Дональд Уэстлейк - Levine

He had to stop again at the fourth floor, and he remembered with envy what a Bostonian friend had told him about a City of Boston regulation that buildings used as residence had to have elevators if they were more than four stories high. Oh, to live in Boston. Or, even better, in Levittown, where there isn’t a building higher than two stories anywhere.

He reached the fifth floor, finally, and knocked on the door of apartment 5B. Rustlings from within culminated in the peephole in the door being opened, and a blue eye peered suspiciously out at him. “Who is it?” asked a muffled voice.

“Police,” said Levine. He dragged out his wallet, and held it high, so the eye in the peephole could read the identification.

“Second,” said the muffled voice, and the peephole closed. A seemingly endless series of rattles and clicks indicated locks being released, and then the door opened, and a short, slender girl, dressed in pink toreador pants, gray bulky sweater and blonde pony tail, motioned to Levine to come in. “Have a seat,” she said, closing the door after him.

“Thank you.” Levine sat in a new-fangled basket chair, as uncomfortable as it looked, and the girl sat in another chair of the same style, facing him. But she managed to look comfortable in the thing.

“Is this something I did?” she asked him. “Jaywalking or something?”

Levine smiled. No matter how innocent, a citizen always presumes himself guilty when the police come calling. “No,” he said. “It concerns two friends of yours, Al Gruber and Larry Perkins.”

“Those two?” The girl seemed calm, though curious, but not at all worried or apprehensive. She was still thinking in terms of something no more serious than jaywalking or a neighbor calling the police to complain about loud noises. “What are they up to?”

“How close are you to them?”

The girl shrugged. “I’ve gone out with both of them, that’s all. We all take courses at Columbia. They’re both nice guys, but there’s nothing serious, you know. Not with either of them.”

“I don’t know how to say this,” said Levine, “except the blunt way. Early this afternoon, Perkins turned himself in and admitted he’d just killed Gruber.”

The girl stared at him. Twice, she opened her mouth to speak, but both times she closed it again. The silence lengthened, and Levine wondered belatedly if the girl had been telling the truth, if perhaps there had been something serious in her relationship with one of the boys after all. Then she blinked and looked away from him, clearing her throat. She stared out the window for a second, then looked back and said, “He’s pulling your leg.”

Levine shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Larry’s got a weird sense of humor sometimes,” she said. “It’s a sick joke, that’s all. Al’s still around. You haven’t found the body, have you?”

“I’m afraid we have. He was poisoned, and Perkins admitted he was the one who gave him the poison.”

“That little bottle Al had around the place? That was only a gag.”

“Not any more.”

She thought about it a minute longer, then shrugged, as though giving up the struggle to either believe or disbelieve. “Why come to me?” she asked him.

“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. Something smells wrong about the case, and I don’t know what. There isn’t any logic to it. I can’t get through to Perkins, and it’s too late to get through to Gruber. But I’ve got to get to know them both, if I’m going to understand what happened.”

“And you want me to tell you about them.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you hear about me? From Larry?”

“No, he didn’t mention you at all. The gentlemanly instinct, I suppose. I talked to your teacher, Professor Stonegell.”

“I see.” She stood up suddenly, in a single rapid and graceless movement, as though she had to make some motion, no matter how meaningless. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Thank you, yes.”

“Come on along. We can talk while I get it ready.”

He followed her through the apartment. A hallway led from the long, narrow living room past bedroom and bathroom to a tiny kitchen. Levine sat down at the kitchen table, and Anne Marie Stone went through the motions of making coffee. As she worked, she talked.

“They’re good friends,” she said. “I mean, they were good friends. You know what I mean. Anyway, they’re a lot different from each other. Oh, golly! I’m getting all loused up in tenses.”

“Talk as though both were still alive,” said Levine. “It should be easier that way.”

“I don’t really believe it anyway,” she said. “Al — he’s a lot quieter than Larry. Kind of intense, you know? He’s got a kind of reversed Messiah complex. You know, he figures he’s supposed to be something great, a great writer, but he’s afraid he doesn’t have the stuff for it. So he worries about himself, and keeps trying to analyze himself, and he hates everything he writes because he doesn’t think it’s good enough for what he’s supposed to be doing. That bottle of poison, that was a gag, you know, just a gag, but it was the kind of joke that has some sort of truth behind it. With this thing driving him like this, I suppose even death begins to look like a good escape after a while.”

She stopped her preparations with the coffee, and stood listening to what she had just said. “Now he did escape, didn’t he? I wonder if he’d thank Larry for taking the decision out of his hands.”

“Do you suppose he asked Larry to take the decision out of his hands?”

She shook her head. “No. In the first place, Al could never ask anyone else to help him fight the thing out in any way. I know, I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but he just couldn’t listen. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to listen, he just couldn’t. He had to figure it out for himself. And Larry isn’t the helpful sort, so Larry would be the last person anybody would go to for help. Not that Larry’s a bad guy, really. He’s just awfully self-centered. They both are, but in different ways. Al’s always worried about himself, but Larry’s always proud of himself. You know. Larry would say, ‘I’m for me first,’ and Al would say, ‘Am I worthy?’ Something like that.”

“Had the two of them had a quarrel or anything recently, anything that you know of that might have prompted Larry to murder?”

“Not that I know of. They’ve both been getting more and more depressed, but neither of them blamed the other. Al blamed himself for not getting anywhere, and Larry blamed the stupidity of the world. You know, Larry wanted the same thing Al did, but Larry didn’t worry about whether he was worthy or capable or anything like that. He once told me he wanted to be a famous writer, and he’d be one if he had to rob banks and use the money to bribe every publisher and editor and critic in the business. That was a gag, too, like Al’s bottle of poison, but I think that one had some truth behind it, too.”

The coffee was ready, and she poured two cups, then sat down across from him. Levine added a bit of evaporated milk, but no sugar, and stirred the coffee distractedly. “I want to know why,” he said. “Does that seem strange? Cops are supposed to want to know who, not why. I know who, but I want to know why.”

“Larry’s the only one who could tell you, and I don’t think he will.”

Levine drank some of the coffee, then got to his feet. “Mind if I use your phone?” he asked.

“Go right ahead. It’s in the living room, next to the bookcase.”

Levine walked back into the living room and called the station. He asked for Crawley. When his partner came on the line, Levine said, “Has Perkins signed the confession yet?”