After the First Death

by Lawrence Block

  And Jackie said, “Just a minute, honey. Wait right here, something I want to ask the man.”

  I waited while she doubled back to the desk. I heard her ask what room Albert Schapiro was in. “Something I got to leave with him,” she said. “Soon as I handle this John.”

  He flipped through a stack of cards and found the right one. She hurried back and joined me. “305,” she said. “He gave us 214, we better go there long enough for him to forget about us.”

  We went to 214. It was dirtier than the Times Square hotels, and, in the light of dawn, even more depressing. I looked at the sagging bed, the sheets stained with past performance. Jackie had worked in this hotel, perhaps in this room, perhaps upon this bed. I tried not to think about this. I was not jealous. What I felt was closer to disgust, and annoyance with myself in the bargain. I told myself, hating the phrase, not to look gift whores in the mouth. I kept my eyes away from the bed and tried to concentrate on Phillie. I wondered if he would have a knife, and if he would be able to use it.

  We gave the hotel ten minutes to forget us. Then she nodded shortly and opened the door, and we went back to the staircase and up a flight and found Room 305. I listened at the door and couldn’t hear anything. I tried the knob. The door was locked.

  Jackie knocked. There was no answer and she knocked again, louder. A muffled voice wanted to know who the hell it was.

  “Dolores.”

  “What is it?”

  “Lemme in, it’s important.”

  There was slow movement within the room, approaching footsteps, then the snick of a bolt being drawn back The door eased open a few inches, and he said, “What the hell, you’re not—”

  I put my shoulder into the door and it flew backward, taking him with it. We went in after him. The roundfaced man had described him perfectly. There could be no mistake, he was the one. He was wearing dirty underwear, and he had needle tracks all over both arms and legs.

  He looked at my uniform and he looked at Jackie and he was lost. “Whatever your thing is,” he said, “you got the wrong boy. I don’t get it at all.”

  “Albert Schapiro,” I said. Phillie.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Who paid you to kill her, Phillie?”

  “Kill?” His face said he didn’t understand a bit of it “I never killed nobody. Not ever.”

  “And you never saw the watch?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I let him see the watch. He stared at it, and he did not quite manage to hide the recognition in his eyes, and then he looked at my face and saw my face instead of my uniform, and this time he didn’t even try to keep it a secret. He said, “Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s you,” and he shoved Jackie into me and started for the door.

  I got Him by the arm. I yanked the arm and he spun toward me, off balance, and I let go of his arm and hit him in the face. He yelped and fell back. I grabbed the front of his undershirt with my left hand and drew him close, and I hit him in the face with my right hand. I hurt my hand but I didn’t notice it. I just kept hitting him, and he went down and I landed on top of him, and I kept on hitting him until Jackie managed to drag me away from him. My hand was bloody, I’d cut it on his teeth, and there was more blood from his broken nose. Jackie bolted the door and made me wash my hand in the sink and we waited for Phillie to wake up.

  When he came to, Jackie soaked a pillowslip in the sink and cleaned up his face for him. He was in bad shape. The nose seemed to be broken, and his mouth was a mess. I had knocked two teeth out. Now, with the rage cooled, I felt oddly embarrassed by the violence.

  He said, the words warped by the missing teeth, “You don’t have to play so fucking rough. You coulda killed me.”

  “Like you killed the girl.”

  “I never killed nobody. You can beat me up all day long, it don’t matter. I never killed nobody and I’ll never say different.”

  “You were in the hotel room.”

  “I shoulda thrown that fucking watch in the river. Ten bucks and I got a broken face and more troubles. Yeah, I was in the room. By the time I got there the chick was dead and you were out cold.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “The hell I am. I thought you were both dead. The first I looked, I saw the two of you, I almost fell out. I wanted to get away from there.”

  “Why didn’t your?”

  He looked at Jackie. “She’s a user, isn’t she? Ask her.”

  Jackie said, “Why were you in that hotel?”

  “I was boosting, what do you think? Those hotels, they get a lot of drunks who leave their doors open. They forget to lock them. I was up tight, I was boosting. Is that a crime?”

  The question was too silly to answer.

  “Jesus, my nose.” His fingers patted it gentry. “You broke my nose.”

  “How did you get in the room?”

  “The door was open. That goddamn watch. Ten bucks, but I never figured Solly would sing. You can’t trust anybody.”

  I asked Jackie if Robin would have left the door unlocked. She shook her head. “Well,” he said, “somebody did.”

  I said, “I think he killed her.”

  But she shook her head again. “No, he didn’t.”

  “I could beat it out of him.”

  “I don’t think so. Let me try.” And to Phillie, “You don’t want cops on this. And you don’t want Alex angry.”

  “I never killed anybody—”

  “I know. But you got to tell this right, Phillie. The door was open and you went inside and took the watch and the wallet and Robin’s purse. Right?” He nodded. “And then what?”

  “I split.”

  “How?”

  “I just walked out.”

  “No. When Alex woke up the door was bolted. You better tell this straight, Phillie, and then you’ll get out of it clean, no police, nothing. But don’t buy yourself more trouble.”

