Blood Count ac-9

by Reggie Nadelson

  “You want me to tell you about her?”

  “She was a crazy woman who made up stories about her past,” Lennox said. “Crazy like a fox. She tells everyone, ‘I was Paul Robeson’s girlfriend, I was an important person.’ All the time she’s saying how she just loves black people, seeing as how we’re so oppressed, we’re so fucking pure, we’re so decent.” He looked at me. “I couldn’t stand her-what she said, even how she looked, the way she smelled. That stink of incense and cigarette smoke, the imperious way she had, ordering everyone around.”

  “Why didn’t they tell her to fuck off?”

  “She seduced everybody with those fucking stories. She’d tell you she was the mother of Jesus Christ if it would get her some attention.”

  Lennox’s voice possessed the fury of somebody who’d been hurt really bad.

  “What else?” I said.

  “You should really listen to me,” Lennox said. “I didn’t kill anybody. I’m trying to tell you something and you’re not hearing me. Hold on.” He reached for his coat that was over the bar stool next to him. He pulled out a brown leather folder, the kind where you keep photographs.

  “Nobody knows about this, man,” said Lennox. “But I’m going to tell you, OK? I’m going to tell you some shit so you can go and solve your fucking crimes, you and that Virgil.”

  He had the look of a man who was going to confess, wanted to confess. Then he got up abruptly, stumbling over the bar stool.

  “I have to get some air,” he said. “I had too much to drink, I’m just wasted, man.” He glanced at me and smiled slightly, but it was the sad smile of a man who knows he’s washed up. “Don’t worry,” Lennox added. “I’ll be back. You can come with me. Or you can watch me through the window, watch me puke, if you want.”

  My heart raced. I was sweating. I knew he was getting ready to talk. I wanted him to trust me. He waited for my permission.

  I ordered another beer. I didn’t drink it. The young couple left the club. The bartender wiped down the tables and looked at me. He wanted to close up.

  The time seemed to drag.

  “Go on,” I said. “Get some air.”

  “You coming? Or you want to trust me?” He tossed some money on the bar.

  I didn’t have much time to think. I saw he was going to puke. I told him to go.

  From where I was, standing close to the window, to the door, I could see the street. I saw Lennox bent double. Then I thought he was going to run after all, getting in position, a runner’s position. He seemed to take a step. I got my gun, yelled at the bartender to call 911 for help.

  I’d been a jerk. You didn’t use psychology with a killer. The idea that my trusting him would make him talk had been crazy. He was a man in a rage. I ran.

  For a split second, I lost sight of Lennox. There was a heavy velvet curtain over the door, the kind they put up in the winter to keep the cold out, and it obscured my view. By the time I got outside, it was too late.

  CHAPTER 51

  When I knelt beside Carver Lennox on the sidewalk outside the club, I saw he was bleeding bad.

  “Carver?”

  I could feel his breath, still warm, on my face. He was bleeding from his gut, from his face. It had happened so fast that he’d never had a chance. Somebody had put a knife in him before I got outside.

  Near where he lay on the cold sidewalk was a long, curved knife. The attacker had left in a hurry. He had been distracted by something, startled enough to drop the knife. Next to it were Lennox’s horn-rims.

  “Carver?”

  He didn’t answer. I tried CPR as best I could. I wrapped my jacket over his wound.

  The bartender had called 911, and now I heard sirens.

  “Carver? Cal? You hear me?”

  He tried to talk, wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. His mouth was full of blood.

  “Come on. Stay with me.” I put my fingers against his neck.

  He had known he was in trouble. Had been trying to tell me something in the club, trying to show me something. Was it the financial meltdown that had caught him in its claws? He owed money. Maybe the attack had come from somebody who wanted it back.

  All over town, panicked, frantic people were doing bad deals, borrowing money, desperate to hang on to some piece of their lives. Carver Lennox was so invested in the life he had made for himself-Princeton, the job at Goldman, the kids in private school, most of all the Armstrong-it was hard to know what he’d do to hang on to it all. The building had a grip on everybody in it; its history, its presence, even the sheer glamour it had once represented. For Lennox, it was also the future.

  Come on! Stay with me!

