Killed in the Ratings

by William L. DeAndrea

  “Can he talk?”

  “Oh, he’s got a story all right, but I don’t believe I buy it, Matty. I’m waiting to hear your story.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look. These two guys, Ray Cali and Clarence Tolliver, have yellow sheets you can paper the wall with. There’s a lot of leeway in the situation. The DA’s office is ready to call it anything from Assault with Intent to Kill to Malicious Mischief, depending on what I tell him. And that depends on what you tell me.”

  Monica came back with the coffee. I looked the question at her.

  “Whatever you say, Matt,” she said.

  I took a sip of the coffee while I considered it. The warmth felt good on the cuts in my mouth.

  I put the cup down. “Okay,” I said. “I have your word this is as far as it goes, and I’ve never met anyone whose word was better.”

  Lieutenant Martin made a point of putting his notebook in his pocket as I began.

  “Goldfarb got on to me Tuesday night, my name leaked somehow.”

  “You can never plug all the leaks,” the lieutenant said. “Somebody tells somebody who tells somebody, you know how it is.”

  I told him I understood. “Anyway, he slapped a tail on me as soon as I left Headquarters, but I shook it, and kept moving around so he couldn’t pick me up again. I thought it was one of your guys.

  “Goldfarb had decided I killed Carlson to have a clear field to Monica. He thought it over for a day or so, then grabbed Monica to force me to come over there.”

  It was all true up to there, and the lieutenant was buying it. He made grunts of assent at intervals through the story.

  “Goldfarb held us there for a while,” I went on, “but when he decided to take us far away from the city, I figured I had to do something.”

  “Okay, you did something. But even if you did kill Carlson, what did Goldfarb care?”

  I shrugged. “Something about it being bad for business when a guy pays off and still gets killed. The other customers might take it amiss, might decide they’d be better off running than paying.”

  Lieutenant Martin shot a quick glance at Monica, but she was controlling her face.

  “What does Goldfarb say?” she asked.

  “Nothing. He won’t let a word go between now and the end of his trial, except to his lawyers, you can bet.”

  “So what happens now?” I said.

  “That’s up to you. If you want to make a complaint for kidnaping, go right ahead, but it will mostly be your word against theirs. The way Ray tells it, you left before the trouble started.”

  The lieutenant patted his chest, then his sides before pulling a sorry-looking pack of Camels from his right jacket pocket. He looked around for an ashtray.

  “Sorry, Mr. M., not an ashtray in the place,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he said, putting the pack away. “I forgot. Probably just as well I don’t smoke it, I might live a few minutes longer.”

  “Just for laughs, why don’t you tell us Ray’s story,” I reminded him.

  “Laughs is right. According to him, he and Tolliver were just sitting around when five Puerto Ricans came in and tried to heist the suitcase. He said ‘heist.’ He started to say five niggers, but he saw me first. Anyway, they creamed Tolly with soap, but he managed to fight them off.”

  “Cute,” I said.

  “Very cute. Well, thanks for Goldfarb. I let Rivetz get his name on the arrest report, Goldfarb’s been a damn Moby Dick to the guy.”

  “No charges against me?”

  “Hell, you weren’t even there at the time, right?” He paused at the door. “Oh, I almost forgot. Miss Teobaldi, one of the men found your shoes in Goldfarb’s car. I’ll have them brought to your apartment tomorrow.” She thanked him.

  When the door closed, I told Monica, “Call your credit card companies tomorrow.”

  She had borrowed a brush from Jane’s room, and was sitting on the couch with her legs folded under her, brushing her hair. There’s something erotic in the way a woman does that, a different tilt of the head, a different delicate arch to the body with every stroke. I wondered whether they do it the same way when no man is watching.

  “Why should I call them?” she said, in response to my suggestion.

  “You lost your purse,” I said. “A junkie has it by now.”

