Whiskey’s Gone (A Fina Fitzgibbons Brooklyn Mystery Book 3) (17 page)

I clicked aimlessly in my computer’s browser, trying not to think. When I noticed my phone’s screen was normal again, even though the battery indicator was still in the red zone, I checked voice mail. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. There were nine messages—four of them from Denny, two from Jane, one from Lorraine, another from Cookie, and one from Brandy.

I’m such a stupid, heartless ass. The blood left my feet. I felt it wash away, replaced by cold clamminess. While I stared at the phone trying not to feel, it began vibrating.

It was Brandy. My phone crackled with her enthusiasm while the battery indicator flashed. She called to tell me they’d found the van.

I praised her, telling her it surprised me they’d already found it.

“This is about life and death,” Brandy said. “Anyways, no big deal. Nothing else going on. Johnny said he knew where it was, so we went over there. Don’t worry, my mom drove us. She’s almost as bad as you. We could help, really we could, if you didn’t put all these chains around us.”

I ignored that last part. I could have told her to think back a few months, but that would have been a disaster. Brandy was healing, I could hear it in her voice, and I agreed with Trisha Liam: this mini surveillance assignment was helping. Still, I gave her a lecture on the care and feeding of criminals, and if her grades slipped because she was spending too much time doing work for me, I’d be the one to blame. I thought that would scare her, but nothing I said seemed to faze her. Her only response was to tell me I’d better watch it because I was beginning to sound like all old people. Swell. She gave me the location of the van and the phone number written on it. “Too easy, we need another assignment.”

How would I ever find enough work for them? I wondered as I stuffed Whiskey’s journals into my pockets and punched in Malcolm’s number.

Malcolm

The man who answered the phone sounded like he’d swallowed a bag of sandpaper.

I told him I needed to talk to him about Whiskey Parnell. I’d heard they’d been married.

He was silent for a long time. “She okay?”

When I told him she was missing, he told me that wasn’t like Whiskey, that she’d never leave her daughter, that maybe she was an unfaithful broad and they didn’t see eye to eye on how she wanted to lead her life, but she’d never disappear. “Don’t get me wrong, if I never see her again, it’ll be too soon.”

Somehow, I didn’t believe him. I told him that he could help in our search, just talking to him face to face would be enough. He said he was about to go out for dinner, but I convinced him to wait for me, and he gave me his address in Cobble Hill.

Ten minutes later I rang the bell of a garden apartment and saw a light go on in the hall. When he came to the door, I showed him my ID. He nodded once and led me inside.

The entryway smelled like Sherwin-Williams. Maybe that’s because there were unopened gallons of paint, empty cans and tarps, rollers and brushes and stir sticks strewn down a long hall. He led me through the mess to his living room, dimly lit and sparsely furnished, but with a fireplace. The couch had stuffing coming out in spots, and one of the chairs was missing a leg. There were no books, but to give him credit, the place was clean—at least I didn’t see dirty dishes or empty glasses around or filled ash trays like you usually see in places where men live. And of course, the walls were pristine. They shone with a coat of magical paint. I ran my hand over them: not a blemish. Crown molding, wainscoting, the works.

I could understand why his voice sounded the way it did, especially when he lit a new cigarette from a glowing stub. “Never married, but we were an item. Not all that long. I don’t know what I can say about her.” He took a drag. “We met in a butcher shop on Amity.”

I must have given him a look because he said, “Strange, I know. I asked her if she’d like a drink, and she said of course, so I guess you could say we really met in a bar on Court Street.”

“When was this?” I asked.

He didn’t answer at first, but lowered his head. When he looked at me again, his eyes were wet.

I bled for the guy.

He said his name was Malcolm Giro. As a boy his parents had moved from Brooklyn to Philadelphia, which explained his slight accent—you know, the way they say over as if it were ow-ver. Some graying at the temples, but other than that, his hair was black and cut in a crew. He was trim and wore an ironed shirt open at the collar. He had to be about thirty-five or a little bit over.

I let him take his time and kept my mouth shut.

