Angel's Inferno Read online

  Two half-empty cartons of pistol ammunition remained in the safe. Beneath them, an envelope from the law firm of McIntosh, Winesap and Spy, attorneys for Louis Cyphre. It contained their check for $500 made out to Crossroads. My retainer for tracking down the missing swing band crooner Johnny Favorite. I felt I was getting close, maybe too close. Too bad I hadn’t cashed the check. It was a one-way ticket to the electric chair now. I tossed it into the wastebasket.

  The .45 caliber rounds were for the Colt Commander the cops took off me at the Chelsea. I dumped them in the trash. Twenty .38 special shells went into my overnight bag. I emptied the pockets of Deimos’s overcoat and my flight jacket, keeping only his black-jack and badge and my three rolls of exposed 35mm Tri-X film. I’d shot the film at a Palm Sunday Black Mass I’d secretly attended last night in an abandoned subway station on the Lexington Avenue IRT Line. A virgin deflowered on the makeshift altar, her tits washed in a throat-slit baby’s blood. I had twenty-four exposures of Ethan Krusemark and other naked Satanists howling and screwing in their animal masks. Got into a beef with him later when he fed me some story about Johnny Favorite eating a young soldier’s heart so he could switch psychic identities with the guy. Krusemark fell on the third rail. Fried him crisp as a potato chip. More food for the rats.

  I did a quick rummage through the desk drawers. All useless crap from a past no longer mine. I dumped it all in the waste basket along with everything in my billfold that bore the name Harold Angel, saving only the invitation to the Black Mass and a case I took off a pillow I kept in the bottom drawer for when I was too drunk to go home.

  My time had run out. I slapped the postage on a manila envelope, addressed it to Frank Hogan, District Attorney of New York County, 100 Centre Street, and stuffed in the 35mm film, the Minox cartridges and the Black Mass invitation, adding Krusemark’s business card before sealing the flap. Everything cleaned of my prints.

  I filled a cigarette lighter with fluid, squirting the rest into the trash container. Struck a match and set the folded cover on fire. When the matchbook flared, I let it fall. The basket went off with a whoosh like a midget volcano.

  With the Ghurka bag slung over my shoulder, I grabbed the manila envelope and the fishing tackle box containing Ernie’s makeup kit. Looking back as I made the stairs, I saw the little bonfire dancing behind the blurred glass panel in my office door. There goes Harry Angel. Up in smoke.

  3

  I hit the street, heading uptown past the Rialto toward the Paramount Theater where Johnny Favorite had had the chicks dancing in the aisles back before anyone called them bobby-soxers. Miles of neon, millions of light bulbs. Times Square, bright as noon. Remnants of the Sunday night crowd in for a good time strolled along rubbernecking. Still plenty of action on the Great White Way at one am.

  Reaching the corner, I heard the .45 caliber rounds explode in my office. Sounded like distant firecrackers. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a bright orange glow light up the third-story casement windows of the Crossroads Detective Agency. Flames wavered inside my office. Going out in a blaze of glory. No one else seemed to notice. Didn’t mean shit to me. Let the whole damn building burn to the ground.

  I waited for the light on 44th by Walgreen Drug across from the Hotel Astor where Seventh Avenue intersected Broadway and the square became an X. Crossing below the hourglass neck, I saw Disney’s Sleeping Beauty still played at the Criterion. Further up Broadway past Bond Clothes, Marilyn Monroe starred at the new Loew’s State in Some Like it Hot, set to open Easter Sunday weekend. Things were plenty hot enough for me.

  I glanced around by the Elpine hotdog stand at the corner of the Hotel Claridge and spotted a mailbox. I jaywalked over, and dropped the fat manila envelope into the chute. Too bad Krusemark had croaked and would never feel the heat.

  Broadway was already ancient history. I walked east on 44th. After the brilliant glare of Times Square the shadowy side street provided welcome darkness. An almost-full moon hung in the clear sky overhead, a display lost from sight under the main stem dazzle. Rounding the corner on Sixth Avenue, I came to the Hippodrome Garage where I parked my car. The place was named for a famous turn-of-the-century theater. In the 1920s, Houdini made an elephant disappear onstage. My own disappearing act wouldn’t get as much applause. Unlike the magician’s smoke and mirrors it was the real deal.

