The Yankee Club (21 page)

The Happy Florist glanced up and down the sidewalk then stuck the gun against my spine and shoved me toward the back of the van. “Open the back door.”

I yanked the door open. On the floor was a rope and a two-foot length of white cloth, perfect for a gag. I climbed inside hoping this wouldn’t be my final ride. “You don’t have to tie me up.”

Tony followed me into the van. “Yes I do.”

An hour later, I sat in the back room of The Happy Florist with my hands tied in a wooden chair. Rough thin rope bit into my wrists bound behind me.

Shelves of vases and ribbons covered one wall. Tony Vales stood in front of a wooden table with a sink at one end. Before him lay several sizes of shears and knives and his gun. In spite of a glass cooler behind him with buckets full of flowers, the room smelled of ammonia and bleach.

Tony picked up a pair of shears with steel blades that looked like they could slice through bone. “What’s your favorite flower?”

I shrugged, trying to hide my struggle to untie my hands.

He glared at me through bloodshot eyes. “Everyone has a favorite flower.”

I didn’t, but Laura did. “Roses. White roses.”

Tony slipped on a pair of rubber gloves then opened the cooler and removed a dozen long-stem white roses. He laid them on the table. He filled a black vase with water and set it beside his gun. Treating me like a valued customer, he snipped a two-foot piece of white ribbon and tied a bow around the vase. “Most people think during a Depression folks don’t buy flowers. I do weddings, bar mitzvahs, funerals … lots of funerals.”

“I didn’t kill your brother, but I know who did.”

“Of course you do. Now shut up.”

“A homicide detective shot Jimmy. Name’s Hawkins.”

“I said shut up.” He pointed with pruning shears. “You don’t pipe down, the gag goes back on.”

So much for talking my way out of danger.

Tony snipped thorns from one stem and trimmed away several leaves near the petals. He finished the trim and set the rose in front of him. With a slender knife he sliced off the bottom inch of the stem. “You don’t use the shears ’cause you’ll pinch the stem, cutting the water flow to the petals.”

I nodded. The man knew flowers. My wrists burned against the rope as I twisted my hands, trying to create some slack.

“One.” He dropped the flower in the vase. “You should be honored. How many people get to pick the flowers for their funeral?” He let out a laugh and grabbed another rose. “Jimmy and I were as close as brothers get. I was tough on him as a kid. He was always fat but never ate that much. Not then. Kids at school were mean to him, so I took care of them. Got a reputation.”

Sweat slid down my brow as I continued to work to free my hands. The rope gave a little, or did I just imagine it? I had to free myself before Tony finished with the dozen roses.

“You’re sweating. Your impatience is understandable, but I don’t like to rush my work. Should be almost dawn when I finish. Tell you what, I’ll kill you at dawn. Seems, I don’t know, poetic for a writer of murder mysteries to die at dawn.”

He spoke about killing me as if talking about how I liked my eggs cooked. He finished the second rose and started trimming a third.

My wrists burned as he continued to talk.

“Like I was saying, I got this reputation as a tough guy. I quit high school and got a job running numbers for this guy in the neighborhood. Everyone called him the Scotsman. We lived in Brooklyn then. I won’t bore you with the details, ’cause you don’t have much time left, but I worked my way up in the organization. Didn’t get busted until I turned twenty-four. A couple of arrests and they sent me to the pen. I got out in a year, but the Scotsman had given my job to Jimmy. Funny, ain’t it?”

He worked on the flowers, and I worked on the rope. Blood oozed down my fingers making the task more difficult. As Tony stuck the sixth rose into the vase, I managed to slide a half inch of the heel of my hand into a tiny gap in the binding.

“Halfway there.” He stepped back and admired his work. “Nice, ain’t it?” His face twisted in rage. “Ain’t it!”

“You’re an artist.”

A hint of dawn brightened windows that ran along the top of one wall. Tony turned on the faucet at the sink, cupped his hands, and splashed water on his face. He blotted his face with a towel and dried his hands. Picking up a seventh rose, he began to snip. He brushed his cheek next to an old scar that looked like a bullet wound.

“Who shot you?” I hoped to keep him talking and bide more time.

