While My Pretty One Sleeps Page 3

  At four o’clock there were no customers in the shop and Neeve sent everyone home. Darn Ethel, she thought. She would have liked to go home as well. The snow was still falling steadily. At this rate, she’d never get a cab herself later. She tried Ethel at four-thirty, at five, at five-thirty. Now what? she wondered. Then she had an idea. She’d wait until six-thirty, the usual closing time, then deliver Ethel’s things on her way home. Surely she could leave them with the superintendent. That way if Ethel had imminent travel plans, she’d have her new wardrobe.

  The taxicab-company starter was reluctant to accept her call. “We’re telling all our cars to come in, lady. Driving’s a mess. But gimme your name and phone number.” When he heard her name, the starter’s tone changed. “Neeve Kearny! Why didn’t you tell me you’re the Commissioner’s daughter? You bet we’ll get you home.”

  The cab arrived at twenty of seven. They inched through the now almost impassable streets. The driver was not pleased to make an additional stop. “Lady, I can’t wait to pack it in.”

  There was no answer at Ethel’s apartment. Neeve rang in vain for the superintendent. There were four other apartments in the brownstone, but she had no idea who lived in them and couldn’t risk leaving the clothes with strangers. Finally she tore a check out of her book and on the back of it wrote a note to slip under Ethel’s door: “I have your purchases. Call me when you get in.” She put her home phone number under her signature. Then, struggling under the weight of the boxes and bags, she got back into the cab.

  • • •

  Inside Ethel Lambston’s apartment, a hand reached for the note Neeve had pushed under the door, read it, tossed it aside and resumed his periodic search for the hundred-dollar bills that Ethel regularly squirreled away under the carpets or between the cushions of the couch, the money she gleefully referred to as “Seamus the wimp’s alimony.”

  Myles Kearny could not shake off the nagging worry that had been growing in him for weeks. His grandmother used to have a kind of sixth sense. “I have a feeling,” she would say. “There’s trouble coming.” Myles could vividly remember when he was ten and his grandmother had received a picture of his cousin in Ireland. She had cried, “He has death in his eyes.” Two hours later the phone had rung. His cousin had been killed in an accident.

  Seventeen years ago, Myles had shrugged off Nicky Sepetti’s threat. The Mafia had its own code. They never went after the wives or children of its enemies. And then Renata had died. At three o’clock in the afternoon, walking through Central Park to pick up Neeve at Sacred Heart Academy, she’d been murdered. It had been a cold, windy November day. The park was deserted. There were no witnesses to tell who had lured or forced Renata off the path and into the area behind the museum.

  He’d been in his office when the principal of Sacred Heart phoned at four-thirty. Mrs. Kearny had not come to pick up Neeve. They’d phoned, but she was not at home. Was anything wrong? When he hung up the phone, Myles had known with sickening certainty that something terrible had happened to Renata. Ten minutes later the police were searching Central Park. His car was on the way uptown when the call came in that her body had been found.

  When he reached the park, a cordon of policemen was holding back the curious and the sensation seekers. The media were already there. He remembered how the flash-bulbs had blinded him as he walked toward the spot where her body was lying. Herb Schwartz, his deputy commissioner, was there. “Don’t look at her now, Myles,” he begged.

  He’d shaken Herb’s arm off, knelt on the frozen ground and pulled back the blanket they’d put over her. She might have been sleeping. Her face still lovely in that final repose, none of the expression of terror that he’d seen stamped on so many victims’ faces. Her eyes were closed. Had she closed them in that final moment or had Herb closed them? At first he thought she was wearing a red scarf. Denial. He was a seasoned viewer of victims, but at that moment his professionalism abandoned him. He didn’t want to see that someone had slashed down the length of her jugular vein, then slit her throat. The collar of the white ski jacket she’d been wearing had turned crimson from her blood. The hood had slipped back, and her face was framed by those masses of jet-black hair. Her red ski pants, the red of her blood, the white jacket and the hardened snow under her body—even in death she’d looked like a fashion photograph.

  He’d wanted to hold her against him, to breathe life into her, but he knew he should not move her. He’d contented himself with kissing the cheeks and the eyes and the lips. His hand grazed her neck and came away bloodstained, and he’d thought, We met in blood, we part in blood.

