Shamrock Alley Read online

  Who the hell is C. Charles Gethers? John thought but did not ask.

  Kersh approached a wall of books and slid one from the shelf. He cracked open the cover and glanced at one of the pages. When Evelyn Gethers spoke from the top of the winding staircase, Kersh jumped and nearly dropped the book to the floor.

  “Company!” she crooned. “This is such a treat!”

  John looked up, also startled, and saw the woman standing on the landing directly above a white Steinway piano. She was a slender old thing wrapped loosely in a silk, mint-green gown and matching feather boa. Her hair was perfectly white and glistened with the soft lights of the tremendous crystal chandelier that hung just above her head. Her face heavily made up, her thin arms poking from the fabric of her costume, she stood beaming at them from the landing. Then, slowly and deliberately, she began descending the stairs like an actress making her grand entrance.

  Jesus Christ, it’s Katherine Hepburn, John thought.

  Kersh, too, watched the woman descend the stairwell. He smiled unevenly and presented her with a half-nod as she reached the floor.

  “Morris,” Evelyn Gethers said, “please see to some coffee. The Caribbean beans, not that imported Mexican garbage.”

  “Ma’am,” Morris the butler said, nodded once, then vanished into another section of the apartment.

  “Well,” the woman said, moving herself to the center of the room where she could get a better view of her guests. “Isn’t this nice?” At this distance she looked her age, and the lights from the crystal chandelier were rather unflattering. Her face was caked with makeup and her eyes were large and colorless, piercing out from behind lashes thick with black clumps of mascara. She’d apparently applied fresh red lipstick, and it was a job poorly done. When she smiled, she exposed a row of teeth that jutted from the gums like villagers fleeing from a plague.

  Kersh introduced himself and then John, who nodded without sound. The old woman nodded twice in response to each introduction, the smile never leaving her face. “This is an amazing place,” Kersh said, genuinely appreciative.

  “This room,” began Evelyn Gethers, “is a duplicato of our room at the Hotel Lungarno in Florence, where we used to vacation quite often in the winter months. Splendid. Really splendid. Florence. You’ve been, Inspector Kersh?”

  “To Italy? Sadly, no.”

  “Tristemente, it is no longer as it was. No place is. We spent months in Paris as well, stamping down the stones of the Rue Mouffetard, and that, too, has changed. Even the artwork. You’ve seen my artwork?”

  “Very impressive, yes.”

  She sighed and closed her large eyes, the lids of which were painted an electric blue. “Some things better left to the imagination, but they are not the same. Not for us, anyway.”

  “Us? You’re speaking of your husband?” Kersh said.

  “You mean Charles?” She laughed, her throat constricting under the force like a deflating hose. “Charles loved the artwork, loved the cities. But Charles was arrogant, even on his deathbed, and cursed like a sailor drunk on rum. But he fit in and loved Paris.” She shook her head, her smile faltering, and suddenly looked quite lost. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she apologized. “My memory isn’t what it used to be. It’s been a long, long time.”

  “It’s all right,” Kersh said.

  “Mrs. Gethers,” John began, “you’re the owner of a red 1979 Lincoln Towncar?”

  She blinked once, twice. “The Lincoln,” she muttered. Then: “Yes, yes. I own a red Lincoln. It was Charles’s car. Temperamental as he was. Won’t you both sit down?”

  “I’m all right,” John began.

  “Come,” Evelyn Gethers insisted, moving to her sofa. She made room for Kersh, who sat beside her awkwardly, still holding the book from the woman’s bookshelf. John remained standing across from her.

  “Your car was impounded several days ago, Mrs. Gethers,” he said. “What exactly happened?”

  “Impounded?” She folded her bony hands into her lap. Her wrists glittered with an impressive selection of diamond bracelets. “You mean, by the police?”

  “Does anyone else use that car besides you?” Kersh asked.

  “The Lincoln? I don’t use the Lincoln.” A small, pink tongue darted from her mouth and worked at her lipstick-encrusted lower lip. “I haven’t driven in many years. My eyes have gone bad, I’m afraid.”

