A Cast of Killers

CHAPTER NINE



Lenny Melk's office turned out to be a coffee shop at the corner of Centre and Duane Streets. He was waiting for T.S. out front. "You're the guy, right?" he said, eyeing T.S.'s charcoal gray sweater.

"It's nice to be so unforgettable," T.S. answered drily. "I knew you in a minute."

"I'm kind of a distinctive guy," Lenny admitted, automatically brushing the dandruff flakes off of his shoulders. He wore the same suit he'd worn two days before. It had not been dry-cleaned in the interim.

"Let me buy you a bagel," he offered T.S. "They got great lox here."

Lenny actually did spring for the bagel, but first T.S. had to hand over his cash payment. "I don't like to carry a lot of cash around with me," the entrepreneur confided to T.S. as they waited for their order. "Too dangerous."

"I agree. It's much safer to let your bookie hold it for you."

Lenny stared at T.S. closely and couldn't decide if he'd been joking. So he compromised and ignored the remark. "I've got that information for you," he said, after they had found a spot outside on a nearby low brick wall. "Let's sit here. We can watch all the secretaries going in to work. Take a look at that one, would you?"

T.S. did not indulge in petty ogling of unknown women. He took a look at his bagel instead and then took a bite. Lenny was right. It was excellent. They chewed in silence for a few minutes. Or, at least, T.S. chewed. Lenny Melk went right to the swallow.

"They got a whole string of dummy companies set up," Lenny finally confided, as he licked extra cream cheese from the paper wrapping. "But it's easy to find your way through if you know what you're doing. Like me."

"What's the bottom line?" T.S. mumbled through a mouthful of bagel.

"Everything seems to come back to some guy name of Lance Worthington. He runs an outfit called Broadway Backers. Last listed address is 1515 Broadway. Ring a bell?"

T.S. shook his head. "Never heard of the guy."

"Me, either. Must not be any kind of mover or shaker." Lenny bit off a chunk of bagel with gusto. "Speaking of movers and shakers," he sputtered, nodding his head toward a young woman late for work, who had abandoned decorum in favor of speed.

"You find out anything else?" T.S. was nearing the end of his bagel and was ready to move on to more dignified tasks.

"Well, the guy owns a couple of buildings in the neighborhood. One of them is two doors down. The other's on Tenth Avenue." He gave T.S. a crumpled wad of paper. Several addresses were scrawled across the center of the page and the margins were filled with notes like, "19-1/Stormy Spirit: 2nd at Aqueduct."

"Thanks," T.S. told Lenny. "Perhaps we shall meet again one day." He shook the man's hand firmly and ignored the small smear of cream cheese that squeezed between their fingers like putty. It was vastly preferable to watching Lenny Melk wipe his hands on the pants legs of the already well-abused suit.

"A pleasure doing business with you," Lenny declared. By the time T.S. reached the corner and turned toward the subway, the self-proclaimed real estate consultant was already heading for a nearby telephone, optimistically patting the wad of cash in his pocket.


Auntie Lil and Herbert were waiting for T.S. at the Delicious Deli. It was obvious from their faces that something big had happened. After introducing him to the deli owner, Auntie Lil pulled T.S. so close that he was practically in her lap, then whispered in his ear. "Be discreet. I'm not sure we can trust him entirely." She nodded toward Billy, who had returned to slicing slabs of roast beef at a rotary cutter located at the far end of the counter. The whirr would have made it impossible for him to eavesdrop.

"Then why are we here?" T.S. asked sensibly. "There are ten coffee shops to every block in this neighborhood.”

"Because he knows things," Auntie Lil whispered back. "I can tell. And I want to find out what they are."

T.S. resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. Auntie Lil thrived on adding drama to any situation, even an already dramatic one.

"Listen to what Herbert's got," Auntie Lil told him, forgetting to whisper in her excitement.

Herbert carefully opened a leather-bound notebook. "This is the log," he explained solemnly. "Franklin is an excellent observer. He gave an impeccable report on last night's comings and goings. There is much activity there in the dead of the night. Adelle and her friends added more, but they tend to get caught up in speculative detail. I do not find it necessary to fantasize on the private lives of residents, but they seem to believe the information is important." Translation: he had left them arguing about whether one of the residents was actually an actress or a call girl. "Already, we have spotted several suspicious instances. I will give you the most important ones."

T.S. leaned forward, caught up in the excitement, and tried to see what Herbert had written in the notebook. Herbert picked it up and pressed it closer to his chest. "No sense peeking. I have a special shorthand. I will summarize for you."

