A Long Line of Dead Men

"She said he was a real nice guy, fun to be with. Kind of kinky."



"I thought call girls never talked about their famous clients."



"That's right, darling. And if you put your tooth under your pillow, the Tooth Fairy will come and leave you a quarter."



"I think I'd rather keep the tooth."



"Well, you're just an old bear," she said. "Anyway, he liked leather, and he liked to be tied up."



"We tried that."



"And you fell asleep."



"Because I felt safe in your presence. Look, I'm sure it's interesting that Ray Gruliow's a bondage queen, but-"



"Not to mention golden showers."



"Golden showers?"



"I told you not to mention them. I bet he'd take a girl to Marilyn's Chamber."



"Huh?"



"Formerly the Hell-Fire Club," she said. "We were talking about it the other day, remember? That's its new name, Marilyn's Chamber. As in torture chamber, I guess, and as in the former porn star. See Mick tomorrow night and you can take me there on Saturday."



"You really want to go?"



"Sure, why not? I checked, and it's fifty dollars a couple and there's no pressure to do anything. And the price includes soft drinks, and that's all they serve, so you won't have to be around booze."



"Just whips and chains."



"There's a body-piercing exhibition scheduled for Saturday. You're fifty-five years old. Don't you think it's about time you witnessed a body-piercing exhibition?"



"I don't know how I lasted this long without it."



"I tried on the leather outfit and I think it looks hot."



"I wouldn't be surprised."



"But it's the least bit tight. I found out it looks better if I don't wear anything under it."



"Be awfully warm," I said. "In this weather."



"Well, the club's probably air-conditioned, don't you think?"



"In a basement on Washington Street? I wouldn't count on it."



"So? If I sweat, I sweat." She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "You don't mind a little sweat, do you?"



"No."



"I think I'll try that outfit on again," she said, "and you can tell me what you think."



She took my hand, drew me willingly to my feet. At the bedroom door she said, "You had a couple of messages. TJ wants you to beep him when you have a chance. But he didn't say it was urgent, so I suppose it can wait until morning, don't you think?"



"It'll have to," I said.



14



In the morning I beeped TJ and met him for breakfast across the street at the Morning Star. He was wearing the same shorts and cap, but in place of the vest he wore a denim shirt with the sleeves and collar removed and the three top buttons unbuttoned. I had already ordered and been served when he got there. He dropped into the seat opposite me and told the waiter he wanted a pair of cheeseburgers and a large order of well-done hash browns.



I said, "No french fries?"



"For breakfast?"



"Forgive me," I said. "I lost my head."



"Yeah, well, you lost it earlier, sendin' me up to the Bronx chasin' down shit happened three years ago. Neighborhoods I had to go, how you gonna find anybody remembers anything? Be like tryin' to find a needle in a crack house. An' if you did, why'd they want to talk about it?"



"Well, it was a long shot," I said, "but I thought it might be worth a try. I gather it was a waste of time."



"Who said, Fred? All I's sayin' is it be impossible. That don't mean I ain't done it."



"Oh?"



"Went all over the Bronx. Went places the trains don't go. You get off the train, then you has to take a bus." He shook his head at the wonder of it all. "Took a while, but I found folks used to know this Eldoniah. Thing is, that weren't the name they called him by."



"What did they call him?"



"Shy."



"Shy? He sounded about as retiring as a cobra."



"Well, he retirin' now, where he's at upstate. The way he be shy, see, the gang he run with, dudes'll look you right in the eye an' pull the trigger, shoot you while they smilin' at you."



"That's what I heard about Eldoniah."



"No, see, 'cause he too shy for that. That's why he's so happy the day he discovered cabdrivers. No need to be lookin' 'em in the eye, 'cause all you got to do is shoot 'em in the back of the head."



"And that's why they call him Shy."



"Din I just say that?"



"So as far as the street's concerned, he did those cabdrivers." He nodded. "The bust was righteous. But the white dude in the Yellow wasn't one of his."



"They told you that?"



"Didn't have to. The MO was all wrong." He grinned at my expression. "Well, don't that be how you'd say it? I gone be a detective, I might as well get down with the language. What Shy would do, he'd always call a cab from one of them livery services. An' he wouldn't drop it on Audubon Avenue where they found Cloonan, 'cause that be a Spanish neighborhood an' he likely to attract attention there. But just to make sure, I axed people who knew him."



"And they talked to you?"



"Story I told, I had the word from my mama that Eldoniah Mims was most likely my daddy. She just tol' me this right before she died, Clyde, so I was makin' it my business to see what I could find out about him."



"How old is Mims? I didn't think he was old enough to have been your father."



