Killed in the Ratings

by William L. DeAndrea

  “I just hope she’s not hurt or sick or anything,” he said. “Maybe she had a heart attack!”

  “How old do you think she is, for Christ’s sake?” I asked indignantly, “Knowing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if she flew out to L.A. to try to personally convince the producer of that show.”

  We were both aware that was pretty implausible, but at least it got his mind off death and disease.

  “Spot!” I called. The Samoyed trotted in from the kitchen. Tony made friends with him by scratching his throat, while I put the gun back in the safe.

  “What a beautiful dog,” Tony said. “Working dog, the best kind. We’ve got a collie back home.” He shifted the scratching to behind Spot’s ear. Spot had his eyes closed, enjoying it. “How long have you had him?” Tony asked.

  “Oh, he’s not mine,” I said. “We’re just good friends.”

  I jingled the leash, and Spot came over to me. “We’re going to give those hairy little legs a good stretch, boy,” I said as I attached the leash to the silver-studded collar Jane Sloan had commissioned for him. She originally wanted diamonds, but Rick said no.

  Spot gave me a facial. I will never understand how dogs get the idea that people think it’s a treat to have their faces spread with dog spit.

  Walking uptown, Tony told me all about his plans and hopes for the future. He reminded me so much of me, I wanted to tell him to go back to the farm and lead the simple life. I let it slide, because, if he were anything like me, he wouldn’t listen anyway.

  We made good time, pausing only occasionally for Spot to take care of the necessities of nature. In the gutter, of course. Spot was a very public-spirited dog.

  Pets probably weren’t allowed at Monica’s building, but since there was no one to tell us so, Spot came along. I was glad to have him with me.

  Tony used his key on the downstairs door, and again on Monica’s apartment. It was twilight outside, but the rooms were dark.

  He stepped inside. “Monica?” No answer.

  I never actually thought so in words, but there was a formless dread in the back of my mind of finding another body. Spot was calm, though. I took it for a good sign. According to books and movies, dogs are supposed to bark or whimper when there’s a corpse around.

  There wasn’t anything around, at least not anything that was at odds with the idea that Monica had left in the morning and just hadn’t come back yet. The bed was unmade, and the pajama she’d worn last night was draped over the chair in front of the vanity. In the kitchen, we found a used coffee cup in the sink, and a couple of lamb chops in soggy freezer wrap sitting in a puddle of tepid water on the counter.

  “Well, she meant to come home tonight,” I said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Why’d she take the lamb chops out to thaw if she didn’t intend to eat them?”

  “Well, then, where is she?”

  “Don’t worry about it!” I told him. “She probably took the Circle Line tour or something.” I was talking for my benefit as well as his. “Rivetz probably only made an issue of it to shake me up. He’s got a mad on about me.”

  Spot gave the kitchen a few tentative sniffs, then put his front paws on the counter and started scrabbling around. He looked as though he had evil designs on the lamb chops, so I pulled him out of the kitchen. Tony followed.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re not accomplishing anything here. If you want to come back to my place, I’ll feed you, and we can talk some more.”

  He was willing. If he couldn’t be with Monica, he wanted to talk about her. He was starting to get on my nerves, especially when he suggested calling the police.

  “Look. Rivetz, at least, already knows she’s not around. I don’t know if he’s saving it for himself, but if he is, and you call missing persons about a woman who lives alone being gone eleven hours, they’re going to tell you to call back in a couple of days and that’s it. If Rivetz has spread it around, the cops are looking for her anyway. If you want—”

  I stopped talking because I caught a reflection in a store window of Shorty, my tail from the other night.

  “What’s the matter?” Tony wanted to know.

  “Walk faster,” I said.

  We picked up the pace; our shadow did, too. We made a left turn down Broadway.

  “What’s the matter?” Tony asked again.

  “We’re being followed.”

  “That car?”

  “Car?”

  “Yeah, a green Ford. I’ve seen it three times since we left your apartment.”

