Ask the Right Question (30 page)

What the hell was it the lady wanted me to do, anyway? I stretched out. I appropriated my shirt and underwear from the delicate pile at bed's head and balled them into a pillow. It was likely to be a long stay. One can hardly move on in life until one has a goal to move toward. So what
was
it that Mrs. Tomanek hoped I would do?

I got the feeling that I had taken that fine one-dollar retainer in response to Mrs. Jerome's repressive personality as much as anything else. Get the husband out of jail? Prove Ralph Tomanek had done it, killed a man, for no better or worse reason than to get away from his mother-in-law? You win a few, and you lose a few. And some weeks you lose more than your share.

It wasn't much more than an hour before I got restless on the floor. At which time I got up and put on my pillow. Plus a few accouterments for my lower, and today definitely not better, half. I took my notebook and went out. The elevator was still out of order. That made six calendar days. I kicked its door, but it was as tender as a ten-year-old basketball player. I limped slowly down the stairs at the end of the hall. I refused to use the handrail.

One of the virtues of living in the inner city is that when one is flush, there are a variety of places close at hand in which one may help to reflate the economy. I picked the nearest, a diner across Alabama Street from my building. I bought breakfast. Bought … after all, I was employed, was I not? I was class stuff. A gent. I shot the whole dollar.

By eleven I was back on the streets. It was to be a fact-gathering day. Once I had the facts, ma'am, I would be able to ask an appropriate question or two, solve an appropriate insoluble puzzle or two. Collect all the available cash and some IOU's for thousands more.

I found a phone booth and dropped a dime. In hardly more time than it took me to find another booth and come up with another dime I was speaking to Sidney Lubart, Att'y.

“Hello, Lubart here,” he said.

Fair enough. I explained what I understood of my relationship to his client Ralph Tomanek and asked for an appointment.

He paused. “Oh, well, I can give you about ten minutes if you can be here at one. I'm booked absolutely solid the rest of the day. I'm going to have to plead a couple of clients guilty as it stands.” A rather serious joke.

I promised to be there at one. I crossed my heart and hoped to die.

I blew another dime and picked up a
Star
. And I dropped in at police headquarters for a social call.

The police live in the City-County Building. A multistory construction plum which houses a lot of the modern services provided by the city. If you're on the right kind of case, you can spend the morning being rehearsed by the district attorney and the afternoon being cross-examined in court without exposing yourself to the light of day. It's a giant step for mankind.

Their elevator was working, so I went up to the fourth floor and appeared at Homicide and Robbery. The desk officer was very civil and told me that the acting lieutenant I sought was out but was expected any minute. Would I care to have a seat? If I'd been a wisecracking private detective, I would have told her that they didn't match my decorating scheme. But being humble and hardworking, I sat down and read the paper.

Acting Lieutenant Jerry Miller did, in fact, appear within fifteen minutes. Well before I was forced from sports section and comics to sections of the
Star
which I find less congenial. When I want bad news, I dust the inside of my filing cabinet.

He came to where I was sitting, rattled my paper, and said, “Mr. Samson, I presume.” After a rather close association centered on a case for which I was a witness and he was arresting officer, we hadn't seen each other for several weeks. Sharing important business changes a relationship with a friend. When the business is over, you've got to do a little rebuilding so you get to laughing as much as you used to.

We laid some skin on each other.

“I've got something to show you,” he said. He took me past a nod from the reception desk through a brief maze to the violence room. On the end of a row of cubbyholes a paunchy man in overalls was putting up tissue paper to make a new cubbyhole. He was in his fifties and bald. He made me start. I am a little paranoid about bald pentagenarians. Among other reasons because I am old enough and thin enough up top to see that I shall be one not too long from now. Miller was oblivious to my paranoia. In fact, he seemed positively to revel in the activities of the gentleman.

“There it is,” he said proudly.

“They sure keep acting lieutenants in style around here.”

Fulfilled ambition radiated from his face. “It shouldn't be ‘acting' too long. The mayor's got me on his desk now.” In Indianapolis the mayor keeps a greasy thumbprint on police promotions at the rank of lieutenant and above. Delicate times require delicate racial, political, religious, ethnic, cultural, educational, and sexual balance. You also can't have too many lieutenants with the same favorite flower; it makes the public nervous. Life is very complex.

“Come on,” said Miller. “Let's sit in it while you tell me what's on your mind.” He tried to lead me into the middle of the construction zone. Paunchy Pate wasn't having any.

