Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41

by Levine (v1. 1)

  "He wants to marry you, is that it? And he can't get a divorce."

  The girl nodded, and all at once she began to cry. She wept with one closed hand pressed to her mouth, muffling the sound, her head bowed as though she were ashamed of this weakness, ashamed to be seen crying.

  Levine waited, watching her with the dulled helplessness of a man whose job by its very nature kept him exposed to the misery and frustrations of others. He would always want to help, and he would always be unable to help, to really help.

  Janice Shale controlled herself, slowly and painfully. When she looked up again, Levine knew she was finished weeping, no matter what happ>ened. "What do you want me to do?" she said.

  "Talk to him. His wife won't come —she knows what he wants to say to her, I suppose —so you're the only one."

  "What can I say to him?"

  Levine felt weary, heavy. Breathing, working the heart, pushing the sluggish blood through veins and arteries, was wearing, hopeless, exhausting labor. "I don't know," he said. "He wants to die because of you. Tell him why he should live."

  Levine stood by the right-hand window, just out of sight of the man on the ledge. The son and the priest and Crawley and Gundy were all across the room, watching and waiting, the son looking bewildered, the priest relieved, Crawley sour, Gundy excited.

  Janice Shale was at the left-hand window, tense and frightened. She leaned out, looking down, and Levine saw her body go rigid, saw her hands tighten on the window-frame. She closed her eyes, swaying, inhaling, and Levine stood ready to move. If she were to faint from that position, she could fall out the window.

  But she didn't faint. She raised her head and opened her eyes, and carefully avoided looking down at the street again. She looked, instead, to her right, toward the man on the ledge. 'Jay," she said. "Jay, please."

  "Jan!" Cartwright sounded surprised. "What are you doing? Jan, go back in there, stay away from this. Go back in there."

  Levine stood by the window, listening. What would she say to him? What could she say to him?

  "Jay," she said, slowly, hesitantly, "Jay, please. It isn't worth it. Nothing is worth —dying for."

  "Where's Laura?"

  Levine waited, unbreathing, and at last the girl spoke the lie he had placed in her mouth. "She's on the way. She'll be here soon. But what does it matter, Jay? She still won't agree, you know that. She won't believe you."

  "I'll wait for Laura," he said.

  The son was suddenly striding across the room, shouting, "What is this? What's going on here?"

  Levine spun around, motioning angrily for the boy to be quiet.

  "Who is that woman?" demanded the son. "What's she doing here?"

  Levine intercepted him before he could get to Janice Shale, pressed both palms flat against the boy's shirt-front. "Get back over there," he whispered fiercely. "Get back over there."

  "Get away from me! Who is she? What's going on here?"

  "Allan?" It was Cartwright's voice, shouting the question. "Allan?"

  Crawley now had the boy's arms from behind, and he and Levine propelled him toward the door. "Let me ^o.'*'cried the boy. "I've got a right to "

  Crawley's large hand clamped across his mouth, and the three of them barreled through to the receptionist's office. As the door closed behind them, Levine heard Janice Shale repeating, "Jay? Listen to me. Jay, please. Please, Jay."

  The door safely shut behind them, the two detectives let the boy go. He turned immediately, trying to push past them and get back inside, crying, "You can't do this! Let me go! What do you think you are? Who is that woman?"

  "Shut up," said Levine. He spoke softly, but the boy quieted at once. In his voice had been all his own miseries, all his own frustrations, and his utter weariness with the misery and frustration of others.

  "I'll tell you who that woman is," Levine said. "She's the woman your father wants to marry. He wants to divorce your mother and marry her."

  "No," said the boy, as sure and positive as he had been earlier in denying that his mother would want to see his father dead.

  "Don't say no," said Levine coldly. "I'm telling you facts. That's what sent him out there on that ledge. Your mother won't agree to the divorce."

  "My mother "

  "Your mother," Levine pushed coldly on, "planned your father's life. Now, all at once, he's reached the age where he should have accomplished whatever he set out to do. His son is grown, he's making good money, now's the time for him to look around and say, 'This is the world I made for myself, and it's a good one.' But he can't. Because he doesn't like his life, it isn't his life, it's the life your mother planned for him."

