Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41

by Levine (v1. 1)

  "What's that got to do with — "

  "I'll tell you what! They had the choice! Both of them young, both of them with sound bodies and sound hearts and years ahead of them, decades ahead of them. And they chose to throw it away! They chose to throw away what I don't have any more. Don't you think I wish I had that choice? All right! They chose to die, let 'em die!"

  Levine was panting from exertion, leaning over the desk and shouting in Jack Crawley's face. And now, in the sudden silence while he wasn't speaking, he heard the ragged rustle of his breath, felt the tremblings of nerve and muscle throughout his body. He let himself carefully down into a chair and sat there, staring' at the wall, trying to get his breath.

  Jack Crawley was saying something, far away, but Levine couldn't hear him. He was listening to something else, the loudest sound in all the world. The fitful throbbing of his own heart.

  COME BACK, COME BACK

  Detective Abraham Levine of Brooklyn's Forty-Third Precinct was a worried and a frightened man. He sat moodily at his desk in the small office he shared with his partner, Jack Crawley, and pensively drew lopsided circles on the back of a blank accident report form. In the approximate center of each circle he placed a dot, drew two lines out from the dot to make a clockface, reading three o'clock. An eight and a half by eleven sheet of white paper, covered with clock-faces, all reading three o'clock.

  "That the time you see the doctor?"

  Levine looked up, startled, called back from years away. Crawley was standing beside the desk, looking down at him, and Levine blinked, not having heard the question.

  Crawley reached down and tapped the paper with a horny fingernail. "Three o'clock," he explained. "That the time you see the doctor?"

  "Oh," said Levine. "Yes. Three o'clock."

  Crawley said, "Take it easy, Abe."

  "Sure," said Levine. He managed a weak smile. "No sense worrying beforehand, huh?"

  "My brother," said Crawley, "he had one of those cardiograph things just a couple of months ago. He's just around your age, and man, he was worried. And the doctor tells him, *You'll live to be a hundred.'"

  "And then you'll die," said Levine.

  "What the hell, Abe, we all got to go sometime.'^

  "Sure."

  "Listen, Abe, you want to go on home? It's a dull day, nothing doing, I can — "

  "Don't say that," Levine warned him. "The phone will ring." The phone rang as he was talking and he grinned, shrugging with palms up. "See?"

  "Let me see what it is," said Crawley, reaching for the phone. "Probably nothing important. You can go on home and take it easy till three o'clock. It's only ten now and — Hello?" The last word spoken into the phone mouthpiece. "Yeah, this is Crawley."

  Levine watched Crawley's face, trying to read in it the nature of the call. Crawley had been his partner for seven years, since old Jake Moshby had retired, and in that time they had become good friends, as close as two such different men could get to one another.

  Crawley was a big man, somewhat overweight, somewhere in his middle forties. His clothes hung awkwardly on him, not as though they were too large or too small but as though they had been planned for a man of completely different proportions. His face was rugged, squarish, heavy-jowled. He looked like a tough cop, and he played the role very well.

  Crawley had once described the quality of their partnership with reasonable accuracy. "With your brains and my beauty, Abe, we've got it made."

  Now Levine watched Crawley's face as the big man listened impassively to the phone, finally nodding and saying, "Okay, I'll go right on up there. Yeah, I know, that's what I figure, too." And he hung up.

  "What is it. Jack?" Levine asked, getting up from the desk.

  "A phony," said Crawley. "I can handle it, Abe. You go on home."

  "I'd rather have some work to do. What is it?"

  Crawley was striding for the door, Levine after him. "Man on a ledge," he said. "A phony. They're all phonies. The ones that really mean to jump do it right away, get it over with. Guys like this one, all they want is a little attention, somebody to tell them it's all okay, come on back in, everything's forgiven."

  The two of them walked down the long green hall toward the front of the precinct. Man on a ledge, Levine thought. Don't jump. Don't die. For God's sake, don't die.

