Читать книгу Kisses of Death - Henry Kane - Страница 10

SEVEN

THERE WERE four cops, all alert and on their feet in the living room. The one who had opened the door was a big one but young and not yet harsh. He saw the key in her hand and he said quietly, “Mrs. Kiss?”

She looked about wildly.

“I’m Petrie,” he said. “Bill Petrie, ma’am.”

“Please. What’s wrong?”

“We’re here waiting, ma’am, just expecting if you’d come along.” Willie’s great bulk impressed him. He said to Willie, “Just waiting. We’re supposed to keep the lady here if she shows.”

“Who’s in charge?” Willie said.

“Detective-sergeant Wagner. We’re to keep her here and inform him. Have her sit down, huh? I mean till we get the information to the sergeant.”

It was bad, obviously. Cops do not stutter unless it is bad and Petrie was stuttering with all the marbles. Cops are big when it is little and little when it is big and four big brawny cops were pygmies in a spacious sumptuous living room. I could smell death and so could Willie. He moved toward Valerie and he mumbled to Valerie and he sat her down and Marla joined. I moved toward one of the other cops, another young one. I said, “Wagner is Lenny Wagner?”

“Yeah. You in the business?”

“Private. Lenny Wagner’s a friend of mine.”

“I’m Martino, Sal Martino.” He was tall and thin with a dark face and girl’s eyes.

“I’m Peter Chambers.”

“I never heard of you,” he said respectfully.

“What gives?”

“A jumper.”

“From here?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad?”

“Like disgusting.” He tugged at my wrist and I went with him to a window and I looked down into a back alley. Far down, twenty-four stories down, humans like ants were crawling. “The crumb jumped. From here, it figures.”

“When?”

“Eleven-twenty is the figure.”

“I’ll go down and talk to Wagner.”

“I ought to go myself, but I won’t fight you. There’s a lot of pieces like smashed with guts all over. Would you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Tell him you talked to Martino. Tell him Martino wanted to go but you insisted. And don’t forget to tell him the wife is here.”

I moved away from the window and Willie’s head turned and his eyes questioned me and I answered with a thumb-down motion of my right hand. Then I went out and rode down in the elevator and outside I went around to the back and there a burly cop spread a hand like a baseball mitt across my chest.

“Where the hell you think you’re going?” he inquired.

“Sergeant Wagner.”

“You got business?”

“I brought the wife home. Martino sent me.”

“Oh.” The mitt came off and he let me through.

They were scraping him together and collecting him in a canvas bag. There were six men working. The blood was all over, and the blobs of flesh, and the gleaming bone. I swallowed back gag and kept going. The sun was high in the sky, bubbling hot, but the workers looked cold. Everybody was pale.

Off to a side a couple of cops were working on a man, sick, flat on his back. I went near.

“Who is it?” I asked somebody.

“The doorman, the poor punk,” somebody said.

I pushed through and they let me. I pushed through with authority and I had no uniform. Detectives push with authority and have no uniform. Nobody stopped me. I squatted over the guy and I looked up. “What’s his name?” I said with authority.

“Nick,” said one of the cops.

I looked down to Nick. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” His face was the color of dirty grey leather and white spit was hard at the corners of his mouth.

“What time did it happen?” I said.

“I told you guys already forty times.”

“Tell again.”

“Twenny after eleven. I hear this smack in back like an explosion. I run to see but before I run I look at my watch. Twenny after eleven.”

“Did you see Mr. Kiss go out this morning?”

He smiled as though happy a new question had been put. The smile was hideous inside caked dry lips.

“Sure I seen him. He went out bright and early. About nine bells.”

“When did he come back?”

“Around eleven. He says, ‘Hi, Nickie,’ and I says, ‘Hi, how-areya, Mr. Kiss.’ And he goes in and twenny minutes later—boff! I run back here but I can’t do nothing. I take one look at the mess, and I pass. I used to think I was a man but now I admit, no. I pass, and that’s all I been doing, passing. Every time I sit up and take a look, pass. I ought to be ashamed, no?”

“Feel better now, Nickie?”

“Yes sir, fine,” he said and fainted again.

I left him to resuscitation by cops and tried to step through splotches of blood to get to Sergeant Wagner but it was tough. They were moving the pieces, systematically, from the outer reaches toward the middle to the canvas bag into which he was being collected. I got through to Wagner and he said, “You? You another one of them morbid-type sightseers? What the hell you doing here?”

“I brought the wife home.”

“Mrs. Kiss?”

“I told Martino I’d tell you myself.”

“Brought her home from where?”

“She was with me.”

“Mrs. Kiss was with you?”

“With me.”

Wagner was a good straight cop, past middle-age but strong, and wise and weary in the trade. Wagner was tall with beefy shoulders and a gravel voice and a young wife and six kids, one of them a tot. Wagner said, “Why in hell do they jump, the bastards? And from a penthouse yet. Disgusting bastards. Who needs it?”

“Rough on you,” I said.

“Rough on everybody. You think them guys sweeping him up are made of tin? They’re human just like you and me with wives and kids. You think them guys are going to go home nice and normal and sit down and eat dinner tonight? Why do them bastards jump, for Chrissake? Christ, they can take pills, can’t they?”

“You want to talk with the wife, don’t you?”

It was as though he had not heard me. “Twenty-four floors, head first. Do you know the speed, how it accelerates? Christ, when the guy hits, it’s like with bullet force. Christ, like an express train. And this guy hit head first, yet. Head first. Smashed like a rotten egg. Who needs it? You want to kill yourself, who cares? Christ, take sleeping pills. Shoot yourself. Put your head in a stove. Christ, what do you want from the people who have to pick up the pieces? I’ve already thrown up twice. And the wife or somebody is going to have to take a look at that garbage. That’s the law. Somebody’s got to identify whatever the hell there is to identify. Christ, you want to kill yourself, think of these things. How is she?”

“Who?”

“The wife.”

“I don’t know. I came down here for you the minute one of your cops told me what happened.”

“Did they tell her?”

“That’s your job, Lenny.”

“Yeah.” He went away from me, gave some orders to the men who were working, came back and touched my arm. “Let’s go.”

We walked around to the front of the building and into the lobby and he touched the button for one of the elevators. “How well do you know her?” he said.

“I just met her today.”

“You’re going to have to swear out a statement.”

“Whatever’s necessary,” I said.

“He killed himself because of her.”

“How do you know that?”

“He left two notes and a big envelope with pictures, none of them sealed. One note was for the authorities and that didn’t say anything, just the usual bull. The other note was for her personal, and that said plenty.”

“And you read them both?”

“Of course,” he said. “And I also looked at the pictures. Wow!”