Lawrence Block: A Stab in the Dark

"And what will that buy, Mr. Scudder?"

I told him I really didn't know. "It'll buy my efforts," I said. "I'll work on this until I come up with something or until it's clear to me that there's nothing to come up with. If that happens before I figure I've earned your money you'll get some back. If I feel I have more coming I'll let you know, and you can decide then whether or not you want to pay me."

"It's very irregular, isn't it?"

"You might not be comfortable with it."

He considered that but didn't say anything. Instead he got out a checkbook and asked how he should make the check payable. To Matthew Scudder, I told him, and he wrote it out and tore it out of the book and set it on the table between us.

I didn't pick it up. I said, "You know, I'm not the only alternative to the police. There are big, well-staffed agencies who operate in a much more conventional manner. They'll report in detail, they'll account for every cent of fees and expenses. On top of that, they've got more resources than I do."

"Detective Fitzroy said as much. He said there were a couple of major agencies he could recommend."

"But he recommended me?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I knew one reason, of course, but it wasn't one he'd have given London.

London smiled for the first time. "He said you're a crazy son of a bitch," he said. "Those were his words, not mine."

"And?"

"He said you might get caught up in this in a way a large agency wouldn't. That when you get your teeth in something you don't let go. He said the odds were against it, but you just might find out who killed Barbara."

"He said that, did he?" I picked up his check, studied it, folded it in half. I said, "Well, he's right. I might."

It was too late to get to the bank. After London left I settled my tab and cashed a marker at the bar. My first stop would be the Eighteenth Precinct, and it's considered bad manners to show up empty-handed.

I called first to make sure he'd be there, then took a bus east and another one downtown. Armstrong's is on Ninth Avenue, around the corner from my Fifty-seventh Street hotel. The Eighteenth is housed on the ground floor of the Police Academy, a modern eight-story building with classes for recruits and prep courses for the sergeants' and lieutenants' exams. They've got a pool there, and a gym equipped with weight machines and a running track. You can take martial arts courses, or deafen yourself practicing on the pistol range.

I felt the way I always do when I walk into a station house. Like an impostor, I suppose, and an unsuccessful one at that. I stopped at the desk, said I had business with Detective Fitzroy. The uniformed sergeant waved me on. He probably assumed I was a member in good standing. I must still look like a cop, or walk like one, or something. People read me that way. Even cops.

I walked on through to the squad room and found Fitzroy typing a report at a corner desk. There were half a dozen Styrofoam coffee cups grouped on the desk, each holding about an inch of light coffee. Fitzroy motioned me to a chair and I sat down while he finished what he was typing. A couple of desks away, two cops were hassling a skinny black kid with eyes like a frog. I gather he'd been picked up for dealing three-card monte. They weren't giving him all that hard of a time, but then it wasn't the crime of the century, either.

Fitzroy looked as I remembered him, maybe a little older and a little heavier. I don't suppose he put in many hours on the running track. He had a beefy Irish face and gray hair cropped close to his skull, and not too many people would have taken him for an accountant or an orchestra conductor or a cabbie. Or a stenographer — he made pretty good time on his typewriter, but he only used two fingers to do it.

He finished finally and pushed the machine to one side. "I swear the whole thing's paperwork," he said. "That and court appearances. Who's got time left to detect anything? Hey, Matt." We shook hands. "Been a while. You don't look so bad."

"Was I supposed to?"

"No, course not. How about some coffee? Milk and sugar?"

"Black is fine."

He crossed the room to the coffee machine and came back with another pair of Styrofoam cups. The two detectives went on ragging the three-card dealer, telling him they figured he had to be the First Avenue Slasher. The kid kept up his end of the banter reasonably well.

Fitzroy sat down, blew on his coffee, took a sip, made a face. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his swivel chair. "This London," he said. "You saw him?"

"Just a little while ago."

"What did you think? You gonna help him out?"

"I don't know if that's the word for it. I told him I'd give it a shot."

"Yeah, I figured there might be something in it for you, Matt. Here's a guy looking to spend a few dollars. You know what it's like, it's like his daughter up and died all over again and he's got to think he's doing something about it. Now there's nothing he can do, but if he spends a few dollars he'll maybe feel better, and why shouldn't it go to a good man who can use it? He's got a couple bucks, you know. It's not like you're taking it from a crippled newsie."

"That's what I gathered."

"So you'll give it a shot," he said. "That's good. He wanted me to recommend somebody to him and right off I thought of you. Why not give the business to a friend, right? People take care of each other and that makes the world go on spinning. Isn't that what they say?"

I had palmed five twenties while he was getting the coffee. Now I leaned forward and tucked them into his hand. "Well, I can use a couple days work," I said. "I appreciate it."

"Listen, a friend's a friend, right?" He made the money disappear. A friend's a friend, all right, but a favor's a favor and there are no free lunches, not in or out of the department. And why should there be? "So you'll chase around and ask a few questions," he went on, "and you can string him for as long as he wants to play, and you don't have to bust your hump over it. Nine years, for Christ's sake. Wrap this one up and we'll fly you down to Dallas, let you figure out who killed J.F.K."

"It must be a pretty cold trail."

"Colder'n Kelsey's legendary nuts. If there was any reason at the time to think she wasn't just one more entry in the Icepick Prowler's datebook, then maybe somebody would of done a little digging at the time. But you know how those things work."

"Sure."

"We got this guy now over here on First Avenue taking whacks at people on the street, swinging at 'em with a butcher knife. We got to figure they're random attacks, right? You don't run up to the victim's husband and ask him was she fucking the mailman. Same with what's-her-name, Ettinger. Maybe she was fucking the mailman and maybe that's why she got killed, but there didn't look to be any reason to check it out at the time and it's gonna be a neat trick to do it now."

"Well, I can go through the motions."

"Sure, why not?" He tapped an accordion-pleated manila file. "I had them pull this for you. Why don't you do a little light reading for a few minutes? There's a guy I gotta see."

He was gone a little better than half an hour. I spent the time reading my way through the Icepick Prowler file. Early on, the two detectives popped the three-card dealer into a holding cell and rushed out, evidently to run down a tip on the First Avenue Slasher. The Slasher had done his little number right there in the Eighteenth, just a couple of blocks from the station house, and they were evidently pretty anxious to put him away.

I was done with the file when Frank Fitzroy got back. He said, "Well? Get anything?"

"Not a whole lot. I made a few notes. Mostly names and addresses."

"They may not match up after nine years. People move. Their whole fucking lives change."