The Midnight Club Read online

  “I’m not laughing. It’s just that you’re so serious. The investigative reporter.”

  It was Sarah’s turn to smile.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see naked bodies dancing on the television screen.

  “Lieutenant, I’m from Stockton, California. Do you know Stockton? Truck farms, migrant workers. My family grew up as onion toppers, lettuce thinners, pea pickers. I got out somehow. Got a newspaper job. As Red Smith used to say, ‘I make a living working a typewriter.’ The money, any notoriety, that just happened. I was lucky. I caught a very good story.”

  “You also wrote a good book. That wasn’t luck. That was you being super-serious again.”

  John Stefanovitch found himself studying Sarah McGinniss a little more closely. There was a hint of sweetness in her smile. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. She was embarrassed, and he was surprised that she would be so vulnerable.

  “Listen, Sarah.” Stefanovitch looked contrite. “I’m sorry for being a shit yesterday. That’s the act I’ve had to play since all of this happened. Sometimes I overdo it just a little.”

  “Maybe just a little.” Sarah smiled.

  The small room was quiet for a few seconds. The pencil in Sarah’s hand tapped lightly against the rigid spine of her log pad.

  “Listen, are you hungry? Because I am. How about if we go around the corner for a bite? Do you know Forlini’s? C’mon, Lieutenant. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

  25

  ON THE WAY to the restaurant in Little Italy, Stefanovitch slipped a folded-up dollar to a street beggar, a wino wearing a heavy, black, tattered winter coat in June.

  “Are you always so generous?” Sarah asked him.

  Stefanovitch mumbled something about soup kitchens, about trying to do the right thing every once in a while. Sarah let it drop. Still, she was oddly touched. The image of this strangely charismatic man in a wheelchair helping out panhandlers stuck in her mind.

  At Forlini’s, the maître d’ greeted Sarah with an effusive smile and a gallant, almost seductive handshake. “Ah, la bella signora, so nice to see you always.”

  Since she had been writing The Club and spending so much time downtown at Foley Square and Police Plaza, Forlini’s had become one of her favorite lunchtime haunts. The maître d’, and most of the waiters, knew her from several past visits. The maître d’ took their drink order after escorting them to a corner table. He hurried away to the bar.

  Sarah had brought other policemen there, and she always seemed to pay the check. Women paying for dinners in Little Italy was still unusual, highly suspect.

  “So tell me about working on newspapers,” Stefanovitch said once the waiter had left them. “I get to watch a few pretty good reporters occasionally. Times guys. New York Daily News. You broke into a tough club.”

  “It’s not quite so macho on the West Coast. Maybe a little bit where I started, in San Francisco. Certainly not in Palo Alto.”

  Sarah had never really felt comfortable talking about herself, not even after her book had become successful. She didn’t particularly want to talk about herself now, either.

  “Why don’t you go first?” she said across the small, intimate table. “Tell me something about yourself, Lieutenant, anything you’d like. I’m going to have to write about you in the book. I’ve already written a little.”

  “You wrote about yesterday?” Stefanovitch coughed and patted his chest.

  “A little. Sure. I write every morning.” The look on her face was slightly impish, not so serious after all. Sarah McGinniss was actually much prettier than he had thought the other day. Her eyes had a nice sparkle.

  “How did I come off in what you wrote this morning?”

  “Just the way you were. Tough, pretty obnoxious. Remember, you’re the one who told me not to act so serious.” They both laughed. Things were improving.

  Their drinks came and the maître d’ made the usual impassioned plea for several of the house specials. Stefanovitch chose the calamari, plus mozzarella and beefsteak tomatoes. He was still learning to curb his appetite, adjusting to life in the Chair. Sarah went with a linguine, clam, and shrimp dish; prosciutto and melon to start.

  “My first impression was that you were pretty serious yourself,” Sarah said. She was talking with her head cocked to one side. The effect was captivating. “Aren’t you?”

  Stefanovitch thought that she was working him a little bit, interviewing him. He found that interesting, a challenge to be dealt with.

