Beware the Solitary Drinker (17 page)

He'd heard of it. His name was Jack, and he knew David from the Terrace. We shook hands.

“Some place in Connecticut. A nice kid, but she burned out on the city real fast.”

“Where in Connecticut?”

He shrugged.

I took a guess. “Stamford?”

“That sounds like it. I thought it was in California.”

While I was downtown, I thought I'd try to trace Ozzie's travels the night before his murder, so I walked a couple of blocks up to the Lion's Head, where I knew Ozzie drank sometimes after work. I knew the day bartender slightly. He was another actor, named Willie. We'd worked together for a short time at Tavern on the Green.

He didn't know Ozzie by name but recognized the guy who drank Jack Daniels and water and never sat down.

He also remembered a big guy—maybe a light-skinned black guy—who drank straight rum who came in with Ozzie.

“Often?”

“Not very often.”

“The last time?”

“I think so. I didn't pay much attention.”

“Try to remember.”

Willie wrinkled his brow. He still thought so but wasn't positive. Tall and handsome in a really traditional way, Willie was nonetheless dumber than a bag of hammers. Already, though he was a lot younger than me, he looked middle-aged, like he should be settled down with a family and running a hardware store in Peoria. He was filled with that middle-west contentment that New Yorkers associate with cows.

What pissed me off was that he didn't pay enough attention to things to be a really good bartender, expecting, no doubt, he would soon make it as an actor and forget his sordid past. Every time I leaned forward I found myself sticking to the bar. My thinking was that if he was a lousy bartender, he'd be a lousy actor, too. Not that that would stand in the way of success, of course.

***

When I got home, I had a message from my answering service that told me to call Janet. I was relieved to hear her voice. She was quite excited.

“News,” she said, “on two fronts.”

“What?”

“Eric the Red is an illegal alien.”

“So are ninety percent of the other kitchen workers in New York.”

“Oh,” said Janet. “Well, he's involved in a phony marriage with a woman I think is a prostitute. Suppose Angelina knew about it and was blackmailing him?”

“The marriage is so he can get a green card. Anyway, does turning him in sound like something Angelina would do?”

“No.” Janet kind of hummed to herself while she thought things through. “I guess it doesn't mean anything, does it?” She brightened. “I have more. I found out that Carl used to work in Easthampton during the summers.”

“So?”

“Angelina went to Easthampton two summers ago, so I rented a car and took a quick trip out there.” She paused. “Some of what I found out you're not going to like.” I waited. She went on. “Your friend Carl has been lying to you. He knew Angelina before she ever came to New York. They worked together in a hotel in Easthampton two summers ago.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed that one more of my friends was not to be trusted. I remembered that Carl went out to Long Island for a couple of summers. I hadn't thought much about it because that kind of coming and going wasn't unusual in the neighborhood. Someone fell in love and moved to Brooklyn or got a summer stock part in Connecticut or a teaching job in Ohio for a year. Carl used to work as a chef in the summer. Most everyone came back after a time; others disappeared forever into a new life. That Carl knew Angelina in Easthampton was a pretty big surprise, though, and his keeping it from me a pretty big secret, as secrets go.

“How did you find out?”

“After Eric told me Carl worked as a chef in Easthampton, I went there and found the hotel Angelina worked at and talked to the manager, who remembered both of them by name and description.”

“Okay, I believe you. Now what?”

“Well, I guess we know now why Angelina came to the Upper West Side instead of some other part of the city.” Her voice was soft. “Should I tell the police?”

I hemmed and hawed. I didn't want her to. But I didn't know how to say so. “You can if you want,” I said grudgingly.

“Do you want me to wait?”

“Maybe…until I talk to him.”

“Okay.” She didn't hide the reluctance in her voice. “There's something else about Carl that isn't directly connected but I think you should know.” Her voice took on a whispery, secretive tone that I didn't like.

“If it isn't directly connected, I don't want to know.”

She itched to tell me; I could feel it even over the phone. The silence now bristled with disapproval. “It might be important.”

“You decide. If it's important, tell me. If not, don't, until you're sure it is.”

“I understand.”

“Will you come to Oscar's tonight?”

“No,” she said and hung up.

A minute later she called back. “I will come in later, with Peter.”

***

Peter and Janet, in their casual dress, had the aura of young professionals about them; I had to admit they matched each other. Anyone's grandmother would take one look and say “nice couple.” I let them sit at the bar for a good few minutes before I took their order.

“You're in your usual good mood,” Peter said.

“Bartenders are supposed to be surly,” I told him.

“Danny sends his regards.”

“What do the cops say?” Despite being a defense lawyer, a defender of blacks, and a progressive, Peter got along well with the cops.

