Corales supposed it was. But he still didn’t understand it. He wasn’t happy; he’d have given anything to be something other than a building superintendent on West Ninety-eighth Street. Something special. Only he wasn’t special. And he wasn’t very smart; that was what people said and he believed them. He wasn’t much of anything except a thirty-seven-year-old, half-Puerto Rican building super. Not that he minded being half Puerto Rican. He was proud of that, proud of his father for having come over from the Island in the forties and worked his way into a good job in the construction business, proud of his mother for having put up with all the racial crap heaped on her for marrying a Puerto Rican. No, that wasn’t why he was unhappy. He was unhappy because he wasn’t anything special like his father and mother.
But he wasn’t unhappy right now. Right now he was something special because he’d won those nine straight hands, and maybe it would be ten straight if only Willie would discard a sweet red queen.
Queen, Willie, he thought. Couldn’t wishing hard enough sometimes make things happen? Queen, queen, queen!
And Willie took a card out of his hand and laid it down on the pile, and it was the queen of hearts.
Corales let out a delighted whoop, snatched up the queen, put it with the other three queens in his hand, discarded, and laid the fan down on the table triumphantly. “Gin!” he said. “That’s ten straight, Willie! I won ten straight hands!”
Willie smiled at him. “Good for you. Dame Fortune is in your corner today.”
“Ten straight,” Corales repeated. “Wow!”
“Quite a winning streak, Richard.”
“Yeah. Now I’m going for eleven.”
“My deal, isn’t it?”
“Your deal, Willie.”
Willie shuffled the cards, dealt out a new hand. When Corales picked up his cards he saw happily that he already had three treys, two tens, and a possible four-card diamond run. All he needed was another ten and the six of diamonds—just two cards. Two cards and he’d have won eleven straight, by God.
The face-up card was a king. No help. Willie didn’t want it either, so Corales drew the top card from the face-down pile. Jack of clubs. No help. He discarded it.
Willie was studying his hand again. He said, “Have the police been to see you again, Richard?”
“What?”
“The police. About the murder last night.”
“Yeah, they were here. Three times now.”
“Why three times?”
“I don’t know. Who knows with cops?”
“You don’t like the police much, do you.”
“No. They used to hassle us when I was a kid.”
“Why?”
“Mixed family, I guess. Anything went wrong in my neighborhood, they always came around to out house first. Damn cops.”
Willie discarded a deuce. No help. Corales drew a card, and it was the ten of spades. The excitement in him grew; now he needed only one card for eleven straight. The six of diamonds. Just the six of diamonds.
“Who do you think is responsible?” Willie asked.
“Responsible for what?”
“The shootings.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Corales said.
“Why not? Everyone is talking about it.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t want to. Too much talk.”
“Aren’t you frightened, Richard?”
“Why should I be? Nobody’d want to shoot me.”
“The police seem to think the victims are picked at random,” Willie said. “That means it could happen to anyone. You, me—anyone.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Corales said.
“Perhaps you’re right. There’s no sense in worrying, is there? Life goes on. We just have to be careful on the street.”
“Yeah.”
Corales watched Willie draw a card. Six of diamonds, he thought. Come on, Willie, give me the six of diamonds.
Willie discarded a nine. Corales drew a seven of clubs. No help. He discarded it. Six of diamonds, Willie, he thought. Just give me a pretty little six of diamonds.
Draw. Discard: king. No help. Corales drew a five of hearts, threw it down.
Six of diamonds, Willie, six of diamonds!
Willie picked up the king. And discarded the six of diamonds.
Corales let out another whoop, grabbed the six, and shouted, “Gin! Eleven straight!”
“Very good,” Willie said. “You are lucky today.” He paused, and a thoughtful look came into his eyes. “Much luckier than poor Martin Simmons.”
“Who?”
“The man who was shot last night.”
“I don’t care about him,” Corales said. “I told you, I don’t want to talk about that. I’m going for twelve straight now.”
“All right.” Willie sighed, leaned back in his chair. “It’s your deal, I believe.”
“Eleven straight,” Corales said as he picked up the cards and began to shuffle them. He couldn’t keep from grinning. “Wow!”
He really was something special today. He really and truly was.
4:10 P.M. — JENNIFER CRANE
She had just returned home and was about to mix a much needed vodka gimlet for herself, when the doorbell rang. The peephole in the door showed her a rather attractive, fortyish man with sandy hair and mustache, dressed in a rumpled suit; she knew instantly that he must be another policeman. Two detectives had already talked to her that morning, before she left for the Vogue offices, because they had found her name and number in Marty Simmons’ address book. But she’d expected another visit sooner or later. Whatever else you could say about the police, they were thorough.
“Detective Oxman, Twenty-fourth Precinct,” he told her when she opened the door on its chain. He held up his badge in its leather case. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, Miss Crane.”
She took the chain off and pulled the door open. “Come in, please.”