  She stopped the brush in midair. “That’s right,” she said. She started stroking again, and paused again. “I have to call my producer, too, I missed a taping. Two of them.” Again the start-stop. “Matt, will you come with me to see Tony in the hospital tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I owe him that much. But don’t you have to be at the studio tomorrow?”

  “No, thank God, that little idiot I play isn’t in the script for Friday. And frankly, I wouldn’t care if she were.”

  “Careful,” I said, “that kind of talk could cost you the part in ‘Deadline.’ ”

  “How do you know about that?” she demanded.

  “Tony told me. Why shouldn’t I know about that?”

  “Well ... I wanted to be the one to tell you. It’s such a great opportunity, I mean if I get it, that I—”

  “You weren’t afraid I was going to talk you out of it again?”

  She looked at the floor. “I think I was afraid I wanted you to talk me out of it,” she said quietly.

  “People do what they have to do, Monica. Or what they want to think they have to do, if you follow me. The difference comes in how you go about it.”

  “I don’t understand that at all,” she said. Her face was very grave.

  “Neither do I,” I said, just as grave.

  She laughed. “I don’t care, it sounds profound. You should write dialogue for soaps.”

  “I’ll use a pen name. How do you like Joy Fabwisk?”

  “Not bad. How about a Chinese name—Tang Tide Fling?” We laughed.

  After a while, Monica said, “Matt, I’ve got something I have to do. Or want to think I have to do.”

  “What’s that?” I said, though I knew what she meant.

  She didn’t answer in words. She unfolded her long legs and kicked away the borrowed shoes. She stood barefoot on the carpet, and busied her hands on the buttons of the silk blouse.

  I went to her and put my arms around her and kissed her. I didn’t push her away this time.

  18

  “You in a heap o’ trouble, boy.”

  —Joe Higgins, Dodge commercial

  WELL, I THOUGHT, AT least my arm is asleep.

  Monica’s head was nestled in the crook of my arm, and the pressure of it had cut off the flow of blood to my right forearm and hand, giving it that ginger ale feeling that comes with obstructed circulation.

  I looked at her sleeping face. Beautiful. For a sight like that, I could stand to let my arm get a little numb. The sheet had slid down to reveal half her smooth body. The bruise on her breast looked like an outward symptom of a broken heart. I had been very careful with it.

  It had been good. It had been even better than before, slower, sweeter, less ... desperate, I guess is the word. I should have been exhausted.

  But I couldn’t sleep. The tar pit was churning again, showing pieces of Vern Devlin on the surface, then sucking them down again.

  It made me mad. I didn’t like Devlin, and I didn’t want him in my bed, especially now. It wasn’t anything like fully formed thoughts, just a whiff of an idea that the right word would show me something important.

  What did I know about Devlin? I didn’t like him. He was a Scotch drinker. He had good eyes, recognizing me across Penn Station like that. I had told him to stay put, and he had taken off. He had been several hundred miles away from Carlson’s murder. He gave me a pain in my ass.

  None of that speculation contained the right word. I didn’t know enough about him.

  Then a soft black bubble broke the surface, whispering “maybe Monica knows the right word.”

  Maybe she did, at that, I thought resignedl
y. Hating myself thoroughly, I decided I had to ask her.

  I thought I’d better try the light touch. I flexed a bicep rapidly, bouncing her head up and down.

  “Mmmmm,” she said. She smiled, but her eyes remained closed.

  “Monica?”

  “Mmmmm?”

  “Monica,” I said, “I want—”

  “I know what you want,” she said dreamily, then sprang into action. She sealed off the rest of the sentence with her lips, and proceeded to engage my attention so thoroughly that Vern Devlin was exorcised completely from my thoughts, thereby delaying the solution of the case for twenty-four hours. But it was worth it.

  The face I shaved in the mirror next morning wore a sophomoric grin. I told it to stop, but it laughed at me. I finished shaving, dressed, went to the kitchen to work on breakfast.

