Night-Bloom

by Herbert Lieberman

  The man’s eyes fluttered open and he mumbled something. She tucked him under the chin playfully. “There now. How are we? You’re looking better already. You did quite a job on yourself. The doctor had to put twenty stitches into your leg. But you’re going to be just fine now. What’s that, m’dear? What did you say?”

  The man’s parched lips moved feebly, struggling to shape sounds.

  “What’s that, dear? I can’t …”

  Something deep within the man, far down, sounding like a croak or a hoarse dry rattle, issued from his throat.

  “What’s that, my dear?” she asked. “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you.”

  11

  “This guy, San Cristobal. Says he saw a man, directly after the drop, running east on Forty-ninth between Eighth and Ninth. Time approximately ten fifty-five.”

  “East? That puts him running toward the scene of the crime. Brilliant, Defasio. You show great promise. Next, we got here Weingarten, Sarah. Lives in the building next door. Returning home last night, approximately eleven-ten. Claims to have seen a suspicious-looking black guy lurking in the alleyway between two buildings.”

  “Just lurking? Not running?”

  “Lurking is the word she used. Says so right here on the transcript of the call.”

  “Lots of black guys lurking around Forty-ninth Street that time of night.”

  “Right again, Defasio. And, besides, Weingarten has called in fourteen times before and always with some suspicious-looking black guy lurking. She’s got lurking black guys up her ass. Next?”

  In a back office just to the rear of the squad room of Manhattan South Precinct, Frank Mooney shuffled through a file of white index cards. In all, he had nearly a hundred such cards, each one representing a telephone response to the hot line number that had been flashed on TV screens the night before. He sat at a desk littered with police mug shots, paper cups, and half-eaten crullers on greasy wax paper.

  Opposite him sat a dark, intense-looking young man with a smooth boyish face that would seem more fitting on a square somewhere in Tuscany than in a precinct squad room off Times Square. Except for a carefully coiffed wave of black hair at the nape of his neck, he was completely bald and his manner suggested that of a man nursing some chronic grievance. His name was Michael Defasio and he was Mooney’s young partner.

  “… we got here now one Boorzoonian, Amadeo. Rug merchant, 316 West Forty-ninth. Says he was out walking his dog round eleven P.M. and a gang of Puerto Rican kids comin’ up Eighth Avenue tried to swipe the dog.”

  “So?” Mooney fumed. “Are we investigatin’ dog-napping or skull bashing? What makes him think they had anything to do with a forty-pound cinder block dropping off a rooftop on Forty-ninth Street?”

  “They were coinin’ from that direction, weren’t they?”

  “So were a million other people. Forget about Bosoomium. Next.”

  “Callahan, Mary …”

  The stupefying drudgery of sifting through mostly moronic eyewitness telephone depositions droned on into the late night. Just past midnight the energies of the younger man began to flag noticeably. Not so Mooney, however, eyes closed and seated Buddha-like, coiled in curlicues of cigarette smoke, tirelessly absorbing information.

  By 12:30 A.M. they had reduced all one hundred file cards into two distinct packs. The first, by far the larger, contained all of those depositions already dismissed as wildly improbable; the second, consisting of four or five cards, contained bits and shreds of information Mooney was eager to pursue.

  One of the cards described having seen a man loitering in the vicinity of the building from which the lethal block had fallen. The witness claimed that she had never seen this man in the neighborhood before, but finally took notice after observing him in the same spot on four consecutive days, apparently watching the building. On her deposition she described the man as white, middle-aged, average height, basically nondescript. No special distinguishing characteristics. She could not be any more specific.

  The next two cards described a youth, possibly eighteen, white, 180 pounds, six feet. He was fleeing the area at the time of the incident. While the physical descriptions on the two cards were nearly identical, one witness had the youth fleeing west on Forty-ninth Street, while the other had him fleeing east. However, since the physical descriptions of the fleeing youth tended to corroborate each other, as did the time at which he was observed fleeing, Mooney felt that the two cards were worth the time and effort of a follow-up.