  “Big blond guy driving?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll take a look next time he comes by.” He laughed. I couldn’t see the humor.

  Heading south on Broadway, we were approaching West 86th Street. That’s a busy intersection, the kind where the pedestrian has to beat the “WALK” light, because the cars are all trying to beat the green.

  Spot is a New Yorker, and took the lead in taking me across the street. Tony, not having been in Manhattan long enough, stopped at the curb.

  Spot and I picked a path through the traffic when the light changed, the cars disappeared from around me, and I had the intersection all to myself.

  Tony yelled for me to look out. I spun around to see a car running the red light, speeding across Broadway, heading straight for me. The tires were smoking, and the headlights seemed to get bigger and bigger as the car bore down on me, until they looked like two manholes to hell.

  It was impossibly close. I couldn’t jump out of the way. I was just hoping I could be dead before I felt the pain.

  All of a sudden, I felt myself being propelled across the street. It was a combination of Spot pulling against the leash, which I still held tightly in my hand, and Tony tackling me from behind.

  I hit the macadam and rolled, stopping only when I hit the curb. As my body rotated, I got a stroboscopic view of the green Ford speeding down 86th, toward the Hudson. And every glimpse I got, I got another digit of the license number: 297-VVJ.

  My elbows and knees were banged up, and my hands and face stung where they’d scraped the road. I looked back across the street for Tony.

  He was lying in the street, making whimpering noises and rolling from side to side. I ran back to him. The car had caught him as he pushed me out of the way. He was taking deep, rapid inhalations. His eyes were wide, and his skin warm and wet. He looked like he was going into shock. I took off my jacket and covered him as well as I could.

  I wanted to get somebody to go for help, but the pedestrians had all mysteriously disappeared, while the cross-town traffic demurely circled us. They didn’t want to get involved. I cursed them all.

  Tony was trying to talk. “Legs ... broke—”

  “Shhh,” I told him. “Be quiet. I’ve got to—”

  “Tried to ... kill you.” He had to force it out, but the sound of his surprise came through.

  “I know, now shut up. Talking will only make it hurt worse. I’ve got to leave you for a second—”

  He grabbed my hand. “No!”

  “—only to call an ambulance. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

  “Don’t leave me!” he pleaded.

  I couldn’t waste time arguing with him. “Spot, watch!” I told the dog. That, I knew, would do it. Spot would stand next to Tony, and they’d have to shoot him to move him. A white dog standing there would lessen the chance of Tony’s being hit again while he lay there.

  There was a laundromat nearby with a pay phone inside. I called the operator, told her to get an ambulance and where to send it. Then, thanking God I’d remembered to take change off Buddha’s lap, I bought a soda from a vending machine, dumped the contents in the sink, and filled the can with tepid water.

  When I got back, the scene was the same as I had left it. Tony was still conscious, a good sign. Nobody was around. I wished Spot could talk, so he could tell me how many sons of bitches had driven or walked by without helping.

  I went b
ack to Tony, and made him drink some of the water, to ward off dehydration, which is one of the big dangers of shock. In small sips, he had put away about half the can when the ambulance arrived, along with a blue-and-white patrol car.

  First things first. I told the ambulance attendant what I’d done. He told me it was good, and gave me my jacket back. Then I told them I’d been walking my dog and seen the hit-and-run. I described the car as well as I could, but I saved the license number for my own use.

  I was mad now. At myself. Until now, I had been curious, depressed, but mostly scared. I had been breathtakingly incompetent in my handling of the case to date, but that had to come to a screeching halt. The good guys were starting to get hurt. The answers were going to be found, and I was the one who was going to find them. Starting now.

  The first thing I needed was freedom of movement. I didn’t know if my short friend had fingered me for the car, and I didn’t know where he was now, but I wanted him off my ass, and I didn’t want to spend the night at the precinct.

  When the cop asked for my name, I told him “Lee DeForest,” and made up an address. He didn’t mention the scrape on my face. Evidently, it felt worse than it looked. He said detectives would get in touch with me. I smiled and said fine, and Spot and I got away from there, fast.

