A Streak of Light

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  He was interrupted. A nurse came into the small waiting room. She wore a very white uniform and a very nursely smile. She directed the smile at Perryman. She said, “You still here, Mr. Perryman? Because you can go home safely at any time. Your father is resting comfortably now, and the doctors are much encouraged. And tomorrow they hope he can be taken out of intensive care to his own room. Isn’t that good news, Mr. Perryman?”

  “Yes, nurse,” Perryman said. “Very good news. Can I see him?”

  The nurse retained her smile, but she shook her head.

  “He’s sleeping now,” she said. “It’s the best thing for him, we think. Tomorrow, Mr. Perryman. Probably tomorrow, after he’s had a good night’s rest. And you look as if you could use a night’s rest yourself. You were here most of last night, they tell me. We don’t want you to become a patient too, do we?”

  There was solicitude in her voice. Shapiro thought it was professional, but made no comment. He stood up.

  “We’re really getting along very nicely,” the nurse said, and went out of the room.

  David Perryman had stood when the nurse came into the room. Now he looked at Shapiro and waited.

  “Of course, Mr. Perryman,” Shapiro said. “Go home and get some rest, as the nurse says. If there’s anything more, we’ll be in touch. I don’t think there will be. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Young Perryman shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t see how,” he said. But he went out of the waiting room.

  Tony Cook wasn’t sure he saw how either. Or maybe he did. In a muffled sort of way.

  “I think we’d better take a little ride downtown, Tony,” Shapiro said, and there was a lift in his voice. Or Tony thought there was. They went down to the car. They had parked in a no parking zone, but there was no slip under the wiper. And the car hadn’t been towed away, although there was nothing to indicate it was a police car. Getting sloppy, the traffic boys were. Or shorthanded, as the city’s economy required.

  And, in Tony’s opinion, which had not been asked or was likely to be, a hell of a lot too many men chasing small-time gamblers and picking up prostitutes, enforcing a moral code which had no real connection with the city’s safety. Which was merely in accord with laws mistakenly on the books.

  He drove the squad car south on Seventh Avenue, assuming what Nate had meant by “downtown.” Shapiro said nothing to dispel this assumption. He parked on Broadway in front of the Sentinel Building.

  The main entrance door was closed, but not locked. The big lobby was dim, except for light coming through the door of the pharmacy-lunch counter at the far end. There was a much dimmer light behind the closed doors marked “The New York Sentinel. Business Office.” There was no guard in the lobby. Both elevators were at the ground floor, with their doors open but no light on inside them.

  Shapiro and Cook went up the stairs beside the elevators. A low-watt bulb lighted the stairs dimly.

  They went through the city room, which was deserted, and into the corridor leading toward the private offices. The ticker room was lighted, and the tickers were clattering already, although it was not yet seven o’clock, piling the floor with wide ribbons of paper, with what was going on in the world typed on them. At the moment, nobody on the Sentinel staff was paying attention. It was Saturday night; the Sentinel was somnolent for the weekend.

  They stopped in front of the closed door to what had been the office of Leroy Sampson, managing editor. Looking down the passageway between office doors to its far end, they looked at two more doors, both also closed—doors to the offices of Jason Wainwright, editor, and Peter Simms, his associate.

  “Tell you what, Tony, suppose you get samples from their typewriters. Just to give the lab boys something to play around with.”

  “O.K.,” Tony said. “Assuming I can get in. Wainwright keeps his locked, way I got it.”

  “But I doubt Simms does,” Shapiro told him. “And there’s a door between the offices, way I remember it. And, after all, you’ve got your gimmick, Tony.”

  The police have a gimmick for obstinate locks. They are not, of course, supposed to use it, except in emergencies.

  Tony said “O.K.” again and walked down toward the offices. Shapiro stood and watched him. He watched Tony Cook try the door of Wainwright’s office. Evidently it was locked. He went to Simms’s which, just as evidently, was not. He opened it and turned on a light inside and closed it after him. There was a streak of light visible under the door.

  Shapiro kept on waiting for several minutes. Cook would be typing the injunction to all good men. Or perhaps the one concerning the activities of the quick brown fox. It was taking him a little longer than Shapiro would have expected.

