The Cutie (3 page)

I might have kept on that way for quite a while, but the doorbell rang again, cutting me off. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I said. “Another one.”

I stormed on through the apartment, and met Billy-Billy coming the other way. We met in the hall between the dining room and the bedroom. He looked more terrified than ever. “Cops!” he whispered. “It muh-must be cops! Wuh-where can I hide?”

“You stay the hell out of the bedroom,” I told him. I looked around. The bathroom was to the left, the combination den and hi-fi room to the right. “Go on in there,” I told him, motioning at the den. “Come on, hurry.”

He hurried, and I followed him in. Along one wall I have a waist-high bench, where the turntable, tape recorder, pre-amp and amplifier are all lined up. I use the space beneath this bench for storage, and I have sliding doors across in front of the storage space. I shoved one of the doors aside now, and prodded some junk back into a corner. “Crawl in there,” I told him. “And stay there until I come looking for you.”

“Thu-thanks, Clay,” he said, and crawled into the space I’d made for him. He went head-first, and I had to work hard to resist the impulse to boot that bony butt of his a good one. But I was afraid I might dropkick him into some expensive equipment, so I just waited until he was all the way inside, and then I slid the door shut in front of him.

My second visitor, whoever he was, was a lot more patient than Billy-Billy. He didn’t ring for the second time until I was on my way out of the den. I called out, “Hold it a second!” and hurried through to the living room.

This time, I was more careful. I looked through the peephole to see who it was outside there, and I saw Billy-Billy had been right. There were three cops out there, one of whom I knew, a plainclothesman named Grimes, who worked out of a precinct on the Upper East Side. The other two, both of them strangers to me, were also in plainclothes, and they looked a lot like Grimes. Heavy, dour, stern faces. Baggy plain-pipe-rack suits. Broad shoulders and no waists. All of them in their late thirties or early forties, but already well into middle-aged spread.

I opened the door, opening it wide to keep from looking suspicious. “Mr. Grimes,” I said. “Social call?”

“Not so’s you’d notice,” he told me. He pushed me away from the door and came into the apartment. I only had the one lamp on, over by the chair Billy-Billy had been sitting in, and Grimes glared around the semidark room for a minute until his sidekicks were inside and the door was closed, and then he turned to me. “Do you know a punk named Billy-Billy Cantell?”

“Sure. A junkie. Hangs out on the Lower East Side.”

“When’d you see him last?”

“Tonight.”

That surprised them. They hadn’t expected me to admit that he’d been around. They’d been hoping to get me off-balance, in the cute manner of cops everywhere, but I’d been lucky enough to get them off-balance first. They looked at one another and back at me, and one of the strangers asked me, “Where was this you saw Cantell?”

“Right out in the hall, there,” I said, nodding my head at the door. “About an hour ago. He came in with some wild H-dream about waking up in a high-class apartment with a murdered woman, and I told him to go get lost for himself.”

“It wasn’t an H-dream,” said Grimes.

I moved my face around to register surprise. “It wasn’t?”

“He killed a woman,” said one of the strangers.

“Billy-Billy Cantell?” I laughed at him, just as though it had really been funny. “Billy-Billy doesn’t have the strength to kill time,” I told him.

“He didn’t use his hands,” said the cop. “He used a knife.”

I shook my head, being serious now, wanting to help these poor guys. “Wrong boy,” I said. “Billy-Billy doesn’t carry a knife. He’s always getting picked up on one bum rap or another, and he knows if the law found a knife on him, it would be a nice cheap conviction.”

“He carried one tonight,” said Grimes. “And he used it.”

“Listen,” I said, still being the helpful citizen trying to set the cops straight. “I thought Billy-Billy was just talking through his hypodermic needle, if you know what I mean, but maybe he was telling the truth. He told me somebody set him up to play patsy. Killed the woman, dumped Billy-Billy in the apartment, and took off. Billy-Billy was high on heroin and didn’t even know he was being moved.”

“Is that his story?” asked Grimes.

“As much as I heard of it,” I said. “I got rid of him as fast as I could. It’s pretty late at night to listen to some junkie’s dreams.”

“It’s a cute story,” said Grimes. “I’ll get a real kick out of it when he tells it down at the station.”

“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe it’s the truth.”

