Privileged Lives

“Do Jews believe in hell?”

“He’s Catholic. Spellman baptized him. Morgenstern hates Jews.”

“Did Spellman give him a plenary indulgence?”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t.”

“Spellman dealt everything—real estate, POW’s, indulgences.”

“How do you know all this stuff about Spellman and Morgenstern?”

“Everyone knows Spellman had a weakness for pretty little Jewish boys. Which Morgenstern was before he turned into the portrait of Dorian Gray.”

“I mean the inside stuff. How did you get it?”

“I had an inside track.” There was a pause, just a beat of silence, as if she were deciding how far she could trust him. “My brother and Morgenstern were lovers. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“Some gays cruise subway johns and get caught, and some gay lawyers cruise police lockups. Morgenstern got Brian off a soliciting charge. He liked Brian’s looks, he liked Brian’s style: Brian was the kind of person he could take to Gracie Mansion and the Archdiocesan Palace and the Harmonie Club without everyone snickering.”

She lit another cigarette, looked at it with hatred, and decapitated it against the edge of the ashtray.

“Brian was always looking for the big break. He said New York is a who-do-you-know town, Morgenstern knew everyone, if he slept with Morgenstern he’d know everyone. He’d even have contacts in the federal government, because Morgenstern had a town house in Washington, D.C.; it was a partying pad for him and his government co

“So what was in the relationship for Brian?”

“He hoped he’d get a little power. What he got instead was AIDS.”

Cardozo sat there watching Melissa Hatfield stare at him. He couldn’t buy that she had learned so much from her brother, or that Brian’s AIDS and his liaison with Morgenstern were the secret he’d sensed her holding back. “Melissa,” he said, “what don’t you want me to know?”

She looked surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s something else. From day one I’ve felt it.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Then why don’t you tell me?”

“Vince, I like you.” It seemed to embarrass her to make the admission. “I even thought … maybe …” She looked down at the paper place mat printed with drink recipes and began ru

“I do like you.”

“Would you like me if you knew I was sleeping with my boss? Nat Chamberlain, who’s put up half the overpriced firetrap co-ops in Manhattan and took more graft than any politician in this city?”

The picture finally came into focus. “Why would I blame you for him?”

“Last spring there was a fire in one of Nat’s flagship co-ops. A policeman died from burns he got rescuing a woman.”

“You didn’t build the building—you didn’t set the fire.”

“But somebody set it. And the insurance paid Nat another forty-four million.” Melissa was silent a moment. “I feel dirty.”

“Welcome to the real world.”

“That’s all—welcome to the real world?”

“If there’s any other answer, I don’t know it.” Cardozo sighed and signaled for the check.

46

CARDOZO PHONED THE LEWIS Monserat Gallery.

The woman with the prim voice said gallery hours were Tuesday through Saturday, 11 A.M. till 6 P.M.—except Thursday, when hours were 12 till 8 P.M. She added, “We’re closed Saturdays during the summer.”

“Nothing like a long weekend,” Cardozo said.

Cardozo examined the facade of 432 Franklin Street.

It was a typical conversion, a six-story industrial building with a column of windows marked Shaftway where the freight elevator ran. No amount of sand-blasting would ever turn the brick walls into brownstone, any more than fresh black paint would ever turn the fire escape into wrought iron art nouveau.

A sign swinging from the lowest cross-walk of the escape a

He pushed through the unlocked gray iron security door. A hand-lettered sign taped to the mailboxes inside requested, FOR YOUR OWN SECURITY PLEASE LOCK FRONT DOOR AFTER 11 P.M. THERE HAVE BEEN INCIDENTS.

Cardozo studied the building directory. Fewer than half the apartments were occupied, and there was no name in either fourth-floor slot.

The owners had installed an i

A glance at the first floor told him that the A apartments were at the front of the building, the B’s at the rear.

He took the stairway to the fourth floor, two quiet steps at a leap.

The lock on 4A was a Medeco—not pickproof, but certainly MasterCard-proof.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice called irritably from upstairs.

Cardozo returned to his car, parked twenty yards down the opposite curb of Franklin Street, and took up his vigil, staring up at the dark windows on the fourth floor of 432.

He observed relatively little movement on Franklin. The street looked as if it had originally been an alley between two rows of warehouses. Judging by the garbage cans, most of the buildings had converted to residences. There were no stores, no restaurants, no reason to wander down the poorly lit pavement unless you happened to live there or needed a quiet wall to piss against or wanted a little semiprivacy to screw in.

Hudson, the cross street, was obviously the place for action. There was something aimless but urgent about the human movement, as if this was the now spot, the place to get sucked into the whirl of high-media exposure. The dress code was expensive sleaze, punk as modified by the fashion dictators. From his vantage point Cardozo couldn’t see a person over thirty on the sidewalk.

Porsches and BMW’s, Mercedeses and stretch limos crawled along, battling pedestrians for right of way. The cars changed colors like chameleons as they passed glitzy show windows and flashing neon logos.

Besides boutiques, card shops, and health food eateries, there was a disco called Space on the corner, guarded by an unsmiling seven-foot albino dressed in blue mylar. Next to it a restaurant sign flashed LA CÔTE BLEUE; through the window Cardozo could see the big circular glass bar mobbed with customers waiting to be seated.

The intersection smelled of sex and fashion and money—the things that made New York New York.

A little after eleven, a cruising police car hooked a turn down Franklin. The blue-and-white pulled alongside Cardozo.