Fallen Sparrow (7 page)

They whooped together and she wiped her eyes. “Give me a cigarette, Kit. All blarney like your Dad. Chris would be proud to set his eyes on you this day.” She looked a bit anxious. “You’re well again?”

“One hundred per cent.”

“And now—” she puffed. “What are you doing here?”

“Did I ever tell you that when I was a kid I used to think that ‘Little Annie Rooney’ was written about you?” She must have been pretty when she was a young thing, sitting on the brownstone stoop of a summer evening, passing the time of day with the rookie cop, Chris McKittrick. Before she danced at Tony Pastor’s and the French Duke coveted her, before she returned with a title and her face ravaged and her hair grayed. She never mentioned her Parisian days.

She said sternly, “If you’ve told me once you’ve told me every day. And I’ve told you that Annie Rooney was as common as Mary Smith in New York before the century turned. Now what are you doing here?”

He couldn’t give out to Det. She was sponsoring Toni Donne and inversely Otto Skaas. He’d have to do the act with her too, hope she wouldn’t catch on and give him away. He winked. “She wouldn’t have lunch with me.”

Det began to laugh and then she didn’t. “You mean Toni?”

“Who else?”

Her eyes weren’t heart warm now. “Did you come here for that?”

The game wouldn’t go with her. He didn’t know why she should be wary with him but she was. He nodded.

“Why?”

He said unsmiling, “I saw her at the benefit last night. I thought I recognized her.”

“How did you know who she was and where to find her?”

He answered coolly, “I made inquiries. I want to meet her.”

Det studied him as if he were a stranger. Finally she spoke. “Toni.”

The girl might have been standing behind the curtain listening for her cue. Her face was expressionless. Det put an arm around the thin shoulders. “Toni, this is Kit McKittrick, the son of my old friend, Chris McKittrick.” They might have been leagued against him, the granite woman bulwarking a wraith.

Toni said, “How do you do. There is someone to see you, Det, in the work room.” She didn’t follow; she stood there waiting.

Kit apologized, “I’m sorry.” He was sincere. He’d overacted the fool. “I’m really sorry. Couldn’t I see you sometime? Dinner tonight?”

She said, “I have a dinner engagement.”

“Tomorrow night? Friday? Saturday?”

She leveled a flat finality. “I do not care to go out with you, Mr. McKittrick.”

That made him mad. He spoke out of anger. “I suppose you prefer Franconia Notch too. Well, I’ll offer that if you want it.”

Her eyes held words but she kept her mouth silent, her hands clenched. He caught up his coat and hat and glared down at her. “I think you will go out with me. I think you’ll ask me to go out with you. I even think you’ll explain what you were doing at Harmon yesterday. In case you want to get in touch, call Geoffrey Wilhite on Park. He’s in the book.”

The door wouldn’t bang satisfactorily after him. It had one of those plush mufflers on it. He marched down to Fifth again before he remembered to put on the coat. He didn’t know why Det had suddenly turned against him. He didn’t know any more about Toni Donne than he had when he woke up this morning. Yes, he did. He knew she was a stubborn little die-hard.

He was in fine fettle to tackle Content’s imaginatory excursions. He strode to the Plaza, entered the bar in which women were blessedly taboo, and drank a double brandy. That was better than lunch. He’d shake the truth out of Content even if she wouldn’t talk. He went to the phone booth, called the Hamilton town house.

“Miss Content does not reside here,” Old Merrill burbled.

“Where does she reside?” he demanded.

“We do not have her current address.” The disapproval iced the wires between. Whether of him or of Content, Kit wasn’t sure. All he knew was that everyone from homicide inspectors to antiquated butlers were trying to make it hard on him.

Someone would know. East 50th would know. He needed another double brandy first. It was much better than lunch. Two double brandies. Three. Jake wasn’t at Number 50. The voice at the other end of the wire made no bones about thinking that some early drunk was attempting to annoy the club’s singing sensation. Kit gave up in angry futility. And he returned to the bar to map a new campaign. He didn’t care about lunch at all. Not with a brandy bottle at hand. No sense ordering by the drink when there were bottles. This time he was sly. He knew whom to call. He spoke his name at Carlo’s restaurant, thinned out his tongue, was so polite that he laughed silently at himself waiting for the voice to return with information. He didn’t speak with Carlo but he got the dope he wanted. There was no hurry, no reason to waste good brandy.

