The 1st Deadly Sin (62 page)

“Loaded. Top floor penthouse. They own a store on Madison Avenue that sells sex stuff.”

“Sex stuff?”

“Yeah,” Lipsky said with his wet leer. “You know, candles shaped like pricks. Stuff like that.”

Delaney nodded. Probably the Erotica. When he had commanded the 251st, he had made inquiries about the possibility of closing the place down and making it stick. The legal department told him to forget it; it would never hold up in court.

“Blank got any hobbies?” he asked Lipsky casually. “Is he a baseball or football nut? Anything like that?”

“Mountain climbing,” Lipsky said. “He likes to climb mountains.”

“Climb mountains?” Delaney said, with no change of expression. “He must be crazy.”

“Yeah. He’s always going away on weekends in the Spring and Fall. He takes all this crap with him in his car.”

“Crap? What kind of crap?”

“You know—a knapsack, a sleeping bag, a rope, things you tie on your shoes so you don’t slip.”

“Oh yes,” Delaney said. “Now I know what you mean. And an ax for chipping away ice and rocks. Does he take an ax with him on these trips?”

“Never seen it. What’s this got to do with cutting him loose from the young cunt?”

“Nothing,” Delaney shrugged. “Just trying to get a line on him. Listen, to get back to this woman of his. The skinny one with black hair. You know her name?”

“No.”

“She come around very often?”

“She’ll be there like three nights in a row. Then I won’t see her for a week or so. No regular schedule, if that’s what you’re hoping.” He grinned shrewdly at Delaney. Two of his front teeth were missing, two were chipped; the Captain wondered what kind of bet he had welshed on.

“Comes and goes by cab?”

“That’s right. Or they walk out together.”

“The next time you’re on duty, if she comes or goes by cab, get the license number of the hack, the date, and the time. That’s all I need—the date, the time, the license number of the cab. There’s another tenner in it for you.”

“And then all you got to do is check the trip sheets. Right?”

“Right,” Delaney said, smiling bleakly. “You’re way ahead of me.”

“I could have been a private eye,” Lipsky bragged. “I’d make a hell of a dick. Listen, I got to go now.”

“Wait. Wait just a minute,” Delaney said, making up his mind that moment. He watched the cop pay for the hamburgers, coffee, Danish and carry the bag out to his partner in the parked squad. He wondered idly if the cop insisted on paying because he, the Captain, was there.

“In your apartment house,” Delaney said slowly, “you keep master keys? Or dupes to all the door locks on tenants’ doors, locks they put on themselves?”

“Sure we got dupes,” Lipsky frowned. “What do you think? I mean, in case of fire or an emergency, we got to get in—right?”

“And where are all these keys kept?”

“Right outside the assistant manager’s office we got—” Lipsky stopped suddenly. His lips drew back from his chipped teeth. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” he said, “forget it. Not a chance. No way.”

“Look, Mr. Lipsky,” Delaney said earnestly, sincerely, hunching forward on the table. “It’s not like I want to loot the place. I wouldn’t take a cigarette butt out of there. All I want to do is look around.”

“Yeah? For what?”

“This woman he’s been sleeping with. Maybe a photo of them together. Maybe a letter from her to him. Maybe she’s keeping some clothes up there in his closet. Anything that’ll help my client convince his daughter that Blank has been cheating on her all along.”

“But if you don’t take anything, how…”

“You tell me,” Delaney said. “You claim you could have been a private eye. How would you handle it?”

Lipsky stared at him, puzzled. Then his eyes widened. “Camera!” he gasped. “A miniature camera. You take pictures!”

Delaney slapped the table top with his palm. “Mr. Lipsky, you’re all right,” he chuckled. “You’d make a hell of a detective. I take a miniature camera. I shoot letters, photos, clothes, any evidence at all that Blank has been shacking up with this black-haired twist or even this kid Tony. I put everything back exactly where it was. Believe me, I know how to do it. He’ll never know anyone’s been in there. He leaves for work around nine and comes back around six. Something like that—correct?”

“Yeah.”

“So the apartment’s empty all day?”

“Yeah.”

“Cleaning woman?”

“Two days a week. But she comes early and she’s out by noon.”

“So…what’s the problem? It’ll take me an hour. No more, I swear. Would anyone miss the keys?”

“Nah. That board’s got a zillion keys.”

