“He doesn’t know it.”
“I want it,” said Detective Heat, holding the mobster’s stare.
A long silence followed. Through the walls they could hear jet blowers blasting water off a car. When they stopped, Fat Tommy spoke quietly. “I want you to know I’m only giving you this because you’re with him. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Chester Ludlow.” He put on his sunglasses.
Nikki felt a skip in her chest. She was going to write it down, but she thought she could remember the name of an ex-congressman.
“We good?” asked Fat Tommy as he rose.
“We’re good,” said Rook, who also stood.
“Almost good,” said the detective, who remained seated. “I want something more from you.”
“She’s got balls, this one.”
Rook’s turn to head bobble.
Nikki rose. “This morning a crew, three shooters and a driver, jacked the coroner’s van and stole the body of Cassidy Towne.”
Fat Tommy slapped his thigh. “Holy crap, somebody ripped off the meat wagon? What a town.”
“I want them. Two of my friends were on that van and the driver is in the hospital. Not to mention a body was stolen.”
Fat Tommy opened up his poor-me hands. “I already made it clear, I don’t do that kind of work.”
“I know. But like you said, you know guys who know guys.” She stepped close to him and put a finger point on his chest for each word. “Know some guys.” Then she smiled. “I’d appreciate it. And it’ll make it nicer when we see each other next time, Tommy. Hey, and congrats on the weight loss.”
He turned to Rook. “You gotta love the balls.”
Out in the lobby they shook hands again. Rook said, “By the way, Tommy, I didn’t know you owned this place.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I’m just here getting mine washed.”
Heat called the precinct for an address on Chester Ludlow as soon as they got back in the Crown Victoria. When she hung up, she said, “What’s Chester Ludlow’s beef with Cassidy Towne?”
“She was the reason he’s not a congressman anymore.”
“I thought that was his doing, given the scandal.”
“Right, but guess who broke the story that started it all caving in on him?” She pulled out of the car wash parking lot, and Rook said, “I want to know how you like my sources now.”
“Fat Tommy? I want to know why you didn’t notify the police.”
“Hello, I think I did.”
“After she died.”
“You heard Tommy. It wasn’t going to happen, anyway.”
“Except it did.”
Chester Ludlow wasn’t at his Park Avenue town house, or at his penthouse office above Carnegie Hall. He was where he spent most of his time these days, enjoying the snooty insulation of the Milmar Club on Fifth Avenue, across from the Central Park Zoo.
When Heat and Rook stepped onto the marble floor of the reception area, they trod the same ground that New York’s mega-wealthy and social elite had for over a century. Within those walls Mark Twain had toasted U. S. Grant at his New York welcoming gala, when the general settled on East 66th Street after his presidency. Morgans, Astors, and Rockefellers had all danced at masked balls at the Milmar. They say Theodore Roosevelt famously broke the color code there by inviting Booker T. Washington to cocktails.
What it lacked in relevance, it made up for in grandeur and tradition. It was a hushed, opulent place where a member could be assured of privacy and a strong highball. The Milmar stood now as an idealized fortress of postwar New York, the city of John Cheever, where men wore hats and strode out into the river of light. And, as Jameson Rook discovered, they also wore ties, one of which he chose from the coat check before he and Nikki Heat were allowed into the saloon.