I knew the killer's name. I had some strong ideas about his motive.
I had more ground to cover before it would all be wrapped up, but the hard part was over. Once you know what you're looking for, the rest comes easy.
Chapter 15
It was another three or four hours before I got out of a cab in the West Seventies and gave my name to a doorman. It was not the first taxi I'd taken since I got back from Brooklyn . I had had to see several people. I'd been offered drinks but hadn't accepted any. I had had some coffee, including a couple of cups of the best coffee I'd ever had.
The doorman announced me, then steered me to the elevator. I rode upstairs to the sixth floor, found the appropriate door, knocked. The door was opened by a small, birdlike woman with blue-gray hair. I introduced myself and she gave me her hand. 'My son's watching the football game,' she said. 'Do you care for football? I don't find it of any real interest myself. Now you just have a seat and I'll tell Claude you're here.'
But it wasn't necessary to tell him. He was standing in an archway at the rear of the living room. He wore a sleeveless brown cardigan over a white shirt. He had bedroom slippers on his feet. The thumbs of his pudgy hands were hooked into his belt. He said, 'Good afternoon, Mr.
Scudder. Won't you come this way? Mom, Mr. Scudder and I will be in the den.'
I followed him into a small room in which several overstuffed chairs were grouped around a color television set. On the large screen an oriental girl was bowing before a bottle of men's cologne.
'Cable,'Lorbeer said.'Makes for absolutely perfect reception. And it only costs a couple of dollars a month. Before we signed up for it we just never got really satisfactory reception.'
'You've lived here a long time?'
'All my life.Well, not quite. We moved here when I was about two and a half years old. Of course my father was alive then. This was his room, his study.'
I looked around. There were English hunting prints on the walls, several racks of pipes, a few framed photographs. I walked over to the door and closed it.Lorbeer noted this without commenting.
I said, 'I spoke to your employer.'
'Mr.Prejanian ?'
'Yes. He was very pleased to hear that Jerry Broadfield will be released soon. He said he's not sure how much use he'll get out of Broadfield's testimony but that he's glad to see the man won't be convicted of a crime he didn't commit.'
'Mr.Prejanian's a very generous man.'
'Is he?' I shrugged. 'I didn't get that impression myself, but I'm sure you know him better than I do.
What I sensed was that he's glad to see Broadfield proved innocent because his own organization doesn't look so bad now. So he was hoping all along that Broadfield would turn out to be innocent.' I watched him carefully. 'He says he'd have been glad to know earlier that I was working for Broadfield
.'
'Really.'
'Uh-huh. That's what he said.'
Lorbeer moved closer to the television set. He rested a hand on top of it and looked down at the back of his hand. 'I've been having hot chocolate,' he said. 'Sundays are days of complete regression for me. I sit around in comfy old clothes and watch sports on television and sip hot chocolate. I don't suppose you'd care for a cup?
'No, thank you.'
'A drink? Something stronger?'
'No.'
He turned to look at me. The pairs of parenthetical lines on either side of his little mouth seemed to be more deeply etched now. 'Of course I can't be expected to bother Mr.Prejanian with every little thing that comes up. That's one of my functions, screening him from trivia.
His time is very valuable, and there are already far too many demands on it.'
'That's why you didn't bother to call him yesterday. You told me you'd spoken with him, but you hadn't. And you warned me to route inquiries through you so as to avoid antagonizing Prejanian .'
'Just doing my job, Mr. Scudder. It’s possible I committed a judgmental error. No one is perfect, nor have I ever claimed perfection.'
I leaned over, turned off the television set. 'It's a distraction,' I explained. 'We should both pay attention to this. You're a murderer, Claude, and I'm afraid you're not going to get away with it. Why don't you sit down?'
'That's a ridiculous accusation.'
'Have a seat.'
'I'm quite comfortable standing. You've just made a completely absurd charge. I don't understand it.'
I said, 'I suppose I should have thought about you right at the beginning. But there was a problem.
Whoever killed Portia Carr had to connect up with Broadfield in one way or another. She was killed in his apartment, so she had to be killed by someone who knew where his apartment was, somebody who took the trouble to decoy him out of it first and send him off to Bay Ridge on a wild-goose chase.'
