by Ed McBain
“Sixteenth precinct, Sergeant Macgregor speaking.”
“I’d like…” I hesitated. “Homicide, please.”
“Just a moment, sir,” the voice said.
I listened while a series of clicks filled the line, and then a smooth voice said, “Homicide, this is Sergeant Callighan.”
“I want to report a murder,” I said.
His voice was matter of fact. “Your name, sir?”
“Joshua Blake.”
“Where are you now, sir?”
I gave him the address.
“Don’t touch anything, sir,” he said. “We’ll send someone right over.”
As simple as that. I put the phone back in its cradle, and we began waiting for the police.
* * *
Two uniformed cops arrived first. They were very polite about everything, coming into the office only after they’d stopped at the reception desk and asked for me. Once inside, they asked only if I was the one who’d made the call. When I told them I was, they took down my name, and then one went outside to post himself in the hallway, and the other took up a vigil near Del’s body.
The detective arrived about five minutes later.
He was a tall, plain-looking man in a tweed suit. I wondered why he wore tweeds in the middle of the summer, but I didn’t bother asking him. He had straight blond hair that fell over one eye, and which he constantly pushed off his forehead with a long, tapering hand. His eyes were blue, set deep in his head, straddling his thin nose. He looked very much like a file clerk.
“I’m Detective-Sergeant Di Luca,” he stated. “Did you make the call, sir?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Who’s this?” He gestured at Kennedy with a slight movement of his head.
“Tim Kennedy, my executive editor.”
“And the young lady?” He glanced at her quickly, his eyes avoiding the obvious thrust of her breasts beneath the clinging linen jacket.
“My secretary.”
“Would you mind sending them out, please?”
“Not at all. Tim, Lydia, would you…”
They moved toward the door silently, the way people will move in a funeral parlor or a museum.
When the door had closed after them, Di Luca asked, “Who’s the dead man?”
“Del Gilbert, my partner.”
Di Luca produced a small pad from his inside coat pocket. “Full name, please.”
“Delano Gilbert.”
“And your name, sir?”
“Joshua Blake.”
He wrote it down and said, “Odd name. Joshua, I mean. New England?”
“Boston.”
“Mmm. You found the body, Mr. Blake?”
“Yes, I did.”
“When was this?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Touch anything?”
“No. Just the phone and the intercom. Nothing near…near the body.”
Di Luca turned his head quickly, and his eyes shifted from Del’s body to the broken aquarium, and then back to the body again.
“This the way you found it?” he asked the uniformed cop.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned back to me. “Mr. Blake, what time did you…”
The buzzer sounded on Del’s desk. I said, “Excuse me,” and clicked the toggle.
“Mr. Lewis on seven,” Jeanette said.
“Thank you.” I picked up the phone and said, “Hello, Alex, how are you?”
“Got a few yarns here I like, Del,” Alex said drily.
“Oh? Which ones?”
“Fellow name of Paley. Pretty good, you know, Del?”
I realized, then, that he thought he was talking to my partner. The realization sent a shiver up my spine, because my partner was lying on the rug, dead. “Alex,” I said, “this is Josh.”
“Oh, hello, Josh. You handle this fellow Paley?”
“I know his work.”
“Got two here of his. One called Death is My Maiden, Know it?”
“Yes, yes, a good story.” I glanced uneasily at Di Luca and shrugged.
“The other one is called Shoot, Crap! I’ll have to change that title, Josh.” Alex chuckled a little and then added quickly, “A hundred all right on each of these?”
“Yes, fine.”
“O-kay,” he said, breaking the word in two, “I’ll put a check through.”
“Thanks a lot, Alex.”
I hung up, opening Del’s desk drawer and writing the sales down on a pad. When I finished writing, I noticed that Di Luca was staring at me. “A few sales,” I said. Then, in further explanation, I added, “We sell stories. That’s our business.”
“Oh? Must be interesting.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“What time did you get in this morning, Mr. Blake?”
“Close to nine-thirty,” I said.
“You usually come in about that time?”
“No, usually a little later. I’m expecting a big deal to close soon, and I wanted to be here to take any important calls.”
“Did you come directly into this office?”
“No, I went into my own office next door.”
“What brought you in here?”
“I wanted to check something in the safe.”
“Did you expect your partner to be in so early?”
“No. I didn’t expect him at all. I thought he was still out of town.”
“Say,” Di Luca said unexpectedly. “What part of Boston?”
“Huh?”
“You said you came from Boston. What part?”
“Oh. Not really from Boston. I come from a suburb. West Newton. Do you know it?”
“No. Where was your partner supposed to be?”
“In Connecticut. With a client.”
“What did you want from the safe?” Di Luca asked.
“A contract. I wanted to check a contract to see when it expired.”
“Did you check it?”
“No.”
“What else do you keep in the safe?”
“Contracts, agreements, important documents. That’s about all.”
“Money?”
“No.”
“What time did you get in this morning?” he asked.
“Nine-thirty.” I stopped and looked at him curiously. “I already told you that.”