  Climbing the stairs to Level Four had me pondering my next move. Two hundred and sixty bucks was better than nothing. If I wanted to pull a real Houdini I’d need a lot more bread. My 1953 Chevy Bel Air two-door sat parked far back in a corner space affording protection on one side. I unlocked the trunk, dropping in the Ghurka bag and fishing tackle box. Just an average Joe heading off for some down time in the sticks. I took a screwdriver and pair of pliers from the tool kit and quickly removed my license plate. After midnight always best for petty crime. Moving five cars down to a new model red Caddy with tailfins towering like Flash Gordon’s space ship, I swapped license plates in under three minutes.

  I drove east one block on 44th to Fifth Avenue and turned downtown. At 42nd Street, I swung left toward Grand Central. Passing the terminal, I thought how easy it might have been to catch a train. The cops surely had this place and Penn Station already staked out. I cruised past Lexington Avenue and the Chrysler Building, keeping an eye peeled for a parking space. Just beyond Third, I found one with no problem. I locked the Chevy and strolled back west, humming an old Louis Jordan jump-jive tune slightly off key.

  I walked past the 42nd Street entry to the Chrysler Building figuring it was closed. Most of the skyscraper was dark. I saw a scattering of office lights on the upper floors. At the main 405 Lex entrance both revolving doors were locked for the weekend. The wide stainless steel and glass central entrance was open and I let myself in. The lobby retained a bygone magnificence even under dim night-time utility lights. Ceiling murals masked by shadow. Red marble walls glowing with inner fire. Somewhere, greedy developers schemed to tear the place down.

  A uniformed guard behind the reception desk eyed me with suspicion. I glared hard at him as I approached. ‘Detective Sergeant Deimos,’ I snarled, hauling out my wallet and flashing the dead man’s badge. ‘I’m investigating a complaint on the 45th floor. Let me see the sign-in register.’

  ‘Who called –’

  I cut him off with an angry look. ‘The register,’ I said.

  ‘Be my guest,’ the rent-a-cop replied, pushing a clipboard my way.

  I pretended to study it for a moment then scrawled some bullshit signature and my time of arrival, 1:25 am, beside it.

  ‘Last car on the end’s a local. Only one working,’ the guard said.

  A curt nod and I headed for the elevator bank. The door to the end car was open. I stepped in, punching button 45. I gave the guard the correct floor in case he checked the master annunciator panel to see where I got off. My destination was Krusemark Maritime, Inc. I’d shot all that Minox film there two days ago after an overnight stay at Bellevue, courtesy of a couple goons Krusemark set on me to discourage further snooping. Getting beat up stimulates my curiosity.

  I knew a guy who was head of key control at a big outfit handling security for most of the important midtown office towers. He owed me one and loaned me a sub-master to the 45th floor of the Chrysler Building for the day. I made a copy before mailing the original back to him. The corridors high upstairs were fairly drab compared to the opulent lobby, rows of mostly single-room offices housed behind dark wooden doors framing pebbled-glass panels. Uniform gilt lettering identified the occupants. When I got off the elevator I saw the lights on in two separate offices down the long hallway. Good news. Probably accountants working late during tax season. Made me look legit to the guard downstairs.

  Krusemark’s headquarters occupied a big corner office with an imposing bronze and glass entryway meant to suggest the security of Fort Knox. A sub-master opens every door on the designated floor of a building. I slipped mine into the lock and I was inside easy as Ali Baba and his magic words. Two previous trips this week had taught me the layout and I passed quickly through the dark outer rooms to the big mahogany door with raised bronze letters spelling out ETHAN KRUSEMARK.

  I turned on the lights in Krusemark’s private office. Everything looked just as I’d left it on Saturday. The millionaire shipbuilder kept some excellent old cognac in his alcove bar. I poured a healthy splash into a monogrammed snifter. On my last visit, I wore surgical gloves but no longer gave a damn about fingerprints.

  First place I checked was the big marble-slab desk. Not expecting to find anything new, I unlatched the hidden drawer underneath. It slid open. A couple Dunhill pens, a boxed Parker 38 with an overlay of intertwined gold snakes and a sterling silver Waterman. All valuable. I grabbed them and an antique gold-and-ivory mounted dirk. Yanking the pillowcase free from under my belt, I dumped the loot inside.

