by Parnell Hall
At an angle.
“So that’s your theory—I hated him, so I started harassing her?”
“Did you?”
“No, of course not. What a stupid idea.”
“But you did hate him?”
He drew back, tucked his chin in, folded his arms. “That’s putting it a little strongly. I resented the fact that he left. You couldn’t begin to understand why.”
“Would it have anything to do with the fact that Winnington wasn’t a very good writer and wouldn’t have gotten published at all if you hadn’t rewritten his first novel wholesale?”
Doug Mark looked at me sideways. I can’t begin to describe what that was like. “Who told you that?”
“His agent. I bribed him with a pastrami sandwich.”
“Ah, good old Abe. Not one to pull his punches. So he’s putting that story about?”
“I don’t know if he’s putting it about. He told me because I wasn’t in the industry. He seemed, happy to be able to tell someone. Anyway, is it true?”
“That I rewrote his book? Of course I did. I gave him two shots at it. When he couldn’t hack it, I stepped in. Now, if you want the god’s honest truth, I knew when I bought it I’d have to step in.”
“But you bought it anyway.”
“Sure. I knew it could be a best seller with a little work. Turns out I was right.”
“It must have been rather upsetting when Winnington changed publishers.”
“Don’t be silly. I knew he would. We were a small house. Of course he’s gonna move up. I resented it, sure, but harbor a grudge? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“Are you saying you don’t?”
“Of course not. That’s ancient history. I never give the man a second thought.”
“Then why were you in his editor’s office on Monday afternoon?”
Doug Mark froze with his head cocked, his mouth open, and one finger raised. A hell of a tableau. He blinked and then smiled. “Wow. Pretty impressive. You just lobbed that in there all casual so I never saw it coming. If it actually meant anything, you’d have nailed me cold.”
“Do I sense another bout of artistic stalling coming on?”
“Not at all. What was I doing in her office? Frankly, I was looking for work. I happen to be out of work, and I need some.”
“And you thought Elizabeth Abbott might have something for you?”
“Not exactly. But if you want to work in publishing, you need to inquire in the industry.”
“But Elizabeth Abbott didn’t see you. She was surprised to find out you’d been there.”
“Yeah. I missed her. I spoke to another woman, who I believe is her assistant.”
“Right. Who saw you coming out of her office. And I’m wondering why you would go into her office when no one was there.”
“Yes, but I don’t know no one’s there until I go in, do I? I popped into Elizabeth Abbott’s office, she wasn’t there. I popped back out, I met her assistant, end of story. Why is this so important?”
“You happen to glance at Elizabeth Abbott’s Rolodex?”
“Her Rolodex? Why would I do that?”
“Are you saying you didn’t?”
“Yes, I’m saying I didn’t. What’s the idea?”
“Kenneth P. Winnington changed his phone number. Because of the crank calls. Only a few people had it. Elizabeth Abbott was one.”
“So?”
“Sherry Pressman was another.”
He blinked, put up his hand. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me be sure I understand this. You’re telling me Sherry Pressman was killed because she had Kenneth P. Winnington’s phone number?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“And I’m a suspect—is that how you see it?—I’m a suspect because I was in Elizabeth Abbotts office, and she also has Kenneth P. Winnington’s phone number? Is that the situation?”
“Not exactly.”
“But it’s the reason you’re here?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
He shook his head disparagingly. “What a weak plot.”
I wish people would stop saying that.
32.
I HAD A FEELING I was being followed. Which is a really creepy feeling, and one that’s hard to shake. I should know. I’ve had it before.
The only thing is, when I thought about it, it occurred to me that one time I thought I was being followed it turned out I wasn’t. On the other hand, another time when I had no idea I was being followed, I was. So my feelings on the subject were not necessarily reliable.
Even so, when I came out of Doug Mark’s brownstone apartment house on West 22nd Street and headed for Ninth Avenue where I’d left my car, I had the strangest feeling that someone was watching me.
For one thing, it was after dark. It had taken me a while to get hold of Doug Mark. He hadn’t been home in the early afternoon. Which is why I’d wound up going home and getting my car. That and the fact I’d wanted to make sure the window had gotten repaired all right.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I was double-checking on Alice. In such matters, Alice is probably ten times more competent than I. It was just that the whole fish incident was so unsettling I kind of needed to see the car back together again in order to feel better about it myself.
In that respect the car was just fine. The window had been repaired and the glass had been cleaned up, and the only hint there’d ever been a problem was a faint trace of eau de poisson, detectable by only the most discerning nose.
So I’d taken the car and driven downtown when I’d finally reached Doug Mark.
On my way to it now, I could have sworn I was being watched.
If you’ve never had the feeling, I don’t know how to describe it. But take the experience of walking home late at night, feeling unarmed and vulnerable. And walking a little fast because it’s very quiet and there’s no one on the street. And if a mugger should be lurking between parked cars, should suddenly appear, well what the hell would you do then?
