Dope (14 page)

When I left 28 Fulton I drove around for a while, because I liked to drive, and because my hands were still shaking and after talking to the doorman my teeth were chattering, too, and there wasn't much else I could do in that state. I drove without really paying attention to where I was, and after I had calmed down a little I was surprised to find that I was on Forty-second Street. Right next to Bryant Park.

I parked by a fire hydrant, but I didn't get out of the car.

I had a craving like I hadn't felt in years. Every muscle in my body felt weak, and I felt something sour come up in my throat. Like my last taste of dope had been eight hours ago instead of two years. Like I'd never kicked at all.

Monte was in the park. I was sure of it. He'd give me a taste. He'd give it to me and he'd be glad to do it. I could stay with him until Springer came to get me or I took my last shot, whichever came first. Jim would shed a few tears, so would Monte and a few others, but not too many, and not for long. Shelley—well, she'd be better off without me. She'd made that clear enough. I'd done what I could for her and now I was just a problem for her, an embarrassment. No one would miss me.

The odds were against me in every way. If I could win with this McFall business, chances were I'd slip up and get on dope again. Almost everyone did. I was no better than Yonah or Monte or Cora, and they'd probably kicked a hundred times between them. And if I got hooked again, I wouldn't have much longer to live. I was sure about that. Some people were lucky—they never bought stuff that was too pure or cut with poison, never got caught ripping someone off, never got busted by the cops. But I'd never had any luck that wasn't bad.

Sometimes when I was a kid, charity ladies would come around to Hell's Kitchen, rich ladies from uptown, and they'd pick out the kids who had special talents or who were extra cute and they'd try to help them: buy the kids clothes and food, help them in school, make sure things weren't too bad at home. Sometimes these ladies even adopted kids from Hell's Kitchen. But they sure never lifted a finger for me. I figured they knew what everyone else knew: there was no hope for Josephine Flannigan. I'd heard people say that when they were little they wanted to be a nurse or a schoolteacher or something like that. But I always knew I'd never be a nurse or a schoolteacher. No one ever thought I had a chance in hell of making it to twenty, let alone thirty, and right now someone, somewhere, was betting that I wouldn't make it to forty.

But the thing was, I wanted to decide for myself. I didn't want Springer or Monte or drugs or anything or anyone else to decide for me. I didn't have much to live for, that was true. But what I had was mine. I'd earned it the hardest way I knew how. And I was going to keep it until I was ready to give it up.

I was going to find out who had set me up and killed McFall. And when I did, I wasn't going to take him to Springer, either. I was going to take care of him myself.

I found a legal parking spot nearby and walked past the park to the library. My hands were still shaking and my knees were weak but I could ignore that. Inside the library I tried not to look at any single men too closely, and I found the reference desk and asked the librarian if she had a directory of lawyers who practiced in New York City. She glared at me. I had interrupted a good reading of
Murder in Manhattan,
the paperback novel on the desk in front of her.

“Have you tried the phone book?” she asked. “Or do you mean something like
Who's Who
? Or the
Social Register
?”

“I mean all three,” I said, trying to sound as high and mighty as she had. I hadn't thought of the phone book.

She smirked. “I'll get you all three.” She rummaged around behind her desk for a while and then put three heavy books on the table. I opened the first one and she shook her head.

“Over there,” she said. She pointed to a desk across the room and I lugged the books over.

Nathaniel Nelson wasn't in the
Social Register,
or
Who's Who.
But he was right there in the Manhattan phone book.
Nathaniel Nelson, Nelson & Associates. 667 Madison Avenue.

6
67 Madison was a modern glass building that stretched up farther than I could see without craning my neck. I figured I'd have to go through a few office girls to get to Mr. Nelson. I didn't figure four. The first receptionist was right there when you walked into the building. She was easy; told me to take the elevator up three flights, take a right, and ring the buzzer. I did, and I was let into a big room with fancy sofas and a thick carpet by a brunette in pink. She was a little more inquisitive. What was my business with Mr. Nelson? Personal. What was my name? Miss Josephine Flannigan. I looked for a reaction. There was none. She made a call, and then instructed me to take the elevator up two more flights. There I would make a left and look for the door marked “Executive.” On the other side I was met by a blonde in baby blue. The girls got prettier as I climbed up the ladder.

My business? Personal. My name? Flannigan. Didn't ring a bell with her, either, unless the office girls were also actresses now. I was glad I wasn't one of them. Glad I wasn't going to work for a big shot every day, opening his mail and picking up his shirts and generally making his life livable, waiting for him to notice me. He never would.

The blonde conferred by phone with someone else for a minute and then escorted me through another door. The girl behind the desk in this room should have been in Hollywood. She had thick black hair and eyes you could drown in. She wore a black suit that looked sewn on. The room was paneled in mahogany and all the furniture was brown leather. I figured this was the end of the line, unless next was a girl in a swimsuit in a room covered in floor-to-ceiling mink.

“Miss Flannigan,” the brunette said with a smile and a voice like a violin. “How can I help you?”

“I'd like to see Mr. Nelson.”

“Usually Mr. Nelson isn't able to see anyone without an appointment. He has a very tight schedule. May I ask what this is regarding?”

She was still smiling. I imagined she always smiled. Her skin was like pure cream. I felt like a hunchback just being in the same room as her. I was still glad I wasn't her.

“It's personal,” I answered.

“I'm Mr. Nelson's personal secretary,” she said. “Surely you can tell me the nature of your inquiry?”

“It's about his daughter.”

I was pleasantly surprised when it worked. “Okay then,” she said. “Right this way.” She stood up and led me through another door, which led down a short hall and into Mr. Nelson's office.

