Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

He knocked and pushed open the ground-level front door. This put him in a tiny vestibule. To his left, a small parlor, to his right, another small room that held a long table and ten chairs. The table was set for dinner. A narrow, tilting staircase led up.

“Yes?” A full-figured woman with a rolling pin in her hand came from behind the staircase. Strands of red hair crept from under her kerchief and she had spots of flour on her florid face.

“I need a room.”

She looked him over. “All full up.”

“I hear your husband is a patrolman. Maybe I could speak to him.”

“Ain’t home.”

He tipped his hat. “Sorry to bother.”

Tony walked into the alley to the right of the house. The abrupt scratching shuffle of claws told him he’d disturbed a pack of rats. At the back, keeping a cautious eye peeled, he found an open window. An unoccupied bedroom, by the looks of it. Good, that’s how he’d get in if he had to.

He left the alley and crossed the street to a cigar shop.

The bastard Mulroony was probably sitting in a saloon drinking, showing off Tony’s gold tooth instead of going home.

With one of his twisted cigars between his teeth, Tony stepped out onto the street again and fired it up as he crossed the road.

The organ grinder was a patient man. He would wait. The Bowery was a busy place at night. Carousers and pickpockets. He settled in, back against the bricks.

Every workman who staggered past him he gave the eye. Two men, sailors by the bags slung over their shoulders, stopped at the Mulroony house, peered at the sign, and went in. No one came out, so the woman had lied. She had rooms. But not for Italians.

The tap of a club on bricks was unmistakable. Now the whistling of some awful Irish tune located a policeman on his rounds just a block away.

Tony eased back into the alley. The rats again. This time he saw the bright eyes staring at him from not ten feet away. Glints of white teeth showed in the dim light. Five or six filthy rats, on their guard and enraged, screamed at him.

He found a broken cobblestone, but didn’t throw it lest the cop hear. The minutes passed with Tony and the rats staring at each other. When he could no longer hear the tapping or the whistling, Tony let fly.

An angry screech. When the stunned rat fell, his mates immediately turned and fed on him. It was to be expected. Such was the world. Tony headed back to the Mulroony house.

A heavyset man had his hand on the door.

“Mr. Mulroony?”

“No, I’m O’Neil. What you want with Al?”

“He helped a friend of mine with a problem. I have some money for him.”

“Why don’t you come inside? Money is always welcome. I’m sure his missus will give you a taste for the news of it.”

“No. If she asks for the money, I’ll have to give it to her.

Then Mulroony may never know my friend was grateful.”

The man laughed. “Begorra, you’ve got Alice Mulroony down all right. Don’t you worry, I won’t tell her.”

“Thank you.”

Shortly after O’Neil went in, a pudgy policeman paused in front of the rooming house to straighten his uniform. Just the type to be a cop in this city. Tony could smell the dust and beer on him.

“Mr. Mulroony?”

“Who wants to know?”

“If you’re the right Mulroony, I have money for you.”

“I’m Mulroony of the Metropolitan Police.” His greedy eyes glinted like the rats. “What money?” he demanded.

Tony walked into the alley surreptitiously, drawing Marie from her place on his thigh up through the hole in his pants pocket. Mulroony followed.

The organ grinder fit his gold tooth back in place. He spat at the dead Irish cop and caressed Marie before putting her to bed.

A long day, a bad day. Tonneman was late coming home to the house on Grand Street where he lived with his widowed mother, Meg. There was a light on in the kitchen. She always left a light on for him and food on the stove or in the ice box, fussing over whether he was getting enough to eat while he did the good work of the police.

He came in quietly so as not to wake her, but she was there waiting for him.

“You have a visitor, John Tonneman.” She was the only one who called him John, his birth name. And her tone told him that she didn’t like his visitor.

“Where is he, Ma?” There was no one in the kitchen. He looked in the parlor. No one there.

“I wouldn’t put him in the parlor,” she said, shocked.

“Then where is he?”

“Out back. And I don’t like the look of him.”

“What’s wrong with him, Ma?” Tonneman splashed his face with cold water and used the cloth his mother handed to him.

“He’s a dago,” she said in a loud whisper. “I gave him a bit of bread and ham. He didn’t want beer. You see to him, and be careful. I don’t trust them.”

Tonneman opened the back door. Sitting on the steps was a man in heavy trousers, a long coat, and a shabby brown hat. An enormous mustache hid his mouth, which was only visible because he was smoking an Italian stinker. The man was a stranger to him until their eyes met.

“Petrosino.”

With a half-smile, Petrosino put aside the empty plate. “Your ma was kind to a poor old dago.”

“You heard about Mulroony?”

“Yes. The story I’m hearing is he found a gold tooth near the body of the prostitute, Delia Swann.”

“So I heard, too. Same sticker. Stiletto. Right up the middle. Killer made off with the gold tooth.”

A small stream of smoke came from the twisted stub of a cigar. “Killer may have lost the tooth when he was gutting the girl.” He puffed on the cigar. “Mulroony took the evidence, a lot of good it did for him.”

“I heard that someone looking like you made the rounds of the Irish bars looking for Mulroony. Wasn’t you, by any chance?”

“No.”

Tonneman sat down on the steps next to the Italian cop.

“Great disguise, Petrosino. If you can sing, you could have a second career as one of those-”

“Dago organ grinders? Yes.”

The organ grinder was back on his corner, where Broome met Jefferson. Marie was always with him, singing a sweet sad love song, promising her tender kiss. He loved Marie. She was no virgin; she had tasted blood many times.

Music, full and mellow, poured from his instrument, and it seemed to the few who took a moment from their hard lives to listen that his voice was the voice of an angel.

Yorkville

Maureen Moran was beautiful.

I met Maureen through Ted Stagg. They threw great parties in their small, crowded one-bedroom on East 81st Street between Second and First Avenues.

Barely seconds after Ted introduced us, Maureen dragged me into the bedroom where she proudly showed off her collection of Barbie dolls with a tuxedoed Ken lording it over the girls. We shared a joint and had Speedy Gonzales sex.

Even though Maureen and Ted made out outrageously with others, I knew that first night that they were committed for the long haul.

Ted was a press agent, a great guy. But dumb. He had asthma and insisted on smoking. Ted didn’t have a long haul in him. A year after I met Maureen, Ted had an attack and died.

After that, Maureen, who always liked her booze, revved her drinking up to Mach speed.

My name is Eddie Coe. I’m an actor. You never heard of me.

I make my living doing voice-overs on commercials and documentaries. I pursue what I laughingly call my acting career by doing bits on movies and TV shows. I’m usually the waiter or doorman or cab driver who has great lines like,

“Where to?” or, “Will that be all, sir?”

I used to play leads off-Broadway. That dwindled to small parts on Broadway. The money was better doing the latter but I preferred the glory of the former. Lately, my theater work had melted to nothing.