20

The list of April's regular partners was a good one. There were about fifteen names on it; each was annotated with the dates of contact, how they paid, how to reach them, what their preferences were. I was pleased to see that their preferences were within normal parameters.

The direct approach might not be productive: Hi, I'm a private detective from Boston. I'd like to talk with you about your long-term relationship with a professional prostitute. I decided to consult a New York professional. And I knew who to call.

I met Detective Second Grade Eugene Corsetti for lunch at a Viand coffee shop on Madison Avenue, a couple of blocks uptown from the hotel. We sat in a tight booth on the left wall. It was tight for me, and Corsetti was as big as I was but more latitudinal. He was built like a bowling ball. But not as soft. I ordered coffee and a tongue sandwich on light rye. Corsetti had corned beef.

"How can you eat tongue," Corsetti said.

"You know how intrepid I am."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot that for a minute."

"You make first yet?" I said.

"Detective First Grade?" Corsetti said. "You got a better chance of making it than I have."

"And I'm not even a cop anymore," I said.

"Exactly," Corsetti said.

The coffee came. Corsetti put about six spoonfuls of sugar in his and stirred noisily.

"Is that because you annoy a lot of people?" I said.

"Yeah, sure," Corsetti said. "Always have. It's a gift."

The sandwiches came, each with half a sour pickle and a side of coleslaw. Corsetti stared at my sandwich.

"You're gonna eat that?" he said.

I nodded happily.

"Want a bite?" I said.

"Uck!" Corsetti said.

"You remember first time I met you?" I said.

Corsetti had a mouthful of sandwich. He nodded as he chewed.

"You were looking for a missing hooker," he said after he had swallowed and patted his mouth with his napkin.

"April Kyle," I said.

"Yeah," Corsetti said. "And somebody involved in it got killed a few blocks east of here, I think."

I nodded.

"And I caught the squeal," Corsetti said. "And there you were."

"And a few years later, at Rockefeller Center?"

"Heaven," Corsetti said. "I got a lot of face time on the tube out of that one. Whatever happened to the guy you had hold of."

"We arranged something," I said.

" Lot of that going around," Corsetti said. "Whaddya want now?"

"Renew acquaintances?" I said.

"Yeah, sure, want to hold hands and sing `Kum By fucking Ya'?"

"I'm working on April Kyle again," I said.

"The same whore? She run off again?"

"No," I said. "She's in trouble."

"And her a lovely prostitute," Corsetti said. "How could that be?"

"I have a list of names; I was wondering if you could run them. See if any of them are in the system anyplace."

"Where'd you get the list?"

"They're former clients of April Kyle."

"So they'll be thrilled to have their names run," Corsetti said.

"We hope they won't know," I said.

"Who's we?"

"Me and the madam who gave me the list," I said.

"I ain't vice," Corsetti said. "I don't give a fuck about whores. What are you looking for?"

Corsetti was through eating. All I had left on my plate was half a pickle. I ate it.

"There's some sort of cherry pie over there on the counter," I said. "Under the glass dome."

"Yeah," Corsetti said. "I spotted it when I come in."

"I'm not going to have any," I said.

"No, me either," Corsetti said. "You gonna tell me what you're doing?"

"Okay," I said, and told him.

As I was telling him the waiter cleared our plates. I paused.

"Anything else?" the waiter said.

"More coffee," Corsetti said. "And two pieces of the cherry pie. Some cheese."

"You got it," the waiter said and walked away.

Corsetti and I poisoned ourselves with pie and cheese, while I finished explaining. When I was done, Corsetti put out his hand.

"Gimme the list," he said. "I'll get back to you."

21

I spun my wheels for a couple of days until I finally met Corsetti again, this time in Grand Central Station.

"Why here?" I said as we sat together on a bench in the vast vaulted waiting room. Each of us had coffee in a plastic cup.

"I like it here," Corsetti said. "I come here when I get a chance."

The light was streaming in from the high windows. The room was busy with people. It was New York from another time, lingering into the twenty-first century. Corsetti handed me a big manila envelope.

"Here's your list back," Corsetti said. "I made some notes. You can go over it later."

"Anything good?" I said

"I only got one guy," Corsetti said. "Lionel Farnsworth."

"What'd he do?" I said.

"LF Real Estate Consortium," Corsetti said. "Bought a bunch of slab two-bedroom ranches in North Jersey. Foreclosure junk. And resold them for a lot more to yuppies in Manhattan with the promise of high rental income and positive cash flow. He took a packaging fee on the deal and arranged the financing, for which he got a finder's fee from the bank."

"And?"

"Some of the property was condemned. Most of the houses needed rehab. Residents couldn't pay the rent. And the yuppies were left holding a bagful of garbage."

"And one of them got a lawyer," I said.

"They got together and got one," Corsetti said. "And he went to the Manhattan DA. And Manhattan talked to our cousins in Jersey."

"And?"

"Because the crime was interstate, Jersey and New York, the Feds got involved. There were some really swell turf battles, but eventually Lionel did two years in Allenwood, for some sort of interstate conspiracy to defraud."

"White Deer, Pennsylvania," I said.

"Sounds like a vacation spot," Corsetti said.

"Minimum security pretty much is," I said. "Got dates?"

"It's all in there," Corsetti said. "I'm just giving you highlights."

"Nobody else in the system?" I said.

"Nope."

A bum came shambling past us.

"You gen'lemen got some change?" he said.

Corsetti reached for his wallet. When he did, his coat fell open and the bum could see the gun and the shield clipped onto Corsetti's belt next to it. The bum backed away.

"Never mind," he said. "I didn' mean nothing."

Corsetti took out his wallet.

"Step over here," Corsetti said.

"Yessir."

The bum shuffled back. He didn't look at either of us. He looked at the floor. His shoulders hunched a little as if maybe Corsetti was going to hit him.

"I got no change," Corsetti said.

He handed the bum a ten-dollar bill. The bum took it and stared at it. He still didn't look at Corsetti, or me.

"Beat it," Corsetti said.

"Yessir," the bum said. "God bless."

He backed away with the bill in his hand, still looking at it, then turned and walked away across the waiting room under the high arched roof toward 42nd Street.

"Fucking stumblebums," Corsetti said. "The uniform guys come through couple times a day, sweep 'em out, but they're right back in here a half-hour later."

"Especially in the winter," I said. "Is `stumblebum' the acceptable term for our indigent brothers and sisters?"

"Sometimes I like 'vagrants'," Corsetti said. "Depends on how much style they got."

"Think the money will help him?" I said.

"Nope."

"Think he'll spend it on booze?"

"Yep."

"So why'd you give it to him?" I said.

Corsetti swallowed the last of his coffee and grinned at me.

"Felt like it," he said.