Sinner's Ball Read online

  More raves for Ira Berkowitz’s Old Flame

  “Taut, convincing and flat-out terrific.”

  —Fredericksburg Freelance-Star

  “Violent and entertaining.… Deftly rendering such New York City neighborhoods as Alphabet City and Brighton Beach (Little Odessa), Berkowitz keeps the dialogue rough, the action fast, and the characterization thin but sharp as Jake steers his way through the myriad traps thrown in his way.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Just the tonic to cure the blues.… Pour yourself a healthy shot of bourbon, drink it in as few gulps as possible and settle back with a reminder of how hard-boiled fiction used to be done, updated to reflect what is being done right now.”

  —Sarah Weinman, Baltimore Sun

  “A tightly written, deftly plotted gem of crime fiction … Steeg and a half dozen other characters are memorable creations, and the dialogue is clever and gritty. Best, though, is the portrait of Hell’s Kitchen and its denizens, who predate gentrification.”

  —Thomas Gaughan, Booklist (starred)

  “Grade: A. There will always be a surfeit of authors using Hell’s Kitchen as a backdrop for their private-eye tales, but Berkowitz is in the lead—and it will take a doozy of a tale to catch him.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Cynical, wisecracking, and full of snappy dialogue, Old Flame is a valentine to hard-boiled fiction fans. If Berkowitz doesn’t write more books about Steeg, I may send a goon to sock him in the kisser.”

  —Chelsea Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Heartsick

  “A mean, lean piece of noir full of tough talk, hard men, and harder women. It’s a tense walk down a dark alley, a heart-pounding chase on the gritty streets of New York that ends with a punch in the jaw. Ira Berkowitz flicks his cigarette ash at the noir greats and dares them to do it better.”

  —Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies

  “A sharp, clean, and precise piece of crime writing, Old Flame is not to be missed. Ira Berkowitz drops you into Hell’s Kitchen and leaves you wanting for more.”

  —Michael Harvey, author of The Chicago Way and cocreator of Cold Case Files

  “A good old-fashioned crime novel crowded with fast-talking, colorful characters, each of whom comes with a secret or two and the temperament of a killer. It’s hard to put down.”

  —Thomas Perry, Edgar Award-winning author of Silence, The Butcher’s Boy, and Nightlife

  “In Hell’s Kitchen, Old Flame burns white-hot. If gritty New York streets and rough-and-tumble detectives turn you on, read this book.”

  —Reed Farrel Coleman, Shamus and Anthony Award-winning author of Soul Patch and The James Deans

  ALSO BY IRA BERKOWITZ

  OLD FLAME

  FAMILY MATTERS

  FOR PHYLLIS

  PROLOGUE

  Angela was a tiny fifteen-year-old runaway with flyaway hair, a face filled with hollows dense with shadows, and minutes left to live.

  She had been in the city just shy of two months. Her older sister, Wanda, had run a year earlier, leaving Angela alone in their father’s house.

  You gotta get out, Wanda had said. I know what it’s like. Know what he’s like. Ma won’t admit it. Probably glad he don’t mess with her. It ain’t gonna stop, Angie. Quit being a fraidy cat. Come to New York and live with me. It’s cool. The people. The scene. All cool. There’s work. I’ll hook you up. Pays more money than you ever seen.

  But Angela had been a fraidy cat and stayed, kidding herself into believing it would stop.

  Until the last time.

  While he slept, Angela had crept into the garage, lifted all the cash from his secret hiding place, and headed for the Greyhound bus station in Davenport. Twenty-two stops and a little more than a day later she pulled into the Port Authority bus depot. Wanda met her and took her back to an apartment she shared with three other girls and a man they called Daddy. He told Angela she was part of the family now, and in his family everyone worked. Then he told her what work meant.

  Angela ran. Again.

  Until the streets caught her.

