Place ten Levines, one standing on another's shoulders, forming a human tower or a totem pole, and the Levine in the window wouldn't be able to reach the cropped gray hair on the head of the top Levine in the totem pole.
Down there, he could make out faces, distinguish eyes and open mouths, see the blue jeans and high boots and black slickers of the firemen, the red domes atop the police cars. Across the street, he could see the red of a girl's sweater.
He looked down at the street, sixty-six feet below him. It was a funny thing about heights, a strange and funny and terrifying thing. Stand by the rail of a bridge, looking down at the water. Stand by a window on the sixth floor, looking down at the street. And from miles down inside the brain, a filthy little voice snickers and leers and croons, "Jump. Go on and jump. Wouldn't you like to know how it would feel, to fall free through space? Go on, go on, jump."
From his left, Crawley's voice suddenly boomed out. "Aren't you a little old, Cartwright, for this kind of nonsense?"
The reassuring well-known reality of Crawley's voice tore Levine away from the snickering little voice. He suddenly realized he'd been leaning too far out from the window, and pulled himself hastily back.
And he felt his heart pounding within his chest. Three o'clock, he had to go see that doctor. He had to be calm; his heart had to be calm for the doctor's inspection.
At night —He didn't get enough sleep at night any more, that was part of the problem. But it was impossible to sleep and listen to one's heart at the same time, and of the two it was more important to listen to the heart. Listen to it plodding 2ilong, laboring, like an old man climbing a hill with a heavy pack. And then, all at once, the silence. The skipped beat. And the sluggish heart gathering its forces, building its strength, plodding on again. It had never yet skipped two beats in a row.
It could only do that once.
"What is it you want, Cartwright?" called Crawley's voice.
Levine, for the first time, looked to the left and saw Jason Cartwright.
A big man, probably an athlete in his younger days, still niuscular but now padded with the flesh of years. Black hair with a natursil wave in it, now mussed by the breeze. A heavy face, the chin sagging a bit but the jawline still strong, the nose large and straight, the forehead wide, the brows out-thrust, the eyes deep and now wide and wild. A good-looking man, probably in his late forties.
Levine knew a lot about him already. From the look of the son in there, this man had married young, probably while still in his teens. From the sound of the wife, the marriage had soured. From the look of the office and the apparent education of the son, his career had blossomed where his marriage hadn't. So this time, one of the exceptions, the trouble wouldn't be money. This time, it was connected most likely with his marriage.
Another woman?
It wouldn't be a good idea to ask him. Sooner or later, he would state his terms, he would tell them what had driven him out here. Force the issue, and he might jump. A man on a ledge goes out there not wanting to jump, but accepting the fact that he may have to.
Cartwright had been looking at Crawley, and now he turned his head, stared at Levine. "Oh, no you don't!" he cried. His voice would normally be baritone, probably a pleasant speaking voice, but emotion had driven it up the scale, making it raucuous, tinged with hysteria. "One distracts me while the other sneaks up on me, is that it?" the man cried. "You won't get away with it. Come near me and I'll jump, I swear I'll jump!"
"I'll stay right here," Levine promised. Leaning far out, he would be almost able to reach Cartwright's out-stretched hand. But if he were to touch it, Cartwright would surely jump. And if he were to grip it, Cartwright would most likely drag him along too, all the way down to the sidewalk sixty-six feet below.
"What is it, Cartwright?" demanded Crawley again. "What do you want?"
Way back at the beginning of their partnership, Levine and Crawley had discovered the arrangement that worked best for them. Crawley asked the questions, and Levine listened to the answers. While a man paid attention to" Crawley, erected his facade between himself and Crawley, Levine, silent and unnoticed, could come in on the flank, peek behind the facade and see the man who was really there.
"I want you to leave me alone!" cried Cartwright. "Everybody, everybody! Just leave me alone!"
