“Maybe you don’t sleep, Goldie. I like a few hours every night. It feels good.”
“Sorry, Mac.”
“I thought you’d like to know Brandon worked for the Cabarino while she was up there. Handyman.”
Goldsmith nodded. “I’m not surprised. Get a cup if you want some of this.”
McCormick didn’t move. “Maybe this’ll surprise you, then. There was a murder up there in his time he was never even questioned on: a girl about nineteen with lots of money, and she’d been around the Cabarino a lot.”
“Why wasn’t he questioned?”
“Let me tell it the way I got it. There’s a girls’ school a few miles from the place, a boarding school that takes day students, too …”
“Convent?”
McCormick nodded that it was. “The kids used to beat it away from the school whenever they got a car and they’d head for the Cabarino. All this got the soft pedal, of course. Anyway, it was a hangout of theirs. They were really living. Breaking loose. You know that kind of story from history. Brandon gave them holy hell one day. That’s the only connection he has with the story at all.
“And Gebhardt tried to get them to go easy on the liquor. Had a fight with the management over it. Maybe that’s how Gebhardt and him got together. Gebhardt quit the place in the fall.
“There was one girl that was the ringleader, the rich one with the car. She was going home one night after one of these escapades. Nobody saw her after she drove her friends back to the school. But about midnight a state trooper cruised past her car and stopped. He found her in the ditch, beaten to death. It was in the papers. But not much. The Cabarino never really figured in it at all. She didn’t have her pocketbook and it looked like robbery. The car had a flat tire. Somebody started to fix it, and she was beaten with one of the tools. It was right there. No prints. Gloves probably. Her purse was found on the road near the school a couple of days later. The money was gone. My guess is she lost the purse when her friends got out of the car. Whoever found it took the money and left the purse there. In other words, whoever investigated put two and two together and made it fit where it didn’t belong. That’s it, Goldie, for what it’s worth to you.”
“When did it happen?”
“November 20, 1942.”
“And that winter Brandon showed up in New York looking for Dolly Gebhardt. It figures, Mac. Maybe we won’t prove it, but I’ll bet the guy who couldn’t stand to see a horse suffer could beat the pulp out of anyone who led the lambs away from the fold.”
39
THE SHORTEST ROOKIE COP in the station got the leg assignment—a night of marking the distance he could walk at varying clips southward from the Fixit in a half-hour. After three trips to the identical spot, he angled his direction by an east-west block, and repeated the pacing. By four in the morning, he was footsore and disgruntled. He was even growing confused about the pace he intended.
In the first damp mists of dawn, he tramped through Abingdon Square, and saw the vagrants turn over on their benches and clutch the newspapers beneath their coats closer to them against the chill. A gust of wind picked up the dust and debris and swept it into his face as he walked. His eyes stung from it. He resented his job and envied the tramps their hard peace. To do his job, however, he clung to the pace he had set. But to vent his wrath, he drew his nightstick up and whacked the feet of the sleeping men as he passed.
Among those he roused, cursing and hawking the night’s dust from their throats, was one who sat up quietly and rubbed the back of his head where it had grown numb after a night on a canvas tool kit.
40
AT FIVE O’CLOCK THAT morning, the alarm clock on Katie Galli’s window sill sounded. She had set it there that its ring might not carry through the house. It had no more than tinkled when she caught it and turned it off. She lay very still in the bed for a few moments listening for other sounds in the house. Sleep was heavy upon her, having come only a couple of hours before. She sat up, still listening, and then satisfied that the alarm had awakened only her, she dressed in the semi-darkness. She went out the back door so that she would not pass beneath her mother’s window. On the steps she put on her shoes and tied her shawl about her neck.
She went to the church first in hope that Tim might have gone to the early Mass. Only a dozen worshipers knelt beneath the one lowly lighted chandelier, all women, most of them in shawls, praying everlasting rest for some dearly beloved soul, and going forth themselves then with courage to face a day in which there was little rest for them. Katie remained through the Offertory, offering the prayer that she might find Tim. A blue, green and purple light began to flow from the stained-glass windows as the sun edged near its rising.
Leaving the church, she watched the people who were familiar to the streets at that hour—workmen with their lunch buckets, a milkman, a janitor, a couple of drunken sailors, old men with gunny sacks slung over their shoulders, and women with, shopping bags, these last hurrying toward the Eighth Avenue markets to pick up the freshest of the spoilage in vegetables and fruit.
She began to walk among them, block after block, peering into hallways and cluttered vacant spaces. The name Tim was often on her lips, whispered at moments of fear or hope. She looked for him as she might have sought a stray dog, coaxing gently at the rim of darknesses in which he might have taken refuge. At Mulberry Square she moved from bench to bench quickly. A grimy little man looked up brightly as she was abreast of him. He grinned toothlessly. “Looking for me, honey?”
She wove through the crazy patchwork of the Village streets and came then to Abingdon Square, not so very far from home. Even at the gate she recognized him, his knees drawn up beneath his chin, for all the world the shape of a small boy lost. At the sound of his name he unfolded and sprang to his feet. They met halfway across the park and clung to one another. A couple of tramps grunted as they watched the scene.
