge and concluded that she was too young to know the true value.

“Five thousand,” he told her.

“Is that all?” Peaches scrinched her face. Actually, five thousand was more than she'd expected.

“I might be able to do six,” Phelps conceded, “but that would be cutting it painfully close. Painfully,” he repeated because he enjoyed using the word for such circumstances.

Peaches pretended to rummage around in her bag. She did a gasp of surprise. “What do you know, I found it.” She brought out the other earring, placed it next to its match on the black velour square on the counter. “Now how much?” she asked straight at Phelps.

He was both impressed and rubbed the wrong way by her artifice. No matter, he was going to make out. “Twenty thousand,” he replied.

Peaches was sure her eyes were dancing. See how good fate can be if you just slap it on the ass, she thought. “Cash,” she specified.

“I'm afraid that's impossible.”

“Why?”

“It just is, impossible.”

“I won't take a check,” Peaches stated unequivocally. At least two out of every five checks she'd ever accepted had been the no account or insufficient kind. She wasn't about to get stiffed this time.

“Okay,” Phelps said, “here's what you do. Take the earrings to this person.” He wrote the name and address on the reverse side of one of his business cards. “I'll phone him and tell him to expect you. He'll pay you cash.”

“Twenty thousand.”

“Without a quibble. I guarantee it.”

It was what Phelps had in mind all along. The way he preferred to handle such matters, not lay out any money, just refer. In return he'd get a ten percent cut of the difference between the twenty thousand this girl would be paid and the hundred thousand or so the earrings would bring at auction or wholesale.

Peaches' walk to twenty thousand down Fifth Avenue seemed to take hardly any time. She was in a state of extreme personalization. Just about everything in sight, especially handbags, shoes, compact disc players and such, had a new attainable significance for her.

Twenty thousand.

Two hundred hundreds. One thousand twenties.

Her imagination exaggerated what a stack it would be. A far cry from the paltry amount she'd earned from nearly bare-ass dancing. Those dollar bills and rare fives slipped in under the elastic of her G-string by male fingers in appreciation of the convincing way she squirmed and snapped her crotch and performed make-believe fucks with an upright pole.

When she reached 47th Peaches turned right and entered the first major building, designated number 1. The name that had been given to her by Phelps was on the directory in the lobby. And on the sixth floor she also found it on one of the doors.

She went in.

There was Andrew Laughton.

At the desk in the outer office going over invoices. It took a moment for his expectation to adjust to the sight of Peaches. Eli Phelps had said a
young lady
would be along momentarily wanting to sell some fine earrings that she didn't understand. Meaning she had no idea of their value.

Young lady
.

Not an apt description of this person in a flimsy halter dress of pink that barely reached down to her crotch, this gangly-limbed, not yet entirely developed creature whose eyes were way overexaggerated by makeup, whose lower lip appeared swollen and incapable of meeting her upper, a mouth that looked ready to suck on whatever might be offered.

Andrew stood and introduced himself.

Peaches said she was Miranda Turner, a name she'd used before. She gave Phelps' business card to Andrew. “This guy told me you'd give me cash for my earrings.”

Andrew offered her a chair.

As she sat, the crotch of her white panties was exposed and remained in sight. She got the earrings from her inner purse, handed them to Andrew.

He took a quick look at them. “They're quite lovely,” he said. “And they'll be ever more so once they've been cleaned. May I do that for you?”

“Just give me the money and you can do whatever the fuck you want with them later.”

“How much are you hoping to get?”

Peaches thought that had been settled. She didn't want to go through it again. She did a persevering sigh. “Twenty thousand,” she said firmly.

The amount seemed incongruous coming from that mouth, Andrew thought. “They certainly appear to be worth that much,” he said, “but I'll need to take a closer look.”

He placed the earrings on the desk and went into the inner office, ostensibly to get a loupe. Doris was there. He quickly looked through the photographs of the Kalali swag that Mitch had left with him the previous Friday. His experienced eyes had almost immediately recognized the earrings and he was now checking to be certain. And, yes, there, without question, was the photo of them. Was it possible the earrings the girl had were coincidentally the same design? Exactly? No they had too much quality for that to be the case: one-of-a-kind quality.