I stepped closer, my finger on my lips, my ear pressed to the flimsy door panel.
“Is there a manager?” I whispered.
“I doubt it.”
“Why don’t you—” I caught a faint sound. “All right, Walters,” I said loudly. “Open up. Police.” Listening, I heard footsteps softly approaching—barefooted paddings on a bare wood floor, I nodded to Markham, then stepped a long pace back. He moved to one side, knees slightly bent, coat unbuttoned, fingers nervously flexing. Ready. A night chain rattled. I felt myself braced.
The door swung inward, revealing a Negro clad only in chino pants. His back was turned disgustedly; he was already walking back down the narrow, dark hallway. I went inside. Behind me, Markham closed the door. I watched Walters stop in the centre of the spacious living room, then slowly pivot to face me. He was built thick and muscular; his pants were very tight. Nothing concealed.
He stood slack and slouched, head loosely hanging, arms listless at his sides. He was about my height, about my weight, two twenty. His shoulders were wide, his waist slim; he was probably in his middle twenties.
He looked sick—unsteady on his feet, as if his knees might buckle.
Markham moved forward, placing his hand on Walters’ shoulder.
“Sit down, Walters.”
The shoulder moved, but the black man didn’t. He slowly raised his head to stare at Markham. The black eyes seemed deadened, uncomprehending.
Yet his voice was low and precise: “Don’t shove me, man. Black is beautiful. So don’t shove.” As he said it, his eyes came alive, glittered with a brief hatred, then once more died. His head bobbed down. The muscles of his bared torso were taut beneath the smooth dark skin.
He seemed high—stoned on something hard and powerful. Had he been sampling his own wares?
I stepped closer, saying, “Look at me, Walters.”
He suddenly smiled, his thick lips stretching foolishly. It was a mocking burlesque. He cocked his head aside, saying in a broad imitation of a plantation drawl, “I’ll bet you’re the boss. Us criminals, we can spot you boss men every time. You carry those big guns, and you’re dead behind your eyes. Like the judge. Even the gas meter man. I looked at him yesterday, and he was dead. Just like you people are, boss. That’s what my granddaddy would’ve had to call you: boss. You all used to ride horses, knee-deep in dogs, hunting niggers. All through those swamps, with all those black, hungry alligators. But me, I’m free. Liberated. Black is beautiful, boss-man.”
“Sit down, Walters. Right now.” I pointed to the sofa.
Again the flicker of a dangerous, controlled hatred glinted in the dark eyes, once more alert. Then he elaborately shrugged and suddenly collapsed on the sofa. Keeping my eye on him, I beckoned Markham to a far corner of the room, whispering, “See if you can find out where he was Tuesday night. Then wait for me in the car, I might be able to get something out of him, alone. With two of us, we’d have to do it the hard way.”
Markham snorted, eyeing Walters. “That’s all right with me. He could use a going over.”
“Maybe he could, but I couldn’t. This suit is new.”
Again he snorted, his eyes sullen, regretting the lost opportunity to get his hands on a black man. I’d seen Markham like that before—often.
“We should frisk him, at least,” he said.
“He hasn’t got anything. You can see.”
Shaking his head in a subtle arc of resigned, disapproving bafflement, Markham abruptly turned away.
“All right, Walters,” I said. “I don’t have much time, and I want some answers.”
At the sound of my voice his head jerked up, banging the wall behind. “I’m awake, boss-man. I’m just relaxing. Thinking. I got to save my strength, you know. You’re going to ask me questions. And, man, I got to be ready. I got to think. I got to—”
“How long have you known Donny Robertson, Walters?”
“Oh—” He shrugged, head lolling loosely, relaxed and indifferent. “Maybe a year. He’s dead, you know.” He smiled. “Did you know that, boss? Old Donny, he must’ve goofed. He came to the Haight, and lingered around, and pretty soon he discovered that sure enough, he couldn’t find all that love and all that soul-stuff everyone else seems to find—that pearly-white cloud way up in the sky, where you lie all stretched out, reclining on one elbow, maybe, just a-looking down, dreaming and smiling. So old Donny, he got on the big bird instead of a cloud, and flew off to New York. He took the money, and he skimmed off across the sky. And then he flew back.” Walters frowned, then shook his head, saddened and bewildered-seeming. I watched him carefully. Whatever drug he’d taken, it was stimulating him to talk in a kind of loose, free-flowing stream of consciousness.
