Katie Rockwell made empty gestures. “Harry isn’t... he didn’t mean... I... eventually he’ll make an adjustment, you know, to things...”
“I’m sure he will, Mrs. Rockwell.” Curt didn’t believe it for a minute; neither did she. “I can find my own way out.”
Only when he was back outside did he realize that the apartment had smelled, with the same indefinable defeated odor which clings to the rooms in pensioners’ hotels. The smell of men spending their sedentary hours without hope of redeeming this lost portion of their lives.
Chapter 14
“No,” said Detective-Sergeant Monty Worden pleasantly.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” demanded Curt.
A dull anger grew in him as he looked into the bland gray eyes across the desk. When he had called the previous day, after his abortive visit to Harold Rockwell, he had been told that Worden was out on an investigation. Then today he had waited over an hour, dividing his attention between the very female knees visible under the blond receptionist’s desk and the facts on Paula’s suicide he would want to review, while Worden had been in conference with the lieutenant. And now...
“What good would it do to open the file for you?” continued Worden reasonably. “It is now official; since our investigation has confirmed death by suicide, we have no further interest in your wife’s death. So that’s all there is to that, Professor.”
“Isn’t there just a little more?” demanded Curt savagely. “Such as a rape, and a vicious assault on a harmless man, and—”
“Professor, at this time we have no — I repeat, no, — legally admissible evidence of a felony having been committed against your wife. As for Rockwell — oh, hell, Professor, we’ve been all through this already.”
Curt tried to keep his voice reasonable; he had to find some starting place in his search for the predators. “If the file is closed, Sergeant, then surely there’s no harm in letting me see it.”
Worden spread powerful hands, then dropped them to the desk. “We do seem not to get on, don’t we, Professor? I officially don’t give a damn what went on before, during, or after your wife’s act of suicide, because she, killed, her, self.” He slapped an open palm lightly on the desk to emphasize each syllable. “Officially, that is. But—”
“I do give a damn what went on before, during, and after.”
“Your privilege. But let’s just say that our function is to get information in this office, not give it, and leave it go at that.” He smiled nastily. “Of course, you can complain to the lieutenant...”
Curt thought about it for a moment. He couldn’t really see himself getting much satisfaction out of Lieutenant Dorsey, who was built like an oil drum and looked just about as unyielding. Curt stood up, sighing. His question was only partially sarcastic. “I suppose there’s no law against looking around on my own?”
“You mean hire a private man? It’s your money, my friend — but don’t expect this department’s cooperation.” He stood up then, too, with an odd look of distaste in his eyes. “You know, Professor, I ran your prints through Washington and Sacramento when I took ’em for elimination purposes; and you weren’t on file anywhere. Not even with the FBI. That means you’ve never served in the military...”
“You’re being obstructive because I wasn’t in the service?”
Worden didn’t bother to deny being obstructive. “It ain’t that, Professor; it’s because I got a feeling about you. I think you’ve decided you’re gonna be a hero and find these punks, and take ’em on. Teach ’em a lesson.” He jabbed a blunt forefinger at Curt’s chest. “But you ain’t even served in the Army — ain’t had even that much training in taking care of yourself. You won’t find this gang, I know that, but you go suckin’ around teen-age hangouts lookin’ for information, and you’re gonna find out that a bunch of punks swinging tire chains ain’t funny. Believe me, they ain’t.”
“Thanks for the advice, Sergeant,” Curt snarled.
He stomped belligerently up the stairs to the gym fifteen minutes later, his sustained anger at Worden thickening in his throat like phlegm. Damn him! Of course, he had made one inadvertent suggestion to Curt: that he get professional help in his search.
At the head of the stairs were four weight-lifters, joking and laughing and shoving each other, and also blocking the hallway. They were some of the “big boys” who specialized in the three Olympic competition lifts, and in such power lifts as heavy knee bends, bench presses, and deadlifts. In their street clothes they were chunky and graceless; only when they were stripped were the square, smooth blocks of muscle apparent.
“...the guy had a chest he coulda eaten lunch off of...”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Arms so big they looked like they had a heart and lungs of their own. He—”
“Could I get through, please? Could I... Look, I want by, I—”
Damn them! First Worden refused any help, now these lumbering mountains of muscle acted as if...
And just then one of them grabbed another around the middle from behind, the muscles of his arms ballooning with effort, and heaved the 250-pound man off the floor as if he were a ten-pound chair. With a great shout of laughter, he threw the other lifter right across the hall.
Right into Curt.
“Hey! Goddamn it, what are you—”
The momentarily vanquished warrior was not laughing. With a roar, he seized the nearest handy object to hurl back at the other man. This object chanced to be Curt.
But as the hamlike hands closed about his sport-jacket lapels, Curt’s mind registered choke hold and his body already was responding as it had done thousands of times during hand-to-hand combat training. Reflexes, once highly conditioned at the First S.A.S. Camp at Kabrit on the Bitter Lakes in the Egyptian Sinai, and now stimulated by weeks of grueling weight-training, responded automatically.
His locked hands drove up between the opponent’s oak-branch arms, tearing loose the iron grip on his lapels, then crashed back down at the bridge of the other’s nose. Curt’s timing was rusty enough so he smashed the lips and hit the upper plane of the chin instead, but it still brought the man’s face down within knee-lift range.
Before he could connect, an arm of awesome power locked around his throat and jerked him back. Curt snapped his left arm across to clutch cloth at his attacker’s right elbow, pulled down so his right hand could grip the other’s right shoulder. At the same time he rammed his butt back, hard, into the other’s belly, and jackknifed at the waist.
The man should have sailed over Curt’s head, but instead twisted, spun about on Curt’s back to break the hand holds, and came down on his feet facing Curt. “Halstead!” he yelled. “Cool it!”
Curt realized that it was Preston, and suddenly came back. “I’m sorry, Floyd, I... Christ, for a minute there I...”
A very large man with curly hair and a blood-smeared T-shirt was leaning against the wall with his hands over his mouth. When his eyes met Curt’s, they were filled with respect instead of anger. “Hey, man,” he mumbled, “you really did me.”
Preston chuckled. “Vanucci, you’d better put cold water on that lip before you bleed all over the floor. I just waxed Sunday.” He clapped a hand to Curt’s shoulder. “C’mon inside, tiger, take a rest.” In the office, sharing the couch with stacked cans of protein powder which Preston had been unpacking, Curt tried to apologize again.