Lawrence Block - A Walk Among the Tombstones

He asked what it came to and I told him. “No problem,” he said. “What did you do, front the expense money yourself? You shoulda asked Pete for it.”

“I didn’t mind fronting it. I did ask your brother, as a matter of fact, because I couldn’t get to my own cash over the weekend. But he didn’t have it either.”

“No?”

“But he said to go ahead, that you wouldn’t want me to wait.”

“Well, he was right about that. When’d you talk to him? I called him the minute I walked in the door but there was no answer.”

“Saturday,” I said. “Saturday afternoon.”

“I tried him before I got on the plane, wanted him to meet my flight, save me from the Ghanaian Flash. Couldn’t get him. What did you do, stall those guys on the cash?”

“I got a friend to lend me enough to cover.”

“Well, you want to pick up your dough? I’m beat, I’ve been on more planes in the past week than Whatsisname, just got back from the Middle East himself. The secretary of state.”

“He was just on television.”

“We were in and out of some of the same airports, but I can’t say we crossed paths. I wonder what he does with his Frequent Flyer miles. I ought to be eligible for a free trip to the moon by now. You want to come over? I’m wiped out and jet-lagged but I’m not gonna be able to sleep now anyway.”

“I think I could,” I said. “In fact I think I’d better. I’m not used to pulling all-nighters, as my partners in crime called it. They took it in stride, but they’re a few years younger than I am.”

“Age makes a difference. I never used to believe there was such a thing as jet lag, and now I could be the poster boy if they got up a national campaign against it. I think I’ll try to get some sleep myself, maybe take a pill to help me get under. Sunset Park, huh? I’m trying to think who I know there.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be anyone you know.”

“You don’t, huh?”

“They’ve done this before,” I said. “But strictly as amateurs. I know a few things about them I didn’t know a week ago.”

“We getting close, Matt?”

“I don’t know how close we’re getting,” I said. “But we’re getting somewhere.”

I called downstairs and told Jacob I was taking my phone off the hook. “I don’t want to be disturbed,” I said. “Tell anybody who calls that they can reach me after five.”

I set the clock for that hour and got in bed. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the map of Brooklyn, but before I could even begin to focus in on Sunset Park I was gone.

Traffic noises roused me slightly at one point, and I told myself I could open my eyes and check the clock, but instead I drifted off into a complicated dream involving clocks and computers and telephones, the source of which was not terribly difficult to guess. We were in a hotel room and someone was banging on the door. In the dream I went to the door and opened it. Nobody was there, but the noise continued, and then I was out of the dream and awake and somebody was pounding on my door.

It was Jacob, saying that Miss Mardell was on the phone and said it was urgent. “I know you wanted to sleep till five,” he said, “and I told her that, and she said to wake you no matter what you said. She sounded like she meant it.”

I hung up the phone and he went back downstairs and put the call through. I was anxious waiting for it to ring. The last time she’d called up and said it was urgent, a man turned up determined to kill us both. I snatched the phone when it rang, and she said, “Matt, I hated waking you, but it really couldn’t wait.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It turns out there was a needle in the haystack after all. I just got off the phone with a woman named Pam. She’s on her way over here.”

“So?”

“She’s the one we’re looking for. She met those men, she got in the truck with them.”

“And lived to tell the tale?”

“Barely. One of the counselors I pitched the movie story to called her right away, and she spent the past week working up the courage to call. I heard enough over the phone to know not to let this one get away. I told her I could guarantee her a thousand dollars if she’d come over and run through her story in person. Was that all right?”

“Of course.”

“But I don’t have the cash. I gave you all my cash Saturday.”

I looked at my watch. I had time to stop at the bank if I hurried. “I’ll get cash,” I told her. “I’ll be right over.”

“Come on in,” Elaine said. “She’s already here. Pam, this is Mr. Scudder, Matthew Scudder. Matt, I’d like you to meet Pam.”

She had been sitting on the couch and she arose at our approach, a slender woman, about five-three, with short dark hair and intensely blue eyes. She was wearing a dark gray skirt and a pale blue angora sweater. Lipstick, eye shadow. High-heeled shoes. I sensed she’d chosen her outfit for our meeting, and that she wasn’t sure she’d made the right choices.

Elaine, looking cool and competent in slacks and a silk blouse, said, “Sit down, Matt. Take the chair.” She joined Pam on the couch and said, “I just finished telling Pam that I got her here under false pretenses. She’s not going to meet Debra Winger.”

“I asked who the star was gonna be,” Pam said, “and she said Debra Winger, and I’m like, wow, Debra Winger is gonna do a movie of the week? I didn’t think she would do TV.” She shrugged. “But I guess there’s not gonna be a movie, so what difference does it make who the star is?”

“But the thousand dollars is real,” Elaine said.

“Yeah, well, that’s good,” Pam said, “because I can use the money. But I didn’t come for the money.”

“I know that, dear.”

“Not just for the money.”

I had the money, a thousand for her and the twelve hundred I owed Elaine and some walking-around money for myself, three thousand dollars total from my safe-deposit box.

“She said you’re a detective,” Pam said.

“That’s right.”

“And you’re going after those guys. I talked a lot with the cops, I must of talked with three, four different cops—”

“When was that?”

“Right after it happened.”

“And that was—?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you didn’t know. It was in July, this past July.”

“And you reported it to the police?”

“Jesus,” she said. “What choice did I have? I had to go to the hospital, didn’t I? The doctors are like, wow, who did this to you, and what am I gonna say, I slipped? I cut myself? So they called the police, naturally. I mean, even if I didn’t say anything, they would of called the police.”

I propped open my notebook. I said, “Pam, I don’t think I got your last name.”

“I didn’t give it. Well, no reason not to, is there? It’s Cassidy.”

“And how old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You were twenty-three when the incident took place?”

“No, twenty-four. My birthday’s the end of May.”

“And what sort of work do you do, Pam?”

“Receptionist. I’m out of work at the moment, that’s why I said I could use the money. I guess anybody could always use a thousand dollars, but especially now, being out of work.”

“Where do you live?”

“Twenty-seventh between Third and Lex.”

“Is that where you were living at the time of the incident?”

“Incident,” she said, as if trying out the word. “Oh, yeah, I been there for almost three years now. Ever since I came to New York.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Canton, Ohio. If you ever heard of it I can guess what for. The Pro Football Hall of Fame.”