Tenth Commandment (32 page)

I hesitated a moment.

'From the maid,' I said finally.

He laughed. 'Miss Horizontal herself?' he said. 'I'm not going to ask you how you got her to talk; I can imagine.

Well, it could be true.'

'It would explain the Kipper-Reape connection,' I argued. 'Sol got suspicious and hired Marty to find out the truth. Reape got evidence that Knurr and Tippi were, ah, intimate. That's when Sol called Mr Tabatchnick and wanted to change his will.'

'Uh-huh. I follow. Sol gets dumped before he can change the will. Maybe the lovers find and destroy the evidence. Photographs? Could be. Tape recordings.

Whatever. But street-smart Reape has made copies and tries blackmail. Goodbye, Marty.'

'And then after he gets bumped, his grieving widow tries the same thing.'

'It listens,' Stilton admitted. 'I'd be more excited if we could figure out how they managed to waste Sol. And come up with the suicide note. But at least we've got more than we had before. When I get in on Monday, I'll run a trace on Knurr.'

'And on Tippi,' I said. 'Please.'

'Why her?'

I told him what the Kipper sons had said about her Las Vegas background and how she had originally come from Chicago, which had also been Knurr's home.

'May be nothing,' Stilton said, 'may be something. All right, I'll run Tippi through the grinder, too, and we shall see what we shall see. Hang in there, Josh; you're doing okay.'

'I am?' I said, surprised. 'I thought I was doing badly.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I called you was to ask if you could suggest a new approach. Something I 264

haven't tried yet.'

There was silence for a brief moment.

'It's your baby.' he said at last. 'But if I was on the case, I'd tail Tippi Kipper and the Reverend Knurr for a while.'

'What for?' I asked.

'Just for the fun of it,' he said. 'Josh, my old lady is yelling and I better hang up. I think she wants to put me to work. Keep in touch. I'll let you know what the machine says about Knurr and Tippi.'

'Thank you for calling,' I said.

'You're perfectly welcome,' he responded with mock formality, then laughed. 'So long, Josh,' he said as he rang off. 'Have a good weekend.'

I finished the Times and my cold coffee about the same time, then mixed a weak Scotch-and-water, turned the radio down low, and started rereading my notes on the Stonehouse case. I went back to the very beginning, to my first meeting with Mr Teitelbaum. Then I read the record of my initial interviews with Mrs Ula Stonehouse, Glynis, and Mrs Effie Dark. I found something interesting. I had been in the kitchen with Mrs Dark, and the interrogation went something like this:

Q: What about Glynis? Does she work?

A: Not anymore. She did for a year or two but she quit.

Q: Where did she work?

A: I think she was a secretary in a medical laboratory.

Q: But now she does nothing?

A: She does volunteer work three days a week in a free clinic down on the Lower East Side.

I closed the file folder softly and stared into the cold fireplace. Secretary in a medical laboratory. Now working in a clinic.

It was possible.

But Mr Teitelbaum had given me only another week.

I put in some additional hours reading over the files and planning moves. After a solitary dinner I went out to get 265

early editions of the Times and News. It was around 8.30, not snowing, sleeting, or raining, but the air was so damp, I could feel icy moisture on my face. I walked rapidly, head down. The streets were deserted. Very little traffic. I saw no pedestrians until I rounded the corner on to Tenth Avenue.

The Sunday News was in and I bought a copy of that.

But the Sunday Times hadn't yet been delivered. There were a dozen people warming themselves in the store, waiting for the truck. I decided not to wait, but to pick up the Times in the morning. I started back to my apartment.

My brownstone was almost in the middle of the block.

There was a streetlamp on the opposite side of the street. It was shedding a ghastly orange glow. The lamp itself was haloed with a wavering nimbus.

I was about halfway home when two men stepped out of an areaway a few houses beyond my brownstone and started walking towards me. They were widely separated on the sidewalk. They appeared to be carrying baseball bats.

I remember thinking, as my steps slowed, that what was going to happen was going to happen to me. Almost at the same time I thought it was an odd sort of mugging; attackers usually come up on a victim from behind. I halted and glanced back. There was a third assailant behind me, advancing as steadily and purposefully as the two in front.

