The Woman In Blue (Nick O'Brien Case Files) Read online

  Chapter Two – A Family Affair

  After a quick trip to Queens and finding Tommy’s apartment completely tossed, it is time for another talk with my client. Whoever ransacked Tommy’s place knew what they were doing. Somebody was looking for something, and they figured Tommy had it. As badly busted up as every inch of that place was, I don’t think they found it. This kid was definitely in deep with some heavies, and if he was still breathing he wasn’t likely to stick his head up anytime soon. The cab drops me off outside the New Yorker.

  The New Yorker Hotel may not be the snazziest joint in this city, but it is definitely the biggest. Two thousand five hundred rooms top to bottom in this place. The New Yorker is like a city all its own. Fifteen eateries, a barber shop with over forty chairs, a laundry that’d keep half of Chinatown working, and bellboys as snappy-looking as West Pointers all working together to make this the place to be for out-of-towners. Maybe not as chic as the Waldorf or the PanHellenic, but what it lacks in pizzazz it more than makes up for in size.

  This huge box of bricks looks like King Kong took a bunch of giant building blocks and stacked them all up together. The New Yorker opened just weeks after the big crash that started the depression, but somehow that hotel whiz, Ralph Hitz, managed to make money on this place while the rest of the country was having trouble finding two nickels to rub together.

  Hitz also has files on every guest that stays here. Rumor is there is a whole room filled with cabinets and stacks of paper on everybody that sets foot in the joint. Lucky for me I know a house-sneak that works here. While I am certainly going to talk to Miss Dillon, I’ll likely have more luck of getting the real lowdown on this dame from Chauncey Little. I spot my friend across the vast lobby and make my way to him.

  “Chauncey, it’s been a while. How you been?”

  “Nicky! I would ask what you are doing here, but a low-rent gumshoe showing up in this hotel can only mean one thing; you want something.”

  “You’re killing me, Chauncey,” I reply, flashing my best impression of an innocent grin. “You think I couldn’t just drop in to see an old friend? Checking in with my old pal?”

  “You could,” he says, shaking his head, “but you’re not. You got that look, Nicky. You want something, and unless I miss my guess, it ain’t something I’m gonna like.”

  “Aw, don’t be like that, Chauncey. Sure, I got an idea on something, but this time it ain’t nothing that’s going to put you in the boiler. I got a client staying here, Marjorie Dillon. She’s up in 2302, see, and I’m thinking she’s got a few more layers to her than she’s showing off. I just need to know if what she ain’t saying is anything I might need to be careful about. I figured my friend Chauncey wouldn’t want me winding up in a cold box with a toe tag if there was something he could’ve done about it.”

  “Yeah, Nicky, sounds on the level,” Chauncey answers, scratching his chin, “but your favors always do, until the other shoe drops. Listen, keep it quiet and I’ll poke around in the folders and see if there’s anything you might wanna watch out for, but if anybody asks who told you, it wasn’t me, got it?” I clap him soundly on the shoulder.

  “You’re aces, Chauncey. I always said you were. Just aces.”

  “Yeah, yeah. How’s about you surprise me sometime and really show up just to see me. We could grab a coffee or something before I have my heart attack from the shock.”

  A grin and a wink is all the answer Chauncey gets as I wheel myself toward the lifts. One of those dressed-to-the-nines bellhops with a cart of trunks that look like someone is moving in for good escorts an uppity pair into the same lift. He looks old enough to be her father, and she’s got more fur on than the biggest cat at the Bronx Zoo. It doesn’t take the mind of a detective to figure he’s setting up a dame on his dime in this place, and she ain’t his missus. Eh, none of my business, but I take mental note of his height, weight, and looks in case his wife shows up at my office looking for a detective sometime soon.

  As I approach room 2302, I’m mulling in my mind how much I want this all to turn out as simple as I’ve told Marjorie it is going to be. I’m also hoping that she’s just careful who she trusts, and how fast. I could see myself falling for a doll like her, under the right circumstances. I knock on the door and hear her call from the other side, “Just a minute.”

