“And now?”
“Now Mr. Crocker is in a crock. All because he had an oil seal that leaked and because a cat had eyes that reflected light...”
Dondero frowned. “You make it sound right, but it’s still circumstantial as hell. To repeat, why the hell did he kill the guy?”
“I have no idea,” Reardon said flatly. “None. But I’m sure he had a good reason.” His voice hardened. “Maybe he’ll be nice and co-operative when we see him, and tell us. Do you suppose?” He increased his speed, swinging into Folsom. Ahead, as he turned, he could see Pier 26; he shook his head again at his stupidity, returning his attention to the road and the job at hand. The past was behind him; ahead of him was a smart and dangerous killer.
They came to Second Street and the wheel turned again. He drew to the curb and switched off the ignition. He reached beneath the front seat with his keys, unlocking a small compartment, withdrawing a service revolver and a belt holster. He clipped it in place beneath his jacket and glanced at Dondero; the sergeant looked surprised that he should even be questioned about being armed. He patted his hip.
The two men climbed down from the car and walked to the entrance of the apartment building. Reardon looked up; ten stories of weathered yellow brick stared back at him impersonally with fifty streaked glass eyes. None of them looked particularly friendly. He put his hand on the front door, twisting it, looking at Dondero with an expressionless face.
“Let’s not do this for the old Gipper,” he said evenly. “Let’s do his one for good old, stupid Lieutenant Jimmy Reardon, shall we, Don?”
“And for Penny Wilkinson,” Dondero added grimly and pushed through the door at the lieutenant’s side into the lobby.
Chapter 13
Thursday — 10:25 A.M.
The lobby of the Martinique Apartments had the standard stippled brown plaster walls enclosing a space no larger than was necessary for two tenants to bump into each other — with disastrous results if either happened to be encumbered by a baby carriage, a shopping cart, or even an inebriated mate. The mailboxes were embedded in one wall, a line of brass gap-toothed mouths; a mailman was busily stuffing the hungry maws with fourth-class fare. He stood aside politely to allow Reardon to run his fingers down the list of names; the finger passed Crocker, Apartment 304, without the slightest hesitation, and stopped at 1002. The finger then moved over casually to press the button beside the name and number. There was no response. With a philosophic shrug he appeared to press it again, but pressed 1003 instead. He was instantly rewarded with a shrill buzzing and smiled at the mailman pleasantly to indicate his success. The mailman looked at him as if he were crazy to even want to get into a building like that, and went back to his vital task of distributing junk mail.
The two plain-clothes detectives pushed into the first-floor corridor and walked to the central area of the hallway, which housed the elevator and an incinerator alongside a dismal air shaft. The two entered the elevator and rode the small box-like contraption jerkily to the third floor, accompanied by the odors of cooking long dead. They waited while the elevator door laboriously creaked open and then moved quietly but quickly to Crocker’s apartment. Reardon pressed the tiny button beside the doorframe and waited, his face a mask. He waited a moment and then pressed the bell once again and rapped on the door panel with his knuckles, more from impatience than from any hope of evoking a response.
“Nobody home,” Dondero suggested inanely.
“I guess not.” Reardon reached into his pocket, bringing out a bunch of keys, studying them a moment, and then selecting one. Dondero frowned unhappily.
“We ought to get a search warrant if we’re going in, Jim. I go along with your ideas about Crocker and Cooke, either because you’ve got me convinced or hypnotized, but Captain Tower is rough on this sort of thing. He says it’s stuff like this that some lawyer uses to get a guy off who’s guilty as hell. You know that. Let’s go get a warrant. It won’t take all that long.”
“A warrant?” Reardon was testing the keys, one by one, selecting the ones that were of the same make as the lock. “I’ve heard tell of those. A piece of paper, aren’t they? With a lot of writing on them? I mean, printing?” He tried the next key in line; the lock turned easily. He withdrew the key and eased the door open, looking back over his shoulder. “Are you coming? Be my guest.”
“But suppose he comes back?”
“What do you mean, suppose he comes back? What do you think we came here for? Breakfast? If he comes back, marvelous! If he doesn’t come back, I’ll get somebody to sit here and wait for him until he does come back!” He shook his head in amazement, looking at the husky sergeant. “What a question! I think love has addled your brains. What if he comes back!”
He walked into the apartment. Dondero followed, chastened into silence, closing the door behind him. There was a slightly musty smell to the place, as if the windows had been closed too long. Still, Reardon admitted, with the rain and fog, who wanted to open windows? He looked about the room. It was scantily provided with cheap plywood furniture upholstered in colorful and durable plastic, the few prints on the dun-colored walls were in dime-store black wooden frames, the rug was no thicker than a crepe suzette; everything clearly advertised the apartment as being rented furnished. Reardon grimaced at the decor and turned to Dondero.
“You take the kitchen and in here. I’ll take the bedroom and bath.”
“What are we looking for?”
“How should I know? Look for anything that ties in with Cooke, or with ships, or with” — he shrugged — “with murder, if that makes any sense. Look for anything out of the ordinary.”
“Right.”
Dondero didn’t sound happy about being in a private residence without a search warrant, but he knew better than to argue at this stage. He also knew that Lieutenant Jim Reardon took his chances, but he also took his own raps. He walked into the kitchen while Reardon headed for the bedroom. A quart of milk stood on the kitchen table together with an empty bowl and a box of breakfast cereal. He opened the refrigerator, studying the contents when he heard his superior’s voice raised urgently.
“Don!”
Dondero closed the refrigerator and came hurrying into the dingy hallway to the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway, looking around, fully expecting a corpse, at the least. The room looked normal enough to him.
“What’s the matter?”
Reardon didn’t even bother to answer; he merely waved his hand around. Dondero took a second look and instantly understood.
“He’s skipped!”
“It looks like it.”
The dresser drawers were open and empty except for some shelf paper some tenant sometime in the distant past had used for lining. The closet pole was bare, denuded of suits or even hangers, although a few wire hangers were on the floor. Reardon looked around a few minutes and then walked back to the hallway and went into the bathroom. The medicine chest door was open; the glass shelves within were also empty. Reardon sighed. Dondero walked farther into the room, bent down, and picked something out of the wastebasket.
“Jim — look here.” He held an empty cardboard box. Reardon took it.
“They’re 44s. So he’s armed. Great.”
He left the bathroom, walking to the kitchen. He opened a door or two to the kitchen cabinets and shook his head. Other than a few cans of food and some plastic dishes, they exhibited nothing unexpected. The refrigerator had a plastic bag full of ice cubes, a cucumber, three bottles of some sort of soft drink, and that was all. Reardon slammed the door shut.