  The address was an office building on Flatbush Avenue, a few blocks down from the bridge, near A&S and the major Brooklyn movie houses. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk across the street, looking up, but most of the pedestrians stopped only for a second or two, only long enough to see what the small crowd was gaping at, and then hurried on wherever they were going. They were still involved in life, they had things to do, they didn't have time to watch a man die.

  Traffic on this side was being rerouted away from this block of Flatbush, around via Fulton or Willoughby or DeKalb. It was a litde after ten o'clock on a sunny day in late June, warm without the humidity that would hit the city a week or two farther into the summer, but the uniformed cop who waved at them to make the turn was sweating, his blue shirt stained a darker blue, his forehead creased with strain above the sunglasses.

  Crawley was driving their car, an unmarked black '56 Chevy, no siren, and he braked to a stop in front of the patrolman. He stuck his head and arm out the window, danghng his wallet open so the badge showed. "Precinct," he called.

  "Oh," said the cop. He stepped aside to let them pass. "You didn't have any siren or light or anything," he explained.

  "We don't want to make our friend nervous," Crawley told him.

  The cop glanced up, then looked back at Crawley. "He's making me nervous," he said.

  Crawley laughed. "A phony," he told the cop. "Wait and see."

  On his side of the car, Levine had leaned his head out the window, was looking up, studying the man on the ledge.

  It was an office building, eight stories high. Not a very tall building, particularly for New York, but plenty tall enough for the purposes of the man standing on the ledge that girdled the building at the sixth floor level. The first floor of the building was mainly a bank and partiailly a luncheonette. The second floor, according to the lettering strung along the front windows, was entirely given over to a loan company, and Levine could understand the advantage of the location. A man had his loan request turned down by the bank, all he had to do was go up one flight of stairs —or one flight in the elevator, more likely —and there was the loan company.

  And if the loan company failed him too, there was a nice ledge on the sixth floor.

  Levine wondered if this particular case had anything to do with money. Almost everything had something to do with money. Things that he became aware of because he was a cop, almost all of them had something to do with money. The psychoanalysts are wrong, he thought. It isn't sex that's at the center of all the pain in the world, it's money. Even when a cop answers a call from neighbors complaining about a couple screaming and fighting and throwing things at one another, nine times out of ten it's the same old thing they're arguing about. Money.

  Levine's eyes traveled up the facade of the building, beyond the loan company's windows. None of the windows higher up bore the lettering of firm names. On the sixth floor, most of the windows were open, heads were sticking out into the air. And in the middle of it all, just out of reach of the windows on either side of him, was the man on the ledge.

  Levine squinted, trying to see the man better against the brightness of the day. He wore a suit —it looked gray, but might be black —and a white shirt and dark tie, and the open suit coat and the tie were both whipping in the breeze up there. The man was standing as though crucified, back flat against the wall of the building, legs spread maybe two feet apart, arms out straight to either side of him, hands pressed palm-in against the stone surface of the wall.

  The man was terrified. Levine was much too far away to see his face or read the expression there, but he didn't need any more than the posture of the body on the ledge. Taut,
pasted to the wall, wide-spread. The man was terrified.

  Crawley was right, of course. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the man on the ledge is a phony. He doesn't really expect to have to kill himself, though he will do it if pressed too hard. But he's out there on the ledge for one purpose and one purpose only: to be seen. He wants to be seen, he wants to be noticed. Whatever his unfulfilled demands on life, whatever his frustrations or problems, he wants other people to be forced to be aware of them, and to agree to help him overcome them.

  If he gets satisfaction, he will allow himself, after a decent interval, to be brought back in. If he gets the raise, or the girl, or forgiveness from the boss for his embezzling, or forgiveness from his wife for his philandering, or whatever his one urgent demand is, once the demand is met, he will come in from the ledge.

  But there is one danger he doesn't stop to think about, not until it's too late and he's already out there on the ledge, and the drama has already begun. The police know of this danger, and they know it is by far the greatest danger of the man on the ledge, much greater than any danger of deliberate self-destruction.

  He can fall.

