Other men stood here and there on the sidewalk, some uniformed and some in plainclothes, most of them looking up at the man on the ledge. None of them stood inside a large white circle drawn in chalk on the pavement. It was a wide sidewalk here, in front of the bank, and the circle was almost the full width of it.
No one stood inside that circle because it marked the probable area where the man would land, if and when he fell or jumped from the ledge. And no one wanted to be underneath.
Crawley came around the Chevvy, patting the fenders with a large calloused hand. He stopped next to Levine and looked up. “The phony,” he growled, and Levine heard outrage in the tone. Crawley was an honest man, in simple terms of black and white. He hated dishonesty, in all its forms, from grand larceny to raucous television commercials. And a faked suicide attempt was dishonesty.
The two of them walked toward the building entrance. Crawley walked disdainfully through the precise center of the large chalked circle, not even bothering to look up. Levine walked around the outer edge.
Then the two of them went inside and took the elevator to the sixth floor.
The letters on the frosted-glass door read: “Anderson & Cartwright, Industrial Research Associates, Inc.”
Crawley tapped on the glass. “Which one do you bet?” he asked. “Anderson or Cartwright?”
“It might be an employee.”
Crawley shook his head. “Odds are against it. I take Anderson.”
“Go in,” said Levine gently. “Go on in.”
Crawley pushed the door open and strode in, Levine behind him. It was the receptionist’s office, cream-green walls and carpet, modernistic metal desk, modernistic metal and leather sofa and armchairs, modernistic saucer-shaped light fixtures hanging from bronzed chains attached to the ceiling.
Three women sat nervously, wide-eyed, off to the right, on the metal and leather armchairs. Above their heads were framed photographs of factory buildings, most of them in color, a few in black and white.
A uniformed patrolman was leaning against the receptionist’s desk, arms folded across his chest, a relaxed expression on his face. He straightened up immediately when he saw Crawley and Levine. Levine recognized him as McCann, a patrolman working out of the same precinct.
“Am I glad to see you guys,” said McCann. “Gundy’s in talking to the guy now.”
“Which one is it,” Crawley asked, “Anderson or Cartwright?”
“Cartwright. Jason Cartwright. He’s one of the bosses here.”
Crawley turned a sour grin on Levine. “You win,” he said, and led the way across the receptionist’s office to the door marked: “Jason Cartwright PRIVATE.”
There were two men in the room. One was sitting on the window ledge, looking out and to his left, talking in a soft voice. The other, standing a pace or two away from the window, was the patrolman, Gundy. He and McCann would be the two from the prowl car, the first ones on the scene.
At their entrance, Gundy looked around and then came over to talk with them. He and McCann were cut from the same mold. Both young, tall, slender, thin-cheeked, ready to grin at a second’s notice. The older a man gets, Levine thought, the longer it takes him to get a grin organized.
Gundy wasn’t grinning now. He looked very solemn, and a little scared. Levine realized with shock that this might be Gundy’s first brush with death. He didn’t look as though he could have been out of the Academy very long.
I have news for you, Gundy, he thought. You don’t get used to it.
Crawley said, “What’s the story?”
“I’m not sure,” said Gundy. “He went out there about twenty minutes ago. That’s his son talking to him. Son’s a lawyer, got an office right in this building.”
“What’s the guy out there want?”
Gundy shook his head. “He won’t say. He just stands out there. He won’t say a word, except to shout that he’s going to jump whenever anybody tries to get too close to him.”
“A coy one,” said Crawley, disgusted.
The phone shrilled, and Gundy stepped quickly over to the desk, picking up the receiver before the second ring. He spoke softly into the instrument, then looked over at the man by the window. “Your mother again,” he said.
The man at the window spoke a few more words to the man on the ledge, then came over and took the phone from Gundy. Gundy immediately took his place at the window, and Levine could hear his first words plainly. “Just take it easy, now. Relax. But maybe you shouldn’t close your eyes.”
Levine looked at the son, now talking on the phone. A young man, not more than twenty-five or six. Blond crewcut, hornrim glasses, good mouth, strong jawline. Dressed in Madison Avenue conservative. Just barely out of law school, from the look of him.
Levine studied the office. It was a large room, eighteen to twenty feet square, as traditional as the outer office was contemporary. The desk was a massive piece of furniture, a dark warm wood, the legs and drawer faces carefully and intricately carved. Glass-faced bookshelves lined one complete wall. The carpet was a neutral gray, wall-to-wall. There were two sofas, brown leather, long and deep and comfortable-looking. Bronze ashtray stands. More framed photographs of plant buildings.
The son was saying, “Yes, mother. I’ve been talking to him, mother. I don’t know, mother.”
Levine walked over, said to the son, “May I speak to her for a minute, please?”
“Of course. Mother, there’s a policeman here who wants to talk to you.”
Levine accepted the phone, said, “Mrs. Cartwright?”
The voice that answered was high-pitched, and Levine could readily imagine it becoming shrill. The voice said, “Why is he out there? Why is he doing that?”
“We don’t know yet,” Levine told her. “We were hoping you might be able to—”
“Me?” The voice was suddenly a bit closer to being shrill. “I still can’t really believe this. I don’t know why he’d — I have no idea. What does he say?”
“He hasn’t told us why yet,” said Levine. “Where are you now, Mrs. Cartwright?”
“At home, of course.”
“That’s where?”
“New Brunswick.”
“Do you have a car there? Could you drive here now?”
“There? To New York?”
“It might help, Mrs. Cartwright, if he could see you, if you could talk to him.”
“But — it would take hours to get there! Surely, it would be — that is, before I got there, you’d have him safe already, wouldn’t you?”
She hopes he jumps, thought Levine, with sudden certainty. By God, she hopes he jumps!
“Well, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said wearily. “I suppose you’re right. Here’s your son again.”
He extended the receiver to the son, who took it, cupped the mouthpiece with one hand, said worriedly, “Don’t misunderstand her. Please, she isn’t as cold as she might sound. She loves my father, she really does.”
“All right,” said Levine. He turned away from the pleading in the son’s eyes, said to Crawley, “Let’s talk with him a bit.”
“Right,” said Crawley.
There were two windows in the office, about ten feet apart, and Jason Cartwright was standing directly between them on the ledge. Crawley went to the left-hand window and Levine to the right-hand window, where the patrolman Gundy was still trying to chat with the man on the ledge, trying to keep him distracted from the height and his desire to jump. “We’ll take over,” Levine said softly, and Gundy nodded gratefully and backed away from the window.