"He ain't, but none of the fools I talked to bothered to run the 'rithmetic. An' I guess Shy wasn't too shy, 'cause this one friend of his took me 'round an' introduced me to this kid and said we's evidently brothers. Kid was twelve years old an' meaner'n cat shit. I don't 'spect he'll live to be voting age, 'less they save his damn life by lockin' him up for the next six years." He grinned. "He glad to see me, though. Likes the idea that he's got an older brother. Someone to pull his coat, teach him the ways of the world."



"You'll be a good influence on him."



He rolled his eyes. "Only way you gone influence him is how Shy influenced those drivers. Shoot him in the back of the head. Anyway, all he told me is what I already figured out. Shy didn't do the dude in the Yellow. But you knew that, too, didn't you?"



"It certainly looked that way."



He washed down the last bite of cheeseburger with the last swallow of milk, pulled a napkin from the dispenser, and wiped his mouth. "Somethin' you don't know, though."



"There's a great deal I don't know."



"Killer was white."



"How do you know that?"



"Girl told me."



"That's damned interesting," I said. "I wonder how a rumor like that got all the way to the Bronx."



"Who said anything about the Bronx? We talkin' Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights where the guy in the Yellow got shot."



"What were you doing there?"



"Same thing I doin' everywhere, mindin' other folks's business. Did I say it a Spanish neighborhood? I didn't blend in too good."



"I guess your Spanish is rusty."



"I best get some of those tapes, learn it in my sleep. But what good's bein' able to talk Spanish in your sleep?" He shrugged. "Don't make no sense. What I done, I was this assistant to Melissa Mikawa, does them features on New York One?"



"I know who you mean. You told them you were her assistant?"



"Why not? I wasn't wearin' these clothes, Rose. Got me some long pants, neat little polo shirt, pair of penny loafers. Put on a Brooks Brothers accent to match the clothes. You think I didn't look like some kind of assistant to a TV reporter?"



"What about the hair?"



He whipped off his cap. His hair was a tight cap of curls that rose a scant half-inch from his scalp. "Got it cut," he said. "What you think?"



"It looks good."



"Looks better with the cap on," he said. "Least when I'm on the Deuce it does." From the red Kangaroo circling his waist he produced a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, put them on. "I was wearin' these," he said. "An' I was carryin' a clipboard. That's even better than the glasses. Man with a clipboard, you know he's there on legitimate business, an' everybody can't hardly wait to tell him the combination to the safe. You know who told me that?"



"Some legendary con artist, I'm sure."



"Yeah, well, he ain't that slick, 'cause he be payin' for my breakfast this morning."



"I told you about the clipboard?"



" 'Bout a year ago. We havin' coffee, you reminiscin', tellin' me stuff. You don't recall? Well, see, I pay attention when Matthew Scudder be talkin'. Even if you don't."



"What did you tell them on Audubon Avenue? Melissa Mikawa's planning a segment on murdered cabdrivers?"



He nodded. "I said she doin' a story on that particular case, an' how it was never solved, 'cause what do they know on Audubon Avenue about Shy Mims an' his upstate huntin' lodge? I said how anybody who was aroun' when it went down, anybody who heard or saw anything, might get to be on television. An' they be gettin' to meet Melissa Mikawa. Man, they loves that bitch up in Washington Heights! She Japanese, right?"



"If she isn't," I said, "it's a hell of an act she puts on."



"Well, they actin' like they think she's Rican. Axin' me all this shit, what's she like, has she got a boyfriend. Time I got done makin' up stories about her, I was starting to believe 'em myself. Anyway, I found this one girl, she was right there when Cloonan got killed."



"What did she see?"



"Saw the Yellow pull up an' park in the bus stop on the corner. Then a little while later she saw this dude get out an' close the door an' walk away."



" 'A little while later.' Five minutes? Ten minutes?"



"Man, this was four years ago. An' she still in high school, so how old was she when it went down? An' who remembers how long a cab stands around 'fore some fool gets out of it? She wouldna thought anything of it at all, except later on the police came and drugged a body out of the Yellow."



"She didn't hear a shot."



"Says she didn't."



"He must have used a suppressor. You say she got a look at him?"



"She got a look. Don't know how good a look it was."



"And she said he was white? Could he have been a white Hispanic?"



"I said was he Spanish, and she said he was white."



"Like, no, he wasn't Spanish, he was white?"



"Like that, yeah."



"And he got out of the cab, and-"



"Leaned in, like he was sayin' something to the driver. Like, wait for me. That's why nobody thought nothin' when the Yellow stayed right where it was."



"Was the meter on?"



"Wasn't on in the first place."



"He threw the flag before he pulled up to park? They do that sometimes but-"



"What she said," TJ said, "and you got to keep in mind this was four years ago-"



"And she was just a kid, I understand that part. What did she say?"



"Dude wasn't a fare."



"The passenger? The man she saw?"