The Eighth Circle

by Stanley Ellin

  The question, undigested and acid, lay on his mind that night, making sleep impossible. He shifted from one position to another in the bed, the blanket always too heavy, the pillow too hot, too soft, too lumpy under his head. Finally, he sat bolt upright, turned on the bed light, and looked at his watch. Three-thirty. He picked up the phone, held it while he decided on a suitable opening remark, and then dialed.

  The voice that answered him was blurred and languorous with sleep. “Yay-us?” it said, and then trailed off into something between a yawn and a sigh.

  “Didi,” said Murray, “the world is waiting for the sunrise. Are you waiting for it all by your own self, perhaps?”

  “I guess I am. Murray, are you feeling all right? You sound all sorts of queer to me. Are you drunk?”

  “No,” he said, “but it’s an idea. I’m sorry I bothered you, Didi. I’ll call you some other time during the week.”

  “Any time, honey. Any time at all.”

  He hung up when he heard her phone click. He lit a cigarette, then rolled over on his back and studied the shadows on the ceiling.

  Blow, blow, thou winter wind, he thought. She was quite a girl, was Didi. When he had worked on her divorce suit a few years ago she had been Mrs. Alfred Donaldson of Amarillo, Texas, whose husband had discovered the fleshpots of New York with a whoop and a cry. Then she had been a lanky, sunburned girl, her hair tortured into a cast-iron permanent wave, her slightly too-large teeth showing in an eternally hopeful, hesitant smile. Now she was smoothly rounded, the complexion was ivory, the hair was a sleek golden casque, the capped teeth were flawless to behold, and the little smile was all-knowing.

  Quite a girl. She was the one who had taken him one night to the West Side saloon where a mad Welsh bard was holding court. She was completely, undyingly in love with the bard, she explained, and since he was combining an erratic lecture tour of America with a sterling effort to drink himself to death she was making it her life’s work to save him from himself.

  It had been a wild night altogether, the bard roaring fantastic obscenities, pawing at Didi until in the ensuing wrestling match he emerged triumphant with her brassière, and then drinking himself into a puking collapse. Another woman might have left before the final round, but Didi remained to the bitter end, watching starry-eyed as the sodden remains were hauled away.

  Murray had borrowed a book of the man’s poetry from her that night. Back at the St. Stephen he read pages at random, walking the floor barefooted, feeling his first incredulity at the splendor of the lines turn to a voluptuous pleasure in them and then finally become an anger at the gifted hulk who had written them, just for being a hulk. It was impossible, he found, to dissociate the work from the man, once you had met the man.

  The bard had died, Didi had wept and moved on to a young Accidentalist painter, but the book of poetry was still somewhere in the apartment. Murray got out of bed and padded around the bookshelves until he found it. He opened it, and then felt such a qualm of revulsion that he almost flung it from him.

  The bottle of cognac was in a cabinet nearby. He used that, instead.

  5

  Harlingen called Friday morning to say that he had arranged the meeting with Benny Floyd.

  “It’s at twelve o’clock noon in the Madison Square Garden arcade,” he said apologetically. “I know it’s short notice, but Floyd wasn’t keen about going through with this in the first place, and I didn’t want to give him time to change his mind.”

  “That’s all right. Did he have anything interesting to say when you talked to him?”

  “No. Oh, when I said something about getting in touch with Lundeen so that he could come along with us Floyd made quite a fuss. I imagine that he feels the best policy is not to be seen publicly with Lundeen right now.”

  “You can’t blame him for that,” Murray said. “All right, I’ll see you at twelve.”

  It was a fifteen-minute walk cross-town to the Garden. When Murray entered the arcade he found Harlingen and Floyd already there, coat collars up against the dankness of the place, feet stamping against the numbing chill of the concrete floor. Floyd turned out to be one of that new breed of policeman, the kind who look too young and callow to be carrying a badge. He was a tall, skinny boy with pale eyes, and with a habit of now and then suddenly shooting out his jaw as if to drag an oversized Adam’s apple up from under his collar. Not a bad witness, Murray reflected, if he could face cross-examination without tripping over his tongue. He was something any jury would immediately recognize, the gawky kid with the makeshift fishing pole right off the cover of a family magazine.

