and went inside. The place smelled like a backed-up sewer. Large, rust-colored stains blotched the sagging cardboard ceiling. Warped wooden flooring creaked and groaned. In glass-fronted display windows along either wall, wax mannequins stood stiffly at attention, an army of cigar-store Indians,
The Hall of American Presidents came first: identically featured chief executives dressed in the discards of a vaudeville costume shop. After F. D. R. it was all murderer’s row. I walked through a maze of mayhem. Hall-Mills, Snyder-Gray, Bruno Hauptmann, Winnie Ruth Judd, the Lonely Hearts killers; all were there, wielding sashweights and meat saws, stuffing dismembered limbs into trunks, adrift in oceans of red paint.
In the back I found Danny Dreenan on his hands and knees inside a show window. He was a small man wearing a faded blue workshirt and salt-and-pepper wool slacks. A turned-up nose and sparse blond mustache gave him the expression of a frightened hamster. His habit of blinking his eyes rapidly when he spoke didn’t help any.
I tapped on the glass and he looked up at me and smiled around a mouthful of carpet tacks. He mumbled something unintelligible, put down his hammer, and slipped out through a small crawl-space in the back. He was working on the barber shop slaying of Albert Anastasia, Lord High Executioner of Murder, Inc. Two masked killers pointed revolvers at the sheet-draped figure in the chair, while the barber stood calmly in the background waiting for another customer.
“Hiya, Harry,” Danny Dreenan called cheerfully, coming up behind me where I didn’t expect him. “Whaddya think of my latest masterpiece?”
“Looks like they’ve all got rigor mortis,” I said. “Umberto Anastasia, right?”
“Give the man a free cigar. Can’t be too bad if you guessed it right off.”
“I was over by the Park Sheraton yesterday, so it’s fresh on my mind.”
” ‘S gonna be my big new attraction for the season.”
“You’re a year late. The headlines are as cold as the corpse.”
Danny blinked nervously. “Barber chairs are expensive, Harry. I couldn’t afford no improvements last season. Say, that hotel sure is good for business. Didja know Arnold Rothstein got knocked off there back in twenty-eight? Only it was called the Park Central in them days. Come on, I got him up front; I’ll show you.”
“Some other time, Danny. I see enough of the real thing to keep me satisfied.”
“Yeah, I guess you do at that. So what brings you out to this neck of the woods, as if I didn’t know already.”
“You tell me, since you know all about it.”
Danny’s eyes were going like insane semaphores. “I don’t know beans about it,” he stammered. “But I figger, if Harry comes to see me, he’s gonna want some info.”
“You figured it just right,” I said. “What can you tell me about a fortuneteller named Madame Zora? She worked the midway here back in the early forties.”
“Aw, Harry, you know I can’t help you there. I had a Florida real estate scam going in them days. It was Easy Street for Danny Dreenan back then.”
I shook a cigarette from my pack and offered one to Danny who wagged his head negatively. “I didn’t think you could finger her for me, Danny,” I said, lighting up. “But you’ve been around a while now. Tell me who the old-timers are. Put me wise to someone who knows the score.”
Danny scratched his head to show me he was thinking. “I’ll do what I can. Problem is, Harry, most everybody who can afford it is off in Bermuda or someplace. I’d be lying on a beach myself if I wasn’t up to my neck in bills. I ain’t complaining; after the joint, Brighton Beach looks good as Bermuda any day.”
“There must be someone around. You’re not the only one open for business.”
“Yeah, now you mention it, I know just the people to send you to. There’s a freak show over on 10th Street near the Boardwalk. Ordinarily, most of the oddities would be working the
The Hall of American Presidents came first: identically featured chief executives dressed in the discards of a vaudeville costume shop. After F. D. R. it was all murderer’s row. I walked through a maze of mayhem. Hall-Mills, Snyder-Gray, Bruno Hauptmann, Winnie Ruth Judd, the Lonely Hearts killers; all were there, wielding sashweights and meat saws, stuffing dismembered limbs into trunks, adrift in oceans of red paint.
In the back I found Danny Dreenan on his hands and knees inside a show window. He was a small man wearing a faded blue workshirt and salt-and-pepper wool slacks. A turned-up nose and sparse blond mustache gave him the expression of a frightened hamster. His habit of blinking his eyes rapidly when he spoke didn’t help any.
I tapped on the glass and he looked up at me and smiled around a mouthful of carpet tacks. He mumbled something unintelligible, put down his hammer, and slipped out through a small crawl-space in the back. He was working on the barber shop slaying of Albert Anastasia, Lord High Executioner of Murder, Inc. Two masked killers pointed revolvers at the sheet-draped figure in the chair, while the barber stood calmly in the background waiting for another customer.
“Hiya, Harry,” Danny Dreenan called cheerfully, coming up behind me where I didn’t expect him. “Whaddya think of my latest masterpiece?”
“Looks like they’ve all got rigor mortis,” I said. “Umberto Anastasia, right?”
“Give the man a free cigar. Can’t be too bad if you guessed it right off.”
“I was over by the Park Sheraton yesterday, so it’s fresh on my mind.”
” ‘S gonna be my big new attraction for the season.”
“You’re a year late. The headlines are as cold as the corpse.”
Danny blinked nervously. “Barber chairs are expensive, Harry. I couldn’t afford no improvements last season. Say, that hotel sure is good for business. Didja know Arnold Rothstein got knocked off there back in twenty-eight? Only it was called the Park Central in them days. Come on, I got him up front; I’ll show you.”
“Some other time, Danny. I see enough of the real thing to keep me satisfied.”
“Yeah, I guess you do at that. So what brings you out to this neck of the woods, as if I didn’t know already.”
“You tell me, since you know all about it.”
Danny’s eyes were going like insane semaphores. “I don’t know beans about it,” he stammered. “But I figger, if Harry comes to see me, he’s gonna want some info.”
“You figured it just right,” I said. “What can you tell me about a fortuneteller named Madame Zora? She worked the midway here back in the early forties.”
“Aw, Harry, you know I can’t help you there. I had a Florida real estate scam going in them days. It was Easy Street for Danny Dreenan back then.”
I shook a cigarette from my pack and offered one to Danny who wagged his head negatively. “I didn’t think you could finger her for me, Danny,” I said, lighting up. “But you’ve been around a while now. Tell me who the old-timers are. Put me wise to someone who knows the score.”
Danny scratched his head to show me he was thinking. “I’ll do what I can. Problem is, Harry, most everybody who can afford it is off in Bermuda or someplace. I’d be lying on a beach myself if I wasn’t up to my neck in bills. I ain’t complaining; after the joint, Brighton Beach looks good as Bermuda any day.”
“There must be someone around. You’re not the only one open for business.”
“Yeah, now you mention it, I know just the people to send you to. There’s a freak show over on 10th Street near the Boardwalk. Ordinarily, most of the oddities would be working the
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