Icepick Read online

  It was a reasonable bluff. If Bear had been in LaBracca’s he was dealing with the organization in some way or another. And if Brady was in on it, he’d know that too.

  Brady stared into my eyes like he was trying to read a difficult page of physics.

  At that moment, Watkins stood up.

  ‘Foggy,’ he said calmly, ‘what do you think you’re doing? You’re interfering with police business. We told you. We’re on the case about the missing women. It’s all under control. Seriously. You should leave.’

  ‘I probably should,’ I said, ‘but, unfortunately, I take my job seriously. No one is more surprised about that than I am, by the way.’

  ‘I see,’ Watkins said. ‘Nothing I can do to make you back off?’

  ‘You could kill me.’

  Watkins took in a deep breath, and when he let it out, he was a different person. His entire demeanor had changed. His face didn’t even look human for a second.

  ‘OK, then,’ Watkins said. ‘I don’t know what you think you know, but it doesn’t matter. Go ahead, Brady. You’re up.’

  Brady nodded grimly. ‘He means I get to take care of you, see? I’ve been looking forward to this since I got to town.’

  He took out his pistol.

  ‘What do you think, Foggy?’ Watkins asked, coming around his desk. ‘Should we say that you were shot attacking a police officer, or shot trying to escape custody?’

  I glanced over at John Horse. He was a statue.

  ‘What about the witness here?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t see any witness,’ Watkins rumbled. ‘I see a crazy old man nobody in town takes seriously. I think he’s probably retarded.’

  John Horse still didn’t move or speak.

  ‘He’s the leader of a thousand angry Seminole men who live within walking distance of this office,’ I countered. ‘He gives the word, and you’re Custer.’

  Watkins rolled his head.

  ‘Then I guess we’ll just have to kill him too,’ he said impatiently. ‘Either way, it’s time to finish you off. Now, Brady.’

  Brady raised his gun, smiling.

  ‘This is going to be fun,’ he said loudly.

  ‘Not in the office, moron!’ Watkins snapped. ‘Take them over to Blake Road. Where we found the kids. Let the patrol guys find them in a day or two.’

  Brady’s grin got bigger. ‘By the smell.’

  I considered the cliché that goes: ‘Run from a knife but rush a gun.’ But just as I was about to move, I saw something in Brady’s eyes. Something I’d never seen there before. For about two seconds, he looked like an actual human being.

  So, I thought, I could rush him just as good in the alley as I could in the station house. Let’s see what he’s got in mind.

  I backed away from Brady’s gun; made a little gesture to John Horse. He nodded. We both moved toward the back door of the station house.

  The second we were out behind the station house, Brady lowered his gun and eyeballed me.

  ‘You gotta get out of town, right?’ he said. ‘You and John Horse. You got no idea what’s really going on here. If you know anything about Talmascy, follow up with that. But not here in Fry’s Bay. Here, you’re dead, got it?’

  I didn’t understand, but I nodded.

  He glanced up at John Horse. ‘You too. I mean it.’

  John Horse shrugged. ‘We were going to go to New York anyway.’

  Brady didn’t know what to make of that. He just put his gun away and walked out of the alley toward Blake Road.

  ‘Then you’d better move fast,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Because, I repeat, you’re dead in Fry’s Bay.’

  THIRTEEN

  On the road

  Before we went for my car, John Horse insisted on stopping by the hospital. We took the back way, stayed out of sight. We caught up with Maggie Redhawk in the hallway.

  ‘I’m worried about Topalargee and her brother,’ John Horse told her. ‘Worried about their safety. There’s something going on here that I don’t understand.’

  She shook her head. ‘You got no worries there. I already called my brother.’

  End of story. Mister Redhawk – a guy whose parents were so serious about respect that they named their first-born male child Mister – was a Seminole power player. Rich, good looking, politically influential, a snappy dresser and, when it counted, well-armed. If he was looking out for the kids, they were in the pocket, safe and sound. Load off my mind.

  Still, I had to see them before I left town.