  Kersh rephrased the question: “Who usually drives the Lincoln?”

  “Oh, that’s Douglas,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Douglas?” John said. “Who’s he?”

  “He drives the Lincoln,” the woman said.

  “What’s his last name?”

  “He …” The woman paused, seemingly lost on the surface of thought. She smiled almost apologetically at John, then turned to show Kersh her smile as not to leave him out.

  Morris entered the room carrying a tray of coffee. He stopped just before the granite table and, still holding the tray, cleared his throat several times. John felt like knocking the butler square in the nose, but settled for shooting him a sideways glance. Kersh, on the other hand, thanked him for the coffee.

  “Drink, drink,” Evelyn Gethers said, reaching for her own cup. Her hand shook, and John was amazed that she managed to bring the cup to her lips without spilling any on herself. “Thank you, Morris.”

  Morris turned and stalked out of the room like someone suddenly accosted by a great idea.

  “Clifton,” she said. “His last name’s Clifton. We’re going to be married.”

  John shot Kersh a glance, which Kersh returned from over the rim of his coffee cup. “He lives here? “John asked.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “Well, no. Not all the time, not really. He has a room upstairs, but he rarely stays. He keeps very busy.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Oh, twenties, thirties … fifties. I’m not quite sure.” She rubbed the corner of her mouth with a crooked yellow thumb, smearing lipstick. “I don’t believe I’ve ever asked him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Now? Well, I believe he’s ill. He’s sick. This is good coffee.”

  “He’s not here now?” John asked.

  “Not now. He’s sick. He’s in the hospital.” The woman nodded toward the coffee tray. “There’s another cup, Mister—Inspector?— Mavio. Won’t you have some?”

  “He told you he was in the hospital?” Kersh asked from beside her.

  She turned a smile on him—all teeth and gums and lipstick—and nodded once, blinked her massive eyes. “He called me yesterday,” she said. “From the hospital.”

  John asked her which hospital.

  Lips together, she looked up at him as if he’d just asked her what color underwear she was wearing. All of a sudden she looked very hurt.

  “There’s something you need to know,” she almost whispered. “I don’t like people passing judgment, so I’d rather just come out and say these things, have the words come from my own mouth to their ears so there’s no miscommunication. Do you understand?”

  John nodded.

  She spoke her words slowly, trying more to convince herself than anyone else in the room: “I loved my husband. I was a good wife. I never complained. Never. Do you understand me? It’s important that you understand me, that you understand that. Do you?” But no one answered, and after several moments of silence she straightened her back and sipped some more coffee. “Ah, I remember the place now,” she said, suddenly just as cheerful as she’d been when she first greeted them at the foot of the stairs. “The Palazzo. Grand-grand-grand Palazzo. Spettacoloso.”

  There was a creaking of floorboards just down the hall, and John turned his head in time to see a shadow drift slowly across the wall of an adjoining room. Morris, he assumed, listening in.

  “Would you like to see his room?” the woman said suddenly. “Douglas’s room?”

  “That would be wonderful,” Kersh said, and stood.

  They followed the woma
n up the winding staircase, John lagging behind and peering into every partially opened door. He was already starting to form an impression of the situation in his head. The woman was old, delusional, eccentric, and most likely not without a touch of Alzheimer’s. He had little hope that the name she gave them was even real.

  She led them into a small, empty room with blue walls and a single window overlooking 72nd Street. In the room was a single bed, made and probably not slept in for some time, a cardboard box beside the bed, and a hand-carved dresser with brass handles and gold-plated molding against one wall. That was it.

  “When was the last time he was here?” John asked, bending over and peering into the cardboard box. It was empty. With his foot, he lifted the corner of the bedspread and crouched to peer beneath the bed: nothing.

  “Oh, my. Not for some time. I can’t remember.”

  Kersh asked the woman if she could recall what hospital Clifton had called from, if he had said why he was there and what had happened to him. Kersh’s lilting voice must have resonated better in Evelyn Gethers’s head, for she did not sink back into herself as she’d done when John had asked the question downstairs.

