“That’s not what Kenny told me.”
“Then Kenny doesn’t know the real story. Or he’s not being straight with you. It’s all right here in the file,” Very tapped it with his finger. “His dad’s whole criminal history.”
“Beth sold handbags at Bloomingdale’s,” Mitch said stubbornly. “She was a nice lady. Still is. She’s not a criminal.”
“I didn’t say she was.” Very looked at Mitch curiously. “You still with me? Because you look a little shook. I don’t blame you. This is some crazy stuff.”
“Very.”
“Yeah, dude?”
“It’s very crazy stuff.”
The lieutenant resumed his pacing. Clemmie came padding down from the sleeping loft and watched this hyper stranger in her midst, highly suspicious. After giving the matter considerable thought, she voted with all four paws to go back upstairs to her nice, calm bed.
“The day Dawgie moved in he called and told me Bertha Peck smelled wrong,” Very recalled. “The man just had a sixth sense when it came to phonies. She had him do a job for her, touching up some paint in her bedroom, and he spotted those old cheesecake shots of her on the dressing table. Professional studio stuff. When he asked her about them she clammed right up. So he got curious. Spent his days off at the Lincoln Center branch of the New York Public Library combing through old Playbills until he found her-Bertha Puzewski. One of his drinking buddies, an old-timer who used to work on the Daily News, remembered the tabloid items about her and Saul Pincus. A couple of months go by and, sure enough, Saul’s granddaughter, Beth, bought a unit there. Right away, Dawgie got interested. Started filing reports of Beth’s comings and goings. FedExing me rolls of film…”
“You just said ‘rolls’ of film again. It’s a digital world. Who still…?”
“Gina gave Dawgie an old school Nikon camera as a birthday present not long before she died. No way he was switching to digital. He’d have been dishonoring her memory. Plus the man was a total trog. He wouldn’t buy a laptop. Didn’t do e-mail. He wrote everything out longhand. It’s all right here in the file. Everything he sent me.”
“Why you?”
“I happen to have a personal interest in the Seven Sisters.”
Mitch narrowed his gaze at him. “Which is…?”
Romaine Very didn’t answer him. Just let the question slide on by.
“Well, what did he find out about Beth?”
“For starters, she has herself a boyfriend. His name’s Vinnie Brogna. Ever meet him?”
“Can’t say that I have, no.”
“Vinnie calls himself a hairstylist. He owns Salon Vincenzo, which is that overpriced barber shop in the Comstock Hotel on Sixth Avenue. I happen to know that he runs a profitable bookmaking operation out of the salon. Also rotates a crew of high-end working girls in and out of the hotel for the pleasure of out-of-town businessmen. The dude’s totally mobbed up. And I’m not talking any Seven Sisters here. He’s in with the Albanese crime family. His wife, Lucia, is the niece of Big Sal, the family boss. Vinnie and Lucia have four kids, a nice big house in Great Neck. And, on the side, he has Beth Breslauer. He spends at least two evenings a week with her at her apartment in Manhattan. And he’s out here on weekends whenever he can swing it. Vinnie likes the action at the Mohegan Sun Casino. The man’s been known to drop twenty large in one night. Usually, he and Beth get a room together there.”
Very handed Mitch more photos from the file. A photo of Beth climbing into a black Lexus on Dorset Street, halfway down the block from the Captain Chadwick House. A photo of her and a dapper middle-aged guy getting out of that Lexus at the palatial front entrance to the Mohegan Sun. Photos of them eating dinner together in a fancy restaurant, their heads close together, eyes gleaming. Waiting for an elevator. Embracing, kissing…
“My sources tell me that Beth and Vinnie have been a steady item for something like ten years.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “How many?”
“Did I just stutter?”
“No, but that would mean-”
“She was seeing him while she was married to Irwin Breslauer, I know. And I’m sorry if that’s a buzzkill but stay with me-there’s more. I hear she’s been pressuring Vinnie to marry her ever since Irwin died. Only, he won’t leave Lucia. The man’s a devout Catholic. Doesn’t believe in divorce.”
“But it’s okay to screw around?”
“People are going to do what they’re going to do,” Very said with a shrug. “And, according to Dawgie, screwing’s not the only thing those two have been up to…” He fanned out another set of photos of Beth and Vinnie walking past a well-dressed couple in the casino parking lot. Beth apparently bumping into her. The lady’s handbag falling to the pavement. Beth picking it up for her. Apologies all around. The two couples going their separate ways. “Pay particular attention to the other lady’s right wrist, dude. Before the bump she’s got a gold bracelet on. See it? After the bump, she doesn’t.”
“Lieutenant, are you suggesting that Beth stole the lady’s bracelet?”
“Dawgie sure thought so.”
Mitch studied the photos more closely. “Hell, these don’t prove anything. Look, the lady’s sleeve is hiked up before the bump. Here, afterward, it’s not. For all we know she could still be wearing the bracelet and it’s just covered up.”
“Could be,” Very conceded. “Except Dawgie believed otherwise. He was convinced that Beth’s still active in the age-old family business. And has been fencing her pickings through a cousin of hers who runs a pawnshop on Eleventh Avenue and West 41 Street.”
“Lieutenant. I know this lady. She’s no thief. Besides, she doesn’t need the money. Kenny told me that Irwin left her very well off.”
“You’d better get used to the idea that when it comes to his parents, your friend Kenny knows bupkes. Either that or he’s gas facing you.”
Mitch looked at Romaine Very reproachfully. “Do you have actual hard evidence that Beth has done anything wrong?”
“That’s exactly what Dawgie was going after last night,” Very responded. “Until somebody beat his brains in.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight… You’re suggesting that his murder may have nothing to do with the Dorset Flasher and everything to do with Beth Breslauer trying to protect her secret criminal identity.”
“Exactly.”
Mitch shook his head at him. “I don’t believe this.”
“Believe it, dude.”
“So some killer from this Seven Sisters crime family rubbed him out?”
“No, the Seven Sisters never get their hands dirty. Killing is strictly for thugs and goons. But her boy Vinnie knows thugs and goons through the Albanese family. He could have arranged for a contract hit easy. Somebody from out of town. Providence, maybe.”
“Why do I suddenly feel as if I’ve wandered into a Scorsese film?”
“I need to get this information to the right people,” Very said, his voice rising with urgency. “Help me get a foot in the door with this Sergeant Snipes, will you?”
“Not a chance. Once you bring up Beth’s so-called connection to this so-called Seven Sisters of yours, she’ll be dragged into an official state police murder investigation. She’s my friend. I’m not going to throw her to the wolves based on Augie’s say-so. Or yours. I want to talk to her first. Hear what she has to say.” Mitch mulled it over for a moment. “But if you give me your word that the Seven Sisters won’t come up then that’s a different story.”
Very frowned at him. “And how do I do that?”
“By telling Sergeant Snipes that Augie was tailing Vinnie, a well-known member of the Albanese crime family. Who, it so happens, has been dating Beth. And who, it so happens, doesn’t take kindly to being tailed. You can flesh out the rest after I’ve had a chance to sit down with Beth-assuming there is more to flesh out. Which I highly doubt there will be.”
Very paced Mitch’s living room, back and forth, back and forth. “I can get with that,” he agreed. “But I’d like