  He thought about this and evidently decided it was reasonable enough. “I went down the fire escape.”

  “Why?”

  “I had to lug the purse, didn’t I? Can you see me walking through the lobby with the purse?”

  “You’re lying, Phillie.”

  “Look, I swear to God—”

  She spoke slowly, patiently, logically. “You would of emptied the purse. You could walk right out, no problem. Instead you locked the door and took the fire escape, and that’s always dangerous, going down a fire escape in the middle of the night. You took the purse instead of taking the time to rifle it, which means you were in a hurry, Phillie. Now you better tell it the way it is.”

  “I heard somebody in the hallway.”

  “So?”

  “So there was a dead girl in the room and I panicked! Who wouldn’t? I wasn’t going to get tied into it. You know how they lay it on a junkie. You know the chance you get from them.”

  “You heard somebody in the hallway, why didn’t you wait until they went away?”

  “I was nervous. Who had time to think?”

  She took a cigarette. I lit it for her. She said, “Phillie, it would all go smoother if you didn’t try and hold out. You saw the killer leave that room. You saw him go, and you thought maybe the room was empty and you took a peek inside. You locked the door because you were afraid he was coming back, and when you heard noises in the hallway you went down the fire escape. You were scared bad because you knew what would happen if he found you there. You knew all along Alex didn’t kill Robin because you saw the man who did, and that’s the only way it makes any sense, Phillie, that’s the only way it reads, and now all you have to do is tell me who the man was. You tell us that, Phillie, and you can take your face to a hospital.”

  “I didn’t recognize him.”

  “Otherwise there’s going to be cops. I mean it now. He never has to know who fingered him.”

  “He’ll find out.”

  “There’s trouble if you don’t talk, Phillie.”

  “Every way there’s trouble.” He worried
his broken nose. “Everywhere I look there’s always trouble.”

  “Cop trouble’s worse.”

  “Yeah?” He sighed. “That fucking watch. I shouldn’t of taken it, and then I knew better than to sell it. I was gonna throw it away. But then I had to get hungry, a lousy ten bucks, two nickel bags, and look what I bought for it.”

  “I want a name, Phillie.”

  “What makes you sure I know him?”

  “The way you said you didn’t recognize him. Otherwise you would of said you didn’t see him. Don’t play games with me, Phillie.”

  “I’m dead. If I tell you, I’m fucking dead.”

  “You’re dead if you don’t.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “I’m waiting, Phillie.”

  He looked at her. He said, “Fuck it, I’m dead either way. It was Turk Williams.”

  Their voices continued. They came at me through air that had gone suddenly thick and heavy.

  “That better be the right name, Phillie.”

  “You know who I mean? The Turkey?”

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  “The big dealer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would I cop out on him if he wasn’t the one? Be serious, would I pick him? I saw him. I was down the hallway, he never got a look at me, but I saw him. With blood on his hands.”

  “Then you knew what you’d find in the room.”

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “But you went in anyway.”

  “I was up tight. You been there, you know what it is.”

  “I know.”

  “You tell the Turkey where you got it, you know I’m dead.”

  “We won’t tell him.”

  “I’m dead anyway. You’ll put cops on me. The hell, I’m the only witness there is. I’m sitting here and I’m talking to you and my face is a mess and I’m dead.”

  “Oh, you’ll live, Phillie.”

  “Yeah. Live. Live, yeah.”

  22

  I SAID, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. HE WAS MY FRIEND. I KNEW him in prison, I helped him get free. I just talked to him a couple of days ago. He wanted to help me get to Mexico. He thought he owed me a favor.”

  We were at Jackie’s apartment She had cleaned my cuts with iodine, and now I looked at my battle scars and marveled at myself. I had never fought like that before. How wild I had been, how utterly I had devastated that poor little junkie.

  “Jackie, was he telling the truth?”

  “He must of been. He would lie, but not give us somebody like Turk Williams. He might make up a name or give us somebody small. But to pin it on Turk, it would have to be the truth.”

  “You know Turk?”

  “I know who he is.”

  “Didn’t I tell you about him?”

  “Not his name. Alex, I—”

  I stood up, paced the floor. “He had no reason to frame me,” I said. “It doesn’t make any sense. Unless … well, maybe it was something like this. Suppose somebody had something on him, something that would put a lot of pressure on him. So that he had no particular choice. You see what I mean? I don’t think anyone could have hired him to frame me, but someone might have blackmailed him into it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What else could it be? Unless Phillie lied—” I thought back to my conversation with Turk, ran it through my mind again. “No,” I said, positive. “Phillie wasn’t lying. I didn’t pay any attention at the time, but Turk was very interested in finding out if I had recognized the killer. He wanted to know what the arm looked like. I remember he asked if it was white or colored, and when I said I didn’t know he said something to the effect that I couldn’t even say for sure if it was a man or a woman. And he suggested that it might come to me later. He didn’t let up until I told him I was sure I would never dig up any more of it.” I took a breath. “And then he started telling me how I ought to get out of the country, at least until the air cleared. Phillie wasn’t lying. It was Turk. I’m damned if I know why, but it was him.”

