Manhattan Is My Beat

She'd loved that and they'd laughed. Then she'd taken down the rest of the facts about Kelly, Robert, deposit: cash. Address: 380 East Tenth Street, Apt. 2B. He'd wanted a detective film, and, thinking about the old Dragnet series, she'd said, "All we want is the facts, sir, just the facts."

He'd laughed again.

No credit cards. She remembered thinking that was definitely one thing they had in common.

What were the words? You knew them real well at one time. How did they go?

Rune's eyes were on him now. A dead man who was a little heavy, tall, dignified, seventh-decade balding.

All that the father giveth me, he that raised up Jesus from the dead will also quicken up our mortal bodies…

What bothered her most, she decided, was the completely still way Mr. Kelly lay. A human being not moving at all. She shuddered. That stillness made the mystery of life all the more astonishing and precious.

I heard a voice from Heaven saying ashes to ashes, dust to dust, sure and certain 1 hope for Resurrection, and the sea shall give up…

The words coming fast now. She pictured her father, laid out by the talented siblings of Charles & Sons in Shaker Heights. Five years before. Rune had a vivid recollection of the man, lying in the satiny upholstery. But that day her father had been a stranger-a caricature of the human being he'd been when alive. With the makeup, the new suit, the smoothed hair, there was something slick and phony about him. He didn't even seem dead: he just seemed odd.

There was something far more real about Mr. Kelly. He wasn't a sculpture, he wasn't unreal at all. And death was staring right back at her. She felt the room tilting and had to concentrate on breathing. The tears tickled her cheeks with a painful irritation.

The Lord be with you and with thy spirit blessed be the name of the Lord…

One of the men near the body noticed her. A short man in a suit, mustachioed. Trimmed black hair flowing away from his center part, held close to his head with spray. His eyes were close together and that made Rune think he was stupid.

"You're one of the witnesses? You're the one called nine one one?"

She nodded.

The man noticed where her eyes were aimed. He stepped between her and Mr. Kelly's body.

"I'm Detective Manelli. You know the deceased?"

"What happened?" Her mouth was dry and the words vanished in her throat. She repeated the question.

The detective, watching her face, probably trying to figure out where she fit on the spectrum of relationships, said, "That's what we're trying to find out. Did you know him?"

She nodded. She couldn't see the body; her eyes fell to a small metal suitcase stenciled with the words crime scene unit. They fixed on the case, wouldn't let go.

"The tape. I was supposed to pick up the tape. For my job."

"Tape? What tape?"

She pointed to a plastic bag with blue letters, WSV, printed on it. "That's my store. He rented a movie yesterday. I was supposed to pick it up."

"You have some ID?"

She handed Manelli her real driver's license and her employee discount card. He jotted down some information. "You have a New York address?"

She gave it to him. This he wrote down too. Handed back the cards. He didn't seem to think she was involved. Maybe in his line of work you got a feel for who was a real killer.

In a soft voice Rune said, "I was the one who rented the tape to him. It was me. Yesterday." She whispered manically, "I just saw him yesterday. I… He was fine then. I talked to him just a few minutes ago."

"You talked to him?"

"I just called on the intercom."

"You're sure it was him?" the detective asked.

She felt a thud in her chest. Recalling that the voice sounded different. Maybe it was the killer she'd talked to. Her legs went weak. "No, I'm not."

"Did you recognize the voice?"

"No. But… it didn't sound like Mr. Kelly. I didn't think anything about it. I don't know-I thought maybe I woke him up or something."

"The voice? Young, old, black, Hispanic?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't tell."

"You were outside? Did you see anything?"

"I was in the alley. This green car tried to run us down."

"Us?" Manelli repeated. "You and the woman from next door?"

"Right."

"What kind of car was it?"

"I don't know."

"Dark green or light?"

"Dark."

"Tags?"

"What?" Rune asked.

"The license plate number. You notice it?"

"He was trying to run me down, the driver."

"You didn't see the number, you mean?"

"That's what I mean. I didn't see it."

"How 'bout the state?" the detective asked.

"No."

He sighed. "You see the driver?"

"No. There was too much glare."

Another man in a suit came up to them. He smelled of bitter cigarettes. "Whatta we got?"

Manelli said to him, "Here's what it looks like, Captain. This lady comes to pick up a videotape. She calls on the intercom and we think the perp answers. Probably after he does the vie."

Does the vic. Rune stared at the detective, furious at the callousness.

"Pops him three in the chest. No defensive wounds, so it happened fast. He never even tried to dodge. And one in the TV."

"The TV?"

Rune followed their eyes. The killer had shot out the TV set. A spidery fracture surrounded a small black hole in the upper right. It was, she noticed, a very old, cheap set.

Manelli continued. "Then this neighbor up the hall-" He looked at his notebook. "Amanda LeClerc. She comes upstairs and finds him dead."

"Nobody hears anything?" the captain asked.

"No. Not even the shots… Okay, then the killer or his backup's in a car in the alley. He bolts and takes out one witness."

And nearly me too, Rune thought. As if they care.

Manelli consulted his notebook again. "Name's Susan Edelman. Lives next door." He nodded toward the building where Rune had seen the jogger stretching.

"Ice her?" the captain asked.

Ice… do… These people had no respect for human beings.

"No," Manelli said. "But Edelman's in no shape to say anything. Not for a while."

Rune remembered the woman lying on the greasy cobblestones of the alley. Blood on her pink jogging suit. Remembered feeling guilty that she'd put down the poor woman for being a yuppie, for being pert.

"This young lady"-Nodding at Rune-"saw the car too. Says she didn't see much."

"Yeah?" the captain asked. "You get a look at the perp?"

"The what?"

"Perp."

Rune shook her head. "I speak English. It's my native language."

"The driver."

"No."

"How many people were in the car?" the captain continued.

"I don't know. There was glare. I told him that."

"Yeah," the captain said doubtfully. "Some people think there's glare when they just don't want to see anything. But you don't hafta worry. We take care of witnesses. You'll be safe."

"I wasn't a witness. I didn't see anything. I was getting out of the way of a car that was trying to run me over. It's a little distracting…"

Her eyes strayed again to the corpse; she found she'd eased to the side of the slow detective. Finally she forced herself to look away. She glanced up at Manelli.

"The tape," she said.

"What?"

"Can I get the tape? I'm supposed to take it back to where I work."

She saw the cover for the cassette. Manhattan Is My Beat.

Manelli walked over to the VCR and pushed eject. A clatter of the mechanism. The tape eased out. Manelli motioned to a crime-scene cop, who walked over. The detective asked, "Whatta you think? Can she have it?"

"One of my biggest fears." The crime-scene officer's latex-gloved hand lifted the cassette out of the VCR; he looked it over.

"What's that?" Manelli asked the officer.