Queens Noir (26 page)

By the time he sees me, Paulie's halfway to the door. He
stops abruptly and throws out his chest as though offering a
larger target. But when I circle him, heading for the gate, he
becomes confused. He glances toward the front door.

"Whadaya doin'?"

"I'm going home, Paulie." I want to add something about
him maybe doing the same thing, but I find that at the moment I don't care what happens to him. Or to Joanna. I step
through the gate, turn right, and start walking. Maybe, I think,
I can get away before it happens, though I'm still short of the
neighbor's yard when Paulie crashes the sledgehammer into
the front door. A moment later, I hear him shout, his tone
still defiant, "What are you gonna do, Joanna? What are you
gonna do with that gun? You gonna kill me?"

I count the gunshots, one through nine. They come faster
toward the end. Paulie cries out once, early on, a short choking moan that ends almost before it begins. Then silence and, very faintly, the acrid stink of cordite through the open
door.

Bye-bye, Paulie.

I drive to a gas station on College Point Boulevard, pull up
at a pay phone at the back. There's somebody using it, but I
don't mind. I nod to the jerk on the phone when he flashes an
apologetic smile. I even thank him when he finally hangs up.

I take my time getting out of the car, searching my pockets for a quarter. I feel there's no hurry, that Joanna will shut
her mouth until Uncle Mike arrives, that Uncle Mike has
no choice except to keep me out of it. I punch Joey Kruger's
number into the keypad, wait as it rings three, four, five times.
I know Joey's been working the late tour for the last week and
he's most likely still asleep. I realize, too, that I have no idea
what I want Joey to say when he eventually answers. I have no
idea until he finally says it.

"Baby," he whispers, his voice dulled by sleep, "when
are you coming over? I've been dreaming about your ass all
night."

ule #37 in the P.I. handbook: Never eat where blood's
been spilled.

"I want you to find my husband's killer."

I knew what words the woman would say even before she
said them. I knew the instant she spotted me, said goodbye
to the man she was talking to at the counter of the Acropolis
Diner, and headed straight for my table. She was dressed all
in black, her mascara smeared because she'd been crying. I
figured that since she was only two days into her new role as
widow, she was entitled.

I sat back in the booth, considering her where she had taken
the seat across from me. I'd also known what she was going to
say because I knew her. And had known her husband. Mihalis
Abramopoulos had owned and operated the Acropolis Diner
on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, Queens, for the past thirty
years. Ever since he'd come over from Greece in the early '70s.
Not unlike many of Astoria's Greek population that had been
trying to escape military coups and martial law and were looking for a safe environment in which to raise their kids. Hey, my
parents had done it in the '60s, before the colonels had staged
a military junta in Greece and taken over control of a country
that was still trying to get its shit together after the civil war.
I'd been seventeen at the time, but I'm told I still speak like I'd
just arrived on the last plane over the Atlantic. Usually after I've had one too many glasses of Johnnie Walker Black and was
trying to figure out the mystery of my life rather than one of the
many cases on my desk back at the agency.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. My name's Spyros
Metropolis and along with my silent partner, Lenny Nash, I
run Spyros Metropolis Private Detective Agency, which is located on Steinway Street halfway between Broadway and Ditmars. While most of my family gravitated toward the Broadway
end of Astoria, I preferred Ditmars. Mostly because my family
gravitated toward Broadway. I didn't live in the rooms above
the agency, partly because they'd need extensive restoration
to make them livable. Mostly because I preferred to keep my
business life separate from my personal life.

I eyed the widow across from me. So much for that philosophy.

Then again, being a twice-divorced P.I. with alimony and
child support payments, where else was I to take my meals if
not a diner?

"My condolences, Kiria Abramopoulos."

Hermioni blanched, possibly tired of like sentiments even
though her husband wouldn't be lowered into the ground until the day after next, when the M.E. officially released the
body. "Can you do it? Find my husband's killer? I'll pay your
going rate."

Probably she didn't know what my going rate was. Probably she would change her mind if I told her. "Kiria Abramopoulos, I'm sure the police will find your husband's killer."

And I had every confidence that they would. Not because
I was a big fan of the NYPD, but because I used to count myself as one of them.

"The police have their hands full with the blackout.
Mikey's death is a low priority."

The blackout. Over 100,000 Queens residents had gone
without power for almost two weeks, predominantly in the
Astoria area. LaGuardia Airport had been closed down, parts
of the subway, and even Rikers Island's jails had to rely on
backup power for the duration. Many businesses were forced
to close their doors. But the diner had remained open, Mike
relying on propane burners and a grill set up out back to offer
a short menu of items, and a generator to operate a couple of
fans and a cooler.

The blackout had coincided with a heatwave that left
residents scrambling to find someplace with air-conditioning
or sweating it out. And all my good shirts bore sweat stains to
prove it.

Then the night before last, the lights came back on. Revealing Mike Abramopoulos lying on his diner floor in a pool
of his own blood. The floor I was looking at filled now with
white orthopedic shoes as Petra, the young Albanian waitress I'd come to know since she hired on eight months ago,
approached to top off my coffee cup. I noticed her smooth
alabaster arms as she poured, as well as her other fine parts;
she was a very attractive kid. She asked if Hermioni wanted
coffee. The widow waved the girl away.

There had been a rash of restaurant robberies in the
Astoria area of late, perhaps blackout-driven, perhaps not.
Chances are, Mike was a random victim. Greeks worked
hard for their money and were loathe to give it up. Especially
to a masked man who would make in two minutes what it
had taken the Greek all day to earn. It was the principle of
the thing.

