I nodded. He was right. That was no way to treat a long-suffering civil servant. “Come on upstairs. We’ll make some brewmaster happy.” I threw my arm around his shoulder and pushed him toward the elevator.
It took a long time for the elevator to get to the ground floor and it took just as long to get to the tenth. There was always some problem with the mechanism and I suspected it was about to give out again. The other car had been out for weeks. The walls of the elevator were some kind of wood-like veneer that was warping and pulling away from the backing. Some glue would have served to stick it back in place, but no one had ever had the motivation to fix it, so each week it separated a little more from the wall.
When we got to ten, Black got off first and followed me down the hall to my apartment. The door had just been painted for the first time in ten years, but some bozo of a workman had brushed against it and left a streak where his back had been.
Black looked at the door. “What happened? You try to knock some guy through the door?”
I grunted. It was too late in the day for witty repartee. I opened the door for him and pointed the way to the living room.
“Help yourself to a brew. I have to drain the lizard first.”
On the way back from the head I checked the machine for messages. There were a couple of calls from bill collectors and one from Rachel. Her voice sounded edgy. She said she had something important to tell me. I didn’t know what time she made the call. My answering machine was one of the ancient kind that didn’t have a time stamp.
I looked at my watch. It was 1:25 AM. I decided to call her after Black left.
By the time I got back to the living room, Black had polished off half a bottle of Rolling Rock. I got one for myself and caught up with him.
He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Just sat there kind of shell-shocked. I didn’t disturb him as he sat there rummaging through his thoughts. Then he seemed to wake up and notice that I was sitting across from him.
He made a face and said, “Wadda you got for me?”
I told him the truth. “I ain’t got dick.”
He nodded and fell silent for a long time. Then he finished his beer and went to the kitchen for another one. When he came back, he plopped down into the chair, took a long swig and said, “I think it was the boyfriend.”
He pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket, lit one and jammed the pack back into his pocket. When he couldn’t find an ash tray, he tapped the ashes into the mouth of the empty bottle.
I really felt like bumming a cigarette from him.
“Chisolm?” I said.
He nodded and I could see that old cop’s mind working.
“Why him?”
“I don’t like him. He’s too slick.”
“Sure,” I said. “Try to get a conviction for that. You got anything on him?”
He shrugged and I could see he didn’t. “Where’s his motive?”
“They were breaking up. She was going to walk out on him.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said. “Besides, you don’t kill someone for walking out on you. That’s too Victorian. He’s not the kind to do that.”
“I don’t like him,” Black repeated.
“Then don’t have his child.”
“He’s the one supplied her the coke.”
“Is that right?” I chewed on that for a minute. “Or did she supply him?”
He shook his head vigorously. “Naw, he gave it to her.”
“Even so, you still don’t have a motive.”
He threw up his hands. “OK, so who do you like?”
He had me there. I didn’t even have as much conviction as he did. What I did have was a goddam pain that shot up my arm and down my side.
Black saw me wince. “Still hurts?” he said.
“Only smarts when I do the high hurdles.”
He took a deep drag on his cigarette and studied the lit end with real concentration. Then he let out the smoke very slowly. I’d never seen anybody enjoy a cigarette so much.
“What about Chisolm’s wife?” he asked. “She looks like a bitch with a killer instinct.”
I nodded. I had to agree with him. “She sure does, doesn’t she? I haven’t given up sniffing around her.”
He gave off a long sigh. I looked at him real close. What a sorry sight the pair of us made. There we were, a worn-out cop about to be pensioned off and a smart ass ex-marine with a gimpy arm. Two seasoned pros and we couldn’t get to first base.
“I don’t know who killed her, Gene. I wish I did because I’d like to end his miserable life.”
“Now, now…I’m a lawman. You can’t say that kind of shit in front of me. I might get offended.” He took a long swallow of beer and cleared his throat with a hoarse cough that sounded like he was about to puke up the contents of his stomach.
“What about her boss, Stallings?” he asked.
“What about him?”
“She didn’t like him.”
“Big deal. You like your boss?”
He grunted and spread his hands. Then he leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. “Well, who else is there?”
“Only a couple of hundred other suspects.” It was getting late and I wanted to call Rachel. I got up from the chair. “We’re out of beer, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he rose reluctantly. “I get the hint. You don’t have to be so blunt. I can understand subtlety.”
“Yeah. Like a two-by-four over the head.” I gave him a smile and a half-salute. “Carry on, regardless.”
He turned serious when he reached the door. “I wanna close this case. You get something, you give it to me, right?”
“I want to close this case more than you do. Make book on it.”
I shut the door behind him.
Rachel was sleeping when I called her. She was also on something because I couldn’t get her to form coherent sentences. She kept muttering something like, “My shrink is dead. He left me behind. He left me all alone…”
“Listen,” I said finally. “I’m coming over. Tell the doorman to let me up and leave your front door open. You got that?”
I had to repeat it three times before she gave me an acknowledgment.
I was at her building inside of fifteen minutes. The doorman nodded when I told him my name and sent me up the elevator with a small wave of his hand.
Her front door was half open. I shoved it the rest of the way and walked in. The place looked like Hue after the Tet offensive. Clothing was all over the floor and the place looked like an unholy mess. I walked back down the long hallway to what I assumed was her bedroom. The door was closed.
I opened it slowly and saw Rachel’s form on the bed in the dim light from the hallway. Her nightgown was way up around her chest. She wasn’t wearing anything else. One arm was flung up on the pillow and the other hung over the side. The shaft of light behind me slanted across her face.
She didn’t move. The only way I could tell she was alive was the slow rise and fall of her belly.
Then she opened one eye and smiled. “Hello, long-lost stranger,” she whispered.
“What happened to Pasternak?”
She shook her head in slow motion from side to side. As she did it, her face disappeared into darkness and then came back into the light. It was like watching an old time silhouette lantern show.
“I don’t know,” she moaned. Then she said it again.
“You said he was dead.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“How did he die?”
“He’s dead, you know, and he left me stranded without a shrink.”
I could think of worse things. Like running out of cold beer on a hot summer day. I stepped over to the bed and shook her shoulders. “What the hell did you take?” There was no smell of alcohol on her breath.
She didn’t answer. I slapped her a couple of times.
She blinked and tried to sit up but she didn’t make it. Then she mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I sat on the edge of the bed and propped her up against the headboard. Her nightgown fell to her waist.
“What did you take?”
She opened her eyes and gave me a glassy stare. “Some pills…I think…”