Jimmy and Fay (30 page)

I heard something behind me and turned my head enough to see a man and a woman against the wall by the projection booth. It was the guy in the dress policeman's uniform and the blond waitress who made me an offer. Looked like he took her up on it. She was on her knees working at his fly.

The rest of Bobby's picture followed the plot of the real one as far as it needed to. You saw Nola going up the gangplank of a ship, taking a shower in a metal stall, practicing a scream in the gauze dress, and being taken off the ship. You never really saw any of the guys. They were just the hands or arms of men just outside the range of the camera. And in every shot, Nola looked as glamorous and as sexy as almost any woman I've ever seen on a screen. Almost. But she couldn't act. Not that it made any difference to the people in the audience. And, hell, Bobby wasn't the first man, or the last, to try to build a moving picture around a well-stacked blonde.

In place of the big important scenes from the real movie—the ship in the fog, Skull Island, Kong breaking the Gate—Bobby inserted shots of those pencil sketches I saw on the walls of the studio. Funny, those were the only things that came close to the first one. He also had a shot of Nola pretending to fight against the big hand, and then in the next one, Carlos in the gorilla suit. Like the other stuff, it didn't bother the rest of the audience. Now, all the way through, they were whooping and whistling and wolf-calling whenever Nola showed some flesh. And Bobby knew enough about building suspense to keep at least some of Nola's clothes on in the early part. So later, during the shower and when she was tied up between the pillars, the guys got real quiet. Then when Carlos showed up, as the Beast, and whipped off his codpiece, you could tell they were impressed.

Every eye was trained on the screen when he tore her dress open. That's when the first bomb exploded.

Being at the back of the crowd, I saw the light flash near the front doors and heard the thing hissing. I was close enough to see a can spinning on the wooden floor until it disappeared inside the smoke that was spewing out. Guys in the closest seats jumped up and knocked them over and yelled. Before anybody really knew what was going on, a second one went off near the bandstand. It wasn't nearly as loud as the first one, not much louder than a firecracker. Somebody yelled “Fire” and there was more banging and milling around with some guys running toward the front door, some away from it, and some not moving from their seats. Bobby's voice cut through the others' saying, “Calm down. This is just somebody's idea of a joke.” The noise level dropped, but a lot of guys were still up and moving around. The movie went on.

I headed toward the bar where the waitresses were likely to be. For me, it was a scary moment, being the smallest guy in a roomful of big blundering bodies, most of them drunk and close to being panicked. That's damn dangerous for a guy my size. You don't stay on your feet, you get trampled. The only light was from the projector showing Carlos pumping into Nola. I shoved and shouldered and used my stick to clear a way to the
staff only
door and pushed another guy out of the way to get through.

It was a brightly lit kitchen with empty food trays, boxes, and bottles on the metal tables. Four waitresses who looked confused and scared at what they were hearing in the other room stood together near a door. No Connie. I yelled out, “Is there a Connie Nix here?” and the way they looked at me, I knew she wasn't there.

One girl asked, “Is this part of the show?”

I said no and was about to say more when the door behind me banged open and the bartender shoved me aside.

“Bring towels and water,” he yelled. He grabbed a couple of seltzer siphons and ran back out.

At the same moment, another door at the other end of the kitchen opened and two men came through it. I wasn't close enough to get a clear look at their faces, but one of them was Learned Wilcox on his two sticks. The other man was helping and hurrying him along. They went around the end of the big table in the middle of the room and out the back door. I tried to follow and heard a loud yell from outside and then grunts, curses, and two quick gunshots. The four waitresses ran into me as they tried to get away from the shooting. I heard two more shots as I shoved the door open and pulled out the Banker's Special.

I was in the alley off Monroe Street. One of Bobby's goons had fallen against the brick wall on the other side and was trying to aim his pistol. The men I'd seen inside were halfway to Monroe Street. The one in the lead smoothly raised his gun and aimed. The goon dropped his piece and staggered back. I stopped and didn't do anything.