  “I don’t know if I trust first impressions very much anymore,” he said. “People are becoming too slick nowadays. There are too many good actors out in the world.”

  “Now you sound like a cop again,” Sarah said.

  “I am a cop. That was just my impression of one, though. Want to hear the Minersville, Pennsylvania, impression? The navy port-of-call impression? I do a few different voices, a few acts. Every street cop has to be a little bit of a con artist.”

  Sarah decided to take a chance as she listened to John Stefanovitch become more human. Afterward, though—while they were heading back to Police Plaza—she would wonder if she’d had any right to ask the next few questions.

  She leaned forward on her elbows, holding his eyes with her own. “Tell me something about your life before the shooting, Lieutenant. Your wife’s name was Anna, wasn’t it? She was a teacher?”

  Stefanovitch moved uncomfortably in his wheelchair. He raised his wineglass but didn’t drink from it. His fingers lightly twirled the glass.

  Sarah saw that he was uneasy with her questions.

  “Yes, her name was Anna. Originally, she was Anna Maddalena. We met in Ashland, Pennsylvania, after I got out of the navy. I was in for four years.”

  “Tell me about Anna.” Sarah’s voice was quiet, confidential. Instinctively, she’d always been a good interviewer. She knew how to listen to people.

  “I think that, uh… Let’s see. When I was growing up, somewhere in between the usual bar-hopping stints, I guess I wondered what love was all about. Like how are you supposed to know when you’re actually in love?”

  He was much more open than she’d expected. It was almost as if Stefanovitch needed to talk.

  “How do you know that this is it for your lifetime?” he continued. “I was kind of lucky. Very lucky. For about four years, my priorities in life were very clear. Anna was first. Then came my job. In that order, and never a doubt about it in my mind.”

  Sarah was noticing that Stefanovitch’s hands had slid together. He had workingman’s hands. His fingers were clutched a little tightly, though, white at the tips.

  “We just happened to fit very nicely together. I guess we completed each other. When I heard about Anna’s death—I don’t know how to describe what I felt. An emptiness, a sense of nothingness. Something shattered inside. I—I don’t even know what to say to you.”

  It was a small, subtle thing, but Sarah heard his voice catch on the last few words.

  “End of interview,” he said. “Okay?”

  A terrible sorrow had been etched across his face. His brown eyes darted away, infinitely sad in that moment of truth, but then he forced them back to look at her.

  Sarah felt ashamed. Something in his eyes had reached out and touched her unexpectedly, completely caught her off guard.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t done that in a long time.” He offered a smile.

  Sarah felt warmly toward him for the first time. She understood a lot more about who he was, and she regretted having intruded on his grief. She noticed that her own hands were clenched.

  “No, no. I’m sorry. You probably haven’t had somebody asking you personal questions like that. I feel bad. I’m so sorry. Really I am.”

  Stefanovitch suddenly extended his hand across the table, carefully threading a path between the wineglasses. He was smiling again. A resilient man, Sarah thought.

  “This is going to work out after all,” he said.

 
Sarah was still feeling embarrassed about her leading questions. She took Stefanovitch’s offered hand and shook it.

  She looked into his eyes, and knew she saw honesty there. Maybe he was right, maybe first impressions shouldn’t be trusted anymore.

  “So tell me what you saw at the dirty movies today,” he finally asked.

  26

  Isiah Parker; Cin-Cin

  THE ONLY INDICATION that 649 Spring Street wasn’t just another greasy, somber warehouse facade was an inconspicuous blue neon sign. “BAR” was all it said.

  Neither the name of the after-hours spot—Cin-Cin—nor anything else that might attract attention was visible from the street. There was no clue that one of New York’s hottest clubs was inside the dreary warehouse.

  Isiah Parker leaned against a chain fence across the street from the club’s entranceway.

  He watched the usual doorman scene for a little more than an hour.

  The caste system at Cin-Cin was based on money, looks, and what was described as “who you know, who you blow.” The two punk-beautiful doormen were arrogant and cruel, contemporary racists, Parker couldn’t help thinking as he watched them work, selecting one or two to be allowed inside, contemptuously rejecting others.

