Walk Among the Tombstones: A Matthew Scudder Crime Novel

by Lawrence Block

  That brought my client to mind, if he’d ever been far from my thoughts, and when the next interview was with a recent Academy Award winner I hit the Mute button and called Kenan Khoury.

  He didn’t answer, but I kept trying, calling every half hour or so until I got him around ten-thirty. “Just walked in the door,” he said. “Scariest part of the trip was just now in the cab coming back from JFK. Driver was this maniac from Ghana with a diamond in his tooth and tribal scars on both cheeks, drove like dying in a traffic accident guaranteed you priority entry to heaven, green card included.”

  “I think I had him once myself.”

  “You? I didn’t think you ever rode in cabs. I thought you were partial to the subway.”

  “I took cabs all last night,” I said. “Really ran up the meter.”

  “Oh?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I turned up a couple of computer outlaws who found a way to dig some data out of the phone company’s records that the company said didn’t exist.” I gave him an abbreviated version of what we’d done and what I’d learned from it. “I couldn’t reach you for authorization and I didn’t want to wait on this, so I laid it out.”

  He asked what it came to and I told him. “No problem,” he said. “What did you do, front the expense money yourself? You shoulda asked Pete for it.”

  “I didn’t mind fronting it. I did ask your brother, as a matter of fact, because I couldn’t get to my own cash over the weekend. But he didn’t have it either.”

  “No?”

  “But he said to go ahead, that you wouldn’t want me to wait.”

  “Well, he was right about that. When’d you talk to him? I called him the minute I walked in the door but there was no answer.”

  “Saturday,” I said. “Saturday afternoon.”

  “I tried him before I got on the plane, wanted him to meet my flight, save me from the Ghanaian Flash. Couldn’t get him. What did you do, stall those guys on the cash?”

  “I got a friend to lend me enough to cover.”

  “Well, you want to pick up your dough? I’m beat, I’ve been on more planes in the past week than Whatsisname, just got back from the Middle East himself. The secretary of state.”

  “He was just on television.”

  “We were in and out of some of the same airports, but I can’t say we crossed paths. I wonder what he does with his Frequent Flyer miles. I ought to be eligible for a free trip to the moon by now. You want to come over? I’m wiped out and jet-lagged but I’m not gonna be able to sleep now anyway.”

  “I think I could,” I said. “In fact I think I’d better. I’m not used to pulling all-nighters, as my partners in crime called it. They took it in stride, but they’re a few years younger than I am.”

  “Age makes a difference. I never used to believe there was such a thing as jet lag, and now I could be the poster boy if they got up a national campaign against it. I think I’ll try to get some sleep myself, maybe take a pill to help me get under. Sunset Park, huh? I’m trying to think who I know there.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be anyone you know.”

  “You don’t, huh?”

  “They’ve done this before,” I said. “But strictly as amateurs. I know a few things about them I didn’t know a week ago.”

  “We getting close, Matt?”

  “I don’t know how close we’re getting,” I said. “But we’re getting somewhere.”

  * * *

  I CALLED downstairs and told Jacob I was taking my phone off the hook. “I don’t want to be disturbed,” I said. “Tell anybody who calls that they can reach me after five.”

  I set the clock for that hour and got in bed. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the map of Brooklyn, but before I could even begin to focus in on Sunset Park I was gone.

  Traffic noises roused me slightly at one point, and I told myself I could open my eyes and check the clock, but instead I drifted off into a complicated dream involving clocks and computers and telephones, the source of which was not terribly difficult to guess. We were in a hotel room and someone was banging on the door. In the dream I went to the door and opened it. Nobody was there, but the noise continued, and then I was out of the dream and awake and somebody was pounding on my door.

  It was Jacob, saying that Miss Mardell was on the phone and said it was urgent. “I know you wanted to sleep till five,” he said, “and I told her that, and she said to wake you no matter what you said. She sounded like she meant it.”

  I hung up the phone and he went back downstairs and put the call through. I was anxious waiting for it to ring. The last time she’d called up and said it was urgent, a man turned up determined to kill us both. I snatched the phone when it rang, and she said, “Matt, I hated waking you, but it really couldn’t wait.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It turns out there was a needle in the haystack after all. I just got off the phone with a woman named Pam. She’s on her way over here.”

  “So?”

  “She’s the one we’re looking for. She met those men, she got in the truck with them.”

  “And lived to tell the tale?”

  “Barely. One of the counselors I pitched the movie story to called her right away, and she spent the past week working up the courage to call. I heard enough over the phone to know not to let this one get away. I told her I could guarantee her a thousand dollars if she’d come over and run through her story in person. Was that all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “But I don’t have the cash. I gave you all my cash Saturday.”

  I looked at my watch. I had time to stop at the bank if I hurried. “I’ll get cash,” I told her. “I’ll be right over.”

  Chapter 13

  “Come on in,” Elaine said. “She’s already here. Pam, this is Mr. Scudder, Matthew Scudder. Matt, I’d like you to meet Pam.”

