Death of a Tall Man (6 page)

A delicious feeling of warmth spread through Pam North. She had a taxicab!
She had a taxicab!

It was only then, suddenly, that she realized she did not in the least want a taxicab. She was not going anywhere, except down the street and around the corner to Charles. It was a bright, warm day. She had never felt better in her life. She had been overtaken, and overcome, by conditioned reflexes—the reflexes built up among New Yorkers through many, many months of almost hopeless longing, interrupted by short, mad dashes. Few, in those days, could watch an empty taxi-cab go by, or pause momentarily, without some reflex response—a slight watering of the mouth, a momentary twitch of the taxicab-waving arm, a tensing of the leg muscles in anticipation of a spring. Pam North merely carried these responses farther than more phlegmatic people did. But she had carried them quite a distance, this time.

For a moment, but only for a moment, she felt a strange hollowness, an inadequacy. But it lasted only for a moment; when she spoke there was no hesitancy.

“Saks Fifth Avenue,” she said. There was nothing to indicate that it was merely what had come first into her mind.

This was another turning point, of course. It might be that this was a taxicab which would only go downtown. But Pam doubted it; acceptance, although long delayed, seemed to have been complete—complete, at any rate, within reason. Not Brooklyn, of course. Not the Bronx. Certainly not Long Island City. But almost certainly Saks. Perhaps even the upper East Side, if she wanted to go to the upper East Side.

The taxicab driver did not respond, but he made a sound. It was hardly contemptuous at all, that sound. He reached across and pushed down the flag. He started up. (There was something, rather dreadful, wrong with the transmission, Pam's ears told her. But the taxicab moved.) Pam sat back in her seat.

Now, she thought to herself, whatever am I going to buy at Saks? When all I want is lunch? She considered a moment. Oh well, she thought, probably that will take care of itself.

It took care of itself reasonably well, as it turned out. Pam found several things she needed without going off the main floor. She had no particular feeling of guilt, having long needed a new purse, anyway. What feeling of guilt she did have, vanished when she bought Jerry a dozen handkerchiefs which she was sure he needed and then, after some speculation, a new tie. He needed a new tie, and she always bought his ties. Neither of the Norths thought this at all comic, nor did Pam at any time buy Jerry a new tie of which he did not highly approve.

Since she was there, she decided, there could be no harm in looking at new dresses, because there might be something entirely too good to pass up. She took the elevator and looked at dresses for some time, and found one that might be too good to pass up and tried it on, and looked at herself in all the mirrors. Then she decided that Jerry had better see it before she bought it, on account of the line, and arranged to have it put aside for twenty-four hours, on the chance. She reclothed herself in the lightweight wool dress which was not far from the color of Martini—a very useful, and not coincidental, similarity; Martini was shedding—but which had red pockets, which Martini did not have. She tossed her light spring coat over her arm and tapped briskly toward the elevator, stopping only long enough to make an appointment at Antoine's desk for the next afternoon. (She did not keep the appointment; she did not return with Jerry to consider the reserved dress. The next day was not to be, in any detail, as she planned it.) In the elevator, she looked at her watch and was startled to see that it was now two thirty. Two thirty-five, really, making the necessary corrections for deviation.

She was really hungry now, she thought, going out the Fiftieth Street door and turning toward Madison. She wanted something reasonably substantial, like hamburgers. She turned up Madison, walking briskly, thinking of hamburgers. She found them in Hamburger Heaven, sitting at the counter. She had two and a cup of coffee and then, after a momentary pause of doubt, a large piece of cake. She had another cup of coffee and a cigarette with it and was pleased because if she had gone to Charles she would almost surely have had a cocktail and this way she hadn't. The taxicab had really been a godsend, Pam North decided.

