Voices and the sound of hammering came from some distant part of the cellar, but he saw no one on the way to the stairs. As he climbed the third flight he heard rapid footsteps coming down toward him, and he just managed to go back to the floor below and hide in the corridor until they passed. This was the last alarm and a minute later Billy was on the fifth floor looking at the golden lettering of O’Brien once again.
“I wonder if maybe she’s still home?” he whispered half aloud and smiled to himself. “She’s trouble—you want cash,” he added, but his voice was hoarse. There was a clear and insistent memory of those round breasts, rising toward him.
When the outer door was opened it sounded some signal inside the apartment, that was what had happened last night. This was all right, he had to be sure no one was inside before he tried to break in. Before his nerve failed completely he pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it again behind him and leaning his back against it.
Someone might still be home. He felt his face grow damp at the thought and looked at the TV pickup, then swiftly away. If she asks me I’ll say something about Western Union, about a message. The walls of the tiny, empty chamber pressed in on him and he shifted from one foot to the other waiting for the crackle of the loudspeaker.
It remained silent. He tried to guess how long a minute was, then counted to sixty and knew that he had counted too fast and counted it again. “Hello,” he said, and just in case the TV thing wasn’t working he knocked on the door timidly at first, then more loudly as his confidence grew.
“No one home?” he called as he took out the tire-iron jimmy and slipped the sharpened end into the jamb of the closed door just below the handle. When it had been pushed in as far as it would go he pulled hard with both hands. There was a small cracking sound and the door swung open. Billy stepped through, almost on tiptoe, ready to turn and run.
The air was cool, the apartment dim and silent. Ahead, at the end of the long hall, he could see a room and part of a dark TV set. Just at his left hand was the closed door of the bedroom, the bed where she had been lying was just beyond it. Maybe she was still there, asleep, he would go in and not wake her at once but … he shivered. Shifting the tire iron to his left hand he slowly opened the door.
Rumpled sheets, tangled and empty. Billy walked by the bed and didn’t look at it again. What else had he expected? A girl like that wouldn’t want someone like him. He cursed and pried open the top drawer in the large dresser, splintering and cracking it with the iron. It was filled with smooth underclothes, pink and white and softer than he had ever felt when he ran his hand over them. He threw them on the floor.
One by one he treated all the other drawers the same way, hurling their contents about, but putting aside those items of clothing he knew could be sold for a high price in the flea market. A sudden banging brought back the fear that had been displaced by anger for the moment, and he stood frozen. It took a long moment before he recognized it as water in a pipe somewhere in the wall. He relaxed a bit, was in better control now and, for the first time, noticed the jewelry box on the end table.
Billy had it in his hand and was looking at the pins and bracelets and wondering if they were real and how much he could get for them when the bathroom door opened and Mike O’Brien walked into the room.
For a moment he did not see Billy, he just stopped and gaped at the ruin of the dresser and the scattered clothing. He was wearing his dressing gown, spattered with dark spots of water, and was drying his hair with a towel. Then he saw Billy, standing rigid with terror, and hurled the towel away.
“You little bastard!” Mike roared. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He was like a mountain of death approaching, with his great face flushed from the shower and reddened even more by rage. He stood two heads taller than Billy and there was muscle under the fat on his meaty arms, and all he wanted to do was break the boy in two.
Mike reached out with both hands and Billy felt the wall against his back. There was a weight in his right hand and he swung in panic, lashing out wildly. He hardly realized what had happened when Mike fell at his feet, not uttering a sound; there was just the heavy thud of his body hitting the floor.
Michael J. O’Brien’s eyes were open, open wide and staring, but they were not seeing. The tire iron had caught him on the side of the temple, the sharp point cracking through the thin bone there and going on into his brain, killing him instantly. There was very little blood since the tire iron remained, a projecting blade handle stuck fast in the wound.
It was just by chance, a combination of circumstances, but Billy was not caught or recognized when he was leaving the building. He fled in blind panic and did not meet anyone on the stairs, but he missed a turning and found himself near the service entrance. A new tenant was moving in and at least a score of men dressed in the same sort of ragged garments he wore, were carrying in furniture. The single uniformed attendant on duty was watching the people who entered the building and paid no attention at all when Billy walked out behind two of the others.
Billy was almost to the waterfront before he realized that in his flight he had left everything behind. He leaned his back to a wall, then slid slowly down until he squatted on his heels panting with exhaustion, wiping the sweat from his eyes so he could see if anyone had followed him. No one was taking any notice of him, he had escaped. But he had killed a man—and all for nothing. He shuddered, in spite of the heat, and gasped for air. Nothing, it had all been for nothing.
