screaming started, and I went to the window.”
The window was four good strides from the couch. “I had to get the shades out of the way,” she said. “The screaming kept up the whole time. When I had the shades up, I opened the window and leaned out and looked.”
“And,” I said.
“And he was on fire, the old man, and the little old lady-I seen her before, I gave her soup a couple of times- she was trying to get the blanket on him. And then I seen-saw-him.”
“Saw him? Saw him where?”
“Coming up the street toward me. The streetlights are good here. Not much else, but the streetlights. He had a bottle, some kind of bottle, in his hand, and he tilted to one side like he was broken. ‘Hey,’ I yelled, ‘Schiesskopf.’ And he looked up at me.”
“He saw you?” I could barely breathe.
“Saw me? He smiled at me. The old man was on fire, and he was still screaming, and this one smiled at me and waved with the hand that didn’t have the bottle in it. It had something else in it, though.”
“What?”
“Something square, only not square, you know?”
“Rectangular,” I said. “A box of wooden matches.”
She nodded. “Could be. And then he said something to me.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Hey, Granny, got anything you want to cook?’ And then he waved at me again and ran away. Except he didn’t really run, it was like one foot weighed a lot more than the other one.”
“Mrs. Gottfried,” I said, “what did he look like?”
“Like a Nazi general,” she said as though she’d been waiting for the question.
My stomach sank. I had the feeling that a lot of people looked like a Nazi general to Mrs. Gottfried.
“In what way,” I asked, “did he look like a Nazi general?”
She lifted her chin and regarded me with the black eyes. “You think I’m making it up,” she said accusingly.
“No,” I said. “I already know he limps. I believe you saw him. I just want to get a good description.”
“I gave you a good description,” she said stubbornly. “He looked like a Nazi general, but younger.”
“Please, Mrs. Gottfried, I don’t know what a Nazi general looked like.”
“Blond,” she said.
“Why a general?”
“His coat,” she said. “How could you not know what a Nazi general looked like? You should know. How could people forget?”
“Tell me about his coat.”
“It was a, a what do you call it, what Humphrey Bogart always wore.”
“A trench coat,” I said.
“That’s it,” she said, “a trench coat. It went all the way from his shoulders to his feet. And it was black.”
“Was it canvas?” I asked. She shook her head. “Leather?”
“No,” she said. She gave me the sparrow’s glance again. “It squeaked.”
I thought for a moment. It got me nowhere. It hadn’t gotten me anywhere when Hermione said it, either.
“Squeaked?” I asked at last.
“Rubber,” Mrs. Gottfried said, sitting back again. She smoothed her skirt with her arthritic hands. “His coat was rubber.”
“Mrs. Gottfried,” I said, “could I have some soup?”
8
“He’s a tall, thin blond man with a clubfoot, and he drives a gray Mazda and wears a black rubber trench coat,” I said. “He can’t be that hard to find.”
Pasty beneath the humming fluorescents, Hammond and Dr. Schultz regarded me skeptically. I’d insisted that I report to Hammond, partly to give him something to do and partly because it was nice to be in a position where I could insist on something, and I didn’t want to waste it. As a trade, Captain Finch had insisted that Dr. Schultz be present whenever I did. Willick, who was apparently connected to Hammond by an invisible silken cord, sat fatly at the foot of the table, taking notes.
“Who’s your source?” Dr. Schultz asked through a cloud of smoke. He was leaning back, his chair tilted on its rear legs, the picture of manicured ease. The cigarette in his hand, his third in fifteen minutes, was a Dunhill. I might have known.
“For what?”
“Rubber,” he said to the cigarette. “The supposition that the trench coat is made of rubber. Hermione told you everything else.”
Hammond fidgeted.
“Skip it,” I said. “She doesn’t want to talk to the police. And, by the way, Al,” I added nastily, “thanks.” I knew that Hermione hadn’t told anyone but me about the limp. She’d been saving it to get out of the jug. Was Hammond my friend, or just another cop?
“Procedure,” Hammond said automatically. He didn’t meet my eyes, though.
Dr. Schultz clenched his teeth together in a way that made his jaw muscles bulge. His eyes were smaller than caviar. I tried not to look too terrified. Hammond looked as reasonable as it was possible for Hammond to look. Willick made scratching noises. “This is a cooperative investigation,” Schultz said.
“Who’s cooperating with me?” I asked Hammond.
“You’ve had everything we’ve got,” Dr. Schultz said. “There’s no reason to be hostile.”
“Then may I have your address and phone number?” I asked him.
“For what?” he asked, streaming smoke, blue under the lights, through his nostrils.
“For the next press conference.”
He tilted back a little farther in his chair and then had to catch a foot under the table to keep from going over the rest of the way. The foot made a hollow thunk on the underside of the table, and Schultz had a coughing fit. He hunched over, hacking into his cupped hands. “Of course not,” he said when he’d finished. “Do you think I’m crazy?” He glanced at Willick as though to reassure himself that there was at least one person in the room who hadn’t seen him lose his balance. Willick, was staring at him, his mouth open.
“Then don’t tell me there’s no reason for me to be hostile,” I said. “He knows where I live, and I doubt very much that you’re giving me everything you’ve got.”
“Then how can we verify it?” He gave me the amber smile again. He saw me staring at the pack of Dunhills, positioned on the table like a Chinese household god, and picked it up and extended it to me with a generous confidence of a born skinflint who knows that his offer will be rejected. I reached out and took the pack.
“Thanks,” I said. “I can’t usually afford these.”
He kept the smile in place. He was being very professional, very doctoral. Just one Ph. D. to another. “I ask you,” he said, “how can we verify it?”
“You can verify it by your common sense,” I said. “It was rubber because rubber isn’t permeable. Rubber keeps the gasoline from getting on his clothes. He gets home, he hoses off the coat, and he’s as pure as the Madonna. The one in the paintings, not the one who sings songs in a girdle.”
“That’s no girdle,” Hammond said. “That dame don’t need no girdle.” Willick looked surprised at the fact that Hammond had heard of Madonna. I was surprised, too: So much for my theory about cops and popular songs.
“And who was the source?” Schultz asked again, putting out the filter of his cigarette and stealing another