I looked about wildly. The street was empty. Perhaps I should have started screaming and continued screaming until windows opened, heads popped out, and someone had the compassion to call the police. But I didn't think of screaming. While it was happening, I thought only of escape.

The two men to my front were now close enough for me to see they were wearing knitted ski masks with holes at the eyes and mouth. Now they were swinging their weapons menacingly, and I knew, knew, this was not to be a 266

conventional mugging and robbery. Their intent was to inflict grievous bodily injury, if not death.

I took another quick look back. The single attacker was still approaching, but at a slower pace than the two ahead.

His function appeared to be as a blocker, to prevent me from retreating from a frontal assault. He was waving the baseball bat in both hands, like a player at the plate awaiting the first pitch. He, too, was wearing a ski mask, but though I saw him only briefly, I did note that one of the eyeholes in the mask appeared opaque. He was wearing a black eyepatch beneath the mask.

Parked cars, bumper to bumper, prevented my fleeing into the street. I didn't dare dash up the nearest steps and frantically ring strange bells, hoping for succour before those assassins fell upon me. I did what I thought best; I turned and ran back, directly at the single ruffian. I thought my chances would be better against one than two.

And each accelerating stride I took towards him brought me closer to the brightly lighted and crowded safety of Tenth Avenue. I think he was startled by my abrupt turn and the speed of my approach. He stopped, shifted uneasily on his feet, gripped the bat horizontally, a hand on each end.

I think he expected me to try to duck or dodge around him, and he was wary and off-balance when I simply ran into him full tilt. There was nothing clever or skilled in my attack; I just ran into him as hard as I could, feeling the hard bat strike across my chest, but keeping my legs moving, knees pumping.

He bounced away, staggered back, and I continued my frontal assault, hearing the pounding feet of the two other assailants coming up behind me. Then my opponent stumbled. As he went down flat on his back with a whoof sound as the breath went out of him, I seized the moment and ran like hell.

I ran over him, literally ran over him. I didn't care where 267

my boots landed: kneecaps, groin, stomach, chest, face, I just used him as turf to get a good foothold, and like a sprinter starting from blocks, I pushed off and went flying towards Tenth Avenue, knowing that I was in the clear and not even the devil could catch me now.

I whizzed around the corner, banking, and there was the New York Times truck, unloading bundles of the Sunday edition, with vendors, merchants, customers crowding around: a pushing, shoving mob. It was lovely, noisy confusion, and I plunged right into the middle of it, sobbing to catch my breath. I was startled to find that not only was my body intact, but I was still clutching my copy of the Sunday News under my arm.

I waited until complete copies of the Times had been made up. I bought one, then waited a little longer until two other customers started down my street, carrying their papers. I followed them closely, looking about warily. But there was no sign of my attackers.

When I came to my brownstone, I had my keys ready. I darted up the steps, unlocked the door, ran up the stairs, fumbled my way into my apartment, locked and bolted the door. I put on all the lights and searched the apartment. I knew it was silly, but I did it. I even looked in the closet. I was shivering.

I poured myself a heavy brandy, but I didn't even taste it. I just sat there in my parka and watch cap, staring into the fireplace where there were now only a few pinpoints of red, winking like fireflies.

That black eyepatch I'd spotted under my assailant's ski mask haunted me.

A lot of men in New York wore black eyepatches, I supposed, and were of the same height and build as the young man I had seen at the Tentmakers Club on Carmine Street. Still . . .

Tippi Kipper had obviously reported to Knurr the details of our conversation. Perhaps she'd told him I'd mentioned 268

the name of Martin Reape to her. Perhaps she'd said that I had asked prying questions, doubly suspicious coming from an attorneys' clerk supposedly engaged only in making an inventory of her husband's estate.

So the two of them must have decided I had to be removed from the scene. Or, at least, warned off.

Was that the way of it?

I had to admit that I wasn't comfortable with that theory. If I knew the name of Martin Reape, then presumably my employers did too, and putting me in the hospital wouldn't stop an inquiry into the alleged bills of the private detective. And as for my 'prying questions,' I had asked nothing that could not be accounted for by sympathetic interest.

