Seven Ways to Die

  “How come?”

  “Mink coat society.” A shiver wove through her body and she dropped the cigarette in a sand-filled pot nearby.

  “Gotta leave,” she said. “I’m like freezing.”

  Ryan took off the jacket and draped it over her shoulders with the back facing him.

  “Here,” he said. “This won’t squash your wings.”

  “So what do you need that kind of thing for anyway? Good looking guy like you.”

  “Thank you. That is a great pick-up line. Only…” He took out his I.D. wallet and flashed his gold badge. “We’re working.”

  “Oh, m’gosh,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh please don’t bust the place until after rehearsal, okay? Our director’s a real ninny. He’ll like pitch a squirrel.”

  “Pitch a squirrel?”

  “He y’know totally loses it over anything? You go up on a line? Boom! He’s like a squirrel you just stepped on its tail.”

  “I get it.”

  “Anyway, you’re way early. Things don’t get started until like ten, ten-thirty?”

  “Where is it?”

  She nodded toward a staircase leading down to a door at the end of the tiny square.

  “What do you know about the place?”

  “Just what some of the kids hear. Some of them leave this way and short cut over to Christopher.”

  “What do they hear?”

  “It’s mainly uptowners and they, uh, y’know…uh, like to, uh…trade partners?”

  “Sex club.”

  “Well…uh huh, I guess. There’s this bartender named Warren? Should be there now. He comes early to supervise the cleanup crew.”

  “You know him?”

  “By sight. Some of the kids have talked to him but he won’t like talk about the club.”

  “Does it have a name?”

  “I think it’s called the Yellow Door.”

  Δ

  Ryan put his thumb over the peephole in the door and DeMarco knocked on it and they waited.

  A minute went by. Two. Three. DeMarco knocked again, this time with a little more authority. They waited again. Then Ansa appeared at the top of the stairs. He was wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask only it was bright red with spangles around the edge.

  “This must be da place,” he said.

  “You cover the peephole this time,” Ryan said taking out his badge. “I’ll do the knocking.” He stepped back and kicked the door hard with the toe of his boot. Another minute and a muffled voice inside asked, “Who is it?”

  “The Dumpster guy, Warren,” Ryan said. “Open up, we got a problem.”

  Inside, the chain clinked, the deadbolt was drawn and a key turned the door lock. The door opened a couple of inches. Warren, startled speechless, backed up as Ryan shoved it open and they walked into a small anteroom with a yellow door facing them. To their left was a heavy door with a thick glass window and a small slot in it. To their right a narrow hallway curved around into darkness.

  “You need a warrant,” Warren said so fast the words ran together. He was a short man, five-six, with reddish-brown hair, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with “It’s my attitude and I like it” printed across the front. “That’s the law,” he added.

  “You know what this is?” Ryan asked, holding his badge an inch from Warren’s face.

  Warren stared at it for a moment, nodded, and said, “I have to call my boss.”

  “You know what this is?” Ryan insisted, shaking the badge.

  “It’s a badge.”

  “That’s correct. And right now it’s the only warrant we need.”

  DeMarco stepped in, playing the good guy.

  “Take it easy, sergeant,” and to Warren, “This isn’t a bust, kid. No need to get your shorts in a knot.”

  Ansa stepped behind the little man and opened the yellow door as DeMarco and Ryan forced Warren into the room beyond.

  It was lush; an art deco cabaret with mirrored walls and ceiling, a well-stocked curved bar on one side and, facing it on the other side of the room, a carpeted lounge with expensive, pastel colored sofas, chairs and futons. A small dance floor separated the bar and lounge. The color scheme was muted yellow. Throughout the room scented candles offered soft light and herbal perfumes which, although pleasant, could not entirely erase the ineluctable odor of Lysol.

  There were six doors on the far wall bordering the lounge area, each with a light over it.

  The room was spotless and empty.

  “See, nobody’s here now but me,” Warren said. “The cleaning people are gone and I’m just getting the bar set up. Nothing’s going on.”

