Television sets going behind every door. The afternoon soaps. A generation of immigrants learning all about America from its daytime serials.
Apartment 44, Archibald had told him.
He kept climbing.
The tile on the fourth-floor landing had been ripped up and replaced with a tin floor. Kling wondered why. The staircase wound up for another flight, dead-ending at a metal door painted red and leading to the roof. Four apartments here on the fourth floor. Forty-one, two, three, and four, count 'em. No light here on the landing. He could barely make out the numeral forty-four on the door at the far end of the hall. Not a sound coming from behind that door. He stood in the near-darkness, listening. And then, because he was a cop, he put his ear to the wood and listened more intently.
Nothing.
He looked at his watch. Squinted in the gloom. Ten minutes past three. He'd told Archibald he'd be here at three.
He knocked.
And the shots came.
He threw himself instinctively to the floor.
His gun was already in his hand.
There were two bullet holes in the door.
He waited. He was breathing very hard. The only sound in the hallway. His breathing. Harsh, ragged. Those two holes in the door right at about the level of where his head had been. His heart was pounding, He waited. His mind raced with possibilities. He'd been set up. Come talk to my wife, mon, she bought herself a .22-caliber pistol, and she has threatened to shoot me with it. Come help me, mon. A woman named Gloria told me about you. You did a burglary for her. A fat lady. Set the cop up because he's been talking to a man who knows that a huge shipment of cocaine will be coming into the city nine days from now. Kill the cop here in Kingston Heights where life is cheap and where those holes in the door did not look as if they'd been drilled by a mere-
Bam, bam, bam, three more shots in rapid succession and more wood splintering out of the door, showering onto the air like shrapnel.
And Archibald's voice.
'You crazy, woman?'
Kling was on his feet.
He kicked at the door where the lock was fastened, followed the door into the room as it sprang open, gun fanning the room, eyes following the gun, eyes swinging with the gun to where a skinny woman the color of whole-wheat bread stood near the kitchen sink opposite the door. She was wearing only a pink slip. A substantial-looking piece was in her right hand, a thirty-eight at least, the hand sagging with the weight of it, and Dudley Archibald over there on Kling's left, five shots gone now, Archibald balancing on his feet like a boxer trying to decide which way to duck when the next punch came.
Kling wished he knew how many bullets were in that gun, but he didn't.
There were thirty-eights with five-shot capacities.
There were also thirty-eights with nine-shot capacities.
'Hey, Imogene,' he said softly.
The woman turned toward him. Gray-green eyes. Slitted. The big gun sinking in her tiny fist. The big gun shaking but pointed at his chest.
'Why don't you put down the gun?' he said.
'Kill the bastard,' she said.
'No, you don't want to do that,' Kling said. 'Come on. Let me have the gun, okay?'
Jesus, don't shoot me, he thought.
'I told you,' Archibald said.
'Just stay out of this,' Kling said. He did not turn to look at him. His eyes were on Imogene. His eyes were on her eyes.
'Put down the gun, okay?' he said.
'No.'
'Why not? You don't want to get yourself in trouble, do you?'
'I'm in trouble already,' she said.
'Nah, what trouble?' Kling said. 'Little family argument? Come on, don't make things worse than they are. Just let me have the gun, nobody's going to hurt you, okay?'
He was telling the truth.
But he was also lying.
He did not plan on hurting her. Not physically. Not he himself.
But neither he nor the police department were about to forget a lady with a gun. And the criminal justice system would hurt her. As sure as he was standing there trying to talk her out of firing that gun again.
'What do you say, Imogene?'
'Who tole you my name?'
'He did. Put the gun there on the table, okay? Come on, you're gonna hurt yourself with that thing.'
'I'm gonna hurt him,' she said, and swung the gun from Kling toward her husband.
'Hey, no!' Kling said at once.
The gun swung back again.
One of us is gonna get it, he thought.
'You're scaring hell out of me,' he said.
She looked at him.
'You really are. Are you gonna shoot me?'
'I'm gonna shoot him!' she said, and again the gun swung onto her husband.
'And then what? I'm a police officer, Imogene. If you shoot this man, I can't just let you walk out of this apartment. So you'll have to shoot me, too, am I right? Is that what you want to do? Shoot me?'
'No, but . . .'
'Then come on, let's quit this, okay? Just give me the gun, and . . .'
'No!'
She shouted the word.
It cracked into the apartment like another pistol shot. Archibald winced. So did Kling. He had the sudden feeling that his watch had stopped. The gun was pointed at him again. He was drenched in sweat. Nineteen degrees out there, he was covered with sweat.
He did not want to shoot this woman.
But if she turned that gun toward her husband again, he would make his move.
Please don't let me shoot you, he thought.
'Imogene,' he said, very softly.
The gun was trained on his chest. The gray-green eyes watching.
'Please don't let me hurt you,' he said.
Watching.
'Please put the gun down on the table.'
Watching, watching.
'Please, Imogene.'
He waited for what seemed forever.
First she nodded.
He waited.
She kept nodding.
Then she walked to the table, and looked down at the table top, and looked at the gun in her hand as if first discovering it, and then she nodded again, and looked at Kling, and put the gun on the table. He walked to the table slowly, picked up the gun, slipped it into his coat pocket, and said, 'Thank you.'
He was putting the handcuffs on her when Archibald, safe now, shouted, 'Bitch!'
* * * *
Kling made the phone call from the super's apartment downstairs.
People had gathered in the hallway. They all knew there'd been shooting on the fourth floor. Some of them seemed disappointed that no one had been killed. In a neighborhood where violence was commonplace, a shooting without a corpse was like scrambled eggs without onions. It would have been nice, in fact, if the cop had been killed. Not many people in this neighborhood liked cops. Some of the people in the hallway began jeering Kling as he led Imogene out.