"Look up at the sky. Mister Cartwright," said Levine softly, just loud enough for the man on the ledge to hear him. "Look how blue it is. Look down across the street. Do you see the red of that girl's sweater? Breathe in. Mister Cartwright. Do you smell the city? Hark! Listen! Did you hear that car-horn? That was over on Fulton Street, wasn't it?"
"Shut up!" screamed Cartwright, turning swiftly, precariously, to glare again at Levine. "Shut up, shut up, shut up. Leave me alone!"
Levine knew all he needed. "Do you want to talk to your son?" he asked.
"Allan?" The man's face softened all at once. "Allan?"
"He's right here," said Levine. He came back in from the window, signalled to the son, who was no longer talking on the phone, "He wants to talk to you."
The son rushed to the window. "Dad?"
Crawley came over, glowering. "Well?" he said.
Levine shook his head. "He doesn't want to die."
"I know that. What now?"
"I think it's the wife." Levine motioned to Gundy, who came over, and he said, "Is the partner here? Anderson?"
"Sure," said Gundy. "He's in his office. He tried to talk to Cartwright once, but Cartwright got too excited. We thought it would be a good idea if Anderson kept out of sight."
"Who thought? Anderson?"
"Well, yes. All of us. Anderson and McCann and me."
"Okay," said Levine. "You and the boy —what's his name, Allan? —stay here. Let me know what's happening, if anything at all does happen. Well go talk with Mister Anderson now."
Anderson was short, slender, very brisk, very bald. His wire-framed spectacles reflected light, and his round little face was troubled. "No warning at all," he said. "Not a word. All of a sudden, Joan —she's our receptionist — got a call from someone across the street, saying there was a man on the ledge. And it was Jason. Just like that! No warning at all."
"The sign on your door," said Crawley, "says Industrial Research. What's that, efficiency expert stuff?"
Anderson smiled, a quick nervous flutter. "Not exactly," he said. He was devoting all his attention to Crawley, who was standing directly in front of him and who was asking the questions. Levine stood to one side, watching the movements of Anderson's lips and eyes and hands as he spoke.
"We are efficiency experts, in a way," Anderson was saying, "but not in the usual sense of the term. We don't work with time-charts, or how many people should work in the steno pool, things like that. Our major concern is the physical plant itself, the structure and design of the plant buildings and work areas."
Crawley nodded. "Architects," he said.
Anderson's brief smile fluttered on his face again, and he shook his head. "No, we work in conjunction with the architect, if it's a new building. But most of our work is concerned with the modernization of old facilities. In a way, we're a central clearing agency for new ideas in industrial plant procedures." It was, thought Levine, an explanation Anderson was used to making, so used to making that it sounded almost like a memorized patter.
"You and Cartwright equal partners?" asked Crawley. It was clear he hadn't understood a word of Anderson's explanation and was impatient to move on to other things.
Anderson nodded. "Yes, we are. We've been partners for twenty-one years."
"You should know him well, then."
"I should think so, yes."
"Then maybe you know why he suddenly decided to go crawl out on the ledge."
Eyes widening, Anderson shook his head again. "Not a thing," he said. "I had no idea, nothing, I —There just wasn't any warning at all."
Levine stood off to one side, watching, his lips pursed in concentration. Was Anderson telling t
he truth? It seemed likely; it/<?// likely. The marriage again. It kept going back to the marriage.
"Has he acted at all funny lately?" Crawley was still pursuing the same thought, that there had to be some previous build-up, and that the build-up should show. "Has he been moody, anything like that?"
"Jason —" Anderson stopped, shook his head briefly, started again. "Jason is a quiet man, by nature. He —he rarely , forces his personality, if you know what I mean. If he's been thinking about this, whatever it is, it —it wouldn't show, I don't think it would show."
"Would he have any business worries at all?" Crawley undoubtedly realized by now this was a blind alley, but he would go through the normal questions anyway. You never could tell.
Anderson, as was to be expected, said, "No, none. We've —well, we've been doing very well. The last five years, weVe been expanding steadily, we've even added to our stafi", just six months ago."