“They know the case sucks. I'm going to meet with the ADA who has the case on Monday.”

Janet smiled a little self-consciously, sitting beside Peter. I could tell she was pleased to be with a hot shot New York criminal lawyer.

“We're going to Springfield on Tuesday,” I said. Just to let Peter know he wasn't the only one who did things with Janet.

Janet's eyes opened wider. “Are we still going to do that?”

I nodded.

Peter raised an eyebrow in mild interest. “To see your mother?”

Janet nodded.

“It's probably a long shot,” Peter said. “But a good idea.”

Meanwhile, empty glasses cluttered the bar and the winos were getting restless. Troubled faces bent forward, looking my way as if for a lost son. One or two of the better fortified of the group had the temerity to bang an empty glass on the bar until I shot a withering glance at them. A couple of snarls and snaps of my whip and they all quieted, waiting patiently while I slid along the bar, replenishing the scotches and bourbons, the gin and tonics and vodka martinis, sliding a drink here and there to a regular, knocking on the bar in front of him in lieu of payment, the frowns becoming smiles. In less than five minutes I'd recovered my former standing. I returned to Janet's corner of the bar and was pleased as Punch to note that Peter was saying goodnight and Janet would hang on for a while.

Ntango's arrival a few minutes later gave me an idea. I suggested Janet ask him to take her downtown to visit a couple of places around Hanrahan's to ask questions. Since he drove a horse hire, Ntango didn't have to account for where he was or how many trips he made. I handed him a twenty out of the cash register as Oscar's contribution to the investigation.

“For Danny?” he asked. I didn't know how he knew, but I nodded. When they left, I figured out Janet must have told him. She hadn't learned well enough yet about keeping her mouth shut.

Before I left that night I asked Oscar if he remembered if Nigel had been in the bar the night Ozzie was murdered.

“Yeah,” Oscar answered without hesitation. “He was here.” Then, closing one eye, he looked at me shrewdly with the other.

“Are you sure?” He hadn't even thought about it for a second.

“I'm sure,” Oscar said. “One hundred percent.”

Chapter Nine

On the bus ride to Springfield, I remembered the cab driver who'd brought Angelina to the West Side that first time and later tried to break into her apartment. I'd totally forgotten about him. I wondered if the police knew. Finding him would be next to impossible, unless he was a legitimate driver who kept a trip log. I told Janet about him, and she said Angelina told her about the crazy cab driver in a letter. She didn't remember if Angelina mentioned his name. But she would look for the letter when we got to Springfield.

Janet also told me about her previous night's trek through the bars near Hanrahan's with Ntango to see how the regulars at those places stacked up against Oscar's first team. Most of the places didn't remember Angelina, much less anyone she hung out with. But one bartender did remember her. And a hefty, light-skinned black guy who drank straight rum also stood out in the crowd, as did a scarecrow-like guy with a southern accent who drank Jack Daniels. Both Ozzie and Reuben, it seemed, visited Angelina at Hanrahan's and drank with her at a couple of other joints in the area.

Janet also caught up with the bartender who remembered Angelina coming in to The Pub across the street from Hanrahan's with an older man, who, she said, was probably Ozzie, too.

“How do you know?” I asked her.

“He drank Jack Daniels,” she said smugly.

“Did he stand up all the time?”

“I don't know.” She looked worried. “Why? Do you think it wasn't Ozzie?…Who else would it be?”

“I don't know who else it would be. I just wanted to know if the guy stood up. I forgot to ask last time.”

I went back to reading my book, a Ross Macdonald mystery I'd picked up at Port Authority. Lew Archer figured things out a lot more quickly than I did. I told Janet this in some perplexity.

“Maybe he's smarter than you,” she ventured. “You just don't like to admit the very real possibility that the person who killed Angelina came from Oscar's. You'd like it if someone respectable was the killer, instead of one of your bum friends.”

Janet quieted down after this ringing defense of respectability, quieting down into her nervousness. As we got closer to Springfield, she practically danced in her seat from her nerves, every five seconds speculating about what her mother would do or say. When she ran out of her own speculations, she asked me for answers. When I said I didn't know and tried to read my book, she pouted.

“I don't know your mother,” I said patiently. “I don't know what she'll say. I hope she tells us what happened.”

“Do you think she'll be mad?”

I tried to read my book, but Janet demanded attention, by her frenetic bouncing around if nothing else. “I don't know,” I said finally.

“Do you think we should come right out and ask her?”

“Maybe.”

“Should we tell her what we already know?” Her jitteriness made her voice shrill; she was becoming a nag.

“Jesus, Janet. I don't know. Tell her what you want.”