  Was it about Hutchison’s murder? Was that what he wanted to tell me? About the other deaths in the Armstrong?

  I looked down now at the face. Without the glasses, he looked so young, the expression so placid, except for the blood. When he tried to speak again, blood poured from his mouth. Something he wanted to tell me. I leaned closer. He flicked his eyes to the left.

  A spill of things was scattered on the ground, stuff that must have come from his pocket-keys, change, a billfold, the brown leather folder he had tried to show me in the club.

  The sirens came closer, cars turned into the street. I looked up.

  Out of nowhere, I saw him. A car went by, and in the headlights, I saw the guy who must have been hiding back of a truck farther along the avenue. The guy I had seen earlier when I arrived. Guy with a black jacket.

  Now he was running north on St. Nicholas. A big man, light on his feet. In headlights from the cars, his hair looked white.

  I got out my phone and called in his description, this big man with white hair, but I couldn’t leave Carver. His hand was in mine. It was still warm. I could feel a faint pulse in the wrist. My other hand was still on his neck, pressing, blood coming out between my fingers. Then he said something, said something so softly I had to put my ear to his mouth.

  “What is it?”

  “Pictures,” he whispered. I picked up the leather folder. He nodded. I held it out to him, but he couldn’t raise his arm, and his eyes were closed now. I stuffed it in my jeans.

  Medics emerged from the ambulance at the curb. They loaded Carver Lennox into it, took him to Presbyterian. I called Lucille Bernard at home. I left a message with her office, on her cell.

  “Artie?” It was Virgil Radcliff, who had arrived at the scene a few minutes earlier, along with a couple of cops in uniform and Jimmy Wagner.

  I was wet from the snow and ice, my shirt and pants were covered with blood. “Did you tell Jimmy we had made Lennox for the killer?” I asked Virgil.

  “It wasn’t him, Artie. I know that now. He had an alibi.”

  “Sure, but it was his daughter, wouldn’t she lie for him?”

  “Yeah, could be, but seems the daughter had a friend with her, and the friend had her dad with her. They arrived just after Lennox and his kid-I didn’t pay attention to them on the tape at first because they didn’t set off any alarm bells. But they were there and they stayed until early morning. Said they lived in Carroll Gardens, and it was too far to head back to Brooklyn after the party, so Lennox invited them to stay. We got them going in, leaving. The girl’s father swore they were there all night.”

  “Would they lie for Lennox?”

  “I don’t think so. The man said they weren’t even friends, it was just the two kids knew each other from school,” said Virgil. “You get anything from Lennox?”

  “I was with him in the club,” I said. “He was trying to tell me something, but he said he needed air, he was going to throw up. He went out. The creep was waiting for him. I shouldn’t have let him go.”

  “Did you see the killer?”

  “I called in a description. I think I know who it was.” I was shaking. A cop in uniform got a shock blanket from the back of his car and put it around me.

  “Tell me,” said Virgil.

  “Guy with white hair, strange, albino hair. I sat
next to him at the Christmas party,” I said. “Jesus, he was right there. He told me he liked jazz. He got a good look at me, and everybody else, including Carver.”

  I was shaking so hard, I had to sit down on the steps of a brownstone next to the club.

  Virgil lit up a cigarette and offered me one. I took it. I told him I realized now I’d seen the creep earlier, just before I met Lennox. I had seen him slip away into the dark. He must have known Lennox was in the club, must have waited for him outside.

  “You OK, Art?” It was Jimmy Wagner, who hurried over to check on me. I told him what I’d seen at the club, the guy I’d seen who knifed Lennox.

  “Give me one of them.” Wagner reached for Virgil’s smokes. Virgil held the lighter. In its flame I saw how sick Wagner was looking. Sick. Worried. Skin gray.

  Then I remembered. Struggling, I got out my phone. I put the picture on the screen. My hand shook so hard, Virgil took the cell from me.

  “Tolya took this at the Christmas party last night. I almost forgot. It’s the Russian,” I said.

  “Lemme see that,” said Wagner, looking over my shoulder. “Jesus, Mary, Mother of God. Christ. Fucking Christ.”

  “What is it?”

