The Lucky and the Damned by Johnny Noir

“I see a dark man in your future!”
She couldn’t wait to get out of the gypsy’s parlor. She ran into the street and hailed a cab. She never made it home.
“Duke, I’m worried about Catherine. I haven’t seen her in days. That’s not like her.”
“So when exactly was the last time you did see her?”
“It was the night she introduced us all to Madam Sukova.”
“Uh-huh, her latest ‘find’. That was some party. You didn’t buy all that gypsy claptrap, did you?”
“Well, er, I didn’t—but I think Catherine did.”
“I think so too. Why don’t I pay Madam Sukova a visit? Maybe she’ll see something in her crystal ball.”

The storefront ’s main room was the gypsy’s fortune telling parlor, where painted pink winged nymphs cavorted naked in the middle of an untamed forest, with grinning hairy half-men, half-horse creatures leering crazily through the dark brush.
There were statues of what I supposed were pagan gods in every corner of the room and the burning incense filling the whole place with a mist of stale smoke that brought to mind the odor of smoldering garbage.
Madam Sukova’s boasting genuine clairvoyant powers impressed the easily suckered socialite by seeming to prognosticate fatalistic but utterly vague calamities or making wooly promises of startling once in a lifetime romance.
Catherine’s subsequent extolling of the gypsy’s accuracy in her society column was supposed to position Madam Sukova’s out of the way parlor in Little Siberia as the latest indulgence of the idle uptown rich, but when the preternaturally aged woman shuffled through the thick beaded curtain, her emaciated and weather-beaten face could barely force a smile. The olive complexion had faded sickly yellow and was covered in liver spots as big as livers. Her head looked like a lemon that had been squeezed. She had seen better days and none too recently. Her hair was tied in an extremely long ponytail and wasn’t gray. It was stone white, like she’d experienced an awful shock.
I wasn’t expected, but I’d been Joanna’s date at the high society séance Catherine had thrown and she greeted me by name, as if it were out of the blue.
“How do you do, Mister Brady—please, have a seat,” she said, indicating the vinyl upholstered kitchen chairs at the circular card table with a neat patchwork tablecloth thrown over it. The tablecloth was stitched together with glittering gold thread and colorful dyed fringe tassels. The card table was the focal point and clearly meant to be seen from the window. On it were standard tools of the fortuneteller’s trade; crystal ball and a tarot deck with certain cards laid out in neat overlapping rows, like a cryptic game of Solitaire.
“So you remember me, do ya?”
“Oh, yes. I could never forget a man as striking as yourself. Please—may I offer you a cup of tea?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Oh—do you mind I have one?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“I’ll just be a moment.”
She ambled off behind the heavy curtain while I took in more of the room. The lava lamp was goin’ full throttle and there was a giant eyeball starin’ at me from a large leafy gold frame on the opposite wall.
“Oh—I did not know Madam was with a client.”
“I’m not a client. I’m—,” I turned to see the face that went with the smooth, smoky voice.
The hair spilled in glistening reddish brunette waves around high-cheeked dark olive features. She wore bright orange lipstick on wide lips that pouted by themselves. Her eyes were soft and mysterious behind heavy lids that shimmered with sparkling azure eye paint.
The curious brunette was tall, and thin, the slender legs appearing as pleasing silhouettes beneath a diaphanous emerald green skirt that stopped just above her naked feet in matching bright green thong sandals.
She wore an equally translucent sleeveless blouse. The skirt and blouse clearly made for her wiry frame was even sewn with the same gold thread as the tablecloth. If the numerous bangles crowding her skinny wrists didn’t give her away as a gypsy, her hairy arms did.
“But enough about me.”
“I am Carla. You say you are not a client?”
“That’s right. I’m—”
“Ah, Carla, I see you have met Mister Brady.”
“Not—exactly.”
“Mister Brady, my granddaughter Carla.”
Being no mind reader myself, I couldn’t tell what the girl was thinking as she never took her eyes off me as she crossed the parlor, disappearing behind the curtain.
“You were saying, Mister Brady?”
“Huh—oh, yeh. I was trying to get a line on Catherine Kennedy. She’s been unaccounted for in the last few days an’ some people have taken to the idea that she’s missing.”
The craggy old face furrowed further, darkening like a storm.
“I have not seen Miss Catherine since her last reading,” she said, the words as dry as week old toast.
“What do you think might have become of her?” I said, directing her to the glass ball on the table.
Her stooped shoulders shrugged in the rags of many colors she wore.
“But Mister Brady, how should I know?” she asked, as innocently as my own grandmother.
“I was hopin’ you’d be able to use a little mysticism to help me out,” I set forth at last, wantin’ to see her reaction. It was predictable.
“I—see.”
“How ‘bout it? What’s it cost for a fortune? A fin?” I kept egging her.
“I am sorry but I cannot help you—”
“Suit yourself, but if she doesn’t turn up pretty soon, the bulls won’t be half as polite as I am—waitin’ for ya to get your tea and all.” I left it at that. If I had anything to worry about, I’d find out soon enough.
Sure enough, on my way back to the Jag, I picked up on the sound of footsteps behind me. I spun on my heels and leveled the forty-four into the big chest of the lanky gypsy. Her eyes widened in astonishment before settling once again to smolder.
“Hello, Carla. You could get yourself buried sneakin’ up on people that way.”
“It seems I picked the wrong man to follow.”
“Not necessarily. What’s on your mind?”
“Are you going to put that thing away?” she asked, passing a glance over the .44’s wide barrel pinned between her bulging lungs.
“Not necessarily. What’s on your mind?”
“Oh, I see. You do not trust me because I am a gypsy.”
“At the risk of sounding like a broken record—”
“Is there a place we can talk? Privately?”
“Right here.”
“Seriously.”
“I am serious.”
“So, you do not trust me.”
“Less and less by the second.”
“So I see—by the fact that your gun is still to my heart. Can you feel it beating? Or perhaps you also do not believe gypsies have hearts.”
“Come on, brown eyes. Let’s take a ride.”
We drove with the top down along the river, her wild, shadowlike hair flying in the wind.
“So you see, Miss Kennedy was at Madam Sukova’s, but soon after Madam began announcing what was in the cards Miss Kennedy grew ill at ease and left quite suddenly.”
“Why didn’t Madam Sukova tell me that?”
“It is a matter of confidentiality. It portends bad luck to tell anyone other than the person for whom she is reading what has been seen in the cards.”
“I’m thinking it’s a little late for that if something’s already happened.”
“I do not know what could have befallen Miss Kennedy, but I will gladly assist you in finding out—to allay your suspicions of my grandmother.”
“My suspicions—or the cops’?”
“I am thinking that if I can satisfy you, there will be no need for the police.”
“I’m always willing to give a woman a chance to satisfy me. Where do we start?”
“How about with a drink?”
“Sure.”
We’d been driving for a while so I pulled over and parked. We walked until we came to a small park with picnic tables and benches. We sat and watched the flaming sunset, as orange as her lipstick as it sank across the river, and the sky deepened into an incandescent night. We hadn’t said a word the whole time, gazing at the sky, until Carla suggested we go to a nightclub only a few blocks from Madam Sukova’s storefront.
She said she knew the owner, without letting on to me that they were more than fly-by-night acquaintances. I found out later there was a hellava lot more to the story. We climbed in the Jag and I drove back to Little Siberia. Following the street directions she gave me, I navigated the tangle of narrow cobblestone streets, coming out of the maze onto a dead end strip where flashy roughnecks were beginning to congregate, paying more attention to each other than to the assortment of barely clothed bimbos casually wobbling in seven-inch platforms and stilettos. The frails that were clearly underage had the most revealing outfits and were so heavily made up their cherubic faces dangled above skinny bodies like fish flies waiting to land a prize trout.
The loud conversations going on all around us were in as many tongues as there were tongues speaking them. The dress code appeared to be the low end of out of date. From the looks of it, it may as well have been the Enigma Code.
Characters flaunting gold-capped teeth, frosted tips and snakeskin suits, were meanly eyeballing a rival sporting slick shiny black pompadours and fussy mismatched suits of cobbled together once trendy knock-offs. As we drew nearer the unmarked entrance, it was mostly the would-be tough guys that congregated around the reinforced steel door that opened a noisy black hole in the black brick wall.
I maneuvered the Jag past the row of Vespas parked at the curb and drove around the corner, finding a spot at the end of the street. Carla’s tall body was in front of me and she grabbed my hand, wrapping serpentine fingers around mine and led me through the crush straight to the door. The bouncer wearing a cluster of gold chains around his fat neck, black leather jacket, tight black polyester slacks and expensive sunglasses, was giving the mob closest to the door the once over, after a few seconds beckoning a handful of similar looking mugs inside. They in turn gestured to a cluster of lucky Lolitas in microscopic minis. The antsy frails pushed and jostled their way through the pack, at length sauntering in like royalty on the heels of the guys.
I surmised she was a preferred regular by the way the bouncer used his bulk to block others from getting in as Carla pulled me inside.
The place was a dark and smoky affair with no visible fire exits. The heavy steel door, most often kept shut, was the only way in or out the suckers had. The place was full up to the high rotting rafters with sheep for the slaughter. The music was loud Middle Eastern techno and the waitress in tight leather mini and see-through top squinted through the dense, swirling haze before scowling at us and then leading us to a booth. The waitress had long red curls that fell down the length of her slender back and over her high rounded backside. Every dame that made it into the joint had the same look—young, hip and exotic, the wannabes left coolin’ their heels on the sidewalk.
We weren’t sitting long when a dark skinned guy in a black turtleneck sweater and cashmere jacket came to the table and said something I couldn’t hear into Carla’s ear that made her look at me with a Mona Lisa smile. I had to read her thick, painted lips to know what she was saying. I showed the guy my gold star and he looked hard, then back at her and walked away. I was thinking it was time to find someplace else to talk.
We were standing outside the club. She lit an unfiltered Russian cigarette, saying, “Better?”
“Much. It was gettin’ kinda warm in there.”
“Yes. I agree. Igor can be a bit odd when it comes to strangers.”
“Not so odd when it comes to strangers packin’ heat.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“The world’s a violent place. I can understand him wantin’ to keep his little corner of it peaceful.”
“You are a rather exceptional man, Mister Brady.”
“Call me Duke.”
“I can tell that you have seen many terrible things in your lifetime, Duke—seen and dealt with them, rather forcefully, as is your way.”
“Is this a reading? Don’t you wanna see my palm?”
“Perhaps later—but what was it we had intended to speak of?”
“I went to Madam Sukova askin’ about Catherine. Kennedy’s gone missing and nobody knows where or how.”
“Ah, yes—Miss Kennedy. I’m afraid I cannot be of help to you.”
“I don’t know about that. Why don’t you do a little psychic hocus-pocus and conjure her up right now?”
“Would that I could do such a thing. It would be a valuable and much appreciated ability.”
“That it would—but you know what, Carla?”
“Yes?” she pursued, her brown eyes brightening from within.
“That’s just what I do—minus the hocus-pocus.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
We walked away from the club, leaving the noise behind. We both got quiet trying to think of the next clever thing to say. We were getting along just fine, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. She was well practiced in the art of deception.
The shots racked the stillness.
“That came from the club!”
I jumped out of the Jag and ran the length of the long street to the corner where I stayed. The bouncer had run inside and there was no more shooting. There wasn’t much of anything. The crowd of tough guys milling outside the door was nowhere to be seen.
Carla came behind me and tugged my sleeve, saying, “Someone is robbing the club. I can see them clearly.”
“You pick a fine time to be psychic. Why couldn’t you say that before?”
“It would have been difficult to believe.”
“It’s no easier now.”
Igor staggered out of the dark club bleeding, and fell to his knees kissing the curb.
“Igor!” she cried in alarm.
“Car—Carla!” he groaned, unable to do much besides spill his blasted insides out.
She gripped my arm, stricken with anguish.
“Duke, you must do something!”
I drew my rod and went to him, gettin’ close enough to hear whatever he had time to say. There wasn’t much time.
“Who was it, Igor?”
He looked up at me with dying eyes. Before closing them, he managed to choke out— “I…Ivan—my…my brother!”
There was more shooting inside the club and as there was no car parked on the street, I figured Ivan had come in through the front of the warehouse and would leave the same way. I went back to Carla and told her about Igor’s final gasps.
“He says it’s his brother. Probably making a getaway through the front. I’ll go see what I can do. You call the cops.”
“Yes, Duke!”
I left her while I ran around the building in time to see the bandits coming out the door. I counted six as they ran to a waiting van at the other end of the street. They climbed inside and sped off and I returned to the strip. Carla was gone and I could hear sirens. I walked to the Jag and waited for the bulls so a dick could take my statement.

“So, Brady, you say you saw the gang,” the plainclothes man said, confirming what he’d written in the notepad.
“That’s right. They made it out the front way into a white van and took off down South Street.”
The crew ridin’ the Vespas had zoomed off when the stampeding crowd cleared the strip and he glanced over my shoulder at the Jag sitting alone on the empty street.
“An’ you didn’t go after ‘em in that hotrod’a yours?”
“I’m not workin’.”
“When’d that ever stop ya from bustin’ up some knucklehead?”
He knew my reputation, but he didn’t know me; one’a the rare dicks that read newspapers.
“I ID’d 'em for ya, didn’t I? Am I supposed to do your job for ya too?”
“All right, all right. No need to get sore. This ain’t exactly your beat, now is it?” he put.
“I was on a date,” I said, not giving him anything else.
“A date? Where is she?”
That was a question I wished I had the answer to, but I only told him what appeared obvious.
“She ran out on me.”
“Not your night, is it?”
He closed his book and put it away, itching to join the bulls that had gone into the hastily evacuated club. Taking another gander at the Jag, he grunted, “Okay, shamus, take the air.”
I’d told Carla to call the cops. She never came back, and left me with my doubts about her. With that I decided to follow a hunch and head to the gypsy’s storefront.
With the neighborhood bulls preoccupied, I was able to speed through the lights doin’ ninety and didn’t slow down until I pulled into a spot near the corner, just in time to see a white van turning down the other end of the street. I cut the engine and got out. The parlor window was dark and only the old-fashioned corner streetlamp spread a circle of misty light. I lit a cigarette and thought about my next move.
So far I’d been nosing around somewhat casually, going to the gypsy’s parlor simply to alleviate some of Joanna’s anxiety over the gadfly socialite’s seemingly abrupt disappearance.
I admit thinkin’ that gettin’ cozy with the old gypsy’s beautiful granddaughter might lead to something, whether it had anything to do with Kennedy’s vanishing or not, but stumbling onto a band of gypsy thieves was something I should’ve seen a mile away. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe—and maybe the problem was simply that the gang wasn’t my problem.
I was standing beneath the streetlamp’s vaporous glow when she appeared out of the smoky night. Neither of us was surprised.
“Good evening, Duke,” she said, as I lifted the match to her little brown cigarette, the smoke swirling about her head like a luminous halo, but she was no saint.
“Hello, Carla.”
“I see you found your way back.”
“Yep. And how’d you manage to get here so fast?”
“I think you know.”
“I think so too, but that’s not what I came to find out.”
“Catherine Kennedy?”
“Where is she?”
“I do not know.”
“That’s the wrong answer.”
“I would tell you if I knew.”
“Would you?”
She sighed wearily and said, “Perhaps not—but I do not know.”
“But you’re the one to help me look for her.”
“How is that?”
“You’re in with the gang. There wasn’t much I could tell the cops, but I’m willing to bet Igor’s crowd wouldn’t take too kindly to being shot up by his brother. Bad blood spreads fast.”
“Are you saying you would—tell them? If I do not—cooperate?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you would be putting your life in grave danger.”
“Think again. We don’t have to go there if you help me find Kennedy. We can forget your boys even exist.”
“That would be very appreciated.”
“I figured it would be.”
“I sense that I can trust you.”
“That’s a hot one. Is that supposed to mean that I can trust you? This stall, for instance.”
“What will you do?”
“Go home and get a fresh start. What about you?”
“I will see to my grandmother. She is old and needs to be looked after.”
“Where does she fit into this?”
“She allows Ivan to safe keep his booty on the parlor’s premises.”
“That kind of arrangement will get her into trouble.”
“Is that your prediction?” she asked, slightly tilting her head in a way that made the light glinting in her heavy-lidded eyes so bright they seemed to be shooting sparks.
I dropped my butt to the ground and it rolled on its own into the wet gutter where it quietly hissed and died.
“No prediction, just the fact.”
I went home and thought about what I had done. I had made a deal with the gypsy girl to look the other way while a murderer so vicious he’d gun down his own brother was given a free hand to operate.
The next morning Carla came to my office looking nothing like the capricious gypsy of the night before. This time she wore a pantsuit that didn’t come off any Seventh Avenue rack. Maybe it was tailor made from scratch like her other clothes. At any rate, she meant business in it. Sarah saw her come through the door and watched the long legs carry her to the front of her desk. Carla was so agitated the bobby pins were popping out of her hair and when she started to blubber, the black mane burst its bun and tumbled down past her waist.
“I must speak with Mister Brady,” she softly pleaded; a pair of dark shades concealing her bloodshot brown eyes and scarred mascara.
“Hold on, sister. I’ll see if he’s busy.”
“Please…”
Carla’s big brown eyes moved Sarah the way a humming bird moves a boulder.
“Park it. I’ll be right back.”
Sarah came and knocked on my door.
“Yeh. Come in.”
She did.
“Duke, there’s some broad here says she’s gotta see you right away. Looks like an Ayrab.”
I looked up, genuinely taken aback.
“Or a gypsy. Young broad?” I asked.
“Yeh—why? Is that important?”
“Send her in.”
“Okay.”
She went and informed the girl that she could go in, and Carla having composed herself cheekily sashayed into my office with the nosy secretary on her heels.
“Close the door, Sarah. I’ll call ya if I need anything,” I said, with a brusqueness that made Sarah give me a chilly look. My face was stony but I flashed her a devious wink and she beat it.
“Have a seat, Carla. What’s on your mind?”
I sat up, taking in the gypsy’s tasteful front and took a Lucky from the pack on my desk, stuck it in my jaw and slid the pack across. She plucked herself a smoke, lighting it with a lighter from her handbag, and sat with her legs folded beneath her.
“It is not what you think,” she granted openly.
“And of course, you know what I’m thinking,” I said with a humorless grin.
“You are thinking I have a guilty conscience.”
“Hardly.”
“Oh?”
“I’m thinking you went in last night and found that Ivan had bumped off your old lady.”
“How did you—?”
“‘Cause he’s a rat and that’s what I expected him to do. I warned you, didn’t I?”
“You must certainly have gypsy blood in you.”
“And I intend to keep it there.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means I’m not available to track him down. We made a deal and I intend to stick to it.”
“You will not hunt down my grandmother’s killer?”
“You can call the bulls if you like. I won’t stop ya doin’ that, but you’d be puttin’ your life in Dutch, wouldn’t you?”
“Duke, you know I cannot go to the police.”
“Maybe you ought’a give that conscience’a yours half a chance.”
“But I cannot!”
“Suit yourself. You’re the one’s gotta live with it. We have a sayin’ around these parts—‘you ought’a choose your friends better’.”
“I thought I had chosen wisely.”
“When was that? When you made me promise to keep my trap shut an’ stay out of it, or when you hooked your old lady up with Ivan?”

Jonathan came in looking worried. Joanna left her desk and followed him into his private office. Since Joanna was my girl, he figured she’d know as well as anybody if any progress had been made.
“Joanna, have you heard anything at all of Catherine’s whereabouts?”
‘No, father.”
“Very odd indeed. She’s been gone long enough for a missing persons claim to be filed.”
“I’ve asked Duke to look into it and he hasn’t gotten back to me. I guess he hasn’t come across anything yet.”
“If she doesn’t turn up soon, her relatives will start demanding answers—and once the Senator gets wind of it, it will be all over the news.”
“I’ll call Duke again. Maybe I didn’t give him enough incentive.”
“What was that?”
“I asked him to look into Catherine’s disappearance as a friend.”
“I—see. Yes, perhaps you’d better offer him something more than your charming company. Is his going rate the same?”
“Yes, but father, Duke is more than simply another private investigator.”
“Hmmm,” he contemplated. “Yes, you’d better double it.”
“But, father, we’re talking about Duke Brady.”
“Yes,” he considered further. “Triple it.”
Joanna was in my office that afternoon with that ‘money-is-no-object’ look in her eyes. I hated breakin’ the news—almost as much as I hated breaking it to my wallet.
“No dice.”
“But Duke, Catherine is my dearest friend in the world.”
“Well, she’s no friend of mine. On top of that, she’s worth millions an’ all you’re offering me is thirty G’s. You must think I come cheap.”
“I thought you’d do it for—”
“Let’s not get into that.”
“Oooh,” she scowled, “It’s only because I know if anyone can find Catherine, you can—all right, name your price!” she exploded, “The sky is the limit!”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I can afford it, can’t I?”
“You sure can—and so can her family. Let them make me an offer and I’ll think about taking the case. I don’t want anything from you.”
“Nothing?”
“I didn’t say ‘nothing’.”
I had to mull things over after layin’ my cards on the table with Joanna. I drove down to Joe’s to shoot the breeze over a couple of stiff ones in the lobby of the threadbare hotel he’d bought with Yankee dollars he’d been savin’ since the days a dollar was worth a buck. Joe was a retired bull from the bad old days and a dick most of his career. I thought he’d have some insight into a case that had a lot of suspects and almost no clues. He poured and we got into it.
“Joe, I’ve gotta real problem.”
“Yeh, what might that be?”
“Joanna Livingstone wants me to find her pal Catherine Kennedy, you know, the gossip columnist.”
“I don’t read that guff.”
“Neither do I—but Joanna’s got the ante up to thirty grand, which I won’t take, only because Kennedy’s worth millions.”
“So you’re holdin’ out. What’s the dilemma?”
“Kennedy’s got relatives in high places. They’ll be sniffin’ around if that old windbag don’t show her face soon. I’m thinkin’ there’s a fat payday in that.”
“Sounds right t’me. So, what’s the dilemma?”
“Aaah, you know. Joanna wants me to find her pal—and I’d love to help her out, but I’m no sucker an’ she knows it.”
“So when Kennedy’s relations come to town, you’ll be first in line for the job, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not. They’ll probably bring dicks, their mouthpieces and a carload’a Feds. The field might get too crowded too quick and I’ll be out in’a cold.”
“That’s a dilemma.”
“It sure is. Now, if I could find the old bat without anybody nosin’ in on me, I’d be set. What do ya think I should do—as an old dick yourself, what’s your professional take?”
“As an old dick—I’d say you’re not givin’ wit’ the whole story. I can see through you like a pane a glass. Who’re ya protectin’?”
“Say—”
“You never walked away from a buck in yer life. Spill, Brady. Ya want my advice, come clean.”
“Oh, all right. There’s this dame—a gypsy. Name’s Carla Sukova. Her grandmother ust’a do readings for Catherine.”
“Couldn’t the gal read herself?”
“Palm readin’, tarot cards, crystal balls, that kinda hocus-pocus. Fortune tellin’ an’ what not. Catherine went to see Madam Sukova right before she disappeared. I hooked up with the gypsy’s granddaughter. Last night we went to a nightclub—turns out the place is a haunt for the new generation—gypsy rich kids and wannabes decked out in gold chains and hair grease. You know the type.”
“Sounds like yer typical Eurotrash.”
“Bingo. A guy named Igor owned the place an’ he was pullin’ down a nice chunk’a change. Thing is—me an’ Carla stepped out behind the club for a smoke just when a gang of gunmen came in and stuck up the joint, shootin’ the place up. Igor stumbles out full’a bullet holes and I go to him. His dyin’ words are that his brother Ivan was the one did him in. I told Carla to go call the bulls while I ran to the corner an’ saw a white van pull away. When I got back, the cops were onna way and when they get there, I tell ‘em what I saw. By the bulls reasoning just another stick-up an’ I split—back to the gypsy’s parlor, ‘course when I get there, wouldn’t ya know there’s the van, an’ no sooner do I park Carla turns up mysteriously, or maybe not so mysteriously.
I figure she’s in on it and she so much as tells me so. Says Igor’s brother Ivan is the gang’s leader.”
“The rat heisted his own brother’s joint?”
“Hell, he bumped him off. I’m thinkin’ there was some mighty bad blood goin’ on there—gypsy style. Anyway, Carla comes into my office this mornin’. She’s all broken up over the same guy poppin’ her granny.”
“This guy is dirt.”
“Her ma wasn’t exactly Our Lady of Fatima. She was the gang’s fence. Ivan and her must’a had words over the cut, and he put her out’a business rather than negotiate. So Carla asked me to put the pinch on him an’ I said no deal.”
“So that’s two dilemmas. You’re stuck between two dames, both want ya to help ‘em—one’s yer girlfriend but you don’t wanna take the job for nothin’ when it could pay millions. The other’s a grifter who wants ya to find the grifter that bumped a grifter, an’ ya can’t do both unless Ivan had somethin’ to do with snatchin’ the Kennedy dame.
You’d hafta be two people—at least!”
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
“Nuts is right. So what if they do offer a reward?”
“Then they can count me in.”
“You an’ everybody else.”
“Yeh, an’ it turns into a race.”
“A rat race.”
“But if I help Carla—that gives me the inside track on findin’ the rat.”
“He may be a rat, but how do you know he’s the rat snatched Catherine Kennedy?”
“I’d have to get my hands on him first—an’ Carla’s in with him.”
“She could show you to him, but maybe she just wants you to pull the trigger an’ after that—”
“Somebody else pulls the trigger an’ we drop like dominoes. I get the picture.”
“You can’t walk into that set-up. That’s a sucker play for sure.”
“If the Kennedys offer a reward, that’ll be the cheese in the trap. It’s a rat race all right.”
“Well, Duke, it sure is a de—”
“I know, I know, it’s a dilemma! What am I supposed to do?”
“Here—have a drink.”
“Thanks.”
He filled our glasses and lifted his, watchin’ the stains move in around the glass.
“Here’s to life, love an’ a big, fat payday!”
“Amen to that.”
Joe hadn’t helped me out’a my jam, but he’d let me get it off my chest. I must’a drank too much ‘cause when I got to the office I told Sarah to hold my calls, took the shavin’ mirror from the file drawer, set it on my desk an’ stared fixedly into it, thinkin’ about what Joe had said—I’d have to be two people.
Ivan thought Carla was as faithful to him as an old dog but watching him gloat over his spoils made it clearly apparent that her loyalty was sorely misplaced. Moreover the double-crossing killer was a cocksure egomaniac with the bold effrontery to use the murdered gypsy’s ghostly, unused parlor and back rooms as the gang’s new hideout, the white getaway van unnoticed in the alley behind the now padlocked storefront, the large picture window festooned completely with bolts of thick black muslin that let zero light into the place, or out.
“I had the robbery of Igor’s planned to the second. How is it the police were able to arrive so quickly?” Ivan wondered aloud to his cronies across the bare card table.
They were burning the gypsy’s scented candles for light, losing their sense of night and day to restless insomnia.
“Someone must have called them from inside the club,” Carla suggested, deflecting suspicion.
She was there with them. Her long-limbed frame fully veiled in scarves of shimmering hues and skulking languidly along the edges of the parlor’s walls in the undulating swell of the glowing shafts of flame.
She didn’t tell them that the tapering black candles they were using were specially prepared for mystical conjuring. They should’ve known, but couldn’t possibly have cared. The bandits were a bunch of urbane Russian dropouts to whom gypsies were merely superstitious oddballs, and the only members of society with less standing than their own.
“Yes—of course. Which means our assault was not vicious enough! Much more blood must spill next time,” Ivan ranted with nightmarish relish.
“Ivan, how can you be so cruel?” she asked, keeping her distance.
“What is it you say, witch? How can I? Was it not you who gave me the plan to rob your own people because they would never dare turn to the police?”
“I—”
“Yes! And you also predicted that the police would never lift a finger to capture us. Gypsies get no respect—yet the younger of our people are able to cash in on the opportunities afforded them by this society. You made it sound so easy—and it is.”
“But—”
“Quiet! I do not want to hear your complaining! Madam Sukova wanted more than her expected share for allowing us to hide here. She threatened to reveal all to that columnist—and when I get my hands on her, I will do to Catherine Kennedy what I did to Madam Sukova.”
Carla listened to the madman’s tirade. She had to. Ivan was a bloodthirsty killer as good as his word.
I was driving’ myself nuts when Sarah came in and snapped me out of it. Always good for that and a few other things besides, she gave me an excuse to stop starin’ at my puss in the shaving mirror.
“Why so glum, chum?”
“I’m havin’ a time figurin’ an angle is all.”
“You look down in the mouth about it.”
“I guess I am. I’ll have to come up with some new tricks to play this particular game.”
“An’ starin’ ar the mirror’s gonna help?”
“Maybe not.”
“All you’re gonna do is scare yourself.”
“Very funny.”
“Ya think that’s funny? Take’a lookit these.”
She set a handful of snapshots on the desk and I leaned in to give ‘em the once over. “What’s that?”
“Pichers from the modeling agency’s Halloween party. Don’t I look scary?”
“I’ll say. What’re ya supposed to be?”
“I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be a gumshoe or a vampire. See the cape?”
She pinned the tip of her painted fingernail on the most curious photo of the bunch. I hadda look twice to make the vaguely familiar get up.
“Izzat you? I didn’t recognize ya. What’s zat ya wearin’?”
“One’a yer old black suits. Don’tcha recognize it? I hadda get it taken in—way in, an’ I’m wearin’ a black mask.”
“Uh-huh. A cape, a mask an’ my old black suit—an’ you’re supposed to be a vampire.”
“Hey, I won first prize!” she crowed.
“Yer kiddin’?”
“I fooled ya, didn’t I? You didn’t even know it was me in that picher!”
She jiggled her talent in the lacy push-up bra that was pushing past her neckline. I didn’t see any resemblance to the photograph, which I assumed was the point.
‘This is supposed to help me?” I scoffed witlessly.
“Nuts to you! I thought it’d cheer you up!”
“Thanks for tryin’.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I musta said something to tick her off. She turned and marched out of the office forgetting her photos. They took my mind off my own troubles all right. There she was, swirlin’ her black cape, all done up in a cheap suit an’ domino mask.
She sure looked like a vamp, enhancing the strange getup with a pair of glittering red stilettos and cleavage erupting black bustier. I can’t say she was all that scary, but I have to admit it was a hell of a disguise—an’ maybe with a few adjustments, the cape and mask could help a person merge into the shadows.
Joanna, still sore over my givin’ her the brush was back in her office crabbing about it to her old man, “Oooh, that Duke Brady! He’s so stubborn!”
“Didn’t he jump at the thirty thousand?”
“He turned me down flat! Said he didn’t want a thing from me!”
“Hmm—that’s hard to believe, but, uh, I presume he has his principles.”
“Oh, father, please,” she said, knowin’ me better than your average heiress, “Duke is a private eye. He makes his living by solving mysteries. I expect he thinks Catherine’s disappearance is another one of her schemes to get attention.”
“She’s never tried this sort of thing before. What about that gypsy she was acquainted with? What was her name?” he asked.
“Madam Sukova—yes,” it dawned on her. “Duke was going to look into that—then suddenly lost interest. I wonder what that’s about.”
Livingstone likewise knew his daughter well enough to nip any scheme she had in the bud, “Now, Joanna, you’re not a detective. You’d better let the professionals handle this.
I’ll call district attorney Bradshaw and see if the police have any new information.”
Ivan’s smarter right hand man, the bearded and bespectacled rat name’a Vladimir Ragoff was much older than the other scum. The dishonored academic’s responsibilities included safeguarding the van so Ragoff was almost constantly in the alley. He also noted how long it took the purple shroud of twilight to completely overtake the daylight. The oncoming night was a black hole they could crawl out of and easily slip back into.
“It will be dark before long,” he reported as he came in from the alley, gathering the bandits as he went.
Their thoughts turning hungrily to the next score, they each stole a seat around the table. The opaque muslin covered the entire storefront window, hiding them from the street. It also turned the room into a pitch-black furnace. They lit cigarettes and the room filled with smoke like it was on fire. Maneuvering the cloudy dark with a book of matches, Carla lit the mystical candles, the lake of dancing light brightening with each renewed flame. However in the unventilated room, the smoke churning from the cigarettes was so considerable they couldn’t see a thing, but when Ivan began talking they just listened, like he was on the radio.
Ragoff’s yellowing, bloodshot eyes blazed malignantly, his shoulder length gray hair thinned from the bruising stress of holding back the boundless remorse over the ruinous crash and burn of his life through his own irreparable blunders and snobbish ignorance and arrogance.
Ragoff had been a well-respected professor and chair of the metaphysics department at the University of St. Petersburg for several years.
That ended with his public humiliation at being exposed as the principal actor in a depraved scandal. With the loss of every important position he’d held in academia, he was dismissed from the university in disgrace, and forcibly ousted from the campus under threat of arrest. He was already a closet alcoholic as a professor, but became an angry, sour drunk for years afterward.
In anticipation of the start of a new life, he’d summoned the self-control to ditch the bottle cold turkey. He hadn’t touched a drop since coming illegally to the States with Ivan and the others, including the girl Tanya.
Ivan’s brother Igor had financed the trip by sending his brother the cash to pay the smugglers bringing them. It was shortly before leaving Russia that the penny ante thief Ivan had won the besmirched professor and the others over to his single-minded dedication to crime, saying it was the only way to truly gain respect and get ahead in the West, where everyone and everything was corrupt.
But once sealed inside the cramped wooden crate, gasping to breathe and only getting musty sea air by the lungful, Ivan cracked up. Stuffed in a cargo hold on a slow moving freighter crossing the Atlantic, he’d cooked up his own pseudo Red ideology, a baffling mishmash of class envy, unbridled hatred, and pure greed that his underlings couldn’t dare admit they didn’t understand. Then again, they didn’t care about that either as long as Ivan’s jobs produced plenty of swag they could live on.
“A decadent gala ball is being held at the home of the traitor Nastasia Sonovavich, who has been foolishly appointed Russian ambassador. We shall strike at the gala’s highpoint. They will never forget Ivan Ivanov! There will be several members of the international community there. Though disgraced in their own countries, they are treated like royalty in the West by the capitalist bourgeoisie.”
The sound of that worried Carla and she put it to him bluntly, “Ivan, what are you planning to do?”
Ragoff scoffed at her seeming naiveté. “Ha! Tell her, Ivan! Rob them, of course!”
“Not only that,” Ivan blustered, goaded by Ragoff’s zeal, “They must be executed for crimes against the people!”
“Ivan,” the Gypsy girl cried, shocked.
