Kiss Her Goodbye (24 page)

"Come on, doc, people die in hotels all the time."

"Not like this."

"Oh. Yeah, well I can see that."

The doc was long gone when the uniforms got there. The older of the pair wanted my story and I told him I was Mike Hammer and that Captain Chambers of Homicide was on the way. That satisfied him, and Pat made it in less than half an hour. He looked a little rumpled and he'd forgot his hat, but he made it.

Pat stood looking down at the dead guy, shaking his head, hands on hips. "This tears it. This really fucking tears it."

"You want to hear what happened?"

He grunted something that wasn't quite a laugh. "Why not?"

I told him, referring only to Angela as "a lady friend." I left the handcuffs out, too, basically starting with me getting up to go to the john.

He glared at me. "You call this self-defense?"

"Hell yes! The prick comes into my hotel room, with a goddamn Bowie knife, intending to cut me up while I slept."

"But you disemboweled him."

"Yeah. And?"

"
And?
How the hell do you disembowel somebody in self-defense?"

I shrugged. "He got on my bad side."

Pat closed his eyes. I thought maybe he was praying. Then he opened them, but he didn't look at me. "Well, where is she, your lady friend? I hope she makes a good witness."

The toilet flushed again. I figured the first time was her puking; the second was anybody's guess.

She came out, looking fairly spiffy in the silk blouse and short dark skirt. Not a lovely hair out of place, but her eyes were off. I don't know whether Pat noticed that, because he was just gaping at her in general.

"Angela Marshall," he said, to me, not her. "The assistant district
attorney
is your witness?"

"She should make a good one," I said.

Pat sighed heavily, then went to the phone and called for the lab boys. Then he gently walked Angela out to the hall, away from the body, and asked her to wait. After that, he returned to take a brief statement from me, just inside the door.

When he'd slipped his notebook away, Pat said, "I don't mean to encourage you, but I do have a couple of pieces of information you might appreciate hearing."

"Go ahead. Liven up my evening."

"Remember Ollie Joe's Steak House, where Ginnie Mathes worked? Where she talked to a patron at some length before she left and went out and got killed?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, the register girl at Ollie Joe's identified Joseph Fidello's picture as the chatty patron."

"Really. What do you make of that?"

"Nothing yet. But there can be no question we're looking at murder, not some random mugging. Not with both of them dead. On the other hand, I believe we've confirmed that the little hooker, the Thorpe girl, was not the intended hit-and-run victim. It was all you, Mike."

"Why do you say that?"

Pat arched an eyebrow. "Washington kicked back some interesting info on Dulcie Thorpe's former pimp, the one she shot?"

"What's the deal?"

"The deal is he's dead. And has been dead for three months. The feds had him on tap because he was involved in some interstate heisting of stolen stereo equipment. Got killed in one of those falling-outs among thieves you hear about. Appears he gave up pimping, after Dulcie popped him."

"Tough to keep discipline with the rest of the stable," I said, "once one of the girls shoots your ass."

He glanced toward the dead body. "So ... I'm sure you've noticed something significant about your caller tonight."

"You recognize him, too?"

Pat's laugh rumbled out of his gut. "Oh yeah. That's Frankie Cerone. One of the top Bonetti guns. Seems old Alberto may still have a grudge against you after all, Mike. For taking out his boy Sal."

"I don't think Alberto gives a shit about Sal."

"What?"

I shook my head. "Word is, old Alberto's been getting credit for staging Doolan's suicide, though I don't think he did. And for trying to have me run down, too, which I also don't think he did." I nodded toward the gutted killer. "I think he decided he might as well really get in the game."

"What, to build up his rep?"

I nodded. "My guess is the old man is trying to stage a comeback. Maybe I'll have a talk with Alberto."

"Mike, you stay the hell away from him. I will throw your ass in jail so fast—"

"How can you make that speech and keep a straight face? Listen, I'm going to call the desk to arrange for a new room. This one's a mess."

