Lady Killer

CHAPTER TEN

At 2.39 p.m. the police artist arrived.

He did not look at all like an artist. He did not wear a smock or a floppy bow tie, and his fingers were not stained with paint. He wore rimless eyeglasses, and he looked like a bored salesman for an exterminating service.

'You jokers send for an artist?' he asked at the railing, resting his leather case on the wood.

Hawes looked up. 'Yes,' he said. 'Come on in.'

The man pushed his way through the gate. 'George Angelo,' he said, extending his hand. 'No relation to Michel, either family-wise or talent-wise.' He grinned, exposing large white teeth. 'Who do you want sketched?'

'A ghost,' Hawes said. 'This kid and I both saw him. We'll give you the description, you make the picture. Deal?'

'Deal,' Angelo said, nodding. 'I hope you both saw the same ghost.'

'We did,' Hawes said.

'And can both describe him the same way. I sometimes get twelve eye-witnesses who each saw the same guy twelve different ways. You'd be surprised how cock-eyed the average citizen is.' He shrugged. 'But you're a trained observer, and kids are innocent and unprejudiced, so who knows? Maybe this'll be a good one.'

'Where do you want to set up?' Hawes asked.

'Anyplace you got light,' Angelo answered. 'How about that desk near the window?'

'Fine,' Hawes said. He turned to the boy. 'Frankie, want to come over here?'

They walked to the desk. Angelo opened his case. 'This going into the newspapers?'

'No.'

'Television?'

'No. We haven't got time for that. We just want copies run off for the men trying to track down this guy.'

'Okay,' Angelo said. He reached into the case for a sketch pad and pencil. Then he took out a stack of rectangular cards. He sat at the desk, looked up at the sunlight once, and then nodded.

'Where do you want us to start?'

'Pick the shape of the face from the shapes on this card,' Angelo said. 'Square, oval, triangular, they're all there. Look them over.'

Hawes and Frankie studied the card. 'Something like this, don't you think?' Hawes asked the kid.

'Yeah, something like that,' Frankie agreed.

'The oval?' Angelo asked. 'Okay, we'll start with that.'

Quickly he sketched an egg-shaped outline on the pad. 'How about noses? See anything here that looks like his nose?' He produced another card. Hawes and Frankie looked at the profusion of smellers that covered the card.

'None of them look just like his nose,' Frankie said.

'Any of them come close?'

'Well, maybe this one. But not really.'

'The idea in this is simplicity,' Angelo said to Hawes. 'We're not trying for a portrait that'll hang in the Louvre. We want a likeness that people can identify. Shade and shadow tend to confuse. I try to stick to line, blacks and whites, a feeling of the person rather than a photographic representation. So if you'll try to remember the characteristics that struck you most about this man, I'll try to get them on paper—simply. We'll refine as we go along. This is just the beginning; we'll draw and we'll draw until we get something that looks like him. Now—how about those noses? Which one is the closest to his?'

'This I guess,' the kid said. Hawes agreed.

'Okay,' Angelo began sketching. He produced another card. 'Eyes?'

'He had blue eyes, I remember that,' Hawes said. 'Sort of slanted, downward.'

'Yeah,' the kid said. Angelo kept nodding and drawing.

The first sketch looked like this:

'That don't look like him at all,' the kid said when Angelo showed it.

'All right,' Angelo said mildly. 'Tell me what's wrong with it.'

'It just don't look like the guy, that's all.'

'Well, where is it wrong?'

'I don't know,' the kid said, shrugging.

'He's too young, for one thing,' Hawes said. 'The guy we saw is an older man. Late thirties, maybe early forties.'

'Okay. Start with the top of the picture and work your way down. What's wrong with it?'

'He's got too much hair,' the kid said.

'Yes,' Hawes agreed. 'Or maybe too much head.'

Angelo began erasing. 'That better?'

'Yeah, but he was going bald a little,' the kid said, 'like up here. On the forehead.'

Angelo erased two sharp wings into the black hair on the man's forehead. 'What else?'

'His eyebrows were thicker,' Hawes said.

'What else?'

'His nose was shorter,' the kid said.

'Or maybe the space between his nose and his mouth was longer, either one,' Hawes said. 'But what you've got doesn't look right.'

'Good, good,' Angelo said. 'Go on.'

'His eyes looked sleepier.'

'More slanted?'

'No. Heavier lids.'

They watched as Angelo sketched. Putting an overlay of tracing paper onto the erased drawing, he began to move his pencil rapidly, nodding to himself as he worked, his tongue peeking from one corner of his mouth. At last he looked up.

'This any better?' he asked.

He showed them the second drawing:

'It still don't look like him,' Frankie said.

'What's wrong?' Angelo asked.

