Yom Kippur Murder (18 page)

“What did you tell him?”

“Just what you said. ‘I have to call my daughter.’ He said he’d call back later.”

“Do you feel up to it, Bettina?”

“You think this man killed Nathan?”

“I think it’s possible. Or that he had him killed.”

“Then we get him, right?”

“Right.”

I outlined my plan, sounding a lot more confident about it than I felt. It called for making an appointment with the buyer for tomorrow afternoon. That would give me plenty of time to get hold of Franciotti. Bettina said the man had not sounded threatening at all as Mr. Granite had portrayed the caller, just that he was an interested buyer and knew she had something to sell.

Then I called the police station. Franciotti wasn’t in, but he was expected tomorrow at ten. I left a message with my name, saying that it was urgent that I speak to him as early as possible Monday morning but that I would call him. I was afraid to wait in Oakwood for his call, cutting short the time
I would have to drive into Manhattan, find a place to park, get over to Bettina’s, and get the two of us ready.

I spent most of Sunday preparing for my Tuesday morning class. There had been some discussion of the English Romantic poets, pro and con, and I had assigned some readings in their works. It was interesting to me that a couple of students seemed to agree that romantic equaled sentimentality which equaled garbage, while several other students looked blank when the era and the poets’ names were mentioned. A little explanation was in order.

I am not enamored of Shelley, although he has turned a number of good phrases—“Hail to thee, blithe spirit!” and “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought” come to mind—but anyone who can write, “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed,” is not someone I can turn to for solace or understanding.

But Keats and Wordsworth really do something to me, and I was curious to know whether my young, ambitious women would agree, whether a healthy sample of poems would confirm or dispute their romantic/sentimental equation. Whenever I turn to Keats, I renew my amazement and admiration; I have already lived four years longer than he, and in much better health.

Bettina called back about four. “He’s coming at two,” she said. “He won’t give me his name. When he rings the bell, he’ll say he’s the book man.”

“OK.”

“And if he wants the book, he’ll pay in cash.”

“I guess he’d have to if he wants to stay anonymous. How do you feel about it?”

“I’ll tell you the truth, he doesn’t sound like a murderer. He sounds like an older man who wants to buy a book.”

“Maybe that’s all he is,” I said. “But where did he get your name from? And the other names he read to you? Somehow he’s connected to whoever broke into Nathan’s apartment Wednesday night. So let’s be very careful.”

“When will you come?”

“I’ll try to get there when the parking restrictions end in the Seventies, about eleven. I’ll be there a little after.”

“Good. We’ll have lunch together.”

I agreed, although I was already losing my appetite. I couldn’t think of this as quite the adventure that Bettina did, but then, I hadn’t fled a hostile country in a hay wagon with a bunch of enemy soldiers sitting virtually on top of me. It must do something to one’s outlook.

Someday I’ll learn not to answer the phone when I don’t want to talk to anyone else today, or just pull out the cord so I don’t have to make any more decisions. But that’s still in the future. Not long after Bettina called, the phone rang and I answered it. I still wish I hadn’t.

“Chris, darlin’,” a familiar voice said, “it’s Ian Gallagher.”

“Yes, Ian. What is it?” It was a toll call after all. He would only call if he needed something.

“Somethin’s goin’ on here,” he said. “I thought Mr. Gold got all them squatters outa here.”

“I thought so, too,” I said, although I was no longer very sure myself.

“Well, somethin’ isn’t right.”

“What happened?”

“Someone lit a fire in the apartment next door to mine.”

“What?”

“Just a little one, some garbage maybe. I smelled it and put it out with a bucket of water.”

“You went into the apartment next door and put a fire out?”

“Well, it was easier than callin’ the fire folks. And quicker.”

“And more dangerous. Ian, you’re eighty years old.”

“Don’t remind me, darlin’.”

“You’re sure you got it out?”

“Oh yes. But there’s sounds now. There’s people around.”

I knew what he was asking me. He wanted me to come
and look around. I was Arnold’s volunteer assistant, and if the tenants had problems, I was the one to call.

“I’ll be there in an hour, Ian.”