  Around us cops checked the sidewalk for blood. There were forensics people and somebody from the ME.

  I looked at Wagner. “Jimmy? What is it?”

  He grabbed my cell out of Virgil’s hand and peered at the screen again. “It’s the fucker I let go. The creep we held for the homicide on that body we found in the cemetery with the piece of paper stuck to it.” Jimmy sucked on his smoke. “This prick probably killed him, probably did the guy who bled out into the closet, too. Knifed them both, and I let him go. Fuck. Fuck. Four homicides. Two dead white men that nobody identified yet, maybe creeps themselves, maybe mob shit. But what’s fucking worse is Hutchison, and now Lennox. They’re going to say somebody is killing good black men in Harlem, and it’s going to be my fucking fault, and maybe it fucking is. I didn’t sleep in forty-eight. I’m too old. But we’ll fucking get him.” He tossed away his cigarette. “You sent that picture around, Art?”

  I held my cell. “I’m doing it now.”

  “Anything else, Art, man? Anything you remember?”

  “At the party, the guy kept pulling down the sleeve of his sweater, like he had eczema he wanted to hide, or some kind of scar.”

  “Like a tattoo?”

  “Could be.”

  “It’s him for sure,” said Wagner again. “So he was covering his tats. I looked at those tats and they didn’t mean dick to me. Jesus, fucking stupid asshole that I am,” said Wagner, lighting up again, dragging on the cigarette, coughing. “I should have held him longer.”

  “I just thought of something,” I said, shivering.

  “You need some dry clothes,” Wagner said. “What?”

  “You remember when I came by yesterday to see you? I was waiting by the sergeant at your house, and I saw this guy in a hoodie and North Face leaving. I got a faint impression he was looking at me, taking a look, clocking who I was.”

  Wagner went to his car to get his own smokes. Virgil said to me, “I have to go.” Without another word, he moved away from the scene, through the crowd that had formed on the sidewalk and disappeared.

  I knew Virgil needed to work the case his way. I knew he would hunt down the creep who did the killings if it was the last thing he did. I sent him a text. Told him I’d keep on it on my end. Call if you need me. Call.

  I put on a blue jacket Wagner brought me.

  “I’m sure it’s the same guy who beat me up in the Armstrong basement, too. What’s his name?”

  “Ivan,” said Wagner, and snorted. “Yeah, it really is, I told you, Ivan Ivanov. Where’s Radcliff?”

  “He went to find the fucker. Let him be, Jimmy. He needs to do this. He has a lot invested.”

  “I gotta put more guys on it, though.”

  “You do that, but let Radcliff go for it.”

  “I don’t want you wandering off, right, Artie? We’re going to need a Russian speaker. I want you holding this together, you hear?”

  “I’ll be around.”

  “Your phone is ringing, man,” said Wagner, as more cars arrived, the flashing red and blue lighting up the dark street.

  I started for my car.

  “Where am I gonna find you, Artie?” Jimmy said.

  “I’ll be on my phone, don’t worry. It’s just something I gotta do there, Jimmy. Something I gotta know.”

  M O N D A Y

  CHAPTER 52

  The lobby at Presbyterian had the strange, desolate look city hospitals have in the middle of the night. Carver Lennox was dead by the time I got there.

  I didn’t stick around. There was nothing I could do. I was wearing the dark blue jacket Jimmy Wagner had loaned me at the scene; everyone could make me for a cop. There was no time to change.

  I was worried as hell about Lily. She was at the Armstrong. I had woken her up when I called. She was fine, she’d said sleepily. But I drove over. Ivan, if it was his real name, would have seen Lily and me at the Christmas party, and if he wanted to get at me, he might go for her. He knew his way around the building. He beat me up in the storage room. I was betting he killed the Hutchison dog. I had seen him talking to Diaz at the back door. I knew Diaz would let him in if there was cash.

  On my way over, I got hold of Tolya’s voice mail, asked him to send one of his guys to the Armstrong. I was in the Armstrong lobby when Tolya called back and said he’d send somebody.

  “You want me to come?” he asked in Russian.