  There had to be something more in Krusemark’s office. I glanced at the French Impressionists gracing his walls. Art was never my strong suit. I once traced a small stolen Rubens all the way from a Park Avenue duplex to a trash-filled basement in Baltimore. To me, these paintings looked like greeting card illustrations. I had no clue what they might be worth. Probably a bundle. Too big to hide under the black overcoat. I’d looked behind all of them on my last visit.

  The thought of unseen treasure sitting under my nose made me want a second look. I took the canvases down one by one. Beneath the third, I uncovered something I’d missed before. The geometric wallpaper pattern concealed the edges of a movable panel. A picture hook served as a pull. I tugged on it. The panel opened, exposing a compact wall safe. Playing a hunch, I spun the combination dial right, left and right again, stopping at six each time. 666. The number of the Beast from the Book of Revelation. Epiphany taught me that one. I pulled on the dial and the safe door swung open.

  I found a big stack of cash, about forty large in bundles of C-notes, and dumped it by the handful on the desk. The sight of so much mazuma all in one pile kicked the breath out of me. I sat down and drained the brandy. Booze burned away exhilaration’s sudden chill. I’d planned on using the 45th floor sub-master in every unoccupied office, popping petty cash boxes in hopes of scrounging up another couple hundred bucks. That caper was no longer worth the sweat. I lived in fat city now.

  Back at the wall safe for a second look, I pulled out a slim red silk-bound book, a gold-tooled leather jewelry box and a small black velvet bag containing some sort of antique silver coin. I pushed a small gilded button on the flat morocco container, popping the lid open. Hanging from a golden chain inside, a gold medallion glittered with cold menace. Set with rubies, emeralds and pink diamonds, the half-dollar-sized pendant depicted an inverted pentagram enclosing the engraved head of a demonic goat. Hebrew letters surrounded the satanic image. Louis Cyphre wore the same sort of inverted star as a lapel pin. I asked him about it at lunch last Thursday. Cyphre said he had it on upside-down, claiming it was the insignia of some patriotic organization. ‘In France I always wear the tricolor,’ he joked.

  I dumped all the cabbage, the boxed necklace, the silver coin in the velvet sack and the little red book into my pillowcase. I switched off the lights and was surrounded by the diamond-sparkle of midtown Manhattan outside the office windows. I’d never see this view again. I rolled the pillowcase into a tight bundle and stuffed it under my flight jacket. Leaving my prints behind no longer seemed like such a cute idea. I found a linen hand towel in Krusemark’s private bathroom and wiped down everything I’d touched. After closing and locking the safe, I rehung the paintings and washed the brandy snifter clean, returning it to the mirrored shelf.

  The plate-glass front entrance closed and locked behind me in the deserted hallway. I took a little extra time making sure the ornate bronze trident door handle was free of my prints. Krusemark’s monogrammed hand towel went into my coat pocket as a souvenir.

  The night watchman had his nose stuck in a copy of Nugget and didn’t have a clue as I rubber-soled up and rapped my knuckles on the desk counter. ‘That was quick,’ he blurted, stashing his stroke book underneath. He slid the clipboard toward me.

  ‘Much ado about nothing,’ I said, drawing a puzzled look from the guard as I jotted 1:47 pm in the Departure column beside my fake John Henry.

  Walking east on 42nd, I unhooked Deimos’s tin from my wallet. His badge marked me now. I tossed it down a storm drain at the corner of Third Avenue. Just as I reached the Chevy, a wino bum stumbled toward me, mitt extended for a handout. In a snap decision, I peeled off Deimos’s topcoat. ‘Try it on,’ I said, handing it over, tossing him the black fedora as a bonus.

  The threads fit the beggar worse than me, sleeves hanging to his fingertips, hat wobbling over his ears. ‘Thanks, mister,’ he muttered. ‘Where’d you get these?’ Even he suspected something was not legit.

  ‘Rummage sale at the morgue,’ I jived, getting into the car.

  As I drove north into Spanish Harlem, I whistled Artie Shaw’s ‘Stardust’ solo somehow remembering every perfect note.

  4

  I needed to get off the island of Manhattan. Most of the bridges out of town required a toll and toll booths might put me behind the eight ball. Toll-takers saw every passing driver. If the cops put out a BOLO with my description, a toll collector might likely make me. The Willis Avenue Bridge, a northbound one-way swing bridge crossing the Harlem River into the Bronx, had no toll because traffic backed up whenever the bridge opened for the passage of barges and freighters.

