They studied the corpse in silence, then the detective asked, 'You see anything you can identify?'
'Yes,' Wainwright said. He had been peering at the side of the face where what remained of the hairline met the neck. The apple-shaped red scar undoubtedly a birthmark was still dearly visible. Wainwright's trained eye had observed it on each of the three occasions that he and Vic had met. Though the lips that had sneered so frequently were gone, without doubt the body was that of his undercover agent. He told Timberwell, who nodded.
'We identified him ourselves from fingerprints. They weren't the clearest, but good enough.' The detective took out a notebook and opened it. 'His real name, if you'll believe it, was Clarence Hugo Levinson. He had several other names he used, and a long record, mostly petty stuffy''
'The news report said he died of stab wounds, not drowning.',
'It's what the autopsy showed. Before that he was tortured.' 'How do you know?'
'His balls were crushed. The pathologist's report said they must have been put in some kind of vise which was tightened until they burst. You want to see?'
Without waiting to be told, the attendant pulled back the remainder of the paper sheet.
Despite shrinkage of the genitals during immersion, autopsy had exposed enough to show the truth of Timberwell's statement. Wainwright gulped. 'Oh, Christ'' He motioned to the old man. 'Cover him up.' Then he urged Tirnberwell, 'Let's get out of here.'
Over strong black coffee in a tiny restaurant a half block from the morgue, Detective Sergeant Timberwell soliloquized, 'Poor bastard! Whatever he'd done, no one deserves that.' He produced a cigarette, lit it, and offered the pack. Wainwright shook his head.
'I guess I know how you're feeling,' Timberwell said. 'You get hardened to some things. But there sure are others that make you think.'
'Yes.' Wainwright was remembering his own responsibility for what had happened to Clarence Hugo Levinson, alias Vic.
'I'll need a statement from you, Mr. Wainwright. Summarizing those things you told me about your arrangement with the deceased. If it's all the same to you, I'd like to go to the precinct house and take it after we're finished here.' 'All right.'
The policeman blew a smoke ring and sipped his coffee. 'What's the score about counterfeit credit cards right now?'
'More and more are being used. Some days it's like an epidemic. It's costing banks like ours a lot of money.'
Timberwell said skeptically, 'You mean it's costing the public money. Banks like yours pass those losses on. It's why your top management people don't care as much as they should.'
'I can't argue with you there.' Wainwright remembered his own lost arguments about bigger budgets to fight bank-related crime. 'Is the quality of the cards good?' 'Excellent.'
The detective ruminated. 'That's exactly what the Secret Service tells us about the phony money that's circulating in the city. There's a lot of it. I guess you know.' 'Yes, I do.'
'So maybe that dead guy was right in figuring both things came from the same source.'
Neither man spoke, then the detective said abruptly, 'There's something I should warn you about. Maybe you've thought of it already.' Wainwright waited.
'When he was tortured, whoever did it made him talk. You saw him. There's no way he wouldn't have. So you can figure he sang about everything, including the deal he had with you.' 'Yes, I'd thought of it.'
Timberwell nodded. 'I don't think you're in any danger yourself, but as far as the people who killed Levinson are concerned, you're poison. If anyone they deal with as much as breathes the same air as you, and they find out, he's dead nastily.'
Wainwright was about to speak when the other silenced him.
'Listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't send some other guy underground. That's your business and I don't want to know about it at least, not now. But I'll say this: If you do, be super-careful and stay away from him yours self. You owe him that much.'
'Thanks for the warning,' Wainwright said. He was still thinking about the body of Vic as he had seen it with the covering removed. 'I doubt very much if there'll be anyone else.'
Part Three
Though it continued to be difficult on her $98 weekly bank teller's wage ($83 take-home after deductions), somehow Juanita managed, week by week, to support herself and Estela and to pay the fees for Estela's nursery school. Juanita had even by August slightly reduced the debt to the finance company which her husband, Carlos, had burdened her with before abandoning her. The finance firm had obligingly rewritten the contract, making the monthly installments smaller, though they now stretched on with heavier interest payments three years into the future.
At the bank, while Juanita had been treated considerately after the false accusations against her last October, and staff members had gone out of their way to be cordial, she had established no close friendships. Intimacy did not come easily to her. She had a natural wariness of people, partly inbred, partly conditioned by experience. The center of her life, the apogee to which each working day progressed, were the evening hours which she and Estela spent together. They were together now.
In the kitchen of their tiny but comfortable Forum East apartment, Juanita was preparing dinner, assisted. and at times hindered by the three-year-old. They had both been rolling and shaping Bisquick baking mix, Juanita to provide a top for the meat pie, Estela manipulating a purloined piece of the dough with her tiny fingers as imagination prompted. 'Mommyl Look, I made a magic castle!'
They laughed together. ';Que lindo, mi cielo!' Juanita said affectionately. 'We will put the castle in the oven with the pie. Then both will become magic.'
For the pie Juanita had used stewing beef, mixing in onions, a potato, fresh carrots, and a can of peas. The vegetables made up in volume for the small quantity of meat, which was all Juanita could afford. But she was an instinctively inventive cook and the pie would be tasty and nutritious.
It had been in the oven for twenty minutes, with another ten to go, and Juanita was reading to Estela from a Spanish translation of Hans Andersen, when a knock sounded on the apartment door. Juanita stopped reading, listening uncertainly. Visitors at any time were rare; it was especially unusual for anyone to call this late. After a few moments the knock was repeated. With some nervousness, motioning Estela to remain where she was, Juanita got up and went slowly to the door.
Her apartment was on a floor by itself at the top of what had once been a single dwelling, but which long ago was divided into separately rented living quarters. The Forum East developers retained the divisions in the building, while modernizing and repairing. But redevelopment alone did not amend the fact that Forum East generally was in an area notorious for a high crime rate, especially muggings and break-ins. Thus, although the apartment complexes were fully populated, at night most occupants locked and bolted themselves in. There was a stout outer door, useful for protection, on the main floor of Juanita'a building, except that other tenants often left it open.
Immediately outside Juanita's apartment was a narrow landing at the head of a flight of stairs. With her ear pressed against~the door, she called out, 'Who is there?' There was no answer, but once more the knock soft but insistent was repeated.
She made certain that the inside protective chain was in place, then unlocked the door and opened it a few inches all the chain allowed.
At first, because of dim lighting, she could see nothing, then a face came into view and a voice asked, 'Juanita, may I talk to you? I have to please, Will you let me come in?'
She was startled. Miles Eastin. But neither the voice nor the face were those of the Eastin she had known. Instead, the figure which she could see better now was pale and emaciated, his speech unsure and pleading.
She stalled for time to think. 'I thought you were in prison.'
'I got out. Today.' He corrected himself. 'I was released on parole.' 'Why have you come here?' 'I remembered where you lived.'
She shook her head, keeping the door chain fastened. 'It was not what I asked. Why come to me?'
'Because all I've thought about for months, all through that time inside, was seeing you, talking to you, explaining..;' 'There is nothing to explain.'
'But there is Juanita, I'm begging you. Don't turn me awayl Please!'
From behind her, Estela's bright voice asked, 'Mommy, who is it?'