“And then he got killed,” I said. “Tuesday night.”
“We all get killed, man. The slaves, they’re grubbing along between those rows of cotton, just watching their chance to get at old massa, up in the big house on the hill. And old massa, he’s handing out the whips and the guns, and starving the dogs. Maybe he raises baby alligators, too, and then turns them loose. That’s happened in New York, you know. Maybe San Francisco, too. Little boys, they buy little alligators. Then Mommy flushes them down the toilet. And pretty soon they’re coming out of the manholes, eight feet long.”
“You’re a pretty fanciful guy, Walters. Do you always have this much to say?”
He momentarily closed his eyes, then looked at me with a sudden lucid shrewdness. “I’m gently bred and college educated, boss-man. My I.Q. approaches genius, and when I was a kid they used to call me ‘the professor’, because I’d plan all the candy heists at the corner store. Later, we went into hub caps. However, my father, the postal sorter, made sure that I got to college. I finished three years before my father the postal sorter got killed one night on his way home from a prayer meeting. My father always dressed well, so he could maybe some day get a promotion, and sit at a desk, instead of standing up all day long, smiling and sorting envelopes. So on this dark, moonless night, returning home from the prayer meeting, he got tangled up with a gang of teenage kids, who robbed him and stomped him and knifed him, because he looked so prosperous. Just for kicks, they killed him. The kicks, and the money. Four dollars and seventy-seven cents.”
“So then what’d you do?”
“So then I came down to Haight Ashbury, and went into business. Black is beautiful, down here. Indians and niggers, these hippies dig us, because we’re elemental. There’s one theory, see, that only the best specimens could’ve survived the slave ships and the whippings three or four times a day—to stimulate the cotton production—not to mention slops for dinner—to cut down on the overhead. And, when you think about it, the theory makes sense. Natural selection; survival of the fittest. I’ve often thought that—”
“You said that Donny Robertson ‘took the money’ when he left for New York. What’d you mean, Walters?”
“I meant that he bought a plane ticket, and flew away, up into the sky. Blue is beautiful, up there. I used to fly all the time—fly on a cloud, resting on one elbow. But now I just sell the tickets.”
“You’re flying right now.”
“It’s a once-a-month trip, boss. Product analysis, call it.”
“Donny Robertson, though, stayed high all the time.”
“That he did.” Gravely Walters nodded, ponderously.
“He worked for you. Is that it?”
He playfully waggled a forefinger. “Ah, ah. I was beginning to trust you, boss. I was beginning to see in you some small flickering of humanity. I seemed to see in you some small glimmering, some tiny hint of perception, born perhaps of some distant moment of pain, long forgotten. Maybe some ancestor, a serf, was torn to bloody bits by the massa’s dogs, and the tribal memory lingers. But now—”
He shrugged, as if in regretful admonishment.
“I’m not interested in narcotics, Walters. I’m interested in the murder of Donny Robertson. But the more information you give me, th
e easier it’ll go with you. Remember that.”
“Ah, boss, boss,” he said softly. “You’re trying to dangle some small, insignificant prize before my wide, flat nose. And, therefore, you disappoint me.”
“Who were Robertson’s known associates, Walters? Give me names.”
“Except for Angie Sawyer,” he answered promptly, “Donny was friendless.”
“Who’s Angie Sawyer?”
“She’s one of the soft ones, boss. She sheltered Donny, when the others cast him out, repelled. She’s soft and blonde, and sorrowful. She—”
“Where’s she live?”
“The Crushed Chrysanthemum, boss.”
“What about Karen Forest? Did Donny know her?”
The dark eyes became suddenly opaque; the thick lips pursed in a pose of puzzled thoughtfulness.
“Karen Forest?”
