Chapter 11: Lyric Opera

We were having a because-why-not? celebration dinner. All my hospital stuff was behind us. Gertie Oppenheimer was in the house. Vanessa was on day two of her gumbo preparation. Heavenly smells.

She had started with a light roux and turkey stock. The Cajun Holy Trinity — onions, peppers, celery. Freshly-peeled shrimp tossed in with okra, cayenne, tomatoes, some crabs, crawfish heads.

Pilar, innocence personified, asked Gertie, “What do you think of all that free speech ruckus on campuses?”

Walker, straight-man, “Like Berkeley.”

Once the kids set out on a quest, they make Diogenes look like a weenie. They’re like remoras circling around a pelagic fish.

Except: Gertie. She stirred her drink with her index finger. Sometimes index, sometimes middle. Even I, a trained deceive, licensed, couldn’t discern a pattern.

“First of all, Milo Yanning is an ass. Pompous, posturing, over-promising.”

Pilar, “But he sure stirs things up.”

Walker, “In the name of Free Speech.” Air quotes.

“Yeah, but he’s still a sophist. Over-simplifies the First Amendment. Yanning is mainly an attention-whore.”

Pilar, ‘How so?”

“He hides behind, masks his movement behind, the First Amendment, but ignores the harm that free speech can do.”

Walker, “But you supported the Klan’s right to march.”

“Yeah, they had the right; they were protected. But free speech isn’t absolute. Some of it is illegal. Kiddy porn, false advertising, blackmail.”

Pilar, “Yeah, but generally, free speech is ... important. Precious.”

“Until it causes harm. Even Clarence Thomas admitted that a burning cross is emotionally injurious.”

I explained, “Supreme Court.” Walker stopped himself in mid eye-roll. Ungrateful whelp.

Gertie said, “To me, the telling precedent was Brown v. Board of Education. The court found that segregation was inherently harmful. So psychological distress can be weighed, considered, as a real concern.”

Hobo nudged Pilar’s thigh. Dinnertime. He and I had been salivating. Vanessa started spooning.

Sunday night. Technically, Monday morning. I was freshly scrubbed. No perfume, no shampoo odor.

My Hakleford texted one of his cousins. The one in Elmont. “Nowak is still home.”

“Good. Call me if ... if you have to.”

I got out on the curbside of the Town Car, the proper side, the safe side. Even at two in the morning, there was traffic. Some of it erratic.

I walked up half a block and smiled at Kevin O’Conner. Handed him an envelope and said, “Thank you,” when he unlocked the entrance door. No concierge, not this late. Still, I punched 9 and took two flights of stairs down to 716.

The lock took under 30 seconds, a breeze.

I had known what to expect from the floor plans provided by Cochran Realty. Rowley had rented a studio, about 450 square feet. Essentially one big room with an enclosed bath along the rear wall. Next to the small Pullman kitchen.

A floor lamp I recognized from West Elm provided the only light, but it was plenty. Rowley’s blue drapes were drawn closed on the three windows facing 18th Street.

The bed was tucked behind a seven-panel wooden Japanese screen. Warriors and Mt. Fuji and geishas and kimonos and swords. The art work was laminated on, not hand-painted. Worth maybe twelve, fourteen hundred. Probably more in New York.

The furnishings looked familiar — a couch and chairs similar to the mid-century modern in her Princeton home.

I made a careful perimeter survey, leaving her desk area for last. I started with the four-drawer vertical filing cabinet from Cavitt. The lock took less time than the front door.

Only the top two drawers were on duty; together they held about twenty file folders. Taking care not to get anything out of order, I took one out at a time. Lay it on the carpeted floor and photographed every page. I didn’t bother reading, not the labels, not the cover sheets, nothing.

They could well be the same files that I’d already seen in New Jersey. Or not.

I glanced at my cell, 3:10. Both drawers done, I relocked the cabinet, taking care not scratch anything.

I turned to Rowley’s desk, to the two folders that lay open. Snap, snap, snap. Middle drawer — just the usual home office bumf. Pens, pencils, Stanley 12-foot tape measure, stamps, two utility bills from New Jersey.

The three drawers on the right side weren’t locked, but I shot everything, every single sheet of paper anyway. I was aware, without really looking at anything, of charts, graphs, dense paragraphs.

Well, it would be in LA tomorrow morning. Via courier.

Kevin glanced around, a little nervous, when I slipped him the second envelope. I said, “Good work. If you keep quiet, you’ll never hear from us again.”

Time to revisit that land of enchantment, Elmont, New York. The GPS tracker I’d planted was no longer affiliated with Jakub Nowak’s Town Car. And, enough time had passed since my earlier visit to his garage apartment that they — whoever they were — wouldn’t be expecting me.

That was my governing rationale anyway.

I had to admit it was more stubbornness than expectation. I had planned to creep Nowak’s joint and, dad-gum it, I would creep Nowak’s joint.