  At three in the morning, Isiah Parker crossed the cobblestone street. Properly dressed, interesting enough, he was allowed inside Cin-Cin. He looked like he belonged, with his dark blue Paris blouse, loose black karate-gi trousers, black half boots, a diamond stud in his right ear.

  Parker understood the scene at the Cin-Cin club. Friday night was the night here. Just as Monday was the night at Heartbreak, and Wednesday was the night at Area, and so on around the city.

  Muscular bouncers were posted everywhere. They were mostly nasty weightlifter types who weren’t really all that tough.

  The crowd milling around was the usual for a club of the moment. Commercial musicians and assorted Soho artists. Uptown fashion models, designers, famous athletes, trash from Queens, undercover police detectives who were actually a recognized part of the scene.

  Parker found himself wondering how these people could do the scene—starting to party at one or two, often continuing until eight or nine. Then maybe breakfast at the Moonlighter, or the Empire Diner. Then what?

  There was the usual crush of bodies mingling around the large horseshoe-shaped bar. Most of the men and women were dressed in black—black boots, black shoes and socks, black leather and buckskin vests, black turtlenecks and pants. Some of these people would casually drop four hundred dollars for a pair of black combat boots at nearby Comme des Garçons.

  A few adventurers were outfitted in trash and vaudeville getups, pointy shoes from London, Betsey Johnson finery. Tattoos decorated an occasional cheek or forehead.

  Isiah Parker’s brother, Marcus, had once said that New York’s night people were “living rock ‘n’ roll.” Marcus had meant that they were actually living rock and roll lyrics, not faking it for show. This was their life.

  As he drifted away from the central bar, Parker found his body beginning to respond to the music: European disco mainly, not recognizable songs. Groups from the Netherlands and West Germany, from Italy, Sweden, and Norway dominated. Occasionally an American tune would break through, by experimental groups like Husker Du, the Blow Monkeys, Fine Young Cannibals.

  “You want to dance? Dance with me, okay?” A tall slender black woman had come up to Parker. She wore a molded-to-the-body black leather dress with zippers at the neck and across her breasts. A Pomes Segli veiled hat completed the outfit.

  Pickups were made by both women and men, but more often by women at Cin-Cin. Parker wanted to be friendly, but not to stand out tonight.

  “Sure, let’s dance.”

  They walked onto the dance floor and began to move.

  “You’re a good dancer. Smooth. Nice,” she whispered, smiling shyly after the song had ended. “I have to go to the bathroom. Want to come avec moi?”

  “Not right now. I’ll see you later, maybe.”

  “Okay then. Ciao. Thanks for the dance. I like your diamond, the earring. It suits you.”

  “Ciao.”

  Parker moved on. The girl was pretty, at least in these party lights, but he couldn’t get connected tonight.

  He passed into a smaller, more intimate chamber. Everything was glowing pink. Humorous, posturing flamingos were set into the walls.

  Some of the club’s owners, plus a few heavy hitters, were clustered in the pink room. A well-known tennis player was giving audience. So was a famous rock singer. His fashion-model wife was at his side.

  Isiah Parker couldn’t help thinking about his brother as he strolled around the room. He and Marcus had come to Cin-Cin in the glory days. He remembered a private room near the kitchen where crack was smoked in water pipes.

  He noticed a clique of Oliver Barnwell’s associates congregated in the room. Barnwell’s group was the most territorial of New York’s narcotics gangs. They controlled Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and most of Soho. They were vicious about intrusions into their neighborhoods. Supposedly, Barnwell had been linked to Alexandre St.-Germain, to the sprawling syndicate currently invading the U.S. To the Midnight Club.

  Parker spotted Oliver Barnwell comfortably ensconced beside the bar. Worth two hundred million in his stocking feet, the mob overlord was outfitted in a brown suede sport coat, beige silk shirt, and tan slacks. Oliver Barnwell liked white women, and Parker immediately thought back to Allure, the connection to sex.

