“You probably have a refund coming.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you dare send me anything. I wouldn’t accept it if you did.”
Speaking of money, I told him he might be able to institute proceedings to recover his sister’s estate and the insurance payment. “You’re not legally entitled to profit from the commission of a crime,” I explained. “If Thurman murdered your sister, he can’t inherit and he can’t collect the insurance money. I’m not familiar with the terms of your sister’s will, but I assume everything comes to you in the event that he’s out of the picture.”
“I believe it does.”
“He hasn’t been legally implicated in her death,” I said, “and there won’t be charges brought against him now because he’s dead. But I think you can institute civil proceedings, and the rules are different from criminal court. For instance, I might be able to testify to the substance of my conversation with him the night before he died. That’s hearsay, but it’s not necessarily inadmissible. You would want to talk to your attorney. In a case like this I don’t think you have to prove guilt to the same degree as in a criminal trial, beyond a reasonable doubt. I think there’s a different standard that applies. As I said, you’ll want to talk to your lawyer.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t think I will. Where would the money go if I don’t? I doubt that he’s redrawn his will since Amanda’s death. He would have left everything to her, and to his own relatives in the event she predeceased him.” He coughed, got control of himself. “I don’t want to fight with his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. I don’t care if they get the money. What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have more money than I’ll ever have time to spend. Time is worth more to me than money, and I don’t want to spend it in courtrooms and lawyers’ offices. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Of course I can.”
“It may seem cavalier of me, but—”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
AT five-thirty that afternoon I went to a meeting in a Franciscan church around the corner from Penn Station. The crowd was an interesting mix of commuters in suits and low-bottom drunks in the early stages of recovery. Neither element seemed at all uncomfortable with the other.
During the discussion I raised my hand and said, “I’ve felt like drinking all day today. I’m in a situation that I can’t do anything about and it feels as though I ought to be able to. I already did everything I could and everybody else is perfectly happy with the results, but I’m an alcoholic and I want everything to be perfect and it never is.”
I went back to the hotel and there were two messages, both that TJ had called. I didn’t have a number for him. I walked over to Armstrong’s and had a bowl of the black bean chili, then caught the eight-thirty step meeting at St. Paul’s. We were on the Second Step, the one about coming to believe in the capacity of a power greater than ourselves to restore us to sanity. When it was my turn to say something I said, “My name is Matt and I’m an alcoholic, and all I know about my Higher Power is he works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.” I was sitting next to Jim Faber, and he whispered to me that if the detective business went to hell I could always get a job writing fortune cookies.
Another member, a woman named Jane, said, “If a normal person gets up in the morning and his car’s got a flat tire, he calls Triple A. An alcoholic calls Suicide Prevention League.”
Jim nudged me significantly in the ribs.
“It can’t possibly apply to me,” I told him. “I haven’t even got a car.”
WHEN I got back to the hotel there was another message from TJ and still no way to get in touch with him. I showered and went to bed, and I was starting to doze off when the phone rang.
“You hard to reach,” he said.
“You’re the one who’s hard to reach. You left all these messages.”
“That’s ’cause last time you said I didn’t leave no message.”
“This time you did, but I didn’t have any way to get in touch with you.”
“You mean like a number to call.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, I ain’t got no phone.”
“I didn’t figure you did.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, we work it out one of these days. Thing is, I found out what I supposed to find out.”
“The pimp.”
“Yeah, I learned a whole bunch of shit.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“On the phone, Joan? I mean I will if that be what you want, but—”
“No.”
“Because it don’t seem too cool.”
“No, probably not.” I sat up. “There’s a coffee shop called the Flame, corner of Fifty-eighth and Ninth, it would be the southwest corner—”
“It be anywhere on that corner, I gone find it.”
“Yeah, I guess you will,” I said. “Half an hour.”
HE met me outside the place and we went in and got a booth. He sniffed the air theatrically and announced that something smelled good, and I laughed and handed him the menu and told him to have whatever he wanted. He ordered a cheeseburger with bacon and an order of fries and a double-rich chocolate shake. I had a cup of coffee and a toasted English.
“Found this chick,” he said, “livin’ way over in Alphabet City. Say she used to be with this pimp name of Juke. Prob’ly his pimpin’ name. Man, she was scared shit! She cut out on Juke last summer, like she ‘scaped from where he had her livin’, an’ she still lookin’ over her shoulder for him to catch up with her. Told her once she ever pulled any shit on him he be cuttin’ her nose off, and whole time I’m there with her she be touchin’ her nose, like she want to make sure it still there.”
“If she left him last summer she wouldn’t have known Bobby.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “But what it is, this kid I found who knew Bobby, all he knew about the pimp was it was the dude used to pimp—” He caught himself and said, “I told her I wouldn’t say her name. I guess it be all right to tell you, but—”
“No, I don’t have to know her name. They both had the same pimp but not at the same time, so if you found out who her pimp was, then you knew who was pimping Bobby.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And it was somebody named Juke.”