He entered and stood looking at her as she reset the locks. There was something more than the usual frank but impersonal policeman’s appraisal in his eyes, she thought as she faced him. Approval, attraction, veiled desire. She had seen that look in the eyes of hundreds of men. It had been in the eyes of Marty Simmons last night at Dino’s.
But she refused to think about Marty Simmons. She had spent the entire day not thinking about him, and she wasn’t going to start again now. She would answer Detective Oxman’s questions, willingly, but she didn’t have to think about Marty to do that. She wasn’t going to go through what she had this morning, when the other detectives had caught her unprepared: the momentary loss of control, the stirrings of guilt.
No. She was in command of herself again; she intended to stay that way. Detective Oxman was just another man, and she knew how to deal with men—especially men who found her attractive.
“You’re staring,” she said.
He blinked. “Was I? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Would you like a drink? Scotch, bourbon, whatever?”
“Thanks, no.”
“I was about to make myself something. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
She smiled. “Sit down, if you like.”
He sat on the cream-colored sofa. Jennifer went into the kitchen, got ice cubes out of the fridge, carried them back into the living room, and mixed a gimlet. She took it to the small beige chair opposite Oxman, sat down, crossed her legs. They were good legs, and she was wearing a light summer dress; his gaze strayed to them, then lifted abruptly, a little self-consciously, to her face.
“I stopped by a couple of times earlier,” he said. “You’ve been out all day.”
“Yes. I had meetings with the art director and some other people at Vogue magazine. I’m a freelance illustrator.”
He nodded, glancing over at the chrome-framed illustrations hanging on one wall. “Your work?”
“Yes.”
Another nod. He opened a notebook, consulted it for a moment. “Acco
rding to what you told Detectives Gaines and Holroyd this morning, you only met Martin Simmons last night. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“A place called Dino’s on the East Side.”
“That’s a singles bar, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you go there often?”
“Not very. Every few weeks.”
“Did Simmons pick you up or was it the other way around?”
Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Pick up, Detective Oxman? Your terminology is outdated. We met, we talked, we agreed to leave together. That’s all.”
He seemed uncomfortable, vaguely annoyed. A moralist? she wondered. Or just old-fashioned?
“Did you come straight here from Dino’s?”
“Yes. And we went straight to bed after we got here. That was your next question, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not interested in your sex life, Miss Crane,” he said flatly. “I’m only interested in finding out who shot Martin Simmons. What time did he leave?”
“Around three. He wanted to stay the night, but I told him no.”
“Why? For any particular reason?”
“I like to sleep alone.”
“What was his reaction when you asked him to leave?”
“He had no reaction. He just said he’d call me, I gave him ray number, and he left.”
“Wasn’t he worried about being out on the street at that late hour?”
“He didn’t seem to be.”
“Miss Crane,” Oxman said, “doesn’t it bother you that you were the last person other than his killer to see Martin Simmons alive? Doesn’t it bother you that a man you were intimate with has been murdered?”
“Of course it bothers me.”
“You don’t seem bothered.”
“Would you prefer it if I’d sat here all day crying? I hardly knew the man.”
“You went to bed with him.”
“Are you sitting in judgment of me, Detective Oxman?”
“No,” he said.
“It sounds as if you are.”
“I told you, Miss Crane, I’m just trying to do my job.”
She gave him a long speculative look. For some reason that she couldn’t quite grasp, he interested her in a detached sort of way. Of all the men she had known intimately, none of them had been a police officer; maybe that was it. “Oxman,” she said. “The name suggests a plodder. But I suspect you’re something more than that.”
“Plodding is part of every policeman’s job,” he told her. “I’m a cog in the mills of justice that grind exceedingly fine.”
“The mills of the gods do that,” she corrected.
“Sometimes there isn’t any difference.”
She shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
He looked at her legs again, caught himself, and shifted his gaze to his notebook. “Do you own a firearm, Miss Crane?”
“Why do you ask that? Am I a suspect?”
“Everyone who had any contact with Martin Simmons, and the opportunity to kill him, is a suspect.”
“I see. No, I don’t own a firearm. I don’t like guns.”
“Neither do I—in the wrong hands. Did you know either of the other two victims? Charles Unger and Peter Cheng?”
“No.”
“Not even to speak to on the street?”
“No.”
“All right. Is there anything else you can tell me that might be of help?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Oxman let out a breath, closed his notebook, and stood up.
“Is that all, then?” Jennifer asked.
“For now, yes. We’ll want you to make a statement at the precinct house.”
“When? Tonight?”
“Tomorrow will do. Give some thought to the time you spent with Martin Simmons; maybe you can remember something you can’t think of right now. Make notes if that will help jog your memory.”
Jennifer nodded, then stood to show him out. He was looking at the nearest of the framed examples of her work, a romantic illustration of a man and a woman embracing on a cliff overlooking an angry sea, another of a young girl sitting at a bay window and gazing out beyond a flower box exploding with geraniums. She knew both illustrations were slickly commercial, but she also knew both displayed a sure cleanness of line and an undeniable sensitivity.
“Good,” he said, nodding at the illustrations.
