Night Life Read online

  He moved west by compass through the dark woods searching for the river that would lead him to the village of St. Pierre and the backup rendezvous. Sometimes he heard the snap of gunfire and once the deeper cough of a machine gun and the crump of a grenade, but it was always in the distance. He stopped at the edge of the woods and looked across a field toward the dark line of the hedgerow at the other side, the grass damp under his knee. More than two hundred yards of open ground, nowhere to hide, and the full moon turning the new spring grass to silver. The night was warm. A light breeze rustled the leaves of the trees behind him and the air smelled of new-turned earth. The hedgerow at the far side was a dark mystery. It could hold a hundred men … or none. One way to find out. Step out and see what happens. All right, then. Go. He started to rise, and he heard the snick of metal on metal no more than twenty feet from where he crouched. The man moved and Fraker saw him. He too was at the edge of the trees looking out at the open ground. One of his? One of theirs? Theirs. The coal scuttle helmet silhouetted against the paleness of the haystack behind him answered that, so Fraker shot him twice with the silenced pistol he’d been issued. Near the dead man’s hand was the knife and the piece of garlic sausage he had been about to eat. The snick of the blade opening was the noise that betrayed him, his bad luck and Fraker’s good, and he had carried the knife as a charm ever since. He had discovered its wonderful efficiency at everything from opening letters to slipping between a man’s ribs to puncture his heart. Trust the Krauts to get something like that right.

  Fraker pulled a cushion from Ingram’s sofa, slit it open, and felt inside for anything hidden there.

  * * *

  Jimmy Ryan’s was packed with people who had come to hear Art Tatum play.

  “Just finishing the set, Michael. I can get you a table. Second set’s in an hour.”

  “I won’t go in, Hank,” Cassidy said. “I’ll hang here till he’s done.” Hank Dixon, thin and gangling as a stork, punched him on the shoulder with a bony fist and ambled into the main room as Cassidy leaned against the bar. The bartender held up a bottle of whiskey, and when Cassidy nodded, slid him a tumbler of Jack Daniel’s over ice. From where he stood he could see the piano and Art Tatum in the baby spot. His face was wet with sweat but expressionless. His body was still, his fingers flat on the keyboard as he drove “Tiger Rag” out so fast it swept you up and carried you, and you wanted to slow it down, stop the rush so you could figure out how it was happening. But no, just let it take you. Go with it. The last cadenza ran the keyboard, and then, bang, it was done. Tatum stood and took a big pull from the glass of whiskey waiting on the piano. A waiter said something to him. Tatum put his hand on the man’s shoulder and let him lead him in his blindness back through the room and out the door without acknowledging the applause. Cassidy left a buck for the bartender and went out onto 52nd Street.

  Swing Street. Get into any cab in New York when he was a kid and say, take me to the Street, and the cabbie would drop you here on 52nd between Fifth and Sixth. He had started coming down to the jazz clubs when he was fifteen and had discovered that he could sneak out of the house on 66th with impunity. The housekeeper, who was supposed to ride herd on him and Brian and Leah, would be oblivious, cocooned in sleep from the pint of rye she used to blunt the end of her day. Their parents, Tom and Joan, were out most nights. He would be at the theater if he had a play on, or who knows where if he did not. She was a regular on the charity ball circuit, usually escorted by a tall, elegant man named Drew who worked in publishing, dressed beautifully, danced well, could be amusing on almost any subject, and whom she referred to as her “walker,” a term, Cassidy learned later, that described a New York “extra man” who could be counted on to escort women to parties their husbands refused to attend and yet had no instinct or desire to threaten the marital peace.

  Even in daylight, Tom and Joan were distracted parents. Tom had been orphaned early and assumed that Joan, being a woman, had inherited all the necessary skills for bringing up children. She had been raised an only child by two chilly WASPs who thought that affection, like capital, should be doled out only in extraordinary situations. Joan assumed that as long as her children were fed, clothed, and educated, and had a dry place to sleep, they were fine. Tom and Joan were charming, funny, kind in their fashion, but on the whole, their children might as well have been brought up by wolves. Brian became the voice of reason among the three of them, and Michael and Leah ran wild. When Michael began sneaking out at night, Brian tried to hold him in by pointing out all the risks and the punishments that awaited his getting caught, not understanding that risk was part of the attraction. Leah wanted to come along, but he wouldn’t let her. He was navigating unknown territory, and she was hitting adolescence at full speed, and would, he was sure, crash the enterprise before he found what he was looking for. Whatever that was.

