Sammy Two Shoes, page 15
‘Where’re you staying? At your mother’s?’
I shook my head. ‘The Benjamin on East 50th.’
‘Oh.’ He waggled his head. ‘Fancy.’
‘Can you do it or not, Lonnie?’
‘How do you feel about ten tomorrow morning, like I said?’
I smiled. ‘It’s an unusual time for a thing like this. What have you got in mind?’
‘Leave that to me. You just be there and ready before ten, OK?’
‘What am I going to do to thank you, Lonnie?’ I asked him.
‘Thank me?’ He laughed, but it sounded more like coughing. ‘Chances are you won’t make it out the other side of this to thank anybody. Your legend will be huge …’
I got his drift. ‘But I’ll be gone, you’re saying.’
‘Gone but not forgotten,’ he said, and he went back inside.
Right. I had the guns. I had a scheme. All that was left was one piece of equipment. For that, I headed to Ralph’s on West 76th, about a block off Columbus. There wasn’t a sign or anything, but Ralph’s was one of the hidden delights of the city, in my opinion. It was a kind of secret recording studio. A bunch of the folk singers in the early 1960s used to record their more subversive material there. I’d heard an amazing stolen copy of a tape during Sammy’s folksinger phase. It was a Dave Van Ronk duet with Phil Ochs in which they allegedly outed FBI spies in the Harlem Black Panther Party, weaving the names of the informants into the lyrics of the song. How they got the names was a mystery, but Ralph’s studio was raided, the place ransacked, Ochs and Van Ronk ‘unofficially detained’ and all the copies of the song were destroyed. Except for the copies that were already circulating in the folk underground at the time. Hot stuff for somebody like Sammy, a young man looking for a reason to be righteously indignant, and then to sing about it. Sammy recorded a few tunes at Ralph’s while I sat on a busted sofa in the next room listening. Golden days.
The point being that Ralph was disposed to helping me. At least I hoped he was. I needed a special something for my encounter with Tanner, and I knew that Ralph had one.
The building looked the same as it always had, a three-story brick with a thick iron entrance door. The street was like a hundred other blocks in Manhattan, a little garbage, a few parked cars, a ninety-year-old woman in a mink stole and short shorts walking her Pekinese.
I looked at the buzzers. They were different from the last time I’d visited. There were three. One was unmarked, one was for the Shapiro family, and the last one only had a picture of a mandolin. I figured Ralph for a mandolin player.
The second I buzzed an angry voice roared out of the speaker.
‘What?’
‘It’s Foggy Moscowitz, Ralph.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Spider Cohen’s friend?’ Ralph wanted to know.
‘The same,’ I said.
The door clicked, and I was in. Down an unlit hallway, all the way to the back, to the door marked BEWARE OF FROG! It opened just as I got to it, and there was Ralph.
He looked about the same as he always had. He was wearing baggy Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara on it. His goatee had more white hair than blond in it, and his hairline was a little further back on his head than it used to be. But his eyes hadn’t changed. They still looked like he knew a secret that was about to make him laugh.
‘Foggy.’ He grabbed my arms, pulled me in, and hugged me.
I had no idea what to do. I stood there while he squeezed me, then let me go. He took a few steps back and nodded.
‘You look just like yourself,’ he proclaimed, and then he turned around and was off into the recesses of his sanctum.
What could I do but follow?
The studio was more cluttered than I remembered, and it didn’t look exactly in the peak of use. He must have noticed my observation.
‘Phil Ochs killed himself this past April,’ he said softly. ‘Did you hear? Hung himself in his sister Sunny’s home.’
I told him I hadn’t heard. Truth be told, I didn’t know much about Phil Ochs, except that I liked a couple of his songs back in the old days. The days that Dave Van Ronk used to refer to as ‘the great folk scare of the early sixties.’ But for some reason, maybe the melancholy in Ralph’s voice, I was struck through with some kind of sadness that took hold.
‘Sorry,’ I told Ralph.
‘I haven’t recorded anything in here since.’ He looked around. ‘I don’t know if I ever will.’
