Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41

by Levine (v1. 1)

  The Brodeks had to be reminded, some way, of the enormity of what their son had done. Levine wished he could open his brain for them like a book, so they could look in and read it there. They must know, they must at their ages have some inkling of the monstrousness of death. But they had to be reminded.

  There was one way to do it. Levine knew the way, and shrank from it. It was as necessary as Crawley's brutality with the old woman in the back of the store. Just as necessary. But more brutal. And he had flinched away from that earlier, lesser brutality, telling himself Af could never do such a thing.

  He looked over at his partner, hoping Crawley would think of the way, hoping Crawley would take the action from Levine. But Crawley was still parading his little corroborative proofs, before an audience not yet prepared to accept them.

  Levine shook his head, and took a deep breath, and stepped forward an additional pace into the room. He said, "May I use your phone?"

  They all looked at him, Crawley puzzled, the boy wary, the parents hostile. The father finally shrugged and said, "Why not? On the stand there, by the TV."

  "May I turn the volume down?"

  "Turn the damn thing off if you want, who can pay any attention to it?"

  "Thank you."

  Levine switched off the television set, then searched in the phone book and found the number of Kosofsky's Grocery.

  He dialed, and a male voice answered on the first ring, saying, "Kosofsky's. Hello?"

  "Is this Stanton?"

  "No, Wills. Who's this?"

  "Detective Levine. I was down there a little while ago."

  "Oh, sure. What can I do for you, sir?"

  "How's Mrs. Kosofsky now?"

  "How is she? I don't know, I mean, she isn't hysterical or anything. She's just sitting there."

  "Is she capable of going for a walk?"

  Wills', "I guess so," was drowned out by Mr. Brodek's shouted, "What the hell are you up to?"

  Into the phone, Levine said, "Hold on a second." He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, and looked at the angry father. "I want you to understand," he told him, "just what it was your son did tonight. I want to make sure you understand. So I'm going to have Mrs. Kosofsky come up here. For her to look at Danny again. And for you to look at her while she's looking at him."

  Brodek paled slightly, and an uncertain look came into his eyes. He glanced quickly at his son, then even more quickly back at Levine. "The hell with you," he said defiantly. "Danny was here all night. Do whatever the hell you want."

  Mrs. Brodek started to speak, but cut it off at the outset, making only a tiny sound in her throat. But it was enough to make the rest swivel their heads and look at her. Her eyes were wide. Strain lines had deepened around her mouth, iand one hand trembled at the base of her throat. She stared in mute appeal at Levine, her eyes clearly saying. Don't make me know.

  Levine forced himself to turn away, say into the phone, "I'm at the Brodeks. Bring Mrs. Kosofsky up here, will you? It's the next block down to your right, 1342, apartment 4-d."

  It was a long silent wait. No one spoke at all from the time Levine hung up the telephone till the time Wills arrived with

  Mrs. Kosofsky. The five of them sat in the drab living room, avoiding one another's eyes. From another room, deeper in the apartment, a clock that had before been unnoticeable now ticked loudly. The ticks were very fast, but the minutes they clocked off crept slowly by.

  When the rapping finally came at the hall door, they all jumped. Mrs. Brodek turned her hopeless eyes toward Levine again, but he looked away, at his partner. Crawley lumbered to his feet and out of the room, down the corridor to the front door. Those in the room heard him open the door, heard the murmur of male voices, and then the clear frightened voice of the old woman: "Who lives here? Who lives in this place?"

  Levine looked up and saw that Danny Brodek was watching him, eyes hard and cold, face set in lines of bitter hatred. Levine held his gaze, pitying him, until Danny looked away, mouth twisting in an expression of scorn that didn't quite come off.

  Then Crawley came back into the room, stepping aside for the old woman to follow him in. Beyond her could be seen the pale young face of the patrolman. Wills.

  She saw Levine first. Her eyes were frightened and bewildered. Her fingers plucked at a button of the long black coat she now wore over her dress. In the brighter light of this room, she looked older, weaker, more helpless.

  She looked second at Mrs. Brodek, whose expression was as terrified as her own, and then she saw Danny.