“Yeah. She don’t know his last name. Box, most likely.” He laughed. “Don’t know where he lived, either. Had her livin’ up in Washington Heights, but she said how he got a few different apartments, got kids stashed here an’ there.” He picked up a French fry, dipped it in ketchup. “He always lookin’ for new kids, Juke is.”
“Business is that good, huh?”
“What she say, he always lookin’ for new kids ’cause the old ones don’t last long.” He cocked his head, trying to look on top of what he was telling me, unaffected by it. He didn’t quite bring it off. “He tell her, tell everybody, there two ways they can go on a date. Date can be a round trip or a one-way rental. You know what that means?”
“Tell me.”
“Round trip is you come back. One-way is you don’t. Like if the john buys you one-way, he don’t have to return you. He can, like, do what he want.” He looked down at his plate. “He can kill you, that be what he want, an’ everything be cool with Juke. She say he tell her, ‘You be good or I send you out on a one-way ticket.’ An’ she say the thing is you don’t never know you goin’ out one-way. He say, ‘Oh, this john, he a easy trick, he prob’ly buy you some nice clothes, treat you fine.’ Then she out the door an’ he say to the other kids, ‘Now you ain’t never gone see that bitch again, ’cause I done sent her out on a one-way ticket.’ An’ they cry some, you know, if she be a good friend of theirs, but they never see her again.”
WHEN he had finished his meal I gave him three twenties and told him I hoped that would cover the meter. He said, “Yeah, that be cool. ’Cause I know you ain’t rich, m
an.”
Outside I said, “Don’t take it any further, TJ. Don’t try to find out anything more about Juke.”
“I could just ask a few dudes, see what they say.”
“No, don’t.”
“Wouldn’t cost you nothing.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. I wouldn’t want Juke to know somebody was looking for him. He might turn around and start looking for you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t want that,” he said. “Girl say he a mean motherfucker. Say he be big, too, but everybody be lookin’ big to that girl.”
“How old is she?”
“She twelve,” he said. “But she small for her age.”
Chapter 19
I stayed close to home on Saturday, leaving during the day only to eat a sandwich and drink a cup of coffee and catch a noon meeting across the street from Phil Fielding’s video store. At ten to eight I met Elaine in front of the Carnegie Recital Hall on Fifty-seventh. She had tickets for a series of chamber music concerts and felt well enough to use them. The group that night was a string quartet. The cellist was a black woman with a shaved head. The other three were Chinese-American males, all of them dressed and groomed like management trainees.
At intermission we made plans to go to Paris Green afterward, with maybe a quick stop at Grogan’s, but by the time the second half ended we were less energetic. We went back to her apartment and ordered in Chinese food. I stayed over, and in the morning we went out for brunch.
Sunday I had dinner with Jim and went to the eight-thirty meeting at Roosevelt.
Monday morning I walked over to Midtown North. I had called ahead, so Durkin was expecting me. I had my notebook with me, as I almost always do. I had the videocassette of The Dirty Dozen, too. I had taken it with me when I left Elaine’s the day before.
He said, “Sit down. You want some coffee?”
“I just had some.”
“I wish I could say the same. What’s on your mind?”
“Bergen Stettner.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re like a dog with a bone. What have you got?”
I handed him the cassette.
“Great picture,” he said. “So?”
“This version is a little different from the way you may remember it. The highlight comes when Bergen and Olga Stettner commit murder on-camera.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone dubbed another tape onto this cassette. After fifteen minutes of Lee Marvin we cut to amateur home video. Bergen and Olga and a friend, but by the time the movie is over the friend is dead.”
He picked up the cassette, weighed it in his hand. “You’re saying you’ve got a snuff film here.”
“A snuff tape, anyway.”
“And it’s the Stettners? How in hell—”
“It’s a long story.”
“I got time.”
“It’s complicated, too.”
“Well, it’s good you caught me early in the day,” he said. “While my mind’s still fresh.”
I must have talked for an hour. I told it from the beginning, with Will Haberman’s panicky request that I scan the tape, and I went through the whole thing and didn’t leave out anything important. Durkin had a spiral notebook on his desk, and early on he flipped it open to a clean page and began jotting things down. He would interrupt me from time to time to clarify a point, but for the most part he just let me tell it my way.
When I was done he said, “It’s funny how it all fits together. If your friend doesn’t happen to be the one who rents the tape, and if he doesn’t happen to run to you with it, then there’s never anything ties Thurman and Stettner together.”
“And I probably don’t have a wedge into Thurman,” I agreed, “and he doesn’t pick me to spill his guts to. The night I met him in Paris Green I was just fishing, I didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere with him. I thought he might know Stettner because of the connection through Five Borough Cable, and because I’d seen them both at the New Maspeth Arena. I showed him the sketch just to shove him off-balance a little, and that was what got things going.”