“What? Are you becoming sympathetic to the rich—like your grandmother who was allowing that filthy pig to exploit her gypsy wisdom?”
It didn’t take gypsy wisdom to tell Carla not to argue with a man with a gun in his hand, especially one who’d come unglued from his own distorted sense of mission. Ivan saw himself as a freedom fighter liberating the poor from the shackles of oppression. But Carla was seeing him now for what he was—a lunatic gunman that had to be stopped.
The situation was such that Livingstone had to talk it over with the DA again. Bradshaw for his part was grateful for what little information his friend could provide. They met in Bradshaw’s office, out of earshot of hungry reporters.
“Madam Sukova? A gypsy, eh? I’ll check the files and see if I come up with anything. If she’s a gypsy, she’s bound to have had run-ins with the law at some point or other—maybe under an alias or two.”
“Thank you, Cornelius. It surely would be appreciated, by myself—and the Kennedys.”
“Yes, of course, Jonathan. I understand. I’ll put my best men on the case—oh, and, uh, I imagine Brady’s been looking into things.”
“This is one time you’re imagination is getting the best of you. Joanna asked Duke to look into Catherine’s disappearance and he turned her down flat.”
“With Kennedy’s millions waiting to be collected as reward? That doesn’t sound like Duke Brady.”
“I thought so too—and frankly so did Joanna. We even offered to triple his payment but he’d have nothing to do with it.”
“Hmmm—maybe he’s holding out for the really big money. When the senator hears of Catherine’s vanishing act, you can be sure money will be no object to see her safely returned. We can be sure of that.”
“Unfortunately, Cornelius, at this stage it’s the only thing we can be sure of.”
“I’ll get my men on it right away. Hopefully this can be resolved without a lot of press.”
But a juicy story has legs of its own…
“Extree! Extree! Read all about it! Socialite Catherine Kennedy disappears off face’a the oit’!”
Spitting the cigarette from his dry lips, Vanya hurried breathlessly into the shaded parlor brandishing the late edition. Ragoff came beside him as he stared at the page in the light of the flickering candle.
“What have you there, Vanya?”
“The Evening Chronicle. Look at this front page.”
Ragoff’s tired face promptly blanched.
“Catherine Kennedy—missing! Ivan must see this immediately!”
“That is not all,” Vanya gasped, “It says here that her uncle the senator will surely offer millions in reward money to find her.”
“Millions?”
“Yes, and—”
Ivan came from the back room brooding and irate, saying, “Why are you two shouting? Do you want to be heard by the police?”
“Ivan!” Vanya yelped, startled off guard.
Ragoff was also nearly taken off his game, using Vanya’s surprise as a distraction from his getting ideas himself.
“Ivan—uh, Vanya was just sharing a rather amusing joke in the comic strips with me.”
A madman with a sense of humor is a dangerous thing, so they were safe for the time being. Ivan gave them both a scowl, barking, “We have no time for such nonsense. Come into the back. We must prepare for tonight.”
“Yes, Ivan. We are coming,” Vanya toadied, cooling Ivan’s hothead.
“I will have Carla open a bottle of vodka,” the boss elected to suggest, leaving the parlor.
“We shall be right there,” said Ragoff, neither he nor Vanya moving.
Realizing that Ivan was preoccupied with his scheme, Ragoff spoke in a whisper, “Get rid of that newspaper. If we can find Catherine Kennedy, the reward will be ours alone.”
Folding the paper tightly and tucking it discreetly under his arm, Vanya leaned over and pressed quietly, “What are you saying, Ragoff? That we should betray Ivan?”
“I said no such thing. I am simply saying, why should we share the reward? Besides, Ivan wants nothing to do with the capitalist’s filthy money.”
“Maybe you are right, Vladimir. I will dispose of the newspaper. “
“That is good. Then let us go in.”
“Da.”
Ryan was at his desk in the senior detective squad room losing yet another hand of solitaire when the phone beside him jangled noisily.
“Detective squad. Captain Ryan speakin’.”
“Captain Ryan, this is district attorney Bradshaw. I need you to gather the best men you have available. Senator Roosevelt Kennedy is flying in from Washington tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” the tired dick sniffed. “Security detail?”
“Not—exactly,” the DA wormed around awkwardly, “I’ll need you to hand pick five detectives that you trust implicitly.”
Ryan sat up, grabbed a ballpoint and wrote down the DA’s request.
Bradshaw continued, “I want you to come with them to my office right away. I have an urgent assignment for you all.”
His police dog’s curiosity piqued, Ryan sharply snapped, “Yes, sir! Will do, sir!”
It was the senator’s life long pal Livingstone who met him on the tarmac personally. Wanting to keep a low profile under the circumstances, Kennedy didn’t have the usual Washington entourage with him and the two old friends embraced warmly, out of sight of the news hungry press corps.
“It was certainly nice of you to meet me, Jonathan. I would have hated to contact the mayor and block up traffic with a noisy motorcade.”
“It’s my pleasure, Roosevelt, and rather considerate of you to think about the city’s taxpayers coming home from work.”
“They voted for me. It’s the least I can do for them,” Kennedy chided.
“My limousine is this way.”
“Of course, of course. Tell me, how is your lovely daughter these days?”
“Oh, uh—Joanna’s fine,” Livingstone hedged cautiously, examining the senator’s demeanor for telltale signs of concern.
“I certainly hope that niece of mine isn’t making too much trouble.”
“Oh, uh—I though you’d heard?”
“Heard? Heard what?” Kennedy put to him in genuine surprise.
“Why—about Catherine, of course. Joanna hasn’t been able to get in touch with her.
Of course, one never wants to think the worst—,” Livingstone tried with difficulty, putting the best face on the matter that he could manage.
“What are you saying, Jonathan? Has something happened to my niece?”
“Well—,” he tried again, only succeeding in alarming the otherwise jovial politician. “Joanna seems to think—”
“Jonathan, this beating about the bush doesn’t suit you.”
“No—it doesn’t.”
They came to the limo and Livingstone got the door himself, ushering the now thoroughly worried senator inside. “Get in the car, Roosevelt, and I’ll tell you what I know on the way to your hotel.”
One of the detectives Ryan picked for the assignment was his partner O’Neill, whom he found doing overdue paperwork in the relative quiet of one of the precinct’s interrogation rooms. O’Neill looked up when his partner rapped on the hardwood door and poked his head in.
“What’s up, partner?”
“We’ve gotta head over to the DA’s office.”
“Somethin’ big?”
“Sure sounds like it. Bradshaw didn’t even wanna tell me what it was over the phone. Just said round up five of our best and head over there.”
“You can count me in.”
O’Neill gave the still incomplete forms a final shuffle and set them aside in a loose pile. “Who else ya got in mind?”
“We need three more. How about Joseph and Cotton?”
“Good choice. Why don’t we bring Shlomo in on it?” O’Neill suggested further. “He did a good job crackin’ that diamond heist ring.”
“Sure. Let’s round ‘em up. The DA’s waitin’.”
Not content with bein’ a small time player the rusky Ivan had big plans and he was ready to act on them, as mysterious as his motives were to the others.
“Vanya is ready in the van,” Ragoff informed the crew.
“Where are we going, Ivan?” the too trusting Tanya asked.
“Nastasia Sonovavitch is being honored tonight. She is a traitor who must be punished for betraying her people,” he heatedly alleged. “Carla, you will be here when we return.”
“Yes, Ivan, of course,” the gypsy sheepishly replied.
“Then let us go!”
With a flourish of his tattered cape, Ivan and his band of gypsies packed up and hurried out the back door.
Sensing Ivan’s dangerous madness, Carla said aloud, “I cannot let this go on.”
But she didn’t have time to do anything about it, a cold shiver coursing up her spine at the sound of gunfire in the alley. Tanya shrieked as if terrified and the others confused and startled, began shouting.
“Where did he go?” Ivan howled.
“I do not see him!” Ragoff replied, frozen with panic.
Forgetting her thoughts of somehow stopping him, Carla instinctively moved to go to her lover’s aid. “Ivan!”
She rushed towards the door to the alley, but didn’t make it out of the dark parlor.
I pulled her into the curtained shadows and growled into her ear, “Don’t move a muscle.”
“Who—?”
“They’ll be back in a second. Don’t tell them about me.”
“But I—,” she gasped, breathlessly.
I held her close as the shooting kept up. The slugs ricocheted off the alley walls in every direction.
Finally, Ragoff gave up blasting into the dark and yelled, “Ivan!”
“What is it, Ragoff?” Ivan called back, coming out of hiding behind the idling vehicle.
Ragoff had climbed into the cab of the van, his hands becoming wet with warm blood.
“It’s Tanya. She’s been shot!”
Ivan jumped at the van’s window, and saw the glistening red liquid covering the delicate features like a mask.
“Shot between the eyes! What monster could have done this?”
I hadn’t fired a shot, only spooked them and was gone from the place when Ivan charged back inside, yelling, “Carla! Carla!”
The gypsy girl was sitting placidly at the fortuneteller’s table, her voice small and distant, “Ye—yes, Ivan?”
Ivan feverishly looked about the dark room, seeing nothing more than he had before, his mind agitated with conspiracies.
“There was a man outside. I shot at him, but then he—he disappeared. Did he—?”
“I saw no one!” she snapped, defensively.
“He must still be out there,” he reasoned guardedly, and ran back outside, calling out to the alley, “Ragoff! Do you see him?”
“No! He must have gotten away,” Ragoff called back, almost reassuringly.
“Where could he have gone?” asked Vanya, emboldened by the absence of the ghostly adversary.
“We have no time to look for him,” Ivan insisted, focusing once again on his intentions. “Vanya, you will drive.”
Vanya was willing but seeing the girl’s blood soaked remains in the driver’s seat, queried worrisomely, “What about Tanya?”
Ivan, not seeming to comprehend or care anything about the girl’s fate, ordered tersely, “Bring her inside. Carla will look after her.”
There were only four of them left.
I watched as they pulled the girl’s body from the driver’s seat, Ivan’s lackeys Vanya and Ragoff gingerly carrying her inside. They laid her out on a sofa in the back room then went out and climbed into the van.
Vanya fumbled nervously with the ignition key before gunning the engine and the van slipped quickly onto the street and drove away. Returning unseen to the parlor, I didn’t let Carla get a good look at me. When I pressed her where the van was headed, she despondently drew her shawl over her head as if she didn’t want to see me, preferring an apparition to flesh and blood.
“Where did they go, Carla?” I repeated, and she couldn’t resist glancing up.
Catching only a glimpse of the masked silhouette, it was my voice that struck her as familiar.
“You—you! I know you! Tell me who you are!”
“It won’t do you any good to know if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“What—why?”
“Because I’ll kill you.”
“You wouldn’t!”
The girl on the sofa stirred.
“Car—la,” she groaned, her mind clouded with pain but lucid enough to ask, “who—who is there with you?”
The gypsy bounded from where she sat, like this wasn’t the first time she’d seen the dead come to life.
“No—no one, Tanya!”
She stood between the rooms imploring the wounded girl, “Please rest, Tanya! You are very badly injured.”
“The longer you wait, the less chance she has of making it,” I goaded the gypsy girl’s conscience.
She couldn’t stand it anymore and shouted into the darkness, “All right! All right! They went to—the—the Russian Embassy!”
“You’re lying.”
I fired a shot into the ceiling to let her know what she really needed to fear and said, “You get one more chance.”
“Oh, please—!” she pleaded.
“I won’t wait much longer—”
“They have gone to the home of Nastasia Sonovavitch!” she blurted truthfully.
“The diplomat.” I knew then I had to act swiftly. “Turn around.”
“You would kill me now?” she posed emotionlessly.
“Quiet.”
I seized her small wrists and tied them behind her back and gagged her with her own silk scarves, and finding the phone called for an ambulance to be sent to the address.
Joanna couldn’t sit around worrying about Catherine. She had tickets to the gala and thought it best to get out for the evening—to take her mind off her missing friend, at least for a little while. She tried calling me, but of course I wasn’t at home, so she called another one of her socialite pals who agreed to be fashionably late with her to the black tie event. Alexandra Korda was an idle rich girl whose biggest mission in life was figuring out how to spend her family’s money. She was surprised to hear from Joanna, lately seen in front-page photos in the company of an infamous private dick.
Joanna’s limo pulled up to Korda’s Upper East Side townhouse and the elfin blonde that fancied herself ‘bubbly’, hopped in, done up in a white strapless chiffon minidress that displayed her burnished tan skin, newly enhanced chest and stick thin legs; her pink lipstick mouth already running:
“Joanna Livingstone! I didn’t think I’d ever be hearing from you—not since you began making time with that Duke. He must be fabulously wealthy.”
“His name is Duke, Alexandra.” Joanna clarified for the gossipy chatterbox.
“Oh. Well, where is he—Duke, tonight?” Korda sniffed nosily.
“Busy, I guess.”
“Oh? Busy with whooom? I notice Catherine hasn’t been around lately. I wonder who she’s keeping busy with these days.”
“I don’t think I like what you’re suggesting, Alexandra.”
“We’re almost there. Let’s see if Catherine decides to put in an appearance.”
“Yes, let’s.”
The newly appointed Russian envoy Nastasia Sonovavitch, known worldwide for her peace activism was also a world-class player in high stakes politics used to putting on a well-rehearsed veneer of humility. The influential dignitaries gathered at the soiree all wore expensively tailored and handmade suits, pinned with dangling medals and colorful ribbons. The women wore medals and ribbons too, but pinned onto sequined bustier evening gowns that cost more than a third of the world’s GNP. The throng of international swells mingled, polite to a fault, yakking it up in any number of languages. They were having a good time on the meal tickets of their respective countries, the thousand dollar-a-bottle champagne sparkling, and the music played by a penguin suited quintet so sedate as to be funereal.
The leggy Russian blonde in late-model flip cut a path through the crowd in a sequined black floor length number glued to her prominent assets like glittering tar on a stretch of road full of dangerous curves. The men present couldn’t decide whether they were happier to see her, or the nearly waist high slit of her gown that strategically revealed one mouth-watering stem at a time.
“I amf so happy you could attend, Mister Secretary,” she said, daintily offering her slender diamond encrusted fingers.
The UN Secretary General was pleased to take hold of the fingers and delicately planted a light smack on the bejeweled digits.
“Yes, madam ambassador, with all of the strife in the world today, it is good to see the representatives of the international community coming together in the spirit of peace.”
She took her paw back with deft subtlety and made sure she still had all of her rocks.
“I could not agree wit’ you more, Mister Secretary.”
She raised her powdered chin even higher, noting over his shoulder, “ah, I see more guests are arriving.”
The UN chief spun on his lifts, openly thrilled at the sight of the statuesque redhead towering over the collection of pampered heads.
“Why, it’s Joanna Livingstone,” he stated with sincere interest, “I have had occasion to work with her father. You simply must allow me to introduce you, madam ambassador.”
He said this without taking his eyes off Joanna sauntering through the sea of refined stiffs.
“Why, of course,” the ambassador agreed, knowing full well of the Livingstone’s deep pockets and their interest in the multibillion dollar Rollingstone Foundation.
“Oh, Joanna!” the guy hailed, waving her over to meet the cool Red drink’a water.
“Oh, hello, Mister Secretary. So good to see you again,” Joanna said cordially, flashing her pearly whites and letting the guy slobber over her raised extended fingers, as was customary.
“Will your father be joining us this evening?” he asked offhandedly.
“My, er, father—I believe he’s picking Senator Kennedy up at the airport,” she responded, somewhat distracted by the thought.
The guy must’ve been having a ball, or too much Cristal, seeming to forget the Russian, and gushing, “Ah, the distinguished Senator Kennedy! I certainly do hope they find the time to drop by!”
“Yes, eh—,” Joanna stammered, feeling uncomfortable.
She was honestly thankful when Alexandra butt in and shot out her bony claw to get the royal treatment, “I’m Alexandra Korda—of the Boston Kordas!”
The tactless little blonde was enough to cause the Russian ambassador to arch eyebrows that were painted arches to begin with, “Oh, really?”
“Really!” Alexandra prattled, “My father is also very good friends with Senator Kennedy. Why just the other day—”
“Excuse me. I could use a pick-me-up,” Joanna muttered to no one especially, just wanting to get away from the diminutive windbag.
She wasn’t alone. Ignoring Alexandra completely, Sonovavich took Joanna’s arm in a friendly gesture and began to lead her away, “Yes, of course, dear. The bar is over here—in fact, I’ll show the way.”
“Yes, I think I’ll freshen up my cocktail,” the Secretary General said by way of relieving himself from the hot air blowing from the blonde motor mouth’s face.
He trundled after the two women he still hadn’t introduced to one another and in the hopes of resuscitating interest, tried,
“What’s for dinner, Ambassador? Some of your fine Russian cuisine, I trust.”
Without an audience Alexandra still couldn’t bring herself to shut her mouth so she just stood there with it open.
Seeing her this way, another society deb, a big-boned girl with a trust fund to match her appetite, strolled over and teased, “Alexandra Korda. Left all by yourself—again?”
“Hello, Deborah. Who invited you?” Korda snapped at the girl.
“Oh, the ambassador was kind enough to join my family for dinner last night. This is just her way of returning the favor, I suppose. And you? I didn’t know you knew Nastasia.”
“Why—of course,” the blonde retorted, “What is a gala without a Korda in attendance?”
“Hmm—yes.”
There was no fun being a snob with someone who was an even bigger snob, so Alexandra decided to stop putting on airs at least for the moment, and ask directly, “Is Catherine here?”
“Catherine Kennedy? Haven’t you heard?” the girl said, in an eager rush to tell what she knew and what she now knew Alexandra didn’t.
“Heard what, pray tell?” Korda badgered, just as eager to find out.
Deborah leaned close and revealed in Alexandra’s piqued ear, “Catherine’s been missing for days. No one has any idea where she’s gone.”
“You don’t say?” Korda prodded.
“I do say.”
“Does Senator Kennedy know? Jonathan Livingstone is picking him up at the airport this very minute,” Alexandra shared conspiratorially.
‘I dare say, he’ll soon find out!” Deborah nearly yelled, catching herself and bringing her voice down to a harsh whisper.
“I’d die to see the look on Joanna’s face,” Korda gasped, her mind flooding with lurid imaginings of the mortified heiress.
The girls’ wicked titters were suddenly interrupted by the abrupt burst of gunfire.
“No one move!”
Ivan had fired above the crowd and now stood menacingly, pistol in hand.
“Oh, my goodness! Bandits!” Deborah exhaled, excitedly.
Unfazed, the confident hostess came forward from among her cowering guests, demanding of the intruders, “What ist going on here?”
The Secretary General seeing the ambassador’s boldness, pretended he wasn’t afraid either and cried out, “Who are these men? Look at the way they’re dressed!”
“I will not have this at my gala!” Sonovavich declared forcefully.
“There she is, Ivan!” Ragoff shouted, pointing an indicting finger at the staunch Sonovavich.
“Yes!” Ivan leered malevolently, “There she is—the capitalist flunky! Betrayer of the gypsy people!”
The Secretary General gulped down his drink and uttered with dread, “Gypsies!”
“Do not woorry, Mister Secretary, I will handle this!” the ambassador said with a firm tone in her heavily accented voice then insolently approached the intruders, commanding, “You men must leave here at once! This is a private gala!”
“Listen to this, Ragoff! She dares give us orders!” Ivan sneered.
“She thinks we are joking,” Ragoff chimed in, his pistol raised and at the ready.
“Yes—let us show her that we are not joking!” Ivan spit.
The ambassador stood her ground, the sequins of her gown radiant in the shimmering light of the vaulted room’s gigantic tiered crystal chandelier. She was secure enough to daringly extend one of her shapely gams past the gown’s high slit, planting the manicured foot’s black stiletto heel resolutely, challenging them to pass. They didn’t.
Ivan had dreamed of this moment endlessly and he and the others had planned it down to the instant when he and Ragoff cocked their pistols and fired in unison. Sonovavich’s slim muscular physique violently contorted her into a morbidly mindless effigy that danced a macabre twist with the force of the hot slugs.
At such close range, only a matter of a few short feet, the hurtling lead passed completely through her body and came flying messily from her shattered back, spraying blood in a broad swathe over the expensive, bauble decorated suits and gowns, the collection of faces reviled and livid with terror.
It was Alexandra who screamed first and Ivan who self-assuredly strode over and with the butt of his pistol, slapped her to the floor.
“Silence, pig!”
The Secretary General rushed thoughtlessly to the fallen woman’s ruined body, screeching, “The ambassador’s been shot!”
“Get away from her!” Ragoff commanded, a sharp kick to the distraught dignitary’s face with a steel-toed boot sending the man flat on his back bleeding from the hideous gash that opened where his alcohol bleary eyes had been. “—Or you will get the same!”
The well-heeled mob cowed, Ivan raised his pistol yet again, this time commanding everyone to start handing over their’ cash and valuables.
Joanna had lifted Alexandra unsteadily to her feet, the blonde woozily beseeching her, “Joanna, what are we going to do?”
“I told you once, pig—!” Ivan bellowed, marching heatedly towards the fear stricken pair, as if their quaking young bodies could hold one more ounce of dread. Ivan stopped in his tracks, his attention seized by the sound of gunshots outside.
“What is that?”
“Vanya!” Ragoff cried in alarm.
“Sergei, go see what is the matter!” Ivan hollered to the gunman who’d been standing guard at the fire exit.
“Yes, Ivan!’ he barked obediently, dashing through the gilded doors of the main entrance.
“Ragoff, collect their valuables,” Ivan ordered his most valuable flunky.
The second barrage of bullets made Ragoff nervous.
“Ivan, I do not like this. The police will be here any moment.”
The Secretary General had come to and sat upright. He put his hand to his face and took away a palm full of blood.
“You had better listen to him!” he belly ached, feeling he no longer had anything to lose by speaking up.
“Did I ask you to speak?” Ivan hissed and fired, intending to kill the badgering diplomat with a single shot, but Ivan’s gun hand was no longer steady and the slug bit into the guy’s flabby arm instead.
The deb named Deborah let out a blood-curdling howl when the VIP again fell back, this time writhing in pain and clutching the gushing bullet wound.
There was more shooting outside as Ragoff moved swiftly through the petrified crowd, trying his best to laden both wrists with gold watches and fumbling with the men’s tight pockets to get at their fat wallets.
When another round of shots pealed, he dropped the loot and yelled tersely, “Ivan!”
“Yes, let us go!” Ivan agreed, watching the big green bills and costly rocks spill to the marble floor at Ragoff’s feet. Ivan being who he was, couldn’t resist a final dramatic display, announcing impudently:
“You have not heard the last of us!” and firing blindly into the fearful crowd.
With that, the lethal bandits swept from the hall and disappeared.
Joanna, pulling herself together somewhat, marveled to Alexandra, “I wonder what scared them off?”
“You heard him—the police are on their way,” the short blonde said, her small body continuing to shiver from fright. The painted on tan mingled with perspiration ran in rivers and it looked like she was wearing tiger stripes from her blonde head to her size two feet, the clinging white chiffon wilted miserably, stained transparent. She also stank on ice from losing control of her bladder on several occasions during the nightmarish ordeal.
“But that wasn’t—,” Joanna tried unsuccessfully into the hysterical Alexandra’s splotchy discolored face. Alexandra wasn’t the only one beside herself with confusion.
“Someone get a doctor for the ambassador!” the Secretary General yelled, cradling the head of the Russian in his blood soaked arms.
Mustering as level a head as she was able to, the redhead knelt beside the tearful man, telling him calmly, “I don’t think that will help, Mister Secretary. The ambassador is dead.”
“And Deborah too!” Korda shrieked, the heavy girl’s body a bloody heap on the floor.

I had thwarted the gang’s robbery, though Ivan was too much of a loose cannon to stop him from doing any harm. I left him and Ragoff to their hasty getaway. Now they were terrified. I was playing with them. They had left the ambassador and an innocent rich kid shot to pieces, escaping empty handed thanks to Ragoff’s butterfingers. Their two cronies were a couple of bullet-riddled corpses they’d hurriedly tossed into the back of the van, and soon things were going to start smelling a lot worse for Ivan and his dwindling band of would-be marauders. The eldest of the bunch, Ragoff was steamed that Ivan’s foolhardy imperiousness had nearly cost them their lives.
“Ivan, we cannot do this anymore!”
“Ragoff, what are you saying?” Ivan said, beseeching him.
“We are cursed by a demon! He dogs our every move!” Ragoff railed.
They had lost their three youngest members, the three that would have followed Ivan to death, which they kinda did. There were only the two of them now, and Carla, who was the only true gypsy of the bunch. The others were dropouts from St. Petersburg U., living hand to mouth on the edge of society.
Though Ragoff had at one time been an esteemed university professor, he’d lost his status in society years ago, and nowadays was in official parlance a bum, hooking up with Ivan and the others headed to the States, where Ivan’s brother Igor owned a thriving gypsy-themed nightclub and kept cordial company with Russian mobsters and so had plenty of ready cash to burn.
Ivan and the others were brainy misfits who’d flunked out of everything due to sheer laziness and spiteful resentment of anyone with anything, and spent Vodka fueled nights bitterly venting their grudges with the Establishment, the State, Society, bosses, their parents, whomever. Ivan having grown envious of the well-heeled gangsters his brother rubbed elbows with, was pressing Igor for a shot at some real dough.
Reluctantly, Igor had taken on his crazy kid brother as an enforcer, mainly because Ivan not only had the temperament for the job; quarrelsome, violent and greedy for whatever the other guy had that Ivan himself couldn’t get through any legitimate means. Ivan also had his own crew of thugs, so Igor could keep his hands clean whenever Ivan decided to bust heads.
In all, things were working out swell until Igor met Carla, a heavy-lidded siren whose ethereal beauty was matched by her uncanny intuition. Carla genuinely loved Igor, who was part gypsy himself, like his increasingly unstable brother, but Igor began treating her like he treated all the other Rusky wenches hanging around the decadent hotspot; arguably she was not one of those; Carla was smart, perhaps even a bit too well-behaved, raised as she was with Old World manners in the insular culture of the gypsies. She started to drift away from the shady nightclub scene to spend more time with her aged grandmother, Madame Sukova, who encouraged the girl to hone her innate psychic gifts, instructing her in the arts of casting fortunes and seeing into the future.
Smitten with the aloof maiden, Ivan and his bunch took to hanging around Madam Sukova’s parlor. The old woman was glad for the company, but by way of her association with Carla her name started getting thrown around Igor’s place as a reliable source of predictions. That’s how Catherine came to visit the old gypsy and that’s where the whole thing started, more or less.
“I am not afraid!” Ivan seethed at Ragoff, who’d sworn off the sauce and was more sober than he’d ever been or ever wanted to be, seeing the situation and Ivan for what they truly were. Ivan was decidedly off his nut and the situation was dismal.
“But what about Tanya and Vanya and Sergei?” Ragoff put forth, ticking off the names of their ill-fated comrades.
“What about them?” Ivan dismissively retorted.
“Vanya and Sergei are dead and Tanya is lying helpless!”
“Forget about them! We shall recruit others to our cause!” Ivan crowed, like that was a good idea.
“What cause? You are cause! You speak of a cause when it is you, Ivan Ivanov who care nothing of our people’s oppression! We are no more than bandits and petty thieves—and now murderers! I no longer want any part of it!”
It was nearly midnight and they were trolling for a spot to dump the bodies in the back of the van. Ragoff was at the wheel and he hit the brakes, jumping out and taking off on foot. Ivan saw red, but instead of chasing his comrade down, he slid into the driver’s seat and hit the gas. Ivan’s gang was finished, but that only made him madder. He returned to the storefront in a frenzied rage.
“Carla! Carla!”
“She’s gone Ivan.” My voice came through the unlit gloom with no way for him to know who was speaking or where the sound came from.
“Who is there?”
The beaded curtain that separated the parlor from the other rooms swayed in the gale Ivan made with his own frantic motions. He whirled on the tinkling beads, jerking the pistol from his waist and firing into the murk.
“Carla called for an ambulance to take Tanya to the hospital. She’s gone with her.”
“Silence, shade!” he insisted, shouting irritably, feeling utterly alone. But he wasn’t alone, was he? “Where are you, demon?”
He squeezed another shot off, the report illuminating nothing more than shifting shadows.
“Why didn’t you take care of Ragoff when you had the chance, Ivan—get cold feet?”
“Out of my head, demon!” he howled viciously, aiming the pistol at his wavering reflection in the standing mirror beyond the jangling beaded curtain. “Did the gypsy Sukova summon your unholy presence from Hell?”
The shot destroyed the mirror in an explosive burst of knife-like shards, each snatching a hint of hazy glimmer before settling into a series of resounding crashes. The sound faded into a disturbing silence as if swallowed up by the unchanged darkness.
“To avenge her death, you mean—or the other innocent people you’ve slaughtered, including your own brother?”
“What do you know of Igor?” he groused irately.
“I know he wasn’t like you. He was honest—as gypsies go. He was willing to work hard to have a good life and he didn’t blame other people for his problems. You killed him because you knew he wouldn’t buy into your phony cause. You started killing because you knew sooner or later you’d be found out for the madman you are.”
“Silence, I said!”
He’d nowhere to turn, waving the pistol from side to side indecisively before squeezing the trigger. There was only the flat metallic ring of hammer on empty chamber. He tried again and the dull sound repeated.
“I think you’re out of ammo, Ivan. What are you gonna do now? Come at me with your bare hands?” I almost laughed.
“Where are you!” he screamed to distraction.
“I could be anywhere. Why don’t you try and find me?”
“You are playing games with me now?” he growled in protest.
“Am I—or is it your own mind playing tricks on you?”
“Aaaaagh! Demon! Demon!”
There was no one there to attack, so he attacked himself. Finally overwhelmed by full-blown psychosis, Ivan was taken with deranged convulsions and his spastic fingers launched uncontrollably to work. Narcissistically turning on his own body, he fixated on trying to viciously tear his flesh apart with his own murderous hands.
When the cops showed up, Ivan was still in one piece more or less, and in the dark in more ways than one, curled into a catatonic ball on the parlor floor. The bulls let the white coats come in to take him away. The funhouse boys injected him with an enervating sedative and slipped his arms easily into the sleeveless overcoat they’d brought with them. The CSI’s found the empty pistol and shell casings at the scene and came up with the gang’s swag when they tossed of the place. After that, the parlor window was boarded shut and the front and rear doors padlocked by the city. The old gypsy probably saw it coming. If Madam Sukova could read her own future, she’d have known hers was used up.
The first blue came through the alleyway and entered the unlocked door. His hard flat soles stepped on the busted fragments of mirror as he went to the wall and flipped the switch that ignited the bulb in the dusty ceiling fixture and peering into the dim storefront, raised his cap to scratch his head as he stopped to speculate how the wild-eyed Rusky came to such an ignoble end.
“What do you think happened to him?” he asked the plainclothes dick as the boys from the hatch placidly unhitched the collapsible gurney and brought it from the white bus, the gurney’s wheels swinging on their hinges and landing open onto the pavement outside of the deceased gypsy’s presently forsaken place of business.
“How am I supposed to know? Poor dumb bastard cracked up is all,” the jaded dick said, with a noncommittal shrug of his jacket’s padded shoulders.
The phone rang on my secretary’s desk and she snapped up the receiver in short nimble fingers, pushed back the thick mane of chocolate curls and pressed it to her ear.
“Duke Brady Private Investigation Service,” she practically yawned, she’d said the words so often.
Jonathan Livingstone had given the senator my number and recommended he call. That’s who was on the other end of the line. Kennedy’s voice was smooth as single malt Scotch. Just listening to him made her thirsty.
“Good morning to you, young lady. My name is Roosevelt Kennedy. I’d like to speak to Duke Brady. Is he perchance in?”
“Just a sec.” She needled the hold button and swerved her chair in my direction. “Say, Duke, are ya in?”
“Sure I am. Who is it?”
I put down the stack of due bills I’d been flipping through like a losing poker hand and waited for her to give me the dope on the caller.
I heard her say, “Who’s calling again?”
The Senator breathed a long sigh and repeated his name to her in the same untroubled tone, “My name is Roosevelt S. Kennedy. I was given Mister Brady’s name by Jonathan Livingstone, I understand they’re well acquainted.”
She smacked the button again, making it an urgent green flashing.
She opened her wide, thick lipped mouth and came out with, “Get this; the guy’s name is Roosevelt! Roosevelt S. Kennedy he says.”
“The senator? Okay, I got it.”
My secretary doesn’t read newspapers, so she can be forgiven for not giving a damn what the guy with the uncommon moniker was. He was just a guy to her, but if he had a problem I could fix, he was the guy who was gonna pay those bills. I picked up my own line and parked at my desk.
“Hello, this is Brady.”
“Ah, Mister Brady! You, uh, don’t know me, but your services were highly recommended by a dear close friend.”
“What’s on your mind? I know who you are, Senator Kennedy,” I stated than shut up, giving him room to stretch out whatever yarn he wanted to spin.
“Oh, uh—,’ he chafed, not sure where to begin.
“And I think I know who your friend is too.”
“Excellent! Excellent! Then I’ll come right to the heart of the matter. My, uh, friend—”
“Jonathan Livingstone.”
“Yes, yes. Jonathan informed me that my niece Catherine has been missing for some time now—and, uh, I would like to retain your services to find her. Are you, ah, available, Mister Brady?”
“Well, I—,” now I stuttered, deliberately.
“I understand that your fee is quite high, but please be assured that I will more than gladly pay you whatever you ask. Catherine is my late brother’s only surviving child and I am quite fond of her.”
‘Sure you are—and it’d be an honor to help such an important man as yourself. Why don’t we meet and discuss terms?”
“That would be excellent. Would you object to meeting at Livingstone’s office at the Rollingstone Foundation?”
“Not at all.”
I was more than happy to meet him there since it was Joanna’s office too, and it had been a while since I’d seen my favorite redhead.
“Could you be there in say, an hour?” he pitched, with just the hint of the actual weight of the matter.
‘Sure,” I stated serenely, tugging a butt from the soft pack with my teeth. “See ya in an hour at the Rollingstone.”
“Good. I’ll see you in an hour in Jonathan Livingstone’s office,” he said in spirited rejoinder, still making with the polished act. “Good-bye for now. I’m glad I was able to speak with you personally.”
“Likewise,” I replied, glancing at the pile of due notices that would soon disappear.
Hanging up the phone, I tilted my chair back, kicked my feet up on the desk and smoked.
