So I lay my head against the wooden slats and closed my eyes, feeling the faltering sun of early fall and the shifting winds off the bay. And then, for some strange and miraculous reason, I fell asleep. Something I almost never do in the middle of the day.
I dreamt of skyscrapers and industrial plants, men in suits and women in heels, hard faces and eyes filled with aspiration and dismay. A lost world.
Eddie woke me with a single bark. I knew what time it was by the bark’s tone and timbre. Dinner time. I opened my eyes and was rewarded with a nice sunset below a lavender sky. And the company of Joe Sullivan, sitting next to me drinking one of Burton’s special beers.
“I was happy to let you sleep,” said Sullivan. “Just have my beer and go home.”
I went into the house to throw water on my face and change my clothes, shaking off the weight of sleep and the lingering dream state. I must have been more tired than I realized. I threw Eddie’s food in a bowl and got Sullivan another beer. I filled my tumbler with ice water. For novelty’s sake.
When I got back Sullivan asked me how it went with Ross and Veckstrom. I told him everything I could remember. He wrote it down in his case book.
I apologized to him. “If I’d known this was going to happen I wouldn’t have involved you at all. You’d be clean,” I said.
He waved it off.
“You didn’t know. Like you said, we got a new situation here.”
He asked me to tell him whatever I knew that I hadn’t told Ross and Veckstrom. I did. I owed him that. I only left out theory and conjecture. No point in confusing the facts with all that stuff.
“When do you get the forensics?” I asked him.
“In a day or two. Prints a little before that.”
“Maybe that’ll settle everything.”
“I’m not going to keep you out of this, am I?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Okay,” he said. “Just try to tell me what you’re doing. And I’ll tell you. Like, for example, after I leave here I’m bringing in Robert Dobson. Easy pickings, since I know where he lives. Now, you tell me what you’re doing.”
“Having dinner and resting up for insomnia.”
“Let me write that down.”
“See if Dobson’ll give up the other roommates. No reason why he shouldn’t. If not, you got the mail. That should do it. And ask him about Angel. Don’t know the last name. I’m guessing the connection is back in the City. That’s where I’m going tomorrow. See? Full disclosure. My new way.”
He looked unconvinced, but found it in himself to politely finish off a few more of Burton’s beers.
Between him and Honest Boy Ackerman, I might have to get Burton over here to replenish my supply.
Eisler, Johnson’s building had the good sense to install a coffee shop right in the lobby. Not exactly a shop, more like a big pushcart and a few bistro tables. The coffee was great, and you could make yourself sick on Danish pastries and stuffed croissants, which I did, mostly to appear like a normal customer rather than the stalker I actually was.
My disguise was one of the suits I’d rescued from my house in Stamford before the demolition. It still fit fine, though the cut was probably dated. Which would only reinforce the look of a middle-aged office rat hiding out with a crossword puzzle and double latte.
I’d picked eleven in the morning to begin the stakeout, and allocated a maximum of two hours. Lingering longer than that might draw the attention of people staring at a bank of security monitors somewhere. I hoped it was enough time. As usual, I didn’t have much of a Plan B.
I assumed the crossword puzzle was great cover until I realized I’d have it solved in about a half hour.
“Why is it the last few are always the toughest to get?” I asked the lady sitting to my right, hoping to burnish my act.
“Why do you think they’re the last?” she asked, leaving an unsaid but implied “you schmuck” hanging in the air.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right,” I said, cheered by her observation.
I spent the next hour staring off into space trying to squeeze the name of a river in Russia, six letters long beginning with “Dn,” out of my memory. I wrote it down when I saw Jerome Gelb stride by. I tossed the paper in front of my crabby neighbor so she could share my triumph.
Gelb moved very fluidly, a nice City gait capable of gracefully covering a lot of ground in a short time. I was pressed to keep up without looking like I was trying to. I checked my watch once a block to convey hurry—the guilty employee finding himself gone a little too long from the office.
Gelb suddenly stopped and stepped off the curb, looking down the avenue, I assumed to catch a cab. I strode past him and raised my hand. I got lucky when a cab shot out from the cross street and pulled over. I jumped in and we buzzed by Gelb, who glowered at what he rightly thought was a dirty cab snatch. I turned my head away and rubbed my face.
The cabbie looked at me over his shoulder.
“And?” he asked.
“Pull over here on the right, will ya? Behind that van,” I said.
“Big ride. A whole block,” he said, but did as I asked, cutting across four lanes with a heedless jerk of the steer-ing wheel that anywhere else would have caused a massive pile-up.
“Just wait here,” I said.
I had a good view of Gelb, his hand still extended from the end of his long, thin arm. No cabbie could miss it. The next one didn’t.
“Okay,” I said as they flew by, heading downtown, “follow that cab.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Gelb’s cab was timing the lights well, so we quickly ate up several blocks. As we began to hit the intersections on the yellow, I asked the cabbie to move alongside so we wouldn’t get caught at a red.
“You’re really following him, aren’t you?” said Benny Roscoe, the name I read off his permit.
“I am.”
“You a cop?”
“Engineer.”
“Then is this legal?” he asked.
“Absolutely. Engineers have all the same authority.”
Both cabs stopped at a red light at the next intersection. I slid down in my seat.
“Try not to look over at him,” I said. “Let him get a little ahead when the light changes.”
“Got it, Kojak.”
We settled into the usual rhythm of a cab ride down a Manhattan avenue—hurtling, undulating momentum interrupted by sudden lurching stops, abrupt lane changes, a series of near front-end collisions and generous application of the horn. Throughout Roscoe did a fine job of keeping pace with our quarry without calling undue attention, though he had to push the speed envelope occasionally to take up the slack.
“I’ll cover the ticket,” I said.
“You got that right.”
Down around 23rd Street Gelb cut over to Broadway, then continued south. We had a tense moment when a box truck got between us, but Roscoe managed to cut around on the right, using a wide entrance to a parking garage to cheat into the sidewalk space. No pedestrians were killed in the maneuver.
Gelb took Broadway past the Village and into SoHo. His cab turned onto Spring Street and stopped.
“Go halfway down and let me out,” I said, dropping a fifty dollar bill through the security slot, covering both the fare and the unscheduled stunt driving. “Nice work.”
“Not a problem. A car chase always breaks up the day.”
Gelb was easy to spot, heading west. He crossed Mercer, then walked to the end of the next block, crossing
