Seymour clears his throat. ‘I’m almost afraid to ask.’
‘It’s your witness.’
‘Theodore Stuart?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead.’
Seymour finds it difficult at first to process the sentence, a mere two words though it is. He remains silent for a long time. He stares down at the photographs on his desk. He blinks.
Finally he says, ‘I thought he was under police protection.’
‘His police protection is dead too.’
‘James Manning?’
‘Too early to say. We have homicide detectives on the scene and boys from the crime lab are on their way. We’ll see what we get.’
‘I want to talk with the detectives on the case.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
2
Seymour drives through darkness, his stomach empty and sour. Margaret tried to get him to eat some dinner, but he had no appetite. She wrapped his plate in tinfoil and put it in the fridge. It’ll be here when you get home. She kissed the corner of his mouth, looked into his eyes. You work too hard.
Be back in a while.
He turned, headed out the front door.
Theodore Stuart’s dead, murdered, and it almost has to have been James Manning behind it. People don’t murder people under police protection without good reason, there’s too much risk, and Seymour can think of only one man with a strong enough motive to take said risk.
The fact that he could get to Stuart means, too, that Bill Parker’s department has been compromised. That’s the problem with money. It can make even good cops spill. You get in a little over your head on house payments, or the vigorish on your gambling debt gets out of control, and along comes some grinning mustache with a fat wad of cash, and he doesn’t want anything from you but a few words, what’s the harm, really?
He pulls his car into the parking structure and brings it to a stop.
3
He looks at the three men sitting across the desk from him, Captain Ellis crisply suited while to his left a couple homicide detectives — Bachman, clothes nearly as wrinkled as his face; and Friedman, the youngest man in the room by at least a decade — slouch red-eyed after a long day on the job.
Seymour exhales in a sigh.
‘So,’ he says, ‘what do we have on Manning?’
The silence stretches out.
Finally Detective Bachman sits up and clears his throat. He scratches his left eyebrow and looks uncomfortable.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
‘Nothing?’
‘Well, uh. .’
‘As of this moment,’ Captain Ellis says, ‘it doesn’t look like James Manning was responsible for the murder.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘What do you have?’
‘Our primary suspect is a milkman named Eugene Dahl,’ Bachman says. ‘He was at the crime scene with the murder weapon on his person. He escaped capture, but we’ve just searched his apartment and found shoes with blood on them and a box of shells. Guys from the crime lab are matching footprints at the scene to the shoes we found in his apartment. The evidence is solid.’
Bachman shifts in his chair, looking physically pained. Indigestion perhaps, or kidney stones.
‘A milkman?’
‘He used to write comic books,’ Friedman says.
‘Is it possible he was hired by Manning?’
‘It’s possible, but we don’t have any evidence to suggest it.’
‘Look into it.’
Captain Ellis says, ‘We have every intention of finding a connection if there is one. We’re looking into everything.’
‘I don’t think he was working for Manning,’ Bachman says. ‘If he did this, and it looks like he did, he did it on his own.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He’s not a professional. He’s a failed writer working as a milkman. Been a milkman since he moved out to Los Angeles in fourty-nine. No connection to organized crime, not even a tenuous one so far as we can tell, though we’ll continue to look into it. But the bottom line is, he’s simply not the kind of guy who’d get called in for a job like this.’
‘What’s his motive?’
‘He was afraid Stuart would spill his name during his grand-jury testimony. And we think he had reason to be.’
‘How’s that?’
‘We found what might be a blackmail note in his apartment.’
‘Who was blackmailing whom?’
‘Looks like Theodore Stuart was trying to get money out of the milkman.’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It does if Stuart was scared,’ Friedman says. ‘Good way to collect some cash so that once this grand-jury thing was finished he could disappear.’
‘So he tries to blackmail the milkman and the milkman kills him.’
‘That’s the way it looks,’ Bachman says.
Seymour shakes his head. He doesn’t like it. It makes as much sense as any scenario he’s been able to imagine, more sense than several, but it doesn’t feel right. Or he’s telling himself it doesn’t feel right simply because he needs there to be a connection to James Manning. If his key witness is dead, then the investigation might be dead with him, might be dead before they’ve even presented the indictment to the grand jury, and he was taking an enormous political risk on this one. He’ll have to think it over.
‘How did this milkman find out where Stuart was being held?’
‘It was on the blackmail note.’
‘None of the officers watching Stuart saw what he was up to, saw that he was busy blackmailing this milkman?’
‘They were outside his room,’ Captain Ellis says. ‘They were there more to make sure no one got to him than to monitor what he was doing while hidden away. And in truth, it’s possible one or more officers worked with him for the promise of money.’
Seymour nods unhappily, then leans back in his chair to think.
Captain Ellis must see the worry on his face because he says, ‘We’re gonna get this milkman. We want him in an interrogation room by Monday. Once we’ve got him nailed down, we’ll get the answers we need.’
‘You think you can have him in custody by then?’
