The Cigarette Killer Read online

  “Now, come on, Momma!” a beautiful woman said. “Nothing is worth getting so upset about.”

  Big Daddy’s eyes shifted from Seth to the beautiful woman. Still watching Big Daddy, Seth saw the man’s pupils widen at the mere sight of the woman. The man’s lips turned up in a kind of smile. Catching the man’s look, she gave him a slight, knowing smile. Seth had no idea what passed between the man and this woman. He instinctively knew he wanted a woman to look at him like that someday.

  “You’re still wearing your curlers, Momma!” the woman said. “Come. Have some breakfast. You, too, Mother. Please.”

  The beautiful woman nodded to the elderly woman.

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” the elderly woman said.

  “You are never a bother,” the beautiful woman said. “We were out late last night at the World’s Fair, so we’re just getting up and around.”

  “And my gran’babies?” the elderly woman asked.

  The elderly woman’s face held a kind of desire that caused the man in front of Seth to laugh. When the man laughed, the men standing around the room smiled.

  “They are sleeping,” the man said.

  The man smiled with such intensity at the beautiful woman that Seth could have sworn that she blushed.

  “Where are my manners?” the elderly woman asked herself. She turned to Seth, “This is my son. He’s called ‘Big Daddy’ because his father thought that would be a good stage name.”

  “I’m Bernice,” the beautiful woman said. She gestured to the woman in pink curlers, “My mother. Everyone calls her ‘Susan.’”

  Bernice held out her hand to Seth, and Seth shook it. Her hand was cold in his hand. Seth instinctively wrapped her dark hand with his small hands. Bernice gave Seth a curious look. Seth could feel more than see Big Daddy’s eyes on him.

  “Your hand is cold,” Seth mumbled, his mouth was sufficiently swollen so as to be almost bearable.

  For the first time, Bernice saw his mouth.

  “Oh, my,” Bernice said.

  Shocked, Bernice let go of Seth’s hand. She jerked her head to look at Big Daddy.

  “Your men did this?” Bernice asked.

  “They sure did,” the woman in pink curlers, Bernice’s mother, said.

  Susan, the woman in pink curlers, went through the entire thing again, finishing with, “and all the boy wanted to do was find someone to teach him.”

  “He can pay,” the elderly woman said.

  “Can he?” Big Daddy asked with something like a sneer.

  Feeling the man’s malice, Seth took a wad of money out of his front pocket. Big Daddy’s fingers moved over the wad as if he was counting. He looked into Seth’s eyes again.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Big Daddy said. “Where’d you get that? You steal it? Rich Daddy?”

  “He made it,” Claire said. Claire was suddenly at Seth’s side. “He’s a great piano player.”

  Big Daddy gave Seth a suspicious look. Not one willing to impress anyone, Seth simply raised his eyebrows. Big Daddy took in the small boy, his pale skin, the swelling at his mouth, and blood on his shirt. Shaking his head in disgust at Big Daddy, Seth put the money back in his pocket. Not willing to give his power to the boy, Big Daddy made a vague gesture to the piano in the corner. Big Daddy sat down to his breakfast. Seth stood still in front of him.

  “Well?” Big Daddy asked after a moment.

  The man raised his eyebrow in a challenge. Seth shrugged at the challenge and nonchalantly walked to the piano. He checked that the piano was in tune for such a long time that Big Daddy finally cleared his throat. Grinning to himself, Seth began playing the song that would someday be called “A Melody for Amelie.” No one said anything when he finished, so Seth played his first concerto. He played with passion and intensity while the people in the room stared at his back. When he finished, a single pair of hands clapped. Seth looked up to see an elderly man standing near the edge of the room, clapping for him.

  “How’d you do that?” the elderly man asked.

  “Just happens.” Seth shrugged. “Since I was four.”

  “Talent like that comes from God himself,” the elderly man said. He looked at the men in the room, with his eyes settling on Big Daddy. “I only know one other man who can do like you. He your Daddy?”

  Seth vigorously shook his head. The elderly man gave him a slow nod. Looking at the people in the room, the man shook his head.