5
“Just like that? You want us to drop whatever we’re doing and come running, just like that?” Lieutenant Grassioli’s angry question lost some of its impact when he ended it with a deep belch. He took a jar of white tablets from the top drawer of his desk, shook two of them out into his hand and looked at them distastefully before putting them into his mouth. “What happened over there?” The words were accompanied by a dry, grating sound as he chewed the tablets.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t told.” The man in the black uniform stood in an exaggerated position of attention, but there was the slightest edge of rudeness to his words. “I’m just a messenger, sir, I was told to go to the nearest police station and deliver the following message. ‘There has been some trouble. Send a detective at once.’”
“Do you people in Chelsea Park think you can give orders to the police department?” The messenger didn’t answer because they both knew that the answer was yes and it was better left unspoken. A number of very important private and public individuals lived in these buildings. The lieutenant winced at the quick needle of pain in his stomach. “Send Rusch here,” he shouted.
Andy came in a few moments later. “Yes, sir?”
“What are you working on?”
“I have a suspect, he may be the paper hanger who has been passing all those bum checks in Brooklyn, I’m going to …”
“Put him on ice. There’s a report here I want you to follow up.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, he’s …”
“If I say you can do it—do it. This is my precinct, not yours, Rusch. Go with this man and report to me personally when you come back.” The belch was smaller this time, more of a punctuation than anything else.
“Your lieutenant has some temper,” the messenger said when they were out in the street.
“Shut up,” Andy snapped without looking at the man. He had had another bad night and was tired. And the heat wave was still on; the sun almost unbearable when they left the shadow of the expressway and walked north. He squinted into the glare and felt the beginning of a headache squeeze at his temples. There was trash blocking the sidewalk and he kicked it angrily aside. They turned a corner and were in shadow again, the crenelated battlements and towers of the apartment buildings rose like a cliff above them. Andy forgot the headache as they walked across the drawbridge; he had only been inside the place once before, just in the lobby. The door opened before they reached it and the doorman stepped aside to let them in.<
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“Police,” Andy said, showing his badge to the doorman. “What’s wrong here?”
The big man didn’t answer at first, just swiveled his head to follow the retreating messenger until he was out of earshot. Then he licked his lips and whispered: “It’s pretty bad.” He tried to look depressed but his eyes glittered with excitement. “It’s … murder … someone’s been killed.”
Andy wasn’t impressed; the City of New York averaged seven murders a day, and ten on good days. “Let’s go see about it,” he said, and followed the doorman toward the elevator.
“This is the one,” the doorman said, opening the hall door of apartment 41-E; cool air surged out, fresh on Andy’s face.
“That’s all,” he said to the disappointed doorman, “I’ll take it from here.” He walked in and at once noticed the jimmy grooves on the inner doorjamb, looked beyond them to the long length of hall where the two people sat on chairs backed to the wall. A full bag of groceries leaned against the nearest chair.
They were all alike in their expressions with fixed round eyes, shocked at the sudden impact of the totally unexpected. The girl was an attractive redhead, nice long hair and a delicate pink complexion. When the man got quickly to his feet Andy saw he was a bodyguard, a chunky Negro.
“I’m Detective Rusch, 12-A Precinct.”
“My name is Tab Fielding, this is Miss Greene—she lives here. We just came back from shopping a little while ago and I saw the jimmy marks on the door. I came in my myself and went in there.” He jerked his thumb at a nearby closed door. “I found him. Mr.O’Brien. Miss Greene came in a minute later and saw him too. I looked through the whole place but there was no one else here. Miss Shirl—Miss Greene—stayed here in the hall while I went to call the police, we’ve been here ever since. We didn’t touch anything inside.”
Andy glanced back and forth at them and suspected the story was true; it could be checked easily enough with the elevator boy and the doorman. Still, there was no point in taking chances.
“Will you both please come in with me.”
“I don’t want to,” the girl said quickly, her fingers tightening on the sides of the chair. “I don’t want to see him like that again.”
“I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I can’t leave you out here alone.”
She didn’t argue any more, just stood up slowly and brushed at the wrinkles in her gray dress. A very good-looking girl, Andy realized as she walked by him. The bodyguard held the door open and Andy followed them both into the bedroom. Keeping her face turned toward the wall, the girl went quickly to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
“She’ll be all right,” Tab said, noticing the detective’s attention. “She’s a tough enough kid but you can’t blame her for not wanting to see Mr. O’Brien, not like that.”
For the first time Andy looked at the body. He had seen a lot worse. Michael O’Brien was still as impressive in death as he had been in life: sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread wide, mouth agape and eyes open and staring. The length of iron projected from the side of his head and a thin trickle of dark blood ran down the side of his neck to the floor. Andy knelt and touched the bared skin on his forearm; it was very cool. The air-conditioned room would have something to do with that. He stood and looked at the bathroom door.
“Can she hear us in there?” he asked.
“No, sir. It’s soundproofed, the whole apartment is.”
“You said she lives here. What does that mean?”
“She is—was Mr. O’Brien’s girl. She’s got nothing to do with this, no reason to have anything to do with it. He was her cracker and marge—” Realization hit and his shoulders slumped. “Mine too. We both gotta look for a new job now.” He retired into himself, looking with great unhappiness at a suddenly insecure future.
