Heat

7

When Jessica Herzog opened the door for them at three that afternoon, she did not much resemble a captain in the Israeli Army. Carella thought she looked like a dancer in a thirties backstage movie. Kling thought she looked like an underdressed tennis player. She was wearing very short white shorts that hugged her thighs and called stark attention to her long, magnificently tanned legs. She was also wearing, or almost wearing, a shirred white tube top that emphasized her exuberant breasts; Carella immediately thought of Genero’s lost opportunity. White high-heeled, ankle-strapped sandals added at least two inches to her already substantial height. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on her face and naked shoulders. She apologized, insincerely it seemed to both of them, for her appearance — she had been out on the terrace taking some sun — and then asked them to come in, please.

“Would you care for some iced tea?” she asked. “I have just made a pitcher.”

“Yes, thank you,” Carella said.

“Thanks,” Kling said, and nodded to her as she went out to the kitchen.

The walls of the apartment were hung with paintings Carella automatically assumed were valuable. He knew very little about art, but he had read an article in which the wheelings and dealings of the art world made the price-fixing of the big-business cartels seem like the trading kids did for bubble-gum cards. He had come away with the understanding that even minor artists could be maneuvered into positions of status and wealth by powerful dealers and critics, and he wondered now whether Lawrence Newman, who had left his son two million dollars’ worth of paintings when he’d died, had been the grateful recipient of such manipulation. The room was similarly adorned with pieces of sculpture standing on pedestals or resting on tabletops, some of them representational nude studies in bronze, most of them abstract; Carella guessed the unfathomable ones were the ones worth real money. A large metal mobile hung from the ceiling just inside the sliding glass doors that led to the terrace — Right where someone can bang his head on it, Carella thought.

“Shall we go outside?” Jessica said.

She was carrying a tray upon which were three glasses of iced tea with lemon wedges in them. The deeper brown color of the tea, the floating paler hint of yellow, the white shorts, top, and shoes all seemed designed to complement Jessica’s superb tan, the way the white walls of the apartment itself had been designed to enhance the paintings that hung on them, the pieces of sculpture that floated in the space they enclosed. Floating in the space that enclosed her, Jessica moved fluidly to the sliding glass doors, waited while Kling opened one of them for her, and then led the detectives out onto the terrace, where she put the tray down on a small round table flanked by two lounge chairs.

From up here, the city that spread below them looked almost benign.

“So,” she said, “please, help yourselves. I did not put sugar, did you wish sugar?”

“No, thank you,” Carella said.

“No, thanks,” Kling said.

“It is so hot, truly,” she said, dabbing with a crumpled Kleenex at the cleft above the shirred tube top. “Will you sit down, please? I’ll get another chair.”

She slid open the door, went into the living room again, and returned not a moment later with a straight-backed chair that she placed against the low terrace wall. Neither of the detectives had yet seated themselves.

“Please,” she said, and indicated the lounge chairs.

They both sat.

“So,” she said, “what is it you wish to talk about? You said on the phone that some information had come to light.”

“Yes, Miss Herzog,” Carella said. “I learned this morning from your former husband’s attorney that he left his entire estate to a man named Louis Kern. Something in excess of two million dollars.”

“Well, I am not surprised,” Jessica said. “His father’s paintings, you know, were worth quite a bit of money.”

“Miss Herzog, the law firm that made the will for Mr. Newman is a firm named Weber, Herzog, and Llewellyn.”

“Yes?”

“Your brother works for that firm.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Newman changed his will on the eighteenth of July, three weeks before he was found dead in the apartment on Silvermine Oval.”

“But what has this to do with me or my brother?”

“Did you know Mr. Newman had changed his will?”

“No, of course not.”

“Your brother never mentioned it to you?”

“Certainly not. In any event, what would that have to do with me? Am I inheriting something?”

“Not that I know of. Are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you know Louis Kern?”

“No. Who is he?”

“He owns the Kern Gallery here in Isola.”

“I do not know him.”

“But you were familiar with the art world...”

“Yes?”

“...when you were still married to Jerry?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Didn’t you know that your father-in-law exhibited his paintings at the Kern Gallery?”

“I may have known it.”

“Yes or no?”

“Why do I have to answer these questions?” Jessica asked. “Is this Nazi Germany?”

“No, ma’am, it isn’t,” Carella said. “But what’s so difficult about answering a simple question about an art gallery?”

“You are saying that I knew about Jerry’s will. You are saying the will may have had something to do with his death.”

“I’m simply asking whether you knew your father-in-law exhibited his paintings at the Kern Gallery.”