  I cut two lean slabs of ham, spread them with a mixture of lemon juice and apricot preserves, topped with maraschino cherries, and popped the whole thing under the broiler. I mixed up a couple of eggs with milk, sugar, nutmeg, and vanilla (my idea), then dipped slices of whole wheat bread (also my idea) into it to make my world-famous French toast. I had made this breakfast for Monica before.

  I was flipping them over when Monica walked into the kitchen. She was sleepy-eyed and yawning and gorgeous in my terry robe that wrapped around her almost twice.

  She laced her fingers above her mussed hair, stretched, and yawned wide enough to admit a grapefruit.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, “I lose all my couth in the morning.”

  “All your couth, huh? You should meet Falzet. You’d think people in the communications industry would use the language better.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said rubbing her eyes. “What’s for breakfast? Smells good.” When I told her, she said, “I hate you. All this sweet stuff. I’ll bet you never gain a pound. You shouldn’t have a single tooth left, do you know that, Matt?”

  I shrugged.

  “I’ll set the table,” Monica volunteered. I directed her to plates and things, and she arranged them in the breakfast nook.

  When she was getting the silverware, she said, “Don’t you have a complete set of steak knives?”

  “My French toast isn’t all that tough,” I assured her. “And you can cut this ham with a sharp look.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It looks like one’s missing. See?”

  She held up the rosewood case with the RSJ monogram on the lid, opening it to show the blue-velvet interior with niches for twelve ridiculously expensive steak knives. Only eleven of them were there, though. I had seen them all a couple of days before.

  The ham was done. I got the mitten and took it out of the broiler. “It’ll turn up,” I told Monica. “I’ve been misplacing things a lot. I think it’s creeping senility.”

  She laughed. “If last night was a sample of senility, I’m sorry I didn’t know you when you were young.”

  “You couldn’t have stood it,” I informed her.

  When we finished breakfast, we went to visit Tony at the hospital. His right leg was in traction, his left leg in a cast, resting on the bed. He went wild with joy when we walked into the room. He went wild wild with joy when Monica walked into the room. He didn’t see me, and wouldn’t have if I were a rhinoceros wearing a bow tie.

  He said he was feeling fine, under the circumstances, and thanked me for getting him help so soon.

  “Thank me?” I said. “Don’t be foolish. You got me out of the way of that car, saved my life. Thank you.”

  He played the role like Gary Cooper. He did the whole humble hero bit short of saying “shucks, twarn’t nothin’.”

  “I called in for you yesterday, Monica. Everything’s straightened out at the show.”

  Monica kissed him on the forehead by way of thanks. They began to talk shop. I never felt so superfluous in all my life. I could see it was doing Tony good, though, so I took it. I passed the time by trying to figure out why Tony looked so familiar today. Finally I got it. It was his eyes. He was looking at Monica exactly the same way Spot sometimes looks at me. That kid had it bad. I hoped I wasn’t that obvious.

  When it got to be lunchtime for the patients, a no-nonsense nurse came in and told Monica and me to leave. I smiled and nodded, the way I had done for the last half hour of the conversation.

  Monica wanted to reciprocate for breakfast by making me lunch, but I told her I had to get back to work.

  “Make sure you keep your doors locked,” I warned her, “and don’t pay attention to phone calls, all right?”

  She said, “Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. Will I see you tonight?”

  “I hope so.” We kissed good-bye.

  Heading back downtown, I tried to step back and see if I knew what I was doing, getting involved with Monica again. The verdict was probably not, but I felt so good about it, I didn’t care.

  The Network had gotten along without me while I was gone. The corridors were just as crowded, and the scenery was just as good.

  Jasmyn Santiago was touching up her nails as I walked into Special Projects; she was using a silver-toned polish today.

  “How many times a day do you do that, Jazz?” I asked.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Cobb,” she said.

  “Matt,” I reminded her.

  “Matt,” she said. “Matt, Harris was in, he left you a note.”

