Her doctor told her to stop being foolish, and patted her hand. The inspector said, “Now, why would you think that, Mrs. Reade?” He said it very gently, like a favorite uncle.
“Because I killed Davy.”
The doctor, a steely looking old gent who bore a remarkable resemblance to Lionel Barrymore, said, “Inspector, as you can see, Mrs. Reade is hardly in a condition to answer questions—”
His patient cut him off. “No, no, no,” she said, as though explaining something to a child. “I usually take Davy to school, but this morning, he wanted to leave early, to mail a letter before the mail pickup ...”
“Was the letter to his father?”
“Oh, no, Davy was joining the Superman Fan Club. He—he’s very excited about it.”
“How does that make you guilty, Mrs. Reade?”
“Because I should have gone with him. There’s a crazy person in this town! But I wanted to sleep another half hour. If I was with Davy this wouldn’t have happened!”
This, the inspector knew, was not logical, but this was not the time to tell her that Hog made kills in bunches as well. If this was a Hog murder at all, he almost forgot to remind himself.
Mrs. Reade was very close to a relapse. The doctor gave Fleisher a fierce look, and after Fleisher’s nod, took Mrs. Reade into another room, to soothe her and put her to bed.
It took a long time. The inspector used the interval to talk to Officer Jefferson, ask Buell Tatham (who, as usual, had tagged along in the inspector’s footsteps) to go easy on the confession stuff when he wrote about it, and look around the room.
It was a nice room, not tidy. There were a pair of boy’s sneakers in the middle of the floor, and a boy’s heavy woolen sweater lying on an ottoman, where it had been thrown, discarded by its owner, by virtue of the warmer weather. There were five comic books on the sofa, and a picture of a ruggedly handsome man on the mantelpiece in a crudely made frame with “DADDY” burned crookedly into the wood.
Fleisher sighed and turned to talk to the doctor, who had returned to the room. From him, the inspector learned some more facts: the Reades had divorced amicably a year ago; Davy’s father had moved to San Francisco, where he operated a successful motorcycle dealership; John Reade had the boy for six weeks in the summer and every other Christmas.
The doctor volunteered to notify the father of Davy’s death, and Fleisher was just accepting, when officer Fiali burst into the house, saying, “Inspector, we just got a squeal. Body’s just been found, less than ten minutes ago.”
Fleisher turned his eyes to the sky and prayed for strength, found some, then looked at the officer and said, “Where now?”
“Down by the university,” Fiali told him. “In the Albert-Runyon Apartments.”
FIVE
HERBIE HAD HAD A BAD night. No sleep. He just lay in bed, watching his eyelids, and trying to stop his brain from racing like the Machine on an open-ended run. It was just no good. As far as Herbie Frank was concerned, no study, no sleep. Just as some people need warm milk before they turned in, Herbie needed the soothing effect of working La Place transforms and allotting core space for his latest program.
But last night was no good, that fight upstairs had ruined his concentration. And then there was that damn faucet. Herbie would just have to tell Leslie that people were trying to study, and if she and that townie boyfriend of hers, that Terry Wilbur jock, couldn’t get along, they should do their fighting somewhere else. A fellow had to get some work done, you know? Computer engineering is no gut, not by a long shot.
He called her a whore, that was the thing that kept coming back to Herbie. It was about one o’clock, Herbie was trying to condense his pollution control program by a few steps, when he heard Wilbur’s big feet make clong! noises on the metal steps, that echoed in the concrete cave that sheltered the entrances to four of the so-called garden apartments in the Albert-Runyon complex. You couldn’t help but hear, with the thin walls, and crazy echo-chamber effects in the entranceway.
Herbie heard Terry Wilbur enter Leslie’s apartment (without even knocking); just a short while later, he heard the big, muscle-bound idiot start yelling at poor Leslie. “Jesus Christ!” Wilbur had yelled, and “Leslie!” and then he started saying “Whore! Whore! Whore! Whore!” and that made Herbie mad.