Sarah didn’t waste any time, hopping on the desk her plump pencil skirted buns crowded the bills until she shifted her cheeks and sat on them. She hiked the skirt above her garters revealing firm thighs and carefully crossed her legs as I sat gripped by the spectacle. That done she folded the seamed stocking stems beneath her backside and inclined her busty torso towards me.
“What’re ya gonna sink ‘im for?” she asked impolitely, her brown eyes gleaming impishly.
“A cool million,” I said, tapping ash from the Lucky disinterestedly.
She jolted upright at the ten-digit figure and quivered with eagerness as she queried further, “Think he’ll pay?”
I sat up, bringing the chair back up to the desk and smashed the soggy butt into the blotter. I guess I’d drooled a little.
“You were listening in on the conversation, weren’t you? He’ll pay whatever I ask.”
She wrinkled her big nose in a cute grimace and suggested, “Then why only a mil?”
I lit another smoke and, mused, “I guess I feel for the guy. ‘sides, Catherine Kennedy’s sort of a friend.”
“Whatta pal!” she griped, letting me know how she felt about that.
She unfurled her stacked personality from my desktop and returned to her smaller desk in the outer office and bent over grabbing her stilettos from the desk’s cubby, giving me a bird’s eye view of what I could kiss for my proposed million.
I got to the towering Rollingstone building in less than hour. I didn’t want to keep Kennedy waiting if I was going to stick the nonnegotiable fee to him, which I definitely planned on doing. Entering the spacious lobby through the sleek revolving door, the circling glass panes buffed to near transparency, framed with what could have been actual gold bullion, I nodded familiarly to the vigilant cop stationed there, a uniformed sergeant that was one of many of a battalion of carefully selected bulls assigned to the high-powered organization’s premises by special order of the mayor. The elite squad even had a small efficient precinct housed in the building.
I took a long walk to the bank of electronically controlled elevators powered by the silent generators beneath the ultramodern address. I passed those up and went to wait in front of the only elevator that ran uninterrupted to the uppermost floor and back.
The car landed, the door gliding open noiselessly and I stepped inside. There was no need to touch the lighted panel. The car was programmed to go directly to the last of the hundred or so odd floors, the entire crowning level allotted for use by the CEO and his closest staff. You had to be expected just to get into the elevator, or get pinched and hauled off by the cops to the in-house precinct for trespassing.
That privilege floor held several richly furnished executive suites and that was where the taciturn and wealthy beyond measure Aloysius Rollingstone’s personal archives were stored under extreme security measures that Livingstone had worked on the creation of and overseen their implementation. Whatever Jonathan and Rollingstone prized so highly was contained with a titanium steel safe located within an impenetrable vault that was continually watched by heavily armed guards, the safe and vault both outfitted with multiple alarms and state of the art defense systems, the first vault buttressed within another, similar one for reinforcement. Livingstone had personally given me a tour of the vaults and the set up surrounding them once our initial business had concluded successfully. Later Joanna showed me the passageway that connected her personal office to an opulent private penthouse that had a view of the vast metropolis as it might look if seen from space.
The elevator door was closing rapidly as my ears picked up on the pair of determinedly tapping pinpoints a few feet away as they broke into a sprint headed for the car.
“Hold it, please!”
I caught the edge of the automatic door and the electric eye did the rest as the tall redhead trotted in briskly on the needle-like heels. She brushed a stray wisp of crimson hair from her pale freckled face and gave me a leering smirk as the door slid shut and the car started upward swiftly.
The elevator was as big as my office and I took note of the subtly concealed surveillance cameras without budging from the spot I’d figured was the half dozen or so ticking cameras’ collective blind spot. It was the point where the various lens would have overlapped, each calibrated to sweep a specific area of the huge car that excluded the view from the other lenses. I also picked up an icy chill from the tailored shoulder of the girl I’d been thinking about nonstop.
“Nice of you to pay us a visit,” she said without facing me, preferring to glare at my reflection in the polished surface of the elevator door.
I played along with her, as I had with the senator, and feigning indifference adopted an above it all attitude.
“Business,” I muttered lifelessly, managing to make my eyes seem glazed and unseeing.
Seconds went by in a deafening hush as the gravity defying high-speed express gave the disconcerting impression that it wasn’t moving at all.
She cocked her head slightly, inquiring unremarkably, “With the Senator?”
The facade crumbled like wet sand and I eased the unpleasant stiffness from my back, prodding her with a question of my own, “You know all about it, don’t you?”
The answer was as obvious as the question. Her father shared anything of importance first and foremost with her. Hell, she was his personal and private secretary. She knew more about some things than he did. He depended on it.
Without warning she whirled about, teetering on her high heels and challenged me sternly to my face, “I’ll double whatever he pays you!”
“You don’t have to do that, Joanna,” I said unblinking, though I admit being a little taken aback by her sudden confrontational outburst.
“I know he’s going to offer you ten million dollars,” she let slip.
I thought of Sarah and tossed from my mind the idea of knuckling him for a mere million.
“Cheapskate,” I kidded.
My eyes rolled upward to the changing indicator, hopeful that it was nearing the top floor. It had a way to go.
“I thought you’d say that,” she sneered in chagrin, then her eyes fluttered inattentively toward the fleeting display of rising digits. She must’ve seen it every day.
“You’ll double it, huh?” I considered out loud, standing side by side with her as we stared at the flashing indicator like we were in separate rooms.
“I know you didn’t like Catherine. You don’t have to pretend with me,” she contended, continuing to hold her blank upward gaze.
I did the same thing, mightily wanting to mash her supple lips with mine.
In place of that I muttered out of the side of my face, “Catherine runs on at the mouth and says nothin’, but that doesn’t mean I wanna see her disappear. I’m doin’ this as a favor just as much.”
“Your favors are expensive,” she remarked.
“A guy’s gotta live.”
“Yes, I suppose a guy’s gotta,” she somewhat capitulated, yielding to the simple fact.
It must have sparked something because she straightaway put an end to the dumb show and as our eyes met, her delicate features ignited with renewed feeling.
“Do you know about last night?” she burst out with.
“I went to bed early,” I told her, dodging the subject of what I was doing that night.
“Uh-huh,” she burbled, anxiously trying to tell me about her fresh nightmares of the murders at the gala.
She was in my face, tall, thin and wobbling on high spiked heels, eating up a storm in the air-conditioned box. She shucked the hot business jacket from her sweat dampened white blouse and sweaty body, the white lace bra doing nothing to hide the redness of her swelling nipples. That started it and her sultry oval face suddenly flashed with so much radiant excitement that her hair was drawn incandescently to the charged metal walls. We were also surrounded by the mirrored walls mirrored infinities, the unseen electric eyes recording her as she labored to translate visceral terror into words. The vivid depth and detail of the traumatic memories made her body temperature jump and she turned red all over. That was swell, but I can’t honestly say I was all ears, because Joanna’s luscious bones were in my face moving around, bouncing and swaying, relating the story as much with breathless Charades as with words.
“A crew of bandits held up the Russian ambassador’s gala,” she gasped, recalling the incident vividly. “They killed the ambassador and another girl, Deborah Keyes, was gunned down foe no reason at all. They even tried to kill the Secretary General of the UN.”
Her lively open-faced expression shifted unexpectedly yet again, this time from hotly enthusiastic to coldly accusing, and frowning reproachfully, she added, “I tried getting hold of you earlier, but your phone just rang and rang—I guess you didn’t sleep at home.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lowered her long pale lashes and it seemed the whole of her perfectly proportioned frame drooped despondently with them as she floated as if weightless into my arms.
“I was wishing you were there the whole time, Duke—to, to save me, but someone else ran them off.”
I held her in my arms as she shuddered with the unaccustomed memory of the gang’s wanton bloodlust and I could feel her quickened heartbeat.
I said, “Someone else?” as if I meant it, and she lifted her head, looking me straight in the eyes.
“When the ambassador stood up to them, the leader of the gang gunned her down in cold blood. I heard later that two of the gang—bought it—is that how you say it?”
“That’s how you say it.”
“He never showed himself, but someone was doing a lot of shooting.”
The ride seemed endless, though the car was rocketing up the shaft like a bullet. I’d gotten Joanna to fill me in on the gala murders without revealing my role in the gang’s finish, but I really didn’t deserve the credit. Ivan and his gang of were doing themselves in with every misguided step they took. They contributed more to their own downfall than I did.
“Anyway, someone saw them driving away in a white van before the police arrived.
Everyone at the gala thought the bandits had made good their getaway, but the police found the van—and the ringleader, a young Russian named Ivan Ivanov, holed up in an empty storefront.” Her eyes full of confused astonishment, she added, “He’d gone completely mad!“
“That’s a damn shame,” I lied, stroking her tousled hair to sooth her agitation and snuggled her tenderly, feeling her tightening the embrace.
She wasn’t done with the story, though I could have filled in some of the blanks for her. I didn’t, preferring to let her think her private eye boyfriend was just a simple working Joe who came into a room through the door. I didn’t have to tell her what she knew by now, that my cases were typically of the sort that would have the bulls knotted up in red tape. Unlike the Johns, I wasn’t a civil servant. I wasn’t civil on every occasion and I was nobody’s servant.
I had been seeing Joanna long enough for my bad grammar to rub off on her from time to time, but not long enough for me stop thinking it was cute.
“Ya wanna know where the cops put the pinch on him?” she asked, eager to see my reaction, briefly affecting the unfinished parlance of the common mug.
I happily engaged her eyes’ limpid perusal. The only thing that remained of her violent emotions was the quickened rhythm of her heart.
“Do tell.”
“It was Madam Sukova’s parlor. Do you think there could be a link between the awful men that murdered ambassador Sonovavich and Catherine’s disappearance?”
“It’s worth looking into,” I offered, as the car stopped with scarcely a lurch and the gleaming door flew open onto a luminous pavilion separated from the clouds by an enormous sun-drenched atrium.
“This is my floor,” I said, coolly ending the intimate clutch.
She had her back to the elevator door and did a bopping two-step out onto the floor, her large cheerful smile a brand new feature.
“What a coincidence. It’s my floor too!”
She put both her hands out for me to take hold of and when I did, she pulled me from the dreary metallic confinement into the dazzling sunlight, the high blazing sun placed as majestically as the cherry on a giant thin air Sundae.
“No coincidence, honey. They’re all your floors.”
It was a crummy joke that fell flat as a jumper, but of course I was dead serious and she made a kooky face that had my gag beat hands down and she sidled close and I threw my arm around her shoulder as she pinned hers around my waist. We buoyantly strolled the unrivaled skyscraper’s airy perch like a couple of carefree Siamese twins until we came to the door that opened onto a vast outer office that was hers in her capacity as her father’s secretary. She pointed to the closed door embossed with her father’s name and kissed me before slipping into her private powder room to freshen up and pull her business front back together. I’d have liked to do the same, but I just straightened my tie, took hold of the gold doorknob and walked in.
“Ah. Duke, my boy!” Jonathan crowed.
He came from behind his desk and slapping my shoulder with fatherly affection, indicated a guy wearing a drab gray suit and sporting a gray handlebar moustache.
“Senator,” I said.
The shaggy lip wagged, “I’ve heard good things about you, Duke.”
He put his hand out and I shook it.
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“I like that! A sense of humor is important at times like this.”
“In my line’a work, I’d go nuts without it.”
“Yes, I completely—,” he cut himself off, his small eyes flitting to Joanna as she was coming in.
Livingstone met his daughter at the door and asked her patiently to excuse us. Her face conveyed disappointment, but she stepped back into the outer office and he quietly shut the door on her.
He rejoined Kennedy and I, weighing in with the hush-hush dope he’d been supplied with, “Please sit, gentlemen. As you both know, by and large I never keep secrets from my daughter—but I’ve been asked to keep what I’m about to tell you in the strictest of confidence. Duke, you’ll be working for the senator I hope, so you should know this.
Roosevelt, since I’m telling Duke, I might as well share it with you, given your position in all this.”
“What is it, pray tell?” Kennedy urged.
Jonathan went back to his desk and sat before divulging more: “When Joanna first informed me of Catherine’s disappearance, I was somewhat skeptical—knowing Catherine as I do, but as time passed, I became concerned and notified district attorney Bradshaw with regard to the matter. He’s since informed me that he’s assigned a special task force of select detectives to the case.”
“Then why the secrecy?”
“Frankly, Roosevelt, it’s to protect your interests. Should Catherine’s vanishing become public knowledge, the district attorney feels that the police and your office would be bombarded with any number of cranks and off the wall kooks making outrageous claims in hopes of getting their hands on a sizable reward.”
“I see,” Kennedy granted, fully recognizing the value of self-interest.
“Duke, you are the sole private citizen privy to this information. You mustn’t tell anyone, not even—no, especially, Joanna! Such knowledge could be dangerous or even deadly.”
“Mums the word,” I agreed.
“Now, Duke, here’s the part you’ll rather, eh—enjoy. Roosevelt is prepared to offer you ten million dollars simply for determining Catherine’s whereabouts. You won’t be working with the police, so you’ll have some extra—latitude, shall we say, in conducting your investigation.
Should you come upon her, the Senator will double your fee to twenty million dollars, and if some tragic fate has befallen her, that will be that, but should you deliver her alive and well, albeit perhaps a little worse for the wear, your fee will be quadrupled to eighty million dollars.”
Kennedy mournfully shook his head and sighed, “It’s a small price to pay.”
“Small for you maybe,” I remarked earnestly. “‘Scuse me for askin’, senator, but how does a guy get his hands on that kinda dough? I don’t care how fat a cat you are.”
“It’s not quite a billion,” he said easily.
“No—when you put it that way. But I wouldn’t call it a tip out’a your pocket change, either.”
“No, it’s not, but for the safety and well being of my niece, I consider it a worthwhile investment.”
“I’m not gonna sit here an’ lie to you by sayin’ I don’t wanna take yer dough.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” he said, his fond feelings for Catherine fueling his easygoing generosity.
“Yeh, thanks—but I do things my own way,” I said. “I don’t like people lookin’ over my shoulder while I work, if ya get me. You’re payin’ for a job and I intend to do the job, not hold your hand on cold winter nights.”
He looked at me with a tearful luster in his eyes.
“Mister Brady, I think you’re just the man for the job.”
Pleased by the frank exchange, Jonathan reached across his desk and we shook hands vigorously, him saying, “Congratulations, Duke.”
Kennedy, keen to start, gave the incentive, “I’ll have ten million dollars put into your account—and I assume you’ll have expenses.”
“What can I say to a guy throwin’ money around in his grief? Sure. A thousand a day.”
That was like asking for no more than lunch money to him.
“Surely, you must spend more than—,” he responded, like I was cheating myself.
“I try to live a simple life, senator. I don’t gas up my private jet but so often.”
Amused, he wiggled his nose hair and chuckled, the pall of depression lifting.
“Yes, Brady, I’m certain I’ve got the right man! Let’s make it ten thousand a day. How’s that?”
“You’re twistin’ my arm.”
“What about your secretary, Duke? You can give her a raise,” Jonathan helpfully suggested.
“You just made a pal an’ ya don’t even know it,” I replied, not wanting to think about what she’d be like if I didn’t.
I shook Kennedy’s hand, sealing the deal and practically crushing the soft pudgy paw.
“All right, Senator, I’ll take yer dough—but not a penny more! Jeez—you are good. Ya got me turnin’ down money!”
“Why don’t we grab a bite? I’ll wire my bank and we can get to know one another,” Kennedy offered cordially. “Care to join us, Jonathan?”
“I’d love to, Roosevelt, but I’ve got a mountain of grants to fill,” Livingstone nixed as he was escorting us to the door. “You two go ahead.”
“Yes. Come along, Duke—I, uh, can call you Duke, can’t I?”
“Sure—as long as I don’t have to call you Roosevelt.”
He chortled, taking pleasure in getting ribbed.
“Senator will do!”
“Fine,” I said, feeling flush. “Let’s go. My treat.”
While I was busy hobnobbin’ with the too rich for words set, Bradshaw’s bloodhounds got workin’ earnin’ their pensions. The first place they tried was Catherine’s digs on Fifth Avenue. She had a swell lay out that when they were through tossin’, looked like any other dump, but they were comin’ up empty. Ryan was top dog in the DA’s new outfit and so it was up to him to put the pieces together.
“What’a we got?” he said, joining O’Neill in the bedroom.
O’Neill had tossed the bedroom, lucky to find the bed. He found everything else besides. A mountain of multicolored underwear filled the bed; lacy drawers, bras and lingerie spilling over to the floor.
“She didn’t take much with’er. Looks like she left behind all ‘er fancy underwear. Lookit dis stuff—must be real silk! A pretty penny fer crap like dis.”
He picked up a pair of frilly panties with the end of a yellow pencil and scanned them from all sides. She wasn’t in them.
“Okay, so we know she didn’t go on her honeymoon. What else did she leave?”
“Shoes, suitcases. Stuff what was in the closet.”
Ryan looked over to the high seven-tiered lingerie dresser, asking, “What’s in ‘er drawers ‘sides underwear?”
“What’a we got here!” O’Neill yelped, onto somethin’ that might’ actually be worth takin’ a look at.
“What is it?” Ryan asked, leavin’ the dresser for the time being but remaining curious.
Anyway, his nose picked up the strong scent of deodorized fabric softener coming from the pile on the bed. The stuff was clean and there’d be no prints.
“Passports,” O’Neill indicated to his partner, holding open the vanity’s drawer, designed in a way to hide it beneath the ornate scrawl of the veneer.
“Here, take a look,” he said.
Peering into the drawer, Ryan let out a sizzling whistle.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, wholly astounded by the several passports and began going through them, flipping stamped pages and taking note of the stamped photo in each.
“I hear she had work done,” O’Neill observed sedately.
“Nobody could have this much work done. This dame’s been all over the world—an’ she’s different in every picture.”
“She’s rich,” O’Neill offered with a dismissive shrug. “She could afford to replace her whole body if she wanted to.”
“I’m not buyin’ that. There’s somethin’ fishy about this. C’mon, let’s go see if Cotton’s come up with anything,” Ryan said, taking the most recent passport and heading from the bedroom.
He caught O’Neill with a depraved leer attempting to return to the heap of underwear on the bed. “Leave the lingerie alone, O’Neill!”
“Aw.”
O’Neill trailed behind the squad’s perturbed captain into the apartment’s long hall. Both sides of the hall were paneled with floor to ceiling sectioned mirrors, each opening onto a large closet. The third detective was poking his head into one of the closets. The ones he had already been in were flung open and he had a few more to get to.
“What’a ya got, Cotton?”
“Two big closets filled with furs, most of the furs loaded with big bills. She wasn’t strapped for ready cash if this what she leaves in’er pockets.”
Okay, so we got no trace of her so far—,” Ryan tallied, and glanced at the passport he held in his hand, “an’ this passport is up to date, so we know she ain’t gone on a trip.”
“You sayin’ she’s still in town?” O’Neill questioned.
“Can’t say she didn’t jump in a car and split across state lines. She’s got enough dough to get herself a change’a clothes wherever she went, an’ what’s tellin’ is—no plastic,” Ryan riddled, trying to form a picture of events from the nothin’ they had.
“Hell, Ryan, she could be naked in a bubble bath in Atlantic City by that stretch,” Joseph offered.
“That she could—an’ we’ll look into that, but we can’t raise a stink. This assignment has to be kept strictly on the QT. Bradshaw made that clear.”
Joseph continued fishing through the furs and taking his hand out of the pocket of a full length white fox, eyed what he had, alerting the captain, “Hey, Ryan, here’s somethin’. Some kinda business card.”
“Let’s see it,” Ryan said, taking it from him to examine closer, reading aloud:
“‘Madam Sukova. Reader of Fortunes, Fate and Destiny.’ The address is in the Bowery.”
O’Neill spoke up, recalling the recent case, “Say, that’s the joint where they found that lunatic, the guy that shot the ambassador. They’re holdin’ him on multiple murder and robbery charges over at Clarkson. He might know somethin’.”
“Yeh, ‘cept he’s a lunatic, remember? They got him in a padded cell babbling about the revolution,” Detective Cotton relayed from the oversize marble tiled bathroom where he was rifling through the woman’s toiletries and sniffing at the colored veils of scented oils in hope of finding poison in one of them.
Ryan considered the idea dismissively, “That don’t help us at all. He might’a known somethin’ before he lost his marbles an’ we ain’t got time to wait until he gets ‘em back.”
Cotton rinsing his hands under the gold plated tap came out of the bathroom, said thoughtfully, “I say we follow it up anyway. Even if he is a fruitcake, he’s liable to spill somethin’ important.”
Ryan was impressed with the dick’s initiative.
“All right, then that’ll be you and Joseph’s job. O’Neill an’ me are gonna run down this passport.”
“An’ we get to sit around the bughouse. That’s swell,” Joseph griped, pulling the crummy detail because his partner decided to be smart all of a sudden.
Cotton put his hand to his nose and inhaled the sharp resistant odor of violets clinging to his fingers. He wondered how he’d put it to the wife.
“Be grateful we ain’t gotta go in undercover,” he said, ribbing his agitated partner.
Having taken a shine to me, the senator kept me occupied with questions. The limo pulled into the garage of a private men’s club and we put down roots in a couple’a barker loungers beneath curtained French windows in the spacious lounge getting the place and the bar stocked with top shelf hooch all to ourselves.
We’d been there a while puffing long silky smoking cheroots, when I decided I’d had enough of the good life. I got up to blow and thanked him for the hospitality. As soon as I was on my feet, the club’s butler was behind me holding my jacket by the shoulders for me to slip into. I took it from him and put it on myself.
“So, uh, Duke—when do you intend to start your investigation?” Kennedy queried, taking a pull on the smoldering Cuban.
“I’ll be in touch if anything comes up you should know about,” I simply said.
“Oh, uh, yes, yes, of course,” he mumbled in approval, putting the cheroot in the standing tray at the lounger’s side.
“Since I’ve had the money placed in your account, you can start any time.”
He lifted his girth and shook my hand again.
“I have to fly back to Washington tonight,” he said with a touch of misgiving.
“I think that’s for the best,” I said with none. “With you around, I might draw unwanted attention.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly.”
He’d been picking my brains for hours about PI work and I’d humored him with tales of dangerous dames I’d known and the hotheaded gorillas in cheap pinstripes that usually went with ‘em. He was ready to let me do things my way—which made him my kinda guy.
“It’s nice to be understood. If you’re headed back to the Rollingstone Foundation, so am I. I have to talk to Joanna.”
He put a grin on his pudgy red face, his moustache reeking of bourbon, “Yes, I am. Perhaps I can cajole Jonathan into giving me a ride back to the airport.”
“Shouldn’t be so hard. Maybe next time, you’ll have a more pleasant reason for bein’ in town.”
“Let’s hope. Actually, I was to attend the Russian ambassador’s gala last night, but, uh, found myself tied up with other matters.”
‘From what I hear, you didn’t miss a thing.”
“Oh? What did you hear?”
“Same thing everybody else heard. A gang of bandits crashed the party and the ambassador was gunned down in cold blood.”
“My word! And what’s become of the bandits?” he asked, eager for scuttlebutt.
That would’ve had us sitting there for another few hours, so I gave a plug to Bradshaw, as if he’d actually done anything.
“You’ll have to get the details from the DA. I was kinda busy myself.”

I got back to the Rollingstone Foundation and took the long ride up. Kennedy had some Washington business to attend to and staying in the lim, put in a call to Jonathan to come down to see him off. I walked to the Livingstones’ office under the glass canopy. The sun had set and night tarred the huge windows with a deep-sea blue. There were only the passing beacons of airliners, the occasional military jet, and smaller private planes to interrupt the cloudless darkness. The moon was a slender silver sickle that made you wonder what poets saw in it.
Joanna was waiting for me in the outer office. Her father had ridden down from his office in his personal elevator, so Jonathan and I didn’t run into each other this trip. That was just as well because Joanna had time to switch out of her stiff business duds and into something that was for more easy on the eyes, not that she was ever hard to look at. I came into her office as she was coming out of the powder room. The new outfit consisted of a simple white blouse and miniskirt, but the blouse was sheer see-through lace and the skirt little more than a plain white handkerchief. I was taking all that in hoping to sneeze, when she parked it on the edge of her desk and folded one long stem over the other about as demure as a four alarm fire, took out a nail file and began scraping her cuticles in a painful looking gesture.
She had changed her shoes too, but the heels were still five inches and her aquiline bare feet were tied to them with pink ribbon. I didn’t say anything. I suppose I said it all with the look I was givin’ her, so to occupy my gaping jaw I put a smoke in it. She started to talk. She could’ve been sayin’ anything. The sound had to travel though the throbbing pulse of the blood rushing to my head. Joanna was five, eight and thin as a fencepost with a sprinkle of freckles over her entire body and had a head of bountiful red hair. She had legs that ended in the clouds and yams that floated upwards like a couple’a red tipped hot air balloons.
“You really hit it off with Senator Kennedy,” she commented idly, wagging her raised foot at a slow methodical pace and practically hypnotizing me with it.
“He’s not so bad once you get to know him,” I tossed off, looking around the place for something to crush my butt in.
She glanced up from her filing and shuttered her pale lashes at me.
“I know him, remember?”
“So you do. Did you know he was supposed to be at the Russian ambassador’s shindig last night?”
“Yes, I do, but he spent the evening with father discussing his upcoming campaign.”
I went over to the water cooler, pulled a paper cup from the dispenser, put a little water in it and snuffed the heated fag in the cup.
“You’re pop’s a big contributor,” I pointed out, dropping the cup in the wastebasket, noticing she’d gotten back to her nails.
“One of the biggest.”
I’d seen Sarah do this for hours at a time, playing the emery board over her nails like a Stradivarius. Joanna was ripping hers to pieces with graceless wrenching strokes.
“Is it me, or are you sore about somethin’?”
“Oh? Do I seem sore?”
“Yeh, and it ain’t ‘cause you’re all broken up about Catherine. Spill, baby. You got somethin’ on your mind. I can read you like the Sunday Funnies.”
Setting the file down and paying no more attention to it, she locked eyes with me, fluttering lashes and all.
“Is that so?” She cooed, extending her arms behind her to prop herself up on her hands, which by necessity thrust her big chest at me.
“Yeh.”
“Well, there’s nothing funny about you’re not being home all night!” she loudly affirmed, putting her whole body into it, which only made her chest more pronounced, the ruby flush visible through the lace shirt.
I couldn’t argue with her either and didn’t really want to, not with her nipples pointing at me like a couple’a sharpshooters.
“Oh, is that it?” I smirked carelessly.
“That’s it.”
With that, she folded her arms in a huff over those wonderful orbs and tossed her face disapprovingly to the side, not looking at me but continuing to dress me down.
“I had to go to the gala with Alexandra Korda, who is a conceited bore and on top of that Deborah Keyes was shot and killed along with the ambassador! It could have been me!
Why weren’t you home? You knew about the gala.”
Suddenly, we were back in the express car. I couldn’t tell her what I had been up to and every move she made and everything about her had me hungrily wanting her in my arms.
“Look, I had some important work to do,” I offered, deliberately unconvincing.
“Oh? What was her name?” she retorted, predictably.
“What—say—it’s not like that.”
Her head came around with a flip of her red mop, saying dramatically, “I know about that little secretary of yours!”
“Who doesn’t? Sarah’s my right hand.”
“Yes and I know what you do with that hand!”
“Are you done?”
“Well, I was just getting started, but I can’t stay mad at you. I love you too much—and I’ll forgive you if you manage to find Catherine.”
Thrusting her hands to the desk again made the twins bounce fiercely and sway and bob with her breathy ardency. The punishment was over and I’d get my toys back. I went over and placed my hands to either side of her on the desk. Our eyes fixed on one another and I could feel the steam she’d worked up coming through the thin blouse.
Our faces were so close that our breath mingled as I assured her, “Honey, for the clams I’m gettin’ for this job, I’d discover America all over again.”
She drew back her head, tucking her chin and coyly began fidgeting with my tie, lifting it from between the sultry lace mounds, running it through her fingers, distractedly tracing the pattern, and saying contritely, “You won’t have to go that far. In fact, if you come over tonight, I’ll show you something red, white and blue.” She was the only girl I knew who could make that sound dirty.
“Am I gonna hafta stand at attention?” I asked. I didn’t have to imagine how hard it would be.
“No, but I think you’re going to—part of you anyway,” she finished, glimpsing down. She pushed me back a little so she could unfold her legs.
“Baby, you make a guy proud to be an American.”
She stretched her arms behind her and planting her hands, arched her supple torso, the mouth-watering globes rising with their twin peaks, the red hair tumbling in all directions, the lengthy legs nonstop.
I took in the view as I was shucking my tie and jacket, unfastened my shoulder and let the weight of the .44 carry the rawhide to the floor. The view got better and then the fireworks started, kicked off by rocket’s red glare.
Ragoff waited until nightfall to make the most of the back alleys and side streets of Little Siberia. His footsteps leaden, he ran looking over his shoulder with the genuine fear that someone was chasing him, but it was pure guilt that set him off on his mad dash. It was fear that led him to the apartment of Sasha, a Russian student he’d met at the club. She’d taken a liking to the dirty old professor, though she was years younger and infinitely more sensible. She had enrolled in college upon coming to the States, knew Ivan and the other in his crew and stayed away from them as best she could, except on occasions like this, disturbed by the unrelenting pounding at her door. She gazed through the aperture and assured herself that Ragoff had come alone then opened the door and the fugitive trundled inside, a maniacal blaze in his eyes that was strange to her.
“Vladimir! What has happened to you?”
“Sasha! I am being hounded by a demon!” he cried, his eyes casting distrustfully around the room, but what Sasha saw were two bloodshot orbs spinning crazily in his disheveled head.
“What is it you are saying, Vladimir?”
He tried explaining, “A creature of darkness pursued us last night! Without appearing he wounded Tanya and later killed Vanya and Sergei.”
“A demon you say? What madness is this?”
“True madness!”
“Where is Ivan?” She asked, concerned that the old boy had finally succumbed to Ivanov’s paranoid mania.
“I do not know,” he sighed heavily, restlessly throwing himself into a rickety straight- chair. “We were driving, looking for—,” he stopped, apprehensively avoiding the subject.
“I had to get away from him or lose my mind—or worse!”
“You are shivering with fright!”
His face sank into his palms, his mind twisted by fear and superstition.
“I fear Ivan has finally gone mad with bloodlust,” he moaned, “It must be his shadow. The demon is Ivan’s evil taking the shape of darkness.”
“Please stop speaking this way. You frighten me,” she admonished, “How can you say such things? Speaking of demons.”
He raised his tear filled eyes, sweating an ocean that pooled beneath the seat.
“You were not there, Sasha. He came from everywhere and nowhere, surrounding us, shooting at us.”
That struck her. There was obviously more than madness goading Ragoff’s raving.
“Shooting? A demon needs a pistol?”
“It is the modern world. Even demons must adapt to it,” he rationalized without thinking twice about it. He didn’t care how ridiculous he sounded. He knew what he saw, or thought he saw, or didn’t see.
“You speak foolishness,” she angrily scoffed.
“I’m not lying! It is the Devil I tell you!”
Seeing the earnestness in his craggy face, she proposed the only thing that seemed logical to her, “Then you should go to the church and confess your sins to Father Moishe.”
Thrilled with her suggestion, Ragoff bolted to his feet, just about running in place. “Moishe! Of course! He will lift this curse! He is in his church now?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied assuredly, opening the door.
“Then I must see him right away!” he cried, taking off back into the night.
The undistinguished church was in fact a derelict cathedral on an overlooked cobblestone street, unseen from the busy avenue. Its decaying stone shrouded in shadows, it was now presided over by Father Moishe. A one time radical himself, Moishe had since converted to the ways of faith, furnishing prayers and comfort to those lost in the decadence and depravity of the city’s Hellish nightlife.
“…And our Lord sayeth let us become as children…” Moishe whispered in quiet reverence, kneeling in front of the suspended figure of the crucified Savior.
The oak door slammed open with a furious echo and Ragoff charged inside.
“Moishe! Moishe!”
Stunned by the audaciousness, Moishe turned from his prayer, seeing Ragoff dashing toward the Alter.
“Vladimir! What are you doing?” the Father cried out.
“I must be cleansed!” Ragoff pleaded, reaching the stunned priest and grabbing him by the heavy black vestments.
“But I cannot—” the priest averred, trying to shake the psychotic’s grip.
“Please, Father! Please! Take it away!” Ragoff begged, releasing him in the shadow of the outstretched arms above.
“What?” Moishe asked.
“This!”
Moishe backed against the wooden pulpit as Ragoff recklessly brought the automatic from his waist.
“A gun! Vladimir, you must go to the police!”
“No! I cannot!” Ragoff insisted, rightly.
“Then I cannot help you,” Moishe asserted flatly.
Ragoff’s eyes blazed with wrath at the pious rejection and lunging, pressed the muzzle into the priest’s heart through the thick garment, the flickering light of the votive candles were casting dancing red shafts over the rough stone walls. To Ragoff’s darkened brain, these were the very flames of Hell rising to greet him.
“Then I shall kill you!” he announced coldly.
“Vladimir, no! No!”
Muffled by the bulky cloth, the burning slug penetrated Moishe’s chest and he fell to his knees with his back to the Alter. In a final act of supplication, the dying holy man moved his hand stiffly to his heart and the growing bloodstain glistened from within the coarse fabric. Moishe made the sign of the cross with his fingers and his eyes filled with compassion.
“Vladimir—what—what have you done?” The words left his lips with a surge of blood and he fell forward on his face.
Horrified, Ragoff watched the red lake spread swiftly at his feet and unable to look any further, turned his eyes to the crucified form.
Realizing what he had done, he wailed, “I— I have killed Father Moishe! I must be mad!”
But no matter how sincere his remorse, it was fear of the cops that remained his primary impetus. “Someone will find the body and call the police! I must get away!”
He ran from the church back out to the street, back to the maze of alleys, with the feeling that every dingy brick wall he confronted was closing in on him. The large door of Moishe’s church remained wide open and in time, an elderly parishioner discovered the murdered priest’s body at the foot the Alter. The desk sergeant of the local precinct took the call.
“Police department. Doyle speakin’.”
He listened patiently as the stilted Russian accent told him what was found inside the old church and he got religion when it became clear.
“A priest? We’ll have a car there straight away!”
Sickened by the pointless murder he’d just committed and damned for sure, Ragoff again turned to Sasha. She had been sitting up worrying over him the whole time and as soon as his fist began beating at the door she threw it open. She had changed into a flimsy nighty that left most of her ruddy body exposed, but Ragoff wasn’t interested in that. He came in and started anxiously pacing, more disturbed than he was before, which is saying something, so she pressed him for the reason.
