The Gutter and the Grave (3 page)

“Let’s take a look,” I said.

We were moving toward the curtained doorway when the rain started. It started with a crackling streak of lightning and an answering bellow of thunder, and then the rain poured down suddenly in giant spattering drops, sweeping across the streets and pavement. Outside, people began running for shelter. Another lightning streak shattered the sky.

“It’s going to be a bad storm,” Johnny said.

“Yeah.”

“Come on, I’ll take you in back.”

He swept aside the curtains. I followed him into the back of the shop. It was dark back there, and I almost stumbled on a basket of unpressed clothes. Then Johnny snapped on the light.

The first thing I saw was the giant pressing machine with its levers and cloth-covered pads, gaping open like the jaws of a monster. The next thing I saw was the man sprawled against the wall opposite the machine. The man was in his early forties, wearing a white dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. The front of his shirt was red with blood that flowed from two holes in his chest. A piece of tailor’s chalk was in the man’s right hand.

Scrawled in chalk on the wall behind him was an arrow and the arrow pointed to the initials J.B. which had also been chalked onto the wall in a shaky hand.

I guess Johnny Bridges saw the initials at the same time I did because he let out a short sharp scream and then whirled to me, his eyes wide with terror.

“Goodbye, Johnny,” I said, and I turned and started for the curtained doorway. He clutched my arm with the strength that sometimes comes with total panic, swinging me around and then grabbing both my arms and staring at me and not speaking for a few seconds, just staring at my face with his eyes wide and a small tic at the corner of his mouth.

And then he said, “Matt…I…I…I…,” the words coming out like short bursts from a sighing machine gun.

“Johnny,” I said, “I don’t know what this is all about. I’m willing to believe you didn’t know that guy was lying dead by the wall when you came to fetch me. I’m willing to believe the only thing on your mind was the cash being swiped from…”

“That’s the truth! I didn’t know…”

“But the guy
is
dead, and I’m here, and man, when the cops start seeping out of the woodwork, I don’t
want
to be here. I want to be as far away from here as I can get. So long, pal, it was nice.” I started to go again, and his fingers tightened on my arms. “Let go of me, Johnny.”

“Matt, you can’t leave now. That’s Dom! That man is Dom, my partner.”

“I don’t care if he’s the Pope. He’s dead. Look, Johnny, I’ve had cops—up to here, I’ve had them. I don’t want them anymore.”

A look of desperation came into Johnny’s eyes, and then the look fled before an idea, and the idea claimed the eyes so that they became narrow and crafty.

“You can’t leave,” he said. “I’ll tell the police you were with me when I found the body. They’ll come after you.”

I didn’t say anything. I just watched him, and then I nodded, but I still didn’t say anything. Outside, the rain swept the streets relentlessly. At the front of the shop, over the steady wash of the storm, I could hear the ticking of a big clock.

Finally I said, “Is that why you came to find me?”

“What do you mean?”

“So you’d have someone with you when you accidentally ‘discovered’ the body?”

“You don’t believe that, Matt.”

I didn’t, actually. If he’d wanted someone he could put on an act for, he wouldn’t go digging up a Bowery bum. Besides, those initials on the wall were J.B., and I didn’t think any murderer was nuts enough to deliberately point the finger at himself and then try to register shock and surprise before a witness. I’d known of killers who’d made a point of directing suspicion toward themselves, but only after they’d set up an airtight alibi that would immediately dispel any suspicion when investigated. But those chalked initials on the wall were almost a dying man’s declaration, and
the declaration of a man about to die—where it concerns his attacker—is admissible as court evidence and very often leads to a conviction. Johnny Bridges, whether he knew it or not, had read the writing on the wall. I’d read it, too, and I didn’t want any damn part of it. But if he planned to tell the police I’d been with him when he discovered the body, it would look worse for me if I ran.

Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, and yet…?

“Did you kill him?” I said.

“No.”

“Your initials are on the wall. A big arrow points to them. The police will assume Archese put them there before he died.”