  Then the thin streak of light appeared under the door to Wainwright’s office, as Shapiro had supposed it would. Shapiro nodded, to nobody in particular and quite without realizing he had done so.

  The light under Wainwright’s door vanished. So, seconds later, did the light under Simms’s door. Tony Cook came back up the corridor, carrying copy paper folded in his left hand.

  “You were right about the connecting door,” Tony said. “And it wasn’t locked. And Wainwright’s typewriter-is an electric, which the lab boys say it wasn’t.”

  Which was clear enough to Nathan Shapiro, who said, “We may as well send them both along, anyway. Let the lab boys earn their salaries.”

  They went back through the empty city room and back down the dimly lighted stairs. In the car, Shapiro said they might as well find telephones and then get a bite to eat. He suggested that both might be available at, say, the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

  Tony felt he had missed a beat, but he was not really surprised.

  14

  West Ninth Street in Manhattan is a one-way street. It is also a bus street. Parking on the north side of the street between Fifth and Sixth is forbidden at all times. This rule is not too strictly adhered to, although it is enforced if a cruise car happens to be passing through the block. So when Tony parked the squad car a little beyond the Ninth Street entrance to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which does not have a doorman in attendance, he flicked up a sign behind the windshield. The sign had N Y P D printed on it in large letters. It was, after all, a tow-away zone, and a cruising cop might well miss the identifying numbers on the license plate.

  In the big lobby, they found telephone booths, and each went into one and each dialed a familiar number.

  Rose Shapiro was resigned; she had expected no better. She has been a policeman’s wife for a good many years. All right, she wouldn’t expect him for dinner. She would expect him when she saw him. Yes, she would walk Cleo. Of course, she would walk her on only the main, and well-lighted, street. “And you be careful too, Nathan.”

  Rachel Farmer’s association with a policeman has not been so long, but she is learning. She did say, “Damn it, Tony. Not again!” She added that he was always standing her up, and that if he was later than, say, ten, he would probably find her asleep because, after all, she was a working woman and had an appointment tomorrow. Yes, even if tomorrow was Sunday. All right, Simonsky was a Sunday painter. Also, he could afford to pay a model twice the usual fee for Sunday work.

  Rachel’s work as a model is usually dull and almost always exhausting. But it pays well.

  After Shapiro had told Rose that, as always, he was sorry and to be sure not to walk Cleo in any dark places, he looked up the telephone number of St. Vincent’s Hospital and dialed it. He identified himself to the nurses’ station on the intensive care floor, and was assured that Mr. Perryman was resting comfortably and that his condition was considered stabilized. Yes, the lieutenant could be switched to Records.

  He had to wait some time for Records to come on. Hospitals reduce their clerical staffs on weekends. When it answered, Records was female and doubtful. Was Lieutenant Shapiro sure he was Lieutenant Shapiro? And did he know that it was after seven on a Saturday evening and that clerical staffs, even at hospitals, rate reasonably
decent hours? Well, if it was important, she’d check.

  There was then a considerable period of silence, broken now and then by the sound of file drawers being closed with evident energy. Then–

  Yes, Mr. Jason Wainwright had been an inpatient about a month ago—from August tenth to August fifteenth. For a variety of tests, including numerous X rays. The tests were under the direction of Dr. James Hamilton, an internist. No, not an intern, for heaven’s sake. A specialist in internal medicine. Yes, she could say that the tests seemed to have been quite comprehensive. Was there anything else?

  There was, of course, but Shapiro merely said, “No. Just checking up a little. Thank you,” and hung up. Records would not tell him the outcome of the comprehensive tests, even if Records knew it.

  Tony Cook was on a house telephone when Nathan came out of the booth. He cradled the phone and said, “No soap. Doesn’t answer. Probably having dinner somewhere.”

  “Probably,” Shapiro said. “You ever eat here, Tony?”

  Tony had, but not for several years. The food had been all right, and they didn’t stick you too hard for it. He had a feeling that, a few years back, the restaurant had been a concession, and that somebody else was running it now. The hotel management itself, maybe.