“Sure,” said Grimes. He started looking around the living room again, as though he’d just lost a cigarette lighter or something. “We don’t have a warrant,” he told me, “but we’d like to take a look around your apartment. You got any complaints?”

“One,” I said. “She’s in the bedroom.”

“We’ll try not to disturb her,” he said. He nodded to the other two, and they crossed the living room toward the hall leading to the rest of the apartment.

“Hold on,” I said. “We didn’t get that complaint of mine straightened out yet.”

They stopped and looked at Grimes. He shrugged. “Check under the bed,” he said. “That’s probably where you’ll find him.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll conduct the tour myself, personally.”

“You’ll wait right here,” Grimes told me. “They can find their way around without any help from you.”

“I don’t want them going into the bedroom,” I said.

“That’s too bad, Clay.”

“Listen, Grimes, you can give me a bad time the day you’ve got a charge against me. Until then, I’m a citizen just like anybody else. If those two clowns of yours go barging into that bedroom, you’re going to regret it. I promise you.”

Grimes is not a cop you threaten, and I know that as well as anybody, but this time I was sore. And he surprised me. He studied me for a minute, and then he said, “This one something special, Clay?”

“Very special,” I told him.

“Any fire escape outside the bedroom window?”

“No.”

“Where is the fire escape?”

“Off the den. And you can’t get directly to the den from the bedroom. You have to go through the hall.”

“Okay.” He turned to the other two cops. “Knock on the bedroom door before you go in,” he said. “Give her a chance to get dressed.” He looked back at me. “Good enough?”

“All right,” I said. “It’ll have to do.”

“It will that.”

The other two cops left the room. I wondered if they’d look under the hi-fi set. If they did, Billy-Billy and I would be going down to the station together. I did my best to be nonchalant. “Do you want to sit down?” I asked Grimes. “Or don’t you do that on duty.”

“You sit down,” he said.

So I sat down, in the chair by the phone. He sat across from me, leaning forward, his forearms resting on his knees, heavy hands dangling, his eyes glowering at me with dislike and distaste.

There are four kinds of cops, none of which I like. The first kind is the fanatic, the second kind is the honest-but-reasonable, the third kind is the bought, and the fourth kind is the rented. The fanatic is out to get you no matter what. The honest-but-reasonable is out to get you, but he’ll listen if you’ve got something to say. The bought can be very useful, but I hate to have to rely on him, because I never know but what he’ll turn out to be only rented. The rented cop is a bought cop who doesn’t stay bought, and he’s probably the most dangerous kind of all.

Grimes was a cop of the honest-but-reasonable variety. He knew a lot about me, but he couldn’t prove any of it, and he was willing to be quiet until he got some proof. He didn’t know it, but a big chunk of proof was quivering away under the hi-fi set right now. I hoped he’d never find out. A fanatic can be dodged, because he doesn’t think. An honest-but-reasonable is rugged, once he’s got something on you.

We sat there, staring at each other, neither of us very happy about the other, and in our silence I could hear the two cops moving around in the back part of the apartment. After a while, I heard one of them knocking on the bedroom door, and then I heard him muttering something. I waited a couple more minutes, and then Ella came in, dressed in a terry cloth robe, holding the lapels closed at her throat. She blinked at me, doing a good imitation of somebody just roused from sleep, and said, “What’s wrong, Clay? What’s going on?”

“They’re just looking for a friend of theirs,” I said. “Nothing to worry about, ma’am, just routine, ma’am. Ask Mr. Grimes there, he’ll tell you. Oh, by the way, Ella, this is Mr. Grimes. He’s a policeman. Mr. Grimes, this is Ella. She’s a dancer.”

Grimes acknowledged the introduction with a self-conscious grunt. Grimes, I have the feeling, is not only honest, he’s highly moral. I think he was embarrassed at this indication that Ella and I were sharing bed and board without benefit of clergy. He would rather know I was out killing somebody than that I was sleeping with a woman not my wife. Ella embarrassed him, and he didn’t know what to say or where to look. He care-fy kept from looking at her, though she was completely covered by the robe.

“I’m afraid I don’t know Mr. Grimes’ first name or rank, honey,” I said, enjoying the opportunity to put the bum on the spot. “Maybe he’ll tell you himself.”