'He's still too young,' Hawes said.

'Also, he looks like a devil. His hair is too sharp,' Frankie said.

'The hairline, you mean?'

'Yeah. It looks like he got horns. That's wrong.'

'Go ahead.'

'The nose is about the right length now,' Hawes said, 'but it's still not the right shape. He had more of a—this middle thing, whatever you call it, the thing between the nostrils.'

'The tip of his nose? Longer?'

'Yes.'

'How are the eyes?' Angelo asked. 'Better?'

'The eyes look right,' Frankie said. 'Don't touch the eyes. Don't them eyes look right?'

'Yes,' Hawes said. 'The mouth is wrong.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'It's too small. He had a wide mouth.'

'And thin,' the kid said. 'Thin lips.'

'Is the cleft chin right?' Angelo asked.

'Yeah, the chin looks okay. But that hair…' Angelo was beginning to fill in the hairline with his pencil. 'That's better, yeah, that's better.'

'A widow's peak?' Angelo asked. 'Like this?'

'Not as pronounced,' Hawes said. 'He had very close-cropped hair, receding above the temples, but not as pronounced as that. Yes, now you're getting it, that's closer.'

'The mouth longer and thinner, right?' Angelo asked, and his pencil moved furiously. Working with a new sheet of tracing paper, he began to transpose the results of the collaboration. It was very hot at the desk where he worked. His sweating fist stuck to the flimsy tracing paper.

The third version of the suspect looked like this:

There was a fourth version, and a fifth version, and a tenth version, and a twelfth version, and still Angelo worked at the desk in the sunlight. Hawes and the boy kept correcting him, often changing their minds after they had seen their verbal description take shape on paper. Angelo was a skilled technician who transposed their every word into simple line.

Their reversals of opinion did not seem to disturb him.Patiently he listened. And patiently he corrected.

'It's getting worse,' the kid said. 'It don't look at all like him now. It looked better in the beginning.'

'Change the nose,' Hawes said. 'It had a hook in it. Right in the middle. As if it had been broken.'

'More space between the nose and the mouth.'

'Shaggier eyebrows. Heavier.'

'Lines under the eyes.'

'Lines coming from his nose.'

'Older. Make him older.'

'Make his mouth a little crooked.'

'No, straighter.'

'Better, better.'

Angelo worked. There was sweat clinging to his forehead. They tried turning on the fan once, but it blew Angelo's papers all over the floor. From time to time, cops from all over the precinct drifted over to where Angelo was working at the desk. They stopped behind him, looking over his shoulder.

'That's pretty good,' one of them said, never having seen the suspect in question.

The floor was covered with sheets of rumpled tracing paper now. Still Hawes and Frankie fired their impressions of the man they had seen, and Angelo faithfully tried to capture those impressions on paper. And suddenly, after they had lost count of the number of drawings, Hawes said, 'Hold it! That's it.'

'That's him,' the kid said. 'That's the guy!'

'Don't change a line,' Hawes said. 'You've got him! That's the man.' The kid grinned from ear to ear and then shook hands with Hawes.

Angelo sighed a heavy sigh of relief.

This was the picture they felt resembled the man they had both seen:

Angelo began packing his case.

'That's very neat,' the kid said.

'That's my signature,' Angelo replied. 'Neat. Forget this Angelo stuff. My real name is Neat, with a capital N.' He grinned. He seemed very happy it was all over.

'How soon can we get copies?' Hawes asked.

'How soon do you need them?'

Hawes looked at his watch. 'It's 3.15,' he said. 'This guy is going to kill a woman at eight tonight.'

Angelo nodded seriously, the cop in him momentarily replacing the artist. 'Send a man with me,' he said. 'I'll run them off the minute I get back.'

At 4.05 p.m., armed with pictures the ink on which was still wet, Carella and Hawes left the precinct simultaneously. Carella headed for a bar on North Thirteenth, a bar named The Pub, the bar to which Samalson had taken his girl on the preceding Sunday. Carella went there solely to show the picture to the bartender in the hope he might identify the suspect.

Hawes went directly around the corner from the precinct, to Seventh Street, where Frankie Annuci had said he had met the man who'd given him the letter. It was Hawes's plan to start with Seventh and work his way east, heading uptown, going as far as Thirty-third if he had to. He would then double back, working north and south. If the man lived anywhere in the neighbourhood, Hawes meant to find him. In the meantime, a copy of the picture had been sent to the l.B. in the hope of getting a make from the photos in the files in case none of the investigating cops struck paydirt.

At 4.10 p.m. Meyer and Willis left the squad-room with their copies of the picture. Starting with Sixth Street, their plan was to work westward from the precinct, going down past First and into the named streets below First until they hit Lady Astor's street.