  However, Kersh produced no results. Perhaps, the woman suggested, he never even mentioned it to her. “I’m pretty certain I would have remembered, had he told me,” she said.

  John opened the drawers of the dresser. Empty. Empty. Empty. In one, a half-empty pack of Marlboros.

  “His cigarettes are here,” he told Kersh. “Same brand.”

  There was a closet beside the bedroom door. Kersh slid it open and peered inside. Aside from two very expensive suits and a collection of mismatched hangers, the closet was empty. Kersh wasted no time searching the pockets of the suits, plucking them one at a time from the closet and holding them at arm’s length to get an idea of Douglas Clifton’s build.

  “I bought those for him,” the woman said with some despondency. “Smell them. Don’t you just love the way a new suit smells?”

  “We’d like to leave a phone number with your butler,” John told the woman. “In case you happen to see or hear from Douglas again, he could call us, let us know.”

  “Oh.” She was watching Kersh hang one of the suits back up in the closet. “Is he in some kind of trouble?” It was a little late in the game for that question to make its first appearance, John noted, but then again, Evelyn Gethers wasn’t shuffling a full deck.

  “We just need to ask him a few questions,” Kersh said, knowing he needn’t go into anymore detail than that.

  Evelyn Gethers led them back downstairs where Morris was busy collecting the half-empty cups of coffee off the table. He looked at them through narrow, distrustful eyes, careful to keep his presence at a minimum.

  Evelyn Gethers led John and Kersh across the room toward the front door. Kersh, who had also noticed the butler’s subtle interest in their activities, presented himself to the man in an amiable enough fashion and produced a business card. Morris stared at it for a second before pinching it between his pincer-like fingers, like someone suddenly unaccustomed to the conventions of the Western world. Kersh made brief mention to the butler about the situation, remaining as vague as they’d been with the old woman.

  Morris’s eyes shifted toward Mrs. Gethers, then returned to Kersh. “I don’t really know him. He just comes around the house sometimes. Not in a while, though.”

  Kersh nodded and requested that Morris phone them without haste if Clifton happened to show up again.

  The butler continued to look at the business card, aware of the Secret Service emblem emblazoned above Kersh’s name, obviously chewing something over in his mind. Then he turned back to clearing off the coffee table.

  Kersh leaned over the sofa, grabbed the book he’d taken from the shelf, and proceeded to slide it back into place.

  “No, no, no,” the woman said, causing Morris the butler to glance over in their direction again. Mrs. Gethers plucked the book from Kersh’s hands, held it up to her face as if preparing to read the small print on the leather cover … then inhaled deeply, breathing in the musty scent of the book. Eyes partially closed, a soft smile swimming on her face, she gently handed the book back to Kersh. “Keep it,” she said. “It’s yours.”

  “Oh, I can’t.” The older agent uttered an embarrassed laugh. “It’s very old. Must be worth—”

  Evelyn Gethers merely waved her hand. “Nonsense,” she said. “How much crap can an old woman inherit? It’s just one other item for Morris to dust.”

  To this, John expected the butler to grunt and shuffle quickly out of the room. But Morris remained, silent and watchful as ever.

  “Really—” Kersh insisted.

  “No,” she said, adamant, “I won’t hear of it. It’s yours now. Keep it. And good reading to you, Inspector Kersh.” She turned to her butler, her bony hands suddenly hugging her pointy hips. “See them out, Morris. I’m going to the windows for air.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, and straightened up quickly, suddenly disinterested in the coffee cups.

  She turned toward the agents, pirouetted with surprising agility, and bade them farewell.

  “Gentlemen,” Morris said, opening the front door. There was something in his voice, in his demeanor, that caused John to look in the butler’s direction and study his face. If Kersh had heard it too, he showed no sign.

  He wasn’t surprised when Morris followed them out into the hall.

  “What’d he do?” were the first words out of Morris’s mouth. His breath was stale and awful-smelling. “That son of a bitch.”

  Stunned, Kersh turned around. “I’m sorry?”

  “Clifton,” Morris said. “Can you tell me what he did, why you’re looking for him?”