She pressed her cigarette out in the ashtray—and was faintly repelled when the man next to her, finishing, simultaneously, dropped his, still afire, into his almost empty coffee cup—slipped from the stool, paid her check at the counter and went out into Madison. Now what? she thought, turning downtown. Now a bus—miracles never struck twice in one day—home and then it would be almost time for Jerry. It was three ten now. She walked down Madison and looked in several windows, and then, because she was enjoying her walk, went through Fifty-fourth to Park. It was three twenty when she reached Fifty-third. As she waited on the curb to cross Fifty-third there was a siren wail and a police car came very fast up Park, swung into Fifty-third and went west, lurching around the front of a car which had not stopped quickly enough. Halfway down the next block, it turned in toward the right-hand curb and slowed to a sudden stop. There were two cruise cars already parked there. And a crowd was gathering. As she watched, several people standing near her turned into Fifty-third and began to run toward the police cars.

The police car which had come up Park was not a cruise car. It was a car she knew; it was the Homicide Squad car from Centre Street. She knew it very well. She had ridden in it—perhaps, she sometimes thought, illegally—with Bill Weigand. Where it went, there was trouble—a certain kind of trouble.

It was another reflex, longer conditioned—and harder to explain—which led Pam North now to turn into Fifty-third Street, walking toward the police cars and the crowd gathering there. She did not run. She did not go eagerly. But she went.

When Bill Weigand, Mullins, Detective-Sergeant Stein and Detective Barney Jones went into the offices of Dr. Andrew Gordon on the eighth floor of the Medical Chambers, there were already a good many people in the offices. There had been, for some reason not immediately apparent, a uniformed patrolman standing near a door which opened beside the elevators. Weigand and the others went around the elevators, following directions given them by the elevator operator, turned left into a broad corridor and went to another door outside which a second uniformed patrolman stood. He opened the door for them. Inside there was a waiting room and the first of a good many people. They looked up as Weigand and the others came in; they looked up with a kind of worried, half-frightened, expectation. They looked up with strained, puzzled faces. Bill Weigand had seen many faces like those. He did not seem to look at the people in the waiting room. But he saw them.

One of them did not look up. She was blonde and slim, and she was lying on her back on a sofa against the wall. She was not looking at anything and her face was white; it was evident that she had fainted. Standing near her was a nurse. Tall, slender, broad-shouldered, the nurse was. Bill felt that, before she turned slightly to look at him, she had been looking at nothing. There was remoteness in the lines of her face; it was as if she had only partly returned from nowhere. At a desk, down the room from the entrance door, near another doorway guarded by another uniformed patrolman, a very young girl with long brown hair was sitting. She had been crying. A tall man, not much older than she, stood by the desk. He might have been looking down at her. Now, he was looking at Weigand, and with the other emotions—the emotions he shared with the nurse, and the girl at the desk—there was something else in his face. Antagonism? They'd see. There was still another man—a man in his middle fifties, at a guess—and he was standing in front of one of the upholstered chairs along the wall. He was standing as if he had just got out of the chair. He was a solid man of medium height, and he had short gray hair. There was strain and puzzlement on his face. No antagonism.

Bill Weigand did not appear to look at any of these people and Mullins, Stein and Jones, following him; did not seem to look at them either. The four, in file, went toward the policeman standing in the doorway near the desk, and he saluted as Bill came up. There was sharp light momentarily on the wall behind him; in a moment there was another flash of light. The photographers from the precinct were at it. It was quick work.

The lieutenant of the precinct squad was watching the photographer who, standing on a chair, was shooting down at something which was shielded from Weigand by the photographer's body. The flash went off, the photographer got down. He went around to the other side. The body was that of a man, rather heavy, of middle height. It was slumped forward, head and shoulders resting on the desk. The precinct lieutenant walked a few steps toward Weigand.

“Well,” he said, “there it is, Bill.”

Bill said he saw it.

“Gordon,” the precinct lieutenant said. “Andrew. An eye doctor. Somebody bashed the back of his head in.”

“Well,” Weigand said. “Well, well.”

“Yeah,” the precinct lieutenant said.

“The M.E.?” Bill said.

“Coming.”

“Right,” Bill said. He jerked his head toward the waiting room. He said they seemed to have picked up quite a few people. The precinct lieutenant shook his head at that. He said they hadn't picked them up.

“Found them,” he said. “Here when we came. The babe passed out on the sofa is the guy's wife. The young fellow is his son. I don't know exactly who the gray-haired guy is. The other two work here.”

