Icepick Read online

  ‘Look who came back,’ Rita said, all sultry.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’m happy to see you too, but I’m also in a little trouble. I just busted a whole bunch of women out of some houses that I think Mr Poe owns, see? And those women are on a Greyhound headed for Florida. Mr Poe might be a little ticked off.’

  Rita was wise. ‘You mean the Indians.’

  ‘Seminole women, yes.’

  ‘Well.’ Rita looked around. ‘You didn’t hear it from me, but Mr Poe was none too happy about that whole deal. I hear he complained about it to New York. They didn’t like it either. It was strictly for the money, you understand.’

  ‘I do understand about the money. That’s why I’m worried. I don’t want to get dead from doing the right thing.’

  ‘Liberating the Indians was the right thing,’ Rita agreed. ‘So, you didn’t come back to see me, you came back to get next to Mr Poe.’

  ‘Why couldn’t it be both?’ I asked. ‘Just because I’m not walking on the wild side, that doesn’t mean I don’t need a drink.’

  ‘You have no idea how good a gin and tonic tastes after sitting in this stupid booth all day,’ Rita told me, then leaned closer. ‘And just a little bit of weed.’

  ‘But where can a nice Jewish man and a boy named Rita go, of an afternoon, for such delights?’ I wanted to know.

  Rita grinned like the sun. ‘I have just the spot. It’s where Mr Poe has a bit of an afternoon snack himself.’

  ‘Lovely Rita,’ I announced, ‘I am now officially a member of your fan club.’

  ‘You know that’s where I took my name,’ Rita said. ‘From that old Beatles song, “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid”.’

  ‘It occurred to me,’ I said.

  ‘And I get to ride in that swanky black Porsche of yours.’

  I shook my head. ‘You kids today. That is a 1957 Thunderbird, pal. Coolest American-made car in the world.’

  ‘Je m’excuse, mon amour,’ Rita intoned. ‘Will you still let me ride?’

  ‘Bien sûr, ma petite.’ My accent wasn’t as good as Rita’s, but I got points for trying, I could tell.

  Half an hour later we were sailing down East First Street toward a rundown section of Bricktown. So-called, Rita explained to me, because of all the old brick buildings there. We were headed for an establishment that didn’t have a name, but Rita called it a ‘moral-free zone’. An oasis of gilded fun in an otherwise drab and judgmental city.

  Turned out to be a scary-looking warehouse district, a place where I was almost certain my car would be hassled.

  ‘You have to understand,’ I explained to Rita as we pulled up to the curb close to a red door, ‘that this car is my last connection with my home in New York. I can’t have anything happen to it, like getting boosted, for example.’

  Rita laughed. It was like flute music.

  ‘Your car is safer here than in a bank vault, chum. Nobody messes with Pody Poe, and this is one of his secret hangouts. One that everybody knows about.’

  With that, Rita hopped out of the car and zipped to the red door.

  ‘Let me go in first,’ she said. ‘They don’t like to see a stranger’s face just pop in, right?’

  I nodded.

  Rita opened the door, surveyed, waved to someone and then motioned me in.

  Considering the condition of the building on the outside, the place was a big surprise on the inside. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I walked into was a high-end New York bar, like the 21 Club or something. It was quiet, calm, elegant. Maybe five or six guys I could see sipping martinis and talking quietly.

  Rita was out of place, but nobody gave a second look.

  I got about five feet into the place and the only guy at the bar twirled on the stool and let out a breath.

  ‘You gotta be Foggy Moscowitz,’ he said in a big, booming voice. ‘New York told me you were coming.’

  Like ‘New York’ was the name of a guy he went to grammar school with.

  ‘And you must be Mr Poe,’ I said, using the tone of deference I had learned from a lifetime of dealing with connected guys. ‘I apologize for bothering you. I have a problem and I hope you can help me. I ask with respect.’

  He nodded sagely. ‘Bear Talmascy and his estranged wife.’

  Rita winked at me. ‘I’m going to the bar. Care for a drink?’

  I shook my head, eyes still on Poe.

  Rita sauntered over and sat at the far end of the bar so as not to appear too curious about the rest of my conversation with Poe.