  A fourth card, and one of the most promising, was a deposition from a young Italian man, a construction worker, also resident of the building from which the block had fallen. He claimed to have had an assignation with a young woman on the site of the fatal drop. Occasionally, he said, they would meet on the roof, share a bottle of wine and make love.

  That night he reached the roof earlier than his lady friend. While he waited for her there in a tangle of transoms, antennas and chimney pots, he thought he’d have a cigarette. As he struck his match he became aware out of the corner of his eye that he was not alone. About a hundred feet away at the ledge he spied a man, or what he assumed to be a man. It was a dark night, moonless, overcast, and what he saw in the distance was merely a shape, a silhouette.

  At the moment in which his match burst into flame, casting its maximum illumination, the two men on the roof became acutely aware of each other. The man at the ledge started at once for the stairway door. But instead of continuing in that direction, he appeared to change his mind and veered sharply right, across the roof, then climbed over the side, down the fire escape.

  For a moment the young construction worker stood frozen to the spot. A strapping big fellow, he admitted to a spasm of terror.

  At last he summoned the courage to go over to the spot where the figure had disappeared. In that dim illumination he could see nothing but the spidery tangle of grill work from the fire escapes nearest the upper stories. Below, however, he could hear the clatter of footsteps rattling down the iron rungs of the escape ladders. There was a moment of silence, followed shortly by a sharp grating thud, as of heels impacting on the cement of the alleyway below. A short groan ensued, followed by footsteps running, then silence.

  In the next moment, the girl arrived. He told her what had happened. Instead of remaining on the roof, they concluded that it might be prudent to go downstairs. That’s when they discovered from neighbors in the halls that a man lay dead on the sidewalk in front of the building, a forty-pound cinder block having cleft his skull.

  The last card in Mooney’s file was that of a retired postal worker, a widower, and resident of the same building, who’d been watching Johnny Carson and claimed to have glanced up just in time to see a fleeting shape on his fire escape. He happened to have the apartment on the first floor, and his fire escape, about twelve feet off the ground, fronted on the alleyway.

  As he stood up to confront the intruder, the figure simply vanished over the side, making the drop between the last rung of the ladder and the alleyway below.

  The old gentleman heard a groan, no doubt the same groan heard by the Italian construction worker, followed by the same running footsteps. He threw open his window and went out onto the fire escape to see what he could see. Whoever or whatever had been there was clearly gone, but just below him, directly beneath the fire-escape ladder and in the light cast from his own windows, he could see a bright splash of red.

  “Any word from the ME on those blood samples?” Mooney glanced up from the cards into the tired, petulant features before him. “Hey, Defasio,” he snapped his fingers. “Do I bore you? Wake up.”

  “They’re typing them now. We oughta have ‘em first thing in the morning.”

  “And that patch of stuff they found on the ladder?”

  “It’s a piece of raincoat fabric. Probably from a pocket. They got it out now with a fiber expert. That’s gonna be a lot of nothing.” .

  “Oh?” Mooney snapped rubber bands round his packet of cards. �
�Get it for me.”

  “Sure—First thing in the morning.”

  “Right now.”

  “Come on, Mooney. Don’t break my chops.”

  “I said, go get it for me.”

  “How special can raincoat fiber be? They’ll tell you it’s Egyptian cotton and rayon. So, big deal. What the hell’s it gonna get you?”

  “Get it for me now.”

  Defasio’s expression appeared strained. “It’s nearly eight o’clock. There’s no one down there this hour. Gimme a break, for God’s sake, will ya?”

  “Now,” Mooney snarled. “I don’t go to bed. You don’t go to bed.”

  Sergeant Defasio ground his teeth. There was a strong undercurrent of dislike between the two men. From a career point of view, to have been partnered with Mooney was tantamount to a demotion and the younger man knew it. “I told you, it’s with an expert. Probably in some laboratory. I’ll get it for you first thing in the morning. Lemme go, will ya, Mooney? I ain’t seen my kids in three days. My wife’s ready to run off with the circus.”

