there was another St. Marks Place in Brooklyn.
Still …
I left Blanche's and hurried west to the bookstore where I'd bought the book of poems. They had a Hagstrom pocket atlas of the five boroughs. I looked up St. Marks Place in the back, turned to the appropriate map, found what I was looking for.
St. Marks Place, in Brooklyn as in Manhattan, extends for only three blocks. To the east, across Flatbush Avenue, the same street continues at an angle as St. Marks Avenue, stretching under that name clear to Brownsville.
To the west, St. Marks Place stops at Third Avenue-just as it does at an altogether different Third Avenue in Manhattan. On the other side of Third, Brooklyn's St. Marks Place has another name.
Wyckoff Street.
Chapter 16
It must have been around three o'clock when I spoke with the boy.
It was between six thirty and seven by the time I mounted the stoop of his building on West 103rd. I'd found things to do during the intervening hours.
I rang a couple of bells but not his, and someone buzzed me in.
Whoever it was peered at me from a doorway on the third floor but didn't challenge my right to pass. I stood at Havermeyer's door and listened for a moment. The television was on, tuned to the local news.
I didn't really expect him to shoot through the door but he did wear a gun as a security guard, and although he probably left it in the store each night I couldn't be sure he didn't have another one at home. They teach you to stand to the side of a door when you knock on it, so I did. I heard his footsteps approach the door, then his voice asking who it was.
'Scudder,' I said.
He opened the door. He was in street clothes and probably left not only the gun but the entire uniform at the store each night. He had a can of beer in one hand. I asked if I could come in. His reaction time was slow but at length he nodded and made room for me. I entered and drew the door shut.
He said, 'Still on that case, huh? Something I can do for you?'
'Yes.'
'Well, I'll be glad to help if I can. Meantime, how about a beer?'
I shook my head. He looked at the can of beer he was holding, moved to set it down on a table, went over and turned off the television set. He held the pose for a moment and I studied his face in profile.
He didn't need a shave this time. He turned slowly, expectantly, as if waiting for the blow to fall.
I said, 'I know you killed her, Burt.'
I watched his deep brown eyes. He was rehearsing his denial, running it through his mind, and then there was a moment when he decided not to bother. Something went out of him.
'When did you know?'
'A couple of hours ago.'
'When you left here Sunday I couldn't figure whether you knew or not. I thought maybe you were going cat- and-mouse with me. But I didn't get that feeling. I felt close to you, actually. I felt we were a couple of ex-cops, two guys who left the force for personal reasons. I thought maybe you were playing a part, setting a trap, but it didn't feel like it.'
'I wasn't.'
'How did you find out?'
'St. Marks Place. You didn't live in the East Village after all. You lived in Brooklyn three blocks away from Barbara Ettinger.'
'Thousands of people lived that close to her.'
'You let me go on thinking you lived in the East Village. I don't know if I'd have had a second thought about it if I'd known from the beginning that you had lived in Brooklyn. Maybe I would have. But most likely I wouldn't. Brooklyn's a big place. I didn't know there was a St. Marks Place in it so I certainly didn't know where it was in relation to Wyckoff Street. For all I knew, it could have been out in Sheepshead Bay near your precinct. But you lied about it.'
'Just to avoid getting into a long explanation. It doesn't prove anything.'
'It gave me a reason to take a look at you. And the first thing I took a look at was another lie you told me. You said you and your wife didn't have any kids. But I talked to your boy on the phone this afternoon, and I called back and asked him his father's name and how old he was. He must have wondered what I was doing asking him all those questions. He's twelve. He was three years old when Barbara Ettinger was killed.'
'So?'
'You used to take him to a place on Clinton Street. The Happy Hours Child Care Center.'
'You're guessing.'
'No.'
'They're out of business. They've been out of business for years.'