At 4.15 p.m. a squad car was called back to the precinct. Copies of the picture were dumped into the car, and then distributed to every motorized and foot patrolman in the precinct. Copies were delivered to the neighbouring 88th and 89th precincts, too. The immediate area adjacent to the precinct, starting with Grover Avenue and going into Grover Park, was flooded with detectives from the 88th and the 89th (which precincts handled the actual park territory), in the event the suspect might return in search of his binoculars. It was a big city, and a big, teeming precinct—but the precinct was fortunately smaller than the city.

Hawes, stopping at every store, stopping at every tenement, talking to shop owners and superintendents, talking to the kids in the streets, who were sometimes the shrewdest observers around, did not connect until he reached Twelfth Street.

It was late afternoon by this time, but the streets had not cooled down at all. Hawes was still hot, and he was beginning to feel the first disgruntled disappointment of defeat. How the hell would they ever stop this guy? How the hell would they ever find him? Dispiritedly he began working his way up the street, showing the picture. No, they did not know the man. No, they did not recognize him. Was he from the neighbourhood?

At the fifth tenement from the corner, he showed the picture to a landlady in a flowered cotton house dress.

'No,' she said instantly. 'I never—' And then she stopped. She took the picture from Hawes's hands. 'Yeah, that's him,' she said. 'That's the way he looked this morning. I saw him when he was coming down. That's the way he looked.'

'Who?' Hawes said. He could feel the sudden surge of energy within him as he waited for her answer.

'Smith,' she said. 'John Smith. A weird duck. He had this—'

'What apartment?' Hawes said.

'Twenty-two. That's on the second floor. He moved in about two weeks ago. Had this—'

But Hawes was already moving into the building, his gun drawn. He did not know that his conversation with the landlady had been viewed from a second-floor window. He did not know that his red hair had instantly identified him to his observer. He did not know until he was almost on the second-floor landing, and then he knew instantly.

The explosion thundered in the small, narrow corridor. Hawes fell to the floor at once, almost losing his footing on the top step, almost hurtling backward down the stairwell. He fired a shot into the dimness, not seeing anything, but wanting John Smith to know he was armed.

'Get out of here, cop!' the voice shouted.

'Throw your gun down here,' Hawes said. 'There are four cops with me downstairs. You haven't got a chance.'

'You're a liar,' the man shouted. 'I saw you when you got here. You came alone. I saw you from the window.'

Another shot exploded into the hallway. Hawes ducked below the top step. The bullet ripped plaster from the already chipped plaster on the wall. He squinted his eyes, trying to see into the dimness, cursing his position. Wherever Smith was, he could see Hawes without in turn being seen. Hawes could not move from his uncomfortable position on the steps. But perhaps Smith couldn't move, either. Perhaps if he left wherever he was, he would be seen. Hawes waited.

The hall went utterly still.

'Smith?' he called.

A fusillade of shots answered him, angry shots that whined across the hallway and ripped at the plaster. Chalk cascaded onto Hawes's head. He clung to the steps, cursing tenement hallways and would-be killers. From the street below, he could hear excited yells and screams, and then the repeated, shouted word 'Police! Police! Police! Police!'

'Do you hear that, Smith?' he shouted. 'They're calling the cops. The whole damn precinct'll be here in three minutes. Throw your gun down.'

Smith fired again. The shot was lower. It ripped a splinter of wood from the landing near the top step. Hawes reared back and then instantly ducked. He heard a clicking at the other end of the hallway. Smith was reloading. He was about to sprint down the corridor when he heard a clip being slammed into the butt of an automatic. Quickly he ducked down behind the top step again.

The hallway was silent again.

'Smith?'

There was no answer.

'Smith?'

From the street below, Hawes heard the high whine of a police siren.

'You hear that, Smith? They're here. They'll be—'

Three shots exploded into the hallway. Hawes ducked and then heard a man scuffling to his feet, caught a glimpse of a trouser leg as Smith started up the stairway. Hawes bounded into the hallway, triggering a shot at the retreating figure. Smith turned and fired, and Hawes dropped to the floor again. The footsteps were clattering up the steps now, noisily, excitedly, hurriedly. Hawes got to his feet, ran for the steps, charged up them two at a time. Another shot spun into the hallway. He did not duck this time. He kept charging up the steps, wanting to reach Smith before he got to the roof. He heard the roof door being tried, heard Smith pounding on it, and then heard a shot and the spanging reverberation of metal exploding. The roof door creaked open and then slammed shut. Smith was already on the roof.

Hawes rushed up the remaining steps. A skylight threw bright sunshine on the landing inside the roof door. He opened the door, and then closed it again rapidly when a bullet ripped into the jamb, splashing wood splinters onto his face.