‘He’s square,’ Bachman says. ‘He’ll probably turn himself in.’
Seymour nods. He likes the sound of that.
‘Okay,’ he says, and gets to his feet.
TWENTY-FOUR
1
Next morning, the thirteenth of April, Carl finds himself in a chair in the corner of his room at the boarding house in nothing but tattered gray underpants. His soft white belly bulges out over the elastic waistband as he slouches before a small table on which rest the accouterments of what is quickly becoming the point around which his life orbits: a glass of water, a small paper bindle, a shining spoon he took from the kitchen downstairs, a syringe, a pocket knife, cigarettes, a lighter. His forehead is covered in sweat, his legs are cramping. His stomach and liver hurt. His eyes itch.
He stares at the syringe. He told himself he’d never do this. He told himself he’d never shoot up. But he can no longer afford not to. Smoking wastes too much. It burns away, unused and useless.
Candice said her husband’s funeral was yesterday. She told him on Friday, tomorrow’s the funeral, and it occurs to him now that her saying that might have been her shy way of asking him to attend, might have been her way of asking him to sit beside her during a difficult moment. He should call her and see if she’s okay.
She needs a friend.
But his legs are cramping badly. He won’t be able to focus on the conversation if he calls her now. He’ll do this, then call her. That’s the correct order of things.
He picks up the syringe and brings it to the glass of water and pulls back the plunger, drawing in a few cubic centimeters of liquid. He sets it on the table. He knifes powder fr
om the bindle into the spoon, then carefully squirts the water from the syringe onto it. His stomach is cramped, a painful knot. He’s sick. He picks up his lighter and makes a flame. His hand shakes involuntarily. He moves the flame back and forth beneath the convex surface of the spoon’s underside until the brown powder has dissolved. The flame blackens the spoon. He sets down the lighter. With the tip of the syringe he mixes the liquid, then draws it into the glass tube by pulling back the plunger. He sets it down on the table.
He reaches down to his pants to remove his belt, but finds he has no belt, because he’s not wearing pants. The pants he last wore lie in a pile on the floor and within the belt loops is a narrow strip of leather. He needs that strip of leather. He gets to his feet, grabs the belt, walks back to the chair. He puts the belt around his arm, pulling it taut, grips it in his aching teeth. He wonders if his gums are bleeding. He makes a fist and picks up the syringe.
He told himself he’d never do this, told himself he’d only smoke it, like they do in China. He wasn’t going to use the needle, had seen too many burned-out hipsters and jazz musicians to fall into that trap, and had been told that if he smoked it like opium he wouldn’t develop a dependency.
He believes he was lied to.
He shakes his head. He isn’t addicted. He isn’t. He’s just being smart. It’s wasteful to smoke it. This means nothing. It doesn’t mean nothing, it means he’s smart. It means he doesn’t want to waste the stuff. It isn’t free, you know.
He brings the needle to his arm, holds it mere centimeters above the flesh. A few drops splash onto the pale skin on the inside of his elbow. He pierces the skin, feels a sting of pain. He finds a vein on the first attempt. He believes so, anyway. He draws back the plunger, bringing blood into the needle, watching a cloud of it dissipate into the heroin. He thumbs down the plunger, opens his hand, lets go the belt from his teeth.
An indescribable feeling swims through his entire body, liquid emotion washing over him like a great wave, and his head drops down — just for a moment, or five minutes, or an hour; it doesn’t matter — and the world goes gray.
Then he’s back, back but better, back but perfect.
He looks down at the syringe hanging from his arm, stares at it for a long time. Finally, after some indeterminate period, he pulls it away, sets it on the table.
Blood leaks from the hole in his arm. It’s very red; it’s beautiful. No one ever thinks about what a beautiful color blood is.
He should call Candice. He will. Of course he will. But first he’s just going to sit here. It’s nice to just sit somewhere. It feels good to just sit somewhere.
So that’s what he’s going to do.
2
He stands in the hallway for a long time, unmoving, and stares down at the telephone. It sits on a stand. A notepad lies beside it, ghost-writing visible from whatever was scrawled across the top sheet before it was torn away. Rain pounds down outside. He doesn’t remember it starting, but it’s going full-force now.
He came out here for a reason but can’t remember what that reason might have been. Then he sees the rectangle of paper in his right hand, pinched between the pad of his thumb and the side of his index finger. He looks at it. A telephone number. He picks up the telephone and dials.
After some time, an answer: ‘Hello?’
‘Candice.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Carl.’
‘You sound funny.’
‘I think it’s allergies,’ he says. ‘But listen: I was calling to see how you were doing. I remembered you saying that. . well, I guess yesterday was hard on you.’
‘Oh. The funeral.’
‘You holding up?’
‘I want my son back.’
‘What kind of deal did you make with Markley?’
‘It’s not settled, the lawyers have to work it out, but it looks like after Sandy testifies he can come home on weekends at least. He’ll probably have to stay in reform school a while, though.’
‘That might be good for him.’
