Found in the Street (24 page)

“Excuse my appearance,” Linderman said, “but there's been disturbance in the house all afternoon, and I'm getting ready to go to work.”

Jack nodded. Linderman was in trousers and undershirt. The black and white dog nosed against Jack's legs and wagged its tail half-heartedly. Linderman walked in houseshoes to the back of the apartment to turn off running water somewhere.

“What's the matter?” Linderman asked, coming back. “You've been running? In this heat?”

“No.” Jack did not take his eyes from Linderman.

“Want a glass of cold water?—Why're you looking at me like that?—I suppose my letter annoyed you.”

Jack felt as if his torso, his face, were a furnace. The sweat ran down him. “What were you doing this afternoon?”

“Hah!—Trying to sleep! A new wop family's moved in just below. Kids crawling all over the place, up these
stair
s
!” Linderman pointed. “I'm on duty at eight. Have to get my sleep. If these were
work
sounds, I always say, I wouldn't get so mad, but these are unnecessary noises! Kids screaming,
people
yelling!''

A
thump
sounded nearby, Jack jumped like a nervous cat, and he looked at the door.

“That's habitual! That's their ballgame—against my
door
!”
Linderman spoke with sneering contempt. He still held the safety razor. “They do it deliberately, of course.”

A child's voice squealed in the hall.

“I'd love to train God to clear 'em off this floor, but then they'd complain about my dog and
win
! Nobody cares about peace and order any more.”

“Where were you around four o'clock today?” Jack asked.

“Four?” Linderman looked surprised. “I was here.”

“When was the last time you aired your dog?”

“Aired God? This morning around noon. He's got to go out again before I go to work.” Linderman shifted, almost touched his lathered cheek with his free hand, and didn't. “'S matter, Mr. Sutherland? Have you had a house robbery? A break-in?”

Trotting toward Linderman's house, Jack had so easily imagined Linderman following Elsie as she walked home, Elsie saying something rude to him over her shoulder, and Linderman picking up the first thing to hand, some kind of brick from the gutter, having suffered the last straw of rejection from Elsie, hitting her on top of the head after she'd opened her door with her key, hitting her perhaps twice more while she screamed, then dropping the brick and fleeing when he heard Marion opening the door above. Now here was Linderman angry with his neighbors, saying that he'd been in all afternoon, and maybe he had been. Should he believe Linderman?

“Mr. Sutherland—”

“No, no break-in,” Jack said.

“Something happen with your little daughter?”

“No.”

“With
Elsie
?”
Linderman looked more concerned.

“No, no.”

“Good. Well—if you'll excuse me just two minutes—You could sit down. I've got to finish this face-scraping, then take the dog outside for a minute.” Linderman gestured toward his armchair, and retreated to his bathroom somewhere to the right of the two windows.

Jack walked toward the open door through which Linderman had gone. He saw an unmade bed in a small room, heard water running again. The bed did look as if Linderman had just got out of it, but couldn't he have got out at 3 this afternoon? Jack turned and walked toward the apartment door, then noticed above the door a square card edged in brown with black lettering: PREPARE TO MEET THY DOG. Linderman had pasted DOG over what must have been GOD. It was one of the cards that sold at souvenir shops.

“Ha-ha,” said Linderman, returning. “My latest addition. Prepare—”

“Where're you working now, Mr. Linderman?”

“Ah. Something called the Hot Arch Arcade. Broadway and Eighty-first. Bread and circuses for the masses. Open day and night. I don't think you'd like the clientèle.—Mr. Sutherland, you're looking pale now!”

“Pale?”

“Minute ago you were red as a beet, now you're pale! If you want to talk about—what I wrote to you about Elsie—Won't you—” Linderman extended a hand as if to escort Jack to a seat.

Jack edged back and moved toward the door. “Thank you, I'll be off. Sorry to've bothered you.” Jack went out.

Then Jack was down on the sidewalk in the sun again, walking at a normal pace, and the air was cold on his body. He reached for his keys.

Natalia and Amelia were home, Natalia in the kitchen.

“Hello, Jack! Guess what we—What's the matter, Jack?”