“Why did you go, Tim, why, why?” She led him by the hand to the nearest seat.
“I was going to watch for you going to work, Katie,” he said. “And I was going to watch for you to come home.”
“I was so lost, Tim. I need you terribly. Why did you go?”
His face was gray with the stubble of beard and there were deep hollows beneath his eyes. But the eyes were suddenly bright, burning bright.
“Say that again, Katie. Please?”
“What?”
“What you just said … about …” He faltered on the word. His fingers were like cold straps tightening and loosening about her hands.
“Needing you?” she prompted.
He nodded gratefully.
“I need you more than anything in the world, Tim, more than home or job or mother. Sometimes when I think about it, it seems like I need you almost more than I do God.”
The tears came to his eyes then, and he looked away quickly, knowing how it disturbed her. The men she knew didn’t cry, and he wanted desperately to be strong before her.
She drew her hands away from him gently and got up. “I’m going to get a drink,” she said.
He watched her to the fountain. The shape of loveliness and grace and even holiness, he thought. He brushed the tears on his sleeve and waited. He saw her need then. She did need him, someone who revered the pure beauty of her, and who would guard it against the filth of the world and the flesh. He was smiling in happy excitement when she returned. Drawing her down beside him on the bench, he folded his hand into hers.
“Nobody ever said that to me before, Katie. Until this moment I was never needed in the world.”
“You were needed, Tim. You just didn’t know it. Everybody’s needed sometime.”
“Perhaps,” he said, trying to believe her.
“I can think of times mama needed me. And once when papa was sick he said he would have died if I hadn’t been there beside him. You can think of times like that if you try.”
He permitted his mind to obey her suggestion for an instant. “No,” he said harshly. “I on
ly used to think God needed me.”
“He does,” she said gently.
“Don’t say that, Katie.”
“I won’t say it if you don’t want me to, Tim. But I believe it. I believe He needs every good person in the world, and the bad ones need the good ones. That means everybody is needed.”
He laughed then, a childish, gleeful laugh. And because it was good to see him laugh. Katie joined him. The two tramps glanced at one another. “Nuts,” one of them muttered. “Goddam,” the other one said. “On an empty stomach, too.”
“What time is it?” Katie asked suddenly.
“A little after six. I heard the church bell …”
“Tim, we’ve got to talk serious. You’ve got to go home now. Listen to me, Tim. Mama expects you. She thinks you’ll come back …”
“I don’t want to go back, Katie. You don’t understand …”
“I do. I know mama better than you think. She’s either bullying you or smothering you. That’s her way, Tim. All my life, I haven’t known which one to expect. Johnny’s that way, too. I mean he feels that way about mama. You’ve got to make allowances for her, Tim. She’s lonesome, too. She was a young woman when papa died. Johnny and I didn’t think so before. But I see it now. Look. I used to think thirty-four was awfully old. I don’t now. Tim, sometimes I feel as old as you are.”
“And sometimes I feel as young as you, dear Katie.” He brushed the ends of her hair with the back of his hand.
“We’ve got to be practical, Tim.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “Why is it that we’ve always got to be practical? Do we want so much? A horse, a dog, a deer in the woods … I don’t want any more than they do Katie. I don’t care about eating. A big meal makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t want a heavy coat. I’d fall asleep in it. I just want to see the stars at night. I’d even like to go barefooted so I could feel the good warm soil. Have you ever smelled the ground when it’s just been turned over, Katie?”
“In a flower box I did. Mama transplanted a geranium once. I like the smell of geraniums.”
“You’ve never smelled clover, have you? Or buttercups or even dandelions. You’ve never seen the worms wriggle deep when you’ve turned them out with the spade. I’ll bet you’ve never seen a frog or a grasshopper, you’ve never seen the trail of baby pheasants after their mother, you’ve never seen a robin’s egg or a lightning-bug. Have you ever seen an anthill?”
“We’ve got red ants in the basement.”
He leaned back on the bench. “Oh, Katie. I loathe and despise the city. Every time I sit on a park bench I feel like I’m chained to it. My feet are stuck in the cement. Every time I go into a room I feel like there’s bars on the windows and a padlock on the door. This time I was sure I was going to get away from it.”
“Why didn’t you go?” she asked, fearful of the answer and yet needing to know it.
He looked at her reproachfully. “You know why. I had to wait for one more sight of you this morning. Then I’d have had to wait until tonight. Your mother was right …” His words were bitter. “I’d have come back. I’m a coward and a fool and there’s something wrong with me far beyond either one.”
“Don’t say that, Tim.”
“It’s the truth. I know it all the time, only I don’t always understand it. What’s in your own mind seems natural to you. Right. You say there’s something terribly wrong, but when it’s wrong with you, you don’t really believe it’s wrong. It’s wrong for somebody else maybe, but right for you.”
“Tim, we must go home. Mama will be getting up at a quarter to seven. She doesn’t even know I’m out. I’d rather she didn’t. Not right now.”