  The door opens and she is standing there just as stunning as the other day, but the powder blue with white polka-dots number she’s sporting looks less high-society and more domestic.

  “Hiya, Marjorie. I have a couple more questions for you. May I come in?”

  “Certainly, detective, please do.”

  “Remember, it’s Nick; just Nick.” She smiles sheepishly.

  “Oh, yes. You will have to excuse me. Formality and titles are all the rage in my family. I find your familiarity refreshing, but it takes some getting used to. Please, have a seat.”

  Not missing an opportunity to learn as much as I can without asking, I take in the place. It looks like any other high-end hotel room, or at least what I expect a high-end hotel room would look like. Not that I hang out in fancy sleepovers that often, but I’ve tracked a few overly-frisky husbands to them for clients. Most of those dirtbags prefer accommodations cheap and far from their neighborhood, but one or two of them are high-enough rollers to camp in a joint like this.

  There on the table by the sofa is a copy of the Boston Herald. I heard that was one of the things Hitz does with those files on his guests. He orders their hometown papers and has them delivered. This guy knows how to schmooze. At least she told the hotel she was from Boston, same as she told me. One thing checks out, anyway. There ain’t much else of interest in plain view.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Nick?”

  “Club soda’d be great, thanks.”

  “Right away.” She busies herself at the room’s courtesy bar. “So you said you had some questions. What do you need to know?”

  “My brother Jimmy, who works in the DA’s office, found some information on your brother. It seems Tommy has a knack for winding up in Dutch with the law. You know about that?”

  That frown tells me this ain’t news to her.

  “Oh, dear me, yes. I’m afraid Tommy has a nose for trouble, as I mentioned in your office. Of course he didn’t make a point of letting us know all the details, but we knew that since he moved to New York he had fallen in with a bad crowd. It was a source of constant worry for father before he passed away.”

  She brings over two glasses of club soda with ice and sets them on the small table in front of the couch. She looks genuinely distressed, either from worry about Tommy or concern about how much I know from his files. I hope it is the former.

  “I’d imagine so. You see, though, that’s another thing that’s eating me. I know you told me the adoption story and all at my office, but I still just can’t match a society dame from Boston and a New York street hood with a record for winding up just this side of jail. Wouldn’t put that story together in a million years, and here it comes landing on my doorstep. Go figure.”

  “Well, Nick, that’s why I came to you. You see, even if the police believed me that Tommy was really missing and may be in danger, they likely wouldn’t lift a finger to help him because of his past. You have a reputation as an honest man, so I knew someone like you would be my only hope for finding my brother.”

  “Yeah, well I visited Tommy’s last known address from his police file. Looks like he put down roots for a while anyway, but someone tossed his place but good looking for something. Any idea what they might have been looking for?”

  Oh, now she’s tearing up, blinking those glossy peepers at me and twirling her hair like a spoiled princess.

  “Heavens no. I have no idea, but do you think they might have hurt Tommy?”

  “It is possible, doll. Whoever tossed Tommy’s place knew what they were doing, so if he is crosswise with some of his old associates, it might not be good.”

  She pulls a handke
rchief from her purse and begins crying openly. I still need other answers, but ruffling her feathers ain’t the best way to get them. Better move on.

  “There, there, Marjorie, it’ll be all right. I’m going to do all I can to find Tommy, but I’ve got to put the puzzle pieces together, you see. Anyway, one more question before I go. Tommy had a girlfriend in the Bowery, name of Gabriella Rosario. That ring a bell?”

  “No, I’m afraid not, Nick. After Tommy came to New York he really didn’t confide in us much about his personal life.” Her raised eyebrows testify she is on the level about this anyway. She’s still holding back, but I believe she never heard of the girlfriend.

  “Ahh, played his cards close to the vest, eh?”

  “Yes. Do you think this woman might know something about where Tommy is?”

