Make Room! Make Room! (14 page)

Shirl rolled on her back and looked at the motes of dust glinting in the beam of light that came through the crack between the curtains. “I’m not trying to excuse anything, Andy, just to tell you. I grew up in one of those real strict families, I never went out or did anything and my father watched me all the time. I don’t think I minded very much, there was just nothing to do, that’s all. Dad liked me, he probably thought he was doing what was right for me. He was retired, they made him retire when he was fifty-five, and he had his pension and the money from the house, so he just sat around and drank. Then, when I was twenty, I entered this beauty contest and won first prize. I remember I gave my prize money to my father to take care of and that’s the last time I saw him. There was one of the judges, he had asked me for a date that night, so I went out with him, then I went to live with him.”

Just like that? Andy said to himself, but he didn’t say it aloud. He smiled at himself: what rights did he have?

“You’re
not
laughing at me?” she said, touching her finger to his lips, a hurt in her voice.

“Good God no! I was laughing at myself because—if you must know—I was being a little jealous. And I have no right to be.”

“You have every right in the world,” she said, kissing him slowly and lingeringly. “For me at least, this is very different. I haven’t known that many men, and they were all men like Mike. I was just sort of there, I felt….”

“Shut up,” he said. “I don’t care.” He meant it. “I just care about you here and now and not another thing in the world.”

Andy was almost to the bottom of his list, and his feet hurt. Ninth Avenue simmered in the afternoon sun and every patch of shadow was filled with sprawled figures, old people, nursing mothers, teen-agers with their heads close together, laughing with their arms about one another. People of all ages on every side, bare and dusty limbs projecting, scattered about like corpses in the aftermath of a battle. Only the children played in the sun, but they moved about slowly and their shouts were subdued. There was a fit of screaming and sudden movement as they eddied about two boys coming from the direction of the docks, whose arms were spotted with bites and streaks of uncongealed blood. On the end of a string they carried their prize, a large gray dead rat. They would eat well tonight. In the center of the crowded street the tugtruck traffic moved at a snail’s pace, the human draught animals leaning exhaustedly into their traces, mouth gaping for air. Andy pushed through between them, looking for the Western Union office.

It would be impossible to check every person who had gone in or out O’Brien’s apartment during the previous week, but he had to at least try the most obvious leads. Any visitor to the building could have discovered the disconnected burglar alarm in the cellar, but only someone who had been in the apartment
could have seen that this alarm had been cut off as well. There had been a short circuit eight days before the murder, and the alarm on the door had been disconnected until it could be fixed. The killer, or some informant, could easily have seen this if he had been in the apartment. Andy had made a list of possibilities and was checking them out. They were all negative. No meter readers had visited the apartment, and all the deliveries had been made by men who had been coming there for years. Negative, all the way down the line.

Western Union was another long shot. There had been plenty of telegrams delivered to the building during that week, and the doorman was sure that some of them had been to O’Brien. He and the elevator boy had both remembered a telegram coming the night before the murder, it had been brought by a new messenger, a Chinese boy they had said. The chances were a thousand to one that it didn’t mean anything—but it still had to be checked out. Any lead at all, no matter how slight would have to be investigated. Whatever happened it would at least be something to report to the lieutenant, to keep him off Andy’s neck for a while. The yellow and blue sign hung out over the sidewalk and he turned in under it.

A long counter divided the office and at the far end of it was a bench on which three boys were sitting. A fourth boy stood at the counter talking to the dispatcher. None of them was Chinese. The boy at the counter took a message board from the man there and went out. Andy walked over, but before he could say anything the man shook his head angrily.

“Not here,” he snapped. “Front counter for telegrams, can’t you see I’m the dispatcher?”

Andy looked at the sullen fatigue and the deep lines cut into the man’s face by the perpetually pulled-down corners of his mouth, and at the clutter of boards and chalk and washable teletype tape on the desk before him, the peeling gold paint on the little sign that said
Mr. Burgger
. All the years of bitterness were clear to see in the clutter of the desk and the hatred in his eyes. It would take patience to get any cooperation from this man. Andy flashed his badge.