  “We know that, Warren,” Ryan said. “Let me tell you, we are not vice, we are not here to break up your party.”

  Warren’s voice went up an octave. “There’s no party! Nobody’s here but me.”

  “You opened the door,” Ansa said. “You let us in. Give us a few minutes and we’ll be gone and nobody will ever know we were here.”

  “Who’s that?” Warren asked, “Why is he wearing a mask?”

  Ansa smiled and took off the mask. “It’s Halloween,” he said.

  “Calm down, fella,” Ryan said. “You’re gonna have a heart attack over nothing.”

  “Nothing? You break in here and…”

  “Nobody broke in,” said Ansa. “Like I said, you opened the door for us.”

  “What do you want from me? What have I done?”

  “Who said you did anything?” DeMarco said. “See, you’re jumping to conclusions and getting upset over nothing.”

  “Look, once again, we’re not from vice, okay?” said Ryan. “We know about the club and we really don’t give a shit about that. You give us a hand? We are out of your life forever.”

  “There’s no money here. I got maybe thirty dollars.”

  “Who said anything about money?” said Ansa, getting irritated. “What’s that supposed to mean. You trying to bribe us?”

  “No. No. I thought…”

  “That’s your problem, Warren, you think too much,” said DeMarco, looking around the room.

  Suddenly, Warren snapped. His demeanor changed. “That’s it!” he yelled. He stomped across the room to the end of the bar, still babbling. “Bust in here like a bunch of elephants stomping all over me. Haven’t got a warrant. Don’t read me my rights. Waving badges in my face.” He snatched up the phone. “I’m calling the boss.”

  Ansa hurried across the room and pressed the cutoff button on the phone. Warren stood his ground, his hand on his hip, legs spread apart, the phone clutched in his hand.

  The cops looked at each other and back at Warren.

  There was a long pause.

  “Well, what do you want?” Warren loudly demanded.

  “See, Warren, what it is, this hasn’t got anything to do with you or the club or your boss. Uh, we got a witness who’s alibied here last night. We figure you might be able to confirm that.”

  “I don’t know anybody by name or by looks. Mostly they wear masks and even if they don’t we aren’t supposed to look anybody in the face. No checks, no credit cards. Everything’s cash.”

  “We checked out your record, Warren. We could make trouble for you if we wanted to. We don’t.”

  Warren thought about it.

  “Even The Banker doesn’t know them by name,” he said. “He doesn’t look at anybody either. Everybody’s anonymous.”

  “The Banker?”

  “The boss who works the door where you came in.”

  “The door with the bulletproof glass,” Ryan said.

  “What’s with the doors over there?” DeMarco asked waving toward the far wall.

  “Private rooms. Sometimes a couple or maybe a threesome wants to go private. The light over the door goes on when it’s in use. There’s a backdoor opens into the hallway you saw on the right coming in. I’ve got the board over there,” he nodded to a small electronic device with buttons and lights on it. “Lights go on when the room’s in use, o
ff when it’s empty. I can tell from the lights on the board so I can log the room in and out.”

  “And I suppose that has a price tag on the door,” DeMarco said.

  “Three bills.”

  “They just think of everything, don’t they?” Ansa said. “Whoever they are.”

  “I don’t know who they are. I was hired through a reentry agency. The only person I know is the Banker. Don’t know his name, just he’s the Banker. ”

  DeMarco took the manila envelope out of his pocket and put it on the bar.

  “What’s that?” Warren asked.

  DeMarco slipped Handley’s photograph out of the envelope and slid it in front of Warren.

  “We know he’s a member.”

  “I can’t do that. Man, I’ll lose my job for sure.”

  “I guarantee you, Warren, you will not lose your job.

  Just look at the picture. I mean, c’mon, when all the whoopee starts, the masks come off, everybody’s doing everybody else. Hell, you’re not blind. Just look at the picture.”