It was, naturally, a corner office. About a thousand feet by a million. So much mahogany you would think you were in a forest. Leather furniture you could probably reach right through with your bare hand. A carpet so plush I could barely tread through it in my high heels.

“Miss Flannigan,” the girl said. “Mr. Nelson.”

The Mr. Nelson in front of me was almost at middle age, with square shoulders and blond hair streaked with gray, sitting behind a desk the size of a Cadillac. The look on his face told me he was a busy man, and very important, and I'd better not forget it.

I had never seen him before in my life.

“Sit,” he said. He gestured to a chair on the other side of the desk and I took it. He didn't smile and he didn't get up. “Now, Miss Flannigan, what's this about my daughter? The police were here earlier today, and they wouldn't tell me anything, either.”

“Your daughter is named Nadine?” I asked.

He nodded. “That's her.”

“Do you have a picture?”

He frowned and looked at me suspiciously. “What's this all about? Who are you?”

“I'm a private investigator,” I told him. “Or rather, I work for one. We have reason to believe your daughter was a witness to a crime—”

“What kind of a crime?” he interrupted.

“Mr. Nelson,” I said, as if he had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “You're a lawyer. I'm sure you understand confidentiality. I only have a few questions. I won't take up too much of your time. Now, you say the police were already here?” I didn't know where I had learned that voice—it was smooth and professional and kind of snaky—but I thought it sounded good.

He nodded. “They were asking me all kinds of questions, but they wouldn't tell me anything. What's this about Nadine being a witness to a crime?”

“I'm not surprised the police were here,” I said. But I was. Springer was checking out my story. And I was willing to bet it hadn't checked out good. “I'll need much of the same information you gave them. As a lawyer, I'm sure you know that they're not always able to do their job as well as we'd like. Now, do you have a photograph of Nadine?”

There were three picture frames on his desk, facing him, and I couldn't see them but I guessed that one would be his daughter. I was wrong. Instead he reached into his desk drawer, looked around for a minute, and pulled out a photograph in a silver frame. He handed it to me. It was Nadine, all right. In better days. She wore a white satin gown and held a corsage of white flowers. Some type of debutante party, probably. She was smiling. I realized I had never imagined her smiling.

“Do you know where she is now?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I haven't seen her for months.”

“Have you tried looking for her recently?” I asked. “Have you hired anyone to find her?”

He looked at me like I was trying to sell him a gallon of snake oil. “That's what the police asked. I don't know who you are, lady, or what you want, but I never hired anyone to find my daughter. I know who she is, and what she is. I don't know where she is, or if she's alive or dead. And I don't want to know.”

I don't know what kind of reaction he expected, but I didn't give him any at all. After a minute he missed the sound of his own voice and he started talking again. “I did everything for her. For all my kids. I've got three. The other two are just fine, thank God. The boy's in medical school and the girl's engaged to a good fellow, going to be a lawyer. But Nadine—she was always a problem. First she started trouble with the family next door, then—”

“What kind of trouble?”

“With the father. He's an old friend of mine, nicest man you ever met. She said he did all kinds of things, crazy things—”

“I understand,” I said.

“She's been one headache after another ever since. I sent her to Barnard—do you know what that costs?—and she just got into more trouble, failing her classes, causing all kinds of problems. She never came home anymore—”

“Where do you live, Mr. Nelson?”

“New Village, in Westchester. But I don't know why I'm telling you any of this. It's my own problem, not yours, and I still don't know what the hell you want. I can tell you there's no reward or anything like that for finding my daughter, if that's what you thought. I'm not looking for her.”

“Yes, I understand that. But if you wouldn't mind just a few more questions. She never came home anymore . . .”

“Right. Never came home anymore. Had all these new friends, bohemians or whatever you call them, lowlives if you ask me, and they're the ones who got her on drugs. We tried to help her a thousand times, we did everything we could, but she didn't want to stop. Eventually she got herself expelled from school, and then she just took off.”

“So when was the last time you saw her?”

“Probably a month before that. Broke her mother's heart.”

“And you haven't seen her since?”

He shook his head. “I haven't seen her, and I don't want to. She's not my daughter anymore.”

 

 

I bought a map at a gas station to find my way to New Village. When I was close by I used a phone book in a drugstore to find the Nelsons' house. I had heard of places like New Village before, but never seen anything like it. Block after block of houses, all exactly the same, like they all sprang up together out of the blue one day. A new car in every driveway. Every house had a little lawn out front, and every blade of grass on each lawn was trimmed down to the exact same height. Some of the ladies had flower beds and even the flowers all looked alike, something small and pink. There wasn't a person out on the streets, which made sense seeing as there were no sidewalks—the lawns came all the way out to the road. It gave me the creeps.

Each street in New Village was named after something lovely: Sunset Drive, Mockingbird Lane, Maple Leaf Road. The Nelsons lived on Pleasant Avenue. Mrs. Nelson answered her door on the first ring.

“Are you Mrs. Nathaniel Nelson?” I asked.

“Yes, can I help you?” She smiled, but it was thin. She was around forty, slender and pretty with short blond hair in a fancy do, wearing a plain blue dress. I could see the resemblance to Nadine. She had on a full face of makeup. I wondered who would put on that much makeup to sit around her house in New Village all day.

I thought I heard someone talking inside the house. But then I peered in and saw a television set in the living room. I had never seen one, except in the stores. It was amazing, like a miniature movie theater right there in her house, except the picture was small and fuzzy. Two ladies were sitting around a kitchen table. “I don't understand,” one woman said to the other. From the look on her face she was pretty torn up. “Bob NEVER finishes his breakfast anymore.”

The other woman looked at her wisely. “Have you tried Vita-Crunch?” she said, as serious as if it were a funeral. “You know, nine out of ten doctors recommend Vita-Crunch.”