We met in front of Room 636. I took the Do Not Disturb sign off the door and turned the key. The smell wasn't too bad since I had turned the air conditioner on full blast before leaving two nights before, but it was noticeable.
"What's that smell?" Rusty asked, trying to pull back. I gave her a hard shove that sent her sprawling halfway across the room and we all went in. Manitti closed the door behind us.
I had warned the others what to expect and Droppo was in too much pain to really care. Not Rusty, though. She got to her feet with a look of sheer viciousness. "What the hell is going on here?" she screeched. "What's that smell?"
I opened the bathroom door and showed her Larry Spelman's naked body.
"Oh my God! Oh my God!" Rusty wailed, hiding her face in her hands.
"Now take off your clothes, both of you," I ordered.
Droppo, his face still drawn with pain, began dumbly to comply. He was past asking questions.
Not Rusty. "What are you going to do?" she screamed at me. "My God…"
"Forget God," I snapped, "and get undressed. Or do you want me to have Gino do it for you?"
Manitti leered at her, and slowly Rusty began unbuttoning her blouse. Stripped down to her bra and bikini panties, she hesitated again, but I waved Wilhelmina at her and she finished the job defiantly, throwing her clothes in a little heap on the floor.
Louie picked up both sets of clothing and stuffed them into a small bag he had brought along. Droppo sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. Rusty was backed in a corner by the dresser, half-turned so that all we could see was her bare hip. Her arms covered her breasts and she shivered a bit. The room was cold from the air conditioning.
I paused at the doorway as we went out. "Now I want you two lovebirds to stay right here," I said. "Somebody will be up in a little while and you can get everything straightened out. In the meantime, Manitti here is going to be standing right outside the door. If it so much as opens one little crack before anyone else gets here, he'll kill you. Do you understand that?" I paused. "At least hell kill you, Droppo. I don't know what he'll do to Rusty."
I closed the door and we all went down on the elevator.
In the lobby, I used a pay phone to call Jack Gourlay.
"Son of a bitch!" he grumbled over the phone. "It's two o'clock in the morning."
"Forget it," I said. "I've got a story for you in Room 636 at the Chalfont Plaza."
"It had better be good."
"Well," I drawled. "Sounds pretty good to me, Jack. There's three people up there in Room 636, they're all naked and one of them is dead. And one of them is female."
"Jesus Christ!" There was a long pause. "Mafia?"
"Mafia," I said, and hung up.
We all went across the street to the Sunrise Cocktail Lounge and had a drink. Then we went home.
Chapter 14
Philomina removed my hand from her left breast and sat upright in bed, squishing the pillow up behind her so it supported the small of her back. She frowned perplexedly.
"But I don't understand, Nick. It's kind of funny, or awful, or something. The police won't be able to prove that Rusty and Droppo killed Larry Spelman, will they? I mean…"
I kissed her right breast and squirmed around so I could rest my head on her stomach, lying crosswise across the bed.
I explained. "They're not going to be able to prove that Rusty and Droppo killed Spelman, but those two are going to have one hell of a time for awhile trying to prove that they didn't".
"You mean the cops will just let them go?"
"Not quite. Remember, I told you I left that metal cigar container on the dresser before I left?"
She nodded. "It was full of heroin. They'll both get busted for possession."
"Oh." She frowned. "I hope Rusty doesn't have to go to jail. I mean, I hate her, but…"
I patted her knee, which was somewhere to the left of my left ear. "Don't worry. There'll be a lot of stuff in the newspapers, and a lot of people scratching heads, but it's such a screwy setup, any good lawyer will be able to get them off."
"I still don't understand it," she said. "Won't the police be looking for you and Louie?"
"Not a chance. Droppo knows, but he's not about to tell the cops what happened. It's too damned humiliating. He'll never admit to them that a rival gang could get away with that. The Ruggieros are going to be pretty pissed off, on the other hand, and that's just what we want."
"What will they do?"
"Well, if they react like I hope they will, they'll come out shooting."
The papers certainly came out shooting the next day. Give a newspaperman a nude man and a nude girl in a hotel room with a nude corpse and he's going to be happy. Add two rival underworld factions and a container of high-grade heroin and he's going to be ecstatic. Jack Gourlay was in journalistic seventh heaven.
The pictures in the News the next morning were as good as I've ever seen. The photographer had caught Droppo sitting naked on the bed with Rusty naked in the background, trying to shield herself with crossed arms. They had had to do a little air-brushing to make it decent enough to print. The headline writer had had a good time too:
NUDE MAFIOSO AND GAL CAUGHT BAREHANDED WITH CORPSE AND DOPE
The New York Times did not consider it a front-page story, as the News had, but it rated a six-column binder on page sixteen with a column and a half of type and a sidebar about the history of the Mafia in New York. Both Franzini and the Ruggieros got a big play, including a fairly detailed account of Popeye's alleged set-to with Philomina's father years before.
Popeye himself couldnt have cared less. He was delighted to the extent that his hatred of the world would let him be. He roared with laughter when Louie showed him the story the next day, leaning back in his wheelchair and howling. The fact that Larry Spelman had been killed didn't bother him in the slightest, apparently, except as Spelman's death reflected an insult by the Ruggieros to the Franzinis.
As far as Popeye was concerned, the embarrassment and loss of dignity suffered by the Ruggieros through having one of their button men caught in such a ridiculous situation more than made up for murder. With the Franzinis of this world, murder is commonplace, absurdity a rarity.
Louie was delighted, too, with the new stature he had gained in his uncle's eyes. I didn't have to give him all the credit. By the time I got to the offices of Franzini Olive Oil that morning, Louie was already basking in praise. I'm sure Louie didn't actually tell Popeye that it was his idea, but he didn't tell him it wasn't, either.
I sat back and waited for the Ruggieros to retaliate.
Nothing happened, and I re-examined my position. I had apparently underestimated Ruggiero. Thinking back, I had to realize that Gaetano Ruggiero was not the type of leader who could be panicked into a bloody and expensive gang war by the kind of shenanigans I had been up to.
Popeye Franzini might be easily provoked, but not Ruggiero. This being the case, I picked on Popeye again. I could depend upon him to react, and react violently. I'd had a plan earlier, which was why I had ordered that 17B kit from Washington, and I just needed a little help from Philomina to put it into operation. My target was the Counting House, the heart of the entire Franzini operation.
I hit it just five days after the Lemon-Drop Droppo caper.
All I needed from Philomina was an alibi in case one of the guards at the Counting House could identify me later. I intended to make sure that they couldn't, but it was an easy enough precaution to take.