The most important events were indeed suspicious. The same man had visited Emily's building three times the previous night. Once at ten o'clock; again at half past one in the morning; and for a final time just after three o'clock. "He was the same man, just kept going in and out with different people."

"How do you know he's the same man?" T.S. asked.

"Descriptions of him match exactly," Herbert said, "once you separate the facts from the fictions perpetuated by the excitable actresses. He is not very tall, short black hair thinning in front, very small ears and he wears a very expensive tan cashmere coat. No hat. Plus, he is chauffeured around in a silver Cadillac, so that makes it easy, too."

"But it's who he was with that's suspicious," Auntie Lil butted in, pressing T.S.'s arm in her excitement. "Tell him."

"The first time, he entered with a cheap blonde—that is Miss Adelle's description—very much younger than himself. But when he leaves, he leaves with a young boy who matches the description of the white boy in the small photos found in Emily's apartment. Except that his hair is blond, not black."

"Remember, Bob Fleming told me that the boy had recently dyed his hair," Auntie Lil reminded them. "So, I'm almost sure it's Timmy."

"Shortly after that, a middle-aged man leaves the building in a very big hurry. He had entered it approximately an hour before, but we were not able to ascertain his exact destination there. It is still early when he leaves, so Adelle herself follows him. He stops at Show World—this is a pornographic palace located near the Port Authority—and does not leave there for thirty more minutes. At which point, Adelle loses him in the Port Authority." Herbert bobbed his head in apology. "We cannot all be as skilled as myself in surveillance."

"No, of course not," T.S. murmured. "Go on."

"The second time that the man in the cashmere coat drives up, he is with a tall black man. Very rough-looking."

"Tell him! Tell him!" Auntie Lil commanded, practically bouncing up and down in her seat.

Herbert looked skeptical. "Maybe this is true. Maybe it is not. Eva, she is one of Adelle's loudest followers—"

"I know who Eva is," T.S. interrupted. "The actress with the bad haircut who had been feuding with Emily."

"That is her," Herbert confirmed. "She says that she saw something funny on the man's arm."

"Which man's arm?" T.S. asked.

"The black man's arm. He was not wearing a coat, despite the slight chill. He was wearing only a short black T-shirt. And beneath one of the sleeves, Eva sees feet."

"Feet?" T.S. was mystified.

"A tattoo of feet," Herbert explained. "Not feet, but more like talons." He curled his hands into claws and illustrated for them. "The feet of an animal with talons, clutching sprigs of branches in them."

"The Eagle!" Auntie Lil explained. Don't you see? He has a huge tattoo of an eagle on his arm. That's why the old man at the soup kitchen kept talking about The Eagle. This is the man who poisoned Emily. Almost certainly."

T.S. was doubtful. For one thing, the information came from Eva. For another, they were guessing at the hidden meaning of words babbled by a probable lunatic. Finally, it had been the middle of the night.

"How could Eva possibly have spotted such a detail?" he demanded to know.

"That is the most clever thing," Herbert said in admiration. "She was right there by the stoop. Not three feet away. They passed right by her and up the stairs."

"That could be dangerous," T.S. said firmly. "I told you to warn them."

"No, not dangerous at all." Herbert broke out in a wide smile. "She was dressed most convincingly as a bag lady. I did not even recognize her myself. In fact"—he began to laugh, caught his breath and went on—"she is so convincing that the man in the cashmere coat gives her a dollar bill!"

"Okay, okay," T.S. conceded. "Eva makes a great bag lady and she sees the tail end of an eagle tattoo on this man's arm. What next?"

"The man never leaves the building," Herbert explains. "He is still in there."

"Which man?" T.S. asked again.

"The Eagle. The cashmere coat does leave, only this time he is not with a blonde and not with the tall black man. He is with a cheap prostitute. On this point, everyone agrees. She is tall and dresses not very nice."

"Let me fill in the rest," T.S. said. He put his hands against his head and shut his eyes as if he were struggling to foresee the future. "She was wearing a wig, hair piled high. Probably spike heels. She's black and wears mini-dresses that set off the color of her skin. The dresses don't cover very much. She favors torn stockings and long gloves. And she's definitely getting ready to go to work along Tenth Avenue."

"That's right!" Herbert confirmed with keen admiration. "Very good. You have met the lady before?"

"That is no lady. That is Miss Leteisha Swann."