  Poe looked over his shoulder at Rita for a second, then back at me.

  ‘Good kid,’ he said about Rita. ‘Don’t know which end is up, but I was a little wild at that age too. Weren’t we all?’

  I nodded.

  ‘So,’ he went on, ‘you’d like to find Bear’s wife.’

  ‘I work for Child Protective Services in Florida,’ I began.

  He held up his hand. ‘Please do not give me your life story. I already know it. You stole cars, you feel guilty, you’re making amends in Florida. You’re a regular hoodlum Robin Hood. You don’t care about Bear or what he does, you just want to get the mother and child reunion. You know that song?’

  I didn’t.

  ‘Paul Simon,’ he said, like I was an idiot. ‘I figured you know it. He’s a Jew. Paul Simon is.’

  I nodded, even though I didn’t know who Paul Simon was.

  ‘OK, well, anyway.’ Poe sighed. ‘I wasn’t crazy about Bear’s scheme to begin with. And that’s when I thought he was just going to con these women into moving to Oklahoma with some sort of scheme. I didn’t know he was gonna, like, kidnap anybody. Jeez.’

  ‘Why was it just women, do you know?’ I wondered.

  ‘I didn’t ask,’ he said. ‘I assume his intention was to sell them, or turn them.’

  I assumed that the phrase ‘turn them’ had something to do with prostitution. I mean, he wasn’t going to turn them into ballerinas.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you are correct that I’m primarily interested in Talmascy’s wife, which I didn’t know she was until I got to Oklahoma. Her children need her, and I am responsible for her children. So.’

  Poe grimaced; it was a horrible expression. I didn’t know whether he was trying to smile or threaten me.

  ‘You say you are primarily interested in this one woman,’ he told me, his voice softer than before. ‘And yet you have liberated all the women Bear brought to Oklahoma. I understand that they’re already on their way back to Florida.’

  ‘News travels fast.’ I kept a steady eye on him.

  ‘Your problem is one of economics,’ he said simply. ‘Unsavory as Mr Talmascy’s endeavor may have been, I gave him money to do it. Money which he was going to give back to me, only double. He has not made all the payments. If he has no wherewithal to do that, then I am out a considerable stack of green.’

  ‘I see the problem,’ I agreed. ‘Hand me a number and I will see if I can match it.’

  ‘You will give me double what I gave him?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And of course you realize that this is all tied up with New York,’ he went on, ‘so you can’t really call on those guys for help. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, you understand.’

  ‘I believe that I can work something out, yes. I will make a call as soon as I leave here.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, and he sounded genuinely relieved. ‘Then you have my blessing. As I said, I was not too crazy about this business ever.’

  ‘You would like your money before you tell me where Bear and his wife might be.’

  ‘No, please! I know you’re a man of your word!’ He was sincerely agitated. ‘I trust you implicitly. If you say you’ll get me the moolah, you’ll get me the moolah.’

  ‘And you know where I live,’ I added.

  ‘And I know where you live,’ he repeated.

  I gave him my calmest face, but inside my brain there was a major uproar. I thought of six different ways to g
et money to give to Pody Poe. And I rejected every single one of them. Still, I couldn’t resist the buy-now-pay-later proposition.

  ‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘Just tell me the sum you have in mind, and the address where I can find the happy couple.’

  ‘Rita,’ he called out.

  That’s all. Rita reached behind the bar and got out a pencil and a notepad; jotted something down while downing what looked like a frozen daiquiri. Then Rita moved to my side in a flash and handed me the notepad – the whole thing.

  On the top page was a dollar sign followed by fewer numbers than I expected, and an address that didn’t seem too complicated.

  Rita was, once again, more than met the eye: knew exactly what to write down instantly.

  ‘Want me to go with you to find this place?’ Rita asked me softly.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll find it.’

  Rita shrugged and leaned close to me.

  ‘PS,’ Rita whispered, ‘Mr Poe doesn’t own those houses where the women were.’

  Then Rita returned to the bar.

  ‘Those aren’t your houses where the women were being kept?’ I said out loud before I could think better of it.