  I pulled onto the bridge at 124th Street. The hum of my tires on the metal road grating sounded sweeter than Bunny Berrigan’s trumpet. When I hit the Bronx, I continued up Willis Avenue and turned off the overpass down onto the old section of the six-lane Major Deegan Expressway. I made good time, staying at the speed limit, passing Yankee Stadium on my right.

  A couple hours ago, my plan had been to drive up to Albany, ditch the Chevy and board the Empire State Express to Detroit where I could slip across into Canada. Things felt different now. The golden goose had laid a 24-karat nest egg in my lap. The last place on earth the law would ever look for a bird on the lam was traveling first class. My new scheme involved making it to Boston and catching the first possible overseas flight.

  Driving north, I lit a Lucky. As I inhaled, my mind drifted back to the terrible sight of Epiphany lying dead in my room. She was a sweet kid who didn’t deserve to get butchered by a monster like Cyphre. Her father, Johnny Favorite, supposedly had amnesia due to a head injury he’d suffered in North Africa during the war. I’d had a little taste of the big blackout myself when I was injured overseas. I got my boiled potato nose from a botched plastic surgery job. The beauty part was I got hit at Oran in Algeria. Shot by the fucking French. No big deal. Thousands of guys fought in North Africa. Who knows how many were wounded around the same time. Louis Cyphre parlayed my memory loss into making me think I was Johnny Favorite, a cat who had sold his soul to the Devil in return for big-time fame.

  Maybe I was Johnny Favorite. What fucking difference did it make? I can’t remember a damn thing anyway. It didn’t turn Cyphre into Satan. Never mind his double acrostic name. Calling yourself Louis Cyphre doesn’t make you Lucifer, except to suckers with too much hoodoo in their voodoo. I’d seen Cyphre in the flesh, watched him eat fancy lunches and smoke expensive cigars. He was a tricky magician sure as shit but still remained flesh and blood. A man who breathed and dreamed like any other patsy. Let’s see how metaphysical he was when I pumped hot lead into his belly. A shyster’s phone call got me into this mess. A couple slugs from my .38 would set me free.

  Louis Cyphre, man of mystery. I’d seen him less than three hours ago, right before he killed Epiphany. Too bad I couldn’t stick around and hunt him down here – if he was still here. I had a good idea of where he would go eventually. His lawyer Winesap told me Cyphre traveled under a French passport. ‘In France I always wear the tricolor,’ Cyphre said at lunch. I planned on finding him. La Belle Paris! City of light, laughter and sin. If the Devil was human why wouldn’t he choose to be a Frenchman? Sophisticated and suave. Fabulously rich. A man about town, full of parley-voo and savoir-faire. See Paris and die. Why the hell not? Made sense to me.

  No bookie would give my chances of finding Cyphre better than a hundred to one. Even with the odds against me, I knew I’d track the bastard down. A guy pretending to be the Devil stands out in a crowd.

  I stopped for the night in Hartford. I wasn’t looking for some flea bag where cops snooped for fugitives. I could afford the best hotel in town. The Hotel Bond looked posh enough for me. The next morning, after shaving my black mustache, I used the contents of Ernie Cavalero’s tackle box to cover up the wounds Krusemark’s goons had given me a few days ago. Lieutenant Sterne had paid me a visit in Bellevue and seen the injuries, now doubtless part of my official description. Ernie’s blond wig covered the shaved patch above my left temple where nine stitches zigzagged in an uneven line. My left ear, badly lacerated from the kid’s blackjack, and my split lip I painted with flexible collodion, amazing stuff that is kind of an invisible Band-Aid.

  After a shopping spree that included stops at a fine men’s clothing store, a camera shop, a sporting goods store, a luggage shop and a bookstore, I was a new man. Dressed in suit pants, black shoes and an Aquascutum raincoat, I ditched the Bel Air in a long-term parking garage, shelling out thirty bucks for three months in advance, and boarded the 5:39 train to Boston. I stuck my ticket on the seat back for the conductor and settled in for a closer look at the newspapers I’d bought that morning.

  I re-read the three-paragraph article headlined PRIVATE EYE WANTED on page five of the New York Daily News. The article said a private investigator named Harold R Angel was suspected in three brutal Manhattan murders committed during the previous week. His whereabouts were currently unknown. An arson fire at the office of the Crossroads Detective Agency at 1481 Broadway was believed to have been set by Angel. Only an emergency call from a concerned citizen and the prompt response of firefighters had saved the entire building from destruction.