  Harlingen made the introductions, and the three of them moved out to the street.

  “I’ll lay it on the line for you,” Murray said to Floyd. “Schrade was arrested six months ago, so naturally you won’t be able to remember everything about it. That means that LoScalzo can really put you through the grinder when you testify. You know. Every time you have to say, ‘I can’t remember,’ or you have to stop and think things over, he gives the jury that great big look to point up what a faker you are. But, what the hell, I’m not telling you anything new. You must have testified before.”

  “I never testified for the defense,” Floyd said unhappily.

  “It comes to the same thing. Just sound as if you know what you’re talking about, and don’t get rattled. That’s why I want to run through this thing now, so that you’ll have it all straight in your mind.” Murray pulled out the transcript of Lundeen’s tape and studied it briefly. “First of all, when you and Lundeen were around here that day how were you working things?”

  “Well, we were heading downtown. He was over here, and I was across the street. We were keeping each other under surveillance.”

  “All right. Now, how does Mr. Harlingen here compare to Lundeen in height?”

  Floyd eyed Harlingen up and down. “About the same, I guess.”

  “Then he’ll be Lundeen, and you and I’ll cross over and keep him under surveillance.”

  They moved along like this for two blocks, Murray watching Harlingen’s pearl-gray fedora bob up and down over the roofs of the cars that filled the avenue. Then Floyd suddenly stopped, and Murray observed that Harlingen’s hat stopped simultaneously.

  “Now I went across the street, and we ate in that place right where Mr. Harlingen is standing,” Floyd said. “That hot-dog joint.”

  “Would the guy who runs it know you?” Murray asked.

  Floyd looked doubtful. “I don’t think he knows anything. He’s just about bright enough to make change. He don’t even speak English.”

  “All right, let’s take a look.”

  They joined Harlingen in front of the stand, which was glassed in against the weather, its counter stained and dirty, its floor a litter of used paper cups and cigarette butts.

  “I have an idea,” Murray told Harlingen. “I don’t know if it’s worth anything, but it’s an idea. Anyhow, it’s cold enough for a cup of coffee.”

  He led the way in, and the three of them lined up at the counter. The man behind the counter was small and swarthy, with a badly pockmarked face, but with the beautifully kept hair and the well-trimmed mustache of a dandy. Young, Murray estimated; about twenty-two or twenty-three. The thin, tired-looking girl who was his assistant was probably his wife.

  The coffee came in paper cups, a dollop of milk and sugar in each, a wooden paddle shaped like a tongue depressor laid on the counter beside the cup. Murray idly stirred his coffee and watched the counterman run a foul-smelling rag the length of the counter. When the man was opposite him Murray smiled, and the man smiled back, a bright, meaningless smile.

  Murray leaned forward and pointed at Floyd. “¿Tú conoces a éste hombre?” he asked.

  The man’s smile remained as fixed, as bright, as meaningless as ever. “I know him,” he said in Spanish. “He is of the police.”

  “That is true. And he has a friend who is also of the police. Do you know that one, too?”

/>   “Why should I? I am not a man who cares for the horses or the bolita. What would I have to do with the police?”

  “I do not know; I do not care. I speak only of this policeman’s friend, who is in trouble. This other man and I are lawyers who wish to help him.”

  “Then help him, and God go with you.” The man made a brushing motion with his hands and turned away, and Murray saw Harlingen and Floyd following every gesture with blank incomprehension. He reached out and tapped the man’s arm, and the man turned the bright smile to him again.

  “Is the whole world your enemy?” Murray asked.

  “I did not say it was. I do not say you are. Where did you learn to speak the language like that? That is not the way they teach it in the schools here.”

  “I learned it from friends I lived with many years ago. Friends to me, benefactors to my father. Julio and Marta Gutiérrez. Perhaps you know them?”

