by Toby Ball
By categorizing the files in this manner, it was reasoned, individuals with similar criminal habits would be filed with each other. This would allow for easy analysis of similar crimes and an even greater ability to create lists of possible suspects based purely on modus operandi: Describe the crime, find the proper file category, and you produced not only a list, but the actual files themselves. The system was almost magical in its precision and utility, so long as someone thoroughly understood all of its mechanisms, exceptions, and nuances. Given the number of crimes and individual criminals in the City over the past seventy years or so, the system had grown so complicated that even a man with an advanced aptitude, such as Puskis, took literally years to understand it fully. The product of constant revision and addition according to the individual whims of the successive Archivists, it required at once a mathematical and an intuitive sense, along with an empathic understanding of the specific psychology of the previous Archivists. One had to think as his predecessors had to determine what their decisions would have been.
All this time and care and bother, and it had been invested for just such a moment as this.
Before collecting the files, Puskis consulted the Master Index, an annually produced volume listing, by last name of the perpetrator, the numbers for all the files generated in a given year. As intended, by merely listing the classification numbers of the files, he would be collecting provided information. To begin with, they were all C4000 series, the C designating a violent crime and the 4 designating murder. Further, they were all designated in the 500 category of the C4000 series, meaning that they were offenses that had the additional factor of organized crime. From this commonality the files diverged, but this information alone served as a valuable beginning point. Organized-crime-related murders up until July of 1928. Puskis was too distracted by his investigative process to notice the significance of that date.
In retrospect, Puskis determined that whoever was doctoring the files had started slowly, removing and replacing the file contents so that unless someone actually examined more than one of them, there would be no evidence that they had been tampered with. Then, according to Puskis’s guess, this person must have realized that time was running short or been put under some other type of pressure, because things became sloppier. And this person must have been working off much the same list and sequence as Puskis was, because the sloppiness increased as he progressed from file to file.
The first indication of tampering was a file that had been pushed in too far, so that the label was no longer fully visible. He could conceivably have made this mistake, though it would have surprised him. But then more evidence: Files a slot or two out of place were most common. Another had been put in backward. Whoever had done this seemed to have feared the consequences related to the time pressure more than the discovery of his work.
Puskis brought the files back to his desk, already knowing that the information in them would be useless. He opened them in the reverse order in which he had retrieved them. They were dummies—the papers they contained identical: a trial transcript from a recent, wholly unrelated case; a photograph of a rat-faced man with bruises under both eyes, who Puskis felt quite sure was of no relevance. The paper stock itself was new, produced within the last two years and possibly inserted into the files as recently as the days he was on vacation.
Puskis sat back in his small leather chair and considered the different probabilities. How long ago could these files have been switched without his coming across them? The switch must have been recent, though he acknowledged this assessment could simply be clouded by vanity. Indeed, what were the chances that these switches were not related to the two DeGraffenreid files and Puskis’s subsequent discovery of his freshly murdered corpse? Extremely unlikely. Which meant that, in response to Puskis’s inquiries into DeGraffenreid, someone had not only murdered the man, but also removed a number of files that Puskis had to assume in some way related to him.
For the second time in the past twenty-four hours, Puskis realized that the vaguely uncomfortable feeling he was experiencing was fear. His phone rang. An observer would have noticed Puskis’s subtle tensing in response to the sudden peal of noise as a minor response. Had they managed to peer into his closeset eyes, however, they would have registered the true depths of his terror.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Poole was back in the Hollows. It was overcast, but the clouds were high. The wide streets were empty and he picked up the scent of garbage rotting somewhere nearby. He parked in front and walked up twelve steps to the front door of the brick apartment building. The buildings were low in this part of town, he noticed—mostly warehouses and small apartment buildings—nothing over four or five stories. Three buttons were to the right of the door, with only numbers on the labels. He pushed the top one and heard the buzzer sound inside. When there was no answer, he pushed the middle button. Again he heard the ring and then footsteps, practically above him. He looked up to see the window above the door slide open, and a woman’s enormous head appeared, looking down at him.
“No one’s here,” she said, the folds of her neck rippling.
“I’m looking for Casper Prosnicki.”
The woman responded with a whistle. “I haven’t heard anyone say that name in a long time. Must be nostalgia week. Hold on.”
What did she mean by “nostalgia week”? Poole waited as the woman’s footsteps progressed around the apartment, then she reappeared at the window. She had a key in her hand that she dropped straight down toward him. He pulled his hat off and caught the key with it.
Her apartment door was open, so he walked in, his hat in his hand. The kitchen reeked of mold and spoiled food. Thankfully, the light was dim and Poole held his breath until he was in a corridor that was merely stale with must. He heard labored breathing coming from the room ahead of him. Only at the threshold of the room did he get a full look at her, this enormous woman wearing a tent of a flowered housedress, her swollen, pale ankles visible below the hemline.
