Casetta cleared his throat, and glanced at the woman again, and scuffed his feet on the floor. Finally, he said, “Well, all right. But don’t tell them you got it from me, huh?”
“Gold’s landlady identified you,” Levine told him. “She could have identified the other two.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s right. So it’s Jake Mosca — that’s like Moscow, only with an ‘a’ — and Barney Feldman. Okay?”
Levine copied the names down. “You know where they live?”
“Naw, not me.”
“We’ll leave that a blank, then. When was the last game?”
“At Morry’s? That was on Saturday. Right, baby?”
The woman nodded. “Saturday,” she said.
“Did Gold act nervous or depressed Saturday?”
“You mean, did he know he was gonna get it? Not a bit. Calm like always, you know?”
“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”
“Not me. I know Morry from when we used to live in the same neighborhood, that’s all. His business is his business.”
“You wouldn’t know who his enemies were.”
“That’s right. If Morry had enemies, he never said nothing to me.”
“What about other friends?”
“Friends?” Casetta rubbed his nose again, then said, “We didn’t see each other that much since we moved away. Just for the games. Uh, wait a second. There was another guy came in the game for a while, Arnie something. A fish, a real fish. So after a while he quit.”
“You don’t remember his last name?”
Casetta shook his head. “Just Arnie something. Maybe Jake or Barney knows.”
“All right. Do you know Gold’s brother, Abner?”
“Naw, I never met him. Morry talked about him sometimes. They didn’t get along.”
Levine got to his feet. “Thank you very much,” he said.
“Yeah, sure. Morry was okay.”
“Oh, one thing more. What about women? Did he have any woman friends that you know about?”
“I never seen him with a woman,” Casetta said.
“Saturday at the game, did he seem to have an unusual amount of money on him? Or did he seem very broke? How did he seem to be fixed?”
“Like always. Nothing special, pretty well heeled but nothing spectacular, you know?” Casetta looked around, at the woman, at the apartment. “Like me,” he said.
Elly Kapp’s last known address was in Gravesend, off Avenue X, and since Kapp had once been caught turning stolen goods over to Morry Gold it occurred to Levine that the man might know whom Gold had been dealing with lately. He might even be still selling to Gold himself.
There was no Kapp listed among the mailboxes at the address. Levine pressed the bell-button beneath the metal plate reading Superintendent, and several minutes later a slow-rolling fat woman with receding gray hair appeared in the doorway, holding the door open a scant three inches. She said nothing, only stared mistrustfully, so Levine dragged out his wallet and showed his identification.
“I’m looking for Elly Kapp,” he said.
“Don’t live here no more.”
“Where does he live now?”
“I don’t know.” She started to close the door, but Levine held it open with the palm of his hand. “When did he move?” he demanded.
The woman shrugged. “Who remembers?” Her eyes were dull, and watched his mouth rather than his eyes. “Who cares where he went, or what he’s done?”
Levine moved his hand away, and allowed the woman to close the door. He watched through the glass as she turned and rolled slowly back across the inner vestibule. Her ankles were swollen like sausages. When she disappeared in the gloom just beyond Levine turned away and went back down the stoop to the Chevy.
He drove slowly back to the precinct. Indifference breathed in the air all around him, sullen and surly. No man is important, the streets seemed to be saying. Man is only useful as long as he breathes. Once the breathing stops, he is forgotten. Time stretches away beyond him, smooth and slick and with no handholds. The man is dead, and almost as swiftly as a dropped heartbeat, the space which he occupied yawns emptily and there is nothing left of him but a name.
At times, another man is paid to remember the name long enough to carve it on stone, and the stone is set in the earth, and immediately it begins to sink. But the man is gone long since. What does it matter if he stopped a second ago or a century ago or a millenium ago? He stopped, he is no more, he is forgotten. Who cares?
Levine saw the red light just in time, and jammed on the brakes. He sat hunched over the wheel, unnerved at having almost run the light, and strove to calm himself. His breathing was labored, as though he’d been running, and he knew that the beating of his heart was erratic and heavy. He inhaled, very slowly, and let his breath out even more slowly while he waited for the light to change.
The instant it became green he drove on across the intersection. He was calmer now. The death of Morry Gold had affected him too much, and he told himself he had to snap out of it. He knew, after all, the reason he was so affected. It was because Morry Gold’s death had been greeted by such universal indifference.
Almost always, the victim of a homicide is survived by relatives and friends who are passionately concerned with his end, and make a nuisance of themselves by badgering the police for quick results. With such rallying, the dead man doesn’t seem quite so forlorn, quite so totally alone and forgotten.
In the interrogation room down the hall from the squadroom, Stettin and Andrews and Campbell were questioning Abner Gold. Levine stuck his head in, nodded at Stettin, avoided looking at Gold, and immediately shut the door again. He turned away and walked slowly back down the hall toward the squadroom. He heard the door behind him open and close, and then Stettin, in long easy strides, had come up even with him.
Stettin shook his head. “Nothing, Abe,” he said.
“No explanation?”
“Not from him. He won’t say a word any more. Not until he calls a lawyer.”
Levine shook his head tiredly. He knew the type. Abner Gold’s one lone virtue would be patience. He would sit in silence, and wait, and wait until eventually the detectives found his stubborn silence intolerable, and then he knew he would be allowed to go home.
“I have an explanation,” Stettin said. “He’s afraid of an investigation. He’s afraid if we dig too deep we’ll come up with proof he worked with his brother.”
“Maybe,” said Levine. “Or maybe he’s afraid we’ll come up with proof he killed his brother.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. For cheating him on some kind of deal. For blackmailing him. Your guess is as good as mine.”
Stettin shrugged. “We can keep asking,” he said. “But he can keep right on not answering until we can no longer stand the sight of him.”
Levine glanced at his watch. Quarter to one. He’d stopped off for lunch on the way back. He said, “I’ll go talk to him for a while.”
“That’s up to you.”
The way he said it, Levine was reminded that Stettin didn’t want to break his hump over this one. Levine walked over to his desk and sat down and said, “I got two more names. From Casetta. Jake Mosca and Barney Feldman. No addresses. See what you can dig up on them, will you? And go talk to them.”
“Sure. How was Casetta?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Gold cheated him at poker. Maybe Gold was playing around with his wife. He didn’t act nervous or worried.” Levine rubbed a hand wearily across his face. “I’ll go talk to Gold now,” he said. “Did we get the M.E.’s report?”
“It’s right there on your desk.”
Levine didn’t open it. He didn’t want to read about Morry Gold’s corpse. He said, “What kind of gun?”