Эд Макбейн - Let’s Hear It For The Deaf Man

“I may be back, Mr. Janik.”

“You are free to return. Provided you come with a warrant. I have had enough of storm troopers in my lifetime.”

“I’m sure you understand, Mr. Janik...”

“I understand nothing. Please go.”

“Thank you,” Kling said, and walked to the door. He turned, started to say something else, and then opened the door instead. The bell tinkled, and one of the cats almost ran out onto the sidewalk. Kling hastily closed the door behind him and began walking the six blocks to the station house. He felt he had handled the whole thing badly. He felt like a goddamn Nazi. It was a bright spring day, and the air was clean and fresh, but the stink of cat shit lingered in his nostrils.

At 3:30 P.M., fifteen minutes before Kling was supposed to be relieved, the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up and said:

“87th Squad, Kling.”

“Bert, this is Murchison on the desk. Just got a call from Patrolman Ingersoll at 657 Richardson Drive. He’s in 11D with a lady who just got back from a trip abroad. The apartment’s been ripped off.”

“I’ll get right over there,” Kling said.

He walked to where Hal Willis was sitting at his own desk, two dozen forged checks spread out before him, and said, “Hal, I’ve got another burglary on Richardson. I’ll probably head straight home from there.”

“Right,” Willis said, and went back to comparing the signatures on the checks against a suspect signature on a motel registration card. “This guy’s been hanging paper all over town,” he said conversationally, without looking up.

“Did you hear me?” Kling asked.

“Yeah, burglary on Richardson, heading straight home,” Willis said.

“See you,” Kling said, and went out of the squadroom.

His car was illegally parked on Grover, two blocks from the station house. The visor on the driver’s side was down and a hand-lettered sign clipped to it read: POLICE DEPARTMENT VEHICLE. Each time he came back to it at the end of his tour he expected to find it decorated with a parking citation from some overzealous uniformed cop. He checked the windshield now, unlocked the door, shoved the visor up, and drove over to Richardson, where he double-parked alongside a tobacco-brown Mercedes-Benz. He told the doorman he was a police officer, and explained where he had left the car. The doorman promised to call him in apartment 11D if the owner of the Mercedes wanted to get out.

Mike Ingersoll opened the door on Kling’s second ring. He was a handsome cop in his late thirties, slightly older than Kling, with curly black hair, brown eyes, and a nose as straight and as swift as a machete slash. He looked in his uniform the way a lot of patrolmen thought they looked, but didn’t. He wore it with casual pride, as though it had been tailored exclusively for him in a fancy shop on Hall Avenue, rather than picked off a ready-to-wear rack in a store across the street from the Police Academy downtown. “You got here fast,” he said to Kling, and stepped out of the doorway to let him in. His voice, in contrast to his size, was quite soft and came as a distinct surprise; one expected something fuller and rounder to rumble up out of his barrel chest. “Lady’s in the living room,” he said. “Place is a complete mess. The guy really cleaned her out.”

“Same one?”

“I think so. No marks on the windows or door, a white kitten on the bedroom dresser.”

“Well,” Kling said, and sighed. “Let’s talk to the lady.”

The lady was sitting on the living-room sofa.

The lady had long red hair and green eyes and a deep suntan. She was wearing a dark green sweater, a short brown skirt, and brown boots. Her legs crossed, she kept staring at the wall as Kling came into the room, and then turned to face him. His first impression was one of total harmony, a casual perfection of color and design, russet and green, hair and eyes, sweater and skirt, boots blending with the smoothness of her tan, the long sleek grace of crossed legs, the inquisitively angled head, the red hair cascading in clean vertical descent. Her face and figure came as residuals to his brief course in art appreciation. High cheekbones, eyes slanting up from them, fiercely green against the tan, tilted nose gently drawing the upper lip away from partially exposed, even white teeth. Her sweater swelled over breasts firm without a bra, the wool cinched tightly at her waist with a brown, brass-studded belt, hip softly carving an arc against the nubby sofa back, skirt revealing a secret thigh as she turned more fully toward him.

He had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

“I’m Detective Kling,” he said. “How do you do?”

“Hullo,” she said dully. She seemed on the edge of tears. Her green eyes glistened, she extended her hand to him, and he took it clumsily, and they exchanged handshakes, and he could not take his eyes from her face. He realized all at once that he was still holding her hand. He dropped it abruptly, cleared his throat, and reached into his pocket for his pad.

“I don’t believe I have your name, miss,” he said.

“Augusta Blair,” she said. “Did you see the mess inside? In the bedroom?”

“I’ll take a look in a minute,” Kling said. “When did you discover the theft, Miss Blair?”

“I got home about half an hour ago.”

“From where?”

“Austria.”

“Nice thing to come home to,” Ingersoll said, and shook his head.

“Was the door locked when you got here?” Kling asked.

“Yes.”

“You used your key to get in?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody in the apartment?”

“No.”

“Did you hear anything? Any sound at all?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I came in, and I left the door open behind me because I knew the doorman was coming up with my bags. Then I took off my coat and hung it in the hall closet, and then I went to the john, and then I went into the bedroom. Everything looked all right until then. The minute I stepped in there, I felt... invaded.”

“You’d better take a look at it, Bert,” Ingersoll said. “The guy went sort of berserk.”

“That it?” Kling asked, indicating a doorway across the room.

“Yes,” Augusta said, and rose from the couch. She was a tall girl, at least five-seven, perhaps five-eight, and she moved with swift grace, preceding him to the bedroom door, looking inside once again, and then turning away in dismay. Kling went into the room, but she did not follow him. She stood in the doorframe instead, worrying her lip, her shoulder against the jamb.

The burglar had slashed through the room like a hurricane. The dresser drawers had all been pulled out and dumped onto the rug — slips, bras, panties, sweaters, stockings, scarves, blouses, spilling across the room in a dazzle of color. Similarly, the clothes on hangers had been yanked out of the closet and flung helter-skelter — coats, suits, skirts, gowns, robes strewn over the floor, bed, and chairs. A jewelry box had been overturned in the center of the bed, and bracelets, rings, beads, pendants, chokers glittered amid a swirl of chiffon, silk, nylon, and wool. A white kitten sat on the dresser top, mewing.

“Did he find what he was looking for?” Kling asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “My good jewelry was wrapped in a red silk scarf at the back of the top drawer. It’s gone.”

“Anything else?”

“Two furs. A leopard and an otter.”

“He’s selective,” Ingersoll said.

“Mmm,” Kling said. “Any radios, phonographs, stuff like that?”

“No. The hi-fi equipment’s in the living room. He didn’t touch it.”

“I’ll need a list of the jewelry and coats, Miss Blair.”

“What for?”