Death trick

23

I phoned Phil's apartment, where Deslonde was staying.

There was no answer. I phoned Deslonde's apartment, where no one was supposed to have been staying. The line was busy. It was five after seven. On Friday night Deslonde wouldn't be going out until nine or ten. Bowman phoned Albany PD, and we raced out to the highway.

Bowman did a steady sixty-five on the two-lane road, weaving in and out of the Friday-evening traffic in his unmarked Ford. I said, "Haven't you got a siren on this thing, like Kojak? Christ!"

"Shut up."

We hurtled into the city, through Arbor Hill, up Lark, veered right and shot up past the park.

Traffic on Madison was blocked off from New Scotland to South Lake. We eased around the barricade. Two Albany police cruisers were double-parked, blue lights flashing, in front of Deslonde's building, an old four-story yellow-brick apartment house. A crowd was gathering across the street from the building, and people were looking up. A figure sat perched on the fourth-floor window ledge in the center of the building. The figure was silhouetted against the light of the open window behind him, and at first I thought it was Frank Zimka, but of course it wasn't.

A fire engine and ambulance were parked up the street, and six men holding a safety net stood under the spot where Eddie Storrs was perched. The only sounds were from the crowd, speaking in subdued voices, and from the staticky sounds of the police radios. Twenty yards up the street, blocked in by the idling fire engine, sat the gold-colored Olds.

A patrolman explained to Bowman what had happened. "When we got here, Sergeant, the perpetrator-that guy on the windowsill-was in the hallway outside the Deslonde guy's apartment. When we came up the stairs, he must have seen us coming, and he opened up the window and climbed out there. He said not to get near him or he'd jump, so we backed off down the stairs and called the rescue squad. He's been up there for ten minutes, I'd say. An officer is in the stairwell behind the guy trying to talk him in, but he won't talk back, and if anyone gets near him he lets go of the window frame. That's about what we've got. You got any ideas? The captain's on his way."

Bowman said, "Where's Deslonde?"

"We haven't seen him," the cop said. "The door to his apartment looks like it's closed, but we can't get close enough to see for sure."

"Is there another entrance to the apartment?"

"The super says no."

"Get a ladder up to a side window," Bowman said. "And get a second ambulance out here. Cut through the window if you have to-but don't bust in, it'll be too noisy and might spook the jumper."

Bowman reached through the car window, pulled out his radio mike, and asked the dispatcher to dial Mark Deslonde's phone number and to patch Bowman through. We heard the clicks of the 434 number being dialed, and then the ringing. It rang twenty times before Bowman said, "Okay.

Okay, that's enough."

He looked at me ruefully and shrugged. We stood there for a moment considering the possibilities, and then our eyes went back up to the figure on the ledge.

I said, "I'll get Blount. I'll need a car."

Bowman nodded and instructed a patrolman to take me wherever I wanted to go.

I said, "Ten minutes."

"In fifteen minutes," Bowman said, "we're going up there whether the kid jumps or not. The guy in the apartment comes first. There's no sign of him-he could be hurt in there."

We drove slowly up Madison until we'd rounded the corner onto Lake, then sped north toward Central and the baths.

I found them lounging on a cot in a closed cubicle, towels draped over their naked laps, surrounded by orange-juice cartons and Twinkie wrappers and looking sheepish. Teilhard de Chardin was nowhere in evidence. The ambiance did include, however, a certain distinctive combination of aromas.

I said, "We've found Eddie. You've got to come right now. Get dressed."

Timmy said, "No, first you're supposed to say, 'Holy smoke, I hope I'm not interrupting anything.'"

"Eddie Storrs is threatening suicide. Mark Deslonde may be in trouble. Hurry up. Move."

They moved.

A ladder was being raised up the right side of Deslonde's building from the narrow yard that separated it from an old second-empire Victorian house. Eddie Storrs still sat motionless on the window ledge in front.

Billy Blount stood in the shadows of the autumn foliage and gazed up at him. Up the street a second ambulance moved quietly into position behind the first.

Phil had arrived. He was arguing plaintively with a uniformed police captain now on the scene who was not allowing anyone to approach the yard with the ladder except "family members."

