The Eye: A Novel of Suspense (28 page)

“Detective Tobin,” the black cop said, showing his badge. “I’ve got a few questions, Mr. Corales, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” Corales said. “I got to go out. I got to go to the hardware store for some faucet washers.”

“This won’t take very long.”

“Listen, I already told you people. I don’t know nothing about what happened upstairs last night. I was sleeping. How many times you gonna come around bothering me?”

“I’m not here about the shooting upstairs,” Tobin said. “I’m here about the one up the block.”

“Up the block?”

“Benny Hiller. You know about that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I been told. I don’t know nothing about that, either.”

“You knew Hiller, though, didn’t you?”

“Sure I knew him. He lived right here in this building.”

“Did you know he was a burglar?”

Corales blinked at him. “What?”

“A burglar,” Tobin said. “Did you have any idea that was what he did for a living?”

“Chrissake, no, I didn’t have no idea. Was Mr. Hiller really a burglar? No kidding?”

“No kidding. Did you have much contact with him?”

“Contact?”

“See him often, talk to him.”

“I’d see him around sometimes during the day, while I was working,” Corales said. “He was mostly home during the day. He said he worked nights in some café.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“Sunday, I guess.”

“Where was that?”

“Down here in the basement. He come down to talk to me.”

“What about?”

“He didn’t like me letting Willie Lorsec come in and go through the trash.”

“Who’s Willie Lorsec?”

He’s a snake-in-the-grass
, Corales thought,
that’s who he is.
But he said, “A junk collector.”

“Does he live on this street?”

“Yeah. Between West End and Broadway.”

“Are you a friend of his?”

“Not no more.”

“How come?”

Corales didn’t feel like telling Tobin about the forty-nine straight winning hands; he didn’t want to think about it anymore, because it just made him angry. “He wasn’t really my friend. He just come around so I’d let him go through the trash.”

“To collect junk, is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“And Benny Hiller didn’t like Lorsec doing that?”

“No, he didn’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“He said Willie stole some things from his trash.”

“That was the word he used, ‘stole’?”

Corales nodded. “I told him it wasn’t stealing to take things a person has thrown away. But he got mad and called me a dummy. I don’t like that. I’m not a dummy.”

“Did Hiller tell you what these things were that Lorsec took?”

“No. He never said.”

“Do you have any idea what they were?”

“No. Willie took all kinds of stuff; I never watched to see what most of it was.”

“What did Hiller want you to do? Get these things of his back from Lorsec?”

“No. He just said he didn’t want me to let Willie into the basement no more.”

“Did he indicate he was going to try to get the stuff back from Lorsec himself?”

“I guess so. He asked me where Willie lived.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No. I don’t know where he lives.”

“You just told me Lorsec lives in the next block.”

“I never been to his place,” Corales said. “He always come here to see me.”

“Then how do you know where he lives?”

“He told me. And I see him around, collecting his junk.”

“What else can you tell me about Lorsec?”

“I don’t know too much. Willie told me once he’d traveled a lot and worked at a bunch of jobs, but the onlt thing made him happy was collecting and selling junk.”

“Did he tell you where he was from?”

“Someplace up in New England. He never said where.”

“Any other personal things he might have told you?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, what did you talk about when he came to see you?”

“We didn’t talk much about nothing. Sometimes he helped me do some things, carrying boxes and things; the rest of the time he rummaged in the trash or we played gin rummy.” Corales pursed his lips. “I’m a better gin rummy player than Willie is. I’m a
lot
better than he is.”

“Good for you,” Tobin said. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Lorsec is now, would you?”

“No. He come around earlier this morning, around eight, but I told him to get out. I don’t know where he went after that, and I don’t care.”

“All right, Mr. Corales. Thanks for your help. I may need to talk to you again later on, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stick close to the building.”

“Yeah,” Corales said. Christ, weren’t they
ever
going to leave him alone?

When the black cop was gone Corales went out through the alley door and up Ninety-eighth toward Amsterdam, where the hardware store was. He didn’t look at the people and the police cars and the television cameras; the hell with all of them. And as he walked, he wondered if he’d got Willie in trouble with the cops. He hoped he had. It would serve Willie right for keeping him out of the
Guinness Book of World Records
.

