Blood Count

CHAPTER 51

When I knelt beside Carver Lennox on the sidewalk outside the club, I saw he was bleeding bad.

“Carver?”

I could feel his breath, still warm, on my face. He was bleeding from his gut, from his face. It had happened so fast that he’d never had a chance. Somebody had put a knife in him before I got outside.

Near where he lay on the cold sidewalk was a long, curved knife. The attacker had left in a hurry. He had been distracted by something, startled enough to drop the knife. Next to it were Lennox’s horn-rims.

“Carver?”

He didn’t answer. I tried CPR as best I could. I wrapped my jacket over his wound.

The bartender had called 911, and now I heard sirens.

“Carver? Cal? You hear me?”

He tried to talk, wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. His mouth was full of blood.

“Come on. Stay with me.” I put my fingers against his neck.

He had known he was in trouble. Had been trying to tell me something in the club, trying to show me something. Was it the financial meltdown that had caught him in its claws? He owed money. Maybe the attack had come from somebody who wanted it back.

All over town, panicked, frantic people were doing bad deals, borrowing money, desperate to hang on to some piece of their lives. Carver Lennox was so invested in the life he had made for himself-Princeton, the job at Goldman, the kids in private school, most of all the Armstrong-it was hard to know what he’d do to hang on to it all. The building had a grip on everybody in it; its history, its presence, even the sheer glamour it had once represented. For Lennox, it was also the future.

Come on! Stay with me!

Was it about Hutchison’s murder? Was that what he wanted to tell me? About the other deaths in the Armstrong?

I looked down now at the face. Without the glasses, he looked so young, the expression so placid, except for the blood. When he tried to speak again, blood poured from his mouth. Something he wanted to tell me. I leaned closer. He flicked his eyes to the left.

A spill of things was scattered on the ground, stuff that must have come from his pocket-keys, change, a billfold, the brown leather folder he had tried to show me in the club.

The sirens came closer, cars turned into the street. I looked up.

Out of nowhere, I saw him. A car went by, and in the headlights, I saw the guy who must have been hiding back of a truck farther along the avenue. The guy I had seen earlier when I arrived. Guy with a black jacket.

Now he was running north on St. Nicholas. A big man, light on his feet. In headlights from the cars, his hair looked white.

I got out my phone and called in his description, this big man with white hair, but I couldn’t leave Carver. His hand was in mine. It was still warm. I could feel a faint pulse in the wrist. My other hand was still on his neck, pressing, blood coming out between my fingers. Then he said something, said something so softly I had to put my ear to his mouth.

“What is it?”

“Pictures,” he whispered. I picked up the leather folder. He nodded. I held it out to him, but he couldn’t raise his arm, and his eyes were closed now. I stuffed it in my jeans.

Medics emerged from the ambulance at the curb. They loaded Carver Lennox into it, took him to Presbyterian. I called Lucille Bernard at home. I left a message with her office, on her cell.

“Artie?” It was Virgil Radcliff, who had arrived at the scene a few minutes earlier, along with a couple of cops in uniform and Jimmy Wagner.

I was wet from the snow and ice, my shirt and pants were covered with blood. “Did you tell Jimmy we had made Lennox for the killer?” I asked Virgil.

“It wasn’t him, Artie. I know that now. He had an alibi.”

“Sure, but it was his daughter, wouldn’t she lie for him?”

“Yeah, could be, but seems the daughter had a friend with her, and the friend had her dad with her. They arrived just after Lennox and his kid-I didn’t pay attention to them on the tape at first because they didn’t set off any alarm bells. But they were there and they stayed until early morning. Said they lived in Carroll Gardens, and it was too far to head back to Brooklyn after the party, so Lennox invited them to stay. We got them going in, leaving. The girl’s father swore they were there all night.”

“Would they lie for Lennox?”

“I don’t think so. The man said they weren’t even friends, it was just the two kids knew each other from school,” said Virgil. “You get anything from Lennox?”

“I was with him in the club,” I said. “He was trying to tell me something, but he said he needed air, he was going to throw up. He went out. The creep was waiting for him. I shouldn’t have let him go.”

“Did you see the killer?”

“I called in a description. I think I know who it was.” I was shaking. A cop in uniform got a shock blanket from the back of his car and put it around me.