“Vladimir, what have you done?” she inquired softly, watching his body jerk and spasm as he walked back and forth.
“I have murdered Father Moishe!” he confessed, almost offhandedly.
She was startled and could only utter in dismay, “Father Moishe!”
Ragoff stopped in his tracks, and babbled, “It was the demon! He possesses my mind! You must help me elude the police!”
Since he was fleeing both phantom delusions and very real bulls, he was trapped wherever he went. One or the other would get him eventually.
“I cannot do that,” she said with certainty, knowing she could be of no help to him in his current state.
His state was fragile. The one solid thing he had was the .45 he’d used on Moishe and he pulled it out as he had then, and menaced her with it.
“You will—or I will kill you too!”
“Vladimir, please—” she implored, tired and wanting to sleep.
Fed up with being at the mercy of his multiplying fears, Ragoff figured yet another bonehead play and pushing the gun into her soft belly, willfully stopping himself from blasting her.
She opened her mouth to scream and he clamped his hand over her lips, hissing in her ear like a serpent, “Quiet.”
He then got behind her, guiding the gun barrel around from her stomach passing it over her ribcage, until he had it fixed in the small of her back.
“We will go out the back way.”
“Oh, Vladimir, can you not see? The demon is within you. You cannot run from such a thing. You will never escape it.”
“Yes, I will never escape the demon,” he rasped again into her ear, “—the police however are another matter. Come, we have no time.”
Angling her body around on her bare feet, he forced her along on her tiptoes.
With her skull in bandages and grateful to be alive, Tanya sat up in the hospital bed. Seeing Carla at the bedside made her understand who was responsible for putting her there.
“Carla—you have saved my life, but I fear you have put your own life in danger. What of Ivan?”
“I do not fear Ivan,” the gypsy declared courageously. “He has shown himself to be evil.”
Neither Ragoff nor Tanya knew that Ivan had been captured and thrown into psychiatric lock-down. She at least was coming to their senses, as it were, groping to free herself from Ivanov’s malevolent influence.
“What has Ivan done?”
“You know he murdered Madam Sukova in cold blood.”
“Yes—I know,” Tanya quietly stated, ashamed.
“Vanya and Sergei were killed last night,” Carla bluntly informed her.
“Killed?” she gasped.
“Are you surprised at their fate? Ivan has since been apprehended by the police.”
That didn’t come as much of a shock, but made Tanya posit her next question, “And what of Ragoff?”
“I do not know,” Carla honestly replied.
“Then he has escaped capture?” she posed tentatively.
Ragoff was after all, supposed to be the smart one.
“I predict it will not be for long,” was the gypsy’s rejoinder.
The wailing sirens were coming from every direction at once, converging on the dilapidated cathedral. Ragoff would’ve felt the stinging pangs of guilt over gunning down the gentle Father Moishe, a former comrade from the mother country he’d known for years. Moishe had not always been a man of the cloth. He’d been one of the more radical of the self-styled revolutionaries living on the fringes. It had come as a shock to the others when he announced that he would be taking the vows of the priesthood.
Remorseful at first, Ragoff’s conscience was now clouded by the relentless thought that he was being hounded by a demon, and he knew for sure by the law as he dragged his reluctant hostage through dirty back alleys to dodge the cops that were all over the place. Staggering to keep up with him, the tender bottoms of Sasha’s feet were slashed bloody from the jagged debris scattering the endless web of obscure alleyways. When she slowed down from exhaustion, he would come back for her and forcefully shove her from behind, making her fall on her face into the thick tangle of busted glass, rusty nails, and serrated edges of dirty metal cans. To urge her to her feet, Ragoff would viciously yank the cheap material of the sheer nighty. Eventually the garment simply tore away into filthy rags as she groped the narrow unlit passage on her cut and bleeding hands and knees fending off the countless unseen hosts of nauseating vermin thriving in the decay, which she regretfully found herself a part of.
“Ragoff, why are you doing this?” she begged from her knees, blinded by a mixture of black night, alleyway shadows, searing pain and stark terror.
Sweat pouring over her face brought with it a veil of her long limp locks of black hair.
“Quiet! I do want to kill you too!” he threatened to the woman he once claimed to love, his will given entirely over to whatever the dark thing was that drove him.
“Vladimir, please! Turn yourself in! You do not know what you are doing!” she pleaded helplessly.
“I said quiet!”
Though her words struck his ears as incoherent clamoring, the familiar feminine lilt of her voice was like a knife through his brain. He couldn’t stand it any more and snatching her by the hair, brought her teetering feebly to her feet and he threw her with all of his force against the alley wall. Slamming full on and practically sticking to it, Sasha clung to the brick for the simple solace of being upright for a change. Reeling from the impact, she would have liked to stay there until she regained her senses, but she had no time to begin thinking logically before becoming aware of his fist taking a handful of her hair. Jerking her from the wall and holding onto her sweat-saturated hair, he violently wrung her weak and injured body like he was shaking out a dirty rag. He may have been out of his mind with the fear of his own shadow, but the abrasive motion had the effect of bringing Sasha around to where she thought she could appeal to the feelings they once shared.
“What has happened to you, Vladimir? Has Ivan at last infected you with his depraved greed and hatred? Please, Vladimir, please, let me go!”
Her emotional entreaty only prompted a sudden backhand that knocked her flying. Her naked figure crashed atop a cluster of already bashed up metal trashcans and she rolled to the ground, bleeding from more than a few large gashes in her bare flesh.
“On your feet, wench! Do not make me kill you right here!”
Groggy and maimed, she barely had the strength to come up on her hands. She was struggling to her knees when he roughly seized the nape of her neck and lifted her to feet she could no longer stand on. She keeled against the brick and held onto it with aching fingers for dear life.
“Vladimir,” she said in a muttered whisper, “I cannot move.”
She felt the bracing steel of his automatic pressing into her temple.
”Then you will die,” he uttered with finality.
She moved.

Joseph and Cotton, two of Bradshaw’s confidential city dicks arrived at the high security gate of the criminal sanitarium and though detective Joseph as a former prison CO, felt right at home in the midst of lockdowns and electrified fences, Cotton his partner got the willies. The Clarkson Institute for the Criminally Insane was as devoted to figurin’ out how human time bombs ticked as it was to makin’ sure they didn’t go off. Along with a security force trained to deal with unbalanced criminals, there were lab-coated doctors and technicians, and as befits a sanitarium, the stringent odor of clinical sterility was everywhere. In other words you could smell the nuts. The pair of top dicks had been given the questionable assignment of ferreting out possible links between Ivanov and the fading of Catherine Kennedy. Ryan had also ordered them to do this by speaking to Ivanov personally. They didn’t relish the task.
Cotton led the way having gotten a contact name and he dropped it often as they maneuvered the windowless maze of fluorescent-lit corridors. The plainclothes dicks had to show their ID and badges to every armed sentry at every bulletproof Plexiglas barrier that divided the dangerous nuts doing stretches from the next, more dangerous batch of criminal lunatics. Ivanov was being held in the last cell at the dead end of the last corridor on the lowest of the complex’s several subterranean levels, under permanent lockdown and his every move monitored. Ivanov wasn’t just the worst of the bunch; he was so far below the earth, he didn’t know he’d been buried.
Whenever they had a question, the uniformed sentries deferred to the ubiquitous white coats. Cotton only had one more question to ask, choosing the doctor coming out of a door marked Authorized Medical Personnel Only, to ask it to.
“Say, you Doctor James?”
All of the doctors were highly trained neurologists and shrinks, specializing in the workings of the out of whack criminal brain. Drake himself had trained the best of them, including James, who answered the bull’s question.
“Yes, I am. What can I do for you, detectives?”
Cotton took his luck in stride and reflexively flipped his ID anyway.
“Name’s Cotton. This here’s my partner Detective Joseph.”
Having heard the question and the answer, Joseph didn’t bother flashing his shield just to keep it straight.
Recognizing their benign intentions behind the flat ritualized demeanors, James opened up to them, “Oh, yes. District attorney Bradshaw informed me that you were coming to gather information. How can I be of service to you?”
“We’d like to talk with one’a yer patients. Ivan Ivanov,” tried Cotton.
James lowered his head, shaking it tut-tut like, and said, “Mister Ivanov is very ill. He suffers from a messianic persecution complex exacerbated by massive delusions of grandeur.”
That meant exactly squat to the two bulls.
“Ya don’t say?” Cotton floated, going for sounding interested, “Has he done a lot’a talkin’?”
James reflected a moment, then said, to confirm the dick’s interest, “Why, yes. He talks incessantly—mostly incoherent raving.”
“Mostly,” the dick singled out. “Has he said anything about Catherine Kennedy?”
“I don’t believe so,” James replied, gracious but unhelpfully.
“Rats.”
“You said you wanted to question him.”
“That’s right—but you just said all he does is rant off his nut.”
“Well, yes, but I can administer an injection of Sodium Pentathol. That should calm him down and render him sufficiently lucid to answer questions.”
“Issat so?” his partner jumped in, liking the idea, “What say we give it a go, Cotton?”
“Sure. Anything to get this over with,” Cotton agreed, feeling the medicinal dreariness of the place starting to get under his skin. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Oh? Why is that, detective?” James questioned with disturbing interest.
“Waitaminnit! I didn’t come here for therapy! Ivanov’s the nut—an’ even if he was sane, he’d be under the jail waitin’ to fry ‘in the hot seat. He’d only be helpin’ himself if he confessed to anything.”
“Hmm—,” the shrink conjectured in circumspect, “That might prove quite therapeutic at that.”
“It sure would,” Cotton pushed.
“But, uh, is it exactly legal for you to question him without his attorney?”
“Look, doc, this is strictly on the QT, and we don’t care what he’s done or what he confesses to, as long as he spills the whereabouts of Catherine Kennedy. That’s all we came for,” Joseph quickly explained.
“Does the district attorney know about the questioning of Mister Ivanov?”
“He don’t gotta know, but he’s sure gonna appreciate your helpin’ us do our job. Get me?”
“I, eh, I believe so. Let me call Doctor Drake. He normally handles matters of this sort.”
“Now don’t go callin’ the wide world in here. What I tol’ya is strictly fer under yer hat,” Joseph put forward straight away.
“Yes, I understand, but Doctor Drake is the world’s foremost expert on hypnotherapy. He may be better able to help you gather the information you need.”
“All right, call ‘im. But make it quick,” allowed Cotton.
“I’ll see if I can reach him right now. Excuse me.”
James seemed satisfied at last and ducked behind the glass door.
“That’s more like it,” Cotton groused.
They waited while Doctor James put the call in to Drake at home. The doctor was in.
“Drake here.”
“Doctor Drake, it’s Doctor James at the institute. I’m sorry to have to call so late.”
“That’s quite all right, James. I was just catching up on some reading. What is it?” Drake inquired attentively.
“I have two police detectives here asking for an interview with Ivan Ivanov. I thought you should be the one to oversee that.”
“As you know, James, Ivanov is highly unstable. I don’t think it advisable,” Drake stated definitively.
“I’m inclined to agree with you, but they were quite adamant—something about the possibility of his knowing the whereabouts of Miss Catherine Kennedy.”
“He hasn’t mentioned her in his ravings, has he?” Drake asked, assessing Ivanov’s state.
“No. No, he hasn’t.”
“Then I think it unlikely that he has any information that could be of any use to them.”
“What do I tell them?”
“Tell them that they’re on a wild goose chase and if anything about his condition should change, we’ll notify the DA’s office.”
“Very good.”
James hung up the phone and came back into the corridor where the bulls were coolin’ their heels.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen. Under the advisory of Doctor Drake, I can’t allow an interview with Mister Ivanov at this time. Drake suggested that you return when Ivanov’s condition has improved.”
“What! Who is this Drake character?” Joseph exclaimed unaware that among medical big shots, Drakes was one of the biggest.
“Doctor Drake is the hospital’s direct liaison with the district attorney’s office and he hastened to add that the district attorney will be informed when an interview with Mister Ivanov is deemed feasible.”
“Well, I’ll be,” groaned Joseph.
“Ryan’s not gonna like this,” Cotton predicted predictably.
“I’m not likin’ it myself! Look, James—,” Joseph started carping, but having said his piece, James stopped being polite.
“I have to make my rounds, gentlemen,” he said with unreserved finality. “As I said, district attorney Bradshaw will be notified of any change in the patient’s status. Good day, detectives.”
“Why that—,” cracked Joseph, wanting to go on arguing.
Cotton having enough of the place, deferred to the shrink, “You made your point, doc. Come on, Charlie.”
The following morning, Sarah got her Christmas bonus early.
“Here’s a little present from Roosevelt Kennedy,” I said, letting the check float down onto her desk.
“What’s this?”
“I’m gettin’ a thousand bucks a day for expenses. I guess that means you.”
She picked up the wad slip and examined it up to the light.
“I like this job all ready,” she said, tuckin’ it into the lace cup peekin’ past her lapel. “What is it?”
I pulled one’a the Cubans from my pocket an’ flared a wooden match with my thumb, pullin’ a few smoke signals from the cheroot and ruminated on the case, bringin’ her up to speed.
“Catherine Kennedy is the Senator’s favorite niece an’ he wants me to find her, but I have no idea where to start and the only guy who might know somethin’ is in the bughouse.”
“Seems like the more dough you get, the wackier the characters you have to deal with.”
“That may not be coincidence. There’s another character on the loose, but I’ll have to scare him up. Hold down the fort and make a record of any calls—especially from a dame name’a Carla Sukova. She could save me a lotta legwork.”
“Sure, Duke,” she acquiesced readily, her nimble gams swinging the swivel seat around, facin’ the typewriter she never used. The one time I’d asked her to take a letter, she asked which one.
The newsboy on the corner was waggin’ the Chronicle an’ hollarin’ ‘til he was hoarse: “Extree! Extree! Read all about it! Crazed gunman tied to missing socialite!”
“I’ll take one’a those papers.”
“Sure, mister.”
He handed me the rag and I passed him a fin.
“Thanks. Here ya go.”
“Gee, mister, the paper’s only a dime. I ain’t got change.”
“Keep it. Rest yer chops for a minute.”
“Thanks!” he squeaked.
Chewin’ the steamy stogie, I folded the paper an’ there it was in black and white, splashed across the page:
‘Crazed assassin named as possible conspirator in the disappearance of Catherine Kennedy.’

The article went on to say how Ivan had plugged the Russian ambassador during the failed heist of the gala. It also said he was later found babbling, out of his mind in the former storefront of the late Madam Sukova, noted fortuneteller.
Whoever the snoops were usin’ as their source didn’t have all the facts. They didn’t know it was Ivan bumped the old gypsy; Carla having her grandmother’s remains interred in strict accordance with arcane gypsy custom very soon after the murder. No one outside the gypsy’s inner circle even knew where the old woman was buried.
“Sounds like the bulls sprung a leak,” I muttered to myself.
The more I read, the more convinced I became that as low as he was, Ivan had nothing to do with Catherine Kennedy. I can’t say what exactly convinced me, maybe it was the knowledge that Ivan had a lot on his plate, what with runnin’ his gang and all; calculating cold-blooded murders that he executed without a second thought; and coming up with his crackpot theories on class warfare; nevertheless even he wouldn’t want to be troubled with the shrill socialite. If anything, given half a chance he’d have bumped her on the spot—so the Chronicle had that part of the story wrong.
Forced at gunpoint to walk the circuitous distance of the living, putrid Hell, it was precisely the nauseous vertigo that kept Sasha hovering in taciturn agony just above the threshold of blacking out. Ragoff had to constantly keep hoisting her up from her slumping knees because the bottoms of her feet were sliced to the raw bone. He pulled her along with his every step, her bony arm sagging lamentably over his shoulder. They were human once, and still had friends. Sasha in and out of her haze muttered the name of another student, and Ragoff knowing the girl’s address, lifted the waif in his arms to bring her there, moving as rapidly as he could before his own legs wilted from under him.
Hobbling out of the end of the pitch-black alleyway onto the dark familiar street, he ran on broken blisters to the tenement’s sandstone stoop. Reaching the pockmarked steps unseen, Ragoff collected what was left of his strength and tossing the bruised, naked, insensible girl over his shoulder, forced himself to stiffly climb the six flights to Petra’s miniscule studio apartment.
He frantically hammered the door with both fists, rattling the already shaky door loose on its hinges. A generously proportioned girl with stout muscular limbs pitched the door open. Her big brown eyes gaped under the mussed black pageboy, distastefully astonished at the ragged sight.
Every milky inch of Petra’s ample skin was on show, from the hefty torso and pendulous blimps straining the seams of her skimpy undersized nightgown.
She cared less, howling at him, “Vladimir! What has happened—?”
Gruffly, Ragoff pushed inside and threw Sasha to the bare floor.
“I am wanted by the police. You must hide me away.”
Petra had been asleep and was now fully awake, her sleepy eyes grimly locking on the devastated figure before her on the floor.
“What have you done to her?” the incredulous girl questioned anxiously.
“She would not cooperate and I was forced to beat her to within an inch of her life,” Ragoff responded, as if he were proud of his accomplishment.
She didn’t get right away that the guy had cracked up, chalking it up to a drunken jag, rushed to the bathroom and gathered a handful of towels.
“Vladimir! You must be mad!” she panted excitedly, dropping to her knees beside the unmoving Sasha and wiped the blood from her lacerated skin, the tattered wounds bleeding unabated.
Ragoff stood by looking forlorn, as Petra’s flimsy nighty was soon soaked with blood and she slipped and fell in the slick red tide spread over the floor.
“Petra will look after you,” he sniveled, close to full out bawling.
Petra realized the futility of trying to stave off the endless bleeding.
“Put her on couch, Vladimir.”
His every muscle aching Ragoff managed to lift the girl without breaking her. He put her on the sofa that she proceeded to bleed all over.
“Sasha, can you hear me?” he whispered to her.
The closest thing she could give to a reply was senseless gurgling, spitting up a mouthful of blood.
“Vladimir, I think she is dying!”
“She cannot die until I have escaped the gypsy’s curse!”
“We must get her to the hospital!”
Ragoff wasn’t ready to hear that, still in the throws of his frenzied delusions.
“No!”
“We must!”
Ignoring his blatant psychosis, Petra ran to the telephone.
“Get away from that telephone,” he shouted, the gun in his hand firing, taking a huge chunk out of the old plaster behind her head.
“Have you gone mad?” she screamed, unafraid and not knowing to be afraid.
He menaced her with the pistol, thundering, “I will kill you too! Do not try to stop me!”
“Ragoff!”
The gypsy’s voice went through him like a hot wind.
“Carla!” Petra cried out, seeing the girl’s silhouette emerge out of the shadows.
“Carla! You know what has become of Ivan?” Ragoff demanded.
“Ivan has gone mad—as have you.”
“It is you who have set this demon upon us!”
“You have set it upon yourself. It is your conscience calling for justice,” she placidly made plain.
“No! You are a witch! You have put an evil spell on me!”
“I have done no such thing.”
Ragoff started to raise his gun and fire dead on into the shadow’s heart. He didn’t get that chance. The gun tore from his hand, the fingers burnt and shattered.
“Uuugh—Who—?” he whimpered from the blood slicked floor, holding what was left of his paw.
I came behind her holding my aim steady on him.
“Are you all right, Carla?”
“Yes, Duke.”
“Looks like Tanya’s gonna have some company.”
“Carla, who is this shade you speak to?” Petra said, holding the buzzing receiver.
“It is Vladimir’s demon.”
A fed was waiting for Bradshaw in his office when he came in.
“District Attorney Bradshaw, I’m Special Agent Hanley, FBI,” the crewcut said, waving his paperwork.
“What can I do for you, Hanley?”
There were any number of things, but the DA wanted the guy to spell ‘em out. The guy ticked his stuff away and got official.
“I’m investigating the assassination of the Russian ambassador. I understand the shooter is in custody.”
“In a manner of speaking. The man is violently insane. He’s being held under lock and key at the Clarkson Institute for the Criminally Insane.”
“Insane?” Hanley asserted, perplexed.
“As a bedbug.”
“This isn’t good.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You have the guy’s name?”
“Yes, I have it right here,” Bradshaw said grabbing Ivan’s sheet from his desk, “Ivan Ivanov—a wanted criminal.”
“How convenient he goes bananas right when ya get the goods on ‘em.”
“Is there anything else, Special Agent Hanley?” Bradshaw inquired tersely, growing impatient with the smug blockhead.
“Yes, as a matter of fact there is. I understand that Ivan Ivanov’s also been pegged in the disappearance of Catherine Kennedy.”
“That hasn’t been proven,” the DA avowed readily.
Feigning indifference, Hanley shrugged, “How can it be—when the guy claims to be out of his tree?”
“I’ve personally assigned six of this department’s best detectives to the Kennedy case exclusively.”
“And what have they come up with so far?”
“So far—?”
The intercom buzzed on Bradshaw’s desk.
“Excuse me, Hanley.”
The DA reached across and flipped the speaker’s lever to reply, “Yes, Agnes?”
“Detective Ryan to see you, sir,” announced the dutiful nasal drawl.
Noticeable relief spread over Bradshaw’s round face and he grinned with every one of his chins. He was glad to be off the defensive, hoping Ryan had something to show the suit how real bulls earn their keep.
“Captain Detective Ryan heads up my elite squad,” he took pride in informing the Special Agent he didn’t see anything too special about.
Smacking the intercom lever again, he answered back, “Send him in, Agnes.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the instant Bradshaw’s unseen gal Friday signed off, Ryan breezed in easily impressing Hanley with the choice dick’s discerning attention to his duty, but Ryan had only taken one step from Agnes’s desk right outside Bradshaw’s office. Bradshaw had it set up that way so Agnes could use her pencil thin stems to block the way in if she had to. It’s a wonder the G-Man missed ‘em. Agnes had stems like trip wires.
“How do, sir.”
“How do—I mean, good evening, captain. What have you got?”
“I—well, I…” Ryan shucked his feet like a rookie traffic cop until the DA picked up the seasoned bull holding the unknown operative in the corner of his eye.
“No need to be so guarded, detective,” Bradshaw assured him, “This is Special Agent Hanley of the Bureau. Hanley’s actually here to investigate the murder of ambassador Sonovavich. He thinks Ivanov knows more than he’s telling,” Bradshaw explained.
The dick relaxed and spit out his big news, “Ivanov’s a raving lunatic.”
Hanley was still impressed, adding, “To the best of our knowledge, yes, but how do we know he’s not faking it?”
“Good point, Hanley. I’m going to place a call to the one man I know can get to the bottom of this.”
“Who might that be?” Hanley quizzed, in his way.
“Doctor John Drake. You may have heard of him.”
“Can’t say I have,” the agent guessed.
Bradshaw told them who the doc was anyway.
“He’s a brilliant psychiatrist and a master at unearthing a person’s hidden motivations, especially those motives one may wish to keep hidden. I think Drake will be of invaluable service to us.”
Drake was at home, but at the moment he wasn’t thinkin’ about psychology. He was catchin’ up on some quality time with his girl. She reached from the sofa, fishing in the dark for the ringing telephone.
“Hello?” she said, stroking his hair while he caught his breath.
“Hello, this is Cornelius Bradshaw calling to speak to Doctor Drake.”
“Just a-one moment, please,” she said.
Bradshaw thanked her and she tapped Drake’s shoulder to get his attention, focused as he’d been on her supple A-cups. “John, DA on phone.”
Slightly more than annoyed Drake raised his head, grudgingly taking his lips from the tasty cupcakes.
“Bradshaw? What can it be now?”
He took the phone from her hand and sat up.
“Hello, this is Drake.”
“John, Cornelius.”
“I know.”
“I’m afraid we’ve need of your services.”
“What’s the problem this time?”
Kim switched on the lamp and curled up in his arm.
“The FBI sent a Special Agent by the name of Hanley to investigate the killing of the Russian ambassador. Hanley’s here in my office and we’ve been discussing the case. Since we suspect the ambassador’s killer may also know the whereabouts of Catherine Kennedy, Hanley’s interested in getting information out of him.”
“I’ll say, it’s a shame Ivanov isn’t lucid enough to know how popular he is,” Drake kidded, in all seriousness.
“Popular?”
“Why, yes. Doctor James called me from Clarkson earlier tonight to tell me two of your men were there wanting to question Ivanov regarding the same matter.”
“Is that so?” Bradshaw declared, unable to conceal his surprise from Drake.
“You mean, you weren’t aware of that?” Drake challenged lightly.
“Uh, of course, I assigned them to the case, but—”
Letting Bradshaw’s bloodhounds slide, Drake addressed the issue of the mad Russian gunman, “Have you told Hanley that Ivanov is completely off his rocker?”
Bradshaw was glad the doc was speaking in plain English for a change.
“Yes. That’s why I thought to call you.”
“I don’t see there’s much I can do. The man is a hopeless lunatic. Doctor James and I are waiting for his delirium to subside. Until then our only hope is that the antipsychotic drugs are having some positive effect.”
“Be that as it may, Ivanov is turning out to be the linchpin in both of my most pressing cases,” Bradshaw hotly insisted.
Drake disregarded his friend’s agitation, while his own tone hardened, “I quite understand that, Cornelius. I wish I could do more for you—but I can’t. I can only assure you that Ivanov is receiving the best care the institute can provide.”
“That’s all well and good—but the man is a criminal!”
“At this point, he’s a patient, not a prisoner. I’m sure Doctor James will contact your office if there’s any sign of recovery. If that’s all, Bradshaw—”
“But, what am I to tell—?”
“Good night, Cornelius.”
The line died with Bradshaw holding on like a chump. He looked over at Hanley, feeling about as useless.
“Well?” Was the fed’s witless retort.
Bradshaw slammed the receiver, red in his fat face.
His fat mouth opened and shouted, “My hands are tied! The man is out of his mind.”
His eyes went to for a scapegoat, but the captain was no sucker.
“Ryan, Drake mentioned detectives wanting to question Ivanov?”
“That’s what I came to tell you, sir. I sent Joseph and Cotton over to Clarkson earlier tonight. They didn’t find out any more than you just did.”
“There must be a way out of this impasse,” the DA sighed, faced with Drake’s firm medical opinion that Ivanov was a hopeless loon.
“I think I know what that might be, Bradshaw,” Said Hanley, playin’ his hand. “I hear one of Ivanov’s bunch is recovering from a gunshot.”
“Yes, that’s true,” confirmed Bradshaw, contemplating.
“That means there’s more of ‘em. I’ll head over to the hospital and see if Ivanov’s crony is willing to talk.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Hanley. Ryan, go with him—you may find out something that cracks the Kennedy case.”
“Yes, sir.”
The fed and the top dick left the portly DA to stew.
Despite all of his sheepskin, Drake was a regular guy, after a fashion. He was all about the inner workings of the human mind, and to that end, a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of the Clarkson Institute for the Criminally Insane. What I got was that it named for a famous lunatic.
The institute’s primary purpose was scientific research, that is, figuring out what made violent coo coos tick. In that, it was a noted institution of profound psychological knowledge rooted in rigorous scientific observation. In its other aspect it was a underground maximum-security facility specifically for clinically insane lawbreakers. The Clarkson, or the institute, was a detention center for those criminals with complexes, fixations, and split personalities, who were deranged, delusional, psychotic, or schizophrenic, or all of the above, most with marked aggressive tendencies.
In that light, crime appeared to be an afterthought, but to Drake and the shrinks that oversaw the place, it was the natural outgrowth of extreme mental confusion.
Even the nurses were shrinks, and the inmates weren’t your everyday textbook cases either. Ivanov may not have been unique in his garbled gibberish; he saw conspiracies everywhere, and was obsessive in his delusions of greatness. That didn’t make him stand out among the other violent miscreants. What floated Ivan’s boat was his uncanny ability to put his thoughts into action in a blink of an eye. Since his thoughts were fantastic, and not in the good way, it followed that his actions would be equally so, likewise not in a good way.
Nurses being nurses, Nurse Betty Hepburn wore a white miniskirt uniform and this being Clarkson, she was highly skilled at administering the cocktail of medications that kept the inmates docile and under control. Noting her Lady Rolex, Hepburn came into James’ office where the doctor was as his desk pouring over case files. As Director of the institute, it was James who decided which members of the population would be transferred. Some were to go to another nuthouse. Others, those who symptoms showed signs of remission, would be sent to ordinary prison.
“Doctor James, it’s time for Mister Ivanov to receive his medication,” she chirped with girlish singsong cadence.
James cast his eye to the big clock on the wall and then at the stacks of files he hadn’t gotten to.
“So it is,” he said, with little respite. “Would you mind, Nurse Hepburn? I have a great deal of urgent paperwork to catch up on.”
“Yes, of course, doctor,” was her quiet reply.
“And do be careful,” he extended in warning, by the way.
“I will, doctor,” she tactfully granted.
Going to the floor to ceiling case filled with innumerable shelves of rubber stopped vials filled with colored liquid and large pill bottles, all labeled with lethal warnings, she climbed the high rolling ladder to get at the vials on the very top shelf. Even standing on the top step, she had to extend her arm fully to reach the vial she wanted. Her arm pulling her torso upward lifted her white skirt above the pristine white nylons. She stayed at the top of the ladder carefully reading the warning label. She tucked it into her uniform’s hip pocket satisfied and cautiously came down, James watching the whole time.
She bent over to get a fresh syringe from the lower half of the case and he saw that her white stockings and garters were all she wore underneath, hence her crisp, unruffled appearance. He saw more than that, wondering what a sex maniac would do in his place. It was an idle thought, the kind he had every day. There was really nothing to wonder about. Maniacs were predictable.
Standing up, she tossed a wave of blonde hair from her eyes and wound towards the door.
“Thank you, Nurse Hepburn,” he said, resuming his administrative tasks.
The nurse took a swift elevator down, the shuttle used when making rounds. It saved the medical staff time by bypassing the numerous security posts on each level. Going easily from floor to floor in the multilevel facility, it provided quick access to the lowest, most secure levels.
The gleaming door slid open and Nurse Hepburn stepped out once the car hit bottom. The inmates on this level were in permanent lockdown, monitored only by the surveillance recording their every move. They were also drugged senseless and kept in straitjackets in isolated, soundproof cells. As she walked to the last chamber of the cul-de-sac, the only sounds she heard were her high heels tapping the tiled cement floor.
Ivanov’s medication was a potent mix of mind numbing chemicals, but it can be argued that Ivan’s mind was already numb. She let herself into the uninviting lockup using an electronic identification code and was nearly overcome by the pungent stink of everything foul a body could produce. She thought the poor bastard had died, and quickening her steps walked further, her heels sliding in the relentless filth flooding the floor from the partitioned sleeping area. She was genuinely relieved to see Ivan bug-eyed and drooling, sitting up on the cement cot, firmly strapped in his sleeveless overcoat.
“How are you today, Mister Ivanov?” she asked with unwarranted civility.
Ivan had never been civil in the first place, and in the second, he suffered from such a severe case of sweats that the powerful drugs he’d been shot up with rapidly passed out of his system. Ivan’s agitated twitching caused more of the rank body fluids to spill from the slab and Hepburn had to watch her footing as she drew closer. That meant she wasn’t watching Ivan.
“Capitalist wench! You cannot keep Ivan Inavov prisoner!”
“It’s time for your medication, Mister Ivanov.” Consummate professional that she was, Nurse Hepburn ignored Ivan’s ranting. “I’m just going to loosen your straps a bit so I can give you your shot. Then we’ll get you nice and cleaned up.”
“Yes! Yes!” he cackled. No one would ever deny that Ivan was certifiable, or that he didn’t earn the certificate.
Aware the entire episode was being recorded for later review, Nurse Hepburn wanted to make a good impression on her superiors. Ivan cooperated by sitting patiently still as she went behind him and unfastened one tight buckle after another. The loosened jacket all but fell to the floor and Ivan’s arms were no longer hamstrung.
She glanced down at her side, reaching a hand in her hip pocket for the vial and syringe. “Now you just relax, Mister Iv—”
“Capitalist dog!”
Ivan’s wiry arms flew from the useless restraint and he wheeled around, jumping from the slick waste covered cement. Cold calloused fingers and hot sweaty palms crushed and twisted her delicate throat so, the sounds she made weren’t even human. Her hazel eyes turned as glassy as taxidermy, filling with blood from the pressure of his grip, her brain exploding. He was trying to tear her head off, constricting her thin neck like a flexible drinking straw. Nurse Hepburn was a vegetarian who never smoked a day in her life, the remaining oxygen trapped in her full, healthy lungs bursting outward, rupturing her stomach and tossing her guts like a Caesar salad.
He let her go when the white patent leather heels slipped in the muck and flew off her stocking feet. The legs in the silky white nylons vaulted in a cartwheel from below her devastated body’s dead weight. The body crashed to its back on the soiled cement floor. What was left of the comely blonde nurse was unrecognizable within, without, and beyond.
Bolting from the cell, Ivan tore through the echoing corridor, his pounding steps thundering around him. He slowed down lest someone be alerted to his escape. When he turned to see if anyone were behind him, he saw the open bars of the cell where he’d been held. There was no turning back, the lengthy corridor behind him a dead end leading only to the isolated cell.
Puzzled over the lack of any other people and at the same time relieved, reaching the beginning of the passage he came across the elevator with its door open as if awaiting the return of its passenger. She wasn’t coming. Obviously looking to make a quick exit, he glanced inside and saw beside the control panel the laminated instructions for operating the speedy shuttle car and had no trouble figuring out how to bring it to the main floor. Then came the unsettling realization that he was at the very bottom; literally imprisoned in a living Hell. He wasn’t unsettled long. Getting inside, he read the instructions studiously and flipped the switch and pressed the button. The door silently shut and he felt the car’s momentum as it rose hundreds of feet per second to the surface.
In a matter of moments, the car braked and the door flew open. Ivan was ready to dash out of the elevator and out of the building, whatever building it was, as fast as he possible could and had anticipated his chance, but before he could take off in a heat, a tired looking man wearing an ink smeared lab coat over a rumpled suit and tie appeared. Ivan recognized him as the doctor who’d given him several painful shots when he’d been straitjacketed and helpless in the remote underground cell. He saw the man now as the demon sent to torture him. Returning again and again, the demon would stick Ivan with pitchforks cleverly disguised as hypodermic needles, injecting strange demonic poisons that was undoubtedly pure distilled Evil. But unknown to the demon, Ivan had willed his body to rise to a temperature hotter than the flames of Hell itself, thus able to flush out of his system whatever evil the demon injected him with. Now the demon doctor stood right in front of the open elevator, seeming not even to notice him. In truth, James was exhausted and bleary eyed from staring into endless pages of legal fine print.