Now, take that feeling and magnify it by the fact that someone you know has been killed. And maybe, just maybe, the fact you’re being followed is somehow related to that.
Creepy enough for you? Probably not. I’m sure I haven’t done it justice. I don’t have Kenneth P. Winnington’s gift. Can’t paint the horrific picture. But the fact was, I was on West 22nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. It was dark. The street lights were not doing their job. And there was no one in sight. Not one person.
And as I walked toward Ninth Avenue, I could feel eyes on me.
Sense someone there.
Moving.
Coming after me.
I stopped. Froze. Listened for footsteps.
Heard none.
Looked all around me.
Saw nothing.
My right hand went inside my jacket. Left breast pocket. Where a gun would normally be. Where my camera was now.
I gripped the camera, held it, as if ready to jerk it out and flash it in the face of my attacker, like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. Only I couldn’t see myself doing that, somehow. No, the camera was a bluff. I was telling the stalker, hey, don’t mess with me, I got a gun. Of course, that would only work if the stalker didn’t know me well, but what the hey.
I was not standing there like a clod thinking all this. We’re talking split seconds. It takes time to tell, no time to do. I stopped, listened, looked around, my hand’s in my jacket bluffing a gun. A second later I’m on the move, stepping off toward Ninth Avenue with firm purpose. Marching with determination as opposed to resorting to flight. A fine distinction, but one’s own.
I went past a parked van behind which no one was lurking. Came up on a rather dark building entryway into which I could not see. Time to cross the street?
Time to panic?
Time to run?
Certainly not time to stop.
I strode on by, trying hard not to look as if I were in training for an Olympic event
.
The next building had a rather well-lit entryway. I stopped in front of it, looked around.
Saw nothing.
Which should have reassured me. But actually had the opposite effect.
I pushed on.
The next building was abandoned, the doors and windows cinderblocked up. Which meant no lights at all.
In the empty lot next door, where a brownstone had been, there was just rubble now. Broken glass and brick.
A crunching sound.
Someone in the rubble.
Horrible associations.
I remembered another rubble-filled lot a few years back where I’d gotten shot. Was that what was triggering this panic now? The feeling of not being in control? The feeling of one’s thoughts beginning to swirl and twist and dissolve into the ether?
I shook my head to clear it, pushed on.
Nearly to the corner, nearly to Ninth Avenue now, just three more buildings.
Jesus Christ, get a grip.
I tried to humiliate myself, tell myself I wasn’t doing anything special, brave, or heroic. What seemed like running the gauntlet to me consisted of merely coming out of a building and walking half a block to my car. Were I to succeed, this would probably not be written up in the papers as the world’s greatest achievement by a private eye.
Were I to fail ...
Jesus Christ, get a grip.
I shivered, strode for the corner. It was all I could do not to break into a run.
The street light on the corner was out, natch, but still, just reaching the wider avenue was something. And surely there would be someone on it.
There wasn’t.
Deserted for blocks.
Come on, people, this is New York City. Where the hell is everybody?
The car was halfway down the block. A short block, the uptown/downtown block. Not like the long half block I’d just come. I stepped right along down the wider sidewalk, which allowed me to walk in the middle, out of reach of both the buildings and the parked cars.
And there was mine, the ancient Toyota, waiting patiently like a faithful steed. I strode out in the street, fitted the key into the lock of the driver’s side door. Home free.
And yet.
My eyes darted over the car, looking for a broken window, or any other indication of forced entry, my mind, in flights of fancy, envisioning an attacker, crouched down in the back seat, waiting until I took the wheel to spring up, reach forward, slip the thin wire around my neck.
Like hell.
Before getting in I opened the rear door, made damn sure no one was there. That done, I hopped in, locked the door, punched off the code alarm, and started the car.
Then sighed with relief when it didn’t explode.
As I pulled out of the parking space, it occurred to me it was a good thing I hadn’t had that thought a few seconds earlier, or I might never have started the damn car.
But I had, and I was in it, and I was safe. And once I’d hung a right on 21st Street and another on Tenth Avenue, I was headed uptown and on my way home, and everything was just fine. And from what I could tell from looking in my rear-view mirror, no one was following me at all.
But I still couldn’t shake the feeling.
33.
ALICE WASN’T IMPRESSED.
“You had a feeling?”
“Yes.”
“A feeling you were being followed?”
“I’ve explained it the best I could.”
“You’ve explained it several times. It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because it’s a feeling. How do you explain a feeling?”
“You don’t, of course. You explain all the things that contribute to the feeling. In this case they don’t add up, so you say, of course they don’t, it’s just a feeling.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You want some more rice?”
I was at the kitchen table eating salmon, rice, and broccoli. Alice and Tommie had already eaten. She’d zapped the fish in the microwave to warm it up for me, and it wasn’t half bad.
“Starve a cold, feed paranoia?” I said, as Alice spooned me out more rice.
“Aside from that,” Alice said. “Do you think you learned anything?”
