Len Levinson - Without Mercy

“We need a room,” Rackman said.

“Right this way.”

The security man led them to the elevator and took them down to the basement, where the security office for the building was. A beefy white man in uniform looked up from his desk as the strange mélange came in.

Rackman showed his shield again. “Police—we want to be alone with this man.”

The beefy man pointed to the door. They entered a small office and made the fat man lean against the wall while they searched him. Olivero took his wallet from his inside suit jacket pocket, then they sat the fat man down. Dancy pulled off the fat man’s cap.

“He don’t look like Kowalchuk to me,” Olivero said.

“Me neither,” agreed Dancy.

“Hey—I haven’t done anything wrong!” bleated the fat man.

“Shut up,” said Rackman, looking into his wallet.

“I wanna call my lawyer!”

“I said shut up.”

Rackman looked through his wallet. A card said his name was Vincent LaGozzi and he lived on East Thirty-third Street. “What do you do for a living, LaGozzi?”

“I work in an office.”

“What office?”

“You’re not gonna get me fired are you?”

“If you’re clean you won’t get fired.”

“What have I done?”

“I asked what office you worked in.”

“An insurance company.”

“Which one?”

“Lincoln Mutual.”

“Where is it?”

“Four twenty-three Lexington Avenue.”

“How long you been working there?”

“Six years.”

“You’d better not be lying, because we’re going to check it out.”

“I’m not lying. Hey—what’s going on here, anyway? It’s not against the law to meet a girl.”

Rackman looked at Dancy. “Call Jenkins and have him send in the backup to get this guy and check out his story.”

Dancy went for the telephone, and LaGozzi looked horrified.

“Are you arresting me?” LaGozzi asked.

“No, we’re just taking you in for questioning.”

“Questioning about what?”

“The Slasher murder case.”

LaGozzi stared at Rackman for a few seconds. “The Slasher murder case?”

A few blocks away, Kowalchuk walked into the West Side YMCA, carrying a shopping bag full of new clothes. He made his way to the office and stood at the counter until a young black man got up from his desk and came over to him.

“Can I help you?” the black man asked. He wore a yellow tee-shirt with West Side Y on it, and his name was Charles Garvin.

“How much to use the facilities for a day?” Kowalchuk asked.

Garvin peered at his face for a few seconds. “Five dollars.”

Kowalchuk reached into his pocket and took out five dollars. Garvin wrote him a receipt.

“You know where to go?” Garvin asked.

“No.”

Garvin pointed to the door. “Just go out there and turn right. Follow the signs to the locker room.”

“Thanks.”

Kowalchuk walked out of the office and turned right. Garvin watched him go, and wondered if his imagination was running away with him. The cops from Midtown North had been through the West Side Y twice looking for the Slasher, and they’d shown Garvin his picture. That man looked something like the Slasher except for his beard. He was heavyset and dressed like a bum; that fit the description too. Nah, it couldn’t be him, Garvin thought, returning to his desk.

He resumed going through the tickler file to see which memberships would expire next month. Whistling a tune, he took out the cards and looked through them to make certain the dates were correct. The bearded man’s face floated before him. If I call the cops and it isn’t him I’ll look like an asshole. The guy’ll probably sue me. But the cops said to call if anybody resembling the guy showed up. Garvin was plagued with indecision. He didn’t want to call and have the guy turn out not to be the Slasher, but on the other hand, what if he was the Slasher?

Garvin didn’t know what to do. Oh what the hell, he thought. I might as well call. He picked up his phone and dialed nine-one-one.

“Police Emergency,” said a woman’s voice.

“Hello,” Garvin told her. “I work in the West Side Y and a guy just came in here who looks a little like the Slasher. I don’t know if it’s really him or not, but I thought I’d better call anyway.”

“We’ll check it out,” the woman said. “What’s the address?”

Patrolmen Arthur Spelling and Jimmie Holmes were cruising down Columbus Avenue when the call came over the radio. “Signal six-eighteen… six-eighteen… A man answering the description of the Slasher has just entered the West Side YMCA on Five West Sixty-third Street. A one-three is requested. Which car responding?”

“I’ll take it,” said Holmes, sitting in the passenger seat. He’d been with the NYPD for fifteen years and had long black sideburns. Picking up the microphone, he said, “Car two eighty-one responding to the one-three.”

“Thank you, car two eighty-one.”

“Do you think I should put on the siren?” Patrolman Spelling asked Holmes. He wore his brown hair over his ears and had it cut every two weeks by a hair stylist on Lexington Avenue.

“Naw, we don’t want to scare him, but it probably isn’t the Slasher anyway.”

Spelling pressed down on the accelerator, and the patrol car gathered speed. As they were crossing Sixty-fifth Street, another voice came on the radio, “Car six-sixteen responding to the one-three.”

Holmes looked at Spelling. “That’s Baker, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, Baker and Fitzpatrick I think.” On the second floor of Midtown North, Jenkins sat in his office, drumming his fingers on his desk. He’d just heard the radio call and was wondering whether to drive over to the West Side Y. It was only twelve blocks uptown. What the hell, he thought he’d check it out. He looked at the schedule on his clipboard and saw that Rackman and his bunch would be in front of the Coliseum right now, waiting for another fat guy to hit on Dorothy Owens. The Coliseum was on the way to the Y; he could stop and pick Rackman up, because Rackman had been on this case since the beginning and would want to be in on the action.

Jenkins stood behind his desk and straightened his tie. He tapped his .38 in his belt holster and walked into the outer office, where Detective Donaldson was reading a copy of Penthouse magazine.

“I’m going to check out that situation in the Y,” Jenkins told him. “Watch the store until I get back.”

Kowalchuk stood under the hot jets of water in the shower room of the Y. It was a public shower room and a few other guys were with him.

“Nice tattoo you’ve got there,” said one of the guys, who sounded gay. “Looks like you just got it.”

“I did.”

“The scab’s still on it.”

“I know.”

“Where’d you get it?”

Kowalchuk looked at the guy through the steam and mist. He was young and well-muscled with a horse tattooed on his bicep.

“Someplace in Brooklyn,” Kowalchuk said evasively.

“Coney Island?”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember what place. I was a little drunk at the time.”

Kowalchuk turned away from the guy and put his face under the nozzle. He’d trimmed his beard with scissors and a razor before coming into the shower, and he wanted to make sure all the little hairs were out, otherwise they’d be itchy.

He stepped back and let the water run onto his stomach; it felt good to take a nice hot shower. He’d like to stay for another half-hour, but he had to get moving. It wasn’t smart for the Slasher to stay in one place for too long.