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"Im surprised there hasnt been an arrest by now," I said. "I thought Id give it a couple of days, but Ive already got a client. "
"Youve never worked more than one case at a time?"
"Occasionally, but-"
"But you think Ill feel cheated. Im walking around under sentence of death and you ought to be earning the money I paid you, not moonlighting while the sun shines. The friend wants to hire you?"
"She mentioned it. I wouldnt take her money. "
"Youd be working pro bono. "
"You lawyers and your Latin phrases. "
"A man sits on a bench in a pocket park with a cup of coffee and the New York Times. Another man walks up, shoots him, runs off. And thats it, right?"
"So far. "
"Victim had AIDS. What is it, homophobia?"
"Byron was straight. He used to shoot dope, he got AIDS sharing needles. "
"So maybe the killer was an ill-informed homophobe. Or its the other way round, some kind of mercy killing. Is that how youre thinking?"
"Those are some of the possibilities. "
"Heres another. You figure theres any possible connection between this incident and our friend Will?"
"Jesus," I said. "That never crossed my mind. "
"And now that it has?"
"Crossed it and kept right on going," I said. "If theres a connection, I cant say it leaps out at me. He didnt announce it first or claim credit for it afterward. And the victim was the furthest thing from a public figure. Wheres the connection?"
"Its so random," he said. "So pointless. "
"So?"
"Whereas Wills hits are all very specific. He addresses his target directly and tells him why hes got it coming. "
"Right. "
"His official hits, that is. "
"You think hes doing some unannounced killing?"
"Who knows?"
"What would be the point?"
"Whats the point of any of it?" he said. "Whats the point of killing me, for Gods sake? Maybe he likes killing and he cant get enough of it. Maybe hes planning to shoot me and he wants to practice on an easy target, somebody whos not expecting it and isnt surrounded by bodyguards. Maybe the little pas de deux in Jackson Square was a dress rehearsal. "
It was an interesting idea. It seemed farfetched, but it was sufficiently provocative so that I found myself suggesting other possibilities. We kicked it around for a few minutes, and then Whitfield said, "I dont think theres any connection and neither do you. But I dont see why you cant spend a couple of days looking for one. Dont send me my money back. Youll find a way to earn it. "
"If you say so. "
"I say so. What Im paying you is small change compared to what Reliables getting from me for guarding my body. Forty-eight man-hours a day, plus the limo and the driver, plus whatever extras get tacked on to the bill. It doesnt take long to add up. "
"If it keeps you alive-"
"Then its worth it. And if it doesnt, then paying the tab becomes somebody elses headache. What a deal, huh? How can I lose?"
"I think youre going to be all right. "
"Tell you something," he said. "I think so, too. "
5
The next day was Sunday, and I didnt have a hard time talking myself into taking the day off. I watched an hour or so of preseason football on television, but my heart wasnt in it, which gave me something in common with the players.
I have a standing dinner date on Sundays with Jim Faber, my AA sponsor, but he was out of town for the month of August. Elaine and I caught a movie across the street from Carnegie Hall, then had dinner at a new Thai place. We decided we liked our regular Thai place better.
I got to bed fairly early, and after breakfast the next morning I went down to the Village. My first stop was the Sixth Precinct station house on West Tenth, where I introduced myself to a detective named Harris Conley. We wound up having coffee and Danish around the corner on Bleecker Street, and he told me what he knew about the murder of Byron Leopold.
From there I went to Byrons building on Horatio, where I once again spoke with the doorman. Hed been on duty when the shooting occurred, and he was thus able to tell me more than the man Id exchanged a few words with earlier. He couldnt let me in, but he summoned the building superintendent, a stocky fellow with an Eastern European accent and the stained fingers and strong scent of a heavy smoker. The super listened to my story, looked at my ID, and took me up to the fifteenth floor, where he opened Byrons door with his passkey.
The apartment was a large studio with a small bathroom and a pullman kitchen. The furniture was sparse, and unexceptional, as if someone had chosen it out of a catalog. There was a television set, books in a bookcase, a framed Hopper poster from a show a year ago at the Whitney. There was a hardcover book, a post-Cold War spy thriller, on the round coffee table, with a scrap of paper tucked in to mark his place. Hed got about a third of the way through it.
I picked up a little brass elephant from its own small wooden stand on top of the television set. I weighed it in my hand. The super was across the room, watching me. "You want it," he said, "put it in your pocket. "
I put the little fellow back on his stand. "I think hes already got a home," I said.
"Not for long. All this stuff gotta go out of here. Whos it belong to now, can you tell me that?"
I couldnt. I told him I was sure somebody would be in touch with him.