I went over and stepped carefully across the corpse and called down to the desk. When the arrangements were made, I returned to Pat and said, "Take it easy on Ms. Marshall, Pat. She's had a bad shock."

"I will. For political reasons if not humanitarian ones."

"Give me a second with her."

I went out in the hall. She was smoking a cigarette.

"Thought you quit," I said gently.

"So did I," she mumbled. "Bummed one off an officer."

The two uniforms were milling. We were down a ways and had enough privacy to talk.

"You need to give your statement to Captain Chambers," I said.

She nodded. Drew in smoke, closed her eyes, exhaled a blue-gray stream.

"Listen," I said, "I arranged for another room. You'll love this, doll—a thousand rooms in this dump, and they only had one available. It's the Honeymoon Suite."

She looked at me like I was a ghost that had materialized before her. Not a good kind of ghost either.

"You have
got
to be
kidding
me...."

I held up a palm. "Just to crash. Just to decompress from all this crap that went down."

"Really?" She shook her head, sort of shivering, then she took another drag, let it linger, finally exhaled, and said, "Mike, I know you saved my life. I
know
you did."

"You don't have to thank me, baby."

"I'm not thanking you. I mean, I am grateful, but ... I
saw
what you did."

"That was self-defense."

"In its way, it was ... and I will back you up. I owe you that much. But you went over the line, Mike. You didn't have to do ... what you did. You enjoyed it. How can you
enjoy
killing? What is wrong with you?"

"I don't enjoy killing just anybody," I said defensively.

She laughed at that. There was hysteria in it, but she seemed otherwise calm as she stroked my face, and the gesture held genuine affection.

"I was falling in love with you tonight, Mike. I was drunk, a little drunk, yes, but falling ... only now? I can't be with you, Mike."

She went over to one of the uniforms and said she was ready to give Captain Chambers her statement.

I could only sigh.

And here I thought this doll was like Velda....

A
LBERTO BONETTI HAD
a distinct advantage over most of his associates—he was an Ellis Island baby. Nine months earlier, he had been conceived in a squalid area of Poldosti, Sicily, fathered by a young anarchist with a passionate hatred of authority and nurtured in the belly of a plain and plump wife who was madly in love with her impetuous husband. Alberto's mama never even considered the fact that the child's father had no feeling at all for her, except that their marriage contract and her dowry bought them tickets out of that oppressive country to the new land of America.

By the time all the arrangements had been made, their baby was approaching term, and upon disembarking at Ellis Island, New York, Maria Bonetti promptly gave birth to Alberto, a brand-new United States citizen...

...and already a headache to officials, who didn't quite know how to deal with a sudden birth right on their literal doorstep.

But citizen or not, Alberto remained a Sicilian at heart. And not in a good way. One day New York's Five Families woke up to find they had a new neighbor who had grown up while they were warring, whose wealth and power had made him into a quiet, deadly force that could not be ignored and, rather than invite him into their conclave, they simply moved over and made room for him.

The early dons seemed to relish holding on to their early beginnings. The decrepit old buildings where they started their empires were like the hills of their old, beloved Sicily, the caves they had to return to every so often to make them remember who they really were.

A half block off Second Avenue, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, the Y and S Men's Club took up all three floors of an old brick building whose considerable renovations were not visible from without.

On the street level, behind frosted windows and a wooden door marked
MEMBERS ONLY,
was a recreation room with pool tables, pinball machines, and booths along one side for sipping cold cans of beer from upright pop machines that needed no coins and held no pop and were lined up against the opposite wall like the victims in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. This lineup included a 1950s-era jukebox that played old rock 'n' roll and new heavy metal, no fuckin' disco, and similarly required no coins. Toward the back was the latest thing, a massive rear-projection television that ran continuously with beat-up easy chairs and a threadbare couch arranged for worship at its cathode altar.

This ground floor was the province of the young turks, the bodyguards, muscle boys, and pistoleros who had graduated from street gangs and relaxed here between duties, criminal and otherwise. An open staircase climbed the rear right wall and on the opposite side was a small elevator. There were presumably other avenues of entry and escape known only to the occupants.