  “No, but what matter? It is sufficient that you knew them, and that they were friends. As for me, I knew that policeman who is now in trouble, although he was no friend. A strange man. A very strange man.”

  “In what way?”

  “Oh, that is something that would take a big brain to understand. For myself, I see him as a man as handsome and arrogant as a cock on a dung heap, but with no real happiness in him. That is a sort of sickness, is it not? It seems to me that sooner or later someone like that comes to trouble.”

  “Then it does not surprise you to learn that he is in trouble now?”

  “I will not lie to you. It did not surprise me when I first heard it, and that was when he was removed from the police. It is the kind of thing idle people talk about while they are drinking their coffee here.”

  Murray nodded. “I see. And did you also know this Ira Miller?”

  “I knew about him. He was an important man in this vicinity. Why not, when he was the one to whom the idlers gave all their money every day?”

  “There is another—George Wykoff—of even greater importance than Miller. Was he also spoken about here?”

  The man hesitated. “Who am I to say?”

  “You are a citizen. It is a matter of duty.”

  “You are wrong. I am nothing. I am less than nothing.” The man held up a hand against Murray’s protest, cutting it short. “Please, this does not matter to me greatly, because, if God is good, my children will be a little more than I am, and my grandchildren will be everything I am not. That is a good idea, I think. Come back some time, and speak to my grandchildren in English, and perhaps they will understand this talk about citizens. It is something that must be said in English. Your people up here do not believe it can have a meaning in another language.”

  Murray shook his head. “Your quarrel is not with me.”

  “My quarrel is with nobody. I will prove that by giving you more coffee. Yours is already cold. There is no charge for this; it is my pleasure.”

  “You are kind.” Murray waited as the fresh coffee was put before him, a dark and bitter brew, and drank it slowly. Then he drew a card from his wallet and handed it to the man. “Now I ask a small favor.”

  “Which is—?”

  “Which is to give anyone concerned with this affair of the policeman my address. And this,” he said, putting a five-dollar bill on the counter where Harlingen could see it, “is for the children you spoke about. They will have a good father and grandfather, I think.”

  He led the way out, the fixed smile following him, he knew, to the very door. Outside, Floyd said with envy: “I wish to hell I could jabber Spanish like that. With all these monkeys flooding into town everybody’ll have to talk like that in a couple of years.” There was the light of professional interest in his eye. “He was saying something about the numbers game, wasn’t he? The bolita. What was that about?”

  “Nothing,” Murray said. “He told me he stays away from the rackets. I don’t think he’s lying about it, either.”

  “Well, what did you find out?” Harlingen demanded.

  “I wasn’t trying to find out anything from him,” Murray said impatiently. “Look, I want to get together with Wykoff. There are questions about Miller’s operations, his pay-offs, things like that which Wykoff could clear up in no time. And the only way we’ll ever get together is for him to come to me. That’s what I want our friend in there to do—shake the grapevine a little and stir up some interest. Then we’ll see.”

  “I don’t know,” Harlingen said. “Wykoff’s been cooperating with the D.A.’s office since they nabbed him. Why would he take any interest in Lundeen’s troubles?”

  “Because a man like Wykoff wants to know what cards everybody is holding. Anyhow, I’m not saying it’ll work. It’s just something we have to take a chance on. Meanwhile,” he said to Floyd, “let’s get back to the arrest. What did you and Lundeen do after you ate? Keep moving downtown the same way?”

  Floyd rubbed a hand slowly over his face, his brow furrowed with concentration. “Well, no,” he said at last. “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?” Harlingen asked.

  “Well,” Floyd said, “there’s a couple of hotels across the way, and I went over to check them—you know, go through the lobbies. Arnie wasn’t along with me then.”

  “How long was it before you got together again?” Murray asked.

  “Oh, not long.”

  “How long? Ten minutes?”

  “Maybe a little more than that.”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “It could be. That’s about what it was, I guess.”