“We should have a plan.”

“How can we plan if we don't know what she'll say?”

“God,” said Janet. “I hate doing this.”

Her face shone white in the subdued light of the bus. High-strung and wired, she had that tension in the way she held her neck and shoulders that you see sometimes in a thoroughbred who really wants to run. Her cheeks were pink with excitement and the make-up she wore for the trip.

I thought about what might happen after we talked with her mother, when we would be alone together for dinner and then would find a hotel—when there might be some release of all the tension. We hadn't slept together since that first time. I thought about dinner at that German restaurant Carl and I had found, a bottle of wine, a joint for later in the hotel room. I forgot, for the moment, that Janet lived with her mother and might just stay in her own room by herself.

Her body a few inches from mine in the narrow bus seat, her thigh once or twice brushing mine, the slight scent of her perfume, I absorbed being next to her. Just north of Hartford, she started to doze off. I put my arm around her shoulder, pulling her gently toward me until she nestled her head in against my chest. I kissed her hair.

We picked up her car, a shiny red Toyota, at a gas station near the bus depot. On the drive to her mother's, Janet pulled herself together. When we arrived at the small wooden frame house, she marched decisively up the walk, rang the doorbell, and then put her key in the lock and opened the door before her mother got to it.

Mom was twittering around in the cramped foyer as we entered. She brushed at her hair and her dress, complained that her house was a terrible mess, chastised Janet for not calling her, and kept saying, “I don't know what Mr. McNulty will think of us,” implying that if I had my head on straight I would figure out they were high-class people, despite any appearances to the contrary. In short, Mrs. Carter struck me as a phony, all appearance, anything that might reveal truth tucked away and protected like the family heirlooms. Maybe a life works out that way: you learn to protect yourself at all cost, show nothing but a false front to strangers. None of this attitude had rubbed off on Angelina, though. Maybe, because she could never get behind that impregnable wall of her mother's appearances, Angelina opened herself to everyone else, to me, to the college boy when she was ten, to the person who murdered her before she'd altogether grown up.

“It's not something I like to talk about,” Mrs. Carter said after we were seated in a cramped, stuffy living room, and I asked her to tell me about the time Angelina was molested. Mrs. Carter's hair was black going on gray and pulled back severely. She was controlled and conscious of herself, treading as carefully as if she were walking across a tightrope.

“She knew the boy. They had become friends.” Her challenging expression when she said this suggested I should realize I didn't know as much about things as I thought I did. “She liked him. He didn't jump out of the bushes and attack her. Angelina was always boy-crazy. She was a little flirt, maybe because she had no father.”

“Mom,” said Janet. “She was a child. She was cute. She wanted attention. All kids do. You're making it sound like it was Angelina's fault.”

Mrs. Carter shot a sidelong glance at her daughter. Janet bounced back in her chair as if she'd been whacked.

Having put Janet in her place without much effort, Mrs. Carter went on with her story. “The boy was heartbroken. Even I could see that he hadn't meant to hurt her.” She took me into her confidence, ignoring Janet, indicating by this attempt at sincerity that I would understand the nuances of the situation she described, even if her daughter didn't. “It was a tragedy for him, too. He was very nervous. I wouldn't be surprised if he was having a nervous breakdown. His father was devastated. The boy had great promise. The family was wealthy.” She looked at me significantly then said again, “It was obvious they were cultured and wealthy.” Perhaps not obvious to an asshole like me, her tone suggested, but obvious to someone who understood such things.

“How did Angelina feel about being molested?”

This shot got inside the armor. She took some time to answer. “She was too young to know all of what was going on. I don't think she realized what had happened. It was better for her that we kept it that way and didn't make much of the whole situation.”

“What was the deal you made?” I asked.

Janet's mother turned on her daughter so fiercely I thought she'd spring from the couch and go for her throat. “There was no deal,” she said. “Did Janet tell you there was?”

“They gave you money…” Janet snarled.

Mrs. Carter smiled faintly to show that she could rise above the perfidy of her daughter. “It was never that. Not money for a deal.” She shook her head to ward off the accusation. “I understood the boy needed treatment. He wasn't a criminal. He'd gotten carried away…made a mistake… Angelina went along with it, you know?”

“Mother!” Janet shrieked.

Unruffled, Mom went on. “You know what I mean.…It was wrong but it wasn't an attack.” She looked at me again. “The family was rich and could provide the help the son needed. He would go to a hospital and be treated. What good would it do for him to be sent to jail? Angelina consented to whatever happened. I'm sure she didn't know what she was doing. But she might have led him on.…Boys at that age, you know.…”

I stared at this woman in amazement, but she didn't notice. She was floating on a cloud with her eyes closed.