“No, you are asking whether my brother told me anything about Jerry’s will. And I have already told you no. Why then do you persist in...?”

“Miss Herzog,” Carella said slowly, “this isn’t Agatha Christie.”

“What?” she said.

“I’m a civil-service employee with a job to do. I don’t like schlepping all over the city in this heat, I don’t like checking out a brother-sister relationship that may or may not have led to a breach of confidentiality, I really don’t. I would much prefer sitting here on a nice terrace, sipping iced tea, and getting myself a suntan. But your former husband ended up dead three weeks after he changed his will. If anyone had prior knowledge of that will—”

“I had no prior knowledge of it.”

“I’m not suggesting you had anything to do with—”

“I certainly did not.”

“But if you did know of the will, and if you mentioned it to anyone who might have benefited from the terms of the—”

“I do not know this Louis Kern. I had no knowledge of the will. Are you forgetting that I am the one who suggested to you that Jeremiah could not have voluntarily taken those pills?”

“No, Miss Herzog, I haven’t forgotten.”

“But now you suspect that I, or my brother, may have had something to do with his death. Because of his will. When it was I who came to you in the first place, Detective Carella, to tell you he could not possibly have committed suicide by—”

“Yes, Miss Herzog, I know that.”

“I do not have to answer your questions.”

“Miss Herzog—”

“This is not Nazi Germany,” she said, and suddenly she was weeping.

The tears startled them both.

“I should not have come to you in the first place,” she said. “I thought I would be doing my duty as a citizen, but instead—” She groped blindly for the crumpled tissue in the shirred tube top, dabbed at her eyes with it. “Now there will be trouble for all of us. I should have stayed away from you entirely, I should have minded my own business.”

“All of us?” Carella said.

“Yes, yes,” she said, weeping, drying her eyes “Me, Louis, all of us.”

The detectives looked at each other.

“Louis Kern, do you mean?”

“Yes, Louis,” she said. “Oh God, I should not have come to see you. Now there will be only trouble.”

“What kind of trouble, Miss Herzog?”

“He is married, he has two children.”

They waited.

“We have been lovers,” she said.

Still, they waited.

“For many years now. And when my brother told me he was to inherit such a large sum of money, I naturally... we are lovers. I told him.”

“Then you did know about the will.”

“Yes.”

“When did your brother give you this information?”

“Only last week.”

“And you told Mr. Kern?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Last Thursday. When I was with him last Thursday.”

Carella nodded.

“Now there will be trouble,” Jessica said. “I know it.”

The Kern Gallery was on the wide cross street running arrow straight between the Majesta Bridge on the south shore of Isola, and the docks lining the River Harb on the north. The two street-floor windows of the gallery were crowded with French impressionist paintings, and a printed placard informed any passersby that the current show had started on August sixth and would continue through the end of the month. Carella and Kling stopped at the desk just inside the entrance door, and asked a blonde receptionist where they might find Mr. Kern. She directed them to an office on the second floor of the gallery.

They took the elevator up, and found themselves in an open room the size of Guadalcanal and littered with what appeared to be the wreckage of half a dozen World War II bombers. A poster on the wall, featuring a photograph of one of the crashed B-29s, informed them that this was the work of a sculptor named Manfred Wills. They walked past what looked like a smashed rear turret with a gnarled machine gun poking out of its plastic bubble, and followed a discreet sign lettered offices, a small arrow under the word directing them to turn left through an arched doorway. At the end of the corridor, Carella showed his shield to a young brunette sitting at a desk there.

“We’d like to see Mr. Kern, please,” he said.

“Who shall I say is here, sir?”

“Detectives Carella and Kling, 87th Squad.”

The girl rose from behind the desk. She was taller than she’d appeared sitting, and she was wearing tight-fitting tailored slacks that emphasized the long, slender look of her. She was gone only a moment. When she came back, she told Carella that Mr. Kern was on the phone and would be with them shortly.

“Could I see that again?” she asked. “Your badge?”

Carella showed her his shield and the Lucite-encased I.D. card.

“Gee,” she said, “that’s the first time I ever saw one of those. It actually says ‘Detective,’ on the badge, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Carella said.

“Gee,” the girl said. The phone on her desk buzzed. She lifted the receiver, listened, and then said, “You can go in now.”

