Come Out Tonight (21 page)

“So, if we put you in a line-up for Jessica’s first floor neighbor, she wouldn’t recognize you?”

This was getting worse and worse.
 
“No!
 
I never saw either of them in my life!”

“Fine,” Sirken said.
 
“I’ll take your word for it.”

No, “Okay then, let’s just put you in a line-up.”
 
No reading me my rights.
 
She just stood up and said I was free to leave.
 
I think all she was trying to do was to scare the shit out of me, making me think I was under suspicion.
 
Well, it worked.
 
I got up in a daze and stumbled downstairs to the lobby before I thought of half a dozen other questions I could have asked. The guy in the orange dress was gone, so I dropped down onto the wooden bench to figure out what to do next.
  
I began to think about what O’Donnell must have told her.
 
How he cunningly tried to implicate me to throw them off his track.
 
The more I thought of him, the angrier I got.
 
Damn.
 
And now it looked like he’d got the downstairs neighbor into it, too, telling the cops she’d be able to identify me from a line-up.
 
Right!
 
When I’d never even been there before.
 
What a bastard.
   
Finally, I stood up, knowing what I had to do.
 
I’d go over to his apartment and really put the fear of God into him.

I was practically there, so I decided to just head over to
96
^th
Street
and have it out with him then and there.
 
I jogged down 100
^th
to
Columbus
, then south on
Columbus
till I came to 96
^th
.
 
I stood in front of 119, looking up.
  
The top and bottom floors were lit up like
Times Square
; the second floor dark.
  
I climbed up the worn stone steps and through the heavy wooden door, wondering how I was going to enter.
 
O’Donnell would never buzz me in.
 
By now I was standing in the vestibule, staring at the intercom:
 
Arlene Fisher:1A;
 
Jessica Finklemeyer: 2A, covered by yellow tape, and Ryan O’Donnell: 3A.
  
No contest.
 
I pushed 1A.
 

Nothing happened.
 
I pushed again.
 
A minute later, I heard a staticky female voice.
 
“Who is it?”

I decided to try the same ploy I used with O’Donnell.
 
“Police,” I said.

“Not again!
 
I told you everything.
 
Twice.”

“Then you’re just gonna have to tell it again, Ma’am.”

The buzzer sounded, and I let myself in.
 
Down the hall, lit by a single bulb at the end, a door opened.
  
A young woman in short shorts stood in a circle of light, holding the door open.
  
Pretty, with brown hair and a tiny snub nose that looked like it had seen longer days.
 
I walked toward her, partly in shadow.
 
As I approached, I could see her squint.
 
“You don’t look like a policeman,” she called.
 
Then she saw me and her expression changed.
  
“I know you!” she shouted, and tried to pull the door closed.

I grabbed at the door.
  
“I just want to talk to you. That’s all.”

“No!” she shouted, still pulling at the door.
 
I pulled harder, and she gave up.
 
“I didn’t tell them anything,” she whimpered.

“Who? The police?” I asked.

“Yes.
 
They asked me if Jessie had a boyfriend, and I told them yes, but that you always came at night, and I had never seen your face.”

“I never saw you in my life before this,” I said.

She looked at me, her brow furrowed.
 
“Whatevuhyasay,” she said at last.

“No, I mean it,” I said.
 

She still looked puzzled.
 
“Anyway, that’s what I told the cops.”
 
She paused, then added, “And I won’t ever say anything different.
 
Promise.”

“I didn’t even really want to talk to you,” I said.
 
“I wanted to talk to Ryan.
 
I didn’t think he’d let me in, so I buzzed you.”

“You tricked me.
 
You said you were the police.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.
 
I didn’t think you’d let me in if you didn’t know me.”

“Or if I did know you.”
 
She paused, thinking.
 
“Well, so, are you okay with it?”

“With what?”

“With what I said?”

“You mean about never having seen the boyfriend’s face?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, yeah, okay by me, but I’m not the boyfriend.”

“Okay, so you’re not the boyfriend.” she said.
 
“But you’re okay with it?”

I really didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.
 
“Sure.”

“Then I’m going to close the door now,” she said, pulling the door closed.
 
“Thank you very much.”
 

By the time the door clicked shut, I was already halfway up the first flight of stairs.
 
Okay, she was a little bizarre, but you meet people like that in
New York
.
 
I didn’t obsess about it.
 
At the first landing, Jessica’s apartment was still draped in yellow.
 
Another flight and I was in front of Ryan’s door.
 
I rang the doorbell.
 
I could hear slippers pad toward the door.
 
“Arlene?”

“It’s me,” I said in falsetto.

Ryan opened the door in his sweats, and just stared for a moment.
 
“How did
you
get in here?” he asked, finally.

“Arlene let me in.”

“You know her?”

“No.”

“Then, why...”
 

I was still standing at the door, with him asking me this shitload of stupid questions.
 
“Would you mind letting me in?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, blocking the entrance.
 
“First you tell me Sherry has woken up, when she hasn’t, then you tell the police I murdered Jessica.
 
Yes, I do mind letting you in.”
 
He started to close the door in my face.

“Wait!” I yelled.

The door opened a crack.
 
“What?”

“Why did you tell the cops Sherry was afraid of me?”

“Because she was.”

“And that I had a violent temper?”

“She said you did.”

“But she couldn’t have!
 