Andy glanced around at the disordered clothing and the splintered dresser. “They could have had a fight before she went out today, she might have done it then.”
“Not Miss Shirl!” Tab’s fists clenched tight. “She’s not the kind of person who could do this sort of thing. When I said tough I meant she could roll with things, you know, get along with the world. She couldn’t of done this. It would have to be before I met her downstairs, I wait for her in the lobby, and she came down today just like she always does. Nice and happy, she couldn’t of acted like that if she had just come from this.” He pointed angrily at the mountainous corpse that lay between them.
He didn’t say so but Andy agreed with the bodyguard. A good-looking bird like this one didn’t have to kill anyone. What she did she did for D’s and if a guy gave her too much trouble she’d just walk out and find someone else with money. Not murder.
“What about you, Tab, did you knock the old boy off?”
“Me?” He was surprised, not angry. “I wasn’t even up in the building until I came back with Miss Shirl and found him.” He straightened up with professional pride. “And I’m a bodyguard. I have a contract to protect him. I don’t break contracts. And when I kill anyone it’s not like that—that’s no way to kill anyone.”
Every minute in the air-conditioned room made Andy feel better. The drying sweat was cool on his body and the headache was almost gone. He smiled. “Off the record—strictly—I agree with you. But don’t quote me until I make a report. It looks like a break and entry, O’Brien walked in on whoever was burglaring the place and caught that thing in the side of his head.” He glanced down at the silenced figure. “Who was he—what did he do for a living? O’Brien’s a common name.”
“He was in business,” Tab said flatly.
“You’re not telling me much, Fielding. Why don’t you run that through again.”
Tab glanced toward the closed door of the bathroom and shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what he did—and I have enough brains not to bother myself about it. He had something to do with the rackets, politics too. I know he had a lot of top-brass people from City Hall coming here—”
Andy snapped his fingers. “O’Brien—he wouldn’t be Big Mike O’Brien?”
“That’s what they called him.”
“Big Mike … well, there’s no loss then. In fact we could lose a few more like him and not miss any of them.”
“I would n’t know about that.” Tab looked straight ahead, his face expressionless.
“Relax. You’re not working for him any more. Your contract has just been canceled.”
“I been paid to the end of the month. I’ll finish my job.”
“It was finished at the same time as the guy on the floor. I think you better look after the girl instead.”
“I’m going to do that.” His face relaxed and he glanced at the detective. “It’s not going to be easy for her.”
“She’ll get by,” Andy said flatly. He took out his notepad and stylo. “I’ll talk to her now, I need a complete report. Stick around the apartment until I see her and the building employees. If their stories back you up there’ll be no reason to keep you.”
When he was alone with the body, Andy took the polythene evidence bag from his pocket and worked it down over the iron without touching it, then pulled the weapon free of the skull by holding on to it through the bag, as low down as possible; it came away easily enough and there was only a slow trickle of blood from the wound. He sealed the bag, then took a pillowcase from the bed and dropped the bag and tire iron into this. There would be no complaints now if he carried the bloody iron in the street—and if he worked it right he could get to keep the pillowcase. He spread a sheet over the body before knocking on the bathroom door.
Shirl opened the door a few inches and looked out at him. “I want to talk to you,” he said, then remembered the body on the floor behind him. “Is there another room—?”
“The living room. I’ll show you.”
She opened the door all the way and came out, once more walking close to the wall without looking down at the floor. Tab was sitting in the hall, and he watched them silently as they passed.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Shirl said. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” She went into the kitchen.
Andy sat on the couch, it was very soft, and put his notepad on his knee. Another air-conditioner hummed in the window and the floor-to-ceiling curtains were closed almost all the way, so that the light was dim and comfortable. The television set was a monster. There were pictures on the walls (they looked like real paintings), books, a dining table and chairs in some kind of red wood. Very nice for someone.
“Do you want a drink?” Shirl called out from the kitchen, holding up a tall glass. “This is vodka.”
“I’m on duty, thanks all the same. Some cold water will do fine.”
She brought the two glasses in on a tray and, instead of handing his glass to him, pressed it against the side of the couch near his hand. When she let go the glass remained there, defying gravity. Andy pulled at it and it came free with a slight tug; he saw that there were rings of metal worked into the glass, so there must be magnets concealed under the fabric. Very elegant. For some reason this annoyed him and, after drinking some of the cold, flavorless water, he put the glass on the floor by his foot.
“I would like to ask you some questions,” he said, making a tick mark on the notepad. “What time did you leave the apartment this morning?”
“Just seven o’clock, that’s when Tab comes on duty. I wanted to do the shopping before it was too hot.”
“Did you lock the door behind you?”
“It’s automatic, it locks itself, there’s no way to leave it open unless you block it with something.”
Make Room! Make Room! Page 6
