came up from his chair. “What’s happened?”
“That was Dr. Cook--my brother wasn’t a good match for the transplant.”
‘The Little Foxes’, a topless club tucked away in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, was still closed when Moran stopped his Mercury Marquis in front of the door. This was an area of the city that spread itself between 34th Street and 57th Street on one end and 8th Avenue and the Hudson River on the other end. Turn-of-the-20th century Irish immigrants settled in the area that now was the heart of the Theater District. After Moran inserted the ‘Official Police Business’ sign on the dashboard, he climbed out.
“Hey, good buddy, move it!” a hoarse voice with a southern drawl called out from the alley next to the club. The man gestured to the red No Parking-Loading Zone stenciled on the curb.
Moran forced an easygoing smile and flicked his eyes toward the stranger standing a few feet away—a slender, fit man of medium height with a smooth-shaven head and a reddish handlebar moustache. The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties, and his deep-set coal-black eyes covered by thick red eyebrows glowered at Moran. The man’s ricotta-cheese complexion reminded Moran of someone who had been born at night and raised in a pool hall. Slim, toned arms dangled out of a sleeveless grease-stained undershirt that hung over a pair of blue jeans.
Clearly someone not to be trifled with.
The lieutenant jerked his thumb at the sign on the dashboard.
“Read the sign,” Moran said. “The owner in?”
“Who wants to know?” The man grumbled and started lumbering toward Moran.
Another one of the Big Apple’s morons, Moran thought as he stepped toward the stranger. He sensed the rusted mechanism of the redneck’s brain try to kick in and said. “The Prize Patrol.”
Moran noticed the arms tighten and the fists clench. “You some kind of wiseguy?” the stranger said.
“Just answer the question. NYPD here,” Moran said.
The stranger stopped and squinted at Moran. “How do I know that’s true?”
Moran flipped out his badge. “Smart money says the guy with the badge is the law. Lieutenant Moran.”
The man unclenched his fists and jerked his thumb toward the front door. “Door’s open. You’ll find Rose inside,” he muttered. When he started back toward the alley Moran heard the man mumble, “Friggin’ cop,” and then disappeared.
“Nice meeting you too!” Moran called out, and then moved toward the red-velvet covered door and swung it open. In the dark club chairs were piled on top of the small round tables that covered the bar area. The lieutenant walked farther into the club and eyed an aged thin, black man mopping the mahogany floor next to the stage. Two large crystal balls hung from the ceiling, while on the stage were four brass stripper poles.
“You know where Rose is?” Moran asked.
The man inserted the mop’s wet end inside a pail of dirty water and gestured toward the back.
“She’s probably in her office,” he said, and turned his creased face toward Moran. “Just go through that curtain and make a right.”
A moment later, Moran rapped his knuckles on the door with an ‘Office-Private’ sign.
“C’mon in, Lieutenant Moran,” a husky female voice said from inside.
Moran opened the door and stepped in. “Nothing gets by you, does it?” he said.
“Earl Schuyler may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but he’s loyal,” the woman said. “I’m Rose Chiu.” She took a bite from the Reuben sandwich she clutched in her right hand.
Moran eyed the woman while she chewed: a slender, woman with henna-colored hair in a butch cut. The navy blue silk blouse she had on contrasted nicely with her dark skin, her small features, high cheekbones and almond eyes. Moran noted the smoker’s lines around her mouth and he figured the woman to be somewhere in her late forties. When she lifted her arms, Moran noticed the padded arms of a wheelchair.
Rose raised her head and her black eyes met Moran’s curious gaze “My father was from Singapore, mother from Harlem… go figure. This,” she said and slapped the wheelchair’s arms. “Traffic accident, four years ago.” She rolled herself closer to the desk. A pile of glossy headshots of young women and a messy collection of CDs flanked the other half of the Reuben. She gestured to a tattered cloth armchair that faced her desk. “Take a load off. What can I do for you?”
Rose set the sandwich down then grabbed a pack of Marlboro Reds that lay next to a half-empty basket of French fries.
Moran glanced at the armchair’s dilapidated fabric with coffee and grease stains and decided that it was safer to remain standing. He stepped forward and drew from his inside coat pocket a folded black-and-white headshot of Lacy Wooden—a wisp of a smile, jet-black hair in a French twist and a face that oozed ‘just off the bus from Hicksville’ innocence.
When he tossed the picture on top of the desk, it landed next to the Reuben. Rose studied Moran, lit the cigarette, and slowly let out a blue circle of smoke while she maintained her gaze on the cop. The two eyed each other for a long, silent moment.
“You look like you could use one of these,” Rose said and held up the cigarette that lay limp between her fingers.
Moran saw the cigarette and his right hand searched his left wrist for the rubber band. ‘Damn it’! he thought as he watched Rose’s sardonic grin.
“It doesn’t take a genius to peg an ex-smoker,” she said and picked up Lacy’s picture. She glanced at it before flicking it back on the desk. “Let me save you the trouble and time of asking questions,” Rose said and blew out another cloud of smoke. “Lacy was here for only a year before she went and got herself killed. She wasn’t the best dancer I’ve ever had, but she knew how to make the customers happy. As soon as she got up on that stage all eyes went from the other girls to her. The DJ would put on her favorite, ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ and she’d start bumping, grinding and shimmying… low and slow, I tell ya, she was smokin’. Phew, mercy, that was one white chick who had stone killer sex appeal.”
Rose continued and wagged her forefinger at Moran. “The funny thing is that you’d never think that a kid from the sticks would’ve had that kinda of street-wise know-how, if you get my drift.”
Moran nodded. He knew exactly what Rose meant—he had busted enough of them for prostitution. Their stories always began with, “Please, mister, there was this man when I was very young…” And the ‘johns’ in their search for lost youth or escaping unhappy marriages would open up their wallets and unzip their pants.
“She score with any of the customers?” Moran asked.
Rose crushed the cigarette out in a ceramic Cinzano ashtray and chuckled. “Now you know that’s against the law. Don’t be tryin’ to mess with Rose’s mind. I have no idea what she did on her own time, but I can tell you the other