Louis Kern was sitting behind a white modern desk. The walls of his office were covered with abstract paintings, a riot of primary colors that overwhelmed the singularly drab man himself. He was wearing a dark gray flannel suit — with the heat outside standing at ninety-nine degrees — and a white button-down shirt with a black wool knit tie. He had graying tufts of hair over each ear, but he was bald otherwise, and his pale, almost ghostly face indicated that he was not an avid beachgoer. Carella guessed his age at seventy or thereabouts.

“Mr. Kern,” he said, “we’re investigating the suicide of Jeremiah Newman, I wonder if you can spare us a little of your time.”

“Yes, certainly,” Kern said.

He had the thick, rasping voice of a heavy smoker. An ashtray on his desk was brimming with butts, and he reached for a package of unfiltered cigarettes now, and offered them to Carella and Kling — who both shook their heads — before lighting one himself. A cloud of smoke, the color of the wisps of hair around his ears, hovered above his head.

“Mr. Kern, do you know that you’re the beneficiary of Mr. Newman’s will?” Carella asked.

“I do,” Kern said.

“When did you learn that, sir?”

“Yesterday. I got a call from the bank.”

“Did they tell you how much you might expect to inherit?”

“Yes. Something more than two million dollars.”

“Were you surprised?”

“By the sum? No, I knew Jerry was well-off.”

“By the fact that you were named as sole beneficiary.”

Kern hesitated.

“Well, no,” he said at last. “I can’t truthfully say I was surprised.”

“Then you knew about it before the bank called.”

“Yes, I knew.”

“Would you have found out about the will from Jessica Herzog?”

Kern looked startled.

“Mr. Kern?”

“Yes,” he said, and nodded. “Jessica told me about it last week.”

“How would you define your relationship with her, sir?”

Again Kern hesitated. Then he sighed and said, “We have been keeping steady company for the past five years now.”

The expression “steady company,” in this day and age, sounded singularly old-fashioned to Carella, a term the elderly Kern might have used when there were still horses and buggies in the streets of Isola. But there was nothing old-fashioned about two million dollars in a city where murder was often done for a couple of bucks, the contents of a mugging victim’s wallet. Two million dollars was definitely not popcorn. Jerry Newman had signed his new will on the eighteenth of July, and Louis Kern had known about it on the Thursday before Newman was found dead.

“Mr. Kern,” Carella said, “I wonder if you can give me a rundown on your whereabouts for Thursday, the seventh of August.”

“What?”

“I said I wonder if you can—”

“I heard what you said, but why should I provide you with such information?”

“Because I’m a police officer diligently pursuing an investigation, and I would appreciate your cooperation.”

“You’re suggesting, aren’t you, that since I knew I was to inherit a large sum of money...”

“No, sir, I’m not.”

Kern shrugged. “I have nothing to hide,” he said, and shrugged again.

“Fine, sir. Then can you tell me...?”

“I’ll get my calendar,” Kern said.

In the afternoon stillness of the stark white office, Carella and Kling pored over Kern’s appointment calendar for the week preceding the discovery of the body, zeroing in on Thursday, the seventh of August, when Jerry Newman had made a phone call to California at 6:21 p.m.

Kern’s calendar for that day showed appointments at ten, eleven, and twenty. He identified the people in chronological order as a painter, a gallery-owner from Palm Beach, and the trustee of a private art collection in Boston. His luncheon date, at twelve-thirty that afternoon, was with someone identified on his calendar only as J. H., who Kern now admitted was Jessica Herzog. He had gone back to her apartment after lunch, there to enjoy — among other things — the good news that he would inherit two million dollars when Jerry Newman died. At four that afternoon, he’d met with a man wanting to sell a vast collection of pre-Columbian art to the gallery.

Drinks at six that night and dinner at six-thirty had been with his wife and a few friends whom Kern identified by name, after which they’d all gone on to the opening of a musical titled Caper, another hopeless attempt — according to the review the next morning — to weld music with mystery. As they looked at the calendar entry now, Kern gave his own capsule review: music terrific, book rotten. He also mentioned that he had gone afterward to the opening-night party at Baffin’s, a midtown restaurant catering to theatrical people, and had remained there until close to one in the morning, by which time all the newspaper reviews were in; the television critics had already been heard from, and the show seemed doomed.

“My wife was with me,” he said. “So were five hundred other people.”

“Where’d you go when you left Baffin’s?” Kling asked.

“Directly home.”

“And where’s that, Mr. Kern?”

“1241 South McCormick.”

“Is there a doorman there?”

“There is. He saw my wife and me when we got back to the apartment.”

“What time would that have been?”

“One-thirty or thereabouts.”

“What time did you leave the next morning?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“And went where?”

“I came directly here to the gallery.”