  “We may as well try it,” Shapiro said. “Now that we’re here.”

  “Or,” Tony said, “we could have him paged and, if he doesn’t show, go over to Hugo’s.”

  Shapiro shook his head to that.

  The main restaurant at the Fifth Avenue Hotel opens off the lobby. It is large and, looked into through glass-paneled doors, seemed to be largely populated. A party of some sort, evidently, with some of the men in dinner jackets. And a good many couples dancing to the music of a small combo.

  “There’s the bar,” Tony said. “They serve in there. Used to, anyway.”

  The barroom was on the Fifth Avenue side of the hotel. The bar itself ran along one wall, and there were two barmen behind it and half a dozen men and two women on stools in front of it. There were some twenty tables in the room, six of them by windows giving on the now dusky Fifth Avenue.

  Most of the tables were occupied. A man in a dinner jacket said, “Two, gentlemen?” and looked around the room. He said it might be a few minutes, and if they would care to wait at the bar?

  They went to the bar and got stools side by side. The barman nearest said, “Gentlemen?” Shapiro said, “A glass of sherry, please,” and spoke sadly, being sure the sherry would be what they called “dry” and hence barely drinkable. Tony ordered a dry martini. He put emphasis—undue emphasis, Nathan thought—on the word “dry.”

  The barman turned away. He scooped shaved ice out of a bin under the bar and filled a cocktail glass with it. Then he filled a taller, narrow wineglass.

  Tony spoke, using a low voice. “Window table, third down,” Tony said.

  “Yes,” Shapiro said. “Saw him as we came in. Didn’t see us, I think. Just looking out the window.”

  They could see the sidewalk café out the window. There was a young couple at one of the sidewalk tables. They were drinking coffee. Their heads were rather close together. And people were walking beyond the café—a tall black man, and a much shorter—and prettier—white girl; a matronly woman attached to a clipped white poodle; a tired-looking woman pushing a baby carriage; a small boy being walked by a large dog.

  Jason Wainwright, sitting at a window table with his back toward the bar, appeared to be fascinated at what was going on on the lower Fifth Avenue sidewalk. At any rate, he was giving his full attention to it. Now and then, he lifted a coffee cup and drank from it.

  “Waiting for somebody, you think?” Tony said, his voice still low.

  “Could be,” Shapiro said. “Could be he did see us come in and is just waiting for a move. Could be he’s just finishing his coffee.”

  Wainwright turned partly from the window and looked around the room, obviously for a waiter. He scribbled in the air with his right forefinger. A waiter moved toward his table.

  Wainwright looked smaller at the restaurant table than he had looked in his office at the Sentinel. He also looked paler, which might be because of the restaurant lighting. He looked, Shapiro thought, like a very tired old man.

  The barman put glasses in front of them. The liquid in Shapiro’s glass was very pale, as he had been afraid it would be. The stem of the glass was cold when he touched it.

  “Suppose, Tony, we ask Mr. Wainwright to have an after-dinner drink with us? Here at the bar.”

  Tony Cook gave himself time for an experimental sip of his drink. Then he slipped off his stool. Wainwright was signing his dinner check when Tony reached his table. When Tony extended the invitation, Wainwright merely nodded and stood up. He walked to the bar with Tony. He sat on the stool next to Shapiro, and Tony took the one on the other side. Then Jason Wainwright spoke.

  “I take it,” Wainwright said, “that this is not entirely a coincidence? Your being here, I mean.”

  “Not entirely, Mr. Wainwright,” Shapiro said. “Had you been expecting us?”

  “Let’s say you’re not entirely unexpected,” Wainwright said. “A possibility that had crossed my mind.” Then he said, “No, Fred. Nothing,” to the barman and, “So, gentlemen?” to Cook and Shapiro.

  “A point or two,” Shapiro said. “Your office door down at the paper doesn’t fit tightly, Mr. Wainwright. When it’s closed, your light shows under it. Did you know that, Mr. Wainwright?”

  Wainwright did not answer immediately. He looked for some seconds at the mirror behind the bar.