“I know.”

“Do you know anyone else with those initials?”

“No…not offhand. Matt, what am I going to.…?”

“Did you get along with Archese?”

“Yes. Matt, for Christ’s sake.”

“You said you were in the shop between twelve and two. Is that right, Johnny?”

“Yes.”

“Was Archese here?”

“Yes.”

“Was anyone else here?”

“No.”

“What did you do then?”

“I stopped in to say hello to Christine. That’s Dom’s wife. As a matter of fact, he asked me to stop by. He’d
left a check for her, and he wasn’t sure she knew where it was. So I went by to tell her.”

“Why didn’t he phone her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he have a phone at home?”

“Yes. I guess he could have called her. But he was busy pressing, so maybe he thought it’d be easier if I stopped by. I had to pass that way, anyway.”

“How long did you stay with her?”

“About a half-hour.”

“Then what?”

“Then I started for the Bowery. To look for you.”

“And Archese was alive at two o’clock when you left him, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you often come into the shop for just two hours?”

“Tuesday is my day off. I only came in to see how things were going.”

“Did you and Archese argue?”

“No, we just chatted for a while.”

“Did you
ever
argue?”

“No. We got along fine.”

“What did you chat about this afternoon?”

“The cash register thefts.”

“Did you accuse him?”

“No. We just talked about it, and that was when I decided to come down to see you.”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“In the drawer out front.”

“You’d better let me see it.”

We went out to the front of the shop. It was still raining, but the thunder and lightning had stopped. The rain pressed against the big plate-glass window, melting it. Johnny went to a drawer near the cash register, and pulled it open and moved some papers and a scissors aside. He reached clear to the back of the drawer and then turned to me.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“What kind of a gun was it?”

“A Smith and Wesson .38.”

“Do you have a permit for it?”

“Yes.”

“Carry or premises?”

“Premises. The gun never left that drawer. The store was held up once, right after my father passed away. So I got a permit and bought a gun.”

“Don’t be surprised if the slugs they dig out of Archese were fired from a .38 Smith and Wesson,” I said.

“What are we going to do, Matt?” he said.

The panic had left his eyes. He was watching me with calm intelligence now. For all practical purposes, there was no longer a dead man in the back room. We were simply two level-headed gentlemen discussing a course of action on something of slightly more than everyday importance. I watched him and then told him what I thought.

“I don’t want to get involved with the police again. I had enough of the police that time with my wife. I’m sure they remember me, and maybe yanking my license wasn’t enough for them. I’m willing to make a deal with you, Johnny.”

“What’s the deal?”

“Leave me out of this. You came back to the store alone and found the body alone. I wasn’t with you.”

“What good will lying do me?”

“A lot of good. When the police see those initials, they’re going to think they’ve got an open-and-shut. They’re going to lock you up faster than they can say ‘Suspicion of homicide.’ That puts you on the inside and the real murderer on the outside. The cops will then begin their investigation. The D.A.’s office will do its best to uncover facts that will clinch the prosecution. They’ve already got what amounts to a dying man’s declaration. They may also have two bullets that came from your gun. With a murderer already in the pokey, they’re not going to try too hard to find another one.”

“I still don’t understand,” Johnny said.

“Then I’ll spell it for you. You’ll tell your lawyer you’re innocent, but he certainly isn’t going to start a private investigation. He’s going to build his defense on lack of motive or opportunity. If those bullets were fired from your gun, the prosecution can easily show ‘means.’ Lack of motive is a weak defense. As for opportunity, you could have come into this shop anytime during the day and put the blocks to your partner.”

“How? I was with Christine and then with you.”

“Why did you come to see me?”

“Because…”

“Because you suspected your partner of being a crook.”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t you have argued about this? Couldn’t this have been your motive for killing him?”

“Oh, Matt, for Christ’s sake…”

“People have been killed for less.”

