Make Room! Make Room!

9

“That’s not much of a shave you got there, Rusch,” Grassioli said in his normal, irritated tone of voice.

“It’s no shave at all, lieutenant,” Andy said, looking up from the sheaf of reports on the desk. The lieutenant had noticed him while he was passing the detective squadroom on the way to the clerical office; Andy had hoped to sign in and leave the precinct without meeting him. He thought fast. “I’m ru

“Yeah. What’s the progress on the case?”

Andy knew better than to remind the lieutenant that he had been working on it only since the previous evening.

“I’ve found out one positive thing that relates to it.” He looked around, but there was no one else within earshot, and he continued in a lower voice. “I know why the pressure has been put on the department.”

“Why?”

The lieutenant flipped through the pictures of Nick Cuore and his henchmen while Andy explained the significance of the heart on the window and the identity of the men who were interested in the murder.

“All right,” Grassioli said when he had finished, “don’t write a damn thing about this in any reports, unless you find anything leading to Cuore, but I want you to tell me everything that happens. Now get going, you wasted enough time around here.”

It was a record-breaker. Day after day had passed, but the heat stayed the same. The street outside was a tub of hot, foul air, unmoving and so filled with the stench of dirt and sweat and decay that it was almost unbreathable. Yet, for the first time since the heat wave had set in, Andy did not notice it. The previous night was an overwhelming though still unbelievable presence, impossible to put out of his mind. He tried to, he had work to do, but Shirt’s face or body would slip around the edges of memory and, despite the heat, he would once again feel the sensation of suffused warmth. This wouldn’t do! He smashed his right fist into his open palm and had to smile at the startled looks of the nearby people in the crowd. There was work to do, a lot of it, before he could see her again.

He turned into the alleyway that ran between the locked row of garages behind Chelsea Park and the edge of the moat, leading to the service entrance to the buildings. There was a rumble of wheels behind him and he stepped aside to let a heavy tugtruck pass, a square, boxlike body mounted on old auto wheels, guided by the two men who pulled it. They were bent almost double and aware of nothing except their fatigue. As they plodded by, just a few feet from him, Andy could see how the traces cut into their necks, gouging into the permanent ulcers on their shoulders that stained their shirts wet with pus.

Andy walked slowly behind the tugtruck, stopping while he was still out of sight of the entrance, then leaning over the edge of the moat. Filth and rubbish littered the concrete bottom below, and there were wide gaps between the granite blocks where the cement had fallen away. It would be easy enough to climb down the wall after dark, there were no revealing lights nearby. Even in the daytime an intruder would only be noticed by someone glancing out of the closest windows. No one was watching when Andy let himself over the edge and clambered slowly to the bottom; it was like going into an oven here, with the heat trapped by the high walls. He ignored it as best he could and walked along the i

“What do you think you’re doing there! You’re going to get your head broken!” The voice shouted down at him and he straightened and looked up at the drawbridge that crossed the moat, at the doorman standing there, shaking his fist. He recognized Andy and his voice changed abruptly. “Sorry — I didn’t see it was you, sir. Anything I can do to help?”

“Yes — get me out of here. Do any of those windows open?”

“Just move along a bit, the next one over your head, it’s a lobby window.” The doorman vanished and a few moments later the window creaked open and his wide face stuck out.

“Give me a lift,” Andy said. “I’m half cooked.” He took the doorman’s hand and scrambled up. The lobby was dim and cool after the sun-blasted heat of the moat. He wiped at his face with his handkerchief. “Is there any place where we can talk — where I can sit down?”

“In the guardroom, sir, just follow me.” There were two men there; the one in building uniform jumped to his feet when they came in. The other was Tab. “Get on the door, Newton,” the doorman ordered. “You want to go with him, Tab?”

Tab glanced at the detective. “Sure, Charlie,” he said, and followed the guard out.

“We got some water here,” the doorman said. “Want a glass?”

“Great,” Andy said, dropping into a chair. He took the plastic beaker and drained half of it, then slowly sipped the rest. Facing him was a gray-tinted window that looked out into the lobby; he couldn’t remember seeing any window there on the way in. “One-way glass?” he asked.

“That’s right. For the residents’ protection. It’s a mirror on the other side.”

“Did you see where I was in the moat?”

“Yes, sir, it looked like you were just outside the cellar window, the one that got jimmied open.”

“I was. I came down the other side of the moat, from the back alley, crossed it and climbed up by the window. If it was nighttime do you think you would have seen me there?”

“Well…”

“A plain yes or no will do. I’m not trying to trap you into anything.”

“The building management, they’re already doing something about the security, it’s mostly the trouble with the alarm system. No, I don’t think I would have seen you at night, sir, not down there in the dark.”

“I didn’t think so. Then you believe that someone could have entered the building that way, unseen?”

Charlie’s small, piggish eyes were half closed, looking around for aid. “I suppose,” he admitted finally, “the killer could have got in that way.”

“Good. And that particular cellar room is the right one to come in through. Easy to get near the window, a broken alarm on the frame, everything just right. Whoever broke in could have marked the window with that heart so he could find it again from the outside. Which means he had to have been in the building first, probably casing it.”

“Maybe,” Charlie admitted, and smiled slightly. “And maybe he made the mark there after he got in, just to fool you into believing it was an inside job.”

Andy nodded. “You’re thinking, Charlie. But either way it could have been marked from the inside first, and I have to operate on that principle. I’ll want a list of all the present employees, all the new ones and all those who have left here in the last couple of years, a list of tenants and former tenants. Who would have a thing like that?”

“The building manager, sir, he has an office right upstairs. Would you like me to show you where it is?”

“In one minute — I need another glass of water first.”

Andy stood facing the i