“I agreed with the boy's father that prison wouldn't help anyone. Angelina least of all would want the boy to go to prison. They were grateful that I saw it wasn't really a criminal matter. That was all of any deal.”

She tried to look saintly as she said all this. It didn't work on me but seemed to on her. Her eyes closed again like a child's when she drifts off to sleep.

Keeping my tone soft as befit the mood she'd established, I whispered, “And the money?”

Her eyes sprang open. The corners of her mouth curled. I thought she would spit. “The family wanted to do something for Angelina, for all of us. Money meant nothing to them. I had no husband, Mr. McNulty. I couldn't make ends meet. Should I have let my pride impoverish my family?”

Actually, I didn't disapprove of the things she was most defensive about. Sick people should go to hospitals instead of jail; rich people should give money to poor people to make their lives better; poor people shouldn't be ashamed to take it. Yet the entire episode reeked of betrayal and selfishness. Everything had been done to satisfy greed: the boy's greed for the little girl, the family's greed for their good name; Mrs. Carter's greed for money, and her willingness to sacrifice her daughter because of her greed for the good opinion of the rich. I realized nothing in the world could make this woman admit she'd sold her daughter down the river for a few bucks. I understood how much Mrs. Carter needed the falsity that surrounded her. The truth would drive her screaming over a cliff.

The tension between her and Janet was near the exploding point. It looked as if there had been some unspoken agreements about things they wouldn't talk about, but Janet was talking about them. Mrs. Carter was furious and all during our conversation cast pointed glances at her daughter, while Janet, for the most part, kept her eyes averted.

“Did you ever hear from or about the boy again?” I asked Mrs. Carter.

She shook her head.

“Where was he from?”

“They never said. He was attending college near here.”

“What was the boy's name?”

Mrs. Carter gritted her teeth and tightened her face, as if to say torture wouldn't get the name from her.

I played my trump card. “Was his name Nigel Barthelme?”

“No,” she said. “That wasn't it.”

Janet stood behind her, looking like she'd just discovered a body. She recovered herself quickly though. “Was his name Carl van Sagan?”

“That wasn't it either,” her mother said haughtily. “I'm certain he's no one you would know.”

“Mother, you must know his name or the family name. You have to tell us. This could be the key to everything.”

Mrs. Carter blustered up like Foghorn Leghorn. “Don't be ridiculous, Janet. How could something that happened so long ago have anything to do with Angelina's death? She was in New York, for God's sake. In those terrible slums, doing the Lord knows what, associating with low lifes. How dare you bring all this up! How dare you divulge our family affairs in front of this—this…”

“Low life?” I ventured.

***

Janet went to her room to pick up the letters Angelina had sent her from New York. I stood alone with Mrs. Carter for an uncomfortable few minutes.

“Aren't you staying?” Mrs. Carter asked Janet when she came back.

“No, I'm going back to New York. I took a few days off.”

“You have phone calls and messages. Don't you want to see them? Mr. Riggs from the bank?” Her tone was loaded with not so subtle hints of a gentleman caller, not just a colleague.

“I'll be back in a few days, mother. I wish you'd think over being more helpful. Whatever you promised that family, I'm sure it doesn't bind you in this situation.”

“You haven't been at the bank long enough to go traipsing off for a few days, even if there has been a family tragedy. Someone in an important position like yours is expected to carry on in the face of difficulties.” Mrs. Carter was pointedly ignoring me now, talking above and beyond me, implying I was of the elements dragging her daughter down.

***

Before we got down the front steps, Janet climbed all over me with questions. “Why did you ask about Nigel? Do you know something?”

“Just a guess. He's the right age. He comes from a rich family.”

“But you had a reason…. Tell me.”

“He doesn't drink. I don't trust people who don't drink.”

She almost smiled through her peevishness.

“In fact, we should have a drink right now,” I said. “I know a great German restaurant in Springfield near the bus depot.”

“The Student Prince. How did you know that?” I put my arm around her, but she walked out from under it as we headed toward her car.

Lew Archer got paid expenses. He wouldn't even track down a murderer except if someone paid him. I had to come up with expenses myself, and this dinner wasn't going to be cheap. Maybe I could ask Oscar to put me on a per diem to clear the joint's name. Maybe Danny could hock his bass guitar.

Angelina's suitor, the cabbie—Janet found his name in one of her letters—was, fittingly enough, named Romeo. He was Romanian. She read the letter at the restaurant while we waited for dinner, and cried again, while I drank a gigantic glass of Wurtzburger from the tap. I didn't know if Janet cried because the letters got her to thinking about Angelina again or because the recent episode reminded her how awful her mother was.