Dark of the Moon
© 2024 by Walter Reimer and E.O. Costello


Five



I had a friend on the staff of the W-T&S, Joe della Croce. He worked the church beat and could usually be seen poking around The Powerhouse, which was a bit of a nickname for where the Cardinal lived. He doubled as the lead reporter for the Underworld desk, and he’d built up a good set of connections over the years with Certain People.

He would have called this “sending a message.”

I was thinking about this as I looked down at John Terhune’s corpse. Mouth and eyes closed, and even if they couldn’t Shift him back to human, he’d need a closed casket.

Sure, it was a message. Even I could see that.

But who was sending it, and what did it mean?

There was just too much I still didn’t know about werewolf society, but . . . wait a minute. The Widow Terhune said that her husband didn’t let her in on some things he was doing. What were those things? Could one of them have caused Terhune to end up on the table in front of me?

Cunningham nudged me. “Knocko?”

“Huh? What?”

He looked concerned. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just thinking.” I turned to face him, and jerked my head to a far corner of the room, where Ashcroft couldn’t hear us. When we got there Cunningham asked, “What?”

“I’m not going to talk about what was in his mouth,” I said carefully, “but I want to ask around a little. We both want to get this taken care of without it blowing up.”

He nodded, but eyed me. “Oh? Who?”

“Della Croce.”

“Your Mob reporter?”

“Yeah. See – quietly – if they know anything.”

“I’ll be talking to my own contacts,” Cunningham conceded. “Who else?”

“Terhune’s lawyer.”

Cunningham thought it over. “Be careful. You may be friends with werewolves, but lawyers are a different breed.”

“Heh. Found the barber yet?”

He shook his head. “No. We have his apartment staked out.”

I nodded and made a mental note.

“Bets on him ending up in here?”

Cunningham shrugged. “Even money.”


***


Because not a great deal was happening, I wrote one or two stories for the paper about older wolves, and how they were likely reacting to the murder. Before this happened, I usually did stories about their experiences in a growing modern city when things were slow. Armbruster once sneered, to my face, that they were "sob sister" stories, but I didn't give a damn.

The next day, I headed over to the Park Central Hotel to ask a few questions. That’s where the barber shop was located, and it was still closed while they plastered over the bullet holes and replaced the mirror and window. The place had a reputation as a jinxed location, or maybe it was just that it didn't meet up with expectations.

Time was, what was then Fourth Avenue was how the Central brought its trains into the city, with a big cut. Folks didn't like sparks, soot and the noise, so they eventually put everything underground. The railroad did well out of it, since Park Avenue, as it was now called, was wide and attractive. The view from Mr. Howard's office in the New York Central Building was terrific, as I've said.

The railroad had hotels on the other side of Grand Central Terminal, and the Park Central was supposed to be part of that. The Great War, the recession after it, and other projects, topped off by the Depression, meant that the site languished in a half-built state for years, and then was only half-occupied. The much bigger and grander Waldorf opening up in '31 just up the street didn't help matters, either.

So they more or less converted the Park Central into something of a residential hotel, the kind patronized by little old ladies with more class than money, and grey-haired ex-colonels eking out their pensions. Not a ratty Bowery joint by any stretch, but on the other hand, how the Central made any money out of it was a mystery.

I don't know if it was the shops on the ground floor. Certainly, every time I passed it, the Schrafft's was busy, and they had a decent barber shop there, too – well, did.

It took me a while to hunt down the manager. He was shorter than me, about twenty years older, and looked like he didn’t miss many meals. I showed him my press card, and he didn’t offer to shake hands before taking a seat behind his desk. “You’re not the first. Probably ain’t gonna be the last,” he grumbled.

“Sorry to bother you, Mister Lasky – “

He waved this off. “The shop’s closed until the paint’s dry, so there’s no money coming in. So I got time. Whaddaya want to know?”

“Do you know who the barber was at the time of the murder?”

“Hmmph. Yeah. Told the cops his name and address, too.” My expression made him add, “Lou Green,” and he gave an address down in SoHo, “and if you find him tell him he’s fired.”

“Fired?”

“Yeah.” Lasky looked at me. “We close at nine. I paid him and the others well enough to not open up after hours to moonlight. Especially for a furball.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “’Furball?’”

“Yeah, you know what I mean, a werewolf. One of them wants a trim, let ‘em go find a pet shop.” I guess my expression gave me away. “Oh yeah, you’re that guy, the one who speaks up for ‘em. Like I told the cops and the other reporters nosing around here, I got no beef with the furballs. If one wants a haircut, they gotta be at least looking human when they come in, see?”

I saw.

I closed my notepad, thanked him, and left. See if I spend any money here in the future.


***


“Hey, Joe, whaddaya know?”

Joe della Croce frowned at me. “Not funny, Knocko. What’s up?”

I looked down at my hands a moment. “You know about the Terhune murder.”

“Yeah.”

“You know it looks like a mob hit.”

Joe nodded. He’s not slow on the uptake. “You think the werewolves hired outside help?”

I shrugged. “When I talked to Mrs. Terhune, they said that didn’t think the Mob had anything to do with it.” I paused a moment. “One of the lawyers said that they had an ‘understanding.’”

He nodded and lit a cigarette. “Yeah, the Empire State Conference,” he said, giving the name of the meeting the Packs had had with the Five Families. They’d held the meeting at the Empire State Building, you see. He sat back in his chair, took a couple drags off his smoke and asked, “You asking me to poke around?”

I held up a hand. “Don’t stir things up too bad,” I said. “Chances are high that Cunningham and the other police are talking to their contacts – “

“Really high.”

“Right, so - wait a minute. You think the werewolves offed Terhune? He was their Alpha.”

Joe nodded. “But think about it. Think about the gang hits you’ve seen where someone takes a swing at the boss.”

I thought about it, and the thought chilled my blood. “So you don’t think the amici did it?”

“No, but I’ll ask around and see if anyone’s been hiring talent. You know anything about the politics inside the Packs?”

“Not as much as I’d like,” I grumbled. I knew who I had to talk with now.


***


“A message?” Michael asked as I slid the envelope to him. I had met him at our usual place for a beer, and after some talk about the Dodgers I had pulled the envelope out of my pocket. He’d looked a little uncomfortable, like he wanted to bring up a touchy subject.

“Yeah,” I said. “I want this to go all the way to the Widow Terhune.”

Michael gulped. “I-I dunno, Knocko – “

“I’m not expecting you to put it right into her hands, Mike,” I said. I took a swig of my beer. “Just deliver it to her house and tell whoever you give it to that it comes from me.” He nodded, but still looked uncomfortable. “You okay?”

“Hm? Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You look like something’s eating you.”

Michael frowned at his half-empty bottle of beer, tapping one foot. “Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?” I asked. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

He put a hand up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose as he sighed. “It’s not like that.”

“So what is it?”

Michael closed his eyes, lips moving like he was calling on a saint, and looked at me.

“My folks want me to invite you over for dinner.”




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