Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

numbers for Mikey LoTriglio’s known associates that he’d gotten from the FBI and the NYPD.

Three of Robby’s names were the guys who had sworn and deposed that Fat Mikey had sat with them in a booth at Rosie’s Bar in the meat district on Friday, August 18, from approximately three in the afternoon to—at least—six or seven. A couple of the other known associates were unavailable, currently residing in Allenwood federal correctional facility in Pennsylvania. Mrs. Fat, Loretta LoTriglio, had checked into Mount Sinai Hospital two days before the murder and was still there, recovering from a new silicon breast implant because the old one had slipped and her tit had wound up in her armpit or something.

So for lack of anything better to do, I decided to check out Mikey’s girlfriend, Terri Noonan, a part-time receptionist for an optician, who lived ten minutes from the Triborough Bridge in Jackson Heights, Queens.

I had an image of a gun moll with blond, teased hair and a wad of chewing gum. Terri Noonan had plain curly brown hair and no makeup. She wore a starched white blouse with a little round collar and a pale-blue cardigan sweater buttoned at the top. No jewelry. She looked like she belonged to an order of nuns that had given up the habit but not the vows.

Except when you looked twice—and you had to because she didn’t show it off—you could see she had an absolutely spectacular, long-legged, big-boobed showgirl body. My guess was that Mikey had gotten it mixed up: he’d married the bimbo and kept the sweetie pie on the side.

Terri tried a whispery “Mikey Who?” but gave up after I said “Come on, Terri.” She asked me in and MAGIC HOUR / 185

made me a cup of tea. The apartment, like the woman, was comfortable, simple, although as I’d passed the bedroom, I’d spotted a round bed with a quilted violet cover. But the living room had a green-and-white-striped plaid couch, green tweedy club chairs, a couple of trees in giant pots and green wall-to-wall carpet. Nice, comfortable. The kind of stuff a cop’s wife who had good taste would buy. She poured the tea from a pot with flowers, then went back to the kitchen and returned with a plate of bakery cookies; she probably bought them fresh every day in case Mikey dropped by. I couldn’t help staring; instead of the nun cardigan and the plain navy skirt, she should be wearing tassels and a G-string.

She said, “God, Mikey was so upset about Sy. No kidding.”

She pointed to a Linzer torte. “Raspberry jelly inside that one.”

“You mean Mikey was upset because they were fighting about the way the movie was going?” I didn’t think Terri was trying to look dumb; Mikey probably hadn’t told her a thing. “You know,” I said. “The movie Sy was making, Starry Night. The movie Mikey invested in.”

“I swear to God, Officer, he never said anything about any movie or any investment.”

“And he never said he and Sy had words?”

She crossed her heart, held her hand up and said, “Cross my heart, my mother’s life to die. Not a word. I mean, I knew about Sy because he was kind of famous, and one time when Loretta—Mikey’s wife—was out at La Costa we went to a premiere and a big party after for one of Sy’s movies.

But they was friends from the old days, and Mikey didn’t talk about him all that much, except, like, to reminisce. But when he died, Mikey came right over.” Terri blinked. “He was in tears, and Mikey’s not one of these phony 186 / SUSAN ISAACS

guys who cries all the time. I never, ever saw him like that before.”

“When was that, Terri?”

“Uh, let me think. Saturday morning. That’s when I make him my cheese omelet.”

“You know Sy was killed late Friday afternoon. About four-twenty.”

“I didn’t know the exact time,” she said, and broke off a tiny end of a chocolate chip cookie and put it in her mouth.

I put down the teacup and looked straight at her. “Terri, this is important. Where was Mikey at the time of the murder?”

“Friday?”

“Friday.”

“Why is it important?”

“Do I have to draw you a picture?”

Terri readjusted the stiff little collar of her blouse so it lay flat over the cardigan. “Mikey was here. In this apartment.”

“With you?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing?”

She glanced down at her flat-heeled shoes. “It was personal.”

“You and Mikey were having relations at or about four P.M. last Friday?”

She raised her right hand. “From three till six,” she swore.

“Mikey must be quite a guy.”

“He’s a little on the large side, but he’s in very good health.”

“Will you sign a statement to the effect that he was here with you?”

“In blood,” she said. Instead, I handed her my Bic and watched as she began writing “I, Theresa Kathleen Noonan, do swear…” “See,” she said, after

MAGIC HOUR / 187

she signed her name, “Mikey couldn’t have been out in the Hamptons when Sy was killed, because he was here with me!”

But now Mikey had two alibis—which was as good as none at all.

So I should have felt better about Bonnie, right? It ought to be comforting to know that your sicko obsession may, in fact, be a nice, nonhomicidal girl.

Driving home on the Northern State, somewhere around the middle of Nassau County, I started having this fantasy about knocking at Bonnie’s door and saying, Thank me. She asks why, and I say, Because I blew Mikey LoTriglio’s alibi out of the water. And then, We put a tap on his phone and guess what? He got a call from some two-bit, piece-of-shit wise guy who, it turns out, pulled the trigger of the .22—on Mikey’s orders. You’re home free, Bonnie.

Then I had an alternate fantasy where she’s back from a hard run, her face rosy, her breath coming in gulps, and I pull up, get out of the car and tell her, Listen, everything’s okay. We did a routine check, and it turns out