Justice was a slippery notion, as Frank had discovered since coming to this land, not as clear-cut and unequivocal as it seemed in Britain. Sometimes, the Africans did it better. “Free? I think not.”
He had known native tribesmen who had decided to die, and did so. Through shame or dishonour, loss of face. Had the knowledge that she had accidentally shot the husband she had in some curious way loved worked upon Kitty Rampling so that she had lost the will to live? Maybe that was too fanciful, but he could not forget his meeting with her three months ago — that hectic flush on her cheekbones, the cough, the feverish brightness of her eyes. The loss of spirit, the fun of playing dangerous games at last over for her. “She was ill, very ill, Edward. She knew that she had not long to live.”
“What? Kitty?” Carradine sat in stunned disbelief, his complexion becoming, if possible, even paler than before. Then he leaped up, all that he had suffered on her account instantly forgiven. “I must go to her!”
Frank placed a hand on his arm. “Too late, my friend, too late. She died this morning.”
With a groan, Carradine sank back, covering his eyes with his hand.
Frank had obtained her written confession, on his promise that he would wait until after her death before handing it over. He had immediately done so that morning, after hearing the news that she had died. His action in retaining the gun had not been viewed very gravely by the chief of police — who had, after all, himself known and been entranced by Mrs. Rampling — it had been humanely prompted, he thought, and in any case, without her admission, her guilt or otherwise would have been difficult to establish. The authorities would have been bound to release Carradine after a time, and it was his opinion that the spell in gaol cooling his heels had done the hot-headed young fellow no harm at all, rubbed a few corners off, in fact.
The shelling had stopped. There would be no more that night. People were emerging from shelter, and a growing noise and confusion travelled across the night, from perhaps a mile away. Carradine raised himself, and the two men walked out of the garden and stood looking out across the darkness, lit by flames soaring skywards. Not a house remained standing in the street where Kitty Rampling had lived. A pall of smoke rose like a funeral pyre over the area of flattened buildings. A Red Cross ambulance could be distinguished standing by.
Mafeking’s siege was nearing its end. Victory or capitulation, one of them must come soon. Its story was played out.
“Come,” said Carradine, beginning to walk rapidly down the road, “let us see what we can do to help.”
Let’s Get Lost
by Lawrence Block
The novels and stories in Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series include some of the master crime writer’s test work. In this new entry in the series, Mr. Block takes us way back in time, as Scudder reflects on an incident that occurred when he was still a New York cop. Readers hungry for a new Block novel will find a second hook about Keller — “the urban lonely guy of assassins,” as his creator sees him — in bookstores in October (see Hit List; William Morrow).
When the phone call came I was parked in front of the television set in the front room, nursing a glass of bourbon and watching the Yankees. It’s funny what you remember and what you don’t. I remember that Thurman Munson had just hit a long foul that missed being a home run by no more than a foot, but I don’t remember who they were playing, or even what kind of a season they had that year.
I remember that the bourbon was J. W. Dant, and that I was drinking it on the rocks, but of course I would remember that. I always remembered what I was drinking, though I didn’t always remember why.
The boys had stayed up to watch the opening innings with me, but tomorrow was a school day, and Anita took them upstairs and tucked them in while I freshened my drink and sat down again. The ice was mostly melted by the time Munson hit his long foul, and I was still shaking my head at that when the phone rang. I let it ring, and Anita answered it and came in to tell me it was for me. Somebody’s secretary, she said.
I picked up the phone, and a woman’s voice, crisply professional, said, “Mr. Scudder, I’m calling for Mr. Alan Herdig of Herdig and Crowell.”
“I see,” I said, and listened while she elaborated, and estimated just how much time it would take me to get to their offices. I hung up and made a face.
“You have to go in?”
I nodded. “It’s about time we had a break in this one,” I said. “I don’t expect to get much sleep tonight, and I’ve got a court appearance tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll get you a clean shirt. Sit down. You’ve got time to finish your drink, don’t you?”
I always had time for that.
Years ago, this was. Nixon was president, a couple of years into his first term. I was a detective with the NYPD, attached to the sixth precinct in Greenwich Village. I had a house on Long Island with two cars in the garage, a Ford wagon for Anita and a beat-up Plymouth Valiant for me.
Traffic was light on the LIE, and I didn’t pay much attention to the speed limit. I didn’t know many cops who did. Nobody ever ticketed a brother officer. I made good time, and it must have been somewhere around a quarter to ten when I left the car at a bus stop on First Avenue. I had a card on the dashboard that would keep me safe from tickets and tow trucks.
The best thing about enforcing the laws is that you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to them yourself.
Her doorman rang upstairs to announce me, and she met me at the door with a drink. I don’t remember what she was wearing, but I’m sure she looked good in it. She always did.
She said, “I would never call you at home. But it’s business.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Maybe both. I got a call from a client. A Madison Avenue guy, maybe an agency vice president. Suits from Tripler’s, season tickets for the Rangers, house in Connecticut.”
“And?”
“And didn’t I say something about knowing a cop? Because he and some friends were having a friendly card game and something happened to one of them.”
“Something happened? Something happens to a friend of yours, you take him to a hospital. Or was it too late for that?”
“He didn’t say, but that’s what I heard. It sounds to me as though somebody had an accident and they need somebody to make it disappear.”
“And you thought of me.”
“Well,” she said.
She’d thought of me before, in a similar connection. Another client of hers, a Wall Street warrior, had had a heart attack in her bed one afternoon. Most men will tell you that’s how they want to go, and perhaps it’s as good a way as any, but it’s not all that convenient for the people who have to clean up after them, especially when the bed in question belongs to some working girl.
When the equivalent happens in the heroin trade, it’s good PR. One junkie checks out with an overdose and the first thing all his buddies want to know is where did he get the stuff and how can they cop some themselves. Because, hey, it must be good, right? A hooker, on the other hand, has less to gain from being listed as cause of death. And I suppose she felt a professional responsibility, if you want to call it that, to spare the guy and his family embarrassment. So I made him disappear, and left him fully dressed in an alley down in the financial district. I called it in anonymously and went back to her apartment to claim my reward.
“I’ve got the address,” she said now. “Do you want to have a look? Or should I tell them I couldn’t reach you?”
I kissed her, and we clung to each other for a long moment. When I came up for air I said, “It’d be a lie.”