He was carrying a gravity knife.
So? Frisk the city and you could stock an arsenal. Half the city was carrying something to protect it from the other half. The knife was a deadly weapon and he was breaking a law carrying it, but it didn't prove anything.
He knew how to grab that wall. It wasn't his first frisk.
And that didn't prove anything either. There are neighborhoods where you can't grow up without getting stopped and tossed once a week by the cops.
And the money? The roll of bills?
He could have come by it honestly. Or he could have earned it in any of innumerable dishonest ways and still not have been a mugger.
And my vaunted cop instincts? Hell, the minute he came out of the doorway I'd known he was going to approach me.
Right. And I'd also known his partner was moving in behind me, knew it as if I'd had eyes in the back of my head. Except there was nobody there. So much for the infallibility of instinct.
I took out the gravity knife, opened it. Suppose I'd been carrying it the night before. More realistically, suppose I'd still been carrying the icepick I'd bought in Boerum Hill. Would I have limited myself to a couple of body punches and a forearm smash to the face? Or would I have worked with the materials at hand?
I felt shaky, and it was more than the hangover.
I closed the knife and put it away. I took out the roll of bills, removed the rubber band, counted the cash. I made it a hundred and seventy dollars in fives and tens.
If he was a mugger, why didn't he have the knife in his hand? How come it was in his jacket pocket with the flap buttoned down?
Or was the flap buttoned?
Didn't matter. I sorted the money and added it to my own. On my way out I lit a couple of candles, then slipped seventeen dollars into the poor box.
At the corner of Fifty-seventh I dropped the gravity knife into a sewer.
Chapter 13
My cab driver was an Israeli immigrant and I don't think he'd ever heard of Rikers Island. I told him to follow the signs for LaGuardia Airport. When we got close I gave him directions. I got out at a luncheonette at the foot of the bridge that spans Bowery Bay and the channel of the East River that separates the island from the rest of Queens.
Lunch hour had come and gone and the place was mostly empty. A few men in work clothes were seated at the counter. About halfway down a man sat in a booth with a cup of coffee and looked up expectantly at my approach. I introduced myself and he said he was Marvin Hiller.
"My car's outside," he said. "Or did you want to grab a cup of coffee? The only thing is I'm a little bit rushed. I had a long morning in Queens Criminal Court and I'm supposed to be at my dentist's in forty-five minutes. If I'm late I'm late."
I told him I didn't care about coffee. He paid his tab and we went outside and rode his car over the bridge. He was a pleasant and rather earnest man a few years younger than I and he looked like what he was, a lawyer with an office on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst. One of his clients, one who'd be contributing very little toward the rent on that office, was Louis Pinell.
I'd gotten his name from Frank Fitzroy and managed to get his secretary to beep him and call me at the hotel. I'd expected a flat turndown on my request for clearance to see Pinell and got just the reverse.
"Just so it's kosher," he had said, "why don't you meet me out there and we'll drive over together.
You'll probably get more out of him that way. He's a little more comfortable about talking with his lawyer present."
Now he said, "I don't know what you'll be able to get from him. I suppose you mostly want to satisfy yourself that he didn't kill the Ettinger woman."
"I suppose."
"I would think he's in the clear on that one. The evidence is pretty clear-cut. If it was just his word I'd say forget it, because who knows what they remember and what they make up when they're as crazy as he is?"
"He's really crazy?"
"Oh, he's a bedbug," Hiller said. "No question about it. You'll see for yourself. I'm his attorney, but between ourselves I see my job as a matter of making sure he never gets out without a leash. It's a good thing I drew this case."
"Why's that?"
"Because anybody crazy enough to want to could get him off without a whole lot of trouble. I'm going to plead him, but if I made a fight the State's case wouldn't stand up. All they've got is his confession and you could knock that out a dozen different ways, including that he was cuckoo at the time he confessed. They've got no evidence, not after nine years. There's lawyers who think the advocate system means they should go to bat for a guy like Lou and put him back on the streets."
"He'd do it again."
"Of course he'd do it again. He had a fucking icepick in his pocket when they collared him. Again between ourselves, I think lawyers with that attitude ought to be in jail alongside their clients. But in the meantime here I am, playing God. What do you want to ask Lou?"
"There was another Brooklyn killing. I might ask him a few questions about that."
"Sheepshead Bay. He copped to that one."
"That's right. I don't know what else I'll ask him. I'm probably wasting my time. And yours."
"Don't worry about it."
Thirty or forty minutes later we were driving back to the mainland and I was apologizing again for wasting his time.
"You did me a favor," he said. "I'm going to have to make another dentist's appointment. You ever have periodontal surgery?"
"No."
"You're a wise man. This guy's my wife's cousin and he's pretty good, but what they do is they carve your gums. They do a section of your mouth at a time. Last time I went I wound up taking codeine every four hours for a week. I walked around in this perpetual fog. I suppose it's worth it in the long run, but don't feel you took me away from something enjoyable."
"If you say so."
I told him he could drop me anywhere but he insisted on giving me a lift to the subway stop at Northern Boulevard. On the way we talked a little about Pinell. "You can see why they picked him up on the street,"
he said. "That craziness is right there in his eyes. One look and you see it."
"There are a lot of street crazies."
"But he's dangerous-crazy and it shows. And yet I'm never nervous in his presence. Well, I'm not a woman and he hasn't got an icepick. That might have something to do with it."
At the subway entrance I got out of the car and hesitated for a moment, and he leaned toward me, one arm over the back of the seat.
We both seemed reluctant to take leave of each other. I liked him and sensed that he held me in similar regard.
"You're not licensed," he said. "Isn't that what you said?"
"That's right."
"Couldn't you get a license?"
"I don't want one."
"Well, maybe I could throw some work your way all the same, if the right sort of thing came along."
"Why would you want to?"
"I don't know. I liked your manner with Lou. And I get the feeling with you that you think the truth is important." He chuckled. "Besides, I owe you. You spared me a half-hour in the dentist's chair."
"Well, if I ever need a lawyer-"
"Right. You know who to call."
* * *
I just missed a Manhattan-bound train. While I waited for the next one on the elevated platform I managed to find a phone in working order and tried Lynn London's number. I'd checked the hotel desk before I called Hiller, and there'd been a message from her the night before, probably wondering why I hadn't shown up. I wondered if she'd been the one who called during my shower. Whoever it was hadn't elected to leave a message. The desk man said the caller had been a woman, but I'd learned not to count too heavily on his powers of recollection.
Lynn's number didn't answer. No surprise. She was probably still in school, or on her way home. Had she mentioned any afternoon plans?
I couldn't remember.
I retrieved my dime, started to put it and my notebook away. Was there anyone else I should call? I flipped pages in my notebook, struck by how many names and numbers and addresses I'd written down, considering how little I'd managed to accomplish.