‘Ever?’ I didn’t know what else to say.
‘I had a band booked for this summer. Kids from Georgia, call themselves the B-52s if you can believe it. Supposed to be playing at CBGB sometime. But.’
Without further explication, he plonked down in an overstuffed chair beside one of three drum kits in the room.
‘Look,’ I began.
‘You’re not here to record something,’ he interrupted. ‘And Spider Cohen hasn’t played a gig in forever. So. What is it? Because I hear that Cohen is something of a criminal at this point. And not the good kind. And from the look on your face, I’m guessing that you’ve got something serious in mind. But if it has anything to do with the kind of crap Cohen’s into now, I’m completely not interested.’
‘I want to help Sammy,’ I said quickly. ‘He’s in trouble, and I’m his friend. I’m going to take down a guy named Tanner Brookmeyer.’
Ralph’s eyes widened and he sat back in his chair.
‘I see that you know the guy,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t. But I know who he is. I know guys who know guys who get their coke from him.’
‘Right. And Tanner used some of that coke to kill his girlfriend, an actor by the name of Emory Brewster. Only the cops think Sammy did it, so I have to get him out from under, right? That’s the story. Most of it.’
He looked away. ‘I don’t want to hear the rest. And I don’t know what I could do …’
‘I need a tape recorder,’ I said. ‘Like, a spy tape recorder, something that I could put in my suit coat pocket. And the last time I was here …’
He jumped up. ‘I showed you the Mohawk Midgetape 44. Model BR-1. This one was made in 1957 and uses a metal tape cartridge. Got three subminiature tubes and a built-in hand crank for manual rewind.’
He was already at a large desk in the corner by the time he finished his last sentence. He tore through the drawers like crazy and came up with a little golden thing.
‘I love this.’ He beamed. ‘It’s so cool. So, like, James Bond.’
‘Just as I remembered it,’ I told him.
‘You think you can get Tanner Brookmeyer to talk into this and confess his evil deeds?’ he asked, grinning. ‘That, my friend, is hilarious. How am I supposed to get this back when you’re dead and in the East River?’
‘I could buy it from you,’ I suggested.
‘Not for sale.’ He held it aloft for a moment. ‘But.’
Ralph went back to ransacking his desk drawers. After a few moments he produced a cigar box.
‘Really?’ I asked him.
‘No, come here,’ he said, motioning me over. ‘Look.’
I went to the desk and he demonstrated. He opened the cigar box and there was a nice row of very real looking Cubans. He picked one up, and there were others underneath. Or so I thought. Ralph worked some kind of magic and all the cigars came out to reveal a secret compartment in the box just coincidentally the size of the tape recorder.
‘You’re kidding me,’ I mumbled.
‘This box,’ he began, energized considerably, ‘with that tape recorder in it, was sitting on this desk when these FBI thugs came in here and arrested Dave Van Ronk. I recorded everything. I still have the tapes in a safe deposit box. That’s why I’m still in business. Because every single thing the Feds did and said in my house was way beyond illegal. So, you know. Don’t tell me this shit doesn’t work.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said. ‘So …’
‘When you go to Brookmeyer,’ Ralph continued, ‘you tell him you brought a present, like a peace offering or whatever. You set this on the desk, have your little talk and he says what you want him to say. Then, when he gets mad, because he will, you grab the box and say if he’s going to be that way about it, you’re taking your cigars back!’
‘Then I get out,’ I said.
‘Maybe. Or maybe he shoots you in, like, fifty places. Could go either way.’
And there it was: the reality of my situation. I suddenly felt a little like David going up against the big Philistine with nothing but a slingshot and a song in my heart.
TWENTY-FOUR
It only took me a second after walking out of Ralph’s before I realized how close I was to Tap-A-Keg, the local hangout of Nan the understudy. Which was not far from her apartment. Which meant that Nan lived within a couple of blocks of Tanner Brookmeyer.