“And sent him out a window.”
“But it was a coincidence that was trying to happen,” I said. “I was almost involved in the whole thing before Haberman rented the tape. A friend of mine mentioned my name when Leveque was looking for a private detective. If he’d called me then he might never have been killed.”
“Or you might have been killed with him.” He passed the cassette from one hand to the other as if he wished someone would take it away from him. “I guess I have to look at this,” he said. “There’s a VCR in the lounge, if we can pry it away from the old hairbags who sit around all day watching Debbie do Dallas.” He stood up. “Watch it with me, okay? I miss any of the subtleties, you can point ’em out to me.”
The lounge was empty, and he hung a sign on the door to keep anybody from walking in on us. We fast-forwarded through the opening of The Dirty Dozen, and then the Stettners’ home movie came on. At first he made cop comments, remarking on the costumes and on Olga’s figure, but once the action was under way he fell silent. The movie had that effect. Nothing you could say was a match for what you were seeing.
While it was rewinding he said, “Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me one more time about the kid they did. You said his name was Bobby?”
“Happy,” I said. “Bobby was the younger one, the other sketch I gave you.”
“Bobby’s the one you saw at the fight. You never saw Happy?”
“No.”
“No, of course not. How could you? He’s already dead before you see the cassette, before Leveque gets killed, even. This is complicated, but you said it was, didn’t you?” He got out a cigarette and tapped the end against the back of his hand. “I got to run this past some people. Upstairs, and most likely at the Manhattan DA’s Office. This is very tricky.”
“I know.”
“Let me keep all of this, Matt. You’ll be at the same number? The hotel?”
“I should be in and out the rest of the day.”
“Yeah, well, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear anything today. Tomorrow’s more likely, or it could even be Wednesday. I got other cases I’m supposed to be working, far as that goes, but I’m gonna move on this right away.” He retrieved the cassette from the machine. “This is something,” he said. “You ever see anything like this before?”
“No.”
“I hate the shit you have to look at. When I was a kid, looking at the TPF guys up on top of their horses, you know, I had no idea.”
“I know.”
“No fucking idea at all,” he said. “None.”
I didn’t hear from him until Wednesday evening. I was at St. Paul’s until ten o’clock, and when I got back to the hotel there were two messages. The first one, logged in at a quarter to nine, requested that I call him at the station house. He’d called again three-quarters of an hour later to leave a number I didn’t recognize.
I made the call and asked the man who answered for Joe Durkin. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand but I could hear him call the name: “Joe Durkin? There a Joe Durkin here?” There was a pause, and then Joe came on the line.
“You keep late hours,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I’m not on the city’s time now. Listen, you got a few minutes? I want to talk with you.”
“Sure.”
“Come over here, huh? Where the hell is this place, anyway? Hold on a minute.” He came back and said, “Name of the place is Pete’s All-American, it’s on—”
“I know where it is. Jesus.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing at all,” I said. “Is a sport jacket and tie all right or will I need a suit?”
“Don’t be a wiseass.”
“All right.”
“The place is a little lowdown. You got a problem with that?”
“No problem.”
/>
“I’m in a lowdown mood. Where am I gonna go, the Carlyle? The Rainbow Room?”
“I’ll be right over,” I said.
Pete’s All-American is on the west side of Tenth Avenue a block up from Grogan’s. It’s been there for generations but remains an unlikely candidate for the National Register of Historic Places. It has never been anything but a bucket of blood.
It smelled of stale beer and bad plumbing. The bartender looked up without interest when I came in the door. The half-dozen old lags at the bar didn’t bother to turn around. I walked past them to a table in back where Joe was sitting with his back to the wall. There was an overflowing ashtray on the table, along with a rocks glass and a bottle of Hiram Walker Ten High. They aren’t supposed to bring the bottle to the table like that, it’s a violation of an SLA rule, but a lot of people will bend the rules for somebody who shows them a gold shield.
“You found the joint,” he said. “Get yourself a glass.”
“That’s all right.”
“Oh, right, you don’t drink. Never touch the dirty stuff.” He picked up his glass, drank some, made a face. “You want a Coke or something? You gotta get it yourself, they’re not big on service here.”
“Maybe later.”
“Sit down then.” He ground out his cigarette. “Jesus Christ, Matt. Jesus Christ.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Ah, shit,” he said. He reached down beside him, came up with the videocassette and tossed it onto the table. It skidded off and landed in my lap. “Don’t drop that,” he said. “I had a hell of a time getting it back. They didn’t want to give it to me. They wanted to keep it.”
“What happened?”
“But I pitched a bitch,” he went on. “I said, hey, you ain’t gonna play the game, you can give back the bat and ball. They didn’t like it but it was easier to give it to me than to put up with all the hell I was raising.” He drained his glass and banged it down on the tabletop. “You can forget about Stettner. There’s no case.”