  She cried out, a high-pitched failing whimper, and turned hurriedly away, pushing against Wills, jabbering, "Away! Away! I go away!"

  Levine's voice sounded over her hysteria: "It's okay, Wills. Help her back to the store." He couldn't keep the bitter rage from his voice. The others might have thought it was rage against Danny Brodek, but they would have been wrong. It was rage against himself. What good would it do to convict Danny Brodek, to jail him for twenty or thirty years? Would it undo what he had done? Would it restore her husband to Mrs. Kosofsky? It wouldn't. But nothing less could excuse the vicious thing he had just done to her.

  Faltering, nearly whispering, Mrs. Brodek said, "I want to talk to Danny. I want to talk to my son."

  Her husband glared warningly at her. "Esther, he was here all — "

  "I want to talk to my son!"

  Levine said, "All right," Down the corridor, the door snicked shut behind Wills and the old woman.

  Mrs. Brodek said, "Alone. In his bedroom."

  Levine looked at Crawley, who shrugged and said, "Three minutes. Then we come in."

  The boy said, "Mom, what's there to talk about?"

  "I want to talk to you," she told him icily. "Now."

  She led the way from the room, Danny Brodek following her reluctantly, pausing to throw back one poisonous glance at Levine before shutting the connecting door.

  Brodek cleared his throat, looking uncertainly at the two detectives. "Well," he said. "Well. She really —she really thinks it was him, doesn't she?"

  "She sure does," said Crawley.

  Brodek shook his head slowly. "Not Danny," he said, but he was talking to himself.

  Then they heard Mrs. Brodek cry out from the bedroom, and a muffled thump. All three men dashed across the living room, Crawley reaching the door first and throwing it open, leading the way down the short hall to the second door and running inside. Levine followed him, and Brodek, grunting, "My God. Oh, my God," came in third.

  Mrs. Brodek sat hunched on the floor of the tiny bedroom, arms folded on the seat of an unpainted kitchen chair. A bright-colored shirt was hung askew on the back of the chair.

  She looked up as they ran in, and her face was a blank, drained of all emotion and all life and all personality. In a voice as toneless and blank as her face, she told him, "He went up the fire escape. He got the gun, from under his mattress. He went up the fire escape."

  Brodek started toward the open window, but Crawley pulled him back, saying, "He might be waiting up there. He'll fire at the first head he sees."

  Levine had found a comic book and a small gray cap on the dresser-top. He twisted the comic book in a large cylinder, stuck the cap on top of it, held it slowly and cautiously out the window. From above, silhouetted, it would look like a head and neck.

  The shot rang loud from above, and the comic book was jerked from Levine's hand. He pulled his hand back and Crawley said, "The stairs."

  Levine followed his partner back out of the bedroom. The last he saw in there, Mr, Brodek was reaching down, with an awkward shyness, to touch his wife's cheek.

  This was the top floor of the building. After this, the staircase went up one more flight, ending at a metal-faced door which opened onto the roof. Crawley led the way, his small flat pistol now in his hand, and Levine climbed more slowly after him.

  He got midway up the flight before Crawley pushed open the door, stepped cautiously out onto the roof, and the single shot snapped out. Crawl
ey doubled suddenly, stepping involuntarily back, and would have fallen backward down the stairs if Levine hadn't reached him in time and struggled him to a half-sitting position, wedged between the top step and the wall.

  Crawley's face was gray, his mouth strained white. "From the right," he said, his voice low and bitter. "Down low, I saw the flash."

  "Where?" Levine asked him. "Where did he get you?"

  "Leg. Right leg, high up. Just the fat, I think."

  From outside, they could hear a man's voice braying.

  "Danny! Danny! For God's sake, Danny!" It was Mr. Brodek, shouting up from the bedroom window.

  "Get the Hght," whispered Crawley.

  Not until then had Levine realized how rattled he'd been just now. Twenty-four years on the force. When did you become a professional? How?

  He straightened up, reaching up to the bare bulb in its socket high on the wall near the door. The bulb burned his fingers, but it took only the one turn to put it out.

  Light still filtered up from the floor below, but no longer enough to keep him from making out shapes on the roof. He crouched over Crawley, blinking until his eyes got used to the darkness.