  She had been sitting on the couch and she arose at our approach, a slender woman, about five-three, with short dark hair and intensely blue eyes. She was wearing a dark gray skirt and a pale blue angora sweater. Lipstick, eye shadow. High-heeled shoes. I sensed she’d chosen her outfit for our meeting, and that she wasn’t sure she’d made the right choices.

  Elaine, looking cool and competent in slacks and a silk blouse, said, “Sit down, Matt. Take the chair.” She joined Pam on the couch and said, “I just finished telling Pam that I got her here under false pretenses. She’s not going to meet Debra Winger.”

  “I asked who the star was gonna be,” Pam said, “and she said Debra Winger, and I’m like, wow, Debra Winger is gonna do a movie of the week? I didn’t think she would do TV.” She shrugged. “But I guess there’s not gonna be a movie, so what difference does it make who the star is?”

  “But the thousand dollars is real,” Elaine said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s good,” Pam said, “because I can use the money. But I didn’t come for the money.”

  “I know that, dear.”

  “Not just for the money.”

  I had the money, a thousand for her and the twelve hundred I owed Elaine and some walking-around money for myself, three thousand dollars total from my safe-deposit box.

  “She said you’re a detective,” Pam said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re going after those guys. I talked a lot with the cops, I must of talked with three, four different cops—”

  “When was that?”

  “Right after it happened.”

  “And that was—?”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize you didn’t know. It was in July, this past July.”

  “And you reported it to the police?”

  “Jesus,” she said. “What choice did I have? I had to go to the hospital, didn’t I? The doctors are like, wow, who did this to you, and what am I gonna say, I slipped? I cut myself? So they called the police, naturally. I mean, even if I didn’t say anything, they would of called the police.”

  I propped open my noteboo
k. I said, “Pam, I don’t think I got your last name.”

  “I didn’t give it. Well, no reason not to, is there? It’s Cassidy.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “You were twenty-three when the incident took place?”

  “No, twenty-four. My birthday’s the end of May.”

  “And what sort of work do you do, Pam?”

  “Receptionist. I’m out of work at the moment, that’s why I said I could use the money. I guess anybody could always use a thousand dollars, but especially now, being out of work.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Twenty-seventh between Third and Lex.”

  “Is that where you were living at the time of the incident?”

  “Incident,” she said, as if trying out the word. “Oh, yeah, I been there for almost three years now. Ever since I came to New York.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Canton, Ohio. If you ever heard of it I can guess what for. The Pro Football Hall of Fame.”

  “I almost went for a visit once,” I said. “I was in Massillon on business.”

  “Massillon! Oh, sure, I used to go there all the time. I knew a ton of people in Massillon.”

  “Well, I probably never met any of them,” I said. “What’s the address on Twenty-seventh Street, Pam?”

  “One fifty-one.”

  “That’s a nice block,” Elaine said.

  “Yeah, I like it okay. The only thing, it’s silly, but the neighborhood doesn’t have a name. It’s west of Kips Bay, it’s below Murray Hill, it’s above Gramercy, and of course it’s way east of Chelsea. Some people started calling it Curry Hill, you know, because of all the Indian restaurants.”

  “You’re single, Pam?” A nod. “You live alone?”

  “Except for my dog. He’s just a little dog but a lot of people won’t break into a place if there’s a dog, no matter what size he is. They’re just scared of dogs, period.”

  “Would you like to tell me what happened, Pam?”

  “The incident, you mean.”

  “Right.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess. That’s what we’re here for, right?”

  * * *

  IT was on a summery evening in the middle of the week. She was two blocks from her house, standing on the corner of Park and Twenty-sixth waiting for the light to change, and this truck pulled up and this guy called her over wanting directions to some place, she couldn’t catch the name.

  He got out of the truck, explaining that maybe he had the name of the place wrong, that it was on the invoice, and she went around with him to the rear of the truck. He opened the back of the truck, and there was another man inside, and they both had knives. They made her get in the back of the truck with the second man, and the driver got back in the truck and drove off.

  AT this point I interrupted her, wanting to know why she had been so obliging about getting in the truck. Had there been people around? Had anyone witnessed the abduction?

  “I’m a little hazy on the details,” she said.

  “That’s all right.”

  “It happened so quick.”

  Elaine said, “Pam, could I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re in the game, aren’t you, dear?”

  I thought, Jesus, how did I miss that?

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Pam said.

  “You were working that night, weren’t you?”

  “How did you know?”

  Elaine took the girl’s hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, nobody’s here to judge you. It’s all right.”

  “But how did you—”

  “Well, it’s a popular stroll, isn’t it, that stretch of Park Avenue South? But I guess I knew earlier. Honey, I was never on the pavement, but I’ve been in the game myself for almost twenty years.”

  “No!”

