The 1st Deadly Sin (29 page)

“Do I? Well. I’ll think about it. It’s an interesting problem.”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Of course. What?”

“Come to me immediately afterwards.”

He thought a moment.

“Perhaps not immediately afterwards. But soon. That night. Will that do?”

“I may not be home.”

He was instantly suspicious. “Do you want to know the night? I don’t know that myself. And won’t.”

“No, I don’t want to know the night, or the place. Just the week. Then I’ll stay home every night, waiting for you. Can you tell me the week?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you that. When I’m ready.”

“My love,” she said. “The eyes,” she said.

6

B
ERNARD
G
ILBERT TOOK
life seriously—and he had a right to be mournful. Orphaned at an early age he had been
schlepped
around from uncle to aunt, cousin to cousin, six months at each, and always assured that the food he was eating, his bed, his clothes—all this came from the labor of his benefactors, at their expense.

At the age of eight he was shining shoes on the street, then delivering for a delly, then waiting on table, then selling little pieces of cloth, then bookkeeper in a third-rate novelty store.

And all the time going to school, studying, reading books. All joylessly. Sometimes, when he had saved enough money, he went to a woman. That, too, was joyless. What could he do?

Through high school, two miserable years in the army, City College, always working, sleeping four or five hours a night, studying, reading, making loans and paying them back, not really thinking of
why?
but obeying an instinct he could not deny. And suddenly, there he was, Bernard Gilbert, C.P.A., in a new black suit, a hard worker who was good with numbers. This was a life?

There was a spine in him. Hard work didn’t daunt him, and when he had to, he grovelled and shrugged it away. Much man. Not a swaggering, hairy-chested conqueror, but a survivor. A special kind of bravery; hope never died.

It came in his 32nd year when a distant cousin unexpectedly invited him for dinner. And there was Monica. “Monica, I’d like you to make the acquaintance of Bernard Gilbert. He’s a C.P.A.”

And so they were married, and his life began. Happy? You wouldn’t believe! God said, “Bernie, I’ve been shitting on you for 32 years. You can take it, and it’s time you deserve a break. Enjoy, kid, enjoy!”

First of all, there was Monica. Not beautiful, but handsome and strong. Another hard worker. They laughed in bed. Then came the two children, Mary and Sylvia. Beautiful girls! And healthy, thank God. The apartment wasn’t much, but it was home.
Home!
His home, with wife and children. They all laughed.

The bad memories faded. It all went away: the cruelties, the hand-me-down clothes, the insults and crawling. He began, just began, to understand joy. It was a gift, and he cherished it. Bernard Gilbert: a melancholy man with sunken cheeks always in need of a shave, stooped shoulders, puzzled eyes, thinning hair, a scrawny frame: a man who, if he had his life to live over again, would have been a violinist. Well…

He had a good job with a large firm of accountants where his worth was recognized. In the last few years he had started to moon-light, doing the tax returns of self-employed people like doctors, dentists, architects, artists, writers. He made certain his employers knew about it; they didn’t object, since he was doing it on his own time and it didn’t conflict with their own commercial accounts.

His private business grew. It was hard, putting in an eight-hour day and then coming home for another two- to four-hours’ work. But he talked it over with Monica—he talked
everything
over with Monica—and they agreed that if he stuck to it, maybe within five to ten years he might be able to cut loose and start his own business. It was possible. So Monica took a course in accounting, studied at home, and after awhile she could help him at night, in addition to cooking and cleaning and taking care of Mary and Sylvia. They were both hard workers, but they never thought of it, would have been surprised if someone had told them they worked hard. What else?

So there they were in a third-floor walk-up on East 84th Street. It wasn’t a fancy apartment, but Monica had painted it nice, and there were two bedrooms and a big kitchen where Monica made matzoh brie like he couldn’t believe, it was so good, and a record player with all of Isaac Stern’s recordings, and a card table where he could work. It wasn’t luxury, he acknowledged, but he wasn’t ashamed of it, and sometimes they had friends or neighbors in and laughed. Sometimes they even went out to eat, with the children, at an expensive restaurant, and were very solemn, giggling inside.

