Dark Maze

that Captain Davy Mogaill would be in a mood to dragoon me off to a sentimental journey up Inwood way— to Nugent’s bar, where a lonely flea might find his dog.
    Or, I could drop by the Horny Poodle to see if I might get a sideways answer from Benny at the bar on the matter of a customer called Johnny Halo. Or maybe I should take in vespers this day at the Crown of Thorns Holy Tabernacle. I could call up Ruby, to see if she was a game girl and willing to be my beard again in the cause of law and order.
    I entered the business about the Crown of Thorns in my notebook, and the matter of Halo’s trip—or trips—to the Horny Poodle. And the business of Halo’s six-for-five scam, no doubt the principal source of revenue at the Neptune bar; of Chastity finding Celia’s lost green hat where she had; of finding that Johnny Halo was not much of a one for bookkeeping.
    I read over these new items after I had them all written down. Then I flipped through the pages of my notebook and read all the old items, hoping a few things might begin to relate. Which they did not.
    How in the world had I managed such cockiness when Neglio asked about the progress of the case? "With one or two more breaks, I think I’m close. ’’ A detective is nothing but a sloppy cop when he depends on luck, which is hoping a display of confidence will bump things along; I have never known of a fastidious detective outside of a detective novel.
    The subway pulled into the Seventh Avenue station in Brooklyn’s Park Slope district. Twenty minutes more, I thought, and I would be back in Manhattan, where I would have to decide on someplace to go to display some confidence.
    But I did not go directly to Manhattan.
    Instead, I got off four stops later, at the Bergen Street station in South Brooklyn, and walked a few blocks up to the Atlantic Avenue offices of Wendell Prescott Real Estate Development Company, Inc., having no notion of what I might do or say should I find the man in.
    But I suddenly did feel important purpose in being there on Atlantic Avenue that afternoon, relating to the fate of
    Coney Island and art and murder, and Johnny Halo’s question, “You know what Prescott would do if he put up casinos here?”
    Ruby had answered, “Hock, don't you see? They’d tear down Picasso's masterpiece."

    On the outside, Wendell Prescott’s base of operations bore little more resemblance to his brother Daniel’s glitzy Manhattan skyscraper headquarters than my own tenement in Hell’s Kitchen. The company was located on the second floor of a two-storey brick and stucco loft building. The ground floor was called OK All-America Tile & Carpet Center.
    The inside was not much to speak of. I climbed a flight of rubber-padded stairs and found a large room at the top, full of desks and some drafting tables and guys walking around with white shirts rolled up at the sleeves and bad neckties. A lot of them smoked, some pushed pencils around on paper, some talked loudly on the telephone; they all drank coffee out of styrofoam cups. The place reminded me of a detective squad room on a quiet day.
    I asked one of the white shirts where Wendell Prescott kept himself. He pointed his thumb toward a glass doorway in back of him and said, “His secretary sits in there.” So I pushed through the glass door and found myself face-to-face with Eileen Cream, according to a plastic nameplate on the edge of her crowded desk.
    “Who are you?” she asked.
    Her voice was thick from eating something, which I guessed was chocolates from an open Russell Stover box.
    “My name is Neil Hockaday,” I said. I showed her my gold shield. “I’d like to see Mr. Prescott.”
    “You don’t look like a cop. Where’s your uniform?”
    “I’m plainclothes.”
    “How come you’re not wearing a suit and tie?”
    “I’m very plainclothes. Could I see Mr. Prescott now?”
    She put on a pair of glasses and looked me up and down, “Hey, don’t I know you?” she said. “Aren’t you that cop in the newspaper? The one in charge of the big murder thing with the maniac running loose and all?”
    “That’s right Now, I’d like to see Mr. Prescott.”
    “What for?”
    Inspiration finally came. “Because I’ve got good reason to believe the maniac is gunning for Prescott next,” I said “Would you like to see your boss’s dead body all over page one of tomorrow’s Post?"
    “Do I get a choice?” She popped a chocolate into her mouth and chewed it lustily.
    I walked