A Stab in the Dark (16 page)

I told him he could drop me anywhere but he insisted on giving me a lift to the subway stop at Northern Boulevard. On the way we talked a little about Pinell. "You can see why they picked him up on the street,"

he said. "That craziness is right there in his eyes. One look and you see it."

"There are a lot of street crazies."

"But he's dangerous-crazy and it shows. And yet I'm never nervous in his presence. Well, I'm not a woman and he hasn't got an icepick. That might have something to do with it."

At the subway entrance I got out of the car and hesitated for a moment, and he leaned toward me, one arm over the back of the seat.

We both seemed reluctant to take leave of each other. I liked him and sensed that he held me in similar regard.

"You're not licensed," he said. "Isn't that what you said?"

"That's right."

"Couldn't you get a license?"

"I don't want one."

"Well, maybe I could throw some work your way all the same, if the right sort of thing came along."

"Why would you want to?"

"I don't know. I liked your manner with Lou. And I get the feeling with you that you think the truth is important." He chuckled. "Besides, I owe you. You spared me a half-hour in the dentist's chair."

"Well, if I ever need a lawyer-"

"Right. You know who to call."

* * *

I just missed a Manhattan-bound train. While I waited for the next one on the elevated platform I managed to find a phone in working order and tried Lynn London's number. I'd checked the hotel desk before I called Hiller, and there'd been a message from her the night before, probably wondering why I hadn't shown up. I wondered if she'd been the one who called during my shower. Whoever it was hadn't elected to leave a message. The desk man said the caller had been a woman, but I'd learned not to count too heavily on his powers of recollection.

Lynn's number didn't answer. No surprise. She was probably still in school, or on her way home. Had she mentioned any afternoon plans?

I couldn't remember.

I retrieved my dime, started to put it and my notebook away. Was there anyone else I should call? I flipped pages in my notebook, struck by how many names and numbers and addresses I'd written down, considering how little I'd managed to accomplish.

Karen Ettinger? I could ask her what she was afraid of. Hiller had just told me he sensed that I thought the truth was important. Evidently she thought it was worth hiding.

It'd be a toll call, though. And I didn't have much change.

Charles London? Frank Fitzroy? An ex-cop on the Upper West Side? His ex-wife on the Lower East Side?

Mitzi Pomerance? Jan Keane?

Probably still had the phone off the hook.

I put the notebook away, and the dime. I could have used a drink.

I'd had nothing since that one eye-opener at McGovern's. I'd eaten a late breakfast since then, had drunk several cups of coffee, but that was it.

I looked over the low wall at the rear of the platform. My eye fastened on red neon in a tavern window.

I'd just missed a train. I could have a quick one and be back in plenty of time for the next one.

I sat down on a bench and waited for my train.

I changed trains twice and wound up at Columbus Circle. The sky was darkening by the time I hit the street, turning that particular cobalt blue that it gets over New York. There were no messages waiting for me at my hotel. I called Lynn London from the lobby.

This time I reached her. "The elusive Mr. Scudder," she said. "You stood me up."

"I'm sorry."

"I waited for you yesterday afternoon. Not for long, because I didn't have too much time available. I suppose something came up, but you didn't call, either."

I remembered how I had considered keeping the appointment and how I'd decided against it. Alcohol had made the decision for me. I'd been in a warm bar and it was cold outside.

"I'd just spoken to your father," I said. "He asked me to drop the case. I figured he'd have been in touch with you to tell you not to cooperate with me."

"So you just decided to write off the Londons, is that it?" There was a trace of amusement in her voice.

"I was here waiting, as I said. Then I went out and kept my date for the evening, and when I got home my father called. To tell me he'd ordered you off the case but that you intended to persist with it all the same."

So I could have seen her. Alcohol had made the decision, and had made it badly.

"He told me not to offer you any encouragement. He said he'd made a mistake raking up the past to begin with."

"But you called me. Or was that before you spoke to him?"

"Once before and once after. The first call was because I was angry with you for standing me up. The second call was because I was angry with my father."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like being told what to do. I'm funny that way. He says you wanted a picture of Barbara. I gather he refused to give it to you. Do you still want one?"

Did I? I couldn't recall now what I'd planned to do with it. Maybe I'd make the rounds of hardware stores, showing it to everyone who sold icepicks.

"Yes," I said. "I still want one."

"Well, I can supply that much. I don't know what else I can give you. But one thing I can't give you at the moment is time. I was on my way out the door when the phone rang. I've got my coat on. I'm meeting a friend for dinner, and then I'm going to be busy this evening."

"With group therapy."

"How did you know that? Did I mention it the last time we talked?

You have a good memory."

"Sometimes."

"Just let me think. Tomorrow night's also impossible. I'd say come over tonight after therapy but by then I generally feel as though I've been through the wringer. After school tomorrow there's a faculty meeting, and by the time that's over- Look, could you come to the school?"

"Tomorrow?"

"I've got a free period from one to two. Do you know where I teach?"

"A private school in the Village, but I don't know which one."

"It's the Devonhurst School. Sounds very preppy, doesn't it?

Actually it's anything but. And it's in the East Village. Second Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh. The east side of the street closer to Eleventh than Tenth."

"I'll find it."

"I'll be in Room Forty-one. And Mr. Scudder? I wouldn't want to be stood up a second time."

I went around the corner to Armstrong's. I had a hamburger and a small salad, then some bourbon in coffee. They switch bartenders at eight, and when Billie came in a half-hour before his shift started I went over to him.

"I guess I was pretty bad last night," I said.

"Oh, you were okay," he said.

"It was a long day and night."

