Nina
I dressed and left quietly without getting myself breakfast. I didn’t know anything about Nina’s neighbors, but I didn’t want to take a chance of being heard in her apartment at a time when they might know she had already left it. I had breakfast at a restaurant and then drove home. I showered, shaved and put on clean clothes. Then I called Grand 6400. Nina’s voice answered.
“Sam, Nina,” I said. “Can you talk freely?”
“Yes, sir. He’s not in right now. Shall I have him call you back?”
“I’m at home, West 3208. In the phone book, if you didn’t write that down. But call as soon as you can–I’ll wait here, but I’ll just be waiting for your call.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll have him call you as soon as he comes in. I don’t think it will be very long.”
It was about ten minutes.
“Sam, I could have talked to you, but there were people in the office and I didn’t want to have to be careful what I said. I thought I’d rather wait till I could get to the phone booth.”
“Give me some credit, Nina. You didn’t have to explain. Thanks for letting me sleep this morning. I needed it. I feel fine.”
“Do you feel the same way you felt last night?”
“Well–at the moment, not exactly. But give me time–until this evening, maybe. You weren’t planning anything? For tonight, I mean.”
“Not until now.”
“Good girl.”
“No, I’m not. Would you like me if I was a good girl?”
“Of course not. But listen, darling, I may not be able to see you until late in the evening. There’s somebody I’ve got to see first–and it isn’t another woman.”
“All right.”
“What time will you get home?”
“Before five o’clock, I think. I’m taking off early today, half past one, so I can go to the Chojnacki funeral. After that, if there’s time, I’ll call on one or two other cases on my list but I’ll still be home fairly early.”
I said, “I’d forgotten about the funeral. Do you think it will be all right for me to drop in for it?”
“Why–I don’t know why you’d want to, but I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t.”
“Probably see you there, then. ’By, darling.”
2
Chief of Police Steiner was in his office when I got to police headquarters and I had to wait less than half an hour to get in to see him. I handed him a fifty-cent cigar I’d bought on the way there. He peeled off the cellophane and sniffed it appreciatively so I struck while the appreciation held.
“Like you to do me a favor, Chief.”
“Always glad to help the Herald, Sam.” He should be; the Herald and Colonel Ackerman had got his job for him. I might have let it go at that, but it would be too easy for him to happen to learn that I was on vacation this week.
I said, “It’s for me, not the paper; I’m on my own time. I’m writing a magazine article on accidents–various screwy ways people can get themselves killed. How are chances of my browsing through the file on accidents.”
“I guess there’s no reason why not. We’ve got only the non-traffic accidents here, though. If you want the traffic ones–”
“I don’t,” I said. “Traffic accidents are pretty much all alike, and I’m looking for unusual ones, or ones with screwy angles. Like one I read about recently–forget where it happened but it wasn’t here. Painter fell off a platform roped down from the eaves of a building, fell three stories and wasn’t hurt a bit except it knocked the wind out of him. Got up and stood there getting his breath back and an unopened can of paint that he’d had on the platform and had knocked over when he fell rolled off the platform three stories above him, hit him on the head and killed him.”
Steiner grinned. “Don’t recall reading about that one, but I guess we’ve had a few funny ones here too. Might remember some if I tried, but if you’re going through the files anyway, you’ll come across ’em.”
“How’s our accident rate compared to other cities?”
“Oh, about in line. If you want statistics on types of accidents and comparison with other cities, look up Carey over in the mayor’s office. Year or so ago he did a statistical analysis for the mayor, who wanted to know how we stood compared to other cities. He was mostly interested in traffic accidents, but he covered all kinds while he was at it.”
I didn’t see how that would help me but I said thanks, I might do that. Chief Steiner buzzed for his secretary and told him to lead me to the file cabinets on accidents, non-traffic, and turn me loose there.
There was a discouraging number of four-drawer file cabinets. Five of them, all filled with folders on non-traffic accidents. But they didn’t look quite so discouraging when the secretary–a tall young man in horn-rimmed glasses–told me they held accident folders for twenty years back, which meant I’d have to go through only a fraction of them.
“There’s one drawer for each year,” he explained. “The accidents–these are only fatal accidents, of course–are arranged chronologically. But in front of each drawer there’s a sheet that’s made up at the end of each year, an alphabetical list of names of victims and the date of each, so you can find any given one without having to go through the whole drawer. That is, if you know the name of the victim and the year the accident happened in.”
I told him that was swell. I took off my coat and hung it over a chair and dived in. If the secretary had stuck around to watch me get started I’d have had to carry out my pretext by working chronologically backwards, but he didn’t so I started out by looking up, since I knew the year and the names of the victims, the four accidents at South Side High.
Except for addresses, exact dates and times of day, and some irrelevant details, I didn’t learn anything beyond what Nina had already told me. I didn’t find any mention of the name I was looking for. Not even as a witness.
It was after noon by the time I finished studying those four file folders and I didn’t have time, if I was going to have lunch and make the Chojnacki funeral, to start looking through the other files. I talked to the tall secretary again on my way out, explaining that I hadn’t finished and would be back later or some other day.