Di Luca smiled and shook his head as if he were confused. “Yes, yes, so you did.” He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped it across his brow. “Hot as hell, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Paper says it’s going to hit ninety-eight again. Man shouldn’t have to work in this kind of weather.”
“Well, if you don’t…”
The buzzer sounded again, and I clicked on the intercom.
“Yes?”
“A Mr. Donato for Mr. Gilbert, sir.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Donato, sir.”
“I don’t know him. Ask him what company he represents, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
I waited for several moments while Jeanette checked. Then her voice came over the intercom again. “Universal Photostats, sir.”
“Univer…oh hell, I’ll talk to him. What’s he on?”
“Five, sir.”
I picked up the phone and said, “Hello, this is Mr. Blake, Mr. Gilbert’s partner. Can I help you?”
The man spoke with a faint Italian accent. “The photostats you ordered are ready,” he said.
“What photostats?”
“Mr. Gilbert, he ordered…”
“Oh, okay. What’s your address, I’ll send a kid down for them.”
He gave me the address, a number on East Forty-seventh Street, and I told him I’d send one of our messengers over later. I wrote the number on a pad as I spoke, and when I hung up, Di Luca was watching me again.
“You’d better tell your girl not to disturb us,” he said.
“What?”
“You’d better tell he
r not to…”
“I heard you. How the hell am I supposed to run a business if I can’t take calls? I told you the reason I came in early was to…”
“What do you suppose your partner was doing here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he got in early this morning and came straight to the office.”
“I doubt it,” Di Luca said.
“Why?”
He gestured at the desk lamp with a limp wave of his hand. “Did you turn on that lamp when you came in this morning?”
“Why…” I turned and looked at the lamp, noticing for the first time that it was lighted.
“No. No, why should I do that?”
“No reason. I didn’t think anyone would turn on a light in the morning, especially in a sunny office like this one. I figure maybe your partner came in during the night.”
“Why would he do that?”
Di Luca shrugged. “What client?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You said your partner was out of town. You said he was with a client.”
“I said that? Yes, I guess I did.”
“You did,” Di Luca said, nodding. “Who was the client? Maybe that has something to do with his barging in here in the middle of the night.”
“Cam Stewart. A Western writer.”
“Cam Stewart, huh? Is that right?”
“You know Stewart?”
“I’ve read a few Draw Hudsons. Writes a good story.”
“The editors seem to think so.” For no good reason, that came out more sharply than I’d intended it. Di Luca lifted an eyebrow and smiled quizzically. Then he turned his back to me and walked over to where Del was stretched out before the couch.
“This is the way you found him, huh?”
“Just like that.”
“With all this crap on the floor? With the safe open like this?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm. Well, you can put that junk back in the safe, if you like.” I started to do that, and Di Luca asked again. “This is the way you found it?”
“Just the way you see it.”
“Looks like someone wanted something in that safe, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t see what,” I said. “Just contracts in there. Certainly nothing of value to anyone but the agency.”
“Nothing to kill a man for, huh?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“How long you been partners?”
“Five years.”
“What’s the setup?”
“Usual partnership setup. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“You can get your mind off that track,” I snapped. “He’s survived by a wife. I wouldn’t gain a thing.”
“I didn’t say you would,” Di Luca said mildly.
The buzzer sounded again, and he added, “Tell her no more calls this morning.”
I walked to the desk and shoved down the toggle angrily.
“Sir, it’s Mr. Sarran on six.”
“Tell him nobody’s in,” Di Luca said into the intercom, leaning over the desk. “And any other calls you get, tell them you’re all alone. No one’s in yet. Have you got that?”
“Listen…” I started.
“This is a police officer,” Di Luca said. “Do as I say.”
He snapped off the toggle, and I glared at him. “What the hell was that for? I’m expecting some important calls.”
“If they’re that important, they’ll call back.”
“I thought you people were supposed to…”
“Was the fish tank busted when you came in?”
“Yes,” I answered, a little sulkily.
“Who’d want to break a fish tank?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
Di Luca smiled. “I’m sure I don’t know, either,” he said.
He walked across the room, kneeling down to examine some of the still fish on the rug. “Shame,” he said. “Some nice angel fish. And here’s a neon tetra. Shame.”
He stood up, walking around behind the tank. “Partner liked tropical fish, huh?”
“I never asked him. If a man keeps fish, I guess he likes them.”
“What else did he keep?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“A dog, a cat? A mistress? Men keep lots of things.”
I thought of Lydia, and a frown came onto my face. “Why do you ask?”
Di Luca walked across the room. “Somebody came in here and fired five shots at your partner. There has to be a reason for…”
“Five shots?” I’d only seen three, and they were all in Del’s head.
“Two went through the fish tank,” Di Luca said. “They’re buried in the wall behind the tank. You know where the other three are.”
“Oh,” I said softly.
“So someone killed your partner. I’m trying to find a reason. You said there was nothing valuable in the safe. All right, I’ll accept that for the time being. That means money wasn’t a consideration. There are usually some pretty simple motives for murder, Mr. Blake. Money is one of them. There’s jealousy, love, injured pride, rage, to mention a few of them.”