  It was 1941, a couple of months before Pearl Harbor. He was in the Three Deuces to hear Erroll Garner and had promised Brian he would be home by midnight. At eleven thirty Charlie Parker showed up to sit in, and a little later Billie Holiday came in through the kitchen and leaned on the piano smoking, doing nothing for a while until Garner led her into “Easy Living” and she started to sing. Jesus. Billie Holiday.

  Cassidy was drinking scotch and soda; he’d discovered that the bartenders did not care how old he was as long as he had the money, as long as he didn’t play the fool. The cold glass, the clink of ice, the bite of scotch made him what? Cool, on top, in control, out of the constricted orbit of his daily life. The liquor and the music freed him from whoever the hell he was during the day, from whoever the hell anyone else thought he was supposed to be. The night, the booze, and the music jazzed his blood, and he was flying. Holiday stopped at the end of “Long Gone Blues” as if awakening from a dream, touched Garner on the shoulder and Bird on the cheek, and left the way she had come.

  Two o’clock in the morning. School tomorrow. How did it get to be two o’clock in the morning? The musicians got up for a break. Cassidy pushed his way through the crowd toward the door and then stopped in the shadows among the tables when he saw his father at the bar. He was with a group of four people who were laughing at something he said, and unless she had turned into a twenty-five-year-old blonde, his mother was not the woman with her hand in his father’s pants pocket. He could tell they were theater people. Their clothes were tailored beyond the edge of fashion, hair longer than most, laughter louder, gestures and faces animated to reach the back of the house. So, what now? Out through the kitchen the way Billie Holiday had gone, catch a cab, home in ten minutes, and no one the wiser. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Stick it to him. See the surprise. See the guilt. The whiskey daring him.

  “Michael. Hey, what are you doing here? Did you hear Holiday? Is she the best? Have you ever heard anything like that? She tears my heart out. Half the time I don’t know if to laugh or cry. Here, meet people. This is my son, Michael.” A proprietary arm thrown over his shoulders to turn him to the group.

  Handshakes and smiles. Mischa, with an accent like his father’s but much thicker, “The greatest set designer on Broadway. Wait till you see.”

  His father’s testimony knew only superlatives.

  Kitty, tall and languid and underwhelmed by fifteen-year-old boys, “I’ve never known costumes like this woman makes. They tell the story themselves. Every part comes alive the moment the actors put on their costumes. Magic.” Brandon, who held his hand a little too long and looked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable, “The best choreographer I’ve ever worked with, and you know I’ve worked with some of the giants. The best.” And Cory, the blonde, “A brilliant actress. Brilliant. You’re going to hear from her for years to come,” who hugged him, breasts pressed against his chest, and said, “Oh, my God, he is so cute,” so that things churned in him and he could feel his face go red.

  “Do you want a drink?” his father asked. And then, “Hey, wait a minute. Don’t you have school tomorrow? Aren’t you
supposed to be in bed?”

  His father put him in a taxi. “Better not tell your mother. She’ll worry if she knows you’re out at night.” A compact of discretion he agreed to by silence.

  * * *

  Cassidy flicked the cigarette away and went out from under the awning at Jimmy Ryan’s. The Three Deuces where he had listened to Billie Holiday was gone, replaced by a girly show and watered booze. Most of the jazz clubs had folded in the years since the war, done in by television, they said. He raised his hand, and a Checker pulled to the curb. He got in and gave the cabbie his address on Bank Street.