  Poe’s face only flickered for a second. ‘Family name of Wilkins. Associates. They own the houses. Supposed to be for people who work their oil fields.’

  From the sound of his voice, they were associates he didn’t care for.

  ‘Right,’ I told him, backing away. ‘Thanks very much for everything, Mr Poe.’

  ‘Want some guys to come with you?’ Poe called out. ‘Bear’s a pretty big guy.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘You sure?’ Poe said. ‘I don’t get my money if you get dead.’

  ‘I’m not really in the mood to die in Oklahoma,’ I told him.

  ‘I guess you know what you’re doing,’ he said.

  ‘Not even a little bit,’ I assured him as I backed out the door.

  SEVENTEEN

  As I got in my car, I wondered why I hadn’t asked for directions, or taken Rita up on the offer to ride along. Was it that I didn’t want to look confused in front of Pody Poe? Or was it the ‘fish out of water’ feeling that put me out of whack? Or maybe it even had something to do with the latent disappointment that I hadn’t found the kids’ mother in one of those crap houses where Talmascy kept the women.

  Oklahoma City was a very strange place for me to be.

  I sat in the car for a moment, staring at the address on the paper: 1700 North Lincoln Boulevard. And then I remembered passing it on the way to Bricktown. It was just south of the capital. Nice neighborhood, big Tudor homes from the 1920s. I got my bearings and lit out.

  All of a sudden, I didn’t need anybody’s help. I knew what was what. I had instincts.

  A short drive and there I was, in what they called the Lincoln Terrace neighborhood. There were new-looking signs: Historic Preservation District.

  The house in question was a big white number, about two thousand square feet, short yard, a couple of chimneys. A real Caucasian rich-guy crash pad.

  I parked in front and reached for the glove compartment; fetched my gun. Ordinarily I would never have considered such a thing, but Poe’s voice was in my head: ‘Bear’s a pretty big guy.’

  I checked the pistol, an old Smith & Wesson .38. It was supposed to have belonged to my father when he worked for The Combination, which the press foolishly referred to as ‘Murder, Inc.’ I slipped it into my pants at the small of my back and got out of the T-Bird slowly.

  It was still very sunny, not much breeze, zero cloud cover. And then, out of the blue, I was thinking about a movie I saw on television when I was a kid. High Noon. The marshal had to face the bad guys all by himself. I figured it was the western setting that had me thinking about Custer, earlier, and Gary Cooper outside Bear’s house. But the feeling of being all alone was pressing down on me.

  What the hell was I doing in Oklahoma? For that matter, what the hell was I doing out of Brooklyn?

  A couple of thoughts rose up then that I’d tried to keep under cover. It looked like Icepick Franks had killed Pan Pan Washington, but it also looked like Icepick had dumped Pan Pan’s body in my bay to send me a message. It had to be a message about Pody Poe, and Bear Talmascy, and the mother of the children I was supposed to be looking after.

  Considering all of that, the web of the universe seemed particularly well put together. You know, like the kind of web that spiders use to catch poor, unsuspecting flies.

  That’s the mood I was in when I knocked on the door of 1700 North Lincoln Boulevard.

  A man the size of a small mountain answered the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  I held out my hand. ‘My name is Foggy Moscowitz, and I’m with Child Protective Services in Fry’s Bay, Florida. If you’re Bear Talmascy, I have a message from your children.’

  It was a wild gambit. In the first place, who knew if the kids belonged to Bear? Just because he’d been married to their mother didn’t mean they were his. In the second, what would keep him from pounding me into the front porch like any one of the other nails there? His fist was big enough to do it.

  But instead, the big guy sighed like I’d told him his mother died.

  ‘Yeah. I heard of you.’

  He stepped away from the door. I didn’t move.

  ‘Are you Bear Talmascy or not?’ I asked him.

  He disappeared into the shadows of the entrance hall. That made me nervous.

  A second later, his voice whispered, ‘Come on in.’

  I still didn’t move. ‘We can talk on the porch.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see Echu Matta?’

  ‘Is she in there?’ I asked, pretending to scratch an itch in the small of my back.

