Corpus Corpus (13 page)

"FIRST, WE HAVE a mob informant who has flung himself out a ninth-floor window," said Goldstein as Bogdanovic's car sped down Second Avenue. "Number two: In Mancuso's room we found the book written by Theodore Janus, who has a reputation as the mouthpiece for the mob. Third, at one time he represented Mancuso. Fourth, Janus might or might not have inscribed a message in that book to his former client. Fifth, the words used could be interpreted as a threat, namely, that if Mancuso were to sing he could expect to see his wife and kids no more."

"Thereby providing the impetus for Mancuso's leap into the arms of Abraham," Bogdanovic said.

"Sixth and last," Goldstein continued, "a few hours later Janus apparently has been found shot to death. Do you find that all this as fascinating as I do, John?"

"It could be coincidence."

"I happen to be a graduate of the Sherlock Holmes college of criminology," Goldstein said as the car hurded past Forty-second Street. "When everybody else sees the simple explanation, I find myself looking for a more complex one. I am prompted to do so in this instance because of what Janus said to me at the Wolfe Pack dinner when we talked about Mancuso's decision to turn state's evidence. Janus asked if I was involved in that matter. When I told him I wasn't he expressed the opinion I was lucky I had not been dragged into what he called that quagmire. The words went in one ear and out the other at the time. In retrospect and in view of all that's happened since that dinner I have to wonder what he meant by it."

"Quagmire," said Bogdanovic. "The last time I heard anybody use that word was in reference to the Vietnam War."

"That was boggy ground, indeed. But what comes to my mind is the fearsome Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Not even Sherlock Holmes was able to rescue Stapleton once he'd blundered into it in a desperate effort to escape."

Bogdanovic smiled. "Will there ever be a situation in which you won't come up with a parallel in some mystery story?"

"Impossible," Goldstein answered as the car raced past the funnel of approach lanes to the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel at Thirty-sixth Street. "I know only two literary sources that offer more insight into the human condition than the mystery story. They are the Holy Bible and the plays of Shakespeare."

Five minutes later, as Bogdanovic slowed the car to execute a right turn from Second Avenue, he found long, blue-painted wooden police barriers blocking entry into the first of three blocks of East Twenty-first Street known as Gramercy Park North, despite the fact that only one of the blocks actually adjoined the park. Beyond the barriers, revolving lights on the roofs of a line of patrol cars flashed streaks of red and blue on the facades of the surrounding buildings.

"Scene of the crime," Bogdanovic muttered, wedging the car between a barrier and the last of the patrol units. "Two in the same night."

"Not for the first time," Goldstein said, getting out.

After walking a short block, they turned into Gramercy Park East. Ahead on the right in front towered a white apartment house with elaborate Gothic motifs, bay windows, and balustrades. Two silver-painted stone figures of knights in armor flanked the entrance court of number Thirty-six. Their hands in mailed gauntlets grasped long poles that looked like lances but were topped with unlit lamps.

As residents of buildings surrounding the park leaned from windows to see what had happened to disturb the serenity of their park and their sleep, the two statues with their helmeted heads seemed to watch impassively as across the narrow street police officers in navy blue uniforms and detectives in plain clothes milled around the silver Rolls-Royce.

Seated at the steering wheel, the body of the dead man was upright with the head slumped slightly to the right. From a small hole in the left temple a trickle of blood had run down the left side of the face. Slanting from the right corner of the mouth was a half-smoked cigar with a black and gold band.

If the statues had eyes behind the narrow openings of the visors of the helmets, and if their maker had given them brains, mouths, and tongues, Bogdanovic mused as he and Goldstein strode toward the car and the men, there would have been no mystery as to what had happened during the night to Theodore R. Janus. But the task and challenge of resolving that question had fallen to a collection of human beings with police shields pinned to coats or carried in wallets in suit pockets.

Captain Walter Tinney stepped forward to greet Goldstein with a handshake, Bogdanovic with a nod and a smile, and no amenities. "The single shot to the left temple appears to have been from small-caliber gun, probably a twenty-two."

Bending down a little and peering into the car, Goldstein asked, "Who found him?"

"It was one of our own. Officer George Wieser of the One-three was on his way to work and thought the occupant might have had a heart attack. When he stopped to have a look he saw that the window was down. But it doesn't appear to be a robbery. I've got officers canvassing the neighborhood to find out if anybody saw or heard anything."

Bogdanovic asked, "Any idea when it happened?"

"Wieser found him just before four o'clock."

"I think you may assume that he took that bullet a little after midnight," Goldstein asserted, stepping away from the car. "Do you agree, John?"

"Makes sense to me," Bogdanovic said. "Unless he hung around the hotel awhile after the dinner."

"Excuse me, fellas," exclaimed Tinney. "You two sound as if you were with him last night."

"Right over there," Bogdanovic replied, pointing toward the Gramercy Park Hotel. 'Janus was the honored guest at a banquet of the Wolfe Pack. Unfortunately, the chief and I were called away from the festivities a little early."

"Ah yes," interjected Tinney. "The Mancuso thing uptown."

"Yes. So we have no way of knowing exacdy what dme Janus may have left the Gramercy Park Hotel."

"I think it's safe to assume he didn't linger long," Goldstein said. 'Janus wasn't a man to stick around after the spotlight was turned off. He would have tucked his Nero Wolfe Award under his arm and headed for the ranch."

"Even when the traffic is light that's almost an hour's drive from the city," said Bogdanovic."

"There's also a clue to the time of death in the cigar he's got in his mouth," Goldstein continued. "It's thick, and I'd say it was originally seven inches long. He smoked about half of it by the time he was shot, which would take him about half an hour. More than likely, he lit it at the hotel and was still smoking it when he reached this car. He may have decided to finish it before he drove away."

"Then somebody walked up to him," Bogdanovic said.

"Somebody he'd felt safe enough to talk to by winding down the window," suggested Tinney.

"That's why this isn't likely to have been a random act," Goldstein said. "In this era of car hijackings Janus would never sit still, much less roll down a window, for some stranger, even in Gramercy Park. Not to mention the fact that Theodore Janus was a lawyer who managed to accumulate more enemies in one year than other attorneys have been able to do in their entire careers."

"Including a few who had dinner with him last night, barely a stone's throw from this very spot," Bogdanovic said. Smiling at Goldstein, he added, "Maybe at the dinner last night there was a wolf in Wolfe's clothing."

Slowly shaking his head, Tinney said, "Would you two care to save me lot of time by naming the shooter?"

"Nothing would please us more, Walt," said Goldstein. "Alas, the suspects appear to be legion. There may also be a connection between Janus's murder and the one uptown."

"Mancuso wasn't a suicide?"

"I'm reasonably sure he went out the window of his own volition, but there are indications he was coerced into it. Now we're faced with a killing that may be related to what happened uptown. That's why, Walt, as of now my office will be running both the Mancuso investigation and this one, with Johnny coordinating."

Tinney smiled. "That's just fine with me, Chief."

"I know it is, Walt. But let no one else doubt, no matter what his rank, that if Sergeant Bogdanovic gives an order it will be the same as though it came direcy from me. There is, as of now, no case on the books with any higher priority."