  “I don’t know. I got a few loose ends to tie up with another case, and some thinking to do about how all the pieces of this fit together, but I plan to drop in on Miss Rosario tomorrow and see what she knows. I’ll be in touch when I have something else to tell. You just enjoy the city and leave the worrying to me.”

  I walk toward the door, but Marjorie intercepts me, puts her arms around my neck, and rests her head on my shoulder. Her tears leave dark spots on my tan coat. I know I should push her away, but it has been a long time since a dame this beautiful had her arms around my neck. It’s a feeling I should have revisited sooner.

  “Nick, if anyone can find Tommy I know you can. Thank you for believing me. I wasn’t sure men like you even existed anymore. Maybe you could stay with me a while?”

  Wow, where did that come from?

  Part of me wants to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming, but that nagging feeling inside me says there’s more ruse than romance about this sudden affection.

  “Marjorie,” I answer, patting the back of her soft, raven hair, “as pleasant as that sounds, for now I work for you and the case has to come first. Once this is all out in the open and Tommy turns up, we can discuss you and me. Until then, let’s just keep things business, okay?”

  The hardest thing I remember doing in a long time is peeling her soft, alabaster arms from around my neck. She’s wearing a look like a scolded puppy, but in my heart I know this is the right thing for now. I pop my fedora back on my head and walk out of that hotel room without looking back. Every step feels like slogging through wet cement. I’m not sure finding someone is in the cards for me. I wonder if this is God’s joke. Every time I think this could be the one, there always seems to be a wrinkle or two I just can’t iron out.

  I find Chauncey on the way out and it is just what I was hoping. Nothing in her file is anything different than what I already know. If she’s lying, at least she’s consistent with it. Whatever is in the rest of the story behind this mysterious kitten with a penchant for blue dresses, it’s going to take more than casual sleuthing to dig it up.

  (Meanwhile, in Little Italy, NYC)

  Frank Scalice was a mobster with a problem. After less than a year as the head of the Mineo family, the Young Turks, led by Lucky Luciano, took over and asked Scalice to resign, replacing him with Frank Mangano. Whether it was his role in the Castellammarese War or just that Luciano did not think Frank had the chops to keep the family in line, he was out and Mangano was in. They were so polite about it they almost made it sound like he had a choice. Frank was not done. He had a plan. Unfortunately, that plan was currently skating on very thin ice.

  Someone knocked.

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  Vincent DeLuca, a thick-bodied and burly thug with a face like a bulldog, and Charlie Ferrano, a skinny, twitchy man with shifting eyes and a nose like a hawk’s beak, swaggered into the office. Charlie looked nervous and Vinnie was the first to pop his trap.

  “Sorry, Frank. No dice at DeLanz’s. We tossed the place and no sign of the stones anywhere.” Frank uttered a phrase or two in Italian describing a few unsavory details about someone’s mother.

  “So let me see if I got this straight. My thief is gone, my diamonds are gone, and if I don’t fix this soon any chance of buying back my place as head of the family is yesterday’s news. That about sum it up?”

  Charlie looked like he was going to be ill. Frank’s reputation for killing the bringer of bad news was most likely to blame for his sudden attack of poor health. DeLuca, unintimidated by Scalice’s mood, continued.

  “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  Frank pounded his fist on the desk in front of him and a small stack of papers fluttered into a pile on the floor. Charlie looked frozen in indecision as to whether he should grab the papers or continue doing his best to be invisible.

  “Now you two listen to me. I want you to get every man that hasn’t stopped breathing on this. You visit every flophouse where Tommy ever stayed, you talk to everyone he ever so much as bummed a smoke off of, and you check every nook and cranny of this city, including every place DeLanz ever took a dump, and you find those stones. If you don’t, they won’t find any piece of you any bigger than the smallest of those missing diamonds. I promise you that.” Charlie was visibly shaking now, but DeLuca still looked unconcerned.

  “Well, Frank, word on the street is that some skirt that knew Tommy from way back blew into town a few days ago. They say she’s holed up at the New Yorker.”