That moron had no right to be calling Leslie names—he didn’t even graduate high school, despite all his muscles, and good looks, and height, whereas Leslie was a student in the grad school at the university. Okay, so it was a gut major like business, but Leslie was a beautiful girl. You couldn’t expect good-looking people to be more than adequate intellectually; they didn’t have the mental discipline.
It was enough that Leslie was so nice. That day in September, when he offered to help carry her stuff up to her apartment, she just said thank you, instead of wondering if he was strong enough to carry anything, the way other people did. She always said hello with such a nice smile; she didn’t make fun of people just because they were smarter.
Herbie could talk to Leslie about things he never wanted to talk about with anybody else. She really brightened those dreary rides on the campus bus in the morning. Like one morning, the subject of acne came up, Herbie never knew how, and that afternoon, Leslie came and knocked on his door and gave him a bottle of some stuff a dermatologist had recommended for her, and he tried it, and it really helped him, some.
So Herbie considered himself Leslie Bickell’s staunch friend, especially now, when anybody could see she hadn’t been feeling well for more than a week, at least. He didn’t like her casual dates walking in and calling her names, but he had to listen. He sat at his desk downstairs, making fists, and thinking, if he doesn’t stop, I’ll—I’ll—
And abruptly, he did stop. Herbie let his breath go.
The next thing he heard was the water screaming in the plumbing as somebody upstairs turned on the water in the bathroom. To wash away tears, Herbie figured. Leslie had taken the whole thing and never said a word.
The poor kid, he thought sadly, the poor, poor kid. Her taste in men was so terrible. She let them do all kinds of terrible things to her. Herbie felt so sorry for poor Leslie, he snapped his pencil, crumpled up his useless notes, jumped in bed, and buried his head under the pillow.
But not to sleep. The water was still running upstairs, with a whining that cut to the very center of his brain. You’d think they’d hear it upstairs, but no. He thought of going upstairs and saying something about it, but he knew Leslie wouldn’t want Herbie to see her in her humiliation. So he stayed where he was. And tossed. And turned.
Which brought him to this morning. The hell with it, Herbie thought, I’m getting up. There was time to do some work before he had to be back at his terminal, punching away at the keyboard again.
Herbie got out of bed, rubbing his face. His fingers found no new blemishes, which he took as a good sign. He was still rubbing when he stepped over the threshold of the bathroom door into half an inch of tepid standing water.
After the initial shock, it was easy to see what the problem was—the damn sink upstairs. It was still going. And something had clogged it up, and it had overflowed, and the water was seeping through the ceiling/floor into Herbie’s apartment! This was too much. This was just too much, even for Leslie. It was the school that owned these apartments. Herbie was damned if he was going to get in trouble with the university!
Quickly, Herbie got into pants and shirt, shoes and socks. The idea of just slipping on his overcoat over his pajamas occurred to him, but he rejected the idea when he remembered that was how perverts ran around.
Herbie stepped outside his door, locked it behind him, walked up the stairs, walked over to Leslie’s door; he hesitated for a second, then knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again, with the same result. He called Leslie’s name, but there was still no answer.
Before he could even think about it, Herbie’s hand shot for the doorknob and turned it. To his astonishme
nt, the door wasn’t locked. He eased it open and poked his head around the edge. No one was in the living room.
“Hello?” he piped in his reedy voice. “Leslie?”
He shrugged, to show himself he wasn’t nervous about entering someone else’s apartment unbidden. He stepped quietly inside and closed the door behind him. And then he saw her.
She had been in the corner, in the beanbag chair, hidden before by the open door. Leslie was sitting with her head thrown back, eyes closed, mouth wide open, in the expression of ecstasy, or relief. She wore blue jeans, but her torso was naked, and the sight of her nipples peeping through the strands of her long black hair aroused in Herbie some piercing emotion he was unequipped to recognize. The feeling lasted until he saw the hypodermic dangling by its silvery needle from the fair skin and pale blue vein on the inside of Leslie Bickell’s left elbow.
Herbie didn’t stay to notice any more details. He ran trembling from the apartment, down the stairs to his own door, threw it open, leapt inside, locked it behind him, picked up his telephone and called the police.