‘‘Nothing.''

“You look beat!—Where've you been?”

Jack realized that he was shaking slightly. Was it a chill? He suddenly remembered Elsie's chill, here, in February, hadn't it been? He pulled his T-shirt over his head. “I think I'll take a shower.” He went and turned on the hot water in the shower.

Natalia followed him. “Jack, what happened? Did you get into a fight somewhere?”

“Fight, no!” Jack almost laughed as he stepped under the hot water. The water felt marvelous. He let it run onto his head, his upturned face, hot as he could bear it. His teeth stopped chattering.

“A hot shower.—Want a cold drink?”

“I'd love some hot tea.”

“Really?”

“I mean it.”

Jack put on a terrycloth bathrobe and took his tea into the bedroom. He had beckoned to Natalia. “Sit down.” He meant on the bed or on a chair. She didn't want to sit, but he insisted with a gesture.

“All right.” She took the straight chair that always stood near his side of the bed.

“Elsie's been killed,” he said softly.

Natalia started. “Killed?—What do you mean?”

“This afternoon. Marion called me. This was around four. I went—”

“Killed
how
?”

“Somebody hit her head with a brick.” Trembling again, Jack lifted his teacup.

“Where was this?”

“It happened right in the entrance to her house. Marion heard her scream and—went down and got her upstairs. But she was dead. The police were there and—the hospital people from St Vincent's. Marion thinks—”

“I can't believe it!” Natalia whispered. “Do you think that Linderman creep—” Natalia had stood up. ‘‘Did Marion see anything?”

“No. She said she saw someone running out, someone in white trousers, she says, but really she's in a state of shock, Natalia darling, and she might not be right about that.”

“It's unbelievable!”

“I just went to see Linderman,” Jack said. “He says he'd been in all afternoon, and I swear it looks as if he has.—Marion mentioned this girl Fran. You know? That dikey type?”

“Fran, yes.”

“What's her last name?”

“I forgot.—My
God,
Jack—you saw Elsie?”

“Of course. Yes. I ran down to Greene Street when Marion phoned me. I think she thought Elsie was just hurt—knocked out, but—” Jack did not want to describe Elsie's wounds. “Marion suspects Fran.—Oh, the cops'll get onto Fran, Linderman, question them, I'm sure. But how many other toughs were hanging around Elsie?
I
don't know. Do you?”

Natalia might not have heard him. She was frowning, head down, but not weeping. “F'Chris' sake,
Elsie!
—
No!”
she yelled suddenly at the thumping knock on the closed door.

Amelia opened the door a little, wanting something.

“I'll be back,” Natalia said, going out. “No, honey, your daddy and I have to talk about something. For five minutes.—Yes, about the trip. We . . .” Her voice faded out of hearing.

The Yugoslav trip. They were leaving at the end of the month, flying to Belgrade via Vienna. A couple of suitcases, open and closed, lay in corners of the hall, and some packing had already been done.

Natalia was back with a Glenfiddich.

In the next five minutes or so, Natalia extracted every detail from him, the time, where Elsie had been wounded, what Marion had said, where Marion was now (Natalia had met Myra but was not sure of her last name, Jackson or Johnson), and what the police had said or asked, and what Linderman had said.

“I'm going to go and see her,” Natalia said, putting a cigarette out.

“Who? Marion?”

“
Elsie.
”

Jack couldn't dissuade her. Natalia was going to go to St Vincent's, and then to the morgue, wherever Elsie was.

“Then I'll go with you,” Jack said, getting up, ready to dress.

“I don't want you to. I'll do it.”

Something in Natalia's determined voice, and face, made Jack pause. She really preferred to go alone.

“Don't let Amelia watch the box tonight. Something might be on it, you know? An announcement.” Natalia had whispered.

Jack got dressed as soon as he heard the door close. He put on cotton trousers and a shirt that hung out. In the bathroom, he picked up his levis, still dark with sweat at the waist.

“Dad-
dee
! The Nebu—koo!” Amelia cried from the living-room.

“The what?” He saw his daughter on the floor, propped on an elbow, long hair flowing down.