“Nurse Hepburn, have you any—,” James began, addressing the late blonde.
Looking past James to the other side of the institute’s large main floor, Ivan saw daylight, moving traffic, and busy streets milling with pedestrians. Rushing throngs of people were entering and leaving the building, going and coming in any number of directions through any number of entrances and exits, including a row of luminous revolving doors, sunbeams and scattered shards of rainbows in his eyes that seemed to open onto a place much like Heaven.
“Out of my way!” he shouted, throwing James out of the way and racing towards the spinning glass doors.
“Oh, my goodness!” James gasped, jarred by the absence of the pretty young nurse from the manually operated elevator.
He was jolted yet again when he fell, pushed to the floor by what could only have been the institute’s most dangerous and deranged criminal madman fleeing to freedom.
Ivan was long gone by the time James put in a call to the DA’s office.
“District attorney Bradshaw’s office,” Agnes said in her typically unwavering manner.
James however was uncharacteristically frantic.
“This is Doctor James at the Clarkson Institute! I must speak with the district attorney at once!”
“Just a moment,” she tendered as dry as sand and putting him on hold, buzzed Bradshaw in his office.
“Mister Bradshaw, Doctor James from the Clarkson Institute on the line.”
“Thank you, Agnes,” he said and picked up.
“Bradshaw here, Doctor James—has Ivanov come around?” he wished.
“Ivanov has escaped!” was the shrink’s shrill challenge.
“What! How?” Bradshaw shot from his chair, and promptly sat back down. In a way, his wish came true. If Ivanov was sharp enough to bust the place, he must have some wits about him. He didn’t have time to muddle through the logic of that, because James was chewing the line like ham.
“He strangled the nurse I sent down to administer his antipsychotic medication!”
“Strangled?” Bradshaw quietly asked, for lack of any better way to do it.
“She—she’s dead!” the hotshot headshrinker screeched.
“Dead!” Bradshaw gulped, calmly keying up to call out his dogs.
James’ concern for the attractive young nurse had overtaken his disaffected shrink routine. He was, after all, the last man to see her panties alive.
“Hurry! Oh, this is terrible! The poor woman!”
Hearing the Clarkson’s Director blubbering helped Bradshaw keep it together.
“We’ve got to stay calm, James. Ivanov is a very dangerous man.”
“I must call Doctor Drake!” James determined, stirring the DA with just Drake’s name.
“Yes, you do that,” Bradshaw agreed without a second thought. “I’ll send some of my men over to the institute immediately.”
“Oh, this is terrible!” James continued to fret.
Bradshaw dropped the receiver in its cradle and hastening from his office, squeezed past his secretary’s desk, leaving her with standing orders.
“Agnes, I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day. Forward my calls.”
“Yes, Mister Bradshaw,” she acknowledged as he rolled out of City Hall.
Special Agent Hanley’s paperwork got him and Ryan past hospital protocol, scrunching the red tape up in a little ball and tossing it.
“Hello—Tanya.”
Tanya saw the dark suits standing over her bedside and felt an eerie deja'vu.
“Who are you men?”
“Name’s Special Agent Hanley, FBI,” the fed casually informed her, “This here’s Detective Ryan with the City Police.”
“What is it you want?” she asked, suspiciously.
“Nothin’—from you, if you’re willin’ to play ball with us,” he said, as if he were choosin’ up a side’a dodge ball in’a schoolyard.
Tanya had never played dodge ball and really wondered, “Ball? What kind of ball?”
Ryan opted to answer that one, “The kind that’ll keep you from goin’ to the chair as an accessory to murder.”
“What!” That she got, and she spilled on the spot, “You are seeking Ivan and Ragoff!”
“That was easy,” the dick said with a smirk, but nothin’s easy to a fed and as far as Hanley knew, Ivan was locked up. He wanted more.
“Hold on, Ryan,” he said abruptly, taking Tanya to task, “Who is this Ragoff?”
“I will tell you nothing more! I have heard that Ivan has been captured.”
“Did you also hear that he was totally bonkers?” Ryan questioned in reply.
“Yes—I have heard this too,” she fessed.
“So, you—,” Hanley began, but was interrupted.
The head nurse had rushed from the front desk and burst wildly into the room to announce fearfully, “Agent Hanley, Detective Ryan! Ivan Ivanov has escaped from the Clarkson Institute!”
Hanley broke into a hungry sweat, “Come on, Ryan!”
“Right behind ya!”
They ran from the hospital, jumping into Ryan’s Delta 88 and drove at breakneck speed, siren and blue spinner alerting the other drivers to veer out of the gas guzzler’s way.
They met up with Bradshaw in the same lobby Ivan had taken off from, the one where Doctor James had come face to face with him. Taking up an entire city block, Clarkson had lobbies on each side of the building, each having a specific function. With annexes throughout its vicinity, the area flooded with bulls.
“What goes, Bradshaw?” the agent called out to the DA.
“Ah, Hanley. Detective Ryan,” Bradshaw hailed as they caught up to him. “I’m glad you got here so quickly. Doctor James is in his office. The man is beside himself and holds himself responsible.”
“How did it happen?” Hanley asked, watching the army of bulls examining every door in or out of the vast space.
“It appears that a nurse had gone alone down to Ivanov’s cell to give him an injection. She had to partially remove the straitjacket in order to administer the needle. Ivanov used the opportunity to seize the woman by the throat and throttle her to death.
He then came to up the main floor in the shuttle elevator where he surprised Doctor James and shoving the doctor aside, ran from the building, disappearing into the street.”
“So that lunatic is loose?” Ryan posed incredulously.
Bradshaw’s reply was straightforward, “That he is.”
Feeling flustered, the captain snatched off his fedora and hurled it to the floor, spitting vindictively, “If that don’t beat all—just when we get a lead!”
“A lead? What lead?” Bradshaw edged his man.
Ryan went into it, but downheartedly and without making it seem all that significant. “Ah, Ivanov’s girl threw us another name. What was that name, Hanley?” he barely remembered to ask.
Hanley filled in the name, but kept the story slight, “Ragoff or somethin’ like that. Sounds like another Russian.”
Despite their off-putting demeanor, Bradshaw was interested.
“Ragoff, eh? Well, we’ve got the two in the morgue. This is a fourth—besides the girl in the hospital.”
“Yeh, but we’re no closer to catchin’ ‘im—and now Ivanov’s busted out,” Ryan bore out.
“Think your shrink friend can track ‘im down, Bradshaw?” Hanley opted.
“That’s not his line—but I know of someone whose line it certainly is,” the DA hinted amiably.
. I’d left Ragoff’s wrists tied with one of Petra’s stockings, unarmed and the fingers of his right hand blown off. After Carla and I vanished the way we came, the beefy Petra lifted him to his feet and forcibly shoved him out the door. Pathetically weak and with no menace left in him, he staggered down the six flights to the street and agonizingly walked away, his torn hand steadily spilling blood. He’d gone several blocks barely on his feet, ducking instinctively into an alley at the sound of a siren’s urgent whine and brightly colored spinning light. From the shadows he watched as an ambulance sped by, and emerging from the dark alley saw that it had come from the hospital just on the edge of Little Siberia. He was attracted to the glaring ER sign like a moth to a flame, not even realizing that the staff wouldn’t know or care what was happening in the insular neighborhood or the larger Russian community. Nastasia Sonovavich would simply be a name in the headlines and they were probably unfamiliar with Igor’s nightclub, again apart from being a passing news item as the scene of a robbery and violent murder. Gypsies would be virtually unknown to them.
Leaving a sloppy trail of blood with every halting step, Ragoff threw himself into one of the uncomfortable plastic seats beside the triage intake desk, saying nothing while the nurse took note of his substantial injuries. He waited while she hurriedly left her station to go scare up the surgeon on duty. The surgeon was watching the late news and eating cold pizza in the doctors’ lounge when she came in and made the situation known.
“Doctor, I have a patient whose hand has been severely wounded by a gunshot.”
The surgeon was an affable Midwesterner to whom such things, which he thought typical of life in the city, were fascinating.
“Let’s have a look at him,” he said nonchalantly, leaving his slab of pizza.
Ragoff had used cast off newspaper to stanch the bleeding and it wasn’t really working. He was covered with blood, his clothes in tatters, his body scarred and aching. The doctor came into the waiting room, sat across from him and tried to be as pleasant as he could stand looking at such a wretch.
“Sir, my name is Doctor Jackson. I’m the surgeon on duty. Why don’t you tell how you come to find yourself in this predicament?”
“I will tell you nothing!” Ragoff grunted, glaring crazily.
“I see.”
Jackson got up and went to the intake desk, saying softly to the nurse, “I think you’d better contact the police. They may be very interested in this fellow.”
“Yes, doctor.”
It wasn’t the thick Russian accent or the blatant lunacy in Ragoff’s twitching face that alerted Jackson. It was what he had seen on the news about the escaped inmate from the Clarkson Institute. Ragoff didn’t fit Ivan’s description, but there was no point in taking needless chances. The man in the waiting area’s fingers had been blown off with a bullet. That was enough to make the doctor wary. Perhaps the two were partners. Thinkin’ like that, the doc could’ve been a detective.
To keep Ragoff from taking off, Jackson went back and took the seat next to him.
“Let’s have a look at that hole in you,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching for the fingerless palm lathered blackish red with blood and grime.
Ragoff reeled his paw away, clutching it like a baby, and shouting, “Get away! I do not wish to be here!”
“No, but it’s a good thing you are. You’ve already lost a lot of blood and you’re still losing it, so I’m going to rush you into surgery before you lose it all, in case you have any doubt as to your future.”
“Future? What future?” Ragoff demanded, holding his hand close, getting more blood on himself and everything around him.
“My point exactly. You may not like the idea, but I intend to save your life.”
“No—!”
Seizing the mangled paw to get a better look at the damage, Jackson was surprised to see the Russian’s wrists lashed together with the tightly knotted stocking that was preventing the hand from bleeding more than it already was, which was plenty.
“What’s this—your hands are tied,” he uttered astonished, and called out, “Nurse, prepare a sedative immediately. I think our guest needs to rest.”
“Aah, good evening, Miss Livingstone,” the concierge had reason to sigh.
“Good evening, Martin,” she said, giving the candle lit room an icy once over.
“Your table is waiting. Right this way,” the penguin suited fey said, ushering us through the room crowed with tables of fancy dressed couples dining on chopped liver.
The leggy redhead didn’t need a reservation at the swanky bistro. I was right next to her, but was so much chopped liver myself. It was Joanna they were trippin’ over themselves for. She brought the place up a few notches and was quickly seated at the most prominent table in the joint.
“Here we are.” He scraped and bowed, holding her chair out.
“Thank you, Martin,” she said, but acted like he was invisible.
I managed to sit down all by myself and used the centerpiece candle to light my smoke.
“Will there be only the two of you?”
He gave me the eye like I’d care that he’d seen classier acts.
“Yes,” she said, still about as warm as an Eskimo’s icebox, but he was okay with that. The tip she’d leave behind would warm him up like he’d gone to Hell for the climate.
“May I start you off with drinks?”
“Yes. I’ll have a whisky sour,” she said.
“Sir?”
“Gimme a smooth whisky double.”
“Very good.”
The guy scurried away with our drink orders and as soon as he was gone, Joanna turned to me, her eyes melting.
“Duke, I’m sorry I was cross with you earlier.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“I’m glad you’re not holding it against me. I know you have a lot on your mind.”
“That’s true, but I can’t blame you for any of it—I don’t think.”
Her eyes lit up through the hovering smoke over the candle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she responded, the red lips curling into a crimson snarl.
“Well, you did get me mixed up in the whole Catherine thing—not that I mind. Eighty million bucks is nothin’ to sneeze at.”
“Hmph. I’m glad you can see the bright side,” she retorted snippily.
“That’s the bright side all right.”
Slender red tipped fingers brushed fallen hair from her face and she put on a flinty visage like a pale freckled mask and asked, “Just how to you intend to go about finding her?”
“That’s business. We didn’t come here to discuss that.”
“No—but Alexandra Korda is going to be filling in on Catherine’s column and I’m sure she’ll have some very loud speculating to do.”
“Let her. I don’t know Korda from a brick, so as long as she doesn’t get in my way, she can write anything she likes.”
“Do you think Bradshaw has anything yet?” she asked, warming up again.
“Here come our drinks,” I said, seeing the waiter mincing over with the tray.
I was somewhat enjoying her hot and cold routine, as long as the night ended with a scorcher.
“Oh—,” she clammed up as he placed the whiskies in front of us.
“Whisky sour for the lady. Whisky double for you, sir.”
“Thanks.” Lifting my glass, I swirling it over the candle so I could see the small flame dance around in the liquid, and said by way of making a toast, “Here’s to finding Catherine.”
She brought her glass up too, and smiling imperceptibly, replied, “Thank you, Duke. Here’s to you finding Catherine.”
“That’s right,” I agreed, corrected. “That hunk’a change is sure gonna feel good in my pocket.”

Bradshaw had his hands full. He was in his office sitting with Hanley, their heads surrounded by cigar smoke as they hashed out a plan. The press was already sniffing around and the morning headlines were gonna be screamin’ about the gruesome murder at the institute. That was bad enough—but the fed’s involvement and the supposed link to Catherine Kennedy’s disappearance made for a particularly noisy mess.
“This could be the break we’re lookin’ for, Bradshaw,” Hanley said with as straight a face as he could, the smoke billowing from every hole in his head.
“You must be joking, Hanley. Ivanov is an out of control lunatic,” the DA judged rightly, “He might go on a killing spree!”
“Yeh, but he might also lead us to Catherine Kennedy,” the agent muttered in an official hush.
“I’m aware of that—but that doesn’t make the current situation any less critical.”
Bradshaw was so upset he didn’t care when Hanley tapped ash from the cheroot to the floor, besides, Hanley’s gums were makin’ the only breeze in the room.
“Sure, I hear all that, but the bureau isn’t prepared to move until Ivanov reveals something like the Kennedy dame’s whereabouts.”
“That’s absurd!” Bradshaw huffed.
“We all have our priorities, Bradshaw,” the agent remarked, waving his hand to clear the smoke then giving up. “You’ve assigned men to the Kennedy case, so let’s better work together.”
“I have nothing so far that ties Ivanov to Kennedy,” Bradshaw gave with the fact, determinedly chewing his root.
“He must be tied in somewhere—as part of a conspiracy.”
“That’s altogether speculative. My first priority is getting the man off the streets and back into the mental hospital!”
“Like I said, we all have our priorities,” Hanley sighed, expelling smoke. “We can capture him, but he’s no good to us if he don’t squawk.”
“I’d say right about now Ivanov is no good to anyone—not even himself.”
“Yes, this is Nurse Hopper at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Yes. I’ve just admitted a man suffering from a gunshot wound—not fatal, but certainly incapacitating. He has a heavy foreign accent and the doctor thinks he may have been involved in some kind of crime. Yes. He’s very agitated. Could you hurry over, please? Thank you.”
Ivan had at one time been making time with the flame haired waitress from Igor’s and he turned up at her door.
“Ivan! What—what’s happened to you?”
“The capitalist fools thought they could keep the great Ivan Ivanov prisoner!”
He smirked and strutted, oblivious to her alarming distress. She followed him into the bedroom where he kept prancing, getting a look at himself in the mirror.
“Ivan, I have heard terrible things! Ragoff—,” she kept up.
“The traitor! Do not mention his name in my presence!”
He had a vision of himself as king of the world. Elana saw the disheveled, blood smeared bum that was actually in front of her.
“But, Ivan, you must listen! Ragoff killed Father Moishe and is now wanted by the police!”
“Father Moishe?” Ivan asked, unimpressed. “Another traitor to our people,” he pronounced.
“Why would Vladimir do such a thing?” she badgered worrisomely.
“Perhaps to show that he is still on the side of the revolution. I do not know,” he shrugged, catching sight of her flushed bare body in the mirror.
“Revolution? What revolution is this?” she puzzled impatiently.
“I struck the first blow by killing Sonovavitch. Ragoff has struck the second,” he explained dispassionately, drawn to her perspiring gooseflesh.
“Ivan, you speak like one gone mad.” Elana wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she was catching on.
“So, you think I am mad? It was Carla who summoned the demon to oppose us—but even a beast from Hell could not stop us!”
“Ivan, you frighten me with your talk of demons,” She stressed.
“There, there, babushka,” he cooed, putting his arms around her and his hands all over her. “All will be well once we have destroyed the West!”
She shuddered in the embrace and glanced up at his distant distracted gaze.
“Ivan, you must see a doctor! You are not well!”
While Ivan was continuing to imagine his vendetta against the ‘West’, whatever that meant—his buddy Ragoff had troubles of his own…
“Nurse Hopper? Captain Detective Ryan. This here’s my partner Detective O’Neill.”
“This way, detectives. Doctor Jackson had me administer a heavy sedative so he could remove the bullet that shattered the man’s fingers. It went through his hand and lodged in his thigh,” she explained, leading them to the OR recovery room.
“So he’s knocked out?” O’Neill was asking as Jackson came through the doors.
“At the moment yes,” Jackson answered. “And I can’t say what will happen when he comes to—the poor fellow doesn’t seem to be in his right mind.”
“Uh-huh. Well, he ain’t no good to us put to sleep,” Ryan grumbled.
“Yeah, well he’s pretty useless off his nut too. That’s just like the other bird,” O’Neill griped.
“Other bird?” Jackson queried curiously, nursing his own suspicions.
“Yeah. We think this character is in with the nut over at Clarkson. You said your guy had an accent.”
“Yes.”
“Could you place it?”
“Hmmm, yes, now that I think about it, I believe so. From his phrasing I’d say it was Eastern European, perhaps Russian.”
“Yep. The other bird’s named Ivanov. They could be from the same burg. I’m thinkin’ your guy wasn’t too forthcomin’ with his name or anything else.”
“That’s also correct—oh, but he did go under the anesthesia screaming about a demon of some sort. He said it was the demon that shot him.”
“Oh, brother,” Ryan sighed heavily. “Look, doc, we’ll put a uniform on the guy. Call the DA’s office as soon as he comes to, would ya?”
“I certainly will. I’m sure this fellow could be quite dangerous if left to his own devises,” Jackson gravely voiced.
“There’s no doubt about that,” O’Neill made plain.
The detectives returned to their car, assured that the second Russian was out of action for the time being.
“Jeez, no sooner than one nut turns up, the other flies the coop,” Ryan complained to his partner.
“How’re we supposed to keep track o’vem?” O’Neill seriously wondered, turning over the Delta’s engine.
“Let’s head back to City Hall. Maybe somebody’s gotta lead on Ivanov by now.”
“Sure.”
Joseph and Cotton were waiting in the squad room.
“So what’s the story over St. Vincent’s?” Joseph asked when they came in.
Ryan took a seat on the edge of the bare desk and pulled a smoke from his pocket.
“The doc’s got the guy knocked out. We got Miller watchin’ for when he comes around.”
“Anything come up when you looked into that passport?” Cotton inquired, bringing the captain a match and lighting up a butt of his own.
“Thanks,” Ryan said, taking a long pull on the Chesterfield 100. “Nada. The guy at the travel bureau showed us a dozen photos of Catherine Kennedy—an’ everyone a’vem looked like she’d had another slice taken out of her. She’s like Frankenstein in reverse—instead of gettin’ stuff put on, she gets it chopped off.”
“Maybe she got the final cut an’ there’s nothin’ left,” speculated Cotton.
“That’d be fine if we could find a few of the pieces she left behind,” O’Neill imagined, the morbid thought in consequence sparking Cotton to an idea.
“Hey! Why don’t we look up her plastic surgeon an’ see if any of ‘er’s lyin’ around?”
You’s’re startin’ to sound like them Russky nut jobs—but I’ll say this, yer onto somethin’,” Ryan said, jumping from the desk and smashing the butt into it. “Yeah. We’re gonna look up her plastic surgeon. He may be the one guy that can answer questions truthfully about that broad.”
Dinner long over, Joanna and I ignored our deserts for a little hand holdin’ an’ a heart to heart. I had her hand in mine while she played like a palm reader, but while she ran her finger along my lifeline, she was tellin’ me about Catherine.
“Catherine and I attended the same boarding school. She was older and a few grades ahead of me, but when we got to know each other better, we became fast friends. She was always writing in her journal and I was always looking for fun things to do—I guess we got attached to one another because I liked to do things that were fun for her to write about.”
“A natural reporter even then, eh?”
“I guess you could say that, yes,” she uttered bashfully.
“Then what are the chances she took it on the lam to chase a story?”
”Oh, Catherine was never that type of reporter. She always stuck to the party scene where she knew everyone, and everyone knew everyone.”
“Is that right? Well, maybe she got to thinkin’ it was time to go after bigger fish.”
“Duke Brady, what’s going through that brain of yours?”
Her gray eyes flickered impishly, trying to read my mind. The waiter had brought a fresh candle and an ashtray because I’d light a cigarette and let it smolder forgotten.
“Not much—,” I said, seeing the dusty heap of ashes and deciding to lighten the subject.
“But we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Let’s just enjoy the rest of tonight.”
That might have made her wary, but she grinned and brought her speckled face closer, wrinkling her pug nose and puckering her lips. I squeezed her hand so she’d get that it wasn’t Catherine I was thinkin’ about.
“Duke Brady—what have you got on your mind?”
She knew.
The concierge appeared with the waiter by his side. They both looked ecstatic for no reason and the lead penguin loosed a gleeful, “Champagne?”
He popped the cork and the foamy spray made a decorous mess of the stuff that the waiter caught in crystal flue. There was more Champagne and Joanna and I ended up having a blast.
When the sun woke me up, I was lying under chenille sheets.
“Good morning, sleeping head.”
She was done up in red, white and blue all right. That is, the lingerie was blue and her lips were red.
“Oh, baby—!”
“Do I make you feel patriotic?”
“You got me at attention, if that’s what you mean.”
I tried sitting up but it was hard with a wooden leg.
“Do you feel like serving your country?”
“What’d my country ever do for me?”
She was standing across the room and sashayed over in her bare feet, the frizzy hair on her head obscuring her face as she climbed beneath the baby blue sheets into the sack with me.
“Who said ‘ask not what your country can do for you?’” she quizzed.
“A dead president.”
“Do you know which one?”
“K—say, what are you gettin’ at?”
“Would you rather fool around or go and find Catherine?”
“What do you think?”
“There’s more than one dead president, you know—in fact, as I recall, there were eighty million of them.”
“Joanna—!”
“But you have to find her first.”
“I can’t pull her out of my backside!”
“Well, you certainly won’t pull her out of mine!”
She was right, of course and rolled over turning her bare backside to me. It was an invitation I hadn’t resisted yet, ‘sides I needed to do somethin’ with that wooden leg.
“We’ll see about that!”
So I did.
“Oh—oh Duke! No—Oh! Oh!”
She didn’t see where I put it, but she wasn’t all that surprised.
Sarah snapped up the receiver before the phone could ring twice. You’da thought it was the thousand dollar bonus I’d given her puttin’ a spring in her step.
“Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“I must speak to Duke right away!”
“I’m sorry, he’s not—”
Carla’s voice was filled with so much dread Sarah didn’t recognize it. It’s a good thing I dragged myself in about that time.
“Duke! Where ya been? The phone’s been ringin’ off the hook all mornin’!”
“I’ll take it,” I groaned, not caring who it was. “Hello? Duke Brady—”
“Duke! It is Carla!”
I snapped out of my hangover on the spot.
“Carla!”
“Have you heard about Ivan?”
“No, uh—I’ve been kind of busy,” I mumbled, sort of truthfully. “What about him?”
“He has escaped!”
“Is this one’a your psychic visions?” I said, honestly not buyin’ it right off.
“Hardly,” she answered indignantly. “It was on the news this morning.”
“Oh, uh, is that right?”
“Yes. I suppose you were very busy.”
“Yeh, that’s right,” I said, deciding to stay blasé about it. I pulled a smoke from my pack and torched it up. ”Sarah, who else called this morning?”
“I got it right here,” she said and proudly held up the messages she’d taken. I took notice. It was rare enough. “Bradshaw an’ Doctor Drake.”
“Drake?” That gave me a bigger jolt than Ivan takin’ it on the limb.
“Okay, Carla, ya got me. I know you can see right through me,” I yielded the gypsy her due. With the thought of gettin’ serious, I told Carla I had a few phone calls to catch up on and to come to my office as soon as she could.
“I shall see you shortly,” she granted.
“Fine. See ya then.”
I was set to hang up when her voice pealed in my head like she was right beside me. “Oh, Duke—”
I brought the phone back to my ear and said, “Yeh?”
“Why don’t you pick up a newspaper? There is something else you would be interested to know.”
“Sure I will. Good-bye.” I hung up for real this time. “Sarah, run down an’ grab the morning Chronicle, will ya?”
“I got it right here, Duke,” she squealed, laying the rag of choice out on her desk.
“Is everybody psychic?” I groused, flippin’ the tabloid’s inky pages. “Let’s see.
Aw, jeez.”
“What’sa matter, boss?”
“They’ve have got Ragoff under police guard at St. Vincent’s Hospital. He won’t give with his name, but the way they spell it out here, the guy came in last night with the fingers of his right hand shot to pieces. They suspect that he’s linked to a string of murders and armed robberies, including the shooting death of the Russian ambassador.
That’s Ragoff all right.”
“Sounds like the bulls are doin’ their jobs for a change,” Sarah commented spitefully.
“Let’s not give ‘em brownie points just yet. I shot him myself. If that meatball Ivan finds out about this, he’ll go after Ragoff an’ try to dust ‘im for sure.”
“What’re ya gonna do, Duke?”
“What am I gonna—?”
The phone jangled on its hooks again with Sarah pouncing on it.
“Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“This is Doctor Drake. Is Brady in yet?”
Her manner calmed suddenly and she leaned back at her desk, “Sure he is.” She dangled the receiver on her crooked finger, saying, “It’s Drake.”
I lifted it to my ear, sayin’, “What’s up, doc?”
“Duke! Glad I caught you in. Do you know about this man Ivanov?”
“Ivan—the one who busted out of the Clarkson Institute.”
“That’s the one.”
“He’s dangerous.”
“That he is—he’s also stark raving mad,” Drake added, by way of the obvious.
“That’s your department.”
“That it is, but I was hoping we could work together to apprehend him.”
“We just may be able to do that,” I said hopefully, the hope being that he had a hellava lot more than I did at the moment. All I had was the gypsy girl. “What have you got on your end?”
“Are you aware that a Russian priest was murdered two days ago?”
“Er, I may have heard somethin’ like that.”
“I have the strong feeling that that shooting also ties to Ivanov, but since he was already being held in Clarkson at the time, I’m thinking it was this other man, the one they’ve got in custody at St. Vincent’s.”
“Yeah, I, uh, just read about that in the Chronicle.”
“It’s a good chance that that man was one of Ivanov’s gang. I’d like to talk with him. I’ve already spoken to Doctor Jackson at St. Vincent’s and he says the man is delirious—keeps going on about being pursued by a demon.”
“A demon, eh? Sounds like that bird’s as out of his tree as Ivanov.”
“Yes and what are the chances that they would share the same delusion?”
“You tell me, doc, you’re the shrink.”
“Er, yes—well, I’ll tell you, it’s highly unlikely.”
“Are you sayin’ there might be somethin’ to it?”
“What—oh, uh, I can’t say that. I mean, a demon? Really. But there may be some slim basis in fact that we’re not aware of.”
“Okay, Drake. What’a ya wanna do about it?”
“I thought we could meet at St. Vincent’s.”
“That’s a possibility, but I’m waitin’ on an appointment right now.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m headed to the hospital anyway. Why don’t we try to run into each other later in the day?”
“That’d be swell, doc. I’ll see ya later on.”
“Okay, Brady. I’ll see you later.”
I slammed the receiver and almost broke it. Drake was no piker. How could he not clue to the load’a malarkey I’d handed ‘im. I was playin’ my cards so close to the vest, I’d have to unbutton my shirt to read ‘em.
“Jeez, what I won’t do for a buck.”
“Ethically challenged again?” said the little model of efficiency that may or may not have been my secretary.
“Where’d you learn a word like ‘ethics’?”
“Not around here, that’s for sure.”
“That’s right. I’ve got a real problem. I’m gettin’ a wad to scare up Catherine Kennedy, an’ all I keep comin’ up against is crazy Ivan. I’ve gotta put that guy out of business for good.”
The knock at the office door seemed to come in response to my quandary.
“I’ll get it—,” Sarah determined, hastening to her feet, but I was closer to the door.
“No. I will.” It was a no-brainer who it was.
I opened the door and Carla moseyed in like a girl without a care.
“You look like a worried man,” she said, meaning the comment to be highly perceptive, but even Sarah, typically as obtuse as a 2x4 had picked up on my distress.
“Everybody’s got troubles. Come in my office.”
Passing Sarah’s desk, she saw the newspaper open to the lurid interconnecting accounts.
“You have seen the Chronicle, I see.”
“Yep. Thanks for the tip. They’ve got Ragoff alright—right where Ivan can get at him.”
I ushered her to my inner office and shut the door.
“Have a seat.”
Running her palms over her curvy backside, smoothing the frilly pink miniskirt before taking the weight off, she as always tucked her lengthy stems beneath her.
“I had this thought myself,” she disclosed.
“I was thinkin’ we’d head ‘im off by gettin’ to St. Vincent’s first, but I just got a call from a shrink friend who’s got the inside dope. Ivan’s completely bonkers an’ liable to do anything.”
“What do you imagine to be the cause of his madness?”
“Hard to say,” I purposed, lighting a smoke. “Whatever it is, Ragoff’s got the same bug. Drake’s gonna try to psychoanalyze ‘im an’ get to the bottom of it.”
“Drake?”
“The shrink I just mentioned. I’ve worked with him before. He knows his stuff.”
“A—psy—chiatrist?” she stammered, her olive face turning ashen.
“Now you look worried. Why’s that?”
“Oh—nothing,” she said weakly, lowering her eyes by dropping her heavy-lids and steering clear of my gaze.
I whistled smoke and watched it curl into the air.
“Spill, Carla. With you it’s never ‘nothing’. You gotta complex too?”
“No, no, it’s just that—,” she faintly began. But I cut her off when I remembered who the shrink was, and in particular what my own couch was for.
“Why don’t we head over to St. Vincent’s and meet up with Doctor Drake? He may tell us something even you don’t know.”
As soon as we left, the phone chimed again, Sarah aggrieved at actually earning her dough, “Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“This is district attorney Bradshaw calling again. Has Brady come in yet?”
“He just left.”
“Just—did you tell him that I called earlier?”
“Yep. But he had’a run to a meetin’.”
“Oh—uh, well then when he gets back, would you have him get in touch with my office? It’s very urgent.”
“Sure thing.”
“Ah, Doctor Drake! I’m so glad you could make it on such short notice,” Jackson said, greeting Drake with manifest relief. Drake was the one guy who could collect the pieces a nut had fallen into.
“Hello, Jackson. I only hope there’s something I can do to help the fellow. Dealing with extreme mental illness can be very difficult. What has he been saying?”
“Saying? Oh, he’s still ranting about demons—but less so since his surgery. I expect being permitted to rest quietly in the ICU has eased his mind a bit.”
Drake nodded, concurring with the surgeon's insight.
“That’s a useful observation. Even in his deluded state, he may sense there’s less chance of harm coming to him here in the hospital. That should make it easier for me to work with him.”
“I hope so. We’re not equipped to deal with such patients—and the police are itching to drag him off to jail.”
“Getting shot may be the best thing that’s happened to him. If he winds up needing follow-up surgery, he’ll simply be shuttled between the hospital and the sanitarium and never see the inside of a prison cell.”

Elana had the treatment to sooth Ivan’s nerves, or at least one ov’em. The musky odor of their spent zeal still strong in her nostrils, Elana got up from the bed and crossed the room, throwing open the cramped bedroom’s only window. As naked as God made her, she folded her arms on the windowsill, peering onto the lively street below. Up and down the block, children played noisily in the gutter watched over from stoops by their stern, smiling nanas. Lights were starting to come up in apartments along the low-slung brick row as the sky darkened with the sunset. The nanas were calling out affectionate and familiar Russian phrases to bring the children inside and she turned to see him still lying naked, steeped in sweat atop the sheets in disarray. The fading sunlight through the window did nothing to dispel the muted gloom.
The deep shadows emerging from every corner appeared to take his sleeping body in the fingers of a giant black fist. She shuddered as a fathomless dread washed over her from the top of her tousled redhead to the ends of her chipped, painted toenails. She was unable to dismiss the undefined fear but she tried. Grabbing the pack of from the bedside table, Elana torched up one of the imported Russian smokes. Shuddering to her bones from a freezing sweat, she huffed at the harsh tobacco and thought it best to distract her mind. Going to her bureau she flipped on the small black and white set. In the few seconds time it would take to warm up, she crawled back into bed to watch whatever came on. The tube’s hazy picture arrived abruptly, bringing with it the set’s blasting volume.
Ivan awakened just as suddenly and sat up at the sound of the booming announcer’s voice proclaiming the start of the Evening News. She reached over to snuggle with the newly agitated lunatic, but intent on the fuzzy screen, he was no longer interested in her.
“This is Robert Roberts of WXYZ news. I’m standing outside of St. Vincent’s Hospital where police have assigned a twenty-four guard to one of the men suspected in the fatal shooting of newly appointed Russian ambassador Nastasia Sonovavitch.
The man, thought to be of Russian origin, has not been identified as of yet, but is suspected to be one of the gang of gun wielding thieves currently sought in connection with a string of murders, including the brutal gunning down of a beloved Russian Orthodox priest in the predominantly Russian enclave of the city known as Little Siberia.”
Ivan’s mind filled with vendettas against people he hadn’t even met as he leapt from the sack. He’d come to her for any number of reasons, sex being the least of them. There was money, vodka, cigarettes, a place to rest and hideout, and in the bureau’s bottom drawer, neatly pressed and folded slacks and clean shirts. Rapt with curiosity she watched him dress quickly and bolt for the door.
“Ivan, where are you going? You are not well!”
“Did you not hear? They have captured Ragoff!”
“Listen—!” she shouted, pointing to the set.
He stopped his fevered movement and listened as the reporter followed up on the story,
“The suspect was admitted to the hospital ranting that he’d been chased by a mysterious demon—going so far as to claim that the demon had shot him.”
“The demon!” Ivan cried out, unnerved.
“What is this demon?”
“A creature from Hell the witch Carla called forth to destroy us! It has already killed Vanya and Sergei.”
“Ivan, how can you say such things? That is madness!”
“So you think us mad too?”