Auntie Lil was staring at him strangely. "How do you know the name of that… woman of the night, Theodore?"

He held up a hand and winked. "I can do my own detecting, thank you. How I know is immaterial. That I do know is my little secret."

Auntie Lil looked two parts scandalized and one part annoyed. T.S. loved it.

Herbert coughed discreetly and murmured, "If I may continue… Mr. Cashmere Coat leaves with Miss Leteisha Swann in his silver car and all is relatively quiet." He paused to consult his notes. "People come and go, but we have ascertained that they live there. Four of the residents have roles in nearby Broadway shows. They arrived in stage makeup at appropriate times on foot. Tonight, we will follow them and confirm."

"More working actors than I thought," T.S. admitted. "When did Cashmere Coat return?"

"Not until three o'clock in the morning. By himself. He enters for a few minutes and when he comes out, he has something like a book in his hand. Franklin has taken over the surveillance and was across the street, so he could not see for sure. Then Franklin breaks the rules."

"Fortunately," Auntie Lil interrupted.

"Yes. Most fortuitous," Herbert agreed. "When Cashmere Coat does not get into the Cadillac and instead starts to walk towards Times Square on foot, Franklin follows him. He knows the man has been in and out all night and sees this as suspicious. The silver car trails the man by half a block and Franklin follows behind the car. Cashmere Coat is walking and looking around, obviously seeking out someone. He stops and has a few words with the cashier of a not-very-nice movie theater at the corner of Forty-Fifth Street and Eighth Avenue, then continues on foot. He looks in doorways and down side streets. Finally, he cuts across Shubert Alley and enters a building at 1515 Broadway. He is inside for twenty minutes and when he comes out, he does not have the book-like object with him. He gets in the silver car and it drives away. Franklin returns to his post."

"1515 Broadway?" T.S. said. "That's the same address as the man who owns the building. He has a company there called Broadway Backers."

"Good," Auntie Lil declared firmly. "The game is afoot. You go to 1515 Broadway and I will go find Detective Santos and tell him that The Eagle is in Emily's building."

T.S. looked at her skeptically. "Santos will not be in the mood to hear it."

Auntie Lil shrugged. "What else can we do? We can't let The Eagle get away."

"He won't believe you," T.S. insisted. "He had the apartment checked. Someone else is living there now."

"I'll beg," Auntie Lil conceded.

Herbert cleared his throat gently. "I hesitate to ask, but is it possible you may have made a mistake?"

Auntie Lil straightened her posture indignantly. "Certainly not."

"Just the same, it might be prudent to somehow verify that Emily did live in the building and that a fraud is now being perpetrated."

"How are we going to do that?" T.S. asked. "It was hard enough getting information the first time around. All we had to go on was this guy here, who called her The Pineapple Lady, for God's sake, and some man who liked weird-looking Jamaican stew who thought she lived in the building. It's a miracle we found her in the first place. It's not exactly like people are stepping forward by the dozen to verify her residency."

Herbert's burnished face wrinkled in intense concentration. They waited silently and were rewarded when he finally looked up, eyes calm once again. "Then we will work with what we have," he announced.

"Such as?" T.S. wanted to know.

"She liked pineapple," Herbert said simply.

T.S. stared at him, mystified.

"When I resume my shift, I will ask the owner of the Korean fruit stand on the corner if he knows her," Herbert explained.

"He won't tell you a thing," T.S. warned. "I doubt he even speaks English."

"No need to." Herbert modestly brushed dust from his jacket shoulder. "I speak Korean. That is why he will tell me everything. Approach a man in his own language and you are displaying the ultimate respect. It is an irresistible request for help."

"You speak Korean?" T.S. asked, impressed. Herbert was always surprising him.

"Yes. I learned it during the Korean War. Leave it all to me."

"Everything all right here?" Billy interrupted. The deli owner had been standing behind them. All three of the assembled friends wondered for how long.

"We' re fine," T.S. assured him. "Just fine." The man moved back behind the counter and began slicing cuts of cheese. "We're meeting somewhere else later," T.S. decided. "I don't trust this guy. Herbert, you're checking with the fruit stand then you're back watching the building, right?"

"Correct. Everyone else will be eating at St. Barnabas for the next few hours, so I must take up the post myself."

"Okay. Auntie Lil—meet me at Mike's American Bar and Grill when you're done at the precinct. It's at Tenth and Forty-Fifth."

"Why not Robert's?" she asked. "You keep talking about it. I want to see it."

