“Oh, right… we had a little problem.”
“What happened?”
“Someone just got a little too boisterous with the girls. It happens sometimes.”
“And that’s all it was?”
“Yes. She left right afterward. It’s a shame about her getting killed like that, but it had nothing to do with my place.”
I rolled my eyes but I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t figure a guy like Clausen was going to tell me anything significant – even if there was anything to tell me. I wasn’t picking up on anything out of the ordinary here, but still, I wanted to check out the other places from Maura Walsh’s log that night.
When I left the Hands On club, I saw a woman standing on the street outside the front door smoking a cigarette. I recognized her. It was the woman that Clauson had called “Bubbles”.
“That was pretty funny,” she called over to me now.
“You mean my remark about how he must be a real media celebrity in this job?”
“No, the load of BS he was giving you about why the policewoman was here that night.”
“He didn’t tell me the truth?”
She laughed. “Ol’ Marty’s not a big believer in the truth.”
I walked over to where she was standing. Up close, she looked even younger than she had in the bar. I told her who I was and she said her name was Nancy Wesley. Bubbles was the name they’d given her to use for the customers in the club.
“Why do you…?”
“You mean, how did a nice girl like me wind up working in a place like this?”
“Something like that.”
“I need the money to pay my tuition.”
“Tuition?”
“I go to NYU. I’m a business management major. I go to classes full-time, then work here part-time to pay the bills. It’s only for a little while until I graduate. Believe me. I’m not going to be doing this any longer than I have to.”
I nodded.
“Were you working the night Maura Walsh came in?”
“Sure. I saw her a bunch of times.”
“She was here more than once?”
“The two of them were – her and her partner. They came twice a month. It was like clockwork. Then they would do business with Marty.”
“What kind of business?”
“What do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
“Picking up their money from Marty.”
“Wait a minute… Clauson was paying them?”
“Yep. The Walsh woman picked up her five hundred dollars from him that night. The way she always did. That was the deal.”
Damn. Not that cops taking payoffs was a new phenomenon in New York City. That kind of corruption has been going on for years. What was startling was that the daughter of the deputy police commissioner – the man known as the “Prince of the City” because he was so squeaky clean – was doing it.
But that sure might explain why Billy Renfro was reluctant to be entirely truthful with me about the details of that night.
“You know, she was a piece of work, that Walsh woman,” Nancy continued, grinding her cigarette under her heel. “I mean, she looked like an angel but she took the money like a pro. Icy cold, no nerves, totally businesslike about it. She knew exactly what she wanted. Hey, I understand that – it’s just the way things are. She’s not the first cop on the take, she won’t be the last. I’m not naïve. Anyway, it’s a shame how things worked out for her. Getting blown away like that by a drug dealer or crazy person or whatever. Real bad luck.”
It didn’t take long after that to confirm Maura Walsh was definitely not the hero cop her family and everyone else had made her out to be.
The story at the apartment house where Maura Walsh and Billy Renfro had gone next was pretty much the same. There was an escort service – or, more accurately, a prostitution service calling itself by a fancier name – operating out of the first floor.
At first, the woman who ran it was reluctant to tell me anything about why Maura Walsh had been there. But when I told her what I already knew – and threatened to write an article about what kind of business she was really running – she agreed to talk off the record about Maura Walsh and Billy Renfro.
“It’s the cost of doing business,” the woman told me. “I understand that. I take care of the police, and they take care of me.”
“You realize, of course,” I said, “that paying off a police officer is illegal?”
“Yeah, well, try telling that to a cop who threatens to shut you down if you don’t pay up. Besides, everyone does it.”
“Who told you that?”
“She did.”
I had no idea who the “informant” was who Walsh and Renfro had met with on the Upper East Side, but – based on the rest of their activities – it seemed likely that something illicit had gone down there.
And the bodega owner who was another stop on that night admitted to making payoffs to Renfro and Walsh too. He said they had threatened to write him up for all sorts of violations if he didn’t pay them what they wanted. He paid.
The bodega owner then added a new piece to the puzzle for me.
“Are you working with the other guy?” he asked me, crossing his arms over his belly.
“What other guy?”
“The private investigator.”
“I’m a reporter, not a private investigator.”
“Well, he was asking me lots of questions about them too.”
Why would a private investigator be checking up on Walsh and Renfro’s activities?
“Do you remember the private investigator’s name?” I asked.
“Uh, Walters… no, Walker… no, it was Walosin. That’s it. Frank Walosin? He left me his card. Told me to call him if I remembered anything else on the two of them. Let me see if I can find it for you.”
He came back a few minutes later and handed me a small white business card. It read: “Walosin Private Investigations – Friendly operators, friendly service, friendly rates.” There was a picture of a smiling man below the words. Friendly seemed to be the key theme here.
But what did it all mean?
Was it possible this corruption thing had something to do with Maura’s death? That it wasn’t just a random killing, as everyone assumed? But, even if she was on the take, why would anyone want her dead? And why was a private investigator involved in it? I rolled all that around in my head for a while, looking for an answer… and got nowhere.
Also, the police investigating her murder must know about this too. I mean, I’d found out about all the payoffs she was taking pretty quickly. Apparently, so had Walosin, the private investigator. Maybe the police were aware of the corruption angle, but they didn’t think it had anything to do with her death? They were probably trying to keep it under wraps to protect the reputation of her father and the department.
After I left the bodega, I took out my phone and called the number of the private investigator listed on the card the owner had given me.
“Yeah,” a voice rasped on the other end.
“Frank Walosin, please.”
“You got him. Start talking, but make it fast. Otherwise I’ll have to bill you for my time, lady.”