  This one had learned that danger by now, as every inch of his straining taut body testified. He had learned it, and he was frightened out of his wits,

  Levine grimaced. The man on the ledge didn't know —or if he knew, the knowledge was useless to him —that a terrified man can have an accident much more readily and much more quickly than a calm man. And so the man on the ledge always compounded his danger.

  Crawley braked the Chevy to a stop at the curb, two doors beyond the address. The rest of the curb space was already used by official vehicles. An ambulance, white and gleaming. A smallish fire engine, red and full-packed with hose and ladders. A prowl car, most likely the one on this beat. The Crash & Rescue truck, dark blue, a first-aid station on wheels.

  As he was getting out of the car, Levine noticed the firemen, standing around, leaning against the plate-glass windows of the bank, an eight foot net lying closed on the sidewzdk near them. Levine took the scene in, and knew what had happened. The firemen had started to op>en the net. The man on the ledge had threatened to jump at once if they didn't take the net away. He could always jump to one side, miss the net. A net was no good unless the person to be caught wanted to be caught. So the firemen had closed up their net again, and now they were waiting, leaning against the bank windows, far enough away to the right.

  Other men stood here and there on the sidewalk, some uniformed and some in plainclothes, most of them looking up at the man on the ledge. None of them stood inside a large white circle drawn in chalk on the pavement. It was a wide sidewalk here, in front of the bank, and the circle was almost the full width of it.

  No one stood inside that circle because it marked the probable area where the man would land, if and when he fell or jumped from the ledge. And no one wanted to be underneath.

  Crawley came around the Chevy, patting the fenders with a large calloused hand. He stopped next to Levine and looked up. "The phony," he growled, and Levine heard outrage in the tone. Crawley was an honest man, in simple terms of black and white. He hated dishonesty, in all its forms, from grand larceny to raucous television commercials. And a faked suicide attempt was dishonesty.

  The two of them walked toward the building entrance. Crawley walked disdainfully through the precise center of the large chalked circle, not even bothering to look up. Levine walked around the outer edge.

  Then the two of them went inside and took the elevator to the sixth floor.

  The letters on the frosted-glass door read: "Anderson & Cartwright, Industrial Research Associates, Inc."

  Crawley tapped on the glass. "Which one do you bet?" he asked. "Anderson or Cartwright?"

  "It might be an employee."

  Crawley shook his head. "Odds are against it. I take Anderson."

  "Go in," said Levine gently. "Go on in."

  Crawley pushed the door open and strode in, Levine behind him. It was the receptionist's office, cream-green walls and carpet, modernistic metal desk, modernistic metal and leather sofa and armchairs, modernistic saucer-shaped light fixtures hanging from bronzed chains attached to the ceiling.

  Three women sat nervously, wide-eyed, off to the right, on the metal and leather armchairs. Above their heads were framed photographs of factory buildings, most of them in color, a few in black and white.

  A uniformed patrolman was leaning against the receptionist's desk, arms folded across his chest, a relaxed expression on his face. He straightened up immediately when he saw Crawley and Levine. Levine recognized him as McCann, a patrolman working out of the same precinct.

  "Am I glad to see you guys," said McCann. "Gundy's in talking to the guy now."

  "Which one is it," Crawley asked, "Anderson or Cartwright?"

  "Cartwright. Jason Cartwright. He's one of the bosses here."

  Crawley turned a sour grin on Levine. '^ou win," he said, and led the way across the receptionist's office to the door marked: "Jason Cartwright private."

  There were two men in the room. One was sitting on the window ledge, looking out and to his left, talking in a soft voice. The other, standing a pace or two away from the windows, was the patrolman. Gundy. He and McCann would be the two from the prowl car, the first ones on the scene.

  At their entrance. Gundy looked around and then came over to talk with them. He and McCann were cut from the same mold. Both young, tall, slender, thin-cheeked, ready to grin at a second's notice. The older a man gets, Levine thought, the longer it takes him to get a grin organized.

  Gundy wasn't grinning now. He looked very solemn, and a little scared. Levine realized with-shock that this might be Gundy's first brush with death. He didn't look as though he would have been out of the Academy very long.

