The City When It Rains

  The second shot was a little closer. Now the woman’s body stretched further across the rain-slick street. The tires of the ambulance could be seen a few feet away from her outstretched arm, but the rest of it was open, the white and orange body, the flashing hoodlights, the two attendants who leaned against the already open rear door. The unlighted tenements and warehouses loomed larger, and seemed almost to bend toward the woman from above. Lang had disappeared from the frame, but the witness had not. He could still be seen standing in the right background, one hand in the air, talking excitedly to a figure who had been cut away.

  The next five shots were in steadily tightening close-ups of the woman herself. The first had been taken only a few feet from her right side, and her long slender body stretched almost across the entire length of the frame. Her fingers seemed to curl around the right edge of the photograph, her feet to press back against its left wall.

  The second concentrated on the face, the flattened nose held slightly up, the chin pressed against the rough street, the rain-soaked hair sprayed out in all directions, the puffy, half-opened right eye staring dazedly into the flat gray surface of the pavement.

  The third had been taken from the opposite side. The face disappeared behind a curtain of drenched and matted hair, the legs severed at the ankles, her feet stretching beyond the edge of the frame. Her arm was now in full relief, and Corman could see the needle marks which ran up and down it, the cluster of raised purple dots which gathered like a tiny village in the pale valley of her elbow.

  The fourth shot was from above. As he looked at it, Corman could easily tell how it had been taken. Shepherd had not used a ladder for this one. He had straddled the body at the waist, bent forward, set his line of vision, and pressed the button. To Shepherd, it must have seemed right at the time, a tight close-up, taken from directly overhead. But now it looked awkward, unsteady, oddly faked, the product of an urge to do more than record. It was as if, just for a moment, Shepherd had fallen victim to a different calling, decided to pump his picture up with a touch of drama, a pinch of trendy grief. He’d tried to find an angle that would weep a little, sputter into art, but he’d only gotten something that looked staged,“ as if the street had just been hosed by the technical crew, the rain blown by large fans shipped in from Hollywood, the woman about to get up, dry her hair and sprint to the waiting trailer for a line of coke.

  The last photograph was taken from even further above the woman’s body. It was the one Corman had seen Shepherd take from the ladder. It showed almost the entire body. The head was in the foreground, with the trunk and legs stretching backward, like the stern of a boat shot from some position above the forward deck.

  “Those yours?”

  It was Grossbart, and Corman didn’t have to look up from the photograph to know it. Grossbart had a distinctive voice. It seemed to come from the ground.

  “Shepherd’s,” Corman said. He slid the pictures over to Grossbart.

  Grossbart looked at the photographs one by one, concentrating on each in turn. “Why’d he take this one?” he asked after a moment. “What’s he trying to do, impress his girlfriend?”

  Corman glanced at the photograph. It was the one Shepherd had shot as he’d straddled the body. “He got carried away,” he said.

  “I don’t like bullshit,” Grossbart said. He slid the photograph under the others. “Not much of a mystery,” he growled.

  Corman pressed the tip of his cigarette into the small tin ashtray on the table. “She had a college diploma,” he said. “Barnes heard it was from Columbia.”

  Grossbart was unimpressed. “So? Even smart people get depressed.”

  “And the Similac,” Corman added. “She had cans of it. She was feeding it to the doll.”

  Grossbart leaned forward very slightly. It was hardly perceptible, just a small inching toward the edge of the table.

  “At the same time,” Corman told him pointedly, “she was starving.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The way she looked.”

  “Hypes don’t put on much weight,” Grossbart said. “You know that.” Again there was the slight inching forward, a subtle, stalking movement, silent, cat-like. “What’s your point, Corman?”

  Corman shrugged. “It’s interesting, that’s all.”

  Grossbart did not seem amused. “You trying to make a mystery out of this thing?” he asked. Before Corman could answer, he waved his hand dismissively. “Forget it. This one’s not a mystery.”

  Mystery was common police slang for a murder that would probably never be solved, but Corman knew Grossbart meant more than that. He meant something about the woman, the doll, the dark fifth-floor landing, all that must have finally gathered together in order to get them there. That was the greater mystery, the one that was always less dense and immediate than who did what to whom. It had a mood of aftermath which clung to it like a faint, dissolving odor. While the body lay fresh and soft, the mystery was solid, tense, compelling. But after it had been scooped up, after the blood had been washed away, the walls repainted, sheets changed and carpeting replaced, the intensity of it drained away, and the other mystery settled over the interior space of the room, the street, the mind. It was ghostly, intangible. No one could go at it anymore, drag it down, cuff it, toss it into the paddy wagon. It had become faceless, impossible to contemplate without disappearing into it yourself. Everybody knew that. In Corman’s estimation, it was perhaps the only thing on earth that absolutely everybody knew.

  Grossbart’s right index finger shot out toward the pack of cigarettes on the table. “Mind if I have one?”

  “No.”

  Grossbart snapped up the pack, shook one out and lit it. “Had a hell of a mess on Essex Street this morning,” he said. “Guy strung a couple cats onto the clothesline of his building. Just let them dangle in the goddamn airshaft.” He looked at Corman. “Why would a guy do that?”

