Stuart Kaminsky - Melting Clock

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go,” said the cop and we went.

Up two flights of stairs and two minutes later with the cop behind me I saw my face in the mirror of a candy machine. The stubble was almost a beard and it was gray.

“That door,” he said. “Left.”

I went through the door and found myself in an interrogation room: one table, four chairs, one lieutenant I knew named Seidman, and my brother, Phil. Lieutenant Steve Seidman, tall, thin, and white-faced, not because he was a mime but because he hated the sun, leaned back against the wall, holding his hat in his hand. He didn’t have much hair left, but that didn’t stop him from patting it down and giving me a shake of the head that said, Toby, Toby, this time you’ve really done it.

My brother, Captain Phil Pevsner, was not shaking his head. He sat in a chair behind the desk, hands palm down on a green ink-stained blotter, eyes looking through me.

Phil was a little taller than me, broader, older, with close-cut steely hair and a hard cop’s gut. His tie always dangled loosely around his neck, as it did now, and his face often turned red with contained rage, especially when I was in the same room … or even on the same planet. Today’s tie was a dark, solid blue; standard Phil.

For some reason, “How are Ruth and the kids?” were the magic words that usually brought Phil out of a chair, a corner, or a daydream and into my face and lungs. He had decided years ago that I asked him about his family just to provoke him. He had been wrong the first three times.

“Happy New Year,” I said cheerfully.

Phil came around the desk like a bear with a mission. I knew I had found three new words to drive him mad. Seidman moved quickly from the wall and got between me and my brother. Seidman was a pro with more than seven years experience of saving me from Phil Pevsner brutality.

“Phil,” Seidman said, making it sound like my brother should remember something about his own name.

“Move, Steve,” Phil said, looking past his partner and into my smiling face.

“Phil,” Seidman repeated, holding his hands up but not touching my brother. Even he was not ready for that.

“He’s laughing at me,” Phil said. “Does he know what kind of shit he’s in this time?”

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” said Seidman.

“He’s right,” I said sincerely.

“Shit,” said my brother, holding up his hands to show his palms to Seidman and to me. He backed up, went around the desk, and sat heavily. The chair made a rusty squeal as he turned away and found a fascinating squashed beetle to look at on the wall. I had the rush of an idea that Phil and Dali might have a lot in common. I hoped they would never have the chance for a discussion of contemporary art. It would either end with Dali dead or Phil in a straight-jacket.

“Sit down, Toby,” Seidman said, moving back to the wall and patting down his wisps of hair.

I sat down in the chair across from Phil.

The war had been Phil’s big break. He had been promoted right up the ladder from Homicide Sergeant to Detective Captain of the whole Wilshire District. Seidman had moved up with him. The rise hadn’t been because of Phil’s skills, but in spite of them. Phil was a basher. Phil hated criminals, sincerely hated them. Phil wanted to end all crime but knew it would never happen. The resulting frustration meant that every time he came face-to-face with a felon he became enraged. Other cops loved Phil. He was the one you frightened suspects with. No one in homicide had to play bad cop. They just called Phil or, if the criminal had been around a while, they just evoked his name. But the armed forces had taken the younger, ambitious police talent and Phil had been promoted to a job he hated, sitting behind a desk dealing with complaints from vendors about cops taking avocados, filling out forms, talking to visiting Chambers of Commerce from Quincy, Illinois. He had lasted about a year as boss of the Wilshire and then had been booted back to homicide after too many complaints. Seidman had asked to go back to homicide with him. Phil had been happy with the demotion. His wife, Ruth, with three kids in the house, had resumed worrying about her husband’s high blood pressure.

“I appreciate your coming,” I said.

Seidman shook his head; Phil said nothing and kept staring at the bug.

“Did you kill him?” asked Seidman.

“No, Steve. Am I a killer?”

“Toby, don’t answer my questions with questions. Phil and I leave and two guys who don’t know you are going to come through that door and put you on the top of page two of the Times. ”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said.

“Ask him about the handkerchief,” said Phil, very softly.

“You had a bloody handkerchief,” said Seidman, who was back to playing with his hat.

What could I say? It was bloody because I used it to fish Adam Place’s wallet out of his pocket and put it back and then wipe my fingerprints off the doorknobs?

“I didn’t do it, Phil,” I said to my brother’s back.

“Ask him about breaking in,” said Phil.

“Did you-” Seidman began, but I jumped in.

“Can we eliminate the middleman here? Maybe we can save a little time and you can find the killer.”

“If I talk to him, I kill him,” said Phil. “He’s made my life a toilet.” Phil leaned forward and punched the wall about two inches above the bug, leaving a depression in the general shape and size of a fist.

“I can deal with a middleman,” I said. “I went into Place’s house because I was on a job. I had reason to believe a valuable piece of property had been taken by Place and would be destroyed by midnight. I knocked at the door. He didn’t answer. I went in through the window, found him, and called the police immediately.”

“You pick up a Hunky accent during the night?” said Phil, forgetting immediately that we had agreed on a middleman.

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“What about the painting?” asked Seidman.

“My client’s. It was stolen.”

“It was a mess,” said Seidman.

“I was going to give it back anyway,” I said. “You got me for picking up stolen property and trying to return it. By the way, the clock in Place’s bedroom-that was my client’s, too.”

“We got you for breaking and entering, burglary, homicide, and attempting to leave the scene of a felony,” said Seidman, ignoring my addition of the clock to the problem.

“I wasn’t leaving. I was going outside to wait for the police.”

“Were you going to talk to them in Bohemian?” asked Phil.

I didn’t like it when I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t know if he was boiling up or cooling down.

“I made a mistake,” I said.

“Maybe your client got there first, and when he saw what Place had done to the painting he went nuts and killed him,” Seidman suggested.

“No, not this client,” I said.

“Who is he?” Phil said, so softly I almost missed it.

Now I was scared. Just before Phil completely lost control he made one last effort, always a failure, to be so calm and quiet that the unwary might think he had dozed off. But I had almost half a century of experience.

“Come on,” I said. “You know I can’t tell you.”

Phil spun around and looked at me. He was grinning. I had never seen that before.

“He’s a suspect,” Phil said. “And we’re going to get him or you’re going to go up on charges of interfering with a homicide investigation.”

“What about murder?”

“Medical examiner says Place was shot before eight,” said Seidman. “Both your landlord at the Farraday, Butler, and Minck say you were in the Farraday till eleven.”

“The bullet, Steve,” I said. “Is it from a thirty-eight? My gun’s a thirty-eight and I haven’t fired it. You can take it to ballistics.”