“But . . .” I stammered in panic. “I didn’t realize—how badly . . .”
“Stop lying,” he squealed. “You said he was wounded. He was dead then. He died instantly.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said, grabbing at truth. The very honest denial gave me courage. “You have to understand that, now, this instant. This is only between you and me. Cards-on-the-table stuff. I didn’t kill him.”
Wurber looked at the body again, a cold, professional look. Then slowly he turned and faced me. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
“No. You’re not Eddie’s girl. You had some reason for getting me here, for dragging me into this. You had a reason.”
He picked up his case, bustled into the wretched living room.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked, trying to hold that new steadiness.
“I’m getting out. Understand? He’s your business if you are Cora, and you can take care of it. I never saw you in my life.”
I turned out the lights automatically, like a housekeeper finished with the cleaning. As I put out the living-room light, another El train rushed by, rattling dishes and pans on the stove. A man could be machine-gunned with that racket going on and nobody would ever hear.
Wurber said, “You open the door. You’re wearing gloves.”
I obeyed him. Instantly he pushed past me, rushing through the narrow hall and down the stairs. I hurried after him, grabbed his arm.
“Don’t run,” I cautioned, as a door opened on the first floor. With a sigh like a pneumatic brake the little doctor slowed down, took each step with exaggerated deliberation. A large woman in a soiled house dress and a shoulder-length bob of matted gray hair came to the foot of the stairs. Looking up at us, with large dark eyes, she was rather handsome, or would have been if she were well groomed, or even scrubbed.
“You the doctor?” she asked Wurber, with a foreign accent. He nodded. “That poor Mr. Wells . . .” Wurber’s fat shoulders quivered. She went on sympathetically, “Such a nice guy. Real cute, huh? How is he?”
“He’s resting,” Wurber squeaked. “There’s nothing more I can do for him.”
“Ahhh! I go in after while. Maybe the blonde lady is up there? She come back?”
“The blonde lady?” I broke in.
“She go for the doctor.” It was half statement, half question.
“Oh, yes, that one. She isn’t here right now.”
“Such a beautiful lady.” The big woman smiled, revealing two missing teeth. “Such beautiful ladies he knows.”
I kept moving slowly, smiling, too, as I passed the landlady. Wurber, ahead of me, had bolted out to the street. I followed leisurely, aware that she was still watching us.
The rain had stopped but the streets were wet and glistening. We hadn’t been in there more than ten minutes.
“I’ll go uptown,” Wurber said. “You go some other way.”
He took off with a flying leap. I stood, watched him flag down a cab at the next corner. I was definitely rocky. I had to take it easy, get everything under control before I saw people or they saw me. I dug out a cigarette, took a deep drag. I glanced at my watch. Ten-ten. Deliberately I turned and walked south toward the lights at 86th Street.
A police radio car came along the curb, parked. I wanted to run but I didn’t. I moved mechanically, my eyes fixed on those lights, some five blocks away. The cop in the car was making out a report. The police didn’t know about Eddie, yet.
With each measured step, I knew I should turn back, show the police my credentials, tell them there was a dead man in the third-floor front flat, two doors down. But I wasn’t ready. I wanted to think, to figure the angles. For instance, the blonde who went for the doctor. Dawn Ferris was a blonde. . . .
I crossed the next street. It was a dark block. A train roared overhead. In the silence that followed, I heard footsteps, heavy and slightly uneven. I slackened my pace. So did the footsteps. I didn’t like it. Neither did my nerves. Chills crawled on the back of my neck, while dark thoughts slid through my mind.
Punks gathered strange companions in a lifetime of petit larceny. Somebody thought it necessary to kill Eddie Wells. That somebody might have been watching when Wurber and I entered the building, and when we came out. My ears strained with listening. There was no sound but those footsteps measured to mine.
In the middle of the block there was a dimly lit delicatessen store. I stopped before the window, stared at a toothy cardboard blonde, holding out a glass of beer. With a minimum of motion I cast a side glance up the street. There was no one in sight.
I really turned and looked then. Not a soul between me and the house in the next block where Eddie lay. I drew a deep breath, started on. I was just beyond the friendly lights of the store when the steps resumed. Heavy . . . light . . . heavy. It could be a cop but they don’t have lame cops.
The blocks are short. I was near the corner. I walked faster. The steps speeded effortlessly as though, limping or not, they were easily geared to a change of pace. The next block was bright—a drugstore, a bar. My foot touched the curb. The traffic light changed. A stream of westbound traffic rolled slowly by. The steps had not stopped. They were on my heels.
Behind a limousine and a truck came a cab. I darted out toward it, saw two heads close together in the back before I caught the driver’s negative signal. Reluctantly I returned to the curb. Those steps were louder and louder and then they stopped. He was standing too close to me, too close for strangers on a street corner.
I glanced down, saw the gray trousers, the edge of the blue raincoat. The coat moved nearer. The man was tall, very tall; the top of my head was level with his shoulder. I couldn’t plunge ahead into that swishing traffic. I might have turned east at that corner, but I seemed frozen to the sidewalk as the man’s sleeve brushed my cheek. Then he spoke, his words low and distinct, the tone commanding.
“I must talk to you,” he said, “about your recent call—on a corpse.”
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