  I took it from her and read it. The note said the green Ford with New York State License 297-VVJ was registered to an outfit called Big Apple Rent-a-Car, and that according to the company, the last they knew, it was at their lot at Kennedy Airport. Brophy was amazing. I wouldn’t know how to go about finding out where one particular rental car was at any given moment. I had a hunch that however he did it, though, a secretary had been involved.

  “Thanks, Jazz,” I said. I was encouraged, because for once, I thought, she had given me the important news first. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” she said, “some policemen are searching your office.”

  I said something along the lines of “Arrgh!” and asked, “They have warrants?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t have let them in, otherwise.”

  I dashed into the office. The first thing to claim my attention was Spot, who went into the usual ecstasy routine the second he laid eyes on me. I said hello to him, then addressed myself to Rivetz, who I assumed was in charge of the search.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I demanded.

  He grinned at me. “Tried to throw me a bone, hey, Cobb?”

  “What?”

  “I appreciate the fact we got Goldfarb, I really do,” he said, “but you got to be crazy if you think you can square a murder that way.”

  “Will you get to the point, Rivetz? What’s going on here?”

  He sighed. “Okay, might as well get down to business. Is your name Matthew Cobb, and do you reside at the following address?”

  He read me my address. I told him I was and I did.

  “Matthew Cobb, you are under arrest on the charge of Suspicion of Murder in the Second Degree. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, can and will ...” he went on talking, but I tuned him out. They were actually arresting me. You have no idea what that feels like until it happens to you. It feels like Birdseye has flash-frozen your guts, and Johns Manville has stuffed your head with fiberglas insulation.

  “Why?” I asked Rivetz. “Why now? What made the DA—”

  He shook his head. “It was the lieutenant told me to pick you up. Didn’t have the heart to do it himself.” He shook his head again. “You really let him down.”

  “But why? What made him finally decide I killed Carlson?”

  “Carlson? Cobb, I just arrested you for the murder of Mr. Vernon Devlin.”

  19

  “Your Honor, I’m prepared to prove my client is innocent of these charges!”

  —Raymond Burr, “Perry Mason” (CBS)

  LIEUTENANT MARTIN MADE A noise like
spitting. “I could kill you,” he said. “You played me for a sucker, boy.” He wouldn’t say my name. He’d been yelling at me for ten minutes, and he still hadn’t called me anything but “boy.”

  I hadn’t been booked yet. Lieutenant Martin wanted to see me first, alone, in his office, for a little tête-à-tête invective.

  “I let myself see you as a little boy, still, dammit! Well, I’ll never make captain now. But that’s not important.”

  I was sitting, he was standing in front of me. He bent over, and yelled six inches from my face, “Dammit, what am I gonna tell your Daddy? What is your Mama gonna do?” He made that spitting noise again.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  “Do what? Don’t talk to me, boy.”

  “Cut it out, Lieutenant,” I told him. “You see me as a little boy even now. I don’t want to hear a lecture. I didn’t kill Devlin; I don’t even know how he died. Evidently you think otherwise. Fine. Either question me and give me a chance to clear myself, or for Christ’s sake get me booked and locked up so I can call my lawyer—and cut out the outrage scene.”

  He was speechless with fury. I had never seen him like that before. His face was a mahogany mask, an ugly one. He strode back to me.

  He was going to hit me. I could read it in his eyes and in the way he held his body. I wouldn’t hit him, I promised myself, no matter what.

  I met his eyes. I wasn’t going to move, I wasn’t going to blink. He raised his right fist, held it poised while he stared at me, then slowly brought it down.

  He went back behind his desk and sat down.

  “I have some questions I want to ask you, Mr. Cobb,” he said hoarsely. “Do you give up the right to remain silent?”

  “I do. I also waive my right to have an attorney present. Ask away.”

  He cleared his throat and began. The story came out in the questioning. A motorist heading east on the New England Thruway had reported a body lying in a gully alongside the road up in the North Bronx, just before New York City yields to Westchester County. The body was a male, late thirties or early forties, with documents identifying it as Vernon Devlin, of Fairfax, Virginia. He had been killed by a knife in the neck.