The Oni, page 6
“The dead girl’s mother flew down to view the body. Foster went to LaGuardia to meet her.”
Carver looked at Evans with widening eyes. The sergeant did not care for unspoken innuendo.
“She wasn’t expected,” Evans continued. “Most of the squad was already out. If we were close to a break, or making collars, he probably would’ve sent one of you instead. Not that it’s any of your damned business.”
“Shit, I know that,” said Carver. A grin split his face. “He’d never have made Lieutenant if he was yellow all the way through.”
Evans sat up straight. He glared at the rookie. His cheeks grew hot. Menace clung to his words.
“That’s not funny, Patrolman Carver.”
Carver’s grin disappeared. He avoided Evans’s eyes.
“Just a little joke I heard in the locker room, Sergeant. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I guess it doesn’t, to you,” Evans growled. “That’s the trouble. Who said it? No, forget that. I don’t want names. Just spread the word that if I ever hear a remark like that from anyone, I’ll have that officer transferred to Flushing Meadows. That’s me. God help you if Foster hears it.”
“Shit,” hissed Carver.
“Speak up, Patrolman Carver.”
“I said shit, damn it. You got no call to come down that hard on me. This ain’t no suntan I’m wearing. Foster’d be the first to understand. Maybe he’d chew your ass, but not mine. He’s a brother. Half a bro’, anyway.”
Evans glared again at the man beside him. “I’d almost like to see you try him.”
“And I’d like to hear how you talk about him to your white buddies!”
“You’d better shut your mouth, Carver, while you’ve still got a shield. I’m a hair’s-breadth away from putting you on report. If you think Foster’s being mulatto makes him only half a man, that’s your problem. I only wish you were the only clown with that problem. I don’t care how screwed up you are, but you’d goddamn better keep it to yourself. Amos Foster is a good cop, a good friend, and a hell of a better human being than you’ll ever be.” Evans took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That motor’s plenty warm. Move out.”
Carver had a scathing reply on his tongue. He swallowed it. He’d already pushed too hard, and it wasn’t important. Not at the moment.
The man in blue jerked his steering wheel to the left and pulled out, tires squealing. A courier, riding his bike down the street in the wrong direction, scrambled onto the sidewalk in a hurry.
CHAPTER 11
Brakes screeched on glistening asphalt. Francine Cooper’s eyes opened wide. She thrust out a hand to brace against the bullet-proof Plexiglas separating her from the thick-necked cabbie. Her left elbow bounced off the padded door panel as the taxi skewed into the one empty parking space on the block, next to a fire hydrant. The piercing blast of a cherry-red Ford Pinto’s horn swelled up from behind, peaking quickly and fading as the car raced past to run the changing light at Broadway.
The cabbie made a remark Cooper didn’t quite catch. She suspected she didn’t want to. She glanced at the meter and counted out enough bills to provide a generous tip for the privilege of still living. Wordlessly, Cooper stuffed the money through the narrow slot in the Plexiglas and slid across the cracked, pseudo-leather seat to exit on the curb side. It was a relief to be free of the vehicle’s stale and bitter atmosphere. She’d barely had time to close the door when the cab shot east again with a shuddering rattle.
Cooper did not follow its progress. She stepped up onto the sidewalk, pausing next to the hydrant. Her gaze focused on the three brass numerals over the doorway of the building before her. It was a number she’d seen most often as a return address. Not often enough. Never again.
Her eyes lowered to the rough surface of the stoop leading to that door. Although the day was overcast and drizzling, bits of quartz in the sandstone glittered wetly, almost hypnotically.