Probably didn’t mean anything. Tanner lived in a building that he owned, on the top floor. The whole top floor. Nan lived in a closet with a bathroom. I’d forgotten that Manhattan could be like that, a penthouse could be right around the corner from a gaggle of hovels.
Carrying the box of cigars under my arm, a little heavy thanks to the tape recorder inside, I took the brisk stroll up the street and around the next block to good old Tap-A Keg. But I stopped short of going in even before I thought to switch on the tape recorder. Because a sudden revelation popped me in the head.
Those guys at Tap-A-Keg had been covering for Nan; I’d known that when I was talking with them. I’d kind of forgotten it with all the ensuing adventures. And to tell the truth, I hadn’t really thought it was important anyway. Nan didn’t kill Emory.
Or did she? Did she maybe have a hand in it?
Nan had been awfully jittery when I’d spoken with her. I’d put it down to nerves, her place being shot up, her fellow cast member being murdered.
But Nan had actually exhibited a bit of cocaine behavior. That was the revelation that hit me in the head. And I felt a little stupid for not putting it together until that moment, a little like a rube from Florida.
Nan had not been at Tap-A-Keg when she’d said she was. That’s what her pals in the bar were covering. Which meant that she’d lied to me, that she had done something she didn’t want me to know about. And what if that something had to do with extra-strychnine coke?
Then I wondered why I would even think that. Was the whole scene screwing with my perceptions? A flight to Atlanta, a couple of gun incidents, a tussle with Tanner, and the revelation that Sammy Two Shoes was my little brother? It was all too much.
And, because the Universe thinks it’s got a really good sense of humor, that was the moment I saw Nan coming out of her local bar.
She was a little unsteady, like one martini too many. She was dressed in shorts and flip-flops with some kind of disco blouse, all sequins and swirls.
She didn’t see me, or she didn’t remember me. She just balanced herself against the doorframe of the bar, got her bearings and her balance, and launched off toward her home.
I watched her walk away, as best she could, and wondered if her lifestyle meant anything to Emory Brewster’s murder. What was it one of the other actors had told me? That she was more a professional understudy than an actual actor? Most of the pay with none of the work. I guess it was a nice gig if your goals were hanging out at your local saloon and bumping lines of coke when you felt like it. Some people drift. Some people can be happy like that.
A couple more seconds and I decided that I should live and let live. I was a buttinsky. And I didn’t need to be on Nan’s case, did I? I already had three people on the hook for Emory’s murder. What was I doing looking for a fourth?
So I hoisted my box of cigars a bit, stepped off the curb, and hailed a cab for the Benjamin.
I usually underestimate the value of sleep. I often forget that when I don’t have it, I don’t work right, and when I do have enough of it, I’m pretty much a ball of fire.
But when I woke up in my hotel room, I was feeling I might have slept for a couple of weeks. I was having a hard time remembering anything after seeing Nan on the street. I knew I got in a cab. I knew I made it to the bar in the Benjamin. I knew I had complimented the bartender several times on what a spectacular negroni she made. She finally told me that she made it with Amaro. I told her that it wasn’t a negroni, then. She asked me if I’d just had a baby or else why was I holding tight to a box of cigars. I told her that the cigars were a gift from a friend. She asked me if she could have one. I said yes.
And then I woke up in my hotel room. I sat up. The box of cigars was on the nightstand. I opened it. There was one missing. I broke into the secret compartment. Tape recorder still there. I put the package back together. I lay back down.
I never gave drinking advice to anyone in my life, but if I were so disposed, I would tell everyone who would listen that after seven negronis you might as well just pound a nail into your forehead. It would be about the same sensation either way.
The clock on the nightstand said it was nearly eight o’clock in the morning. Which would have meant that I’d slept for almost nine hours, and it was time for me to get up, get showered, and get going over to Tanner Brookmeyer’s penthouse apartment. Where he would kill me and put me out of my misery. Which was, if I remembered Hamlet correctly, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
So I dragged myself out of my bed, stumbled into the shower, spent a delightful twenty minutes there relaxing the negroni knots in the back of my neck, and managed to get dressed, all before nine.