“It's here!—I can read it! What is it?”

Jack leaned over the Yugoslav map which Amelia had spread on the carpet, not seeing a thing except the big rectangle of the paper. “It's a place. What else?”

“Are we going to see one?” Losing patience, Amelia said, “It's not a place, it looks like a tent! At the edge here. Look!”

Light, daylight fell on Amelia's fair hair from the windows behind her, and Jack thought of Elsie. This was the last light of the sun of the last day for Elsie. Jack closed his eyes and turned away. “Got to see about dinner. Aren't you getting hungry?”

“No,” said Amelia, being perverse. “Where is Mommy?”

“Went out for a while. She'll be back.”

Natalia had started dinner, so there wasn't much for Jack to do. The telephone rang while he and Amelia were eating. A man's voice said he was Police Officer So-and-So, and would it be convenient for him to come over and have a word with Jack?

“Of course. Now?”

“In about ten minutes.”

Jack tried to get Amelia to bed. She suspected something, and consequently kept trying to fool him. Yes, she was going to bed, no, she wasn't, because someone was coming.

“Sure you can stay up,” Jack said, trying homeopathy. “It's going to be a party. Cops 'n robbers.”

Amelia's golden eyes widened. “Who's coming? How many?”

“It's a pajama party. Get those on!”

The doorbell rang.

Two policemen, both in uniform with blue short-sleeved shirts came up the stairs. Jack recognized one as the cop who had spoken to him in Marion's apartment.

“Mr. Sutherland?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jack.

They introduced themselves, and Jack showed them in and offered chairs.

Amelia came in barefoot and in pajamas and showed every sign of wanting to join them.

“Amelia, honey—Got to leave us alone for a few minutes.” Jack tried to steer her back to her room.

“You said it was a cops 'n robbers party!”

“The robbers aren't here yet,” said Jack.

“I won't!” Amelia said, squirming.

“Sorry,” Jack said to the policemen, one of whom was smiling. “My wife's out.—Maybe we can go in the bedroom?”

Jack hated the idea, but he didn't want to lock Amelia up in her own room. Jack brought another chair into the bedroom. The policemen followed. Jack closed the door on Amelia, saying, “We've got to talk for a couple of minutes, honey!” knowing his daughter would be listening at the door. Or would she?

Reluctantly Jack sat on the foot of the bed.

“You were a good friend of this girl?” asked the policeman who was new to Jack, the one who had announced himself as Homicide Squad.

“Good friend—not a close friend,” Jack said.

“How long have you known her?”

Jack reflected. “Nearly a year.”

“And how'd you meet her?”

Jack glanced at the bedroom door whose key he had turned, though he had not heard any sound from the other side. “She was working in a coffee shop down on Seventh Avenue. I made a sketch of her on the back of my check there.” He shrugged. “She was living in the neighborhood then, Minetta Street. We said hello on the street.”

“And then?”

Jack felt uncomfortable, wanting to avoid the Linderman part right now. “Then—she met my wife and—my wife recommended her to a photographer. As a model. So she was getting some fashion model jobs that way.”

“She certainly was,” said the Homicide man, a sturdy fellow in his mid-thirties with straight brown hair that looked freshly washed and cut. “You ever heard of any enemies she had? In that business? Jealous people maybe? Jealous men? Angry men?”

Jack shook his head slowly. “Her friend Marion Gill might know—of people. I don't know any.” As both the cops wrote on their pads, Jack asked, “Did you speak again with Marion?”

“Oh, yeah, just now,” said the other policeman. “She checked in with us and we went down to see her. Very cooperative young lady.”

Jack thought of Fran. “I hope you've got some leads by now?”

“We never know,” said the Homicide cop, blandly.

Jack saw the door handle move and tried to ignore it. Though it wasn't warm, he felt sweat on his forehead again. “What was the weapon? I heard something about a brick—in the downstairs hall.”

“Yes. It was a red brick with a little cement stuck to it,” said the Homicide man, looking at Jack. “Weighing two and a half pounds.”

Jack could imagine what it looked like.