The wire-photo that the Boston police had shown Cooper could not convey the ghastliness of Lynda’s bruised, swollen face. The reproduction quality wasn’t very good, and of course the Medical Examiner here in New York had the photos taken with colored filters and at an angle that minimized the damage. As she’d stood beside the narrow, glass-enclosed elevator that carried bodies from the basement storage area or autopsy rooms to permit viewing, the shock Cooper thought she’d purged on the shuttle flight threatened again to numb her mind. Irritation at Lieutenant Foster’s abrasiveness helped her deny those emotions then, but the reaction set in when she stepped out past the blue and white glazed brick facade of the building. Subliminally aware that no helpful Brenda would walk her through mental oblivion this time. Cooper compensated by becoming over-sensitized to her surroundings. Like a legendary evil spirit who could be kept outside a home by placing a sieve over the keyhole because of its compulsion to count each hole—impossible to do before sun rise banished it—Cooper adopted immoderate vigilance. Every detail imprinted itself, from the number of cracks in the sidewalk to the brand names on discarded candy wrappers. That was why her eyes were tightly shut as the cab had sped up Eighth Avenue, though the driving would have been reason enough. Sensory overload would have paralyzed her before they’d passed Times Square, let alone reached West Seventieth Street, where she now stood.
A damp gust swept down the block-and-a-half from the Hudson River, slashing rain against her face. Cooper took the hint. She sucked cool air into her lungs. Her feet moved forward. Her right hand grasped the clammy bannister. Fingertips probed age-pits clotted with countless layers of rustproof paint. Her low heels scraped the sandstone steps as she climbed, barely audible over the two-way traffic on Broadway.
How many times had Lynda climbed these steps? How often had the railing that now shook under Cooper’s grip borne her daughter’s weight? Had Lynda ever sensed the texture and mood that threatened to overwhelm her mother? Had she noticed them at all?
More questions flowed, unbidden. Would Lynda be alive today if they had met at Christmas as originally planned instead of putting it off until New Year’s so Cooper could meet her deadline? When she had taken a self-defense course five years earlier, should she have more firmly insisted that Lynda attend sessions with her? Was there something she should have done, or shouldn’t have done, that would have kept Lynda in Boston with her?
Put those thoughts out of your mind right now, Cooper, she ordered. No one could have foreseen this tragedy. There was no reason why you should have. It might have happened anyway. If not here, somewhere else, some other time. If not Lynda, some other child. Guilt feelings were completely irrational.
And nonetheless real.
Cooper halted at the door to the vestibule. Its glass panel was rain-streaked. She rubbed a thumb on the rough-grained facade beside the jamb. A sandstone fleck slid into her palm. She watched it roll haltingly along her lifeline.
A window rumbled open. A head thrust out. The face was a pasty, pulpy mass framed by a blue-flowered kerchief. Tiny emeralds were pushed into the dough for eyes. A dull pink thing flicked in and out about where a mouth should be—passably a tongue.
The sandstone grain dropped to the stoop. Cooper stared at the apparition. A croaking baritone addressed her.
“Lookin’ for some’un?”
Cooper was rarely at a loss for words, but the abrupt greeting, after her hellish morning, left her gaping.
“Speak up or move on. No loiterin’ here.”
“I—your room—top front—I was told—“
The face crumpled enigmatically. “Agency don’t waste time, do they?”
“Are you the, er, landlady?”
“Landlady? Landlady?” The voice went up an octave. “I run this place.”
“Oh. The superintendent.”
The head came out further. A wad of spit landed just beyond the buttock-tall gate that defined the property line. The woman in the window might have a neck, but the high collar of her violet bathrobe kept it a secret.
“Not one of those, neither. A super’s a big-bellied slob in a torn shirt, can’t even speak the language proper. I’m a concierge.” The emeralds glinted. “Know what a concierge is?”
French for nosy super, Cooper thought. “Yes, I do. Could I see … ?”
“See what? Did I say there was a vacant room?”
“I don’t want …” Cooper changed tactics in midsentence. She was in no mood to argue or barter. She unsnapped her purse and took a bill from her wallet. Folded twice, it showed only the number twenty clearly. She held the bribe up to give the concierge a better view.
“I don’t take money from people in the street.”
Cooper’s lips drew back. “In that case …”
“Step inside the vestibule. When I buzz, push the inside door. Hard. Sometimes it sticks. Get in fast and shut it good. Don’t want no junkies sneakin’ in with you.”
