balance and reached for the knife, and got it before my foot did. He scrambled backward almost to the edge of the curb, and before I could jump him he had the knife at his side and I had to back off.
'Now you're dead, man.'
'You talk a good game. I almost had you that time.'
'I think I'll cut you in the belly, man. Let you go out nice and slow.'
The more I kept talking, the more time he'd take between rushes. And the more time he took, the better chance there was that someone would join the party before the guest of honor wound up on the end of the knife. Cabs cruised by periodically, but not many of them, and the weather had cut the pedestrian traffic down to nothing. A patrol car would have been welcome, but you know what they say about cops, they're never around when you want 'em.
He said, 'Come on, Scudder. Try and take me.'
'I've got all night.'
He rubbed his thumb across the blade of the knife. 'It's sharp,' he said.
'I'll take your word for it.'
'Oh, I'll prove it to you, man.'
He backed off a little, moving in the same shuffling gait, and I knew what was coming. He was going to commit himself to one headlong rush, and that meant it wouldn't be a fencing match any more, because if he didn't stab me on the first lunge he'd wind up tumbling me to the ground and we'd wrestle around there until only one of us got up. I watched his feet and avoided getting taken in by the shoulder fakes, and when he came I was ready.
I dropped to one knee and went way down after he'd already committed himself, and his knife hand went over my shoulder and I came up under him, my arms around his legs, and in one motion I spun and heaved. I got my legs into it and threw him as high and as far as I could, knowing he'd drop the knife when he landed, knowing I'd be on him in time to kick it away and put a toe into the side of his head.
But he never did drop the knife. He went high into the air and his legs kicked at nothing and he turned lazily in midair like an Olympic diver, but when he came down there was no water in the swimming pool.
He had one hand extended to break the fall, but he didn't land right. The impact of his head on the concrete was like that of a melon dropped from a third-floor window. I was fairly sure he'd have a skull fracture, and that can be enough to kill you.
I went over and looked at him and knew it didn't matter if his skull was fractured or not, because he had landed on the back of his head while falling forward, and he was now in a position you can't achieve unless your neck is broken. I looked for a pulse, not expecting to find one, and I couldn't get a beat. I rolled him over and put my ear to his chest and didn't hear anything. He still had the knife in his hand, but it wouldn't do him any good now.
'Holy shit.'
I looked up. It was one of the neighborhood Greeks who did his drinking at Spiro and Antares. We would nod at each other now and then. I didn't know his name.
'I saw what happened,' he said. 'Bastard was tryin' to kill you.'
'That's just what you can help me explain to the police.'
'Shit, no. I didn't see nothin', you know what I mean?'
I said, 'I don't care what you mean. How hard do you think it'll be for me to find you if I want to? Go back into Spiro's and pick up the phone and dial nine one one. You don't even need a dime to do it. Tell
'em you want to report a homicide in the Eighteenth Precinct and give 'em the address.'
'I don't know about that.'
'You don't have to know anything. All you have to do is what I just told you.'
'Shit, there's a knife in his hand, anybody can see it was self-defense. He's dead, huh? You said homicide, and the way his neck's bent. Can't walk the fuckin'
streets any more, the whole fuckin' city's a fuckin' jungle.'
'Make the call.'
'Look—'
'You dumb son of bitch, I'll give you more aggravation than you'd ever believe. You want cops driving you crazy for the rest of your life? Go make the call.'
He went.
I kneeled down next to the body and gave it a fast but thorough frisk. What I wanted was a name, but there was nothing on him to identify him. No wallet, just a money clip in the shape of a dollar sign.
Sterling silver, it looked like. He had a little over three hundred dollars. I put the ones and fives back into the clip and returned it to his pocket. I stuffed the rest into my own pocket. I had more of a use for it than he did.
Then I stood there waiting for the cops to show and wondering if my little friend had called them. While I was waiting, a couple of cabs stopped from time to time to ask what had happened and if they could help. Nobody'd taken the trouble while the Marlboro man was waving the knife at me, but now that he was dead everybody wanted to live dangerously. I shooed them all away and waited some more, and finally a black-and-white turned at Fifty- seventh Street and ignored the fact that Ninth Avenue runs one way downtown. They cut the siren and trotted over to where I was standing over the body. Two men in plainclothes; I didn't recognize either of them.
I explained briefly who I was and what had happened. The fact that I was an ex-cop myself didn't hurt a bit. Another car pulled up while I was talking, with a lab crew, and then an ambulance.
To the lab crew I said, 'I hope you're going to print him. Not after you get him to the morgue. Take a set of prints now.'