Inspector Fleisher noticed the details. Like the girl’s Sparta University sweatshirt, lying in a heap on the floor where it had been tossed aside in the rush to get at the tender flesh of her arm.
She hadn’t been on the stuff long enough to know that junkies don’t like sweatshirts—too hard to roll up the sleeves. That was another detail the inspector noticed—this girl was a real rookie. So few hit marks on her arm, she hadn’t even collapsed that first vein yet. She could still shoot up with her right hand. The veterans at the game were all switch hitters—they used up their left arm, then moved to the veins in their right arm, then to their thighs, between their toes, under their tongues, everywhere.
Another OD, the sixteenth, the first death. Goddammit, Fleisher thought, if it isn’t the Hog, it’s the Horse, for crysake.
If that pimple-faced runt downstairs had been coherent when he called headquarters, Fleisher wouldn’t have even been there. He had enough on his mind without this.
Well, at least no one could say the police weren’t right on the job. Fleisher left a skeleton crew at the Reade place, then led patrolmen, detectives, lab boys, ME’s boys and the rest from there to here. In the car on the way over, Buell Tatham had remarked, “It’s a regular caravan, Inspector,” and Fleisher had answered sourly, “What it is is a goddamn circus parade, for crysake.”
Well, he wasn’t going to stay for the whole show. He was dead beat. For example, he couldn’t even remember the name of the detective that walked up to him with an evidence report.
“This is what clogged up the sink,” Detective Anonymous said. He was holding up what looked to the inspector exactly like an empty plastic evidence bag.
“What the hell is it? Air?” he asked grumpily.
“Oh, no sir, it’s a plastic bag—”
“I know it’s a plastic bag, for crysake! There’s supposed to be evidence in it, Hawkins!” That was it. Hawkins. Funny how he couldn’t remember it until he got pissed off.
“Yes, sir,” Hawkins went on, unperturbed. “What I got here is a plastic bag inside a plastic bag. See, there was a plastic bag in the bathroom sink that covered over the hole, and made the sink overflow later on. There was a candle and spoon in there, too, so I think that bag had the dope in it. I think she loaded the needle in the bathroom.”
Fleisher eyed him redly. “Know what happens if you keep thinking, Hawkins?”
Hawkins beamed at him. “Yes, sir. I make sergeant.”
Fleisher laughed. The day was saved. “Good work, Hawkins. Keep it up. Now look, I’m taking Shaughnessy and getting out of here, maybe get some sleep. I want you to—”
“Inspector!” It was the voice of Officer Fiali calling from his post outside the door. “Some guy out here wants to see Leslie Bickell!”
The inspector also heard another voice saying, “Hey, watch it, huh? No need to get rough, I only want to talk to her. Have you busted her already? How’d you find out? Look—”
Fleisher recognized that voice. What the hell was he doing here? Well, only one way to find out.
“Send him in,” he bellowed.
The newcomer was tall and handsome. He had blond hair and expressive gray eyes behind big square eyeglasses. He followed Fleisher’s pointing finger with those eyes, and saw the corpse. “Jesus Christ,” he said, then turned a puzzled face to the inspector.
“What’s the matter, Gentry?” the inspector asked, gently.
SIX
THE PROFESSOR ARRIVED ON the 10:36 P.M. flight from New York on February 1; it was the last plane to arrive at Gwinnett Field before the blizzard bit and closed the place down for two and a half days. Ron was late to the airport—he hadn’t had much notice. The old man could cover ground when he had to; he couldn’t have gotten Ron’s message at his hotel in Lesotho more than a day and a half ago; it had taken the better part of a day just to track him down.
True to his tradition of springing surprises, the professor hadn’t bothered to respond to the telegram—he just showed up, and phoned Ron to come get him. Ron told him he’d be there in a half hour, but it took almost twice that long because of the constantly worsening snowfall.
At the wheel, fighting skids and slides, Ron had to laugh. He knew what Benedetti was up to, If the professor had answered the telegram, there would have been reporters at the airport. Cameras. Worse than that, politicians would be there, shaking his hand, putting their arms around his shoulders, making smiling statements about how they had “every confidence the proffesoree would bring the fiend to bay.”
