Buy Back (16 page)

I sat in a kimono on her couch with a forest fire of aromatherapy candles burning and ran down what was what. When I was done, I shrugged and looked into those dark almond eyes gazing across at me from the wing chair.

“So we’ve got the police and the mob who want a piece of me, and we’ve got this kid sniper on the loose, and my paintings are already gone, and I’ve got two goofballs on my side trying to steal a key to recover the money, and I have to come up with fifteen grand in six days or Vince Scanlon is going to start gouging, for money at first and then for real.”

“What if you tell the police everything?”

I almost laughed. “I don’t know how I leave out the part about me and the goodies, the part that could send me to prison.”

“Could you tell them about chasing the shooter? That’s not connected to anything else.”

“Somehow I think it is, and so will Detective Doh. Ms. French is the common connection to these two, the one who tried to deal with Jo-Ball and tipped Huey. She hired the punk to start killingpeople connected to the theft of the Hoffman, Le Marr, and Ramirez. Frank and Kootie are probably next. And me. The police catch the punk shooter, they’re going to find out all about this theft, and when they do I’m toast.”

Delilah pushed out of her chair, her long braid swinging as she paced. She turned, arms folded.

“You
think
, Tommy. You don’t
know
. Maybe you should look at your assumptions more closely. Open yourself to the power of possibilities.”

“Like?”

“The shooter, for one. Maybe he was after Jo-Ball and Huey for another reason, not connected to the paintings.”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “The stolen Hoffman, Ramirez, and Le Marr are a commonality.”

“Just because a pigeon shares a branch with two other birds doesn’t mean all three are pigeons.”

“Birds of a feather, Dee. That’s low percentage. OK, what else?”

She drifted off to the kitchen and came back with the wine, which was soon refilling my glass. Her other hand stroked my hair.

“You look great with the new haircut, Tommy. So glad the beard is gone.”

“Thanks. Do I look like Kirk Douglas?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“Actually, I saw myself in the mirror, the first morning after you cut my beard? I was spooked. I looked like Pop.”

“Tommy, you are not your father, we’ve been over that.”

“I am like my father. Doesn’t mean I am him, or am following his path.”

“What was it those two said, the ugly one and—”

“Frank and Kootie?”

“Right. What was it they said?”

“They said they were going to go steal the key for the storage locker, from Huey at the hospital.”

“Not that.”

I shrugged. She leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Buy back.”

“So?”

“What’s it mean?”

“How the hell do I know? Huey is dead. Mostly. Let’s just say he’s not going to wake up and be able to tell us what it means.”

Delilah sat next to me and took my hand. “Open yourself, Tommy. You know what a buy back is.”

I did. A buy back is a local institution. When you go to a bar in Brooklyn, and a lot of places throughout the city, a bartender will buy every third or fourth drink if you tip him the cost of that drink. That’s good for the customer because he only pays for his drinks and not for a tip on top of that. It’s good for the bartender because it inflates his tips. It’s even good for the bar owner. He pays his bartender minimum wage and allows him to give away free drinks that cost the owner a quarter so the customer will tip the bartender six dollars. The owner has bought six dollars in wages for his employee from the customer for a quarter.

So the bartender and the bar owner only seem to give the drink away.

“OK, so I know what a buy back is.”

“In a buy back there’s the bar owner, the bartender, and the customer. Huey saw himself in this arrangement somewhere.”

“He’d have to be the bartender. He took the paintings from one person and gave it to another, the same way a bartender takes a drink from the bar owner and gives it to a customer.”

“So that would make the museum the bar owner, and Ms. French the customer.”

My wineglass was suddenly empty again, and I set it on the table so I could rub my face. I was having a hard time putting one scheme in with the other.

“You’re closing up, Tommy.” Delilah was standing behind me, working my shoulder muscles. “Stay open to possibilities. You’re almost there, I can feel it.”

My hands were still over my eyes. “So … the museum
lets
Huey steal the paintings so that Ms. French will pay Huey. How does that service the museum’s bottom line? Why would they steal their own paintings? Doesn’t make sense.”

“Tommy, you know deep down that there’s an alternate perspective. At the very least I would say you need to look more closely at those involved.”