Guns in place, cigars in hand, I launched my leaky little ship out of the room and into the elevator.
The good old Benjamin had a coffee service in the lobby, thank God, and I took advantage of it like I’d never see coffee again. Which was, I had to admit, a possibility.
Three large cups of coffee and two trips to the gents’ room later, I was on the street getting a cab. I could have walked, but it was already a little hot, and I wanted to make certain I was in place early, as per Lonnie’s instructions.
Lonnie, I reminisced on the cab ride over to Columbus, was not a bad short order cook, but he was among the greatest grifter-planners in history. World class. He once orchestrated a complex ballet of seventy people in order to boost the entire set of the Broadway musical Cabaret just so he could set it up in his cousin’s warehouse by the docks for a party. Swear to God. After a matinee on Sunday, the whole thing was taken apart, moved to the warehouse, set up for a party all day Monday and back in the theatre in time for the show on Tuesday night. I couldn’t remember the occasion, but I’d been there at the party as a teenager. There was a lot of acid around in those days, so the details remained a little hazy. And the ensuing years had probably exaggerated the story a little. But I’d seen it with my own eyes. And it had been done with such stealth and grace that it never even made the papers. After that, Lonnie was a legend.
So while I didn’t know what Lonnie had in mind, I had confidence in the guy. Sometimes you just had to trust other people. The gag would be to get all or most of Tanner’s goons and guards away from Tanner’s penthouse long enough for me to get in, get what I wanted, and get out.
So at 9:45 there I stood, corner of Columbus and Something, waiting. It was a normal day. Students, cops, panhandlers, hookers, businesspeople, flies, and garbage all shared the street amiably enough. The sky seemed a little overcast, but in the canyons of the city it was hard to see the sun even when it was out in full. The smell was ridiculous, but familiar. The noise was something like a big waterfall, constant and blank. A lot of nothing happened for a while. I shifted from leg to leg, I scratched an itch. I felt my shoulder holster about a hundred times. I tried to calm myself down by remembering what the ocean looked like at sunset.
And then Hell erupted all over the Avenue.
Sirens, a fire engine, two cop cars, then a swarm of activity, and the smell of gas was everywhere.
People started moving really fast. Some even ran. Even though I was sure Lonnie was responsible for the chaos, I still had half a mind to run too.
Then I saw Lonnie and two other guys in gas company uniforms talking with the cops. I didn’t hear the entire conversation, but the gist involved a serious gas leak and a major evacuation of the entire building. The building that Tanner Brookmeyer owned. The one where he lived.
Things started happening really fast after that.
Lonnie and the two other guys went into the building with a bunch of cops. A guy from the fire truck got on a bullhorn and started yelling orders. The police were beginning to cordon off the block.
I backed away, got to the corner, found my way to the adjacent alley, and hurried toward the back door of Tanner’s building just ahead of the oncoming cops.
I didn’t want to risk the elevators, so I ran up the back staircase, all five floors.
The door at the top of the stairs was locked, but that was no problem. I popped it in under five seconds. It swung open on to a lush hallway. There was a thick blue and white Asian rug on the hardwood floors. The walls were decked in original paintings. And there were healthy live plants, big ferns in ornate pots. At the end of the hall was a grand arch and half-open double doors. The elevator was right next to them. And there was an alarm going off to wake the dead, a real skull-crusher.
I broke the lock on the hallway door and slammed it shut so that one could get through it without a sledgehammer.
I walked down the hall as calmly as I could, reached into the cigar box and turned on the tiny spy tape recorder, then knocked on the double doors, even though I could have just gone in.
There was no answer.
‘Tanner?’ I called out. ‘It’s Foggy Moscowitz. I brought you a peace offering.’
The alarm cut off. You could still hear the helter-skelter of the other floors in the building, people yelling, cops ordering, doors pounding. But the bone-rattling noise on Tanner’s floor was gone.
A second later I could hear footsteps approaching from inside the penthouse. I took three steps back and held out my hands. One of them had the box of cigars in it, the other one was open and empty.