  I have news for you, Gundy, bethought. You don't get used to it.

  Crawley said, "What's the story?"

  “I’m not sure," said Gundy. "He went out there about twenty minutes ago. That's his son talking to him. Son's a lawyer, got an office right in this building."

  "What's the guy out there want?"

  Gundy shook his head. "He won't say. He just stands out there. He won't say a word, except to shout that he's going to jump whenever anybody tries to get too close to him."

  "A coy one," said Crawley, disgusted.

  The phone shrilled, and Gundy stepped quickly over to the desk, picking up the receiver before the second ring. He spoke softly into the instrument, then looked over at the man by the window. "Your mother again," he said.

  The man at the window spoke a few more words to the man on the ledge, then came over and took the phone from Gundy. Gundy immediately took his place at the window, and Levine could hear his first words plainly. "Just take it easy, now. Relax. But maybe you shouldn't close your eyes."

  Levine looked at the son, now talking on the phone. A young man, not more than twenty-five or six. Blond crewcut, hornrim glasses, good mouth, strong jawline. Dressed in Madison Avenue conservative. Just barely out of law school, from the look of him.

  Levine studied the office. It was a large room, eighteen to twenty feet square, as traditional as the outer office was contemporary. The desk was a massive piece of furniture, a dark warm wood, the legs and drawer faces carefully and intricately carved. Glass-faced bookshelves lined one complete wall. The carpet was a neutral gray, wall-to-wall. There were two sofas, brown leather, long and deep and comfortable-looking. Bronze ashtray stands. More framed photographs of plant buildings.

  The son was saying, **Yes, mother. I've been talking to him, mother. I don't know, mother."

  Levine walked over, said to the son, "May I speak to her for a minute, please?"

  "Of course. Mother, there's a policeman here who wants to talk to you."

  Levine accepted the phone, said, "Mrs. Cartwright?"

  The voice that answered was high-pitched, and Levine could readily imagine it becoming shrill. The voice said, "Why is h
e out there? Why is he doing that?"

  "We don't know yet," Levine told her. "We were hoping you might be able to — "

  "Me?" The voice was suddenly a bit closer to being shrill. "I still can't really believe this. I don't know why he'd — I have no idea. What does he say?"

  "He hasn't told us why yet," said Levine. "Where are you now, Mrs. Cartwright?"

  "At home, of course."

  "That's where?"

  "New Brunswick,"

  "Do you have a car there? Could you drive here now?"

  "There? To New York?"

  "It might help, Mrs. Cartwright, if he could see you, if you could talk to him."

  "But —it would take hours to get there! Surely, it would be —that is, before I got there, you'd have him safe already, wouldn't you?"

  She hopes he jumps, thought Levine, with sudden certainty. By God, she hopes he jumps!

  "Well, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes," he said wearily. "I suppose you're right. Here's your son again."

  He extended the receiver to the son, who took it, cupped the mouthpiece with one hand, said worriedly, "Don't misunderstand her. Please, she isn't as cold as she might sound. She loves my father, she really does."

  "All right," said Levine. He turned away from the pleading in the son's eyes, said to Crawley, "Let's talk with him a bit."

  "Right," said Crawley.

  There were two windows in the office, about ten feet apart, and Jason Cartwright was standing directly between them on the ledge. Crawley went to the left-hand window and Levine to the right-hand window, where the patrolman Gundy was still trying to chat with the man on the ledge, trying to keep him distracted from the height and his desire to jump. "Well take over," Levine said softly, and Gundy nodded gratefully and backed away from the window.

  Levine twisted around, sat on the windowsill, hooked one arm under the open window, leaned out slightly so that the breeze touched his face. He looked down.

  Six stories. God, who would have thought six stories was so high from the ground? This is the height when you really get the feeling of height. On top of the Empire State building, or flying in a plane, it's just too damn high, it isn't real any more. But six stories — that's a fine height to be at, to really understand the terror of falling.