"Co-op boards gonna want to put this on the market. He was a tenant, Mr. Leopold. He didnt buy when he had the chance, so the apartment aint his no more. Clothes and furnitured go to his family, if he had one. Somebodys gotta come around, say, All this here is mine now. Nobody shows up, where it all goes is the Salvation Army. "
"Im sure theyll make good use of it. "
"Anything real good, the drivers got dealers they call, tip em off. Then the dealer snaps it up and slips em a few bucks on the side. I saw you lookin at that book. You want, pick it up, take it home with you. "
"No, thats all right. "
I went to the window, looked out at the park across the way. I poked through the closet.
"Cops been through here a couple of times," he said. "One of em took things. Thought I didnt notice. I notice plenty. "
"Ill bet you do. "
"Pills from the medicine chest, a watch from the table next to the bed. Wasnt a cop, hed make a good thief. One of the other cops, he didnt want to touch anything. Walks around like this. " He stood with his arms folded and pressed snug against his chest. "Thinks hes gonna catch it if he touches anything. Catch it from breathing the air. Stupid bastard. That aint how you catch it. "
* * *
On the last morning of his life, Byron Leopold breakfasted on half a cantaloupe and a slice of toast. (Theyd found the melon rind in the garbage, the melons other half wrapped in plastic in the refrigerator, the dishes hed used stacked in the sink. ) He made a pot of drip coffee and filled a lidded plastic cup, then collected his home-delivered copy of the Times from the mat in front of his door. With the paper tucked under his arm, the coffee cup in one hand and his rubber-tipped cane in the other, he rode the elevator downstairs and walked through the lobby.
This was his usual routine. On cold or rainy mornings he stayed in his apartment and sat at the window while he drank his coffee and read his newspaper, but when the weather was good he went out and sat in the sun.
He was sitting down, reading the paper, with his cup of coffee on the bench beside him. Then a man had approached him. The man was white, and the eyewitness consensus seemed to be that he was neither old nor young, neither tall nor short, neither stout nor lean. He was evidently wearing light-colored slacks, although one witness recalled him in jeans. His shirt was either a T or a short-sleeved sport shirt, depending on whose word you took. My sense was that nobody paid any real attention to him until they heard the gunshot. At that point the few who werent diving for cover tried to see what was going on, but by then the shooter wa
s showing them his heels, and not much else.
He said something to Byron. A couple of people heard him, and one said he called Byron by name. If that was true it meant the killing was other than wholly random, but the cop I talked to at the Sixth hadnt placed much faith in that particular witness. He was a neighborhood street person, I was given to understand, his consciousness generally under the sway of one chemical or another, and apt to see and hear things imperceptible to you or me.
Two shots, almost simultaneous. No one actually saw the gun. One witness remembered him as carrying a paper bag, and maybe he was, and if so he could have had the gun concealed in it. Both slugs entered the victims chest, and were evidently fired from a distance of five to ten feet. The gun was a. 38 revolver, more than powerful enough for the task at hand, though hardly a high-tech armorpiercing weapon. If Byron had been wearing the Kevlar vest that Adrian Whitfield was griping about, hed have lived to tell the tale.
But he wasnt, and the bullets entered side by side, one finding his heart and the other an inch or so to the right of it. The pain and shock must have been something beyond description, but they couldnt have lasted long. Death was pretty close to instantaneous.
Two shots, and the shooter was off and running before the light died in Byrons eyes. He was lucky. He could have tripped and gone sprawling, he could have run around a corner and right into a cop. Or, failing that, he could have rushed past somebody who managed to get a good look at his face.
Didnt happen. He got away clean.
* * *
That afternoon I beeped TJ, and he met me at a coffee shop a couple of blocks from there. "We been here before," he said. "Fixed the place up since then. Looks nice. "
"Hows the cheeseburger?"
He considered the question. "Fulfillin," he said.
"Fulfilling?"
"Be fillin me full," he said, pushing his plate away. "What kind of work you got for me?"
"Nothing we could use a computer for," I said, and told him what I knew about Byron Leopold and the manner of his death.
"Legwork time," he said. "Knockin on dos and talkin to hos. "
"Thats the idea. "
"We on the clock?"
"You are," I said.
"Means you payin me, but who be payin you?"
"Peters paying me," I said, "while I try to find out what happened to Paul. "
Think you lost me round the turn, Vern. "
"I have a client," I said. "Adrian Whitfield. "
"Lawyer dude. Got his self on Wills list. "
"That s right. "
"Hows he hooked up with Byron?"
"Hes not," I said, and explained Whitfields theory.
"Thinks Wills runnin warm-up sessions," he said. "Make sense to you?"
"Not really. "
"Me neither," he said. "What fors he need to practice? He doin fine. "
* * *
Suppose Byron Leopolds murder was a street crime. Maybe hed been killed out of anger at something hed said or done. Maybe hed witnessed a crime, maybe hed seen something from his window or heard something from his park bench. Maybe hed been mistaken for somebody whod burned the shooter on a drug sale, or made a pass at the shooters lover.