  “You’d better clap, or you’re insulting the Lord,” the elderly man said.

  Everyone in the room began to clap. Relieved, Claire sat down on the piano bench next to Seth. Seth looked at Claire, and she looked really happy.

  “I heard you were looking for a teacher,” the elderly man said, in a low intimate voice while everyone clapped.

  “Jazz piano,” Seth said carefully so as not to aggravate his painful mouth.

  “It’s his destiny,” Claire said.

  “That so,” the elderly man said. “Why do you think that?”

  “I’m here in New York City,” Seth said with a nod.

  “You’re already good enough,” the elderly man said.

  “I want to learn as much as I can,” Seth said. “Spend my life getting as good as I possibly can get.”

  The elderly man looked at Seth for what felt like an hour.

  “I’ll teach you,” the elderly man said with a nod.

  Seth felt the heat of Big Daddy’s eyes on his back.

  “He can pay,” Big Daddy said.

  “My son,” the elderly man said to Seth with a sniff. “He won’t be satisfied unless you pay.”

  Seth nodded. He took the wad of money out of his pocket again and gave it to the elderly man. The elderly man took the money. He went through the bills, sorting it into denominations, until it was a tidy pile. He pulled a $5 bill out and gave the money back to Seth.

  “If I’m going to teach you, you got to first learn to respect your money,” the elderly man said. “Money for people like us comes fast but goes a lot faster. You need to respect its power. You have to be careful.”

  “Yes, sir,” Seth said.

  The elderly man seemed impressed by Seth’s simple utterance of “Yes, sir.” He nodded.

  “You bring me one of these fives every time we meet,” the elderly man said. “That way, you help us out while we help you out.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Seth said. He put his hand to his chest. “I’m Seth O’Malley.”

  “I’m Earl, but everybody calls me ‘Bud,’” the elderly man said. “That’s my wife, Dinah. She goes by ‘Di.’”

  “It seems disrespectful to call you by your first name, sir,” Seth said.

  Bud met that comment with a belly laugh. Di, the elderly woman, joined him. Embarrassed, Seth felt like they were laughing at him. He looked down at the piano keys. Seth felt Bernice put her hand on his back. Bernice leaned down to Seth’s ear.

  “White folks don’t usually call black folks by ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ or even ‘Sir,’” Bernice said in a soft tone. “That’s why they’re laughing.”

  Surprised, Seth looked up at her. Bernice nodded. He looked up at Bud, and the elderly man nodded.

  “How often can you come?” Bud asked.

  “He’s only in the city on the weekends,” Claire said.

  “I go to Eastman,” Seth said. “Music scholarship.”

  “That’s just fine,” the elderly man said. He smiled at Seth. He looked around the room. “The boy goes to college for free because of his talent. He wants to spend his own time and money learning jazz from one of us uneducated folk here in Harlem.”

  Bud shot Big Daddy a hard look.

  “I can see why your man hit the boy,” Bud said.

  Big Daddy looked down at the desk. Bud turned his attention back to Seth.

  “You come Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons,” Bud said. “Every week until the end of the year. We’ll see how much you pick up. You going to have a problem with Saturdays?”<
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  “No, sir,” Seth said. “Why?”

  “You look Jewish,” Bud said.

  “Catholic,” Seth said with a grin. “Same thing.”

  Bud laughed. Forgetting all about his mouth, Seth smiled and then regretted it. Temporarily soothed by the music, his mouth was now on fire.

  “Thank you,” Seth tried to say.

  At that instant, Seth’s lip burst open again. He spit blood at Bud. A glob of blood and mucus landed on the man’s chest. Still laughing, the elderly man pointed to the blood on his chest and Dinah laughed at him. The elderly woman’s laugh made Claire laugh. Grinning, Bernice helped Seth up.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Bernice said. She glanced at her husband.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Big Daddy said.

  “Come on, child,” Bernice said, and she gestured to Claire.

  Claire followed them into the back. Bud and Dinah followed close behind.

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  One

  Present Day

  Seth O’Malley woke with a start.