Cooper turned her head, checking for hordes of addicts. Across the street, a heavy-set woman fumbled with a black umbrella that had two ribs as she pulled a creaking grocery cart up the slope. At the southeast corner, a truck driver unloaded cases of Scotch for a liquor store. The block was otherwise deserted.
The window rattled shut. Cooper entered as instructed. The door lock was released electrically, with a sound like a raven’s death cry. Then she was inside.
Cooper stood in an entrance hall lined with green or maybe blue wallpaper, in a flower print or perhaps an abstract pattern. It was too faded to be sure, in the dim light. An aroma of lilac seemed to come from everywhere except the gothic vase on the narrow hall table, where dingy plastic roses sprouted.
The concierge’s door opened noiselessly, betrayed by the murmur of her television set. Leathery fingers rasped Cooper’s, plucking the bill from her hand. A violet bathrobe filled the crack of the opening. By peering over the stout wearer’s head, Cooper could have glimpsed the living quarters, but that would be obvious and she wasn’t interested. The television volume rose for a commercial.
A key slid into Cooper’s fingers, in place of the money. It was an old-fashioned key, long and thin; a child could pick the lock this fit, if he or she dared slip past the guardian ogre. The metal was smooth with age and handling. Time treated people less kindly.
“Top floor front,” the concierge croaked. “You can’t miss it. I’m up and down these stairs enough as it is, and there’s nothing I can tell you up there that you can’t see for yourself.”
“That will be fine, Miss … ?”
The concierge tapped the gold ring on her left hand against her thickly-varnished door. “Knock if you want the room. Else leave the key on the table. My time’s valuable.”
Cooper glanced at the narrow stairway with its thin green carpet and dark oak bannister. “You’re apparently under a wrong impression, Mrs … ?”
The television voices died as the door closed with a snap.
The hallway seemed very warm after the dampness outside. Cooper unbuttoned her coat before starting upstairs. A score of envelopes was stacked on the hall table at the far side of the vase. The vestibule contained no individual mailboxes; all was delivered to the concierge, and tenants were expected to sort out their own correspondence. Opposite the table was a calf-high wastebasket containing a single piece of junk mail, torn in half, showing the addressee. Few tenants, if any, would have picked up mail at this hour. It must have been for the concierge. As soon as she read the name, Cooper remembered it from one of Lynda’s first letters home.
“Barclay,” she finished softly.
She went up the stairs slowly. The bannister was sturdy, inspiring confidence. The steps, in contrast, groaned as she trod the threadbare runner. A yellowing but neatly-lettered sign on the first landing read “First Floor.” Mrs. Barclay tried to run a European building.
CHAPTER 12
Faint, pungent odors of urine and sweat and boiled vegetables permeated another stairwell, in a tenement on West Eighty-Ninth Street. Wood splintered and crackled under the heavy heels of the two policemen as they mounted uncarpeted steps.
A fluorescent bulb on the fourth floor landing had burnt out, leaving a broad black scar on the colorless wallpaper above the fixture. The landing was gloomy, but not pitch dark. Winter sun seeped through overcast skies to the rooftop skylight at the next and final landing, so that bannister and railings were dimly visible. The top landing needed no artificial illumination by day.
“Maybe I should hide here,” said Carver in an acid tone. He still smarted from Evans’s lecture. “If I cover the whites of my eyes, I’ll be invisible.”
Evans pinned his gold shield to his coat lapel “Like to live dangerously, Carver?”
“I can joke about my own skin, can’t I?”
“While you’ve got one. If you think it’s funny.”
The patrolman moved past the detective to the final flight of stairs. Evans tugged his elbow with one hand, used his other to rap solidly on the door of the front apartment.
Carver pulled free. “You said Fuchsia lived on the top floor.”
“Uh huh. Did you happen to notice the fire escape out front, as well?”
“Sure I saw it …”
A woman’s voice, muffled by the door, responded to the detective’s knock. “¿Que?”
“Police,” said Evans. “We need your help.”
Evans counted the clicks that followed. Four locks on a door he could kick off its hinges in twenty seconds. It opened the width of a palm, and an indigo eye set in swarthy flesh peered over the taut chain. It took in the two badges that caught and reflected the meager sunlight overhead.