‘He doesn’t handle that type of discipline well.’
‘The walls that keep him in also keep trouble out. Somebody who was supposed to testify before the grand jury got murdered yesterday.’
‘What?’
There’s panic in that word, that what, and the fear in her voice makes him wish he hadn’t said anything. He thought it would be comforting, your son’s being protected by those walls, so don’t you worry, but as soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew he’d said something he shouldn’t have. By then, however, it was too late: you can’t unsay a thing.
‘It doesn’t mean your boy’s in any danger.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means-’ He scratches his cheek. ‘I don’t know. He’s in a secure location. He’s safe. That’s what I was trying to say.’
‘He’s coming into the city tomorrow to go over his testimony with Mr Markley.’
‘The Sheriff’s Department will be driving him, his name hasn’t been released to the public, nobody knows where he’s being held. He’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry I scared you.’
‘I would have read it in the paper anyway. Do you know who killed him?’
‘Who killed who?’
‘The man who was killed.’
‘Oh. We think we got a pretty good idea. We have police out looking for him.’
‘Good.’
‘Do you want to get dinner tonight?’
A long silence on the other end of the line, a palpable hesitation, and then finally: ‘Okay.’
‘Yeah?’
‘But you should know I can’t get into a relationship right now. I just lost Neil. I won’t pretend he was the love of my life, but I cared for him, and I feel something like hatred when I think of my son, even though I love him more than I ever loved anyone. I hate him for what he did. I can’t get involved with someone else. It would be too complicated. Everything is confused right now. I’m confused right now.’
‘It’s just company.’
‘So you understand?’
‘I have to work today, but I’ll pick you up at eight.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay. See you then.’
He drops the phone into its cradle.
TWENTY-FIVE
1
Eugene steps out the front door of his motel room and into the wet, gray morning. The rain that was threatening to come down all day yesterday is finally splashing against the asphalt and concrete which line the floor of the city. Something about the smell of rain always makes him feel nostalgic for an earlier, more innocent time in his life. Never more so than now, with everything broken. Even the small life he’s been living for the last three years — small, yes, but pleasant enough — even that is gone, vanished like something draped beneath a magician’s cape.
Goodbye, white rabbit.
Last night after checking into this crummy motel he lay in bed, stared at the ceiling, wondered if his life might be recovered. When he finally fell asleep he dreamed again that he was high up in an office building. He dreamed that he was stuck in that building alone. He called out but no one answered. He tried to find an elevator but there was no elevator. Where it should have been was only an empty shaft. When he looked down into it, vertigo sweeping over him, he could not see the bottom. It went down and down into darkness. He took the stairs. He walked for a very long time but never reached the bottom. In the dream he walked for months, for years, but it was never over. He just went down forever. Until he woke up, anyway.
He should have brought his typewriter. He’s owned it since he moved to New York eighteen years ago. Every story he published he banged out on that machine, and now it’s gone. Somehow, even with everything that’s happened in the last few days, it feels like a great loss. Some big part of him sunk to the bottom of a murky sea.
He flips up his collar. He lights a cigarette. He walks along the sidewalk, down Whitley Avenue to Hollywood Bo
ulevard, looking for a newsstand. Two blocks on, the rain-soaked paper holding his cigarette together breaks apart. He spits it into the gutter and it’s immediately swept away on a filthy river.
He finds a newsstand on Cahuenga, red bricks resting on top of the stacks of newspapers to keep the wind from carrying the profits away, an awning overhead doing a reasonable job of protecting them from the rain. He grabs a local paper, pays, heads back to the motel with the news tucked under his arm. He’s almost afraid to look at it. He is afraid to look at it. Afraid he’ll see his picture on the front page. Wanted on suspicion of murder. That might make it difficult for him to get around the city without being recognized, and he thinks he’s going to have to get around the city if-
First just read the goddamn paper and see how bad it is, Eugene.
He walks to his motel room, number 13, marked by a stone by the door with the number painted on it. He keys his way into the place and steps into a pile of squalor he immediately wants to scrape from the bottom of his shoe. A sagging bed in the middle of the room with a small night table on either side of it. In the corner, an easy chair with torn upholstery. A card table with gashes cut across its gray surface. Two wooden chairs on either side of the table, and a lamp with a torn paper shade sitting on top of it. Everything seems old and dirty and used, even the lamp’s dim light.
He walks to the bed and sits down. He arms water from his face, wipes it from his eyes with the heels of his hands. He unfolds the paper and looks at the front page:
KEY WITNESS IN COMIC CRUSADE MURDERED!
LOS ANGELES — Theodore Stuart, a New Jersey accountant with alleged ties to organized crime on the East Coast, was found dead in his room at the Shenefield Hotel early yesterday evening after police received a tip from an anonymous caller that he had been murdered. Mr Stuart was under police protection at the time of his murder, pending his testimony before a grand jury. The officer charged with protecting him, whose name has not yet been released, was also killed.
The Last Tomorrow Page 18
