Page 17
He said, "Come on, Scudder. Try and take me. "
"Ive got all night. "
He rubbed his thumb across the blade of the knife. "Its sharp," he said.
"Ill take your word for it. "
"Oh, Ill prove it to you, man. "
He backed off a little, moving in the same shuffling gait, and I knew what was coming. He was going to commit himself to one headlong rush, and that meant it wouldnt be a fencing match any more, because if he didnt stab me on the first lunge hed wind up tumbling me to the ground and wed wrestle around there until only one of us got up. I watched his feet and avoided getting taken in by the shoulder fakes, and when he came I was ready.
I dropped to one knee and went way down after hed already committed himself, and his knife hand went over my shoulder and I came up under him, my arms around his legs, and in one motion I spun and heaved. I got my legs into it and threw him as high and as far as I could, knowing hed drop the knife when he landed, knowing Id be on him in time to kick it away and put a toe into the side of his head.
But he never did drop the knife. He went high into the air and his legs kicked at nothing and he turned lazily in midair like an Olympic diver, but when he came down there was no water in the swimming pool. He had one hand extended to break the fall, but he didnt land right. The impact of his head on the concrete was like that of a melon dropped from a third-floor window. I was fairly sure hed have a skull fracture, and that can be enough to kill you.
I went over and looked at him and knew it didnt matter if his skull was fractured or not, because he had landed on the back of his head while falling forward, and he was now in a position you cant achieve unless your neck is broken. I looked for a pulse, not expecting to find one, and I couldnt get a beat. I rolled him over and put my ear to his chest and didnt hear anything. He still had the knife in his hand, but it wouldnt do him any good now.
"Holy shit. "
I looked up. It was one of the neighborhood Greeks who did his drinking at Spiro and Antares. We would nod at each other now and then. I didnt know his name.
"I saw what happened," he said. "Bastard was tryin to kill you. "
"Thats just what you can help me explain to the police. "
"Shit, no. I didnt see nothin, you know what I mean?"
I said, "I dont care what you mean. How hard do you think itll be for me to find you if I want to? Go back into Spiros and pick up the phone and dial nine one one. You dont even need a dime to do it. Tell em you want to report a homicide in the Eighteenth Precinct and give em the address. "
"I dont know about that. "
"You dont have to know anything. All you have to do is what I just told you. "
"Shit, theres a knife in his hand, anybody can see it was self-defense. Hes dead, huh? You said homicide, and the way his necks bent. Cant walk the fuckin streets any more, the whole fuckin citys a fuckin jungle. "
"Make the call. "
"Look-"
"You dumb son of bitch, Ill give you more aggravation than youd ever believe. You want cops driving you crazy for the rest of your life? Go make the call. "
He went.
I kneeled down next to the body and gave it a fast but thorough frisk. What I wanted was a name, but there was nothing on him to identify him. No wallet, just a money clip in the shape of a dollar sign. Sterling silver, it looked like. He had a little over three hundred dollars. I put the ones and fives back into the clip and returned it to his pocket. I stuffed the rest into my own pocket. I had more of a use for it than he did.
Then I stood there waiting for the cops to show and wondering if my little friend had called them. While I was waiting, a couple of cabs stopped from time to time to ask what had happened and if they could help. Nobodyd taken the trouble while the Marlboro man was waving the knife at me, but now that he was dead everybody wanted to live dangerously. I shooed them all away and waited some more, and finally a black-and-white turned at Fifty-seventh Street and ignored the fact that Ninth Avenue runs one way downtown. They cut the siren and trotted over to where I was standing over the body. Two men in plainclothes; I didnt recognize either of them.
I explained briefly who I was and what had happened. The fact that I was an ex-cop myself didnt hurt a bit. Another car pulled up while I was talking, with a lab crew, and then an ambulance.
To the lab crew I said, "I hope youre going to print him. Not after you get him to the morgue. Take a set of prints now. "
They didnt ask who I was to be giving orders. I guess they assumed I was a cop and that I probably ranked them pretty well. The plainclothes guy Id been talking to raised his eyebrows at me.
"Prints?"
I nodded. "I want to know who he is, and he wasnt carrying any I. D. "
"You bothered to look?"
"I bothered to look. "
"Not supposed to, you know. "
"Yes, I know. But I wanted to know who would take the trouble to kill me. "
"Just a mugger, no?"
I shook my head. "He was following me around the other day. And he was waiting for me tonight, and he called me by name. Your average mugger doesnt research his victims all that carefully. "
"Well, theyre printing him, so well see what we come up with. Why would anybody want to kill you?"
I let the question go by. I said, "I dont know if hes local or not. Im sure somebodyll have a sheet on him, but he may never have taken a fall in New York. "
"Well, well take a look and see what we got. I dont think hes a virgin, do you?"
