"I'm surprised to find you here," Eddie said. "I thought Russians owned this place."
"Nah, this Jewish guy, Kleinman from Hoboken, owns it."
"Kleinman's a front," Eddie said. "He fronted places for Lukin."
It came back to Eddie, the key to fighting Richie Costa. He always remembered what worked against certain boxers. He could recall knockout punches the way baseball players remembered home runs: the date, time, the pitcher who threw a low slider on a three-and-one count, even the temperature that day. Start this guy off with a short left hook, Eddie thought, snap it into that sixpack midsection. Richie always kept his forearms up, protecting his face. Hit him up high and all you wound up with were sore hands. But one to the gut and his elbows dropped.
Eddie said, "You're not on the outs with the Bronx crew, are you?"
"No, no, I still work for the same people. The Eurobar is a joint venture we have with this Russian businessman."
"A joint venture? With Yuri Borodenko?"
Eddie considered how much he should tell Richie. But if he could get inside, he wouldn't need him. He could find Misha on his own.
"What can I tell you," Costa said, "the guy knows how to make money. We never been prejudiced against making money."
"Keep an eye on the cash flow."
"We ain't stupid, either, Eddie. We got a guy checks the books every night. I go in every so often, count the house, have a pop, then drift back out. I actually like it better out here. You'd be amazed how much these bobos will slip you just to get in this shithole."
"Not to mention the women," Eddie said.
"You wouldn't fucking believe it. Pussy gets thrown in your face out here like it's falling from the sky. Broads, they practically offer to go down on you right here if you'll let them in."
"Sleep all day, score all night. My kinda job."
"Yeah, that would be sweet, but I got a day job now, too. Stock market stuff. Going around with a suit and an attache" case, talking to stockbrokers, persuading them in regards to the merits of certain stocks. My wife thinks I'm Bill Fucking Gates."
Eddie wondered what Richie carried in the attache case. Either a prosciutto and provolone hero or brass knuckles, but he didn't need documents for his end of the investment business. Yuri Borodenko had taken over Lukin's old partnership with the Italians in pump-and-dump schemes on Wall Street. The Russians handled the business end. They touted a certain stock until it became overvalued, then sold their shares, and the bottom fell out. The role of Richie Costa's crew was to "persuade" stockbrokers not to sell a stock the mob wanted only to be bought. Persuasion in one recent case had included a vicious beating right on the floor of the Stock Exchange.
"What brings you out at this hour anyway?" Richie asked. "These broads in here are way, way too young for you. Your fucking heart will explode if you get one of these young broads in the sack."
"Thanks, I'll be careful of that. Actually, I'm just doing a little PI work."
"Nothing to do with wise guys, right?"
"Missing Russian kid," Eddie said. "His parents hired me to find him. He's underage, but if he's in here, I'll keep it quiet for an old friend. Tell them I grabbed him on the street."
"Appreciate it, amigo," Richie said.
"You can't have too many old friends, my old partner used to say. It certainly worked for him. I'm back taking these shit jobs while Paulie is living large in Italy."
Eddie hadn't heard from Paulie in years, but he knew when to drop his name.
"I forgot Paulie was your partner," Richie said. "He's my godfather, you know that? Fucking wild man, Paulie 'the Priest' Caruso. He could make you laugh your ass off."
"Now he thinks he's Marcello Mastroianni. Strutting around the plazas in a white linen suit."
"What a pisser, that guy," Richie said. "Marcello Mastroianni, that's good."
"I could buy and sell both you assholes," the drunken Yuppie yelled, finally getting the point that he was wasting his time. On busy nights, the doormen at the hot clubs always ignored the guys wearing business suits. They figured they'd been drinking since they left the office eight hours earlier and that all they were going to do was puke or fight.
"You want to take a look inside for this kid?" Richie said. "Come on, I'll take care of it."
Eddie decided on asking Richie for no more than entree. He couldn't be trusted with knowledge. He'd tell his boss, and the boss would tell Borodenko. The mafiosi thing would never permit Richie to help an Irish ex-cop. Richie wasn't even a made man, and probably never would be, but he was the type who believed that whole Don Corleone fantasy. He'd bought the myth of mob life: hook, line, and blood oath. Richie Costa was destined to follow in his old man's cement shoes.