  Now it was Christmas Eve. The temperature had dipped into the low teens and the wind blew the snow sideways. The sidewalk Santas were long gone, the carolers had packed it in, and all across the city, families, all warm and cozy, tossed the last piece of tinsel on the tree and settled in for the night.

  And in Hell’s Kitchen, Angela and two brain-fried junkies she had met outside a warehouse hatched their own plan to celebrate the Savior’s birth.

  The guys—one with rat eyes, and the other with sores on his face—had dug deep into their pockets and come up with enough for a dime bag of rock and the best bottle of wine three dollars could buy. Even though the thought of it made her feel as if spiders were crawling all over her skin, Angela chipped in her body for a couple of hits and a few hours of warmth.

  Then they jimmied a window and climbed into the warehouse.

  Christmas Eve was for families, and it had been a long time since Angela had seen her sister. Rat Eyes handed her a cell phone he had boosted a few days earlier. Wanda didn’t answer, but Angela left the address.

  And then it was party time.

  Surrounded by stacks of cartons stuffed with counterfeit designer goods, they’d made short work of the rock and polished off the bottle with lying stories of Christmas Eves past. Now, with eyes closed and heads propped against the cartons, they slept.

  They never heard the whisper of flame smoldering deep within the walls or the frantic rustling of rats scurrying to the safety of the river. Never smelled the acrid odor of smoke as the flames crept up toward the dead space just under the roof.

  Wanda sat in a musty West Side bar nursing a two-buck draft in a dirty pint glass, listening to Angela’s message and weighing her options. Outside, the streets were empty, shrouded in the muted glow of light filtered through giant flakes of whipping snow. She wasn’t even close to making her three-hundred-dollar nut, and didn’t have a prayer. Not on a night like this. But there was one thing she knew for a certainty: Daddy didn’t want to hear shit about blizzards, or Christmas, or any other stuff. You live in Daddy’s house, you pay the rent. Every day. No ifs, ands, or buts.

  Wanda reached into her brassiere and pulled out a thin wad of bills. She added them up one more time, thinking maybe she had made a mistake. Nope. Three twenties and a ten.

  Fuck it! she thought, staring down at the thin soup at the bottom of the glass. If I’m gonna get a beating, it’s gonna be for a good reason. Besides, the warehouse wasn’t too far away.

  The flames were streaming through the windows on the lower floors when Wanda came up the street. Splashes of glass glittered like diamonds in the snow. She stood stock-still, her body unwilling to move. A man, standing across the street with his face framed in firelight, turned to look at her. The expression on his face made her guts shrivel. And she looked away.

  When she looked back, he was gone.

  Hearing the distant whine of sirens, Wanda glanced back at the building and swiped a sleeve across her eyes.

  1

  I need you to meet me at Feeney’s. Noon tomorrow. It’s important.

  My brother, Dave, had finally decided to drop into my life.

  It had been a Job-like year for my brother. He had always been pretty good at dodging bad fortune, but in a few short months he had hit the cosmic trifecta. An Israeli mobster’s bomb blew off his left hand. His son, Anthony, blew off Dartmouth for a spot in the family business. Soon after, his wife, Franny, blew up their marriage. And Dave never saw any of it coming. In a heartbeat his confidence went down the tubes, and he turned into a recluse.

  It had been a long time since I’d heard from him. Then the message on
my answering machine.

  It got my attention. Words like need had never been part of Dave’s vocabulary.

  The next morning I awoke to the sight of frost on the inside of my windows. During the night the boiler in my apartment house had finally gone belly-up, and my three rooms were as comfy as a meat locker. Outside, clouds the color of sewage hung ominously over the city. Snow was definitely on the way.

  When I arrived at Feeney’s, a Closed sign hung on the front door. The usual deal when my brother wanted complete privacy.

  A young, wiry-looking guy with shoulder-length blond hair stood next to the sign, smoking a cigarette and eyeing me with a piranha grin. As I reached for the doorknob, he sidled up real close.