  "You're wrong," said the boy. "You're wrong."

  "So he went looking." said Levine, ignoring the boy's intenoiptions, "and he found Janice Shale. She wouldn't push him, she wouldn't plan for him, she'd let him be the strong one."

  The boy just stood here, shaking his head, repeating over and over, "You're wrong. You're wrong."

  Levine grimaced, in irritation and defeat. You never break through, he thought. You never break through. Aloud he said, "In twenty years you'll believe me." He looked over at the patrolman, McCann. "Keep this young man out here with you," he said.

  "Right," said McCann.

  "Why?" cried the son. "He's my father! Why can't I go in there?"

  "Shame," Levine told him. "If he saw his son and this woman at the same time, he'd jump."

  The boy's eyes widened. He started to shake his head, then just stood there, staring.

  Levine and Crawley went back into the other room.

  Janice Shale was coming away from the window, her face ashen. "Somebody "down on the sidewalk started taking pictures," she said. "Jay shouted at them to stop. He told me to get in out of sight, or he'd jump right now."

  "Respectability," said Levine, as through the word were obscene. "We're all fools."

  Crawley said, "Think we ought to send someone for the wife?"

  "No, She'd only make it worse. She'd say no, and he'd go over."

  "Oh God!" Janice Shale swayed suddenly and Crawley grabbed her arm, led her across to one of the leather sofas.

  Levine went back to the right-hand window. He looked out. A block away, on the other side of the street, there was a large clock in front of a bank building. It was almost eleven-thirty. They'd been here almost an hour and a half.

  Three o'clock, he thought suddenly. This thing had to be over before three o'clock, that was the time of his appointment with the doctor.

  He looked out at Cartwright. The man was getting tired. His face was drawn with strain and emotion, and his fingertips were clutching tight to the rough face of the wall. Levine said, "Cartwright."

  The man turned his head, slowly, afraid now of rapid movement. He looked at Levine without speaking.

  "Cartwright," said Levine. "Have you thought about it now? Have you thought about death?"

  "I want to talk to my wife."

  "You could fall before she got here," Levine told him. "She has a long way to drive, and you're getting tired. Come in, come in here. You can talk to her in here when she arrives. You've proved your point, man, you can come in. Do you want to get too tired, do you want to lose your balance, lose your footing, slip and fall?"

  "I want to talk to my wife," he said, doggedly.

  "Cartwright, you're alive." Levine stared helplessly at the man, searching for the way to tell him-how precious that was, the fact of being alive. "You're breathing," he said. "You can see and hear and smell and taste and touch. You can laugh at jokes, you can love a woman —For God's sake man, you're alive!"

  Cartwright's eyes didn't waver; his expression didn't change. "I want to talk to my wife," he repeated.

  "Listen," said Levine. "You've been out here two hours now. You've had time to think about death, about non-being. Cartwright, listen. Look at me, Cartwright, I'm going to the doctor at three o'clock this afternoon. He's going to tell me about my heart, Cartwright. He's going to tell me if
my heart is getting too tired. He's going to tell me if I'm going to stop being alive."

  Levine strained with the need to tell this fool what he was throwing away, and knew it was hopeless.

  The priest was back, all at once, at the other window. "Can we help you?" he asked. "Is there anything any of us can do to help you?"

  Cartwright's head swiveled slowly. He studied the priest. "I want to talk to my wife," he said.

  Levine gripped the windowsill. There had to be a way to bring him in, there had to be a way to trick him or force him or convince him to come in. He had to be brought in, he couldn't throw his life away, that's the only thing a man really has.

  Levine wished desperately that he had the choice.

  He leaned out again suddenly, glaring at the back of Cartwright's head. "Jump!" he shouted.

  Cartwright's head swiveled around, the face open, the eyes shocked, staring at Levine in disbelief.

  "Jump!" roared Levine. "Jump, you damn fool, end it, stop being alive, die! Jump! Throw yourself away, you imbecile, jump!"

