spooked Charles Lipsky.
He could open that document case in the living room desk. He could take a look at the bottom kitchen cabinets. He could try several things. On impulse, nothing more, he got down on his hands and knees, felt beneath the bottom drawer of one of the dressers. Nothing. He crawled on hands and knees, felt beneath the other. Nothing. But as he felt about, the wood panel pressed slightly upward.
Now that was surprising. In chests of drawers as expensive and elegant as these appeared to be, he would have guessed a solid piece of wood beneath the bottom drawer, and between each pair of drawers another flat layer of wood. They were called “dust covers,” he remembered. Good furniture had them. Cheaply made chests had no horizontal partitions between the bottom of one drawer and the open top of the one beneath.
He climbed to his feet, brushed his overcoat, knees, and trouser cuffs free of carpet lint. There was lint; he picked it off carefully, put it into a vest pocket. Then he opened a few dresser drawers at random. It was true; there were no wooden partitions between drawers; they were simply stacked. Well, it would only take a minute…
He pulled out the first full drawer of one dresser, reached in and felt the bottom surfaces of the two half- drawers above it. Nothing. He closed the first full drawer, opened the second and ran his fingers over the bottom surface of the first full drawer. Nothing. He continued in this fashion. It only took seconds. Seconds of nothing.
He started on the second dresser. Closed the drawer containing Blank’s incredible underwear, opened the drawer containing pajamas, thrust his hand in to feel the undersurface of the drawer above. And stopped. He withdrew his hand a moment, wiped his silk-clad fingertips on his overcoat, reached in again, felt cautiously. Something there.
“Please, God,” he said aloud.
Slowly, with infinite caution, he closed the pajama drawer and then drew out the one above it, the underwear drawer. He drew it halfway out of the dresser. Then, fearful there might be wood splinters on the runners, sawdust, stains, anything, he took off his overcoat and laid it out on Daniel Blank’s bed, lining side up. Then he carefully removed the underwear drawer completely from the chest, placed it softly on his overcoat. He didn’t look at his watch now. Fuck Charles Lipsky.
He removed the stacks of underwear, placing them on the other side of the bed in the exact order in which he removed them. Four stacks across, two stacks back to front. They’d be returned to the drawer in the same order. When the drawer was empty, he slowly turned it upside down and placed it on his opened overcoat. He stared at the taped envelope. He could appreciate Blank’s reasoning: if the tape dried out and the envelope dropped, it could only drop into the next drawer down.
He pressed the envelope gently with his fingertips. Things stiffer than paper, and something hard. Leather maybe, wood or metal. The envelope was taped to the wooden bottom of the drawer on all its four sides. He put on his glasses again, bent over it. He used one of his lock picks, probed gently at the corners of the envelope where the strips of tape didn’t quite meet.
He wanted to avoid, if possible, removing the four strips of tape completely. He finally determined, to his satisfaction, the top of the envelope. Using a pick, he lifted a tiny corner of the top tape. Then he switched to tweezers. Slowly, slowly, with infinite caution, he peeled the tape away from the wood, making certain he did not pull the tape away from the paper envelope. Tape peeled off the rough wood stickily; he tried to curl it back without tearing it or folding it. He heard, dimly, three sharp rings on the intercom, but he didn’t pause. Screw Lipsky. Let him sweat for his fifty bucks.
When the top tape was free of the wood, he switched back to a locksmith’s pick slender as a surgeon’s scalpel. He knew the envelope flap would be unsealed, he
Gently Delaney prized out the envelope flap, lifted it. He leaned forward to smell at the open envelope. A scent of roses. Back to the tweezers again, and he carefully withdrew the contents, laying them out on his overcoat lining in the order in which they had been inserted in the envelope: Frank Lombard’s driver’s license. Bernard Gilbert’s ID card. Detective Kope’s shield and identification. And four withered rose petals. From Albert Feinberg’s boutonniere. Delaney turned them over and over with his tweezers. Then he left them alone, lying there, walked to the window, put his hands in his pockets, stared out.