“Love? Love is a murder motive?”
Di Luca smiled again. “You’re a literary agent,” he said, “You should know that ‘each man kills the thing he loves.’ ”
“Yes. Yes, of course. That’s just a literary allusion, though…”
“Money’s out. For now, anyway. Maybe it’ll be in again after we do a little more snooping around. We’re great for snooping around. We can get real pesty. So it has to be another reason. There’s always a motive. No one kills for the fun of it, except the psychopath. Of course, that’s a consideration, too. But we look for motives first. When we’re dealing with a psychopath, it gets a little harder.”
“I thought all murderers were psychopaths,” I said.
Di Luca reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out a cigarette. He put it between his thin lips, lit it, and blew out a stream of smoke. “Hell, no,” he said. “You could be a murderer as well as I. For all I know, you may be the murderer.”
“And so might you.”
“Sure, but it’s pretty unlikely.”
“Admittedly.”
“To get back, what else did he keep?”
“Just fish,” I said.
“How was his home life?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t mix business with pleasure.”
“That’s sensible.”
“It worked best for us.”
“Do you know his wife?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“Gail. Gail Gilbert.”
Di Luca cocked his head to one side. “That’s very alliterative. Very pretty.”
I didn’t say anything. I walked across the room, peered behind the fish tank, and saw the holes the bullets had knocked out of the plaster.
“They’re there, all right,” Di Luca said. “What’s she like?”
I was at the point where I could halfway follow his abrupt shifts in questioning. “She’s a nice gal,” I said.
“But?”
“But nothing.”
“How well do you know her?”
“Fairly well.”
“I thought you didn’t mix socially?”
“We don’t usually. A few parties now and then. To celebrate a big deal, most of the time.”
I didn’t tell him that Gail Gilbert was a restless woman, a woman who’d snap up another man eagerly, because of what Del was doing. But then, he hadn’t asked.
“I guess you’d better go home, Mr. Blake,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ll only be underfoot here. Coroner will be here shortly, plus the photogs, and the boys dusting for prints—though I’m sure we won’t find a hell of a lot. Not with that crowd you had in here fingering up the whole office. Never hurts, though. The boys like to dust. Makes them feel like private eyes.”
“How’d you ever become a cop,
Di Luca?”
He smiled. “How’d you ever become a literary agent?”
“I like stories.”
Di Luca stopped smiling. “I like murder stories.”
We stood a few feet apart, looking at each other. Then Di Luca walked to the door and opened it. “Go home, Mr. Blake. Go home and relax.”
“And my business?”
“You have a phone at home?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Use that for your business. This is my business, and it’s more important than yours at the moment.”
“I guess that’s an order, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Send in your executive editor. I want to talk to him. And tell Lady Godiva to stick around. Few questions I want to ask her, too. In fact, ask everyone to stay until I’ve talked to them.”
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ll give you a call, Mr. Blake. Leave your home number, won’t you?”
“My secretary has it,” I said. I closed the door behind me, and Lydia jumped off the couch and walked across the reception room quickly. Her eyes were wide, her breath coming hard. I watched her swivel toward me on her high heels, and I thought of Del, and wondered how many times he’d watched her swivel toward him, with or without heels.
“Josh,” she said, “is…is…”
“Sherlock Holmes has everything under control,” I said. “He wants to see all of you, one at a time. Tim first, then you. Pass the word, will you? And give Sherlock my home number.”
“You’re going home?”
“Yes.”
“But…”
“Get Tim for him, will you?”
“But Josh…”
“Give me a call at home later. Let me know what Scotland Yard uncovers.”
“You don’t sound very goddamned heartbroken,” she snapped. It came suddenly, and it hit me right between the eyes.
“I guess I’m not, very,” I said.
“He was your partner,” she threw at me.
“Gilbert didn’t care much for Sullivan, either. Call me, Lydia. So long.”
I walked out, rang for the elevator, and stood waiting for it, looking out the hallway window, over the rooftops of the city. The heat clung in a heavy miasma that smothered the steel and concrete. I thought of Del, and how lucky he was. He was cold.
I shook my head, pushing the elevator button again. Lydia’s words had disturbed me. I really should have cared more. After all, he had been my partner. But somehow I couldn’t quite muster up the sorrow necessary for such an occasion. Del Gilbert was an out-and-out bastard. He had screwed more writers than I could count on my fingers and toes, even though the agency’s success was partly due to his tactics. He was also a lascivious rat who made a grab for every girl who went into his office. But Lydia had grabbed back, and Gail Gilbert was left holding the sag in her marriage. He had alienated more editors than there were magazines, and had somehow managed to get all those he’d feuded with fired on one pretext or another. Somehow, he’d hit on the remarkable idea that the chain of command was only as strong as the man who forged it. He’d brown-nosed every publisher in the business, and if an editor gave him trouble, he went straight to the publisher, and the editor was looking for a new job in ten minutes. That was the way he’d worked, and his methods got results.