David Markson - Epitaph For A Tramp

Moss’s address would fall somewhere between the Drive and upper Broadway. A new Caddy was pulling away just short of his corner and I nosed the MG in. There would have been room for a fleet of us.

Across the street a junior-grade Eddie Bogardus of perhaps fourteen was hacking away at the seat of a park bench with a knife of the sort they outlawed about five years back. He saw me watching him.

“Don’t you know a mean cop you could practice on with that thing?”

“Drop dead twice,” he told me indifferently.

The place I wanted was a rundown apartment building of six or seven stories, several doors up from the Drive. Moss’s registration listed him for 3-G but there were no names on any of the bells and no letters either, merely numbers. The vestibule door was open and hooked back. Behind it a couple of unshaded 25-watt bulbs were trying unsuccessfully to make the long narrow lobby look like something other than the esophagus of a submerged whale.

Moss would not have a full apartment of his own. It was one of those buildings in which the original railroad flats had been broken up into separate singles, where they sold you one room for yourself and you got to use the John and the kitchen if the other half-dozen people along the corridor happened to oversleep that morning. The landlords got away with the deal because of all the tight-budgeted Columbia University kids from around the corner.

The hall marked 3 was around to the right in the rear on the main floor. It was exactly seven o’clock when I rang the bell near the outside door. I had to wait a fall minute and then I drew a beautiful young Chinese girl with an armfal of potted plant who wasn’t interested in me at all except to let me hold the door.

“Moss?” I said after her.

“Last room on the right,” she called over her shoulder. I stood there a moment, watching to see if she had on one of those slit skirts that Chinese girls always wear. I wondered why they always do that. Not that I had any complaints. This one had good legs and I watched them until she turned into the lobby.

The doors along the corridor were marked with peeling gilt letters. I found G and rapped twice. The door behind me opened while I was standing there and a face poked itself out. It was a woman’s face, about forty years older and not too much longer than Seabiscuit s. The face stared at me, probably wondering if I’d brought the hay. I stared back. Finally the woman grunted and went away.

I rapped on Moss’s door again, harder this time.

I heard bedsprings, then footsteps and what I judged to be unpleasant muttering. The bolt snapped from inside. “For crying out loud, what time is—?”

I looked at Adam Moss. He was a kid, eighteen or nineteen at most. He was husky and good-looking, with a mop of curly brown hair. He was wearing white boxer shorts and a pair of shoulders that the young Max Baer might have envied. He was patently annoyed.

“Moss?”

“Yeah. Who’re you? I don’t know you—”

I had my wallet in my hand and I flashed it. “You want to step back inside?”

He glanced at the card and then back at me, puzzled. “Police?”

And then his face brightened. Adam Moss grinned at me as if I’d just told him he’d earned his first varsity letter.

“Hey, that’s great. That’s sure what I call fast action!” He glanced at his watch. “Gee, not even five hours since I reported it. Where is it? You bring it back, officer? It wasn’t wrecked, was it? Come in, come in!”

He was beaming. My one lead. My only lead. I sat down on the kid’s rumpled bed and took a cigarette. I would have been · happier with a cyanide inhaler but I’d left it in my other suit.

“You leave the keys in it, Moss?”

“Yeah. Like I told them when I called. I parked it around midnight, up on Broadway near 111th, and then I had a couple of beers with some of the guys from school in the West End bar. I guess it was around 2:15 or so when I realized I’d forgotten them. We ran down, but you could see it was gone even before we got to the place. Boy, I was pretty worried for a while. What a dumb stunt. My old man would have booted me one. He just bought it for me last month. Can I get dressed and get it now? Is it here or do I have to pick it up someplace?”

“You never ran into a girl named Catherine Hawes?”

“What? Who?”

“Hawes?”

“No, why? She the one who had the car? You didn’t tell me — it isn’t smashed up or anything, is it?”

“Runs like a top. I use your phone?”

“Yeah, sure.” He gestured but I had already seen it. “Say, what do you mean, runs like a… you been driving it or something? What’s all this about a girl?”

“You call the local precinct?”

“Of course,” he said. He was eyeing me uncertainly.

I dialed Central and asked for 103rd Street. When I got the desk I said, “Hello, my name is Adam Moss, 113th Street. I called last night about 2:30 to report a stolen car. I wonder if you’ve gotten anything on it yet?”

He asked me the make and license number. I told him and he said to hang on.

Adam Moss was scowling at me. “Hey, what is all this?”

“Just checking.”

“Checking what? Now you look here, friend—”

The desk sergeant came back on. “Nothing yet, Mr. Moss. If s pretty early, but the listing has gone out on it. We’ll let you know if we find it.”

“Thanks.”

Adam Moss had his hands on his hips. “Relax,” I told him. “The car’s okay. I’m a EL, not a regular officer.” I showed him the card again and this time he stopped to read it. “There’s no trouble, Moss, but you might have had some if you hadn’t called in as soon as you did. A girl took it. She was in a hurry and she must have spotted the keys when she came out of one of the hotels up here. An hour and a half later she was killed.”

“Say, now—”

“The police will be checking you sooner or later. You go back to that bar after you found out it was gone?”

“Yeah, sure, that’s where I called from. The guys were with me. The bartender knows me too.”

“You’re all right then. The car’s around the corner but I’ll have to turn it over. They’ll probably hold it for a day or two until they get you squared away.”

“Well for crying out loud, my heap in a murder case. Isn’t that something?”

I had opened the door. I took two singles out of my wallet and tossed them on his dresser. “Gas,” I told him.

“Say, you don’t have to do that. Thanks. Who’s the girl, anyhow? She good looking?”

“Aren’t they always?”

Seabiscuit opened the stall across the way again as soon as I started out. I turned and winked at her. She slammed the door and something fell inside the room.

Young Moss was grinning at me. “Mishugganah,”he said. He had a good smile and he was a nice healthy kid who had most likely never seen the inside of a squad room in his life. It would have been no trouble to hate him for it.

“See you, Mr. Fannin. Thanks again. Boy, wait’ll I tell my old man.”

I went along the corridor and out into the lobby. The Chinese girl was coming back. She had dumped her plant and was carrying a man’s suit about Moss’s size on a cleaner’s hanger. I waited until she went past.

“Say, uh, just out of curiosity, you think maybe you could tell me why all Chinese girls wear dresses with—”

She had stopped and turned toward me. “Yes?”

“Never mind. I was being silly.”

I was grinning at her and she looked at me vaguely. Then she smiled. “It’s out of deference to old custom, obviously. Why, don’t you approve?”

She had a voice like a small bell tinkling under water. I told her I approved in spades and she laughed. I went out of there wondering if Moss’s old man knew about that personal valet service. In my day at school I’d had to room with a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound reserve fullback named Irving.