in life has not cheated, physically or mentally, and what circumstances have prevented the mental cheating from developing into the physical cheating? There are so many circumstances, both for cheating and for refraining from cheating. There is fear, and there is the circumstance of children, position, status, or the circumstance of residual love for the one to be cheated upon, or sympathy, or liking, or compassion. Perhaps this had been a case of divided love. Or perhaps this woman had not had the heart to hurt the man. Or perhaps it had been a case of ended love but economic ties had bound her against an open break. Certainly she had been supporting the lover and just as certainly the husband had been supporting her: to break with one might have been to lose the other. Who can unlock a heart for secrets, who has the power to peer into a soul, who knows—without knowing—what motivates a transgression, and who can presume to sit in judgment? She was a cheater, and cheating is a crime, but the punishment must fit the crime, and this punishment was way out, fiendish, too much, maniacally exquisite. For one stupid beatific moment I was overwhelmed with an impulse to be a hero; not just for this drunken woman in the white pajamas, but for all women and all men, you and me included. I had an impulse to run, get out, destroy this letter which would destroy this woman. What could they do? Sue me? So I had flipped my wig; I had popped my cork; what difference would it make: nobody here had committed a crime. What could they do? I had lots of politician friends: there wouldn’t be a jail rap for this kind of idiocy. No jail rap, but they could lift my license. Suddenly I stopped being a hero. My license is my bread and butter, and when it comes to bread and butter, you know how it is. You damned well know how it is, all of you: the muck we go through and the bastards we pretend to respect, all because of bread and butter. Disgusting, isn’t it, boys and girls? Cringe, but duck it. Let it pass. Don’t give it another thought. Bread and butter is bread and butter. Everybody can’t be a hero, and the martyr is the hero’s hero. Forget it.
I did a fast cringe and passed the letter to Valerie Kiss.
Valerie Kiss passed the brandy to me and I drank thirstily.
She read it. She took a long time reading it. She was either a hell of an actress or she had a lot more class than any of us had given her credit for, because she handled it perfectly. She took a long time reading, but when she was finished she passed it to Marla without comment or change in facial expression, and then she lifted her hand to me for the brandy. I gave her what was left of it and this time I knew her fingers caressed mine. The lady had a yen or the lady had a purpose: either way, I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain because, very obviously, the lady was a hell of a lot of woman. Suddenly I lost all interest in Marla Trent. Temporarily, of course.
NINE
AFTER THAT it went smoothly. Wagner offered the pictures to Valerie but she shook them off. Marla said, “Please,” and Wagner gave them to her. Marla went through them fast and returned them. “There are sixty-six photos,” she said. Marla was a pro. She did not want some wise-guy cop clipping a few for private pinups. Wagner understood. His smile was small but it was all admiration. Wagner was as much a pro in his field as Marla was in hers. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “Sixty-six.” He took his time packing up the maroon folder and once I saw his glance flick out, wistfully, at the brandy bottle. I knew Wagner and I knew he was troubled and I knew what he was troubled about. Somebody was going to have to identify the mess that was being scraped together downstairs: that was the law. He was now a splattered pulp and it was going to be identification by fragment and it was not going to be pretty and a woman could fall apart and Wagner was hoping that it would not have to be the woman, but it was a tough subject to get around to.
I opened it up roundabout, and Wagner took it from there. I said, “Do you know if your husband left a will, Mrs. Kiss?”
“No will,” she said. “No need.”
“Why not?”
“No next of kin, nobody, except me.”
“No family?” I said.
“No one. His father and mother are dead, and there were no brothers or sisters. No need for a will. He had nobody except . . . except me.”
“Somebody’s going to have to identify him,” Wagner said.
“Yes,” she said faintly.
Wagner swallowed, coughed. “It’s going to be rough, Mrs. Kiss. When you go down twenty-four flights you’re smashed up bad, real bad.”
She turned her face into the pillows.
Wagner said, “He went head first.”
She made no sound.
Wagner said, “There’ll be lots of time yet before we take you downtown. It’s only a formality, Mrs. Kiss, but it’s the law and it’s got to be done. I suggest you try to get some sleep. We’ll be back later.”
He motioned with his thumb and Marla and Willie went out. I was at the door with him when she turned and said, “Sergeant.”
“Yes ma’am?”
“I want Mr. Chambers to come back with you.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I . . . I’ll need somebody.”
“Yes ma’am, he’ll come back with me. Now do you need anything, want anything?”
“No, thank you.”
“I can leave one of my men here if you want.”
“No, thank you. I’ll manage.”
“Try to get some sleep, Mrs. Kiss.”
“Thank you.”
In the living room Wagner said, “Okay, we’re finished here. Petrie, you’ll drive these people over to the house in the squad car. They’re going to swear out statements. The rest of you downstairs and help out.”
Outside he put a key in the lock and turned it.
I said, “Where’d you get a key?”
“The super. Once we knew who it was from the papers in his clothes—”
“He was fully dressed?”
“Yeah. Full street wear. According to the doorman he went out at about nine, came back at about eleven, normal street clothes. He must of then wrote them notes, and then, just as he was, took the dive. Anyway once we knew who he was, we come up here, but the door was locked. We got a key from the superintendent and that’s how we got in.”
Downstairs Wagner went back to his work and Petrie drove us to the station house and there we were badgered by a pipsqueak cop who liked the sound of his voice and thought he was a district attorney. He took us one at a time, Marla first, and Willie and I sat around alone and jabbered. “One hell of a day,” I said.
“Yeah,” Willie said.
“What do you think, Willie?”
“What in hell’s to think?”
“The guy was a weirdo, all right.”
“All the way down the line to death.”
“That suicide note, the personal one, that was