“Police business,” he said. “You’re the man I want to talk to, Mr. Burgger.”

“I haven’t done anything, there’s nothing for you to talk to me about.”

“No one’s accusing you. It’s information I need to aid an investigation….”

“I can’t help you. I don’t have any police information.”

“Let me decide that. Is Twenty-eighth Street inside your delivery area?”

Burgger hesitated, then nodded slowly and reluctantly as though he were being forced to reveal a state secret. “Do you have any Chinese messenger boys?”

“No.”

“But you have had at least one Chinese boy working for you?”

“No.” He scratched on a board, ignoring Andy. Perspiration beaded the top of his bald head and collected in droplets on the strands of gray hair. Andy didn’t enjoy putting on pressure, but he could do it when he had to.

“We have laws in this state, Burgger,” he said in a low, toneless voice. “I can drag you out of here right now and take you over to the station and throw you into the can for thirty days for interfering with an officer. Do you want me to do that?”

“I haven’t done anything!”

“Yes, you have. You’ve lied to me. You said you never had a Chinese kid working here.”

Burgger squirmed in his seat, pulled two ways by the conflict between his fear and his desire to remain uncommitted. Fear won.

“There was a Chinese kid, worked just one day, never came back.”

“What day was that?”

The answer came reluctantly. “Monday of this week.”

“Did he deliver any telegrams?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Because that’s your job,” Andy said, putting a snap into his words again. “What telegrams did he deliver?”

“He sat around all day, I didn’t need him. It was his first day, I never send a new kid out the first day, let them get used to the bench first so they don’t get ideas. But we had a rush that night. I had to use him. Just once.”

“Where to?”

“Look, mister, I can’t remember every telegram I send out. This is a busy office and besides, we don’t keep records. A telegram is received, delivered, accepted, that’s the end of it.”

“I know all that, but this telegram is important. I want you to try and remember where it went. Was it to Seventh Avenue? Or Twenty-third Street? Chelsea Park …?”

“Wait, I think that was it. I remember I didn’t want the kid to go to Chelsea Park, they don’t like new kids there, just the regulars, but there was no one else in, so I had to use him.”

“Now we’re getting someplace,” Andy said, taking out his notepad. “What’s the kid’s name?”

“Some Chink name, I forget now. He was only here that one day and never came back.”

“What did he look like, then?”

“Like a Chink kid. It’s not my job remembering what kids look like.” He was sinking back into his sullen hatred.

“Where did he liver?”

“Who knows? Kid comes in and puts up his board money, that’s all I know. Not my job—”

“Nothing seems to be your job, Burgger. I’ll be seeing you again. Meanwhile try to remember what the kid looked like, I’ll want some more answers from you.”

The boys stirred on the bench when Andy went out and Burgger flashed them a look of pure hatred.

It was a thin lead, but Andy was cheerful; at least he had something to talk to Grassy about. Steve Kulozik was also in the lieutenant’s office when he went in, and they nodded to each other.

“How’s the case?” Steve asked.

“You can do your gossiping on your own time,” Grassioli broke in; the tic in his eye was going fine today. “You better have come up with something by now, Rusch; this is a case, not a holiday and a lot of brass up and down the line are getting peed off.”

Andy explained about the disconnected burglar alarm and the timing necessary for anyone to have visited the apartment. He quickly ran through the unproductive interviews he had had until he came to the Western Union boy: this he told in detail.

“So what does it add up to?”the lieutenant asked, both hands clasped on his stomach, over the spot where the ulcer was.

“The kid might have been working for someone. Messenger boys have to put up ten D’s board money—and how many kids have that kind of loot? The kid could have been brought in, maybe from Chinatown, and paid to snoop the apartments he
brought telegrams to. He hit the jackpot first time out when he saw the disconnected alarm on Big Mike’s door. Then, whoever hired him pulled the job and the killing, after which they both faded.”

“Sounds pretty slim, but it’s about the only lead you’ve managed to come up with. What’s the kid’s name?”

“No one knows.”

“Well, what the hell!” Grassioli shouted. “You come up with this fancy damned complicated theory and where does it go if you can’t find the kid? There are millions of kids in this city—so how do we find the right one?”

