Until You Are Dead

by John Lutz

  Snodman's mind dwelt on how much the syndicate would pay to have Capastrani killed. It dwelt on Commissioner Moriarty and his thorough knowledge of The Snuffer. The commissioner had even consulted a police psychologist. Snodman had seen the gleam in the commissioner's eyes as he'd discussed the cunning assassin, and he was sure that Moriarty had dedicated himself to foiling or even capturing The Snuffer. A policeman's dream, Snodman said to himself, smiling.

  The long day went by without event. The patrolman outside the door had changed when the three o'clock shift came on. Capastrani had emerged from his room only to eat a late breakfast and lunch, which he'd wolfed down before returning to stretch full length and fully clothed on the bed. Snodman had read a travel magazine three times. He yawned and looked at his watch: five o'clock.

  At five forty-five he was speaking frantically into the telephone to Commissioner Moriarty. "You'd better come over here right away with a lab man, sir. I think somebody tried to poison Capastrani!"

  Within five minutes the door to Suite 24 flew open. Snodman's police revolver was out of its shoulder holster in a flash, but he relaxed as he saw it was the commissioner and a lab man. They looked in surprise at Snodman's revolver as Wilson, the uniformed patrolman guarding the hall, closed the door behind them.

  "It's all right," Commissioner Moriarty said. "We should have knocked."

  Snodman slipped the revolver into his suitcoat pocket. "Have a look at this," he said, pointing to the tray of food that room service had brought up for Capastrani's supper. To the lab man he said, "I think there's arsenic on the steak."

  "I'm glad you called me personally," Commissioner Moriarty said. "You did the right thing."

  Snodman smiled. "I knew you had a special interest in the case," he said. "I thought you'd want to come right over."

  The commissioner nodded soberly. "That's why I chose a hotel only two blocks from headquarters."

  The three of them leaned over the tray of food. "You can't see it now," Snodman said, "but there were traces of white powder on the underside of the steak when it was brought up. Most of it's dissolved in the juices now."

  The commissioner picked up the plate and sniffed. "What made you suspicious?" he asked, replacing the plate.

  Snodman shrugged. "A hunch. And I thought there was a peculiar odor about the steak."

  "Check it out," the commissioner told the lab man. Then he drew Snodman over to the sofa to talk with him. "Capastrani know about this?" Moriarty asked. Snodman shook his head. "He's still asleep. I was going to wake him when supper came."

  "Hmm," the commissioner said. "I don't understand how anybody could have slipped arsenic into that food. I toured the kitchen this morning and checked out the help myself. They're all trustworthy, long-time employees."

  "Maybe somebody was bought," Snodman suggested. "The Snuffer would be able to afford it."

  "Good point," the commissioner said. "Does Capastrani eat steak every night?"

  "It's a standing order with room service. That's just the sort of habit The Snuffer would take advantage of. You said he studied his future victims carefully before each job."

  "I didn't say that," the commissioner said. "He did -- in his poem."

  The lab man, a studious looking young fellow, walked over to them. "There's arsenic on the steak," he said. "I checked the salt, pepper, ketchup, coffee, even the cream for the coffee. Everything on the tray besides the steak is okay." Then he held out the slip of paper in his right hand. "This was stuck to the bottom of the steak plate, sir."

  The commissioner took it, unfolding it slowly as Snodman watched closely. They read:

  I am quite sure my little trick

  Nicely stilled your pigeon's song

  'Cause a little bit of arsenic

  Never hurt a soul — for long

  The commissioner crumpled the poem and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to the lab man. "You can go now," he said. "On the way out tell the kitchen to send up another steak, and this time you stand right there while it's cooking."

  "Right," the lab man said, and walked briskly and efficiently out of the room to implement his orders.

  "We won't tell Capastrani about this," the commissioner said to Snodman. "He doesn't even know The Snuffer is after him. There's no point in rattling the state's star witness."

  "Yes, sir," Snodman said.

  The commissioner stretched his lean body. "You've been cooped up in here all day," he said to Snodman. "Why don't you go out for a while and get a bite to eat and some fresh air. The patrolman's outside the door, and I'll stay here myself and keep an eye on things until you return."