He’d had too much to drink when he left the bar. He managed to slide into the cab without help. 56th, between Lexington and Third. Another old brownstone with military iron pickets planted in a patch of snow. Might be a little green there in spring. Content would call it her yard. His teeth set. With one and the same breath she would drip romanticism over a square of actual green in mid-Manhattan and brew a mess of lies calculated to involve in trouble a haphazard selection of acquaintances.

There was a bookstore in the basement, the usual table of dull and worn tomes barring the entrance. Kit didn’t look at them. He managed to climb the steps to the door Without falling on his face. He entered the vestibule; the card for 3-B, front, wavered before resolving into C. M. Hamilton. M for Makepeace? Grandfather Hamilton with Mayflower ideology had named the younger generation. Kit didn’t ring. He had luck; someone’s exit admitted him into the hallway. He lurched up two carpeted flights, past doors spilling piano scales, voice scales, violin scales. One of those places. Annex to Carnegie. Content’s door wasn’t musical. He knocked loudly and he pulled himself straight and belligerent waiting to be denied entrance.

Her voice called, “Come in!” The door wasn’t equal to the strength of his opening; he teetered a little on the threshold.

Content was on the floor, resting on the back of her neck, her hands under her spine, her legs pointed long and straight at the rococo ceiling. The corners of her eyes saw him, said, “It’s you,” with some surprise, and her feet resumed pedaling an imaginary upside-down bicycle.

Kit banged the door. He said, “I ought to push your teeth down your throat,” and then her words dripped through his brandied fog. “Who you expect—Blue Eyes?” All the other women he knew were after Otto Skaas; no reason why she shouldn’t be too. He dropped to the tapestry-covered studio couch, took off his hat and leaned his head against the pink wall. He removed the head quickly. Inside it there was a merry-go-round. He said to himself, “What I need is another drink.”

Content said, “You’re in the wrong house. This isn’t a bar. And who’s Blue Eyes?” Her toes touched far above her yellow head and she turned an effortless somersault landing on her knees. She looked like a kid in her pink, checkered rompers and her cheeks too pink for night club fashion. She looked like two little kids, twins.

He growled, “I ought to kick in your teeth. I need a drink. Oak-leaf Skass. The blue-eyed Luftwaffle.” He liked that, touched it with his tongue again. “Luftwaffle.” It was definitely funny and he giggled.

Content said cannily, “You’re drunk. You don’t need another drink. You won’t get any here. I don’t keep liquor.” She was doing kaleidoscopic things with her legs in the air again. Kit closed his eyes and shuddered.

She told him, “I have to keep on with my exercises. If you don’t like it, get out. I may get a Hollywood contract. My hips.” He could have closed one hand around them. “Why are you drunk so early in the day?”

He demanded then, “Give me a drink, Content.”

“Get out.” Her round mouth was too red to be that cold.

“Just one more.”

“Get out.”

He was mad as hell. “So Blue Eyes can come in. O.K.” He stood up but he dropped down again fast. “Guess maybe I am drunk,” he agreed pleasantly. He wiped his forehead with his hand. It was hot in this room.

“Sure you are.”

“Besides he’s gone to Franconia Notch with Barby.”

She laughed. “Go on. Sob about it. That explains the liquor on your breath.”

“It does not.” He tried to look knowing. He could see seven legs waggling in the air. He could count seven, the others were blurred.

He heard her voice very far away. “But it doesn’t explain your wanting to improve my dentals.”

His voice was even further. “… you’re nuts about the Waffle. Everybody is. You bluff me with a lot of wild yarns about Toni Donne—” His voice stopped. He was floating. He liked it.

He opened his eyes in heavy dusk. He didn’t know where he was. His shoes were off. His hat was in the middle of the floor with a white sail on it. A streak of lightning played zigzag in his head. His mouth had a rug inside it, a thick one but not a particularly clean one. He bumped his shin finding a lamp. The white sail said: “Your shoes are in the bathroom. Turn out the lights and lock the door. If you’re still in the mood, you can do your strong man act at Number 50. Sweet dreams.”

He’d passed out. Too much brandy. The overheated apartment had done the rest.

In one brown brogue there was an unbroken pint of whiskey. In the other was a placard labeled: Dog Hair. He broke the seal, quarter-filled a red plastic tumbler. It tasted of plastic. He ducked his head in a bowl of cold water, rinsed out his mouth with antiseptic, combed back his black curly hair, poured another quarter. Flavored with mouth wash, it tasted better.

If he kept his head up the lightning was fairly static. But it wasn’t lightning bothering him now; it was footsteps. Limping footsteps. The sound of a man who couldn’t walk right, whose feet wobbled ….