“So there you are. I come into the lobby. You’ve already got the keys off the board. You slip them to me. I’m up and down in an hour. Probably less. I pass the keys back to you. You replace them. You’re going on duty days starting today-right? So we make it about two or three in the afternoon. Right?”

“How much?” Lipsky said hoarsely.

Got him, Delaney thought.

“Twenty bucks,” the Captain said.

“Twenty?” Lipsky cried, horrified. “I wouldn’t do it for less than a C. If I’m caught, it’s my ass.”

Five minutes later they had agreed on fifty dollars, twenty immediately, thirty when Delaney returned the keys, and an extra twenty if Lipsky could get the license number of the cab used by Blank’s skinny girl friend.

“If I get it,” Lipsky said, “should I call your office?”

“I’m not in very much,” Delaney said casually. “In this business you’ve got to keep moving around. I’ll call you every day on the lobby phone. If you go back on nights, leave a message with your brother-in-law. I’ll find out from him when to call. Okay?”

“I guess,” Lipsky said doubtfully. “Jesus, if I didn’t need the dough so bad, I’d tell you to go suck.”

“Sharks?” the Captain asked.

“Yeah,” Lipsky said wonderingly. “How did you know?”

“A guess,” Delaney shrugged. He passed twenty under the table to the doorman. “I’ll see you at two-thirty this afternoon. What’s the apartment number?”

“Twenty-one H. It’s on a tag attached to the keys.”

“Good. Don’t worry. It’ll go like silk.”

“Jesus, I hope so.”

The Captain looked at him narrowly. “You don’t like this guy much, do you?”

Lipsky began to curse, ripe obscenities spluttering from his lips. Delaney listened awhile, serious and unsmiling, then held up a hand to cut off the flow of invective.

“One more thing,” he said to Lipsky. “In a few days, or a week from now, you might mention casually to Blank that I was around asking questions about him. You can describe me, but don’t tell him my name. You forgot it. Just say I was asking personal questions, but you wouldn’t tell me a goddamned thing. Got that?”

“Well…sure,” Lipsky said, puzzled. “But what for?”

“I don’t know,” Captain Delaney said. “I’m not sure. Just to give him something to think about, I guess. Will you do it?”

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

They left the luncheonette together. There were early workers on the streets now. The air was cold, sharp. The sky was lightening in the east; it promised to be a clear day. Captain Delaney walked home slowly, leaning against the December wind. By the time he unlocked his door he could hardly smell the rancid grease.

The projected break-in had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He hadn’t planned that, hadn’t even considered it. But Lipsky had tied Daniel Blank to mountain climbing: the first time that was definitely established. And that led to the ice ax. That damned ax! Nothing so far had tied Blank to the purchase or possession of an ice ax. Delaney wanted things tidy. Possession would be tidy enough; purchase could be traced later.

He wasn’t lying when he told Lipsky he’d be in and out of Blank’s apartment in an hour. My God, he could find an ice ax in Grand Central Station in that time. And why should Blank hide it? As far as he knew, he wasn’t suspected. He owned rucksack, pitons, crampons, ice ax. What could be more natural? He was a mountaineer. All Delaney wanted from that break-in was the ice ax. Anything else would be gravy on the roast.

He wrote up his reports and noted, gratified, how fat the Daniel G. Blank file was growing. More important, how he was beginning to penetrate his man. Tony, a twelve-year-old boy pretty enough to be a girl. A thin, black-haired woman with no tits. Friends who owned a sex boutique. Much, much there. But if the ice ax didn’t exist in Blank’s apartment, it was all smoke. What would he do then? Start in again—someone else, another angle, a different approach. He was prepared for it.

He worked on his reports until Mary arrived. She fixed him coffee, dry toast, a soft-boiled egg. No grease. After breakfast, he went into the living room, pulled the shades, took off his shoes and jacket, unbuttoned his vest. He lay down on the couch, intending to nap for only an hour. But when he awoke, it was almost 11:30, and he was angry at himself for time wasted.

He went into the downstairs lavatory to rub his face with cold water and comb his hair. In the mirror he saw how he looked, but he had already felt it: blueish bags swelling down beneath his eyes, the greyish unhealthy complexion, lines deeper, wrinkled forehead, bloodless lips pressed tighter, everything old and troubled. When all this was over, and Barbara was well again, they’d go somewhere, groan in the sun, stuff until their skins were tight, eyes clear, memories washed, blood pure and pumping. And they’d make love. That’s what he told himself.