It would be another two-Hakleford night. One, to follow Nowak into Manhattan, into midtown, to pick up his boss. My own Hakleford would be a little more vigilant than last time. We’d maintain an open line until I was inside the apartment. And was sure no one else was.

I hadn’t heard anything from Carmen Ortega, but Team Allen had had the latest Rowley pages for only one day. This day.

If I weren’t such a brave professional, licensed, seeing that All-County garage again might have made me ... edgy. Nervous. Okay, scared.

The Hakleford and I had arrived in Queens around seven in the evening. Fowler might call for Nowak in an hour, or in three hours, maybe four. We had to be ready.

I’d had him stop in Astoria at a blue and white food truck by the elevated tracks. King Souvlaki. Hakleford smiled, “Greek.”

“Yep, let’s provision-up. Could be a long night.”

We ordered souvlaki on sticks — spicy pork and also chicken with squeezes of lemon and a fiery sauce. Two platters over rice — pork gyro, chicken gyro. Greek fries cooked, allegedly, in Greek extra-virgin olive oil. We’ll see.

Seven o’clock in Elmont. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Unless Fowler had changed his commuting habits, which he hadn’t done since we’d first followed him, he was still at Triple-I, still at work.

King Souvlaki was histoire and I needed a bathroom. I slipped out the passenger door, “Call me.”

I walked away from All-County toward a small neon sign — a horizontal oval with Frenchy’s Taproom in the middle. Everyone — seven men and one woman — turned to see who had invaded their sanctuary.

The place smelled of spilled beer and old cigarettes. I’d been in worse.

I hid my smile; Sinatra’s “My Way” was on the juke. An old lag sitting at the bar nodded to himself. Yep, he’d done it his way all right. Was probably living on Social Security, sitting in a dim bar, sipping weak drafts with a jigger of Old Overshoes every once in a while. My Way.

I placed a twenty on the bar, “Shot of Jameson’s please. Restroom?”

Our proprietor, around 70, grizzled white whiskers from three or four days, nodded carefully. Not used to seeing strangers. He had a stained white apron tied under his armpits and again around the waist.

“Down the hall, Setters on the right.”

Pointers on the left.

It wasn’t filthy. I mean I wouldn’t eat out of the sink, but enough paper towels were available to make me sanitarily comfy.

I sipped my whiskey, not bad. Two regulars at a table behind me were in the middle of a mild spat, “Dubrowski said Chicago is supposed to be okay, not that different from a city.”

“Dubrowski! Dubrowski’s never been to ... Staten Island.” Long pause, “Dubuque.”

“You?”

“No, but I ain’t claiming Chicago facts without what being there. Chicago.”

“My Way” seemed on permanent rotation. It used to be that way in a lot of neighborhood bars. But that demographic was ... well all demographics were, now that I thought about it.

Two gents to my right were arguing about Bond girls. Bond, James Bond. Number One said, “Ask Marge, she was practically a Bond girl.”

“Marge? You nuts?”

“Her cousin’s neighbor saw that Bond girl in Dr. Now.”

Number Two, “Now? It’s Dr. Know, like he knows everything.”

This called for binding arbitration. Number One, “Hey Marge!”

The one other lady in Frenchy’s said, “Yeah?” She took a large sip of schnapps.

“Who was that girl, that Bond girl in Dr. Now?”

“Shirley Trout. You know, the one that sang “Downtown.”

Number Two used his finger to make a circle around his ear. Marge’s lost it. He whispered, “It’s Shirley Tuna.”

Bar culture.

I left my change — $14.25 for the house. Thought about buying a round, but decided against it. Too memorable.

The Hakleford sniffed the air, “Don’t barf.”

“No guarantees.”

As we waited, I thought back to Frenchy’s. To the old boy nodding along to “My Way.”

I sighed. Yes, I had mostly lived my life my way. And, here I was, eleven at night, waiting for an ex-con to go pick up his boss. Waiting, looking at the garage where I’d been chloroformed, injected with an experimental drug, and dumped in a cemetery.

My Way.

The last time I’d been in LA, Gloria summoned me to her office. Corner office. The other three corners were conference rooms.

I looked around. Had to admit it was impressive. Sleek and chrome and modern and smart. I eased over to her trophy wall. Interesting. Photos with three different mayors. Two governors. Framed newspaper and magazine articles featuring La Allen. But all of it from New York.

Being a trained professional, licensed, I leaped to the conclusion that her New York office would spotlight Los Angeles. Smart.

Gloria smiled at me, “You figured out why I hired you.”

“Well, I...”

“You figured it out.”

Senator Wainwright.

Okay, I can be kind of a snob. Especially about My Kansas City.

Hallmark Cards has long been one of the premier companies in town. A major employer, a major taxpayer, a squeaky-clean rep.