The Letter Writer (9 page)

CAPTAIN MULHEARN GRUDGINGLY
chalked Cain's murder case back onto the duty board. He then dropped a thick case file on Cain's desk.

“For your sins. I want it cleared by the weekend.”

“Sins?”

“The boys up in the one-nine say you're poaching their goods. Said you were up there looking at one of their reports the other day.”

The Schaller case, he meant. Cain said nothing. If he made a fuss and claimed it was linked to Hansch, Mulhearn might give both cases to the 19th, or to the Borough Homicide Bureau, just to spite him. He sighed and opened the file.

Before he could read a single page, Simmons was at his shoulder, seeking his monthly contribution to the squad room coffee fund. Cain dug into his pocket for what was left of his cash after the bar tab at Caruso's.

“A nickel, right?”

“Unless you're feeling generous.”

Just as Simmons departed, Patrolman Dolan arrived.

“Hey, Cain, I heard about your marksmanship score. Top notch.”

“You been reading my file with Maloney?”

“Huh?” Dolan looked wounded. “No, nothing like that. But word gets around, and the house has a pistol team. We shoot once a week against the other precincts, and—”

“Not interested.”

“How 'bout bowling, then? You bowl?”

“No.”

“What's your game, then? Gotta be something.”

“Basketball. That's my game.”

Dolan frowned.

“Zeke in the radio room, that's his department. I'll pass it on.”

For a few seconds Cain felt pretty good about the idea of getting back into a gym—sweating, running, the echo of the bouncing ball, the burn in his lungs as he sprinted end to end, chasing down a pass for an open set shot. Then it hit him, yet again, that he couldn't run that way anymore, not since the shooting. He reached down and squeezed his knotted thigh, wondering how much of his youth was gone for good.

He returned to the file. It took only seconds to realize it was the sort of hopeless case his new colleagues would call a bag of shit. It involved a con man, Albert Kannerman, who'd been impersonating everyone from Bing Crosby's brother to the grandson of former President Taft, although lately he'd gotten into the spirit of the war effort by posing as men in uniform—a wounded air ace who fleeced adoring matrons, a naval officer selling tickets to a bogus USO show. Three detectives in other districts had already taken a crack at him. None had even tracked down a reliable address, and theories on Kannerman's whereabouts ranged from Midtown to Staten Island.

“Fuck.”

He shut the file. Then, worried that Mulhearn might have yanked the Hansch case anyway, he walked over to check the duty board. Still up there, just below his name.

Posted next to the assignments, as always, was a lineup of wanted posters which never failed to intrigue him. New York criminals were cast from a different mold. Down in Horton, violent crimes were usually gut level and personal, and even the so-called professionals had tended to know the same people Cain knew. Most mug shots were of peckerwood whites or poor blacks, men who looked cornered and underfed, with forlorn expressions that said they'd just as soon shoot themselves as you. They tended to live in bleak shotgun shacks with varmints loose in the crawlspace.

Up here, every face dared you to come and get him, and in general they were a bunch of sharp-dressed fellows. Among the current offerings was a murder suspect, Emanuel Weiss, age thirty-five, in a flashy suit and a silk tie, expertly knotted. He was smirking, like he was trying not to laugh. He had three aliases—Mendy, Hoffman, and Kline—and his known associates sounded just as colorful: Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, Clarence “The Jazz” Cohen, plus a murderous name that Cain vaguely recalled even from the newspapers down in Horton: Albert Anastasia, a mob killer.

Posted next to Weiss was Michael Romano, a twenty-eight-year-old robbery suspect with a winning smile and the kind of stylish haircut you saw in movie magazines. Dashing, handsome, but with a small bandage on his chin. The description said he was a “natty dresser, uses narcotics,” and his aliases took up two lines: Joe Bruno, Scooter Joe, Mickey Mouse, Pickles, Pick.

The only other bunch that Cain knew of with so many nicknames was the NYPD. Colleagues were already calling him “Citizen,” whether he liked it or not. Mulhearn was the Mule, Zharkov the Cossack, Maloney the Mooch. And both cops and criminals lived by their own codes, their own rules of engagement. When viewed that way, he supposed it was hardly surprising that some cops crossed to the other side, just as Valentine suspected.