T.S. was not anxious to become reacquainted with the waiter there. "Let's go to Mike's where we're completely unknown."

They agreed and dispersed towards their tasks.


T.S. could not resist the opportunity to observe Herbert in action. He stood a discreet distance away from the fruit stand watching as Herbert approached a small man in a white apron. He was cutting chunks of fruit from a pile of slightly bruised cantaloupes and pineapples, and was assembling small fruit salads for sale at exorbitant prices to business people too busy to eat any other way but on the run.

Herbert bowed to him from a respectful distance and the man bobbed his head in a terse greeting back. His face was a carefully blank New York mask until Herbert spoke a few words in Korean. Suddenly, the fruit stand owner's face lit up. What followed was a furious conversation involving many smiles, much handshaking and a whole lot more bobbing of heads. After a moment of what seemed to T.S. to be pandemonium but was clearly communication at its finest, the fruit stand owner nodded his head vigorously and took a few steps up Forty-Sixth Street. He pointed out Emily's building and nodded again. Herbert beamed and grasped the man's hand in thanks. Bowing, they departed company.

"Well, that certainly worked," T.S. admitted.

"No sweat," Herbert said modestly. "Though if it hadn't worked, I'm quite sure a twenty-dollar bill would have convinced him to talk."

T.S. left the retired messenger to his surveillance and started out for Times Square, where his own task awaited him. That Herbert Wong. He was a most intriguing mixture of old and new.


The huge chrome and brick building that was 1515 Broadway stretched many stories skyward. The immense lobby was empty except for a token desk man who sat reading the sports section of a tabloid and did not bother to look up when T.S. passed by.

T.S. quickly found Broadway Backers listed on the seventh floor and took one of the elevators up. The door opened onto a long hall lined with many offices. Broadway Backers was either a sham or not successful enough to merit the entire floor.

He found the right door at the far end of the hall. It had a small plaque and, in a burst of unoriginality, the ubiquitous comic and tragic faces found on green rooms and theater doors all across America. There was no bell, so he simply pushed open the door and entered. A plump redhead—who was unarguably overripe but probably not really a redhead—was talking on the phone, her expression indicating it was a friend (a very close friend) instead of a professional call.

Behind her, in a glassed-in office, a short man dressed in a good suit was waving his arms in front of a well-groomed couple. The couple was as sleek and plump as a pair of otters in the zoo. The short man's mouth opened and shut rapidly while his arms wind-milled. None of this seemed to be convincing the couple. They crossed their arms and rolled their eyes, almost in unison, and then the female half of the couple lit a cigarette and began to speak. The short man never bothered to slow down, so the two of them yammered at each other behind the glass in a furious pantomime of noncommunication. T.S. was glad the soundproofing spared him the details. He hated it when two people talked at once.

"Here's a big, juicy kiss," the receptionist cooed. T.S. looked up in astonished dread, but she was only bidding a fond farewell to her telephone mate.

"Can I help you?" she asked T.S. in what was her version of the perfect receptionist's voice, gleaned from years of watching television. Her accent was unfortunate. She hailed from the outer boroughs and it showed. If she was working here in hopes of breaking into show business, the accent would have to disappear—or she would.

"I'm looking for Mr. Lance Worthington," T.S. told her. That part was easy. What he intended to do with Lance Worthington after he found him was another matter. T.S. had no idea what he would say. He kept telling himself that all he wanted was a chance to evaluate the man. See if he was on the up and up. After three decades as a personnel manager, T.S. was pretty good at picking out the genuine articles from the phonies.

"Well, Mr. Worthington is in, but he's not available right now." She already had the phone off the receiver and was ready to move on to the next entry in her personal address book.

"That's him?" T.S. nodded toward the glassed-in office.

"That is he" she informed him importantly. "And he absolutely positively cannot be disturbed because he is in the middle of having creative differences with the writers."

"Creative differences?" T.S. asked. No one in the office looked particularly creative and the differences looked more like fatal divisions.

"That's what producers do," the receptionist told him crossly. "If you were in the business you would know. They have creative differences with the writers."

"Those two are the writers?" It was none of his business, but he couldn't help the question. The couple looked more like they should be wrangling for a better table at Sardi's than writing Broadway shows. The woman was decked out in a fur wrap, for God sake. If they were writing a show, it had to be the sequel to How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.

"It's a musical about Davy Crockett," the receptionist explained patiently while making it plain that she was being patient. "He writes the book. She writes the music."

