At precisely what time did I stumble upon the body?
About fifteen minutes before Leibowitz and Elkin came on the scene.
Did Greta or I hear any noise beforehand, like a scuffle or a cry for help? The thud of the body smacking onto the sidewalk?
We shook our heads.
Did we see anyone running by the café’s front window? Or a car streaking past much too fast?
Again, the answer was negative.
When did the last customer before me leave?
Ten o’clock. Greta gave Leibowitz the customer’s name, and he dutifully entered it in his notebook.
Was the deceased a patron of the café?
I let Greta answer no to that last question while I held my tongue. A nagging voice in my head informed me in no uncertain terms that I was being a damn fool, that I should tell Leibowitz what I knew about Nathan, that I should let the police do their work, that I had no business or cause to interfere.
I ignored that voice, though I recognized its wisdom. For this murder was my business, and I had every intention of interfering.
When he was done with his questions, Leibowitz told us we were free to leave, though he stressed that he might wish to speak to us again later on. I could feel his eyes on my back as Greta and I retreated to the café.
2
We stood at the window and watched as another police car pulled up, disgorging a uniformed policeman and a weary-looking man with a camera. The cameraman proceeded to snap a prodigious number of pictures of the body and its surroundings. A dozen or so curious civilians had gathered to see what all the hullabaloo was about. Elkin and the new officer were gesticulating at them to stand well back from the scene, no doubt exhorting them to go home, which they showed no inclination of doing. Leibowitz seemed oblivious to the onlookers. He stood with his hands jammed deep in his pockets, watching the cameraman work.
“How long will they be?” Greta asked.
“A while, but not too long. I doubt they’ll find much here.” I told her about the blood trail I’d seen. “Inspector Leibowitz noticed it too. He has good eyes.”
“And sticky fingers. Is he really going to keep that money?”
“Not all of it. Officer Elkin will likely get his share, maybe one or two other guys.”
“You talk as if it’s only to be expected. I was of a mind to call him a thief to his face. I still am.” Her face was flushed with indignation.
“Resist the urge, Greta. It would serve no purpose.”
“You knew this would happen, didn’t you, Adam? That’s why you removed the money from his wallet.”
“I couldn’t be certain, of course, but I knew there was a good chance that some of the money would find its way into the pockets of our brave law enforcement officers.”
She studied my face, and I could tell what she was thinking before she put it into words.
“Was this something you did when you were a policeman in Hungary?”
I looked into her kind eyes and remembered how I’d felt when she saw me take the money from Nathan’s wallet. I’d thought I had lost her respect and friendship forever. I felt a similar fear now, but I had always been truthful with Greta. I did not tell her everything; I kept the darkest days of my past and the blackest thoughts of my present to myself. But I was not in the habit of lying to her.
“A few times. Mostly they were cases in which the victims were criminals, but there were a couple of times they weren’t. I’m not proud of it, Greta, but I did it. The first time it happened, I was appalled and tried to resist. The other cop, older and case-hardened, had to force the money into my hand and close my fingers around it. It was the way, he told me. You either took the money or no one would work with you. If you acted too pure, other cops would get nervous around you. You’d be shunned. So I took the money. And I spent it. I didn’t feel very good about it, but I did it. It was only after I got ahead in the ranks that I passed the word around that I didn’t want any part of murder victims’ money. I wouldn’t stop anyone else from dipping in, but they could count me out. By then, the other cops knew they could trust me, so they let it slide. Does this shock you?”
Greta didn’t answer right away. At length she said, “I can’t pretend to like it, but I’m sure glad you didn’t make a lifetime habit of it.”
I smiled faintly. “Almost all cops take money. They have to. With cops’ wages being what they are, they wouldn’t be able to support a family without a little extra coming in. This doesn’t make them bad cops, not if they do it within reason.”
“And the cops who never take money?”
I thought of Reuben Tzanani, who belonged to that rare breed of totally honest policemen, and who had a desk job because of it.
“They don’t get far in their careers,” I said.
We were both quiet for a while. I gazed out the window at the activity outside. A few more spectators had gathered and the cops were showing signs of losing their patience with them. Leibowitz left the scene, walking uptown, no doubt following the trail of blood drops to see where it led him. By this time, a third car had arrived—what Leibowitz had called “the corpse wagon.” The driver got out and parked himself on the hood and smoked a cigarette, a bored expression on his face. Soon, Nathan’s body would be hoisted into the back of the car and ferried to the morgue. It wouldn’t take long for the police to discover he’d made his living on the wrong side of the law. Once that happened, the case would likely fade in significance. It would go from “murder most foul” to “good riddance to bad rubbish.” The police would cease to care. If a solution fell in their lap, they would seize it. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t put in much effort and Nathan’s murder would likely go unsolved.
I could help the police, of course. I could step out right now and tell Leibowitz everything I knew. But I wasn’t going to. There were a number of reasons. One, doing so would get at least one innocent person in trouble with the law, not to mention myself. And two, this was now a personal matter. I was going to handle this myself because there was a fair chance that I had inadvertently brought about Nathan’s death—that, if it wasn’t for my stupidity or excessive honesty or my simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time, he wouldn’t be lying dead on a cold sidewalk in the middle of Allenby Street with two knife wounds in his torso.
Which meant that this was now my responsibility, this was now my case. I was going to find out who murdered Nathan, and when I did, I did not want the police to get in my way with their regulations and procedures. I wanted free rein to bring his killer to justice. And odds were that it would not be the justice provided by courts and rules of evidence and jail cells.
Greta broke the silence. “I put the two hundred liras on the second shelf in the kitchen, between the third and fourth trays.”
“Good. I’ll take them before I leave.”
“What do you plan on doing with them?”
“Give them to someone he loved.”
She looked at me quizzically but didn’t ask me to elaborate. That was the thing about Greta, she knew which questions to ask and which not to.
“How come you know this man, Adam?” she said after a few moments.
“If I’m going to tell you,” I said, “we’d better sit down. And maybe we should get something hot to drink while we’re at it. Death is a cold business. We might as well try to keep warm.”
Once we were settled around my table, with a pot of tea and two cups, I began talking.
“I first heard the name Nathan Frankel four days ago, when I paid a visit to Tova Wasserman…”