“Official business,” Evans added. “We’re in a hurry.”
The door shut. Carver stepped forward to pound on it.
Evans stopped him with a gesture. The chain slid noisily in its bracket. The door swung inward to admit both men.
Evans pointed Carver across the living room to the window opening onto the fire escape. Then he herded the woman and two pre-school children into the kitchen, assuring them of safety and even adding a few words on the advantage of peepholes over chains. When he returned, Carver was half out the window. The patrolman’s right hand rested on his gun butt, and the holster guard was released.
The weapon could be drawn at a moment’s notice.
“Get your hand away from that,” Evans whispered. “What good does it do, my telling her nothing’s going to happen, when you’re fooling with your gun?”
“I might need it.”
“A good cop rarely does. This little melodrama is just a precaution. For all we know, Gary Cross is staying with friend Eric. Covering the escape route will keep either of them from going shy on us. That’s all. Now, count to twenty to give me time to get upstairs. Don’t show yourself before, or you might scare someone into bolting before I’m ready.”
“That much I figured out myself.” Carver’s fingers circled the slick bare metal of the fire escape framework. Drizzle spotted his uniform. “I’m not stupid, despite what you think of me.”
“I don’t think anything of you, as a cop. I haven’t seen you in action. Yet.”
Evans waved to the woman and her children on his way out. He left the door ajar. Carver heard the detective’s dull, distant tread on the final flight of stairs.
Carver licked his lips. “One.” His foot was poised for the first step of his own ascent. “Two.” A cold wind whipped up his uniform’s pants legs. “Three.” He’d show that smart-ass detective how good a cop he was.
“Four.”
The apartment walls were papered with life-sized posters of nude and semi-nude movie stars and starlets. In the center of the room, facing away from the windows with their bleak view of the tenements across the narrow street, Eric Fuchsia lay in bed, shivering under half a dozen blankets. Rock blared from the stereo speakers atop the bar that doubled as a headboard. A couple of folding chairs and a parson’s table completed the furnishings. Fuchsia usually had to move in a hurry and had learned the hard way to travel light. The secretary he’d been balling, the woman whose name was on the lease and who signed the rent check, was learning the same lesson. He’d already hocked most of her stuff.
The apartment door trembled under heavy blows. Fuchsia blinked.
“Police, Eric!” came a voice from the hall. “Open it!”
Fuchsia’s sweating body tensed. He must have been set up. The dude who’d provided his latest stash had turned him in. How else would the cops know Fuchsia had the flu and couldn’t get out to distribute the junk to his street dealers? He didn’t know himself he’d be sick until he woke up at three that morning, shaking and vomiting. And that dumb bitch gone to Detroit, visiting her parents for Christmas week, just when he needed her!
He sank further under the blankets, trying to remember if he’d touched anything the supplier might’ve fooled with.
“We know you’re in there, Eric. Don’t make us break down the door.”
Bluff. They couldn’t know he was home. He always kept the stereo on full volume to discourage burglars. You couldn’t be too careful in this neighborhood. If he stayed quiet, the cops couldn’t be sure. Let them break in! He’d claim he was asleep and didn’t hear them. That might earn him a mistrial.
Then he sneezed.
The pounding redoubled. Hinges groaned. “Now, Eric!”
Cursing, Fuchsia leapt out of bed and pulled on the shorts puddled on the floor alongside. There was enough junk in the bathroom to put him away for twenty years; far too much to flush it all before they busted in. “I’m coming!” he shouted. “Let me get my pants on!”
“You don’t need pants, Eric. You’ve got three seconds to open this door, keeping your hands in sight. One.”
Right. He didn’t need pants. Fuchsia grabbed a knee-length raccoon coat from the closet, jammed his feet into cracked leather slippers, and raced to the window.
Sam Carver crouched on the fire escape, gun in hand. He grinned at the dealer, touching the brim of his uniform cap in mock salute. The grin broadened as the officer glanced at the posters papering the wall.