  Duck was still standing at his sister’s bedside, holding her hand, staring at her face. He heard us come in but didn’t look away from her.

  ‘She’s trying to tell me something,’ he said.

  John Horse went to stand beside him. ‘What is she trying to say?’

  ‘For an hour, she’s been mumbling something about having pizza in Oklahoma. Maggie Redhawk said she was delirious, but I think she’s got information.’

  John Horse glanced in my direction.

  I nodded. ‘I don’t know how she figured it, but that sounds an awful lot like Talmascy’s connection, right? New York pizza joint to Oklahoma Seminole Reservation?’

  ‘That’s what it sounds like to me,’ John Horse agreed.

  ‘She’s in the other world,’ Duck said reverentially, ‘and she can see things that we can’t.’

  ‘Or,’ John Horse said, in an uncharacteristically straightforward moment, ‘she heard something in the bakery building that gave her a clue. Maybe she confronted someone, and that someone beat her up, or tried to kill her. And her last conscious effort was to construct the owl-demon icon.’

  ‘Now you’re choosing to play it straight with me?’ I asked him. ‘No shaman horse manure?’

  He grinned. ‘I’m dead, remember? I have to be honest now.’

  ‘The dead have to be honest?’ I shook my head. ‘That’s a new one on me. But look, is it possible that this Talmascy guy was there in the bakery? Is still here in Fry’s Bay?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted.

  Maggie Redhawk had been standing in the doorway, nervously watching the hall.

  ‘Look,’ she said softly, ‘you two got to go now. If the cops hear that you were in this room, there’s trouble all the way around.’

  ‘She’s right,’ I agreed. ‘We should amscray.’

  John Horse nodded.

  Then he put his hand on Duck’s shoulder. ‘She’s going to be fine. We’re going to find your mother. And I made some turtle stew. It’s at Foggy’s house. In the refrigerator.’

  ‘When did you make turtle stew in my house?’ I asked him.

  ‘Same time I made breakfast. Let’s go.’

  We slipped out a service exit, stuck to the shadows and made it back to my place in no time. I gathered a few essentials while John Horse kept watch, and then we both got into my T-bird and took the long way out of town. By the time we were on I-95 headed north, the sun was beginning to head west, thinking about a dip in the Pacific Ocean.

  Now, the drive from Florida to New York was a long one. Not something you could do all at once. John Horse, as usual, had no money. My own wallet was a little light too. And all my money was going to have to go to gas. I could get some more green once I got to New York, but in the meantime, where was food? Where was a motel?

  John Horse came up with a couple of nefarious solutions that I rejected, because I was doing my best to stay on the straight side of the new leaf I’d turned over since coming to Florida.

  I explained to him that if I drove eight hours a day, which was a stretch for both of us in my little car, it would be a three-day trip. We needed someplace to stay for two nights, and something to eat for at least six meals.

  So, before we left Florida, John Horse made me stop at a farm stand. He managed to trade a fancy Seminole bracelet he was wearing for a dozen hen-house eggs and some smoked bacon slabs. It was a pretty good deal for the farmer. The bacon and eggs were worth three dollars; the farmer
could sell the bracelet for ten. But there we were: breakfast solved, as long as you didn’t mind eating food cooked on a hot stone, Seminole style.

  Supper was the challenge, until I remembered that Savannah, Georgia, was home to Congregation Mickve Israel, one of the oldest Temples in the United States. Organized around 1735 by the Sephardim – Spanish-Portuguese side of the family. And Savannah was right on our way.

  A little fast talking, a little Yiddish – as best I could remember it – and Bob was our collective uncle: two boiled chickens and enough matzo to last for forty years.

  In this way, we were able to stutter forward. Long days of hypnotic driving, with John Horse insisting on AM radio. I thought if I heard ‘Boogie Fever’ or ‘Disco Lady’ one more time I was going to pull my radio out of the dashboard and throw it on to the highway. Along with John Horse.

  The first night we stayed at the Skyliner, a motel with no view of anything that looked like a skyline. John Horse slept on the floor.