  Wide-eyed, Cartwright stared at Levine's flushed face, looked out and down at the crowd, the fire truck, the ambulance, the uniformed men, the chalked circle on the pavement.

  And all at once he began to cry. His hands came up to his face, he swayed, and the crowd down below sighed, like a breeze rustling. "God help me!" Cartwright screamed.

  Crawley came swarming out the other window, his legs held by Gundy. He grabbed for Cartwright's arm, growling, "All right, now, take it easy. Take it easy. This way, this way, just slide your feet along, don't try to bring the other foot around, just slide over, easy, easy — "

  And the man came stumbling in from the ledge.

  "You took a chance," said Crawley. "You took one hell of a chance." It was two-thirty, and Crawley was driving him to the doctor's office.

  "I know," said Levine. His hands were still shaking; he could still feel the ragged pounding of his heart within his chest.

  "But you called his bluff," said Crawley. "That kind, it's just a bluff. They don't really want to dive, they're bluffing."

  "I know," said Levine.

  "But you still took a hell of a chance."

  "It —" Levine swallowed. It felt as though there were something hard caught in his throat. "It was the only way to get him in," he said. "The wife wasn't coming, and nothing else would bring him in. When the girlfriend failed — "

  "It took guts, Abe. For a second there, I almost thought he was going to take you up on it."

  "So did I."

  Crawley pulled in at the curb in front of the doctor's office. "I'll pick you up around quarter to four," he said.

  "I can take a cab," said Levine.

  "Why? Why for the love of Mike? The city's paying for the gas."

  Levine smiled at his partner. "All right," he said. He got out of the car, went up the walk, up the stoop, onto the front porch. He looked back, watched the Chevy turn the corner. He whispered, "I wanted him to jump."

  Then he went in to find out if he was going to stay alive.

  THE FEEL OF THE TRIGGER

  Abraham Levine, Detective of Brooklyn's Forty-third Precinct, sat at a desk in the squadroom and worriedly listened to his heart skip every eighth beat. It was two o'clock on Sunday morning, and he had the sports section of the Sunday Times open on the desk, but he wasn't reading it. He hadn't been reading it for about ten minutes now. Instead, he'd been listening to his heart.

  A few months ago, he'd discovered the way to listen to his heart without anybody knowing he was doing it. He'd put his right elbow on the desk and press the heel of his right hand to his ear, hard enough to cut out all outside sound. At first it would sound like underwater that way, and then gradually he would become aware of a regular clicking sound. It wasn't a beating or a thumping or anything like that, it was a click-click-click-click —click-click-

  There it was again. Nine beats before the skip that time. It fluctuated between every eighth beat and every twelfth beat.

  The doctor had told him not to worry about that, lots of people had it, but that didn't exacdy reassure him. Lots of people died of heart attacks, too. Lots of people around the age of fifty-three.

  "Abe? Don't you feel good?"

  Levine gfuiltily lowered his hand. He looked over at his shift partner. Jack Crawley, sitting with the Times crossword puzzle at another desk. "No, Fm okay," he said. "I was just thinking."

  "About your heart?"

  Levine wanted to say no, but he couldn't. Jack knew him too well.

  Crawley got to his feet, stretching, a big bulky harness bull. "You're a hypochondriac, Abe," he said. "You're a good guy, but you got an obsession."

  "You're right." He grinned sheepishly. "I almost wish the phone would ring."

  Crawley mangled a cigarette out of the pack. "You went to the doctor, didn't you? A couple of months ago. And what did he tell you?"

  "He said I had nothing to worry about," Levine admitted. "My blood pressure is a litde high, that's all." He didn't want to talk about the skipping.

  "So there you are," said Crawley reasonably. "You're still on duty, aren't you? If you had a bum heart, they'd retire you, right?"

  "Right."

  "So relax. And don't hope for the phone to ring. This is a quiet Saturday night. I've been waiting for this one for years."

  The Saturday night graveyard shift —Sunday morning, actually, midnight till eight —was usually the busiest shift in the week. Saturday night was the time when normal people got violent, and violent people got murderous, the time when precinct plainclothesmen were usually on the jump.

