tried to update the subject. “You saw Greg Downing go into Liz Gorman’s building?”
Cole nodded slowly.
“She was blackmailing him?”
“Not just her,” he corrected. “It was my idea.”
“What did you have on Greg?”
Cole shook his head. “Not important.”
“She was probably killed over it.”
“Probably,” Cole agreed. “But you don’t need to know the specifics. Trust me.”
Myron was in no position to push it. “Tell me about the night of the murder.”
Cole scratched at his stubble hard, like a cat on a post. “Like I said,” he began, “I was across the street. When you live underground, you have certain rules you live by—rules that have kept us alive and free for the last twenty years. One of them is that after we commit a crime, we never stay together. The feds look for us in groups, not individuals. Since we’ve been in the city, Liz and I have made sure we were never together. We only communicated by pay phone.”
“What about Gloria Katz and Susan Milano?” Myron asked. “Where are they?”
Cole smiled without mirth or humor. Myron saw the missing teeth and wondered if they were part of the disguise or something more sinister. “I’ll tell you about them another time,” he said.
Myron nodded. “Go on,” he said.
The lines in Cole’s face seemed to deepen and darken in the bare light. He took his time before continuing. “Liz was all packed and ready to go,” he said finally. “We were going to score the cash and get out of the city, just like I planned. I was just waiting across the street for her signal.”
“What signal?”
“After all the money was collected, she’d flicker the lights three times. That meant she’d be down in ten minutes. We were going to meet at One Hundred Sixteenth Street and take the One train out of here. But the signal never came. In fact, her light never went off at all. I was afraid to go check on her for obvious reasons. We got rules about that too.”
“Who was Liz supposed to collect from that night?”
“Three people,” Cole said, holding up the pointer, middle man, and ring man. “Greg Downing”—he dropped ring man—“his wife what’s-her-name—”
“Emily.”
“Right, Emily.” The middle finger went down. “And the old guy who owns the Dragons.” His hand made a fist now.
Myron’s heart contracted. “Wait a second,” he said. “Clip Arnstein was supposed to show up?”
“Not supposed to,” Cole corrected. “He did.”
A black coldness seeped into Myron’s bones. “Clip was there?”
“Yes.”
“And the other two?”
“All three showed up. But that wasn’t the plan. Liz was supposed to meet Downing at a bar downtown. They were going to make the transaction there.”
“A place called the Swiss Chalet?”
“Right.”
“But Greg showed up at the apartment too?”
“Later on, yeah. But Clip Arnstein arrived first.”
Win’s warning about Clip came back to him. You like him too much. You’re not being objective. “How much was Clip supposed to pay?”
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
“The police only found ten thousand in her apartment,” Myron said. “And those bills were from the bank robbery.”
Cole shrugged. “Either the old man didn’t pay her or else the killer took the money.” Then, thinking it through a little more he added, “Or maybe Clip Arnstein killed her. But he seems kind of old, don’t you think?”
Myron didn’t answer. “How long was he inside?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Who came by next?”
“Greg Downing. I remember he had a satchel. I figured it had the money in it. He was in and out fast— couldn’t have been more than a minute. And he still had the satchel on him when he came out. That’s when I started to worry.”
“Greg could have killed her,” Myron said. “It doesn’t take long to hit someone with a baseball bat.”
“But he wasn’t carrying a bat,” Cole said. “The satchel wasn’t big enough for one. And Liz had a bat in her apartment. She hated guns, so she kept it for protection.”
Myron knew that no bat had been found at Gorman’s apartment. That meant the killer must have used Liz’s. Could Greg have gone upstairs, entered her apartment, found the bat, killed her with it, ran out—all in such a short time?
It seemed doubtful.
“What about Emily?” Myron asked.
“She came in last,” Cole said.
“How long was she there?”
“Five minutes. Something like that.”
Time enough to gather the evidence to plant. “Did you see anybody else go in and out of the building?”
“Sure,” Cole said. “Lot of students live there.”
“But we can assume that Liz was already dead by the time Greg Downing arrived, right?”
“Right.”
“So the question is, who do you remember going in between the time she got back from the Swiss Chalet and the time Greg arrived? Besides Clip Arnstein.”
Cole thought about it and shrugged. “Mostly students, I guess. There was a real tall guy—”
“How tall?”
“I don’t know. Very.”
“I’m six-four. Taller than me?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Was he black?”
“I don’t know. I was across the street and the light wasn’t too good. I wasn’t watching that closely. He might have been black. But I don’t think he’s our man.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I watched the building until the next morning. He never came back out. He must have lived there or at least stayed with someone overnight. I doubt the killer would’ve hung around like that.”
Tough to argue, Myron thought. He tried to process what he was hearing in a cold, computerlike way, but the circuits were starting to overload. “Who else did you remember seeing? Anybody stand out?”
Cole thought again, his eyes wandering aimlessly. “There was one woman who went in not long before Greg got there. Now that I think of it, she left before he got there too.”
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Blond, brunette?”
Cole shook his head. “I only remember her because she wore a long coat. The students all wear windbreakers or sweatshirts or something like that. I remember thinking she looked like an adult.”
“Was she carrying anything? Did she—”
“Look, Myron, I’m sorry. I gotta get moving.” He stood and looked down at Myron with a hollow, lost expression. “Good luck finding the son of a bitch,” he said. “Liz was a good person. She never hurt anyone. None of us did.”
Before he could turn away, Myron asked, “Why did you call me last night? What were you going to sell me?”