"Not likely. "
"Washingtonll have him if we dont. Want to come over to the station? Probably a few of the boys you know from the old days. "
"Sure," I said. "Gagliardi still making the coffee?"
His face clouded. "He died," he said. "Just about two years ago. Heart attack, he was just sitting at his desk and he bought it. "
"I never heard. Thats a shame. "
"Yeah, he was all right. Made good coffee, too. "
Chapter 16
My preliminary statement was sketchy. The man who took it, a detective named Birnbaum, noticed as much. Id simply said that I had been assaulted by a person unknown to me at a specific place and time, that my assailant had been armed with a knife, that I had been unarmed, and that I had taken defensive measures which had involved throwing my assailant in such a way that, though I had not so intended, the ensuing fall had resulted in his death.
"This punk knew you by name," Birnbaum said. "Thats what you said before. "
"Right. "
"Thats not in here. " He had a receding hairline, and he paused to rub where the hair had previously been. "You also told Lacey hed been following you around past couple of days. "
"I noticed him once Im sure of, and I think I saw him a few other times. "
"Uh-huh. And you want to hang around while we trace the prints and try to figure out who he was. "
"Right. "
"You didnt wait to see if we turned up any I. D. on him. Which means you probably looked and saw he wasnt carrying anything. "
"Maybe it was just a hunch," I suggested. "Man goes out to murder somebody, he doesnt carry identification around. Just an assumption on my part. "
He raised his eyebrows for a minute, then shrugged. "We can let it go at that, Matt. Lot of times I check out an apartment when nobodys home, and wouldnt you know it that they got careless and left the door open, because of course I wouldnt think of letting myself in with a loid. "
"Because that would be breaking-and-entering. "
"And we wouldnt want that, would we?" He grinned, then picked up my statement again. "Theres things you know about this bird that you dont want to tell. Right?"
"No. Theres things I dont know. "
"I dont get it. "
I took one of his cigarettes from the pack on the desk. If I wasnt careful Id get the habit again. I spent some time lighting up, getting the words in the right order.
I said, "
Youre going to be able to clear a case off the books, I think. A homicide. "
"Give me a name. "
"Not yet. "
"Look, Matt-"
I drew on the cigarette. I said, "Let me do it my way for a little while. Ill fill in part of it for you, but nothing goes on paper for the time being. Youve got enough already to wrap what happened tonight as justifiable homicide, dont you? You got a witness and youve got a corpse with a knife in his hand. "
"So?"
"The corpse was hired to tag me. When I know who he is Im probably going to know who hired him. I think he was also hired to kill somebody else a while ago, and when I know his name and background Ill be able to come up with evidence that should lock right into the person whos paying the check. "
"And you cant open up on any of this in the meantime?"
"No. "
"Any particular reason?"
"I dont want to get the wrong person in trouble. "
"You play a very lone hand, dont you?"
I shrugged.
"Theyre checking downtown right now. If he doesnt show there, well wire the prints down to the Bureau in D. C. It could add up to a long night. "
"Ill hang around, if its all right. "
"Id just as soon you did, matter of fact. Theres a couch in the loots office if you want to close your eyes for a while. "
I said Id wait until the word came back from downtown. He found something to do, and I went into an empty office and picked up a newspaper. I guess I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, Birnbaum was shaking my shoulder. I opened my eyes.
"Nothing downtown, Matt. Our boys never taken a bust in New York. "
"Thats what I thought. "
"I thought you didnt know anything about him. "
"I dont. Im running hunches, I told you that. "
"You could save us trouble if you told us where to look. "
I shook my head. "I cant think of anything faster than wiring Washington. "
"His prints are already on the wire. Might be a couple of hours anyway, and its getting light outside already. Why dont you go home, and Ill give you a call soon as anything comes in. "
"You got a full set. Doesnt the Bureau do this sort of things by computer these days?"
"Sure. But somebody has to tell the computer what to do, and they tend to take their time down there. Go home and get some sleep. "
"Ill wait. "
"Suit yourself. " He started for the door, then turned to remind me about the couch in the lieutenants office. But the time Id dozed in the chair had taken the edge off the urge to sleep. I was exhausted, certainly, but sleep was no longer possible. Too many mental wheels were starting to turn, and I couldnt shut them off.
He had to be Pragers boy. It just had to add up that way. Either he had somehow missed the news that Prager was dead and out of the picture, or he was tied in close to Prager and wanted me dead out of spite. Or he had been hired through an intermediary, somehow, and didnt know that Prager was a part of it. Something, anything, because otherwise-
I didnt want to think about the otherwise.