  “Okay then, you got a place to start. Nab this dame and we will see if we can’t wring something about the diamonds out of her. I don’t think her showing up right about the time my stones go missing is a coincidence.”

  “You got it, boss. Let’s go, Charlie.”

  Ferrano stepped out of Scalice’s office so close to Vinnie’s heels they could have been walking in the same pair of shoes. Scalice’s world was coming unraveled, but maybe this broad would be the key to putting it right again.

  (Chelsea, Manhattan, NYC later that day)

  As Marjorie Dillon exited the little café to begin her evening stroll back toward the New Yorker, she noticed the two men sipping coffee near the door drop a bill on the table and grab their coats and hats. One had a broad, snaggle-toothed face and a burly build, with slicked-back hair plastered to his head. The other was skinny with a nose that would have looked more at home on an eagle. The skinny one looked nervous, with beads of sweat trickling down his forehead despite the coolness of the spring evening.

  The rain had stopped early this morning, and the night air was fresh and clean from nature’s washing. The lights of the city blotted out all but the brightest stars, but the half-moon hung above the middle of 8th Avenue like a beacon guiding her home.

  She was still a block south of Penn Station when she got the uneasy feeling she was being followed. A glance at the reflection in a shop window revealed the two men she had seen at the diner walking in the same direction a ways back. It could be a coincidence. The streets were busy enough with others that she could not spot anything she could put her finger on as particularly alarming, but the feeling remained.

  As she passed a non-descript building with a metal door and a sliding portal right around eye-level, four sailors tumbled out. From their state, she surmised that building was one of the many speak-easys this city was known for, and those sailors were suffering from a bit too much shore leave. They fell in behind her.

  “Heya, dollface!” one of the Navy boys hollered. “Whadaya say we put those swell gams to good use and let’s go dancin’ or something.”

  “Yeah, cookie.” Another of his companions took up the call. “That blue dress’d look swell on my arm as we paint the town. Aw, come on, toots, don’t be all high-society on us. We can be classy too.”

  “Sure,” a third added. “Clancy cleans up real purty, don’t ya, Clance?”

  A session of roughhousing ensued and while they did no worse than catcall, they followed her up 8th Avenue all the way to the entrance of the New Yorker, where they were turned away by the doorman and a couple of plain-clothed house detectives. She was so preoccupied with the rowdy sailors that she did not see t
he two men from the diner peel off as she entered the hotel.

  Chapter Three – Bowery Girl

  If any part of New York deserves the title of Land of Broken Dreams it would be the neighborhood known as the Bowery. Word is that before the Civil War this place was home to the well-to-do of New York society. How far things have fallen. Whatever it used to be, this place has become the collection point for flophouses and fairies. Cheap clothing, cheap moving picture shows, cheap beds for the night, cheap eateries, and cheap ladies of the evening are the common attractions here, especially since the depression. The easy access and affordability of tattoo parlors, cathouses and speak-easys make this place popular with sailors on shore leave, who are almost as common as the bums panhandling on the streets.

  A lot of these latter class of guys are no different than me; vets who came home to a country that had outgrown them. Finding work got harder and harder until the big crash in ’29. Since then, the heroes have become the homeless. God’s grace is all that kept me from being right in the breadlines with them.

  While I was over in France flying the skies with the Lafayette Flying Corps, my brother was here in college making something of himself. I got back from the war and Jimmy managed to convince one of his law professors to put in a word for me with the NYPD. Before long I landed in a blue uniform with New York’s finest. Within a couple of years of graduating, Jimmy became one of the rising new stars in the New York DA’s office. With half a dozen cases under his belt, his perfect win record earned him some attention.

  I was a cop for twelve years, until the corruption and filth inside the department was almost as bad as what we were supposed to be fighting on the streets. Three years ago I hung out my shingle and became a private investigator. I may not exactly be the savior of the city, but at least I can look myself in the mirror in the mornings, even if it means tightening my belt a few notches until the economy and business picks up.