He touched his cheek. “A cop. Turned out to be my last job. Figured I came close to
meeting my maker. The Scotsman owned a few florist shops to launder money. I had some dough stashed, and he sold me this place. What a guy, may he rest in peace.” Tony made the sign of the cross. “They say working around flowers is good for the soul. You believe that?”

“You’re living proof.”

Tony laughed. “I liked you. Jimmy didn’t. Course you sent him up the river.”

“If you kill me, the real killer goes free.”

“Says you.” He stuck the seventh rose in the vase and grabbed another. “If Tony hadn’t been a fat kid … I don’t know.”

“If he hadn’t been fat, you wouldn’t have come to his aid so many times. You might not have gotten such a tough-guy reputation. Maybe neither of you would’ve ever worked for the Scotsman.”

“
If
and two bits will get you a cup of coffee.” He stuck the rose in the vase, rubbed his eyes and took another. “Eight.”

I felt sorry for Tony. He’d lost a brother. I’d lost Mickey, who, like Gino, was a brother to me. “When was the last time you slept?”

“I’ll sleep after I take care of you.”

“You ever kill anyone before?”

“Shut up.”

“In the war I killed a man. Ambulance drivers aren’t trained to take lives; we’re supposed to save them.”

Tony trimmed the next rose as if he’d quit listening.

“It was a Sunday morning and raining. Funny how one remembers details like that. I picked a peaceful time to take a break with the troops. I’d finished a half cup of Joe when the Germans charged our trench. I drew a pistol I’d only fired to shoot rats.” While I spoke, the soldier’s face appeared before me like it had so many times since that day. I shook my head and the image disappeared. “I shot the soldier in the face. If I hadn’t, he would have shot me. I didn’t sleep for a week. Even now I sometimes wake up picturing that bloody face, wondering why I lived and he died.”

“If he’d killed you, I wouldn’t have to.” Tony stuffed the ninth rose into the vase then splashed more water on his face.

I gave my hand a final twist and tug. My right hand slid free.

Tony grabbed rose number ten. On the table lay two more roses and several instruments he could use to kill me. I had nothing.

I scanned the room for something to use. Anything! The gag lay at my feet. Hardly a weapon. “My friend, Mickey O’Brien, his funeral is today. Same guy who killed your brother killed Mickey.”

“For the last time, shut up.” Tony glanced at the light coming through the window as he trimmed the rose.

“Your brother’s killer—”

“I warned you.” Tony dropped the flower and shears and rushed around the table. He reached for the gag I wore in the truck.

I drove my shoulder into Tony like a football player making a tackle. We smashed against the shelf of vases along the wall. We both landed on the floor. Broken shards fell around us. I shoved Tony’s face against the tile, wrapped the rope around his neck, and twisted. He struggled, trying to grab my hands.

When his struggle weakened, I let go. I didn’t want to kill the guy. I pulled myself to my feet, lurched toward the table, and grabbed the gun.

Tony smashed into me from behind. The .38 flew from my grasp and clattered to the floor. We crashed through the cooler, shattering glass and knocking over buckets of flowers.

I rolled away from the broken glass. My hand slid through spilled water as I scrambled to find the gun.

Tony wasn’t moving. He lay on his back, blood soaking his collar. A six-inch shard of glass stuck out from his neck.

I leaned closer, feeling more like an ambulance driver than a hostage. “Don’t move.”

He reached for the glass and winced.

“I said don’t move.” I set my hand on his chest and looked closer. The glass had punctured his neck near the jugular, but blood wasn’t spurting. The shard hadn’t hit an artery.

“Pull it out.”

I hadn’t done anything similar since the war. “I could make it worse.”

“Do it.”

I took a deep breath, clutched the end of the glass. “Ready?”

He nodded. I pulled.

Blood flowed from the open wound. I dropped the glass and pressed a hand against his neck. Blood seeped through my fingers.

His face paled. His eyes rolled back in his head.

“You’re not going to die.” I didn’t want another face to haunt my dreams. I slapped his cheek. “Stay with me.”

He swallowed hard. “There’s a first-aid kit below the table.”

I placed his hand over the wound. “Press.”

I scrambled to the table and searched through piles of tools and boxes. I grabbed a white container and snapped the case open. Gauze, tape, and other medical supplies tumbled out.

