Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

By this time we were down at 59th Street where the traffic was truly horrendous. Knurr swung the Bug in and out, cutting off other drivers, jamming his way through gaps so narrow that I closed my eyes.

'Where are you from, Joshua?' The sudden question startled me.

'Uh — Iowa,' I said. 'Originally.'

'Really? I was born right next door in Illinois. Peoria.

But I spent most of my life in Indiana, near Chicago, before I came to New York. It's a great city, isn't it?'

'Chicago?' I said.

'New York,' he said. 'It's the only place to be. The centre. You make it here or you never really make it. The contrasts! The wealth and the poverty. The ugliness and the beauty. Don't you feel that?'

'Oh yes,' I said, 'I do.'

'The opportunity,' he said. 'I think that's what impresses me most about New York: the opportunity. A man can go to the stars here.'

'Or to the pits,' I said.

'Oh yes,' he said. 'That, too. Listen, there's something I'd like you to do. Say no, and I'll understand. But I wish you'd visit my place down in Greenwich Village. Look around, see what I'm doing. Trying to do. Would you do that?'

'Of course,' I said instantly. 'I'd like to. Thank you very much.'

'I suspect I'm looking for approval,' he said, glancing at me quickly again with a grin. 'But I'd like you to see what's going on. And, to be absolutely truthful, there are a few little legal problems I hope you might be able to help me with. My lease is for a residential property and I'm running this church or club there, whatever you want to call it. Some good neighbours have filed a complaint.'

I was horrified.

'Mr Knurr,' I said, 'I'm not a lawyer.'

'You're not?' he said, puzzled. 'I thought you worked for Mrs Kipper's attorneys?'

'I do,' I said. 'In a paralegal job. But I'm not an attorney myself. I don't have a law degree.'

'But you're taking the estate inventory?'

'A preliminary inventory,' I said. 'It will have to be verified and authenticated by the attorney of record before the final inventory of assets is submitted.'

'Oh,' he said. 'Sure. Well, the invitation still stands. I'll tell you my problems and maybe you can ask one of the attorneys in your firm and get me some free legal advice.'

'That I'd be glad to do,' I said. 'When's the best time to come?'

'Anytime,' he said. 'No, wait, you better give me a call first. I'm in the book. Mornings would be best.

Afternoons I usually spend with my rich friends uptown.

Listening to their troubles and drinking their booze.'

Then he pulled up outside the TORT offices. He leaned over to examine the building through the car window.

'Beautiful,' he said. 'Converted townhouse. It's hard to 164

believe places like that were once private homes. The wealth! Unreal.'

'But it still exists,' I said. 'The wealth, I mean. Like the Kipper place.'

'Oh yes,' he said, 'it still exists.' He slapped my knee. 'I don't object to it,' he said genially. 'I just want to get in on it.'

'Yes,' I said mournfully. 'Me, too.'

'Listen, Joshua, I was serious about that invitation. The hell with the free legal advice. I like you, I'd like to see more of you. Give me a call and come down and visit me.'

Acknowledging his invitation with a vague promise to contact him, I took my leave and headed to my office.

I was adding somewhat fretfully to my files of reports, wondering if I was getting anywhere, when my phone rang.

It was Percy Stilton; he sounded terse, almost angry.

He asked me if I had come up with anything new, and I told him of my most recent visit to the Kipper townhouse.

He laughed grimly when I related what Mrs Neckin had said about Chester Heavens putting a curse on Sol Kipper.

'I should have warned you about her,' Stilton said. 'A whacko. We get a lot of those. They make sense up to a point, and then they're off into the wild blue yonder. What was your take on Godfrey Knurr?'

'I like him,' I said promptly. 'For a clergyman, he swears like a trooper, but he's very frank and open. He invited me down to Greenwich Village to see what he's doing with juvenile delinquents. He certainly doesn't impress me as a man with anything to hide.'

'That's the feeling I got,' Perce said. 'And that's it?

Nothing else?'

'A silly thing,' I said. 'About the elevator.'

'What about the elevator?'

I explained that if Mrs Kipper had come downstairs on that elevator, it should have been on the ground floor at the time her husband plunged to his death. Unless he had 165

brought the elevator up again to take it from the master bedroom on the fifth floor to the sixth-floor terrace.

'He could have,' Stilton said.

'Sure,' I agreed. 'But I timed the trip from bedroom to terrace. Walking along the hall and up the rear staircase.

Less than a minute.'

I didn't have to spell it out for him.

'I get it,' he said. 'You want me to talk to the first cops on the scene and see if any of them remember where the elevator was when they arrived?'

'Right,' I said gratefully.

'And if it was on the ground floor, that shows that Mrs Kipper brought it down, which proves absolutely nothing.

And if it was on the sixth floor, it only indicates that maybe Sol Kipper took it up to his big jump from the terrace. Which proves absolutely nothing. Zero plus zero equals zero.'

I sighed.

'You're right, Perce. I'm just grabbing at little things.

Anything.'

'I'll ask the cops,' he said. 'It's interesting.'

'I suppose so.'

'Josh, you sound down.'

'Not down, exactly, but bewildered.'

'Beginning to think Sol Kipper really was a suicide?'

'I don't know. . ' I said slowly. 'Beginning to have some doubts about my fine theories, I guess.'

'Don't,' he said.

'What?'

'Don't have any doubts. I told you I thought someone was jerking us around. Remember? Now I'm sure of it.

Early this morning the harbour cops pulled a floater out of the North River. Around 34th Street. A female Caucasian, about fifty years old or so. She hadn't been in the water long. Twelve hours at most.'

'Perce,' I said, ' not. .? '

'Oh yeah,' he said tonelessly. 'Mrs Blanche Reape.

Positive ID from her prints. She had a sheet. Boosting and an old prostitution rap. No doubt about it. Marty's widow.'

I was silent, remembering the brash, earthy woman in The Dirty Shame saloon, buying drinks for everyone.

'Josh?' Detective Stilton demanded. 'You there?'

'I'm here.'

'Official verdict is death by drowning. But a very high alcoholic content in the blood. Fell in the river while drunk. That's how it's going on the books. You believe it?'

'No,' I said.

'I don't either,' he said. 'Sol Kipper falls down from a sixth-floor terrace. Marty Reape falls in front of a subway train. His widow falls in the river. This sucks.'

'Yes,' I said faintly.

'What?' he said. 'I can't hear you.'

'Yes,' I said, louder, 'I agree.'

'You bet your damp white fanetta!' he said furiously.

Then suddenly he was shouting, almost gargling on his bile. 'I don't like to be messed with,' he yelled. 'Some sharp, bright son of a bitch is messing me up. I don't like that. No way do I like that!'

'Perce,' I said, 'please. Calm down.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yes. I mean. Yes. I'm calm now. All cool.'

'You think the three of t h e m. .? '

'Oh yes,' he said. 'Why not? Kipper was the first. Then Marty, because he had the proof. Then the widow lady. It fits. Someone paid her for the files. The evidence Marty had on the Kipper estate. Then she got greedy and put the bite on for more. Goodbye, Blanche.'

'Someone would do that? Kill three people?'

'Sure,' he said. 'It's easy. The first goes down so slick, and so smooth, and so nice. Then they can do no wrong.