Ed McBain - Shotgun

The bedroom ran a close second.

The bed had been slept in and left unmade. There were grease stains on the pillow, and the sheets were splotched here and there with what might have been semen stains. Alongside the bed, on the nightstand, there was an open box of Trojans. According to the printing on the box, there should have been three contraceptives in it. Carella shook them out onto the bed. There were only two condoms in the box. The bed stank of sweat and God knew what. The entire room stank. Carella went to the window and opened it wide. On the fire escape outside, there was an empty milk bottle and an empty graham-cracker carton. In the apartment across the airshaft, a young housewife in a flowered dress was busily cleaning her kitchen and singing “Penny Lane.” Carella took a deep breath and turned away from the window.

The only closet in the room contained a pile of dirty shirts and underwear on the floor, and a brown suit hanging on the clothes bar. Carella checked the label and was surprised to discover the suit had come from one of the more exclusive men’s shops in town. A gray fedora rested on the shelf over the clothes bar. In the far corner of the shelf, Carella found an open box containing an Iver Johnson .22-caliber revolver and seventeen Peters .22-caliber cartridges.

A bottle with perhaps three fingers of scotch left in it was on the bedroom dresser. Two glasses were beside it. One had lipstick stains on the rim. A matchbook carrying advertising for the A&P was on the dresser top, together with a crumpled Winston cigarette package. Carella was opening the top dresser drawer when Kling came in with the superintendent of the building.

The super was a Negro, perhaps forty-five years old, with a clubfoot and suspicious brown eyes. He wore work denims and a black cardigan sweater. The expression on his face clearly stated that he resented having been born black with the additional handicap of a clubfoot. He did not like white people, and he did not like healthy people, and he did not like cops, and here he was in a stinking tenement flat about to be questioned by two men who were white healthy cops.

“This is the super,” Kling said. “His name’s Henry Yancy.”

“How do you do, Mr. Yancy?” Carella said. “I’m Detective Carella and this is my partner, Detective Kling.”

“I already met your partner,” Yancy said.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, if we may.”

“Do I have a choice?” Yancy said.

“We simply want to know a few things about the occupant of this apartment.”

“What do you want to know?” Yancy said. “Make it fast because I got to go down and take in the garbage cans before I get a ticket from the cop on the beat.”

“We’ll try to be brief,” Carella said. “Who rents this apartment?”

“Walter Damascus.”

“How long has he lived here?”

“Must be three, four years.”

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“Does he live here alone?”

“Well,” Yancy said, and shrugged. “He lives here alone, but he has women coming in whenever he’s here.”

“Isn’t he here all the time?”

“Not too much.”

“How often is he here?”

“He’s in and out, on and off. I don’t ask nobody nothing long as they pay their rent.”

“Does he pay his rent?”

“The owner of the building never said nothing about him, so I guess he pays his rent. I’m just the super here.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Was it recently?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Would it have been in September sometime?”

“I told you I don’t recall.”

“Mr. Yancy, we’d hate to have to bother all the people on this floor, just to find out when Damascus was here last.”

“That’s your job, ain’t it?” Yancy said, and paused. “Bothering people?”

“Our job right now,” Kling said flatly, “is trying to locate the suspect in a murder case. That’s our job.”

“Who got killed?” Yancy asked.

“Why should that matter to you?” Carella said.

“It don’t,” Yancy answered, and shrugged.

“Try to remember when you saw Damascus last, will you?”

“After the summer sometime.”

“Before Labor Day?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“At the beginning of September, then?”

“I guess so.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“I ain’t even sure I seen him then.”

“Did you see him at all this month?”

“No.”

“Not at any time during the month of October, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you did see him in September, and you think it was sometime before Labor Day.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Was he alone?”

“There was a woman with him.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“No. He always has a different woman with him.”

“Had you ever seen this one before?”

“Once or twice.”

“But you don’t know her name.”

“No.”

“What’d she look like?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Was she white or black?”

“White,” Yancy said.

“What color hair?”

“Red.”

“Eyes?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Was she pretty?”

“For a white woman,” Yancy said.

“How old would you say she was?”

“Thirty, something like that.”

“Is she from the neighborhood?”

“I don’t think so. Only time I ever seen her was when Damascus brought her around.”

“Which was often, you said.”

“Well, a few times, anyway.”

“How old is Damascus?”

“In his forties,” Yancy said.

“What does he look like?”

“Oh, he’s about your height, six feet or so, dark hair and blue eyes, nice-looking fellow.”

“You getting this, Bert?” Carella asked.

“Mm-huh,” Kling said, without looking up from his pad.

“Is he white?” Carella asked.

“He’s white,” Yancy said.

“What kind of complexion?”

“I told you. White.”

“Pale, dark, fair, sallow?”

“Fair, I guess.”

“How is he built?”

“About like your partner here.”

“Does he have a mustache or a beard?”

“No.”

“Any scars?”

“No scars.”

“Tattoos?”

“No tattoos.”

“Any sort of distinctive mark?”

“No sort of marks,” Yancy said.

“Is he deformed in any way?”

“You mean does he have a clubfoot?” Yancy asked.

“That’s not what I meant, sir,” Carella said, refusing to flinch.

“No, he isn’t deformed,” Yancy said.

“What about his voice? What kind of voice does he have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gruff, soft, refined, effeminate?”

“He’s not a fairy.”

“Does he lisp or stutter?”

“No, he talks straight out. Soft, I guess you would say. And fast. He talks very fast.”

“Bert?” Carella said. “Anything else?”

“Jewelry.”

“Does he habitually wear rings or other jewelry?” Carella asked.

“He’s got a ring with his initial on it,” Yancy said.

“Which initial? W or D?”

“W.”

“Does he wear it on his right hand or his left?”

“His right, I think.”

“Any other jewelry?”

“An ID bracelet, I think.”

“Gold or silver?”

“Silver.”

“With his name on it?”

“I never saw it close up,” Yancy said.

“Would you know whether or not Damascus is employed?”

“I don’t know. I’m just the super here.”

“You’re doing very well, Mr. Yancy,” Carella said.

“You’ve given us an excellent description so far,” Kling said.