“Depressing old pile, isn’t it? It’s mob run, did you say?”
“Yeah. Lot of grizzly goombahs in diapers playing pinochle and rehashing the good old days. Hey, you wanna hear a funny joke?”
“Why not?”
“These two ninety-nine-year-old geezers are sitting in their rockers on the front porch of a joint just like this, see, and one says to the other one, he says, ‘Paisano, let me get this straight. Was it you or your brother that was killed at Anzio in World War II?’”
“Quite good.” Ambrose laughed. He climbed the sagging steps and the captain was right behind him.
“Pisser, ain’t it? Okay, who’s doing the talking at the door? You or me?”
“It’s my investigation, I believe,” Ambrose said, and rapped on the cracked and peeling front door. There were a few lights on downstairs and one or two on the second floor. A window tucked up under the eave was dark. After a moment, a large man in green scrubs appeared at the door. He opened it, but just barely.
“Good evening, sir,” Ambrose said, holding up his credentials. “I’m Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard. And this is Captain Mariucci of the New York Police Department. May we come in?”
“What’s this all about?” the man said, closing the door a fraction.
“I’ll tell you when we’re inside,” Congreve replied, shoving the door open and stepping over the threshold. The captain followed him inside and the three of them stood in a small hallway under the pale yellow light of a dusty ceiling fixture.
“What you want?” the man said. “I ain’t done nothin’. I’m just the orderly here.”
“What’s your name?” Mariucci asked.
“I’m Lavon, sir. Lavon Greene.”
“Is there a manager on the premises, Mr. Greene?” Ambrose asked.
“He don’t sleep here. He leaves at eleven and goes home. I’m just the night man.”
“I see. Where is his office?”
“Down the hall there. Last door on the left.”
“And the files for all the—patients? Are they kept in that office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have a resident here by the name of Ben Sangster?”
“Yes, sir, there is. He’s upstairs now. Sound asleep.”
“Good. Captain Mariucci is going to get his file for me. You’re going to show me to Mr. Sangster’s room.”
“Yes, sir, right this way. Mr. Ben’s on the top floor. Only one up there. He’s asleep, though, like I said. He takes his meds at six. Man is lights out after that. He don’t wake up till orange juice.”
“Captain,” Ambrose said, “I’m going to accompany this very nice gentleman upstairs and look in on Mr. Sangster. Won’t you join us once you’ve retrieved his file from the office?”
“Certainly, Chief Inspector,” Mariucci said with a mock bow, “I’ll get on that right away, sir.” He ambled off down the dingy hallway, mumbling something under his breath. Lavon pointed to a narrow staircase across the hall and Ambrose started up ahead of him, taking the steps two at a time.
“Is this his room?” Ambrose asked when they’d reached the top floor.
“Yes, sir.”
“After you,” Congreve said, and let the big man open the door and enter ahead of him.
A sharp coppery smell assaulted Congreve’s twitching nose. He knew what he would find even as he reached for the light switch beside the door. There was fresh blood in this room. A lot of it. He turned on the light.
“Oh, lord Jesus,” the orderly said. “Oh, sweet Jesus, how did this—”
Ambrose looked at Lavon Greene and said, “This man was alive when you last saw him?”
“Yes, sir! He—”
“The last time you saw him was when you administered his medication. You gave him his medication at what time?”
“Six. Six o’clock, is what I’m saying. Same time every day. Oh, my lord.”
“You’re absolutely sure he was alive at six o’clock this evening?”
“Alive as you or me. Yes, sir. He was.”
“And you haven’t heard anything since then? No noise? No shouts or cries?”
“No, sir.”
“I believe you. That bloody pillow on the floor was held over his face. Could one of your patients have done this?”
“No, sir. Ain’t none of ’em got the strength to cut a man’s head half off.”
“Has anyone besides you and the manager been in this house tonight?”
“Just the dish man.”
“Dish man? A cook?”
“No, sir. Man who came to fix the dish on the roof.”
“Ah, that dish. What time was this?”
“Around seven, I guess. Everybody who ain’t bedridden was down in the lounge watching the TV and suddenly the picture went out. Man showed up here about ten minutes later said he was here to fix the dish. Had to go up on the roof, he said.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was a little guy. Big smile on his face. A Chinaman.”
“A Chinaman. That’s very interesting. I want you to go downstairs right now and ask Captain Mariucci to come up here immediately. Can you do that, Mr. Greene? Run down there, now.”
“Ain’t nothing like this ever happened here before this. Never.”
“Go.”
The late Benny Sangster lay faceup in his blood-soaked bed. His throat had been slashed down to the spinal column and the wound was gaping like a second red mouth under his chin. Approaching the bed, Congreve could see the blood was partially congealed. That’s when the second wound caught his eye.
There was also a gash in the center of the chest. In Ambrose’s experience, this meant organs had been removed. From the size and location of the wound, he would guess the heart.
Someone had known Congreve was coming to New York and why. That someone had beaten him to the punch, had gotten to Benny Sangster before Ambrose could. Congreve heard Mariucci’s heavy tread racing up the stairs.
“Captain!” Congreve shouted over his shoulder, “Where the bloody hell is Coney Island?”
“What are you, a tourist? It’s in Brooklyn, for crissakes. The southernmost—Aw, shit,” Captain Mariucci said. He was standing in the doorway staring at what was left of Benny Sangster.
“Joe Bones is next,” Congreve said, “Let’s go.”
“He’s next, all right,” the captain said, “and whoever did Benny here is thinking the same goddamn thing. Let’s get outta here.”
Traffic was light for a Friday night. The uniform had the Impala cruiser doing at least one hundred on the Belt Parkway, weaving in and out of the lanes.
“He’s a cannibal,” Ambrose remarked, gazing out the window at the blur of Brooklyn.
“What? Who is?” Mariucci said.
“The killer. The Chinaman who murdered Sangster.”
“Fuck you talking about, Ambrose?”
“Eating the heart of one’s enemy. An act of psychological brutality. The killer ate Sangster’s heart. At least he removed it. Assuming it would be cumbersome to transport, especially if he’s planning a second murder tonight, I believe he ate it while standing over the corpse.”
“Jesus.”
“The Chinese are not as squeamish as we are, Captain.”
“You saying this is understandable behavior?”
“I’m saying the taboo against cannibalism is weaker there than it is in the West. In wartime, many starving Chinese acquired a taste for human flesh. And there are many stories of workers in morgues or crematoriums slicing off the buttocks or breasts of female corpses and taking them home for supper. Stuffing for dumplings, you see.”
“Can you stop? Please?” Mariucci begged. “Now!”
The uniform up front turned around. “Here?” he asked, dumb-founded.
“Not you, him,” Mariucci said.
At Exit 6, the cop driving the cruiser went up on two wheels taking the turn. He then went south on Cropsey Avenue, taking that all the way down to Surf. At the corner of Surf and West Tenth Street, he screeched to a halt and the captain and the Scotland Yard man scrambled out of the backseat.