“Nice look with the bandage, huh?” It was Yuri Zharkov, drinking a bottle of Orange Crush as he pointed to the Romano poster. “And you can bet he didn't get the cut from shaving.”

“Sharp dresser, though.”

“Mob thug. The ones with more than two aliases usually are. He's a horse player. They'll trip over him at Aqueduct before he ever turns up around here.”

“So the rackets are still a problem, even after Prohibition?”

Zharkov waggled his left hand, as if to say not so much.

“Dewey, the old DA, put away most of the big ones. Waxey Gordon, Lucky Luciano—sent 'em both up the river. A lot of the others killed each other fighting over the scraps. Dutch Schultz got shot over at a chop house in Jersey. The last of the rum runners was Owen Madden, and we ran him outta town. Tried to come back for the Baer-Nathan fight, but Commissioner Valentine threw him out on his ass. They're like the last of the Comanches. Fat and drunk, and living on the reservation.”

“Even him?”

Cain nodded toward the poster for Weiss, the one with ties to Albert Anastasia.

“Mendy's been back behind bars for months. Mulhearn won't take it down, though. He's still pissed off we didn't get credit for the collar. Simmons got a tip on his whereabouts, but we weren't there when they nabbed him so the papers didn't give us any ink.”

“Who's left, then?”

“Well, there's Mendy's boss, Anastasia. Chief executive of Murder, Incorporated.”

“I knew he was a killer, but that makes it sound more like a business.”

“That's exactly what it is. Or was. Hard to say if they're even still in action. But he's over in Brooklyn, officially none of our business. Here in Manhattan?” Zharkov stroked his chin. “Socks Lanza, he's still a going concern, but he's down in the first.”

“Socks?”

“Guess that wasn't on the sergeant's exam, huh? Joseph ‘Socks' Lanza. Mob king of the Fulton Fish Market. He's why a fillet of flounder costs so much when you eat out, even though they get it right off the docks. Socks gets a cut from the boats, the trucks, the gutters and cutters.”

“Why don't we stop him?”

“Well, he
is
under indictment. Big racketeering case by the DA. Still, you don't stop that kind of shit by nabbing just one man.”

“Why not?”

Zharkov shook his head as if Cain had asked the world's stupidest question. “You sound like you been reading the shit Valentine says in the papers. It's not that easy. What's left of the mob is kind of like a fungus between your toes. The more you scratch it, the more it bothers you. Sometimes the best thing to do is leave it alone, so it don't itch so much.”

Until they started knocking people off, like maybe his two dead Germans, given their connection with an operator like Lutz Lorenz.

“What about in a place like Yorkville?” Cain asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Who'd be in charge of the rackets there?”

“You'd have to ask the guys in the one-nine. Besides, in this city there are always mugs big enough to not worry about territory. Guys who operate wherever they like.”

“Well, at least they'll be easy to spot.”

“How you figure that?”

“Can't be too many fat Comanches with athlete's foot.”

Zharkov smiled and tipped his bottle in tribute.

Cain spent the next two hours going through the tangled mess of the Albert Kannerman file. The con man was working so fast that three victims still needed to be interviewed. But the big problem would be finding him, and in a city of seven and a half million how did you track down one guy who didn't wish to be found, especially when he employed a wide variety of disguises and accents, and was an expert at fooling people?

His phone rang. Cain eyed it, wondering if it might be Harris Euston. He picked it up anyway.

“Danziger here. Where to next? I remain at your service, Mr. Cain.”

“The better question is when. I've been sidetracked. A punishment detail that could take days.”

“Then I shall proceed without you.”

“Whoa, now. Not a good idea.”

“Discreetly, of course. What is the nature of this new assignment?”

“Some con man.”

“His name?”

“Probably not a good idea for me to tell you.”

“Why? I could make inquiries on your behalf.”

“Thanks all the same, but—”

“As you wish.”

