“Thanks,” Kling said.
He waited until Watkins went back into his own ground-floor apartment, and then he started up the iron-runged steps. On the first Moor, a stereo was blaring rock and roll music behind Lucas’s closed door. On the second floor, he heard nothing as he passed the door to the apartment shared by the two women. He walked past the studio belonging to Peter Lang, the photographer on the third floor, and then look the steps up to the fourth floor. The light was still out in the hallway there. He picked his way through the dark again, and went up the stairs to the fifth floor.
His heart was pounding.
He stood outside the door to apartment 51 and listened.
Not a sound.
He took his gun from his shoulder holster. Holding it in his right hand, he backed away from the door, and then leveled a kick at the lock. The door sprang open, wood splinters flying. He moved into the room swiftly, slightly crouched, the gun fanning the air ahead of him, light filtering into the room from under a door at the end of the hall, to his left. He was moving toward the crack of light when the door flew open and Bradford Douglas came into the hall.
He was naked, and holding a baseball bat in his right hand. He stood silhouetted in the lighted rectangle of the doorway, hesitating there before taking a tentative step into the gloom beyond.
“Police,” Kling said, “hold it right there!”
“Wh—?”
“Don’t move!” Kling said.
“What the hell? Who…?”
Kling moved forward into the light spilling from the bedroom. Douglas recognized him at once, and the fear he’d earlier felt — when he’d thought a burglar had broken in — was replaced by immediate indignation. And then he saw the gun in Kling’s hand, and a new fear washed over him, struggling with the indignation. The indignation triumphed. “What the hell do you mean, breaking down my door?” he shouted.
“I’ve got a warrant,” Kling said. “Who’s in that bedroom with you?”
“None of your business,” Douglas said. He was still holding the bat in his right hand. “What warrant? What the hell is this?”
“Here,” Kling said, and reached into his pocket. “Put down that bat.”
Without turning, Douglas tossed the bat back into the bedroom. Kling waited while he read the warrant. The bedroom fronted Hopper Street, and there were no fire escapes on that side of the building. Unless Augusta decided to jump all the way down to the street below, there was no hurry. He looked past Douglas, into the bedroom. He could not see the bed from where he was standing, only a dresser, an easy chair, a floor lamp.
“Attempted murder?” Douglas said, reading from the warrant. “What attempted murder?” He kept reading. “I don’t have this gun you describe, I don’t have any gun. Who the hell said I—?”
“I haven’t got all night here,” Kling said, and held out his left hand. “The warrant gives me the right to search both you and the apartment. It’s signed by—”
“No, just wait a goddamn minute,” Douglas said, and kept reading. “Where’d you get this information? Who told you I’ve got this gun?”
“Thai doesn’t matter, Mr. Douglas. Are you finished with that?”
“I still don’t—”
“Let me have it. And let’s take a look inside.”
“I’ve got somebody with me,” Douglas said.
“Who?”
“Your warrant doesn’t give you the right to—”
“We’ll worry about that later.”
“No, we’ll worry about it now,” Douglas said.
“Look, you prick,” Kling said, and brought the pistol up close to Douglas’s face, “I want to search that bedroom, do you understand?”
“Don’t get excited,” Douglas said, backing away.
“I am excited,” Kling said, “I’m very excited. Get out of my way.”
He shoved Douglas aside and moved into the bedroom. The bed was against the wall at the far end of the room. The sheets were thrown hack. The bed was empty.
“Where is she?” Kling said.
“Maybe the bathroom,” Douglas said.
“Which door?”
“I thought you were looking for a gun.”
“Which door?” Kling said tightly.
“Near the stereo there,” Douglas said.
Kling, went across the room. He tried the knob on the door there. The door was locked.
“Open up,” he said.
From behind the door, he could hear a woman weeping.
“Open up, or I’ll kick it in,” he said.
The weeping continued. He heard the small oiled click of the lock being, turned. He caught his breath and waited. The door opened.
She was not Augusta.
She was a small dark-haired girl with wet brown eyes, holding a bath towel to cover her nakedness.
“He’s got a warrant, Felice,” Douglas said behind him.
The girl kept weeping.
“Anybody else here?” Kling asked. He felt suddenly like a horse’s ass.
“Nobody,” Douglas said.
“I want to check the other rooms.”
“Go ahead.”
He went through the apartment, turning on lights ahead of him. He checked each room and every closet. There was no one else in the apartment. When he went back into the bedroom again, both Douglas and the girl had dressed. She sat on the edge of the bed, still weeping. Douglas stood beside her, trying to comfort her.
“When I was here Tuesday night, you told me you’d had a visitor the day before,” Kling said. “Who was your visitor?”
“Where does it say in your warrant…?”
“Mr. Douglas,” Kling said, “I don’t want to hear anymore bullshit about the warrant. All I want to know is who was here in this apartment between twelve-thirty and one forty-five last Monday.”
“I… I’d feel funny telling you that.”
“You’ll feel a lot funnier if I have to ask a grand jury to subpoena you,” Kling said. “Who was it?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Male or female?”
“Male.”
“What was he doing here?”
“I told him he could use the apartment.”
“What for?”
“He’s… there’s a girl he’s been seeing.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“Have you ever met her?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know what she looks like.”
“Larry says she’s gorgeous.”
“Larry?”
“My friend.”
“Larry who?” Kling said at once.
“Larry Patterson.”
Kling nodded.
“He’s married, so’s the broad,” Douglas said. “He needed a place to shack up, I’ve been lending him the pad here. I do a lot of work for him. He’s one of the creative people at—”
“Chelsea TV,” Kling said. “Thanks, Mr. Douglas, I’m sorry for the intrusion.” He looked at the weeping girl. “I’m sorry, miss,” he mumbled, and quickly left the apartment.
So now it was all over.
Face her down when she got home tonight after the “movie” she’d gone to see, tell her he knew she’d been with this man named Larry Patterson last Monday, enjoying a quick roll in the hay in a borrowed apartment, tell her he knew all about her and her little married playmate, had seen through the he about the never-scheduled television commercial outside Long General, confront her with the indisputable fact that the man she’d be accompanying to South America was this man Larry Patterson, her lover, tell her, get it over with, end it. End it.
It was almost eleven-thirty when he got back to the apartment.
He inserted his key into the lock, and then opened the door. The apartment was dark, he reached for the switch just inside the door, and turned on the lights. He was bone-weary and suddenly very hungry. He was starting toward the kitchen when he heard the sound in the bedroom.