Luzon shrugged. “There’s not much to know, man, not anymore.”
“They a factor?”
“What?”
“Are they important? Are they still players?”
“Small players,” Luzon said. “Very small. The old man’s always had a numbers runner’s mentality, never any big-time stakes. When the legal game happened, the business dried up for everybody but the big guys. Yours truly included.”
“I know all about the old man,” I said. “What about Joey?”
Luzon pursed his thin lips and slowly shook his head. “He’s nothing. Hangs out at May’s with all those other ring-a-ding-ding boys and dreams about the fifties. Places a few bets every so often, and sometimes he hits. Mostly track action. Long shots.”
“I heard he got burned pretty bad recently,” I said.
“On the odds?”
“Uh-uh. A woman.”
“Oh, that,” Luzon said, making a small wave with his hand. “I heard something too.”
“You don’t seem too surprised.”
“It’s not the first time a woman took DiGeordano to the cleaners. Joey D’s been chasin’ pussy all his life. Sometimes the pussy bites back.”
“They say it bit back to the tune of two hundred grand.”
Luzon chuckled. “Then that’s some serious shit, Holmes.”
“I’m looking for the woman who did it,” I said.
“I guess Joey is too.”
“That’s right.”
“You working for Joey?”
I shook my head. “The woman’s husband.”
“What’s her name?”
“April Goodrich.”
Luzon said, “I’ll ask around.”
“One more thing,” I said.
“Talk about it.”
“You remember hearing about that boy got killed across the street, earlier this year? At the Piedmont, in his apartment.”
“White boy?” Luzon said.
“Yeah.”
“Knife job, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Heard some talk about it that day. Then the next dude got offed somewhere else, and that took its place in the conversation sweepstakes. You know how it goes around here.”
“What was the word on the boy?”
“You saw the papers, just like me. Nobody knows anything, and if they did, who would they tell? I mean, what for? Just another punk-ass bitch, dead. We got our own problems, real ones, man.” Luzon blew me a kiss and said, “He a friend of yours, man?”
“That’s right,” I said as Luzon’s smile turned down. “And I’d like to know what happened.”
“They say a light-skinned dude-”
“I read that already.”
“Listen, Nicky. The only thing I know, they got the Piedmont locked down tighter than a schoolgirl, man.”
“You’ve tried to get in, then.”
Luzon looked up, sheepishly. “I’ve made some attempts, yes.”
“What’s your point?”
“That ‘light-skinned dude in a blue shirt’ routine-it’s just smoke, man. That way the public thinks it’s just a junkie kill, from the neighborhood. But no junkie got into that building unless he greased somebody’s palm or unless that boy let him up. You see what I’m sayin’?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Winnie. See what you can dig up on that too, hear?”
“Sure, Nicky.” Luzon shifted his feet and looked down at his shoes. “You positive you don’t want no smoke?”
I drew a folded twenty from my pocket and my business card and placed them both in his palm. “Keep the weed,” I said, “and call me.”
Luzon eyeballed the card, smiled, and shook his head. “Good to see you again, Nicky. Or is it Nicholas?”
“Nicky,” I said.
Luzon smiled again before he turned and walked smoothly back along the walkway that encircled the grassy mall. I eyed him until he became too small to watch, shoulders up with a white curl of smoke that seemed to circle around his head. If there is one thing I cannot reconcile, one inevitable, it is the slow, sad progression of decay.
William Henry’s building stood at the intersection of Sixteenth and Florida and was on the way to my car. I stepped behind the building and had a cigarette while I watched a delivery being made to the truck bay in the alley. An unsmiling man in a blue maintenance uniform checked the delivery in and then pulled the doors closed from the inside when the process was done. There were no outside handles on those stee Kon n and tl doors and only one similarly fashioned door on the left side of the building. I crushed the butt under my shoe and walked around to the front.
The Piedmont was gray stone and six stories tall, with swirled detail work above each window. Black wrought-iron balconies had been added to the apartments at the time of their condo conversion, adding to the price tag but adding little in the way of practical use, since the balconies appeared to be only three feet deep. A couple of bicycles were chained to the railings, a few of which were strung with Christmas lights. I moved along the front walk to an open heavy glass door. Inside I encountered a locked set of similar doors and a black telephone on the gray wall. Next to the telephone was a slot for a magnetic card that I presumed would allow tenants to gain entrance. The telephone had no dial or numbers. I picked it up and heard a ring on the other end.
“Yes,” said a large voice.
“Detective Stefanos,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Metropolitan Police?”
“That’s right,” I lied.
The phone clicked dead, and then a man as large as his voice walked across the marble lobby to the glass doors. This one was a hard two-fifty if he was a pound. He stopped on the other side of the door, folded his thick arms, and looked down into my eyes. The aluminum tag clipped to his shirt pocket read RUDOLPH. On the arm of his shirt, above the bicep, was sewn a red patch with the coat-of-arms logo of the Four-S Security Systems company.
Rudolph raised his eyebrows as I put my business card against the glass and quickly pulled it back. He pointed to the badge on his chest and then made a come-on gesture with his fingers. I put the card back up on the glass along with a ten spot that I produced from my slacks. Rudolph stared at me until I squeezed out another ten and put it behind the first one. He kept staring while he pointed once again to his badge and then at me. When I didn’t produce one he walked away. He was still walking as I tapped my fingers on the glass.
Out on the street I buttoned up my black overcoat and found a pay phone on the corner nearest my car. I dropped a quarter getting the number of Four-S, then another dialing that number. After a few minutes I was directed into the office of personnel.
“How may I help you?” said an aging female voice.
“Jim Piedmont,” I said, as I looked at William Henry’s building across the way. “Bartell Investigative.”
“Yes, Jim, what can I do for you?”
“I’m doing an employment check on a James Thomas, just on the essentials. Do you mind?”
“I’ll help where I can,” she said coolly.