It really was a beautiful day. Crisp, clear. Everyone had been predicting a mild winter. He hoped so. He’d had his fill of snow, slush, blizzards, garbage-decked drifts-all the crap. He and Barbara would retire to some warm place, some place quiet. Not Florida. He didn’t enjoy the heat that much. But maybe to the Carolinas. Some place like that. He’d go fishing. He had never fished in his life, but he could learn. Barbara would have a decent garden. She’d love that.
God damn it, it wasn’t the murders! He had seen the results of murder without end. Murders by gun, by knife, by strangling, by bludgeoning, by drowning, by stomping, by-by anything. You name it; he had seen it. And he had handled homicides where the corpse was robbed: money taken, fingers cut off to get the rings, necklaces wrenched from a dead neck, even shoes taken and, in one case, gold teeth pulled out with pliers.
He turned back to that display on his overcoat. This was the worst. He could not say exactly why, but this was an obscenity so awful he wasn’t certain he wanted to live, to be a member of the human race. This was despoiling the dead, not for vengeance, want, or greed, but for-For what? A souvenir? A trophy? A scalp? There was something godless about it, something he could not endure. He didn’t know. He just didn’t know. Not right now. But he’d think about it.
He cleaned up fast. Everything back into the envelope with tweezers, in the exact order in which they had originally been packed. The envelope flap tucked under with no bend or crease. The top tape pressed down again upon the wood. It held. The drawer turned rightside up. Underwear back in neat stacks in the original order. Drawer slid into the dresser. He inspected the lining of his overcoat. Some wood dust there, from the drawer runners. He went into the bathroom, moistened two sheets of toilet paper at the sink, came back into the bedroom, sponged his overcoat lining clean. Back into the bathroom, used tissues into the toilet. But before he flushed, he used two more squares to wipe the sink dry. Then those went into the toilet also; he flushed all away. He would, he thought sardonically-and not for the first time-have made a hell of a murderer.
He made a quick trip of inspection through the apartment. All clean. He was at the front door, his hand on the knob, when he thought of something else. He went back into the kitchen, opened the lower cabinets. A plastic pail, detergents, roach spray, floor wax, furniture polish. And, what he had hoped to find, a small can of light machine oil.
He tore a square of paper towel from the roll hanging from the kitchen wall. Could this man keep track of pieces of toilet paper or sections of paper towel? Delaney wouldn’t be a bit surprised. But he soaked the paper towel in the machine oil, folded it up, put it inside one of his fleece-lined gloves in his overcoat pocket. Machine oil can returned to its original position.
Then back to the outside door, unlocking, a quick peer outside at an empty corridor. He stepped out, locked up, tried the knob three times. Solid. He walked toward the elevators, stripping off his black silk gloves stuffing them away into an inside pocket. He rang the Down button and while he waited, he took three ten-dollar bills from his wallet, folded them tightly about the keys, held them in his right hand.
There were six other people in the elevator. They stood back politely to let him get on. He edged slowly toward the back. Music was playing softly. In the lobby, he let everyone else off first, then walked out, looked about for Lipsky. He finally saw him, outside, helping an old woman into a cab. He waited patiently until Lipsky came back inside. Lipsky saw him, and the Captain thought he might faint. Delaney moved forward smiling, holding out his right hand. He felt Lipsky’s wet palm as keys and money were passed.
Delaney nodded, still smiling, and walked outside. He walked down the driveway. He walked home. He was thinking a curious thought: that his transfer to the Patrol Division had been a mistake. He didn’t want administrative experience. He didn’t want to be Police Commissioner. This was what he did best. And what he liked best.
He called Thorsen from his home. It was no time to be worrying about tapped phones, if that ever had any validity to begin with. But Thorsen did not return his call, not for 15 minutes. Delaney then called his office. The Deputy Inspector was “in conference” and could not be disturbed.
“Disturb him,” Delaney said sharply. “This is Captain Edward X. Delaney. It’s an emergency.”
He waited a few moments, then:
“Jesus Christ, Edward, what’s so-”
“I’ve got to see you. At once.”
