Ed McBain - Lady Killer

'You jokers send for an artist?' he asked at the railing, resting his leather case on the wood.

Hawes looked up. 'Yes,' he said. 'Come on in.'

The man pushed his way through the gate. 'George Angelo,' he said, extending his hand. 'No relation to Michel, either family-wise or talent-wise.' He grinned, exposing large white teeth. 'Who do you want sketched?'

'A ghost,' Hawes said. 'This kid and I both saw him. We'll give you the description, you make the picture. Deal?'

'Deal,' Angelo said, nodding. 'I hope you both saw the same ghost.'

'We did,' Hawes said.

'And can both describe him the same way. I sometimes get twelve eye-witnesses who each saw the same guy twelve different ways. You'd be surprised how cock-eyed the average citizen is.' He shrugged. 'But you're a trained observer, and kids are innocent and unprejudiced, so who knows? Maybe this'll be a good one.'

'Where do you want to set up?' Hawes asked.

'Anyplace you got light,' Angelo answered. 'How about that desk near the window?'

'Fine,' Hawes said. He turned to the boy. 'Frankie, want to come over here?'

They walked to the desk. Angelo opened his case. 'This going into the newspapers?'

'No.'

'Television?'

'No. We haven't got time for that. We just want copies run off for the men trying to track down this guy.'

'Okay,' Angelo said. He reached into the case for a sketch pad and pencil. Then he took out a stack of rectangular cards. He sat at the desk, looked up at the sunlight once, and then nodded.

'Where do you want us to start?'

'Pick the shape of the face from the shapes on this card,' Angelo said. 'Square, oval, triangular, they're all there. Look them over.'

Hawes and Frankie studied the card. 'Something like this, don't you think?' Hawes asked the kid.

'Yeah, something like that,' Frankie agreed.

'The oval?' Angelo asked. 'Okay, we'll start with that.'

Quickly he sketched an egg-shaped outline on the pad. 'How about noses? See anything here that looks like his nose?' He produced another card. Hawes and Frankie looked at the profusion of smellers that covered the card.

'None of them look just like his nose,' Frankie said.

'Any of them come close?'

'Well, maybe this one. But not really.'

'The idea in this is simplicity,' Angelo said to Hawes. 'We're not trying for a portrait that'll hang in the Louvre. We want a likeness that people can identify. Shade and shadow tend to confuse. I try to stick to line, blacks and whites, a feeling of the person rather than a photographic representation. So if you'll try to remember the characteristics that struck you most about this man, I'll try to get them on paper—simply. We'll refine as we go along. This is just the beginning; we'll draw and we'll draw until we get something that looks like him. Now—how about those noses? Which one is the closest to his?'

'This I guess,' the kid said. Hawes agreed.

'Okay,' Angelo began sketching. He produced another card. 'Eyes?'

'He had blue eyes, I remember that,' Hawes said. 'Sort of slanted, downward.'

'Yeah,' the kid said. Angelo kept nodding and drawing.

The first sketch looked like this:

'That don't look like him at all,' the kid said when Angelo showed it.

'All right,' Angelo said mildly. 'Tell me what's wrong with it.'

'It just don't look like the guy, that's all.'

'Well, where is it wrong?'

'I don't know,' the kid said, shrugging.

'He's too young, for one thing,' Hawes said. 'The guy we saw is an older man. Late thirties, maybe early forties.'

'Okay. Start with the top of the picture and work your way down. What's wrong with it?'

'He's got too much hair,' the kid said.

'Yes,' Hawes agreed. 'Or maybe too much head.'

Angelo began erasing. 'That better?'

'Yeah, but he was going bald a little,' the kid said, 'like up here. On the forehead.'

Angelo erased two sharp wings into the black hair on the man's forehead. 'What else?'

'His eyebrows were thicker,' Hawes said.

'What else?'

'His nose was shorter,' the kid said.

'Or maybe the space between his nose and his mouth was longer, either one,' Hawes said. 'But what you've got doesn't look right.'

'Good, good,' Angelo said. 'Go on.'

'His eyes looked sleepier.'

'More slanted?'

'No. Heavier lids.'

They watched as Angelo sketched. Putting an overlay of tracing paper onto the erased drawing, he began to move his pencil rapidly, nodding to himself as he worked, his tongue peeking from one corner of his mouth. At last he looked up.

'This any better?' he asked.

He showed them the second drawing:

'It still don't look like him,' Frankie said.

'What's wrong?' Angelo asked.

'He's still too young,' Hawes said.

'Also, he looks like a devil. His hair is too sharp,' Frankie said.

'The hairline, you mean?'

'Yeah. It looks like he got horns. That's wrong.'

'Go ahead.'

'The nose is about the right length now,' Hawes said, 'but it's still not the right shape. He had more of a—this middle thing, whatever you call it, the thing between the nostrils.'

'The tip of his nose? Longer?'

'Yes.'

'How are the eyes?' Angelo asked. 'Better?'

'The eyes look right,' Frankie said. 'Don't touch the eyes. Don't them eyes look right?'

'Yes,' Hawes said. 'The mouth is wrong.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'It's too small. He had a wide mouth.'

'And thin,' the kid said. 'Thin lips.'

'Is the cleft chin right?' Angelo asked.

'Yeah, the chin looks okay. But that hair…' Angelo was beginning to fill in the hairline with his pencil. 'That's better, yeah, that's better.'

'A widow's peak?' Angelo asked. 'Like this?'

'Not as pronounced,' Hawes said. 'He had very close-cropped hair, receding above the temples, but not as pronounced as that. Yes, now you're getting it, that's closer.'

'The mouth longer and thinner, right?' Angelo asked, and his pencil moved furiously. Working with a new sheet of tracing paper, he began to transpose the results of the collaboration. It was very hot at the desk where he worked. His sweating fist stuck to the flimsy tracing paper.

The third version of the suspect looked like this:

There was a fourth version, and a fifth version, and a tenth version, and a twelfth version, and still Angelo worked at the desk in the sunlight. Hawes and the boy kept correcting him, often changing their minds after they had seen their verbal description take shape on paper. Angelo was a skilled technician who transposed their every word into simple line.

Their reversals of opinion did not seem to disturb him.Patiently he listened. And patiently he corrected.

'It's getting worse,' the kid said. 'It don't look at all like him now. It looked better in the beginning.'

'Change the nose,' Hawes said. 'It had a hook in it. Right in the middle. As if it had been broken.'

'More space between the nose and the mouth.'

'Shaggier eyebrows. Heavier.'

'Lines under the eyes.'

'Lines coming from his nose.'

'Older. Make him older.'

'Make his mouth a little crooked.'

'No, straighter.'

'Better, better.'

Angelo worked. There was sweat clinging to his forehead. They tried turning on the fan once, but it blew Angelo's papers all over the floor. From time to time, cops from all over the precinct drifted over to where Angelo was working at the desk. They stopped behind him, looking over his shoulder.