“That’s him! He wanted to know if Mr. Kezar lived here! I told him Six-C!”
Both patrolmen had their guns out, advanced slowly. It was no time to argue.
CHAPTER 4
I sat in the precinct cell telling myself I’d been in jail before. Nothing to worry about, don’t panic. It didn’t help. I paced the cell, every minute like an hour. I sat down again on the iron cot. Pacing is the worst thing you can do.
There are men who love prison, commit crimes for no other real reason than to be sent back to prison. Mostly homosexuals, but that’s not the only reason. Prison is a simple world, its dangers known, its limits narrow-a haven from the vast, indifferent world that frightens them. Sometimes the world frightens me, too, but I’ll take my chances. Walls are no answer.
The row of holding cells was silent, no one inside now but me. I thought about the little man in the too-big overcoat he’d never grow to fill now. Meyer, the janitor had called him. So the little man was known where Irving Kezar lived. Kezar knew Meyer, Meyer knew Mia Morgan, and Mia Morgan and Kezar both knew Diana Wood. Where did that put Diana Wood? In the middle?
I got up to pace. I sat down. Even a few hours in jail and you begin to feel guilty. Of something. I didn’t even have Marty to think about. I thought about Diana Wood. If anyone could make me forget… It was going to be a long night. I was wrong.
Captain Gazzo carried a chair along the corridor, set it outside my cell, sat down, and watched me.
“You know as much as I do,” I said.
Gazzo’s been on the force a long time. He was nice to my mother once, and she was nice to him, so we’re friends. But he’s Homicide, and a good cop, and he knows that anyone can do anything.
“The janitor thinks you went in the side entrance to the stairs, or the back entrance to the cellar. You shot Meyer, came out to be sure, went back to Six-C to look innocent.”
“I didn’t even have a gun,” I said.
“Guns can be ditched.”
“How about a motive?”
“You were tailing Kezar and Meyer for some reason.”
So Irving Kezar had spotted me. I relaxed.
“You had me worried,” I said, “but it’s okay now. Even I’m not dumb enough to kill one of two men I’m tailing.”
“Who knows?” Gazzo said. “Three ways in and out of that building. Maybe you saw something? Clear yourself now.”
“All I saw was Kezar come out before the shots, and Mrs. Kezar come to Six-C after I got up there.”
“You’re sure Kezar came out before the shots?”
I nodded. Gazzo sat back, lit two cigarettes, held one for me to reach out and take. Reflex. He wasn’t afraid of me, but you don’t put your hands into a cell for anything.
“Looks like two killers,” Gazzo said. “Sid Meyer was shot three times. Once up close with a small seven- sixty-five millimeter, twice with a big forty-five-automatic. Slugs still in him, and we found the forty-five on the stairs one floor below. No prints.”
“Dropped in an escape, and no prints? Gloves?”
“Like pros,” Gazzo agreed. “Meyer opened the door, so he knew them. The chain was on, so he was nervous. They kicked in the door, maybe grappled. We found a black thread under one of Meyer’s fingernails. Nothing else. They shot him out that window, probably heard you coming. Ran down the stairs and out.”
“Who was Sid Meyer?”
“A hustler who ran a small trucking company in New Jersey. One fraud conviction, no recent trouble. Irving Kezar’s brother-in-law. Kezar is a lawyer in Manhattan. Not much criminal work. The D.A. doesn’t know him. Do you, Dan?”
I shook my head. “He just turned up in a case.”
“What case?”
There it was. It had to come, and I never lie to the police. I need them too much. But there are exceptions to every rule. I liked Diana Wood. Call me a fool.
“Just a wife tail,” I said.
“Some names, Dan.”
“Captain,” I said. “Look. I’ve got some clean, ordinary people on this case. No real connection to Meyer at all.”
“No, Dan,” Gazzo said. “I judge the connection, not you.”
“I have to judge, too. My license means something.”
“Not much,” Gazzo said.
We faced each other through the bars. There was no way I could win the round unless he let me. He nodded to the turnkey to unlock my cell. He knows his power, he can wait.
He took me to an interrogation room. Irving Kezar and his wife were there. Kezar jumped up, his paunch quivering.
“He told who hired him to kill Sid?”
“Fortune didn’t kill Meyer,” Gazzo said. He sat on a table. “Maybe pros. What was Meyer doing to make enemies, get shot?”
Kezar shook his head. “Who knows? A lot of deals.”
“You were his brother-in-law.”
“Not his partner. We didn’t do business.”
“You’ve both made your statements about tonight?”
Kezar shrugged. “Sid met me at Le Cerf Agile, we came home. Family talk. I had business, Sid waited for Jenny.”
Gazzo turned to the wife. “Mrs. Kezar?”
“Sid never told her anything, Captain,” Kezar said.
Jenny Kezar sat on the edge of a chair like some old refugee waiting rigid for a visa. Her pale eyes were dull, and her face had never been pretty, but close now I saw that she wasn’t as old as I’d thought in the apartment. Nowhere near sixty. Taller than Kezar, her heavy body was shapeless in the cheap blue coat, but her legs were still good, and her hands were clear and smooth. Maybe in her late forties, the hands her last vanity.
“I was at a movie,” she said as if Sid Meyer’s death was somehow her fault. “I met Irving on the avenue, he told me Sid was waitin’. I went up and found him.” She looked at us. “My only brother. Four girls and Sid. He was the baby.”
“Any guesses who killed him, Mrs. Kezar?” Gazzo asked.
“Always in trouble,” Jenny Kezar said. “I told him. I said, your big schemes’ll ruin you. Spoiled, the only boy. My old man was a fur cutter, but Sid was gonna be a scholar. Rabbi, even.”
Her tears began in midsentence. Slow tears on her worn face. She didn’t sob or wring her hands, just let the tears roll in sorrow. And more than sorrow, a misery, as if she cried for more than a dead brother.
“The cow,” Irving Kezar said in disgust. “She’s no use now, Captain. I guess someone Sid screwed just caught up to him.”
“Your apartment,” Gazzo said. “Maybe they thought he was you.”
“Me? I don’t have an enemy in the world, Captain. Do I look scared?” Kezar didn’t look scared. “You say Fortune didn’t kill Sid. But maybe he fingered him. The name of his client might tell you something.”
“It doesn’t,” Gazzo said, covered for me.
Kezar didn’t give up easily. “It might mean more to me.”
“Sign your statements,” Gazzo said. “Then you can go.”
Alone with me, Gazzo’s face said that he hoped the name of my client wouldn’t tell anything about Meyer’s murder. I hoped so, too. His eyes were moody.