The club was cavernous, the ceiling at least twenty feet high. It must have taken up half the block below-ground. The main part of the club was three floors below street level and was broken up into several large rooms. Wide-load Richie led the way down the superwide flight of stairs into the shriek of two hundred drunken voices battling the pumped-up music. On the way in, Eddie heard accents that were clearly Soviet bloc. Much of the crowd appeared to be Mideastern, with a smattering of Asians.
Before he went back to the street, Richie set Eddie up at the best table in the house: a raised booth in a corner opposite the bar, with a reserved sign. Then he told the bartender that Eddie's drinks were on the house. Nobody ever paid for drinks in that booth. Eddie had planned to be less conspicuous, but the view from the wise guys' table might work. From the leather-tufted perch, Eddie could see the bar, the dance floor, and most of a large room set up like a hotel lobby with couches and coffee tables.
Only problem was the lighting. The dance floor was lit by strobes, the faces illuminated in flickering orange or nuclear green. Staring made his stomach flip-flop. The hotel-style lobby area had only dim lighting, and the bar was a cave with shadows swooping across the wall. Eddie sipped club soda and scanned the place, thinking he'd made a mistake not showing Misha's picture to Richie. He'd never find him alone.
But he wasn't alone for long. A young woman appeared, talking as if she were finishing a conversation they'd started earlier.
"Very important gentleman, this must be," she said, sliding into the booth. "Maybe very important gentleman buy Tatiana a cosmopolitan, and she'll tell him a story. Tatiana tells interesting stories."
Tatiana wore a short gold lame dress, and he could only describe her long, straight hair as gunmetal red. Eddie signaled the bartender, wondering if his free ride at the bar included a passenger.
"I bet I can guess the ending," he said.
"Happy ending," she said. "Always happy ending."
But Tatiana told a sad tale of her Russian childhood, saying how her overdeveloped figure had caused the boys to lust after her body, and the other girls to die of jealousy. Too much "problem" for a simple girl who liked simple pleasure, and complicated pleasure as well, darling. This is why she preferred older, very important gentlemen. She talked nonstop, not permitting an interruption until her hand was on his thigh.
The bartender brought Tatiana's drink. Eddie looked for a flash of recognition, but it wasn't there. No eye contact at all. Tatiana was a regular, a pro. The bartender overdid it by not looking at her.
After the story, Tatiana was all questions, no answers. Who was he? What did he do to become a very important gentleman? A famous doctor, or lawyer, no? He figured she was in her late twenties but had already lived forever.
Eddie Dunne had his own well-rehearsed bar act. He introduced himself as Desmond Shanahan of Dublin, an importer of artichokes, on a buying trip in the States.
"You bullshit me, no?" she said.
"Artichokes aren't bullshit."
"Everything is bullshit."
"Everything but money," he said.
"So, Mr. Desmond Shanahan," she said, working her way up his thigh, "tell me. I'm your pupil who wants to learn, so how can Tatiana make some no bullshit money?"
Eddie showed her the picture of Misha. She took her hand off his leg.
"What is reason for this picture?" she said.
"How much would it cost not to give you a reason?"
"Without a reason, five hundred."
"You know who he is?"
"Maybe."
"Now who's bullshitting?"
"Tatiana never bullshits when money is speaking. This one is cute, but broke. He's new person in the club. Last few weeks, frequently he's here. I don't know his name."
"Is he here tonight?"
"Possible. Yes, is possible."
"Just tell me where he is. That's all you have to do. Two hundred bucks."
"Tatiana never works for less than five hundred."
Final figure: $250. Tatiana wanted it all up front, then half up front. She got nothing up front. She took her cosmopolitan and left to search for Misha, weaving through the crowd, her ass undulating in the tight dress, as if to show Eddie what he was missing. Paulie the Priest would have said her ass looked like two pigs trying to fight their way out of a sack. A gold lame sack.
For a half hour, Eddie waited. Forty-five minutes. In the strange world three floors below the street, the only song he recognized was from a Dave Matthews album Kate owned. He thought about an old movie filmed in New York where people descended into hell from a freight elevator that opened up on a Manhattan sidewalk. But if this was hell, he was home. The booze, the noise, the laughter, the music, ice tinkling in glasses, the smell of perfume-he loved it all, always had. He didn't know where heaven was, but hell was only a short elevator trip down from the sidewalks of New York, and that was fine with him.