"You were talking a little loud," he said. "Aside from that you were your usual self. And you knew to leave here and make it an early night."

Except I hadn't made it an early night.

I went back to my table and had another bourbon and coffee. By the time I was finished with it, the last of my hangover was gone. I'd shaken off the headache fairly early on, but the feeling of being a step or two off the pace had persisted throughout the day.

Great system: The poison and the antidote come in the same bottle.

I went to the phone, dropped a dime. I almost dialed Anita's number and sat there wondering why. I didn't want to talk about a dead dog, and that was as close as we'd come to a meaningful conversation in years.

I dialed Jan's number. My notebook was in my pocket but I didn't have to get it out. The number was just right there at hand.

"It's Matthew," I said. "I wondered if you felt like company."

"Oh."

"Unless you're busy."

"No, I'm not. As a matter of fact, I'm a little under the weather. I was just settling in for a quiet evening in front of the television set."

"Well, if you'd rather be alone-"

"I didn't say that." There was a pause. "I wouldn't want to make it a late evening."

"Neither would I."

"You remember how to get here?"

"I remember."

* * *

On the way there I felt like a kid on a date. I rang her bell according to the code and stood at the curb.

She tossed me the key. I went inside and rode up in the big elevator.

She was wearing a skirt and sweater and had doeskin slippers on her feet. We stood looking at each other for a moment and then I handed her the paper bag I was carrying. She took out the two bottles, one of Teacher's Scotch, the other of the brand of Russian vodka she favored.

"The perfect hostess gift," she said. "I thought you were a bourbon drinker."

"Well, it's a funny thing. I had a clear head the other morning, and it occurred to me that Scotch might be less likely to give me a hangover."

She put the bottles down. "I wasn't going to drink tonight," she said.

"Well, it'll keep. Vodka doesn't go bad."

"Not if you don't drink it. Let me fix you something. Straight, right?"

"Right."

It was stilted at first. We'd been close to one another, we'd spent a night in bed together, but we were nevertheless stiff and awkward with each other. I started talking about the case, partly because I wanted to talk to someone about it, partly because it was what we had in common.

I told her how my client had tried to take me off the case and how I was staying with it anyway. She didn't seem to find this unusual.

Then I talked about Pinell.

"He definitely didn't kill Barbara Ettinger," I said, "and he definitely did commit the icepick murder in Sheepshead Bay. I didn't really have much doubt about either of those points but I wanted to have my own impressions to work with. And I just plain wanted to see him. I wanted some sense of the man."

"What was he like?"

"Ordinary. They're always ordinary, aren't they? Except I don't know that that's the right word for it.

The thing about Pinell is that he looked insignificant."

"I think I saw a picture of him in the paper."

"You don't get the full effect from a photograph. Pinell's the kind of person you don't notice. You see guys like him delivering lunches, taking tickets in a movie theater. Slight build, furtive manner, and a face that just won't stay in your memory."

" 'The Banality of Evil.' "

"What's that?"

She repeated the phrase. "It's the title of an essay about Adolf Eichmann."

"I don't know that Pinell's evil. He's crazy. Maybe evil's a form of insanity. Anyway, you don't need a psychiatrist's report to know he's crazy. It's right there in his eyes. Speaking of eyes, that's another thing I wanted to ask him."

"What?"

"If he stabbed them all in both eyes. He said he did. He did that right away, before he went to work turning their bodies into pincushions."

She shuddered. "Why?"

"That was the other thing I wanted to ask him. Why the eyes? It turned out he had a perfectly logical reason. He did it to avoid detection."

"I don't follow you."

"He thought a dead person's eyes would retain the last image they perceived before death. If that were the case you could obtain a picture of the murderer by scanning the victim's retina. He was just guarding against this possibility by destroying their eyes."

"Jesus."

"The funny thing is that he's not the first person to have that theory. During the last century some criminologists believed the same thing Pinell hit on. They just figured it was a matter of time before the necessary technology existed for recovering the image from the retina.

And who knows that it won't be possible someday? A doctor could give you all sorts of reasons why it'll never be physiologically possible, but look at all the things that would have seemed at least as farfetched a hundred years ago. Or even twenty years ago."

"So Pinell's just a little ahead of his time, is that it?" She got up, carried my empty glass to the bar. She filled it and poured a glass of vodka for herself. "I do believe that calls for a drink. 'Here's looking at you, kid.' That's as close as I can come to an imitation of Humphrey Bogart. I do better with clay."

She sat down and said, "I wasn't going to drink anything today.

Well, what the hell."

"I want to go fairly light myself."

She nodded, her eyes aimed at the glass in her hand. "I was glad when you called, Matthew. I didn't think you were going to."

"I tried to get you last night. I kept getting a busy signal."

"I had the phone off the hook."

"I know."

"You had them check it? I just wanted to keep the world away last night. When I'm in here with the door locked and the phone off the hook and the shades down, that's when I'm really safe. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so."

"See, I didn't wake up with a clear head Sunday morning. I got drunk Sunday night. And then I got drunk again last night."

"Oh."

"And then I got up this morning and took a pill to stop the shakes and decided I'd stay away from it for a day or two. Just to get off the roller-coaster, you know?"

"Sure."

"And here I am with a glass in my hand. Isn't that a surprise?"

"You should have said something, Jan. I wouldn't have brought the vodka."

"It's no big deal."

"I wouldn't have brought the Scotch, either. I had too much to drink last night myself. We could be together tonight without drinking."

"You really think so?"

"Of course."

Her large gray eyes looked quite bottomless. She stared sadly at me for a long moment, then brightened. "Well, it's too late to test that hypothesis right now, isn't it? Why don't we just make the best of what we have?"