He called Monica Gilbert.

“Monica, I’m going over to visit my wife. I was wondering if—if you’re not busy—if you’d like to meet her.”

“Oh yes. I would. When?”

“Fifteen minutes or so. Too soon? Would you like lunch first?”

“Thank you, but I’ve had a salad. That’s all I’m eating these days.”

“A diet?” he laughed. “You don’t need that.”

“I do. I’ve been eating so much since—since Bernie died. Just nerves, I guess. Edward…”

“What?”

“You said you’d call me about Daniel Blank, but you didn’t. Was it anything?”

“I think so. But I’d like my wife to hear it, too. I trust her judgment. She’s very good on people. I’ll tell you both at the same time. All right?”

“Of course.”

“Be over in fifteen minutes.”

Then he called Barbara and told her he was bringing Monica Gilbert to meet her, the widow of the second victim. Barbara said of course. She was happy to talk to him and told him to hurry.

He had thought about it a long time—whether or not to bring the two women together. He recognized the dangers and the advantages. He didn’t want Barbara to think, even to suspect, that he was having a relationship—even an innocent relationship—with another woman while she, Barbara, was ill, confined to a hospital room, despite what she had said about his marrying again if anything happened to her. That was just talk, he decided firmly: an emotional outburst from a woman disturbed by her own pain and fears of the future. But Barbara would enjoy company—that he knew. She really did like people, much more than he did. He could tell her of a man arrested for molesting women—there was one crazy case: this nut would sneak into bedrooms out in Queens, always coming through unlocked windows, and he would kiss sleeping women and then run away. He never put his hands on them or injured them physically. He just kissed them. When he told Barbara about it, she gave a troubled sigh and said, “Poor fellow. How lonely he must have been.”—and her sympathies were frequently with the suspect, unless violence was involved.

Monica Gilbert needed a confidante as well. Her job was finished, her file complete. He wanted to continue giving her a feeling of involvement. So, finally, he had decided to bring them together.

It wasn’t a disaster, as he had feared, but it didn’t go marvelously well, as he had hoped. Both women were cordial, but nervous, guarded, reserved. Monica had brought Barbara a little African violet, not from a florist's shop but one she had nurtured herself. That helped. Barbara expressed her condolences in low tones on the death of Monica’s husband. Delaney stayed out of it, standing away from Barbara’s bed, listening and watching anxiously.

Then they began speaking about their children, exchanging photographs and smiling. Their talk became louder than sickroom tones; they laughed more frequently; Barbara touched Monica’s arm. Then he knew it was going to be all right. He relaxed, sat in a chair away from them, listening to their chatter, comparing them: Barbara so thin and fine, wasted and elegant, a silver sword of a woman. And Monica with her heavy peasant’s body, sturdy and hard, bursting with juice. At that moment he loved them both.

For awhile they leaned close, conversing in whispers. He wondered if they might be talking about women’s ailments, women’s plumbing—a complete mystery to him—or perhaps, from occasional glances they threw in his direction, he wondered if they might be discussing him, although what there was about him to talk about he couldn’t imagine.

It was almost an hour before Barbara held out a hand to him. He came over to her bedside, smiling at both of them.

“Daniel Blank?” Barbara asked.

He told them about the interviews with the bartender, with Handry, with Lipsky. He told them everything except his plan to be inside Blank’s apartment within two hours.

“Edward, it’s beginning to take form,” Barbara nodded approvingly. As usual, she went to the nub. “At least now you know he’s a mountain climber. I suppose the next step is to find out if he owns an ice ax?”

Delaney nodded. She would never even consider asking him how he might do this.

“Can’t you arrest him now?” Monica Gilbert demanded, “On suspicion or something?”

The Captain shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said patiently. “No evidence at all. Not a shred. He’d be out before the cell door was slammed behind him, and the city would be liable for false arrest. That would be the end of that.”

“Well, what can you do then? Wait until he kills someone else?”

“Oh…” he said vaguely, “there are things. Establish his guilt without a doubt. He’s just a suspect now, you know. The only one I’ve got. But still just a suspect. Then, when I’m sure of him, I’ll—well, at this moment I’m not sure what I’ll do. Something.”