“That’s the whole problem,” I said. Or at least, tried to say. I had salmon in my mouth. “Every time I think I’m getting somewhere it all seems so stupid. And everybody says so. All these damn publishing types. About what a lousy plot. That’s the trouble with a real-life crime. It just doesn’t necessarily have to make literary sense.”
Alice looked at me. “What the hell does that mean?”
I rubbed my head. “I don’t know. I really think I’m losing it. It’s just on the one hand I got Sergeant Thurman, who’s a total moron. Who’s gone off the deep end obsessing about this one poor schmuck. Who’s just sitting on him, waiting for him to make a phone call. Which leaves me with everything else. Which is pretty ironic, seeing as how the phone call is the thing I was hired to handle. And the murder case is Thurman’s business. But somehow it’s all got switched around.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Alice said. “The phone call’s still your business. As far as you’re concerned, the murder is just a distraction.”
“Oh, come on.”
Alice put up her hand. “No, it’s true. You were hired to stop the phone calls. That is your primary focus in the case. I take it there were no calls today.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
“Of course not. Because if there were, Sergeant Thurman would either have been proved right or wrong. If he’s right, the case is over. So you assume he’s wrong. Also, because with Sergeant Thurman, that’s a very natural assumption. As soon as that happens—as soon as there’s another phone call—Sergeant Thurman will get off this suspect and back on the investigation. And maybe then you’ll feel like the case is right side up again.”
I said nothing, ate more salmon.
The idea of Sergeant Thurman being in charge of the case, meaning things were right side up again, was not reassuring.
Tommie popped in from the living room, said, “I beat World Four,” and popped out again.
Tommie was playing Yoshi’s Island on Super NES. It was a game that had something to do with the dinosaur eating enemies and laying eggs that it then threw at other enemies. I didn’t fully understand it, which made me feel old. In the past, Tommie and I had always played Nintendo together. Now he was growing up, and I was growing into an old fogy, and how fast the years were flying by.
“You were saying,” Alice said.
“Huh?”
“About this editor. Aside from his opinion that nothing made sense, what was your impression of him?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s not particularly helpful.”
“I know, but there you are. On the one hand, the guy tells me he doesn’t know Winnington’s wife, and couldn’t care less what happened to him. On the other hand, the guy is out of a job, and probably wouldn’t be if Winnington hadn’t dumped him five years ago. And this Monday he was in Elizabeth Abbott’s office, where he could have gotten Winnington’s new number off her Rolodex.”
“But if he had, what would he need with the publicist?”
“That was his point exactly. And I don’t have an answer. But just because I don’t have an answer doesn’t mean it isn’t true. He was in her goddamn office. And when I was in her goddamn office, and asked her to check the Rolodex, Kenneth P. Winnington’s number was right there on top. Where it would have been if this guy had turned to it to find it. And he was in her office when she wasn’t there. And he claims he was there looking for work. But he never did speak to Elizabeth Abbott, and might not have spoken to anybody, if her assistant hadn’t happened to see him coming out of her office.”
“It is distressing,” Alice said.
“Is that all you have to say about it?”
“Well, what do you expect me to say? You want me to make it make sense?”
“It would be nice.”
“It certainly would. But we don’t have all the facts yet. And the ones we have don’t add up.”
“Great,” I said.
I stood up, took my plate over to the sink.
The phone rang. Alice scooped it up, said, “Hello,” then, “Oh, hi, Clara.”
Which effectively ended our conversation. When her friend Clara called, Alice would be on the phone for hours.
“Hold on, Clara, let me change phones,” Alice said. “Stanley, I’m going to take this in the bedroom. Hang it up for me, will you?”
“Sure.”
“Oh, and I got clothes in the dryer. Can you get ’em out?”
“When are they done?”
“Now. First two dryers.”
“Where’s the cart?”
“It’s down there. Thanks.”
I waited until Alice picked up in the bedroom, then hung up the phone, and went to get our clothes out of the laundry room in the basement.
Which was too bad, I was going to go in the living room and watch Tommie play Yosbi’s Island. Compared to which, folding laundry held no real allure.
Ah, well, the private detective’s work was never done. I armed myself with quarters and dimes, just in case the clothes were still damp, went out in the hallway, rang the bell, and took the elevator down to the basement.
The laundry room was deserted at that time of night. All the washers and dryers had stopped. The place was quiet as a tomb.
I went over to the dryers to check my clothes. Sure enough, the dark load was still damp. No real surprise there—the dark load was large, and the jeans took a long time to dry.
But the white load was damp too. That didn’t figure. It was much smaller, mostly socks and underwear, and by rights it should have been dry. The fact it wasn’t could be blamed on the machine. That was the trouble with the dryers. There were four of them, and they didn’t always work efficiently. And the real problem was, you never knew which one.
I knew now. The culprit was dryer number one. I took my clothes out of it, moved them to number three. Then fed in sixty cents—two quarters stacked and a dime—for fifteen minutes, which, with the clothes just damp, should be enough. I put another sixty cents in the other dryer for the dark load, then pushed the plungers into the coin slots and started the machines.