Lawrence Block - After the First Death

“You think I wanted to?”

“You went to bed with me and then-”

Her face fell apart She said, “Alex, you got no right, you got no goddamn right!” And ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. I heard the lock click. I went to the door and tried to tell her I was sorry. She wouldn’t answer me. After a few minutes I heard the shower running, and I returned to the living room and walked around. I tried to sit down but couldn’t stay still, so I got up and smoked and wore out the rug.

When she came back smelling fresh and clean and wearing a different dress, I told her again that I was sorry.

“It’s all right.”

“I didn’t think.”

“No, I was the one didn’t think, Alex. I figured you would know why I went out. It was my fault for saying anything.” She scooped up her purse and headed for the bedroom. I followed her. “But you can’t be jealous or anything. It’s not like when we make love. It’s what I do, that’s all. It’s who I am.” She turned to me. “You hate me now, don’t you?”

“No.”

“But you hate what I am.”

“Not even that.”

“Because I can’t help what I am, Alex. I don’t like it and I’m not proud of it but it’s what I am.”

The history professor’s wife in the little college town, dressing the children and bundling them off to school, mingling with other wives at faculty teas, sitting up nights proofreading my books and articles. How I had miscast this girl.

“I found out about this Phil,” she was saying. “That’s not his name but a lot of people call him Phillie because he comes from South Philadelphia. His name is Albert Schapiro. He’s not Italian, he’s Jewish.”

“You’re sure he’s the one?”

“Pretty sure. I asked around, and he sounds right.”

“Is he a killer?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he must have killed Robin.”

“I guess so.” She took an envelope from her purse. “I want to stash this stuff now. Then I thought we could go find Phillie. Somebody said they heard he was staying in a hotel at Twenty-third and Tenth. You want to go?”

“Now?”

“He’s probably there now. It would be a good time.”

I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him. “Let’s go,” I said.

That afternoon we had been a prostitute and her man. Now we were a prostitute and her client. Jackie knew the hotel, she had worked there now and then when the Times Square area was too hot, and the desk man seemed to remember her. The hotel was filthy, the lobby cluttered with winos. The desk man had a bottle of Thunderbird in an open drawer. I signed Doug MacEwan’s name on the registration card and paid the man $5.75 and we headed for the stairs.

And Jackie said, “Just a minute, honey. Wait right here, something I want to ask the man.”

I waited while she doubled back to the desk. I heard her ask what room Albert Schapiro was in. “Something I got to leave with him,” she said. “Soon as I handle this John.”

He flipped through a stack of cards and found the right one. She hurried back and joined me. “305,” she said. “He gave us 214, we better go there long enough for him to forget about us.”

We went to 214. It was dirtier than the Times Square hotels, and, in the light of dawn, even more depressing. I looked at the sagging bed, the sheets stained with past performance. Jackie had worked in this hotel, perhaps in this room, perhaps upon this bed. I tried not to think about this. I was not jealous. What I felt was closer to disgust, and annoyance with myself in the bargain. I told myself, hating the phrase, not to look gift whores in the mouth. I kept my eyes away from the bed and tried to concentrate on Phillie. I wondered if he would have a knife, and if he would be able to use it.

We gave the hotel ten minutes to forget us. Then she nodded shortly and opened the door, and we went back to the staircase and up a flight and found Room 305. I listened at the door and couldn’t hear anything. I tried the knob. The door was locked.

Jackie knocked. There was no answer and she knocked again, louder. A muffled voice wanted to know who the hell it was.

“Dolores.”

“What is it?”

“Lemme in, it’s important.”

There was slow movement within the room, approaching footsteps, then the snick of a bolt being drawn back The door eased open a few inches, and he said, “What the hell, you’re not-”

I put my shoulder into the door and it flew backward, taking him with it. We went in after him. The roundfaced man had described him perfectly. There could be no mistake, he was the one. He was wearing dirty underwear, and he had needle tracks all over both arms and legs.

He looked at my uniform and he looked at Jackie and he was lost. “Whatever your thing is,” he said, “you got the wrong boy. I don’t get it at all.”

“Albert Schapiro,” I said. Phillie.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Who paid you to kill her, Phillie?”

“Kill?” His face said he didn’t understand a bit of it “I never killed nobody. Not ever.”

“And you never saw the watch?”

“What are you talking about?”

I let him see the watch. He stared at it, and he did not quite manage to hide the recognition in his eyes, and then he looked at my face and saw my face instead of my uniform, and this time he didn’t even try to keep it a secret. He said, “Oh, Jesus Christ, it’s you,” and he shoved Jackie into me and started for the door.

I got Him by the arm. I yanked the arm and he spun toward me, off balance, and I let go of his arm and hit him in the face. He yelped and fell back. I grabbed the front of his undershirt with my left hand and drew him close, and I hit him in the face with my right hand. I hurt my hand but I didn’t notice it. I just kept hitting him, and he went down and I landed on top of him, and I kept on hitting him until Jackie managed to drag me away from him. My hand was bloody, I’d cut it on his teeth, and there was more blood from his broken nose. Jackie bolted the door and made me wash my hand in the sink and we waited for Phillie to wake up.

When he came to, Jackie soaked a pillowslip in the sink and cleaned up his face for him. He was in bad shape. The nose seemed to be broken, and his mouth was a mess. I had knocked two teeth out. Now, with the rage cooled, I felt oddly embarrassed by the violence.

He said, the words warped by the missing teeth, “You don’t have to play so fucking rough. You coulda killed me.”

“Like you killed the girl.”

“I never killed nobody. You can beat me up all day long, it don’t matter. I never killed nobody and I’ll never say different.”

“You were in the hotel room.”

“I shoulda thrown that fucking watch in the river. Ten bucks and I got a broken face and more troubles. Yeah, I was in the room. By the time I got there the chick was dead and you were out cold.”

“You’re lying.”

“The hell I am. I thought you were both dead. The first I looked, I saw the two of you, I almost fell out. I wanted to get away from there.”

“Why didn’t your?”

He looked at Jackie. “She’s a user, isn’t she? Ask her.”

Jackie said, “Why were you in that hotel?”

“I was boosting, what do you think? Those hotels, they get a lot of drunks who leave their doors open. They forget to lock them. I was up tight, I was boosting. Is that a crime?”

The question was too silly to answer.

“Jesus, my nose.” His fingers patted it gentry. “You broke my nose.”

“How did you get in the room?”

“The door was open. That goddamn watch. Ten bucks, but I never figured Solly would sing. You can’t trust anybody.”

I asked Jackie if Robin would have left the door unlocked. She shook her head. “Well,” he said, “somebody did.”