Kern looked as clean as the baldpate that glistened between the bookend fringes of his hair. The detectives thanked him for his time, and went downstairs to the cauldron of the street again. Carella had forgotten to turn down the visor with its POLICE DEPARTMENT VEHICLE placard clipped to it. An overzealous patrolman had stuck a parking ticket under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side of the car.

“Great,” he said, and unlocked the door, and then leaned into the car to yank up the lock-button on the passenger side. As he started the engine, he asked, “Have you talked to Augusta yet?”

“Yeah,” Kling said. “Last night.”

“And?”

“We worked it out.” He hesitated. “It was nothing.”

Carella looked at him. “Well, good,” he said.

“Nothing at all, like you said.”

“Good,” Carella said, but he glanced again at Kling before easing the car out into the steady stream of traffic.

At ten minutes to nine that night, Kling stood outside the building on Hopper Street and looked at its facade. Ground floor, first floor, second, third, fourth, fifth. Four windows on each of the stories above the street-level floor. The windows on the third and fourth floors were dark now. Businesses, he thought. Maybe she’d been there on a business appointment, after all. But why had none of the six names he’d copied from the directory sounded like business firms? He went to the front door of the building and shook the knob. Locked. He found a bell button marked service in the doorjamb, and pressed it. A loud ringing sounded inside someplace. He rang the bell again.

He heard footsteps within, approaching the door, and then a man’s voice saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

He waited.

“Who is it?” the man asked from behind the door.

“Police,” Kling said.

He heard a lock being turned, the tumblers falling. Good secure lock, he thought, looking at the keyway. The door opened a crack. An eye and a narrow slice of face appeared in the wedge.

“Let’s see it,” the man said.

Kling held up his shield. “Detective Atchison,” he said.

There was no Detective Atchison on the Eight-Seven. He had not used his own name because Augusta’s phantom lover would undoubtedly know it, nor had he used the name of any other detective on the squad, on the assumption that Augusta may have dropped it in her casual pillow talk with the son of a bitch she was seeing. He had no intention of showing his I.D. card. His name was not on his shield. Beneath the Police Department legend and the city’s seal, there was only the word detective and his serial number.

The man opened the door wide.

He was a white man in his sixties, wearing only a tank top undershirt and baggy cotton trousers. He looked Kling over, and then said, “I’m Henry Watkins, superintendent of the building. What’s the violation this time?”

“No violation,” Kling said. “Okay to come in?”

“What’d you say your name was?”

“Atchison.”

“Like Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe?” Watkins said.

“That’s it,” Kling said.

“Used to be a railroad man,” Watkins said, and stepped aside to allow Kling entrance. “So what is it?” he asked, closing and locking the door again.

“Looking for a runaway,” Kling said. “I have information she may be living in the building here.”

He normally carried, stuffed into the back of his notebook, a dozen or more photographs of teenage runaways who might have found their way uptown to the headier narcotic climate of the Eight-Seven, where the grass was presumably greener and more easily obtainable than it was elsewhere in the city. He took his notebook from his hip pocket, and leafed through the pictures, selecting a graduation photo of a chubby seventeen-year-old girl beaming at the camera, black-rimmed eyeglasses perched on her freckled nose, blonde hair neatly combed, eyes sparkling. He wondered what she looked like now. If she’d come to this city—

He showed the photograph to Watkins.

“This is the girl,” he said. “Her name’s Heather Laughlin. Have you seen her in the building at any time?”

“Get a lot of traffic here,” Watkins said, looking at the picture. “Two photographers in the building, we get girls coming and going all the time.”

Photographers, Kling thought. Maybe Augusta had been here on business, after all. He took out the list of names he’d copied from the directory.

“Which one of these would be the photographers?” he asked.

Watkins scanned the list.

“Well, there’s Peter Lang on the third floor and Al Garavelli on the fourth. They’re both photographers.”

“How come they don’t list themselves as such in the directory?” Kling asked.

“If you’re a cop, you should know that.”

“What should I know?”

“Lots of burglars check out a lobby directory, spot a listing for a photographer, come back that night and try to rip off the studio. Lots of cameras in a photographer’s studio — pretty easy items to fence. Also, lots of them work with music going, you know. Expensive stereo equipment. Photographers are easy marks for burglars. You should know that.”

“Now I know it,” Kling said, and smiled. “Do these people live here as well? Lang, is it? And Garavelli?”

“No, they just got their studios here. Nine to five. Well, usually later than that. I got their home addresses inside, you want them. Case of emergency, you know. Got to know where I can reach my tenants. You should know that.”