The guy with the gun lowered it and turned to me. His mask was gone. It was the guy I saw in the Olds, no question. We stared at each other for what seemed to me a long time. Then he put his gun away and carried Learned Wilcox on down the alley. The Olds was waiting for them on Monroe Street.

The first guy put Wilcox into the car and turned back to me.

“Mr. Quinn,” he said in a loud clear voice. “Follow me.”

Then he got in the car and it drove away.
What the hell?

Back in the kitchen, I could smell the fumes from the smoke bomb. The waitresses were still huddling and trying to decide what to do. I could hear Bobby calming them down in the other room.

Arch found me when I came through the door by the bar and asked what the hell was going on. I told him that I saw a smoke bomb close to the front doors and heard another one. The smoke had cleared some, but I couldn't really tell because guys still had their cigars fired up. The picture had stopped and the gaslights were up. Looked to me like some of the men were back in their seats, but a lot of others were grabbing their coats and getting out. I guess they figured that the excitement might bring the cops and they didn't want to be around. Bobby was saying that the bar would be open again and they would restart the second reel, but the movie was only the first part of the program. Right then, it was even money whether most of the guys would stampede out or settle down to the stag movie.

Arch said, “Where did you run off to this time?”

“The kitchen. Looking for Connie. I don't think she's here.”

“I don't either. What do we do now?”

Up on the dais, Bobby stopped talking when Peter Wilcox grabbed his elbow. I imagine he was asking where his old man had got to.

I said to Arch, “Let's see how this works out. And tell me something, have you seen the guy in the big hat and the skull mask?”

“Not since you pointed him out to me.”

“Take a look around. See if he's still here.”

Arch nodded and headed off. I went to the bar to check that part of the room. He wasn't there, and all the waitresses I'd seen were handing out more drinks. I went back into the kitchen to make sure I hadn't missed anyone. It was empty.

Back in the big room, Bobby was still talking to Wilcox. It looked like Wilcox was telling him what to do, and Bobby wasn't liking it one damn bit.

The guys who had new drinks were getting into seats again, and all of them were starting to get edgy. One guy was saying he was sure he heard shots outside. They could tell something wasn't right.

It didn't matter to me. Right then, all I felt was a sense of relief. Connie wasn't there. That's what mattered. Bobby and Nola would do whatever they had to do without me. I was finished with them. I was pretty sure I knew what the guy meant when he said for me to follow him, but it wasn't as important as Connie. It was time to find Arch, go back to the Chelsea, and keep looking for her.

But then I noticed that the man in the dress police uniform was hanging back from the others. He was standing next to the projection booth. He pulled out a handkerchief, took off his mask, and buttoned his fly with shaky hands. He had a shell-shocked look, like he was either going to throw up or shit his pants.

I knew who he was and had to consider what to do. When Arch came back, I told him to bring the car around to the front. We were taking somebody with us.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I'll explain by and by.”

He left. I went over to the man in the dress uniform and said, “Captain Boatwright? I'm Jimmy Quinn. I know one of your detectives. William Ellis. Want a ride back to the precinct?”

I could tell it spooked him when I said his name. But he got over it, and looking relieved, he nodded his head.

Chapter Twenty
-
Five

It must have been sometime after three in the morning when we stopped in front of Captain Boatwright's precinct house on Twentieth Street. He hadn't said a word for the whole drive. He got out, kept one hand on the door, and said, “Your name's Quinn,” his breath fogging in the cold.

“Right.”

“Well.” He gave the door a solid slap, like he approved of it, and said, “Good man.” He squared his shoulders, straightened his cap, and walked up the steps, every inch a captain of New York's finest.

Arch said, “You mean he really is a cop?”

“Yeah, Ellis's boss.”

Arch nodded. “I can see how a man like that would need a man like Ellis to keep him out of trouble.”

“Ain't that the truth.”