  “Can’t you read, rummy?” he said. “The sign says you’re gonna have to find another slop chute to drink your breakfast.”

  The snakes in my head awakened from their slumber and began to uncoil. It had been a while since they had graced me with their presence. Truth be told, I’d missed them. Especially at times like this.

  “Who the hell are you?” I said.

  With a toying grin, he put the flat of his hand on my chest.

  “The guy who tells you where you can or can’t go.”

  Maybe it was the stupid grin, or the hand on my chest, or that the boiler in my apartment building had committed suicide. Nah, it was the “rummy” crack.

  My left hand shot out and grabbed his hair, tugging his head toward me. The move kind of shortened the distance between my right hand and a spot just above the bridge of his nose. He went over as if he had been hit with a cattle prod.

  I reached down and dragged him into Feeney’s, leaving his unconscious body just inside the door.

  Nick D’Amico, the proprietor and one of Dave’s deceptively jolly killers, was deep in conversation at the bar with Kenny Apple, another of Dave’s hit men. But my dramatic entrance got their attention.

  I walked over to the bar and jerked my thumb at the body.

  “Who’s the new guy?” I said.

  Nick sighed. “What the hell happened?”

  “Your doorman has an attitude problem.”

  “Fuck!” Nick said. “He ain’t one of mine. Name’s Tommy Cisco. He’s with Anthony’s crew.”

  “Anthony has a crew?”

  “He thinks he does. What can I tell you?” He walked over, grabbed a handful of Cisco’s coat, and dragged him back outside. “Be right back. Gotta take the garbage out.”

  “Nice work,” Kenny said.

  Kenny Apple brought new meaning to the word schizoid. An orthodox Jewish accountant by training who traded in his ledger books for a gun. How he managed to square that with his faith was a continuing mystery.

  “He pissed me off.”

  “What a surprise.”

  “What’s so important that I had to come out on a day like this?”

  “You got anything better to do?”

  “Actually, no.”

  Ever since the NYPD and I parted company, my plate has been pretty much half-empty. Sometimes more. There’s not much call for an ex-Homicide detective with one lung and a disability pension. Every now and then something comes along, and if it interests me, I handle it. The pay is usually crap, but I don’t need much. The rest of the time I spend trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. At least, that’s what I tell people. The truth is I did figure it out, and didn’t like the answer.

  “How about a heads-up about what I’m walking into here?” I said.

  “Dave’ll tell you.”

  “He has another problem?”

  “You might say. You better get over there, his blood’s really up.”

  Nick had done a nice job putting Feeney’s back together after the bomb that took Dave’s hand had gutted the joint. The mahogany bar, the Wurlitzer, the tin ceiling with a fleur-de-lis hammered into every panel—everything looked as good as new.

  The same couldn’t be said for my brother.

  Feeney’s was where Dave did business, and as usual, he was dressed for it. Navy blue pin-striped suit. Crisp, white shirt. Soft gray tie. But that’s where the resemblance to the old Dave ended. His eyes were listless recesses set in a face that had lost its certainty. The stump of his left hand was encased in a sheath of black leather, which he rubbed furiously against the pebbled remainder of a port-wine stain on his cheek. It was an endlessly humiliating blotch of congenital graffiti that even laser surgery couldn’t completely erase.

  When Dave rubbed his cheek, bad things were in the offing.

  After the Israeli’s bomb had nearly taken my brother out, he had become a lot more cautious. He and Anthony sat at a back booth that afforded him a panoramic view of everything that went on at the saloon.

  After the bombing, in some truly convoluted act of loyalty, Anthony had decided he wanted in. Another thing Dave never saw coming. In a truly screwed-up act of parenting, Dave agreed.

  It won’t last, he said. The kid’s too soft for the life. Doesn’t have the stomach for it. He’ll be back in Hanover carving ice sculptures at the Winter Festival in under a month.

  That made my brother oh for four in the prediction department.