3
It was cool and comfortable in Haley’s funeral parlor; air-conditioning kept out the heat and the stained-glass windows of the chapel tinted and mellowed the sunlight that came through them.
I sat in a back corner, as inconspicuously as possible. The coffin that held what the roller coaster had left of Jimmy Chojnacki was on a flower-banked bier up at the front.
There were about twenty people there and Nina was the only one I knew. But I could guess that the woman in black next to whom Nina sat and to whom she was whispering must be Anna Chojnacki.
The organ was playing softly now. From outside, far away but getting nearer and louder, came the drone of a plane going overhead. Its sound made me think of the horsefly that had flown around the Herald editorial room last Saturday morning and I remembered Harry Rowland’s saying, “My God, I thought you were praying.”
The minister was praying now and the organ had stopped. He was a tall thin man with a face like a horse, but with a good voice. I had his name and the name of his church on the back of an envelope in my pocket. Haley had told me when I came, thinking that I was covering the funeral for the paper; not to disillusion him, I’d written them down.
“For Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life, in me shall …”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man standing now in the doorway of the chapel, a big man with dark hair turning gray. The man who was paying for this funeral, Armin Westphal. I’d wondered if he was going to come; it was one of my reasons for being here. And he’d made it, if a little late.
When the prayer was finished he came in quietly and took the seat nearest the doorway.
&nbs
p; The organ played again and a fat Italian-looking woman with the face of a Madonna sang. Her voice was beautiful. The organist was good, too. He wove little patterns of notes around the melody, as harpsichord music used to be written to fill in for the lack of sustained notes.
“In midst of life, we are in death …”
I could tell from Anna Chojnacki’s shoulders that she was weeping silently.
I didn’t hear the sermon. I was thinking my own thoughts. Obie Westphal’s father had come to the funeral of Jimmy Chojnacki. Another thing, meaningless in itself as were all the other things. Why shouldn’t he, in a sudden impulse of generosity caused by relief that his son was still alive when he’d thought him dead, offer to pay for the funeral of the boy who’d really died and whose mother was too poor to pay for it? And why, since he was paying, shouldn’t he come?
But I’d seen Armin Westphal’s face last Saturday afternoon as he’d left here, and I wondered now if this was the only such funeral he’d paid for.
When the service was over Westphal slipped out quietly. I gave him time to get away before I left. In case I wanted to talk to him later on some pretext I didn’t want him to recognize me as having been at the funeral too.
I wanted more than ever now to have a look at Obie Westphal, in the flesh and not a photograph.
I drove out to the Westphal house. This time I parked beyond it so I wouldn’t be in the same place, but I moved my rear vision mirror so I could see all of the front of the house.
I sat there and watched it and nothing happened except that about five o’clock Mr. Westphal came home in the blue Chrysler. This time he put it in the garage instead of leaving it out front. Lights went on inside the house at half past six, and by seven I was beginning to wonder if I was again wasting my time.
There was only one way to find out. I drove to a near-by drugstore and phoned the Westphals. A woman’s voice answered and I asked, “Is Obie there?”
“No, he’s been visiting a friend in Springfield since Sunday. He’ll be back tomorrow at two o’clock. Who shall I tell him called?”
“You needn’t bother,” I said. “It’s nothing important and he wouldn’t know my name anyway. I’ll call again after he’s back.”
I hung up and swore at myself for having wasted time both yesterday and today.
I called Nina’s number. “This is Sam, darling. Just finished the business I had to do. Have you eaten yet?”
“I was just getting ready to eat. I waited as long as I could and just now gave up hearing from you in time.”
“Good, then you can wait a little longer and you’ll have a real appetite. Want to grab a cab and meet me somewhere?”
“Let’s eat here, Sam, I just took a bath and I’m in my housecoat; I don’t feel like getting dressed and going out. I’ve got some canned chop suey I can open for us. How does that sound?”
“Horrible,” I said. “I’m feeling carnivorous. If I pick up a couple of thick steaks will you fry them for us?”
“Will I? That sounds wonderful. I guess I’m feeling carnivorous too. Hurry, Sam.”
WEDNESDAY
1
I woke first. Nina was cuddled against my back and I pulled away, turned and raised myself on one elbow to look at her. Even asleep she was beautiful. Her face was as sweetly innocent as a sleeping baby’s. Her hair looked even better a little tousled. She lay with one hand under her chin, her forearm between her breasts, hiding one of them but accentuating the other. I leaned over and kissed it gently.
When I raised up her eyes were open, looking at me.
“Love me, Sam?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I was just wondering. I know I want you.’” I lay down again and pulled her tightly against me.
“You shouldn’t love me,” she said. “You mustn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a wicked woman.”
“Prove it.”
She nibbled gently at my ear. I said, “That’s not very wicked.”
“What do you want me to do? This?”