  The liquor made him sleepy. He took off his hat, put his feet up on the jump seat, and leaned his head back. His eyes closed, and he drifted between waking and sleep, where images of the day blur toward dreams. The walk up the stairs of the Hell’s Kitchen tenement. The woman with orange hair. The dead man in the chair, head back, mouth gaping. And then he was in the bathroom looking at him, not really there, but in a dream and knowing he was dreaming. There was someone else there in the dream in the apartment with him and the dead man, but when he turned, there was no one, just a sense of someone present behind a light. He stepped toward the light, because he knew if he could just take a step through that light, he would see him. If he could see him, then he would know. Know what? Only that if he could see him he would know something he needed to know. He moved toward the light.

  A car horn blared in the dream, an echo of the horn blaring outside in the street, and the cab braked hard and jarred Cassidy awake.

  “Asshole,” the cabbie offered out his window to a turning sedan.

  It was just a dream, the product of whiskey and fatigue. It meant nothing.

  “I’ve changed my mind. Take me to Three Twenty-six West Fifty-third.”

  * * *

  Cassidy saw that the police seal on Ingram’s door had been sliced by something sharp. Somebody had gone in. Was he still there? He pushed his coat and jacket aside and took the .38 from where it hung under his left arm. The doorknob turned in his hand. He pushed. The door opened an inch and then came up against something hard.

  All right, Cassidy thought, he’s in there. He’s got a chair wedged up under the knob. Go down to the Donovans’. Wake them up. Use the phone. Get backup. Sure, and the guy’s out the window and down the fire escape. Does he have a gun? Maybe. Would he use it? Why else would he have one? Chances were he was the man who’d killed Ingram. What had he come back for? Go in and ask him. This is what they pay you for. He stepped back and stamped one foot hard against the door. It gave. He stamped again, something broke on the other side, and he hit the door with his shoulder and went into the dark apartment fast and low. He felt movement to one side, and something hard slammed into his arm, then hit him again in the back with enough force to whistle breath from him. His hand went numb, and the gun fell away. He stumbled and crashed into a piece of furniture. The coffee table. The door bounced back, but something kept it from closing, and the man who hit him was silhouetted against the narrow band of dim light from the hall.

  Got to stop him, Cassidy thought, but the man was not leaving. He was coming for him. Cassidy felt for the gun with his good hand, but he could not find it. He got to his knees, and the coffee table dug into his back. He dragged it around and shoved it at the man, who yelped when it hit him in the shins. Cassidy felt the sofa and used it to help him stand. His right side felt weak from the two blows. Whatever the son of a bitch hit him with hurt and he did not want to be hit again. The apartment was dark. He listened for his attacker but the carpet was thick and he heard nothing but the thud of his pulse in his ears. What was the setup in the apartment? The big sofa. The chair. The bar next to the record player against the wall behind the sofa. He put his hand out and stepped sideways. Nothing. He stepped again. His hand touched a bottle. He tucked it under his bad arm, picked up another. He listened, but the man had gone still, no movement, no sound of breathing. Who would move first? Cassidy tossed one of the bottles away from him. It hit the rug with a thump and did not break, but he heard the whisper of a shoe on the rug as the man turned to the sound. Cassidy grabbed the second bottle with his good hand and took two quick steps toward the sound, toward a solider dark in the darkness. He heard the snick of metal on metal, and as he raised the bottle, something burned across his ribs that made him hiss in pain. He brought the bottle down hard, and the man grunted, thudded back against the wall, and bounced forward. Metal skittered on the bottle. A knife, the guy had a knife. Christ, not a knife. Cassidy stepped back. He tried to remember the room. He knew the sofa was near, felt it with his leg, and moved around the end of it. The man came forward, not worrying about noise now. He bumped into the sofa and hesitated and then came on. Cassidy retreated. His side felt wet and warm, and he knew he was bleeding, but he couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt. Feeling was coming into his right hand, and he shifted the bottle and put his left hand out, hoping to find the doorway to the bedroom. The door to the bedroom was opposite the open front door. If he could get in there, the attacker would be silhouetted in the opening, and for a moment Cassidy would have the advantage. He touched the doorframe. The door was open. He slipped in and stopped a few feet inside and waited. How bad was the cut? He could feel the blood soaking his clothes. He clamped his arm against his side to slow the bleeding. He heard the slither of cloth against the wall in the living room and gripped the neck of the bottle tighter. The dark form of the man filled the doorway. Cassidy raised the bottle.