Snatching a handful of first-aid supplies I hurried to Tony’s side. I dropped everything
except a large gauze pad. I moved his hand away and pressed the cloth against his neck. The gauze turned dark red in seconds, but the flow appeared to have slowed.

I wiped sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, grabbed more gauze, and pressed against the neck wound. The bleeding slowed even more. A minute later I let out a deep breath. “I think you’re going to be okay.”

After the bleeding stopped, I taped a fresh bandage against his neck. I helped him sit upright against the wall.

I pulled myself to my feet and washed blood from my hands in the sink. Pieces of glass chinked into the basin. I brushed more glass from my clothes then shook my head. Tiny bits fell from my hair. I ran a hand over my face. “You doing okay?”

Tony nodded. “Thanks to you.”

“Can I borrow your truck?”

He pulled his keys from his pocket and handed them to me.

“I’ll leave the keys in the visor and park the truck as close to the Carlyle as I can.”

Tony nodded. “I woulda killed you. You coulda let me die. Nobody’d a noticed. I’m a thug, a thief, a bum with a dead brother.”

“You’re a florist. You bring joy and comfort to people. You’re a businessman making a go of things during tough times.”

“This bastard Hawkins really kill my brother?”

I nodded and snatched the gun from the corner. I stuffed it inside my wrinkled suit coat that now had a torn pocket. I straightened my tie. “He wanted to frame me, make it look like I killed Jimmy.”

“It almost worked.” Tony cocked his head. “This Hawkins …”

“What about him?”

“He’s … he’s a dead man.”

“Don’t even think about killing him. You’ll end up in the pen or worse.” And I’d lose a link to Dalrymple and the Golden Legion. “Hawkins won’t get away with what he did to your brother. I’ll see to that.”

His eyes filled with tears. “You might be right.”

“Of course I’m right. Let it go, and get back to being a florist.” Dawn filtered through the windows as I picked up the vase and refilled it with water. I set the vase on the table and sniffed the ten white roses. They reminded me of Laura.

“They’re yours. You earned ’em.”

I shook my head. “I’m not quite ready for my funeral.”

Chapter 13
The Wake of Mickey O’Brien

I parked the florist van a half block down the street and left the keys behind the visor. In my suite, my cane lay in the center of the bed along with a note from housekeeping stating someone found it in the elevator. Thank you, housekeeping. Although I no longer needed the cane to walk, I needed the dagger.

In the bathroom mirror, my face revealed dried blood and cuts and bruises from the shattered cooler in Tony Vales’s flower shop. A hot shower removed my blood and Tony’s. The warm spray and a couple of aspirin helped me snatch a couple hours of sleep. I awoke an hour before Belle’s train left for Florida.

In a clean suit I called Mildred at Empire Press. She wasn’t in. I didn’t believe that for a moment.

I stuffed the train ticket into my pocket, grabbed my cane, and took the stairs to Belle’s room.

She’d managed to return her brown hair into the attention-grabbing platinum she wore the day we met. In a form-fitting red dress she chatted nervously during the cab ride to Penn Station. At the station, I gave her the names and phone numbers of the Emerson twins, a couple of mid-seventies retirees from Brooklyn who’d enjoy Belle’s company.

After paying the cabbie, we passed through the building’s giant columns that always reminded me of the Parthenon in Greece. Inside, I checked my dwindling supply of cash while Belle, like a kid at Coney Island for the first time, stared at the stone archways, intricate metal columns, and curved beams that supported the overhead windows. Beams of sunlight streamed down, illuminating the noisy room buzzing with passengers waiting for their trains to be called.

“It’s more like a church,” she said, following me through the crowded station.

I’d been here so many times I barely paid attention.

I had enough time to buy her a hot dog from a vendor. I hoped my face didn’t show the lie I told when I insisted Tampa’s dogs were as good as New York’s.

We hurried down the stairs to the train and made it with minutes to spare. “You’ll probably only be gone a few days.”

“You’d better take care of yourself. Anything happens to you, I’ll be stuck in Florida.” She kissed my check. “Give my best to your friend Landon.”

From her smirk I suspected she’d already given him her best.

A businessman arrived with a porter struggling with four bags. Mid-fifties and bald he wore an expensive-looking three-piece suit. He removed a fancy money clip with a stack of bills, which he used to tip the porter for his luggage. He stuffed the money back in his suit and checked the time with a gold pocket watch.