  "Thank you, sir," Snodman said with appreciation. "To tell you the truth, I was about to ask that little favor myself. I could sure use some fresh air and a change of scenery." He walked to the door and paused. "Is there anything I can bring you, sir?"

  "No, no thank you." The commissioner seemed almost eager for Snodman to leave. "Take an hour if you want, Snodman."

  "Why, thank you, sir." He stepped into the hall and softly shut the door behind him.

  Just after Snodman had left, room service arrived at the door with Capastrani's new steak. The commissioner let them in, examined the steak, made sure the patrolman in the hall was alert, then went into the bedroom to awaken Capastrani.

  As he first emerged from sleep the squat little man was shocked to see the commissioner. Then he blinked his eyes a few times and recognized him. Without a word, he looked at his watch and rose from the mattress to leave the bedroom and eat supper.

  With a smug little smile, the commissioner sat on the sofa and watched as Capastrani settled himself before the tray. Apparently the little man had been sound asleep and was completely unaware of the recent occurrence. Capastrani sprinkled salt and pepper liberally on his steak and buttered a roll. Then he unscrewed the cap on the ketchup bottle and tipped it. As was not unusual, nothing came out. He shook the bottle a few times, gently, then shook it harder. He was holding it upside down looking at it curiously when the force of its explosion blew out the entire third floor west wall.

  As the ominous sound of the explosion reached police headquarters two blocks away, Snodman leaned back in his desk chair in his tiny office and smiled. He drew the genuine ketchup bottle from his shoulder holster and placed it in his bottom desk drawer. Then he picked up the slip of paper on which was the poem he'd just compulsively jotted down, tore it into tiny pieces and let the pieces flutter down into his wastebasket. For all his cleverness, the one thing he couldn't do was write poetry. Still, bad as they were, even in his lifetime his little jingles might yet achieve a certain degree of fame.

  Heat

  The city had been an oven for seventeen days and nights. During that time the temperature hadn't dropped below ninety, and the old brick buildings that housed most of the poor had heated up and stayed hot. Many of the elderly had been evacuated to cooling centers set up by the city. Others had refused to leave their homes because their pets needed care or because they feared that when they returned they'd find their few possessions stolen. Portable fans were donated to some of the disadvantaged in the poorer sections of town, but they only created blast furnaces if all the windows were closed — and cooped up in their tiny apartments, afraid of who might enter if they left a window open at night, many of the ill and infirm virtually baked to death. Ambulances were overworked, and obtained only after long waits. Deal and Hastings had used the patrol car to rush an old woman to the hospital two nights ago and found her dead from heatstroke when they arrived.

  Thirty-two deaths had been attributed to the heat in the past two weeks. Unless the weather pattern broke, there would be more.

  Patrolman Buddy Deal was walking into the precinct garage after evening muster when he stopped suddenly and gaped. His cigar almost dropped from his mouth, tilting forward at a precarious angle and spilling gray ash onto his uniform shirt to join the taco-sauce stain that hadn't come out in the wash. There was his partner, Dave Hastings — a
t least he thought it was Hastings — with his rump extending from the back seat of the parked patrol car, moving a hand back now and then to drop wadded cigar- and gum-wrappers and various debris into a metal waste can. A steady humming sound was wafting from the back of the car.

  "We haven't even left the precinct house yet," Deal said, flicking more cigar ash dangerously close to one of Hastings' gleaming black shoes. "Isn't it a little early to be cleaning out the car?"

  Hastings backed out of the car, straightened, and smoothed back his razor-styled hair. "I'm getting rid of the mess you made last night," he said. "Those slobs on the day shift refuse to clean up after you — they just toss everything to the back of the car."

  Deal grunted. Whatever the day shift did was okay with him. "What's that in your hand?" he asked.

  Hastings glanced down. "It's a portable vacuum cleaner. I'm keeping it in the car as long as we ride together."