“How about the rest of these people?” Kling said, and showed him the list again.

“Yeah, they’re residents.”

“Any of them home right now?”

“Well, I’m not obliged to check on the comings and goings of any of my tenants. You should know that. They all got keys to the outside door here, they come and go as they please, same as anywhere else in this city.”

“I’ll have to talk to them,” Kling said.

“Then I’d better put on a shirt, come up with you.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Kling said.

“That’s what I’m paid for. Tenants wouldn’t want me letting people in to wander around the building without my—”

“But I’m a police officer,” Kling said.

“Well, yes, so you are.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t expect you to—”

“Well, maybe not,” Watkins said. “Third and fourth floor’re dark, that’s where Lang and Garavelli work. You can take the steps up, try your luck with the others.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock, people don’t like cops banging on their doors in the middle of the night, you should know that.”

“Sorry, but my information indicates—”

“Sure,” Watkins said. “Knock on my door when you’re finished, if it ain’t too late, I’ll give you those addresses. And be sure you explain I offered to come with you, will you? When you talk to the tenants.”

“Yes, I will,” Kling said. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” Watkins said.

Kling took the iron-runged steps up to the first floor. Below, he could hear Watkins closing and locking the door to his own apartment. The steps and the first-floor landing were badly lighted. There was only one door on the landing. He went to it. No bell. He knocked on the door. Silence. He knocked again.

“Yo?” a voice inside said. A man.

“Police,” Kling said.

“What?” the man said.

“Police,” Kling said again.

“Just a second,” the man said.

Kling waited.

The door opened a crack, held by a night chain.

“What is it?” the man said.

“May I come in a moment, please?” Kling said, holding up his shield. “I’m Detective Atchison, Isola Police, I’d like to ask a few questions, sir.” He had not mentioned the precinct for which he worked. He put the shield in its leather case back into his pocket almost at once.

“Yeah, just a second,” the man said, and took off the night chain and opened the door.

He was wearing running shorts and track shoes, nothing else. He was perhaps five feet, eight inches tall, a spare, balding white man with dark-brown eyes and a thin nose under which there was a mustache the color of the black hair curled on his naked chest. A fan was going somewhere in the apartment. Kling could hear the whir of its blades and could feel the faint breeze it stirred.

“Well, come in,” the man said. “Kind of late to be making a visit, ain’t it?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have to follow leads whenever we get them.”

“What kind of lead are you following?” the man asked. “Come in, come in.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kling said, stepping into the apartment. “Are you...?” He consulted the list of names he’d copied from the directory downstairs. Apartment 11, Lucas, M. “Mr. Lucas?”

“Michael Lucas, yes,” he said, and closed and locked the door, and then put on the night chain again.

The apartment was a converted loft that obviously served now as a combined living space and artist’s studio. An easel was set up near the windows to the north, the sky outside black beyond them, a large abstract painting shrieking its colors into the room. A cot was set up against one wall, a tabletop burner and a refrigerator against another. The loft was vast. The wooden floors were paint-spattered. A rack against the third wall supported at least a dozen huge canvases that seemed to have been spattered in the same haphazard fashion as the floor had been.

“So, what’s so urgent?” Lucas asked.

“We’re looking for a runaway,” Kling said, and took the picture from his notebook. “We have information she may be living in this building. Ever see this girl?”

Lucas looked at the picture.

“No,” he said at once.

“Do you live here alone, Mr. Lucas?” Kling asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I was wondering if anyone else living in the apartment might have seen her.”

“I live here alone.”

“Got the whole floor, right?”

“The whole floor, right.”

“You’re an artist, I see.”

“I try to be.”

“That’s a nice painting,” Kling said, nodding toward the easel.

“Thanks.’

“Do you use models for that kind of stuff?”

“What kind of stuff?” Lucas said.

“You know, this... uh... nonrepresentational, do you call it?”

“I call it abstract expressionism,” Lucas said. “We all call it abstract expressionism.”

“Are you familiar with the work of Lawrence Newman?” Kling asked.

Lucas looked surprised. “Yes,” he said. “How come you know Newman’s work?”

“Well, you know,” Kling said, and smiled. “I drop into the Kern Gallery every now and then.”

“Uh-huh,” Lucas said, and was silent for a moment. “What’s this really about?” he asked suddenly. “Larry’s son killing himself?”

“What?” Kling said.

“His son committed suicide last week, it was in all the papers. Is that why you’re here?”

“I don’t know about that case,” Kling said.

“It was in all the papers.”