Davy Crockett? If those two knew anything about pioneers, T.S. was Ponce de Leon. "I'll come back later," he quickly told the receptionist as he scrutinized Lance Worthington, trying to determine if this was the man who'd been seen at Emily's building three times the night before. He was certainly smarmy enough to fit the description, which had been rather vague. But that was hardly enough for a positive identification. Wait—the man reached up and rubbed his ears, an action T.S. didn't begrudge as the stout woman was still stalking around the office, bellowing. But the short man's ears were very interesting. They were tiny and shaped like cookies. In fact, they looked just like a chimpanzee's ears. Either the man had a habit of pulling at them or he was undergoing aural torture. What was it that Herbert had said? Oh, yes: Mr. Cashmere Coat had very small ears.

The man's next movement confirmed his identity. He shook his head vigorously and looked at his watch, turned his back on the couple and headed for a hook on the back of his office door. Donning a tan cashmere coat, he spoke abruptly to the couple and reached for the doorknob.

"I'll be back," T.S. promised the receptionist, turning abruptly and heading for the hall before he came face to face with Lance Worthington. He wanted to meet him, but not like this. He now had a better plan, a much better plan, in mind.

Turning his back, T.S. paused at the doorway of another office and fumbled in his pockets as if searching for keys. Lance Worthington exited Broadway Backers and passed directly behind him, not more than a foot away. He was humming something T.S. could not recognize. Perhaps the music to his new show.

The producer reached the elevator and jabbed the button impatiently. T.S. stared at him out of the corner of one eye. Lance Worthington was a small man, not more than five-eight, with short arms and stubby legs and a rounded head. There was not much of note about him: he moved impatiently with jerky motions, wore expensive shoes, had thinning hair and only a pair of small dark eyes stood out in an otherwise nondescript face. Until he drew attention to those ears. The producer tugged at one, then jabbed the elevator button a few more times for good measure and looked at his watch. If the elevator didn't hurry, T.S. would be left standing in the hall holding a whole lot more than his keys in his hand.

Fortunately, a car arrived and Lance Worthington boarded. T.S. caught a final glimpse of his thinning scalp and small round head just as the elevator door shut.

Boy, did T.S. hate those ears.


Auntie Lil was steamed. The desk sergeant at Midtown North would not let her past the entrance area.

"I demand to see Detective Santos," she told him for the third time.

"Demand away. The man's not here." The sergeant leaned forward and parked a fist against his chin so he could get a better look at Auntie Lil. He was a budding novelist and was collecting colorful characters for his first book. This old dame was a doozy.

Auntie Lil glared at him. "You certainly take a casual view of your job."

Out of habit, the sergeant checked the position of her pocketbook. It looked big enough to hurt if swung with sufficient force. "Lady, I cannot make a man appear when he is not here. I am an officer of the law, not a magician. Would you like to see anyone else in connection with your problem?"

"No. When do you expect him in?"

"We expected him in this morning," the sergeant replied. "When he actually arrives is anyone's guess. George is that kind of guy."

She did not bother to thank him—what for?—and marched from the precinct angrily, shouldering past a handcuffed suspect and throwing him against a folding chair. The suspect tripped over it and landed on the floor. The arresting officer looked after Auntie Lil in admiration, but she was moving too fast to accept the compliment.

She reached Mike's American Bar and Grill before T.S. It was deserted, except for a woman behind the bar and a handful of Mexican cooks sitting at a table enjoying cigarettes before the lunch rush. For some inexplicable reason, huge clusters of plastic grapes hung from the ceiling in endless waves and fake Grecian columns were parked willy-nilly throughout the interior. Oversized wine glasses served as flowerpots for silk grapevines that cascaded across the center of every table. The bartender, a willowy young woman with straight brown hair and enough black eyeliner to last Cleopatra a lifetime, wore a sheet wrapped over a leotard in an approximation of a toga. She watched Auntie Lil enter with professionally distant interest. In Mike's neighborhood, you never knew what was going to walk in the door. It was always best to reserve judgment until right before you yelled for the bouncer.

"Give me a double Bloody Mary," Auntie Lil ordered. Her fruitless visit to the precinct called for strong measures. She slapped her pocketbook on the bar and scraped a stool up closer to it. "Extra, extra spicy. I'd ask for ouzo, but I hate the stuff."

"Greek is just our theme this week," the bartender assured her. "Next week, we're going Oktoberfest." If she thought it was unusual for a little old lady to be slamming back a double Bloody Mary in midday, she wasn't going to point that out. "Having a bad day?" she asked.