“Good intentions aren’t enough,” he said not hearing her. “Maybe they’re good enough for a person himself, but when he lives with another person they aren’t enough at all. You’ve got to know yourself.”
“Come on, Tim. I’ll go as far as the back door with you. Then you’ll go up to your room just the same as if you never went away. I’ll go to church …”
“Know yourself. Know thyself …”
He got up and followed her through the square, turning over in his mind new hope, new resolution, new faith.
“We’ll figure something out, Tim,” she was saying. “But just now don’t mention to mama I was looking for you. Just let her think you came back. We won’t always have to stay in the city. But we need a little time right now. Just try and see that. I’d love the country. Don’t you think I would, Tim? I’d like the flowers …”
“You are the flowers,” he said then.
As Tim and Katie passed through the gate of the Square, the two tramps got up and stretched, their eyes the eyes of scavengers. After a moment’s wary subterfuge, they both sprinted for the bench on which Tim had spent the night. The more nimble of them got the tool kit.
41
GOLDSMITH SHOWERED AND SHAVED at headquarters. He had spent the night there, catching a couple of hours’ sleep toward daybreak. When Holden arrived he was waiting for him, the map spread out.
The lieutenant looked at the shaded area. “He’s in there, huh? Village poet. I thought those days were gone forever.”
“I’m pretty sure of it, chief.” He pointed to a mark on the map. “That’s a branch library. He was borrowing books there a couple of months ago.”
“There’s a lot of city in there, Goldie. And he’s committed murder since. And he did that outside your magic circle.” He pointed to Gebhardt’s apartment.
“I know. And probably confessed it to a priest on Ninth Avenue.”
“On his way home, no doubt.”
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“What else, Goldie?”
“I’d like you to read these two complaints, one McCormick dug up, and one I’ve sketched together this morning out of a couple of calls from Cleveland. They aren’t full and documented by a long ways. But they’re clear murder on the books.”
Holden read the papers. “Can you pin these on him?”
“Maybe, if he co-operates. But they tell his story, chief. He was saving souls by getting them out of the world.”
“And Gebhardt? She came off pretty well in this upstate affair.” He motioned to McCormick’s paper.
“That was before she fell from virtue—in Brandon’s eyes. But in the end the pattern fits her, too. Some time in there he got wise to her profession. Remember the hotel clerk’s story—the young men she brought home with her now and then?” Holden nodded.
“They’re the ones Brandon was protecting. And that fine gentleman, Mr. Winters: on the phone that night she asked him how old he was. I think that was for Brandon’s benefit. And when the old boy got playful with that ‘over twenty-one’ routine, I’m pretty sure he delivered Dolly to her death.”
The lieutenant studied Goldsmith’s face a moment. The sergeant was sure of himself and his way to the man he was after. His every faculty was keyed to it. “How do you want to do it, Goldie?”
“I’d like a few precinct men alerted, chief. Ready to move. But I’d like to go through there alone today.”
“Why? Why take the chance?”
“Because he may have another sinner on his list. If he gets the idea we’re closing in on him, he might want to take care of her while he has the chance.”
Holden walked to the window and back before giving his answer. “Don’t move alone, Goldie. And check with us every hour. If you corner him, get help to bring him in.”
Goldsmith grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m no hero.”
42
MRS. GALLI WAS GETTING breakfast when Katie returned from church. The girl set the table without speaking. Now and then her mother glanced at her. This was not like her daughter, she thought, this coldness and silence. She could think of no words to break it.
“You were at Mass?” she said finally.
“Yes, Mama. Six-thirty.”
“So now you are praying for the special intention?”
“I of
ten go to Mass in the morning.”
“I’m not saying you don’t. It’s easier going to church than making the breakfast.”
“How many times have I offered to make breakfast, Mama?”
“Water for coffee, eggs like stones. No wonder I have to get up. Who was at church?”
“I didn’t look. Mrs. Fuselli. I met her coming out.”
“She’s getting old,” Mrs. Galli said. “She used to go every morning at five o’clock.”
Katie kept her eyes down. It might have been the earlier Mass at which she had seen the neighbor—when she went in to look for Tim … Her mother visited Mrs. Fuselli every day …
“You’re spilling the milk,” Mrs. Galli snapped.
Katie got the rag from the sink. Either her mother did not know yet that Tim had returned, or she was waiting to catch her off-guard with the information. The web of deception was growing thicker, and now it was becoming a film over her mind. She could think of nothing else. She wasn’t any good at deception. She ached to be free of the fear and shame of it. You couldn’t pray decently out of a lie. All you could do was make a resolution that if you got something you’d make up for the sin. It was almost like asking God to help you do something wrong. And it became harder all the time to face God. You began not even to want Him at all.
“He’s back,” her mother said.
“What, Mama?” She did not look around.
“I said he’s back. Your dime-store poet is back. I told you. Like a cur dog comes home when it’s hungry.”
Katie sunk her teeth into her lip. She would say nothing to provoke her mother. She would listen to the abuse and make no defense of Tim. Taking it out in talk on her, her mother would be easier on him. But this couldn’t go on long. She would burst with it if she had to hold in her pride of him.
A Gentle Murderer Page 18