“Hey, buster, go the fuck somewhere else. I'm working here.” I guess he didn't know who he was talking to. I would guess that Miller blushed, inside. A kid who got his fingers slapped for fooling around with the wrappings on his Christmas present before the sacred day. It was good to see Miller happy about his promotion, though. All the years he waited had enhanced it, and now it was enhancing him. I bet he was getting on better than usual with his wife.

“All I want is an introduction to another of the pretty faces around here,” I said. I urged him to retreat from the dormer of his content. We moved away slowly. “I'm on a case,” I said. “I need a little information.”

He finally turned his mind and his face back to me. “You're feeling better then?”

“Quite a bit.”

“It's good,” he said. “Now, what can I do for you?”

We sat down on a couple of empty chairs against a wall next to a vacant desk.

“I need some background information on a case one of you guys must be handling. I've been hired by the wife of someone you've got locked up. A Ralph Tomanek.”

“You're kidding.” Then he laughed, a quiet little chortle. Not the kind of response I liked best, in the circumstances. “I can help you on that one, all right. Come on, that's Malmberg's case.”

His turn to lead, we passed by all the cubbyholes and arrived in front of a desk. Behind it sat a ten-year-old kid.

“This is Sergeant Malmberg,” said Miller. “Malmberg, this is Al Samson. He'd like a little information on one of your cases. I'd appreciate it if you'd help him however you can.”

Malmberg jumped up. “Yes sir, Lieutenant Miller. I'll be glad to help him however I can.”

“Thanks, son,” said Miller. He patted me on the back and left with the kind of twinkle in his eyes that gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach. Like being top lobster in the pot and knowing that before you can get that second claw over the lip, you'll be pulled right back down where you started. That's the way lobsters, among others, seem to help each other.

“Which case can I help you with, Mr. Samson?” Malmberg asked me earnestly. I sat down and dug in. I thought about asking him how old he was, but I figured I knew. Twenty-three, twenty-four. And without asking I knew why Miller had left me mirthful. They don't assign cases to fresh kids like Malmberg until they're already in the bag. I had the feeling that I might be back to premature retirement all too soon. Which was a shame because I was, at last, feeling better. Stronger. More alive. I also regretted spending the whole dollar on breakfast.

Malmberg waited for me to answer him, but before I got around to it—one is less polite to young men at my age than to one's chronological peers—he said, “Excuse me for asking, Mr. Samson, but haven't I seen you around the division pretty recently?”

An observant kid, too. “I was involved in the Crystal business,” I said, “but the case I need information on is Ralph Tomanek.”

He nodded sagely. “A very interesting case. Very interesting.”

Nails in my coffin. “I'd like to see the file,” I said. “Would you get it for me or do you have it here?”

I could have gone the question and answer route. I knew, I mean, I
knew
that he knew by heart everything that I wanted to know. But it amuses wheelchair cases to test youngsters.

He said, “I.…”

I could see his thoughts flash in bold lights like the news in Times Square. Showing me the file was against regulations, but Miller had asked him to help me. He said, “I …” again, and then said, “I'll get it for you.”

The kid could play ball. He'd go far. Probably the kind who put down “I want to be a policeman” in his kindergarten yearbook. And then majored in criminology with a minor in forensic medicine. And took a law degree in night school.

In ten years he'd be giving Miller orders. I wondered if Miller realized that. I wondered if the kid knew that.

He came back with a homicide file. I knew it was homicide because it had a red crayon stripe around it. “Here you are, Mr. Samson.”

“What's your first name, Sergeant?”

“Joseph, sir. Joe.” I'd be able to say I knew him when.

“Joe, is there a place I can sit for a while and study this?”

“Um, I, I was just about to go out for lunch. If you don't mind, you could use my desk.”

“Would you mind?”

“No, sir. I'd be pleased to be a help to you.”

“Your desk will do just fine. Thank you.”

“If you'll just let me.…” As I stood by him, he gathered up three folders, including one with a red stripe, and carried them carefully off to his lunch hour.

It was two minutes before twelve. I settled in for a half hour's read.

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About the Author

Michael Z. Lewin was raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, and he attended Harvard University. He has written novels, radio plays, poetry, stage plays, television movie scripts, nonfiction, and short stories. Lewin's writing has been published in over fifteen foreign languages, and he is best known for the Albert Samson series and the Lt. Leroy Powder mysteries. Among other accomplishments, he has received three Edgar Award nominations, including one for his novel
Ask the Right Question
. Lewin lives in Bath, England.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1971 by Michael Z. Lewin

Cover design by Kat JK Lee

ISBN: 978-1-4804-4291-7

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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