Ivan was fed up with being called mad. Only his enemies called him that. Hadn’t he confronted the demon in the gypsy’s parlor and even taken a few shots at it. It was very convenient to call someone mad when you were against all that they stood for.
“Do not tell me that you too are a traitor!”
Enraged to distraction he hurled himself at her, propelling a viciously backhand that caved in the side of her face, the force so intense she lost sensation in every muscle and her body toppled backward, stunned numb. A shard of smashed cheekbone jutted through her eye and for a second she saw his snarling face through a film of blood. To stop her useless flailing, he spread her arms out and pinned them under his knotty knees.
“No, Ivan, no!” she screamed, but the plea was all in her head.
She would’ve sworn her spindly, rubber legs were running in place, but she was kicking wildly. Her legs thrashing uncontrollably got tangled in the clammy sheets. She was realizing that the inexplicable dread she’d felt hadn’t come without reason. The opaque red she saw would be the last thing she’d ever see.
She heard him grunting and panting, “All—traitors—must—die!” as he doggedly choked the life out of her. She thought she could hear game show music coming from the set. The volume roared, but she couldn’t be sure what show it was.
I parked my heap blocks away from St. Vincent’s and Carla and I smoked on the walk over. We both stopped and got a load of the screaming pressboys jumpin’ for a scoop like minnow.
“Willya lookit that mob’a reporters. How is Ivan gonna get past them, let alone the Johns?”
“Ivan will not come,” she intoned.
“How’s that?”
“I fear his hands have fresh blood on them.”
“That’s just swell. Well, Doc Drake’s already inside. I wonder what he’s up to.”
Jackson escorted Drake to the ICU. The female PO’s shift ended and the detective named Shlomo took over guarding the prisoner. Propped back in a chair and dozing, Shlomo was on the case, if not on the ball.
“Detective Shlomo,” Jackson said, “Doctor Drake is here to see the patient.”
The rumpled dick climbed to his feet, barely erect.
“Drake? Bradshaw know about this?”
“Why don’t you call him and tell him about it? I’m going to analyze the patient,” Drake bluntly informed him.
“Analyze? He’s nuts, ain’t he? What’s to analyze?”
“Detective, please allow me to do my job.”
“Lemme clear it with the DA first, doc. I don’t wan’ nothin’ happen’n on my watch.”
“Fine. You do that.”
The fat bull went to the payphone in the hall and Drake went in to where Ragoff lay cuffed to the bed.
“Detective Shlomo on the line, sir.”
“Hello? Shlomo?”
“Yeah, boss. I got’s th’ Doc Drake wantin’s to go an’ psycho-analyze the prisoner. Z’at okay wit’you?”
“Yes, detective, but keep a close watch. This case is too important for anything to go wrong. I’ll phone special agent Hanley and send him over. If Drake gets anything out of the suspect, I want Hanley to be there as a witness.
“Ah-kay dat, boss.”
We didn’t get far. The snoops came out’a nowhere. The photoflashes flooding us with hot light as the chattering pack of newshounds rushed us sticking out their live mikes.
“Look! It’s Duke Brady! Duke!”
“Duke, when are you going to bust the case of the Russian murder ring wide open?”
“Duke, we cannot stay here,” the gypsy buzzed in my ear from behind, hidden from their eyes.
The preening blonde reporter turned to the cameras to make with an exclusive, “Noted hypnotherapist Doctor John Drake went into St. Vincent’s only moments ago and now we’ve managed to catch up with successful private eye Duke Brady.
Duke, what are the chances Drake will get the Russian to confess?”
“Come on. Let’s go.” I said, and we took off through the mob.
“Duke! Duke!”
Jackson brought Drake to Ragoff’s bedside.
“He’s rather feisty, Drake, even in his condition. Besides the sedatives and hand-cuffs, we’ve also had to strap him down.”
“Good morning. My name is Doctor Drake,” Drake said placidly to the struggling loon.
Ragoff’s only response was, “Aaagh—ghaaa!”
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Drake inclined.
Letting Drake get down to work, Jackson left him with the patient.
Coming out of the room he nodded to Shlomo, who fingered Jackson to the fed.
“My name’s Hanley, Federal,” the agent said with a flash of wallet ID. “I understand that the man in there has been implicated in the murder of the Russian ambassador.”
“Doctor Drake is in with him now,” Jackson drawled blandly.
“Drake? Bradshaw told me about him. He’s a shrink.”
“The best. He’s attempting to penetrate the patient’s delusory state.”
“That boy don’t need his head shrunk, he needs a good workin’ over.”
“I’m sure that won’t help any.”
“What do you know?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“Lemme at ‘em!”
Hanley tried bustin’ past Jackson, who was Kansas Varsity and couldn’t be budged.
“Sir, please!”
Drake emerged from the room at the sound of the agent being body blocked.
“What’s going on out here? I have to concentrate in order for the session to be effective.”
“My name’s Hanley, Drake. FBI. I’m here to solve a murder.”
“I think that’s what we’re all trying to do, Hanley. What’s your point?”
“My point is I wanna talk to that guy.”
“I can assure you there won’t be any point in that,” Drake told him flatly.
“We’ll see about that.”
“Would you like to speak to him with or without restraints?”
“Restraints?”
“He’s violently insane. We can lock you in there with him if you like.”
“Drake!” Jackson howled, astonished.
“It’s all right, Jackson. It may do the patient good to get a little exercise.”
“I—see. Then we should remove the, uh—”
“Yes, and administer a shot to bring him fully awake. I’m sure Hanley wouldn’t have him any other way.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll, ah, go get the orderlies. We’ll have the patient ready in a few moments.”
“Thank you, Doctor Jackson.”
Jackson walked off with a snicker as Drake played the fed like a puppet, “And Hanley, I’d appreciate it if you removed your weapon.”
“My gun?”
“That’s right. Remember the man has been shot. You won’t get anywhere if he perceives you as a threat.”
“But I am a threat!”
“Remove it or you won’t get anywhere’s near him.”
“Oh, all right.” Hanley griped as he stripped off the firearm, handing it off to poker puss Shlomo.
“Fine. You could really be doing him a lot of good.”
“How’sat?”
“By giving him someone to play with.”
“I ain’t gonna play with ‘im.”
“That’s what you think.”
“You’re an odd duck, Drake.”
“We will go to Father Moishe’s church,” she suggested, as we left the reporters to chase their tails.
“Why’s that?”
“Moishe was the first to befriend us when we arrived in America.”
“Us?”
“Madam Sukova, myself, and the others.”
“The others?”
“Ivan’s brother Igor and many others.”
“My Jag’s just up the street. So you’re a bunch of church going gypsies.”
“You say that with derision.”
“‘Cause I don’t get it. Madam Sukova, you, Ivan, and this Father Moishe.”
“We are all very different from one another, no?”
She tossed me an offhand smile, brushing thick black hair from her almond eyes.
“You’re different, all right.”
We got to the Jag as squad cars and even more reporters raced towards St. Vincent’s.
I started the engine and drove off as Carla began telling me her story.
“In our country we were very poor. The State took everything we had, leaving us with nothing. Father Moishe had come to America and wrote to my grandmother, the woman you know as Madam Sukova, and told her how wonderful things were in America.
How everyone was free to follow their dreams and desires—to love, and to make money, to speak their minds. It sounded magnificent, and soon my grandmother was making plans to immigrate to your country. To do this she read fortunes, attracting wealthy clients with her uncanny insight into the Unknown.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We soon had more than enough money, but Madam Sukova was not greedy and when Igor asked her to loan him the money to open a nightclub, she readily supplied it. He owned a small cafe in Minsk, but when he wanted to open a nightclub there, he found himself faced with gangsters demanding to be paid off. Igor resented this greatly and refused, but when gangsters came to shut him down, it was Ivan and Ragoff who faced them down in the street. There was much bloodshed.
Ivan, Ragoff and Vanya were former soldiers, well skilled in fighting and they killed many of the gangsters easily, but the corrupt officials whom the gangsters had in their pockets had them arrested. Madam Sukova made a deal with the officials that should they be released, we would all leave the country immediately.
So we came to America. Igor opened up his nightclub here and Madam Sukova resumed her fortune telling with letters of introduction from her wealthy patrons in Russia. As for Ivan and the others…”
“They had gotten the taste of blood and easy money and wanted more.”
“Yes.”
We pulled past an old stone cathedral, the dark stained glass cut with wan, saintly figures.
“This is Father Moishe’s church.”
“Where’s he get his dough?”
“Excuse me?”
“This is an Orthodox cathedral. Somebody’s payin’ to maintain it—or does Father Moishe read palms too?”
“I—I do not know what you mean.”
“I mean there’s a reason Ivan bumped off the Russian ambassador and why Ragoff felt he had to blow down the priest. What’s the connection? Why did Madam Sukova decide to throw in with Ivan? Whatever game your people are playing is collapsing in on itself. Can’t you see that?”
“Oh, Duke—”
She couldn’t say any else, maybe she didn’t want to—or maybe it’s because she choked up cryin’. It could’ve been an act since I didn’t believe a word of her story and she knew it. She gripped my arm, pressing into the side of my shoulder as we walked. I hadn’t forgotten what I’d come there for and made sure she stayed on one side and my gun on the other. We walked into the cathedral. The place was empty and unlit except for the burning candles. A stocky girl wearing a headscarf knelt at the alter praying.
“We’re not alone,” I said.
“It is Petra.”
“Ragoff’s pal. She’s takin’ it kinda hard, ain’t she? He did try to kill her.”
The girl turned swiftly and called out to the dark pews, “Who is there?”
“It is Carla, Petra—and a friend. Mister Brady.”
“Brady?”
“The man who disarmed Vladimir.”
“Oh.”
Petra got up from her knees and came down the aisle.
Her walk was slow and unsteady, though her figure was chunky and sturdy, all in black from head to toe. A black veil’s mesh couldn’t conceal the glimmer of her eyes darting side to side.
“Get down, Carla!”
I shoved the gypsy to the floor as slugs took pieces out of the old wooden benches.
“Your demon cannot protect you in the house of god, witch!”
“Ivan is here! Petra!”
“She’s been hit. I’ll try to get to her. Stay here.”
“I—do not care to live!” the girl moaned, lying bleeding in plain sight
“Do not be a fool, Petra! Why should you die for Ivan’s foolish cause,” Carla yelled to her.
“Cause?” I asked myself, just about to reach the fallen girl.
“I will slaughter all capitalist pigs! No one will stop the Revolution!”
“Revolution? He’s really gone off the deep end.”
He fired on the Alter and I didn’t get any closer.
“Show yourself, coward! Your evil decadence will not save you!”
“Ivan! You just shot an innocent girl who must have been your friend at one time!” I shouted.
“You talk about evil, capitalist, but you are one robbing and killing the innocent!”
“We’ve got to get her to the hospital,” I called out, drawing his fire from the girl.
“Silence! I will not listen to your American lies! Do not go near her! If she is innocent than she will be a martyr to the people!”
“She may be a martyr, but you’re still a murderer!”
“Silence!” he screamed, blasting into the pews again. “Show yourself, witch! You too shall die for the Revolution!”
“I am here, Ivan.”
She showed herself in the candlelight, clear as a spectral vision.
“Carla!”
“All traitors must die!”
I was on my feet, pressing him back with slug after slug until the hammer punched an empty chamber.
“Uuugh—aa—ghuu—victory to the people! Uuuuunnn—!”
Ivan caved to the floor bloody, and I got Petra in my arms and out to the Jag where I lay her in the seat and climbed under the wheel. Carla came running out of the cathedral as I revved the engine.
“Call the cops and tell them to come pick up Ivan, then meet me at St. Vincent’s.”
“Yes, Duke.”
Hanley came out of the room a mess. His black suit was torn to shreds and his neck, arms and legs nearly broken
Drake was waiting, and said dryly, “Have you finished with the patient?”
“Very funny, Drake. That lunatic almost killed me!”
“You wanted to be alone with him. You should have let me finish my session. That might have put him in a calmer state. You may even have gotten a confession of sorts.
As it is, you got thrown around like a rag doll. You knew the man was psychotic. What did you hope to accomplish by strong-arming him?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it! I’ve gotta report in! I should nail you and that Jackson for obstruction of justice!”
“Do you call what you were doing justice?”
“Ouda my way, Drake—”
“Nurse, Agent Hanley is in no shape to call in anything. Give him a sedative and show him to a room where he can pull himself together,” Drake ordered.
“Yes, Doctor.”
Jackson was interrupted trying to grab himself another bite.
“Doctor Jackson! We have another shooting victim—a young woman.”
“Get her into ER!” he instructed as he flew out of the lounge. His cold pizza wasn’t getting any colder.
Drake had better luck than the Fed getting through to the Russian. Ragoff sat up out of breath on the edge of his bed when the doc coolly walked in
“How are you doing, young man?”
“Ack—agh—,” Ragoff rumbled, barely able to muster up the gibberish
“Settle down. Here, this will make you feel better.”
The shot came and went and Ragoff instantly went calm. Drake pocketed the hypo and went on, “You’d better lie back down.”
“What—what is happening?” Ragoff was surprised to find he was suddenly lucid.
“You just needed to work off your excess energy. Now, do you feel like telling me your name?”
“I am—Vladimir Ragoff.”
“Are you friends with Ivan Ivanov?”
They hadn’t left off on the best of terms and Ragoff knew what that meant.
“Ivan! Where is he?”
“He’s not here, but other of your friends might be. Why don’t you tell me how you all got here?”
“We—the demon! He killed Vanya and Sergei!”
“Yes—and the girls?”
“The girls—he hurt Tanya, and, and Sasha.”
“Tanya and Sasha?”
“Yes,” Ragoff said quietly, recalling events.
“There was a girl admitted with a bullet wound, but the girl that came in shortly after you did was beaten, not shot. Did the demon do that?”
“The demon!”
“Calm down, Vladimir and answer the question. Did the demon shoot Tanya and beat Sasha?”
Ragoff shamefully lowered his gray head and confessed, “He—shot Tanya. We left her with the gypsy Carla, but—no, he did not beat poor Sasha. For that I am responsible. I was a fool—under a spell cast by the witch Carla.”
“Where is Carla?”
“I do not know. I last saw her just before the demon struck and then found myself here.”
“So Carla and this demon go around together.”
“Ivan said she conjured him up from Hell!”
“Yes, I’m sure. When did you first see this demon?”
“I did not see him at all when he first attacked. Tanya was in the van and we were going to Sonovavitch’s to rob the wealthy capitalists. Suddenly there was shooting, bur we only saw a moving shadow and after, left Tanya in the witch’s care. Later, Ivan killed Sonovavitch and we heard a scream from outside, then a shot. Vanya and Sergei went out to see what it was and were gunned down. We ran from the party with nothing and seeing our dead comrades, hoisted their bodies into the van and drove off. Ivan and I later got into a terrible argument and I left him with the van, running for my life.
I went to Sasha’s—I was out of my mind with fear. She told me I should go to Father Moishe’s. I did so, but driven by madness, I gunned him down hoping to rid myself of the evil that possessed me. I forced Sasha to come with me to Petra’s and it was there Carla found us. I would have killed them all—but, but, the demon appeared and, and…”
“Sleep now, Vladimir. Sleep. We’ll talk later. I want you to remember the details of your story so you can repeat them to the authorities. Things will go easier for you if you can be specific about who shot whom.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I will sleep now.”
With Drake’s hypnotic suggestion, Ragoff shut his eyes and started to nod off.
“That’s right. Sleep.”
“You are kind—like Father Moishe. Doctor, I have been a fool! It was not the demon that made me do these things, but as Sasha said, I became infected with Ivan’s lustful greed and hatred.”
“Rest, now, Vladimir. We’ll have this thing sorted out before too long. Neither Ivan nor the demon can hurt you now.”
Carla found me waiting in front of St. Vincent’s. I tossed my smoke and took her by the arm bringing her into the alcove and pulling her close, spoke hotly, “The bulls will want to know everything you can tell them about Ivan’s gang, including his arrangement with your grandmother, but I wish you could tell more about her dealings with Catherine Kennedy.”
“Madam Sukova met Catherine Kennedy through her social connections. Kennedy was interested in writing about the culture of gypsy fortunetellers.”
“Who were these social connections?”
“One of them was none other than ambassador Sonovavich.”
“That figures. Who else?”
“There was a young woman who assisted Catherine in the writing of her column. She would sometimes come with Catherine to Madam’s parlor.”
“Alexandra Korda?”
“Yes! Do you know her?”
“No, but I know someone who does. I think she’ll be easy to get hold of.”
“Do you still want me to talk to the police?”
“Hell, no! I don’t want you to talk to anybody! You’re gonna lay good and low for a while. Ya got that?”
“Yes, Duke, I understand. Capturing Ivan was a favor to me, but your real mission has been to locate Catherine Kennedy.”
“That’s right.”
“I will help you in whatever way I can.”
I relaxed my grip and as we headed inside, the press spotted us.
“That’s fine. Oh, jeez, here come those stupid reporters!”
“Duke! Duke! A few questions for the evening news!”
“Let’s make ourselves scarce—,” I said and we ducked into the hospital lobby and around the first bend we came to in order to ditch the snoops. There I heard my name being called from down the corridor.
“Duke!”
“Not another—,” but when I saw it was Drake and with the stiletto heeled girl reporter at the other, I moved toward with him, saying, “What’s up, doc?”
“Let’s get away from these snoops before we talk. I don’t want what I tell you to end up on the six o’clock news,” he said, eyeing the female snoop trotting in our direction.
“Suits me fine, doc.”
He knew his way around the joint and pushed through a door that opened onto another section of the hospital. The door closed and didn’t open again, frustrating the reporter on the other side.
“There goes my scoop!”
Drake glanced at Carla and threw the question, “Who’s this young woman?” at me.
“A friend,” I said.
“We can go into Doctor Jackson’s office,” he said, ushering us in ahead of him. He shut the door and spoke gravely; “He’s in surgery with another shooting victim. A young woman who was admitted only minutes ago.”
“What’re you gettin’ at, Drake?”
“I’ve just had a hypnosis session with a Russian named Vladimir Ragoff. Know ‘im?”
“Should I?”
“I’d think so. You shot him.”
“Duke!”
“It’s okay. Did he say that?”
“No, I’m guessing, but he did say a lot of other things that were tantamount to a confession. He mentioned that he’d been pursued by a demon conjured up by a witch named Carla.”
Carla nearly fainted and he pushed a seat under her.
“Carla, I presume,” he remarked.
“You’ve got me dead to rights and you know it, Drake,” I bridled. “That whole Russian gang—”
“Save it. I’m not the law. Let’s let Bradshaw make the case. He’s got a friend too, though—an FBI agent named Hanley whose itching to pin the Sonovavitch murder on Ragoff.”
“Ragoff didn’t do it.”
“I know. He told me it was Ivanov that shot her and I believe him. He also told me that that was the night they first encountered the demon. It’s a peculiar demon that goes around shooting people. I supposed I’d be scared out of my mind as well.
So, Carla, just how did you manage to raise this creature from Hell?”
“But I did not! I know nothing of what they speak!”
“She’s not lying, Drake.”
“I’m sure she isn’t. I haven’t believed in demons for quite some time—especially demons with pistols.”
“Is this all on the QT?”
“Of course it is.”
“Carla’s agreed to help me find Catherine. I brought Ivanov’s gang down just because they were makin’ things messy.”
“Where is Ivanov now?”
“Right about now, I’d say he’s gettin’ fitted for a toe tag.”
“The demon again?”
“Hardly. He thought he had us cornered in Father Moishe’s cathedral.”
“Father Moishe, yes. Ragoff said that he shot Moishe in a state of complete derangement.”
“Ragoff shot him all right, but the place is still open. We went figuring Ivan didn’t know Ragoff was on ice. Ivan was there alright, thinking the demon couldn’t get at him inside the church.”
“But he was wrong.”
“Dead wrong. He came out shooting as a girl was praying at the alter—”
“The girl that Jackson is working on now?”
“I guesso. He was howling something about the Revolution and blasting away.
I shoved Carla behind the pews and went to save the girl, Petra’s her name, but she was so miserable she was willing to take a bullet. That made Ivan too bold and an easy target to boot. You can forget all that claptrap about demons, doc. Talk like that would only put Carla in Dutch.
Her grandmother Madam Sukova was the gang’s fence—when they contented themselves with simple robbery. When he started killing people, Sukova wanted out and became his next victim.”
“Between what you’re telling me now and what I got out of Ragoff, I have a good idea of what went down. Bradshaw should be happy to know that for all the complications, the case is pretty much open and shut.”
“Sure it’s open and shut, but there’s still no trace of Catherine Kennedy.”
“Bradshaw’s assigned a squad of bloodhounds to find her,” he said.
“Then I’ve got to beat ‘em to her if I’m gonna earn my paycheck.”
“One of them is guarding Ragoff. I’ll make sure they get tied up with the feds filing reports while you two go out the back way.”
“Thanks, doc. Good lookin’ out.”
Drake couldn’t suppress a mischievous grin, sayin’, “You’d better go before Hanley gets his second wind. I let him have a bull session with Ragoff.”
“Nice move, doc—letting a criminal lunatic loose on a Fed.”
“It served a duel function. I think Hanley understands the severity of mental illness now—after Vladimir tossed him around the room like a handball. And it was good for Ragoff. He worked off so much tension that he was able to calm down and explain things to me.”
“Doctor—Drake?”
“Yes, Carla?”
“You are a very great healer of men.”
“Bring this one around more often, Duke. I could get used that kinda talk.”
“Go on—you hear that kinda stuff all’a time an’ you know it.”
“Yes, but not often from such luscious lips.”
“Oh, my—,” she said, goin’ all pink in the face.
“Let’s go, Carla, before he talks you into a private session.”
I didn’t want the bulls to catch up to Carla and give her the third degree, so I took her to Joe’s for safekeeping.
“A gypsy! I don’t know, Duke—”
“Here’s a grand. That ought’a cover it.”
“Uh—only a grand?”
“If I break this case, I’ll be rollin’ in it and you can tear this dump down and put up a new one.”
“Well, when ya put it dat way—Okay, but I don’t want her doin’ no hoodoo inna room!”
“Wait’ll you see ‘er. You’re the one’s gonna be doin’ hoodoo.”
“Where is she?”
“Waitin’ in the Jag. I’ll get her.”
“Uh-huh.”
Of course I should have known batter than to leave her alone for a second. When I got back to the car, she’d ankled it.
“Dammit!”
I should be the only guy with problems. Hanley went cryin’ to the DA like Drake had let the school bully beat ‘em up an’ take his lunch money.
“Drake nearly got me killed—lockin’ me in with that nut!”
“It serves you right for using such heavy-handed tactics. You can’t strong-arm Drake,” Bradshaw warned him, too late.
“No kiddin’.”
Hanley was too full of himself for his ego to be bruised, but it wasn’t his psychology that Ragoff was kicking.
“It’s bonehead moves like that that make it into the press,” Bradshaw scolded him, uninterested in the agent’s sore agenda. “That’s exactly what we don’t want.”
“Yeh, yeh”
“Besides, Drake called me. He said Ragoff is ready to plead guilty to armed robbery and to murdering the priest, but that it was Ivanov shot the ambassador, and there are eyewitnesses who will corroborate his testimony.”
“Ivanov? But Ivanov’s—”
“Dead, yes. So I guess that closes your case.”
“But—”
“You can file your report and be on your way back to Washington.”
“What about the Catherine Kennedy connection?”
“To my knowledge there was no connection.’’
“We’ll see about that. I intend to launch a full investigation into this situation.”
“What situation might that be?”
“How Ivanov’s whole gang was wounded and captured without the involvement of anybody in law enforcement.”
“Wh—what?”
“Speechless, huh? You heard me, Bradshaw. Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on around here and I intend to find out what it is.”
The high-powered senator affectionately known as “Moneybags” Kennedy had offered me eighty million to find his missing socialite niece. He’d already put ten million in my bank account and was paying me a thousand bucks a day expenses. So far I’d done squat in the way of tracking down any leads to her whereabouts. I’d busted up Ivan Ivanov’s gang unbeknownst to the law. I’d thought I was simplifying matters by putting the Russians out of business, but in the process I’d gotten a federal agent interested in just how that came about.
I went back to Joe’s with the sinking feeling that I’d have to give Moneybags back his dough. Joe was sittin’ at the front desk an’ looked up from an old racing form full’a sure things and saw me.
“Where’s your gypsy friend?” he wondered.
“I left her in the Jag and she took the air.”
“Did she get the Jag too?”
‘No, fortunately.”
“No, huh? I’m surprised.”
I poured out my heart and he poured out a shot of scotch. It seemed like a fair trade.
“To be honest with ya, so am I, but I’ve gotta find her anyway. She’s the closest thing I have to a lead in the Kennedy case.”
“In other words, you got nothin’.”
“Not exactly. I’ve gotta hospital full of wounded Russkies and Drake watchin’ over ‘em like a mother hen. The problem with that is, it could all add up to nothin’ if Ivan really had nothin’ to do with it. That boy just might’ve been a great big red herring.”
“What’re ya gonna do now, mister private eye?”
“Carla said that Alexandra Korda sometimes came with Catherine to Madam Sukova’s, so I’ve gotta look her up.”
“Another rich deb? I’m startin’ to worry about the company you been keepin’ lately.”
“It’s a livin’.”
Hanley had gone off on his jag and Bradshaw had to act swiftly or the guy would start another Watergate out’a the midair Catherine had vanished into.
“Ryan, Special Agent Hanley’s going to turn up the heat on his investigation and so far we’ve gotten nowhere.”
“Ivanov threw us for a loop, sir,” the captain said, referring to the troublesome Ivanov’s inconvenient and potentially embarrassing demise. “We’re back to square.”
“That won’t do, detective.” Bradshaw pulled a cheroot from his humidor and had it lit before Ryan could stroke his match.
“But, sir, our hands are tied,” Ryan pleaded on behalf of the squad. “How can we scare up anything without making a stink?”
“You do have a point,” Bradshaw conceded, mulling over the fact. Something already stank. “Trying to keep this out of the press certainly is throwing a monkey wrench into the works.”
In the pressroom of the City Chronicle, the publisher was on a tear as to why it wasn’t in the press.
“Alexandra, have you got anything on Catherine’s disappearance yet?”
“Uh, no, Mister Pulitzer.”
Korda as Catherine’s protégé took over the important column, but Pulitzer had assigned her to dish on the socialite’s disappearance. It was the talk of the town, sure, but what Pulitzer didn’t foresee was that the nattering busybody Alexandra would inadvertently make it over into a crime feature.
“Well, get something!” old man Pulitzer demanded. “You’re writing a gossip column! There must be some gossip going around. This is the hottest story of the year.”
“I’ll call, uh, Joanna Livingstone. She and Catherine were best friends. Maybe she can shed some light.”
“Now you’re thinking like a reporter! Get on it!”
“Yes, sir, Mister Pulitzer! Right away!”
Joanna kept busy by simply going about her routine, worried about her chatty pal that had abruptly gone missing without a word. She was sitting at her desk staring into space when she mechanically picked up the ringing telephone.
“Rollingstone Foundation,” she listlessly informed whoever was calling.
“Joanna? Alexandra!”
“Oh, hello, Alexandra. What can I do for you?”
“I need some fresh information on Catherine for the column and I know you and she were best of—”
Catherine had taught Alexandra everything she knew was about the gossip racket, making her more of an irritant than she already was, but Alexandra had eyes on being a straight reporter; in other words, a qualified nuisance.
“I can’t help you, Alexandra. I don’t know anything,” Joanna glumly avowed.
“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
Joanna bristled, insulted and declared with utter certainty, “I do.”
“Oh, Joanna,” Alexandra sniveled, like the child she often appeared to be, though a full-grown woman of twenty-four, “This story could make my career!”
“You’ll just have to find your story elsewhere.”
“Oh, Joanna!”
“Good-bye, Alexandra.”
The receiver settled into its cradle so softly, Alexandra barely heard it until the incessant drone of the dead connection took over.
“Darn it! There must be a way I can find out what’s going on,” she swore.
”Alexandra, you’ve got a phone call on line two!” the copy editor yelled from across the pres room.
“Thanks, Mort,” she hollered back as was customary amid the bustle of the noisy room. She pressed the flashing button on her extension to connect to the caller.
“Hello, Alexandra Korda, acting gossip columnist.”
“If you wanna see Catherine Kennedy alive again, come down to the old docks tonight at midnight. Come alone and don’t tell anyone or it’ll be curtains.”
“What—who is this? Hello? Hello?” she shouted into the line, but as before the buzz of being cut off started in and she slammed the receiver, but this time her disappointment became scheming approval. “This is the break I’ve been looking for,” she comprehended, gathering her things to go make ready for the secret midnight appointment.
It wasn’t that easy to get away, what with Pulitzer watchin’ the pressroom like a hawk keepin’ an eye out for mice.
“Well, Korda, have you got anything to run about Catherine?”
Alexandra was adept at manipulating the truth so that it sounded like a lie and making a lie sound like the truth. She did both easily in a single breath.
“I, uh, do have something, but I have to check my facts to see if they pan out.”
The seasoned newsman cut the cub some slack, not much, by reminding her that was what fact checkers were for.
“Remember we have a deadline. I want that story on my desk before the morning edition goes to press.”
“Yes, Mister Pulitzer,” she readily acquiesced, appearing to be in a hurry all of a sudden.
She sat down and slid her size sevens into the five-inch heel Roman sandals that were her walking around the city shoes. In the office she normally stayed barefoot, propping her pampered, polished alabaster feet prominently atop the desk that had been Catherine’s and was now hers, and she intended to keep it. Pulitzer kept yammering, but she was only half listening.
“Meanwhile we’ll run with the review of the dog show, but I expect you to bring me something a lot juicier.”
“I’ll do my best,” she tossed off, wrapping a sandal strap around to her thin ankles and up her calf. She knotted it loosely and began on the other.
“Let’s hope your best is good enough. I’m hoping I can make a real reporter out of you, Korda.” She hoped so too, but the speech ended when he cracked, “Your father would appreciate it if you made something of yourself.”
The Kordas and Pulitzers belonged to the same social circle, were members of the same country club, and had known each other’s family for generations. They were old money, which was just as good as new money. Better. They’d been peddling their influence for so long and so wide, it passed for moral goodness and selfless charity.
That would make Alexandra the black sheep of her family. She was only out for herself and dishonest to a fault. She aspired to be something she technically should’ve been already. She had a silver spoon but tended towards getting her hands dirty, primarily by falling flat on her face.
It was her father that had talked his pal Pulitzer into hiring her to be Catherine Kennedy’s assistant. Alexandra it must be said knew as much about high society as anybody in high society. She knew woefully little about anything else, most times including what was going on in her own brain. Alexandra didn’t know what she was headed for, but she was to be admired in a way for plunging into it pedicure first.
I didn’t have anywhere else to go so I went back to my office. I heard the telephone ringing as I got to the landing.
It stopped as I got to the door and I heard Sarah say, “Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“Hello, this is Joanna Livingstone. Is Duke in?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, can you tell him to call me as soon as he gets in? It’s very urgent.”
“Ain’t it always. Sure, sister. I’ll give him the message. Oh, he’s just walkin’ in.”
She cupped the mouthpiece with her hand and whispered coarsely, “Duke, it’s that Livingstone gal. Says it’s urgent.”
“Ain’t it always.”
“I just used that line.”
I grinned and Sarah tried not to look surprised when I didn’t lay a G-note in front of ‘er.
I took the call at her desk, “Joanna?”
“Duke, Alexandra just called me sniffing around for news about Catherine.”
”She can sniff all she wants. As far as I know, nobody’s got anything. The gal took a powder for sure.”
‘Oh, Duke!”
“Funny thing is, I was thinkin’ of gettin’ hold’a Korda myself to find out if she knew anything.”
“I can assure you that Alexandra Korda knows absolutely nothing!”
“Sounds personal. But I’ll look her up anyway.”
“Hmph—,” she snorted. “Well, I just was calling to warn you that she might try to get in touch with you.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Will I see you tonight?” she asked, switching to a honey-toned purr.
“Not if Alexandra has anything to say about it.”
“Well!”
“So long, Joanna. I’ve got to get to work if I’m going to find Catherine.”
“Oh—all right.”
I handed Sarah the phone and she put the receiver in its cradle, sneaking her eyes up at me.
“These rich dames think they can wrap a guy around their little finger.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Where’s my thousand bucks?” she fired off.
I lit a smoke an’ told her.
“I gave it to Joe.”
“What! To Joe? Why—”
“He’s really been helping me through this. He is an old bull, you know.”
“Bull is right. Why don’t you go into therapy?”
“That’s a laugh. Who with? Drake? So he can hypnotize me into fessin’ up that I wanna sleep with my mother?”
She uncrossed shapely stems to answer the phone again. I guessed she couldn’t afford panties on what I was payin’ ‘er.
“Whatever floats your boat, pal. Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“This is district attorney Bradshaw! I must speak with Brady!”
“It’s the DA. He’s on about somethin’,” she let me know, swingin' the receiver over to me.
“A thousand bucks says I know what.”
I sat down just so I could blow off the big windbag, “What is it, Bradshaw?”
“Brady! I, uh, need your help!”
“I’m busy.”
“It’s about Ivanov and his gang.”
“Those boys are in Drake’s department now. I can’t help ya.”
“Brady! Brady!”
“So long, Bradshaw.”
I hung the phone up myself an’ hadn’t taken my hand away when it chimed.
“Oh, jeez—”
“Who died and made you mister popularity?”
“Here, you take it.”
I handed it off to her and she chirped, “Duke Brady Private Investigation Services.”
“This is Alexandra Korda. I must speak to Duke Brady at once. It’s matter of life or death.”
Sarah held down the receiver, “Here’s a new one—matter’a life or death.”
“Who is it?”
“Say, sister, what’d you say your name was?”
“Alexandra Korda.”
“Korda. Alexaaahndra.”
“Korda! I’ll take it! Give it here!”
“Sure!”
I practically knocked her off her chair when I dived for the receiver and ripped it from her hand.
“Hello? Alexandra Korda?”
“Yes! Oh, I’m so glad I caught you!”
“So am I. What’s on your mind?”
“I just received a strange phone call. Can we talk—in person, I mean.”
“Sure. Where are you now?”
“At the Chronicle, but I can meet anywhere you like.”
“How ‘bout the lobby of the Palace Hotel? What do you look like?”
“Oh—blonde, leggy. Very attractive, some would say—”
“Skip it. What’re you wearin’?”
“Oh—a white leather miniskirt, white angora sweater and white stiletto strap heels. Do you think you’ll be able to spot me?”