“Well, I’m looking for a runaway,” Kling said, and smiled. “You haven’t seen her, huh?”

“No,” Lucas said.

“Are you here all day long?” Kling asked.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because if she really is living in the building...”

“I’m here all day, this is where I work,” Lucas said.

“She was seen here yesterday, that’s what our informant told us. Were you here yesterday?”

“I was here yesterday.”

Kling made a show of consulting his notebook. “Between the hours of twelve-thirty and one-forty-five?”

“I didn’t see her.”

“Maybe your model...”

“I don’t use a model.”

“Did you have any visitors at all between those hours?”

“What’s that to you?”

“I’m trying to locate a girl who’s been missing from her home in Kansas for almost two years, Mr. Lucas. This is the first fresh lead we’ve had. I’m trying to find out if somebody, for Christ’s sake, might have seen her. I know this is a little late to be making the rounds this way, but I’d appreciate your help, sir, I really would. Her parents—”

“I was alone during that time,” Lucas said.

“No visitors?”

“None.”

“And you haven’t seen her?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lucas. I’d appreciate it if you took another look at the photo, and if you do happen to see her—” He cut himself short just in time. He’d been about to follow normal procedure, give the man his card, ask him to call him at the Eight-Seven if anything came up.

“Yeah, what?” Lucas said.

“I’ll be back in a few days, you can let me know then.”

“I thought this was urgent,” Lucas said. “If it’s so fuckin’ urgent—”

“I’ll give you my card,” Kling said, “with a number where I can be reached.” Again, he made a show of looking through his notebook, even though he kept his cards in the slipcase of the leather folder containing his shield and his Lucite-enclosed identification card. “I’m all out,” he said. “If you’ve got a piece of paper, I’ll jot it down for you.”

“Just give it to me,” Lucas said, “I’ll remember it.”

Kling knew he had no intention of remembering it. He reeled off the number for the Headquarters building on High Street, thanked Lucas for his time, and then went out into the hall again. He should not have brought up Lawrence Newman’s name. He had done so only to crack Lucas’s hostile facade, show him he was familiar with the world of abstract expressionism, but he’d only succeeded instead in arousing suspicion about his cover story. He would not make that mistake again. He climbed the dimly lighted stairway to the second floor of the building. Two doors here, one at either end of the hallway. He pressed the bell button outside the door to the right of the stairwell. Apartment 21. Healy, M., and Rosen, M. A buzzer sounded inside.

“Who is it?” a woman’s voice called.

“Police,” he said.

“Police?” The voice sounded totally astonished. He waited until she opened the door for him, and then he went through the routine of identifying himself as Detective Atchison, and giving her a brief glimpse of his shield and then asking her if he might come in and show her a picture of the runaway he was looking for.

The woman’s name was Martha Healy.

She was tall and angularly built, wearing black tights and a yellow halter top that matched the color of the hair massed and pinned on top of her head. Her eyes were green — like Augusta’s. She had wiry legs and arms, and he suspected she was a dancer even before she told him she was. There was another woman in the apartment, a small, dark-eyed brunette in her twenties, wearing only panties and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was lettered with the words SQUEEZE ME. She was lying on a sofa against one of the walls, leafing through a magazine and smoking. She looked up when Kling came in, and then went back to the magazine.

The apartment had obviously been one section of a loft, now divided to form the two living units on this floor of the building. Mirrors lined one entire wall of the room, from floor to ceiling. “For when I practice,” Martha explained. There were no proper walls dividing the living spaces; many of these converted lofts tried to maintain the feeling of openness that had been there originally. Living room melted into bedroom and kitchen and then a small area lined with bookshelves. Kling smelled marijuana on the air, and realized that what the girl on the sofa was smoking was pot. Nobody bothered flushing a joint when the Law arrived these days; he had been in movie theaters where the cloud of marijuana smoke was enough to produce a high if you just inhaled deeply. Augusta smoked marijuana. So did Kling himself, on occasion.

“Have you seen her around?” he asked, and handed Martha the photograph.

“No,” Martha said. “How about you, Michelle?”

“What?” the brunette said.

“You see this kid around anyplace?” she asked, and moved to the couch, a dancer’s walk, somewhat stiff-legged and duck-footed. She handed the photograph to Michelle, who studied it through a marijuana haze.

“No,” Michelle said. “Don’t know her.”

“Are you both here most of the time?” Kling asked.

“In and out,” Martha said.

“How about yesterday, between twelve-thirty and one-forty-five?”

“I was in class. Michelle?”