“Tell me,” said Virgil.

“Guy with white hair, strange, albino hair. I sat next to him at the Christmas party,” I said. “Jesus, he was right there. He told me he liked jazz. He got a good look at me, and everybody else, including Carver.”

I was shaking so hard, I had to sit down on the steps of a brownstone next to the club.

Virgil lit up a cigarette and offered me one. I took it. I told him I realized now I’d seen the creep earlier, just before I met Lennox. I had seen him slip away into the dark. He must have known Lennox was in the club, must have waited for him outside.

“You OK, Art?” It was Jimmy Wagner, who hurried over to check on me. I told him what I’d seen at the club, the guy I’d seen who knifed Lennox.

“Give me one of them.” Wagner reached for Virgil’s smokes. Virgil held the lighter. In its flame I saw how sick Wagner was looking. Sick. Worried. Skin gray.

Then I remembered. Struggling, I got out my phone. I put the picture on the screen. My hand shook so hard, Virgil took the cell from me.

“Tolya took this at the Christmas party last night. I almost forgot. It’s the Russian,” I said.

“Lemme see that,” said Wagner, looking over my shoulder. “Jesus, Mary, Mother of God. Christ. Fucking Christ.”

“What is it?”

Around us cops checked the sidewalk for blood. There were forensics people and somebody from the ME.

I looked at Wagner. “Jimmy? What is it?”

He grabbed my cell out of Virgil’s hand and peered at the screen again. “It’s the fucker I let go. The creep we held for the homicide on that body we found in the cemetery with the piece of paper stuck to it.” Jimmy sucked on his smoke. “This prick probably killed him, probably did the guy who bled out into the closet, too. Knifed them both, and I let him go. Fuck. Fuck. Four homicides. Two dead white men that nobody identified yet, maybe creeps themselves, maybe mob shit. But what’s fucking worse is Hutchison, and now Lennox. They’re going to say somebody is killing good black men in Harlem, and it’s going to be my fucking fault, and maybe it fucking is. I didn’t sleep in forty-eight. I’m too old. But we’ll fucking get him.” He tossed away his cigarette. “You sent that picture around, Art?”

I held my cell. “I’m doing it now.”

“Anything else, Art, man? Anything you remember?”

“At the party, the guy kept pulling down the sleeve of his sweater, like he had eczema he wanted to hide, or some kind of scar.”

“Like a tattoo?”

“Could be.”

“It’s him for sure,” said Wagner again. “So he was covering his tats. I looked at those tats and they didn’t mean dick to me. Jesus, fucking stupid asshole that I am,” said Wagner, lighting up again, dragging on the cigarette, coughing. “I should have held him longer.”

“I just thought of something,” I said, shivering.

“You need some dry clothes,” Wagner said. “What?”

“You remember when I came by yesterday to see you? I was waiting by the sergeant at your house, and I saw this guy in a hoodie and North Face leaving. I got a faint impression he was looking at me, taking a look, clocking who I was.”

Wagner went to his car to get his own smokes. Virgil said to me, “I have to go.” Without another word, he moved away from the scene, through the crowd that had formed on the sidewalk and disappeared.

I knew Virgil needed to work the case his way. I knew he would hunt down the creep who did the killings if it was the last thing he did. I sent him a text. Told him I’d keep on it on my end. Call if you need me. Call.

I put on a blue jacket Wagner brought me.

“I’m sure it’s the same guy who beat me up in the Armstrong basement, too. What’s his name?”

“Ivan,” said Wagner, and snorted. “Yeah, it really is, I told you, Ivan Ivanov. Where’s Radcliff?”

“He went to find the fucker. Let him be, Jimmy. He needs to do this. He has a lot invested.”

“I gotta put more guys on it, though.”

“You do that, but let Radcliff go for it.”

“I don’t want you wandering off, right, Artie? We’re going to need a Russian speaker. I want you holding this together, you hear?”

“I’ll be around.”

“Your phone is ringing, man,” said Wagner, as more cars arrived, the flashing red and blue lighting up the dark street.

I started for my car.

“Where am I gonna find you, Artie?” Jimmy said.

“I’ll be on my phone, don’t worry. It’s just something I gotta do there, Jimmy. Something I gotta know.”