Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

I didn't resent it at all.

We were back on the sidewalk, about ready to part, when Stilton snapped his fingers.

'Oh Jesus!' he said. 'I forgot to tell you. There was nothing in Records on Knurr, which was why I pulled that scam at the church office. Just to get some background on the guy. But Tippi Kipper — she's another story. She's got a sheet. It goes back almost twenty years — but it's there.'

'She's done time?' I said unbelievingly.

'Oh no,' the detective said. 'Just charged. No record of trial or disposition.'

'Charged?' I said. 'With what?'

'Loitering,' he said, 'for the purpose of prostitution.'

4

Before I left for work early Wednesday morning, I slid a note under Cleo's door: 'Mr Joshua Bigg respectfully requests the pleasure of Miss Cleo Hufnagel's company at dinner in Mr Bigg's apartment tonight, Wednesday, at 8.00 p.m. Dress optional. RSVP.'

I went off to work planning the menu.

I found a memo on my desk from Ada Mondora stating that Mr Teitelbaum and Mr Tabatchnick would meet with me in the library at 2.00 p.m. I called Percy, but he wasn't in. I left a message asking him to call back as soon as possible. I then started to type notes on our meeting with Bishop Harley Oxman for the Kipper file.

I was interrupted by a nervous call from Mrs Gertrude Kletz. She had broken a tooth and the dentist could only take her at eleven o'clock. Would it be acceptable if she came in from twelve to four? I told her that would be fine.

A cabdriver called who claimed to have picked up Professor Stonehouse on the night of January 10th. He described his passenger as being short, in his middle 40s, with a noticeable limp.

'Sorry,' I said, 'that's not the man.'

'No harm in trying,' he said cheerfully and hung up.

The next call was from Percy Stilton. I told him about the meeting with Teitelbaum and Tabatchnick at 2.00

p. m., and he said he'd do his best to make it. Then he told me that he had visited Glynis Stonehouse's former employer, Atlantic Medical Research, that morning.

'They stock enough poison to waste half of Manhattan,'

Stilton reported. 'And they've got a very lax control system. The poison cabinet has a dimestore lock that could be opened with a heavy breath. The supervisor is the only one with a key, but he keeps it in plain view, hanging on a board on his wall, labelled. He's in and out of his office a hundred times a day. Anyone who works in the place could lift the key, use it, and replace it without being noticed.

Every time a researcher takes some poison he's supposed to sign a register kept in the poison locker stating how 323

much he took, the date, and his name. So I had the supervisor run a total on the arsenic trioxide withdrawn and check it against the amount they started with and how much was there this morning. Over two ounces is unaccounted for. He couldn't understand how that could happen.'

'I can,' I said. 'Two ounces! She took enough to kill the old man ten times.'

'Sounds like,' Stilton agreed, 'but no way to prove it.

Now they're going to tighten up their poison control procedure. By the way, Glynis Stonehouse wasn't fired; she left voluntarily. Cleaned out her desk one Friday and called on Monday to say she wasn't coming in. Didn't even give them a reason or excuse; just quit cold. Well, I've got to run, Josh. I'm going to try to get over to the 79th Street boat basin around noon. And if possible, I'll see you at two o'clock.'

I finished typing up my notes on the Bishop Oxman interview and began trying to compose a rough agenda for the meeting that afternoon with the two senior partners. I knew I would make a better impression if my presentation was organized, brief, succinct.

I was scribbling notes when the phone rang again. It was another cabdriver and the conversation followed the usual pattern:

'How much is the reward?' he asked in a gargling voice.

'A hundred dollars,' I said automatically, continuing to make notes as I spoke.

'Well,' he said, 'it isn't much, but it's better than a stick up the nose. I think I picked up the guy. About January 10th. It could have been then. On Central Park West and maybe 70th or 71st. Around there.'

'What time?'

'Oh, maybe nine o'clock at night. Like that. I was working nights then. I'm on days now.'

'Do you remember what the weather was like?'

'That night? A bitch. Lousy driving. Sleety. I was ready to pack it in when this guy practically threw himself under my wheels, waving his arms.'

'Do you remember what he looked like?'

'The only reason I remember, he gave me such a hard time. I wasn't driving fast enough. I was taking the long way. The back of the cab was littered and smelled. And so forth and so on. A real ball-breaker, if you know what I mean.'

I put my pen aside and took a deep breath. It was beginning to sound encouraging,

'Can you describe him physically?'

'Hat, scarf, and overcoat,' the cabdriver said. 'An old geezer. Tall and skinny. Stooped over. Ordinarily I don't take a lot of notice of who rides my cab, but this guy was such a fucking asshole I remember him.'

He was sounding better and better.

'And where did you take him?' I asked, closing my eyes and hoping.

'The 79th Street boat basin,' the cabdriver said. 'And he gives me a quarter tip. In weather like that! Can you beat it?'

I opened my eyes and let my breath out in a long sigh.

'Would you tell me your name, please?' I said.

'Bernie Baum.'

'And where are you calling from now, Mr Baum?'

'Gas station on Eleventh Avenue.'

'We're on East 38th Street. If you'd be willing to come over and sign a short statement attesting to what you've just told me, you can pick up your hundred dollars.'

'You mean that was the guy?' he said.

'That was the guy,' I said.

'Well, yeah, sure,' he said, 'I'll sign a statement. It's the truth, ain't it? But listen, I wouldn't have to go to court or nothing like that, will I?'

'Oh no, no,' I said hurriedly. 'Nothing like that, it's just for our files.'

Maybe someday he would have to repeat his statement in court, but I wasn't about to tell him that.

'Well, I want to grab some lunch first,' he said, 'but I'll be over right after.'

'Fine,' I said heartily. 'Try to make it before one o'clock.'

I gave him our address and told him to ask for Joshua Bigg. I hung up, grinning. Percy Stilton had been right; the bad guys didn't have all the luck.

I typed out a brief statement to be signed by Bernie Baum that said only that he had picked up a man he later identified from a photograph as Professor Yale Stonehouse at approximately 9.00 p.m. on the evening of January 10th in the vicinity of Central Park West and 70th Street and had delivered him to the 79th Street boat basin.

I kept it as short and factual as possible.

Mrs Kletz arrived while I was finishing up. She said her tooth was feeling better and she felt well enough to put in her four hours.

I told her about Bernie Baum and she was as pleased as I was.

'A lot has happened since you read the Kipper and Stonehouse files,' I said. 'Sit down for a moment and I'll bring you up to date.'

She listened intently, sucking her breath in sharply when I told her about Glynis and Knurr.

'And that's where the cabdriver took Professor Stonehouse the night he disappeared,' I finished triumphantly.

But she was thinking of something else. Those young eyes seemed to have taken on a thousand-yard stare.

'Do you suppose, Mr Bigg,' she said in her light, lilting voice, 'do you suppose that either of the two women, Tippi Kipper or Glynis Stonehouse, knows of the other?'

I blinked at her. The question had never occurred to me, 326

and I was angry with myself because it should have.

'I don't know, Mrs Kletz,' I confessed. 'I'd say no, neither is aware of the other's existence. If there's anything Knurr doesn't need right now it's a jealous and vindictive woman.'