On the way back to the speak, I told Arch about what went on in the alley. “I couldn't really tell if this guy was kidnapping Wilcox or if the old guy was going along with him. But, see, here's the funny thing. This Oldsmobile has been part of this business from the beginning. The first night, when Trodache and the kid braced me outside Lansky's place, they were in the Olds. And I knew they had a third guy with them, but there could've been another guy, a driver. I didn't get a look at this guy's mug until tonight when I spotted him in the Olds casing the place on Corlears Street, just like I was doing, and, you know, I almost thought I'd seen him before.”

“Describe him to me,” Arch said.

“Middle aged, gray hair, heavy soft jowls.”

Arch thought for a moment, then said, “On Thursday night, late, there was a man like that in the bar. Came in around midnight. Ordered a gin and It and made it last. He had on a brown suit, and he carried a cap that he kept his gloves in. Didn't check them. It was around the time that gossip columnist fellow from the
Comet
, Dunbar, was in to see you. I remember this fellow had a table near him.”

“How the hell do you remember him at all?”

“He was different. He wasn't there to socialize. He didn't really want the gin and It, either, and who could blame him, it's a nasty drink. He had a newspaper open, but he didn't really read it that I saw. That's all. I didn't pay as much attention to him after you and Dunbar started jawing. We were all interested in that and hoped it meant he'd write about what a splendid place Jimmy Quinn's is and then we'd be crowded every night and the tips would be magnificent and we'd get the raises we deserve. So I can't be completely certain, but it's more than likely that he left before Dunbar. That's it.”

Hmmm. “Okay, I guess that makes sense. You see, the last thing this guy said tonight in the alley, just as he hustled old Wilcox into the car, was ‘Follow me.'”

“Follow him?”

“Yeah. He said, ‘Mr. Quinn, follow me.'”

“But you didn't.”

“No. I know where he is.”

Arch said, “The mansion on Fifth. And we're going there now.”

“No, first we're going to see if Connie is at the speak or the Chelsea.”

As I expected, Frenchy and Marie Therese had closed the place. We usually locked up around two on Sundays unless it was a big night. Arch waited with the car while I checked inside. There was no note from Connie in my office or behind the bar. Same thing at the Chelsea. Tommy was facedown and snoring behind the front desk. I let myself into her room. Nothing had changed since the afternoon. I went back to the car.

We drove up Fifth, and I went over everything that had happened since Thursday, and it still didn't make sense to me. The one part I could figure was Nola and Carlos. That was easy. Bobby hired them to screw in front of his camera. They did and they enjoyed it. They enjoyed it so much they decided to get hitched. But knowing Bobby, he gave them part of their money before their performance and then put them off for the rest. Put them off until he realized that he wanted them to do it again in front of a live audience. That's why he wanted to know if I'd seen her. But he did locate them and talked them into an encore. That's when Carlos held him up. And it was a safe bet that he and Nola were the first ones out of there when the smoke bombs went off and the shooting started. Hell, I'm just a sentimentalist. I hoped they were already on a boat to Cuba.

We stopped in front of the place and could see lights in the courtyard. I told Arch, “Keep your piece close at hand. I don't know what the hell we're going to find in there.”

“I suspected as much, and I've got to ask why we're here at all. As I understand it from what you told me, you've done everything the stuffed shirts from RKO wanted you to do and if there's any reason to think Connie's here, you haven't told me, and it's certainly not because a chauffeur told you to. So . . . why?”

I thought before I answered. “Because I want to know about that damn goat. I know Trodache and the kid didn't dream up the extortion business on their own, and like you said, that's finished. But any way that I look at it, I can't figure the goat. So here I am. That doesn't mean you've got to be as screwy as I am.”

“The hell you say. I can be as screwy as any man.”

The iron gate was still unlocked. The water in the fountain was green and frozen. We didn't bother with the knocker on the big front door. It was unlocked, too, so we went straight inside. There were no lights, and nobody had turned the heat on so it was as cold as it was outside. We could see firelight coming through the open door of the library down the hall.