THE COLLIER TAPES

I have come out onto the balcony to dictate. Down below and across the river, my little universe swelters and writhes under the lash of heat. But up here, there is a cooling breeze and I am quite comfortable. The difference, if I may be permitted a small joke, is as between heaven and earth.

The Eye sits before me, waiting. How beautiful it is in the sunlight! How its brass fittings shine! Sometimes, as now, I am struck by the awesome power it represents, and I feel toward it—perhaps oddly, perhaps not—as I felt toward women in the days before my apotheosis. To touch it is to experience a feeling akin to ecstasy. To blend my eye with its Eye is to know rapture of the purest sort.

Soon I will go to it, and together we shall learn what my flock and what the police are doing this afternoon. But there is no hurry. Nothing those foolish minions of the law can do will affect me in any way. The power that is mine expands within me. I can wreak my vengeance daily if I choose, from now until forever, and they can do nothing except to sit in awe far greater than my own for the Eye.

I need not even wield the sword of justice myself to destroy a sinner, as has been proven by the death of Benny Hiller. God’s will is all that is necessary; the hand of a mortal can carry out the deed. I must confess that I laughed when I learned, via the television, of Hiller’s demise. How confused the police must be! They cannot comprehend the scope of my power to eliminate evil. Hiller was evil, a common burglar, a predator preying on the just, and I decreed that he must die, and so he died. It is as simple and as awesome as that.

Tonight I will go down among my children again, and when the time is right I will end another iniquitous life. Tomorrow night, perhaps, I will strike yet again. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, while the world continues to creep at its petty pace. For God is in his heaven, and he will see to it that all is right with his world.

The time, according to my watch, is twelve-oh-six
P.M.
Let it be noted.

Detective Oxman has less than twelve hours to live.

12:50 P.M. — E.L. OXMAN

He was on his way back to 1276, after a session with the media and more frustrating interviews with block residents, when he saw Artie Tobin come out through the front entrance. He waited on the sidewalk for Tobin to descend the stairs. The street was deserted, baking under a white-hazed noonday sun that had the look of a boiled egg. Headquarters had decided not to cordon off the area just yet, but they had installed teams of patrolmen on Riverside Drive and West End Avenue to keep curious citizens and the media wolves from clogging the block. What was it Artie had said this morning? Something about the area being turned into a war zone. Yeah. It felt like one already; all that was missing was flak-jacketed troops and barbed-wire bunkers.

“Been looking for you, Elliot Leroy,” Tobin said. He squinted up from beneath his bushy brows at the milky haze overhead. “Christ, it’s hot.”

“And getting hotter.”

“Yeah. Anything new?”

“Not a damned thing. The searches of the apartments in there”—he nodded toward 1276—“were negative; another dead end. You heard about the Butler woman, I guess?”

Tobin inclined his head. “I checked in with Smiley a little while ago. Good news she’s gonna be okay; bad news otherwise.”

“That’s what I meant about it getting hotter,” Oxman said. “You turn up anything?”

“Well, I got something worth checking out. Too early to tell if it’ll lead anywhere. You know a guy named Willie Lorsec, friend of the super’s here, Corales?”

“Lorsec. The junk dealer?”

“That’s the one.”

“I talked to him briefly a few days ago. What about him?”

“Corales told me Benny Hiller was on Lorsec’s case about some things missing from Hiller’s trash. Seems Hiller was hot to get the stuff back.”

“What stuff?”

“Corales didn’t know.”

“Did he know why Hiller was so hot to get it back?”

“He says not. You get an address for Lorsec?”

“Doesn’t Corales know where he lives?”

“Just that it’s someplace in the next block. He’s never been to Lorsec’s place.”

Oxman fished out his notebook, scanned through it. “Here we go. Eleven-oh-seven West Ninety-eighth. One of the rooming houses near Broadway, probably.”

“You haven’t been there either, huh?”

“No. I talked to Lorsec in Corales’s apartment and I didn’t get around to checking him out again. Maybe I should have.”