I didn't know why Godfrey Knurr had set up the attack on me. But I was convinced he had. It made me sad. I admired the man.

I looked at my watch. It was a little after ten o'clock.

Perhaps if I went to Knurr's place on Carmine Street I could observe the three guttersnipes entering or leaving the club and thus confirm my suspicions.

Disregarding the dozen reasons why this was a foolish course of conduct, I turned off the lights, pulled my parka hood over my watch cap, made certain I had my warm gloves, and went out again into the darkness. It was not the easiest thing I have ever done in my life.

When a cab dropped me off on Carmine Street and Seventh Avenue, I found to my dismay that I had neglected to replenish my wallet. I had enough to pay and tip the driver but that would leave me with only about ten dollars in bills and change, just about enough to get me home again.

I walked east on Carmine Street, hooded head lowered, gloved hands thrust into capacious parka pockets. I walked on the opposite side of the street from the Reverend Knurr's club and inspected it as I passed.

269

At first I thought it was completely dark. But then, through the painted-over window, I saw a dull glow of light. That could have been nothing more than a nightlight, of course. The club might be empty, the Pastor out somewhere, and I could be wasting my time.

But remembering Roscoe Dollworth's instructions on the need for everlasting patience on a stakeout, I continued down the block, then turned and retraced my steps. I must have paraded down that block a dozen times, up and down.

At that point, already wearying of my patrol, I took up a station in the shadowed doorway of a Chinese laundry, not exactly opposite the Tentmakers Club, but in a position where I could observe the entrance without being easily seen.

I continued this vigil for approximately an hour, huddling in the doorway, then walking up and down the street and back, always keeping Knurr's club in view. The street was not crowded, but it wasn't deserted either. None of the other pedestrians seemed interested in my activities, but I took advantage of passing groups by falling in closely behind them, giving the impression, or so I hoped, that I was part of a late dinner party.

I was back in the doorway, stamping my feet softly, when the light brightened behind the painted window of the Tentmakers Club. I drew farther back into the shadows. I waited. Finally the front door opened. A shaft of yellowish light beamed out on to the sidewalk.

Godfrey Knurr came out. There was no doubt it was he; I saw his features clearly, particularly the slaty beard, as he turned to close and lock the door. He was hatless but wearing a dark overcoat with the collar turned up.

He tried the door, put the keys in his trouser pocket, and then started walking east, towards Sixth Avenue. He strode at a brisk clip, and I moved along with him on the other side of the street, keeping well back and close to the 270

deep shadows of the storefronts and buildings.

He crossed Sixth and stopped at the curb, looking southward. He would raise his hand when a cab approached, then let it fall when he saw it was occupied. I hurried south on Sixth, ending up a block below Knurr. Then I ran across the avenue and took up my station at the curb.

I got the first empty cab to come along.

'Where to?' the driver said.

'Start your meter and stay right here,' I said. 'I've got about ten dollars. When I owe you eight, tell me and I'll give you ten and get out of your cab. All right?'

'Why not?' he said agreeably. 'Beats using gas. You got wife trouble?'

'Something like that,' I said.

'Don't we all?' he offered mournfully, then was silent.

The name of the registration card said he was Abraham Pincus. He was a grizzle-haired, middle-aged man with a furrowed brow under his greasy cap and deep lines from the corners of his mouth slanting down to his chin, like a ventriloquist's dummy.

'Mind if I smoke?' he asked.

The passenger's compartment was plastered with signs: PLEASE DO NOT SMOKE and DRIVER ALLERGIC TO SMOKING

and the like.

'What about these signs? I said.

'That's the day driver,' he said. 'I'm the night driver.'

I had been sitting forward on the rear seat, trying to peer through the bleared windshield to keep Reverend Knurr in sight. He had still not caught a cab. Finally, after about three minutes, one passed us with its roof lights on and began to pull into the curb where Knurr stood and signalled.

'All right,' I said. 'We're going to move now. Just drive north.'