“Right,” Bill said. There was movement at the door and he looked around. A small, round man with a black bag came in. He had a pink face and a pink bald head. He waved his free hand at everybody and said, “What've we got, boys? What've we got?” He did not wait to be answered; it was greeting, not enquiry. He crossed briskly to the desk and looked at the body. He regarded it; bent over it. He straightened up.

“Somebody bashed in his head,” he told them. “Blunt instrument, boys.”

Bill Weigand smiled at him.

“Thanks a lot, Doctor,” he said. “We needed you to tell us.”

“Sure you did,” the doctor agreed cheerfully. “Obscure to the lay mind, naturally. You hit somebody with something heavy—hit him on the head—and the skull caves. Always assuming he's not a policeman. Messes the brain up.”

“Always assuming he's not a policeman,” Bill Weigand said.

“Smart boy,” the doctor told him. “Then he dies. Like this one.” He turned and faced Bill Weigand. His face was not as cheerful as his words. There was a hurt expression on his face, like the hurt expression on a child's face.

Bill smiled, faintly.

“Funny, aren't we?” the doctor said. “All right. Who was he?”

“Didn't you notice when you came in?” Weigand asked. “His name's on his door. Gordon. Dr. Andrew Gordon.”

“All right,” the doctor said. “I hoped he wasn't. Never met Gordon. He was a good man, you know. Very good man.”

Bill nodded.

“One of the two or three best,” the assistant medical examiner said. “A damned good eye man. The boss called him in once or twice. Very interesting malignancy, one case was. Question: Contributing cause? Gordon said no.” He turned and looked at Gordon's body. “Now he's dead,” he said. “Pity.”

“Right,” Bill said. “How—”

“Long,” the assistant medical examiner finished. “When was he found?”

“About three. Thereabouts.”

The doctor looked at his watch. He turned back to the body; he touched the forehead; he lifted the head and looked at the eyes. He went behind the body, picked up the dangling hand and held it by the wrist. Then he lifted the body back in the chair, moving quickly, expertly. He opened the unbuttoned suit coat, placed a clinical thermometer under the arm and pressed the arm down against it. Leaving the thermometer there, he went across the room and looked at a thermostat on the wall; he returned, removed the thermometer and looked at it.

“Warm in here,” he said. “Makes a difference, of course. You want a guess?”

“Yes,” Bill said.

“Not later than two,” the doctor said. “Not earlier than—oh, say twelve thirty to be safe. Few minutes one way or the other.”

Bill Weigand only nodded.

The doctor lowered the body again so that it lay in its original position on the desk. He bent over it and examined the wound. He pressed it lightly with his fingers. He sniffed his fingers. “Used something to keep his hair down,” he said, casually. He stood looking at the head.

“No skin broken,” he said. “Something round and smooth. About as big as your fist. Something like—oh, a big knob on a cane. Hell of a big knob for a cane, of course. Almost as big as a baseball, only smoother. Fit anything you can think of?”

“Oh yes,” Bill said. “A big knob on an ornamental poker. A knob off an old brass bed. A heavy paperweight, rounded on one side. A round stone, thrown by somebody. I can think of plenty of things.”

“Good,” the doctor said. He looked down at the body again. “Damn shame,” he said quickly. He picked up his bag. “Well,” he said, “you know what to do with it, Bill. You'll get your report copy.”

He went, quick and pink—and with the puzzled expression of a hurt child. Weigand looked after him, smiling faintly.

“Hates murder,” Bill said, more or less to the precinct lieutenant. “Can't understand anybody so—unkind. Won't be able to eat dinner tonight, poor guy. We get ourselves into funny jobs.”

“Yeah,” the precinct lieutenant said. “You boys taking over?”

Bill nodded, abstractedly. Except for the men on the doors, he said, they would take over.

“The nurse found him,” the precinct lieutenant said. “That's about as far as we'd got. O.K.?”

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. He crossed the room and stood looking at the body. He looked around the room. He crossed it and opened the door leading into the first of the examining rooms and looked at the room without going in. He went to the other door beside it and out into the corridor and looked down it.