Dark Maze

were the three tiny bullet holes. And an explosion of wet red and gray that streaked downward, dripping to the floor where the artist lay.
    I shined my flashlight on black letters that were painted along the bottom of the canvas. Dry black lettering applied days ago to spell out the title of Picasso’s last piece: self-portrait IN BRAINS.

EPILOGUE

    They say when you come to New York you ought to bring your own body-outline chalk.
    Also they say life’s messy but death don't do nothing much to tidy it up.
    That’s two jokes I am floating around Hell.
    Which is where I am, Hock. Home-sweet-Hell.
    It’s been nice chatting with you.
    So long, suckers!

    I switched off the tape recorder. It had taken me three full days to go through all that Picasso had left behind in his slaughterhouse studio, hours and hours of his general observations, his explanations, his Bible quotations.
    This was the remaining quiet business of the case I had to wrap up. Meanwhile, Inspector Neglio and the mayor and the tabloids took care of the noisy business of claiming that New York was back to normal. Slattery’s assurances in the Post came under the heading: “Maniac Duo Dies in Horror Hole—Father-Daughter Reign of Terror Over!”
    When I had finished with the tapes, I saw to it that Moe and Benny were taken off in manacles for arraignment on illegal gaming charges. And then I dropped by to visit Wendell Prescott, just to tell him I was onto his connection with the late Johnny Halo and that if he did not care to do me two simple favors I would have a talk with Slattery about the mafia figure he kept for company in his Coney Island real estate deals.
    “What do you want out of me, Hock?”
    “I want you to very carefully dismantle Picasso’s masterpiece at the Fire and Brimstone out in Coney, then I want you to truck it into Manhattan and put it all back together again, on display at the nicest Soho gallery you can find.”
    “Are you as crazy as him?”
    “No, but you are, Prescott, if you don’t take advantage of the tremendous price you could get for it, what with all the notoriety.”
    “Well, when you put it like that—”
    “I thought that part would be easy for you,” I said. “But there’s something else.”
    “What?”
    “There’s a prostitute who works at the Seashore Hotel in Coney, another one of your properties. You’ll find her in the lobby most times; her name is Chastity.”
    “Oh boy!”
    “I want you to set her up in Johnny Halo’s old rooms, rent free, for the rest of her life.”
    “I’m not going to do that.”
    “Should I call up Slattery now?”
    “What’s her name again?”

    After I was through with the remaining police business, it was time to settle some personal accounts. So I first dropped by a travel agency in the McGraw-Hill building on Forty-second Street to book a pair of round-trip tickets aboard Aer Lingus, JFK to Dublin.
    And then Ruby met me for dinner that night at Angelo’s Ebb Tide.
    “I want you to meet my Uncle Liam,” I said, handing Ruby one of the tickets.
    “I’ll go with you, Hock,” she said. “But tell me there’s something else to it besides making the acquaintance of an old Irish gentleman.”
    “Maybe I wouldn’t like it said that I live like a bear with furniture.”
    She kissed me. “Maybe that’s a good enough answer for now.”
    But then a great serious concern spread over Ruby’s face. She said, “I’d love to see where your people come from, where your father came from. Wouldn’t you, Hock?”
    I did not answer her for a while. I heard my mother’s words, the only ones there in my hollow place. "Your papa went off in a mist, that’s all there is to it. It hurts too much to speak of him as if he was ever flesh and blood and bone to me.’’
    I only said to Ruby, “I think I would... ”
    She said, “That’s a funny answer.”
    I said, “Isn’t it, though?”

THOMAS ADCOCK is the author of Precinct 19 ; Sea of Green; Dark Maze, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Original Paperback Mystery; Drown All the Dogs ; and Devil’s Heaven. He lives in New York City, and is working on his next Neil Hockaday mystery, Thrown-Away Child, to be published by Pocket Books.

    “It’s possible, even likely, that no contemporary writer of detective stories has a better feel for the dirt and grime scene of Manhattan than Thomas Adcock.”
    —Ken Wisneski, Minneapolis Star-Tribune