"Having a bad week," Auntie Lil decided as she sipped at her Bloody Mary.

Since Theodore was certainly taking his sweet time, she decided she might as well get some work done while she waited. There was a pay phone directly behind her, against one wall, and a chair was arranged in front of it. Unfortunately, so was a cook. One look from Auntie Lil, however, and he quickly murmured something in Spanish, rang off and hustled back to the safety of the kitchen. He, too, had been working in the neighborhood long enough to know that you never judged a book by its cover, no matter how creased it might be.

Bob Fleming answered the phone on the first ring. "Homefront," he said.

"If you don't sleep there, you might as well," she told him. "This is Lillian Hubbert."

"Of course." He sounded more cheerful than the day before. "I got a good night's sleep in my own bed, actually. Some of my volunteers showed up and we got two kids to call home last night. And one is thinking about entering a resident drug rehab. It looks like it could be a pretty good week after all."

"People still looking at you funny?" she asked.

"Not today. No one's seen me yet. What can I do for you?"

"Did you find Little Pete? Will he talk to me?"

"I think so," he told her. "Stop by later and I'll let you know for sure. I ran into him this morning. He's thinking about it. But he's scared."

"Why is he scared?" Auntie Lil asked.

"He was on the streets a couple of nights ago, three I think, and saw some rich guy in a limo flashing around photos of the old woman, dead. Scared the hell out of him. He said the guy had a mean-looking face, looked like a serial killer or something. Of course, he's a kid and he's got an imagination, so ... I don't know the connection, but that old lady meant something to Little Pete and he's definitely afraid of the man in the limousine."

"A silver limo?" Auntie Lil asked.

"No. He said it was a black car."

She couldn't figure out how a rich man in a black limo could fit into what they knew. "What about Timmy?" she asked Bob Fleming. "Did you get to talk to him?"

"No. He's still avoiding me. Little Pete doesn't know why. But I found out a bit more about the man who's keeping Timmy. According to Little Pete, Timmy's got a regular job with the guy. It's not a sugar daddy thing. Strictly business. I don't know exactly what that means, but I can guarantee you that it doesn't involve Social Security. Maybe you can find out more."

"I will," Auntie Lil decided firmly. "Thank you. I'll see you this afternoon."

She hung up and nursed another third of her Bloody Mary down the hatch. Things were looking up. Little Pete could tell her something about Emily, she was sure of it. She checked the clock. Where was Theodore? On an impulse, she dialed Midtown North and, to her surprise, was connected to Det. George Santos almost immediately.

"Talk fast," the detective said without waiting to hear who it was. "I've got a stack of messages waist high that I have to return."

"We have located The Eagle for you."

"The man who was sitting next to Emily," Santos repeated, obviously recognizing her voice. He wanted to humor her before she started to fill him in with endless details. He sighed again. "Okay, Miss Hubbert, what's the beef?"

"He entered Emily's apartment building at 1:30 a.m. last night and has not left yet."

"The apartment building where you think she lives," Santos corrected her.

"Regardless of whether Emily lived there or not," Auntie Lil conceded, but only because it suited her current purposes, "reliable sources saw The Eagle enter. And he has not yet come back out."

"Look, Miss Hubbert," the detective said. "I know you're trying to help and I know that you care about the woman who died. But I can't keep running off on wild goose chases. I just don't have the time."

"Please, detective," Auntie Lil pleaded with uncharacteristic mellowness, fueled by the hefty Bloody Mary. "I won't ask you to do anything else. Please just have someone check all the apartments there. I know The Eagle is in there. He's a tall black man with an eagle tattoo on one of his upper arms. If you can find him, I can find the witness who saw him leaning over Emily the day she died. I have people looking for him now."

"You what?"

She backpedaled quickly. "I mean, I heard through a friend that they've put the word out at St. Barnabas that the police need to speak to whoever sat near Emily that day."

There was a skeptical silence. "I'll see who's available to recheck the building," he finally promised. "But only because there weren't any new murders waiting on my desk this morning."

"This afternoon," Auntie Lil corrected.

He rang off before she tortured him any more.


Returning from 1515 Broadway, T.S. detoured past St. Barnabas in an attempt to find the funny old man who had first spotted The Eagle. Franklin had not yet been able to find him, but was sure he'd turn up sooner or later. There was a long line waiting for the soup kitchen to open, but no demented old characters with half of their hair shaved away. While he was there searching for familiar faces, Fran walked past him and hurried down the basement steps without giving him even a second glance. She was seriously preoccupied with some problem. And T.S. wanted to know what it was.