  • • •

  He’d been a twenty-one-year-old rookie cop on Pearl Harbor Day, and the next morning he’d enlisted in the Army. Three years later he was with Mark Clark’s Fifth Army in the battle for Italy. They’d taken it town by town. In Pontici he’d gone into a church that seemed to be deserted. The next moment he’d heard an explosion, and blood had gushed from his forehead. He’d spun around and seen a German soldier crouched behind the altar in the sacristy. He managed to shoot him before he passed out.

  He came to, feeling a small hand shaking him. “Come with me,” a voice whispered in his ear in heavily accented English. He could barely think through the waves of pain in his head. His eyes were crusted with dried blood. Outside it was pitch black. The sounds of gunfire were far away, to the left. The child—he realized somehow it was a child—led him down deserted alleys. He remembered wondering where she was taking him, why she was alone. He heard the scraping of his combat boots against the stone steps, the sound of a rusty gate opening, then an intense, rapidly speaking whisper, the child’s explanation. Now she was speaking Italian. He couldn’t understand what she was saying. Then he felt an arm supporting him, the feeling of being lowered onto a bed. He passed out and awoke intermittently, aware of gentle hands bathing and bandaging his head. His first clear recollection was of an army doctor examining him. “You don’t know how lucky you were,” he was told. “They drove us back yesterday. It wasn’t good for the ones who didn’t make it out.”

  • • •

  After the war, Myles had taken advantage of the GI Bill of Rights and gone to college. The Fordham Rose Hill campus was only a few miles from where he’d grown up in the Bronx. His father, a police captain, had been skeptical. “It was all we could do to get you through high school,” he’d observed. “Not that you weren’t blessed with a brain, but you never chose to place your nose between the covers of a book.”

  Four years later, after graduating magna cum laude, Myles went on to law school. His father had been delighted but warned, “You’ve still got a cop in you. Don’t forget that cop when you get all your fancy degrees.”

  Law school. The DA’s office. Private practice. It was then he’d realized it was too easy for a good lawyer to get a guilty defendant off. He didn’t have the stomach for it. He’d jumped at the chance to become a U.S. Attorney.

  That was 1958. He’d been thirty-seven. Over the years he’d dated plenty of girls and watched them marry off, one by one. But somehow anytime he’d come close, a voice had whispered in his ear, “There is more. Wait a bit.”

  The notion of going back to Italy was a gradual one. “Being shot at through Europe is not the equivalent of the grand tour,” his mother told him when, at a dinner home, he tentatively mentioned his plans. And then she’d asked, “Why don’t you look up that family that hid you in Pontici? I doubt you were in any condition to thank them at that time.”

  He still blessed his mother for that advice. Because when he knocked at their door, Renata had opened it. Renata who was now twenty-three, not ten. Renata tall and slender, so that he was barely half a head over her. Renata who incredibly said, “I know who you are. I brought you home that night.”

  “How could you have remembered?” he asked.

  “My father took my picture with you before they took you away. I’ve always kept it on my dresser.”

  They were married thr
ee weeks later. The next eleven years were the happiest of his life.

  • • •

  Myles walked over to the window and looked out. Technically, spring had arrived a week ago, but nobody had bothered to pass on the word to Mother Nature. He tried not to remember how much Renata had loved to walk in the snow.

  He rinsed the coffee cup and the salad plate and put them into the dishwasher. If all the tunas in the world suddenly vanished, what would people on a diet have for lunch? he wondered. Maybe they’d go back to good, thick hamburgers. The notion made his mouth water. But it did remind him that he was supposed to defrost the pasta sauce.

  At six o’clock he began to prepare dinner. He brought out the makings for a salad from the refrigerator and with skillful hands broke lettuce, chopped scallions, sliced green peppers into razor-thin bands of green. Unconsciously he smiled to himself, remembering how, growing up, he’d thought a salad was tomato and lettuce globbed with mayonnaise. His mother had been a wonderful woman, but her calling in life was clearly not as a chef. She’d also cooked meat until “all the germs were killed,” so that a pork chop or a steak was dry and hard enough to be karated instead of cut.

