In the Shadow of Gotham - By Stefanie Pintoff Page 0,39
The Bowery in lower Manhattan could be a rough area, especially inside the entertainment halls and saloons of the sort we planned to visit. During the last reform administration, Mayor Seth Low had closed the saloons in hopes of improving the neighborhood. But as soon as the Tammany-endorsed McClellan administration claimed office, they reopened, and the Bowery filled once more with opportunists anxious to relieve the too drunk and the too naïve of their wallets and more. To be fair, one could find several more or less respectable saloons in the Bowery. But a man doing a job like mine was less familiar with them.
Our first stop this evening was the Fortune Club on Pell Street, where the Bowery adjoined Chinatown. I had chosen it because I knew the manager—assuming he still worked there. When we entered, a young man was earnestly straining to master the high tenor of “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree.” Although the effect was slightly ludicrous, I made no sign that I thought so. I knew Nick Scarpetta was trying to emulate Mike Saulter’s Pelham Club and John Kenny’s Chatham Club, where singing waiters were the latest innovation in entertainment. Big Nick hoped one of his waiters would manage to attract as devoted a following as a young singer named Baline had done at Saulter’s. But I had trouble thinking of the place as anything other than a gambling joint—which, admittedly, was all it ever pretended to be. Unlike surrounding saloons where additional vices like prostitution and opium could be found in back rooms and on upper floors, Nick Scarpetta stuck with what he knew best: cards.
“Does Nicky still manage the place?” I caught the ear of the first waiter who came by. The fellow nodded and gestured toward the back room, where a raucous poker game was in progress.
Alistair, completely out of his element, simply followed as I made my way to a black door at the far left of the room. Inside, Nicky Scarpetta was seated at a large table, cigar in mouth, a pile of chips stacked high to his left. Clearly, he was having a good night.
He looked up and recognized me instantly. “Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t Simon Ziele. How’re things going, old boy?” He got up and lumbered over to clap me on the back, careful to avoid my weak right arm. “Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age. What brings you back to the neighborhood? You here on official business, or just for old time’s sake?”
There was a searching concern in his drooped, baggy eyes that he would never overtly acknowledge. I had not spoken with him personally since my loss, but of course he would have heard about the deaths—so close together—of both my mother and Hannah.
“Good to see you, Nicky,” I said warmly. He was a large man with a gruff demeanor, but it obscured a kind heart. Nicky always took good care of his friends, and I was lucky to count myself among them. I’d known him for as long as I could remember. Though he frequented the same gambling circles as my father, he possessed two qualities my father had forever lacked: a talent for cards and a sense of his own limitations. On countless occasions, he had visited my mother after a night at the tables with my father and pressed an envelope into her hand with a few brusque words. Waving away her tearful thanks, he always left muttering, “A man with young children’s got no business betting two weeks’ salary on a pair of aces.”
Still, I never forgot for a moment that Nicky had another side—one more commonly reserved for those who crossed him—that was dangerous and unforgiving.
“I’m here on business,” I answered him, “but not department business. I’m not with the precinct here anymore. Instead, I’m investigating a murder that happened north of the city; this is Alistair Sinclair, who is assisting in the investigation.” I nodded toward Alistair, whom Nicky acknowledged with a grunt.
“Hey—Moe,” Nicky called to a man lurking at the back of the room by the liquor cabinet. “Fill in for me and finish the game, will ya?”
“Sure, Nick,” the man said, and took the vacant place at the table.
Meanwhile, Nicky led us to his office, where we could talk in private.
“So what do you need to know?” he asked, as he lowered his large frame into an oversized leather chair and offered us his cigar box. We declined, and settled ourselves into