Ed McBain - Kiss

But she was willing to settle for the eight-and-a-third she'd promised rather than risk a jury trial and the attendant possibility that he'd walk entirely. All she wanted to do now was get her confession, get whatever other Chicago shit she needed for the feds, seal the bargain, call it a day.

"How'd you get in the building?" she asked, almost casually.

But he was silent now.

Q: Mr. Denker?

A: (Silence) Q: Can you tell me how you got in the building?

A: I ...

Q: Yes. Go ahead.

A: I thought ... at first I thought I'd cause a diversion, some kind of diversion to get the doorman away from the front door, but suppose I set a fire up the street or something and he just didn't pay any attention to it? I mean, I haven't been in this city long, but it's plain to see that the people here just don't give a damn. You can be ...

... slitting somebody's throat in the street, they'll tip their hats and walk right on by, this is some city, I've got to tell you. So the more I thought about a diversion, the more it looked like it wouldn't work. What I did, I watched the front door of that building all day Tuesday and Wednesday, and I recognized there was a routine the doormen followed, and that it would just be a matter of working myself into that routine.

For example, the afternoon guy comes on at three-thirty, and he gets relieved at eleven-thirty. Now three-thirty was too early for me to go in, and eleven-thirty was too late, I wanted it finished and done with by eight o'clock, latest. Out of the apartment and the building by eight o'clock, latest.

Watching the front door, I realized that the afternoon guy took a coffee break an hour or so after he came on, four-thirty, five o'clock, around then. Locked the inner lobby door, walked to the McDonald's up on Woodcrest, came back with coffee in a container. Didn't take his dinner break till seven-thirty or so, which was too late for me, I wanted to be in the apartment long before then. So all I had to do was wait for him to take his coffee break, and then let myself into the building. Once I was inside ...

Q: How did you let yourself in?

A: I had a key.

Q: A key to the inner lobby door?

A: Yes. And also the keys to the apartment. There are two locks on the apartment door.

Q: Where did you get all these keys?

A: Emma gave them to me. I spent a weekend with her when Bowles was out of town.

That's when she gave me the keys.

Q: So you waited for the doorman to take his dinner break ...

A: His coffee break. Watched him walking up the street ...

Q: And then you let yourself in the building. ...

A: Yes.

Q: What time was this?

A: Around twenty to five.

Q: Did you go directly upstairs to the apartment?

A: Yes.

Q: Was there anyone in the apartment when you got there?

A: No.

Q: The apartment was empty?

A: Yes.

Q: You let yourself into the empty apartment ...

A: Yes.

Q: Used the keys Emma Bowles had given you ...

A: Yes.

Q: And then what?

A: I marked the safe, used a chisel to mark the safe, you know, make it look like an amateur was trying to bust into it, and then I opened it with the combo Bowles had given me. And I cleaned it out. Took all the cash and the T-bills and the jewelry. And then I sat back to wait.

Q: Was this a spur-of-the-moment thought?

A: Ma'am?

Q: Taking all that stuff from the safe.

A: No, no, that was part of the plan from the beginning.

Q: Why was it necessary to ...”

A: To make it look like an - interrupted burglary.

Q: I see. So you burglarized the safe ...

A: Yes. Well, no, I didn't have to break into it, if that's what you mean. I already had the combination, Bowles had given me the combination.

Q: But you did open the safe ...

A: Yes.

Q: And you did remove the contents ...

A: Yes.

Q: And took the contents with you when you left the apartment ...

A: Yes.

Q: ... and the building.

A: Yes.

Q: Tell me, Mr. Denker, how did you get out of the building?

A: Down the fire stairs to the basement and then out the doors leading to the alley.

Q: Where did you go then?

A: Up to Woodcrest Avenue, where I caught a taxi downtown.

Q: To your apartment?

A: Yes, ma'am.

Q: Let's get back to right after you'd opened the safe and removed its contents. You said you sat back to wait ...

A: Yes, ma'am.

Q: For what?

A: For the moment when I actually had to do it.

Waiting is always the most difficult time. He is waiting to do murder. The contents of the safe are in a dispatch case on the bedroom floor, and he is sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the bedroom door, waiting to hear the click of a key in the front door lock, the click that will tell him to thumb off the safety catch on the .45. It is getting late, he is beginning to wonder if he's made a mistake, beginning to wonder if he'll be sitting here all night, waiting for nobody to come home.

His watch reads a quarter past six.

A hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of jewels, cash, and treasury bills in that dispatch case.

He sits waiting.

Tapping his foot.

Waiting.

Remembering what happened in this bed. Waiting.

It is twenty minutes to seven when he hears a key in the front door latch. He thumbs off the safety. He gets off the bed. Takes up a position just inside the bedroom door, to the left of it. He hears the front door being closed again. The click of the thumb bolt as it's locked. Sound of the closet door opening.

Closing again. Footsteps coming through the apartment. You and me, he thinks. Footsteps closer now.

Closer. Now.

"You!”

Eyes opening wide in surprise.

"Me," he says, and fires.

Q: How many shots did you fire?

A: Three.

Q: All to the head?

A: All to the head.

Q: You shot Martin Bowles three times?

A: I shot Martin Bowles three times.

Q: You killed Martin Bowles?

A: I killed Martin Bowles.

The basic plan, of course, was already in place. Nothing much had to be changed. Simply shoot the husband instead of the wife. Because it was a much better deal, you see.

Certain very definite advantages to be gained from doing it this way. Dollar advantages. If he'd gone through with it the way Bowles wanted it, he'd have gotten the second half of his fee, plus the jewels, which he'd never planned to return, anyway. So that would have come to a hundred in cash, total, and maybe thirty for the fenced jewels.

But the way they talked it over that weekend when Bowles was away, the way they'd finally planned it, there was going to be a lot more money involved.

Lots of money. Forget the thirty the jewelry would bring-if, in fact, it really did bring that much. If he fenced it, which was still the plan, by the time they discounted it, he might end up with twenty-five, maybe less, maybe only twenty. That didn't matter because they'd get what the jewelry was worth, anyway, the minute Emma filed an insurance claim. This was, after all, a felony murder. Her dear husband had been killed during the commission of a burglary. And the jewels were insured against theft, so the fifty thou would come back to Emma in the long run, and coming back to Emma was the same as coming back to him.

"She told me she wanted to marry me," he said, and smiled. "Can you imagine?" And shook his head in wonder. "Why not, I told her.

Good-looking woman, why not?”

Marry her and forget the lousy fifty and some change for the jewels, forget the hundred in cash and T-bills, that was all chicken feed. The real money would come when Bowles's will was probated.

Lots of money, she'd told him.

Most of which Bowles had inherited from his father, all of which would go to Emma as sole beneficiary.