Make Room! Make Room!

He never liked these sessions at the Empire State Building. As a judge he shouldn’t be seen here too often with these people. Besides, it was a long climb and he had to think about his ticker. Particularly in this kind of weather. He took a sip of water from the glass in front of him and moved his glasses forward on his nose so that he could read better.

“Here is what it boils down to. Big Mike was killed instantly by a blow on the side of the head, done with a sharpened tire iron that was also used to break into the apartment. Marks made on a jimmied-open basement window match the ones on the door and they both fit the jimmy, so it looks as though whoever did it got in that way. There were clear fingerprints on the iron and on the basement window, the same prints. So far the prints appear to be of a person unknown, they do not match any of the fingerprints on file in the Bureau of Criminal Identification, nor are they the prints of O’Brien’s bodyguard or girl friend, the ones who found the body.”

“Who do the fuzz think done it?” one of the listeners asked from around his cigar.

“The official view is — ah, death by misadventure you might say. They think that someone was burgling the apartment and Mike walked in and surprised him, and Mike was killed in the struggle.”

Two men started to ask questions but shut up instantly when Mr. Briggs began to speak. He had the gloomy, serious eyes of a hound dog, with the matching sagging lower lids and loose dewlaps on his cheeks. The pendant jowls waggled when he talked.

“What was stolen from the apartment?”

Santini shrugged. “Nothing, from what they can tell. The girl claims that nothing is missing and she ought to know. The room was taken apart, but apparently the burglar was jumped before he finished the job and then he ran in a panic. It could happen.”

Mr. Briggs pondered this, but he had no more questions. Some of the others did and Santini told them what was known. Mr. Briggs considered for a while then silenced them with a raised finger.

“It appears that the killing was accidental, in which case it is of no importance to us. We will need someone to take over Mike’s work — what is it, Judge?” he asked, frowning at the interruption.

Santini was sweating. He wanted the matter settled so he could go home, it was after 1 A.M. and he was tired. He wasn’t used to being up this late any more. But there was a fact that he had to mention, it might be important and if it was noticed later and it came out that he had known about it and said nothing… it would be best to get it over with.

“There is one thing more I ought to tell you. Perhaps it means something, perhaps not, but I feel we should have all the information in front of us before we—”

“Get on with it, Judge,” Mr. Briggs said coldly.

“Yes, of course. It’s a mark that was on the window. You must understand that all the basement windows are coated with dust on the inside and that none of the others were touched. But on the window that was jimmied open, through which we can presume the killer entered the building, there was a design traced in the dust. A heart.”

“Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” one of the listeners growled.

“Nothing to you, Schlacter, since you are an American of German extraction. Now I am not guaranteeing that it means anything, it may just be a coincidence, meaningless, it could be anything. But just for the record, just to get it down, the Italian word for heart is cuore.”

The atmosphere in the room changed instantly, electrified. Some of the men sat up and there was a rustle of shifting bodies. Mr. Briggs did not move, though his eyes narrowed. “Cuore,” he said slowly. “I don’t think he has enough guts to try and move into the city.”

“He’s got his hands full in Newark. He got burned once coming here, he’s not going to try it again.”

“Maybe. But he’s half out of his head I hear. On the LSD. He could do anything…”

Mr. Briggs coughed and they were all quiet on the instant. “We are going to have to look into this,” he said. “Whether Cuore is trying to move into our area or whether someone is trying to stir up trouble and blaming it on him; either way we want to find out. Judge, see to it that the police continue the investigation.”

Santini smiled but his fingers were knotted tightly together under the table. “I’m not saying no, mind you, not saying it can’t be done, just that it would be very difficult. The police are very shorthanded, they don’t have the personnel for a full-scale investigation. If I try to pressure them they’ll want to know why. I’ll have to have some good answers. I can have some people work on this, make some calls, but I don’t think we can get enough pressure to swing it.”

“You can’t get enough pressure, Judge,” Mr. Briggs said in his quietest voice. Santini’s hands were trembling now. “But I never ask a man to do the impossible. I’ll take care of this myself. There are one or two people I can personally ask to help out. I want to know just what is happening here.”

8

Through the open window rolled the heat and stench, the sound of the city, a multivoiced roar that rose and fell with the hammered persistence of waves breaking on a beach; an endless thunder. In sudden punctuation against this background of noise there came the sound of broken glass and a jangled metallic crash; voices rose in shouts and there was a long scream at the same instant.

“What? What…?” Solomon Kahn grumbled, stirring on the bed and rubbing his eyes. The bums, they never shut up, never let you grab a little nap. He got up and shuffled to the window, but could see nothing. They were still shouting — what could have made the noise? Another fire escape falling off? That happened often enough, they even showed it on TV if there was a gruesome picture to go with it. No, probably not, just kids breaking windows again or something. The sun was down behind the buildings but the air was still hot and foul.

“Some lousy weather,” he muttered as he went to the sink. Even the boards in the floor were hot on the soles of his bare feet. He sponged off some of the sweat with a little water, then turned the TV on to the Music- Time station. A jazz beat filled the room and the screen said 18:47, with 6:47 P.M. underneath in smaller numerals for all the yuks who had dragged through life without managing to learn the twenty-four-hour clock. Almost seven, and Andy was on day duty today, which meant he should have been through by six, though they never left on time. Anyway, it was time to get the chow going.

“For this the Army gave me a fine fifteen-grand education as an aviation mechanic,” he said, patting the stove. “Finest investment they ever made.” The stove had started life as a gas burner, which he had adapted for tank gas when they had closed off the gas mains, then had installed an electric heating element when the supplies of tank gas had run out. By the time the electric supplies became too erratic — and expensive — to cook with, he had installed a pressure tank with a variable jet that would burn any inflammable liquid. It had worked satisfactorily for a number of years, consuming kerosene, methanol, acetone and a number of other fuels, balking only slightly at aviation gas while sending out a yard-long streamer of flame that had scorched the wall just before he could adjust it. His final adaptation had been the simplest — and most depressing. He had cut a hole in the back of the oven and run a chimney outdoors through another hole hammered through the brick wall. When a solid-fuel fire was built on the rack inside the oven, an opening in the insulation above it let the heat through to the front ring.

“Even the ashes stink like fish,” he complained as he shoveled out the thin layer of powdery ash from the previous day. These he threw out the window in an expanding gray cloud and was gratified when he heard a cry of complaint from the window on the floor below. “Don’t you like that?” he shouted back. “So tell your lousy kids not to play the TV at full blast all night and maybe I’ll stop dumping the ashes.”

This exchange cheered him, and he hummed along with The Nutcracker Suite which had replaced the nameless jazz composition — until a burst of static suddenly interrupted the music, drowning it out. He mumbled curses under his breath as he ran over and hammered on the side of the TV set with his fist. This had not the slightest effect. The static continued until he reluctantly turned the TV off. He was still muttering angrily when he bent to fire up the stove.

Sol placed three oily gray bricks of seacoal on the rack and went over to the shelf for his battered Zippo lighter. A good lighter that, bought in the PX when? — must be fifty years ago. Of course most of the parts had been replaced since that time, but they didn’t make lighters like this any more. They didn’t make lighters at all any more. The seacoal spluttered and caught, burning with a small blue flame. It stank — of fish — and so did his