  A light stabbed out and blinded him. The son of a bitch had a flashlight. The man was unidentifiable behind the beam. The dream in the taxi. The man behind the light. Who was he? Cassidy threw himself sideways. He kicked out and caught a leg, and the man stumbled back. The light pitched wildly around the room, and then the man steadied, and the light pinned Cassidy again as he got to his feet. The man came forward, and Cassidy could see the light glint off the blade. Jesus. He didn’t want to get cut again. He had a quick flash of Detective Brennan cut by a Puerto Rican hophead with a box cutter the night they raided a dope den on Tenth, Brennan’s cheek slashed open, his teeth and tongue visible in the wound.

  Cassidy had lost the bottle. He retreated, one hand groping behind him for something he could use as a weapon, a lamp, an ashtray, a chair, anything. The knife flicked at him, driving him back. His legs hit the foot of the bed, and he stumbled and fell backward and scrambled across the mattress and fell to the floor. The light and the knife came after him. His leg banged against the bureau. The light showed him how trapped he was. The man was between him and the door. Cassidy could retreat into the corner, or he could go back across the bed. He snatched up a pillow. If he could tangle the knife, he’d have a chance. He stepped into the corner and waited for the man. The light and knife came on backed by the dark shape of the man who held them.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” The lights went on in the living room. Donovan, the super, stood inside the front door, holding a baseball bat.

  The man turned quickly and the knife disappeared. He went toward Donovan with one hand up as if to stop traffic, the other was in the pocket of his coat. “Hold it. Hold it,” the man said with some urgency. “We’ve got a problem here.”

  “Watch out,” Cassidy yelled.

  Donovan shifted the bat, confused. “What problem? Who the hell are you?” The man’s authority made him hesitate, and then the man’s hand came out of his pocket and he hit Donovan between the eyes with a leather-covered sap and Donovan dropped as if his strings had been cut. Cassidy saw the man pick up a shopping bag waiting by the door, and then he was gone.

  4

  Morning sun through the skylight woke Cassidy. His right arm was stiff, and his back ached from the blackjack, and when he moved, pain pulled a hot line across his side where the emergency room doctor had stitched the cut. He went into the bathroom and ran cold water on his head to drive away the pain pills’ dullness. Gwen had left a nearly empty tube of toothpaste on the sink. He picked it u
p to throw it out, then put it back and went barefoot into the living room. The apartment was on the top floor of an old warehouse building in Greenwich Village far west on Bank Street. The building had been bought at the end of the war by a visionary who thought that if he created large, open apartments, people would give up the expensive warrens they lived in uptown and come to the Village to pay the same amount for more space. He had renovated the top floor for himself before going bankrupt, and Cassidy had bought it from the new owner with money his mother left him. The new owner cut up the rest of the building into rental apartments, and the street floor held an ever-changing series of small businesses that began in optimism and ended in unpaid bills, sheriffs’ notices, and nighttime decamps.

  The ceiling of Cassidy’s big living room was twelve feet high, and two of the walls were exposed brick. The four tall windows at the end looked out over the roofs of the piers along West Street to the river and the New Jersey cliffs beyond. In the evenings Gwen would stand there with a drink and watch the ships head downriver to the sea, the lights of their superstructures bright above their dark hulls, and she, raised in a landlocked state, would make up stories about their cargoes, their crews, and their destinations.

  The apartment was emptier without her, though in her last weeks it had been overcrowded with the two of them maneuvering through silences, trying not to abrade. There was evidence of her wherever he looked, her presence in her flower arrangement now dying in a vase on the black walnut counter that divided the kitchen from the living area, her absence in the colorful batik now missing from the back of the sofa, her clothes gone from the closet in the bedroom. Her imprint was still in the chair at the end of the plain pine table near the windows where she read scripts and marked her lines with a red pencil. So far he had avoided sitting there.