“I don’t want to trouble your Sunday,” he said.

No, of course not. “I’m on my way.”

It was late Sunday afternoon in October, and the summer stream of weekenders returning to the city had abated. I got to 603 long before an hour had passed, and parked almost in front of it. I took out my flashlight and keys while I was still in the car so that I wouldn’t have to open my bag on the street in the dusk. I didn’t like coming here at night. I didn’t like looking for squatters, who were probably addicts, or any other “folks” who might be inhabiting the building. But I knew that the police had had their fill of calls from 603 and wouldn’t give another vague complaint much priority. I went in the first door, unlocked the inner one, and turned on my flashlight.

There were, of course, no light bulbs in the lobby. You didn’t notice it that much during the day, but now it was practically dark. I shone my light all around the old marble floor and walls, and saw nothing. I went to the stairwell and pulled the door open. No sound. I flashed my light down toward the basement and up toward the second floor. Nothing as far as the landings. I started up.

You go into things sometimes knowing in your head that they’re dangerous, but that silly, childish belief in the invulnerability of the self asserts itself. Whoever this man was—if it was the same one—he had attacked me, assaulted me, followed me home, lit a fire on my lawn, and now lit one in the apartment next door to Gallagher, but I couldn’t quite believe he could kill me. I had failed to overpower him when he held me, and still I felt I could come out of an encounter alive. But I was scared.

I got to three and stopped. I turned off the flashlight and listened. If someone was waiting on the stairs, he didn’t move. I turned the light back on and opened the door. I didn’t hear anything. I walked into the hall. It was quiet.

As quickly as I could, I went to Ian’s apartment and rang the bell. There was no answer.

“Ian,” I called, remembering that terrible morning when I had stood in front of Nathan’s door and called his name. “Ian, are you there?”

No answer.

My first thought was that they had gotten him, too. Something had happened between his call to me and now, something had gotten him out of his apartment again and persuaded him to open his door to a push-in murderer.

If Ian was dead, only Mrs. Paterno would be left in this building, and it was a cinch she wouldn’t stay long. Metropolitan would have achieved its goal. They could gut and renovate with two deaths to their credit. Or three if I didn’t get out of here fast.

It was still deathly quiet. I turned off my flashlight. I wrapped my left arm around my handbag as I had the other day. I didn’t like the feeling of déjà vu; I had lost the last time. Tonight I might lose worse. I steadied myself and made for the stairway.

The shadow glided out of one of the empty apartments the other side of the stairway, and I knew I didn’t have a prayer. I was forced into one of the empty apartments, where I would have to play cat and mouse. I darted in the nearest door and, not thinking very clearly, hid right behind it. There wasn’t even a doorknob to hang on to. Everything of scrap value had been removed by Metropolitan months or years ago as the apartments had emptied. I was now wedged in a corner behind an open door. To my right along the wall was the same kind of long hall that everyone else’s apartment started with. I didn’t want to chance going into one of the rooms, because it was too easy to be cornered there. So I was cornered here. Literally.

I listened for him. He was probably wearing sneakers, as I was, and he wasn’t in any hurry. Why should he be? He had me.

But who was it? Jesus Ramirez was safely behind bars. Did Metropolitan have a whole stable of thugs and killers? Or was this a squatter who wanted the whole building for himself? Or someone after me personally? And if so, would
he have killed Ian? There were too many questions and not enough answers.

I didn’t have much time to ponder. There was a sound in the outside hall, and I knew he was coming to get me. Even so, I felt revulsion at having to lean against this filthy, roach-infested wall. Something soft touched my neck, and I reached reflexively to rid myself of it, not caring whether it was a cobweb or a living thing, or whether I made a noise that gave me away. I was absolutely terrified.

When he stepped over the threshold, I was ready for him. I pushed the door with as much speed and force as I could generate. He made a sound, stepped back, and I pulled the door open and braced myself for a second charge. It came in seconds. Those are heavy doors on those old apartments, fire doors made with metal to last forever. You get hit with it, you get hurt.