I was still rubbing my face.

“I know, Dee. I can’t find French to bear down on her. I guess I need to twist Frank and Kootie some more.”

“Who are the other players?”

“Just the museum.”

“What about Max?”

I looked up at her. She continued.

“They hired you to find the paintings. They’re the bar owner.”

“I could see Max involved in something shady.” Delilah circled behind me, and her hands slipped around my neck. “I can see Max putting a pillow over his own mother’s face. He was talking some serious trash last time I saw him. About cutting me out as a middleman.”

“Sounds like something worth looking into.” Delilah began squeezing my shoulders.

“Dee?”

“Hm?”

“You believe in karma, right?”

“You know I do.”

“Does that mean good things happen to good people?”

The massage of my shoulders paused. “Not necessarily in a single life. Your spirituality endures.”

“I know it’s sort of a naive question. Bad things don’t always happen to bad people. I’m just saying. It would be nice if karma worked that way. It would be nice if the circles folded back on themselves in a single incarnation.”

“They do.”

I shrugged. “Usually that’s just irony.”

“Irony is karma at work.”

I looked her in the eye. “I wish I could believe that.”

“I made my move.”

“Move?”

“Scrabble.”

“Yeah?”

She led me by the hand over to the board.

The word was “bounce.”

MY LAWYER, CAROL DOONAN, IS
what you’d call a tough old broad. If you said it to her face, she might punch yours. Or she might buy you a drink. Her blue eyes were so pale they were almost silver, like her short hair, both of which stood out against her deeply tanned skin. Carol had her charms for her age, which if you tried to guess you might get punched out a second time. Tough but flirty, that was Carol. She liked men, and she liked gambling. If you can distinguish between the two.

I sat in front of her giant metal desk in a metal chair. Both had been in her dad’s law office in the Stone Age. There were black-and-white photos on the wall of him with various New York celebrities, and color photos of Carol with Brooklyn politicians. He was dead a while.

The walls were lined with stacks of legal documents.

I was there alone for thirty minutes before she burst in and gave me a kiss on the cheek from behind. A second later she was at her desk poking at her computer.

“Talk to me, handsome man. Nice shave—and a haircut, too. A woman must have done this to Tommy Wommy, hmmm? What do we got? We have a half hour before the fuzz gets here.”

“You might say a woman was involved.”

“The one from Vegas? I was there, what, three weeks ago. Long weekend, busted up the tables at the Bellagio, man oh man. Met this gorgeous hunk of a man at the bar. A pilot.”

“The Vegas girl is on waivers.”

“Did she move in?”

“In and then out.”

“Easy come easy go. No more cat hair.”

“She left the cats. Four.”

“Ack! What did you do with them?”

“Took care of them, what else was there to do?”

Carol’s eyes left the computer screen and focused on me. “You dear, dear man. Want me to find her, sue her?”

“No money there. Except mine.”

“Ouch!” Her eyes went back to the computer. “Tommy Wommy, what the hell were you thinking? Ah, but you weren’t, were you?”

“How much time do we have now?”

“Twenty-two minutes, to be exact. What kind of jam are you in? Be only as specific as you need to be, bubby.”

So I told her the story this way: Three paintings were stolen from the Whitbread Museum Sunday night. Monday morning, I heard about it from an acquaintance, even though it was not reported to the police. A client of mine—Max of USA—insures the Whitbread, and even before they called—which they did—I started looking into it. My first stop was Huey, because I heard he had something to do with it, but he denied it. So then I went to Johnny One-Ball, who is a local fence. He tells me he knows something about it but isn’t comfortable discussing it in the diner, so we step outside. A bullet exploded his head, and another just missed mine. I was debriefed by the police, and I went to my masseuse for a workover and then to the museum to debrief the guards who were at the robbery. I went home and to sleep. Tuesday, I got a haircut, short to go with the new clean shave, and the barber told me the local mobbed-up guys think maybe I killed Jo-Ball and are not happy with me. I left there, made my way back to the pastry shop because I thought I might be able to make Huey flip. Jo-Ball getting killed might have made Huey nervous if he was sitting on the paintings. Just after I arrive, Huey’s head explodes. Only this time I saw the shooter across the street, a punk kid. I chased him up Sackett, the old lady attacked him, he dropped the gun, I chased, he jumped in the canal, and I lost him on the Third Avenue bus. I went home. Wednesday, yesterday, I went to Jo-Ball’s funeral. After the funeral, I took a ride with Flat Face to the cemetery, and instead of being upset, they want me to take Jo-Ball’s place as a fence for local stolen art. I told them I’d think about it because I didn’t want to get killed just yet. That’s when I ran into Doh and Crispi, who were following the funeral and spotted me getting out of the mob car. They wanted me to come to the station and talk to them. Instead I provided them with the contact information for my lawyer, said I’d be glad to talk with them if she was there and said it was OK.

