Dark Maze
you’d rather not.”
“Very funny, Hock.” But Ruby only sighed. She opened her purse and took out the picture that Picasso had sent to her at the theatre and gave it to me. “By the way, where are you going later?”
“That’s what I need to talk about.”
The waiter returned with the wine and the seltzer and Ruby’s miniature meal. And also the hamburger platter I had ordered earlier. This featured red-skin potatoes in sour cream and chives, three nice big shiny herrings, a hard-boiled egg, a dab of grilled mushrooms, two kosher pickles and a steaming medium-rare burger on an open kaiser roll.
Ruby looked at my platter and said, “You’re going to eat that?”
“What can I tell you? I’m not a salad man.”
“You don’t know from health, but you know baseball,” she said. “Didn’t you ever hear of Satchel Paige’s first rule of longevity?”
My mouth was full of what I liked, so Ruby did not wait for me to reply.
“He said, ‘Avoid fried meats, which angry the blood.’ „
“I’ll try to remember that when I think something might be gaining on me.”
Ruby sighed again. “Hock, what is it you need from me tonight?”
“For right now tonight, I want to talk out the case the way I see it playing. The lies and the motivations. And I’d like you to help me think it through, inside-out”
“Okay, but I’m no cop.”
“I don’t want a cop. I want a different kind of imagination.”
“All right, where do we start?”
“Well there’s four bodies...”
“Unless, of course,” Ruby cut in, “there was news in your mailbox today.”
“No, nothing like that. Bad news, though.”
“What’s wrong, Hock?”
“There was a letter this morning from Dún Laoghaire. My uncle is dying.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. When are you flying over?”
“With this case?”
“Then let’s get it solved quick,” Ruby said. “Four bodies. All right, besides Picasso, what do Celia Furman, Dr. Reiser, Benito Reyes and Johnny Halo have in common?“
“All were significant to Picasso’s suffering,” I said. “But what’s important here are money and lies. The money part’s easy, it involves gambling. Celia was a gambler, and so was Halo.”
Ruby said, “Then there’s the little matter of this Wendell Prescott and his grand designs for casino gambling in Coney Island, Picasso’s masterpiece be damned.” She paused, then added, “Of course, Johnny Halo said that would only happen over his dead body.”
“Famous last words. I remember thinking that at the time,” I said. “Which is why I went out to Brooklyn today and paid a couple of very interesting visits.”
I quickly filled Ruby in on my talks with Chastity at the Seashore Hotel and with Wendell Prescott at his real estate office. I also told her what Inspector Neglio had dug up on Halo. And I mentioned Chastity’s intriguing green hat, and the intriguing lie I found while snooping through Eileen Cream’s files.
“What do you make of the lie?” Ruby asked.
“It didn’t surprise me that Halo was fronting for Prescott on all those property acquisitions in Coney. I halfway figured that out when I didn’t find any deeds or title papers at Halo’s bar or at his suite at the Seashore. And then, bingo, there was everything at Prescott’s place filed under Johnny Halo Enterprises, which is owned by guess who.”
“So Prescott just bought Halo’s name?” Ruby said. “Something like that. Prescott needed a real deep-dyed Coney type for his silent partner. Too many people out there had respect for Picasso’s work, which casinos threatened. But it was more than that. Too many people out there would hate to see what little is left of the whole carny culture get wiped out by Prescott and his dreams of boardwalk glitz.“
“And so Johnny Halo became the perfect cover for Wendell Prescott, the cover of perfect irony,” Ruby said, smiling as she realized the ripeness of Halo’s lie.
Picking up on her ironic thread, I said, “On the one hand, here’s the neighborhood loan shark everybody loves to hate; on the other hand, here’s this guy wearing his heart on his sleeve for poor old Coney Island.”
“Reminds you of Nixon, doesn’t it?” Ruby said. “The voters hated Nixon’s cheating guts on instinct, but they loved it when he waved that flag.”
“So the boardwalk locals believed Halo because they loved his flag-waving, because why would such a creep lie about loving his dear old Coney?” I said. “And
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