Levine now spoke for the first time. "What about Mrs. Cartwright?" he asked.
Anderson looked blank, as he turned to face Levine. "Mrs. Cartwright? I —I don't understand what you mean."
Crawley immediately picked up the new ball, took over the questioning again. "Do you know her well. Mister Anderson? What kind of woman would you say she was?"
Anderson turned back to Crawley, once again opening his flank to Levine. "She's, well, actually I haven't seen very much of her the last few years. Jason moved out of Manhattan five, six years ago, over to Jersey, and I live out on the Island, so we don't, uh, we don't socialize very much, as much as we used to. As you get older — " he turned to face Levine, as though instinctively understanding that Levine would more readily know what he mejmt " — you don't go out so much any more, in the evening. You don't, uh, keep up friendships as much as you used to."
"You must know something about Mrs. Cartwright," said Crawley.
Anderson gave his attention to Crawley again. "She's, well, I suppose the best way to describe her is determined. I know for a fact she was the one who talked Jason into coming into partnership with me, twenty-one years ago. A forceful woman. Not a nag, mind you, I don't mean that at all. A very pleasant woman really. A good hostess. A good mother, from the look of Allan. But forceful."
The wife, thought Levine. She's the root of it. She knows, too, what drove him out there.
And she wants him to jump.
Back in Cartwright's office, the son Allan was once again at the phone. The patrolman Gundy was at the left-hand window, and a new man, in clerical garb, at the right-hand window.
Gundy noticed Levine and Crawley come in, and immediately left the window. "A priest," he said softly. "Anderson said he was Catholic, so we got in touch with St. Marks, over on Willoughby."
Levine nodded. He was listening to the son. "I don't know, mother. Of course, mother, we're doing everything we can. No, mother, no reporters up here, maybe it won't have to be in the papers at all."
Levine went over to the window Gundy had vacated, took up a position where he could see Cartwright, carefully refrained from looking down at the ground. The priest was saying, "God has his time for you, Mister Cartwright. This is God's prerogative, to choose the time and the means of your death."
Cartwright shook his head, not looking at the priest, glaring instead directly across Flatbush Avenue at the building across the way. "There is no God," he said.
"I don't believe you mean that, Mister Cartwright," said the priest. '*! believe you've lost your faith in yourself, but I don't believe you'veiost faith in God."
"Take that away!" screamed Cartwright all at once. "Take that away, or I jump right now!"
He was staring down toward the street, and Levine followed the direction of his gaze. Poles had been extended from windows on the floor below, and a safety net, similar to that used by circus performers, was being unrolled along them.
"Take that away!" screamed Cartwright again. He was leaning precariously forward, his face mottled red with fury and terror.
"Roll that back in!" shouted Levine. "Get it out of there, he can jump over it! Roll it back in!"
A face jutted out of one of the fifth-floor windows, turning ^ inquiringly upward, saying, "Who are you?"
"Levine. Precinct. Get that thing away from there."
"Right you are," said the face, making it clear he accepted no responsibility either way. And the net and poles were withdrawn.
The priest, on the other side, was saying, "It's all right. Relax, Mr. Cartwright; it's all right. These people only want to help you; it's all right." The priest's voice was shaky. Like Gundy, he was a rookie at this. He'd never been asked to talk in a suicide before.
Levine twisted around, looking up. Two stories up, and the roof. More men were up there, with another safety net. If this were the top floor, they would probably take a chance with that net, try flipping it over him and pasting him like a butterfly to the wall. But not here, three stories down.
Cartwright had turned his face away from the still-talking ' priest, was studying Levine intently. Levine returned his gaze, and Cartwright said, "Where's Laura? She should be here by now, shouldn't she? Where is she?"
"Laura? You mean your wife?"
"Of course," he said. He stared at Levine, trying to read something to Levine's face. "Where is she?"
Tell him the truth? No. Tell him his wife wasn't coming, and he would jump right away. "She's on the way," he said. "She should be here pretty soon."