“That’s right, Walters. She was your—”
Outside, the cruiser’s horn sounded. Three beeps, a pause and another quick series of three. I was wanted. Quick. I rose to my feet. “I’ve got to be going, Walters. You weren’t planning on travelling anywhere for the next day or two, were you?”
He smiled and rose with a surprisingly quick, live, movement.
“No man. No, I wasn’t.”
I handed him my card. “If you decide to go anywhere—anywhere at all—give me a call first. Otherwise, I’ll expect to find you here, whenever I come looking.”
“Right, boss.”
“One more question, Walters. Do you know anyone named Sandy Tomilson?”
He frowned, thinking.
“No, boss. Never heard of him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely, boss.”
“All right. Remember, stay put.” I walked out, leaving the door open behind me.
SEVEN
AS I SLAMMED THE door Markham yanked the car into a tight U turn, heading back the way we’d come. Our flashing red light was clipped to the dashboard, but the siren was silent. “What is it?”
“A code fourteen. From the Crushed Chrysanthemum.”
Code fourteen. Mayhem. Attempted Murder. Code fourteen was the homicide call—our lucky number. I twisted, raised up the hinged rear seat cushion, and lifted out the riot gun. I pulled back on the slide, then swore as a live shell spun into my lap.
“Who used this last?” I asked.
“Who knows?”
“There was a live one in the chamber.”
“I think I gave it to a patrolman when we went in after that encyclopaedia salesman who’d killed his two kids.”
Ahead, the crowd was already spreading into the street. Markham hit the siren. “Apparently it’s something on the roof.” He glanced at me, slightly smiling. He knew I didn’t like heights. Behind us a hook and ladder truck was swinging on to Haight Street. We pulled into the kerb, three doors down from the Crushed Chrysanthemum.
“Goddam hippies,” Markham said. “They don’t move out of the way for anything.”
We got out of the car and started through the crowd. I put a shoulder into two or three bystanders, spinning them away. One went down, hard. The door next to the Crushed Chrysanthemum was open, leading up a flight of stairs. I eyed the building, deciding that the stairs must lead to Cecile Franks’ apartments. I handed the shotgun to the patrolman, at the same time reaching for my wallet, clipping the badge to my lapel. Markham was doing the same. Sergeant Dave Pass, Traffic, was coming down the stairs from inside. I grabbed back the riot gun, and met Pass in the foyer inside. Behind us, other sirens were dying as squad cars pulled in. The crowd was giving way; the hook and ladder truck was moving into place. I turned to Pass.
“What is it?”
“It’s in the back, Frank. The roof. A hippie girl’s got a kid up there. A baby.”
“She going to jump?”
“Hell, I don’t know. She looks like it to me.”
“Is she the baby’s mother?”
“No, the mother’s upstairs. Down one storey from the roof. I got two men holding her, and I could use two more. I got two men up on the roof, too.”
“How about rigging a net?”
“I don’t know. As near as I can make out, she’s over a light well. I didn’t want to move in too close, and maybe spook her.”
“All right.” I jerked my head towards the firetruck. “You work with them, Dave. Get nets into the light well, if you can. But take it easy.”
“I know.”
“Here—” I handed him the shotgun. “Put this in the car, will you? We got it as a code fourteen.”
“That’s the way I got it.” He took the gun. “If she’s going to toss the kid over, I guess it’s a code fourteen, all right.”
“You stay with the nets.” I turned to Markham. “Let’s go.”
“Right.” We started up the stairs.
“Did you leave one in the chamber?” Markham asked.
“What?”
“The shotgun.”
I looked at him, but didn’t reply. At the second landing a half dozen people were clustered close together.
“All right, let us through.”
Slowly they moved apart. Down the hall another group was watching two uniformed men restraining a blonde girl. She was medium height, with a hippie’s long, lank hair. She was dressed in a tattered terry cloth bathrobe, and she was screaming with a kind of hopeless, exhausted persistence—the way they sometimes scream in the psycho ward, before the sedative begins to work.
I gripped her shoulder, pushing her back flat against the wall.