“If I miss ya, I’ll get my eyes checked first thing. Say in an hour?”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
She was there all right. I walked into the lobby of the big hotel expecting to see something like a walking toothpick—but what I saw told me why Joanna was so anxious for me to avoid her. I was glad I had taken time to go home and put on a fresh suit an’ was thinkin’ that good things sometimes do come in small packages.
“Mister Brady?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Alexandra Korda. I’ve seen you out and about with Joanna Livingstone, bur she’s never introduced us. I’ve also seen your picture several times in the Chronicle. I must say they don’t do you justice.”
“Thanks. You said in person and you’ve got quite a person on ya.”
“Thank you. So you’re not disappointed?”
She didn’t mind me leering so I did. She even pirouetted so I could take it all in. That done, I got to what I’d come there for.
“Enough small talk. Let’s get a room.”
“You’re a fast operator.”
“Where we can talk—in private.”
“Oh—I see.”
“Come on.”
We made quite a pair. The guy behind the front desk almost lost it when he saw Alexandra in the fuzzy sweater as tight as cellophane with the twin torpedoes on her chest almost taking his eye out, granted that his eyes were sticking out that far.
“Can I, uh—help you?”
“Sure, pal. A room.”
“Name?”
“Remington—Mister and Mrs. Remington.”
“Mister and Mrs.?”
“That’s right.”
“How long have you been married?”
“We’re on our Honeymoon. Ya wanna make somethin’ of it?”
“Oh, uh, no, sir. Would you, er, like the Bridal Suite?”
“Sure.”
“Sign here, sir. Luggage?”
“They’ve still got it Shanghaied. You know how that is.”
“Uh, Yes—of course. Here’s your key. Enjoy your stay at the Palace,” he said, forking it over as I put a fin on the registrar and my arm around Alexandra.
“Thanks. Come along—dear.”
We made it up to the suite without the house dick nosin’ in.
“Mister and Mrs. Remington?”
I locked the door behind us and took a gander at what my fin had bought.
“Duke Brady and Alexandra Korda would have attracted attention. That desk clerk would’ve had this place lousy with reporters.”
The sprawling Bridal Suite was done up with lace and valentines.
She went to the bedroom door and called back to me, “Speaking of crawling—look at that bed!”
I went and peered in. The heart shaped mattress was all of the room. I couldn’t resist the obvious question.
“Wanna try it out?”
“Hmmm—Okay. I don’t mind if I do,” was her obvious answer, and she threw herself on it and bounced around a little before settling on her back and patting beside the red satin. “Mmmm…very comfortable. Care to join me—Mister Remington?”
“I think I will at that—Mrs. Remington.”
I figured if I pressed her long and hard, she’d rolled over but instead she just opened up and gave it to me.
“Oh, Duke—I just knew you would know what to do!”
I appreciated her vote of confidence but I didn’t tell her that my interest in the case was strictly financial. ‘Sides there was no harm in letting her think I was her knight in shining armor.
“And you have no idea who it was that called?”
“None whatsoever.”
“And he didn’t have an accent of any kind?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So the guy was all American. I suppose you’d better meet him.”
“But what about the police?”
“They’re busy chasin’ their own tails. If we need them, we’ll call them but we’ll leave them out of it for now.”
“And what’s to become of Mister and Mrs. Remington?”
“We’ll keep that between us—and the desk clerk.”
“Oh, so I guess the honeymoon is over?”
“Maybe we’ll meet later on and see if the Remingtons have a future.”
So I had Alexandra but had lost Carla. I bumped around with the little blonde spitfire in the big bed regretting that I only had two hands, but after so long I sent her back to the Chronicle. That would give me time to try to track down Carla. I didn’t know anything about her except that she was a Russian gypsy. That would have to do.
Doctor Jackson was finally able to examine Ragoff without the Russian going berserk. His hand was bandaged and each of the busted fingers put into individual casts. Painkillers and mind numbing sedatives had the gunman docile and in a fog. The agitated Fed was waiting when Jackson came out of the ICU.
“Is he ready to go, doc?”
“Yes, agent Hanley, I’d have to say that Mister Ragoff is sufficiently recovered for you to take custody of him.”
“That’s what I’ve been waitin’ for. Me an’ that boy have got a few things to hash out.”
Hanley had his nine drawn and was ready to move in when Ryan and O’Neill showed up.
“Hold on a second, Hanley! Ragoff’s our prisoner,” the top dick decreed, putting the kibosh on the agent’s collar.
“Since when?”
“Since he bumped off that priest over on the West Side.”
“He’s wanted for the murder of the Russian ambassador. That’s my beat.”
“Take it up with the DA. We’re takin’ ‘im to the Tombs.”
“Oh, no ya don’t. He’s comin’ wit’ me back to Washington.”
“Gentlemen! This is a hospital! Could you please take your feud elsewhere,” Jackson intervening, demanded. None of them listened, standing there bickering in the hospital corridor.
“I thought you city dicks were workin’ the Kennedy case,” the Fed argued.
“Ragoff’s a material witness in that too,” Ryan tersely clued him.
“This ain’t your pinch!”
“It ain’t yours neither!”
“Well, whose collar is it?”
“I believe it was Doctor Drake that got him to confess,” Jackson let the truth be known.
“Drake! I don’t wanna hear dat guy’s name!”
Jackson shoved his hands in his white coat’s pockets and played ‘doctor-trumps-law’, “Agent Hanley, I must insist you leave the premises—with or without Mister Ragoff!”
“What! You can’t order me!”
“I’m the director of this unit and I certainly can!”
“We’ll see about dat!” Hanley disputed helplessly and stormed off
“Where’s he off to now?” O’Neill queried, watching the steamed Fed march out of sight.
“We better follow ‘im—make sure he don’t get into any trouble,” Ryan worriedly suggested. “Say, doc, look after Ragoff for a little while longer, will ya—‘til we get this straightened out.”
“I think I’ll do just that, Captain Ryan.”
“Thanks. C’mon, O’Neill.”
I parked the Jag and walked to Father Moishe’s cathedral. I’d gotten lucky there once so it was worth a shot.
Bradshaw had been ringin’ their phone off its hooks so Kim already figured who it was before she answered the telephone in the middle of her straightening up the condo.
“Hello?”
“This is Cornelius Bradshaw. I need to speak to Doctor Drake.”
“John go St. Vincent’s Hospital. You try there.”
Bradshaw was gettin’ so used to the brush, he was thinkin’ about gettin’ get some hair to go with it.
“Oh, uh, very good. Thank you. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
Then someone rang the door buzzer.
“Who is there?”
“Package for Doctor Drake,” the voice at the door rumbled.
“One moment.”
She took a second to hang up the phone and went and opened the door, sayin’, “Yes? What is this?”
The mug had a black bandana hiding half his face an’ poked his rod painfully between the pronounced ribs of her skimpy tank top.
“Don’t make me play rough, sister. You’re comin’ with me.”
Moments later the doc called home from the doctor’s lounge at the hospital.
“That’s strange. No answer.”
The mug grabbed the Korean by the hair and shoved her towards the rarely used stairwell he’d used to sneak into the building.
“We’ll go down the back way.”
“What do you want with me?”
“You’ll find out.”
Jackson came into the lounge where Drake was still holdin’ the line an’ lettin’ it ring.
“Oh, Drake! Mister Ragoff’s hand is well on its way to mending but I wanted to ask you if you thought he was mentally fit to be released into police custody?”
“What was that? Oh, yes, yes.”
Jackson had never seen the great shrink dismayed, and asked with genial concern, “What’s the matter, John?”
Drake’s expression was grave.
“I, uh, I have to rush home, Jackson. My housekeeper isn’t answering the telephone. Something could be wrong.”
“Certainly, certainly. You’ve done all you can do here anyway. I’ll inform the detectives that they can take mister Ragoff.”
“Yes, that will do, but have them inform you immediately should he have a relapse.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’ll be on my way then.”
Drake tossed the phone onto its hooks and hurried past the surgeon.
“I do hope nothing’s terribly amiss.”
“So do I, Jackson. So do I.”
The cathedral was quiet when I went inside. I listened for any sound but heard nothing—yet. As I got closer to the Alter I picked up on faint rustling. I knew Ivan and Ragoff were out of commission, so I wondered if it could be another one of their girlfriends’ consoling herself with prayer. I walked up to her and she didn’t budge until I spoke up.
“Come here often?”
Her dark eyes darted up at me and she gasped, “Who—?”
“Relax. I’m not the devil. I’m lookin’ for Carla Sukova. Know ‘er?”
“Carla—Sukova? Yes—but why?”
“I need to find her.”
“Perhaps she is—with Boris,” she let slip, then said, “But I do not know where.”
“Where can I find Boris?”
“What is this about?”
“Maybe you know Ivan Ivanov and Vladimir Ragoff too.”
“They are very bad men!”
“So you do know them. Well, the Johns know them too—and they’re gonna wanna know what Carla’s deal was with them was—unless I find Carla first.”
The girl went from scared to suspicious as she eyed me up and down. I was trying to get a good look at her too, but the musty place was too dim and I could only make out what appeared to be a black robe. She had stayed kneeling the whole time and now got to her feet. I saw she was wearing what looked like a hood or a habit over long straight black hair.
“I am Sister Anna,” she said meekly.
“Sister?”
“I am to look after the church until the See can send a priest to replace Father Moishe.”
“Okay, sister—about this Boris.”
“He lives in an apartment down by the piers where he works.”
“The piers, eh?”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Brady.” I flipped her my buzzer. She looked at it like she had seen one before.
“Are you the police?”
“No. You wanna give me this Boris’ address?”
“How would I know the address of such a place?”
“Did you know Madam Sukova?”
“She knew Father Moishe. I only know her as a parishioner.”
“Uh-huh. And that’s how you know Boris—‘cause he’s such a churchgoer.”
“Well—”
“I don’t have time to play games, sister. I’ll take the address.”
“I—do not have it here. It is in the rectory.”
“Okay, let’s go get it.”
My hunch was that Sister Anna was as holy as cheesecloth and as she turned towards the large cathedral’s rear chambers, I slipped the gun from its holster into my pocket with my finger on the trigger.
“You do not trust me?”
“What was that?”
“I am a Sister now—but I too am of gypsy blood.”
“All that means is you know more than you’re willing to tell me—sister.”
“You are not a bad man, Brady.”
“Not as bad as some.”
“But you have killed before.”
“And I’ll do it again—god willing.”
“You dare take the Lord’s holy name in vain?”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
She came to a dark wooden door in a darkened corner of the already dark place. I’da lost ‘er in the black nun’s get up if I hadn’t kept her talkin’. “Is this the rectory?”
“Yes.”
“Inside.”
“It is not justice you seek but personal gain.”
“You are a gypsy. What of it?”
“Why should I help you?”
“‘Cause if ya don’t, I’ll blow yer head off and just take what I want.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t try me.”
She opened the door with a key and led me in to unlit room. I felt along the wall for a switch but there was none. She went to the mantle and lit a small candelabrum. I watched her features in the flickering waves of light and shadow.
“Let’s have the address.”
“You will have it. But first I must tell you—I am unwilling to support you in your mission.”
“I’m not asking your permission.”
“Let me finish. What you are doing is no less evil then what those that you get paid to kill do. I can see into your heart, Brady, and I see goodness there. You have also helped many—but you are of two natures, one warring against the other. Which will you let win?”
“Frankly, I think they make a pretty good team—they take turns.”
“That is not the Lord’s way.”
“That’s the difference between the Lord an’ me. The Lord don’t pay my bills. Hand over Boris’ address.”
I saw the stall a mile away and as she went towards the large oak desk, I was watching her carefully—as carefully as I could in the weak light of the candles. Her black vestments shielded her movements but the glint of the metal crucifix in her hand caught my eye.
“Allow me to give you a blessing.”
She raised the cross so I could make it clearly. It looked to be solid silver and must’ve dated back to the Roman Empire. That made it a real collector’s item—but no less lethal as she spun the object like a cheerleader twirling a baton and sprung at me with the sharpened silver end of it. She may have been light on her feet but the heavy robe slowed her down and I fired. The thing clattered noisily to the hardwood floor. She grabbed her bleeding wrist and fell to her knees crying.
“Tell me, sister, just what did you accomplish?”
“Forgive me, O Lord!’ she yelped up to the gabled ceiling. “I do not know what came over me!”
“Must be your gypsy blood. Seems you’re of two natures too, sister. Maybe we all are, but like I said, it’s always best when they work together.”
I kicked the dagger away and pulled the habit back and lifted her by her hair to her feet. I wasn’t being polite anymore and shoved her forward onto the desk. “I’ll take that address now—sister.”
Drake sped home in the hopped up Silver Shadow and burst into the building lobby where the doorman was placidly watching the street like he’d been at it all day. Truth was, he hadn’t been there that long and didn’t know a thing.
“Evenin’, doc.”
Drake knew the kid of course, but tried not to show how frantic he was, not even knowin’ why he was panicking yet.
“Mark! Have you been on the door long?”
“I cane on at six, my usual shift. Why, doc?”
“Have you seen Kim at all? I mean—has she gone out since you’ve come on?”
“Miss Kim?” the kid said, thinking hard an’ drawin’ a blank. “No, doc. She ain’t went out since I been on. Somethin’ the matter?”
“We’ll soon see. Thanks, Mark.”
“Sure, doc. Wish I could be more help.”
The elevator opened and Drake impatiently jumped the line into the car, hit PH an’ rode up. Only seconds passed until the door slid open an’ he ran to his door, grabbing the knob only to have the door swing open.
“Strange. She set the door to stay unlocked. She could have gone to the laundry room.” He collected himself and went inside.
“Kim!” he hollered out through the penthouse suite. “Not here. I’d better go downstairs and check if that’s the case.”
He had no reason to think anybody would snatch his live-in and though he wanted to stay objective, the doc was genuinely confused.
His only neighbor on the top floor was a rich old biddy who kept mostly to her few living friends and her old Pekinese. She was locking her door and the mutt was snoozing in her handbag.
“Good evening, Doctor Drake.”
“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Pawtucket. Say, have you seen my housekeeper?”
“Why no. Is she missing?”
“She, er, must be doing the laundry.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be seeing you then,” he said, brusquely pushing past her to the waiting elevator and taking it.
“Well!”
That Kim was more than Drake’s housekeeper was strictly their business and not exactly a secret. He rode down to the basement and called her name as he wound his way through the gray corridors.
“Kim. Kim,” he was still shouting when he came upon the empty laundry room.
“She’s not here. Could she be in the garage? But why would she—”
He quickly went to the at all times unlocked steel door that opened onto the underground garage and searching for any sign of her, walked between the expensive heaps to the row of spaces reserved for his own. He’d parked out front and took note that his other jobs were all in their proper places. The Porsche and the Bentley were there and Kim’s vintage Beetle.
“Where could she have gone without Mark seeing her?” he asked himself, without realizing he’d been talking aloud to himself the whole time, and chanced to look down as he stood in the Silver Shadow’s empty spot.
“What’s this—? Skid marks heading out to the street. Whoever it was tore out of here. I’ve got to call Bradshaw. This is a job for the police.”
Yeah, I know, bright boy that Drake.
“District Attorney Bradshaw’s office.”
“This is Doctor Drake. I have to speak to Bradshaw immediately!”
“Just a moment, Doctor Drake,” Agnes said and punched Hold, then finessed the intercom, “Doctor Drake on the line.”
“Thank you, Agnes. Drake, good to hear from you.”
“Don’t be too sure, Cornelius. I’ve just returned to my condo and it appears that my housekeeper has been kidnapped.”
“Kim? Kidnapped? Do you think this has anything to do with Ragoff or Catherine Kennedy?”
“I’m afraid I can’t speculate on that, but she could be in serious danger. We’ve got to find her.”
“Are you certain she’d been abducted?”
“Without evidence to the contrary, I’m afraid I’m left to think the worse.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll send some of my detectives over there right away.”
“Thank you, Cornelius.”
When Anna’s backside got the feel of the Jag’s leather seat, her piety went out the window. I had the key in the ignition when her hands groped my lap.
“Lose somethin’?”
“Oh, Brady, you must take me away from all this,” she pleaded melodramatically.
“Come again?”
“I can no longer serve the church. I have become—tempted.”
“Don’t sweat it.”
“You’re saying the Lord will look after me?”
“You’d better start lookin’ after yerself.”
With that, I was lookin’ around. There were mugs creepin’ up on all sides, coming out of badly lit doorways and blackened cellars. Anna cryin’ her eyes out, dropped her head completely, busy tryin’ to distract me. I floored the gas and took off, her head still tucked between my legs. By the time we reached the piers, Anna had forgotten her vows.
The sun had set and the full yellow moon was hanging low over the river like a jaundiced eye. Small rigs were docked in the dark, shimmering waters along the barnacle-laden piers, the docks lined with empty warehouses.
“I figure your pals’ll be along any minute so we better get started. Take me to Boris.”
I had put myself in the middle of a Russian novel and now I’d have to play it through.
I was on the waterfront and couldn’t back out no matter how many gypsies came out of the rotten woodwork.
“I must confess before God and repent of my sins!” she moaned.
The shot cracked loud and echoed, the slug crashing into a nearby brick wall.
“There’ll be plenty of time for that! Come on!”
Bradshaw sent two of his special dicks over to Drake’s high-rise. The doc met them in the lobby and took them down to the garage.
“So ya think yer girl was snatched, huh, doc?” Ryan asked innocuously, peering around for signs of surveillance. He was both mildly annoyed and astonished to spot nothing of the kind.
“I’m nearly certain of it. Kim’s not one to simply up and take off. I asked the evening doorman if he had seen her go out. He hadn’t. Then I checked the laundry room before I came and saw her car still here. That’s her blue beetle over there.”
“We’ll put her description over the wire. Don’t you worry, doc, we’ll scare ‘er up.”
Ryan was as casually as he’d been discussing the weather, his sense of urgency having taken a beatin’ with all that had gone down.
“I certainly appreciate that, Detective Ryan. But I can’t imagine how…”
“It’s sure been goin’ around, ain’t it?” he asked.
“What’s that?”
“Gals goin’ missin’ for no apparent reason.”
“Yes—I suppose it has,” Drake replied, between a rock and a hard place.
The first shot started the others and we were under fire from the shadows with nowhere to run. I had Sister Anna pressed beneath me in the two-seater as I kept my own head low so not to get it blown off.
“They will surely kill us!” she moaned.
“Who are they?”
“It is God punishing us for our sins!”
“Speak for yourself. Last I heard God didn’t carry a twenty-two.”
The volley ended and a screeching voice called out, “Drop the weapon and come out with your hands over your head!”
“What the—that sounds like a bull.”
“Bull?”
“John Law, but I ain’t takin’ chances.”
I hollered out without raising my head, “ Identify yourself!”
“Special Agent Hanley! FBI!”
“A fed.” I came up as he approached the car with his nine drawn. “Let’s see yer badge!” I yelled.
“Right here—” He reached into his jacket and the slug took him off his feet. “Ughn…!”
“He must’ve come late.”
“Duke! It is I, Carla!”
“Carla?”
“I know what it is you seek!”
The voice carried from somewhere unseen and it did nothing for me except make me jumpy.
“I’ll bet she does,” I said to Anna, her trembling body soaking her thick vestments with reeking perspiration. “You’re pals from the old country, ain’t ya? Why don’t ya go say hello!”
I opened the car door and threw her onto the street and slammed it shut behind her. I didn’t lift my head to see what happened to her, but I heard her screaming, “No! No!”
The lead chewed into her so fast she didn’t have time to say her prayers, or maybe she didn’t want to.
“No---aaaagh…!”
Somehow or other, Ryan had reassured Drake that the bulls were on the case of his missing girl. He was sitting in his large living room, which seemed barren without her. He was soothing his frayed nerves with a tall glass of one hundred year old cognac. The phone rang and though he hadn’t bothered turning on the lights he reached out and grabbed the receiver.
“Drake here,” he said, as bleak as a eulogy.
“John? Cornelius.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t sound like yourself, John, but I understand. I know how much that girl means to you.”
“It’s a matter for the police now.”
“I’ve put my best men on the case.”
“Your best men are pretty busy these days.”
“True. True—but I’ve ordered them to give Kim’s disappearance the highest priority.”
“What about the Kennedy girl?”
“We, uh, we thought we were onto something—but it seems the trail’s gone cold.”
“Onto something? You mean the Russians, Ivanov and Ragoff.”
“Yes. I was hoping that would pan out, but—”
“But Ragoff never mentioned anything remotely pertaining to Catherine Kennedy and Ivanov has escaped from the institute.”
“Unfortunately Ivanov turned up again—in the morgue.”
“Tough break.”
“Very, and now Brady’s nowhere to be found either.”
“I sure could use him right now. He’s arguably the best detective in the city—your boys notwithstanding.” He took a swill of his costly hooch to swallow that last bit.
“Hmph. I don’t think he’d argue,” the DA put in. “He’s one cock sure dick—but you may be right. He does have the reputation of getting the job done, but in a case this confusing, even he may be up against more than he can handle.”
Carla knelt over the wounded nun. Anna’s eyes were lookin’ at Angels but she was feelin’ the heat.
“You should not have led the outsider here, Anna.”
“Had…to…for…God…”
“Then may he have mercy on your soul,” the gypsy said sadly, standing and removing the automatic from beneath her layers of sparkling shawls.
“Drop it, Carla!”
“Duke!”
I leaned forward and gunned the hotrod’s engine. The shooting started again and Carla froze like a painting the .22 still in her hand.
To avoid the latest hail of bullets, I swerved wide of the curb and caught her full in my headlights. I tried to sideswipe her but the street was too narrow for the car to maneuver and she was right in front of me. The startled gypsy’s painted Day-Glo orange lips let out a small choked scream. She went down and disappeared from my straight focused view. I didn’t have time to appreciate the contrast between the two women face down on the cobblestone, one in colorful gold-flecked gypsy rags, the other shrouded in the severe black habit of the religious.
I didn’t even go that far, only a few feet up the street and stopped short where the federal agent was woozily trying to get to his feet with one hand hanging onto his bleeding noggin, tryin’ to raise his gun with the other. He looked dizzy from slamming his head onto the cement but I figured his thick G-Man skull most likely cracked the pavement.
I caught Anna in the corner of my eye pained but more humiliated, as she rolled onto her side in the middle of the street. She managed to drag herself to the opposite gutter and clawing her way to the curb, disappeared into the dank shadows.
“Can ya hear me, Hanley?”
“I hear ya—,”he muttered groggily.
“Then get on yer feet!”
He got the message and moved as quickly as he was able. I flung the Jag’s door open and pulled him into the passenger seat, stepped on it and tore out of there before the barrage of slugs cut clean through my chassis. I’d be needin’ bodywork for sure.
Hanley was unconscious when I left him at St. Vincent’s. I didn’t wait around to find our what shape he was in. I had unfinished business with Sister Anna. She thought she should go to Hell for her sins—and though the thick wool vestment slowed the slugs Carla had pumped into her to a crawl, she was halfway there.
Seems Ivanov and Ragoff had quite a crew. Besides the stooges that went and got themselves knocked off, and the girls that always seemed to be waitin’ to take the dirtbags in, there was Madam Sukova and Carla, Father Moishe and Sister Anna, and yet another mangy lot of malcontents. These mugs at least worked for a livin’, as stevedores on the piers, but were no better for it. That made them brawny, ham fisted and none too bright. It fact, the scarier thought was that Ivan’s original crew were the brainy ones.
“Who was he?” the guy barked like a dog, if there ever was such an ugly mutt.
“I—I do not know, Boris,” Anna timidly answered, cowering in the bonehead’s presence, not out of respect but exactly because of the aforementioned resemblance to a snarling attack dog.
“You lie!”
The hooligans that had pulled the injured nun off the street were considered by the bandits to be too unruly to run with them and they resented it. These mugs weren’t meek like the others and weren’t neurotic nutcases like Ivan and Vladimir, which made them a lot more dangerous. The guy with the spiky blond do slapped the sister into next week. She could hardly move as it were and simply collapsed at his feet, where she stayed.
“We should have left you bleeding in the street!” Boris was a real tough guy, roughin’ up a nun an’ all.
Anna didn’t put up a fight, as if she could, just clasped her hands and brayed, “Oh, Lord, forgive me my sins!”
“Shut up, you pious wench! Your Lord will not save you!”
Boris’ sidekick Gregor had to be more humane, hell, more human, period, which wasn’t sayin’ much at all, sitting disinterestedly and looking on as his pal bullied and tormented the frightened woman of the cloth. Gregor and Boris had come to America as lay merchant sailors on a Russian freighter and jumped ship when the tub docked. No one bothered to try to coax them back. They knew Ivan from an assortment of dirty business back in the Old Country, but they had rocks for brains. These were the clowns Ivan was thinking to recruit for his new gang.
Besides being useless, Gregor was sitting watch over the door to the next room. The door was ajar and he could peek inside and hear any sound the girl made. He perked up from nearly dozing off when a kittenish moan came from the dark room
“Boris! Carla is awake!”
“Ah, good,” Boris crowed, this being his excuse to let the nun go about her holy business. He would never admit that the idea of The Big Guy lookin’ down on him and judging him worthy of the fiery pit made him nervous as Hell.
“We must get her to the hospital!” Gregor contended, getting from his chair and pushing the door open.
“Not before she has answered my questions,” the dog growled.
“She is in need of a doctor. The outsider almost killed her with his car.”
“That man is the reason Ivan and Ragoff are dead,” the blond bully declared, like he was meant’ to do somethin’ about it.
“But, Boris, what do you intend to do?” Gregor pushed.
“Seek revenge!” Boris announced, waving his fist with an extravagant flourish of bravado.
Gregor recognized the gesture instantly as one Boris doubtlessly picked up from Ivan. Somethin’ must’a been lost in translation ‘cause the crackpot that had been hunted like an animal, locked up in an asylum, and gunned down with no remorse, was some sort of criminal guru, a hero, and a role model. Albeit, Boris would look up to a wall for not fallin’ down, but he’d bought Ivan’s drivel about Revolution hook, line an’ sinker. “Don’t be a fool, Boris! Such a thing will attract the police!” Gregor warned soberly.
Gregor had once been pals with Ragoff, before coming to the States, the much younger man diligently reading the old professor’s papers, and transcripts of his highly praised and well received lectures on a wide range of metaphysical subjects.
Ragoff was already a bitter drunk by then and barely recalled any of it. He’d been vilified so roundly that he’d long since distanced himself from his life in academia. After the squalid scandal that ruined him, and his subsequent public disgrace, he’d sit around whatever place would have him babbling about what he knew like his own face.
Clearly, that face was becoming more and more unfamiliar to him, but the young Gregor didn’t write the grouchy old bastard off like everyone else. He listened, so taken that he sought out surviving documents. If you’d asked Ragoff about them, he’d have said he used them as kindling, or to fills holes in the soles of his worn out shoes. Gregor’s family was well off and could afford to pay for the forgotten writings. The sight of rubles in hand brought reams of the stuff to light. Ragoff’s former colleagues and libraries throughout St. Petersburg were able to round up bound volumes, handwritten notes and published essays until Gregor amassed the largest collection of the works of Vladimir Ragoff in Russia, the world, or anywhere.
Gregor even thought the deluded drunk’s ideas would make a comeback someday. It was ironic that one of the true heirs to the professor’s obscure notions was Ivan himself, who’d cooked up a metaphysical scheme to justify his power mad Ego and bloodlust. An argument might also have been made that Carla and Madam Sukova were actually practicing metaphysics, bein’ gypsies an’ all, but one might make an argument that Drake’s hypnosis was a form of metaphysics too, or maybe Father Moishe and Sister Anna had it right. Nobody was makin’ the case for any of ‘em. They all had to live in the real world, and that was strange and shadowy enough without considering Ragoff’s main principle of worlds within worlds, whatever that meant. Gregor thought he understood, but Boris was runnin’ with Ivan’s mishmash of paranoia and vengeance.
“It is the way of our people!” Boris boldly affirmed, referring to gypsies as if they were the true Russians. He was wrong of course, but Ivan had done the same thing when it was convenient, and in Boris’ mind Ivan was a martyr to—something.
‘We are not in the Old Country, Boris! We cannot!”
“Are you afraid, Gregor?” Boris taunted unsmilingly, his innate cruelty making the remark a hurtful slur on Gregor’s intellectual sensitivities.
Gregor promptly found something else to talk about, smartly avoiding Boris’ wrathful temper. He knew full well that the lashing and unfunny humor barely masked the sadistic rage the muscle headed goon typically expressed with every word and gesture anyway.
“No, but—but what are we to do with Sister Anna?”
He was glad he asked, because the very idea made Boris roar with heartless laughter.
“The Saint? Tie her up and leave her for now. We will deal with her after we are through interrogating the witch.”
It seemed like good time as any to call the bulls, but I didn’t. Sister Anna had spilled Boris’ name in a moment of doubt when I was pressing her about Carla, making Boris the one thing that brought the nun and mind reader together. I didn’t know he was a sadistic bully at the time but it figured. Having been opened fire on me just a short while ago, I resolved that this previously unknown Russian character would be a good one to start grillin’ if I were ever going to come up with the whereabouts of Catherine Kennedy. If anyone deserved a good slappin’ around, it was snooty Catherine—and judging by the acquiescent Carla and the pliable Sister, if anyone was gonna do the slappin’, Boris was the type who’d kill for the chance.
I raced the Jag back to the piers with a busted engine and my radiator overheated. I’d need a new crate for sure, but I got my money’s worth—hissing and all. I could see down a long side street to where a guy was dragging a girl out of a car. She didn’t look drunk or too eager so I cut my engine and took to heel. The guy pulled the beleaguered girl into the vestibule of one of the rundown walk-ups. It had nothing to do with what I came there for and as was to be expected, there wasn’t a bull in sight. So brazen was this mug that I was able to casually step right into the middle of the scene.
“Say, pal, mind if I cut in?”
“Beat it! This don’t concern you!” he snarled with the most unconvincing set’a caps I’d ever seen.
“Oh, but you’re wrong. When a piece’a dirt like you gets his hands on a dish like this, my curiosity gets all aroused.”
“Why you dirty—” he jowled, offended at my untoward remark.
I must’a really hurt his feelings ‘cause he let go of the still squirming girl an’ put up his dukes. A real gen’leman, this mug. I almost felt bad taking unfair advantage of his empty mitts when I leveled the forty-four between his eyes.
“Reach—an’ I won’t spit your brains across the wall. It’ll only depreciate the property.”
“What the—,” he bleated, backin’ up until he couldn’t go any further, though the abject fear in his blank face told me he wished he could’ve turned and run right through it.
“C’mere. Sister,” I took the trembling girl’s hand and pulled her to me like we were changin’ partners at a square dance. “Get behind me,” I said and she practically crawled up my back.
Reaching behind me I held onto the girl’s waist to make sure she stayed close. I don’t think I needed to worry. She dug the fingers of both her hands into my jacket’s fabric, clinging like a barnacle.
I was between her and loverboy, the Smith &Wesson between me and him, and I carefully walked backwards, her dirty, bare feet taking each step with me until we were back on the street.
“We’ll be leavin’ now, gruesome—oh, if ya don’t mind, we’ll take your car. I notice ya left the keys in the ignition. I think you’ve got what they call a false sense of security.”
He was still in the entrance hall, still stretchin’ his arms towards the ceiling and still backed against the busted tile wall.
“You’ll get yours, wise guy! You don’t know who you’re messin’ with!” he snapped, barin’ his cheap dental work.
“Delusions of grandeur, too? I know a good shrink, but enough chitchat.” The guy was wantin’ to get antsy but didn’t dare move. I was already antsy.
“Get to the car, doll,” I said over my shoulder, without takin’ my eyes off the cornered weasel.
“But—,” she stammered, startin’ to say somethin’ I didn’t need to hear right at that moment.
“Move, I said. We’ll talk inna car.”
“Look out!” she screamed and cowered behind my back.
My cannon boomed like thunder and lit up the hall like lightning in a bottle. The forty-four’s big slugs tore up the stupid lug’s chest like Cuban heart surgery, peeling it back so that when his head fell into it, his heart fell out. The gat slipped from his twisted fingers and what was left of ‘im left a bloody smear sliding down the otherwise unremarkably unchanged wall.
“So much for the couch. Your boy’s gonna need a slab.”
“Who—who are you?”
“Name’s Brady,” I said, holstering the smoking rod.
“Duke—Brady?”
“Ya know me, huh?”
I took off my jacket and put it over her small shoulders. Clutching the lapels she pulled the Gabardine over her thin figure. She was trembling not from fear but because she was cold. All she had on were the sweaty, transparent remains of a baby tank top and tattered silk boy shorts completely split at the seam from front to back.
“John speak about you often.”
I opened the dusty, late model Caddy’s passenger side door and she climbed in. I got behind the wheel as big as a Ferris wheel and turned over the ignition. The old kitten purred.
“John? You mean trick?”
“Not Trick. Drake.”
The fact was we were only a couple’a doors down from the Russians. Loudmouth Boris was blustering like he was accepting a medal but got quiet when the forty-four’s salvo exploded.
“What was that? It sounded like shooting,” he urged in a sudden coarse whisper.
“It could be the police!”
Gregor was on the verge of wishing it were. The more Boris blathered, the less he said and eventually that would spell trouble, but who needed eventually?
“Or perhaps he has returned. Get the guns! Let us go and see!” Boris insisted, not bothering with the rough stuff he was about to unleash on the helpless women.
Gregor got the pair of automatics from an end table drawer and handed one off to Boris. Checking the cartridges, they made sure the weapons were fully loaded though they didn’t know what they were up against, if anything.
“What about them?” Gregor asked, his eyes moving from woman to woman as he tucked the pistol beneath his shirt.
“Tie them up. We will deal with them when we get back,” Boris ordered, pushing the automatic into his tight jean’s crotch.
When I pulled up to the Jag we switched to my heap, hopping out of the Caddy and leaving it behind, but the bullet-riddled Jag finally gave up the ghost. She broke down after only a few blocks from where I’d rescued Drake’s girl. I got out to have a look at the damage and popped the hood, releasing the searing pent up steam. I jumped back so not to get scalded and waited for it to subside, but the steam kept pourin’ out in billowing waves and I figured several slugs had punched through the fuel line. I was also drivin’ on four flats.
I went back to Kim sitting patiently and gave her the depressing prognosis.
“You’d better call the doc an’ have ‘im come pick you up. This crate ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“But what you do?” she asked with such genuine concern, her big brown eyes glistened with tears. So did mine, from the awful, choking steam.
“Call Triple A, I’m guessing. Now, beat it.”