He followed her partway down the steps. She unlocked the gate and stepped through, forgetting to lock it again. Before she could unlock the basement door, Father Stebbins opened it for her, greeting her with a wide smile. To T.S.'s complete amazement, Fran brushed past the priest without comment. Father Stebbins stared at her with a worried look on his face, but she marched past him into the kitchen area without so much as a hello.

Now that was something, T.S. thought. But what?

Father Stebbins noticed T.S. standing at the gate. "The kitchen doesn't open until three o'clock," he told him kindly.

Not only had Father Stebbins not recognized him, he'd thought he was a soup kitchen client. So much for T.S.'s theory about the impact of the right attire. On the other hand, he decided, he should be grateful for the anonymity. He slipped back up the stairs while Father Stebbins relocked the gate. The old actresses were not in line yet. They were probably roaming the streets, gathering useless information on innocent people. Well, so long as they were happy doing their jobs, no one was getting hurt.

He cut across Forty-Sixth Street to get another look at Emily's building. If Herbert's team was on the job, he didn't see them. But he saw something even more interesting. T.S. spotted a silver limousine approaching the front of the building from the west and hurried to get a better look. He stepped into the doorway across the street and watched as it glided to a stop in front of Emily's building. A tall blonde with lots of hard angles but not much meat on her hopped out of the back seat and ran a few doors down to the corner store, leaving the car door open. A small, round head covered with thin strands of black hair and decorated with two tiny ears emerged from the back seat. It was attached to the tan of an expensive cashmere coat. Lance Worthington marched up the front steps of Emily's building and leaned firmly on a buzzer. T.S. could not see which one. The producer leaned on the buzzer again and turned away impatiently. Halfway down the steps, the front door opened and Leteisha Swann stuck her gawky neck and heavily painted face out the door as she called after Lance Worthington. The look of irritation that crossed his face was clearly apparent, even from T.S.'s viewpoint across the street. The producer shook his head gruffly and climbed into the limo. Undaunted, Leteisha Swann followed him to the car. The door was shut firmly in her face. She glared through the back windows, tossed her hair behind her head—a move that nearly dislodged her cheap wig—then turned on her spike heels and sauntered down the block toward Ninth Avenue.

So, Lance Worthington had not been waiting for Leteisha Swann. Who else in the building could it be?

"Got a quarter?" T.S.'s concentration was interrupted by a bedraggled old woman, who stood before him grinning a gap-toothed smile and extending a dirty palm. She looked like someone right out of Oliver!

T.S. fumbled in his pocket for a dollar bill and tossed it her way, returning to his scrutiny of the silver car.

"Thank you, governor. Most kind of you," the old hag cackled in a Cockney accent. "Care for a quick tickle in return?"

T.S. was shocked. He turned to her and prepared to launch into a lecture, but the old bag lady surprised him by bursting into a merry laugh.

"Got you," she said. She lifted the matted hair off of her forehead, rearranged her face and straightened up, grinning at T.S.

"Adelle!" T.S. was not amused. He was appalled. She had looked exactly like a crazy old woman lost on the streets. A little too much like one, in fact. It frightened him. Where they all that close to the edge?

"Don't let it bother you, guv'," she told him with a bawdy nudge. "I can fool anyone when I put my mind to it." She cackled again and moved down the sidewalk, adding over her shoulder: "You're not the only eyes watching that building, you know."

The encounter was still bothering him when the blonde emerged from the corner store holding a pack of cigarettes and a small brown paper bag. The door to the back seat of the silver car opened and she climbed inside. Just then, the outer door to Emily's building swung open with a bang and a young boy ran down the steps. His blond hair gleamed harshly in the autumn sun and he wore a tight black T-shirt, equally tight black jeans, and brand new tennis shoes worth about a third of T.S.'s monthly pension check. The boy followed the blonde into the silver car and it pulled swiftly away.

Timmy. The boy in Emily's photos and, most definitely, the boy he'd seen in the apartment next to hers, two days ago with a middle-aged man. Seeing him in person confirmed it and he realized that he should have made the connection before. And he was probably the kid that Herbert had spotted leaving the building the night before.

So Timmy knew Lance Worthington. But what did that mean? And Lance Worthington knew, but did not necessarily like, Leteisha Swann. And none of them looked much like Mother Teresa from T.S.'s vantage point.