“I was here.”

“Alone?” Kling asked.

“Alone,” she said, and looked at him, and smiled suddenly and radiantly. She had Bugs Bunny teeth.

“Because if you had any visitors, one of them might’ve seen—”

“We save our visitors for the nighttime,” Martha said. She looked at Michelle, who was still smiling. The women exchanged a glance. Kling thought he saw Martha nod, almost imperceptibly.

“No one here then, huh?” he said. “Between twelve-thirty and one-forty-five?”

“Just little old me,” Michelle said, still grinning like Bugs Bunny.

“So they send you out on this kind of thing at night, huh?” Martha said, and sat Indian-fashion on one of the throw pillows scattered on the floor.

“Well, whenever we get something that looks like real meat, we usually—”

“Real meat, huh?” Martha said.

“Yes, that’s what we—”

“Real meat, Michelle,” Martha said.

“So how late do they keep you working?” Michelle asked. She had put down the magazine, and was sitting up cross-legged on the couch now, the same way Martha was sitting on the throw pillow. Her panties were blue.

“Well, this is on my own time, actually,” Kling said.

“They make you work on your own time, too, huh?” Martha said.

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“What time do you think you’ll be quitting?” Martha said.

“Whenever I get done with the building,” Kling said. “Few more people to see here.”

“Just the fifth floor,” Michelle said. “Peter and Al are only here during the day.”

“Yes, I know that. The photographers, you mean.”

“Yeah, the faggot photographers,” Michelle said. “And there’s only one apartment on the fifth, shouldn’t take you long up there.”

“But there’s another apartment on this floor, isn’t there?” Kling said.

“Yeah, Franny next door in 22,” Martha said.

“She’s never here,” Michelle said. “She’s usually uptown with Zooey.”

“Zooey?”

“Her boyfriend. His name’s Frank Ziegler, we call him Zooey.”

“Is he ever here during the daytime?” Kling asked.

“Zooey? No, he works for an advertising agency someplace on Jefferson.”

“How about Franny?”

“I don’t know what she does,” Martha said. “Michelle thinks she’s a hooker. Oops,” she said, “I keep forgetting you’re a cop.”

“You don’t look like a cop, though,” Michelle said.

“He looks like an actor or something, doesn’t he?” Martha said.

“Yeah,” Michelle said. “Or a ballplayer. A baseball player, you know?”

“An actor, I thought,” Martha said.

“Some kind of athlete,” Michelle said.

Again, the glance passed between the two women. This time, Kling was positively certain about Martha’s small nod.

“Would you like a drink or something?” she asked.

“No, thanks, I’m not allowed to—”

“You said this was your own time.”

“It is, but technically—”

“How about some grass then?” Michelle asked.

“No, no,” Kling said, and smiled.

“Listen,” Martha said, “why don’t you come back down when you’re through?”

Kling looked at her.

“If you’d be interested in a two-on-one, that is,” Michelle said matter-of-factly.

“Thanks,” Kling said, “but—”

“That’s a water bed over there,” Martha said.

“King-size,” Michelle said. “What’s your first name?”

“Jerry,” he said, thinking he was picking the name out of the air until he realized, not a second later, that Jerry Newman was the name of the man who’d been found dead uptown on Friday morning.

“Come back down later, Jerry,” Martha said.

“Well, I’ll see,” Kling said, and began moving toward the door.

“Listen, we mean it, Jerry,” Michelle said.

“Thanks, I’ll see,” Kling said. “And thanks for your—”

“What time do you have to go to work in the morning?” Martha said.

“I’m due in at eight.”

“Nice long night, Jerry,” Michelle said.

“Shouldn’t take you long to do the fifth floor, should it?” Martha said.

“Ten minutes or so, right?” Michelle said.

“Well...” he said, and smiled again, and went to the door and opened it. “Good night,” he said.

“See you later,” Martha said.

“Ten minutes,” Michelle said.

He closed the door behind him. He heard the lock tumblers falling, and then the night chain rattling into place. He put his ear to the door.

“You think he’ll be back?” Martha said.

“Oh, sure,” Michelle said.

Silence.

“That was a bunch of bullshit, wasn’t it?” Martha said. “The runaway bit.”

“Oh, sure,” Michelle said. “He’s lookin’ to get laid.”