“She seemed to know everyone in the place. But that was Whiskey, attracted a crowd wherever she went, like she knew everyone. Connected, I guess you’d say. Good-looking woman with a voice like a can of silky paint, all sexy, you know how they draw a crowd. Me, I fell head over heels, felt reborn. I begged her to move in with me. At first she would have none of it, but I told her I could give her stability, told her I owned the building, several more. Not to brag, but it’s true.”

He’d finished his cig and reached for the pack. There was one lamp in the room, and in the light from it, smoke curled around the lampshade like the ghost of a snake. Without realizing it, I flapped a hand in front of my face. He apologized and stowed the cigarettes.

“I’m not made of money, have to watch expenses, keep myself busy doing my own repairs and picking up paint jobs here and there.”

He stopped talking, and I said nothing, not wanting to stop the flow.

After a few moments, he continued. “Whiskey refused, said she needed her own space. Conned me into painting her apartment.”

“You met Maddie.”

He looked at the floor and I cursed my big mouth.

“I won Whiskey through Maddie, not that I had to pretend. Maddie is one swell kid. Finally Whiskey relented and she and Maddie moved in. My lucky day, I thought. Those were the good times.”

He stopped again.

“But the good times didn’t last.” He took out another cigarette and stuck it into his mouth. “Don’t worry, I won’t light it.”

I said nothing, noticing the paint spots all over his clothes and shoes, just like Rina Rosanova. When the silence hung around too long and he started shuffling his feet like what was I doing here and wasn’t it time for me to leave, I had to say something. “Speaking of lucky days, this isn’t one of mine,” I said, trying to make small talk. But just being in his apartment, a place I knew Whiskey had inhabited if only for a brief time, I was beginning to get a feel for her. No wonder men flocked to her like money to bankers. Maybe one of them, Arthur, became manic over her and killed her. Into the silence I said, “I keep meeting painters with spots all over them.”

He looked at me like I’d gone round the twist, as my gran would say, but didn’t reply. I told him about meeting Rina and he nodded, said she was Whiskey’s neighbor for a while, but Rina was a different kind of painter. He said he respected her because she didn’t get all uppity like most artists did. He told me he didn’t have time for them. “Paint is paint. Slap it on walls or cover canvas, paint is paint. Gotta love it. I make a better living than most. Most of the money I get from rents goes into expenses. But I know how to handle a brush and make a living. More than I can say for the kind Whiskey calls ‘real painters.’” His face was twisted.

“So you don’t like artists?”

“Not the way Whiskey does … or did. Probably let go of him, too.” He spat out a piece of tobacco. “I rented to an artist once. Proved my undoing.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“Whiskey fell for artists. Used to hang out in Flannigan’s Bar with them. This was a while back. It burned down a few years ago. Rumor was they weren’t making it. Never liked the place. Full of shady types. And”—he made quote marks in the air—“real painters. Artistes, if you get my drift.”

I remembered Flannigan’s, a chichi bar in Dumbo. Denny told me there was trouble there at least every night. Narcotics Division had been watching it and knew they were peddling lots of stuff—dope, uppers, downers, all arounders—and there were links to organized crime.

“The bar on Water Street?” I asked.

He nodded. “Whiskey begged me to take her. She’d heard a lot of artists hung out there. So I did—once—and that was enough for me. Super slicks so self-impressed, all high on something. They have their studios close by, those that can afford one. Whiskey said she wanted to go there and meet real painters, or at least that’s what she told me, like I was a pretend painter or something. Told me to change my clothes because real painters didn’t wear white.”

He looked down at his hands and I swear they trembled. “I knew she was trying to make me into someone I wasn’t.”

I gave him the moment. It stretched into two or three, silence filling the apartment.

“But we went. There was one guy, called himself an artist. Had snake-like hair. He invited us to his studio, all the while looking daggers at me, like how dumb was I, tagging along. And Whiskey fell for him, I could tell, the way her eyes hung all over him. That was a night I’d like to forget.”

“She left with him?”

Malcolm didn’t move for a while, just stared down at his nicotine-stained fingers like they were a key to something he’d never understand. “Said he needed an apartment and did I know where he could rent one. Whiskey looked at me with her pleading eyes. Sucker that I am, I rented out my top-floor studio to him.”

I wished Lorraine was here. She’d know what to do, probably go over to him and hug him and tell him how swell he was, but older women can do that. I heard distant traffic.