  I was getting dangerous to be around, as Tony had found out. Unfortunately, I was stuck with me. I didn’t want to be any more obvious than I had to be. That meant I had to get rid of Spot.

  Easier said than done. Someone was stalking me, and I had to figure they’d staked out all the obvious places I could go: my apartment, Monica’s place (no doubt picking up the trail of me and Tony at one of these), and the Tower of Babble.

  I had to figure they were watching my parents’ house as well, but even if they weren’t, I didn’t want to go there because Lieutenant Martin lived right next door.

  I had to think of a place I’d never been before, yet where I’d be welcome. I could only come up with one possibility. I flagged a cab going by, and told the driver to take me to an address in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

  “No way I’m going to Brooklyn, pal,” he said. His breath was redolent of Sen-Sen.

  “No?” I said. “The law says you’ve got to take me anywhere I want to go in the five boroughs, Nassau, and Westchester.” I got in and put Spot on my lap.

  “You wanna know what to do with the law, buddy? I ain’t going all the way the hell over to Brooklyn. Sorry.”

  I gave Spot a little tap on the side of his muzzle. It’s a little game we played called “Vicious Dog.”

  “Grrrrrr,” Spot said.

  “Gee, it’s a shame,” I said. “I’ve got to get there, fast. My dog needs his medicine.”

  Spot growled again, more menacingly this time.

  “M-medicine?” the driver asked.

  “Mmm-hmm.” I nodded gravely. “Tranquilizers.”

  “T-tranquilizers?”

  “Yup. Something wrong with his nose, you see. He thinks everything he smells is a cat.”

  I gave Spot another tap on the muzzle, and he really started looking ferocious, baring his fangs and saying, “GRRRRRR!”

  The cabbie started to get nervous. “Well, I’m sorry, but ... I mean, I gotta get rolling, you know?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dare try to move him now, the medicine is nearly worn off.” I comforted Spot, “There, there, Ripper, we’ll have you feeling better in a jiffy.”

  “Ripper?” the cabbie gasped.

  “Yes. Isn’t that a cute name?”

  Spot barked, and that was all it took. The driver said, “Bay Ridge, right!” threw the meter, and burned rubber out of there.

  Spot calmed remarkably once we were on the way. The driver kept casting apprehensive little glances into the rearview mirror.

  After getting lost only twice en route, the cab rolled to a stop in front of the right address, a dormered cottage, one of thousands of identical structures set six inches apart that lined both sides of the avenue as far as the eye could see.

  Leaving the cab, Spot gave the driver’s ear a playful lick. I suppressed laughter when he went white with fear. He probably thought it was a preliminary to having his head bitten off. He rocketed out of there as soon as I paid him.

  Shirley Arnstein had the upstairs part of the house, one of those apartments with no straight walls. It had a separate door around on the side. I found it and rang the bell.

  She opened the door as far as a magnesium-steel chain would allow, and said, “Mr. Cobb, what are you doing here?”

  “Time to go to work, Shirley,” I said. “Can I come in?”

  The door let me see a tiny slice of her. She swiveled her head to look a question back up the stairs. A man’s voice answered her. “Sure,” it said, “why not?” Harris Brophy’s voice.

  With her glasses off, her hair down, and dressed casually, Shirley looked much more attractive than she usually did at the office. I was sorry for breaking in on her evening with Harris, and said so.

  “That’s all right, Matt. I can’t resist her, either.” His voice had its habitual tone of good-natured mockery. Harris was one of those supremely self-confident individuals. He seemed to be made up of equal portions of D’Artagnan and the Fonz. He had no arrogance in him, though, and was thoroughly likable. He was the only person I knew of who had turned down a promotion and gotten away with it.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I told him. “The first thing I wanted Shirley to do was find you. What I want—”

  Shirley had to interrupt me to play hostess. “Mr. Cobb, can I get you something?”