  To the right, curving over the top of the knee-high wall around the roof, were the top bars of the fire escape. Black shadow at the base of the wall, all around. The boy was low, lying prone against the wall in the darkness, where he couldn't be seen.

  "I can see the fire escaf>e from here," muttered Crawley. " I've got him boxed. Go on down to the car and call for help."

  "Right," said Levine.

  He had just turned away when Crawley grabbed his arm. "No. Listen!"

  He listened. Soft scrapings, outside and to the right. A sudden flurry of footsteps, running, receding.

  "Over the roofs!" cried Crawley. "Damn this leg! Go after him!"

  "Ambulance," said Levine.

  "Go after him! They can make the call." He motioned at the foot of the stairs, and Levine, turning, saw down there anxious, frightened, bewildered faces peering up, bodies clothed in robes and slippers.

  "Go on!"cried Crawley.

  Levine moved, jumping out onto the roof in a half-crouch, ducking away to the right. The revolver was in his hand, his eyes were staring into the darkness.

  Three rooftops away, he saw the flash of white, the boy's shirt. Levine ran after him.

  Across the first roof, he ran with mouth open, but his throat dried and constricted, and across the second roof he ran with his mouth shut, trying to swallow. But he couldn't get enough air in through his nostrils, and after that he alternated, mouth open and mouth closed, looking like a frantic fish, running like a comic fat man, clambering over the intervening knee-high walls with painful slowness.

  There were seven rooftops to the corner, and the corner building was only three stories high. The boy hesitated, dashed one way and then the other, and Levine was catching up. Then the boy turned, fired wildly at him, and raced to the fire escape. He was young and lithe, slender. His legs went over the side, his body slid down; the last thing Levine saw of him was the white face.

  Two more roofs. Levine stumbled across them, and he no longer needed the heel of his hand to his ear in order to hear his heart. He could hear it plainly, over the rush of his breathing, a brushlike throb —throb —throb —throb — throb —

  Every six or seven beats.

  He got to the fire escape, winded, and looke'd over. Five flights down, a long dizzying way, to the blackness of the bottom. He saw a flash of the boy in motion, two flights down. "Stop!" he cried, knowing it was useless.

  He climbed over onto the rungs, heavy and cumbersome. His revolver clanged against the top rung as he descended and, as if in answer, the boy's gun clanged against metal down below.

  The first flight down was a metal ladder, and after that narrow steep metal staircases with a landing at every floor. He plummeted down, never quite on balance, the boy always two flights ahead.

  At the second floor, he paused, looked over the side, saw the boy drop Hghtly to the ground, turn back toward the building, heard the grate of door hinges not used to opening.

  The basement. And the flashlight was in the glove compartment of the squad car. Crawley had a pencil flash, six buildings and three floors away.

  Levine moved again, hurrying as fast as before. At the bottom, there was a jump. He hung by his hands, the revolver digging into his palm, and dropped, feeling it hard in his ankles.

  The back of the building was dark, with a darker rectangle in it, and fire flashed in that rectangle. Something tugged at Levine's sleeve, at the elbow. He ducked to the right, ran forward, and was in the basement.

  Ahead of him, something toppled over with a wooden crash, and the boy cursed. Levine used the noise to move deeper into the basement, to the right, so he couldn't be outlined against the doorway, which was a gray hole now in a world suddenly black. He came up against a wall, rough brick and bits of plaster, and stopped, breathing hard, trying to breathe silently and to listen.

  He wanted to listen for sounds of the boy, but the rhythmic pounding of his heart was too loud, too pervasive. He had to hear it out first, to count it, and to know that now it was skipping every sixth beat. His breath burned in his lungs, a metal band was constricted about his chest, his head felt hot and heavy and fuzzy. There were blue sparks at the corners of his vision.

  There was another clatter from deeper inside the basement, to the left, and the faint sound of a doorknob being turned, turned back, turned again.

  Levine cleared his throat. When he spoke, he expected his voice to be high-pitched, but it wasn't. It was as deep and as strong as normal, maybe even a little deeper and a little louder. "It's locked, Danny," he said. "Give it up. Throw the gun out the doorway."

