Nanette Hayes: Rhode Island Red Part 12

"They kicked his a.s.s out of the Protection Program. Cut him loose. They're some vengeful mothers, you know."

"Then what?"

"He did time on the original hijacking charge."

"And when he was released?"

"Don't tell me that schmuck is good in bed."

"Listen, mister ..."

"Okay, Okay" He shook his head. "Jeez. Straight people," he said in puzzlement. "Oh, well, judge not lest ye be judged, as the good book tells us. I mean, Miss Susan Hayward wasn't the greatest actress who ever drew breath but I'm ready to kick a.s.s if anybody says a word against her."

"Please, what happened to Henry Valokus after he got out of prison?"

"Nothing happened, far as I know. Nothing at all. Don't you get it?"

"No."

"Any other rat would have been gotten to. Either in jail or out of jail. Someone would have whacked him long ago. He'd be dead and buried. But Valokus was such a pitiful rat ... such a buffoon ... that even if there was a contract out on him, there weren't any takers. The studio didn't pick up his option."

"Poor Henry," I said.

Justin laughed and coughed and laughed and coughed. "Now you take me. If I ratted out one of my a.s.sociates, you'd probably find me in a Hefty bag on Christopher Street. Half of me, that is. You'd still be looking for the other half. And I'm just a poor little f.a.ggot they promoted from the ranks. Valokus could have been a real bad guy."

"So I guess you wouldn't have any idea where I might find him-where he might be hiding out?"

He laughed again. "You mean like the Gangster Arms on West Fourteenth Street? No, sugar, not a clue."

I thanked him and rose to leave.

"Wait just a sec," he called.

I turned back and met his eyes.

"Listen, Nanny. I don't know whether I buy your story or not. You don't look like the kind of girl who'd be f.u.c.king a guy like Valokus, no matter what they say about Greeks. Anyhoo, I guess I've always been a sucker for a smash-up in love."

"A what?"

"A smash-up. I call all women 'smash-ups.' At any rate, I told you what I know because you're Aubrey's friend. And Aubrey is real good for my business. I owe her. I don't even think I have to remind you to be cool, but I will anyway. You know what I'm saying?"

Actually, I hadn't a clue what he was saying. But I nodded-gravely, sagely-and moved out of the door.

I turned into the first coffee shop I saw. The ubiquitous Greek coffee shop. I ordered coffee and one of those lard-laden m.u.f.fins and I sat at the counter thinking dark thoughts.

Those unfriendly white folks in the van had not lied. Dear Henry Valokus was a criminal. But, according to Justin Thorn, not a very successful one. A schmuck, he'd called Henry. A buffoon. Well, Henry wasn't the first man I had found endearingly eccentric, while the world judged him a great deal more harshly. But a b.o.o.b? An a.s.shole? I stared down at the countertop, hurt, ashamed somehow, as if someone were calling me those names. Like the kids bad-mouthing Aubrey, my best friend.

So my lost love really was from Providence. Just like Wild Bill, aka Heywood Tuttle. Both show up in New York. Both connected to street musicians-Valokus to me, Wild Bill to the murdered blind girl. Providence. Some divine Providence. How many miles from Providence to Provence?

At least he hadn't lied about being Greek.

This poem was beginning to unravel. Both from Providence. One actually played with Bird. One claimed to be obsessed with Bird.

Where had their connection started? Was Wild Bill the gardener for the Valokus estate? Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely. Did he sell moons.h.i.+ne to Henry's father? Where did the thread begin and where did it end?

Well, wait a minute. I already knew where it ended, didn't I? Brad Weston, the melancholy pianist, had told us that poor Heywood Tuttle had lived his last days in a squalid tenement that hovered over the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

I walked west to the Tunnel and hopscotched through the traffic. Motorists flinched when they saw me, thinking I was one of those mad window wipers.

