Дональд Уэстлейк - Collected Stories

At Seventeenth and Fifth, he had to stop for a red light. The light turned green, but he sat there daydreaming. A car behind him honked, raucously, impatiently. Roger came to with a start, stalled the engine, got it going again, and turned right on Fifth.

The honking had awakened Phil. He sat up, blinking, rubbing his eyes, and said, “What time is it?”

“Not quite five.”

“I might as well stay awake then.” Phil looked out at the traffic and the crowds of pedestrians. “Pretty crowded,” he said.

“Getting close to the Christmas shopping rush,” said Roger.

“That’s true. That’s going to be a real mess.”

“I’m not looking forward to it.”

They drove in silence for a while. They went into Central Park, circled it, came out on West Seventy Second, turned right, drove up to One Hundred Twenty Fifth, turned right again, over to Seventh Avenue, headed back downtown.

They had a terrible time getting through Times Square. A cab driver rolled his window down and cursed Roger in two languages. Roger maintained his dignity, stared straight ahead, drove on downtown.

As they turned into Fourteenth Street, Phil broke the silence. He waved out at all the traffic surrounding them, and said, “I wonder how many of them are like us.”

Roger shrugged. “More every day, I suppose.”

“Makes you stop and think.”

“It does that.”

They headed up Fifth Avenue again, amid the cabs and the groaning buses. As they crossed Forty Seventh, Phil said, “It’s six o’clock.”

“All right,” said Roger. “I’m rather tired.”

They were stopped by a red light at Forty Eighth. Roger put the emergency brake on and slid over to the right. Phil clambered over him and got behind the wheel. He didn’t get there before the light changed. A cab behind blatted its horn at them.

Phil released the emergency brake and started forward, slowly. The cab blatted again. Phil swerved erratically, barely missing a cab on his right. Roger relaxed in his seat, leaning against the right-hand door. “I cashed another check this afternoon,” he said.

“How much do we have left?”

“I don’t know. Millions.”

At Fifty Ninth, they were stuck behind a car trying to make a left turn. Phil laughed, bet he’s one of us.”

“More every day,” murmured Roger. His eyes were closed.

They continued uptown, turned left at Seventy Second, over to Ninth Avenue, turned downtown.

Phil watched the other traffic. His face was tired, lonely, wistful. He watched the pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalk, bumping into one another, cursing one another, straining to be first to the corner.

They crossed Fifty Ninth Street just after the light changed. A cab slammed on its brakes. Phil looked in the rear view mirror, watched the cab cross the intersection. He smiled, faintly. He said, “Do you suppose we’ll ever be able to get out of the car?”

But Roger didn’t answer. He was asleep.

It was on a Thursday, just at four in the afternoon, when Mrs. Aileen Kelly saw the arm in the incinerator. As she told the detective who came in answer to her frantic phone call, “I opened the ramp, to put my dag of rubbish in, and plop it fell on the ramp.”

“An arm,” said the detective, who had introduced himself as Sean Ryan.

Mrs. Kelly nodded emphatically. “I saw the fingers,” she said. “Curved, like they was beckoning to me.”

“I see.” Detective Ryan made a mark or two in his notebook. “And then what?” he asked.

“Well, I jumped with fright. Anybody would, seeing a thing like that. And the ramp door shut, and when I opened it to look in again, the arm had fallen on down to the incinerator.”

“I see,” said Ryan again. He heaved himself to his feet, a short and stocky man with a lined face and thinning gray hair. “Maybe we ought to take a look at this incinerator,” he said.

“It’s just out in the hall.”

Mrs. Kelly led the way. She was a short and slightly stout lady of fifty-six, five years a widow. Her late Bertram’s tavern, half a block away at the corner of 46th Street and 9th Avenue, now belonged to her. After Bertram’s passing, she had hired a bartender-manager, and for the last five years had continued to live on in this four-room apartment on 46th Street, where she had spent most of her married life with Bertram.

The incinerator door was across the hall from Mrs. Kelly’s apartment. She opened this door and pointed to the foot-square inner ramp door. “That’s it,” she told the detective.

Ryan opened the ramp door and peered inside. “Pretty dark in there,” he commented.

“Yes, it is.”

“How tail’s this building, Mrs. Kelly?”

“Ten stories.”

“And we’re on the sixth,” he said. “Four stories up to the roof, and the chimney up there is your only source of light.”

“Well,” she said, a trifle defensively, “there’s the hall light, too.”

“Not when you’re in front of it like this.” He stooped to peer inside the ramp door again. “Don’t see any stains on the bricks,” he said.

“Well, it was only stuck for just a second.”

Ryan frowned and closed the ramp door. “You only saw this arm for a second,” he said, and it was plain he was doubting Mrs. Kelly’s story.

“That was enough, believe you me,” she told him.

“Mmmm. May I ask, do you wear glasses?”

“Just for reading.”

“So you didn’t have them on when you saw this arm.”

“I did see it. Mister Detective Ryan,” she snapped, “and it was an arm.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He opened the ramp door again, stuck his arm in. “Incinerator’s on,” he said. “I can feel the heat.”

“It’s always on in the afternoon, three till six.”

Ryan dragged an old turnip watch from his change pocket. “Quarter after five,” he said.

“Took you an hour or more to come here,” she reminded him. She didn’t like this Detective Ryan, who so obviously didn’t believe a word she was saying. For one thing, his hat needed blocking. For another, the sleeves of his gray topcoat were frayed. And for a third thing, he was wearing the most horrible orange necktie Mrs. Kelly had ever seen.

“Arm’d be all burned up by now,” he said, musingly, “if it was an arm.”

“It was an arm,” she said dangerously.

“Mmmm.” He had the most infuriating habit of neither agreeing nor disagreeing, just saying, “Mmmmm.” To which he added, “Shall we go on back to your living room?”

Furious, Mrs. Kelly marched back into her apartment and sat on the flower-pattern sofa, while Detective Ryan settled himself in Bertram’s old chair, across the room.

“Now, Mrs. Kelly,” he said, once he was seated, “I’m not doubting your sincerity for a minute, believe me. I’m sure you saw what you thought was an arm.”

“It was an arm.”

“Ail right,” he said. “It was an arm. Now, that would mean somebody upstairs had murdered somebody else, chopped the body up, and was getting rid of the pieces into the incinerator. Right?”

“Well, of course. That’s obviously what’s happening. And instead of doing something about it, you’re sitting here—”

“Now,” he said interrupting her smoothly, “you told me you were so startled by the arm you dropped your bag of rubbish, and had to pick it all up again. So you stayed at the incinerator door a couple minutes after you saw the arm. And you opened the door twice more. Once to see if the arm was still there, and once to throw your own bag of rubbish away.”

“And so?” she demanded.

“Did you see or hear any more pieces going by?”

She frowned. “No. Just the arm.” At the expression on his face, she added, “Well, isn’t that enough?”