talking to somebody he’d sort of made up, not the man himself.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he had a check done, and I came up with a record, so that was the end of that.”
“And this was only about two months after he hired you?” Corman asked.
“Yeah, about that. Two months, I’d say. Not much longer. She was five years old, I think. Went to this private school over on the East Side. Every morning the car came for her. The car was always coming for her. Dr. Rosen wouldn’t let her out on the street. Not even for a little walk. Wherever she went, the car took her.”
“Did you talk with her very often?”
“I would have talked to her,” Bernice said. “I didn’t have nothing against her. But she never seemed that interested. One time—this was just before I was let go—Candy, that’s my little girl, she got sent home from school, so they called me to come get her, and I had to leave, so I took Sarah with me, because I knew Rosen wouldn’t want her left alone in the house. So, anyway, I took her home with me, and when I picked Candy up, we all went to the park near the school, and they played together for a while.” Her face grew more concentrated as the memory returned to her. “Sarah was real quiet. She sat real close to me. She wouldn’t do much. Candy was about her age, but tougher, the way she’s always been, and Sarah didn’t want to play with her. I guess she was afraid. Anyway, it took forever for Candy to get her in the swings. But after she got in it, she swung a little. Not too high, sort of dragging her foot.” She dropped the cigarette into the ashtray, lit another. “That’s about the only time we really had together. The very next day, that’s when Rosen found out about me, and that’s when he let me go.”
“What did he find out exactly?” Corman asked.
“What I did to Harold.”
“Harold?”
“Candy’s daddy,” Bernice said. “I shot him one night. Everything was setting him off, and I got tired of it, so when he started in on me, I shot him. The bullet went right through his arm. Didn’t even touch a bone.” She shrugged. “I just got three years, and even that was a suspended sentence, but that didn’t matter to Rosen. With him, a record was a record.”
“And that’s why he fired you?”
“That’s what he told me,” Bernice said. “He said he’d hired this guy. Told me his name. Walter Maddox. He said this Maddox guy had checked up on me, and it came out I had a record, and he didn’t want anybody like that around.” She shrugged. “He was nice about it, I guess, gave me a whole month’s pay.”
Corman nodded and wrote Maddox’s name in his notebook.
“So really, as far as Sarah was concerned, I didn’t know much about her,” Bernice added. “Didn’t have time to learn much.”
“Did you get some sense of her?”
Bernice thought a moment. “Well, there was this one thing she did that made me wonder.”
“What?”
“She bit through her lip one night,” Bernice said. “Almost all the way through it. Her bottom lip.”
“Why?”
Bernice shook her head. “She did it in her bed. Maybe while she was sleeping, I don’t know. There was blood all over the pillow, I remember that. Dr. Rosen said it had to be thrown away. He didn’t want it washed.”
“Did Sarah ever talk about it, mention a bad dream, anything?”
Again, Bernice shook her head. “She was very quiet, but very jumpy, too. The slightest little movement and she’d flinch.”
“Flinch?”
“Yeah,” Bernice said firmly. “Like everything was about to jump her somehow, fly out at her, something like that.”
“But you never knew why?”
“I always wondered, but I wasn’t there long enough to find out,” Bernice said, then shrugged. “That’s about all I know.” She glanced at her watch. “Got to change into my uniform,” she said. “I’m waitressing now.”
Corman fixed his eyes on Bernice Taylor. Backlit by the window, her face gave off an eerie sheen that reminded him vaguely of Sarah Rosen’s skin. He reached for his camera again. “Would you mind if I took a picture?” he asked.
Bernice grinned coyly. “Nobody’s asked for my picture in a long time,” she said, then stood up and posed grandly by the shutters, the cigarette still dangling from her hand.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
WALTER MADDOX was in the yellow pages under private investigators, his address listed as 345 West 57th Street. To Corman’s surprise, he agreed to see him immediately.
On the way uptown, the connecting door of the subway suddenly opened and a large man stepped into the crowded car. He was wearing a flannel jacket that was two sizes too big and baggy gray trousers, torn at the pockets. A tangle of Rastafarian curls hung about his ears, and when he spoke, Corman could make out two gold teeth.
“I smell bad, but I’m hungry,” the man shouted over the grinding roar of the subway car. Then he banged a tambourine against his leg and began to sing: “I shot the sheriff.”
The crowd shifted away from him. Scores of faces buried themselves in newspapers, magazines, a dance of fiddling fingers. Corman reached for his camera and began shifting right and left as he angled for a shot.
“I’m gonna be riding this line for the next month,” the man said loudly. “Break you guys in.” He thrust out a half-crumpled Styrofoam cup. “I smell bad, but I’m hungry,” he repeated. Then he stepped forward, elbowing his way through the crowd. When he got to Corman, he stopped and held his cup out. “God bless the givers,” he said.
Corman lowered the camera and shook his head.
The man edged the cup forward, his dark eyes staring intently into Corman’s face.
Again, Corman shook his head.
The man inched the cup forward until it nearly rested on Corman’s chin. “I smell bad, but I’m hungry,” he repeated emphatically.
Corman sat back slightly and started to put his camera away. He could feel the man staring at him, resented the little pinch of fear it caused and felt relieved when he finally moved away.
Maddox’s office was a good deal more luxurious than Corman had expected. There were no splintered wooden desks or rickety filing cabinets, no battered gray hats hanging from pegs beside the door or empty whiskey bottles collecting dust on the windowsills. Even Maddox himself looked as if the lean years were well behind him, his body draped in an expensive, double-breasted suit. He wouldn’t do for the kind of hang-dog gumshoe Julian no doubt would prefer, and Corman wondered if there might be a way to shoot him that would give him a somewhat less prosperous aspect, make him look more like the weary tracker of a million hopeless lives than the beaming petty bourgeois who sat behind his desk.
“Glad to meet you,” Maddox said exuberantly as he rose and shook Corman’s hand. “Photographer, that’s interesting. What sort of stuff do you shoot?”
“Anything that comes up,” Corman said. “Accidents, crime scenes, just about …”
“Crime scenes,” Maddox interrupted. “Interesting. Do you have many contacts at NYPD?”
“A couple,” Corman said. “Barnes down at the photo lab, Harvey Grossbart in …”
“My God, Harvey Grossbart,” Maddox said. “He was in uniform the first time I saw him. Any promotions lately?”
“No.”
“Hasn’t made it to Division Chief yet?”
Corman shook his head.
Maddox looked faintly disappointed. “Why not?”
“Bad luck,” Corman guessed. “Integrity.”
Maddox laughed and motioned for Corman to take a seat opposite his desk. “So, what can I do for you?”
“A book I’m working on,” Corman said. “A woman. Jumper. Went out the window in Hell’s Kitchen last