  I told him it would scare Lily. Just send a guy, I said, and went upstairs. I let myself in to Lily’s apartment with the keys she had given me. I took off my shoes and went to the bedroom.

  She was on her side, fast asleep. I watched her breathing. I went around the bed and looked at her face. On it was a half smile. Lily was somewhere else, in a happy dream.

  After I checked the rest of the apartment, I washed my face in the kitchen sink, got my shoes, went out, and locked the door. It was very late. Quiet, too quiet. The Hutchisons were gone, Lionel dead, Celestina at her sister’s. Simonova was buried on Long Island. Carver Lennox was in the hospital morgue.

  In the dead of night, when pretty much everybody was asleep, nobody talking, no kids yelling, no music playing, the building crackled with little noises you couldn’t hear during the day: the drip of leaking water, the hiss of a radiator, floorboards that sagged and creaked under your feet, my own heartbeat as I went slowly down the stairs.

  No one was on the desk. I knew Diaz or one of the others was supposed to cover all night, but no one was there. On a chair in the corner was a young patrolman, half asleep. I shook him. I yelled at him. “There’s been a fucking homicide here,” I said. “Just fucking stay awake.”

  In the basement, I kept my gun out. I heard noises-voices, the rattle of machinery, the flick of a cigarette lighter. I ran in the direction of the sounds. Nothing.

  I went out the back door and into the parking area, where I saw a large guy I recognized as one of Tolya’s guys. Russian. An ex-weight-lifter in jeans and a leather jacket.

  He nodded at me.

  I said I’d be back soon, then I hesitated. I didn’t like leaving Lily. I looked at him. I got the feeling he knew what was at stake. I hoped he knew.

  The metal gate was down over the front of the Russian store named Tolstoy in Washington Heights. It was four in the morning. I called the owner, the guy they called Goga. I left a message. Told him to meet me at his store. Fifteen minutes later, he showed.

  “Get in,” I said in Russian, holding open the car door. Goga’s expression turned fearful. He saw the blood on my pants. The NYPD jacket. He had grown up in a country where the arrival of cops could only mean trouble.

  As Goga edged into the seat next to mine, I reached over him and shut the car door.

  “It’s cold,” I said, and got out my cell phone. “Thank you fo
r coming.”

  “I am always here early, for food deliveries,” he replied nervously. “This is no trouble for me, to arrive early.”

  I showed him the picture of Ivan. “You’ve seen him?”

  Goga nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Mr. Ivanov. Sure. Nice guy, good manners, comes to buy caviar, cookies, cheese. Nice clothes,” he added, and said he thought Ivanov lived in Miami Beach.

  “Did Mrs. Simonova ever talk to him?”

  “Sure. Several times they happen to be here same time.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t remember so good,” said Goga. “Maybe weather. Maybe politics. They talk so I do not hear so well.” He sounded uneasy. I pressed him. I tried to make him dredge up something, anything, from his memory. I said another detective would stop by later in case he remembered.

  He told me he didn’t know anything at all.

  I was about to let him go when my phone rang.

  CHAPTER 53

  Virgil told me he got a tip-off from some guy he knew, homeless guy who lived up near the George Washington Bridge, guy who said he’d seen somebody in an alley behind the old synagogue nearby. Virgil went and he found Ivan, who beat him up pretty bad, but even while the creep was punching him, Virgil managed to hold on, get out his gun, and bring him in.

  I got his call when I was finishing up at the Russian grocery store. I went to the station house. It was him. Same black jacket, same weird white hair. Same cultured voice, though he didn’t talk much, not at first. Ivan Ivanov.

  Between us, Virgil and me, we didn’t get much out of him. We sat him in the interrogation room. He was a lot slicker than your usual Russki hood. Even sitting down, he seemed big-the big shoulders, the heavy chest and arms. His removed his jacket. In jeans and a sweater, he looked at ease, as if he knew his way around a police station. Swore his name was Ivan Ivanov and laughed as if it were a joke.

  He had been at the club earlier. I had seen him run away after Lennox was knifed. We had to wait on prints, see if Ivanov’s match the prints on the knife. Did Ivanov kill the others? The guy in the cemetery? In the closet of a brownstone? Did he push Lionel Hutchison?