Cartwright turned his face forward again, stared off" across the street. The priest was still talking, softly, insistently.
Levine came back into the office. To Crawley, he said, "It's the wife. He's waiting for her."
"They've always got a wife," said Crawley sourly. "And there's always just the one person they'll tell it to. Well, how long before she gets here?"
"She isn't coming."
"What?"
"She's at home, over in Jersey. She said she wouldn't come." Levine shrugged and added, "I'll try her again."
The son was still on the phone, but he handed it over as soon as Levine spoke to him. Levine said, "This is Detective Levine again, Mrs. Cartwright. We'd like you to come down here after all, please. Your husband asked to talk to you."
There was hesitation from the woman for a few seconds, and then she burst out, "Why can't you bring him in? Can't you even stop him?"
"He's out of reach, Mrs. Cartwright. If we tried to get him, I'm afraid he'd jump."
"This is ridiculous! No, no. definitely not, Fm not going to be a party to it. I'm not going to talk to him until he comes in from there. You tell him that."
"Mrs. Cartwright "
"I'm not going to have any more to do with it!"
The click was loud in Levine's ear as she slammed the receiver onto the hook. Crawley was looking at him, and now said, "Well?"
"She hung up."
"She isn't coming?" It was plain that Crawley was having trouble believing it.
Levine glanced at the son, who could hear every word he was saying, and then shrugged. "She wants him to jump," he said.
The son's reaction was much smaller than Levine had expected. He simply shook his head definitely and said, "No."
Levine waited, looking at him.
The son shook his head again. "That isn't true," he said. "She just doesn't understand —she doesn't really think he means it."
"All right," said Levine. He turned away from the son, trying to think. The wife, the marriage —A man in his late forties, married young, son grown and set up in his own vocation. A quiet man, who doesn't force his personality on others, and a forceful wife. A practical wife, who pushed him into a successful business.
Levine made his decision. He nodded, and went back through the receptionist's ofi&ce, where the other patrolman, McCann, was chatting with the three women employees. Levine went into Anderson's office, said, "Excuse me. Could I have the use of your office for a little while?"
"Certainly." Anderson got up from his desk, came around, sayi
ng, "Anything at all, anything at all."
'Thank you."
Levine followed Anderson back to the receptionist's office, looked over the three women sitting against the left-hand , wall. Two were fortyish, plumpish, wearing wedding bands. The third looked to be in her early thirties, was tall and slender, good-looking in a solid level-eyed way, not j glamorous. She wore no rings at all.
Levine went over to the third woman, said, "Could I speak to you for a minute, please?"
She looked up, startled, a bit frightened. "What? Oh. Oh, yes, of course."
She followed him back into Anderson's office. He motioned her to the chair facing Anderson's desk, himself sat behind the desk. "My name is Levine," he said. "Detective Abraham Levine. And you are ?"
"Janice Shale," she said. Her voice was low, pleaisandy melodious. She was wearing normal office clothing, a gray plain skirt and white plain blouse.
"You've worked here how long?"
"Three years." She was answering readily enough, with no hesitations, but deep in her eyes he could see she was frightened, and wary.
"Mister Cartwright won't tell us why he wants to kill himself," he began. "He's asked to speak to his wife, but she refuses to leave home — " He detected a tightening of her lips when he said that. Disapproval of Mrs. Cartwright? He went on. " — which we haven't told him yet. He doesn't really want to jump, Miss Shale. He's a frustrated, thwarted man.. There's something he wants or needs that he can't get, and he's chosen this way to try to force the issue." He paused, studying her face, said, "Would that something be you?"
Color started in her cheeks, and she opened her mouth for what he knew would be an immediate denial. But the denial didn't come. Instead, Janice Shale sagged in the chair, defeated and miserable, not meeting Levine's eyes. In a small voice, barely audible, she said, "I didn't think he'd do anything like this. I never thought he'd do anything like this."
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 Page 6