  Deal grunted again, spilled more ash. "You and your gadgets," he mumbled and climbed in behind the steering wheel. He saw with dismay that Hastings had emptied the ashtray. Deal had left a wrapped-up, half-chewed piece of gum buried under the ashes where the day shift wouldn't find it. And The Sporting News was gone from above the sun visor. Trust Hastings to remove the little amenities that made a car a home. Deal might be more than a little on the irresponsible and sloppy side, but Hastings could drive a saint to sin with his rigid conformity and compulsive neatness. The other cops were calling Hastings E.T., for Extra Tidy.

  If all that weren't bad enough, Hastings would replace things he removed from the car with useless gadgets like extra ammunition clips, a see-through tinted visor to enhance night vision, even a portable steam iron to remove wrinkles from his uniform in case he was unexpectedly summoned to Headquarters. Now, as he got into the car to sit beside Deal, he snapped the little vacuum cleaner that looked like a mechanical anteater into a bracket he'd mounted beneath the dashboard. Next he removed a leather pouch from the glove compartment and placed it beside him on the seat.

  "What's that thing?" Deal asked.

  "Camera," Hastings explained. He removed a 35-millimeter camera from the pouch to show Deal. "It's equipped with a wide-angle lens. I read in Police Digest about this officer out west who used a camera and wide-angle lens to keep a photographic record of his beat."

  "Photographic record why?" Deal asked, irritated.

  "At night, after work, he'd study the photos of the streets. That way he could note day-to-day differences — unfamiliar cars in the area, apartments with shades that were never raised, anything suspicious. When he studied the photos with a magnifying glass one night, he spotted a wanted drug dealer in the neighborhood and effected his arrest. And this camera has an attachment that records the time of each photograph, so changes in the neighborhood can even be noted on an hour-to-hour basis."

  "Aren't you forgetting we're working nights?" Deal asked.

  Hastings smiled his handsome, infuriatingly smug smile. He tapped the side of the camera with his forefinger. "Extra fast, light-sensitive film," he explained. "And a lens that will photograph in dim light. Also, I've made arrangements with a film processor -"

  "Spare me the technicalities," Deal interrupted. He started the engine, loosened his belt, switched on the adequate air conditioner, and settled back in the seat. It was going to be a long, hot shift.

  "Let's get a fix on what Arnie Brubaker is up to tonight," Hastings suggested, referring to a professional burglar he and Deal had been assigned to keep under loose observation.

  "Let's get something cold to drink," Deal said, and drove from the precinct garage with a squeal of hot tires and called the car into service.

  Snick, whir. Snick, whir. The camera's shutter was tripped and the film advanced automatically over and over again. Hastings was nearer than he suspected to being shot with Deal's service revolver.

  "Will you quit takin' pictures!" Deal said, Orange Delight spilling onto his pants to join the cavalcade of stains.

  "One more shot," Hastings pleaded, with his recruitment-poster grin. "This is a high-crime neighborhood. I've used up almost an entire roll of film here. I figure two rolls a shift will -"

  "Time to check on our pal Brubaker," Deal said, braking as he yanked the wheel to the left. The car dipped into a violent U-turn and headed south on North Twelfth Street. Hastings began to hum what sounded like a military march as he fidgeted with his camera.

  Deal parked across the street from Brubaker's apartment. Most of the building was dark, but there was a light showing in Brubaker's window. "Think he's home?" Hastings asked.

  "It's too hot to worry about it," Deal answered. "Let's sit here a while and see if we can spot him coming or going, or crossing our line of sight in the window. We might as well be here as cruising around — it's so hot most of the criminals are taking a break."

  "They're waiting for the streets to cool," Hastings said. "We're not the only ones who've been working nights the past few weeks."

  Deal didn't laugh. Hastings wasn't joking. Nighttime wasn't cool, but the temperature usually did fall to below a hundred degrees. A lot of daytime activities had been relegated to the night. He kept the engine running. The air conditioner was on high but the car was still stifling. He could feel the heat radiating from the rolled-up windows. He shifted his 240 pounds and fired up one of his abominable cheap cigars that made Hastings sick.

  "Edward Eight," the dispatcher's metallic voice crackled from the radio. "Code Seventeen at six fifty-four Allister."