Up loomed a single half block of tenements, an island in the center of a traffic mess. Half of the island was filled with crumbling condemned houses, many of them boarded up. The sidewalk had been all but removed.

But four buildings remained. All occupied. I wondered how the residents negotiated back and forth late at night.

The fumes and honking noise were almost overwhelming. It was h.e.l.l. And the devil might be living behind any door.

I pressed myself against a wall and waited. Tuttle had lived in one of those buildings. But which one? And how could I get inside without someone calling the police?

The spirit was upon me, or with me. Five minutes later an old man with the raw boned look of the covered wagon pioneer menfolk walked out of one of the buildings carrying a torn carton which he dropped unceremoniously at the curbside trash collection area. Inside the box, among the debris, were the red shoes I'd seen Wild Bill wearing.

"Excuse me!" I called out hastily to the old man before he could disappear into the building again. "Excuse me, but I think you knew my grandfather."

He looked at me, not comprehending.

"Wild Bill was my grandfather."

The old man squinted at me, removed the cigar and p.r.o.nounced: "Hickok?"

For a moment I didn't understand. Then I got the joke. And I laughed.

"My name's Reardon," the old man said, "and I don't know any Wild Bill."

"I mean Heywood Turtle."

Mr. Reardon pulled on the long string and there was light in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Three cats flashed by us, headed toward the far wall.

"Friends of mine," Mr. Reardon said.

Mr. Reardon was really quite nice to me. He explained that my grandfather had been a decent man at heart, it had just been "the drink" that made life so tough for him. It happened "to a lot of us," he said. He was so sorry not to have made it to the funeral, and he'd be pleased to show me the few things left in Mr. Turtle's room at the time of his pa.s.sing.

"You know, I always thought it was interesting how Heywood never talked much about his past. I knew there had to be some kin of his somewhere in the world. Isn't it just the G.o.dd.a.m.nest thing! Your grandpa dies just a week or so before you find him?"

"Yes sir it is." I sniffled once and wiped at an elephant tear.

"He was a pretty peculiar man, that's for sure. To this day I don't know where he was most of that week before he died. He'd paid his rent, but don't look like he barely ever slept at home."

"Well, you know musicians. I'm sure he had a reason."

"Another thing," Mr. Reardon added. "I always asked your grandfather why he didn't buy a bed. Said he preferred that old cot." And he nodded toward the nasty thing. "Course it's yours if you want it. It's only right, you being kin. But I just thought somebody might be able to use it."

"Keep it with my blessing, Mr. Reardon."

He showed me the other pitiful things Wild Bill had possessed: a shaky bureau with the bottom drawer missing, the other drawers filled with scratchy towels, toiletry items, a couple of white s.h.i.+rts and an extensive collection of b.u.t.tons.

Opening the last drawer it occurred to me that if Wild Bill had owned anything of value-a clock radio, a ca.s.sette player-the chances were that Mr. Reardon had already confiscated it. I didn't care about those kinds of things, of course. I was only concerned that Reardon, who'd stepped outside to give me a minute alone with my granddad's belongings, had accidentally taken something that might have held a clue to the Wild Bill-Valokus connection.

Oh well. I could hardly question Reardon about that. It would sound as though I was accusing him of stealing.

In the top drawer I found a single yellow pencil and a packet of old yellow index cards fastened by a thick rubber band twisted so tightly it had eaten into the sides of the cards. I undid the band.

That was peculiar. It was a series of lined yellow 5 8 index cards. On each one was written a name in some kind of crayon. Mostly black crayon, but sometimes red or purple. They looked like the name cards teachers fasten on young children when they take them as a group to the zoo or museum, to identify them if they are lost.

At first I thought there were names written on all of the fifty cards. But then I realized that only the first five or so contained any writing. No more. The names were: JOHN SCULLY.

LEWIS GIACOMO.

BILLY NEVINS.

EVAN CONNELL.

JACKDUNN.

Hmm. A good bet it wasn't a Dixieland band.