  Without warning, his giant hand reached out from behind the door and grabbed the front of my suit coat and I was pulled into the house, nose to nose with Bear.

  My .38 was out instantly, and I shoved it into his ear.

  ‘Steady,’ I said softly.

  And then I cocked the pistol. Probably sounded loud next to his lobe like that.

  ‘I just didn’t want to talk on the front porch in a white neighborhood like this,’ he said, like I’d hurt his feelings. ‘Gee.’

  He let go of my coat and I dropped back, but the gun was still touching his head.

  ‘To answer your question: yes, I want to see Echu Matta,’ I said. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Sweetheart!’ he bellowed.

  A woman appeared in the light at the end of the short entrance hall. She was a larger version of Sharp, the Wonder Girl. Dressed in jeans and a dirty work shirt, her face smudged or bruised, her hair like black fire. Her hands were tied in front of her with plastic handcuffs like cops used sometimes in riots. Her face was hard as stone.

  ‘There,’ Talmascy said. ‘She’s alive and well.’

  ‘Except for the cuffs,’ I had to say.

  ‘Well,’ he explained reasonably, ‘if I took off the cuffs, she’d probably try to kill me.’

  Echu Matta lifted her right ankle then, to demonstrate that she was chained to something in the next room by a long chain.

  ‘And I guess if you took that chain off,’ I said, ‘she might try to get away.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He was unapologetic. ‘We got issues. I just want to talk with her.’

  ‘Efa!’ she snarled.

  I knew that one: Seminole for dog.

  ‘She doesn’t seem amenable to conversation,’ I told him.

  He shrugged. ‘You know how women are.’

  ‘I don’t think we’d agree on the subject,’ I said. ‘Do you want to hear the message from your children or not?’

  Echu Matta was suddenly still – eerily still.

  ‘I ain’t got no kids,’ Bear said, his irritation growing with each word. ‘We had a daughter that died in childbirth. I left Florida after that. Came home for a couple of weeks about eight years ago – wait. We did sleep tog
ether then. I had a kid? Wait.’

  He turned to Echu Matta. His eyes looked the way a cow looks when it knows it’s going to the slaughter house.

  ‘If you had waited a few hours,’ Echu Matta said, voice as cold as concrete, ‘you’d know that our daughter came back to life. Her name is Topalargee. And after you came back and raped me eight years ago, we had a son. A son you will never know!’

  He looked at me and his eyes were wet.

  ‘I have children?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. She has children. You? You don’t even have a soul.’

  I scraped his ear with my gun, pointed it into the wall, and fired. The sound shattered his eardrum and his head snapped sideways. I lifted my knee then as hard and as fast as I could, twice, right between his legs. When he doubled over, I hit the back of his head with the gun, right there in the spot at the base of the medulla that was supposed to put him to sleep.

  He went down, all right; he just wasn’t out.

  He rolled, and when he was on his back on the floor, there was a gun in his hand. He fired, but the shot was wide and cracked the ceiling.

  I kicked his gun hand and then dropped on top of him, my pistol pressing on his left eyeball.

  ‘I really don’t want to shoot you in the eye,’ I told him. ‘But it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘Don’t kill him!’ Echu Matta cried out.

  I kept my eyes on Bear.

  ‘If you say so,’ I answered. ‘But I’m going to have to do something, or he’ll shoot us both.’

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I mean I want you to drag him over here to me so that I can kill him myself!’

  ‘Ah.’ I smiled at Bear. ‘You’re really in Dutch with the missus now, brother.’

  He nodded. ‘We never really got along.’

  ‘Well, you have two pretty great kids.’

  ‘That’s why you’re here?’ he asked me. ‘To help my children?’

  I shook my head. ‘I thought I made that clear. I came to help her children. Echu Matta.’

  ‘Are they all right?’ she asked, clearly afraid of my answer.

  ‘No,’ I told her firmly. ‘They are most definitely not all right. Topalargee is in the hospital because Bear almost killed her in that abandoned bakery in Fry’s Bay, and the boy is by her side, afraid he’s going to lose his sister and his mother. So, no.’