  "Us," Deal said, and barked acknowledgment into the microphone before the call to investigate a domestic disturbance could be repeated.

  "Just a minute," Hastings said, gripping Deal's shoulder. "Look." He pointed to Brubaker's window.

  A man's shadow passed the window, then passed again in the opposite direction, as if pacing.

  "Okay," Deal said, "so we know he's home." He put the car in gear.

  "Keep the car still for a few more seconds," Hastings said. He raised his camera, held it steady, and waited for the shadowy figure to cross behind the window again. Snick, whir. "Got him!"

  Deal stamped down on the accelerator, then switched on the siren and the rooftop cherry light.

  Beside him, Hastings loaded another roll of film into the camera and cranked down his window to let some of the cigar smoke out of the car.

  The domestic disturbance turned out to be a squabble between neighbors over a dog that had leaped a fence and snatched a steak from a spilled bag of groceries. By the time Deal and Hastings arrived, the husbands, wives, and children were exhausted from screaming at each other in the heat. Under the baleful eyes of neighbors on lighted porches and behind windows, the matter was soon resolved without the necessity of arresting anyone. The dog lost interest in the steak and trotted away, glancing back placidly over its shoulder.

  "Why don't you get a shot of that dog?" Deal asked Hastings.

  By the end of the shift both men were tired. There was no way not to be affected by the simmering weather. When Deal handed over the patrol-car keys to the day shift, Sergeant Lowry, who was assigned to the car, grinned and pointed as Hastings was walking away. "What's that your partner's carrying?"

  "Vacuum cleaner and a camera," Deal replied unsmilingly. He had been sapped of his sense of humor.

  "Eggers wants to see you and Hastings," Lowry added, lowering himself into Edward Eight.

  Deal caught up with Hastings and they went together to Captain Eggers' office.

  In the anteroom Eggers used for interrogation sat Arnie Brubaker. Eggers and Sergeant Hall were with him.

  Eggers was a truck of a man gone to fat, but not so much fat that muscle didn't still show on his wide frame. He had a florid pug face that gave the impression he might bite. The white-haired, elderly Sergeant Hall was standing against one wall, looking more apprehensive than Brubaker.

  Eggers was bending over Brubaker, who was sitting comfortably in a wooden chair with his legs crossed. When the captain
saw Deal and Hastings enter, he stood up straight and glared down at Brubaker with contempt. Brubaker smiled. He had a disarming smile. He was a dapper, amiable-looking man whose specialty was preying on senior citizens.

  "We have a bad situation," Eggers told Deal and Hastings. "An eighty-year-old invalid named Edna Croft was found unconscious in her apartment on North Twelfth about three hours ago."

  "I remember the squeal," Deal said. "It came down just after we went out of service to drive to a burglar-alarm call over on Freemont, Charles Eight took the North Twelfth call."

  "We'd been driving up and down North Twelfth much of the night," Hastings said. "I used a lot of film there. It's a particularly crime ridden environment, as you know, the result of population displacement and urban decay."

  "Yeah," Eggers said, cocking his head to the side and squinting at Hastings as if to fix him in his mind. "A neighbor who works nights dropped in to check on Edna Croft and make sure she was awake to take some prescription medicine, found her comatose, and called us. The temperature in the apartment was a hundred and three."

  Deal could picture the buildings on North Twelfth, old brick two-story structures with flat tar roofs. He winced as he thought of the old woman languishing in the sweatbox of an apartment.

  Eggers continued. "Sometime during the night, the neighbor says, Edna Croft's portable TV was stolen from her apartment."

  "Maybe the neighbor took it," Brubaker suggested.

  "Shut up, Mr. Brubaker," Eggers said, meaning all but the "mister." Brubaker was about to say more, then thought better of it. "We all know Mr. Brubaker's M.O.," Eggers went on. "We're familiar with how he allegedly makes his living by burglarizing the homes of the very old. Good business that, because even if he's caught his lawyer manages to stall the case until the victim either expires or can be accused of senility. Either way, the victim can't effectively testify against Mr. Brubaker."