Tenth Commandment (20 page)

'I like him,' I said promptly. 'For a clergyman, he swears like a trooper, but he's very frank and open. He invited me down to Greenwich Village to see what he's doing with juvenile delinquents. He certainly doesn't impress me as a man with anything to hide.'

'That's the feeling I got,' Perce said. 'And that's it?

Nothing else?'

'A silly thing,' I said. 'About the elevator.'

'What about the elevator?'

I explained that if Mrs Kipper had come downstairs on that elevator, it should have been on the ground floor at the time her husband plunged to his death. Unless he had 165

brought the elevator up again to take it from the master bedroom on the fifth floor to the sixth-floor terrace.

'He could have,' Stilton said.

'Sure,' I agreed. 'But I timed the trip from bedroom to terrace. Walking along the hall and up the rear staircase.

Less than a minute.'

I didn't have to spell it out for him.

'I get it,' he said. 'You want me to talk to the first cops on the scene and see if any of them remember where the elevator was when they arrived?'

'Right,' I said gratefully.

'And if it was on the ground floor, that shows that Mrs Kipper brought it down, which proves absolutely nothing.

And if it was on the sixth floor, it only indicates that maybe Sol Kipper took it up to his big jump from the terrace. Which proves absolutely nothing. Zero plus zero equals zero.'

I sighed.

'You're right, Perce. I'm just grabbing at little things.

Anything.'

'I'll ask the cops,' he said. 'It's interesting.'

'I suppose so.'

'Josh, you sound down.'

'Not down, exactly, but bewildered.'

'Beginning to think Sol Kipper really was a suicide?'

'I don't k n o w . . . ' I said slowly. 'Beginning to have some doubts about my fine theories, I guess.'

'Don't,' he said.

'What?'

'Don't have any doubts. I told you I thought someone was jerking us around. Remember? Now I'm sure of it.

Early this morning the harbour cops pulled a floater out of the North River. Around 34th Street. A female Caucasian, about fifty years old or so. She hadn't been in the water long. Twelve hours at most.'

'Perce,' I said, ' n o t . . . ? '

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'Oh yeah,' he said tonelessly. 'Mrs Blanche Reape.

Positive ID from her prints. She had a sheet. Boosting and an old prostitution rap. No doubt about it. Marty's widow.'

I was silent, remembering the brash, earthy woman in The Dirty Shame saloon, buying drinks for everyone.

'Josh?' Detective Stilton demanded. 'You there?'

'I'm here.'

'Official verdict is death by drowning. But a very high alcoholic content in the blood. Fell in the river while drunk. That's how it's going on the books. You believe it?'

'No,' I said.

'I don't either,' he said. 'Sol Kipper falls down from a sixth-floor terrace. Marty Reape falls in front of a subway train. His widow falls in the river. This sucks.'

'Yes,' I said faintly.

'What?' he said. 'I can't hear you.'

'Yes,' I said, louder, 'I agree.'

'You bet your damp white fanetta!' he said furiously.

Then suddenly he was shouting, almost gargling on his bile. 'I don't like to be messed with,' he yelled. 'Some sharp, bright son of a bitch is messing me up. I don't like that. No way do I like that!'

'Perce,' I said, 'please. Calm down.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yes. I mean. Yes. I'm calm now. All cool.'

'You think the three of t h e m . . . ? '

'Oh yes,' he said. 'Why not? Kipper was the first. Then Marty, because he had the proof. Then the widow lady. It fits. Someone paid her for the files. The evidence Marty had on the Kipper estate. Then she got greedy and put the bite on for more. Goodbye, Blanche.'

'Someone would do that? Kill three people?'

'Sure,' he said. 'It's easy. The first goes down so slick, and so smooth, and so nice. Then they can do no wrong.

They own the world. Why I'm telling you all this, Josh, is 167

to let you know you're not wasting your time on this Kipper thing. I can't open it up again with what we've got; you'll have to carry the ball. I just wanted you to know I'm here, and ready, willing, and able.'

'Thank you, Perce.'

'Keep in touch, old buddy,' he said. 'I'll check on that elevator thing for you. That cocksucker!' he cried vindictively. 'We'll fry his ass!'