  “Alex—”

  “But who put him up to it? That’s the question.”

  She got to her feet. “Alex, I don’t see how we can go up against him. I scored off him once but I don’t even think he would remember. And he’s supposed to carry a gun all the time, you know. Somebody like Phillie is one thing, but to go up against Turk in Harlem—”

  “Forget it.”

  “I suppose I could pretend to make a buy from him. That’s what I thought before, but if he knows you—”

  I waved the thought aside. “You’re missing the point We don’t have to get to him. The buck stops with him, he’s the one. He killed Robin, true?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And we have evidence. We have a witness, although the doctors will have to put his mouth back together before he can testify. An eyewitness who saw Turk come out of that room with Robin’s blood on him. We’ve got another witness who can establish that Phillie Schapiro had my watch, which marks him on the scene at the time. The police can shake out the rest. We have all we need.”

  “Then what do we do? Call the police?”

  “Exactly.”

  She thought this over, then began to nod slowly. “Sure,” she said. “I never thought of that, isn’t that funny? Cops, we spent so much time staying away from them, I never even thought of going to them. Not until we had it all wrapped up with a bow on it.”

  “But we do.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I guess we do.”

  But I didn’t call them myself, or wander on down to the nearest precinct house to turn myself in. There had been too much running and hiding of late, too much of disguises and lurking in shadows, too much of being the hunted man. Instead I used Jackie’s phone to call Warden Pillion.

  “I solved it,” I told him. “I know who killed the girl I can even prove it.”

  “You’re positive, Alex?”

  “Yes. I want to surrender to the police, but I want them prepared to listen to me and to put out a pickup order for the killer right away. Can you arrange it?”

  “That shouldn’t be difficult.”

  I gave him the address of Jackie’s place and some of the details. After I hung up we checked her stash of drugs and made sure the capsules of heroin and the hypodermic needle were not where the police would be likely to stumble upon them. Jackie said it wouldn’t be any problem, that homicide cops didn’t bother shaking down junkies. I didn’t want to take any chances.

  And then we sat around and waited. I felt as I have often felt when I have had too little food and too much coffee, excitement bubbling nervously within me, my stomach shaky, my body fidgety, incapable of remaining long in one position. I paced the floor and waited, and then we heard squad cars coming, their sirens wide open, and then the cars pulled up in front and someone rang Jackie’s bell.

  She went downstairs to let them in. She led them upstairs, and they came in with guns drawn, and I surrendered with a smile. The soldier suit surprised them somewhat. But they were distinctly hostile at first. I had been a fugitive for a long time, and as far as they were concerned I was just a murderer with a far-out story. They took me to the station house and Jackie came along.

  There they put Jackie in one room and led me off to another, and a group of detectives clustered around and kept asking me questions. I answered everything, and I explained just how I knew that Turk Williams was the killer, and how he had done it and how they could prove it. About halfway through they put out arrest orders for Williams and Schapiro and sent someone to question the roundfaced fence who’d had my watch. Around that time I knew they were ready to believe me, and from that point on we all relaxed. They still didn’t like me. As far as they were concerned I should have given myself up Sunday morning and let them take it from there.

  “Playing detective like this,” one of them said, “all you make is trouble.”

  “And if I turned myself in right away?”

  “We’d have found Williams.”<
br />
  “Sure you would. You had me cold, you wouldn’t have looked any further.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Well,” I said, “I like it the way it turned out I played it your way the first time. Evangeline Grant And I stood trial and got a life sentence. They’ll reverse that when you bring in Williams. Just find out who hired him. That’s all.”

  “We never pegged him as a hired killer—”

  “No, and I can’t see it that way either. But someone put pressure on him, someone with a reason.”

  “Any ideas who?”

  I thought it over until my head ached. I shook my head. No ideas, none at all.

  They fed me, then sat me down again and had me dictate a formal statement In the course of this a uniformed cop came in and announced that they had picked up Phillie. “He’ll talk,” the cop said. “He knows better than to hold out. But somebody sure beat the hell out of him. The doctor’s looking at him now.” He flashed me a look of the sort that generally gets described as grudging admiration. “But I don’t guess he’s about to press charges.”

  I went on with my statement. And I finished it, and they brought Jackie in, and we were all of us sitting around over cups of coffee, when another policeman burst in with news about Turk Williams.

  They had surprised him at his Harlem apartment. He said, “Now what’s the difficulty, gentlemen? You know the place is always clean and pure.” And they said, “A girl named Robin, Turkey. Murder.”

  And the Turkey went for his gun.

  He shot one cop in the arm. Nothing very serious. And they shot him once in the chest and twice in the stomach, and at the moment he was in St Luke’s Hospital with doctors working on him. They didn’t expect him to live.

  23

  JACKIE AND I RODE TO THE HOSPITAL IN THE BACK SEAT OF A squad car. “He’s got to stay alive,” I kept saying, over and over. “He’s got to talk.”

  “You’re off the hook anyway, Penn. You’re clear.”