  “Honestly. Right in this apartment, which I bought when it went co-op. I’ve learned to call them clients instead of tricks, and when I’m around squares I sometimes say I’m an art historian, and I’ve been real smart about saving my pennies over the years, but I’m in the life the same as you, dear. So you can tell it to us the way it really happened.”

  “God,” she said. “Actually, you know something? It’s a relief. Because I didn’t want to come here and tell you a story, you know? But I didn’t think I had any choice.”

  “Because you thought we’d disapprove of you?”

  “I guess. And because of what I told the cops.”

  “The cops didn’t know you were hooking?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “They never even brought it up? With the pickup taking place right on the stroll?”

  “They were Queens cops,” she said.

  “Why would Queens cops catch the case?”

  “Because of where I wound up. I was in Elmhurst General Hospital, that’s in Queens, so that’s where the cops were from. What do they know about Park Avenue South?”

  “Why did you wind up at Elmhurst General? Never mind, you’ll get to that. Why don’t you start over from the beginning?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  IT was a summery evening in the middle of the week. She was two blocks from her house, standing on the corner of Park and Twenty-sixth waiting for someone to hit on her, and this truck pulled up and a guy motioned for her to come over. She walked around and got in on the passenger side and he drove a block or two and turned on one of the side streets and parked at a hydrant.

  She thought it would be a quick blow-job while he sat behind the wheel, twenty or twenty-five for maybe five minutes. The guys in cars almost always wanted head and they wanted to be done right there in their cars. Sometimes they wanted it while the car was moving, which seemed crazy to her, but go figure. The johns who came around on foot would generally spring for a hotel room, and the Elton at Twenty-sixth and Park was reasonable and convenient for that. There was always her apartment, but she almost never took anybody back there unless she was desperate, because she didn’t believe it was safe. Besides, who wanted to trick in the bed you slept in?

  She never saw the guy in the back until the truck was parked. Never even knew he was there until his arm came around her neck and his hand clapped over her mouth.

  He said, “Surprise, Pammy!”

  God, she was scared. She just froze while the driver laughed and reached into her blouse and started feeling her tits. She had big tits and she’d learned to dress to show them on the street, in a halter top or a revealing blouse, because guys who went for tits really went for them, so you might as well show the merchandise. He went right for the nipple and tweaked it and it hurt and she knew these two were going to be rough.

  “We’ll all get in back,” the driver said. “More privacy, room to stretch out. We might as well be comfortable, right, Pammy?”

  She hated the way they said her name. She had introduced herself as Pam, not Pammy, and they said it in a mocking way, a very nasty way.

  When the guy in back let go of her mouth she said, “Look, nothing rough, huh? Whatever you want, and I’ll give you a real good time, but no rough stuff, okay?”

  “You on drugs, Pammy?”

  She said no, because she wasn’t. She didn’t care for drugs much. She would smoke a joint if somebody handed it to her, and coke was nice but she never yet actually bought any. Sometimes guys would lay out lines for her, and they got insulted if you weren’t interested, and anyway she liked it well enough. Maybe they thought it got her hot, made her more into it, like sometimes you would get a guy who would put a dab of coke on his dick, like that would be such a treat for you when you went down on him that he’d get extra good head on account of it.

  “You a junkie, Pammy? Where do you fix, up your nose? Between your toes? You know any big drug dealers? You got a boyfriend deals junk, maybe?”

  Really stupid questions. Like there was no purpose to the
m, like they more or less got off on asking the questions. The one did, anyway. The driver. He was the one all hipped on the subject of drugs. The other one was more into calling her names. “You dirty cunt, you fucking piece-of-shit bitch,” like that. Sickening if you let it get to you but actually a lot of guys were like that, especially when they got excited. One guy, she must have done him four, five times, always in his car, and he was always very polite before and after, very considerate, never rough, but it was always the same story when she was copping his joint and he was getting close to getting off. “Oh, you cunt, you cunt, I wish you were dead. Oh, I wish you would die, I wish you were dead, you fucking cunt.” Horrible, just horrible, but except for that he was a perfect gentleman and he paid fifty dollars each time and never took long to come, so what was the big deal if he had a nasty mouth? Sticks and stones, right?

  They went in the back of the truck and it was all fixed up with a mattress, which made it comfortable, actually, or it would have been comfortable if she could have relaxed, but you couldn’t, not with these guys, because they were too weird. How could you relax?

  They made her take everything off, every stitch, which was a pain in the ass but she knew not to argue. And then, well, they fucked her, taking turns, first the driver, then the other one. That part was pretty much routine, except of course that there were the two of them, and when the second man was doing her the driver pinched her nipples. That hurt, but she knew better than to say anything, and anyway she knew he was aware that it hurt. That was why he was doing it.

  They both did her and they both got off, which was encouraging, because it was when a guy couldn’t get it up or couldn’t finish that you were sometimes in danger, because they got mad at you, like it was your fault. After the second one groaned and rolled off of her she said, “Hey, that was great. You guys are all right. Let me get dressed, huh?”