  Now Anthony, the avid apprentice, sat by the master’s side soaking up the ins and outs of organized crime. He flashed me a cold smile he had probably spent weeks rehearsing in front of a mirror.

  Dave threw me a bemused look.

  “Cisco couldn’t make it in on his own?” he said.

  “You forgot to leave my name on the guest list.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “And people say I’m on a hair trigger.”

  “So, how’re you doing?”

  “Living the dream.” His voice was a scrape of sandpaper, so low I had to lean in to hear it.

  Anthony giggled as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  Anthony was the family hope, and I loved him like a son. A gentle boy with brains and a heart who was a sure bet to make us proud. And he threw it all away. The sight of him working hard on becoming his father’s Mini-Me was enough to make me sick. I shot him a look and the stupid giggle froze in his throat.

  Our little byplay didn’t escape Dave’s notice.

  “What’re you so pissy about, Jake?” he said, using the nickname he’d tagged me with when we were kids.

  “If you don’t know, I’m sorry for you.”

  My brother waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. He looked at his watch. “You’re late.”

  “Really? Last time I checked, I’m not on your payroll.”

  “That may be about to change.”

  That got my attention.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “How’s Allie?”

  “Fine. As soon as I finish here, I’m meeting her and DeeDee for lunch.”

  Allie Lebow and DeeDee Santos were the two women in my life. Allie was my current and future love. DeeDee was my best buddy and kind of a surrogate daughter. She and her father lived in my building. Unfortunately for DeeDee, he was a frequent guest of the city’s penal institutions. And her mother had split to the Dominican Republic. That left DeeDee pretty much on her own, and headed for a life on the streets. No way would I let that happen. Now she was a sophomore at one of the most prestigious high schools in the city.

  “Allie’s a keeper. And DeeDee, too,” he said, smiling now. “That kid has some mouth on her. Always liked her.”

  “She’ll be thrilled to hear it. Now, can we get back to that payroll thing again?”

  “Remember that fire I had over at my warehouse?”

  His tone was dismissive, as if it were a kitchen flare-up that took out a couple of oven mitts, rather than a three-alarmer that turned three squatters into stains on the floor and took the lives of two New York City firefighters.

  “Sure. Christmas Eve.”

  “The DA is saying it was arson, and that I did it for the insurance money.”

  “You don’t need the
money.”

  “Right.”

  “And his evidence?”

  “Far as I know, zip. But our esteemed DA always plays things close to the vest.”

  “That he does,” I said.

  “The warehouse was insured by Pytho. Their guy who investigated the fire was supposed to be here by now.”

  “But he’s not.”

  “He called. Running late. I want you to hear what he has to say.”

  “I’ll drop by after lunch.”

  “That works. Look, you know how this is going to go down. The DA is all about expedience. He looks at my line of work, puts two and two together, and comes up with the brilliant deduction that I torched the place. I take the fall for felony murder, another case cleared. Crime wave over.”

  Sad to say, my brother’s analysis was dead right. This was an election year, and politics trumped everything. The DA had been in office since there were trolley cars. But he wasn’t quite ready for a retirement home. There was one last hurrah on his to-do list. A high-profile case starring my brother, the reigning Hell’s Kitchen’s Kingpin of Crime, would fit the bill very nicely.

  “You pretty much summed it up,” I said.

  “My lawyer tells me that an indictment is about to come down.”

  “Based on what? Someone who could place you at the scene?”

  “Not possible. I wasn’t there.”

  “And you have an alibi.”

  “Are you kidding? Airtight.”

  “Then its gotta be coming from the competition. What’s the word on the street?”

  “Nada. The doers could be the Guineas, the spics, the Russians, or some other flavor of asshole thinking about trying me on for size. Since the uh, incident”—he stroked his cheek with the stump of his hand—“the jokers probably think I’m, you know, vulnerable. But they don’t know who they’re fucking with, do they?”

  They surely didn’t.

  He smiled a crooked smile. “When I find them, I’m going to rip out their eyes.”