  Warren shook his head vigorously. “You don’t understand. I make three times what the most upscale bars in town would pay me. Not counting tips. When the games start I pop a coupla of valium, put the IPod earphones on, and read a book.”

  “Your job is not on the line here,” Ryan repeated. “Please just look at the picture.”

  “We just want to make sure he was here last night, when he arrived and when he left.”

  Warren gazed down at Handley’s photograph.

  He knows, Ryan said to himself. I can see that little flicker in his eyes, the little twitch in his jaw.

  “Let me guess,” Ryan said. “He came in right at twelve.”

  Warren kept staring at the picture and finally he slowly nodded.

  “How’d you make him?” DeMarco asked.

  Warren rubbed a finger. “His ring,” he whispered. “Princeton. He always had it on.”

  “Very good,” said Ryan. “And what time did he come in?”

  Warren walked to the other end of the bar and came back with a notebook. He opened it, leafed through the pages and stopped.

  “Things were already heating up. He came in and looked at me and I held up three fingers and he went to the room. I logged him in at 11:49.”

  “So he already paid the Banker the three cs?”

  “The Banker called me earlier, told me number 103, that’s his number, 103, arranged for a visitor to meet him in room three.”

  “What’s in these rooms?” Ansa asked.

  “Some are just like bedrooms with a TV. Soft lights, silk sheets. Some members get heated up out here and then like a little privacy. The other three are varied. One has a large waterbed…”

  “And?”

  “One of them has chains, leather, whips, y’know.”

  “S & M crap,” Ryan said.

  Warren nodded.

  “How about room three?” DeMarco asked.

  “Just a plain bedroom.”

  “So our guy didn’t go for the S & M room, right?”

  Warren nodded. “Right, when he came in the visitor was already there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The rear light went on at…11:36.”

  “So the Banker saw her?”

  “No. He asked the Banker when he paid in if the visitor was here and the Banker called me to see if his visitor was in the room yet. She must have got by him. It’s dark, other people were checking in. And I said yeah.”

  “But it was a woman?”

  Warren nodded.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I thought you were just interested in him?”

  Ansa said, “She could back up his alibi. That way you, the club, nobody else gets involved.”

  “You said nobody would get involved. That’s what you said.”

  “And you won’t,” Ryan said. “When did you see her?”

  “It was like five minutes after he went in. Around 12:05. The strobe lights were on, people were getting into it. I saw the front light go off and she came out. But I was down at the other end of the bar.”

  “And he was still in there?”

  Warren nodded. “He left by the back at 12:20.”

  “What did she look like, Warren?”

  “Oh, I…you know, it was a jungle. Dark, strobe lights flashing, I just got a glimpse of her. There were two women going at it on the sofa and a guy doing one of the women and she stopped for a second or two to watch and then she looked up and saw me looking and I looked back down at my book real fast and then she was gone.”

  “What do you remember about her, Warren?” Ryan asked. “Anything at all?”

  “Red dress. Very classy. Spaghetti straps. A designer dress but I can’t tell you for sure. All the women in the place dress like a million bucks. That’s part of it.”

  “How tall was she?”

  “Five-five, five-six. Depends on the shoes. I couldn’t see her feet but she was probably wearing spike Pradas with that outfit.”

  “How about her face? Hair?” Ryan pressed him.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Just a hint, Warren.”

  “She was wearing a head mask. One of those kind that drapes down to the shoulders, covered her head and neck.”

  “What kind of mask?”

  Warren thought for a minute and said, “Bela Lugosi.”

  “Bela who?”

  “Lugosi. Pointy, bloody teeth. Weird eyes. Dracula.”

  19

  “Who is she?” Cody mused aloud, staring at the crime scene photo on the big board. “Why did they meet? Is she the killer?”

  “Hard to say, Captain,” Ryan said. “According to this kid, Warren, nobody knows nothin’. The members have numbers. It’s all cash. They wear masks. He isn’t even sure how many members there are but Handley’s was 103.”

  “Could be a couple of hundred people involved,” DeMarco added.