Fat chance. Ron Gentry knew he’d never live to see the day Niccolo Benedetti allowed himself to be used as a publicity gimmick by a politician.
The airport terminal was a huge green barn with a glass front. Ron parked the ear, and dashed inside. When his glasses cleared, he scanned the big open floor in the center of the building for the distinctive shape of the professor. He didn’t see it. Hoping the old man hadn’t done anything impulsive, Ron went looking for him.
He found the professor (finally) in the cigar shop, exercising his Florentine charm on an attractive, plump middle-aged lady behind the counter. Ron noted with an almost paternal pride that he already had her smiling and blushing. It was Gentry’s considered opinion that the professor was a rake.
Ron knew that whatever made the old sinner such a scandalous success with the ladies had nothing to do with looks. If Niccolo Benedetti was not punctilious about his daily straight-razor shave, or about having his wardrobe of shapeless tweeds kept spotless, or about sporting a different bow tie each day of the week, he could easily pass as a derelict. His body was massive, but loose; under his baggy suit, he looked as though he were made of I-beams welded together at obtuse angles. His hands were large and knobby, and hung a long way from his sleeves. When he walked, he thrust his small head forward and glided, as though he were on tracks. Somehow, he not only got where he was going, but managed to leave the observer with the impression that he’d been graceful while he was getting there.
Ron had always thought the professor looked like an El Greco painting, with that small skull on that powerful body. It wasn’t always easy to believe that skull housed one of the great brains of the century.
The professor’s face was hard to describe. He was high of forehead, a little short on chin, with bright black eyes and a surprisingly delicate nose and mouth. “Weasel-faced” would be accurate, but misleading—the professor had the air of nobility, even royalty. He resembled an imperial weasel—an ermine, if you will.
The professor was too involved in small talk to see or hear Ron’s approach. The young detective walked quietly up behind him and said, “Welcome back to Sparta, Maestro.”
The professor beamed at him. “Ah, Ronald, caro amico, it is so good to see you again! I was speaking of you to Mrs. McElroy, here, who has shown me that the women of this city are fully as charming as I had remembered. The sixty-three minutes I waited for yo
ur arrival simply flew.” Irony was Benedetto’s best blade; somehow that precise pronunciation that is the last trace of an Italian accent only added to its effectiveness.
The time was long past, though, that the professor’s irony could bother Ron Gentry. “I’m sorry, Maestro,” he said. “You should have taken a taxi, or hired a limousine.”
“Bah! And lose the pleasure of your conversation for the duration of the ride? You hurt me, Ronald, to think I would do such a thing.” He shook his head in disappointment, but the black eyes twinkled. Ron knew the old skinflint just didn’t want to pay for a cab. Professor Niccolo Benedetti was world renowned for (among other things) never paying for anything.
Right now he was holding up a box of $1.75 cigars. He handed them to Mrs. McElroy, and said, “So, bellissima signora, I shall take these, and I shall think of you with every puff.” He turned to whisper to Ron. “Ronald, I must go now to answer the call of nature. You will take care of this purchase for me, will you not? And then we will leave.”
He gave Mrs. McElroy a parting smile that had her squirming like a little girl. Just as the professor was about to step out of the shop, she blurted, “Don’t forget you have my phone number!”
Ron looked at the box of cigars he had just paid for, and at the red and breathless widow behind the counter, shook his head and grinned. Two new triumphs for Benedetti, he thought. He does it every time.
Ron stowed the professor’s things in the trunk, taking extra care with his painting kit. The professor painted to help him think, and, quite unconsciously, turned out canvases that hung in some quite well-known art museums, credited to half a dozen aliases.
Ron joined the professor in the car, brushed some fat wet snowflakes from his hair, and started the engine. He asked the professor if he had had a pleasant trip.
“Quite pleasant, indeed. This spectacular display of nature is the best part of all.” He gazed out the window at the storm.
Ron grunted. Their respective arguments about the merits of snow, and Sparta snow in particular, had all been placed on the record before.
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