indeed carved in stone, just above the front door.
Outside, I stood on the sidewalk and found what ought to be 3-A’s front window. There was a light on inside, but even if itwas the right apartment it didn’t necessarily prove anything. I returned to the vestibule and buzzed him, and I’d given up and started for the door when the intercom cleared its mechanical throat. I stayed put, and whatever somebody said in 3-A was completely garbled by the time it worked its way downstairs. I couldn’t make out a word of it.
I answered in kind, making some noises that weren’t designed to be understood, and there was a long silence. Then, with what I could only assume was some reluctance, he buzzed me in.
I guess the neighborhood hadn’t changed too much, because I picked up the scent of mice and cabbage in the stairwell. Three-A was where I’d thought it would be, and I approached the door quietly and was standing well to the side when I knocked. I didn’t really expect him to shoot through the door, but Jack probably hadn’t expected to catch two bullets in the head either.
I heard footsteps not much louder than my own, and the sound of a peephole being drawn back. A judas, they sometimes call it, though I’ve never known why. Betrayal? Thirty pieces of silver?
I was standing where I couldn’t be shot, and hence couldn’t be seen either. I had my wallet out, open to an old card proclaiming my membership in the Fraternal Order of Police. Its only use, as far as I know, is to induce an impressionable officer to cut an errant motorist some slack. I said my name, Matthew Scudder, and held the card to the peephole. “Like to talk to you about Jack Ellery,” I said, and I had my wallet back in my pocket well before he’d managed to get the door open.
He was tall, six-two or six-three, big in the shoulders, small in the waist and hips. He had a rough-hewn face, but the big brown eyes could have belonged to Bambi; he looked not so much like a knockaround guy as like an actor who kept getting cast in that kind of role. He was holding the door with his left hand, and alook at his elaborately bandaged right hand explained why it had taken him so long to open it.
He looked at once frightened and relieved, and that fit his opening words: “I’ve been expecting you.”
But how? I hadn’t left a message. I said something to that effect, and he said, “Well, you or someone like you. A police officer.”
He waited for me to say something, and I didn’t, and he said, “Ever since I heard about Jack.”
I looked at him, his face, his bandaged hand, and I got it. I said, “You’re the guy who beat him up.”
XIII
B EFORE HE COULD tell me any more, I undid the work of the FOP card I’d flashed at him. I’d never said I was a cop, and there were times when I was willing to let someone retain that impression, but we were past the point where I felt comfortable sailing under the blue flag. I told him I was a former police officer now working privately, that I’d known Jack Ellery when we were boys together in the Bronx. “So you’re under no obligation to talk to me,” I said.
That last would have been just as true if I’d been the commissioner himself. And it was safe to say, because I could tell he was ready to talk. Eager, even.
First, though, he wanted me to come in and make myself comfortable. His apartment was the
before
version of Greg Stillman’s place in Carnegie Hill—before the exterior wall was taken down to the bare brick, before the floor was stripped and sanded and refinished, before the three small rooms were combined into one. Insteadthey remained coupled together like railroad cars. The door led into the little kitchen, with the living room at one end overlooking East Seventeenth Street, and the bedroom at the other. The furniture could have been gathered from thrift shops and the street, but the mismatched pieces didn’t clash enough to be labeled eclectic.
He took me to the living room
Outside, I stood on the sidewalk and found what ought to be 3-A’s front window. There was a light on inside, but even if itwas the right apartment it didn’t necessarily prove anything. I returned to the vestibule and buzzed him, and I’d given up and started for the door when the intercom cleared its mechanical throat. I stayed put, and whatever somebody said in 3-A was completely garbled by the time it worked its way downstairs. I couldn’t make out a word of it.
I answered in kind, making some noises that weren’t designed to be understood, and there was a long silence. Then, with what I could only assume was some reluctance, he buzzed me in.
I guess the neighborhood hadn’t changed too much, because I picked up the scent of mice and cabbage in the stairwell. Three-A was where I’d thought it would be, and I approached the door quietly and was standing well to the side when I knocked. I didn’t really expect him to shoot through the door, but Jack probably hadn’t expected to catch two bullets in the head either.
I heard footsteps not much louder than my own, and the sound of a peephole being drawn back. A judas, they sometimes call it, though I’ve never known why. Betrayal? Thirty pieces of silver?
I was standing where I couldn’t be shot, and hence couldn’t be seen either. I had my wallet out, open to an old card proclaiming my membership in the Fraternal Order of Police. Its only use, as far as I know, is to induce an impressionable officer to cut an errant motorist some slack. I said my name, Matthew Scudder, and held the card to the peephole. “Like to talk to you about Jack Ellery,” I said, and I had my wallet back in my pocket well before he’d managed to get the door open.
He was tall, six-two or six-three, big in the shoulders, small in the waist and hips. He had a rough-hewn face, but the big brown eyes could have belonged to Bambi; he looked not so much like a knockaround guy as like an actor who kept getting cast in that kind of role. He was holding the door with his left hand, and alook at his elaborately bandaged right hand explained why it had taken him so long to open it.
He looked at once frightened and relieved, and that fit his opening words: “I’ve been expecting you.”
But how? I hadn’t left a message. I said something to that effect, and he said, “Well, you or someone like you. A police officer.”
He waited for me to say something, and I didn’t, and he said, “Ever since I heard about Jack.”
I looked at him, his face, his bandaged hand, and I got it. I said, “You’re the guy who beat him up.”
XIII
B EFORE HE COULD tell me any more, I undid the work of the FOP card I’d flashed at him. I’d never said I was a cop, and there were times when I was willing to let someone retain that impression, but we were past the point where I felt comfortable sailing under the blue flag. I told him I was a former police officer now working privately, that I’d known Jack Ellery when we were boys together in the Bronx. “So you’re under no obligation to talk to me,” I said.
That last would have been just as true if I’d been the commissioner himself. And it was safe to say, because I could tell he was ready to talk. Eager, even.
First, though, he wanted me to come in and make myself comfortable. His apartment was the
before
version of Greg Stillman’s place in Carnegie Hill—before the exterior wall was taken down to the bare brick, before the floor was stripped and sanded and refinished, before the three small rooms were combined into one. Insteadthey remained coupled together like railroad cars. The door led into the little kitchen, with the living room at one end overlooking East Seventeenth Street, and the bedroom at the other. The furniture could have been gathered from thrift shops and the street, but the mismatched pieces didn’t clash enough to be labeled eclectic.
He took me to the living room
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