  He was sitting at a metal table in the middle of a grey cinderblock room. His hands were loosely bound in police-issue handcuffs; the handcuffs were hooked into a metal loop in the table. While the table was clear, the floor was filthy. There was a distinct smell of urine.

  He checked to see if he’d urinated on himself.

  Not yet.

  He was sitting with his back to a grey wall. He faced a metal reflective window. As a police detective, Seth had spent a good portion of his life in similar police interview rooms.

  This was the first time he’d been the one handcuffed to the table.

  From where he sat, he couldn’t tell if the door to the room was open or closed. He had no idea if anyone was behind the glass. And, he had no idea where he was.

  Nothing stirred around him.

  He stretched out with his hearing. Somewhere above, there were people and activity. The area closest to him was as silent as an abandoned building.

  “Hey!” Seth called out to see if anyone was listening.

  Nothing moved.

  He waited.

  A few minutes later, a feral-looking cat with greyish fur peered around the doorframe at him. Seth locked eyes with the brown-eyed cat. The cat’s head withdrew. He listened to the cat move cautiously down the hallway.

  It was only then that he noticed what looked like a small, black video camera hanging in the upper-left corner of the room. The red light on the camera seemed to indicate that the camera was on. He waved to the camera with the middle fingers of his hands.

  No response.

  If a prisoner had done that in an interview room at the Denver Police Station, or any police station he’d ever been in, someone would have banged on the glass. It happened so often that it was a natural instinct for most cops. Seth surmised that no one was in the other room.

  The cat returned with a medium-sized grey rat in its mouth. She hopped up on the table and proceeded to show Seth her trophy.

  “Nice,” Seth said with a smile. “You go ahead.”

  The cat seemed to give Seth a nod. Turning her back to him, he noticed that she didn’t have a tail. She proceeded to eat her prize.

  Seth closed his eyes to the gore and contemplated how he’d gotten here. The last thing he remembered, he was watching his wife Ava’s pert rear as she walked down the jetway toward her commercial plane back to Denver.

  No, that wasn’t true.

  The last thing he remembered doing was urinating in the airport bathroom after Ava was on her plane.

  Seth blinked. He had a vague memory of hearing his name over the tinny speaker in the bathroom. The voice had said, “Detective Seth O’Malley, please come to the courtesy phone.” He’d gone to the phone, and then . . .

  Nothing.

  Picking up the receiver to the courtesy phone was his last memory before waking up here.

  His memory rolled backward. He’d brought Ava to . . . La Guardia Airport.

  He might still be in New York City.

  He squinted as he tried to remember why he was in New York. The flood gates of his memory opened. He was standing with his eldest daughter, Sandy, when his agent had sold her deceased mother’s masterpiece of five incredible concertos. Part of the sale was Seth’s agreement that — as a prodigy pianist and composer — he would guide these five pieces into music scores for a five-movie series. The schedule was tight, but he had filled an orchestra with extraordinarily talented musicians. They had already finished two of the five concertos to fit the two completed films movies.

  The movie studio was thrilled. They were pressing on to film the third in the series. Seth and the orchestra needed to get the third completed.

  Then his longtime friend and generally unsavory character, Big Daddy, died.

  Seth sighed. He’d spent most of the last week working with the New York Police Department to negotiate with the city’s crime syndicates for the peaceful takeover of Big Daddy’s many illegal interests. Once he was sure that Big Daddy’s wife, Bernice, would be taken care of, he worked with the U.S. government to strip the rest of Big Daddy’s estate.

  Last weekend, Seth had shut down Harlem for a concert and party in Big Daddy’s memory. Everyone who was anyone in music and jazz came to town to play and celebrate Big Daddy’s life. That’s why Ava was in town. She’d arrived the moment he’d needed her and stayed as long as she was able. Two of his daughters were here, along with their families. His friend and fellow musician Bumpy Wilson and his wife had arrived to help him with the concert. They’d shut down Harlem with the procession of Big Daddy’s casket to the church. The burial had been private and solemn.