  The second night we pulled into a rest area and took turns sleeping in the car with the seats shoved back as far as we could get them. John Horse ate candy bars from a vending machine.

  And on the third day, we arrived in New York, only a little the less for wear.

  John Horse was ecstatic. Since I-95 ran right through Manhattan, he was getting more of a look at the city than he could take in. After a while he closed his eyes.

  ‘How did you live here for so long?’ he asked me.

  ‘I didn’t live here,’ I explained. ‘I lived in Brooklyn.’

  But the fact was I found myself just as overwhelmed as he was. Too much noise, too many lights, chaos everywhere. My sad realization was that I didn’t belong in Florida, but I couldn’t really come back to New York any more. I suddenly felt all kinds of homeless.

  So, I focused on the goal: pop in at LaBracca Pizza, ask about Talmascy and get the hell out of town, on the way to Oklahoma.

  Now, just walking into LaBracca’s wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but the fact was that, thanks to pals like Red Levine, I had a rep, minor as it was. I was the one that got away, absconded from New York ahead of the cops and disappeared in the vapor. And I was also a kind of crook Robin Hood because I sent money every month to a certain kid, no strings attached. My every-day Yom Kippur. The kid was well-cared-for.

  But I digress. There we were, sitting in front of LaBracca’s at around ten in the evening, staring at the black door – and the goon in front of that door.

  ‘I think you should wait here,’ I told John Horse.

  ‘You think I should have waited in Florida,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Right. Back in a flash.’ I took my pistol, holster and all, out of the neat little place in the small of my back and put it in John Horse’s lap. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘Don’t you need it?’ he asked me.

  I shook my head. ‘If I go waving a gun around in there, it’ll only make these guys laugh.’

  With that, I hoisted myself out of the car and on to the dirty sidewalk. LaBracca’s was in a less fashionable part of the city, the wrong end of the Meatpacking District. They kept saying the area was up and coming. But it was 1976, and there just didn’t seem to be much movement in that direction.

  This particular street looked abandoned, but I figured it was that most people didn’t want to disturb the denizens of LaBracca’s, which I was just about to do.

  Deep breath; straighten my tie.

  Before I got within ten feet of the goon at the door, he rumbled, ‘Keep walking, pal.’

  ‘My name is Foggy Moscowitz,’ I said in a loud, clear voice, ‘and I came all the way from Florida to ask, with great respect, three questions of anyone who might be enjoying an evening at LaBracca’s right now.’

  The guy tilted his head and gave me a very thorough gander. ‘You’re Foggy Moscowitz?’

  ‘I’m going to reach around to my hip pocket and take out my wallet,’ I explained without moving a muscle. ‘That way I can show you my driver’s license and you can be sure.’

  He nodded once. I moved like a glacier, got out my wallet and produced my ID.

  He stared at it, and then at me, for a full minute.

  ‘This ought to be interesting,’ he said quietly.

  Then he stood aside and opened the door.

  The place was under-lit and silent as the grave. When I got past the door frame I could see about ten tables. Only one was occupied. Three guys. Two of them were bodyguards – you could tell by the way they were sitting.

  ‘This is Foggy Moscowitz,’ the doorman announced. ‘All the way from Florida.’

  The man in between the two bodyguards leaned forward. His face was pockmarked and he had a lazy eye, but his suit cost as much as my car.

  ‘May I come in?’ I asked.

  The man nodded once.

  I took eight or ten steps, and stopped about three yards away from the table.

  ‘You know that Red Levine is a kind of uncle to me,’ I began.

  ‘I know who you are,’ he interrupted me. ‘Everybody in town knows the name. It’s an honor to have you in our establishment. Unless you have come to steal my car.’

  There was a moment of silence, and then the guy cracked up. Which in turn encouraged his guys to laugh. And I was forced to smile as well.

  ‘I have come, with the utmost respect, to ask you three questions,’ I said when the hilarity simmered down.

  The man heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I think I know why you’re here.’

  You had to be very careful about a statement like that. You didn’t want to disagree; you didn’t want to give anything away.