  Corman shook his head.

  “Something eating him, I guess,” Grossbart said. His eyes drifted down toward the pictures. “Some people go out a window, some string up a cat.” He shrugged. “The way it is,” he added, groaning slightly as he drifted back into his chair.

  Corman leaned forward slightly. “I could use a little help, Harvey,” he said.

  Grossbart looked surprised, as if he thought Corman was about to ask for a handout. He said nothing.

  “I need to find out some things about this woman,” Corman told him.

  “Why?”

  “I’m trying to work up a story.”

  Grossbart shrugged. “It’s not my case. You need to talk to Lang.”

  Corman shook his head.

  “You got something against him?”

  “The way he is,” Corman said.

  “The perfect combination,” Grossbart said with a slight sneering smile. “Stupidity and corruption.”

  Corman nodded.

  “But the way it is, you got to work with everybody,” Grossbart said. “Like a friend of mine said, ‘Birth ain’t a screening process.’”

  Corman smiled.

  Grossbart took a draw on the cigarette. “What are you after?”

  “Just call it a gig,” Corman said. “I want to track her down a little.”

  Grossbart shrugged. “So go ahead. It’s a free country.”

  “How could I find out who she was?” Corman asked.

  “Well, the only guy besides Lang who’d know about her ID right now would probably be Kellerman at the morgue. He’d have to have a confirmed ID before he could release the body.”

  Corman nodded.

  Grossbart looked at him curiously, with a hint of disappointment.

  “You never struck me as the grab-for-the-brass-ring type,” he said.

  Corman thought of Lucy. “Depends on the ring, I guess,” he said as he gathered up his things and headed for the subway and the morgue.

  * * *

  Sanford Kellerman was the assistant ME in charge of the morgue. He was jus
t finishing up an autopsy when Corman walked into the dissecting room. Body parts were scattered here and there, some in jars, some in transparent plastic bags, and the smell, despite the heavy doses of disinfectant, was almost more than Corman could stand.

  Kellerman nodded as Corman stepped up to the table. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “There was a suicide last Thursday night,” Corman said. “In Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “The one on 47th Street?” Kellerman asked. “Jumped out the window?”

  Corman nodded.

  “All the work’s been done already,” Kellerman said. He picked up a severed hand, dropped it into a transparent plastic bag. Then his eyes shot over to Corman. “You look familiar.”

  “We’ve met before,” Corman told him.

  “Oh yeah,” Kellerman said. “I remember now.” He sunk his hands deep into the meaty open cavity of the body on the table. “That’s right, you’re a … a …”

  “Photographer,” Corman said. “Free-lance.”

  “Yeah,” Kellerman said. “You came down about a year ago.”

  “To shoot a few faces,” Corman reminded him. “I had a death-mask idea.”

  Kellerman laughed. “Death mask, huh?” He shook his head. “Everybody’s interested in the morgue except the people who work in it.” He laughed again. “Sometimes I want to get one of them down here to clean out the condensation drains. That would give them a taste of what it’s really like. You have somebody crawl up a pipe and scoop out a handful of maggots, that’ll be the last of their interest in the morgue.” His eyes returned to the body. “So what are you interested in now, more death masks?”

  “That woman I mentioned,” Corman said. “Did anyone come down to identify her?”

  Kellerman nodded. “Surprising, too. Like they say on the street, a zip-top piece.”

  “She was Jewish?”

  Kellerman smiled. “Unless she was trying to pass,” he said.

  “Name’s Rosen. Sarah Judith Rosen.” He shook his head at the thought of it. “You know, we don’t get many nice Jewish girls down here.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t very nice,” Corman said. He took out his notebook, wrote down the name. “Know anything about her?”

  Kellerman shrugged. “No. Why, is she somebody’s daughter?”

  “She was a college graduate,” Corman said. “At least that’s what they say at Number One.”

  Kellerman looked at Corman curiously. “So, not only a Jewish girl, but a college girl. The world is getting strange.”

  “Do you know anything at all about her?”

  “Just that somebody’s picking her up tomorrow.”

  Corman felt the tip of his pen bear down on the open notebook. “Who?”

  “A funeral home on the Upper East Side,” Kellerman said.

  “They left a message on the machine. Tomlinson’s Chapel.” He watched Corman intently. “You think she was some big shot’s daughter?”

  Corman let the question pass. “She was starving, wasn’t she?” he asked.

  “Yeah, she was,” Kellerman replied. “Very severe malnutrition.”

  “What was she hooked on?”

  “Hooked?”

  “The needle marks.”

  Kellerman shook his head. “She wasn’t hooked on anything at all.”

  “But there were needle marks,” Corman said. “I took some pictures of them.”

  “Those were needle marks, all right,” Kellerman said. “But not from shooting dope. They were too big for that.”

  “What’d they come from?”

  “My guess is she’d been selling blood,” Kellerman said. “The puncture marks were very large. They looked like they came from the sort of needle they have at those blood-buying places down on the Bowery.”