  Seth shook the sad images from his mind. He sighed and opened his eyes. The cat turned to look at Seth. The rat’s head was in the cat’s mouth. He grimaced and closed his eyes again.

  Had Seth done something in the last week that had led to him being locked up here?

  Seth closed his eyes and went through it. He couldn’t come up with anyone or any group that would lock him up here. Except, possibly, the movie studio, since he’d lost a week to Big Daddy’s death. But, locking him up here wouldn’t get their movie score done.

  Seth closed his eyes and dozed for a while. When he awoke, the cat was long gone, leaving only a faint, bloody puddle on the table.

  He was still sitting in this room.

  He needed to get out of here. Using his elbow, he pushed his keys to the top of his suit pants pocket. He scooted closer to the table. The handcuffs were loose enough, and his arm thin enough, that, if he stretched, he might be able to get the keys from the top of his pocket. He lifted his right leg and stretched with his left hand and arm.

  The very tips of his fingers caught the end of a long key. A lifetime of piano playing had given him unusually strong and cooperative fingertips. He managed to grab the end of the key and move his set of keys toward the table.

  The keys slipped, but his fingers held tight. They continued a slow slide until Seth was able to chuck the keys onto the table. Using his chin, he pulled the set of keys toward his cuffed hands. He moved the keys around the ring until he found what he was looking for.

  A universal handcuff key.

  It had been a gift from his best friend and partner at the Denver Police Department, Mitch Delgado. In Mitch’s mind, there could be no better gift than a universal handcuff key. Another key fit over the handcuff key to disguise its true purpose. Seth had laughed at Mitch and stuck the key in his pocket. When Mitch died of Agent Orange-induced Sarcoidosis, Seth had put the key on his keyring so that he could carry a tiny piece of his friend with him at all times.

  He’d never had to use it until today.

  Seth said a silent prayer of thanks for the best friend a man could ever have. He wiggled and tugged on the camouflage key until the handcuff key slid free. He used the handcuff key on the handcuffs and marveled at his luck that it worked. Mitch had always said that all
handcuffs had the same key. Seth hadn’t believed it until now.

  Once free, Seth left the room to find a toilet. There was an unlocked old public bathroom just down the hallway. Surprisingly, the toilet was not too disgusting and just happened to be connected into a water supply. He wondered for a moment whether his kidnappers had opened the toilet when they’d left him here.

  Shaking his head at himself, Seth flushed the toilet and went back to the room. Despite his absence, no one had come to the room. Seth took out the bullet pen he always kept in his pocket and found an old flyer from the trash on the floor.

  “I’m going home,” Seth wrote on the page.

  He set it in the drying rat blood so that it wouldn’t fly away. He shrugged to the camera, grabbed his keys, and left the room. Following a sound, he walked down a hallway to what looked like a subway platform. The wall said, “Worth Street Station.”

  He was still in New York City. The Worth Street Station was an abandoned subway station under Thomas Paine Park at the corner of Lexington and Worth. He thought for a moment before remembering how to get out of this station. Taking the stairs, he reached what looked like a locked gate almost immediately. He shook the gate, finding that it was closed but not locked. He continued up the stairs and through two more closed-but-not-locked gates.

  As if it were waiting for him, the feral cat was sitting cleaning a paw, just outside the last gate. Taking off his suit jacket, he scooped up the cat and continued up the last flight of stairs. Seth stepped out onto the sidewalk. He hailed a taxi and took it to the Hell’s Kitchen apartment building he’d purchased when he was ten years old. He took the apartment building stairs two at a time. He was through his locked apartment door. He tucked the cat into a cabinet until he could deal with it. He took a shower.

  When he’d dressed, he opened the cabinet door for the cat. The cat gave him a mildly irritated look. He lured the cat out of the cabinet with a packet of tuna. While the cat ate, he warmed up a plate of food left for him by his housekeeper, Claire. When they’d finished eating, he washed the cat in the sink. Much to his surprise, the cat seemed to enjoy the warm water and attention. Seth had to wash the cat a few times before all of the dirt and muck were gone. To his surprise, he was holding a red tabby Manx cat.