Andy knew when to be silent. Steve Kulozik had been leaning his bulk against the wall, listening while Andy explained. “Could I say something, lieutenant?” he asked.

“What do you want?”

“Let’s just for a minute think of this whole case as being inside this precinct. The kid could have come from Chinatown or from anywheres, but let’s forget about that. Say he came from Shiptown, right here, and you know how those people are about sticking together, so maybe there’s another Chink who was using the kid. Just suppose.”

“What are you trying to say, Kulozik? Get to the goddamn point.”

“I was just about to, lieutenant,” Steve said imperturbably. “Let’s say the kid or his boss comes from Shiptown. If they do we may have fingerprints on them. It was before my time, but you were here in seventy-two, weren’t you, lieutenant, when they brought all the Formosa refugees in after General Kung’s invasion got its ass blown off on the mainland?”

“I was here. I was a rookie then.”

“Didn’t they fingerprint everybody, kids and all? Just in case some Commie agent slipped in with them before the airlift?”

“It’s a long shot,” the lieutenant said. “They were all fingerprinted and so were the kids for a couple of years after that just in case they might defect. Those cards are all down in the cellar here. That’s what you were thinking about, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir. Go through them and see if the prints from the murder weapon can be matched up with one of the cards. It’s a long shot, but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

“You heard him, Rusch,” Grassioli said, pulling over a stack
of reports. “Get the weapon prints and get down there and see if you can find anything.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy answered, and he and Steve went out together. “Big buddy you are,” he told Steve as soon as the door had closed. “I should be knocking off soon and instead you got me buried in the cellar, and I’ll probably be there all night.”

“It’s not that bad,” Steve said complacently. “I had to use the file once, all the prints are coded so you can get to the ones you want fast. I’d help you except my brother-in-law is coming to dinner tonight.”

“The one you hate so much?”

“That’s the one. But he’s working on one of the fishing trawlers now, and he’s going to bring a fish he stole. Fresh fish. Doesn’t your mouth water?”

“Just for a bite out of your hide, you ratfink. I hope you get a bone stuck in your throat.”

The fingerprint files were not in quite the same condition that Steve had described. Others had used them since and whole groups of cards were filed out of sequence and one entire boxful had been spilled and afterward had just been jammed back in at random. Though the basement was cooler than the rest of the building the air was filled with dust and felt almost too thick to breathe. Andy worked until nine o’clock before his head started to pound and his eyes burned. He went upstairs and put some water on his face and breathed in some fresh air. For a few moments he wavered between finishing the job or waiting until morning, but he had some idea of what Grassy would have to say about that, so he went back downstairs.

It was going on eleven o’clock when he found the card. He almost put it aside because the prints were so small, an infant’s, then he realized that children grew up and had a closer look at it through the scratched plastic magnifying lens.

There was no doubt at all. These prints were the same as the ones that had been found on the window and on the tire iron.

“‘Chung, William,’” he read. “‘Born 1982, Shiptown Infirmary …’”

He stood up so fast that he knocked the chair over. The lieutenant would be home by now, maybe in bed, and would be in a filthy humor if he was wakened. That didn’t matter.

This was it.

Far out in the river a boat whistle blew, two times, then two times again, and the sound echoed from the steel flanks of the ships until it had no source or direction and became a mournful wail that filled the hot night. Billy Chung rolled back and forth on his lumpy mattress, wide awake after hours of lying there staring into the darkness. Against the far wall the twins breathed hoarsely in their sleep. The whistle sounded again, beating at his ears. Why hadn’t he just grabbed the stuff and got out of the apartment? He could have done it faster. Why did the big bastard have to come in just then? It was right he should have been killed, anyone as stupid as that. It had been self-defense, hadn’t it? He had been attacked first. The same memory repeated itself again like an endless circle of film in a projector: the iron bar swinging up, the look on the fat red face. The sight of the iron sticking out of his head and the thin trickle of blood. Billy writhed, tossing his head from one side to the other, his fingers pulling at the damp skin on his chest.