  It was Renata who had introduced him to the delights of subtle flavors, the joys of pasta, the delicacy of salmon, tangy salads that hinted of garlic. Neeve had inherited her mother’s culinary skills, but Myles acknowledged to himself that along the way he’d learned to make a damn good salad.

  At ten of seven he began to worry actively about Neeve. Probably few taxis on the road. Dear God, don’t let her walk through the park on a night like this. He tried calling the shop, but there was no answer. By the time she struggled in with the bundles of clothes over her arm and dragging the boxes, he’d been ready to call headquarters and ask the police to check the park for her. He clamped his lips together before he admitted that.

  Instead as he took the boxes from her arms he succeeded in looking surprised. “Is it Christmas again?” he asked. “From Neeve to Neeve with love? Have you used up today’s profits on yourself?”

  “Don’t be such a wise guy, Myles,” Neeve said crossly. “I tell you, Ethel Lambston may be a good customer, but she’s also a royal pain in the neck.” As she dropped the boxes onto the couch she skimmed through the tale of her attempt to deliver Ethel’s clothing.

  Myles looked alarmed. “Ethel Lambston! Isn’t she the ditsy you had at the Christmas party?”

  “You’ve got it.” On impulse, Neeve had invited Ethel to the annual Christmas party she and Myles gave in the apartment. After pinning Bishop Stanton to the wall and explaining why the Catholic Church was no longer relevant in the twentieth century, Ethel had realized Myles was a widower and hadn’t left his side all evening.

  “I don’t care if you have to camp outside her door for the next two years,” Myles warned. “Don’t let that woman set foot in this place again.”

  3|

  It was not Denny Adler’s idea of a good time to be breaking his neck for minimum wages plus tips at the deli on East Eighty-third Street and Lexington. But Denny had a problem. He was on probation. His probation officer, Mike Toohey, was a swine who loved the authority vested in him by the State of New York. Denny knew that if he didn’t have a job, he couldn’t spend a dime without Toohey asking him what he was living on, so he worked and hated every minute of it.

  He rented a dingy room in a fleabag on First Avenue and One Hundred and Fifth Street. What the parole officer didn’t know was that most of Denny’s time away from the job was spent panhandling on the street. He changed both the locations and his disguises every few days. Sometimes he’d dress like a bum, put on filthy clothes and shabby sneakers, smear dirt on his face and hair. He’d prop up against a building and hold a torn piece of cardboard which read, “HELP, I’M HUNGRY.”

  That was one of the better sucker baits.

  Other times he’d put on faded khakis and a gray wig. He’d wear dark glasses, carry a cane, pin a sign to his coat, “HOMELESS VET.” At his feet a bowl quickly filled with quarters and dimes.

  Denny picked up a lot of loose pocket change that way. Nothing like the thrill of planning a real job, but it was something to keep his hand in. Only once or twice, when he’d come across a wino with a few bucks, had he succumbed to the need to waste someone. But the cops didn’t give a damn when a wino or a bum was beaten or stabbed, so it was practically risk-free.

  His probation would be finished in three months, then he’d be able to drop out of sight and decide where the best action was to be found. Even the parole officer was relaxing. On Saturday morning, Toohey phoned him at the deli. Denny could just picture Mike, his puny frame hunched over the desk in his sloppy office. “I’ve been talking to your boss, Denny. He tells me you’re one of his most dependable workers.”

  “Thank you, sir.” If Denny had been standing in front of Toohey’s desk he would have twisted his hands in an attitude of nervous gratitude. He’d have forced moisture into his pale-hazel eyes and manipulated his narrow lips to an eager grin. Instead he silently mouthed an obscenity into the phone.

  “Denny, you can skip reporting to me on Monday. I’ve got a heavy schedule and you’re one of the men I know I can trust. I’ll see you next week.”

  “Yes, sir.” Denny hung up the phone. A caricature of a smile slashed creases below his prominent cheekbones. Half of his thirty-seven years had been spent in custody, beginning with his first break-in when he was twelve. A permanent grayish prison pallor was ground into his skin.