  “You’d both be better off. All right, go home. Get out of my face. Just be down here nine A.M. tomorrow. You hear me, nine A.M. Wear soft shoes. We got a lot of walkin’ to do. Get me that swatch first thing. Then we’re goin’ over and see us some people at 310 West Forty-ninth.”

  Defasio rose and grabbed his jacket. “Aren’t you goin’?”

  Mooney was still shuffling through the cards, a distant, abstract look in his eye, shuffling as if he were a magician, conjuring the numbers.

  “Hey, Mooney? Ain’t you goin’ home at all?”

  “What the hell for?” Mooney’s eyes swarmed upward. “It’s almost time to come back. I’ll hang around awhile.”

  The big, rumpled, slightly disreputable-looking detective pulled a stack of Racing Forms out of his desk top. “I’ll catch up on some reading. Hey, since you’re goin’ home early, Defasio, whyn’t you pick me up a few burgers and a couple of Cokes before you leave?”

  12

  “You’re a lucky man, I’ll say that. A very lucky man.”

  Watford stretched luxuriously in bed, a tray of soiled breakfast dishes balanced on his covered knees. It was 9:00 A.M. and the soft May sunlight slanted through the rain-mottled plate windows of the room. Outside, the tips of spruce and newly bloomed dogwood spiked upward from the hospital courtyard just below.

  Amiable and chatty, Watford rattled on at the gray, motionless figure supine in the bed beside him. “I’d judge you have an airtight case against the city. Imagine just going off like that and leaving a manhole uncovered. It’s inexcusable. The height of irresponsibility. There were witnesses, I take it?”

  Watford gazed across at his roommate who lay, eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling. “There were witnesses to the accident, weren’t there?”

  “Yes, witnesses,” the man replied in a manner that could have suggested affirmation or indifference. His eyes appeared to be transfixed on some indeterminate point across the room.

  “You took their names, of course?” Watford persisted.

  “Whose names?”

  “The witnesses. The people on the site. You did get their names?”

  The man shook his head dazedly.

  A look of puzzlement crossed Watford’s face and he shrugged.

  “Well, I’m sure glad you made it here on time. The nurse told me they had you on the table for three and a half hours, sewing up your leg. Too bad about the witnesses though. You could’ve taken the city for a bundle. Say, aren’t you going to eat your breakfast? With all that blood you lost, you need to get your strength back.”

  The man closed his eyes and merely nodded. Watford, however, was far from discouraged. He was feeling very fit that morning and the good spring weather had contributed mightily to a sense that he had licked the dark memories of the recent past. The sad indignity of banishment from his sister’s home in Pittsburgh. The bleak embattled days of Inez. There was even a certain guarded optimism he felt about his prospects for the future. For the nonce, however, he was happy to be alive, secure and cozy in the hospital.

  Watford grew curious about the sort of work the gentleman at his side might be engaged in. He was not so forward, however, as to ask the question directly.

  “Say, what was your name again? ‘Fraid I didn’t quite catch it the first time.”

  “Boyd,” the man murmured through lips taut with pain.

  “What was that?”

  “Boyd—Anthony Boyd.”

  “Boyd?” Watford pondered. “Don’t think I know any Boyds. Has your family been notified? Your wife?”

  “Abroad. Visiting relatives.”

  “Don’t you think she should know?”

  “No. No need. Only worry her.”

  “Is there anyone else? Any family to be notified?”

  “No. No one else.”

  “What about your job? Shouldn’t someone be told there?”

  “Not necessary. Not necessary.”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Watford resumed. “Can’t wait to get out of here and get back to work,” he enthused brightly. “Been sick on and off for the past year or so. Airline work is my field, you know. Been a purser on most of your major lines. Pan Am, TWA, United, you name it. Been all over the world, too—Europe, the Far East, Russia. Love travel. Have ever since I was a kid. Joined up with the Air Force during Vietnam. Helicopter pilot, you know.”