Powell Stonehouse lived on Jones Street, just off Bleecker. It was not a prepossessing building: a three-storey loft structure of worn red brick with a crumbling cornice and a bent and rusted iron railing around the areaway. I arrived a few minutes after 9.00 p.m., rang a bell marked Chard-Stonehouse, and was buzzed in almost immediately. I climbed to the top floor.

I was greeted at the door of the loft by a young woman, very dark, slender, of medium height. I stated my name.

She introduced herself as Wanda Chard, in a whisper so low that I wasn't certain I had heard right, and asked her to repeat it.

She ushered me into the one enormous room that was apparently the entire apartment, save for a small bathroom and smaller kitchenette. There was a platform bed: a slab of foam rubber on a wide plywood door raised from the floor on cinder blocks. There were pillows scattered everywhere: cushions of all sizes, shapes and colours. But no chairs, couches, tables. I assumed the residents ate off the floor and, I supposed, reclined on cushions or the bed to relax.

The room was open, spare, and empty. A choice had obviously been made to abjure things. No radio. No TV set.

No books. One dim lamp. There were no decorations or bric-a-brac. There was one chest of drawers, painted white, and one doorless closet hung with a few garments, male and female. There was almost nothing to look at other than Ms Chard.

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She took my coat and hat, laid them on the bed, then gestured towards a clutch of pillows. Obediently I folded my legs and sank into a semireclining position. Wanda Chard crossed her legs and sat on the bare floor, facing me.

'Powell will be out in a minute,' she said.

'Thank you,' I said.

'He's in the bathroom,' she said.

There seemed nothing to reply to that, so I remained silent. I watched as she fitted a long crimson cigarette to a yellowed ivory holder. I began to struggle to my feet, fumbling for a match, but she waved me back.

'I'm not going to smoke it,' she said. 'Not right now.

Would you like one?'

'Thank you, no.'

She stared at me.

'Does it bother you that you're very small?' she asked in a deep, husky voice that seemed all murmur.

Perhaps I should have bridled at the impertinence of the question; after all, we had just met. But I had the feeling that she was genuinely interested.

'Yes, it bothers me,' I said. 'Frequently.'

She nodded.

'I'm hard of hearing, you know,' she said. 'Practically deaf. I'm reading your lips.'

I looked at her in astonishment.

'You're not!' I said.

'Oh yes. Say a sentence without making a sound. Just mouth the words.'

I made my mouth say, 'How are you tonight?' without actually speaking; just moving my lips.

'How are you tonight?' she said.

'But that's marvellous!' I said. 'How long did it take you to learn?'

'All my life,' she said. 'It's easy when people face me directly, as you are. When they face away, or even to the 169

side, I am lost. In a crowded, noisy restaurant, I can understand conversations taking place across the room.'

'That must be amusing.'

'Sometimes,' she said. 'Sometimes it is terrible.

Frightening. The things people say when they think no one can overhear. Most people I meet aren't even aware that I'm deaf. The reason I'm telling you is because I thought you might be bothered by your size.'

'Yes,' I said, 'I understand. Thank you.'

'We are all one,' she said sombrely, 'in our weakness.'

Her hair was jet black, glossy, and fell to her waist in back. It was parted in the middle and draped about her face in curved wings that formed a dark Gothic arch. The waves almost obscured her pale features. From the shadows, two luminous eyes glowed forth. I had an impression of no makeup, pointy chin, and thin, bloodless lips.

She was wearing a kimono of garishly printed silk, all poppies and parrots. When she folded down on to the bare floor, I had noted her feline movements, the softness. I did not know if she was naked beneath the robe, but I was conscious of something lubricious in the way her body turned. There was a faint whisper there: silk on flesh. Her feet were bare, toenails painted a frosted silver. She wore a slave bracelet about her left ankle: a chain of surprisingly heavy links. There was a tattoo on her right instep: a small blue butterfly.

'What do you do, Miss Chard?' I asked her.

'Do?'

'I mean, do you work?'

'Yes,' she said. 'In a medical laboratory. I'm a research assistant.'

'That's very interesting,' I said, wondering what on earth Powell Stonehouse could be doing in the bathroom for such a long time.

As if I had asked the question aloud, the bathroom door 170

opened and he came towards us in a rapid, shambling walk. Once again I tried to struggle to my feet from my cocoon of pillows, but he held a palm out, waving me down. It was almost like a benediction.