  Two spectacular-looking women were talking to him, whispering and posing. One of them toyed with the gold necklace around Barnwell’s throat. She had long, nervous fingers. Isiah Parker thought that she was definitely drug-sick.

  There were several possibilities. Parker carefully began to roll them around in his mind. Somehow, he had to get Barn-well out of the pink room.

  He decided to work under the worst assumption: that the bodyguards had already noticed him. Maybe they remembered when he used to drop into Cin-Cin with his brother.

  Suddenly, the small details didn’t matter. Oliver Barnwell had separated himself from the group. He was heading out of the womblike room. Parker watched Barnwell discuss something with his bodyguards, then wave them away. He seemed to think of himself as the original macho man from central Harlem, the optimum smooth operator. He could solo if he wanted. Anywhere, anytime.

  Isiah Parker followed the powerful drug dealer out of the barroom. It was easy to be unobtrusive in Cin-Cin, staying back fifteen or twenty feet.

  Oliver Barnwell turned into a shiny black and white corridor leading to the bathrooms.

  Isiah Parker followed behind. He tried not to think about what he had to do next. He couldn’t deal with that now. He thought about being a soldier again, the times back in Cambodia and Vietnam.

  He watched Barnwell’s back disappear into one of the doorways along the corridor—the ladies’ room, which usually had as many men as women inside.

  27

  THE LADIES’ ROOM at Cin-Cin was more crowded than the dance floor, or the main bar area. The musk of expensive colognes, mixed with liquor, created a fruity and exotic scent.

  Oliver Barnwell sat on the edge of one of the shiny porcelain sinks, laughing with a couple of wild-looking ladies.

  Parker’s eyes took in the heavily made-up faces. Thin, pouty slashes for mouths. Oliver Barnwell tapping a Jamaican cigar against the table surface, lighting up.

  Gloves were hot right now.

  Azzedine Alaia fashions were, too.

  Anything black and white.

  Pomes Segli.

  Armani still held his own with some of the more traditional men.

  Cheap chic still had a following.

  All kinds of sniffing and snorting were going on toward the rear of the cavernous bathroom. No sex seemed to be in progress, but Parker knew that sex wasn’t unusual in the bathroom stalls of the ladies’. At three forty-five, it was still early; the night was full of promise.

/>   Oliver Barnwell finally wandered back toward the smaller, interior room where all the toilet stalls and a few more sinks were located.

  Parker moved smoothly now, edging up quickly from behind. All of his senses were alert. He was aware of almost everything that was going on in the bathroom.

  For a moment, the two men could have been dancing a samba in the bathroom. It seemed as if the taller black man, Parker, simply needed to pass by to get to a toilet in a hurry.

  “You piece of shit. Pusher,” he whispered. “Pusherman!”

  At first, Oliver Barnwell thought that Parker had punched him in the pit of his stomach. The pain and surprise in his eyes were sudden and extreme.

  When he looked down, he saw the stiletto stuck in his abdomen. An awful gush of blood was spurting. His eyes registered chaos and confusion. He seemed unable to believe he had been stabbed right there in the bathroom.

  Isiah Parker hurried out of the crowded ladies’ room. Clutching his coat to his body, he let the knife drop as he walked.

  Parker didn’t feel much of anything as he pushed his way outside. Oliver Barnwell sold heroin and other drugs to thousands of men, women, and children on the streets of Harlem. That was all he wanted to think about right now. All he needed to know.

  That, plus getting out of Cin-Cin as quickly as possible. Get to the elevator, get to the doorway, and out.

  “Somebody’s real sick in there. Hey, tell them somebody’s sick. There’s a bad overdose inside, man.” He spoke to anyone who would listen.

  The usual sickies in the crowd wolf-whistled and clapped. Everybody else seemed to take it calmly. The word was passed around, messengered along routinely. Someone had overdosed in the ladies’ room. A man was dead in there.

  Parker waited for the freight elevator going down. He was trying to look like part of a group of seven or eight leaving the club. The rock music thundering inside was deafening.

  He felt nothing as he finally descended to the street. Maybe a coldness in his stomach.