  “No,” I said. “And call me Matt. It’s a hell of a thing when the women in the department call me Mr. and the men call me Matt. First names from now on. And another thing. What time is it?”

  Three watches came up simultaneously. It was nine-thirty.

  “Okay, I want you to remind Jazz tomorrow to put it down on the time sheet for time and a half. You are now both officially on the job.”

  “Let me get my glasses,” Shirley said.

  “What’s up, Matt?” Brophy said.

  “It’s important, but I don’t want to go into the details. Briefly, I’m in trouble, and I need to stay loose until tomorrow morning.”

  Shirley returned, ready for business.

  “I want three things from you two. Spot!” I’d had him waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He came up to the top and hung his muzzle shyly on the landing like a fuzzy-faced Kilroy.

  “First, I want you to take care of my dog.” They were going through the beautiful dog routine, and only half heard me. Spot came all the way up into the apartment, and pranced over to them instead of me, the fickle mutt. “Bring him into the office tomorrow.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Shirley said.

  “Second, I want to know about a green Ford Torino, New York State registration 297-VVJ. It was involved in a hit-and-run tonight. The police are interested in it too, but they don’t have the license. The idea is to get Motor Vehicles to tell you what you want to know without it getting back to the cops.”

  “I know a secretary in the DMV,” Brophy said. “It’ll be a breeze.”

  “Good. If you can manage it, I want to know if that car is stolen, and if so, when.”

  With a confident nod, he said, “I know a secretary at Police Headquarters, too.”

  I would be hard pressed to think of a place where Harris Brophy didn’t know a secretary who could tell him what he wanted to know. Shirley showed no reaction. She was being professional.

  “Third, I want a check on the financial activities of Walter Schick from, oh, say June through November of last year. Thorough, but unobtrusive. That’s for you, Shirley.”

  “Right, Matt,” she said.

  Brophy was intrigued. “Walter Schick? What are we doing, Matt? Hatching a plot to overthrow the Network?” He seemed delighted with the prospect.

  “Harris, we just might,” I said. I said good-bye to Shirley a
nd Harris, patted Spot on the head, and went back into the night.

  13

  “Enter and sign in, please.”

  —John Daly, “What’s My Line” (CBS)

  I PROBABLY COULD HAVE stayed at Shirley’s overnight, if I’d asked. Harris was whimsical enough not to have minded. However, I didn’t think it was fair to take a chance of exposing them to whatever was after me. I was pretty sure I’d shaken my tail back in Manhattan, but I still wasn’t sure what I was up against, or what resources they had. Though not petrified, I was apprehensive.

  I wanted now to be within striking distance of Penn Station. I was going to keep my date with Devlin, and if he didn’t come off that nine-thirty train, I’d go down to Washington and visit him. I had a new idea about the case, and I wanted to see what Devlin thought about it before I had cops laughing at me again. Carlson had told Devlin the assumed name he’d been using; maybe he’d trusted him with the big secret. Whatever it was, I hoped it wasn’t what I was beginning to think it might be.

  The first step was to get back to Manhattan. I no longer had Spot around to frighten cabbies across borough lines, so I headed for a subway station.

  I descended metal stairs worn smooth and slippery by millions of pairs of commuters’ feet, paid fifty cents for my token, and waited for a westbound train. I cursed the string of incompetent city administrations that caused the fare to be increased five hundred percent in my lifetime.

  That way lay madness, I knew, so I took my mind off politics by reading the graffiti. The past several years have shown a new direction in artistic thrust of New York City graffiti; instead of the intellectually engaging (for example, “This Is Where Napoleon Took His Famous Bonaparte”), the movement has been toward the visually exciting. One budding da Vinci had used can after can of purple and yellow spray paint to preserve the words “HECTOR73” for posterity. Or, at least, until somebody painted over it.

  There are few feelings as lonely as being the only person in a subway station. Your footsteps echo on the concrete platform, and the smell, compounded in equal parts of dust, machine oil, and sweat, makes you nostalgic for the noise and crowds of rush hour.