  ‘Then, with respect, can you help me?’

  ‘Not directly,’ he said, refusing to look at me. ‘Because the business to which you refer is financed, in part, by my friends. But it’s a dirty business, and I am not surprised that you are concerned about it. That’s one question.’

  ‘But you can help me indirectly,’ I said slowly, careful not to make it sound like a question.

  He nodded.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘before I ask that question, let me ask you this: if I pursue this situation in Florida, will I ruffle anybody’s feathers?’

  He seemed to think for a moment, and then he said, ‘Not mine. And to my knowledge, no one in New York will care if you make things right in Florida. This is not a business concern of ours, you understand. We were merely the bankroll. And we’re supposed to be paid back with interest. So, that would conclude our understanding with all parties, you understand.’

  ‘Good,’ I told him, ‘because I would never wish to show anything but the greatest deference to your interests.’

  He sniffed.

  ‘So, my final question is this,’ I said. ‘Is it possible that your indirect help could come in the form of a name or an address?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He whispered something to one of his guys. The guy got up. I planted my feet, waiting for anything. But the guy walked right past me and behind the bar in the joint.

  ‘Tony is fixing a little espresso to go for you and your Indian friend,’ he said. ‘You look tired.’

  How he knew that John Horse was out in the car was a mystery I did not wish to ask about.

  All I said was, ‘It is indeed a long drive from Florida to Manhattan.’

  His response was, for a moment, nonsense.

  ‘Pody Poe,’ he said.

  I stood silent for a minute.

  ‘Tracy Coy Poe,’ he went on, by way of explanation. ‘In Oklahoma City.’

  ‘Oh.’ I tried very hard not to respond any more than that.

  Poe was an Oklahoma gambler, a famous guy in our circles. I was surprised I hadn’t thought of him. His father was a songwriter and his mother was a judge’s daughter. Spent the Depression years in Hollywood with his father, working at MGM. They had some sort of falling out with Bing Crosby, and that was that. Poe ended up playing pool in Oklahoma, and he was good at it. Good enough to eventually build a ve
ry nice criminal empire there. Nice enough, in fact, that Nixon’s recent Organized Crime Control Act spent millions of dollars trying to get him. In short, he was in trouble. But they hadn’t gotten him yet.

  ‘That Pody Poe,’ I said after a moment.

  I looked at my host, and realized I wasn’t getting anything more out of him. His guy came from behind the bar and handed me a paper bag.

  ‘It’s got tops,’ he told me, ‘but still, be careful not to spill. Best espresso in New York.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I said, taking the bag. ‘This will certainly hit the spot. Look, you also don’t care what happens to Mr Talmascy, do you?’

  My nameless host smiled.

  ‘You have used up your three questions,’ he said quietly, ‘but since I have no idea who Bear Talmascy is, what do I care what you do to him?’

  I took a step backward. ‘You have been a godsend, may I say? And I will not forget your kindness to me.’

  He stuck out his lower lip. ‘I think it would be better if you did forget it. It is my plan to forget that you were ever in New York. For the security of all concerned.’

  ‘Ah,’ I answered him. ‘Agreed.’

  I continued to back away, still facing him.

  ‘Hey, Foggy,’ the guy called out, and his voice was very different. ‘I don’t know if this will mean anything to you or not, but I knew your father. Slightly. He would be very proud of you.’

  Since I did not know my father, even slightly, it really didn’t matter at all to me. But I wasn’t about to insult the guy. So I came up with, ‘You have no idea what that means to me.’

  Which was certainly true.

  I backed into the doorframe and the door opened like magic.

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Moscowitz,’ the doorman said. ‘Safe travels to Oklahoma.’

  And then the guy handed me a couple of Jacksons. Out of nowhere. I started to say something, but he turned away from me and shook his head, so I just nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and made for my car.

  John Horse was singing when I handed him an espresso. Not some Seminole mystic thing, either. He was singing ‘Play That Funky Music, White Boy’. Very softly. It was another song that was big on the radio, for reasons that escaped all human understanding.