I was ahead of him. “And that’s where the ‘no’ half of ‘yes and no’ comes in. The kid suddenly didn’t recognize the suspect. Got unsure of himself, then finally said, ‘I don’t think that’s the guy,’ or words to that effect. And hustled his skinny scared ass out of here.”
“Like they say in the Village,” Pat commented bitterly, “it’s a bummer.”
“It’s a bummer, all right. The kid was nuts about that girl, but it’s not hard to rationalize saving your own skin. Helping haul her killer to justice doesn’t bring the girl back.”
Pat pounded a fist on his desk. “If that hippie hadn’t retracted his ID, I’d be over at Clark’s apartment house right now, with men on the street and all over that building. And I’d be going in there heavy and taking him down. Personally.”
“Arresting him, you mean.”
Pat frowned at me. “If he cooperates. If he doesn’t... he goes down all the way. He goes down hard.”
“Now you’re talking.”
He sat forward, frustration tightening his face. “Only, Mike — I can’t do that. I don’t even have enough to bring the S.O.B. in for questioning. All I have is a wire photo from L.A. that might back up a theory I have that could just be a wild hair up my ass. I have a witness ID that’s been withdrawn, worthless. What if I go there, and bring Dennis Clark in, and I’m wrong? Well, I’m getting a little old to pound a beat on Staten Island, and too young for early retirement.”
My grin must have been horrible; I was glad I didn’t have to look at it. “Old buddy, you are screwed sideways. You really don’t have enough to bring him in. You don’t even have enough to talk to him. Anything that came of it would get tossed out by some holier-than-thou judge.”
“You’re wrong, Mike.”
“I am?”
“It would never make it past the D.A.” He leaned both elbows on his desk and looked right at me. “But what if I told you about all this? Off-duty. Over beers, maybe. Since we’re old friends and you’re involved in the case.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“And you tell me you’re going over there to shake the truth out of this new suspect. I of course would tell you not to, try to stop you, and finally insist if you’re determined to talk to Mr. Clark — as a part of your private investigation into the case — that I have to come along.”
I considered it, then said, “You might get in a little hot water over that. But not boiling.”
“What do you think, Mike?”
“I think... what are we waiting for?”
The somewhat pricey neighborhood in Upper Manhattan called Washington Heights was home to seemingly countless apartment buildings, Dennis Clark’s among them. The nine stories of rust-brick on the corner of West 187th Street and Cabrini bore a stark prewar modernity, though the inset twin front doors with their brass-trim and geometric designs, surrounded by panels of pink marble and two square windows above, formed the mouth of a startled Art-Deco face that gaped at your approach.
We took my car, since Pat was supposedly tagging along with me, though it was actually vice versa. It wouldn’t seem like he was trying to keep me out of trouble if he drove me here. We snagged a nice close parking place, which was a small miracle and a relief, as the sky looked as if it were made of billowing black smoke from a terrible fire, though rain was what it promised.
There was no doorman outside and no sign-in post inside, just a small lobby with a marble floor and more ’30s-modern trimmings. We walked to a bank of two elevators where Pat punched UP. In our trenchcoats and hats, we looked no more like cops than guys in ten-gallon numbers and chaps did cowboys. Behind us, through the closed doors, came a sudden machine-gun downpour.
“We just made it,” I said.
Pat barely noticed. He had the expression of a father driving his thirteen-year-old sheltered son to a dance with a fifteen-year-old girl wearing too much lipstick.
“I want him alive,” Pat said, staring me down. “Understand, Mike? Alive.”
“Yeah, yeah, breathing and everything. Christ, Pat, we don’t even know for sure he’s the guy and you’ve got me shooting him already.”
“Since when were you fussy?”
Despite this, on the self-service elevator, Pat got out his .38 service revolver and shoved it in his right raincoat pocket. I did the same with my .45.
Clark’s apartment was on the eighth floor, a few doors to the left of where the elevator deposited us. Pat took the lead. He was poised to knock when I whispered, “Take no chances, buddy.”
Pat nodded, and put his back to the wall nearest the knob and I did the same to the other, each of us with a hand in our right pockets gripping a gun. He reached his left fist over and knocked.
We heard movement within.
“Mr. Clark,” Pat said, loud but in an even, unthreatening manner. “NYPD Homicide. We’d like to speak to you, sir.”
A few seconds passed, and Pat seemed about to say something else when the flurry of bullets punched through the wood of the door, accompanied by mini-bursts of thunder that the sky might have envied.
Though our backs were to the wall, literally and maybe figuratively, we both ducked down anyway.
“Next time,” I said tightly, “skip the ‘Homicide.’”
“Point well-taken.”
We both heard something in there.
A window was being forced up and open, confirmed by the abrupt loudness of a raging storm that had been muffled till now.
“He’s going out,” I said to Pat, across the bullet-puckered doorway.
“Where the hell to? We’re eight stories up, man!”
“The fire escape.”
Pat frowned. “There’s no fire escape out that window. It’s around the corner on the other side of the building.”
No more time for talk. I didn’t think I’d be at any risk of more gunfire coming through that door. So I kicked it open in a splintering crunch, pushed the damaged result aside, and rushed in. With .45 in hand but shedding the trenchcoat and hat, I crossed the living room of a modern apartment toward a window that yawned wide and spewed rain to discourage me.
From the doorway, Pat yelled, “Mike, what the hell...?”
“Find something useful to do,” I told him.
“I’ll call for back-up,” he said, and was gone.
I peered out around the window frame and there, through the driving sheets, was a man in a dark, already dripping suit hugging the brick, his shoes angled sideways to take advantage of the six-inch ledge of cement. He faced away from me as he moved incrementally toward the corner of the building, around which the fire escape waited.
Just barely peeking out, my face streamed with the sky’s tears, my upper clothes already soaked. I leaned out to get a better look at him, specifically to see if he’d put his gun away.
He hadn’t.
It was in his right hand, and flat against the brick. In the limited visibility of the downpour, I could tell only that it was an automatic, a nine millimeter possibly or maybe a .45.
But the gun was, no question, slowing him down. It gave him only one hand to secure purchase on the brick, and he was inching his feet along. I’d be inching along too if I carried my .45 out there. I could shoot him from the window, but Pat wanted him alive, and I owed my friend that much. Anyway, if this was the Specialist, I didn’t want to give him the easy mercy of a .45 slug in the head. He had much worse coming.