I opened the door for her and she got out, looking saddened. The kid had a face that must’a broke her mother’s heart when she struck out from home on her own. She was malingering though; fidgeting with the buttons of the jacket she kept pulled around her and I had to shoe her away. I watched the mostly naked girl wrapped in my suit jacket walk crestfallen to the payphone on the corner. I didn’t mind that so much.
She’d call Drake for sure and he’d probably get on the horn to Bradshaw, which meant that I had very little time to do what I had to do, before a horde’a nosy bulls swarmed the neighborhood.
“Hello? Drake here.”
“Oh, John!”
“Kim! Where are you?”
“I—I don’t know. Phone booth.”
“Is there anyone with you?”
“Mister Brady.”
“Brady! Let me speak to him!”
“He’s—he gone but car still here.”
“Why that—”
“John—he save my life!”
“He—hmmm, of course he did. But now he’s left you high and dry. Tell me where you are and I’ll have the police come and bring you home.”
“Oh, John, I am so afraid!”
“Don’t worry, darling. The police will be there soon.”
Our boy didn’t know how right he was. Fearful of the sound of gunfire, people all over the neighborhood had already phoned the bulls and a battalion of squad cars was screaming toward the piers.
Meanwhile, even under sedation, the Fed was screaming for blood, “I want that shamus arrested for assaulting a federal agent!”
“Agent Hanley, I must insist you calm yourself. I’ve notified Police Commissioner Johnson. He told me he would see to the matter personally.”
“He’d better! That rotten Bradshaw’s playin’ ball with that no-good gumshoe and gummin’ up my investigation!”
The Commissioner was handling it, all right. Bradshaw didn’t have any reason to think things had progressed farther than nowhere when Agnes buzzed him over the intercom.
“Police Commissioner Johnson on the line.”
“Johnson?”
The DA picked up expecting an irate argument. He wasn’t disappointed and handled the top cop smoothly. “Bradshaw speaking.”
“Bradshaw! This time that peeper has gone too far!”
“What has Brady done this time?”
“He put a slug into a federal agent, that’s what!”
“Hanley?”
“Hanley was assigned to the Catherine Kennedy case and—”
“I know all about it, commissioner Johnson, but Brady—,” Bradshaw was gonna let ‘im in on the deal I had with the senator, but Johnson was too busy grousin’ to listen.
“Brady’s a menace! Obstructing justice is the least of the charges against him!”
Sitting back and torching a stogie, Bradshaw was amused despite himself and despite the seriousness of the situation.
He wasn’t surprised to hear that Hanley had caught some of my lead. According to the DA, I used slugs for calling cards but because he knew the quarrelsome agent and I had never met, he didn’t buy it.
“Just where did Brady shoot Hanley?”
“Where—?”
Johnson had flunked out of Med school years ago so Bradshaw rephrased the question for him.
“Where did the shooting occur?”
“Down by the piers. Hanley called my office from the hospital.”
“How did Hanley get to the hospital?”
“What—he doesn’t exactly know, but the doctor told him Brady brought him in.”
“So Brady shot him and brought him to the hospital personally? Don’t you find that odd, commissioner?”
“Brady is odd!”
“I’ll grant you that, but I don’t think he shot Hanley.”
“But who else—?”
“I’d be willing to bet that Brady saved Hanley’s neck, but Hanley’s to full of himself to admit it.”
“Bradshaw, this is a serious matter!”
“It certainly is and I’ll have my men look into it.”
“I don’t have to tell you that we have to make sure this stays out of the press,” Johnson warned.
“That you don’t. But we may have to throw the press a bone. If Brady does start tossing lead around the way he’s accustomed to, that will draw the press for sure.”
“Okay, Bradshaw,” the blue brass conceded, having no other option. “I’ll see what I can do on my end.”
“And I’ll see what I can do to rein in Brady. Good day, Johnson.”
No sooner had Bradshaw hung up than Agnes buzzed again.
“Doctor Drake on the line.”
“Drake!” he exclaimed aloud, and took the call. “Yes, John?”
“Brady—”
“Brady again!”
“He’s saved Kim’s life, but I need your men to pick her up.”
“Pick her up? Where is she?”
“Near the piers. She gave me the address of the phone booth she called from. She’s waiting there.”
“The piers you say?”
“Yes. Send your men right away. She could still be in danger.”
“Of course, John—but what’s Brady up to?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“I suppose we’ll soon find out.”
The two Russians ran from one end of the block to the other.
“Boris, there is no one on the street.”
“Do not be so hasty, Gregor. They are obviously hiding, the cowards.”
The notoriously dangerous streets around the piers weren’t big attractions for tourists or the locals. As it were, gunmen could obviously roam freely—myself included. Boris led the way as they began combing each block. They came across a few passed out bums and the occasional working girl, but even the seedy dames crossed the street when they saw the two burly stevedores comin’. I wasn’t exactly hiding, but I didn’t wanna be seen either, so as soon as I heard Boris’ shouting I made my way up the fire escape of one of the buildings across the avenue. From there I could see them makin’ their way up the block.
They scurried from one side of the deserted street to the other, waggin’ their pistols an’ checkin’ alleyways and peepin’ into front windows and doorways of tenements and storefronts that weren’t boarded up. It was Boris who came across the guy I had blown apart in the entrance hall and called his partner over to have a look. Gregor didn’t have the stomach for it though. As soon as he saw the gory mess he ran and threw his guts up into the gutter. Boris on the other hand, came out wavin’ his rod as haughty as Ivan had been—like he was thinkin’ he’d be the next big thing, now that Ivanov had bitten the dust.
I was lucky they were too busy lookin’ around to bother lookin’ up. It also helped that the sun was settin’ fast. I got up to the roof an’ could see Drake’s girl standing alone on the corner. With the streets growing darker, I felt bad leavin’ her on her own. Underdressed and overexposed, the slender Oriental beauty in the oversize suit jacket was unwittingly the best bait I could’ve had. She didn’t look anything like the local Slavic slatterns an’ when the pair of no-goodniks spotted her, they immediately made a bee-line for her.
I didn’t wanna chance her gettin’ hurt in any way, so I took a bead an’ opened up on them before they got anywhere near her.
“Boris!” Gregor yelped when the slug rocketed past his head and took out a store’s picture window. “Who is shooting at us?”
They forgot Kim altogether as I ticked off another round.
Seeing the forty-four’s huge report, Boris looked up pointing, and said, “Up there! On the roof!”
“Where? Where?”
Gregor was too frightened to see straight and Boris’ shot went into the brick below me. I fired again. Gregor stumbled backward, doubling over.
“Ugh—nnn…”
“Gregor!”
“I’ve—I’ve been shot!”
Dropping his piece, Gregor seized up with his hands full of blood.
“Show yourself, coward!” Boris screamed.
That gave Kim the chance to go for cover. Having drawn their fire, I was somewhat at a loss what to do with it. That is, until some other gunman decided to get in on the act, taking pot shots at them from a window across the alley.
“Gregor! We are surrounded!” Boris yelled, blasting slugs carelessly into the air.
Gregor, crumpled against the wall holding his belly, was in no shape to give the big blond a hand.
The fun was just beginning. A trilling symphony of squad cars grew louder from every direction, including the river—where the harbor patrol rapidly cut through the murk, making for the rat-infested pier. The wharf rats themselves bolted for their usual hiding places.
There was no time to think with bullets flying all over the place. Outgunned and firing away at the brick walls, Blondie turned and cut a path toward Drake’s girl. I had to act swiftly or he’d get his claws on some guaranteed insurance.
Leaping clear of the building, I landed in the mesh of suspended clotheslines grabbing a handful as I fell and swung out over the street. The bundle of taut nylon carried my weight easily as I aimed for the steamy Jag’s smooth hood, landing and sliding across the hot surface, bouncing to my feet. I emptied the forty-four into the angry thug. He swayed but didn’t fall, too stupid to die. He was a lot slower than he’d been and in the seconds that crawled by as he tried to raise his pistol, I had the loaded pair of thirty-eight’s from the Jag’s glove box in my hands and blew him to Kingdom Come. Boris wouldn’t be answerin’ any questions—at least not in this world.
“Oh, John! It was horrible!” Kim bawled in Drake’s arms.
“It’s all over, Kim. You’re safe now.”
He held her tight and let her body shiver against his. He looked over her head to Ryan who had a self-satisfied smirk on his pasty face.
“I’ll say it’s all over. We got there just in time. Slugs was flyin’ like flies. She’s lucky she ducked in that alley.”
Kim raised her head and looked up at Drake, her eyes flooded with tears.
“But what about Mister Brady?”
Drake looked at Ryan again and asked the question, “Yes, what happened to Brady?
Ryan had to take his hat off to answer it, mopping his brow and rationalizing, “Brady? Wasn’t no sign of ‘im, just that souped up heap’a his all shot up. He might’a caught it in the crossfire an’ crawled off to die.”
Drake frowned at the dick’s BS, scoffing, “That seems very unlikely, Captain Ryan.”
“Unlikely maybe, but not impossible. There was a lot’a red runnin’ in the gutter.”
“Who—who were those men?” Kim put directly to the dick.
“Couple’a Russkies. We got ‘em figgered for pals of Ivanov and Ragoff out for revenge.”
“Revenge against Brady?” Drake quizzed.
“That’s what it looks like,” Ryan replied, his eyes wandering furtively.
“Then why snatch Kim? What did she have to do with any of this?”
“Huh? Well, uh, I dunno.”
“They no snatch me!” Kim protested to the doc, squeezing his beltline with her little arms. “It was other man—Brady kill him.”
“Yes, what about that man? You found his body, didn’t you?”
“Sure did. But we haven’t got an ID on ‘im yet, could be another one’a them.”
“You seem to be blaming the Russians for everything, detective,” Drake said, just happy to have his girl back in one piece, lettin’ the bull have his the brass approved fairy tales.
“Some things never change, doc,” was Ryan’s utterly pointless conclusion.
Hearing about the smashing of the Russian murder ring and little else, Senator Kennedy put in an urgent call to Jonathan Livingstone at the Rollingstone Foundation.
Livingstone was getting more and more flustered trying to assuage the keyed up pol, saying, just as Joanna walked into her father’s private office, “Yes, Roosevelt, I certainly do understand the gravity of—”
“Father, I—”
“Hold on a moment, Roosevelt. My daughter’s just come in.”
He muted the line with the push of a button and his face flushed red as he asked her, “Joanna! Where on earth is Duke?”
“I—Uh, don’t know. I was hoping he—,” but Joanna couldn’t say where on earth I was.
“I’ve got Senator Kennedy on the line and he’s keen to know how Duke’s investigation is going.”
“But I don’t know.”
“Well, what was he doing the last time you saw him?” he pursued, in a cross tone she hadn’t heard since she was twelve.
“Oh, uh—oh, uh,” she burbled, recalling how she’d gotten Patricia Austin to do her homework in the seventh grade.
“Never mind!” Livingstone allayed her, knowing for years how she’d bamboozled the guileless whiz kid.
Hitting the same button, he jumped back on the horn, “Sorry to keep you waiting, Roosevelt. Yes, uh— Oh, she’s fine. Yes. Yes. Yes, er, I expect I’ll be hearing from him very shortly. Yes. I’m certain. Yes, of course. Good-bye.”
He placed the receiver so gently on its hooks it was like he didn’t wanna hurt its feelings.
“Father, you lied!”
“I had to,” he resolutely affirmed, “This is not simply about Catherine’s disappearance anymore.”
“Father, what do you mean?” she entreated, honestly befuddled.
“Senator Kennedy just told me that the Kremlin is pulling out of every agreement it has with the US if something isn’t done at once to round up the remaining gang of hoodlums responsible for the assassination of Sonovavich.”
“But what does that have to do with Duke?”
“Somehow or other the Russians have gotten their hands on information that somehow links Duke to them.”
“Father, that’s ridiculous!”
“You and I know it’s absurd, but Roosevelt S. Kennedy doesn’t. If we don’t find Duke soon, Bradshaw will have no choice but to issue a warrant for his arrest on charges of espionage and sedition.”
Joanna couldn’t believe what she’d just heard any more that Jonathan could believe he’d said it, but politics being what they are, since anything was possible usually whatever sounded good was good enough.
There were more dirty Russians, higher up in the food chain that the law wouldn’t look twice at and because of their diplomatic status, couldn’t touch as long as they stayed on the embassy grounds.
“Boris ant Gregor are likewise dead,” the duplicitous low-level envoy informed his equally shady comrade.
“Good! Good! The American private detective named Duke Brady is doing our work for us, but he too must be stopped—before he gets too close. How is our agent doing?” the one called Nogodenov asked.
“She is recuperating. We were able to rescue her when the stupid American police were preoccupied with the carnage created by Brady,” he was told by the embassy security chief, a rat name’a Stravinsky— no relation to the fiddler.
“This Brady is too dangerous,” Nogodenov commented sourly.
Stravinsky nodded in agreement as they hunched over copies of the phony intelligence reports they’d passed onto Washington. A chill wind blew into the room startling the traitors who turned pistols in hand, as paranoid as their buggy assassin had been.
“You do not know how dangerous he is, comrades,” the striking female agent intoned solemnly.
Nogodenov put his rod down, pleased by her icy presence. Stravinsky’s wiry beard split open so the depraved grin could be seen snaking across his bloodless face, as he welcomed her into the ambassador’s private chamber.
“Ah, Carla! You are awake, but I see you remain hampered by your injuries. Brady has done this to you,” he assured her, offering his arm and assisting her as she walked unsteadily up to the enormous conference table.
Hobbled by crutches and a broken arm set in a tourniquet, she merely passed a glance over the bogus documents she had helped in creating. She had no need to see them again, her assignment having been to thoroughly study and memorize them so she’d know which lies to tell to whom and when. Winded from the labor of crossing the large executive quarters, she leaned the bulky, outdated crutches onto the side of the desk and lowered her busted pelvis into a studded leather upholstered chair.
“Yes, Brady did this to me—to save a man’s life,” she sighed miserably. Her physical pain was excruciating, but the unbearable ache in her soul crowded it out of her mind.
“You sound like you hold no grudge for the man who tried to kill you,” Nogodenov scornfully charged.
“Duke is one who does what he has to do,” she contended wearily, her husky voice whispery and weak.
“So, it is Duke now?” bridled Stravinsky.
“So, Duke saved a man’s life—killed two of your comrades and disregarded the fate of a pious nun. Is this the sort of man you admire, Carla?” Nogodenov badgered.
“Duke Brady is a man of integrity,” she perilously determined. I guess she had grown accustomed to my face.
“You sound like you have been infected by this Brady’s capitalist thinking,” Nogodenov, becoming indifferent, imparted to the banged up, sleepy-eyed secret agent.
Stravinsky, not so casually followed with the earnest threat, “We may have to send you back to the mother country for re-education.”
“You wouldn’t—” Carla cried, her voice sinking into her chest, pain welling up from her toes, coursing through every inch of her damaged body.
“Oh, wouldn’t we?” he pestered for nothing.
The unbearable pain reached her brain and she passed out cold.
“Enough, Stravinsky. Can you not see that she is in poor health? Her mind is feeble as well as her body. She does not know what she is saying.”
“I wonder, comrade. The police also seem to place a great deal of faith in this Brady.”
“He is but a private detective, comrade. Lower than a cockroach, a bug to be crushed at the authority’s whim.”
“Still, Nogodenov, we should not underestimate him. Remember Ivanov and the others.”
“Do not give him too much credit, comrade. Ivan went completely mad and the others lost sight of their purpose.”
The conscience stricken gypsy roused with a sigh, taking slow deliberate breaths and addressing what she’d just heard from the mouth of the traitorous, acting ambassador.
“It seems I am not the only one in need of re-education.”
“Why, you insolent—!” Stravinsky reared up, raising a fist to strike her.
Nogodenov quelled the barbarian and dismissed him, “Stravinsky! Leave us now. I wish to talk to Carla alone. Go check on Sister Anna. Make sure she is resting comfortably.”
Cowed by his comrade’s pulling rank, the quick-tempered official whimpered a toothless, “Yes, comrade,” and skulked like a whipped dog from the ambassador’s chamber.
Stravinsky did as he was told. He could be sent for ‘re-education’ too, or worse. He looked into the security pen where anyone could be thrown for any transgression whatsoever. The typical detainees were your average maintenance-working nationals with sticky fingers, or in the case of dames, those that didn’t get enough or didn’t give enough. But those birds had flown the coop when the popular Sonovavich bought it in the rather brutal and for all intents and purposes, public, execution. That kinda signaled the party was definitely over. A pocketful’a cutlery wasn’t worth chancin’ a run-in with the characters responsible for bumping her off and the embassy was nearly deserted.
He saw the nun kneeling in the shaft of light cast by the single overhead bulb. The rest of the cell was a miasma of dusty shadows.
“Oh, Holy Father, in your mercy look down upon us and forgive us our wickedness—”
“Anna!” he shouted, interrupting her. “Who are you talking to in there?”
The sister turned her head, looking over her shoulder without getting up.
Her face remained a passive visage of latent spiritual ecstasy and she spoke to Stravinsky like the run’a the mill thug that he was, despite his thousand dollar Brooks Brother’s suit, gold Rolex and high-end men’s cologne that he poured on until the stink was visible in waves rising from his hairy sweat sopped back. Beneath the big ticket get up, he was still no more than an feral animal waitin’ to be tossed into a cage all his own. Or worse.
She answered quietly, purposefully, as if God was still listening. She’d had her doubts in the past but had given them up in the face of an evil that walked and talked, lied and killed, and walked around in fancy suits tryin’ to lord it over other mostly innocent people.
“I am talking to God and there is nothing you can do to me that will make me stop.”
“Is that so?” he groused, tired of feeling that he was being treated by anyone and everyone he encountered like an ineffectual lackey.
Here was a devoutly religious woman of the cloth who needed nothing but her faith in the low watt bulb above her head, whose sole, meager possession was the filthy wool nun’s habit. It had saved her life more then once by virtue of being woven so thick the slugs were scarcely able to penetrate it to reach her wan, hungry flesh and blood.
“You can be re-educated!” Stravinsky screeched, whipping out the hefty ring of keys attached to his belt to unlock the cell’s iron mesh door.
He had bloodlust in his eyes and that wasn’t all. He and Sister Anna were already well acquainted, which is how she ended up in the spot she was in. He’d cut his teeth as part of a crime ring that specialized in robbing sacred and priceless icons from churches and cathedrals back in the Old Country. By the time he got to the States, he’d moved up to extorting churches if they wanted to keep their invaluable icons. There was a reason Father Moishe’s rundown cathedral had almost nothing but its worm eaten effigy and a bare wooden box for an Alter.
Stravinsky was so anxious to get his grimy hands around the scrawny nun’s neck that he fumbled with the keys like he had too many hands and not enough fingers.
“No! No!” she pleaded as he grumbled Russian curse words, trying one key after another until he came up with the right one and threw the heavy-duty lock’s tumblers. I didn’t let him get any further than that.
“I think you’re the one who needs the education.”
“Who is here?”
He spun around and came nose to nose with my fist. His back slammed the cell door an’ I’m sure I heard a few of his lumbar snap an’ go south as he rode the mesh down to the marble mosaic floor.
“Oh, God—,” he moaned, landin’ with his back against the door an’ hangin’ onto the backs’a his sore shoulders with numb, crooked fingers. The rest of ‘im didn’t look so good either.
“Who are you?” he groaned, his eyes pinched and sweat pouring from the hairline of his pointy bearded, purple face.
“Not God, pal. Name’s Brady. Heard’a me?”
“Brady! The detective!” he bleated woefully. Getting flickering glimpses of me standin’ over ‘im with a rod in each fist, his bloodshot to Hell eyes stayed open, batting like busted shutters.
“I guess it’s not a big secret anymore. Get up with yer hands over your head.”
I waited. Sister Anna waited, peering out of the cell through the iron mesh. The whole world stood still until I kicked him the groin and he jumped straight onto his feet with a falsetto squeal. I motioned with one’a my gats for him to make with the hands like I’d told him to an’ bringin’ ‘em away from his crotch, he put ‘em behind his head.
“Now walk,” I said. He took two steps an’ I got behind him.
“You will not get away with this,” he carped disagreeably an’ stopped walkin’ to do it.
“I’ve heard that line before. Now, move!” I’d hav’ta give ‘im a few more kick-starts before he got the idea that it was one foot in front’a the other or six feet under.
Bradshaw needed to get out of his office to think straight, otherwise he’d keep gettin’ that persistent ringin’ in his head. He left City Hall and cabbed it uptown, duckin’ even the special squad of dicks he was so fond of braggin’ about on a good day. This wasn’t a good day. Every person he spoke to wanted a piece’a me an’ he didn’t have any. He’d gotten a call from everybody except the President and he skipped partly to miss that call. He showed up at the door of Drake’s penthouse, gave the doc the short version an’ the shrink mulled it over. He solution was to pour a couple’a stiff ones for him an’ his old pal, park it in the den an’ drink until they hatched a plan.
“Either Brady turns up on his own or I’ll have to issue a warrant his arrest. Roosevelt isn’t giving me any choice,” the DA whined, guzzling a water glass full’a bourbon.”
“The thought that Brady is a spy for a foreign government is absolutely preposterous, Cornelius, and you know it,” Drake protested, drinkin’ the same stuff from the same kinda glass, but not puttin’ it away like fatboy Bradshaw.
Drake refilled the DA’s glass and Bradshaw sucked it in like air.
“Of course it is, but the Russians have the senator over a barrel,” Bradshaw fretted like Kennedy was the loose string on a sweater that could go all to pieces. All it needed was one good jerk.
“Have you spoken to Jonathan? Isn’t there anything his deep pockets can do?” Drake suggested.
The three of them were pals, the DA, Drake and Livingstone, and it was surprising that Jonathan wasn’t at the drinkin’ powwow since the senator was breathin’ down his neck too.
“We’re talking international politics, Drake,” Bradshaw retorted, scoffing at the idea that money could buy influence. He was tipsy.
“What’s your point, Cornelius?”
“Senator Kennedy’s political future is on the line. Why, there’s talk from the other side of naming him as a suspect in his own niece’s disappearance. A lot of dirt could come out from this.”
“So making Duke Brady the scapegoat saves the senator’s reputation and career.”
Drake took a sip’a bourbon an’ waited for Bradshaw to worm his way out’a that one.
“Er, uh—”
He couldn’t, and Drake continued, “You’ve tried to drag Brady’s name through the mud before—and all you ended up with was mud on your face. What makes you think you’ll get away with it this time?”
“I just want to get to the bottom of this!”
“Or sweep it under the rug.”
“ But—”
“But that won’t be easy. A pile of corpses is pretty lumpy.”
“And we have Brady to thank for that too!”
Bradshaw scoured the room with his eyes for the twelve-year-old bottle. He could’a been lookin’ for twelve years. Drake had to get more ice for the bucket an’ in the time it took to get to the icemaker in the condo’s walk-in pantry, fill the bucket an’ get back, Bradshaw still hadn’t found the bourbon. It was sitting on the coffee table right in front of him.
Nogodenov and his conspirators planned to ultimately wrest control of the government from the commies and former KGB in the Kremlin, but the apparatchiks back in Moscow had plans of their own. They had a new ambassador waiting in the wings and Olga Stolichnaya took over the post before the coroner could peel the blood soaked party dress off Sonovavich’s corpse. It wouldn’t have taken so long to get it off, but since Ivan and Ragoff’s slugs went clear through the fashionably bony broad, the torn edges of crinoline and sequins had stuck to her insides, the dried blood and body fluid mingling with bits of shattered bone functioning as a tar-like paste gluing them together into a fixed muddle. All that had to be sorted out and carefully removed. Sonovavich was what they call history by then and the new ambassador already had a meeting scheduled with the senator to discuss the city’s recent Russian crime wave, which the ambassador saw as a black eye on the Russian character in the States.
“Senator Kennedy, a great shame has been brought upon our country. We cannot sit idly by and let such an injustice go unpunished,” she adamantly put her government’s position.
“I, eh, understand, Madam Ambassador and, eh, you can trust the police are hot on the trail of the, eh, culprit, er, culprits. You, eh, have my word.”
“We do not want to risk a scandal, senator.”
“Er, eh, certainly not!”
“What will the police do when they find this man Brady?”
“Eh, he’ll be punished to the fullest extant of the law, I assure you.”
“These are the word I want to hear,” she admonished and approved in the same glacial breath.
Kennedy was a big guy and walkin’ on hot coals was not his specialty. He was used to grinnin’ and glad-handin’. This ambassador wasn’t the peacenik fashion plate that Sonovavich had been. This gal was as drab and gray as a battleship, with enough heavy ballast on the bottom to offset the big guns she had on top. When Stolichnaya moved or spoke, you could practically hear the pulleys and wenches working in Moscow.
The halls of the Russian embassy were as big and empty as an old warehouse, which it may have been at one time. It had since been converted into a palace, renovated from top to bottom with marble floors, vaulted ceilings, mahogany and oak panel, murals, tapestries, and gold plated molding on the doors and walls. It was the Ritz all right an’ here these boys got to thinkin’ it was all up for grabs.
I’d been pushin’ the guy around on a forced tour of the bedrooms and offices. There were several but I passed ‘em up when we got to the large reception hall where the fatal gala had taken place. He started to wince and squirm when I prodded him to walk through it. When I realized there wasn’t a soul in the joint and the place was dead quiet, I made laughing boy stand still and just listened. The murmuring voices came from behind an extravagantly ornate door at the opposite end of the hall. The thing was decked out with all kinds of cockamamie filigree and had all the trappings of an inner sanctum. They were the only voices I’d heard the whole time, besides his wheezing and grunting every time I belted him to keep him in line. I jammed the gun into his lower back and he guessed what I was gettin’ at an’ started for the door.
“What’s with the door?” I asked, expectin’ a straight answer.
I got one. “It is the ambassador’s private chambers,” he said, taking a quick look at me over his shoulder.
“Turn around,” I snarled. “These puppies don’t shoot bonbons an’ if ya want one in’a back, just ask. I’m happy to oblige.”
He didn’t look back again. Nearer the door I was able to distinguish the voices as a male and a female. They weren’t murmuring either. The elaborate ornamentation also served as soundproofing that muffled the loud arguing inside.
“Who’s in there?” I put to ‘im.
“I—I do—not know,” he offered, wavering.
Figurin’ that the door just as easily kept those inside from hearing what was going on outside, I clobbered him across the neck with the forty-four’s grip and he went down with an agonized cry. I pulled him to his feet by the collar and threw him against the door. He let out a loud grunt when he body slammed into it ‘cause all that fancy molding must’ve hurt like Hell. The quarrel inside stopping abruptly.
“Open it,” I said, “Nice an’ easy. Remember, you’re first in line for bonbons.”
He didn’t have the strength to argue or do anything else an’ may even have been a little grateful. He took hold of the brass knob, turned it an’ pushed the door open.
“Comrade Nogodenov—”
“What is it, Stravinsky?”
I didn’t let my guy finish what he was gonna say, shoving him ouy’s the way an’ steppin’ inside to see what was what for myself.
Enraged, Nogodenov jolted to his feet, shouting, “Who is this man?”
Carla was sitting at the conference table, a pallor of relief coming over her tired face.
“He is Brady,” Stravinsky relayed climbing upright, the edge of the enormous table having caught him in the midsection and doubling him over, knockin the wind out of him. He tried thrusting his arms out to break the fall but his face smacked the table surface an’ sent the scattered documents flying.
“Brady! But how—?” Nogodenov exhorted, at a loss.
“Settle down, bright boy. Carla, check him for weapons.”
Utterly incensed, the Russian glared at the gypsy, declaring astonished, “Carla!”
“Step away from the table, comrade,” she coolly directed, lifting herself from the chair using the table as a support.
“I will not be betrayed like this!” he howled.
“Duke, look out!”
Nogodenov had a weapon all right. The automatic jumped out of his sleeve into his hand. Seeing the shape Carla was in, I didn’t think twice, but I didn’t shoot. Instead, the Russian swung the compact pistol to his own mouth and jammed the muzzle between his scowling teeth. His face bloated like a kid’s balloon, blood spewing from every orifice in his head as the burning slug pushing everything out of its way and ripping his brain apart, pushed it out the back of his head where it sprayed like the air behind him confetti.
The viscous drops were still settling on the fallen pages of the forged reports when she cried in alarm, “Stravinsky is getting away!”
I turned to see the chamber door left wide-open and the gutless rat racing away through the reception area.
“He’s going back for Anna,” I said, realizing that he was passing up exits to get to the door that would take him back to the lavish corridors of the uninhabited embassy.
“What about Nogodenov?” Carla called as I took off after him.
“He shot himself in the head. I wouldn’t worry about him now,” I yelled, crossing the hall in seconds flat.
I knew Stravinsky was hurt because I’d hurt him. His frantic, uneven steps were those of a man running with a limp and a bad back. They were easy to follow but he knew the winding corridors better than I did.
Helpless and afraid, Anna had foolishly stayed in the cell and by the time I caught up to them, Stravinsky held her by the arms using her as a shield from the slugs I was itchin’ to put in him.
”Stay back! I will not hesitate to kill her!”
“Kill him!” Anna screamed, “He is a coward and a traitor to our people and to God!”
“Shut up!” he yelled, shaking her roughly. “I repeat—do not try to stop me!”
I holstered my rod and reasoned with him, “Okay, comrade, have it your way. I just wanna know what you did with Catherine Kennedy.”
“You are speaking of that stupid, arrogant woman? The relative of your Senator.”
“Yeh, that’s the one. Where is she?”
“She is here in our embassy where no one would ever think to look for her.”
“Uh-huh. Until now.”
“Go and rescue her if you want. By then I will be long gone from your stinking capitalist wasteland!”
“Duke, we cannot let him take Anna. She is an innocent in all this.” Carla shouted, hopping on her crutches behind me.
“Stravinsky!” Carla implored desperately, “Take me instead! I will be your hostage!”
“Carla, no. I do not care for my life. It is God’s will,” Anna blubbered.
“Do not be a pious fool, Anna! You have much to give to the world yet! Your faith shall be an example for others to follow! Remember Father Moishe! He would have wanted you to live!”
“How can I live with blood on my hands?”
“We all have blood on our hands, Sister Anna. It is the way of man—and God.”
“Well, Stravinsky, what’s it going to be? A willing hostage who knows what she’s gettin’ into or a simpering nun who doesn’t care if she lives at all?”
I kept my fingers on my rod’s grip and could have taken him out in that second—but instead, he flung his gun to the floor and fell to his knees weeping like a baby. “What the—?”
“Oh, I have seen the errors of my ways!” he bawled suddenly. “The sister’s words have filled me with the love of God! I will help you, Brady—I will lead you to Catherine Kennedy and expose the entire ring of traitors! I have been blind, but the Lord has made my eyes see! I repent my sins before God!”
He threw himself on his face wailing, “God, forgive me!”
Anna clasped her hands and raised them to the light bulb, and said, “It is a miracle!”
“I’ll say. Carla, do you think this is a trick?”
She ambled over and picking up the discarded weapon, brought it to me and we both stood looking in amazement at the Russian spymaster turned devout repentant, prostrate and trembling. Anna knelt beside him and cradled his head in her arms and they began to mournfully mumble prayers in their native language.
“I still think this is a ruse—an excuse for him to defect.”
“Perhaps so, but why question faith?”
“Good point,” I conceded, taking the strain off her crutches by bringing her into my arm. “In God we trust, after all.”
Bradshaw was startin’ to feel like he’d be the one gettin’ shipped to Siberia when his secretary buzzed, “I have Duke Brady on the line, mister Bradshaw.”
“Brady!” he exclaimed, snapping out of it and yelled into the line, “Brady, where are you? I have my men scouring the city looking for you!”
“Well, ya found me—and ya can come pick me up, me an’ a few of my comrades, that is. I got one especially eager to point the way to Catherine Kennedy.”
“You mean you’ve cracked the case?”
“Wide open—with no help from the bulls. Make sure you tell that to the senator.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Er, comrades? You mean—?”
Russkies, Bradshaw. Spies. Ivanov was one of them but he lost his marbles after he bumped off his brother. The others went into a panic after that.”
“But what does that have to do with Catherine?”
“You’ll have to ask Senator Kennedy about that. He only hired me to find her.”
“I’ll notify the senator right away! I’m sure he’ll want to thank you in person!”
“Sure he will.”
Livingstone hung up the phone and went out to his daughter sitting in a funk at her desk.
“I have excellent news, Joanna!”
She looked up and asked expectantly, “Is it about Duke?”
“As a matter of fact it is! He’s found Catherine.”
The color flooded her cheeks and she shrieked happily, “Oh, father! I knew he would! How is she?”
“Fine, apparently. Senator Kennedy is holding a gala tonight at the Kennedy Center to welcome her back—and also to present Duke with a check for eighty million dollars, plus expenses. Our friend Duke has made himself independently wealthy, besides single-handedly uncovering and destroying a ring of double dealing Russian agents.”
“Father!”
“When Cornelius told me, I could hardly believe it—but I’ve learned to never underestimate Duke Brady. He seems to be able to accomplish the impossible against overwhelming odds.”
“Why, father, I’ve never heard you speak so glowingly of anyone before.”
“Well, Duke is apparently a very special man.”
“Well, I think so,” she cooed.
“Yes, eh, I think so too—so if you and he ever, eh…”
“Oh, father! Do you think he’ll propose?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Joanna. Duke is a very independent fellow. I’m just saying that now that he can afford to, he might think of settling down.”
“He might, but that doesn’t seem likely if I know Duke,” she said after givin’ it a moment’s thought.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. He hardly seems the retiring type.”
“But I will ask him what his intentions are at the gala. Who, knows—I might get lucky!”

“What’s this?” asked Joe when I slipped the gold embossed invite onto the desk in front’a him.
“It’s your invite to the big gala tonight.”
“A big gal’s enough’s for me. Where is she?”
“It’s a party, ya dope, at the Kennedy Center. It’s gonna be wall-to-wall swells. Sarah’s goin’ too.”
“How’s that include me?”
“Yer my pal, ain’t cha? The party’s for me. Senator Kennedy’s gotta make a big to-do about handin’ me that eighty-million clams.”
“What’s that come to after taxes?”
“Enough for me to bust for a new heap. That Jag Mike sold me don’t run too smooth, what with bullet holes all through the radiator.”
“At’sa shame, Duke. Inna market for anudder one?”
“Nah. I’m thinkin’ I’ll go for a little black Maserati convertible. Two-seater job with a hopped up engine.”
“You sure moved up in the world, I’ll say.”
“Considerin’ how low I had to go to do it.”


N