Sweat broke out of every pore in Kit’s body. They were coming nearer. He could hear them, the thud, the slur. And the door wouldn’t be locked. He’d be alone with the deformed man! He shook his head and the lightning stabbed it. But the sound was still there. He crept into the living-room; he remembered the gun and his hand trembled to it. He heard nothing.

He had more sense than to shake his head again but he wanted to. He wanted to know if that had made the sound. He hadn’t heard those irregular steps in months, he wasn’t going to let them torture his ears again. He was cured and he couldn’t be listening to ghost limping.

The trouble was he hadn’t had any solid food since last night. That was why his wrist shook, why his watch hands pointing to nine-ten were jumping. That was why he’d passed out. Food might even pad the lightning. Content wouldn’t be at the club yet. She might be at Carlo Lepetino’s.

He walked the few blocks. The place was well-filled; he wolfed a platter of spaghetti, washed it with Dago red. No chance to talk alone with Carlo, nor did the man come around. Kit waylaid him at another table before he left. “I’m going to see Poppa. Where they living now?” He said to Carlo’s eyebrows, “Poppa Lepetino.”

There was faint hope beneath the sadness. “The same apartment like always, Mr. McKittrick.”

Kit turned back. “Miss Hamilton been here tonight?”

“Earlier she was here. With her young man, yes.”

That was a surprise dose. It must be José; it couldn’t be the blue-eyed Waffle; he was week-ending. Not just like that; there’d be others; Barby didn’t do things that way. But young Skaas wanted him to think that, and why hadn’t Barby said something? He mustn’t funk about Barby now. He mustn’t mix her up with Louie’s death. She had no place with darkness and destruction.

Kit went into the night. It smelled of fresh snow. He walked on to Fifth, caught a cab and gave the Sullivan Street address. Poppa and Momma Lepetino wouldn’t move uptown, not even for Louie. They’d lived in the red-brick tenement too long. The driver didn’t believe it but Kit paid off.

He climbed, four flights now, with more smell than noise behind doors. He knocked. Some little Lepetino let him in, yelled, “Poppa, Momma,” in a combination of liquid Italian and adenoidal New York.

Kit knew the front room, the green velvet, tasseled cover on the golden-oak upright; on the trellised wall paper, the reproductions in gloss and color which Murillo and Raphael never visioned; the starched Batenburg curtains and crocheted antimacassars, the dustless roses on the rug. He was more at home here than in Geoffrey’s museum piece. He and Louie might have just run upstairs for a piece of bread. He could call, “It’s me. It’s Kit.”

They were fat and sad but their brown eyes spoke pleasure in his coming. They didn’t know why Louie should die. They had but one answer: “Eet was the cops.” Momma rubbed her fingers over her spotless apron. Poppa’s shirt sleeves rolled up nearer his sweaty underarms. “Yes, eet was the cops.” He pulled at his brigand moustachios. They were sad. Louie, not the first born, but Louie, the prop, was gone.

Kit said, “I’m going to find out what happened, see? I’m going to put the skids on whoever did this. But I’m going to find out why first.” He had to find out why. If Louie was murdered because Kit had sent him a souvenir from Lisbon, he had to know. There weren’t any sea shells in the room where Louie had slept. Not among the parlor’s bric-a-brac. He questioned but Momma and Poppa didn’t know what he was talking about.

And he insisted, “Louie didn’t jump out that window, did he?”

Louie didn’t. He was buried in sanctified ground. But they didn’t know anything save: it was the cops.

He walked away from the jangling street, hailed an uptown cab. “Number Fifty.” This cabbie wasn’t suspicious. Kit looked like a fare for Number 50.

The head waiter gave him the glass eye. He said something about dinner clothes. Kit laughed in his swarthy face. “I don’t want a table in your stink hole. Tell Jake I’m here. Kit McKittrick.”

Jake had a swell joint. That was a name band, did commercials. Those were Gropper murals on the wall, Kober limericks. The suckers were café crowd. That meant high society and high crooks. Jake said from behind and below his shoulder, “Didn’t think you’d remember me, Kit.”

Jake lite first born. Learned food from Uncle Carlo. Started his wad with prohibition. Poppa helped him. That was before Louie joined the force. Learned the ropes from his first joint. The Silver Bell didn’t cater to the café crowd, but the band became name band after while, and there were three zanies who later made Broadway lights. Now Jake was café crowd. He was almost as fat as Poppa and Momma and Uncle Carlo but his tailor didn’t let you know. His white tie was unblemished, his graying hair well cut. Under his eyes was the Lepetino sadness.