Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

"They drove a long way in an emergency, didn't they?"

"They wanted a hospital out of the city," Eddie said. "This home address is right at the boardwalk."

"I know. What the hell else do you need?"

"Jesus, you are amazing," Eddie said.

"Yeah, I hear that all the time," she said.

Eddie didn't shower or shave; plenty of time for that after Kate was safe. He dressed in ten minutes. Martha was sitting on the front step, watching Grace. Babsie pulled the YPD car to the back door. Eddie knew he couldn't get away without her, but he did talk her into taking his Olds. He noticed that she was wearing a dressy blouse, which was made of a shiny black material. And blush, a faint touch of blush on her cheeks.

"Watch the road, Romeo," she said.

Forty minutes later, they made the Cropsey Avenue exit off the Belt Parkway. They parked on West Twentieth, on the ocean block, a block west of the two-story building that housed Coney Custards. Coney Custards faced the boardwalk. On the second floor were two small apartments. The entrance faced the side street.

"I don't know how the hell you made that commute every day," Babsie said. "All that traffic every night would make me nuts."

"I didn't come home every night."

"That explains a lot."

Eddie and Babsie had a direct sight line across an open lot and a blacktopped parking area to the apartment entrance. The building's outside walls were covered with mismatched strips of aluminum siding, some painted with a redbrick-colored primer. The entire place looked ripe for flattening by the winds of the next nor'easter or the big bad wolf.

"Trash bag at the curb," Eddie said. "Somebody is living there. Is this entrance the only way in or out?"

"Gotta be a fire escape on the back side."

"I'm going to check it out."

"Don't do anything stupid, Eddie. We need a warrant."

"First I'll get my daughter; then I'll worry about the Supreme Court."

"I'll call Boland," she said. "Have him meet us here with a warrant. If someone comes out before then, we'll move on him."

"We don't have enough for a warrant," he said, then added, "Okay, tell him I said Parrot told me he'd seen a woman who looked like my daughter being dragged into this building."

"What's his real name? We can't call him Parrot."

Eddie made up a name; then, while Babsie was on the phone, he put on his Yankees hat and sunglasses and took a stroll down the boardwalk. The interior floor of Coney Custards was raised so the counter crew in their orange-and-blue golf shirts looked down on the customers. Huge silver cylinders behind them spun out soft ice cream. Two old ladies sat on a bench, licking a peach-colored concoction from sugar cones. Eddie walked fifty yards past to see the opposite side. Fire escape-Babsie was right.

On the way back, Eddie turned down the side street. The first door on the right opened into a very narrow hallway. One flight up was as far as you could go. Apartment A to the left, apartment B to the right Neither of the two mailboxes had names on them. He could hear the hum of a motor, probably coming from inside Coney Custards. Otherwise, quiet. He went back to the car.

"Kick the door in yet?" Babsie asked.

"Not yet, but it's too quiet in there."

"Boland is on his way to Queens. He says he'll get someone working on the warrant, although he's not optimistic."

"Call him back," Eddie said. "Tell him to make it for both apartments, A and B."

"That's not gonna help our cause; we don't even know which apartment."

"This isn't going to happen, is it, Babsie? The warrant, I mean."

"The feds always find a sweetheart judge."

"Not on Sunday," he said. "Okay. Make a note that you ordered me to wait for the warrant. If I'm not back in five minutes, come in and arrest me."

"Yeah, right," she said.

Babsie went around to the boardwalk side. She stood on an angle so she could watch both the fire escape and the front window of Coney Custards. They didn't know if there was an entrance from the apartments into the back room of Coney Custards. Eddie entered the claustrophobic hallway. The stairs were so narrow, two bulimics couldn't have squeezed past each other. He knocked on both doors. Nobody home in either place. So he went to the picks.

Apartment A had a new French-made lock. Big bucks. He didn't even try. He could hear voices, but he couldn't tell if they were coming from Coney Custards. Apartment B had an older lock, the tumblers worn from use. They turned easily, one by one. In less than thirty seconds, he was inside.

The apartment faced the ocean and boardwalk. It smelled musty, everything damp to the touch. The carpet was gritty with sand, but fresh tracks from a vacuum cleaner crisscrossed the floor. An attempt at cleaning had been made. The living room was sparsely furnished, but what was there seemed out of place. Too good for the venue. Dark-wood antiques and overstuffed chairs didn't fit the grimy apartment. In a corner was a straight-backed chair with a cane seat that belonged in the room about as much as a Steinway. Not a single picture of any kind hung on the wood-paneled walls.

"I smell Lysol," Babsie said.

"You shouldn't be in here."

"Oh, like they invited you."

The only windows looked out over the beach and the

Atlantic. Yellowing water stains lined the window ledge. He went to the window and lifted the thin curtain. It felt moldy, as if rotted from the dampness. Only the antiques raised it above a flophouse rating. No frames, no flowers, no frills. Spartan, to say the least. He checked the closet-men's work clothes, two pairs of boots, no dress shoes or sneakers. The smell of mothballs.

"At least it has location," Babsie said.

"Try sleeping here in the summer. Ice-cream machine going day and night. All you hear is people yelling and fighting on the boardwalk."

"Sounds like you've been here before."

"Rooms like it," Eddie said.

Babsie began looking through drawers in the kitchen. The old refrigerator smelled of leaking gas. The freezer was completely empty. The fridge held an open quart of whole milk and nine bottles of Guinness stout. She noted a phone number near the spot on the kitchen wall where the telephone should have been.

"Someone did a half-assed cleaning job," Babsie said.

"Nobody knew about this except us. Parrot," Eddie said. "Parrot might have sold me out."

They could feel the floor vibrating beneath them when the custard machine ran. Babsie crawled on her hands and knees across the living room floor, looking under everything. Eddie went into the bedroom. A queen-size mattress sat directly on the floor. Eddie picked up the pillow and put it to his face.

"Smell this pillow," he said.

"Sour milk," she said. "From downstairs-all those ice-cream workers smell like sour milk at the end of the night. One of them slept here."

"You don't smell perfume?"

"What do you want me to say, Eddie? I don't smell perfume, but check this out." She showed him a quarter-size piece of a torn photograph. "I found this under the convertible sofa. The vacuum must have missed it. It seems strange… not one picture in the entire apartment and someone rips up a photograph."

"I can't believe you don't smell perfume."

"My point is, why rip it up?" she said. "I'm going outside to check the trash. I'll give you five more minutes. Then lock the door."

After she left, Eddie dropped to his hands and knees on the bedroom floor. He ran his fingers through the carpet, looking for anything, an earring or a fingernail painted dark red. He tore the bed apart, reached inside the pillowcase, then under the sheets. He picked up the mattress and checked under it. When he had the mattress raised, he saw something green. It was a piece of green cloth that had been shoved down under one corner. Eddie pulled it out and his heart began to pound.