  Harlingen looked aghast. “You mean that just before Lundeen arrested Schrade he was off some place where you weren’t even in touch with him!”

  “Jesus, Mr. Harlingen, I knew where to get in touch with him if I had to.”

  “Where?” Harlingen demanded.

  “Why don’t you ask Arnie about it?” Floyd pleaded. “Why do I have to go talking about it?”

  “Because,” said Harlingen, his voice heavy with sardonic emphasis, “you’ll have to go talking about it when you’re in the witness chair. Where was he for that twenty minutes?”

  “Ah, what the hell,” said Floyd. “Any time we were around Forty-eighth Street he used to take off for one of those flea-bag boarding houses down the block here. The dame who runs it is a real piece, Helene something-or-other. She’s nuts about Arnie. All he had to do was ring the bell, and she had her pants off for him. That’s all there was to it that day. Just a quickie.”

  “That’s all!” Harlingen said in outrage. “When Miller might have an interest in that woman? When he might be hitting at Lundeen out of plain jealousy? Damn it, why would you and Lundeen even try to keep anything as important as this hushed up?”

  Floyd said doggedly: “Because of Arnie’s girl, that’s why! Jesus, I’ve been on double dates with Arnie and Ruth, and she doesn’t even like it if he tries to hold hands with her. She’s against all that kind of stuff. How do you think she’d feel if she found out?”

  Harlingen took off his hat, drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and patted it over the red weal on his forehead left by the hat. He was an angry and bewildered man, and Murray, watching him, felt sorry for him.

  It wasn’t hard to understand his train of thought. Lundeen had been caught holding out on him; Lundeen could not be completely trusted any more. Yet Lundeen had apparently acted out of chivalry; he was willing to martyr himself to keep Ruth Vincent’s respect. That was something Harlingen could appreciate and condone. But, to go a logical step further, what kind of man could claim Ruth Vincent and still go tom-catting behind her back? Altogether it made a nice set of wheels within wheels. Anyone sticking a hand among them stood an interesting chance of winding up with no hand at all.

  Murray said abruptly: “There’s no use standing here like this. The smart thing to do is talk to this Helene. If she has anything to do with Miller it might come out that way.”

  “I was just thinking of that,” Harlingen said. “If I approac
hed her in the right way—”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Murray said. “You have to finish checking the arrest with Floyd, anyhow. He might remember some other things if he works at it a little.” He turned to Floyd, who stood sullenly hunched into his coat, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, a sorry Judas wondering how he had come to this plight. “Where do I find this dame?”

  “It’s that first brownstone down the block there, right after the warehouse. You just ask for Helene.”

  The neon sign in the window of the house flickered wildly: OOMS FOR ENT, it said. A man answered the doorbell, a gnomelike little man with a few strands of white hair combed across his head, a waxen pallor, and a pair of enormous, fanlike ears. He squinted suspiciously at Murray.

  “You looking for a room?” he said. His voice was as thin and quavering as a note badly played on the E-string of a violin.

  “No, I’m looking for the owner. Is she in?”

  The man wheezed and coughed. From his expression the sounds were probably intended to be a laugh.

  “You mean Helene, she’s been lying about it. She’s my wife, but I’m the owner. I’m the only owner around here. Every stick and stone here, it’s in my name.”

  “That’s fine,” Murray said, “but she’s the one I want. Is she in?”

  “She’s in.” The man thumbed Murray inside, and carefully closed the door behind him. Then he led the way along a dark corridor which reeked of cabbage and disinfectant to a kitchen at its far end.

  The kitchen was obviously the center of household life here. A stack of dirty dishes was piled high in the sink, a battered collection of movie-fan magazines littered the cupboard shelves, there was a huge television set in one corner, and at the table in the middle of the room a woman was undergoing some process of beautification. Wrapped in a bath sheet which outlined plump breasts and which afforded a fine view of sleek, naked legs exposed almost to the thigh, she sat forward holding dripping-wet red hair over a bowl of murky fluid.