  He glanced around the deli, at the sickeningly cute ice-cream tables and wire chairs, the white Formica counter, the luncheon-special signs, the well-dressed regulars deep in their newspapers over French toast or corn flakes. He was interrupted in his dream of what he’d like to do to this place and to Mike Toohey, by the manager shouting, “Hey, Adler, get it moving! Those orders won’t deliver themselves.”

  “Yes, sir!” Countdown on yes sir! Denny thought, as he grabbed his jacket and the carton of paper bags.

  When he got back to the deli, the manager was just answering the phone. He looked at Denny with his usual sour expression. “I told you no personal calls during business hours.” He slammed the receiver into Denny’s hand.

  The only one who ever called him here was Mike Toohey. Denny snarled his name and heard a muffled “Hello, Denny.” He recognized the voice immediately. Big Charley Santino. Ten years ago Denny had shared a cell in Attica with Big Charley, and from time to time he had done a couple of jobs for him. He knew that Charley had important mob connections.

  Denny ignored the “Get on with it” expression on the manager’s face. There were only a couple of people at the counter now. The tables were empty. He had the pleasurable glow of knowing that whatever Charley wanted would be interesting. Automatically he turned to the wall and cupped his hand over the speaker. “Yeah?”

  “Tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. Bryant Park behind the library. Watch for an ’84 black Chevy.”

  Denny did not realize that he was smiling broadly when the click indicated the connection was broken.

  • • •

  Over the snowy weekend, Seamus Lambston huddled alone in the family apartment on Seventy-first Street and West End Avenue. On Friday afternoon, he called his bartender. “I’m sick. Get Matty to fill in till Monday.” He’d slept soundly Friday night, the sleep of the emotionally spent, but he woke up on Saturday with a sense of ultimate dread.

  Ruth had driven up to Boston on Thursday and stayed until Sunday. Jeannie, their youngest daughter, was a freshman at the University of Massachusetts. The check Seamus sent for spring semester had bounced. Ruth had gotten an emergency loan from her office and rushed up with the replacement. After Jeannie’s distraught call, they’d had a row that must have been heard five blocks away.

  “Damn it, Ruth, I’m doing my best,” he’d shouted. “Business is lousy. With three kids in college, is it my fault we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel? Do you think I can pull money out of the thi
n air?”

  They’d confronted each other, frightened, exhausted, hopeless. He’d been shamed by the look of distaste in her eyes. He knew he hadn’t aged well. Sixty-two years old. He’d built up his five-foot-ten frame with sit-ups and barbells. But now he had a potbelly that wouldn’t go away, his once thick sandy hair was thinning and dirty yellow, his reading glasses accentuated the puffiness of his face. He sometimes looked in the mirror, then at the picture of Ruth and himself on their wedding day. Both in handsome suits, both pushing forty, second marriages for both of them, happy, eager for each other. The bar had been going great, and even though he’d mortgaged the hell out of it, he’d been sure he’d be able to recoup in a couple of years. Ruth’s quiet, tidy ways were like sanctuary after putting up with Ethel. “Peace is worth every nickel it will cost,” he’d told the lawyer who didn’t want him to agree to lifetime alimony.

  He’d been delighted when Marcy was born. Unexpectedly Linda had followed two years later. They’d been shocked when Jeannie came along as he and Ruth were turning forty-five.

  Ruth’s slender body had grown stocky. As the rent for the bar doubled and tripled and the old customers moved away, her serene face had taken on a look of perpetual worry. She wanted so much to give things to the girls, things they couldn’t afford. Frequently he snapped at her, “Why not give them a happy home instead of a lot of junk?”

  These last years with the college expenses had been excruciating. There just wasn’t enough money. And that thousand dollars a month to Ethel until she married or died had become a bone of contention, a bone that Ruth gnawed at incessantly. “Go back into court, for God’s sake,” she’d nag him. “Tell the judge you can’t afford to educate your children and that parasite is making a fortune. She doesn’t need your money. She’s got more than she can spend.”

  The latest outburst, last week, had been the worst. Ruth read in the Post that Ethel had just signed a book contract for a half-million-dollar advance. Ethel was quoted as saying the tell-all book would be a “stick of dynamite thrown into the fashion world.”