Carol stopped typing. “That it?”

“Pretty much. Oh, and I owe money to a shylock, fifteen large by next Tuesday.”

“Cops know you were at the second hit?”

“Could be.”

“They know you chased the kid?”

“Could be, but I was wearing a trench coat and hat. I don’t think they have an ID that can stick. The old lady was busy hitting the kid with the broom, and only the one DOT worker got close enough to see my face. Oh yeah, and the Polish watchman at the phone yard. Like I said, I had a hat on, pulled down low to keep it from blowing off.”

“They know about the shylock?”

“Yeah.”

“They know the connected guys are hooking you?”

“They saw me getting out of Flat Face’s limo. I’m guessing they know who he is, but I don’t. Anyway, not sure what Doh and Crispi think of that.”

“I was right.” Carol’s eyes flashed. “You do have interesting problems. Did the right thing to have them call me, Tommy.”

“I’m pretty good doing the right thing. Whether it pays off or not is another matter.”

“Especially when it comes to women.”

I felt my face get hot, and I guess I turned red, because Carol looked suddenly all droopy.

“Tommy, I’m sorry I said that. I was just kidding with you. You know I love you, I wouldn’t hurt you intentionally. Say you forgive me.”

“I don’t feel any hostility toward you, Carol. No need to forgive. You are right about the women, and I’m a little ashamed, to be honest.”

“The Vegas show girl—she’s the one who put you on the hook with the shylock?”

I took a deep breath. I let it out and said, “Yeah.”

“You poor kid!” Carol jogged around the desk and pulled my head into her bosom like she was my mom or something. “Let’s take care of the police, and then we’ll look into doing something about the shylock. Which one?”

From inside her tits I said, “Scanlon.”

“Scanlon? Jesus. OK, well, could be worse. I can talk to him for you.”

Carol stepped back just in time for me to come up for air. “Thanks, Carol. I’ll let you know if that’s necessary. I think I may be able to be square with him by next week. If I can sort out these missing paintings I should be in clover.”

Carol’s desk phone bleeped. She went around to answer it.

When she put the receiver back down she said, “Only talk if I tell you to, Tommy. You know the drill. If I ask you to answer, there is only one answer.”

I just nodded, keeping my mouth shut already.

The door opened, and the two detectives slid into the room. Doh looked comfortable enough when he sat down, but Crispi looked like he had better things to do. I remember thinking that Crispi must have been a very unhappy person to be so anxious all the time. It seemed like the only way he knew how to express himself was through hostility. Poor guy. Life’s too short for that.

Doh waved at me. “He fill you in?”

Carol was back answering e-mails or something. “My client told me you wish to talk to him again. Is this about the Johnny Culobrese murder? Or about the attempt on my client’s life?”

Doh shot me a glance. “There have been two murders.”

“I’ll answer the questions for my client unless I instruct him otherwise.” Carol’s eye met Doh’s. “First question.”

“We have eyewitness reports that a man fitting Davin’s description in a brown fedora was seen chasing a young man in the vicinity of the last shooting. A young man who jumped into the canal. DOT workers were there with the drawbridge up. One of them said Davin pushed him.”

I was guessing the old lady clammed up and didn’t call the cops. Figures. Brooklyn natives aren’t what you’d call quick to call the cops and get involved if they can avoid it. They’re kind of jaded when it comes to cops and robbers. I think they believe the cops and the crooks are all connected somehow and that it’ll come back to bite them in the ass if they drop a dime.