Goddamn you! he thought. You goddamn son of a bitch, goddamn you!

He threw open the door, fired a blind fusillade of shots across the roof, and then followed his own cover out on to the melting tar. He saw a figure dart behind one of the chimney pots and then rush for the parapet at the roof's edge. He fired. His shot was high. He was not shooting to warn or to wound now. He was shooting to kill. Smith rose for an instant, poised on the edge of the roof. Hawes fired, and Smith leaped the airshaft between the buildings, landing behind the parapet on the adjoining roof. Hawes started after him, his shoes sticking in the tar. He reached the edge of the roof. He hesitated just an instant, and then leaped the airshaft, landing on his hands and knees in the sticky tar.

Smith had already crossed the roof. He looked back, fired at Hawes, and then rushed for the ledge. Hawes levelled his revolver. Smith climbed onto the ledge, silhouetted against the painful blue of the sky, and Hawes steadied the revolver on his left arm, taking careful aim. He knew that if Smith got on to that next roof, if Smith maintained the lead he now had, he would get away. And so he took careful aim, knowing that this shot had to count, watching Smith as he raised his arms in preparation for his jump across the airshaft. He aimed for the section of trunk that presented the widest target. He did not want to miss.

Smith stood undecided on the ledge for a moment. His body filled the fixed sight on Hawes's gun.

Hawes squeezed the trigger.

There was a mild click, a click that sounded shockingly loud, a click that thundered in Hawes's surprised ears like a cannon explosion.

Smith leaped the airshaft.

Hawes got to his feet, cursing his empty pistol, reloading as he ran across the roof to the airshaft. He looked across it to the next roof. Smith was nowhere in sight. Smith was gone.

Swearing all the way, he headed back for Smith's apartment. There had been no tune to reload until it was too late, and once it's too late, there's nothing to be done about it. Walking with his head down, he crossed the sticky tar.

Two shots rang out into the stillness of the summer rooftops, and Hawes hit the tar again. He looked up. A uniformed cop was standing on the edge of the opposite roof ahead, taking careful aim.

'Hold your fire, you dumb bastard!' Hawes yelled. 'I'm on your side.'

'Throw your gun away,' the cop yelled back.

Hawes complied. The cop leaped the airshaft and approached Hawes cautiously. When he saw his face, he said, 'Oh, it's you, sir.'

'Yes, it's me, sir,' Hawes said disgustedly.

The landlady was having none of Cotton Hawes. The landlady was screaming and ranting for him to get out of her building. She had never had trouble with the cops, and now they came around shooting, what was going to happen to her tenants, they'd all move out, all because of him, all because of that big red-headed stupid jerk! Hawes told one of the uniformed cops to keep her downstairs, and then he went into Smith's apartment.

The bed had been slept in the night before. The sheets were still rumpled. Hawes went to the single closet in the bedroom and opened it. There was nothing in the closet except the wire hangers on the rod. Hawes shrugged and went into the bathroom. The sink had been used sometime during that day. Soap was still in the basin, clotted around the drain. He opened the medicine cabinet. A bottle of iodine was on the top shelf. Two bars of soap were on the middle shelf. A pair of scissors, a straight razor, a box of Band-Aids, a tube of shaving cream, a toothbrush and toothpaste, were all crowded onto the lowest shelf. Hawes closed the door, and left the bathroom.

In the bedroom again, he checked through Smith's dresser. Smith, he thought, John Smith. The phoniest name anybody in the world could pick. The dresser was empty of clothing. In the top drawer, six magazines for an automatic pistol rested in one corner. Hawes lifted one of them with his handkerchief. Unless he was mistaken, the magazine would fit a Luger. He collected the magazines and put them into his pockets.

He went into the kitchen, the sole remaining room in the apartment. A coffee cup was on the kitchen table. A coffee pot was on the stove. Bread crumbs were scattered near the toaster. John Smith had apparently eaten here this morning. Hawes went to the icebox and opened the door.

A loaf of bread and a partially used rectangle of butter were on one of the shelves. That was all.

He opened the ice compartment. A bottle of milk rested alongside a melting cake of ice.

The lab boys would have a lot of work to do in Smith's apartment. But Hawes could do nothing more there at the moment except speculate on the absence of clothing and food, an absence that seemed to indicate that John Smith—whatever his real name was—did not actually live in the apartment. Had he rented the place only to carry out his murder? Had he planned to return here after he'd done his killing? Was he using this as a base of operations? Because it was close to the precinct? Or because it was close to his intended victim? Which?

Hawes closed the door to the ice compartment.

It was then that he heard the sound behind him.

Someone was in the apartment with him.