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“Lead me to it!” Andy sipped the drink and managed to produce a reluctant smile. “Sorry to take it out on you, but I had one hell of a day and there’s more to come.” He sniffed the air. “What’s that cooking on the stove?”
“An experiment in home economics — and it was free for the taking on the Welfare cards. You may not have noticed but our food budget is shot to pieces since the last price increase.” He opened a canister and showed Andy the granular brown substance inside. “It is a new miracle ingredient supplied by our benevolent government and called ener-G — and how’s that for a loathsomely cute name? It contains vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates…”
“Everything except flavor?”
“That’s about the size of it. I put it in with the oatmeal, I doubt if it can do any harm because at this moment I am begi
“The what?”
“I know you never open a book — but don’t you ever watch TV? They had an hour program on the thing. A conversion of an atomic submarine, cruises along just like a whale and sucks in plankton, all the microscopic sea things that you will be very surprised to find out the mighty whales live on. All three whales that’re left. The smallest life forms supporting the biggest, there’s a moral there someplace. Anyway — the plankton gets sucked in and hits a sieve and the water gets spit out and the plankton gets pressed into little dry bricks and stored in the sub until it is full up and can come back and unload. Then they futz around with the bricks of plankton and come up with ener-G.”
“Oh, Christ, I bet it tastes fishy.”
“No takers,” Sol sighed, then served up the oatmeal.
They ate in silence. The ener-G oatmeal wasn’t so bad as they had expected, but it wasn’t very good, either. As soon as he was finished Sol washed the taste of it out of his mouth with the alcohol-and-water mixture.
“What’s this you said about more work to come?” he asked. “They have you doing a double shift today?”
Andy went back to the window; there was a bit of air stirring the damp heat now that the sun had set. “Just about, I’m going on special duty for a while. You remember the murder case I told you about?”
“Big Mike, the gonif? Whoever chopped him did a service to the human race.”
“My feelings exactly. But he’s got political friends who are more interested in the case than we are. They have some co
“It’ll be a good deal, won’t it?” Sol asked, stroking his beard. “An independent position, your own boss, working your own hours, being covered with glory.”
“That isn’t what I’ll be covered with unless I come up with an answer pretty fast. Everyone is watching and they are putting on the pressure. Grassy told me I had to find the killer soonest or I would be back in uniform on a beat in Shiptown.”
Andy went into his room and unlocked the padlock on the bottom drawer of the dresser. He had extra rounds of ammunition here, some private papers and equipment, including his issue flashlight. It was the squeeze-generator type and it worked up a good beam when he tested it.
“Where to now?” Sol asked when he came out. “Going to stake out the joint?”
“It’s a good thing you’re not a cop, Sol. With your knowledge of criminal investigation crime would run rampant in the city—”
“It’s not doing so bad, even without my help.”
“ — and we’d all be murdered in our beds. No stake out. I’m going to talk to the girl.”
“Now the case gets interesting. Am I allowed to ask what girl?”
“Kid name of Shirl. Really built. She was Big Mike’s girl friend, living with him, but she was out of the apartment when he got bumped.”
“Do you maybe need an assistant? I’m good at night work.”
“Cool off, Sol, you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it. She plays out of our league. Put some cold water on your wrists and get some sleep.”
Using the flashlight, Andy avoided the refuse and other pitfalls of the dark stairwell. Outside, the crowds and the heat were unchanged, tuneless, filling the street by day and by night. He wished for a rain that would clear them both away, but the weather report hadn’t offered any hope. Continued no change.
Charlie opened the door at Chelsea Park with a polite “Good evening, sir.” Andy started toward the elevator, then changed his mind and walked on past it to the stairs. He wanted to have a look at the window and the cellar after dark, to see it the way it had been when the burglar came in. If he had entered the building that way. Now that he had been assigned to actually try and find the killer he had to go into all the details of the case in greater depth, to try to reconstruct the whole thing. Was it possible to get to the window from outside without being seen? If it wasn’t then it might be an inside job and he would have to go through the staff and the tenants of the building.
He stopped, silently, and took out his gun. Through the half-open door of the cellar ahead he saw the flickering beam of a flashlight. This was the room where the jimmied window was. He walked forward slowly, putting his feet down on the gritty concrete floor with care so that they made no noise. When he entered he saw that someone was against the far wall, playing flashlight along the row of windows. A dark figure outlined against the yellow blob of light. The light moved to the next window, hesitated and stopped on the heart that had been traced in the dirt there. The man leaned over and examined the window, so intent in his study that he did not hear Andy cross the floor and come up behind him.
“Just don’t move — that’s a gun in your back,” Andy said as he jabbed the man with his revolver. The flashlight dropped and broke; and Andy cursed and pulled out his own light and squeezed it to life. The beam hit full on an old man’s face, his mouth open in terror, his skin suddenly as pale as his long silvery hair. The man sagged against the wall, gasping for air, and Andy put his gun back into the holster, then held the other’s arm as he slid slowly down the wall to a sitting position on the floor.
“The shock… suddenly…” he muttered. “You shouldn’t do that… who are you?”
“I’m a police officer. What’s your name — and what were you doing down here?” Andy frisked him quickly: he wasn’t armed.
“I’m a… civil officer… my identification is here.” He struggled to produce his wallet and Andy took it from him and opened it.
“Judge Santini,” he said, flashing the light from the identification card to the man’s face. “Yes, I’ve seen you in court. But isn’t this a fu
“Please, no impertinence, young man.” The first reaction had passed and Santini was in control again. “I consider myself knowledgeable in the laws of this sovereign state, and I ca
“This is a murder investigation and you may have been tampering with evidence, Judge. That’s authority enough to run you in.”
Santini blinked into the glare of the flashlight and could just make out his captor’s legs; they were in tan pants, not a blue uniform. “You are Detective Rusch?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” Andy said, surprised. He lowered the light so that it was no longer shining in the judge’s face. “What do you know about this?”
“I shall be happy to tell you, my boy, if you will allow me off the floor and if we could find a more comfortable spot for our chat. Why don’t we visit Shirl — you must have made Miss Greene’s acquaintance? It will be a bit cooler there, and once arrived I will be happy to tell you all that I know.”