It was also what tended to get Greek business owners into
heaps of trouble.

Hermioni covered my hand with hers where mine held my coffee cup, a damp Kleenex between her skin and mine.
I grimaced and pulled my arm back and pretended to fix the
right cuff of my white long-sleeved shirt that I had rolled up
to my elbows. My wardrobe was limited to white shirts, plain
ties, and dark slacks in the summer, and varied little in the
winter except for the addition of a black trenchcoat and hat.
My appearance had never been a priority for me beyond staying neat. I'd been cursed with a Greek nose that my brother
said you could see turning a corner at least half a minute before I did. And the march of time on my hairline couldn't be
stopped with a lifetime supply of minoxidil.

"Please, Spyros. I ... need to know who killed my husband. I need justice."

Dishes and silverware clanked where Stamatis, the busboy, cleared the table behind Hermioni. The widow slanted
him a glance that told him he could have picked a better time.
I agreed. Stamatis ignored its both.

I drew my attention back to Hermioni. "Did Mike have
any enemies?"

"No, no." She smiled feebly. "Aside from me, of course."
An attempt at humor. "But you know I could never do that
to him."

Did I? Over the course of my career, I'd seen a lot of things
I'd originally thought were impossible. Learning that Hermioni did away with Mike so she could take over the diner and
move in with an Ethiopian half her age would rate somewhere
on the less-shocking end.

"So you'll take the case then?"

I told her my going rate.

I had to give the old gal credit. She didn't even blink.

"I'll bring the retainer by the agency this afternoon," she
told me.

My intention had been to scare her away. Instead, I'd just
let her in the front door.

Murder cases didn't make up a large percentage of my caseload. Mostly because they were best left to the boys in blue
and it wasn't a good idea to get in their way when you were a
P.I. But those I had worked had taken a great deal of detective
work that rarely included any fancy crime lab results. Fact
was, a lot of evidence was contaminated and untraceable.
And the results on most of the potential evidence they collected was slow in coming. New York's forensics labs were so
backed up that a suspect on a case stamped low priority could
have skipped to a foreign country and started a new family by
the time the authorities caught up with him.

As far as I was concerned, solving any case almost always
came down to pounding the sweltering NYC pavement and
examining a few rocks to see which way the moss grew, in
order to find the answers.

Later that afternoon, I stopped on the corner opposite the
diner and lit a cigarette. Whereas before I might have taken
a seat in the restaurant opposite to watch the joint, now New
York City law had chased me outside. Oh, a lot of places had
smoking areas. Usually outdoors in the back surrounded by
neighboring buildings and glass. But I didn't particularly like
the feeling of being walled in, put on display like a smoking
turtle in a terrarium for the other diners to stare at as they
ate. Which was probably a good thing, because I didn't smoke
half as much as I used to. But I wasn't going to admit this to
anyone that mattered.

I drew deeply on my cancer stick and slowly released the
smoke, watching as Petra updated the chalkboard propped outside announcing the dinner specials. I had half hoped that
Hermioni Abramopoulos wouldn't come by the agency. But
she had, putting down the retainer I'd asked for. Which meant
I was pretty much in this till the end.

Inside the diner I could make out at least seven regulars.
Whereas before I might have viewed them simply as fellow
diners, now each and every one of them was a suspect.

Could a customer have been upset at his burned steakearlier thrown out of the house by his wife, fired from his
job-taking his rage out on an unsuspecting Mike? Or, in
the case of the young couple holding hands in the first booth
and sharing moussaka, could an argument have grown loud,
causing Mike to intervene and become victim rather than
mediator?

At any rate, I didn't have many resources to dedicate to
this case. Sure, Hermioni was paying me. But I was in the
middle of a sticky job that commanded most of my attention.

Since Mike had been a friend of sorts, however, and a fellow Greek, I figured I could give him at least a fraction of the
time I'd spent eating at his establishment.

I looked up and down the street. To my left, Ditmars Boulevard would take me toward the East River and Astoria Park,
the Hellgate Bridge looming as a reminder of history in a city
full of history. To my right, the street would take me to LaGuardia Airport.

But it wasn't the river or the airport I was interested
in now. I turned and walked east, crossing 31st Street, the
squealing brakes of the N train announcing its arrival at Ditmars station, the last stop on the elevated line, a regular sound
that blended with the din of cars and airplanes sweeping down
from the northwest. I stopped and bought a fresh peach from
the Top Tomato on 35th, then walked further up still, to the only spot I'd been able to find in this parking-challenged area.
I climbed into my old Pontiac and pointed the car in the direction of the 114th Precinct on Astoria Boulevard at 34th
Street.

A little while later, I sat opposite Detective Sergeant Tom
McCurdy, who I'd learned was the guy in charge of the case
after a quick call to my NYPD mate, Officer Pino Karras. If
the files littering Tom's desk were any indication, Hermioni
was right: It might be some time before anyone got around to
finding out who had killed her husband.

Of course, I hadn't ruled Hermioni out as a suspect yet.
Call me jaded, but there was something about the human
condition that allowed some folks to believe that if they hired
a private dick, it deflected suspicion away from them, no matter how damning the evidence. One of my former clients had
learned the hard way that guys like me weren't wired to look
the other way. While I wasn't a cop anymore, the basic principles that had led me in that direction were still very much
intact.

Besides, I knew enough about life to know that you took
order where you could find it.