“But…”

“If you leave me out of it, your opportunity angle is weakened, true. You won’t have the alibi of having spent the afternoon with me. But remember, Johnny, there’s only your word for the time you spent
before
you found me in that park outside Cooper. That was about five o’clock, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“All right, where the hell were you between two-thirty, when you left Christine, and five, when you found me?”

“I was looking for you! I told you that! I must have asked a hundred people on the Bowery where I could find you.”

“Think they’d make good witnesses for the defense?”

“Oh Jesus, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Actually, I spent a little more than an hour with you. We got here a little after six, didn’t we?” Johnny nodded. “So if Archese was killed anytime between
two, when you left the shop, and five, when you found me, you’re still in the soup. And obviously he
was
killed between those times. If you drag me in, I’m a weak alibi. And also a guy the cops don’t particularly like.”

“So what’s your deal?”

“Leave me out of it,” I said. “Leave me out of it, and you’ve hired yourself a private detective.”

“To do what?”

“To find the person who really killed your partner.”

“I don’t know.”

“Or else play it your way,” I said. “Drag me into it, and take your chances with a case the D.A. can really go to town with.”

Johnny thought for a few minutes. Then he said, “Okay. It’s a deal. What do I do?”

“The first thing you do is call the police. Tell them you just got to the shop and you found your partner dead in the back room.”

“Do I call Homicide?”

“No. Just ask the operator for the police. Your call’ll go to Headquarters and then be relayed to the local precinct. Detectives from the squad there will handle the case. Homicide’ll be informed, but they don’t come out on the case.”

“And I don’t tell them anything about you?”

“No. Tell them you went downtown shopping. You looked around all afternoon, but didn’t find anything you liked. It’s weak, but no weaker than searching the Bowery for an old friend. And this way you won’t have
to mention the thefts. This way you won’t give them a motive.”

“All right.”

“In the meantime, I’ll start asking around. You’d better give me his wife’s address. You said he had insurance, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Did his wife know there was a gun in that drawer?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then I’d better talk to her. Where does she live?” Johnny gave me the address and I wrote it down. “About this presser,” I said. “Work for you long?”

“About six months.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dave Ryan.”

“And his address?” Johnny gave it to me. “Did he get along with Dom?”

“Yes. He’s just a kid. A nice guy.”

“Okay. Are we clear on our deal?” Johnny nodded. “Then go call the police. I’ll see you in jail.”

And I left the shop.

* * *

I could remember my last big bout with the police very clearly. Walking in the slow steady rain that had replaced the earlier fury of the storm, I could remember all of it as if it had happened yesterday and not five years ago. It was an easy thing to remember. The memory didn’t just come back, it was always there, always present, always ready to be released by a suddenly recognized song, or the scent of a familiar
perfume, or even a cloud formation sometimes, or sometimes just the city, just the physical being of the city and the knowledge that Toni and I had once lived together here, loved together here.

I’m a slum boy, you see, I was born and raised on the upper East Side of Manhattan before the Puerto Ricans began to infiltrate that part of the city. I was raised among other people who could not speak English too well, and I was a part of their slow adjustment to the new world. That section of town was all Irish and Italian at the time. My father was a big mick with a big brogue who’d come to America to earn a living. He married an Irish lass who still believed the stories she’d heard in the old country about good fairies and hobgoblins and dryads. It wasn’t easy being Irish. It’s never easy being anything that isn’t what everybody else is.

But it wasn’t such a bad place to grow up in. The worst neighborhoods never seem so bad or dangerous to the people who live in them. I wanted to go to college, but I never got there because my father died and I had to support the house. I thought of becoming a cop, but I never became that either because I was making more money working for a haberdasher than I could have made as a rookie. When my mother died, I became a private detective. Just like that. I mean it. Just like that. I applied for a job, and I got one. I’m a pretty big fellow, six-one and broad in the shoulders. The work I did with the agency for the first few years consisted mostly of breaking down bedroom doors and
snapping pictures of adult delinquents in various compromising postures. I didn’t like the work. I quit and formed my own agency, and it was becoming a recognized one when I met Toni.