Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

'And on Tippi,' I said. 'Please.'

'Why her?'

I told him what the Kipper sons had said about her Las Vegas background and how she had originally come from Chicago, which had also been Knurr's home.

'May be nothing,' Stilton said, 'may be something. All right, I'll run Tippi through the grinder, too, and we shall see what we shall see. Hang in there, Josh; you're doing okay.'

'I am?' I said, surprised. 'I thought I was doing badly.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I called you was to ask if you could suggest a new approach. Something I 264

haven't tried yet.'

There was silence for a brief moment.

'It's your baby.' he said at last. 'But if I was on the case, I'd tail Tippi Kipper and the Reverend Knurr for a while.'

'What for?' I asked.

'Just for the fun of it,' he said. 'Josh, my old lady is yelling and I better hang up. I think she wants to put me to work. Keep in touch. I'll let you know what the machine says about Knurr and Tippi.'

'Thank you for calling,' I said.

'You're perfectly welcome,' he responded with mock formality, then laughed. 'So long, Josh,' he said as he rang off. 'Have a good weekend.'

I finished the Times and my cold coffee about the same time, then mixed a weak Scotch-and-water, turned the radio down low, and started rereading my notes on the Stonehouse case. I went back to the very beginning, to my first meeting with Mr Teitelbaum. Then I read the record of my initial interviews with Mrs Ula Stonehouse, Glynis, and Mrs Effie Dark. I found something interesting. I had been in the kitchen with Mrs Dark, and the interrogation went something like this:

Q: What about Glynis? Does she work?

A: Not anymore. She did for a year or two but she quit.

Q: Where did she work?

A: I think she was a secretary in a medical laboratory.

Q: But now she does nothing?

A: She does volunteer work three days a week in a free clinic down on the Lower East Side.

I closed the file folder softly and stared into the cold fireplace. Secretary in a medical laboratory. Now working in a clinic.

It was possible.

But Mr Teitelbaum had given me only another week.

I put in some additional hours reading over the files and planning moves. After a solitary dinner I went out to get 265

early editions of the Times and News. It was around 8.30, not snowing, sleeting, or raining, but the air was so damp, I could feel icy moisture on my face. I walked rapidly, head down. The streets were deserted. Very little traffic. I saw no pedestrians until I rounded the corner on to Tenth Avenue.

The Sunday News was in and I bought a copy of that.

But the Sunday Times hadn't yet been delivered. There were a dozen people warming themselves in the store, waiting for the truck. I decided not to wait, but to pick up the Times in the morning. I started back to my apartment.

My brownstone was almost in the middle of the block.

There was a streetlamp on the opposite side of the street. It was shedding a ghastly orange glow. The lamp itself was haloed with a wavering nimbus.

I was about halfway home when two men stepped out of an areaway a few houses beyond my brownstone and started walking towards me. They were widely separated on the sidewalk. They appeared to be carrying baseball bats.

I remember thinking, as my steps slowed, that what was going to happen was going to happen to me. Almost at the same time I thought it was an odd sort of mugging; attackers usually come up on a victim from behind. I halted and glanced back. There was a third assailant behind me, advancing as steadily and purposefully as the two in front.

I looked about wildly. The street was empty. Perhaps I should have started screaming and continued screaming until windows opened, heads popped out, and someone had the compassion to call the police. But I didn't think of screaming. While it was happening, I thought only of escape.

The two men to my front were now close enough for me to see they were wearing knitted ski masks with holes at the eyes and mouth. Now they were swinging their weapons menacingly, and I knew, knew, this was not to be a 266

conventional mugging and robbery. Their intent was to inflict grievous bodily injury, if not death.

I took another quick look back. The single attacker was still approaching, but at a slower pace than the two ahead.

His function appeared to be as a blocker, to prevent me from retreating from a frontal assault. He was waving the baseball bat in both hands, like a player at the plate awaiting the first pitch. He, too, was wearing a ski mask, but though I saw him only briefly, I did note that one of the eyeholes in the mask appeared opaque. He was wearing a black eyepatch beneath the mask.

Parked cars, bumper to bumper, prevented my fleeing into the street. I didn't dare dash up the nearest steps and frantically ring strange bells, hoping for succour before those assassins fell upon me. I did what I thought best; I turned and ran back, directly at the single ruffian. I thought my chances would be better against one than two.

And each accelerating stride I took towards him brought me closer to the brightly lighted and crowded safety of Tenth Avenue. I think he was startled by my abrupt turn and the speed of my approach. He stopped, shifted uneasily on his feet, gripped the bat horizontally, a hand on each end.

I think he expected me to try to duck or dodge around him, and he was wary and off-balance when I simply ran into him full tilt. There was nothing clever or skilled in my attack; I just ran into him as hard as I could, feeling the hard bat strike across my chest, but keeping my legs moving, knees pumping.

He bounced away, staggered back, and I continued my frontal assault, hearing the pounding feet of the two other assailants coming up behind me. Then my opponent stumbled. As he went down flat on his back with a whoof sound as the breath went out of him, I seized the moment and ran like hell.

I ran over him, literally ran over him. I didn't care where my boots landed: kneecaps, groin, stomach, chest, face, I just used him as turf to get a good foothold, and like a sprinter starting from blocks, I pushed off and went flying towards Tenth Avenue, knowing that I was in the clear and not even the devil could catch me now.

I whizzed around the corner, banking, and there was the New York Times truck, unloading bundles of the Sunday edition, with vendors, merchants, customers crowding around: a pushing, shoving mob. It was lovely, noisy confusion, and I plunged right into the middle of it, sobbing to catch my breath. I was startled to find that not only was my body intact, but I was still clutching my copy of the Sunday News under my arm.

I waited until complete copies of the Times had been made up. I bought one, then waited a little longer until two other customers started down my street, carrying their papers. I followed them closely, looking about warily. But there was no sign of my attackers.

When I came to my brownstone, I had my keys ready. I darted up the steps, unlocked the door, ran up the stairs, fumbled my way into my apartment, locked and bolted the door. I put on all the lights and searched the apartment. I knew it was silly, but I did it. I even looked in the closet. I was shivering.

I poured myself a heavy brandy, but I didn't even taste it. I just sat there in my parka and watch cap, staring into the fireplace where there were now only a few pinpoints of red, winking like fireflies.

That black eyepatch I'd spotted under my assailant's ski mask haunted me.

A lot of men in New York wore black eyepatches, I supposed, and were of the same height and build as the young man I had seen at the Tentmakers Club on Carmine Street. Still. .

Tippi Kipper had obviously reported to Knurr the details of our conversation. Perhaps she'd told him I'd mentioned 268