He hung up before Cain could say goodbye. Cain, miffed, stared at the receiver a few seconds before dropping it in the cradle. Maybe if he left the station house to interview Kannerman's latest victims, he could also squeeze in an hour or two on the Hansch case. Better still, pay a surprise visit to Danziger, catch him in his lair. He was eager to see where the old fellow lived and worked, maybe get a glimpse of his clientele. For all he knew, the whole business about writing and translating letters was just a cover story.

Then there was Valentine's assignment, nagging at him like a toothache. It was stalled for the moment due to his lack of access to the 95 Room. He'd either have to come up with a sneakier approach or lay low until Mulhearn was no longer watching his every move. But his hasty reconnaissance the other day hadn't been totally fruitless. Just when he'd begun to wonder how he'd ever make sense of all the files and folders, he'd spotted an index posted on the back of the doorway. Next time at least he'd know where to start looking, although he had better do it soon. Linwood Archer wasn't likely to be patient.

Kannerman's most recent victim lived only a few blocks away, which probably explained why the case had bounced into the third district. If Cain was going to clear this by Saturday, then he'd better get moving. Banking on warmer weather, he left the building with his overcoat unbuttoned, only to be greeted by gray skies and one of those blustery mid-April cold snaps that reminds you that spring is fickle.

Cain shoved his hands deeper in his pockets just as a young couple rounded the corner toward him from Sixth Avenue, chatting breezily about a Broadway play they'd seen the night before. College age, and in love. You could tell by the lilt of their voices, the spark in their eyes, their animated movements. He was reminded of Clovis, who always spoke with nostalgia of her evenings on Broadway as a girl, taking in a show and, afterward, waiting outside the stage door in hopes of glimpsing the stars on their way to Sardi's for a late bite to eat.

They'd talked about it on the night they met, in the fall of his junior year in Chapel Hill. She and three friends had come down for the weekend from Sweet Briar College, and were staying at the home of a classmate. On Saturday they'd ended up at a smoker at some frat house on Cameron Avenue, a party he'd crashed along with Rob after hearing lots of females would be in attendance. Campus women were in short supply in 1928.

Cain spotted Clovis the moment he walked through the door, standing with her friends by a bowl of punch that someone had already spiked with bathtub gin. It was hard to say what was drawing more attention—the Prohibition liquor, or the four girls from Sweet Briar. But he saw immediately that, alone among her friends, she was already a step ahead of every would-be male pursuer, looking calm and sophisticated, in no hurry to choose from among the many possibilities in the baying rabble.

He caught her eye just as she took a pack of Luckies from her purse—the only woman in the room with cigarettes. She put one to her lips, an act which so disarmed the surrounding males that Cain was easily able to beat them to the punch in offering her a light.

“Well, aren't you the Southern gentleman.”

“You had us all figured out the moment you got here, didn't you?”

Already her friends were making room for them, easing away while observing closely, as if watching a performance. He felt color rising in his cheeks with the excitement of the moment, and saw to his delight that she was having the same reaction.

“Well, I
am
from New York,” she said, smiling. “Used to a faster pace and all that. Or so everyone always insists whenever they meet me. Clovis Euston.”

“Woodrow Cain.”

She offered her hand in almost regal style, which he accepted in the exaggerated manner of a prince. He was no longer aware of anyone else in the room.

“I'm guessing you've pretty much seen it all when it comes to guys trying to make time,” he said.

“And is that what you're doing, making time?”

“I'll stop right now if it's not to your liking.”

“Why don't we take a walk instead, out on the lawn where those roses smelled so nice on the way in.”

“Camellias, actually. Late bloomers around here.”

“Well, there you go, another reason you're just the man to show me around town. I suspect you're also something of a late bloomer.”

It was true. He was. She offered her arm and he took it, both of them hamming it up yet also sensing the chemistry. The crowd seemed to part for their exit. The air outside was warm, not unusual for a Chapel Hill night in early October, and, yes, there was a scent of camellias as they crossed the verandah. To Cain the air felt languidly heavy with promise.

That was the night when she first told him of her father's master plan in sending her south to Virginia, sealing her off from all those guys and gals who'd once lured her into so much trouble. Bad grades and wrecked curfews. A paternal call on an old connection had secured her a spot at Sweet Briar, an oasis of learning where her natural brightness could flourish in sobriety and calm.