Dirt

Chapter 22

Stone said good-bye to Dino on the sidewalk, declined a lift home, and walked up Second Avenue. He turned right in the low Nineties and found the building. There was nothing in particular to distinguish it from any of the other houses on the street. Most of them looked better now than they had when he was working out of the 19th; gentrification had had its way with the block.

The alley was dark, and he used a pocket flashlight that had been part of his wardrobe since his first day as a detective nearly twenty years before. There didn’t seem to be much reason for the alley – it was a dead-ender, and neither of the adjacent buildings had a door opening onto it. At the back, after the buildings ended, there was a wall on either side of the alley, affording some privacy to the gardens at the rear of the houses. Stone’s light fell on a garbage can and a wooden box.

It was a funny place for a garbage can, not near a back door, where it might be used, or the street, where it might be emptied. He turned and looked back toward the street. Half a dozen other cans rested there. Why was this one at the opposite end of the alley? Certainly, no New York City garbage collector was going to walk the few extra yards to pick it up.

Stone stepped onto the box, then onto the garbage can, and looked over the wall. Small garden, untended, dark windows at the back of the building. Could Arnie have been interested in those windows? He remembered that the old detective had used a cup microphone on one of the other two surveillances. He looked up and saw a fire escape disappearing upward into the darkness. If he stood on top of the wall and jumped, he could make the fire escape. Was Arnie contemplating that? The idea seemed preposterous for a man of his years; his even going over the wall seemed unlikely.

Stone hopped down, then remembered that the Medical Examiner had said that Arnie’s body had had an abrasion on a knee. Could he have gotten that jumping or falling from the garbage can? He played the light around once more, hoping for something that the cops had overlooked, but there was nothing.

He walked back to the front of the building and put his light on the mailboxes; none of the names sounded at all familiar. He wrote them down for future reference, then walked back down the steps to the street. He looked over the iron railing at the basement apartment; a dim light glowed behind the windows. That apartment would own the garden out back. He walked down the stairs and rang the bell, waited, then rang it again.

The door opened the length of the security chain and a young man, half in silhouette, looked back at him. Six feet, a hundred and eighty, hair on the short side, wearing only a pair of faded jeans; Stone registered all this automatically. He checked his notebook for the name. “Mr. Dryer?” he asked, flashing his badge. His ID had RETIRED stamped on it, but the badge didn’t.

“Yeah?”

“Mind if I come in? It’s about what happened here tonight.”

“I’ve already answered all the questions I’m going to,” the young man said. “What is this, anyway? It’s after eleven.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you; there are just a few more questions. I don’t have to come in; you can answer them right here.”

“Look, I’ve cooperated, answered everything you people asked me, now I’m going to get some sleep. Don’t bother me again.” He slammed the door shut.

Stone heard the lock work. He played his light around the front door, saw nothing, and walked back up to the street. He didn’t think much about Dryer’s refusal to talk to him. Lots of people didn’t like talking to cops, especially twice in one evening. Unwilling to leave yet, he walked around to the alley and looked in the garbage cans. They were all empty but one; that had a paper grocery bag filled with the usual kitchen detritus, an empty champagne bottle on top. He moved the bottle, and his light fell on the lid from a caviar tin underneath it. Whoopee, he thought; somebody had had a big night; he wondered if it were Mr. Dryer. Stone walked down to First Avenue and got a cab home.

As he approached his house, Stone saw somebody sitting on his doorstep. He readied himself to send the usual vagrant on his way, but as he got nearer, he saw that the vagrant had shoulder-length dark hair and was very beautiful. “Hello, Arrington,” he said.

“I camped on your doorstep,” she said, sounding just a little drunk.

“I’m flattered. Come camp inside awhile.”

She got to her feet and followed him into the house, back to his study.

He hung their coats in a closet and showed her to a sofa. “How about some coffee?”

“How about a drink?” she said.

“You’ve already had a drink or two,” he said. “I like my company reasonably sober.”

“Oh, all right, coffee then,” she said wearily, and began to cry softly.

He sat down next to her. “Want to talk about it?”

“You make the coffee, and I’ll stop crying, I promise.”

He went downstairs to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee, and came back upstairs with a tray. He set it on the coffee table and poured some for her.

“Black will do,” she said, picking up the cup.

Stone poured himself a cup. “So, how have you spent your evening?”

“Getting rid of Tarzan,” she said.

“I thought there wasn’t a Tarzan.”

“There isn’t anymore; I was a bit previous the other day, that’s all.”

“Having regrets about cutting the vine?”

She shrugged. “There was a time when I thought it might go somewhere. I’ve known for a while that it wouldn’t; I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

“Did all this take place in the neighborhood? Is that why you stopped by here?”

“It took place way uptown,” she said, sipping her coffee. “You weren’t on the way to anywhere. I just wanted to see you.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I behaved stupidly tonight. I went over to his place to tell him it was all off, and quite to my humiliation, there was somebody else there with him.”

“Oh. So you didn’t have that final satisfaction of telling him where to get off.”

“Exactly. You see, I wasn’t crying because I’m sad, but because I’m angry. I set myself up for that, and it annoys the hell out of me.”

“I get the picture. I’ve had pretty much the same experience in my time. It gets funny later.”

She giggled. “It’s already funny,” she said. “Listen, I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. Can I stay here with you?”

“Sure you can.”

“I don’t want to make love or anything; I just want somebody next to me. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Delighted to have you – I mean, to be your host.”

“Have you got something I can sleep in?”

“Sure.”

He gave her one of his nightshirts. She went to the bathroom, washed her face, and came back wearing the nightshirt, the sleeves rolled up.

Stone was already in bed. He lifted the covers for her, and she crawled in next to him, snuggling on his shoulder. He reached over to turn off the light, and when he turned back, she was sleeping like a child. He extracted his arm from under her so it wouldn’t go numb, put a pillow under her head, and tried to go to sleep himself. He shouldn’t have had that coffee so late, he reflected.

It took at least two hours of staring at the ceiling and thinking about the girl next to him, but he finally dozed off.