But the best times were when he and Monica would finish their night’s work, and would sit on the couch, after midnight, the children asleep, and they just were there, listening to Vivaldi turned down low, just together. He would have worked his ass off for the rest of his life for moments like that. And when Monica brushed her lips across his sunken cheek…Oh!

He was thinking of moments like that when he got off the First Avenue bus. It wasn’t even midnight. Well, maybe a little later. He had been downtown, working on the books of a medical clinic. It was a possible new account, a good one and a big one. The meeting with the doctors had taken longer than he had expected. Patiently he explained to them what the tax laws said they could do and what they could not do. He felt he had impressed them. They said they’d discuss it and let him know within a week. He felt good about it, but resolved not to be too optimistic when he discussed it with Monica. In case…

He turned into his own block. It had not yet been equipped with the new street lights, and far ahead, in the gloom, he saw a man walking toward him. Naturally, he was alerted—at that hour, in this city. But as they drew closer he saw the other man was about his age, well-dressed, coat flapping wide. He was striding along jauntily, left hand in his pocket, right arm swinging free.

They came close. Bernard Gilbert saw the other man was staring at him. But he was smiling. Gilbert smiled in return. Obviously the man lived in the neighborhood and wanted to be friendly. Gilbert decided he would say, “Good-evening.”

They were two steps apart, and he had said, “Good—” when the man’s right hand darted beneath the open flap of his coat and came out with something with a handle, something with a point, something that gleamed even in the dull street light.

Bernard Gilbert never did say, “—evening.” He knew he halted and drew back. But the thing was in the air, swinging down. He tried to lift a defending arm, but it was too heavy. He saw the man’s face, handsome and tender, and there was no hate there, nor madness, but a kind of ardor. Something struck high on Bernard Gilbert’s forehead, slamming him down, and he knew he was falling, felt the crash of sidewalk against his back, wondered what had happened to his newfound joy, and heard God say, “Okay, Bernie, enough’s enough.”

Part V

1

T
HREE TIMES A
week a commercial messenger arrived at Captain Delaney’s home with copies of the most recent Operation Lombard reports. Delaney noted they were becoming fewer and shorter, and Chief Pauley was sending his detectives back to recheck matters already covered: Lombard’s private life and political career; possible links with organized crime; any similar assaults or homicides in the 251st Precinct, neighboring precincts, and eventually all of Manhattan, then all of New York; and then queries to the FBI and the police departments of large cities asking for reports of homicides of a similar nature.

Delaney admired Chief Pauley’s professional competence. The Chief had assembled a force of almost 500 detectives brought in from all over the city. Many of these men Delaney knew personally or by reputation, and they included assault specialists, weapons technicians, men familiar with the political jungle, and detectives whose success was based on their interrogative techniques.

The result was nil: no angle, no handle, no apparent motive. Chief Pauley, in a confidential memo to Deputy Commissioner Broughton, had even suggested a possibility that Delaney himself had considered: the snuff had been committed by a policeman angered by Lombard’s public attacks on the efficiency of the Department. Pauley didn’t believe it.

Captain Delaney didn’t either. A policeman would probably kill with a gun. But most career cops, who had seen mayors, commissioners, and politicians of all ranks come and go, would shrug off Lombard’s criticism as just some more publicity bullshit, and go about their jobs.

The more Delaney pondered the killing, the more Operation Lombard reports he studied, the more firmly he became convinced that it was a motiveless crime. Not motiveless to the killer, of course, but motiveless to any rational man. Lombard had been a chance victim.

Delaney tried to fill up his hours. He visited his wife in the hospital twice a day, at noon and in the early evening. He did some brief interrogations of his own, visiting Frank Lombard’s partner, his mother, and a few of his political associates. For these interviews Delaney wore his uniform and badge, risking Broughton’s wrath if he should somehow discover what Delaney was up to. But it was all a waste of time; he learned nothing of value.

