“If I get it,” Lipsky said, “should I call your office?”
“I’m not in very much,” Delaney said casually. “In this business you’ve got to keep moving around. I’ll call you every day on the lobby phone. If you go back on nights, leave a message with your brother-in-law. I’ll find out from him when to call. Okay?”
“I guess,” Lipsky said doubtfully. “Jesus, if I didn’t need the dough so bad, I’d tell you to go suck.”
“Sharks?” the Captain asked.
“Yeah,” Lipsky said wonderingly. “How did you know?”
“A guess,” Delaney shrugged. He passed twenty under the table to the doorman. “I’ll see you at two-thirty this afternoon. What’s the apartment number?”
“Twenty-one H. It’s on a tag attached to the keys.”
“Good. Don’t worry. It’ll go like silk.”
“Jesus, I hope so.”
The Captain looked at him narrowly. “You don’t like this guy much, do you?”
Lipsky began to curse, ripe obscenities spluttering from his lips. Delaney listened awhile, serious and unsmiling, then held up a hand to cut off the flow of invective.
“One more thing,” he said to Lipsky. “In a few days, or a week from now, you might mention casually to Blank that I was around asking questions about him. You can describe me, but don’t tell him my name. You forgot it. Just say I was asking personal questions, but you wouldn’t tell me a goddamned thing. Got that?”
“Well…sure,” Lipsky said, puzzled. “But what for?”
“I don’t know,” Captain Delaney said. “I’m not sure. Just to give him something to think about, I guess. Will you do it?”
“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
They left the luncheonette together. There were early workers on the streets now. The air was cold, sharp. The sky was lightening in the east; it promised to be a clear day. Captain Delaney walked home slowly, leaning against the December wind. By the time he unlocked his door he could hardly smell the rancid grease.
The projected break-in had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He hadn’t planned that, hadn’t even considered it. But Lipsky had tied Daniel Blank to mountain climbing: the first time that was definitely established. And that led to the ice ax. That damned ax! Nothing so far had tied Blank to the purchase or possession of an ice ax. Delaney wanted things tidy. Possession would be tidy enough; purchase could be traced later.
He wasn’t lying when he told Lipsky he’d be in and out of Blank’s apartment in an hour. My God, he could find an ice ax in Grand Central Station in that time. And why should Blank hide it? As far as he knew, he wasn’t suspected. He owned rucksack, pitons, crampons, ice ax. What could be more natural? He was a mountaineer. All Delaney wanted from that break-in was the ice ax. Anything else would be gravy on the roast.
He wrote up his reports and noted, gratified, how fat the Daniel G. Blank file was growing. More important, how he was beginning to penetrate his man. Tony, a twelve-year-old boy pretty enough to be a girl. A thin, black-haired woman with no tits. Friends who owned a sex boutique. Much, much there. But if the ice ax didn’t exist in Blank’s apartment, it was all smoke. What would he do then? Start in again-someone else, another angle, a different approach. He was prepared for it.
He worked on his reports until Mary arrived. She fixed him coffee, dry toast, a soft-boiled egg. No grease. After breakfast, he went into the living room, pulled the shades, took off his shoes and jacket, unbuttoned his vest. He lay down on the couch, intending to nap for only an hour. But when he awoke, it was almost 11:30, and he was angry at himself for time wasted.
He went into the downstairs lavatory to rub his face with cold water and comb his hair. In the mirror he saw how he looked, but he had already felt it: blueish bags swelling down beneath his eyes, the greyish unhealthy complexion, lines deeper, wrinkled forehead, bloodless lips pressed tighter, everything old and troubled. When all this was over, and Barbara was well again, they’d go somewhere, groan in the sun, stuff until their skins were tight, eyes clear, memories washed, blood pure and pumping. And they’d make love. That’s what he told himself.
He called Monica Gilbert.
“Monica, I’m going over to visit my wife. I was wondering if-if you’re not busy-if you’d like to meet her.”
“Oh yes. I would. When?”
“Fifteen minutes or so. Too soon? Would you like lunch first?”
“Thank you, but I’ve had a salad. That’s all I’m eating these days.”
“A diet?” he laughed. “You don’t need that.”
“I do. I’ve been eating so much since-since Bernie died. Just nerves, I guess. Edward…”
“What?”
“You said you’d call me about Daniel Blank, but you didn’t. Was it anything?”
“I think so. But I’d like my wife to hear it, too. I trust her judgment. She’s very good on people. I’ll tell you both at the same time. All right?”
“Of course.”
“Be over in fifteen minutes.”
Then he called Barbara and told her he was bringing Monica Gilbert to meet her, the widow of the second victim. Barbara said of course. She was happy to talk to him and told him to hurry.
He had thought about it a long time-whether or not to bring the two women together. He recognized the dangers and the advantages. He didn’t want Barbara to think, even to suspect, that he was having a relationship-even an innocent relationship-with another woman while she, Barbara, was ill, confined to a hospital room, despite what she had said about his marrying again if anything happened to her. That was just talk, he decided firmly: an emotional outburst from a woman disturbed by her own pain and fears of the future. But Barbara would enjoy company-that he knew. She really did like people, much more than he did. He could tell her of a man arrested for molesting women-there was one crazy case: this nut would sneak into bedrooms out in Queens, always coming through unlocked windows, and he would kiss sleeping women and then run away. He never put his hands on them or injured them physically. He just kissed them. When he told Barbara about it, she gave a troubled sigh and said, “Poor fellow. How lonely he must have been.”-and her sympathies were frequently with the suspect, unless violence was involved.
Monica Gilbert needed a confidante as well. Her job was finished, her file complete. He wanted to continue giving her a feeling of involvement. So, finally, he had decided to bring them together.
It wasn’t a disaster, as he had feared, but it didn’t go marvelously well, as he had hoped. Both women were cordial, but nervous, guarded, reserved. Monica had brought Barbara a little African violet, not from a florist's shop but one she had nurtured herself. That helped. Barbara expressed her condolences in low tones on the death of Monica’s husband. Delaney stayed out of it, standing away from Barbara’s bed, listening and watching anxiously.
Then they began speaking about their children, exchanging photographs and smiling. Their talk became louder than sickroom tones; they laughed more frequently; Barbara touched Monica’s arm. Then he knew it was going to be all right. He relaxed, sat in a chair away from them, listening to their chatter, comparing them: Barbara so thin and fine, wasted and elegant, a silver sword of a woman. And Monica with her heavy peasant’s body, sturdy and hard, bursting with juice. At that moment he loved them both.
For awhile they leaned close, conversing in whispers. He wondered if they might be talking about women’s ailments, women’s plumbing-a complete mystery to him-or perhaps, from occasional glances they threw in his direction, he wondered if they might be discussing him, although what there was about him to talk about he couldn’t imagine.
It was almost an hour before Barbara held out a hand to him. He came over to her bedside, smiling at both of them.
“Daniel Blank?” Barbara asked.
He told them about the interviews with the bartender, with Handry, with Lipsky. He told them everything except his plan to be inside Blank’s apartment within two hours.