“Why would I do that?”
“You’re friends, are you not? I heard since childhood.”
Leslie licked his lips and cleared his throat. “So?”
“So, here’s this little ofay dumped on you against your will and he just so happens to be connected to a hateful, immoral blackmailer, who just so happens to have blackmailed your childhood friend’s lover. The Müllers threatened Zora’s freedom and possibly her livelihood. I have a good sense of what lengths she’d go to protect herself.”
“Oh really?” Leslie crossed his arms over his chest. “What lengths, ofay? Please enlighten me.”
“Tonight, she told me to kill Walter Müller.”
That stopped Leslie.
Dash continued. “Did she tell you to kill Karl Müller?”
No response.
“Did she, Les?”
Those sapphire eyes went cloudy as the club owner calculated his risk. His eyes cleared. “She did, but”—he held up a pointer finger—“and listen to me closely now, I am not a killer. You got me? I didn’t give two shits about him. I didn’t even want him in my club. I don’t like you ofays. You cause trouble. The only reason I allow them in my club is because of their sugar. And baby, I will take all their sugar. It’s the least y’all can do for all the pain and suffering you cause.”
Dash stepped back. “If you didn’t kill him, did you see him leave?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know why he left?”
“How much is it worth to ya?”
“Les, goddammit, just tell me!”
“Hey, boy, you on my property now, and you don’t have the right to speak to me in that way.”
Dash held up an apologetic hand. “You’re right. I was out of line.”
Leslie stared at him, his sapphire eyes shining bright in the dark. “He overheard me,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry?”
Leslie took a deep breath and said through clenched teeth. “He overheard me talking to Zora. I told her I had him and what would she like me to do with him. Then she told me.”
“And Karl understood what was going on from just hearing your side of the conversation?”
“He got the gist he wasn’t safe.”
“And so he ran.”
In Dash’s mind, he could see the kid panic, try to reach somebody on Leslie’s telephone after the club owner left, and then take off. But where would he have gone?
“How come you called Zora the night after he left and said ‘it’s been taken care of’?”
“How do you know that?” Leslie answered his own question. “Goddamn Horace.”
“Leave him out of this. He’s only trying to help.”
“Get me in the jailhouse, that’s how helpful he is.”
“Answer the question, please.”
An exasperated sigh. “Because you told me someone strangled that little fuck! Jesus Christ, you honestly thought I’d dirty my hands by wrapping them around his neck? And then drag his body to the Park? Please. You must be on dope.”
Dash felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Why’d you call Zora a second time?”
“’Cause it gets me off the hook! She asks you to do something, it’s not a request, ofay, it’s a demand. And she wants results.”
“Why were you at her Heaven and Hell party tonight?”
Suspicion glared at Dash. “How’d you know I was there?”
“Because I was, too. Karl invited me before he died.”
“I see,” Leslie said. “Not that it’s any of your business, but she wanted El to play her party, and I was there to make sure El played her party. You know, you and her got a lot in common. You both disrespect men on a regular basis.”
His lips widened into a shrewd smile.
“At her party, she asked you to kill Walter, didn’t she?”
Dash remained silent, but it was still an admission.
Leslie smirked. “Ha! Now you gotta do what she asks, and baby, I don’t think you’re going to get as lucky as me.” A low chuckled rumbled in his chest. “No, sir. You are fucked, Mr. Parker. You’re about to get your lily-white upper-class hands dirty like the rest of us.”
He pulled open the back door.
“By the way, keep your ass outta my club.”
He went inside, slamming the door behind him.
27
The following morning, Monday, August 23, a full week since the nightmare started, Finn burst into the bedroom with tears streaking down his face.
“My Valentino!” he wailed. “He’s gone!”
Dash sat straight up in bed. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Gone where?” he said mid-yawn.
Joe replied softly from the sheets next to him, “He died, lassie.”
That snapped Dash into focus. He took in the tear-stained face of his friend. “I’m so sorry, Finn. What happened?”
Finn recounted how the actor succumbed to his infection. All the modern medicine in New York couldn’t save him. There would be a public viewing tomorrow.
Dash’s friend was inconsolable. He kept repeating over and over again, “My Valentino!”
Joe looked over at Dash. “What do we do?”
“We stay here, and we comfort our friend.”
“Lassie. It’s Monday.”
Damn it to hell. It was NYPD Donation Day. The last person Dash wanted to deal with right now was Cullen McElroy.
He groaned and slid out of bed, leaving behind a crying Finn and a consoling Joe.
Shaved and dressed in his Banff blue pinstripe suit, he returned to Hartford & Sons, where McElroy was already waiting.
He snapped his watch shut. “On time this week, Mr. Parker. Very good.”
Dash counted out the bribe and handed it more brusquely than he should have to McElroy. “Here you go, sir.”
McElroy’s eyes flashed. “No need to have that attitude. After all, I’m doing you a service.”
Some service. It hadn’t protected him from mobsters or blackmailers.
Dash swallowed down the anger and bitterness. “Apologies. I’m having a rough morning.”
McElroy grunted. “So’s everybody. They’re all crying over this actor guy Rudolph.” He scoffed. “I don’t get it. So he was in a couple of pictures. What does he have that I don’t got?”
A waist.
Dash kept his commentary to himself.
“Something might interest you,” McElroy said. “Someone was offering me some sugar to tell on you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A blond kraut. Wanted to know where you lived and such.”
Walter.
“And did you tell him?” Dash asked.
McElroy’s eyes sparkled. “Not yet. I
