“Thanks for the information,” Rackman said. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Is there anything wrong?” Hughes asked.
“There’s always something wrong,” Rackman replied, going down the stairs.
In front of the tenement building, Olivero sat behind the wheel of Rackman’s car and Jenkins was beside him. Olivero rolled down the window.
“What’s up?” Olivero asked.
Rackman bent his knees so he could see Jenkins. “A guy upstairs just told me that Kowalchuk is a cabdriver. Let’s go down to the Taxi Commission and find out where he works.”
“The Taxi Commission’s closed this time of night.”
“Somebody must have a key.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. I’ll have somebody check it out in the morning.”
“I’ll check it out,” Rackman said.
“If you want to live without sleeping, that’s okay by me.”
Chapter Eleven
At eight o’clock the next morning, Rackman was sprawled in the front seat of his green Plymouth, double-parked in front of the Taxi Commission on Beaver Street in downtown Manhattan. He was smoking a Lucky and drinking black coffee that tasted like tar, but he wanted to break the case before he went to bed.
Kowalchuk hadn’t come home, and the super said he hadn’t seen Kowalchuk for a few days, but that he kept odd hours. Round-the-clock surveillance was placed on 329 East Ninth Street, and now Rackman was waiting for the Taxi Commission to open its doors.
His eyes were drooping and his mouth tasted stale. He needed a shave and was starting to get hungry. A truck rolled past him on the narrow street, and a few clerks walked the sidewalks on their way to work.
Rackman puffed his Lucky, sipped coffee, and thought about Kowalchuk, imagining that big fat fucker sitting in his broken-down easy chair, reading pornography and looking at pictures of girls getting screwed. Could such a person get twisted to the point where he’d actually go out and kill a couple of whores?
Rackman thought that he could, because he knew from his own experience that when he was horny, and women rejected him, he’d get angry. It was especially infuriating to know that they were screwing other guys but wouldn’t screw him. But he never got mad enough to become violent. He usually just went to the nearest bar and got drunk. He figured some awkward, unattractive men suffered rejections far more severe than he ever did, and conceivably could be moved to actually hurt women. It was possible that a fat man like Kowalchuk, with a filthy apartment filled with filthy magazines, was that kind of man.
At eight-thirty the doors to the old office building were opened, and people began to stream in. Rackman got out of his car and threw his cigarette butt in the gutter, heading toward the building. He took the elevator up to the eighth floor, where the Taxi Commission door was still locked and he had to wait a while longer. He took out another Lucky and lit up.
After a while a woman around thirty-five with short brown hair and a sprightly manner came down the hall. She looked at him with big childlike eyes, then took a key out of her handbag and inserted it in the lock of the Taxi Commission door.
“Hi,” Rackman said, taking out his shield. “I’ve got to look through your files, okay?”
She smiled in a friendly way. “How long have you been waiting?”
“A few minutes.”
“You look like you’ve been waiting a month.”
“I know.” He followed her into the office.
“Been up all night?” she said over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
“Working on a big case?”
“Not so big.”
She walked behind the counter and he followed her into three rows of desks. Windows were behind them, and private offices to the sides. The woman spun around and looked at him, a little amused. She wore blue slacks, a blouse, and a sweater.
“Well, what can I do for you?”
“I want to see what you have on a certain cabdriver.”
“What’s his name?”
“Kowalchuk. What’s your name?”
“Tiernan. How about you?”
“Danny Rackman.”
“Right this way, Detective Rackman.”
Rackman followed her to a file cabinet, and he realized that he liked this Ms. Tiernan. She was a cheerful, bright person and she didn’t look so bad either. Rackman thought that a guy who sat alone in his apartment looking at stroke magazines didn’t meet decent women like this, or maybe if he did, his mind was so poisoned by bitterness and resentment that he couldn’t see the decency in them.
“You look like you’re ready to fall asleep,” Ms. Tiernan said, pulling out a drawer in the file cabinet marked K.
“I’ve been up all night.”
“That’s not so good for your health.” She slammed the file drawer shut and pulled out the one beneath it. The door opened and a few more people came in.
Rackman looked at Ms. Tiernan’s nice round fanny and thought he should get her phone number, but he was too tired, his brain was fading out and he wasn’t up to it.
“Here we are,” Ms. Tiernan said, taking out a form and a picture. “Kowalchuk, Frank D.” She handed it to Rackman.
He looked at the picture, and a round unshaven face looked back at him. The hair was straight and unruly, the nose was pugged, and the mouth was big and sloppy.
“Mind if I sit down?’ Rackman asked.
“Go ahead. I’ll be in my office down the hall if you need me for anything.”
Rackman sat on a yellow fiberglass chair against the wall and studied Kowalchuk’s face, the pinched little eyes, the scowling expression, the cruelty of the mouth, or was it a grimace of pain? This was not the sort of man that women loved.
Rackman looked at Kowalchuk’s application for a hack license, noting his address at 329 East Ninth Street. He saw the fingerprints but couldn’t find where Kowalchuk was presently employed. Getting up, he walked down the hall to Ms. Tiernan’s office.
She was behind her desk, looking at some papers. “What’s the problem?” she asked in a manner that suggested she could solve any problem in the world.
Rackman pointed to the application form. “It doesn’t say where he’s working now.”
“We don’t have that information. These cabdrivers always are switching jobs, and it’s hard to keep up with them.”
“We’ll have to check the garages, then.”
“Yes, that’s the only way.”
Rackman held the form and photograph in the air. “Can I take these with me?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to sign for them.”
“Show me the dotted line,” he said.
Rackman left the Taxi Commission and drove uptown, wondering if Kowalchuk had come home yet. He stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken on Fourteenth Street and got some pieces, gnawing them behind the wheel as he continued to Midtown North. His brain was starting to zonk out and he knew he had to get to bed fast, before he had an automobile accident.
He parked in his slot halfway up the block from Midtown North and made his way to Jenkins’ office, but Jenkins still wasn’t in.
Detective First Grade Shannon was in the outer office reading the Daily News.
“Did they pick up Kowalchuk last night?” Rackman asked Shannon.
“No.”
Rackman dropped the photo and application form on Shannon’s desk. “This is what he looks like, and these are his fingerprints. Give them to Jenkins as soon as he comes in, will you?”
Shannon dropped the newspaper and looked at Kowalchuk. “Ugly son of a bitch, ain’t he?”
“Yes. Tell Shannon that the Taxi Commission doesn’t know which garage he works for.”