  He spoke slowly when he spoke, as if he were selecting among unfamiliar words. But all he said was, “I hadn’t thought about it one way or the other, Lieutenant. But I suppose it’s true of most doors. They have to have clearance to open, of course.”

  “Of course,” Shapiro said. “But did somebody point out that light can be seen under your office door, Mr. Wainwright? When you are in the office with the light on? At, say, a little before twelve some night? Like, say, Thursday night? Somebody like Mr. Sampson, perhaps? In Washington Square, early this afternoon?”

  Wainwright looked away from the mirror then. He looked at Shapiro.

  “Oughtn’t you to caution me, Lieutenant?” Wainwright asked. His voice was firm. Oddly, it sounded younger to Shapiro than it had in the office the day before. “That I can remain silent if I wish? Need say nothing except in the presence of an attorney, which will be provided for me on request? Isn’t that the required form, Lieutenant Shapiro?”

  “In substance,” Shapiro said. “The wording varies a little from state to state. You seem to know the substance, Mr. Wainwright. Yes, consider yourself cautioned, if you like. And, Tony, you’d better start taking this down.”

  “Am already,” Tony said, and made scribbles in a notebook. On a clean page. Then he sipped from his glass.

  “It’s rather public here,” Wainwright said. “And rather noisy, with that party going on in the next room. Aren’t you going to take me in? To the station house, I suppose. Or, we could go up to my rooms. I’ll want to pick up some things, if you don’t mind.”

  “There’s no great hurry,” Shapiro said. “We’ll finish our drinks, I think. Sure you won’t have one, sir?”

  “On the city?” Wainwright said. The idea seemed rather to amuse him. “All right.” He raised his voice a little and said, “Fred?”

  Fred was at the other end of the bar, which was apparently the service end. But he came at once.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Wainwright told him. “The usual, I think.”

  Fred said, “Yes, Mr. Wainwright.” But there was a hint of surprise in his voice.

  “Pretty much given it up recently,” Wainwright said. “Fred probably doesn’t approve.”

  The usual turned out to be a Martell cognac, in a small brandy glass. Wainwright warmed the little glass in his hand before he drank from it.

  They finished their drinks, Shapiro slowly. The
sherry was dry, all right. After Fred had poured Shapiro’s drink, he had put the bottle back in a glass-doored refrigerator behind the bar. Shapiro could still see the bottle. The label read “Tio Pepe.” Shapiro had had experience with Tio Pepe before. He realized that many sherry drinkers regarded such experiences as pleasant. He did not. So “dry” as to be almost brittle.

  They paid. They went out of the barroom through the lobby. There were chairs in the lobby and people sitting in the chairs. Most of them were elderly to aged. One was sitting in a wheelchair. An old man had crutches on the floor beside his chair. They walked by the glass doors of the main dining room, in which, now, more people were dancing. They were two tall men, one walking on each side of a shorter man with thick gray hair. They walked into a waiting elevator and the operator said, “Good evening, Mr. Wainwright.”

  Wainwright said, “Good evening, Charles. Stays warm, doesn’t it?”

  Charles agreed that it stayed warm and let them out at the eighth floor. They walked down a wide corridor, away from the Fifth Avenue side of the hotel. Wainwright used his key to open a door marked “801 A.”

  Wainwright’s suite was of two rooms. The room they entered, the living room, had a couch and two padded chairs, one on either side of a low table. Against one wall of the rather large room was a steel table with a typewriter on it. A box of typewriter paper was on one side of the standard Underwood and, on the table’s other leaf, sheets of paper with typing on them, clipped together and facedown. There was a chest of drawers on the opposite wall of the room, at the end of which ceiling-to-floor curtains were drawn.

  As he opened the door, Wainwright had touched a switch and lighted two lamps, one at an end of the couch and the other on the low table between the chairs. A third lamp, tall, arching over the typewriter, did not go on. Except for the typewriter on its metal stand and an office chair in front of it, the furniture was standard hotel furniture, complete with a print of the Washington Arch on the wall over the couch. Yet the room looked lived in, as if it had adjusted itself to an occupant.