He hurried down the block toward his rendezvous with Auntie Lil. As he passed by a large potted fir tree in front of a Brazilian restaurant, he could have sworn he heard his name called out. It was as faint as the wind and just as fleeting.

He stopped abruptly. "What?" he said. A woman passing by glanced at him, stepped up her speed, stared back at him again and accelerated some more.

"What?" T.S. said again.

"Give my regards to Lillian," a muffled voice replied. "The Eagle has not yet flown the coop."

"For God's sake, Herbert." T.S. straightened the hem of his sweater and moved resolutely forward. "Now you're just showing off."


Auntie Lil had not waited for him to begin lunch. The last slurp of Bloody Mary had suddenly convinced her that she needed food— and fast. By the time T.S. arrived, she was halfway through a pork chop practically the size of a manhole. A small pile of bones on her plate signified the recent demise of another, equally enormous chop.

"I'll have what she just vacuumed up," he told the waiter automatically.

"Wise choice," Auntie Lil affirmed, her mouth full of food. "What did you find out?"

He told her the particulars about Lance Worthington and his actions earlier that day, then outlined his plan to find out more about the producer. Her eyes twinkled. Either she approved or she'd had a whopping big drink before he got there. Speaking of which—he ordered himself a Dewars and soda.

"You just want an excuse to see Lilah," she said once she'd swallowed her last chunk of meat. "But I approve heartily. You can get right beside him and see if it's all smoke or a little bit of fire, too. What would he be doing with a street kid?"

"He could be one of Timmy's customers. Or, he could just be there in the building collecting the rent."

They stared at one another, neither of them believing the last theory. "How do we explain the blonde on his arm if Worthington is one of Timmy's customers?" Auntie Lil asked. There went the first theory, too.

"I have even more interesting news," T.S. told her, abandoning their dilemma and savoring the chance to surprise her for a change.

"What?" she demanded. "You're holding back on me."

He told her about Fran not speaking to Father Stebbins. Her reaction was swift and surprised.

"What could have happened to cause such a thing?" she wondered out loud.

"I don't know." His drink arrived and he refreshed himself, realizing that his encounter with Adelle still rankled. He told Auntie Lil about it. "She was very proud of her disguise, but I was upset."

Auntie Lil reached over and patted his hand. "I know. They live very close to that life and it's frightening to see them go over to the other side. Yet, you have to admire their verve at taking it on, if only as a temporary disguise."

"She said she could fool anyone," T.S. repeated. "And I bet she could."

Auntie Lil was quiet, considering his words. T.S. caught on and fell silent as well.

"She could fool anyone," Auntie Lil admitted. "Perhaps we would do well to remember that."

"Did you get Santos?" he asked. The thought of one little old lady murdering another was depressing, but did nothing to squelch his appetite. His plate arrived and he dived right in. He was hungry. Watching Auntie Lil eat often had that effect.

"He's going to send some men to canvass the apartment building again. This time they'll check every apartment, not just the one we think is Emily's. If The Eagle's there, they'll find him. But I heard something else that's intriguing."

"What?" he asked, hurrying through his pork chops before Auntie Lil decided she was hungry again.

"Bob Fleming of Homefront has obtained information that a sinister, wealthy man in a black limousine was riding around the neighborhood three nights ago, flashing photographs of Emily dead. Where did he get those photos? What is he doing with them? The young black boy in Emily's photos, Little Pete, saw the man. He was frightened and ran away."

T.S. stared at her, mouth open and pork chops forgotten.

"For heaven's sake, Theodore. Close your mouth when you chew."

"Auntie Lil," T.S. said, horrified. "He's talking about me." Unwillingly, a flush crept up his neck and across his face. "When I stopped to get the photos developed, I had to do it at Times Square. It was the only place open. A young black kid was in the crowd. He saw me and ran away."

Auntie Lil stared at him. "You might have told me this earlier. Didn't you recognize the child when you saw the photos in Emily's apartment?"

"No, I did not. Remember, I did say I thought I had seen him before."

He cut into his pork chop with defensive energy. "Besides, the kid I saw on the street looked a hell of a lot older and wiser than the kid in the photograph."

"It's the same one. I hope to meet and talk with him today."

"Well, then, you'd better keep an eye out," T.S. warned. "So far as I'm concerned neither of these kids is much of a kid. Either one of them, or both of them, might have set Emily up. So watch your step."

It was the most depressing theory yet.