  “So?”

  “That’s a lot of people.”

  “Ever heard of Eddie Zigo?” Cody asked.

  “Everybody knows Eddie bagged the Son of Sam.”

  “The taskforce knew the Son of Sam was using a .44 caliber Bull revolver. They zeroed the search down to a hundred .44 Bulls in Brooklyn. They tracked them down one by one. And Zigo made the case with a .44 Bull in Berkowitz’ car. Get the point?”

  There was a pause and then Ryan said, “Yeah, but even if we got a list, Cap, the woman was Handley’s guest. Her name won’t be on it.”

  “Handley sure won’t be giving her up,” Annie Rothschild muttered.

  Cody stared at her for a moment. He shook his head and sighed.

  “So we’re back to square one.” He looked around the room. “Anybody?”

  “Our best guess is that Handley met her at the club and gave her two keys,” Ansa offered. “One for the front door, the other to his apartment.”

  “Two people were in that apartment, Handley and his killer,” Cody said. “Either she killed him or passed the keys to somebody who did.”

  Cody nodded. “Amelie Cluett says Handley was straight. If she’s correct then Androg is the lady in red. Handley wouldn’t have submitted to a guy.”

  “Unless…” Si said.

  “Unless…?”

  “Unless part of the deal was that Handley blindfolded himself when he got undressed. Maybe he and the killer never spoke when he got home. Maybe that was part of the intrigue. Maybe Vampira was a Judas goat.”

  “Part of the lure,” Annie finished the thought. “Handley didn’t know for sure who was seducing him. It’s perverse enough to fit.”

  “Either way, she’s involved,” Cody said. “We can’t rule her out.”

  “Unless she thought it was just part of a play,” Kate replied. “The whole sex club thing is quirky as hell. Maybe she didn’t know what the endgame was.”

  “You’re thinking like a prosecutor,” Si said.

  “That’s my job.”

  20
br />   The Filipina housekeeper answered the doorbell and ushered Bergman into the Beekman Place apartment. She led him down a short hallway to a large living room, unlit except for a soft light over a wet bar in one corner and the city lights streaming through the windows.

  “Your guest is here, Mister Nevins,” the housekeeper

  said.

  “Thank you, Maria,” he answered and she left Bergman standing at the entrance to the darkened room.

  Louis Nevins was standing with his back to him, one hand in his pants pocket, the other swirling the ice in an empty old fashioned glass. Nevins was staring through a massive corner window, the panorama of South Manhattan spread out before him. The United Nations tower framed one side of the view, and to its right, far beyond it, were the gently arched spires of the Brooklyn Bridge, and still farther a speck of light marking the lady in the bay.

  “No other city like it in the world,” Nevins said, without turning. “First time I came here I cried like a baby when we drove out of the Holland Tunnel. I expected to see windmills and people in wooden shoes. What did I know? A six-year-old kid from Haddonfield, N.J. But then dad drove over to Times Square and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the grandest sight I’d ever seen.”

  He turned to face Bergman. “I’ve been a New Yorker ever since. And today? Today is the saddest day of all the years I’ve lived here.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bergman said without emotion. “Thank you for seeing me.” He offered his hand and they shook.

  Nevins was tall, trim, in good shape for a man in his sixties. He was wearing rumpled brown slacks, a gray sweatshirt and expensive loafers. No socks. Cosmetic surgery had stretched the age wrinkles from his face and his thinning, gray hair was combed sideways to cover up a bald spot. On a better day he could have passed for a man in his early fifties but the whites of his swollen, brown eyes were blood-streaked and his voice, forced reed-thin with grief, betrayed his true age.

  “Have a seat. You look young for a detective. How about a drink?” Nevins ran the words together into a single sentence as he walked past Bergman toward the wet bar in the corner of the handsomely furnished room.

  “Thanks, but I’m on the clock,” Bergman said.

  “Going to make me drink alone? How about some fruit juice? We’ve got all flavors. My companion doesn’t drink.”