He waited. Silence. He kept waiting. Nothing more. He went to the door at the other end of the hall, and knocked on it. Franny’s apartment. That would be Harris, F. in the directory downstairs. Franny who was never home. Franny who was maybe a hooker. He knocked again. Still no answer. He knocked once more, to be certain, and then took the steps up to the third floor. There was only one door on the landing, marked with a white-on-black plastic nameplate: PETER LANG. One of the faggot photographers. He continued on up to the fourth floor. The light was out on the landing there. He picked his way through the dark and up the stairs to the fifth floor.

The man who opened the door to Apartment 51 could have been an idealized mirror-image of Kling himself, slightly taller, six-two or — three, Kling guessed, with a shock of blond hair not unlike his own, brown eyes set in a handsome, rough-hewn face, a nose any male model in New York would have pillaged and killed for, a cleft chin, and a petulant mouth. He was wearing designer jeans and nothing else. He’d lifted weights when he was younger, Kling was certain of that. His shoulders were enormous, his chest and his arms were bulging with muscle.

“Detective Atchison,” Kling said, “Isola Police.”

“Let me see that again,” the man said.

Kling held the shield up again.

“What precinct is that?” he asked.

“The Three-Two,” Kling lied.

“Where’s your I.D. card?”

“We’re getting new ones issued,” Kling said.

“So where’s your old one?”

“Had to turn it in so I could get the new one,” Kling said. “Why? What’s the problem? Would you like to call my lieutenant to verify I’m a bona fide cop?”

“You’re supposed to have an I.D. card,” the man said.

“You can’t buy this shield in the five-and-ten,” Kling said. “Forget it, I’ll come back next week, when I get the new card. Thanks for your cooperation, mister. There’s nothing a man likes better on a night like this than to climb up all these stairs—”

“Come in, calm down,” the man said. “What is it you want?”

“I’m looking for a runaway,” Kling said.

“There’re lots of burglaries in this neighborhood,” the man said, closing and locking the door behind them. “You learn to be careful.”

“I can understand that. I’m sorry about the I.D., it’s just one of those stupid departmental—”

“Don’t sweat it,” the man said.

“Ever see this girl anywhere in the building?” Kling asked, and showed him the picture. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Bradford Douglas,” he said, taking the picture.

Bradford Douglas. Douglas, B. in the directory downstairs, Apartment 51.

“Recognize her?” Kling said.

“No, I don’t know her,” Douglas said, and handed back the picture.

“Do you live here, or work here, or what?” Kling asked.

“I live here.”

“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Douglas?”

“What’s that question got to do with your runaway?”

“I’m trying to find out whether you were here in the building yesterday between—”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“Because the girl was seen here sometime between twelve-thirty and one-forty-five yesterday...”

“I was only here till noon.”

“You left at noon?”

“Yes. I was waiting for a friend of mine...”

“What time did your friend get here?”

“At a little past twelve. What the hell can that have to do...?”

“A visitor might’ve seen her,” Kling said. “If somebody came to visit, he... or she... might’ve seen the girl.” He hesitated. “Who was here, can you tell me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s say it would be indiscreet of me, okay?”

“In what way?”

“Let’s say marriage is a delicate arrangement, okay?”

“Oh, are you married, Mr. Douglas?”

“No.”

“Then your visitor—”

“End of conversation,” Douglas said.

“I wish you’d help me, Mr. Douglas. Because, you see, this girl’s been missing for two years now, and if there’s anyone who might’ve seen her—”

“End of conversation,” Douglas said again.

“You left here at twelve, huh?”

“A little after twelve, yes.”

“Left your visitor here alone, huh?”

“I don’t want to talk about any visitors,” Douglas said.

“Where’d you go? When you left here.”

“To work.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a model,” Douglas said.

“Photographer’s model?”

“Yes.”

“Fashion or what?”

“Mostly fashion, occasional beefcake.”

“Uh-huh,” Kling said.

“Will that help you find your runaway?” Douglas asked.

“No, but—”

“I didn’t think it would. If you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got company.”

“Company?”

“In the other room.”

“Could she possibly have seen...?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“What?”

“The she. Are you trying to find out if my company’s a woman?”

“Well, no, I’m—”

“She is, okay?”

“Fine,” Kling said.

“That it?”

“Could she possibly have seen the girl I’m looking for?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she wasn’t here yesterday afternoon when you say your runaway was spotted.”

“Ah, okay then,” Kling said. He’s playing the field, he thought. If this is the guy, you picked yourself a fine one, Gussie.

Douglas led him to the door.

“Hope you find her,” he said.

“Yes, thanks a lot,” Kling said.

The door closed behind him. He waited until Douglas had locked it and chained it, and then put his ear to the wood.

“It’s okay,” he heard Douglas call. “He’s gone now.”