'Would you like an orange?' he asked me.

'An orange? Oh no. Thank you.'

'Wanda?'

She shook her head, long hair swinging across her face.

But she held up the crimson cigarette in the ivory holder.

He found a packet of matches on the dresser, bent over, lighted her cigarette. I smelled the odour: more incense than smoke. Then he went to the kitchenette and came back with a Mandarin orange. He sat on the bare floor next to her, facing me. He folded down with no apparent physical effort. He began to peel his orange, looking at me, blinking.

'What's all this about?' he said.

Once again I explained that I had been assigned by his family's attorneys to investigate the disappearance of his father. I realized, I said, that I was going over ground already covered by police officers, but I hoped he would be patient and tell me in his own words exactly what had happened the night of January 10th.

I thought then that he glanced swiftly at Wanda Chard.

If a signal passed between them, I didn't catch it. But he began relating the events of the evening his father had disappeared, pausing only to pop a segment of orange into his mouth, chomp it to a pulp, and swallow it down.

His account differed in no significant detail from what I had already learnt from his mother and sister. I made a pretence of jotting notes, but there was really nothing to jot.

'Mr Stonehouse,' I said, when he had finished, 'do you think your father's mood and conduct that night were normal?'

'Normal for him.'

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'Nothing in what he did or said that gave you any hint he might be worried or under unusual pressure? That he might be contemplating deserting his family of his own free will?'

'No. Nothing like that.'

'Do you know of anyone who might have, uh, harboured resentment against your father? Disliked him? Even hated him?'

Again I caught that rapid shifting of his eyes sideways to Wanda Chard, as if consulting her.

'I can think of a dozen people,' he said. 'A hundred people. Who resented him or disliked him or hated him.'

Then, with a small laugh that was half-cough, he added,

'Including me.'

'What exactly was your relationship with your father, Mr Stonehouse?'

'Now look here,' he said, bristling. 'You said on the phone that you wanted to discuss "family relationships."

What has that got to do with his disappearance?'

I leaned forward from the waist, as far as I was able in my semirecumbent position. I think I appeared earnest, sincere, concerned.

'Mr Stonehouse,' I said, 'I never knew your father. I have seen photographs of him and I have a physical description from your mother and sister. But I am trying to understand the man himself. Who and what he was. His feelings for those closest to him. In hopes that by learning the man, knowing him better, I may be able to get some lead on what happened to him. I have absolutely no suspicions about anyone, let alone accusing anyone of anything. I'm just trying to learn. Anything you can tell me may be of value.'

This time the consultation with Wanda Chard was obvious, with no attempt at concealment. He turned to look at her. Their eyes locked. She nodded once.

'Tell him,' she said.

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He began to speak. I didn't take notes. I knew I would not forget what he said.

He tried very hard to keep his voice controlled. Unsuccessfully. He alternated between blatant hostility and a shy diffidence, punctuated with those small, half-cough laughs. Sometimes his voice broke into a squeak of fury.

His gestures were jerky. He glanced frequently sideways at his companion, then glared fiercely at me again. He was not wild, exactly, but there was an incoherence in him. He didn't come together.

He had his father's thin face and angular frame, the harsh angles softened by youth. It was more a face of clean slants, with a wispy blond moustache and a hopeful beard scant enough so that a mild chin showed. He was totally bald, completely, the skull shaved. Perhaps that was what he had been doing in the bathroom. In any event, that smooth pate caught the dim light and gave it back palely.

Big ears, floppy as slices of veal, hung from his naked skull.

He had tortoise-shell eyes, a hawkish nose, a girl's tender lips. A vulnerable look. Everything in his face seemed a-tremble, as if expecting a hurt. As he spoke, his grimy fingers were everywhere: smoothing the moustache, tugging the poor beard, pulling at his meaty ears, caressing his nude dome frantically. He was wearing a belted robe of unbleached muslin. The belt was a rope. And there was a cowl hanging down his back. A monk's robe. His feet were bare and soiled. Those busy fingers plucked at his toes, and after a while I couldn't watch his eyes but could only follow those fluttering hands, thinking they might be enchained birds that would eventually free themselves from his wrists and go whirling off.