“Come on in, let’s have a look at you,” the woman said from her chair. The room stank of years of her. Sweat, smoke, urine, spoiled food, and he did not want to think what else. Poole stepped into the room now and looked around. The walls were lined with shelves jammed with books. “Well, well, well. Another visitor. Polly’s lucky week, this one.”
“Someone else has been here?”
“Why don’t you introduce yourself first, fella? Come and sit down.” She motioned to an upholstered chair. Poole sat down in it without enthusiasm.
“My name’s Poole.”
“Hmmm. Poole. You got a first name Poole?” When she spoke, her neck did a funny quivering thing, and Poole found he could not pull his eyes away.
“Ethan. Ethan Poole.”
“Mine’s Polly. Pleased to make your acquaintance. So tell me, what brings you to my abode today, Mr. Ethan Poole?”
“Like I said, I’m trying to find a person by the name of Casper Prosnicki. I understand that he used to live in one of the flats here.”
“Used to’s right. Left about seven years back. Same as DeGraffenreid, come to think of it. Right about the same time.”
Poole shifted in his seat, uncomfortable under her steady, intense stare. “Who’s DeGraffenreid?”
“Another former tenant. Gink came by the other day asking about him. Reif DeGraffenreid and the Prosnickis—at least Casper and his mom. Oh, Lord, what was her name?” She squinted her pig eyes in concentration, as if determined to snatch the name from memory.
“Lena.”
“That’s right,” she said, sounding both pleased and surprised. “Lena. But I guess you would know that; she must’ve hired you. Must be terrible not knowing where your kid is. I can’t fathom.”
“She was very upset. Very upset. But, Polly, why was this person, you know, this gink, why was he looking for what’s his name . . .”
“DeGraffenreid.”
“Yes. Why was this person looking for DeGraffenreid?”
“Didn’t say. He had two pictures, though. Wasn’t sure which one was Mr. DeGraffenreid. So I told him.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Of course, I do, dear. I don’t get visitors here every day, you know.”
She was making him work for it. “What was his name, Polly?”
“Arthur Puskis. Funny little gink. Looked like he had just crawled out from the grave. Nervous, too, but official. He might have even been police. He just might have.”
The name Puskis meant nothing to Poole. He got up from his chair and walked to the bookshelves to Polly’s right. She had a lot of books, and scanning the titles, he was surprised to find that a number of them were in foreign languages. He recognized German, Spanish, and Russian. Other titles were in languages he could not identify. Italian maybe, and Portuguese. Several tomes were in Latin. The colors of the book jackets were muted by a layer of dust. He found a section of books with English titles. The Bible. The Torah. The Bhagavad Gita. The Koran. Translations of Cervantes, Dumas, de Sade.
Polly was watching him. “Are you a spiritual man, Mr. Poole?”
He was absently tracing a line through the dust on one of the shelves with his finger. “Not particularly, I guess.”
She made a noise that seemed some kind of judgment.
“Do you have any idea where I might find Casper Prosnicki?”
“I would say with his mother, but, then, I doubt you would have come to me if she had him.”
“What did the Prosnickis do?”
“For a living?”
Poole nodded. The dust and the heat and the smell of the place were starting to give him a headache.
“What does anyone do for a living down in the Hollows, Mr. Poole? They did what they needed to do. He was a butcher.” She said it as if it were of but marginal relevance to the question.
“But I take it he did other things.”
“Everyone in the Hollows did other things. Everyone had an angle. You didn’t make your scratch unless you were in the game.”
“So what was Mr. Prosnicki’s part of the game?”
She began to cough, sending ripples down her body. Finally she stopped and leaned over her chair slightly, spitting into a brass spittoon. “Are you paying attention to what I’m saying or are you just dim, Mr. Poole? I don’t know any specifics. Nobody knows anyone else’s exact business around here. That’s what can get you hurt. Especially in the old days. Which, as a matter of fact, pretty much ended after the Prosnickis and Reif left. Pretty soon after that. Even now, you wouldn’t want to stick your nose into anything, mind you. But you’re not likely to get a visit in the middle of the night anymore, neither. I’ll give the mayor credit for putting an end to the gangs. Now it’s just hoods, and they aren’t half as crazy.”
Poole was beginning to realize that she could talk all day, but was not going to say anything. “So you don’t really have any ideas, then, where I could find Casper?”
She smiled, lips pressed together, hiding her teeth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Poole. I would certainly love to help you.”
Polly watched Poole emerge from the front door and go to his car. He stood on the running board to rub at a scratch on the roof, then got in. The car executed a U-turn, then glided back toward the center of the City. When it was out of sight, she reached over to the telephone on the end table to her left. Taking the stem in one hand and the earpiece in the other, she gave the operator the number she wanted.
“Yes?” The answer was immediate.