  Watford waxed nostalgic. He appeared just then, with his wry boyish grin, to be a man fully enjoying his reveries. “Got myself shot down behind enemy lines,” he continued. “Had to make my way back on foot through the jungle. Three days I walked, with a couple of 50mm slugs in my leg.” He held his leg up for his roommate to see. “Still walk with a limp but they gave me a Purple Heart and a DFC.” Watford smiled and glimpsed across at his neighbor. “That’s how I got into airline work. Seemed the natural way to go. They wouldn’t let me fly anymore because of my disability. So they made me a purser instead. I don’t mind, though. I love it. The travel, the people, new experiences. Always something new. You see, with me it’s always been a case of … Beg pardon?”

  Watford had been chattering on so freely that he was unaware that the man had been muttering something to himself.

  “Sorry,” Watford leaned across the narrow space between the beds. “What was it you were saying?”

  The man’s head rolled sideward on his pillow. His eyes blazed open, fixing Watford angrily, then in the next moment closed.

  “Are you all right?” Watford inquired uneasily.

  Just at that moment, voices and a flurry of motion streamed through the doorway. A tall, brisk man in a white flowing coat breezed into the room. A flustered, somewhat breathless nurse tripped along behind at his heel.

  “Good morning, Mr. Watford. I’m Dr. Rashower. Dr. Shavers’s associate. How are you feeling this morning?”

  Watford looked up into a pair of shrewd, assessing eyes. He had not been expecting this so soon and had to get himself into a proper frame of mind for what he was certain was to follow. Momentarily stunned, he had sufficient presence of mind to stall in order to suggest infirmity.

  “I think I’m all right, Doctor.” He spoke haltingly. The chirpy note of several moments before had become a kind of frail bleat.

  The doctor glanced up and down his chart. “Still having pain, are you?”

  “Yes. Across the lower back. Particularly at night. The pain is terrible at night.”

  “I see. Roll over, please. We’ll have a look.” Dutifully, Watford rolled over on his stomach while the doctor untied the back of his smock and with strong, coolish fingers, palpated the area around his kidneys. Next he sounded the area with a stethoscope. Lastly, he slipped on a rubber glove, dipped one finger liberally in Vaseline, inserted it in Watford’s rectum and routed about in there for a while.

  “Okay. You can roll back over now,” the doctor said, removing the glove and disposing of it neatly in a nearby wastebaske
t. “This is all a bit perplexing. You say that Dr. Shavers has been treating you for recurrent renal colic? But I find no sign of renal colic. There’s nothing in your blood or your radiology to suggest renal colic. We have found some blood in your urine, but not in sufficient quantities to be alarming. The blood may simply be a sign of infection, but you’re running no fever, nor do you have an elevated white blood cell count. I just checked your prostate and found it normal in size, possibly a trifle boggy. Nothing very significant. Frankly, I’m puzzled. Something else puzzles me, too.”

  Something in the man’s voice and expression sent a red flag up for Watford’s keen antennae.

  “I’ve looked high and low through Dr. Shavers’s records for your file and can find no trace of his ever having treated you.”

  “I can assure you he has,” Watford retorted sharply. He could produce a fairly impressive moral indignation when the need was upon him, and the need was now definitely upon him. “Dr. Shavers has been my personal urologist for the past thirteen years. His records may be untidy. Go back and check them. I’m certain you’ll find me there.”

  “And another thing, Mr. Watford,” the imperturbable Rashower disregarded Watford’s commands and instead bore down coolly, “the dispensary here has asked me to sign out three separate prescriptions for Demerol. I’m told I prescribed them for you.”

  “You prescribed them?”

  “So I’m told, yet I have no recollection of phoning any such prescriptions into the dispensary. Have you received any Demerol here?”

  “Why, yes. Of course.”

  “I never prescribed any Demerol for you. But apparently someone did, because you got it. Do you have any idea who might have called in the prescriptions?”

  “Of course.” Watford’s heart thumped in his chest, but he was now determined to brazen it out. “Dr. Shavers called them in. He called here to ask how I felt. I told him I was in a good deal of pain and unable to get any medication stronger than aspirin. He wasn’t about to let me suffer night after night in terrible pain, so he said he would call in a prescription at once. That idiot nurse would only give me aspirin.”