2
Again I went home to clean up and change. At ten o’clock, which I figured was late enough, I drove to Radnik Street and parked in front of the tenement in which Mrs. Chojnacki lived. I sat in the car a minute or two thinking up what approach I should use in talking to her. I could, of course, get her to talk freely by introducing myself as a friend of Nina’s, but I didn’t want to do that; she’d tell Nina I’d been there and then I’d have to explain to Nina and that wouldn’t be easy without telling her the whole story. And I wasn’t telling anyone that, as long as I had so little to back it up.
So I had to work out a lie, and I decided against using even my right name lest, in talking to Nina later, Jimmy’s mother might mention it.
I went up the stairs and knocked on the door and this time Nina didn’t open it. I’d seen Mrs. Chojnacki at the funeral service but not closely. She was tall and thin, almost gaunt, and with huge tragic eyes.
I said, “My name is Herbert Johnson, Mrs. Chojnacki. I’m an attorney.” She looked a little blank. “A lawyer. I represent the person who paid for your son’s funeral. He would like to know–”
“You come in.”
I went in. The room and the furniture were shabby, but clean and neat.
“You sit down, Mr. Johnson. You like cup coffee maybe?”
I started to decline, then realized that drinking coffee would keep me there long enough to work the conversation any way I wanted it to go, and to do it casually. So I said yes, I’d like coffee. She went into the kitchen and came back in a few minutes.
“Is making. You from man who runs ride at the park?”
“I’m sorry,” I told her, “my client wants to remain anony–he doesn’t want anybody to know who he is. What we want to know is whether the service Mr. Haley gave you was satisfactory. Before we pay the bill, in other words, we want to be sure everything was all right.”
“Yes, very nice funeral. I saw you there.”
I nodded. “My employer wasn’t able to come, so I came instead.”
“Thank you. Thank you much.”
“My employer said to tell you that paying for the funeral isn’t much, but he’s glad he was able to do that for you.”
“You thank him for me. Was very kind.”
I said, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Jimmy, Mrs. Chojnacki. Personally, I mean. I’ve heard a lot about him. He must have been a fine boy.”
“Good boy, yes. Sometimes he was bad but– He died good. I thank God for that.”
“He went to South Side High School, didn’t he?”
“For one year, yes. Then–”
I spoke quickly to save her embarrassment. “I know a boy who goes there; he must have been in Jimmy’s class. Obie Westphal, Henry O. Westphal his right name is. Did your Jimmy know him, do you happen to know?”
“He never say name. I don’t know. I don’t know all his friends, so could be he knew that boy you say.”
“Who was Jimmy’s closest friend?”
“Pete Brenner. All the time with Pete Brenner. Other friends, sometimes, mostly Pete.”
“Is Pete Brenner going to South Side now?”
“No he quit after two years, to work. In fruit market down block. Wait, I get coffee now.”
I waited, and filled in the time looking around to find a picture that might be Jimmy Chojnacki. I couldn’t find one. So when Mrs. Chojnacki came back with coffee for both of us, I got her talking about her son. She talked readily, seemed to want to talk about him. What wasn’t irrelevant, though, was stuff I’d already learned from Nina. But I let myself seem to get more and more interested until when I asked if she had a photograph of him I could see, the question seemed natural.
“Yes, good picture. Last year man came selling coupons for picture, only
dollar. But cost six dollars more after. You want to see, Mr. Johnson?”
I wanted to see. She went into the bedroom and came back with a four-by-six portrait photo in a cardboard folder and handed it to me.
Jimmy Chojnacki had been a good-looking boy. His face was a bit weak, but not vicious. And he had those deep-set, dreamy eyes some Polish kids have. And behind the dreaminess a sort of Gypsy wildness. Looking at that picture it no longer seemed quite so strange that he’d been both a pickpocket and an embryonic writer. A dreamer and a thief. Well, Francis Villon had combined those qualities and had done a good job of it. Maybe Jimmy Chojnacki would have, too. If he’d had a chance.
I admired the picture and said I thought my employer would like to see it or a copy of it, that he’d never seen Jimmy and would be interested. Would she mind if I borrowed the picture just long enough for me to let a photographer copy it? Or did she have the negative that she could lend me instead?
I got a break; she had extra copies of the picture and I could have one; she was glad to send one to the man who paid for Jimmy’s funeral. She’d been high-pressured, I gathered, into taking half a dozen prints besides the one covered by her coupon and still had two of them left besides the one in my hand so I could have that one to take with me. I put it in my pocket and thanked her.
I managed to find out one thing more by leading the conversation around to Whitewater Beach and how often Jimmy had gone there. He went there often, almost every Saturday. And last Saturday, as far as she knew, he’d gone there alone.
I drove downtown. Now that I had a picture of the Chojnacki boy I needed a picture of Obie. And there was a good one in the Herald morgue.
The morgue is on the second floor, the editorial offices on the third. If I used the back stairs I probably wouldn’t see anyone I knew except old Hackenschmidt, who ran the morgue, and he probably wouldn’t know I was on vacation this week. He didn’t, and I got the picture without question, and I didn’t see anyone to whom I had to explain what I was doing there when I was supposed to be fishing at Laflamme.
The Deep End Page 7