Уолтер Мосли - John Woman

“No,” he said. “You’re sitting there because I walk past this spot every night at one time or other. I want to know why you felt that my class was important enough for you to meet me.”

“I like you, CC. I’d like for you to one day take my place.”

“That wouldn’t be me at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a leader and I’m a troublemaker.”

“You are many men, Cornelius, there’s probably room in there for a few more.”

“What possible threat could I pose to you?”

“You have the strength to discredit us.”

“And you’d kill me for that?”

Service Tellman shrugged and stood up.

“You know I can’t help what I am, Mr. Tellman.”

“Nor I, dear John, nor I.”

John’s hand drifted toward the pistol he’d inherited from the would-be mugger.

“You could kill me too,” Service Tellman said. “But I’m already dead. See you later, John.”

The high priest walked around the corner that John had come from.

Taking a deep breath the son of Herman Jones sat back on the bench and began to think.

It wasn’t until after midnight that Dawn called the police.

“He went out for a walk and just didn’t come back,” she said to the sergeant on duty.

“Call back in three days,” the woman said as kindly as she could. “He’ll probably be home by tomorrow.”

But Detective Les Freeling showed up at Dawn’s door the next morning because of two seemingly unconnected events. One was the sound of gunfire in Prospect Park at 11:58 the night before: three shots. And the other was the discovery of the body of Seldin Rico in a crawl space beneath a building under construction not far from Mott and Grand. Rico had been dead for many months. The coroner thought that he died from blood loss due to wounds caused by a sharp object — probably a knife.

“There was blood on a bench near the children’s playground,” Freeling told Dawn. “We collected fingerprints and your missing friend’s were among them.”

“Oh,” the student said, now wondering if she should help the police.

“You reported him missing not long after midnight,” the detective prompted.

“He went out and didn’t come home.”

“Not later on?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning. How much blood?”

“Enough that we’re worried,” the detective said. “More than one type. So you’re saying that you haven’t seen him since before reporting him missing?”

“Yes.”

“Yes you haven’t seen him?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen him.”

She never saw him again.

In his investigation Les Freeling found that the last person to have seen John Woman was a restaurant worker who was coming home, taking a shortcut through the park.

“My husband always tells me not to go in the park at night,” the fifty-eight-year-old waitress told Freeling. “But I tell him most people are decent and that the police statistics say most violent crimes happen between people who know each other. Isn’t that right, Detective?”

They were sitting in Freeling’s office at around noon.

“So you say you saw the man in the poster we put up?” he asked.

“Yes. I was walking around a corner and he was sitting on the bench. He looked like he was thinking about something serious — like he was trying to figure out a problem. When I passed by he looked up like maybe I was going to hurt him or something. I know it’s kinda crazy that a tall young man like that would be scared of woman my age but that’s what it looked like. I thought he might be crazy so I walked a little faster but just before I was away from him he said, ‘Ma’am, you dropped something.’ I looked on the ground and saw that it was my wallet. It had fallen out of my purse. My tips were in there. He picked it up and handed it to me.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“That it was pretty cold out and I said yes it was. I was feeling kinda bad about being scared of him and then he saved my money.”

“Was that all?” Detective Freeling asked.

“I said if he was cold then why was he outside sitting in the park?

“He told me he was sitting there thinking that he should go back to where it was warm.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. He was a strange young man but he seemed nice.”

“And you didn’t hear any shots?”

“No, sir. I hope he’s all right.”