One evening, despairing of his failure to make any meaningful progress, he took a long pad of legal notepaper, yellow and ruled, and headed it “The Suspect.” He then drew a line down the center of the page. The lefthand column he headed “Physical,” the righthand column “Psychological.” He resolved to write down everything he knew or suspected about the killer. Under “Physical” he listed:

“Probably male, white.”

“Tall, probably over six feet.”

“Strong and young. Under 35?”

“Of average or good appearance. Possibly well-dressed.”

“Very quick with good muscular coordination. An athlete?” Under “Psychological” he listed:

“Cool, determined.”

“Driven by unknown motive.”

“Psychopath? Unruh type?”

At the bottom of the page he made a general heading he called “Additional Notes.” Under this he listed:

“Third person involved? Because of stolen license as ‘proof of homicide.’”

“Resident of 251st Precinct?”

Then he reread his list. It was, he admitted, distressingly skimpy. But just the act of writing down what he knew—or guessed, rather; he
knew
nothing—made him feel better. It was all smoke and shadows. But he began to feel someone was there. Someone dimly glimpsed…

He read the list again, and again, and again. He kept coming back to the notation “Driven by unknown motive.”

In all his personal experiences with and research on psychopathic killers he had never come across or read of a killer totally without motive. Certainly the motive might be irrational, senseless, but in every case, particularly those involving multiple murders, the killer had a “motive.” It might be as obvious as financial gain; it might be an incredible philosophical structure as creepy and cheap as an Eiffel Tower built of glued toothpicks.

But however mad the assassin, he had his reasons: the slights of society, the whispers of God, the evil of man, the demands of political faith, the fire of ego, the scorn of women, the terrors of loneliness…whatever.
But he had his reasons.
Nowhere, in Delaney’s experience or in his readings, existed the truly motiveless killer, the quintessentially evil man who slew as naturally and casually as another man lighted a cigarette or picked his nose.

There was no completely good man alive upon this earth and, Delaney believed—hoped!—there was no completely evil man. It was not a moral problem; it was just that no man was complete, in any way. So the killer of Frank Lombard had crushed his skull for a reason, a reason beyond logic and sense, but for a purpose that had meaning to him, twisted and contorted though it might be.

Sitting there in the gloom of his study, reading and rereading his sad little “Portrait of a Killer,” Edward Delaney thought of this man existing, quite possibly not too far from where he now sat. He wondered what this man might be thinking and dreaming, might be hoping and planning.

In the morning he made his own breakfast, since it had been arranged that their day-only maid, Mary, would go directly from her home to the hospital, bringing Barbara fresh nightgowns and an address book she had requested. Delaney drank a glass of tomato juice, doggedly ate his way through two slices of unbuttered whole wheat toast, and drank two cups of black coffee. He scanned the morning paper as he ate. The Lombard story had fallen back to page 14. It said, in essence, there was nothing to say.

Wearing his winter overcoat, for the November day was chill, and the air smelled of snow, Delaney left the house before ten a.m. and walked over to Second Avenue, to a phone booth in a candy store. He dialed Deputy Inspector Thorsen’s answering service, left his phone booth number, hung up, waited patiently. Thorsen was back to him within five minutes. “I have nothing to report,” Delaney said flatly. “Nothing.” Thorsen must have caught something in his tone, for he attempted to soothe.

“Take it easy, Edward. Broughton doesn’t have anything either.”

“I know.”

“But I have some good news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“We were able to get your Lieutenant Dorfman a temporary appointment as Acting Commander of the Two-five-one Precinct.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

“But it’s only for six months. After that, either you’ll be back on the job or we’ll have to put in a captain or deputy inspector.”

“I understand. Good enough. It’ll help with the problem of Lombard’s driver’s license.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I’m on leave of absence, but I’m still on the Department list. I’ve got to report the license is missing.”

“Edward, you worry too much.”

“Yes. I do. But I’ve got to report it.”

“That means Broughton will learn about it.”

“Possibly. But if there is another killing, and I think there will be, and Chief Pauley’s boys find the victim’s license is missing—or anything like it—they’ll check back with Lombard’s widow down in Florida. She’ll tell them I asked about the license and she couldn’t find it. Then my ass will be in a sling. Broughton will have me up for withholding evidence.”