“I don’t have it, not next to him, that’s what Whiskey seemed to be telling me, like she could barely stand to be in the same room with me.”

Again he stopped talking. The room seemed to hold Whiskey’s shade. It hovered over us, stirring the air, ashamed.

“If she’d given me a chance, if she’d just given me a chance, I’d have been great for Maddie.”

I stopped scribbling in my notebook and looked at him and nodded.

“It’s not too late. Tell her it’s not too late. I don’t care where she’s been, what she’s done, I’ll take her back. Just ask the kid, she’ll remember me. Malcolm the painter, Maddie calls me. Used to take her to the park and swing her and buy her ice cream. When she got tired, I’d lift her up and if some of the others taunted her, you know how mean kids can be sometimes, calling her names I guess because of her head and all, she’d wrap her arms around me and cry. I’d be a great dad for her. I asked her one time, ‘Is it better to be like you with your shiny head, something that makes you stand out, or to be like me, lost in a sea of disregards?’”

He stopped talking and looked at his apartment as if he were seeing it for the first time. “This place isn’t so bad. Some people would kill for it. I know it doesn’t look like much.”

“I’ve never seen walls so perfect,” I said, and I meant it. I told him they were works of art.

“But it’s just not the way Whiskey sees her life.”

“Tell me more about the painter Whiskey met in Flannigan’s.”

He nodded. “That night he invited us to his studio, mostly to put the make on Whiskey, but I think he wanted to show me he could pay the rent. Said the management company found out he lived in his studio and they were going to evict him. Whiskey had the hots for him, I could tell. I was so …”

I thought the guy was going to cry, but he pulled himself together.

“I didn’t think much of his work, but who am I to judge? It looked like he squeezed paint out of a tube and smeared it around the canvas. Floor was filled with it, all different colors. You couldn’t tell where the walls stopped and the canvas began. Did abstracts, you know. Oh, he might fool certain people. You see them walking in clumps down the streets of Dumbo on Sunday afternoons in October. Rich as Croesus with catalogues in their hands. Expectant, knowing, like they were going to discover the next Jasper Johns or whoever and make a million. But Whiskey’s artist guy, his canvases, there was something commercial about them, I’ll give him that. Had an eye for color, I’ll give him that, and a sense of composition, although one canvas looked like another, his works were stamped out of a cookie cutter. I looked around his studio, mostly empty. Said he was preparing for a show and they’d just been picked up. Represented by one of those uptown galleries. The more he talked, the more Whiskey’s eyes shone. So he was my tenant for a while, but after he and Whiskey had their fling …”

Malcolm Giro hugged his sides, and I gave him time. Slowly, as if by a miracle, a thin wash of something akin to triumph, or maybe it was redemption, spread over his face. Like spackle, it filled in all the creases and gullies. “I kicked him out.”

I grinned.

His smile broadened. “This was a while ago. I don’t know whether he still keeps his studio in Brooklyn.”

I waited while he looked in a weathered address book he pulled from a desk. I sniffed tobacco and paint and bit my lip, watching as he tore off a piece of newsprint and scribbled down a name and address. “Star Newcomb, that’s the guy.” Malcolm wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

I gave him my card and told him if he thought of anything else to please give me a call. He nodded. Walking me down the hall to the door, Malcolm seemed almost reborn.

Dumbo

After meeting with Malcolm, I felt the strength of Whiskey’s presence. I sat on the stoop, trying to conjure more of her presence. Not having anything better to do except interview a navel-gazing artist, I searched Whiskey’s journals.

A Sunday in November

Most of the time I’m good at forgetting, but not on Sunday evenings. Tonight I can see Malcolm standing next to me on the day we met, both of us watching the butcher grind my chops. I smell cold and sawdust and meat. I feel his presence. Turns out, he owned the shop, started by his father and run by his brother. See, Malcolm’s father made the big money and owned several apartments, but let me tell you, the buildings were like thieves. The upkeep was a killer for Malcolm because he wouldn’t raise the rents, which explains why he was a painter and handyman and always working. Not a charmed life as far as I was concerned, not at all. No dancing, no romance, but I was so young.