again and glared at the long line of cheap movie houses and peep shows. “For Christ’s sake, look at this place!”
For an instant, Corman actually looked straight into the eyes of the Deuce, and suddenly glimpsed something that lifted his spirits inexplicably. For years, the new city had been trying to clean it up, but nothing had changed all that much. It was as if the Deuce had the stamp of eternity on it in a way that luxury hotels and climbing real estate prices didn’t. In the old city, it had been further south, a world of narrow, crooked streets and dismal courts which some called Murderer’s Alley and others called Cow Bay, but whose steamy, sleepless center had been known to everyone by the name of Paradise Square. The fathers of the old city, the ones who’d swilled an imported rum called kill-devil, had done their best to eradicate it. Over the years development had moved it northward, given it a different name, but nothing else had changed because, it seemed to Corman, development was no more than the product of a system, maybe just a mood, while the Deuce sprouted in the chromosomes of everything that lived.
Fenster started walking again. “People are always talking about what they need. I’ll tell you what they need. Balls.” He quickened his pace, his hands pinching vehemently at the black folds of his umbrella. “A place to be a man, that’s what they need.”
At the corner of Eighth Avenue, a prophet was shouting loudly into a portable microphone. He had a tangled, black beard and his large body was draped in a long, white robe.
Fenster’s face softened as he paused to watch him. “Crazy bastard,” he whispered affectionately.
The prophet shouted something else into the microphone, but Corman could not make out what it was. Then the man stepped forward a few paces and looked directly at Fenster.
“No one knows who I am,” he whispered ardently.
Fenster laughed under his breath. “Me, neither,” he said.
The prophet went back to the microphone, his voice thundering even more loudly.
Corman drew his camera from his bag and began taking pictures while Fenster stood by silently. He was on his second roll a few minutes later when two uniformed policemen suddenly brushed by him and stepped directly in front of the prophet.
“Remember me?” the taller one asked, his face only a few inches from the straggling hairs of the prophet’s beard.
The prophet did not answer. He continued to shout into the microphone.
“You got a permit for sound equipment?” the other policeman asked.
Again, the prophet did not answer.
The taller policeman glanced at his partner, then grabbed the microphone from the prophet’s hand. “We told you before,” he said. “If you don’t have a permit for this, we can seize it.”
The prophet stepped away, pressed his back against the wall of the building and lowered his hands to his sides. His whole body appeared to grow hard, stony, but as Corman’s eyes swept up and down the long, white robe, he could see that beneath it, just at the level of the knee, his legs had begun to tremble fearfully.
Fenster eased himself over to Corman. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered nervously. “Situation like this, anything can happen.”
Corman knelt down quickly, focused, snapped another picture, moved to the left, shot a second photograph, then a third, a fourth and a fifth. The trembling had become more violent, shaking the lower quarters of the robe like a small wind. Corman leaned forward, focusing closely, reaching for the minutest detail.
One of the policemen began spooling up the long electrical cable that ran from the microphone to the amplifier, while his partner boxed the speakers then swept stacks of pamphlets into a plastic bag.
Corman kept shooting. From the corner of his eye, he could see Fenster shrinking back into the crowd. He made no effort to stop him, but instead concentrated once again on the prophet, his lens sweeping up and down the long, white robe while the prophet continued to stand rigidly at the wall, his eyes straight ahead, his face impassive, his body entirely rigid, except for the trembling in his knees.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
THE HOMICIDE DIVISION of Midtown North was on the second floor. It was an unsightly bull pen. Each time Corman found himself there, he took a few minutes to concentrate on its disarray, the scattered desks and bulging files, the way everything spilled across the floor so that the room itself looked as if it existed in the aftermath of something violent, the leavings of a storm. As always, it was the people who drew his attention, especially the civilians. They usually looked either miserable or inexpressibly happy, and as he’d watched them over the years, Corman had at last realized that this was because most of them had just received either the best or worst news of their lives, that they’d once again escaped or finally fallen victim to their folly.
Lang’s desk was toward the back of the room. He was sitting in a swivel chair. A dirty yellow foam oozed from the cracked arms, and tiny flecks of cigar ash clung to the foam.
“What’s up?” he asked as Corman stepped up to his desk.
“It’s about that woman,” Corman told him, “the jumper. I was wondering if you’d found out anything?”
“Found out? Found what?”
“About her life,” Corrnan said.
Lang looked at him suspiciously. “What’s in it for you, Corman?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Bullshit,” Land snapped. “What you got, a story idea, something like that?”
“I don’t write.”
“Costa sold film rights, did you know that?”
“For what?”
“That killing at the Met a few years ago,” Lang said. “That opera singer. Shit, man, he got a job consulting for the movie.” He laughed. “Fucking Costa, can you believe that? Consulting on a movie?” He shook his head at the absurdity of it. “He couldn’t consult on his own eating habits.” He laughed again, then stopped, his eyes staring evenly at Corman. “Pictures, then. You trying to sell some pictures?”
“I was wondering about her personal effects,” Corman replied crisply.
“You mean what was on her?” Lang asked. “Nothing. Just that old dress and her panties. No rings on her fingers, or in her ears. Nothing. She didn’t have anything in her pockets.”
“What about in her place?”
“Jesus, Corman, you saw what that was like.”
“I heard there was a diploma from Columbia.”
Lang nodded. “That’s right. A couple Jakes found it the next morning. Framed and everything.”
“Do you have it?”
“We gathered it up, yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“A few odds and ends,” Lang said. He continued to stare at Corman curiously. “Suppose you tell me what this is all about.”
“I can’t,” Corman said truthfully.
“Because it’s top secret, that it?” Lang asked mockingly.
“Because I’m not sure myself.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Lang hooted. “Let me tell you something, Corman. I’ve dealt with you free- lance shooters for thirty years, and I never met one that wasn’t a petty fucking grifter from top to bottom. You telling me you’re different?”
Corman said nothing.
Lang sat back in his seat, placed his large beefy hands behind his head and leaned back into them. “Let me tell you a little story. A few years back, a rookie got a call in the Village. Dog loose, you know?”
Corman nodded.
“The guy goes down, sees the fucking dog running along West Fourth Street. It’s barking and snarling a little, and a few people are scooting into the shops to get away from it. To the rookie, it sounds bad, so he draws his