I don’t!”

The door opened four more inches.
 
Behind him, on the foyer table, I could swear there was an open brown bag spilling out money.
 
I craned my neck to see better, but Ryan blocked my way.
 
“Shit, Henry, you told them I was the murderer!” he was saying.
 
“Which is worse?”

I didn’t bother answering that.
 
“And what’s this about Jessica having a boyfriend?” I asked, instead, trying to look around him.

Ryan took a step closer.
 
“How exactly did you know Jessica, anyway?”

“I didn’t.
 
It’s just that her murder...Sherry’s attack...I thought the two...”

He snickered.
 
“That is just stupid, you know?
 
The only connection I can see is....”
 
He stopped short, making the connection.
 

“Well, did she?” I asked again.

 
“A boyfriend?
 
She must have.
 
I never caught a glimpse of him, but I heard them thumping around at night, laughing and shouting.
 
Bottles in the trash the next morning.
 
But I never saw his face.
 
You could ask Arlene.”

I didn’t bother saying that Arlene seemed to think he was me.
 
“You told the cops?”
 
I asked.

“Yeah, of course. What I know, which isn’t much.”
 
Ryan was standing on one leg, trying to scratch the other with his foot.
  
All of a sudden, he seemed to lose patience, either with the itch or with me.
 
“Listen, Henry,” he said.
 
“The cops have been over and over this.
  
There’s no way I could have done it.
 
I was out of town on the night Jessica was killed.
 
Now piss off!”
 
He shut the door in my face.

For a moment I stood there, rubbing my nose, thinking.
 
So he had an alibi for Jessica’s murder....Wait a minute.... I started banging on the door.
 
“Yeah, but where the hell were you the night of Sherry’s attack?”
 

I heard the TV ramp up to 110 decibels, drowning me out.
 
I couldn’t even think straight with that noise.
 
Was that really money in the bag?
  
Pay-off money?
 
For what?
 
I thought of going right out and calling Detective Sirken, telling her all about the bag and the money and making her see that even if Ryan had an ironclad alibi for Jessica’s murder, he sure as hell didn’t have one for the night that counted: Sherry’s attack.
 
I was already on my feet, making for the stairs, when I realized that Sirken wasn’t on my side.
 
I mean, just earlier that night she was peppering me with questions about my relationship with Sherry...Hell, she thought
I
was the criminal.
 
No way was I ever going back to her.
 
She’d just turn the whole thing around and blame it on me.

On the other hand, I wasn’t a total doofus.
 
I could do a little investigating, myself.
 
I glanced at my watch: ten o’clock; time enough for Ryan to go out if he wanted to.
 
After all, evening was prime crime time in
New York City
, wasn’t it? I stamped down the staircase, just in case he could hear me through all that din, then hid in the dark cubby hole under the first floor staircase for the next twenty minutes until I heard a third-floor door slam and heavy footsteps clatter down two flights of stairs.
 
The front door creaked open and banged shut.
  
I waited for three minutes, then followed.
 
Ryan was already a shadowy figure at the end of the block.
  
I waited till he turned the corner, then, soft as I could in my air-cushioned Merrell Mesa Ventilators, ran after him.

He was fifty feet away, heading down
Columbus Ave
by the time I saw him again.
 
I was thinking of hiding behind a lamppost, except that’s where the light is, so I just kept walking.
 
I’d never done this before.
 
Tailing someone seemed pretty straight-forward in my mind, but when you actually get to doing it, you find all sorts of obstacles you never considered.
 
For instance, where to hide on a
New York City street
.
 
Lampposts, as I said, were too light and too skinny.
 
Mailboxes way too scarce, something I’d know if I had ever tried to mail a letter. Garbage cans can only be depended to be out front on garbage day, which is never.
 
Ducking into brownstone stairwells might be an option on 96
^th
, but not on
Columbus
, where there aren’t any brownstones.
 

So, I was looking for all these hiding places and not finding any, all the time getting closer and closer until suddenly I realized Ryan was just ten feet ahead of me.
 
I stopped in my tracks, not really a good strategy either, because even in
New York
, at ten thirty at night, you can hear footsteps from a block away.
 
Good thing Ryan’s cell phone rang just then.
 
He went over and stood under a lamppost to talk, while I scurried into a dark corner.
 
I could just make it out.

“Hey,” he said, putting the cell to his ear.
 
“I got the...gift.
 
Yeah, thanks.”
 
He must have listened for half a minute before I could hear him saying, “No, no problem.
 
Well, this Jackman is being a real pain in the neck, but I don’t think he knows anything.”
 
Pause, then, “A real doofus, absolutely....”
 
Another pause, and, “No one else knows, don’t worry.” Then he laughed, “And Sherry sure isn’t doing any talking.”
 
Another laugh.
 
I could kill that guy.
 
Finally, he signed off and stuck it in his pocket.
 
At the corner, he turned and walked into a stationery store. A couple of minutes later, he came out, opening a new pack of cigarettes, taking one out, tamping it, lighting it. Suddenly he turned and started coming back in my direction.
 
I dived behind a garbage bag, the only thing that presented itself, and he sailed on past, smoking; I figured he was headed back to his apartment.
 
Good news and bad news, I thought.
 
He didn’t see me: that was the good news.
 
I practically busted my knee was the bad news.
 
All in all, though, I was pretty proud of myself.