  “Sir, we—” Kersh began, but John cut him off.

  “You know him? What do you know?” he asked the butler. He could almost read the man’s thoughts straight from his head, could see them glowing like neon across his bald pate. “Tell us.”

  “Clifton’s no good and not deserving of anything Mrs. Gethers gives him. I see what goes on here, see what he does. He’s a hooligan, and I’m not surprised he’s in trouble with the authorities.”

  “How’d this guy get mixed up with her?”

  “How does anything happen?” Morris spoke in a near-whisper now, his face very close to John’s, his breath oppressive. “He used to deliver groceries up to the loft. Mrs. Gethers is elderly, lonely, a little out of it—and she’s got a lot of money. This Clifton fellow took advantage of that. He sometimes comes and goes and she gives him money, pays for company, that sort of thing.”

  “How old is he?” John asked.

  “About your age. He’s at Bellevue,” Morris spat, quick enough to trip over his words. “Bellevue Hospital. I sometimes …” Then he caught himself, considered changing his mind, then must have figured what the hell. “I sometimes listen in on her calls.” He looked embarrassed and a bit peeved at the whole situation. “Her husband was a good man—a good employer and a good friend. I worry about her. This Clifton fellow—he’s no good. I knew that from the beginning, but what can I do? She doesn’t listen to reason. Plus, he made her happy. I guess it’s not terribly bad if she’s happy. I don’t know. Is he going to jail?” There was some hope in his voice. And although John was positive Morris had some designs of his own, he knew the man did care about Evelyn Gethers and did want to see Douglas Clifton behind bars. Probably more the latter than the former.

  “We just need to speak with him,” John told the butler. “I appreciate this.”

  “I don’t know what to do if—”

  “Just give us a call if you see or hear from him, all right?”

  “Yes,” Morris said, glancing down at Kersh’s business card. After a moment, he tucked the card into the breast pocket of his shirt, nodded once in a perfunctory manner, then slipped back inside the apartment. John heard him bolt the door on the other side.

  “Looks like we’re going to Bellevue Hospital,” John
said once they were riding the elevator to the lobby. “That was some goddamn place, huh? Imagine living like that.”

  “Amazing,” Kersh said. He was flipping through the old book Evelyn Gethers had given him, examining pages the way an archeologist might examine prehistoric tools unearthed from a desert landscape. He paused, his finger on the title page of the book. A small, ironic chuckle lurched from his throat, and John turned in his direction.

  “What?”

  “Check it out.”

  Kersh extended the book, his finger pointing to a line of text on the bottom of the title page. The book itself was called Riders of the Black Storm, probably an old western. John glanced down at the line of text Kersh had his finger pressed to. It read, Printed by C.C. Gethers Publishing, Inc.

  “Son of a bitch,” John mused.

  Kersh smiled and looked up. He watched the numbers on the elevator’s panel tick down until they reached the lobby.

  Thirty minutes later and they were clopping down a tangle of corridors at Bellevue Hospital Center, searching for Douglas Clifton’s room. John’s head hurt, and his joints felt tired. And he would have been surprised and a bit ashamed that Bill Kersh had him so easily figured out—that the steely glances Kersh had given him in the car on the way to Evelyn Gethers’s were all the older agent needed to confirm his concern about young and abrupt John Mavio. On occasion, he’d caught himself absently trying to imagine Bill Kersh as a child. But that was an impossibility. People like Bill Kersh had never been children; somehow, they simply appeared one day, dressed slovenly in a wrinkled, cigarette-burned shirt, a stained and crooked tie, and slacks with worn knees. People like Bill Kersh had nothing in common with most ordinary people of the world.

  After some confusion and misdirection, John and Kersh found Douglas Clifton’s room. Kersh knocked twice lightly, not sure what to expect. The scene at Evelyn Gethers’s apartment had left them in a state of suspended amusement, and now they were prepared for anything.

  The door quickly opened, startling both men, and a tall, dark-skinned doctor in a white coat stepped out into the hallway. His features were sharp and birdlike, and a dark crop of stiff, curly hair sprouted from his head.