“Mr. Grimes will do,” he mumbled.

“How do you do, Mr. Grimes?” said Ella politely. “What’s wrong here?”

“It’s just routine,” he said, and then he flushed, obviously remembering I’d just used that line.

“They’re looking for a guy named Cantell,” I said to Ella. I looked back at Grimes. “Though he really isn’t here. You guys are wasting a lot of time. You could be looking other places.”

“We’re not the only ones looking,” he said.

“What are you looking for him for?” Ella asked him.

“They think he killed somebody,” I told her.

Then the other two cops came back into the room and shook their heads at Grimes. Cops never talk to one another. They just nod or shake their heads or wave their arms or blow whistles. This chunk of sign language now, the shaking of heads, meant that neither one of them had thought to look into the storage space under the hi-fi set, and I wasn’t yet on my way to jail. As soon as the law cleared away, I was on the road to New England, which was at least better than jail.

Grimes, with this diversion relieving him of his embarrassment, lumbered to his feet and glowered at me. “I wish you’d believed him,” he said. “I wish you’d hidden him in here, so I could take the two of you downtown.”

“Mr. Grimes,” I said, as I stood up, “if I had known Billy-Billy was telling the truth, about being set up and a killing and all, I would have called the police right away. There’s a dangerous killer running around loose.”

“Right,” said Grimes. “And his name is Cantell. If he comes back, maybe you ought to call me.”

“You going to put a stake-out on the front door?” I asked him.

“I might.”

“What about the alley in back?”

“Maybe.”

“If he comes back,” I said virtuously, “I’ll call you right away. I’m an honest citizen.”

“You’re a citizen,” he agreed sourly. “That’s what makes it rough. We can’t deport you anywhere.”

I grinned. “You’re a real joker, Mr. Grimes,” I said.

“So are you.” He jammed his hat on his head and turned to the door. The other two cops went with him, and I trailed along behind. I said ta-ta to the bulls, Grimes rumbled something I didn’t quite catch, and I closed the door after them.

Ella had lit two cigarettes, and now she handed me one. “What happens now, Clay?” she asked me.

“Now I go to New England,” I told her.

“Do you have to?”

“No choice, honey. I wish I didn’t.”

“Clay, did he kill somebody, really?”

“I doubt it. More likely, he was set up to take the rap.”

She went over and sat down on the sofa, curling her legs under her. She looked troubled. “Clay,” she said, her eyes serious on me, “you’ve killed people, haven’t you?”

“Honey—”

“Given them accidents, like you said on the phone.”

“Honey, I don’t have time—”

“You would have given this—whatever his name is—you would have given him an accident, if that boss of yours had said to. Wouldn’t you?”

“Honey, we can talk about this when I get back,” I said. “I don’t have time now.” That was the truth, but it was also an excuse. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, or the questions she was asking me. I didn’t want to lose Ella. She was the first woman I’d had in nine years that I didn’t want to lose. I cursed Billy-Billy for bringing my job into my home.

“I’ve got to get going,” I said. “We can talk when I get back. Okay?”

“All right, Clay,” she said.

I wanted to say more, but there just wasn’t time. I left her sitting there, and ran into the den to get Billy-Billy. I knew just how to get him out of the building. Up the fire escape and across a few roofs, down another fire escape, through a window, and we’d be on the third floor of the parking garage where I keep my Mercedes. It’s a route I’ve taken once or twice before, when people I didn’t want to see were waiting outside my door.

I went into the den and shoved the sliding door out of the way. I stared at empty space. Billy-Billy wasn’t there. I looked around the room, in a daze, trying to figure out where the hell he could have gone to, and I noticed the window leading out to the fire escape. It was closed. I’d left the thing open a couple of inches. Billy-Billy must have heard us talking in the living room, knew the cops were going to search, and made it out the fire escape. He’d closed the window behind him, to discourage any cops from glancing outside.

I went over to the window, opened it all the way, and stuck my head out. The apartment is air conditioned, but outside there was an August heat wave going on, and it was like sticking my head into a bale of warm cotton. I looked up, then down, then to both sides, but I didn’t see Billy-Billy. The little punk must have been scared out of his wits. He had taken off completely, and where he was by now was anybody’s guess.