  Tonight was unusual. Here it was, after two o'clock, and only one call so far, a bar hold-up over on 23rd. Rizzo and McFarlane were still out on that one, leaving Crawley and Levine to mind the store and read the Times.

  Crawley now went back to the crossword puzzle, and Levine made an honest effort to read the sports section.

  They read in silence for ten minutes, and then the phone rang on Crawley's desk. Crawley scooped the receiver up to his ear, announced himself, and listened.

  The conversation was brief. Crawley's end of it was limited to yesses and got-its, and Levine waited, watching his wrestler's face, trying to read there what the call was about.

  Then Crawley broke the connection by depressing the cradle buttons, and said, over his shoulder, "Hold-up. Grocery store at Green and Tanahee. Owner shot. That was the beat cop. Wills."

  Levine got heavily to his feet and crossed the squadroom to the coatrack, while Crawley dialed a number and said, "Emergency, please."

  Levine shrugged into his coat, purposely not listening to Crawley's half of the conversation. It was brief enough, anyway. When Crawley came over to get his own coat, he said, "DOA. Four bullets in him. One of these trigger-happy amateurs."

  "Any witnesses?"

  "Wife. The beat man —Wills —says she thinks she recognized the guy."

  "Widow," said Levine.

  Crawley said, "What?"

  Widow. Not wife any more, widow. "Nothing," said Levine.

  If you're a man fifty-three years of age, there's a statistical chance your heart will stop this year. But there's no sense getting worried about it. There's an even better statistical chance that it won't stop this year. So, if you go to the doctor and he says don't worry, then you shouldn't worry. Don't think morbid thoughts. Don't think about death all the time, think about life. Think about your work, for instance.

  But what if it so happens that your work, as often as not, is death? What if you're a precinct detective, the one the wife calls when her husband just keeled over at the breakfast table, the one the hotel calls for the guest who never woke up this morning? What if the short end of the statistics is that end you most often see?

  Levine sat in the squad car next to Crawley, who was driving, and looked out at the Brooklyn streets, trying to distract his mind. At two a.m. Brooklyn is dull, with red neon signs and grimy windows in narrow streets. L
evine wished he'd taken the wheel.

  They reached the intersection of Tanahee and Green, and Crawley parked in a bus-stop zone. They got out of the car.

  The store wasn't exacdy on the corner. It was two doors down Green, on the southeast side, occupying the ground floor of a red-brick tenement building. The plate-glass window was filthy, filled with show-boxes of Kellogg's Pep and Tide and Premium Saltines. Inevitably, the letters SALADA were curved across the glass. The flap of the rolled-up green awning above the window had lettering on it, too: Fine Tailoring.

  There were two slate steps up, and then the store. The glass in the door was so covered with cigarette and soft-drink decals it was almost impossible to see inside. On the reverse, they all said, "Thank you — call again."

  The door was closed now, and locked. Levine caught a glimpse of blue uniform through the decals, and rapped softly on the door. The young patrolman, Wills, recognized him and pulled the door open. "Stanton's with her," he said. "In back." He meant the patrolman from the prowl car parked now out front.

  Crawley said, "You got any details yet?"

  "On what happened," said Wills, "yes."

  Levine closed and locked the door again, and turned to listen.

  "There weren't any customers," Wills was saying. "The store stays open till three in the morning, weekends. Midnight during the week. It was just the old couple — Kosofsky, Nathan and Emma—they take turns, and they both work when it's busy. The husband —Nathan —he was out here, and his wife was in back, making a pot of tea. She heard the bell over the door "

  "Bell?" Levine turned and looked up at the top of the door. There hadn't been any bell sound when they'd come in just now.

  "The guy ripped it off the wall on his way out."

  Levine nodded. He could see the exposed wood where screws had been dragged out. Somebody tall, then, over six foot. Somebody strong, and nervous, too.

  "She heard the bell," said Wills, "and then, a couple minutes later, she heard the shots. So she came running out, and saw this guy at the cash register "

  "She saw him," said Crawley.

  "Yeah, sure. But I'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, he took a shot at her, too, but he missed. And she fell flat on her face, expecting the next bullet to get her, but he didn't fire again."