“Well, eleven-oh-seven’s not the building Hiller got himself shot in, that’s for sure. I figured there might be some connection between Lorsec and Hiller being in that building last night, but now I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ll go have a talk with Lorsec anyway.”

“I’ll be back in the Crane apartment if you need me.”

“Right.”

Oxman entered 1276. Upstairs, he knocked on the door to Jennifer’s apartment, identified himself, and added Jennifer’s name for the benefit of any listening ears. Ullman let him in.

“Any calls?” he asked her.

“None. It’s been quiet, Ox.”

“You eat yet?”

“Not yet. I can fix something, if you want.”

“I’ll do it. It’s better than pacing.”

He went into the kitchen, found some salami and cheese in the refrigerator, some bread and a packet of potato chips in a cupboard, and set everything on the table. He was getting utensils out of the drawer next to the sink when the telephone rang.

Ullman had already picked up by the time he shoved open the swing door. He watched her listen, frown, and then cover the mouthpiece with her hand and turn toward him. “It’s for you,” she said.

“Manders?”

“No. He didn’t give his name.”

Premonition touched Oxman. He moved quickly across the room, took the receiver. “Oxman here.”

“This is the voice of God, Detective Oxman.”

Rage boiled inside him. In all the years he had been a cop, he had never hated any of the criminals he’d had to deal with, not even the drug dealers and the child pornographers, as much as he hated this cold-blooded purveyor of death. He didn’t trust himself to speak for a moment, until he had himself under control. Then he said, “What do you want this time?”

“Did you really believe you could deceive the Eye?”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means, Detective Oxman. The Eye is all-seeing; nothing can escape the Eye. Certainly not the fact that Jennifer Crane is no longer there.”

“What?”

“The woman who answered my call is not Jennifer Crane. Oh, I admit she resembles Miss Crane; the wig she’s wearing is quite natural. But God’s Eye can see that she is an impostor. A policewoman, perhaps? Yes, no doubt a policewoman.”

Oxman’s lips peeled in against his teeth; the rage was like a thick, hot mucus in his throat.

“Miss Crane will not escape the wrath of God,” the voice said. “It matters not where you’ve taken her; I will find her, and when I do I will punish her. Just as I will punish you.”

“Listen, you goddamn son of a——”

“Blasphemy is also a sin,” the voice said calmly. “You are beyond redemption. Death to those who blaspheme God. Death to those who fornicate before the Eye of God. Death to
you
, Detective Oxman. Soon, now. Soon.”

There was a click and he was gone.

Oxman slammed the receiver back into its cradle, with enough force to make the bell ring. He wheeled toward Ullman. “He knows about the switch. The bastard
knows
.”

She was staring at him with wide eyes. “But how—?”

“I don’t know how. Did anybody come around while I was out?”

“No, no one.”

“And nobody called?”

“No.”

“Did you go out, even for a minute?”

Ullman shook her head. “Maybe it was my voice that tipped him. Maybe he’s familiar with Jennifer’s voice …”

“He knows you’re wearing a wig,” Oxman said, “he knows what you look like. How the hell could he know that if he hasn’t seen you?”

Oxman stalked over to the windows, stood staring out blindly. How could he know? Had he been down on the street when Jennifer left, had he got close enough to recognize her? No. He hadn’t said anything about Jennifer leaving in a policewoman’s uniform, wearing a wig; it was Ullman he’d talked about, Ullman’s wig. And he hadn’t seemed to know for sure that Ullman was a policewoman; he had said,
A policewoman, perhaps? Yes, no doubt a policewoman
, as if he were speculating on the fact. And if he had seen Jennifer leaving, he wouldn’t have waited this long to call up and do his gloating; that wasn’t the way his megalomania seemed to work. It was as if he’d just found out about the switch, within the past few minutes.…

But that wasn’t possible. Ullman hadn’t left the apartment by her own testimony, she hadn’t had any visitors, she hadn’t even had any calls. Could the psycho live in one of the other apartments on this floor, have been peering out through a cracked door and seen Ullman when she opened up five minutes ago? No, damn it, that wasn’t it. Ullman had stayed well inside the room, as she’d been instructed to do, and Oxman had slipped in quickly; nobody could have seen her from any of the other apartment doors.