  Corman nodded and guessed that selling blood was the way she’d been able to afford the Similac. “When are they going to pick up tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Message said one P.M.”

  “Would you mind if I came by?” Corman asked.

  Kellerman looked at him cautiously. “What for?”

  “I just want to take some pictures,” Corman assured him. “I won’t bother anybody.”

  Kellerman thought about it. “I guess it would be okay,” he said finally. “But just be sure you act like you happened by. I don’t want the relatives or whatever to think I set them up.”

  “Okay,” Corman said. He looked back down at the body, saw Sarah Rosen’s instead, Julian’s idea floating in his mind like a small white raft in a stormy ocean vastness.

  Once outside, Corman quickly got the number of Tomlinson’s Chapel and gave them a call.

  The voice at the other end sounded as dead as his customers. “Tomlinson’s Chapel. How may I help you?”

  “I was wondering about someone who’s going to be at your place tomorrow.”

  “Be at our place?”

  “A body. A woman. Sarah Judith Rosen’s the name.”

  “Yes, what about her?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me who’s making the arrangements for her.”

  The voice grew suspicious. “Are you a relative, sir?”

  “No.”

  “And what is your capacity, may I ask?”

  “I’m a photographer.”

  The voice chilled. “I’m afraid we’re not allowed to give out information to unauthorized individuals.”

  “I just need the name of her parents,” Corman said.

  “I’m sorry,” the man replied firmly. “But as I told you, we are not allowed to give out information to unauthorized individuals.”

  Corman started to blurt another question, but the click of the man hanging up silenced him, as if a label had been stamped on his forehead, blocking him forever: an unauthorized person.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  CORMAN ARRIVED at Julian’s office a few minutes later and placed the few photographs he had of the jumper on his desk. “She might be the one you’re looking for,” he said.

  Julian went through the photographs quickly, then glanced up at him. “What’s the whole story, David?”

  “She jumped out a tenement window in Hell’s Kitchen a few days ago.”

  Julian nodded. “With a doll?”

  “She threw it out first,” Corman said. “She’d been feeding it Similac.”

  Julian’s eyes drifted back down toward the pictures. “Terrible.”

  “She graduated from Columbia,” Corman said.

  Julian’s eyes shot up toward him. “Columbia?” he said unbelievingly.

  “And she was Jewish,” Corman added.

  Julian’s eyebrows drew together slightly. “From a prominent family?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Corman said. “But I was thinking about that idea you mentioned,” he said. “Slow decline.”

  Julian smiled, let his eyes fall back to the photographs and linger there. “What else do you know about her?”

  “Just what I told you so far,” Corman said. “I wanted to be sure you were interested.”

  Julian thought about it for a moment, squinting slightly as he continued to gaze at the pictures. “I’m interested,” he said finally. “I need a few more details, but the basic situation sounds promising.” He looked back up at Corman. “What’s your time frame?”

  “For what?”

  “Coming up with a proposal.”

  Corman shrugged. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  Julian gave him a pointed look. “He who hesitates, and all that.”

  Corman nodded. “I understand.”

  “So I could expect something right away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good,” Julian said brightly, hesitated a moment, then added, “And you might think about hooking up with a writer on this story.”

  “Writer?”

  “For the text.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about a text,” Corman said. “Just pictures.”

  Julian looked doubtful
. “Well, a writer might help with the research, too.” He smiled gently and began writing on his memo pad. “Here’s somebody who might be interested,” he said, then handed Corman the paper.

  “Willie Scarelli,” Corman muttered, reading from the sheet.

  “You know him?”

  Corman nodded. “We’ve run into each other.”

  “He did a piece on that bag lady who froze to death on the Williamsburg Bridge a few years ago,” Julian said. “He traced her whole life. Got a TV movie out of it. He might be of service in the current project.”

  Corman looked up from the paper. “I’d rather work alone, Julian. You know, just pictures.” His voice sounded weak to him, his resolve already crumbling slightly.

  “Well, that’s your decision in the end,” Julian said. “But if you change your mind, you can usually find Scarelli at the Inside Track. Sixty-third and Lexington. As it turns out, he loves the ponies.”

  “All right,” Corman said. He pocketed the memo and started to pick up the pictures.

  Julian’s hand shot toward them. “May I keep them?”

  Corman hesitated, without knowing why.

  “To help with an initial pitch,” Julian explained. He smiled. “One of those corridor conferences we have around here. The pictures could be useful.” He glanced back at them. “Very good work, David. Compelling.”

  Corman drew his hand back from the photographs but felt the uneasy sensation he was letting go of something.

  “And get more,” Julian added. “The tenement, the neighborhood. Everything you can. Facts. Pictures. The works, right way.” He smiled happily. “This could be big, buddy-mine, a new direction for you.”

  The sky remained overcast, but there were breaks in the clouds from time to time, and as Corman stared up at the tenement’s fifth-floor landing, he could see patches of light as they swept back and forth across the dark window like faded searchlights. For a time, he simply stared at the window, as if the morning light might reveal something he hadn’t noticed before.