“Schmaltzy,” Jennifer replied. An honest self-appraisal.
“Good nevertheless. There’s nothing wrong in using your talent to make a living.”
“True enough.” She smoothed her dress over her thighs, watching him as she did so. He noticed the gesture; there wasn’t much that he wouldn’t notice, she thought. About a woman he found attractive, or about anything else.
At the door she asked, “How about tomorrow night after work?”
The question seemed to startle him. “What?”
“For my statement,” she said. “Or I can make it during the day, if that would be better.”
“Any time that’s convenient,” he said.
Jennifer opened the chain lock, then the door. “What’s your first name?” she asked then. “Or were you Detective Oxman even as a child?”
His mouth quirked wryly. “E.L.,” he said.
“Just initials? Or do they stand for something?”
“Elliot Leroy.” He said the names as if he were challenging her to laugh, like a defensive little boy.
She decided not to comment. Perfectly serious, she asked, “Should I ask for you at the precinct house?”
“That won’t be necessary. Thanks for your help, Miss Crane.”
“Not at all. Will you be talking to me again?”
“I’ll be talking to you again,” he said.
He went out and down the hall without looking back at her. She waited until he had reached the elevator before she closed the door.
E.L. Oxman, she thought as she reset the chain lock and the dead-bolt Fox lock. Yes, an interesting man. In spite of herself, and in the same superficial way, she found him as attractive as he found her.
Jennifer kept him in her mind while she finished her vodka gimlet and then made another. Thinking about Oxman was better than thinking about Marty Simmons. Much, much better.
9:30 P.M. — BENNY HILLER
The alarm clock on the table next to Hiller’s bed jangled loudly, and the shrill sound yanked him toward wakefulness. His left arm snaked out; he slapped the glowing button on top of the clock and the jangling stopped.
He sat up immediately, licked his lips, and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth to rid it of the cottony taste of sleep. The apartment was silent except for the occasional hushed sounds of traffic filtering in from West Ninety-eighth Street three stories below. Darkness had fallen; only the faintest bars of light showed around the edges of the pulled shade on the window across the room. It was time to get dressed for work.
Hiller swiveled on the mattress and stood up, nude, as he always slept. He bent and switched on the green-shaded lamp by the bed and then padded barefoot toward the bathroom. He was a medium-tall, lithe man with stringy, muscular limbs and a sculptured stomach. There was a compact economy of motion about him; he was a man of agility and endurance, though his sharply creased features and graying hair revealed that he was past forty. There was both a feral cunning and a youthful eagerness in his face, in his clear blue eyes. Astronauts and trapeze artists had that look. So did born commandos.
So did professional burglars.
After a quick cold shower, he toweled himself dry and dressed unhurriedly but with efficient ritualism, as if each move had been planned and practiced. He slipped into a navy blue shirt and dark slacks, then sat on the edge of the bed and put on black socks and dark blue Nike jogging shoes.
From the top shelf of the closet he pulled a small, almost flat nylon packet—a Totes carry-all bag that folded into a package that would take up
little room in a traveler’s suitcase, yet was spacious and sturdy enough to stuff with bulky souvenirs on the return trip. He slipped the folded Totes bag inside his shirt and worked it around so he could insert it beneath his belt in the small of his back. It was hardly noticeable there.
Hiller buttoned his shirt, then got his toolbox from under the bed. He wasn’t going to go through any doors tonight, so he wouldn’t need the picks and tension bars, the set of punches and driftpins, the cold chisel, the pick gun, or any of his other burglary tools. All he took from the box were a Swiss army knife with various attachments ranging from a screwdriver to a can opener, and a small penlight. These he put into his pants pockets.
He left the apartment, locking the door carefully behind him—he didn’t want to be burglarized while he was out, he thought with a grin—and walked down to the street. Usually he worked at a much later hour, but he’d cased this job thoroughly, as he did all of his scores, and it called for an early hit. The target was a woman who ran a minor-league call-girl operation and dealt a little dope on the side; she was always out in the early evenings, never came home until after eleven.
Hiller preferred working nights himself, despite the fact that if you got busted on a B and E charge, the penalty was stiffer—a possible Burglary Two—for an after-dark hit than it was for a daylight hit. In the long run, he felt it was safer to work at night, although a lot of other professionals thought otherwise.
He took a cab to West End Avenue and Seventy-second Street and then walked to Central Park West and Sixty-ninth where the woman’s apartment was located. It wasn’t as ritzy as Park Avenue, or even Fifth, but it was classy; women and drugs were lucrative professions, even on a small scale. She’d have plenty of cash around, and he’d know where to look for it. And she could hardly report its disappearance to the law. This was shaping up to be one of his easiest and safest jobs.
Hiller moved slowly along the sidewalk until he reached the narrow gangway alongside the building he planned to enter. There were plenty of people on the street, so he didn’t bother trying to disguise his actions. He simply turned in as if he knew some sort of shortcut and had every reason in the world to be there.
The Eye: A Novel of Suspense Page 4