“Are you the baby’s mother?”
Choking on her sobs, she nodded.
“We’re going up after your kid,” I said. “You stay here. And keep calm, dammit. You’re not helping by—”
“Sergeant.” It was a familiar voice. Turning, I saw Vannuchi puffing up the stairs. I beckoned for him urgently, drawing him aside.
“You live here, right, Vannuchi?”
He pointed wordlessly down the hall.
“What’s it all about? Quick.”
“She’s—” Again he gasped. “—tripping.”
“What?”
“Up there—” He pointed upward. “The girl. On a bad trip.”
“LSD?”
He nodded. Beside me, Markham was swearing. He’d opened the door marked Stairway, which led up to the roof.
“Stay here,” I said to Vannuchi. “Right here. Don’t leave.” I turned to Markham. “All right, let’s go. Easy now. I’ll go first.”
At the top of the stairway, a steel door stood slightly ajar. As I pushed it slowly open, I remembered that I hadn’t asked anyone whether the girl was violent. Or armed. Or both.
The two patrolmen stood about six feet apart. One of them clasped his nightstick behind him, his legs spread wide. Both looked ill at ease, embarrassed. Beyond them the girl knelt, draped in some shapeless white material which fell wide around her on the dirty rooftop gravel. In her arms she cradled a baby wrapped in a green blanket. As I walked slowly towards her, I could see that her left knee rested exactly on the edge of the roof. I stopped, signalling for Markham to do the same.
“What’s she been doing?” I asked the nearest patrolman.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “She just kneels there swaying back and forth a little. And singing.”
“Singing?”
“Well, more like humming. She started out about five feet from the edge, but every time someone gets close, she moves over towards the edge. The way I get it, she thinks the baby’s hers, and she’s protecting it from something.”
“All right,” I said to the patrolmen. “You can go back downstairs. Don’t let anyone come up unless I send for him. Stay in the hallway right below.”
“Check. Good luck.”
Markham and I were standing perhaps fifteen feet from the girl. Now I saw that she was looking far beyond us, unseeing. Her face was streaked with tears. The baby was crying softly. Gently the girl rocked the small green bund
le. I couldn’t see the baby’s face. It could be smothering.
I tried a single step forward. Immediately the blank eyes came into focus, shifting their gaze to me. I froze. At my side, Markham also stopped.
“Maybe I should circle to the left, behind her,” he whispered.
“All right. I’ll talk to her. But go slow. Her knee’s right on the edge.”
“I see it.” He began moving away, a half step at a time. The girl’s eyes shifted to him.
I cleared my throat. “Will you give me the baby? Its mother is downstairs. She’s hysterical. She wants her baby.”
Beneath the white folds her arms tightened around the green bundle. Slowly she shook her head. It seemed a good sign; at least she could hear me. Desperately I was trying to remember a departmental lecture on handling LSD cases. “Freakouts,” the lecturer had called them. “Bad trips.” The technique, he’d said, was to get into the fantasy with the victims, then work with them from the inside. To most of us, it had seemed a crazy idea. In the cafeteria afterwards, there’d been several jokes. Now it didn’t seem so funny. And, worse, I could remember reading that many freakouts ended on the pavement, apparently because the victim felt he could float through the air.
“Will you give me the baby?” I repeated. “The mother wants it.”
She was twisting to keep Markham in sight. Her left foot, bare, hung over the rooftop.
“Listen,” I said to Markham, “go down and find out how Dave’s doing with that net. Also, find out how far it is down to the ground.”
“Three stories. That’s how far it is up.”
“Sometimes light wells start on the second floor. Anyhow, check it out, then come back. And tell Vannuchi to come up here. Slow and easy.”
He sighed, shook his head, and strode away. Turning back to the girl, I realised that she was off again in her dream world—eyes blank, body gently swaying to some silent, secret rhythm.
I tried a slow step forward. Immediately the eyes came into focus. She seemed to shrink back, clutching the baby. Did she realise she was at the roof’s edge, inches away from possible death? Did she—
The Lonely Hunter (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 6