That was it. I turned off the light and beat it out of that cellar, knowing that sooner or later there was going to be a rat who could take those half blind cats.

Mr. Reardon was waiting for me outside. He seemed perfectly at ease on that little island, surrounded by the incessant noise of hysterical automobiles. I could see the grime imbedded in his exposed neck.

"You gonna take that stuff away?"

"Look," I said, "I think my grandfather would have liked you to have his stuff. Why don't you take anything you can't use and give it to the thrift shop. It all goes to charity, doesn't it?"

He started to mumble that he didn't believe the thrift shop would pick it up and maybe he was better off just dumping it on the street.

"Whatever you think is best, Mr. Reardon. You've been so nice to help me this way. If I could just ask you one other favor-I don't suppose you could tell me what these are?"

I placed the index cards into his hands. He studied all five of them carefully, miraculously rotating the stump of a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other without using his hands.

"Where'd you find these?" he asked.

"In my grandfather's bureau. Any idea who these people are?"

He flipped through the cards once more.

"Sure I do."

"You do?"

"John Scully lived two houses down. Died last year. And I've known Jack Dunn since we were boys. He used to live on Eleventh Avenue. He's in a home up in the Bronx now. And, h.e.l.l, Bill Nevins was shot to death more than twenty years ago in his candy store on Fifty-first."

"You mean you can remember the men attached to those names from all those years ago?" I asked.

"'Course I can. h.e.l.l's Kitchen was like a small town once upon a time. People knew their neighbors, you grew up and married some girl from the neighborhood, lived on the next block. We felt this place belonged to us. There's nothing left of that now. But in those days that's how it was."

"Any idea why Wild-my grandfather would have those names written down?"

He shook his head vehemently.

"All those men worked on the docks years ago. But your grandad never knew them."

Oh, no? thought I. I wouldn't count on that.

The old New York docks had come back into the picture. There was the collection of books at Inge and Sig's place; what appeared to be outdated sailing information in Henry's abandoned apartment; and now this.

"What makes you so sure he didn't know them?"

"Nah. These men were all members of St. Anne's Church, forty years ago, when Father Hogarth was alive. You know St. Anne's Parish?"

"No," I admitted.

"On Forty-fourth Street. It was in a movie once. They used to call it the longsh.o.r.emen's church. But that was when the docks were a place to work. That was a long time ago."

He handed the cards back to me, shrugging. He had no idea why Wild Bill would make and keep such a list. Unhappily, neither did I.

"Did my grandfather have any close friends?" I asked.

"Just one," Mr. Reardon replied, "if you can call a rummy a friend. His name is Coop. You'll find him at the Emerald Bar, on Ninth. He cleans up there. And for all anybody knows, he lives there."

The Emerald was a long, narrow place sandwiched between a thrift shop and a bodega. A single small gla.s.s window looked out onto Ninth Avenue.

At the bar sat eight old white men drinking Bud from long necked bottles in synchronized swigs. I watched them for quite a while, waiting for one of them to mess up. But n.o.body did.

There was a jukebox at the rear of the place. Tony Bennett was singing something, Stranger in Paradise, my pop had once had the sheet music for. I distinctly remember seeing it in the flip-open piano bench.

At the end of the long bar the room turned left, into an L. There at one of two tables was another old man, reading the News in the dim light. He was the only black man in the bar. I a.s.sumed this was Coop.

Not one of the drinkers turned around as I walked past. Only the bartender glanced my way, probably deciding whether I looked like a genuinely distressed down and outer who needed to use the ladies room or a junkie looking for a place to fix.

"Mr. Cooper?"

He looked up from the paper but didn't speak.

"Mr. Cooper, I was related to Heywood Tuttle. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes and answer some questions about him. Someone told me you were his friend."

I pulled out a chair and sat down across from him, even though he had yet to speak a word to me.

"Mr. Cooper, I said-"

"Don't know no Heywood Tuttle."