No snotty kids or teenaged punks ever touched the muscle cars parked out front, or the luxury rides with vinyl tops and whitewalls in the rear lot. Reprisals for that kind of action were swift and severe. No ongoing police surveillance was maintained either, unless a member was out on bail and being watched. The Y and S Club was well protected and well defended.

The second floor could have been a Madison Avenue millionaire's hideaway. A curved, thirty-foot-long bar with chair-back stools dominated a chamber whose richly dark wood-paneled walls were decorated with gilt-framed paintings in oil, watercolor, and pastel by famous artists, the kind whose work had been copied onto the nose cones of planes during World War II. The subject matter was female nudity, of course—this
was
a men's club—but nothing outright vulgar.

In addition to a civilian bartender, a staff of four was on hand to take coats and hats, serve drinks, and do whatever their benefactors required. These minions were a special breed—their training suited them for the finest private club in any major city, but they were also armed bodyguards. They wore dignified black suits with black bow ties, and the cut of the jackets did not betray the holstered guns on their hips. Among their duties was never remembering what went on in this sanctuary of smoking, drinking, and privacy.

The members were an odd mix. Men in their sixties and seventies, in sweaters and threadbare pants, would sit at a pearl-enameled table and play cribbage, whist, and other old-fart card games. A table of sharply dressed younger members—in their forties—had a poker game going that took up a corner with a felt table and a hanging Tiffany-type shade. This game had been continuous, as far as anybody knew, for decades. Always money on the table. Always players coming in and out. Whether six
A.M.
or six at night, no matter.

In the middle of the room was a little reading area, easy chairs and a couch around a coffee table littered with upper-tier girlie magazines, plus
Sports Illustrated, Ring, Variety,
and various boating periodicals. No TV had been installed in the second floor clubroom—anybody wanting to watch sports could join the kiddies downstairs. No radio either—if you wanted to keep track of the horses, go to a fuckin' bookie joint already. There was, however, continuous music, soft but easily discerned, Italian crooners singing hits of the forties and fifties.

No disco allowed on the second floor either.

On the third floor were the suites. Each one had a living room with TV and wet bar, a well-appointed bedroom, and a luxurious bath with a large hot tub. There were three such suites, used by important out-of-town guests and by various members who wanted a little overnight getaway from the wife and kids. A larger fourth suite, however, belonged to the master of the brick castle.

This was Alberto Bonetti's home away from home.

As a kid, he and his gang holed up in the cellar under Poco's papa's saloon, and as long as they never messed with the old man's beer barrels or raised too much hell, he let them alone. Now Alberto had a mansion on Long Island, where his alcoholic wife lived in luxury and despair over the demise of Sal and the lack of visits from their married daughter, who had publicly disowned them, and the lawyer son who had put a continent between him and the family whose money had paid for his deluxe schooling. And Alberto was only around on the occasional weekend.

Weekdays, Alberto worked and relaxed in his comfortable Y and S Club suite, which included a small kitchen and a modest office with no staff, since he was retired, after all. Various of his business interests around the greater metropolitan area did have larger office setups and all kinds of staff.

But old Alberto
was
retired. Just puttering these days. Right?

The Y and S, by the way, stood for the Yelling and Spitting Club. Little of that was done here now, except maybe the punks on the first floor.

This, at least, had been the arrangement of the club when I had last been there, over a year ago, when I had asked for and received a sit-down with Alberto Bonetti in his suite.

I had tried to reason with the old man, requesting that he get a handle on his son Sal, whose ruthless loan-sharking activities had been causing a client of mine grief. Alberto had listened politely, thrown up his hands, and said, "What can a father do? Kids these days."

I had been up late, dealing with the aftermath of the intruder at the Commodore, and Pat had made me wait until the photographers and lab boys were through and the stiff had been rubber-bagged and hauled out before allowing me to gather my things and move to my new room. The gigantic bed in the Honeymoon Suite, with its
Every Day Is Valentine's Day
decor, had a pillowy mattress that was perfect for everything but sleeping.