He got hurt. I heard him grunt and fall. I pulled the door open and edged out of my hiding place so that I could escape, and I almost tripped over his body. I stepped over him as he began to move, and for safe measure, hit him on the side of the head with my flashlight. Then I started running.

I could have hit him harder. One of the toughest things to do is to hurt another human being, and the closer you come to direct contact, the harder it is. I understood in that moment as I fled for my life the awful appeal of guns. You can stand a safe distance from your enemy and use your index finger on a piece of cold metal to inflict pain or even death. You’re one giant step removed from the deed. Hitting someone with an object in your hand, or, God forbid, plunging a knife into another person’s body, is tough. So I didn’t hit him as hard as I could have, and I wasn’t surprised when I heard him take off after me.

But I was safely in the stairwell, safely ahead of him, safely on my way to the lobby and freedom. Except that when I got to the first floor, the door to the lobby wouldn’t open. I was sure as I tried the doorknob and pushed over and over that I was just not doing it right, but after several quick tries
in each direction, I gave up. Going back upstairs was out of the question. He was on my tail.

I had no choice but to go down to the basement.

I will tell you that I was as near hysterics at that moment as I ever get. Any feeling of invulnerability had left me when Ian didn’t answer his door. I was vulnerable, someone was after me, and he was a killer. And I had hurt him. That meant he was an angry killer.

But the basement harbored rats. I don’t know which threat frightened me more, the one above me or the one below. But I had no choice. Going up was suicide. I am a Catholic. I do not commit suicide.

Next to the basement door was a door to the street. I tried it, but it was locked. I pulled open the basement door, dashed inside, and flicked on my flashlight, hearing rustling, scurrying sounds as the light moved. The basement was the size of the whole building. It was also filled with junk as well as the machinery needed to heat the building and make hot water for the tenants.

Across the floor I could see what looked like a row of open gates or doors. I flashed my light ahead of me to scare away whatever else occupied the basement and started for the bins, hearing those terrifying sounds as I moved. Probably those enclosures were where the tenants stored things like luggage and old furniture, if they had the guts to come down here. There were so many of them that if I hid in one, it would give me time to think, maybe to get away if my assailant was in another part of the basement. I didn’t get there. I heard him approach the door and I turned my light off. It was so dark that he wouldn’t see me if I crouched behind some junk and kept still. I didn’t know whether there were lights down here, or if there were, if he knew where the switches were. In the meantime, if he went in the other direction, I might be able to move toward a storage bin.

He shuffled around in the dark, never saying anything. I heard something fall at the other end of the basement, and I crept carefully away from this pile of junk and toward another that was closer to the line of bins. I was sure he hadn’t
heard me. But as I settled into my new hiding place, something grazed my ankle, something living, something slightly warm, and I could not keep myself from whimpering, although I held a hand over my mouth.

I still couldn’t see him, although my eyes had gotten about as used to the dark as they would get. Around three-quarters of the perimeter of the basement were small windows high up through which almost no light entered. I guessed that the wall without windows faced the street, where streetlights might have provided a little light. The windows were probably inside wells anyway, and it was dark out by now.

I took a chance and moved again. There were sounds, but not too close. I moved a little farther. Then I felt something solid against my back. I turned and touched the wall gingerly. It was wooden slats. I had reached the bins.

I crept along the slatted wall till I came to an opening, then eased myself in. The scurrying inside was unmistakable. I was so terrified that I froze. I knew that rats bit and that they carried unmentionable diseases. I worked to stay calm because I had to. This was my show. Nobody except Gallagher knew I was coming here tonight, and Gallagher was probably dead. I could have called Jack, but I didn’t. I could have called Arnold. I hadn’t. I was now completely responsible for saving my own life. I couldn’t give in to a hysterical breakdown. It would be fatal.

I stuck my right hand in my pocket and felt something. All of a sudden I knew I had a weapon.

The thought lifted me out of my despair. In my handbag, besides the flashlight and all the other things most women carry, I kept a roll of quarters. Quarters fed the parking meters on Broadway. Quarters fed the phones. In a single day I might use five or ten of them, once upon a time my daily allowance. So I kept a roll handy in case I ran out.