  The reply was another fire-flash, and an echoing thunderclap, too loud for the small bare-walled room they were in. And, after it, the whining ricochet as the bullet went wide.

  That's the third time, thought Levine. The third time he's given me a target, and I haven't shot at him. I could have shot at the flash, this time or the last. I could have shot at him on the roof, when he stood still just before going down the fire escape.

  Aloud, he said, "That won't do you any good, Danny. You can't hit a voice. Give it up, prowl cars are converging here from all over Brooklyn."

  "I'll be long gone," said the sudden voice, and it was surprisingly close, surprisingly loud.

  "You can't get out the door without me seeing you," Levine told him. "Give it up."

  "I can see you, cop," said the young voice. "You can't see me, but I can see you."

  Levine knew it was a lie. Otherwise, the boy would have shot him down before this. He said, "It won't go so bad for you, Danny, if you give up now. You're young, you'll get a lighter sentence. How old are you? Sixteen, isn't it?"

  "I'm going to gun you down, cop," said the boy's voice. It seemed to be closer, moving to Levine's right. The boy was trying to get behind him, get Levine between himself and the doorway, so he'd have a silhouette to aim at.

  Levine slid cautiously along the wall, feeling his way. "You aren't going to gun anybody down," he said into the darkness. "Not anybody else."

  Another flash, another thunderclap, and the shatter of glass behind him. The voice said, "You don't even have a gun on you."

  "I don't shoot at shadows, Danny. Or old men."

  "I do, old man."

  How old is he? wondered Levine. Sixteen, probably. Thirty-seven years younger than me.

  "You're afraid," taunted the voice, weaving closer. "You ought to run, cop, but you're afraid."

  I am, thought Levine. I am, but not for the reason you think.

  It was true. From the minute he'd ducked into this basement room, Levine had stopped being afraid of his own death at the hands of this boy. He was fifty-three years of age. If anything was going to get him tonight it was going to be that heart of his, skipping now on number five. It wasn't going to be the boy, except indirectly, because of the hea
rt.

  But he was afraid. He was afraid of the revolver in his own hand, the feel of the trigger, and the knowledge that he had let three chances go by. He was afraid of his job, because his job said he was supposed to bring this boy down. Kill him or wound him, but bring him down.

  Thirty-seven years. That was what separated them, thirty-seven years of life. Why should it be up to him to steal those thirty-seven years from this boy? Why should he have to be the one?

  "You're a goner, cop," said the voice. "You're a dead man. I'm coming in on you."

  It didn't matter what Danny Brodek had done. It didn't matter about Nathan Kosofsky, who was dead. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. No! A destroyed life could not be restored by more destruction of life.

  I can't do it, Levine thought. I can't do it to him.

  He said, "Danny, you're wrong. Listen to me, for God's sake, you're wrong."

  "You better run, cop," crooned the voice. "You better hurry."

  Levine heard the boy, soft slow sounds closer to his left, weaving slowly nearer. "I don't want to kill you, Danny!" he cried. "Can't you understand that? I don't want to kill you!"

  "I want to kill^ou, cop," whispered the voice.

  "Don't you know what dying is?" pleaded Levine. He had his hand out now in a begging gesture, though the boy couldn't see him. "Don't you know what it means to die? To stop,likeawatch. Nevertoseeanythinganymore,nevertohear or touch or know anything any more. Never to be any more."

  "That's the way it's going to be, cop," soothed the young voice. Very close now, very close.

  He was too young. Levine knew it, knew the boy was too young io feel what death really is. He was too young to know what he wanted to take from Levine, what Levine didn't want to take from him.

  Every fourth beat.

  Thirty-seven years.

  "You're a dead man, cop," breathed the young voice, directly in front of him.

  And light dazzled them both.

  It all happened so fast. One second, they were doing their dance of death here together, alone, just the two of them in all the world. The next second, the flashlight beam hit them both, the clumsy uniformed patrolman was standing in the doorway, saying, "Hey!" Making himself a target, and the boy, slender, turning like a snake, his eyes glinting in the light, the gun swinging around at the light and the figure behind the light.