“It’s Polly. I’ve got a message for the mayor. Tell him I’ve had another visit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Feral had learned from the bouncer at the Prado that the previous night’s performance would be Nora’s last for at least a week. He spent the morning at the diner across the street from her building, washing dry toast down with muddy coffee. Earlier, he had scouted the two alleys that ran along either side of her building and the small, grassy park just behind. He spent several minutes from each vantage point, noting the placement of windows and fire escapes. A service entrance out back was locked. Feral spent a moment there, too, noting that the lock needed a key from either side, and slipping a piece of wax into the keyhole. Holding the end of the wax between two fingers, he heated the lock with a lighter. Then he let the wax cool and harden before slowly pulling it out and storing it in a tin cigarette box.
Sitting in the diner, he sketched each angle of the building. His proportions were careful and accurate, even if the drawing was not exactly of draftsman quality. He then sketched a map of the three-block radius. The trouble, he realized, was that she was recognizable. It was easy to walk an anonymous person wherever you wanted to. With Nora, chances were good that someone they passed would recognize her and recall the small, dark man who accompanied her. He would have to find another way.
Feral was in the alley that bordered the west side of the building. The fire escape was on this side, the bottom twelve feet from the ground. He dragged two tall garbage bins to a spot beneath the fire escape to provide some visual cover from the street.
Feral pulled a laundry bag from a pocket of his trench coat. From it he removed twenty feet of thin rope. He took off his trench coat and hat and placed them in the laundry bag, which he then tossed up to the landing at the bottom of the fire escape. It took him three tries to throw the rope through the railing of the landing. He played the rope down until he had both ends, which he then tied into a knot. This was the most dangerous moment. He looked down the alley and watched pedestrians cross the opening without looking toward him. Anyone looking in then would have been astonished to watch the little man pull his way up the rope with the practiced ease of a spider navigating its web. On the landing, Feral pulled the rope around until he had the knot, which he quickly untied, then coiled and stuffed the rope in the bag with his coat and hat.
Nora’s apartment, he knew, was on the sixth floor. He moved up the stairs nimbly, his soft-soled shoes barely making a sound. He was in a vulnerable position, easily visible to anyone who bothered to look from the street. But no one did. Feral knew that most people did not look at the upper floors if they happened to glance down an alley. They were usually looking for a person who might be a threat. That person would be on the ground, not fifty feet up.
He left the laundry bag two steps down from the sixth-floor landing. The window to the fire escape looked in on the living room. Feral lay on his back and pulled a cosmetic mirror from his pocket. Holding it up at a shallow angle, he used it to survey the living room from his supine position. It was empty.
He rolled to his knees and peered in. The living room, he thought, looked like the interior of a pastry, the walls a pale pink with snow-white trim, the furniture luxurious and pristinely white. Elegant paintings hung on the wall, too. Feral recognized a painting of a woman sewing lace—a Vermeer—and wondered if it was real. Sensing, rather than hearing, Nora coming into the room, he dropped back to his earlier position on his back. Carefully angling the mirror again, Feral watched her.
Nora was looking for a book on the low bookshelves. She wore a thin, yellow dress that held her form as she moved. The movements, as she found the book and walked to the couch, were familiar to Feral from the club. The length of her stride, the rhythm of her steps, the roll of her hips with each stride. He had watched these, studied them intensely from his table in the shadows at the back of the Prada.
Feral flashed back to the previous night and the moment of near intimacy that they had shared. Nora looking at him from the stage, their eyes briefly holding each other’s. She knowing that he was not just another patron and he sensing her knowledge. It was brief. That was one thing he felt they shared—a heightened awareness of the motives and instincts of others. From that quick look could she possibly have gleaned what lay in store?
Now that she was sitting and absorbed in her reading, Feral got to his knees and looked in. Although he was plainly visible, he knew that she would not look up. He watch
ed her as she read—placid and beautiful. She moved her lips, he noticed, ever so slightly, and he wondered, if he put his ear right up to them, whether he could hear the words she was reading.
A subtle change in her posture sent Feral again to his back. He held the mirror up and saw her rise from the couch and walk to the next room. He stood up and walked to the edge of the fire-escape landing. He sat on the railing and swung his legs over so that they dangled fifty feet above the alley. A narrow concrete ledge, perhaps two or three inches wide, delineated each floor on the building. Twenty feet in front of him was the wider ledge beneath a window. He twisted so that his stomach pressed against the railing and lowered himself to the level of the ledge. He grabbed the ledge with the fingers of his right hand, then swung his body and grabbed the ledge with his left hand as well. Hanging from his fingertips, he edged his way along until he was at the window ledge, then he pulled himself up so that his chin was even with the bottom of the window. It was her bedroom, he saw, and it was empty. He pulled himself up so that he was kneeling on the ledge. He shook the window slightly and determined that it was locked. He pressed his ear to the window, trying to hear movement inside. There was nothing. He thought that she was probably back on the couch, reading. He fished a thin file from his pocket, slid it up between the top and bottom window frames, and jimmied the lock.
Putting equal pressure on both sides of the window frame, he slowly pushed the window open. It made the slightest grinding sound, but nothing that would be heard in another room. When he had it two-thirds of the way open, he slid through headfirst. Once he was all the way in, he lay still for several seconds listening. Again, there was no sound. He got back to his feet and pulled the window slowly closed.