"Your lover is in the VIP room," Tatiana said. "Three hundred you owe me."
"This is guaranteed?" Eddie said.
"Like everything in America."
Eddie peeled $250 from the roll he'd brought for the Parrot. Tatiana shoved the bills into her small gold purse. She told him the way to the VIP room, which was on the second floor, on the other side of the building, past the kitchen, up a back stairway. She blew him a kiss and went in search of another very important gentleman. He noticed then that her shoes were also gold.
Eddie knew all the big clubs kept a VIP room to draw some hot rock band or movie star, who, in turn, would get the place mentioned on Page Six of the
New York Post
-the kind of publicity money couldn't buy. The back stairway was farther than Eddie thought. He passed the smells of the kitchen and the
whoomf, whoomf
of swinging doors. No more carpet back here. The floors were rough concrete, the halls dimly lit. Garbage cans and beer kegs had been stacked inside the door to the alley. The area smelled of rotting vegetables. A standing ashtray was wedged in a corner, a squadron of butts facedown in the sand.
Eddie came out of the stairway into a well-lit hallway. From the opposite end of the second floor, the clamor from the dance floor was a dull roar. He could hear the sound of a TV, an NBA game, the announcer talking about Kobe and Shaq. No chance to get by without being spotted. He wondered how Tatiana had done it. Better to try to schmooze his way in first, rather than get caught sneaking past. He poked his head in the door of the security office. A huge black man in a short-sleeved white shirt sat behind a desk.
'The Knicks are wasting their time," Eddie said. "If Shaq wants to win it, nobody gonna stop him."
"You got that right," the man said a little warily.
Eddie smoothed it out. Introduced himself as a friend of Richie Costa and a retired NYPD detective. In five minutes, Lester and Eddie were asshole buddies. Eddie joked about how the room reminded him of his old squad room. Coffee cups and food wrappers littered the floor of a room jammed with six metal lockers, three unmatched couches, and a wooden desk Goodwill would refuse. A huge marked-up calendar hung on the wall. The smell of Tatiana's perfume lingered in the room.
"Nice system you got up there," Eddie said, pointing at the bank of TV monitors. Eddie told Lester he was out looking for security ideas. He was in the process of setting up a system for a new club. Lester ran down all the locations covered by their cameras. Eddie recognized some of the areas under observation: the dance floor, the bar, and the street. The kitchen was shown shutting down for the evening; another camera focused on a private office, where a uniformed cleaning woman slow-danced an upright Hoover.
"You guys have a VIP room?" Eddie said.
"Don't put in a VIP room, if you know what's good for you. They are one king-size pain in the ass."
"I figured, but the owners want one, draw all the big celeb muckety-mucks."
"I'm telling you, Eddie. Worst part of this job is dealing with those arrogant bastards. Scum of the earth. They piss on the floor, break lamps, glasses, all kinds of shit. One guy shit on the couch, then covered it with the cushions. Some nights we find condoms, needles, drug crap all over the place."
"What the hell is TAFKAP?" Eddie asked, looking at a notation on the wall calendar.
'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince," Lester said. "Can you believe it? His manager gave us a list of demands a mile long. Plus, he wants us to guarantee no press, no cameras, and then he'll honor us with his presence."
"Then he'll be pissed if the press isn't here," Eddie said. "You can't please these bastards."
"Amen, brother."
"Mind if I take a quick peek in the VIP room, Lester? See what it looks like?"
"It's right down the hall," the guard said, looking up at the bank of cameras. "Just let me check one thing. It should be empty by now. Hold on a sec; let's turn this camera on. One of the managers has a habit of sneaking his ladies in there. Don't want to embarrass anyone." He reached up and turned on camera three. The room came slowly into focus. The picture was dark. He could make out three people sitting around. "Nah, they're still there."
"Any big stars?" Eddie said, getting close to the TV screen. At first, the only big star he recognized was Richie Costa, standing with his back to the door. A young light-haired kid sat on a stuffed chair, across from a squat older guy in a dark sports jacket with wide lapels. The squat guy jabbed his finger in the kid's face.