“So you want a higher fee?”
“I don’t want no fee whatsoever,” I said. “I’ll do this thing but not for you. I’ll do it for the people I care about.”
For one instant Gerald Jordan’s smug, superior attitude wavered. Behind the mask of sophistication was a face that made Nola Payne’s death mask look benign.
But then he was the politician again. Smiling and nodding at me.
“The city appreciates your goodwill, Mr. Rawlins. It’s too bad that your community doesn’t have more citizens with such a sense of civic responsibility.”
Before I could come up with a fitting reply Jordan was walking away, with Fleck scuttling behind.
“I’ll give you a ride back to your office,” Suggs said to me.
“No thanks. I think I’ll stick around here for a while. Maybe Miss Landry will come to. And I’d like to talk to the doctor.”
“That’s me,” the third white-man-in-white said. “Dr. Dommer.”
He put out a hand and I shook it.
“I don’t really have very much time, Mr. . . . ?”
“Rawlins. People call me Easy.”
“Well, Easy, I can give you a few minutes but I have to prepare for surgery this afternoon.”
“I’ll be quick.” I turned to Suggs and asked, “How do I get in touch with you, Detective Suggs?”
“The Seventy-seventh Precinct will be my home until this is finished.”
“You got it,” I said.
Suggs looked at me a moment, and then he realized that he was being dismissed. At that moment I realized the same thing. The world was changing so quickly that I was worried about making a misstep in the new terrain.
“Okay,” Suggs said. “You call me when you got anything.”
He hesitated a moment more and then turned away.
Before he was out of sight in the long white hall Dr. Dommer asked, “How can I help you, Easy?”
“How did she die?”
Dommer wasn’t a large man. His chest was concave and his brown eyebrows were bushy. His lips were normal size but flaccid and his brown eyes were on the way to becoming yellow. He had hands like a woman, long and slender, soft and tapered.
“Strangled.”
“Then why did he shoot her?”
“I can’t tell you that, Easy. Maybe he wanted to make sure that she was dead.”
“Was there anything else you found?”
“I didn’t do an autopsy. That’s the coroner’s job. But I’d say that she was knocked around quite a bit before she was killed.”
“Was she raped?”
“She had sex with someone,” the doctor said. “But considering the way she was beaten I doubt if he raped her too. There was no trauma in the vaginal area at all. This guy wouldn’t have been a gentle lover.”
“What about Miss Landry?” I asked.
“What about her?”
“Why do you have her all trussed up in that straitjacket?”
“How do you . . . ? The commissioner asked us to keep her sedated and secured.”
“Isn’t there some law against that?”
“Not if we believe that she’s a danger to herself or others.”
“Do you?”
“Is that all, Mr. Rawlins?”
“I’m coming back here tomorrow, Dr. Dommer. Please try and have Miss Landry out of those restraints.”
The doctor and I made eye contact. When I was sure that we understood each other I turned away and walked down the white maze.
6
I wandered up and down the halls until I found my way back to the reception desk. The freckled girl glanced up at me when I emerged from the swinging doors. I made it all the way to the exit before she spoke.
“Excuse me,” she said to my back.
“Yes?” I turned my head to be halfway civil.