I said, "He's Deslonde's best friend," and looked at Bowman, who saw what I meant.

Bowman said to the captain, "He's the guy in the apartment's boyfriend, Lou. It's up to you."

"Family members only," the captain said blandly. He turned and walked away.

Phil started to lunge, and I stepped between them. Timmy and I wrestled Phil back into a yard across from Deslonde's building. He collapsed onto the ground and sat there, flushed, teeth clenched, his chest heaving.

Timmy stayed with Phil, and I walked back into the street where Bowman was standing. He said,

"I make it a practice never to argue with a captain," and looked away.

I said, "That's not the way it happened. You were petty, and callous."

He looked back at me with hard eyes. "You people are going to make an incident out of this, aren't you? Blow it out of proportion."

I said, "I think so, yes."

"I'll deal with you later, Strachey. For a man who's broken as many laws as you have in the past week, you're acting pretty goddamned pushy with me. I want you to know I've just about come to the end of my rope with you."

"Do you want your defendant in the Kleckner case alive or dead?"

"Alive," he said. "It's expensive for the taxpayers but it's tidier on my record."

"Fine," I said. "I'll bring him down for you in return for an apology to Phil Jerrold, the guy you just fucked over in a particularly vicious manner."

He snorted and shook his head in disbelief. He turned toward the spot where Billy Blount was standing under a tree and gazing up at the man on the ledge. "Hey, come over here! You Blount!"

Billy Blount walked into the middle of the street to where we stood.

I said, "Don't do what he says."

Bowman said, "Billy, you and I have got to go in there and say something soothing to your friend there. It might take awhile, so let's just relax and go up and sit on the stairs for a time and let the fellow hear the sound of your voice. Let him get used to it. Then we'll see what we can make happen. You got me?"

I said, "Don't go. Not until the sergeant here has offered an apology for his homophobic cruelty toward a friend of ours-a friend of Mark's."

In the side yard a patrolman with a tool kit strapped to his back was moving up the ladder.

"Come on, Billy, we've got to get that troubled lad safely onto terra firma. Let's go, kid."

Bowman moved toward the building. Blount stood still.

Bowman turned around, glowering. He said, "You're both under arrest."

We looked at him.

He said, "You, William Blount, for suspicion of murder. You, Donald Strachey, for aiding a fugitive from justice. I'm obliged to remind you that you have a right to remain silent, you have a right to-"

"Bi-l-l-leeee!" The voice sliced through the night. The crowd froze. The man on the ladder stopped and listened.

This time the figure raised one arm from the window frame. "Bi-l-l-l-eeeee!" The crowd gasped, and someone behind us said, "Oh, God."

Blount yelled, "I'll be right up, Eddie! Hang on! "I'll be up!"

Blount trotted across the street, up the brick walkway, and into the building. A minute later two arms were wrapped from behind around the figure on the ledge. The figure began to turn as if on a pinwheel, and then it doubled up and disappeared through the window.

We charged into the building and up the stairs. Blount and Storrs were sitting beside a blue gym bag on the floor of the fourth-floor landing, their backs against the wall under the window.

Blount was holding Storrs's hand. They hardly seemed to notice us banging on Mark Deslonde's locked door.

There was no response from inside the apartment. Two firemen bounded up the stairs with axes; Bowman and I and three patrolmen stood back. I could hear the radio blasting away inside. Disco 101-the Three Degrees' "Jump the Gun." After three well-placed blows the door splintered and fell away.

The living room was empty. The face of the man on the ladder was visible through the window.

We moved into the bedroom and found no one. A second set of stereo speakers carried the roar of the music into the room where we stood. Bowman said, "Somebody shut that goddamn thing off!"

The bathroom door opened. Mark Deslonde stepped out in his nylon briefs and stared at us with the most astonished look I'd ever seen on a face.

I said, "Jesus! Are you all right? Where the fuck have you been?"

"I've been trimming my beard. What is this? What the hell is going on?"

"Trimming your beard? For an hour? For a fucking hour?"

Deslonde shrugged, tilted his head, and grinned.